Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[Nearholmer]

4 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

since anyone with business experience could have told the government that there would be a problem

Anyone who has listened to anybody in Ireland for more than five minutes knew from the moment that the vote was announced, let alone held or the result declared,  that if it went in the direction that it did go, there would be an absolutely enormous problem, one within which the conduct of business would be but a tiny part.

 

I was actually in Ireland when it was announced, listening to RTE while driving on my own between visits to bog railways, and I pulled off the road into a gateway, and sat there and made an elongated exhalation, I was that gobsmacked by the implications. Blindingly obvious that a ‘leave’ vote would lead to one of two medium-term outcomes, one utterly unacceptable to one constituency, the other an anathema to another. [Edit: actually, that’s an over-simplification, in that either outcome is likely, on different ways, to be unacceptable to almost all constituencies.]
 

 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

11 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

EU quotas applied to boats, not where the catch was made.

 

 

That does surprise me; in a world where satellites are used to spy on farmers to check what they're growing, you might think they'd insist on knowing where fishing boats went?  Generally governments love that kind of information about us, whether they need it or not. 

 

But which puts France in the position of agreeing its fishermen must provide documentation without checking with its fishermen to see if they had it and then grandstanding/electioneering by blaming HMG for its own bad planning and making childish threats!

 

You can see why I think thus is exactly the mirror to the Johnson governments silliness over the Northern Irish Protocol, except, as you say, they had rather longer to anticipate and head off the problems! 

[Caley Jim]

4 hours ago, Regularity said:

2) Cycle/walk/use public transport instead of driving;

3) Don’t fly, or at least cut back substantially.

On 2), when you live, as we do, in a town where the bus service to the nearest larger town (Lanark) with a station (to get a train to Glasgow) is 1 an hour and the service to the capital city is 8 per day, it's bit of a Hobson's choice.

 

5 hours ago, Regularity said:

The only other thing we can do on top of this is vote for representatives that put this issue front and foremost, ignoring all other issues that affect us. In the UK, I think that means Green Party: the others simply say more than they do.

Which I would do, if the Scottish Greens were not such strong supporters of I********ce, to the extent that they've got into bed with the SNP!

 

Jim

[Andy Hayter]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

 

 

That does surprise me; in a world where satellites are used to spy on farmers to check what they're growing, you might think they'd insist on knowing where fishing boats went?  Generally governments love that kind of information about us, whether they need it or not. 

 

But which puts France in the position of agreeing its fishermen must provide documentation without checking with its fishermen to see if they had it and then grandstanding/electioneering by blaming HMG for its own bad planning and making childish threats!

 

You can see why I think thus is exactly the mirror to the Johnson governments silliness over the Northern Irish Protocol, except, as you say, they had rather longer to anticipate and head off the problems! 

 

 

Tracking boats is easy.  Identifying them is the problem.   Their identification marks are on the sides of the hull.  It is a bit like the problems of speed traps in Germany.  You have to take a picture from the front that identifies the driver or not along with the number plate.  All well and good unless the speeder is on a motor bike with only a plate on the back (and probably a tinted visor as well).

 

I do draw a small distinction between NI and fishing.  Both were going to be a problem.  In the case of NI the number of solutions was very limited and the issues were identified before the referendum.   Anyone who expresses surprise by the outcomes has to blame a government that said there would be no border down the Irish Sea - and indeed still say that is the case.

 

In the case of fishing the range of solutions were great and until the agreement was published, no one knew what was the solution nor the consequences.  Indeed the wording of the agreement was sufficiently open that without a definition of proof of previous fishing within the area was open to interpretation and it was only apparent after the event.  In France and in the absence of other proof. a déclaration sur l'honneur is a usually accepted proof.   It has the same status (and penalties) as a testimony under oath.   

 

You can argue (and I really could not disagree) that these things should have been handled by those who were party to the negotiations and the proposed solutions; however those at the sharp end of the agreement were in the dark even after the event.

