Politics | Steve Woods

The expert and the gentleman amateur

11/07/2023 Steve WoodsOddities, Politics

Can anything be gleaned from whom countries pick as their government ministers

Maybe

Until recently there was an interesting comparison to be made between Chile and the so-called United Kingdom in their choice of environment ministers.

Let’s compare and contrast…

In 2022 Chile appointed Maisa Heloísa Juana Rojas Corradi, a physicist and climatologist to the post of Minister for the Environment. As you can tell by the letters after her name, Ms Rojas is not exactly lacking in academic success.having graduated in physics at the University of Chile before going on to gain a Ph.D. in atmospheric physics from Lincoln College, Oxford. After gaining her doctorate, Rojas then pursued a career in academia, initially as a postdoctoral fellow at International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University in 2001, after which she then returned to Universidad de Chile as a postdoctoral fellow, researcher, eventually becoming a professor of geophysics. During that time, Rojas became an international leading climate change scientist. She was the lead author of the Paleoclimate chapter for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) fifth report (AR5), and was also a coordinating lead author for the IPCC report (AR6). She has served on various presidential councils and committees on climate change.

Now compare and contrast that record of achievement with the person who was until recently the UK’s Minister of State for Overseas Territories, Commonwealth, Energy, Climate and Environment, the improbably named Frank Zacharias Robin Goldsmith, Baron Goldsmith of Richmond Park. Zac is a scion of the corrupt (and corrupting. Ed.) British Establishment who was not just born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but a whole sterling cutlery service. As a rich boy, Goldsmith had the best education that money can buy (allegedly): 3 fee-paying preparatory schools, followed by Eton College (which ought to be put into special measures for the sake of the nation. Ed.), from which he was expelled after drugs were discovered in his room. Despite all that expensive tuition, Zac go no where near a degree, but did go on after Eton to gain four A Levels at the now defunct Cambridge Centre for Sixth-Form Studies.

From your ‘umble scribe’s researches, it would appear that Zac definitely fits the definition of a ‘gentleman amateur’ about which Dr Duncan Stone of the University of Huddersfield wrote in 2019.

With specific reference to the late 19th century, Dr Stone wrote:

Average wits notwithstanding, anyone emerging from Eton, Harrow, Winchester or Westminster at this time was afforded – as a ‘gentleman’ – an indisputable authority that allowed them to simply assume positions of leadership. Their authority remained mostly intact, even if the ‘blood’ so crucial to a gentleman’s nobility in the past had been severely diluted by the overwhelming expansion of the public school system and the middle-classes it helped to produce.

The idealised gentleman was brave, loyal, and chivalrous towards females, put public duty before his own interests, and took part in activities for love rather than financial gain. These values were applied to a wide range of activities during the nineteenth century. Science, politics and the arts were all defined by this hegemonic ideal of the ‘gentleman amateur’.

On 30 June Goldsmith resigned from his ministerial position, stating the government showed “apathy” towards environmental issues and that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s lack of interest had paralysed policymaking.

Who would you rather have looking after your environment, someone with impeccable connections and manners, or someone who knows their subject inside-out? Answers in the comments below, please. 😀
50 years on

28/06/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Linux, Open Source, Politics, Security, Tech
In October 1973, a large cohort of (mostly) young people aged 17-19 left their homes with varying levels of street wisdom under their belts and dampness behind the ears (not to mention essential life skills such as being able to manage money and cook. Ed.) to embark on something that was going to change their lives for ever – studying the BA Modern Languages course at Wolverhampton Polytechnic, now the University of Wolverhampton, a matter that was going to occupy us for the next four years until the summer of 1977.

Just shy of 50 years later, twenty-two alumni plus partners (including some who are also Wolverhampton veterans. Ed.), some travelling from as far away as New Zealand, and seven of our lecturers all assembled for a significant anniversary celebration back in the city that grew up around the site of an abbey dedicated to St Mary founded by Wulfhere of Mercia in 659 and in which they studied from 1973 to 1977.

