( A Ten minute Read)

The idea that globalization has become unmoored from geography – and Britain is about to reap the rewards – is wishful thinking.

All evidence points to the opposite conclusion:

In fact, Britain is not about to enter a “post-geography trading world”.

Brexit will damage the UK’s flagship services sector, rather than liberating it.

In this day and age of technology services are increasingly delivered electronically, with financial transactions, advertisement mock-ups, and architectural blueprints sent to clients over the internet.

While this is true trade between two countries is greater if they have larger economies, and less if they are more distant from one another.

It is inconceivable that to this day it is not understood by the British people that the EU is the UK’s natural trading partner; that the single market has done more to raise trade in services than free trade agreements (FTAs); and that any barriers thrown up as a consequence of Brexit will be hard to offset with lower barriers to trade with the rest of the world.

The EU is a rich, large market that is on the UK’s doorstep, and its single market has proved more effective at reducing barriers to services trade than bilateral free trade agreements. The EU’s rules have led to an estimated 60 percent boost to services trade between EU member-states.

When it comes to goods and agriculture, the idea that trade is detached from geography is flat wrong.

Products and services are increasingly bundled together as one, services find themselves bound to the physical geography of manufactured goods.

While technology has certainly made interactions at a distance easier, these interactions still often require both parties to be in the same place:

Services are largely delivered by people and nearly half of the UK’s exports are now in services.

 

While it attempts to negotiate a new relationship with the EU, the outcome of which is highly uncertain, all of this undermines the government’s ‘global Britain’ narrative.

Britain is becoming a semi-detached member of the EU, outside the euro and the Schengen zone, and increasingly eurosceptic.

One does not need a crystal ball to see that the EU needs reforms, but there can be no half-way house between a free trade agreement and full membership of the single market. Nor can there be ‘Managed divergence’.

IE: The UK and EU commit to regulatory alignment in some sector while allowing the UK to diverge from new rules in others in the future.

This amounts to cherry-picking, which the EU has made a red line.

The EU-27 cannot agree to a system where the UK converges when deemed to be in its interest, but diverges in those sectors in which it could gain competitive advantage with the rest of the world.

It would be a political feat for the EU and UK to agree which rules are crucial for maintaining a level playing field, and which matter less. Certain rules matter for the operation of several different markets (chemical regulations have an impact on other markets for products that use those chemicals, as well as on the environment), and some are highly specific to a particular market.

Since the economic impact of regulations is very hard to identify objectively, any disputes could prove impossible to manage.

If the UK chose to diverge from one part of the EU’s insurance regime, should the EU have the right to curtail market access in the sector as a whole?

There is no getting away from that a free trade agreement would lead to more checks and paperwork on UK imports at the EU’s border – especially in highly regulated sectors like agriculture, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and cars, which would no longer be subject to the EU’s rules.

It is also not possible to do services-only trade deals.

So what’s left on the table is a fudge-

or- What’s in it for me?

One way or the other finding a solution is entirely dependent on EU goodwill with or without a transition period the time is ripe for EU reform.

The EU’s institutions, the European Commission is losing the trust of some governments because of the perception that it is increasingly dependent on the European Parliament.

It should return to an equidistant position between the Council of Ministers and the Parliament.

National parliaments should play a greater role in EU governance.

It is time to transcend the traditional battle between communautaire and inter-governmental thinking.

The EU cannot succeed without both federal institutions and a major role for governments; they must work together.

As long as the European Union is made up of independent nations with their own elected governments, their problems are going to be essentially local and they will need local solutions. Squeezing them into the same monetary straightjacket has clearly failed and adding a fiscal union would just exacerbate an already unsustainable situation. Governments need the flexibility to deal with their own problems.

History tells us citizens will not accept taxation without representation.

Fiscal union would, therefore, would not be a major step towards a true political union. Fiscal union would entail a ballooning of the EU budget – provoking endless bickering among the 27 (or more) member states on how to share it out, not to mention the expanded scope for graft and bureaucratic inefficiency.

It’s a recipe for gridlock.

All human comments appriciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

( A two minute read that could save your humanity)

There, not a day that Artifical Intelligence is not in the news – Social Media, Davos, TV, Magazines, Flipboard all telling us that we are going to be replaced by Robots.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Creating a common future in a fractured world.  

It seems that we are all to be made redundant, to live in a world run by Algorithms that have no conscious while our imaginations run wild.

In my last post ( Soon there will be no need to wait for the return of Jesus) I said: ” If you are expecting some kind of warning when computers finally get smarter than us, think again.”

You only have to look around you to realize that if we as a species continue to ignore the warning signs life its self will be hacked.