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Caley Jim said:

On 2), when you live, as we do, in a town where the bus service to the nearest larger town (Lanark) with a station (to get a train to Glasgow) is 1 an hour and the service to the capital city is 8 per day, it's bit of a Hobson's choice.

 

Which I would do, if the Scottish Greens were not such strong supporters of I********ce, to the extent that they've got into bed with the SNP!

On 2), I should have said, “where possible/practicable”.

In the grand scheme of things, Scindepence is as important an issue as Brexit: if nothing is done about climate change in the next 50 years, then we will all be so much deeper in the mire than we already are that no one will want to be a in small country, as large confederations will be controlling food supplies.

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

9 hours ago, Regularity said:

Rather a dodgy term, especially when used by a white person, but divisive rather than inclusive nonetheless.

Why not remove skin colour from the issue and simply call her out for what she is: a right-wing extremist?

 

When some privileged American Trump supporter with a megaphone, who appears to have never had a real job in her life, decides to drag my state's problems handling the COVID outbreak into her efforts to be a shill for her white supremacist political idol then I thought coconut was reasonably retrained. If I had expressed my actual feelings  I suspect I would have been banned.  

[Regularity]

Malcom, you are making comments about her based on her skin colour.

Some of these are valid: despite not having a white skin herself, she supports a white supremacist. Fair enough: suggests a degree of ridiculousness if not impaired intellect (although maybe she does genuinely believe herself to be inferior just because she has less Neanderthal DNA, and hence darker skin). But the pejorative “coconut” perpetuates the idea that cultural differences are based on race. Since culture is a sociological concept, and “race” has no scientific basis, this is a racist term no matter who uses it.

[Regularity]

15 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Which I would do, if the Scottish Greens were not such strong supporters of I********ce, to the extent that they've got into bed with the SNP!

That highlights the precise nature of the problem: political views have taken precedence over sustainability: the future of the Union of the Kingdom of Great Britain is more important to you than the future of the planet.

Not bring provocative: we all have other issues which we care about, but until those issues are put aside, the planet will suffer…

[Edwardian]

That fishy woman and her populist nationalists are not the sort of people I'd expect someone like the Greens to go to bed with.  This not least because seeking to establish ever smaller and, necessarily puny, political units is a hindrance, not a help, to a global response to climate change, whether it be the B-idiocy taking us out of a major trading bloc or the Balkanisation of the UK. So, this reflects very badly upon the Greens.

 

That fishy woman and her populist nationalists have, so far, missed every single carbon reduction target they've set.  The Greens are probably naive enough to expect that they have enough of the whip hand to ensure the Scottish government will now achieve its new, even more ambitious, targets.  The Nationalists strike me as pretty accomplished political street brawlers, so good luck with that.  I just foresee a lot of well-meaning hippies having wind-charms shoved up the hole in their ozone layer.   

 

So, given that saving the Union is a move that leaves Britain a little better equipped to achieve its targets and push for global change, and that global changes will come about via national governments that are comprised of parties other than the Greens (as Parliamentarians, rather than as a sort of moral pressure group, the Greens are, and will remain, of no account whatsoever), I don't see why choosing not to help the Scottish Greens prop up a majority in the Scottish parliament in favour of a populist nationalist cessation movement is at all inconsistent with supporting real change on a national and global scale to combat climate change.  

 

Rather, eschew populist nationalists wherever you find them, and snub any who jump on their bandwagon.  

[Nearholmer]

Regularity,

 

I heard HM the Q say that yesterday, but got the general impression that nobody much  had their lugs pinned back.

 

Something very odd is happening, either to me or to the world, as I get older, in that as a non-religious former-republican, I find myself increasingly thinking that HMQ, the Archbishops, and, on this topic, The Pope, are the only ones besides Greta and Sir David who are detached enough from the everyday ruck to be able to get the plot.

 

Strange really, because if you were to pick two institutions that don’t have a history of not exploiting natural resources, they probably wouldn’t be royalty and the church. Mind you, both know a thing or two about sustainability (their own).

