A high-minded refusal to be the one dominating isn’t going to prevent someone dominating. Why not us? Do you think the world would be better off with us in charge or with China in charge?
You'll never be in charge again if you're out of the EU. The UK will become increasingly insignificant on the world stage simply because of its size.
Many of the most disastrous military adventures in history were initiated on the, we must dominate them or they'll dominate us, principle. (The British Empire in Afghanistan, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, European land wars in Russia, etc.)
You see I do not accept that premise, we achieve most as a society and a species when we cooperate.
In fairness I don't get the impression that 'Britain must dominate or be dominated' is part of Mr Cummings' thought. He doesn't come across as jingoistic or flag-waving. I don't think saying 'Britain must not be left behind' is the same as 'Britain must dominate', any more than 'no child should be left behind' means 'every child should be the school bully'.
My impression is that he really hates (what he sees as) managerialism and institutions who primarily work to preserve themselves, and (fairly or otherwise) he sees the EU as encapsulating both.
A high-minded refusal to be the one dominating isn’t going to prevent someone dominating. Why not us? Do you think the world would be better off with us in charge or with China in charge?
You'll never be in charge again if you're out of the EU. The UK will become increasingly insignificant on the world stage simply because of its size.
Exactly, countries working together get further than those going it alone.
You see I do not accept that premise, we achieve most as a society and a species when we cooperate.
It doesn’t matter what premises you accept or don’t. Such wishful thinking won’t prevent those who are more ruthless from dominating you.
See it above - the reason Russia, China and America don’t currently have the Empire 2: The Revenge is because of other countries working together. Also you may remember Remembrance Day - that day that is supposed to help you remember shit that happened in the past ? Well no one ever won a world war by themselves (whatever Mark Francois may think).
Also, no country is managing climate change or a global pandemic by themselves.
You see I do not accept that premise, we achieve most as a society and a species when we cooperate.
In fairness I don't get the impression that 'Britain must dominate or be dominated' is part of Mr Cummings' thought. He doesn't come across as jingoistic or flag-waving. I don't think saying 'Britain must not be left behind' is the same as 'Britain must dominate', any more than 'no child should be left behind' means 'every child should be the school bully'.
I think you may be underestimating the Nietzschean edge to his thinking.
My impression is that he really hates (what he sees as) managerialism and institutions who primarily work to preserve themselves, and (fairly or otherwise) he sees the EU as encapsulating both.
And yet he manages to overlook how Government, in this case Tory government has been entirely focused on its own managerialist and institutional preservation - even at the sacrifice of truth-speaking and integrity - for at least the last decade plus. He, himself, would encapsulate then the very thing he 'really hates'. And nothing says that more than the exceptionalism of Barnard's Castle, cronyism and the kind of ruthless manipulation of situations and people that Cummings and cohort have specialised in.
There's plenty to abhor in the EU's failings and self-serving institutionalism. Definite need of reformation. But for my own part, it's hard to see much virtue in a plan to isolate the UK in such a way that an identical, and increasingly narrow-based self-serving institutionalism can flourish better in a British fashion, because removed from wider observation and stricter regulation and accountability, however bureaucratically heavy-handed.
You see I do not accept that premise, we achieve most as a society and a species when we cooperate.
In fairness I don't get the impression that 'Britain must dominate or be dominated' is part of Mr Cummings' thought. He doesn't come across as jingoistic or flag-waving. I don't think saying 'Britain must not be left behind' is the same as 'Britain must dominate', any more than 'no child should be left behind' means 'every child should be the school bully'.
I think you may be underestimating the Nietzschean edge to his thinking.
He should, therefore, take note of what Nietzsche said - “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.”
My impression is that he really hates (what he sees as) managerialism and institutions who primarily work to preserve themselves, and (fairly or otherwise) he sees the EU as encapsulating both.
