(Five-minute read)

Throughout history, monarchs have rewarded those who have shown service, loyalty or gallantry with gifts or titles.

As ‘fountain of honour’ in the UK the Queen has the sole right of conferring titles of honour on deserving people from all walks of life, in public recognition of their merit, service or bravery.
BUT DO THEY HAVE ANY RELEVANT IN TODAY’S WORLD?

In 1917 the Queen’s grandfather, George V, developed a new order of chivalry, called the Order of the British Empire, as a way of rewarding both men and women who had made an outstanding contribution to the WWI war effort.

Nowadays the Order of the British Empire rewards service in a wide range of areas, from acting to charity work, with honours that include the well-known MBE and OBE.

Here are a few:  Which would you scrap or keep?

What do you think?

The Order of the Garter

This is the oldest and most senior order of chivalry in Britain; it is limited to 24 members who are selected and appointed personally by The Queen.

The Order of the Thistle

Recognising sixteen knights by a personal gift of The Queen, this is the highest order of chivalry in Scotland.

Order of the British Empire

Instituted in 1917 by George V to reward outstanding contribution to the war effort, this Order now rewards people from all walks of life with well-known honours such as MBEs and OBEs.

Order of Merit

The sole gift of the Sovereign to 24 members at any one time, this rewards those who have achieved greatly in the arts, learning, literature and science.

Order of the Bath

Including past members such as Nelson and Wellington, this Order recognises the work of senior military officials and civil servants.

Royal Victorian Order

The personal gift of the Sovereign, this honour is awarded to those who have served The Queen or the monarchy in a particular way.

Royal Family Orders

These are small portraits of the Sovereign attached to ribbon, gifted to Members of the Royal Family.

Commonwealth Honours

Commonwealth citizens can also receive UK awards, and Commonwealth countries have their own honours, which are sometimes awarded to UK citizens.

Military Honours and Awards.

Knight Commander or Dame of the most excellent order of the British Empire abbreviate to KBE and DBE.

The rank entails admission into knighthood, allowing male recipients to use the title ‘Sir’ or female recipients ‘Dame’ before his or her name.

Not everyone wants the honour and people are allowed to turn down the award, which occasionally happens (for example, Roald Dahl turned down his award). People can also have their honour taken away from them if they are disgraced or behave in a bad way.

Such as Benito Mussolini, Robert Mugabe, Rolf Harris, Harvey Weinstein, ( could be still on the list)

God forbid we don’t see Mr Trump getting one that he has to give back.

Of course, the ethical question in the first place is should one accept an honour from a King or Queen.

These awards are made without recognising ties to the British imperialist history or its legacy. As such their Empire titles of honour suck.

As a free man, not a serf I could not accept an honour tied in name to the ‘British Empire’.

They should be renamed by devising a fair and independent new method to annually acclaim exceptional citizens for their contribution to the nation, not to overweening political parties or the semi-skilled, dysfunctional Windsors.

All human comments much appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

(Twenty-minute read)

We all know when you look at what is happing in the world around us that the Fourth Industrial revolution as it is called is detaching us from what are the true realities of our world.

THE AI GIG ECONOMY IS COMING FOR YOU.

In this post, I am not going to regurgitate what is wrong but to suggest a practical solution to enable reattachment.

We have created a culture of distractions with us increasingly becoming disconnected from people and events around us, and increasingly unable to engage in long-form thinking or engagement.

Digital connections offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. We expect more from technology and less from each other.

Google, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, e-mail, messenger, Reddit, Imgur, work, Netflix, text messages… we distract ourselves instead of understanding how to be alone with our thoughts.

So, will we continue to be a distracted society with our notifications and hand-held devices?

Absolutely. It’s only going to get worse.

I think because the artifical- intelligence industry will run on the invisible labour of humans working in isolation.

Behind every trained profit-seeking algorithm is the erasing of any connection.  There is no accountability or service to our true needs or real opportunity to participate in our economies, doing away with time and chances to contribute.

There is no doubt that the internet has opened up a whole new world of content, connections and networking possibilities. The explosion of digital and social media has fundamentally changed the way we function, communicate and do business both on and offline.

Yet the technology that was supposed to connect us and bring us closer together actually seems to be having the reverse effect.

Social media encourages one-way communication, and combining this with depersonalization it is making us outside observer of everything from Climate change to political strife.

What we actually need for exponential growth is a network of transformational rather than transactional connections.

It’s about connecting in the right way, engaging in two-way conversations and sharing value with each other.