 

Kevin

Edited November 3, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

Our monarchy and the Roman Catholic church are two institutions adept at survival; as I recall, Lampedusa had a pretty good line on the latter in The Leopard.

 

Both have lost enough political power to have a level of objectivity in relation to political matters.  I thought HMQ's speech was quietly masterful, it deserved more air-time.

 

The problem a Pope always has in this area, however, which everyone in the media has been too tactful to mention, is birth control. The lack of it in certain places puts a pressure on resources that makes carbon reduction harder, and, while the First Polluters might have to take the lead on shelling out the most cash, if one thing has been made abundantly clear, targets need to be set and met everywhere. 

[Nearholmer]

The Pope could wiggle round it, and maybe he does, I’m not sure, by going foot to the floor on the education of girls in developing countries, because that is the proven fastest, most economic, and most humane way of obtaining effective population control. He could assume that educated women are too busy on intellectual pursuits, and turn a blind eye to what really happens.

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Regularity,

 

I heard HM the Q say that yesterday, but got the general impression that nobody much  had their lugs pinned back.

 

Something very odd is happening, either to me or to the world, as I get older, in that as a non-religious former-republican, I find myself increasingly thinking that HMQ, the Archbishops, and, on this topic, The Pope, are the only ones besides Greta and Sir David who are detached enough from the everyday ruck to be able to get the plot.

The problem with such esteemed people pointing out the problems is that they are so polite about it. 

 

I think if one of them said, “Stop ****ing up the planet for the rest of us,” it might have more impact.

Brian Cox (the Dundonian actor, not the astrophysicist) got it right on Question Time recently.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19666667.brian-cox-calls-radical-action-combat-climate-change/

 

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Our monarchy and the Roman Catholic church are two institutions adept at survival; as I recall, Lampedusa had a pretty good line on the latter in The Leopard.

 

Both have lost enough political power to have a level of objectivity in relation to political matters.  I thought HMQ's speech was quietly masterful, it deserved more air-time.

 

The problem a Pope always has in this area, however, which everyone in the media has been too tactful to mention, is birth control. The lack of it in certain places puts a pressure on resources that makes carbon reduction harder, and, while the First Polluters might have to take the lead on shelling out the most cash, if one thing has been made abundantly clear, targets need to be set and met everywhere. 

The current Pope is no fool, and clearly understands all this, but his hands have been tied by his predecessors and change unfortunately can only happen at a very conservative pace, despite the theological dodge available by quoting God’s “first commandment to Adam” as being more than fulfilled, Genesis 1:28:

Quote

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. ... Fill the earth and govern it.

Notice that last part: “govern it”. Not destroy or exploit it, but regulate it. Over-population is not governing.

 

That’s the “get out of jail free” card, but in the current environment in sub-Saharan Africa snd the jostling for soul’s 

 

[Compound2632]

47 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

The Pope could wiggle round it, and maybe he does, I’m not sure, by going foot to the floor on the education of girls in developing countries, because that is the proven fastest, most economic, and most humane way of obtaining effective population control. He could assume that educated women are too busy on intellectual pursuits, and turn a blind eye to what really happens.

 

As a Roman Catholic father of two whose wife is a graduate and a trustee of a small charity supporting the education of girls in Catholic schools in northern Nigeria, I couldn't possibly comment, other than to point out that the other string to the Church's bow is to keep banging on about economic responsibility and the fair distribution of resources - the principle of the Common Good.

 

33 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Genesis 1:28: 

Notice that last part: “govern it”. Not destroy or exploit it, but regulate it.

 

Just so. Held in trust; we the trustees will be held accountable.

 

It's highly regrettable that there are some in the North American hierarchy who have a poor grasp of this (they see the principle of the Common Good as dangerously socialist); fortunately the present Pope is prepared to call them to order, vide his suppression of their attempt to condemn Biden (also seen as dangerously socialist - bizarre to anyone brought up on British politics) on the grounds of his position on abortion.