Then the question will be who or what should own the data.

Should it be a few Corporations that live in the cloud or should data that is biological in its nature be owned by all of us?

Algorithms without any human values or responsibility for their decisions are already making decisions on our behalf.

If this continues unabated without any form of regulation we are going to have a world of vast inequality and bias.

The programmes that will drive machines like robots in the near future will carry the contamination of the values of there owners.

Our ideas about responsibility are out of date.

Does our conscious rule what we are responsible for.

If we are just biological Algorithms is it our intelligence that gives us consciously or is it our imagination that is the governor or the other way around.

A question that has many answers but would you befriend a robot that has no responsibility.

If you had Alsimers you might as there is no end point in your life.

This is why we need to ensure that all Robotics ware their nonhumanity on their sleeves so we are fully aware of what association we have with AI.

We need new stories new thinking to match the new technology,

This Fourth Industrial revolution requires a solution that is global not a race to the bottom in a fragmented world.

It’s time to get our faces out of our smartphones and become smart before it’s too late.

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

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

( A three-minute read)

IT IS APPARENT TO ANYONE THAT DOES NOT HAVE SAWDUST BETWEEN THEIR EARS THAT OUT OF THE CUSTOM UNION MEANS A HARD BORDER BETWEEN IRELAND AND NORTHERN IRELAND.

“Let’s make a deal first, and we can figure out the details later.” Is bull shit.

British negotiators refusal to tackle and solve the question of the border during these talks is tragic.

Failing to address issues surrounding the border question can have ugly and unforeseen long-term consequences.

Had the British government taken direct responsibility for drawing the border in 1921 and sought to respect the wishes of local communities regarding which state they wanted to join, it is quite possible that the Troubles would never have broken out.

Instead of taking the Good Friday Agreement and the opportunity to remove the root cause of the Northern Irish conflict they paid the DUP billions to support a minority government.

In order for the UK to enact its post-Brexit immigration policies and leave the single market, it must be able to control its borders.

This said it is impossible to overstate the horror with which such a wall between the north and south would be greeted.

The arbitrary line of partition London imposed on the Free State in 1920 helped to spark the Troubles and is still a lingering grievance.

The Good Friday Agreement was seen as answering the question of whether the island of Ireland could be reunited once and for all, establishing as it did that Northern Ireland would only rejoin the South if a majority of citizens voted in a referendum or plebiscite for the option. With nationalists being demographically subordinate in Stormont, the simple mathematics meant it would never happen.

But here’s a sentence I never thought I’d utter: for the first time in my lifetime, a united Ireland is now credible – and perhaps inevitable.

Whether you believe that England is going to somehow negotiate a deal better than the remaining countries already have it is turning a blind eye to politics in Northern Ireland.

This was epitomized in the Brexit campaign, during which Northern Ireland was scarcely mentioned despite being the only part of the UK which shares a land border with another EU country. The Leave campaign also appeared to have no knowledge of or interest in what would happen to the border between North and South of Ireland.

Northern Ireland receives millions in funding from the EU for cross-community peace projects between Catholic and Protestant communities, but the loss of this money, or where replacement funding might come from, doesn’t appear to have been calculated into the Leave campaign’s financial deliberations over the cost of Brexit.

Northern Ireland voted to remain, but, like Scotland, is now finding it will be dragged out of it anyway thanks to Welsh and English voters.

Almost a year on from the EU referendum, we’re no wiser as to the future of the Northern Irish border.

May has continuously obfuscated as to how, where or why a border will be erected between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Despite the British Government’s insistence on batting away the question, it must be urgently addressed.

In order for the UK to enact post-Brexit immigration policies and leave the single market, it must be able to control its borders; a physical fence or wall is the only realistic option.

In effect, a border will fence off Northern Ireland, making its own tiny country, with one million residents penned in together with no option of traveling, working or visiting the other three-quarters of the island as easily as they are accustomed.

With Sinn Fein just one seat short of being the largest party at Stormont, reunification is by no means imminent.

The next election is likely to see them returned as the largest party, barring major events to stop their momentum.

A united Ireland is no longer hypothetical or absurd, but a credible option that must be considered seriously by both the Irish and British governments.

For the first time in my lifetime, the Irish question is no longer a question of if, but of when.  Unfortunately,  the DUP would never agree such a deal and they have the power to bring down the minority UK government.

There is more at stake than just the border in the north.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chunked in the bin.

 

 

( A FIVE MINUTE READ OF HARD FACTS.)

A transit period is going to lead to a massive EU and British taxpayers loss.

Instead what is needed is a moratorium on the implementation of the final deal, not a flexible transit deal, which will see circumstances changing on both sides.