And yet he manages to overlook how Government, in this case Tory government has been entirely focused on its own managerialist and institutional preservation - even at the sacrifice of truth-speaking and integrity - for at least the last decade plus. He, himself, would encapsulate then the very thing he 'really hates'. And nothing says that more than the exceptionalism of Barnard's Castle, cronyism and the kind of ruthless manipulation of situations and people that Cummings and cohort have specialised in.
There's plenty to abhor in the EU's failings and self-serving institutionalism. Definite need of reformation. But for my own part, it's hard to see much virtue in a plan to isolate the UK in such a way that an identical, and increasingly narrow-based self-serving institutionalism can flourish better in a British fashion, because removed from wider observation and stricter regulation and accountability, however bureaucratically heavy-handed.
*sarcasm on* They may be unelected bureaucrats... but they're *our* unelected bureaucrats! Completely different. *sarcasm off*
I think Cummings is about 20 years out of date (does anyone else remember "the Knowledge Economy"?). The revolution we actually need right now is a green revolution, sweeping changes to our lifestyles to stop (and, in our wildest dreams, reverse) climate change and loss of biodiversity. More locally produced food, less consumerism, etc. The big multinationals (who have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are) will fight this as much as they can, and the EU, whatever its flaws, is almost the only institution with the clout to stand up to them.
When the Brexiters talk about "Global Britain", they mean they want to turn us into a sort of theme park for the billionaires of the global elite to play at Downton Abbey in. They don't actually care how many of us proles starve in the process.
A high-minded refusal to be the one dominating isn’t going to prevent someone dominating. Why not us? Do you think the world would be better off with us in charge or with China in charge?
You'll never be in charge again if you're out of the EU. The UK will become increasingly insignificant on the world stage simply because of its size.
Exactly, countries working together get further than those going it alone.
Where's your evidence for this assertion? How are you defining "get further"?
See it above - the reason Russia, China and America don’t currently have the Empire 2: The Revenge is because of other countries working together.
More because those three largely balance themselves out. Though in various ways each of them can be seen to be engaging in empire-building, be it through cultural dominance (how many countries don't have a single McDonalds), manufacturing dominance (where would we be without "Made in China"), or just good old-fashioned military dominance (Crimea).
That none of those three countries (working alone, I may add) is in total dominance of the globe has little to do with any other countries working together to stop them.
Your "big three" examples are each large enough that they have a large internal market and resources. They also have three very different forms of government and economic structures, so if the name of the game is global domination I'd take a risk and say that government & economic structure aren't relevant but size is.
For nations which do not have such large internal markets and resources the options seem to be to either try and go it alone or work with other smaller nations. Over the last 50 years or so, the UK has flourished by working together with the other nations of Europe - we've been world leading in many areas of science and technology by working together, we've put our stamp on product safety and production standards by working together, we've developed a large market to buy and sell goods and services by working together. By going it alone we'll struggle to maintain our reputation for world leading innovation, we'll struggle to maintain markets for our goods and services, or to find good deals to buy what we need, we'll struggle to hold of predatory multinational businesses and foreign interests who will seek to flood our markets with substandard goods and services. And, we've weakened the rest of the EU as well (which at least means they have a good reason to take us back, so long as we don't take too long about it ... the EU doesn't need to take on the burden of another economic basket case, which we'll be in a few decades if the current government gets it's way).
Alas, I doubt I'll live long enough to see us back in the EU fold, even if our return is only a few years off...
Still, I rest in hope that my niece, nephew, and various young cousins WILL see it.
(BTW, as regards Brexshit in the Kingdom of Kent, a lorry park is a *Farage Garage*, the wayside portaloos will be *Boris Bog-Boxes*, and the Kent Access Permit will be a *Kermit*. It will be bright green, and available to Frogs.).
I understand that the UK has ordered 350 million doses of various Covid vaccines that are being developed around the world. However, the richest countries are cornering the market, so it will be the poorest countries that suffer (as usual).
