How is the Brexit crisis going to work out? I venture 16 predictions …
December 4th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
- In the House of Commons “meaningful vote” on Theresa May’s Brexit deal, there is no majority for the deal.
- The Parliamentary Labour Party tables a vote of no confidence in the Government. It fails.
- The 1922 Committee tables a vote of no confidence in May as Conservative Party leader. It fails.
- May seeks to tweak elements of the deal with the European Commission. She achieves no substantive changes.
- A group of MPs puts forward a ‘Norway plus’ deal. The European Commission is not interested and no real progress is made.
- A group of MPs puts forward a ‘Canada plus’ deal. The European Commission is not interested and no real progress is made.
- The UK asks the other 27 Member States of the European Union for an extension to the Article 50 process to allow time for the holding a second referendum. A few extra months is granted.
- Parliament passes the necessary legislation for a second referendum. The only real debate is the choice to be presented on the ballot paper. The choice is Brexit on the terms negotiated by May or continued UK membership of the EU on current terms
- The Electoral Commission tightens up the rules on spending in the referendum.
- May campaigns hard for her deal. Corbyn campaigns much less hard for staying in the EU.
- The referendum campaign is a bitter and divisive one.
- Turnout is even higher than for the first referendum.
- The result of the second referendum is almost a mirror image of that of the first one: 53% to stay and 47% to leave.
- May resigns as leader of the Conservative Party. There is a battle for the soul of the party.
- Labour demands of the new Prime Minister that a General Election be called. There is no election.
- Corbyn resigns as leader of the Labour Party. There is a battle for the soul of the party.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (6)
Ever heard of the idea of a fecal transplant?
December 3rd, 2018 by Roger Darlington
No, me neither. Until this weekend when I was happily eating a delicious Chinese meal with Czech/Mexican friends over from Prague and the subject came up of basically eating someone else’s poo.
Apparently it is a serious and – in some circumstances – useful process. You can read more about it here.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
A review of the new independent film “Wildlife”
December 1st, 2018 by Roger Darlington
This is a small story but one about a common occurrence – an imploding marriage – and it is told in a manner which is largely slow and quiet (the pace and action only pick up towards the end). Consequently it is not a film that will appeal to everyone but it is wonderfully acted and beautifully shot.
Set in a small town in Montana in the 1960s, this is the directorial debut of actor Paul Dano and he co-wrote the script with his partner Zoe Dano, the tale being an adaptation of the novel by Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Ford.
The marriage in question is that of Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Jeanette (Cary Mulligan) but the viewpoint is that of their teenage son Joe (Ed Oxenbould) who reacts with his eyes more than with his words. All the performances are impressive but Mulligan is outstanding as a wife and mother who needs to find herself.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
What would it take for Britain to have another snap General Election?
November 29th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
We are close to a constitutional crisis if, as widely expected, British Prime Minister Theresa May fails to achieve a majority vote in the House of Commons for her Brexit deal. Many – including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – are calling for a General Election. But how likely is that?
In the past, elections to the House of Commons had to be held within five years of the previous General Election, but the Prime Minister had complete discretion over the actual date which was often the subject of considerable speculation and frequently a year or more before an election was legally necessary.
The Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition Government agreed to the establishment of five year fixed-term parliaments and the necessary legislation was enacted in the Fixed Term Parliament Act of 2011.
Therefore, subject to either a vote of no confidence in the Government (following which there is 14 days to attempt to form a new government that does have the confidence of the House) or a two-thirds majority vote (which effectively means both major parties supporting the motion), a General Election will now be held on the first Thursday of May five years after the previous election.
In my view, even if the Brexit deal goes down (as I want). the Government would win a no confidence vote and, even if it did not, Conservative MPs would not vote for an early General Election (turkeys rarely vote for Christmas).
The best resolution would be a second referendum with a straight choice between May’s Brexit deal or remaining in the European Union on current terms. This way, hopefully we can stop the madness of the last two and a half years and stay in the EU.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (4)
Discovery of an intact Spitfire after 76 years
November 28th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
A long-lost Second World War Spitfire flown by a pilot who was part of the “Great Escape” has been found almost entirely intact on a Norwegian mountain – 76 years after it was shot down by the Germans.
The discovery is the first time for more than 20 years that a substantially complete and previously unknown Spitfire from this period has been found anywhere in the world. Its pilot was captured and ultimately executed by the Nazis for taking part in the war’s most famous prisoner-of-war breakout, immortalised in the classic movie “The Great Escape”.
Of substantial historical importance, the find highlights a normally ignored aspect of the Second World War – the RAF’s ultra-secret aerial wartime espionage missions.
You can read more about this aircraft here.