The issue the UK needs to decide is how to deal with the over 750 international agreements, including trade deals the EU already has. During the transition or indeed a moratorium, the UK will be bound by them, meaning it will have to collect tariffs and make sure EU standards are upheld at its borders.

However, the third partners will have a say in how much the UK can benefit from those existing deals.

It is blatantly obvious that these 750 trade deals are EU international agreements that benefit the members of the EU.

London will have to decide whether to ask the EU to help in rolling over these existing agreements. This should not stop the UK from being able to negotiate their own trade deals during the transition or moratorium period, but these agreements cannot come into force unless the EU-27 agrees or the moratorium expires.

WHY?

Because it will be politically very sensitive both in England and the EU, making any kind of compromise especially difficult.

Because as the realities hit home England will (as it is its right) endeavour to reinterpret what it has agreed, as will the EU.

Because while trade talks could begin alongside the formal exit negotiations, EU law means that they cannot be concluded until the UK officially exited the EU.

The UK would then revert to being a “third country”.

This would imply the UK would face a period in which it is outside the EU but does not have a new trade deal with the single market. In this case, it would have to rely on World Trade Organization (WTO) rules until the final deal is concluded.

So England does have the right to set the groundwork for a free trade agreement between it and other nations.

It is reasonable to expect that countries with a vested interest in maintaining trade links with the UK may wish to begin informal negotiations.

Under EU law, the bloc cannot negotiate a separate trade deal with one of its own members, as rules have to apply to all member states equally. Similarly, individual member states cannot make trade deals with individual member states, with third countries on their own.

This suggests that, because the UK will remain a full member of the EU throughout the negotiating period set out in Article 50, it could only formally sign trade deals with other countries once it has left.

The UK could insist it has a different legal status now that it notified the EU of its intention to leave. However, there is no legal precedent for such a situation, as Article 50 has never been triggered before.

Since the UK is going to be in a different situation, it could be argued the normal rules can’t really apply and the UK should be able to have informal trade negotiations that could be enforced from the day it leaves, but this is largely hypothetical at the moment.

As for whether the UK could open informal trade talks with non-EU countries like India or China, the UK could make the same legal argument about the change in its status. But we have no way of knowing whether the UK could successfully argue this position regarding trade with EU or non-EU countries.

I say “First, you exit and then you negotiate the new relationship, whatever that is”

What a future trade deal with the EU might look like, and how long it will take to conclude, will be a matter for Parliament and the next prime minister.

Reality Check:

So when the BBC news stated recently that Theresa May has done a trade deal with China is this false News or is Britain in breach of the Lisbon Treaty, and if so should negotiations be suspended.

Today we learn that  THE CHINESE prime minister has hailed a new high point in UK-China relations after Theresa May signed a cooperation agreement on trade and investments.

Dress it up how you like this is a blatant breach of EU Laws.

The alarm bells are ringing:

All human comments appreciated

. All like clicks chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

( A Ten-minute read)

We all know that the world’s problems are complex, but what in the first place is it exactly that makes a problem complex when the solution is known.

You could say there are many reasons, and you would be right.

The problem is ignored, misunderstood, tampered with, to complex to understand etc,

So is it that our history is now so complicated that it cannot teach us anything.

Indeed understanding complexity an inconvenient oxymoron.

The word itself is generally used to characterize something with many parts where these parts interact with each other. It is difficult to understand the whole without understanding the motion/behaviour of every single one of the components.

I suppose in the end the complex thing about complexity is it is constantly in competition with other complex systems.

Complexity breed complexity.

We see and witness this every day with Capitalism versus the core values of life, none more so than with Climate Change and Poverty that are interconnected to all the woes of our world.

The climate is probably the most complicated system in the world and maybe only a fraction of the many problems that we face in the world,  but no matter how you look at it, the climate has plague human civilisation and is entrenched throughout human history.

The problem is that all of us take it for granted and have little understanding of its effects other than it governs all of us for better or worse.

Ignore it at your peril.

So will Social media change the course of history?  Will it make the world a better place? Can it force all of us to realise that if we want a world we must as a unity world address what is becoming more and more evident day by day that if we continue to ignore the scientific warnings we are heading for a world that will not be livable on for and species, man or mouse?

It has the power to do so, but only if it expresses the majority in a unified outcry.

Two hundred or so years ago we had Slavery. These days you would say that it is all but eradicated.

Today we are causing inescapable devastating changes to the ecology of the earth.

Let’s awaken our conscience. With every passing year, the environment is getting degraded.

In the foreseeable future.

Scientists have estimated that over two-thirds of flora and fauna that once inhabited the Earth are now extinct.