The two vaccines so far announced, require two doses per person. Not is it clear how many of the vaccines will work. Let’s hope if, as a country, we end up with too much we can give to others.
The Australian government has committed $500m over the next three years to fund nationwide vaccination programs in neighbouring Pacific and SE Asian countries. CSL Ltd [the privatised former Commonwealth Serum Laboratories] have announced a massive new production facility to make this and other vaccines. Much as I dislike some of the other actions of our national government, this once again shows they are listening to experts.
There's debate here in the UK at the moment about whether the government should continue to spend a paltry 0.7% of gross national income on foreign aid or cut that to reflect economic circumstances (they say, the cost of coronavirus measures ... but the cost of Brexit is the same as what's been spent on the virus). And, also whether funding vaccination programmes in poorer countries should be included in that 0.7% (or less if they do cut that) ... which could result in the UK government cutting almost all of it's funding for many projects overseas.
The Australian Government commitment is additional to the "Pacific Step-Up" which has been implemented since they finally woke up to the fact of Chinese expansionism in the region, particularly in the notoriously unstable and frequently corrupt politics of PNG and the Solomon Islands.
Here in Australia it's been quite clear that we're ordering multiple vaccines because no-one knows for sure which one will work, or which one is going to get to the finish line first.
Can you imagine what would happen if a country (at least, a country sufficiently wealthy) places all its bets on one vaccine and then it's not the one that gets to market first? While other countries are getting doses and that country is not, the backlash would be immense.
Over-ordering is the sensible thing to do if you actually want to get a working product.
Of course, over-preparedness would have put more countries in a better position to begin with... I was just listening yesterday to a podcast that pointed out certain leaders stockpiled masks and other medical equipment years ago, and then they were roundly criticised for wasting money and their successors got rid of the 'wasteful' stockpile. Schwarzenegger in California, a former health Minister in France.
We've all become so obsessed with expenditure that we see excess as waste, not as a buffer.
One thought for shipmates on medication: a GP colleague advised me to stock up on three month's of pills. My own medication now is coming in new varieties of packing from different suppliers as our beloved pharmacists seek to keep me (and others) on the road.
My GP practice is paranoid about stockpiling. I was once refused a requested repeat prescription as "you've had one this month already". I pointed out that as they'll only give me four weeks' supply at a time, I need 13 prescriptions a year and will therefore inevitably require two in a month sometimes.
I suppose I should find out if they'll relax their jobsworth attitude in times of self-inflicted national emergency.
I've just noticed that Self-Inflicted National Emergency is a pleasing acronym. It means "without" in Latin which seems appropriate.
Interesting article in the Guardian today by George Monbiot diagnosing Brexit as a battle in the civil war between two factions of capitalism - "housetrained capitalism" which pays at least lipservice to democracy and embraces regulation to exclude more ruthless competitors, and "warlord capitalism" which regards any regulation, taxation or state intervention as intolerable restrictions on the accumulation of wealth. Brexit was obviously a victory for the warlord faction, who have succeeded in recruiting large sections of the working classes as footsoldiers by using phoney culture wars as a rallying cry.
ISTM that Dominic Cummings fell foul of this conflict - although he espoused the hardest of hard Brexits, he was too fond of state intervention (meddling) for the warlords' taste. He mainly lost his job for being a complete dickwad, though.
ISTM that Dominic Cummings fell foul of this conflict - although he espoused the hardest of hard Brexits, he was too fond of state intervention (meddling) for the warlords' taste. He mainly lost his job for being a complete dickwad, though.
I don't think the warlords have any objection to state meddling as long as they control the levers of the state and it meddles in their favour. What the warlords don't like is state enforced rules that they have to obey.
Symonds et al from what little I know lean towards the more domesticated end: Symonds has a history of engagement with environmental problems.
It occurred to me this morning that those who voted for Brexit have, in practice, voted for a levelling down rather than a levelling up.
