Those perplexed by the awful Present often invent a past Golden Age, when all was well. For the Senators of late Rome, it was the reign of Augustus. For elderly Britons, it is an imagined, monochrome version of the 1950s. For those of us of a vaguely progressive, liberal persuasion it has to have been that time between the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the attack on the World Trade Centre in 1991, those dozen -or-so years when reason appeared to have triumphed, and all things seemed possible.

One man who knew that time, was nurtured in it and seemed destined to occupy a gilded position therein was Rory Stewart, a sometime soldier, diplomat, Tory MP and Minister and now a soulmate of New Labour honcho Alistair Campbell, whose name is synonymous with the epoch. As an insider, Stewart had a privileged view of how those years crumbled to dust, in a saga of failures so awe-inspiringly catastrophic that no fiction writer would ever dare pitch them to a publisher: Iraq, Afghanistan, the Financial Crash, stagnant wages, Putin, the rise of China….and on to horrors like Trump and Johnson (whom Stewart at least had the fibre to oppose in a leadership contest) And through it all the British Parliament (both parties) sat in dazed, stupefied incomprehension, like cavalry generals suddenly faced with tanks. It’s all here [1] and if you want more, then you should buy the man’s book [2]

Stewart was different; he possesses a rare extra gift of self awareness, a quality not normally associated with those who have passed through Eton and the backbenches of the Conservative Party. It has led him to question every assumption of our desperately flawed interventions in other lives. And, courageously he posits new models of development and cooperation which might mitigate the damage. Time will tell. But for us the message of the work is much deeper. It is just when you think you are having a golden age that you are piling up the unseen errors which will lead you to ruin. We knew about climate change, We did next to nothing. We knew about inequality and corporate power. We did nothing. We danced, we partied, we raved, we bought the Daily Telegraph. Welcome to today.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/16/rory-stewart-tory-mp-decade-incompetent

[2] Rory Stewart Politics on the Edge Vintage 2023

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rory_Stewart

#rory stewart #democracy #authoritariansim #populism #united kingdom #iraq

Firstly, a big thank you to all our readers, contributors, and the considerable number of new joiners. However, you have probably noticed that the frequency of our productions has diminished somewhat. And regular features-like Cocktail Night and Weekly Round up have almost dropped out altogether.

This is for personal and business reasons, and we hope you will understand this. Neither will go away anytime soon, so please bear with us.

So once more, thanks for you frequent and much appreciated visits to our little site, Thanks also to those who send links to their sites and blogs. We wish we could spend more time immersed in them-but there are just not 25 hours in the day any more, and little sign that this will be amended any time soon!

Keep reading, keep writing and keep giving us suggestions and we hope something like a more regular service may be attuned round about blog number #1000

THE EDITORIAL BOARD

We once wrote a blog (LSS 8 12 22) expressing wonder at how some people in Cumbria were demanding to be put back underground into the dangerous job of coal mining. We ascribed this to nostalgia for a lost sense of community, and the lack of cultural tools to imagine anything better.

Which is why an article by the ingenious Larry Elliott of the Guardian[1] has caught our eye. As some of us predicted in 2016, Brexit did not reduce the flow of immigration. It simply shifted the sources to countries such as India, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. The introduction of a points-based system has effected one crucial shift, replacing unskilled European workers with skilled ones from the former Commonwealth. As Larry notes:

Data from Oxford University’s migration observatory shows migrants from India and sub-Saharan Africa are more likely to be employed in high-skilled jobs and command higher salaries than those from eastern Europe. 

The new system has certainly reduced the salience of immigration as a political issue. The sort of low to semi-skilled manual workers who voted Leave in such large numbers in 2016, may find their occupations and lifestyles unthreatened, while enjoying the services of more and more doctors, lawyers and IT professionals. But there may be a long term danger.