Edited November 3, 2021 by Compound2632

[Edwardian]

I feel it's time for ......

 

 

[TheQ]

17 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

 

Tracking boats is easy.  Identifying them is the problem.   Their identification marks are on the sides of the hull.  It is a bit like the problems of speed traps in Germany.  You have to take a picture from the front that identifies the driver or not along with the number plate.  All well and good unless the speeder is on a motor bike with only a plate on the back (and probably a tinted visor as well).

 

 

Actually it's not a problem just about every commercial vessel is required to carry AIS, Automatic Identification System.. This transmits who and where you are using built in GPS. Mostly is tracked via VHF transmitters from land and other ships.. BUT.. since 2008 this can and is be tracked by satellite...

 

Oh and AIS normally has a big red button... For Mayday...

Edited November 3, 2021 by TheQ

[rocor]

18 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

In the case of fishing the range of solutions were great and until the agreement was published, no one knew what was the solution nor the consequences.  Indeed the wording of the agreement was sufficiently open that without a definition of proof of previous fishing within the area was open to interpretation and it was only apparent after the event.  In France and in the absence of other proof. a déclaration sur l'honneur is a usually accepted proof.   It has the same status (and penalties) as a testimony under oath.   

 

 

I am quite taken with the archaic notion, that someone having given their word of honour, being accepted as proof in this day and age.

[Regularity]

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

This not least because seeking to establish ever smaller and, necessarily puny, political units is a hindrance, not a help, to a global response to climate change, whether it be the B-idiocy taking us out of a major trading bloc or the Balkanisation of the UK. So, this reflects very badly upon the Greens.

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly, we are sharing an opinion about the impact of size for political units.
I might be wrong, but the impression I get from the SNP is that they want an “independent” Scotland which (a) continues to use the pound sterling as its currency and (b) becomes part of the EU.

Well, (a) cannot happen - it would see the RUK giving a third country a blank cheque drawn on its (the RUK’s) reserves. Who would agree to that? Not even Boris.

(B) won’t happen, as it will lead to secession in other member nations of the EU. Possibly not a bad idea in the long run as it could lead to greater transparency and democracy, but current national leaders of, for example, Spain (re Valencia, etc) and France (Brittany, perhaps?) and Italy (north versus south) would lose a lot of their power and influence within the current structure based on the “Council of Ministers”.

[Nearholmer]

I might be so bold as to suggest that the inexorable logic of the EU is that most nation states within it would cease to exist, with the layer below the EU becoming units of about 10 million people, being either historically ‘small’ nations like Ireland and Scotland, or regions/laender. 
 

I’ve banged-on before about many current nation states, including the U.K., being the wrong size (too big and too small simultaneously), and creating a ‘dead layer’ which brings democracy into disrepute.

 

Now, you’re either pretty relaxed about this notion, if utterly baffled by how it could be made to play-out without trashing the good bits of current national structures, and how functional democracy could be delivered at EU-level, given its size; or, you aren’t.

 

But, I do regret that our “national dialogue” (= massive argument) about our relationship with the EU didn’t explicitly put “the fall of nations” on the table, and talk about its potential positives. It only ever entered the dialogue as a shadowy bogey-thing, which had to be chased-away by chanting “sovereignty” over and over, until it went away.

[Edwardian]

2 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly, we are sharing an opinion about the impact of size for political units.
I might be wrong, but the impression I get from the SNP is that they want an “independent” Scotland which (a) continues to use the pound sterling as its currency and (b) becomes part of the EU.

Well, (a) cannot happen - it would see the RUK giving a third country a blank cheque drawn on its (the RUK’s) reserves. Who would agree to that? Not even Boris.

(B) won’t happen, as it will lead to secession in other member nations of the EU. Possibly not a bad idea in the long run as it could lead to greater transparency and democracy, but current national leaders of, for example, Spain (re Valencia, etc) and France (Brittany, perhaps?) and Italy (north versus south) would lose a lot of their power and influence within the current structure based on the “Council of Ministers”.