Alumni, lecturers and partners stand back from the bar. Photo courtesy of Paul, edited by photography wizard Tim.

The hair may be greyer or diminished in luxuriance, the limbs less lissome, the waistlines somewhat stouter, but the same personalities still shine through the physical changes and laughter and good times prevailed as they did all those decades ago, even though some of the party had not seen each other for over 45 years instead of the 5 years since the last reunion.

This time your ‘umble scribe travelled up to Wolverhampton on Friday afternoon; and it proved to be worth the effort, allowing plenty of time to settle in and relax instead of the mad rush of arriving on the day and then scrabbling to get ready in time before sitting down to meat. After a meal and a couple of lemonades at nearby hostelries, it was back to the hotel where we kept the barman busy serving us brown beverages of various shades.

Saturday dawned far too early, but any lack of sleep was cured by an excellent breakfast, assisted by the excellent company. At lunchtime, a small party gained access to the room where our revels were to take place, to decorate it, sort out the seating plan and ensure that the music and visuals worked properly.
Two o’clock on a warm Saturday afternoon saw a large group of alumni assembled in front of the oldest part of the university – known as The Marble for a campus tour led by David from the Alumni Office. Since our time, many of the university building that we remember have been demolished and replaced by more modern facilities. Long gone are the wooden huts and the perishing cold St Pater’s Hall (which the the polytechnic shared with a vegetable wholesaler. Ed.) Part of the tour took in secure parts of the campus and for this we were joined by David from security who’s worked for the university for nearly two decades. His tales of student high jinks revealed very little has changed over the decades/generations. Finally, any Wolverhampton Polytechnic/University of Wolverhampton alumni who have not provided their contact details to the Alumni Office or need to update them can do so here, whilst back copies of the alumni magazine can accessed online too.
Alumni on tour with Dave from security. Photo credit: David from the Alumni Office.

The traditional Saturday night celebratory meal saw new directions and a new dimension. Firstly, the usual disco was dispensed with and replaced with Sheila’s Spotify playlist as background music. This meant there was no need to SHOUT TO HOLD A CONVERSATION. 😀

Secondly, much mirth and merriment was occasioned by the presence of an inflatable Selfie Station photo booth complete with props – silly hats, inflatable musical instruments and the like.

Last but not least, your ‘umble scribe had volunteered to compile a video slideshow. Comprising mostly photos from our student days, this 32 minutes’ long movie was played on loop throughout the meal until coffee was served and we reached the speeches slot. For the nerds, the slideshow was compiled with Imagination, “a lightweight and easy to use slide show maker” for the Linux and FreeBSD operating systems. Similar software is available for other, more common operating systems. Those whose photos were not used will be pleased to hear there is mofre than enough material for another slideshow for the 50th anniversary of our graduating in 2027.

Feedback on the meal itself was most appreciative and it was possibly the best our gatherings have enjoyed to date.

With coffee served, it was speech time, with former assistant head of department Alan on his hind legs for a few well-chosen and thought-provoking words. These ranged from the benefits of a period of residence abroad, including not only gains in maturity, but also finding common ground with one’s hosts, primitive hygiene arrangements in 1960s Spain, the difficult relationship of Britain with the rest of Europe and the continuing need to teach and study other languages in a world where English in the de facto lingua franca.
Once the applause died away, MC Dave leapt up to respond and in amongst the anecdotes of student life during our mandatory year abroad, which featured broken sanitary fittings and a visiting England rugby league team, he found time to propose a heartfelt toast and tribute to absent friends – both staff and students – who had not survived to join our revels that weekend. Many remarked afterwards that Dave is a natural public speaker, so well done mate!

Celebrations continued well into the small hours on that warm and sunny June evening with the moon and stars shining down before it was finally time for bed.