A culturally stagnant working class, content to remain forever in roles like builders and miners, could find itself becoming subservient to a new class of foreign born professionals. which they will perceive as alien. As Amy Chua pointed out in her excellent work Political Tribes, the real cause of the Vietnam war was that ordinary Vietnamese hated the largely Chinese middle class, who seemed to have cornered all the best opportunities. It was the same with Jews in many parts of Europe, whose values of thrift and intelligence were never enough to save them from the most dreadful persecutions. We have been wrong before in this blog (although we cannot think of a simple example right now) but we would watch this trend carefully. Particularly with regard to the negotiations with India.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/10/post-brexit-shift-in-immigration-may-mean-higher-wages-and-more-self-sufficient-uk-economy-sunak-trade-india

[2] Amy Chua Political Tribes Penguin 2018

#brexit #xenophobia #immigration #migration #middle class #india # nahrendra mohdi #rishi sunak

What is Mad? Fifty years ago, if you had said “dinosaurs are still living among us”, people would have declared you to be mad. Now it’s accepted wisdom-our feathered friends are nothing more than a bunch of dinosaurs hiding in plain sight. So-what is a normal mind? Here’s a book which is more than usually interesting about how the mind works which takes a fresh look

https://inews.co.uk/culture/books/the-balanced-brain-by-camilla-nord-review-an-exciting-new-perspective-on-mental-health-2592061

_{We thank Mr Peter Seymour for this story}

Jurassic Beak When is a bird a bird, and a dinosaur a dinosaur? When we say so. The key learning from this new discovery is that there was a vast ecology of creatures displaying a mosaic of features some of which were more bird like than others. Learning is often no more than where someone has drawn a line. Nature Briefings Dino prompts rethink of bird evolution

The fossil of a bird-like dinosaur that lived around the same time as Archaeopteryx— considered by many palaeontologists to be the first bird — has been found in what is now southeastern China. Fujianvenator prodigiosusadds to mounting evidence that there were plenty of different birds living in the Late Jurassic period. Dinosaurs might have diversified into different kinds of bird to occupy different ecological niches, says palaeontologist Hailu You. Fujianvenator’s particularly elongated hindlimbs suggest that it was all about running or wading, instead of flying. “Early bird evolution is complicated,” says You.Nature | 3 min read
Reference: Nature paper

Belief and knowledge are two different things As this article shows, the desire to believe something, especially if it confirms your deepest desires, can trash the effects of even a heavy dose of learning. Even when people have been scammed, they keep on coming back. So don’t expect any reversal of Brexit any time soon. The Conversation:

https://theconversation.com/fyre-festival-ii-a-psychologist-on-why-some-people-fall-for-fraudsters-over-and-over-again-212562?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%

It’s too damn hot as Cole Porter would have it. Long before the sea or the wildfires get you, global warming may a start cooking you in your bed. This little piece from the BBC shows where the limits might lie

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-66249805

That’s it for this week. See you all on Monday

#bird #dinosaur #climate change #mental health #scam

It is exactly a year since the Rt Hon Liz Truss began her brief period as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Including ten days of mourning for her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II , Ms Truss lasted just 44 days in office. And rightly so; her actions were not just bad, they were so horrendously abysmal, that they raise a question. How can we comprehend this catastrophe? What can it be compared to?[1]

We consulted many experts: economists, historians, media personalities, psychiatrists; but we found one group had the answer which most satisfied our curiosity and reduced our levels of cognitive dissonance to manageable levels. It was Bad Movie fans, and their choice of Robot Monster as the template paradigm for the Truss Government.

For those alien to the fraternity, Robot Monster was the one where they stuck a diving helmet on the head of a man in a furry gorilla suit. As the Director Phil Tucker explained [2]

“I originally envisioned the monster as a kind of robot………I talked to several guys that I knew who had robot suits, but it was just out of the way, money wise. I thought “OK I know George Barrows George’s occupation was a gorillas suit man When they needed a gorilla in in a picture they called George, because he owned his own suit and got like 40 bucks a day. I thought “I know George will work for me for nothing. I’ll get a diving helmet, put it on him, and it’ll work!” [2]

If you want to know why it doesn’t work, try combining the two images at the top of this article, or click on the links [3], [4] to see Tucker’s creation in its full glory.

Tucker was a reasonably intelligent man. And his premises were strong: people liked scary movies, especially about things like robots, gorillas and aliens. So, what was not to like in Robot Monster? Now click again. And try to keep a straight face. Truss was (is) a reasonably intelligent woman, and probably more honest than a number of her Parliamentary colleagues. And the ideas she loved (lower taxes, a smaller state) are at least defensible, if not always right. But it is possible to put right things together in a wrong way, especially if you are working fast, and on the cheap. The results are always the same. Robot Monster. And the Truss administration.