There is a simple solution that will not only generate billions but will spread the wealth in more equitable terms, reducing the costs of Social Care, reducing Political Crises, reducing our desires by purchasing our future needs.

All around the world Lotteries operate offering vast winnings under the pretext of spending their raises funds on good causes – from Sport to Social Care, from Education to Art but no matter how one looks about them and the good they might or might not be doing they do not direct attachment.

They are a tax on the poor.

What if?

We were to introduce alongside them an opportunity to invest in Citizens Bonds.

This would allow people to invest in their future, in their country, in their Health, in their education, in their environment, in their green energy, in each other costing as little as a lotto ticket, backed by world governments issued by the United Nation.

These Bonds should be non-tradable, but inheritable so their rewards shouldn’t be profitable on the backs of citizens

Investors would make all their money back and enjoy 10–20 per cent profit for their trouble on maturity. Instead of governments paying non-profits to deliver social services, they would pay investors a profit for making the investment on their behalf.

The governments would not be spending any less; they are just spending differently.

Governments would have to ante up, no matter the outcome because if you force investors to take a bath, they won’t come back next year. There would be no risk transfer. Making sure investors get paid, irrespective of the outcome.

People pay their taxes (and expect corporations to as well) in part because they want their government to deliver effective services to the people who need them.

Now I am aware that Social Impact Bonds have been tried but this bond direct tax dollars to bank profits instead of to a homeless person trying to get off the street.

Also, people are tired of seeing Aid going down the swanny because of corruption.

However, with Capitalist profits now disappearing underground with the help of algorithms people are no longer responsible for what happens in the market.

Because computers make all the decisions.

It comes to down harnessing the power of technology to gain advantages whilst trading. High-frequency trading allows large institutions to gain a small but notable advantage in return for providing vast amounts of liquidity into markets.

The foreign exchange market, for example, sees over $5 trillion of currency traded each and every day to hold the title as the most liquid market in the world and it is this staggering volume that creates small spreads that only offer material profit opportunities if they are traded in large volumes.

( I have song lyrical about algorithms, high-frequency trading, sovereignty wealth funds and they’re like in previous posts) there is nothing ethical about the relentless appetite for profit when it comes to high-frequency trading they operate in dark secret pools of data.

The point here is that very few of us are going to be afforded the opportunity to benefit directly Citizens Bonds will break the wall of injustice between those that earn their living with their hands against those who earn their living by subtleties.

For any future worthwhile we must build together.  We have broken the link with nature and it is time to change as we are all going to be called to account in the next 10 to 12 years.

Our brains can achieve things that are still beyond artificial intelligence.

It is as if nature “knows”

We have reached a tipping point on climate action, not climate change.

All of us must reattach to our own well being.

If that happens, it would transform our ideas about both physics and the mind.

Taxpayers are already paying billions to rebuild communities after climate-linked disasters. 

However, even if we manage to avert its worst effects if we are not directly attached to ours and the world’s well being. 

If the Earth Treated Us the Way We Treat the Earth as scary as things are now, it’s going to get much, much worse in the future if we don’t do something about it.

 

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

(Ten-minute read)

Looking at the world you could not be blamed for thinking that we have all gone bonkers.

US President Donald Trump is approving the sale of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, citing Iranian threats to its arch-rival when his arch-rival and all of us arch-rival is climate change.

Let’s try in layman’s terms to look beyond the current scientific predictions surrounding climate change. The signs of global warming are everywhere and are more complex than just climbing temperatures.

When it comes to contemplating real-world warming dangers no matter how well- informed we are we not alarmed enough when it comes to climate change.

The effects of global warming are appearing right now, and it won’t take long before all our world problems will become secondary to the risks we pose to our planet.
While climate crisis may be a greater concern, in the long run, political turmoil seems closer on the horizon.

To anyone paying attention, this comes as no surprise.

For many people, “this is an increasingly anxious, unhappy and lonely world.

Anger is increasing and empathy appears to be in decline.” Technology addiction is cited as one cause. Moreover, we don’t know what’s coming next, and our lack of control manifests itself as psychological stress. Globally, mental illness is rising, with approximately 700 million people now suffering from a mental disorder. Five of the top 20 diseases “in the global burden” are mental ones.

Today’s problems as warning signs ahead of a major crisis, rather than dismissing them out of hand as random events, and being prepared to change our course instead of charging headlong into disaster.

The heat is melting glaciers and sea ice, shifting precipitation patterns, and setting animals on the move.

Climate change encompasses not only rising average temperatures but also extreme weather events, shifting wildlife populations and habitats, rising seas, and a range of other impacts.

