Lock in

This is, eventually, about the Labour Party.

Younger readers might struggle to imagine the world we fifty somethings grew up in. There were three TV channels, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. ITV wasn't called ITV1, any more than Earth is currently called Earth1. The idea of multiple ITVs would have seemed as far fetched as a Dyson sphere.

Brexit part two: majorities and responsibilities

This is cobbled together from two different comments dropped into a Guardian article (Theresa May rejects £50bn EU 'divorce settlement' figure)

Brexit part one: a dog's breakfast

Brexit was never going to be a good thing, but it's instructive to consider how much worse it is than it needed to be. Yes it's a dog's breakfast, but it might at least have been a breakfast fit for a dog. Instead we've had an indigestible mess slopped all over the worktop by cat lovers with little knowledge of canine nutrition and no real goal beyond resolving a private domestic dispute.

Trumpwittery

I think we should make Trump a swear word.

It would work for generic swearing such as "for Trump's sake, you Trumped that right up", but I think he'd be particularly good for portmanteau swear words. Trumpstain. Trumpnugget. ClusterTrump. You get the idea.

Driving the bus off a cliff

There’s a problem with the bus we’re all on, which is that some of the people on it want to drive it over a cliff.

The old driver didn’t think this was a brilliant idea but he agreed to let the passengers have a vote on it because he didn’t think they’d actually vote to drive a bus off a cliff, and he wanted to shut the mouthier ones up for a bit so he could get on with selling off the best seats to the highest bidder, which was very much his favourite thing to do.

Trade asymmetry

I wrote this yesterday in a comment on a Guardian article. I've tidied it up a bit to improve the flow, but it's as it was otherwise. Rob Telford told me I should put some of my comments and Facebook posts in a blog, so all of this is entirely his fault. Thanks, Rob, by the way. Some may be horrified, but I feel invigorated and purged and that's the main thing.

It’s about trade asymmetry. The relaxed tone of it is because yesterday we were only facing economic collapse, whereas today we are facing economic collapse without Marmite.

The trade asymmetry problem goes like this.

Another Brexit comment

I put this comment in an article, this time in the Independent. I've lost the link, but the context, as so often, is frothing Brexit trolls and their anonymous identities.

We've got a ripe old bunch in here today, haven't we?

The rules is the rules

This is from the Rule Book.

“The shortlisting and selection of candidates shall consist of a vote, by eliminating ballot, of all eligible individual members of the electoral ward/division on the basis of one member one vote.”

There’s always a slightly abstract element to Green Party procedural debates. No matter how much emotion we invest in a technical wrangle, the Party will continue to be roughly what it is now.

The above comes from the Labour Party Rule Book, though, which means it changes everything.

Letter to the Settlement Board

I wrote this as a letter to the Board at the Settlement where I work, and I thought I might as well put it here. I wouldn't describe it as cheerful.