And there's a wonderful story on the front page of today's times about an impending 'sausage war' over non-approval of uncooked processed meat. If they won't let us sell them our grease-filled offal tubes we will exclude horrid foreign bratwurst and salami aswell as suspicious irish sausages. If this is true, it's a replay of Yes Minister.
Sadly, that would never occur to them: their lust for lucre knows no bounds, and if that endangers a few peasants, so what?
And now they're earmarking £millions for their ludicrous "Festival of Brexit" - as if there's anything to celebrate when the economy's going down the tubes and we're in the middle of a fecking pandemic.
*Festival of Brexshit*? To be celebrated, doubtless, by the ceremonial opening of the Boris Bog-Boxes here in Kent...maybe a contingent of notable Brexshiteers (yes, I know that's an oxymoron) has been invited to take the First Poo in the said Bog-Boxes?
Meanwhile, the perfidious Moungseers of Frog-eating France had the cheek to try out their shiny new Brexshit border procedures yesterday - and they operate, as enny fule kno, on our side of The Sleeve, on OUR SACRED SOIL!
Result, within a few hours - a 5-mile tailback of lorries waiting to access the port of Dover.
So everything is working as it should, and we have taken back control of our borders...er...or not, as the case may be.
*Festival of Brexshit*? To be celebrated, doubtless, by the ceremonial opening of the Boris Bog-Boxes here in Kent...maybe a contingent of notable Brexshiteers (yes, I know that's an oxymoron) has been invited to take the First Poo in the said Bog-Boxes?
Only if they remember to wipe their mouths afterwards.
It occurred to me this morning that those who voted for Brexit have, in practice, voted for a levelling down rather than a levelling up.
And there's a wonderful story on the front page of today's times about an impending 'sausage war' over non-approval of uncooked processed meat. If they won't let us sell them our grease-filled offal tubes we will exclude horrid foreign bratwurst and salami aswell as suspicious irish sausages. If this is true, it's a replay of Yes Minister.
I have a feeling that if you asked whether "High fat emulsified offal tube" was a real EU intended name for UK sausages or a parody in a sit com, half the population would plump for the former.
One of the running jokes in that story is that the characters, on having the problem explained to then, complain that they've just eaten sausages. There's more than a sense that the EU has a point.
(Although in real life I should think - I haven't checked - that most EU countries have varieties of sausage traditionally made with offal.)
One of the running jokes in that story is that the characters, on having the problem explained to then, complain that they've just eaten sausages. There's more than a sense that the EU has a point.
(Although in real life I should think - I haven't checked - that most EU countries have varieties of sausage traditionally made with offal.)
Andouillette is a traditional French sausage made from Pig's intestines. Although the ingredients are obviously washed thoroughly, the finished product always has an aroma, and to some extent a taste, of, err..."the farmyard". To connoisseurs, this is part of the appeal.
It's a general rule that a lot of iconic national/regional foods are foods that would have originally been the food of the poor, and therefore almost by definition use the less appealing parts of animals (and also often bulked out with other ingredients), the bits the rich didn't want to eat. Sausage is an example of that - intestine as a wrap for whatever is at hand that can be stuffed into it. Up here, haggis is similar just using a stomach rather than intestine.
Foods we're all going to have to get used to. Sausages that actually do contain a lot of poor quality meat. Post Brexit we're all going to be that much poorer that we'll need to reinvent the food of the poor.
Report today that Barnier says he sees no point in further talks unless the UK is prepared to move on fishing. Th Brits say the threat 'lacks credibility'. Just saying.
Report today that Barnier says he sees no point in further talks unless the UK is prepared to move on fishing. Th Brits say the threat 'lacks credibility'. Just saying.
Well, the UK government and their negotiators are experts in lacking credibility ...
Comments
It doesn’t matter what premises you accept or don’t. Such wishful thinking won’t prevent those who are more ruthless from dominating you.