However, we all know the problems that climate change will bring and once started will be unstoppable for all intuitive purposes other than building defences and moving.

There will be little or no point in saving National Parks with Elephants, Tiger, Silverback Apes unless we save the termite, the ant, the butterfly, the trees, the plants unless we save the environment as a whole.

Everything is interconnected – especially the environment which is connected to all forms of HUMAN LIFE, RICH OR POOR, INTELLIGENT OR IGNORANT, VIRTUAL OR  REAL.

Unfortunately for the planet ( On which all life exists, ) we are the only species with the ability to effect change. All others are only interested in their own existence.

Our present dilemma is the lack of Collectivism driven by the Smartphone and Algorithms. Both technologies are concealed from us the truth, creating a sea of irrelevance, with a captured Culture of short-term Pleasure.

We are becoming oppressed by data. A society drugging ourselves.

In 20/25 years we are going to see a major change due to climate change which will be swift and big. There will be no room for I am all right Jack politics of the Donald Trumps of this world.

Something is rotten in the state of technology where there is little social conscience.  Fake news and disinformation are just a few of the symptoms. But the problem is far more fundamental. These powerful algorithmic engines that run platforms are black boxes of profit.

The great lie is that social media shows us the world. Brings us closer together. Little wonder that lies spread, and inflates, to pickle our minds and our own prejudices.

Facebook, Google, Twitter, strap us into a single-seated algorithms theatre without any windows or doors. It is an infinite blend of your personal likes and dislikes scraped off the internet.

How will we be able to measure the impact of the above?

Google is more powerful than most states on the planet presenting a threat to liberal democracy in as far as the preservation of the rights of the individual’s data is the property of private corporations or the state.

No one should now douth that these platforms impact and shape public discourse, and shape society at large, distracting attention away from of core values TOWARDS social INSTABILITY.

Facebook and Google, Apple, U Tube, and their like are powerful monopolies almost void of any regulation.

Algorithmic accountability should not mean that a critical mass of human suffering is needed to reverse the damage they are inflicting on us and the generations to come.

It will be too late to measure their impact, except when we feel its harms.

With climate change, there will no gradually decay.

The Paris Climate Change Agreement is not an inspirational rallying cry or a recipe for bold action. It serves better as the motto for the tortoise than the hare.

It appears at this moment in history as in the past centuries that we humans do have not the ability to turn long-term thinking into action without creating a war.

There will be no solution till we give Eco Systems a Monetary and Rights value.

Shallow Paris Climate agreement promises are already worthless.

Why?

Because without removing or at least making the one thing that is driving Climate change and poverty – Greed to pay there will be no marked improvement in any future or present world problems.

We can all wail like I am doing here till the cows come home.

Without independent financial clout to effect change, we are pissing against the wind. ( See previous posts)

The solution to climate change and poverty is not just money.

Free energy would go a long way to saving the environment.

A basic wage, generated from greed/ profit for profit sake, would reduce the inequalities of the world and have a profound effect on the climate.

Both are a simple solution to a complex world problem.

It is Crystal Clear that if we do not do something to protect the Enviorment we all Fucked.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

( A one-minute read) 

UK government wants the EU to give it a transition period even if talks on the future relationship break down.

Britain and the EU will have to overcome some key sticking points regarding transition before they can move onto the question of the future relationship.

The question is can you have one foot in the door and the other outside.

All logic tells one that this is not possible.

What is possible is that any final agreement carries a watertight moratorium granting a suitable implementation period of let’s say two or three years.

Such a moratorium would allow the dust to settle while ensuring that the final agreement is not watered down.

It would save taxpayer on both sides unnecessary further costs due to changing circumstances on both sides.

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

 

 

Dear Mrs Foster,

Your recently comments on the BBC re the border and the sun shining out of the a… of unnamed politicians has led me to write this open letter, which I am posting in my FLIPBOARD MAGAZINE #Silent Witness To The Truth.

” Nobody understands negotiations probable better than I”

It is quite obvious that you indeed understand negotiations being unable to re – establish a government in Northern Ireland.

“Some people are taking their moment in the sun, to try to get the maximum in relation to the negotiations – and I understand that but you shouldn’t play about with Northern Ireland particularly at a time when we’re trying to bring about devolved government again.

“But they certainly shouldn’t be using Northern Ireland to get the maximum deal for their citizens.”

“Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar “should know better” than to “play around” with Northern Ireland over Brexit” “His government is being reckless with Northern Ireland over Brexit.”

The hypocrisy of these comments beggars belief.  But I suppose they are understandable coming from the leader of a Party that has historical links to loyalist paramilitaries.