Why is all of this happening and being ignored?

Because of the failure of communicating how dire the threats really are.

We are unable to get our heads never mind our countries governments to comprehend the scale of the problem which amounts to total annihilation.

We are all suffering from an incredible failure of imagination.

In the absence of aggressive action, the devastation along the way will shake our compliance. Even if we stop burning fossil fuels the destruction we have already baked into our future, is going to unleased millions of Climate refugees upon an unprepared world.

This is the real ecological future we are diving headlong into.

Less ice means less reflection- more absurd sunlight, hence more warming, more melting, more cloud cover, more dieback of forests and flora that extract carbon.

When it thaws it will not just be twice the amount of carbon that is already in the atmosphere that it will release but Methane a 34 times more powerful greenhouse gas- all of it to be released at a date that keeps getting nearer and nearer.

If this unbelievable just watch a crack in the ice sheet grow at eleven miles a week.

Because human-induced warming is superimposed on a naturally varying climate, the temperature rise has not been, and will not be, uniform or smooth across the country or over time.

Global climate is projected to continue to change over this century and beyond.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres is calling on all leaders to come to New York on 23 September with concrete, realistic plans to enhance their nationally determined contributions by 2020, in line with reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent over the next decade, and to net zero emissions by 2050.

 

 

However, Climate Change the defining issue of our time and we at a defining moment.

World leaders will report on what they are doing, and what more they intend to do when they convene in 2020 for the UN climate conference, where commitments will be renewed and may be increased.

There can be no realistic plans without trillions. ( See previous postings)

Unfortunately, climate change is being turned into a product to sell more, with products piggybacking on false promises of good for the environment but here is what it is already doing.

It is I promise worse than you think.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Fifteen-minute read)

Right, every political party has the right to elect its own leader.

BUT WHEN A LEADER AUTOMATICALLY BECOMES THE PRIMINISTER OF THE COUNTRY JUST BECAUSE HE OR SHE HAPPENS TO BELONG TO THE CURRENT RULING PARTY WITHOUT HAVING TO STAND FOR ELECTION BY THE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE IT’S NO WONDER YOU GET PRIME MINISTERS BROWN’S AND MAY’S.

BEING VOTED INTO OFFICE BY 2.7% OF THE VOTING POPULATION (100,000 Tory activists)

THIS IS WHAT PASSES AS DEMOCRACY IN ENGLAND.

The Prime Minister doesn’t have the power simply to call an election. The Fixed Parliament Act states that the only way an election could take place is if two-thirds of MPs back an early poll but without a general election.

Putting that aside can anyone tell me, how can anyone (in or out deal or for that matter any future trade deal) ratify anything when the leader of the country does not represent its voting population.

The identity of Mrs May’s successor is of only limited importance to the EU as the European Commission and the European Council of EU member states are due to change leadership in the days and weeks after Britain’s currently scheduled exit on October 31.

Ultimately, whether or not there is a no-deal Brexit is in the hands of the British people is now more than debatable.

There is one thing certain and that’s First Past the Post has no place in a modern democracy and should be replaced by a system of Proportional Representation.

Here’s why:

The idea of a minority ruling over the majority goes against our most basic ideas about democracy.

Voting systems, also known as electoral systems, is the method by which we elect representatives. A voting system determines the rules on how parties and candidates are elected.

First-past-the-post

First-past-the-post is used to elect MPs to the House of Commons and for local elections in England and Wales however, it denies millions of people representation of their choosing.

Parliament must accurately represent the people’s range of views and perspectives.

Many seats haven’t changed hands in 100 years and most have no prospect of changing at any given general election.

As a result, elections under FPTP are decided by a few thousand swing voters in a small number of marginal constituencies. If just 533 people had voted differently at the last general election, it would have given a majority government instead of a hung parliament.

Millions are misrepresented:

With First Past the Post, each voter has a single MP to represent

them in Parliament. For millions, this is someone who you did

not vote for and probably don’t agree with.

A seat won by a 40,000 vote majority has the same outcome as a seat won by a single vote: both elect just a single MP.

These excess votes for winning candidates and votes for losing candidates are called ‘wasted votes’. They have no impact on the makeup of Parliament or the election result.

In 2017, 68.4% of votes were wasted. In 2015, this figure was 74.4%.

When so many votes are wasted under First Past the Post, the

rational question for a vote to ask stops being “who do I want to

represent me?” and becomes “who can I vote for to keep out the

candidate, I like the least?” The result is tactical voting: voting

for someone you don’t really want to win just to keep out the

the person you dislike the most.