 

Yes, indeed.  I agree both with your identification the two reasons why it is said that this smaller political unit would be viable and also with the reasons why this is unrealisable wishful thinking. 

 

But, things will be even worse .....

 

Look at the spats we are having with France now. It seems to me that if Macron flounce around snubbing the UK because the Australians don't want to buy his crappy submarines anymore or when Macron can stir up votes for his re-election by escalating an administrative issue concerning paperwork into impounding British merchant vessels and threatening to cut off Jersey's electricity*, then what do you think a populist-nationalist Scottish leader will do when any issue with HMG gives him or her a pretext to stir up a spat to disguise the reality that Independent Scotland is not doing as well as promised?

 

This situation would be rife enough for exploitation without factoring a populist-nationalist leader in Westminster.  Look at the lies and reckless statecraft HMG has indulged in. Irish politicians have been relatively restrained in the face of HMG's Protocol shenanigans, but that's because there is something more at stake than, say, fish, or shortbread; the Good Friday agreement and the peace process.

 

There is no such restraining factor on Macron, and there won't be on a Scottish premier post-independence. Two populist-nationalist leaders, one either side of the Tweed, playing to their respective deluded galleries. Just imagine.

 

12 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I might be so bold as to suggest that the inexorable logic of the EU is that most nation states within it would cease to exist, with the layer below the EU becoming units of about 10 million people, being either historically ‘small’ nations like Ireland and Scotland, or regions/laender. 
 

I’ve banged-on before about many current nation states, including the U.K., being the wrong size (too big and too small simultaneously), and creating a ‘dead layer’ which brings democracy into disrepute.

 

Now, you’re either pretty relaxed about this notion, if utterly baffled by how it could be made to play-out without trashing the good bits of current national structures, and how functional democracy could be delivered at EU-level, given its size; or, you aren’t.

 

But, I do regret that our “national dialogue” (= massive argument) about our relationship with the EU didn’t explicitly put “the fall of nations” on the table, and talk about its potential positives. It only ever entered the dialogue as a shadowy bogey-thing, which had to be chased-away by chanting “sovereignty” over and over, until it went away.

 

I would agree about the Britain = wrong size point. I don't think that I have lived in any region of England that has benefitted by being ruled by Westminster or controlled by HM Treasury. People in some regions in England are as discontented with their relationship with Westminster as many in Wales or Scotland.  

 

It seems to me, reflection on your post and Simon's, that you one possibility is  to have the EU operating as effectively a federal government, responsible for much the same things as the Federal government of the US is, with EU members down to smaller units, as you suggest; Wales, Scotland, England (or, perhaps, two units, Wessex and Northumberland), Catalonia, Basque country, 'Lombardy' (northern Italy), etc, etc 

 

I posit the EU government being more like the US, because those smaller component parts will not all be up to acting as filly-fledged nation states and cross-state law enforcement, foreign affairs, defence etc, will have to be given up to an EU federal government. 

 

The alternative is to keep the Union, but to devolve.  That means more devolution for Wales and Scotland, but also significant devolution to English regions.

 

That has the potential to be the best compromise by giving each region within the UK a meaningful level of autonomy, while supporting a UK government still capable as functioning as a nation-state, ideally back in an YU made up of other nation states. 

 

* Putin-grade childishness 

[Andy Hayter]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

Actually it's not a problem just about every commercial vessel is required to carry AIS, Automatic Identification System.. This transmits who and where you are using built in GPS. Mostly is tracked via VHF transmitters from land and other ships.. BUT.. since 2008 this can and is be tracked by satellite...

 

Oh and AIS normally has a big red button... For Mayday...

 

 

That is the situation now.

The relevant period was 2012 - 2016 and most day boats were not equipped then.

[Andy Hayter]

1 hour ago, rocor said:

 

I am quite taken with the archaic notion, that someone having given their word of honour, being accepted as proof in this day and age.