All in all it was a brilliant weekend and my gratitude goes out to all my fellow attendees for their kindness, generosity and company. We now have a couple of years off until planning for the next event needs to start.

Thanks to…

Of course, events don’t happen of their own accord and a fair bit of time was spent planning in various Zoom sessions. Your correspondent would like to express particular thanks to the following:
- Sheila, Paul & Gwenda for the bulk of the organising;
- Sheila (again!) for the Saturday evening playlist;
- Whoever arranged the flowers for Paul and Gwenda;
- Dave for relieving Paul of master of ceremonies duties;
- Alan for his speech;
- Jill for her exhibition of course paperwork and photographs;
- Jane for liaising with the alumni office and arranging the university tour; and last but not least
- Anyone who bought me a drink! 😀
Final bouquets and brickbats

First the bouquets. Your ‘umble scribe is indebted to: the staff and management of The Mount Hotel for being so welcoming and accommodating (the food was excellent! Ed.); the Westacres for feeding nineteen of us on Friday evening; the Swan Inn for their splendid draught Banks’s Mild and idiosyncratic urinals; David of the Alumni Office and David of security for the university tour; the weather gods for their lack of wrath; and finally, the good folk of Wolverhampton for filling my ears with the music of the Black Country accent and dialect.

Brickbats (so no links. Ed.) are awarded to: Cross Country Trains, First Great Western, London Northwestern Railway and Network Rail for making the British Railways Board of yore appear a model of efficiency and punctuality. Other attendees who endured railway hell are invited to add the names of the guilty parties in the comments below.
Brave Sir Boris

11/06/2023 Steve WoodsMedia, Politics

On Friday disgraced former alleged party-time prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson resigned as a member of parliament with immediate effect rather than face the sanction of parliament for lying to it and possibly losing a by-election for the Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency he has ignored since 2015 and held with a slender majority of 7,210

The Monty Python team had Johnson’s pusillanimous character type down to a tee way back in 1975 in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Like Sir Robin, “Sir” Boris has plenty of previously form, as recorded by the minstrels of the fourth estate.

“Sir” Boris is first and foremost famous for evading a journalist by hiding in a fridge; and while he was Foreign Secretary in Theresa May’s administration, Johnson typically avoided a Commons vote on the expansion of Heathrow airport (concerning which he had previously vowed to oppose, saying he would “lie down in front of the bulldozers“. Ed.) by disappearing to Afghanistan for the day
.
Bristol’s environmental crime fines raised

09/06/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Politics

On Tuesday your ‘umble scribe was at a meeting of the Bristol Clean Streets Forum, which brings together community activists, council officers responsible for waste management and enforcement and the council’s own waste management company, Bristol Waste.

A frequent plea your correspondent has been making for years was again repeated on Tuesday, namely to make greater use of the local media to deter littering, fly-tipping and other environmental crimes. as per the example of neighbouring North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Councils, who frequently have successful enforcement actions written up in the local press.

The meeting was informed that press releases were indeed issued to highlight successful enforcement actions but the local press preferred stories from the two local authorities mentioned above to anything produced in the newsroom down the Counts Louse.

Well, something finally happened yesterday. Bristol Live reported that the council had agreed to increase the charges imposed under its FPN scheme for environmental crimes such as littering. fly-tipping and fly-posting.

The Jane Street fly-tipping hotspot looking unlovely – as per usual.

FPNs for littering will be increasing from £100 to £150, with the discount for early payment rising from £65 to £75.

Councillors also agreed to double penalties from £200 to £400 for breaches of the “household duty of care”, which requires residents to take reasonable steps to ensure waste produced at home is only handed over to licensed waste carriers for disposal.

Since 2017 the council has earned a surplus of £220,000 from these fines and these proceeds have been spent on measures to keep streets clean, including removing fly-posting, anti-littering campaigns, equipment to litter-picking groups, clearing graffiti and additional enforcement according to Kye Dudd, the Cabinet member for climate, ecology, waste and energy.
Dishonourable members

28/05/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

Members of Parliament are traditionally all referred to in the chamber as the Honourable Member for (name_of_constituency).