For my readers:

The DUP was founded in 1971 by Ian Paisley and is a hard-line faction of the UUP, Ulster Unionist Party. 

The UUP evolved from the Ulster Unionist Council, which was founded in 1905 to resist the inclusion of the historical province of Ulster in an independent Ireland.

The DUP views the Republic as an existential threat to Northern Ireland’s place in the UK, staunchly supports union with Britain.

Citing the territorial claims in the Irish constitution, which the party viewed as illegal and a threat to the security and religious freedom of Protestants in Northern Ireland, the DUP traditionally avoided all contact with the Irish government.

In the early 21st century, however, the party moderated its stance on a number of issues, most notably its longtime opposition to Sinn Féin’s participation in any power-sharing institution.

Arlene Foster, Its current leader vehemently opposed the Good Friday Agreement. The IRA attempted to kill her father (A reservist police officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary) by shooting him outside their family home. They also set off a bomb on her school bus ten-year later.

Her “cash-for-ash” scandal, the cost of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme she set up in 2012 spiraled out of control and saddled taxpayers with a multi-million pound bill., caused the demise of the present NI devolved Government.

In October 2016, Mrs Foster was photographed alongside with Charter NI’s chief executive, Dee Stitt, who is also a leading member of the Ulster Defence Association.

Then there is your understand about the origins of the border.

For my readers:

It was the Government of Ireland Act (1920) that first divided the island into two separate jurisdictions, each with its own government and parliament.

This act of partition was envisaged as an internal United Kingdom matter and as a temporary answer to the thorny question of contested sovereignty across the island.

It was a solution that made sense in light of two overarching principles of contemporary democracy: nation-statehood and majoritarianism.

The border was intended to create straightforward majorities on either side that reflected broadly different national sentiments.

The island’s complex history as a site of contests for power and control – some of which battles had wide European resonances – was thus dramatically over-simplified and reduced into the division of the Irish border.

In 1922, after two years of civil war, the unionist-dominated government of Northern Ireland exercised its right not to be included in the Irish Free State, and the border officially became an international frontier.

The colonial high-handedness with which the border was carved is reflected in its route, which cuts through single farm holdings and shows little respect for the natural terrain of the landscape.

The 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement, on which Northern Ireland’s peace process rests, approaches the Irish border not merely as a dividing line between the jurisdiction of the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom but as the embodiment of historical difference between British and Irish nationalisms.

It assumes that the primary political, social and cultural identities within Northern Ireland centre on conflicting interpretations of the border’s legitimacy and, what is more, that they have conveniently settled into a stable binary divide:

British/Protestant/unionist and Irish/Catholic/nationalist.

The strongest manifestation of this is a commitment by both governments to facilitate Irish reunification if it is the will of a majority in both jurisdictions, expressed via a referendum.

That said, all such activity will be in response to the new delineation of the UK’s borders with the European Union.

The precise nature and purpose of those borders (including the Irish border) will, of course, be determined by the outcome of negotiations that look set to take place with no direct input from Northern Ireland or the Irish border region.

Why then is the Ulster man adamant against any thought of making common cause with Dublin?

What lies behind the motto that expresses so aptly the sentiment in the North, Not an Inch”?

For it must be remembered from the outset – all anti-partitionist propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding – that the union with Great Britain is preserved not by a British garrison hut by the declared will of the Northern Ireland people, expressed through their elected Parliament – and that will is paramount.

You might say that it is the most childish of evasions, the most ignoble of pretenses, to place the responsibility for partition on England and to ignore the many and fundamental differences which more than adequately explain the political division of Ireland.

To a great extent this is true.

Ireland as a whole has suffered and struggled for peace for centuries and I as a Irish man living in France strongly object to Mrs Foster and any others who do not aspire to its unity by peaceful agreement.

For this reason, the price of a hard border is too high on both sides.

The border between Northern Ireland and Eire exists because of the ideological gull’ which divides the two Peoples . Although Ulster and Ireland cannot unite, they can be good neighbors – on this condition, that each recognizes the right of the other to shape its destiny in its own way without interference.

That is true democracy; it is also sound statesmanship.

YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER.

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

 

 

 

 

( Three to Four minute read)

The world is awash with Social Media embedded with algorithms to the extent that everything heard or read is an opinion, not a fact, everything we see is a perspective of the truth.

I’m a huge fan of reader interaction but how are you supposed to decide what to do with the comments on your own blog?

We’ve got countless video calling apps, messaging apps, photo sharing apps etc. Apps may come and go, but the medium of communication is here to stay. It has impacted all of our lives in different ways, and we can no longer imagine a world without social media.