First Past the Post cannot even perform the most basic task of a voting system: making sure the party with most votes wins the most seats.

First Past the Post does not allow voters to “kick out” unpopular governments”.

First Past the Post is not simple. It may be simple to write an “X” next to a chosen candidate, but it’s incredibly difficult to know what that vote will mean.

First Past the Post is not decisive. Two of the last three elections have resulted in hung parliaments, while at the same time failing to reflect the voters.

So how did Theresa May, and Britain, end up in this mess?

First Past the Post encourages short-sighted, confrontational politics.

First Past the Post does not provide a “strong local link” between MPs and their constituents.

Rather than reaching out to the 48 per cent that voted against the exit, May systematically ignored their concerns. When pro-Leave campaigns were shown by the Electoral Commission to have broken campaign finance rules, May’s government once again ignored the problem. When the unimplementable promises made by the Leave campaigners before the referendum turned to dust, May’s government still persevered in trying to make Brexit happen. When seeking to solve the Northern Ireland border issue, May listened to the Democratic Unionist Party rather than seek a solution acceptable to all.

The roots of Britain’s political dysfunction go so deep, the problems are so profound, the population so divided as a result of Brexit, that the UK needs a period of deep and profound political reflection.

The next general election will not be about Brexit but it will generate a frenzy of speculation about the coming shape of British politics.

It will act as a sort of soft referendum that will demonstrate that Britain wants to leave without a deal or that it wants to call the whole thing off?

Will the election break the mould of the country’s two-party system?

NO.

However Brexit works out in the end, the deep problems and divisions in British politics cannot simply be erased by first past the post.

It requires Proportional Representation to give a voice to the people. For the first time in British history, Britain could be sure that the party that won the vote would also win the election.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

(Fourteen-minute read)

If something is described as shame, it is disappointing or not satisfactory:

I am sure most of us would agree that we all live in a world bombarded by Media which is desensitising our feelings of shame, guilt, and compassion.

Feelings are wholly and solely experienced only by you. They only exist at the moment they arise.

Shame is a nonmoral emotion, meaning that it involves the nonmoral or “aesthetic” facet of one’s self-esteem, which is concerned with the self’s adequacy with respect to its own wishes or aspirations.

However, a flaw of character can elicit guilt rather than shame.

However, in guilt, it is the moral facet of one’s self-esteem – the facet concerned with the responsible harmfulness or beneficialness of the self’s behaviour, attitudes, and dispositions – that suffers a blow, not national guilt.

Shame and guilt have much in common:

They are self-conscious emotions, implying self-reflection and self-evaluation they involve negative self-evaluations and feelings of distress elicited by one’s perceived failures or transgressions. However shame and guilt are distinguishable from each other, and their differences matter in a world that is driven by algorithms.

Why because guilt often plays the role of the “ugly” and anti-social emotion endowed with the power to violate norms and thwart others’ goals, and willing (or inclined) to do so.

But perhaps the worst meta-feeling is increasingly the most common: feeling good about feeling bad.

How morally disoriented can one get?

Think of all we’ve witnessed in the past few weeks alone, examples ranging from the outrageous to the ridiculous – Brexit, (The political and moral choices that England continues to make in response to the identity positioning by their historical legacy is becoming one of the great unfolding stories of our time.) to the suffering of thousands in Africa.

These days there’s no collective meaning attached to our feelings other than things like Red Nose Day and world charities begging to our pockets. Much of the social strife that we’re experiencing today is the result of meta-feelings that are moralizing mobs on both the political right and left who see themselves as victimized.

They think they’re important because they say something about us, about the world, and about our relationship with it.

But they say none of these things.

Sometimes you hurt for a good reason. Sometimes for a bad reason. And sometimes no reason at all. The hurt itself is neutral. The reason is separate.

We are now the powerful absurd who are supposed to be connected than ever before, yet we somehow feel more isolated.

How has society changed to cause this to be a more prevalent problem?

Is it because we can order our groceries online.

One of the main reasons is that we are removed from nature.

We have little or no understanding of the effects of climate other than seeing forest fires, massive flooding on our TV sets (which are only the beginning of the natural disaster to come) along with pictures of the starving, devastation by wars, and terrorism not to mention inequality reflected in shanty squaller.

The internet is not a lifeforce, devouring our lives to feed itself. It is merely a technological innovation, albeit one on which much of our economic, political, and cultural lives depend.