However, whether their behaviour is indeed honourable is questionable at times. When assuming office, all members of the House of Commons take an oath, but that oath is only to bow and scrape before the monarch of day and any heirs who might take over within the member’s term of office.

There’s not a mention of such notions as honesty and integrity anywhere in the oath’s two short sentences.

It’s left to the Code of Conduct for MPs to deal with honesty. This states that “Holders of public office should be truthful“.

As regards integrity, the Code states the following:

Holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work. They should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships.

However, it seems that some of the House’s members have been less than honest and shown no integrity when it comes to claiming their parliamentary expenses.

Today the BBC reports that four dishonourable members – one SNP MP and three Conservatives – have been asked to repay motoring fines which they had included in their expenses claims.

Amanda Solloway

Simon Hoare

Dave Doogan

Bim Afolami

The most egregious of these were the claims by the Dishonourable Member for North Dorset, one Simon James Hoare, who claimed four times for £80 fines issued in November 2019. When not indulging in expenses fiddling, Tory Simon fills his time in parliament chairing the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee.

The most prominent of the fines fiddlers revealed today was another Conservative, junior minister Amanda Solloway, currently attempting to be Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Consumers and Affordability, who claimed an £80 fixed penalty notice issued by Transport for London in 2020. When it comes to current ministers in trouble for motoring fines, before the details of Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s speeding fine emerged, she asked in her early days as a dishonourable member whether MPs could claim speeding fines on their expenses. This was naturally answered in the negative.

Any reasonable person would have thought that members of parliament might have cleaned up their act after the parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009, but it seems some present members are ignorant thereof, don’t think the rules apply to them.

When it comes to being honourable, your ‘umble scribe cannot help but think of Mark Antony’s funeral oration in Act III, scene II of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Throughout the speech Antony repeatedly refers to Caesar’s assassins as honourable.

So are they all, all honourable members.
Pound surges against Euro

21/05/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities, Politics

Ever since the so-called United Kingdom disastrously withdrew from the European Union, the supporters of Brexit have been promising Brexit bonuses. The first of these could have finally happened, if the photo below of a display in a foreign exchange bureau in Bristol is telling the truth.

$600 for a fiver? Your ‘umble scribe couldn’t believe his eyes! Have the economies of the EU27 gone into total meltdown in the last couple of days?

Perhaps all those air miles clocked up by Kemi Badenoch, Secretary of State for Patronising, are paying off as told to the Europhobic hacks at the Daily Brexit (which some still call the Express. Ed.)

Well, if Brexit really is going that swimmingly, your correspondent reckons he’ll shortly be seeing unicorns on the Downs – Bristol’s answer to the sunlit uplands.

Is this a Brexit bonus or a mistake? Have your say below in the comments.
Gerrymander, Jacob?

16/05/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Politics

Jacob Rees-Mogg, whom the voters of North East Somerset were foolish enough to elect as their Member of Parliament, has a reputation for not living in the present. So much of a problem that Tim Fenton of Zelo Street refers to him as “the member for times past“.

It now appears Jacob has trouble in understanding the English language too.

Yesterday’s Independent carries a report on The Mogg’s speech to the far-right National Conservatism conference yesterday in which he criticised the new voter photo ID rules that were introduced in time for the recent local government elections in England, elections in which the Tories did particularly badly, losing over 1,000 council seats.

In his speech, The Mogg stated the following:

Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding their clever scheme comes back to bite them – as dare I say we found by insisting on voter ID for elections.

We found the people who didn’t have ID were elderly and they by and large voted Conservative, so we made it hard for our own voters and we upset a system that worked perfectly well.

Gerrymander, Jacob?

Voter suppression, surely?