We don’t have to just communicate with someone face-to-face to tell them about the latest gossip.

In fact social media helped us to raise our voice about issues and be heard by millions across the globe. In doing so it is killing any fragment of privacy in our life. On the other hand it has helped us spread awareness about a million different things.

No vile act can go unpunished anymore.

We can all agree on one point- it has had an impact on all of our lives.

It has its advantages and disadvantages.

It has provided a platform for anyone to post anything, which is a means to influencing people.

Influencing someone is a big power and nowadays, an issue can be resolved through the support of millions of strangers on the internet who feel like your cause is worth supporting. Petitions on the internet have become a huge thing for people who want change but can’t bring it about themselves.

Gone are the days when politicians only stood up on a dais and shouted their poll promises.

People no longer only look to news houses to update them with information. A simple search on Twitter about the issue can give you much more information about it than news houses. Now, however, with the social media, people can immediately seek relief by posting about it.

Social media has given a platform to share practically everything.

The fact is, today’s social environment is a digital one.

There is no doubt that social media plays an intricate part in the lives of many people. There are more than 2.3 billion active social media accounts in the world.

This means that more than 30 percent of the world’s population is using sites like Facebook and Twitter regularly.

Many disasters like floods, earthquakes or terror attacks have garnered attention on social media and have gotten support from millions across the world. Facebook came up with the ‘safe’ option which lets you update your loved ones that you are safe and secure after the disaster.

If someone tells they have been someplace and there is no evidence of it on their social media, did it really happen?

Social media has definitely shown us that it is here to stay.

Connecting to the Internet, see what’s new around, search for new ideas waiting for funding in Kick starter.

It has become the norm of the society, and will probable go down in history as the fetish that broke democracy. 

Opinion use to be held by individuals with little or no effect other than expressed it in private conversations or written books or articles, (with a limited audience) they have now turned into bush fires that are spread by comments on Internet platforms, doing immense damage to two aspects life:  Privacy and Accountability.

For example:

If Trump’s opinion tweets in any way reflected actual US policy, we would be in serious trouble. It’s impossible to suggests that Trump’s tweets don’t cause substantial damage in and of themselves.

However is it the comments that he attracts with his opinion that are causing the damage.

(We can’t change who he is, but we can use Social Media to get rid of him.)

Or

This week:  Catalonia’s separatist government staged a referendum on leaving Spain – against the wishes of the national authorities. Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont says the Spanish region has won the right to statehood following a contentious referendum that was marred by violence.

Or

The mess England finds its self in due to baseless untrue comments concerning immigration, loss of Sovereignty etc.

For many people, including myself, something changed when we saw the Britons wanting to leave the EU. They have already forgotten what life was like without the EU and its freedoms.

So when it comes to the value of comments, one blog may have tons of comments with little traffic, whereas another blog may have tons of traffic with little comments.  However you can rest assured that all comments are being monitored by Big brother who is always watching for key whether they be relevant or not.

Comments are not a reliable indicator of blog traffic.

The Question is are they data-driven decisions– are comments generating revenue for unseen Algorithms?

Comments are sometimes shallow pitches for back links or marketing.

Another words there is no correlation between the number of comments on a post and the number of links that post gets.

Do blog comments lead to more traffic?

Almost no one clicks through to your blog via comments.

If you go to Google Analytics:  26.7% of the keywords that are ranked in Google are most likely to come from the comments section.

It could be that Google may not be placing as much value on text created through comments or words appearing lower on a page (since comments are located below each blog post) as it does on the post itself.

The theory is that the more blog comments you have, the more content you’ll have on each page, and the more keywords you should rank for, which should increase your overall search traffic.

Who comments on blogs?

Random people on the Internet.

Lackluster comments like “Great Post, ‘me too!’ ‘you’re awesome!’ These types of comments, with like clicks definitely do not add value to a post.

The assumption is that on hot topics, like climate change, readers already come to the article with preconceived notions, and thus the civility of the comments would have no effect on them – they are already polarized.

However, it takes more than just having a social profile to get people to follow your blog post.

For instance, Tweets between 71 and 100 characters have a 17 percent higher engagement rate. Facebook posts with approximately 40 characters are 86 percent more likely to engage fans as opposed to longer pieces. The most popular YouTube videos are less than three minutes long.

In fact, Facebook Groups experienced more than 25 billion “likes” within the posts on the group platform in 2015.

Social posts that include imagery have a higher engagement rate by 650 percent than just plain text.

There are more than 313 million active users on Twitter each month. It accounts for almost 30 percent of all social media traffic on the Internet.