As we have seen in New Zeland there are some of us inhabit, for instance, queer radical insane spaces promoted by racism prejudices and propaganda across Social Media that collectivity can take on toxic and damaging roles and lead to the damnation and ruination of people.

If we were to dissect and see social media more clearly, to see where all the tentacles really come from, to ask simple questions like, “Who is telling us to look in this direction?”, we might see it for what it is: an apparatus made up of many moving parts, all of whose effects can be traced in very material renditions of power and commerce for profit.

We ignore social media at our peril, but can we use it as tools and not let it define us?

Is it time to stop thinking through the forced collectivities of social media and start thinking about the possibility of unbelonging instead?

Can we think outside of the endless sense of timelessness forced upon us by hours of internet life and instead think ourselves into a time of actual history and movements forward?

Can we think about society not in terms of collectivities forged in endless solidarity in public but as the work we put in to create a better world?

We must push back against the screaming online hordes and simply stated, “We understand the anger, but we will first discuss the matter as properly outraged citizens, as people who belong, as people with feelings.

Unfortunately, Social interaction without collective feeling is meaningless.

To achieve change shame has to be scaled up from the individual to an audience that shames governments, corporations and banks.

Social media has brought us all closer together in communication.

Sometimes that’s a good thing. But when it comes to online shaming, it’s a bad thing. People get humiliated on Twitter, savaged in public forums and women get rape and death threats.

There’s something about the anonymity of social media has people who probably seem perfectly nice in person, posting vicious, scathing, humiliating comments online.

I am not talking here about Guilt which is an internally generated sense of moral obligation not to repeat past transgressions, like the extermination of a helpless minority within one’s own society.

Nor am I talking about shame, which is externally generated, driven by the “shaming look” of others.

Therein lies a key difference: For guilt, it’s the awareness of the deed and its meaning; For shame, it’s whether others know.

For example, a major identity issue for young Germans is how to deal with the notion of collective guilt or collective shame for the crimes of the Third Reich. While honour-shame cultures have moral codes, their vulnerability to the fear of shame can readily lead to a jettisoning of any moral concerns.

Yet here we are, ironically living in a perpetual outrage cycle that moves so fast, we forget yesterday’s controversy today because a new one has supplanted it.

As a culture, we seem to have divested ourselves of shame — real shame.

Online “communities” tend to resemble ever-shape-shifting amoebae, breaking and dividing into multiple pieces that in turn drift towards new clusters of organisms.

Social media is a disparate set of effects brought about by collusion between corporations, but its mythology occludes those mechanisms of power and currency by installing instead origin stories and tall tales, legends about how “the whole world” was watching.

It’s impossible to overstate what we’re losing.

Shame is crucial in well-functioning societies. It’s an evolutionary adaptation that keeps us cooperating, considerate, and safe.

Feelings are important. But they’re important not for the reasons we think they are.

The internet should be considered simply as a tool, not a substitute for justice or organising?

Long may we continue to expose the various structures through which it and its denizens exert power, sometimes for good but often not.

The internet is a technology, and yet most of our interactions on it are mediated by unfeeling algorithms stripped away or sense of humanity in the most seemingly innocuous ways when we participate in frenzied modes of expulsion.

You might say that we were once sophisticated enough to fake it if we didn’t feel it.

How we use social media is marginalised populations.

The way individuals deal with their nations’ history is closely linked with emotional experiences. 

If both collective guilt and shame can initiate reparative attitudes, the question then arises as to what may mediate the link between each and reparation.

The feelings of personal distress arising from perceptions of illegitimate ingroup superiority rather than empathic concern for the other are the critical antecedents of collective guilt.

Finally, the type of empathy may also be an important factor.

As is well known, empathy can have both cognitive and affective components.

Guilt may be associated with an increased tendency to put oneself in the shoes of the victim group.

It might still be too early to expect much emotional empathy from
the perpetrator group.

It is perhaps indicative of the extreme political sensitivity

And all of this unfolding in a somewhat surreality landscape with our brains doing mental acrobatics to avoid any discomfort.

It is my view that if we are to tackle the effects of the fourth Industrial technological revolution and climate change and address the mistakes of the last industrial revolution we must find a new way to facilitate non-confrontational politics.

There is no shame in the realisation that coming together to make a world worthy of all.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Six-minute read)

Extension or not the time is running out for the UK to get a deal on arrangements for its departure from the EU.

It is both blindingly and depressingly obvious that the social fabric of the country is being stretched to breaking point.

An Act of self-harm with no point, no upside.

There is no such thing as sun lite uplands outside the EU.