[1]https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/liz-trusss-49-days-chaos-30858891?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_readin

[2] Medved H, Medved M The Golden Turkey Awards Perigee 1980

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Monster

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_considered_the_worst

#liz truss #robot monster #kwasi kwarteng #uk

The news that the Amazon area is now a net emitter of carbon [1]should come as no surprise to those of us who have followed the reckless activities of certain Brazilian politicians and their associates. The Amazon, the very lung of the planet, which might have protected us from so much climate damage, is giving out.

Fortunately, someone is taking up the slack. That someone is the English county of Sussex (East and West) which has launched a project of such potential that it offers hope for us all. They are going to plant kelp all they way along their shores, all the way from Chichester to Beachy Head. We could expend pages singing the praises of kelp-its benefits in the food and plastics industries, as fertiliser, and as a haven for marine life. We’ll let our links do the talking instead [2] [3] No, what we want is to draw your attention to the awe-inspiring powers of kelp as a carbon sequestration mechanism, in this excellent blog by Sylvia Hurliman [[4]

We have alluded to this project in previous blogs here (LSS 15 1 21) and in certain media outlets. And it’s so gratifying to learn about the progress which has been made since then, particulary when it starts to make national news. Sussex is showing the way.gentle readers. Will you pressure your Government to follow them?

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/19/amazon-deforestation-jair-

bolsonaro-rainforest-carbon-contributors

[2] https://sussexkelp.org.uk/

[3] https://sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/helpourkelp

[4]https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2019/how-kelp-naturally-combats-global-climate-change/

#amazon #carbon capture #global warming #kelp forest

For overseas readers who are not neurotically tuned to the British News Cycle, we have a problem in these islands. A great big, money swallowing, attention devouring, cluster of a problem called RAAC. And it will be coming to you soon.

RAAC (Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) was a cheap building material which achieved a cult status among construction firms and accountants(especially accountants) from the 1940s until the 1980s. Suddenly, over a hundred English schools have had to be wholly or partially closed in case the stuff suddenly fails, depositing tonnes of rubble on the heads of children and teachers alike. [1] It’s early days here; but people are very reasonably asking questions like: How many other schools? What about hospitals, car parks, garages, shopping malls and other public spaces, large and small? Which is where you come in, gentle overseas reader-because we bet your country was not immune to this shoddy plague either.

As our link shows, public and media alike are preparing to give a most humongous kicking to our hapless Prime Minister, Mr Sunak. But before they do, they should remember one thing. We have created a culture, no an entire civilization, based entirely on the cost price. Where keeping it as cheap as possible is fetishised to the exclusion of all other values. Not aesthetic, not long term, not even utility. A myopic set of values where the buy/sell price is the sole determinant of any transaction. Traders buy and sell; they create nothing, by definition. So when their values become hegemonic, investment must always suffer. Sunak rose in this system, and so must take some of the blame. But we created it, bit by bit, in thousands of newspaper articles, think tank reports and populist soundbites. It will take decades to find a more balanced set of values. And they’ll still be clearing up the RAAC.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/04/england-crumbling-schools-rishi-sunak-repairs-civil-servant

#RAAC #Rishi Sunak #concrete #construction #education

Been Here before? Global warming, plagues of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, nuclear war……..believe it or not this isn’t the first time that humanity has flirted with extinction, as this piece from the Mail makes clear

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12465399/Early-humans-nearly-went-EXTINCT-900-000-years-ago-population-ancestors-dropped-just-1-280-individuals-stud

Blaming Brexit? We have long argued here that Britain’s problems predate Brexit by years if not decades. The vote of 2016 was a symptom of a deeper sickness. But for the benefit of our overseas readers, here is a review of a book by a Daily Telegraph writer(yes, we actually wrote those words) which may serve as a warning to all those who prize emotion over reason

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/what-went-wrong-with-brexit-by-peter-foster-review-state-of-denial/ar-AA1g4NfE?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid

A Checklist for AI “Consciousness How will i know if he really loves me ? “sang Whitney Houston You can ask this question about cats or computers-and we may have to very soon. Here’s Nature Briefings