 

Yes it seems a bit strange to me as well but consider this:

5 days per week, 51 weeks per year this happens in the UK - in courts of law.

[Nearholmer]

31 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

I posit the EU government being more like the US, because those smaller component parts will not all be up to acting as filly-fledged nation states and cross-state law enforcement, foreign affairs, defence etc, will have to be given up to an EU federal government. 

That’s the drift of my thinking, and it’s the logic of the EU principle of subsidiarity.

 

If, on the other hand, nations as they exist now are to persist, then my gut feel is that the EU probably has to drop the U, and fall back to being something looser, bound by a set of mutual defence and economic treaties, in which case it ought probably to be made up of ‘national representatives’, appointed by governments, rather than get tangled-up in rather wonky direct-election of representatives.

 

Clearly, there are huge interests pushing in the latter direction: corporations that don’t like powerful public institutions that might be able to challenge them; power blocs that don’t like to see the strengthening of other power blocs; huge cadres of people within each nation who are fully invested in the concept of the nation; and, so it goes on.

 

BtW, my fantasy geo-political league does have a role for our royal family. I’ve come round to the idea that having a head of state who is picked by the invisible hands of history and genetics, rather than us mere mortals, is a good idea (an alternative might be a lottery that picks one newborn baby every ten years, but that feels even crueler to the individuals than the present system), so I hereby appoint them as heads of state, guarantors of constitutions, in perpetuity over all the regions and small nations in these islands. I do hope they’ll be pleased that I’ve moved-on from wanting to pension them all off.

 

 

Edited November 3, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

4 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

That’s the drift of my thinking, and it’s the logic of the EU principle of subsidiarity.

 

If, on the other hand, nations as they exist now are to persist, then my gut feel is that the EU probably has to drop the U, and fall back to being something looser, bound by a set of mutual defence and economic treaties, in which case it ought probably to be made up of ‘national representatives’, appointed by governments, rather than get tangled-up in rather wonky direct-election of representatives.

 

Clearly, there are huge interests pushing in the latter direction: corporations that don’t like powerful public institutions that might be able to challenge them; power blocs that don’t like to see the strengthening of other power blocs; huge cadres of people within each nation who are fully invested in the concept of the nation; and, so it goes on.

 

BtW, my fantasy geo-political league does have a role for our royal family. I’ve come round to the idea that having a head of state who is picked by the invisible hands of history and genetics, rather than us mere mortals, is a good idea (an alternative might be a lottery that picks one newborn baby every ten years, but that feels even crueler to the individuals than the present system), so I hereby appoint them as heads of state, guarantors of constitutions, in perpetuity over all the regions and small nations in these islands. I do hope they’ll be pleased that I’ve moved-on from wanting to pension them all off.

 

 

 

Yes, I can happily see a fantasy United Kingdom with a Windsor as King or Queen of the kingdoms of Scotland, Wessex, Mercia and Northumberland and their offspring as Prince or Princess of Wales.  

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly, we are sharing an opinion about the impact of size for political units.
I might be wrong, but the impression I get from the SNP is that they want an “independent” Scotland which (a) continues to use the pound sterling as its currency and (b) becomes part of the EU.

Well, (a) cannot happen - it would see the RUK giving a third country a blank cheque drawn on its (the RUK’s) reserves. Who would agree to that? Not even Boris.

(B) won’t happen, as it will lead to secession in other member nations of the EU. Possibly not a bad idea in the long run as it could lead to greater transparency and democracy, but current national leaders of, for example, Spain (re Valencia, etc) and France (Brittany, perhaps?) and Italy (north versus south) would lose a lot of their power and influence within the current structure based on the “Council of Ministers”.

I agree entirely with you on both these points.  As far as b) is concerned she seems to think she will be able to just flounce back into the EU as if nothing has happened, conveniently ignoring that we would have to jump through more hoops than a circus dog!

Let us not forget the reason why the Scottish Parliament had to go cap in hand to Westminster seeking union in the first place.  I'll leave you to look up The Darien Project yourselves.

 

Jim