Why?

It’s because under WTO rules, anything you offer one country you must offer all. (except if you have a free trade agreement).

Its time to get a grip.

If not we will be witnessing civil unrest as an ignorant citizenry lashes out at the EU, Ireland, anything with European in the title.

The will of the people.

Almost half voted one way the rest the other way while those most affected had no vote with Victory won by illegal means.

For decades, gaps in income and respect for the London fraternity have been widening, compounded by the need for free education for all, which has now manifested itself into less fortunate fellow citizens becoming economically and socially detached which is bitterly and understandably resented.

Hence the small majority vote to leave.

Article 50 was enacted without consultation or thought out plan.

A short extension will not help.

What is needed is to contest the forthcoming EU Elections with a long extension and gain some power to change and reform the European Union.

With the current climate in Europen, the new commission would find it hard to refuse a move to reverse the economic divergence of the rich region to poor ones.

Such a strategy would sidestep the inevitability of the impending catastrophe of leave or remain and offers a credible strategy for all to unite.

It would allow time for the truth.

It would allow time for the orange/green factor, the Irish Question to be resolved.

Fortunately, up to now the Good Friday Treaty that the UK voluntarily signed created constraints that made a clear-cut Brexit impossible actually because it is predicated on the common membership of both Ireland and the United Kingdom to the same political body called the European Union.

“Ar scáth a chéile a mhairimid” (we live in the shadow of each other.)

Seventeen months ago the germ called the DUP crossed the borderless Irish Sea, found its way to Westminster and contaminated the Conservative Party and British politics.

It has produced a situation where ten DUP members hold the balance of power in Westminster, keeping her minority government in office.

The unavoidable truth about the island of Ireland question did not feature it was bought off with a bribe to the DUP.

The tragedy, so far, is that unionists are not prepared to look beyond their own traditional suspicions. The Republic of Ireland they fear no longer exists.

Membership of the European Union helped to remove centuries old poison and distrust and change the dynamic. Gone are the days of a DUP who built its philosophy on principles of confrontation – No Surrender, Sell-Out, Not an Inch.

The thesis to set DUP pulses racing, however, is the notion that Northern Ireland is about to be cut adrift from the United Kingdom, as part of a cunning plan to facilitate a united Ireland and confine Ulster unionists to a life of subservience.

Nowadays, like much of US President Donald Trump’s antics, often the fear and rhetoric have little basis in reality.

The tragedy of the DUP’s current position is they are not prepared to explore the nature of the Brexit deal on offer to them.

Northern Ireland has been offered unique status within the European Union and the United Kingdom. The DUP and Northern Ireland have indeed been offered a sweetheart deal. Not due to the European Union’s special affection for Northern Ireland but because it is the practical way to structure the withdrawal agreement, the border question included.

Politics in England has indeed become a spectator sport with the House of Commons the Coliseum.

The current turmoil in British politics totally eclipses Suez, totally eclipses everything, we have never been here before.

The lengths of fixation of government on this one issue, the complexity of the problem…20 resignations utterly eclipsing Suez, Falklands, Iraq War, the country more evenly divided, more deeply divided, families, communities, churches, than on any issue.

If you asked me the DUP is attempting to sell loyal Ulster down the river and England up the swanny.

Having sailed into the 20th century as an empire, the U.K. spent the second half of the century shedding nearly all of its colonies — and as a result much of its economic and military might. For the first time in modern history, Britain is small.

The UK better get used to being a middling power.

The U.K. simply doesn’t seem to know how to play the game of giving and take needed to negotiate with a far larger partner.

With the Conservative party more deeply divided in its 200-year history…”Scotland and Northern Ireland’s future in the union are both up for grabs.

I take it all day by day. Don’t jump too far ahead. Let’s see where we are on March 29th and I’ll come back to you!

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kind of Irish language provisions some campaigners were attempting to introduce in Northern Ireland do not exist south of the border yet the more creative approach it has taken to the language is allowing for more organic growth and popularity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Sixteen-minute read)

We all know that the current changes in our planet’s climate are redrawing the world and magnifying the risks for instability in all forms.

Water is one of the most valuable resources on Earth.

Probably every manufactured product uses water during some part of the production process.

It is the source of life on Earth and quite possibly beyond.

It covers over two-thirds of the planet’s surface, makes up around 70% of the human body and is essential for life.

Water is indispensable to human life.

In theory, the amount of water on earth will always remain the same.

How likely are the water wars to arise?

Water has ranked in the top five risks for seven consecutive years in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report.