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have many researchers pondering the prospect of AI one day becoming conscious. But how would we know if it was? A group of neuroscientists, philosophers and computer scientists has proposed a checklist of criteria for determining whether a system is likely to be conscious. Instead of putting an AI system through a behavioural test, the researchers suggest using the checklist, which draws on several competing theories of consciousness.Nature | 4 min read
Reference: ArXiv preprint (not peer reviewed

21 for the price of 1 Antivaxxers need to ask themselves-if vaccines are so bad, how can this entirely rational practice have so many beneficial side effects? And remember, this report comes from one of your own, the Daily Mail no less. Does that, possibly, make you think again?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12448901/Covid-jabs-protect-patients-giving-antibodies-against-21-viruses-includi

Alzheimers Drugs Recent optimism on the latest generation of Alzheimers needs tempering, according to The Conversation. We always like a second opinion on any subject

https://theconversation.com/new-alzheimers-drugs-dont-deserve-the-hype-heres-why-211842?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation

well, there you go for this week have a good weekend

And so the world burns, the seas rise and formerly pleasant areas like Florida are lashed by ever more violent storms(Ron Di Santis take note) Yet all of this was avoidable, gentle readers, if just a handful of people had decided a different way.

In August 1973 the world had clocked up 28 years of steady growth, especially in western countries. Regulated markets, and a growing network of co-operative international institutions, such as the World Bank, IMF and EC, suggested steady progress which would eventually be shared by all. Yet that autumn changed everything, as older readers will recall. A bitterly-contested war in the Middle East led Arab countries to employ the OIl Embargo. The result was disastrous inflation and economic chaos across the world. It was a time of doubt, dread and uncertainty. Decades-old verities were called into sudden, terrible, question, especially in places like the UK, which ended up only working for three days a week.

Something had to be done. And policymakers faced a choice. They could choose a financial solution-reduce the money supply, raise interest rates and cut labour costs. Or they could choose a scientific and engineering solution; wean themselves off oil as fast as possible using renewable and nuclear technologies. They chose the former. Inflation was indeed licked. You can argue about the cost-rising poverty and inequality, unstable financial markets, vast flows of migration. But the policies of economists like Milton Friedman, implemented by politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, mean that the memories of that terrible winter do indeed seem long ago.

But imagine if the other solution had been tried instead.. That the world had moved to a renewable carbon free economy. If this path had been started in 1974, it is pretty likely that it would all have been completed by about 2000. Not only would emissions have started to fall by about 1990, every molecule of carbon dioxide that has hit the atmosphere since the turn of the century need not have existed. We would never have heard of climate change. It’s funny how a single binary choice, which seemed so easy to make at the time, could have had such devastating long tern consequences. So- were those long lost years of the 1970s the worst ever in History. Or are we playing with hindsight?

#oil crisis #global warming #climate change #monetarism #milton friedman #solar power

Look at your old holiday photos from Kos in 1986. That’s right, the old paper ones. There’s you with your mates toasting another happy night with Pina Coladas. So, who are those people in the background who just happened to be passing when the shot was taken? A bunch of Dutch entomologists? An American couple from Milwaukee in the throes of a relationship breakdown? Where are they now? Did they meet someone else? Are they happy or sad?

And-whose photos are you in? If you’ve lived in a tourist hotspot like London or New York, you’ve probably been an extra in dozens of snaps, especially now everything is digital, and every phone an infinite library of images. At one point, for a fleeting moment, your life and the photographer’s life coincided. Were you and that Japanese lady from Osaka really meant for each other? So much so that, had you spoken, you both would have left your partners and run off to start a new life together as consultant software engineers in Bali, Indonesia?

And who else is in that picture? Most of us lead harmless, uneventful lives, at least if given enough to eat and the basics of shelter. But might someone more sinister be lurking in your photo collection as well? A criminal? A psychopath? A journalist from the Sun? Once someone found a photo of a huge crowd in Vienna. It was taken on the day they proclaimed the First World War. And in among them, cheering away, was the young Adolf Hitler.[1] Even people like him get to stand around in crowds, before they have really begun on their life’s work, so to speak.

So now go back to your old albums and digital archives. Forget the family and friends. Look in the background. Because after reading this, someone there will be looking at you.

_{The image below has been reproduced from Bing search database It is a superb archive of images and graphics on every conceivable subject and should be widely consulted by researchers, journalists, teachers students and all with an interest in the furtherance of knowledge thanks, guys} [1]