It’s at this point that a dictionary comes in handy. The dictionary definition is “to divide an area into election districts (= areas that elect someone) in a way that gives an unfair advantage to one group or political party.”

One would have thought someone who has been a politician as long as The Mogg would know that, but poor old Jacob was badly educated, first at Westminster Under School, followed by Eton College and finally at Trinity College, Oxford.

As regards gerrymander itself, it has an interesting etymology. It’s a portmanteau word originating from the USA in 1812. The gerry element is a reference to Elbridge Gerry, one of the country’s Founding Fathers, whilst the mander element is derived from salamander.

While Governor of Massachusetts, Gerry signed into law a bill that rearranged the state’s electoral districts to give advantage to the Democratic-Republican Party, although Gerry himself was said to disapprove of the practice. When mapped, one of the contorted districts in the Boston area was said to resemble a mythological salamander. Thus the term was born with its spread and popularity sustained by a political cartoon depicting a strange animal with claws, wings and a dragon-like head that supposedly resembled the oddly shaped district.
EU Parliament wants to protect Free Software in AI regulation

11/05/2023 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Politics, Tech

Today the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) reports that the European Parliament’s two competent committees – the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) and the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) – today voted by a large majority to protect Free Software in the EU’s AI Regulation. Furthermore, non-profit organisations and small Free Software projects up to the size of micro-enterprises, are largely to be exempted from this regulation.

In addition, the FSFE comments that this principle must be anchored in the Cyber Resilience Act and Product Liability Directive and the parliament’s forthcoming votes.

Alexander Sander, FSFE’s Senior Policy Consultant, explains as follows:

Instead of putting the responsibility on the Free Software developers, it should be put on the companies that profit from it on the market. Smaller organisations and non-profit activities, for example by foundations, must be excluded. With this vote, the Members of the European Parliament are thus recognising the reality of Free Software development and trying to protect it. The principle of transferring responsibility and liability to those who profit on the market instead of focusing on developers must also be anchored in the Cyber Resilience Act and the Product Liability Directive. This is the only way to not only protect Free Software and its contributors but also consumers and customers.

The final vote on the AI Act is expected in the next few weeks, after which discussions on the final text will take place between the Parliament, Council of Ministers and the Commission. The Parliament is currently discussing the amendments to the Cyber Resilience Act and the Product Liability Directive which have been submitted.
The writing on the wall

09/05/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Politics

Expressing political opinions on walls is a practice that reaches back at least 2,000 years to Roman times – as in the case of Pompeii and other Roman towns and cities – and possibly even earlier.

One wall at the start of Whitehall Road in Bristol has displayed various messages – all of them anti-Conservative – over the years (see posts passim here and here. Ed.), of which the one below is the latest.

It appeared some time before last week’s English local government elections. However, your ‘umble scribe does not know the extent to which this particular slogan contributed to the Nasty Party’s disastrous losses of over 1,000 council seats and – more locally – its loss of overall control of South Gloucestershire seeing as it lies on a well-used commuter and bus route between the city and that neighbouring local authority.
Auntie crosses the Atlantic

07/05/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

The BBC has always prided itself on the high standard of its English, both spoken and written.

However, that may well a thing of the past if one of today’s social media offerings from the BBC Politics Twitter account (byline: the best of the BBC’s political coverage. Ed.) is to be believed.

Yes, you did read that correctly; license [sic]; twice; in two sentences.

Either Auntie is employing an American to curate the BBC Politics Twitter account or an illiterate.

If the latter, some remedial English lessons are clearly needed, as well as practice, particularly if use of the verb to practise is contemplated in future. 😀

In amongst the predictable responses from licence fee objectors and refuseniks, numerous replies to the tweet pointed out the basic orthographic difference between British and American English. However, no acknowledgement or correction of the error has been forthcoming over 10 hours after the original tweet was posted.

Amanda Solloway	Simon Hoare
Dave Doogan	Bim Afolami

Thanks to…

Final bouquets and brickbats

Posts navigation