Recently I received a comment:

That pointed out that I had a grammar error in the opening paragraph of a post. The comment went on to express his or her opinion, encouraging others not to read the post.

After considering whether I should approve or delete the comment I decided to remove it.  Perhaps I should responded ( “Criticizing minutia points in my posts that didn’t matter — “do you have a toothbrush? syndrome”.)

Our attention is our most valuable commodity, and with unlimited channels competing for it, we’re in a dire situation if we don’t put some emphasis into where our attention falls.

Do we want to ask our readers to commit time and energy to commenting on blogs all over the Net when we know for certain that their focus is best spent creating worlds of their own for the digital future?

It is becoming increasingly obvious as time goes on that comments are being screened. Follow us on Facebook/ Twitter.

Genuine Commentators have most definitely increased the value of my posts and I can’t even fathom the idea of not letting their voice become a part of my posts.

So is there a value to comments particularly when you are inundated by tons of spammy or low-quality comments?

As a blogger I feel it is my duty to reply.

My view is no.

However, I ask you to leave your comments whenever you want. I’m not looking for high ratings or views.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

( A ten minute read)

For better or worse the British Empire had a massive impact on the history of the world. It was in effect the plunder of a quarter of the world by one country.

There is probably no single reason to explain how Britain created such a vast institution and I have no intention here to attempt to give one, however it might help to examine the emotional residue of lost empire, and a peculiarly English neurosis about national pride.

Why? because, Britain has never faced up to the shame of empire.

Perhaps Brixit is going to uncover the monumental ignorance surrounding the subject and the EU referendum is the last throes of Empire working its way out of its systems.

The consequences of departure appear to matter less that May’s vapid promise that Brexit will be “red, white and blue.”

It’s impossible to know the extent to which May believes her own myth-making but May’s global Britain will not be an open-armed nation going out into the world. It is a superannuated vision incubated by an amnesiac view of history in which the empire was an act of beneficence, and the outrages perpetrated in its name never happened.

Brexit may well turn out to be a reflection of the rectitude effects left by the collapse of the Empire.

In order to examine anything one needs to know it existed or happened in the first place so as to bear witness or to do anything about it.

The question is what were the motivations behind the creation of the Empire itself?

In world history was it a positive force or a negative force is in many ways irrelevant, the fact is that it was a transformative force.

It constantly mutated, evolved and changed in reaction to events, opportunities and threats. Motivated by greed and selfishness it consisted of an incredibly diverse set of actors through its many years of existence.

So at the risk of disturbing the past here are a few undeniable Empire facts.

Never mind that the majority of people under 50 on both sides of the English channel only have a hazy idea of what the Empire and Commonwealth were all about.

Never mind that approximately 35 million Indians died because of famines caused by British misrule, or that Winston Churchill blamed one of these famines on the “beastly” Indians for “breeding like rabbits”.

Never mind that concentration camp was invented by the British Empire.

Never mind that 5.5 million million Africans were forcibly taken to the Caribbean colonies by British slave traders, that the wealth they extracted came at a horrific cost and that while that wealth continues to flow through British society today, its extraction is still keenly felt in the islands of the West Indies.

( £16 to £17 billion in today’s money, or 40 percent of all government expenditure in 1834 – paid, after the abolition of slavery, to slave owners slaves were given nothing).

Never mind that the Empire was a system of wealth extraction in which the lives of millions of people were disregarded in favor of the greed of the British nation and those who served it.

Never mind  that millions of Irish died in the Famine and the another million fled to the USA.

Never mind when it was all done that the British were erratically carving up their empire into new nations, imperial officials attempted to obliterate the truth of what had happened during empire through the systematic destruction and burning of official documents. In Delhi, this destruction went on for so long that the smoke from the fires hung above the Indian capital.

Never mind the bribe to the DUP.

Never mind Boris Johnson when he said that the continent of Africa “may be a blot, but it is not a blot upon our conscience. The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more”.

Never mind that in September of 2015, David Cameron told the Jamaican parliament that it needed to “move on from the painful legacy of slavery”, before announcing his government’s plan to build a £25 million prison on the island.

If we ignore or condone the never mind attitude the story of modern Britain is, in many ways, a tale of dwindling self-regard.

These imperial crimes – and many more – are either not known or glossed over, lost in the tide of colonial nostalgia and the fog of ignorance that is trying to put the Great back in Great Britain by evoking the indomitable spirit of a time when Britain bestrode the globe is a recipe for disillusionment.

If its true history is ever addressed in time, a less bellicose country could emerge — wryer, more self-aware, and chastened, perhaps, by the guilty knowledge that its national success-story was built on exploitation and conquest.