There is already plenty of evidence to suggests that climate change drives conflict and social unrest, directly linking both in a cause-and-effect relationship.

Water-related challenges such as shortages and sanitation are already increasing smaller-scale conflict and instability within and across national borders.

Its scarcity is playing a role in fuelling the political and security crisis in Yemen.

Afghanistan’s efforts to harness the waters of the Helmand River and the Harirud to support post-conflict reconstruction and development have alarmed Iran.

The long-standing conflict over water from the Cauvery River between the Indian states Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has recently resurfaced.

However, it is rarely the lack of water as such that fuels conflict, but rather its governance and management.

And if you look at the headline threats to humanity and the planet over the next decade, as pinpointed by 1,000 experts, all but one are linked to water. These include extreme weather, natural and man-made disasters, climate change, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse.

This is a grim fact of modern life and despite having contributed the least to anthropogenic climate change of anyone, low-income, resource-poor nations will be affected the most.

You can’t escape climate change if your feet are on the ground.

It is widely agreed that a business-as-usual approach cannot address global water challenges in the future, nor will our current strategies sustain the world’s thirst much longer, particularly when the population hits eight, nine or ten billion in the coming decades.

Yet cold, hard data on how our water systems function is still lacking.

The World Health Organization estimates 844 million people lack basic drinking water; some two billion use a source contaminated with faeces.

With a warming of 2 to 4C, most regions in Africa will experience a 60 to 80 per cent reduction of surface run-off by 2100.

Last year, Cape Town came within a few drops of Day Zero when the taps are turned off. A serious drought was only just averted.

There is no need here to draw a picture of what would happen if  New York or any other city with a few million inhabitants suffered fresh water shortages.

With 55% of us already living in urban areas which are forecasted to hit 68% by 2050 many cities and towns that are in low-lying coastal locations are under threat to flooding.

Let’s face it, water is chronically undervalued and, in some cases, not valued at all.

Only by embedding its true financial, social and environmental value into policymaking, governance, and financial and risk reporting can we instil a better mentality.

The resilience of our society, both in terms of economic growth and human security, must be addressed through a water lens.

As the Paris climate change conference showed making pledges, is one thing, delivering on them often another.

The emerging fourth industrial revolution technologies – machine-learning, artificial intelligence, advanced sensors, satellite imagery, robotics and others – have the potential to unlock a wealth of previously unobtainable data about water systems at the global, regional, watershed and local level.

Unfortunately, all this data will achieve little or nothing unless its value is realized and appreciated today.

In 2021, the Surface Water Ocean Topography mission, a joint satellite mission between Nasa and France, will use radar technology to provide the first global survey of Earth’s water, measuring how bodies of water change over time. The satellite will survey at least 90 per cent of the planet, studying lakes, rivers, reservoirs and oceans roughly twice every 21 days.

WHAT THEY WILL DISCOVER IS BY 2021 WE WON’T NEED A SATELLITE TO SURVEY THE EARTH’S WATER. OUR PLANET IS ALREADY SENDING DISTRESS SIGNALS.

Consumers may already be aware of the environmental impact of producing goods in terms of energy or pollution, but they might be surprised to learn how much water is needed to create some daily goods.

Growing coffee beans is a thirsty business, as is growing cotton – 10,000 litres of water in a pair of jeans – and 2,500 litres in the average T-shirt. Avocados, almonds – even bottles of water themselves, are all highly water-intensive enterprises.

Common sense says it’s TIME TO STOP EATING – HAMBURGERS.

A hamburger takes 2,400 litres, or 630 gallons, of water to produce.

Thousands of litres are needed to make shoes and microchips.

Somewhere around 30 litres of water is required for tea itself, 10 litres for a small dash of milk and a further 6 litres for each teaspoon of sugar. This means that a simple cup of tea with milk and two sugars could actually require 52 litres of water – enough to fill my kettle more than 30 times.

Agriculture uses about 70% of freshwater across the globe.

When countries and regions with water shortages pour their water into exports, on the surface it can look as if they are making a profit, but in the long term their reliance on diminishing water resources will be damaging.

WHAT IF ANYTHING ARE WE DOING ABOUT WATER?

There is the same amount of freshwater on earth as there always has been.

Water scarcity is an abstract concept to many and a stark reality for others. It is the result of myriad environmental, political, economic, and social forces.

In essence, only 0.007 per cent of the planet’s water is available to fuel and feed its 6.8 billion people.

At the moment 844 million people do not even have access to a basic water source.