You'll never be in charge again if you're out of the EU. The UK will become increasingly insignificant on the world stage simply because of its size.
And that goes for pretty much every empire. Doublethink has it right.
In fairness I don't get the impression that 'Britain must dominate or be dominated' is part of Mr Cummings' thought. He doesn't come across as jingoistic or flag-waving. I don't think saying 'Britain must not be left behind' is the same as 'Britain must dominate', any more than 'no child should be left behind' means 'every child should be the school bully'.
My impression is that he really hates (what he sees as) managerialism and institutions who primarily work to preserve themselves, and (fairly or otherwise) he sees the EU as encapsulating both.
Exactly, countries working together get further than those going it alone.
See it above - the reason Russia, China and America don’t currently have the Empire 2: The Revenge is because of other countries working together. Also you may remember Remembrance Day - that day that is supposed to help you remember shit that happened in the past ? Well no one ever won a world war by themselves (whatever Mark Francois may think).
Also, no country is managing climate change or a global pandemic by themselves.
I think you may be underestimating the Nietzschean edge to his thinking.
And yet he manages to overlook how Government, in this case Tory government has been entirely focused on its own managerialist and institutional preservation - even at the sacrifice of truth-speaking and integrity - for at least the last decade plus. He, himself, would encapsulate then the very thing he 'really hates'. And nothing says that more than the exceptionalism of Barnard's Castle, cronyism and the kind of ruthless manipulation of situations and people that Cummings and cohort have specialised in.
There's plenty to abhor in the EU's failings and self-serving institutionalism. Definite need of reformation. But for my own part, it's hard to see much virtue in a plan to isolate the UK in such a way that an identical, and increasingly narrow-based self-serving institutionalism can flourish better in a British fashion, because removed from wider observation and stricter regulation and accountability, however bureaucratically heavy-handed.
He should, therefore, take note of what Nietzsche said - “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.”
*sarcasm on* They may be unelected bureaucrats... but they're *our* unelected bureaucrats! Completely different. *sarcasm off*
I think Cummings is about 20 years out of date (does anyone else remember "the Knowledge Economy"?). The revolution we actually need right now is a green revolution, sweeping changes to our lifestyles to stop (and, in our wildest dreams, reverse) climate change and loss of biodiversity. More locally produced food, less consumerism, etc. The big multinationals (who have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are) will fight this as much as they can, and the EU, whatever its flaws, is almost the only institution with the clout to stand up to them.
When the Brexiters talk about "Global Britain", they mean they want to turn us into a sort of theme park for the billionaires of the global elite to play at Downton Abbey in. They don't actually care how many of us proles starve in the process.
Welcome to the sinking middle class.
Where's your evidence for this assertion? How are you defining "get further"?
More because those three largely balance themselves out. Though in various ways each of them can be seen to be engaging in empire-building, be it through cultural dominance (how many countries don't have a single McDonalds), manufacturing dominance (where would we be without "Made in China"), or just good old-fashioned military dominance (Crimea).
That none of those three countries (working alone, I may add) is in total dominance of the globe has little to do with any other countries working together to stop them.
For nations which do not have such large internal markets and resources the options seem to be to either try and go it alone or work with other smaller nations. Over the last 50 years or so, the UK has flourished by working together with the other nations of Europe - we've been world leading in many areas of science and technology by working together, we've put our stamp on product safety and production standards by working together, we've developed a large market to buy and sell goods and services by working together. By going it alone we'll struggle to maintain our reputation for world leading innovation, we'll struggle to maintain markets for our goods and services, or to find good deals to buy what we need, we'll struggle to hold of predatory multinational businesses and foreign interests who will seek to flood our markets with substandard goods and services. And, we've weakened the rest of the EU as well (which at least means they have a good reason to take us back, so long as we don't take too long about it ... the EU doesn't need to take on the burden of another economic basket case, which we'll be in a few decades if the current government gets it's way).