Such a response in Britain seems unlikely to happen, partly because many Brits do not know about – or refuse to accept – the darkness of empire.

Last year, Conservative MP Liam Fox tweeted that Britain “is one of the few countries in the European Union that does not need to bury its 20th century history”. Post-Brexit, Fox is now a cabinet minister, in charge of international trade – hardly the place you want an empire booster.

In January of 2016, a YouGov poll found that 44 percent of Britons (and 57 percent of Conservatives) thought their country’s “history of colonialism” was something to be proud of, and 43 percent thought the British Empire was a “good thing”.

The manufacturing of ignorance that keeps English people from learning about Britain’s imperial past continues to this day.

English history is not just Hitler and the Henry’s.

In place of realistic forecasts, May has offered a vision entitled “global Britain”. It seems like an obvious sham constructed around a massive contradiction: that by turning our backs on our closest neighbors we will open our arms to the world.

Of the over 100 former colonies, protectorates or dominions once ruled by Britain (depending on how you count them) 52 eventually transformed into the Commonwealth, although 31 are not that significant for trade.They still have populations of less than 1.2 million.

Persuading former colonial countries to sign trade deals might be difficult.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership recently sealed between the USA, Japan and ten other Pacific Rim countries included five Commonwealth countries. Canada has already done a deal with the EU. The UK would have to negotiate separate trade deals with its larger former colonies, if they were agreeable.

Sir John Seeley once stated that the British Empire was acquired in a ‘fit of absent-mindedness’. What he meant by this was that the Empire was acquired for a variety of reasons that did not add up to a coherent whole.

It assumed that British civilisation was innately superior to those it was subjugating.

Gain an income on the back of his nation’s prestige and maritime exploits.The famous ‘East India Company’ had to go cap in hand to the British Government to save it from bankruptcy but not before many individual investors and directors had made fortunes.

Christianity, Commerce and Civilisation.

How Brexit may influence the teaching of imperial history has yet to be written.

Defining the start and finish for the dates of the British Empire is not an easy task but I have a feeling that Brixit might achieve this goal.

My feeling is if you can’t escape fantasies of empire, if you can’t learn about what really happened in the name of the British crown, you will never be able to imagine a new identity for the country, an identity that can speak more fully to the multicultural nation you have become.

If you ever wanted evidence that England still suffer from Empire fantasy just look at the arrival yesterday of 65,000-tonne of new aircraft carriers at a cost £6.2bn for the pair, plus £200m rebuilding a jetty at HM Naval Base Portsmouth (while the country faces disintegration on many fronts, see previous post.)

It could not highlight its Empire aspirations in a world of increasing inequality. (This is the equivalent of 214 thousand free university places or 11,500 extra doctors) Not to mention the renewal of Trident another £205 billion or the HS2 which is set to cost £27.4bn.

The Royal Navy undoubtedly became a formidable military institution, but it was not always inevitable that Britannia would rule the waves. But did it turn England into a limited company, an institution, not a country or is the East India Company riding the waves again.

Its plain to see that your current trajectory, careering away from Europe with some puffed-up idea about your own importance, is undoubtedly a result of this failure of education, to face up to your Imperial crimes and demonstrate humility.

I’m often amazed at the lack of awareness of many British people about what actually went down under the Union Jack. Just as Ireland needs to emerge from its adolescent phase of a dwindling isolationist theocracy by facing certain issues head-on, Britain needs to emerge from its blood soaked past in the same manner because the issues won’t go away, they will always deeply underpin the prevailing narrative and culture.

“British Empire State of Mind”, will take a nuanced approach and “help provide some context for what’s going on in the world today, in terms of global inequality, poverty and how Britain helped create the conditions that caused and continue to perpetuate it now”.

As the UK leaves the European Union, so long as it’s a fantasy wrapped in the Union flag, with the bonkers notions that humans are divided in races, some superior to others etc the keeping of the lifeblood of commerce flowing freely will become more important than ever before.

In this nostalgic la-la-land, this gung-ho attitude to empire has spread much further than the corridors of power. Its legacy is still all around us.

The political imbroglio with a whole country’s future — and collective sanity — in its hands you would think that the British Crown which is a corporate sole and represents the legal embodiment of executive, legislative, and judicial governance would call a second referendum.

Unfortunately a second referendum on the terms of exit are viewed as acts of treason.

It seems, jingoism has become our asylum — a mad refuge from Brexit’s cold truths.

Its time England stopped negotiating with its self and the media and start to look after its people not an Empire that does not exist.

All comments appreciated all like clicks chucked in the bin.

//players.brightcove.net/624246174001/ryaWt2q-W_default/index.html?videoId=4713180189001