 

(Four-minute read)

As Brexit grinds its way to Mar 29 it is obvious to all in Europe that there is no fear of the Englishman turning into the “new Europeans”.

Brexit now has UK politics by the short and haires showing that it is in need of proportional  representation politics and not first pass the post.

Why?

Because the UK is made up of groups from 22 foreign countries that are estimated to consist of at least 100,000 individuals residing in the UK.

(people born in Poland, India, Pakistan, the Republic of Ireland, Romania, Germany, Bangladesh, South Africa, China, Italy, Nigeria, Lithuania, the United States, France, Spain, the Philippines, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, Australia, Portugal, Kenya and Zimbabwe)

677,177 classified themselves as of mixed race, making up 1.2 per cent of the UK population.

It is estimated that as many as six million people living in the UK have an Irish-born grandparent (around 10% of the UK population).

Indeed it would be fair to say that there has been so much immigration and intermarriage that it’s difficult to find a true “Englishman” whose bloodline, on both sides of the family, is so pure that he can trace his (her) dynasty to the point before England even existed.

On the other hand no group anywhere in the world outside Olduvai, in eastern Africa, can lay claim to being truly “native”.

In the imperial imagination of British politics, there are only two states: dominant and submissive, coloniser and colonised. This dualism lingers. If England is not an imperial power, it must be the only other thing it can be: a colony.

This is the mental cartography that English conservatism cannot transcend – the map of a Europe that may no longer exist in reality, but within which its imagination remains imprisoned. “Europe.”

The tragedy of all this is the position that Ireland finds its self in.

The Anglo-Irish relationship has been the dominant theme of most Irish historical writing.

However, it is difficult to understand modern Ireland without understanding modern Britain, too. Current discussions around Brexit bear out the adage that the Irish never forget their history and the English never remember it.

Brexit certainly illustrates how the ‘Irish Question’ never dies; it just gets reformulated.

The notion that Irishness might be defined in opposition to England hardly comes as a surprise.

One only has to look at what Boris Johnson told theTelegraph on 14 May 2016, a month before the referendum and I quote.

“Hitler tried to unite Europe, so does the EU, therefore the EU is a Hitlerian project. But the lack of subtlety did not stop the trope from being used in the Brexit campaign: “Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this [unifying Europe], and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.”

I can’t help but wonder if the more gung-ho proponents of Brexit are even aware of the potential minefield that they are marching Ireland into?

Brexit now provides the backdrop to some particularly contested anniversaries: the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement (1998); the 50th of the outbreak of the Troubles (1969); and the 100th of the political partition of the island (1920) and the outbreak of civil war (1922).

The full consequences of Brexit remain to be seen.

Ironically, the cause of Irish nationalism was better served by Britain looking the other way.

As George Bernard Shaw observed, Ireland – which before independence had been regarded as a central part of the British polity – was relegated to the significance of a ‘cabbage garden’. It drifted to the edge of Westminster consciousness, allowing a fatal indifference to the flawed performances of the devolved regime in Northern Ireland.

Any attempts to undermine the Good Friday Agreement or to reintroduce a ‘hard’ border with Northern Ireland could negate many of the gains achieved as a result of the Peace Process.

Sharing a common European agenda has provided Ireland, north and south, with great scope to work together, to find common cause and to play down our differences.

The British Government’s (re)negotiation of the border between the UK and Ireland, necessitated by Brexit, is evidence of a blindness to the legacies of Ireland’s colonisation.

Similarly, much remains unknown about the Troubles (1969-98) that claimed over 3,500 lives. The Good Friday Agreement did not set up formal mechanisms for confronting the past akin to the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions established in South Africa and Latin America. Reparation has been conducted ad hoc by independent bodies, not via the criminal justice system.

Ireland cannot and will never recognise a border.

This remains the challenge of balancing opinions rooted in polarised politics and sharply differing visions for future Irish states, including the constitutional status of Northern Ireland.

A steady convergence of interests on the EU or the Peace Process in recent decades meant that there was no need to look to the past. That the British did not pay attention to Irish concerns at the time of the Brexit referendum is less surprising when seen in context.

A sense of British national identity developed during the 18th century in opposition to the French or, more generally, to Catholic Europe. Later, Britons imagined themselves as pragmatic and liberal, unlike militaristic, idealistic or excitable Europeans.

Unfortunately, whether there is a deal or no deal the damage is now done.

So we left with the British paradox:

If you were English, Brexit is bad enough, but what followed will be worse.

Outside the native ruling, class will be eliminated.

Think things are bad? Think again.

 None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.