Still, I rest in hope that my niece, nephew, and various young cousins WILL see it.
(BTW, as regards Brexshit in the Kingdom of Kent, a lorry park is a *Farage Garage*, the wayside portaloos will be *Boris Bog-Boxes*, and the Kent Access Permit will be a *Kermit*. It will be bright green, and available to Frogs.).
[/snark]
350 million?!?!? Five for every man, woman and child in the UK?
Seems a bit excessive.
Can you imagine what would happen if a country (at least, a country sufficiently wealthy) places all its bets on one vaccine and then it's not the one that gets to market first? While other countries are getting doses and that country is not, the backlash would be immense.
Over-ordering is the sensible thing to do if you actually want to get a working product.
Of course, over-preparedness would have put more countries in a better position to begin with... I was just listening yesterday to a podcast that pointed out certain leaders stockpiled masks and other medical equipment years ago, and then they were roundly criticised for wasting money and their successors got rid of the 'wasteful' stockpile. Schwarzenegger in California, a former health Minister in France.
We've all become so obsessed with expenditure that we see excess as waste, not as a buffer.
I suppose I should find out if they'll relax their jobsworth attitude in times of self-inflicted national emergency.
Interesting article in the Guardian today by George Monbiot diagnosing Brexit as a battle in the civil war between two factions of capitalism - "housetrained capitalism" which pays at least lipservice to democracy and embraces regulation to exclude more ruthless competitors, and "warlord capitalism" which regards any regulation, taxation or state intervention as intolerable restrictions on the accumulation of wealth. Brexit was obviously a victory for the warlord faction, who have succeeded in recruiting large sections of the working classes as footsoldiers by using phoney culture wars as a rallying cry.
ISTM that Dominic Cummings fell foul of this conflict - although he espoused the hardest of hard Brexits, he was too fond of state intervention (meddling) for the warlords' taste. He mainly lost his job for being a complete dickwad, though.
Symonds et al from what little I know lean towards the more domesticated end: Symonds has a history of engagement with environmental problems.
And there's a wonderful story on the front page of today's times about an impending 'sausage war' over non-approval of uncooked processed meat. If they won't let us sell them our grease-filled offal tubes we will exclude horrid foreign bratwurst and salami aswell as suspicious irish sausages. If this is true, it's a replay of Yes Minister.
Once the world is run by selfish rich oligarchs how long before ordinary folk rise up against them?
Don’t they realise that if everyone has a decent income then everyone is safer - including them?
And now they're earmarking £millions for their ludicrous "Festival of Brexit" - as if there's anything to celebrate when the economy's going down the tubes and we're in the middle of a fecking pandemic.
Words fail me.
Meanwhile, the perfidious Moungseers of Frog-eating France had the cheek to try out their shiny new Brexshit border procedures yesterday - and they operate, as enny fule kno, on our side of The Sleeve, on OUR SACRED SOIL!
Result, within a few hours - a 5-mile tailback of lorries waiting to access the port of Dover.
So everything is working as it should, and we have taken back control of our borders...er...or not, as the case may be.
Only if they remember to wipe their mouths afterwards.
Pass the brain-bleach, please...
I have a feeling that if you asked whether "High fat emulsified offal tube" was a real EU intended name for UK sausages or a parody in a sit com, half the population would plump for the former.
(Although in real life I should think - I haven't checked - that most EU countries have varieties of sausage traditionally made with offal.)
Andouillette is a traditional French sausage made from Pig's intestines. Although the ingredients are obviously washed thoroughly, the finished product always has an aroma, and to some extent a taste, of, err..."the farmyard". To connoisseurs, this is part of the appeal.
Foods we're all going to have to get used to. Sausages that actually do contain a lot of poor quality meat. Post Brexit we're all going to be that much poorer that we'll need to reinvent the food of the poor.
# easiest deal ever. # oven ready deal.