A television documentary on the discovery and recovery of Spitfire AA810 will be broadcast, as part of the “Digging for Britain” archaeology series, on BBC4 at 9 pm today Wednesday 28 November.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
A review of the latest “Robin Hood” film
November 27th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Following Kevin Costner (1991) and Russell Crowe (2010), we now have a much younger actor – Taron Egerton of the two “Kingsman” films – in the hands of a new film director – Otto Bathurst, all of whose previous work has been on television – attempting to do something new with this mythic hero of 12th century England.
A major problem is that the work does not feel English: it was shot by an Hungarian crew in Croatia and we have actors from Ireland, Australia and the United States. Also it does not feel authentic: the Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn) in particular looks and sounds out of place, wearing contemporary clothing and giving a speech which could have been uttered by a modern populist politician when he isn’t hinting at child abuse.
Where the film does score is in its action sequences which are plentiful and owe a lot to CGI. The plot is an origin story and the producers clearly hope that they’ve created a new franchise, but I’m certainly not holding my breath for a sequel.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Seven of the many things I learned from Joshua (aged 11)
November 26th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I spent last week in Oxford looking after 11 year old Joshua, the son of my close Chinese friends, while both his parents were in China on separate business trips. In the course of the week, Joshua and I had many discussions and I learned so much from this clever young man including the following:
- One of the greatest heroes in Greek mythology was someone called Bellerophon – see here.
- There is a town in Turkey called Batman – see here.
- Three men have won the Victoria Cross twice – see here.
- There is a song naming all the elements of the periodic table – see here.
- A popular children’s novel is “Goodnight Mr Tom” – see here.
- The smallest unit of measurement is the yocto – see here.
- The word anatidaephobia means a fear of being observed by a duck – see here.
Posted in Miscellaneous, My life & thoughts | Comments (1)
Three things that I learned about art today
November 21st, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I spent three hours at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford today. Named after Elias Ashmolean, this is the University of Oxford’s museum of art and archaeology. It opened in 1683 and is Britain’s oldest public museum.
Each day, they have a lunchtime tour on one aspect of the museum’s collection and today I went on the tour concerning paintings of the Dutch golden age in the 16th century. I learned some new things:
- There is a genre of paintings which is simply called genre and means ‘everyday life’. For instance, Dutch paintings showed people skating on a frozen canal or at home reading a letter.
- The expression ‘a millstone round the neck’ comes from the fashion in 16th century Netherlands for women to wear around their neck a large ruff known as a millstone. Such an item was not easy to paint.
- Some paintings feature an object called memento mori (literally ‘remember death’) which is a reminder of our mortality. This might be a skull or bones.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the new Coen brothers’ movie “The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs”
November 20th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Over a period of 35 years of filmmaking, American brothers Joel and Ethan Coen are known for a succession of movies that are invariably quirky but always engaging. This 18th movie – where again they write, produce and direct – is a six-part love letter to the Hollywood western. Each tale evokes classic characters of the West: guitar-playing sharp shooter, unfortunate bank robber, travelling impressario and his strange act, lone gold prospector, members of a wagon train, and strangers on a stagecoach.
Each segment stands alone in that there are no common characters or themes besides the Old West itself, but the six stories are presented as chapters in a book, each with an opening illustration and a line of dialogue underneath. Perhaps inevitably the components are uneven in their engagement of the viewer with strangely the first (the titular ballad) and last (the stagecoach) being the oddest and the penultimate one – cowboys and indians, love and death on the wagon trail – being the most captivating.
The cinematography is often stunning and all the characters – so many of them gruff men in scraggy beards – are unfailingly wonderful to watch with some fine performances from a largely unknown cast (Liam Neeson – almost unrecognisable – is the only real star). Once again, the Coens have triumphed with their trademark mix of violence, humour and twists plus a deep love of the old movies and a willingness to subvert them.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
The regulation of Internet content – my 100th and last IT column
November 19th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
For the past 16 years, I have written a regular column on information technology for a trade union representing professional and managerial staff in telecommunications and broadcasting. Now that I am 70 and my portfolio career is coming to an end, I’ve decided to call a halt to this exercise and I have just submitted my 100th and last such column.
The subject is regulation of Internet content and I point out that:
“… over time, more and more worries have developed around the use of the Net. Individuals find that they are subject to harassment and fraud, companies are repeatedly hacked, governments face a form of cyber-warfare, and societies see a flood of fake news and attempts to undermine their democratic processes.
The tech giants still struggle to act quickly and effectively against illegal content, such as child abuse images or hate speech, and they seem confused about how to deal with harmful and offensive content, such as sexist, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, and anti-Semitic material.”
You can read the column here.
And you can access all my 100 IT columns here.
Posted in Internet | Comments (0)