jaywalker

So is May today when she says she is confident of a judicial reversal from the Supreme Court a. receiver of inside knowledge (I think this very doubtful) b. receiver of bad advice from an Attorney General who she should have fired (quite likely) c. just in denial and not up to the job herself (very likely) d. willing (for whatever reason) to over-rule the (always provisional) resolution of 500 years of antagonistic struggle (including civil war, and the realisation that victory in that had resulted in untrammelled powers just as bad as lost the King his head - see the judgement's reference to the Glorious Revolution) that eventually established the sovereignty of parliament over the executive (certain) To be sure, these may all (logically) be true: but I think the last three actually. The short-circuit to the narcissistic imaginary of the 'popular' is breath-taking. We KNOW that any vested power will be exploited and abused. We KNOW that a division of powers (for example parliament versus the executive, the judiciary as independent) are VITAL for any check to this. Yet this principle is now generally denied and ridiculed.

"Horses fluent in the wind, A place, a time gone out of mind." http://www.internal.org/Sylvia_Plath/The_Eye_Mote

One thing that is clear to me is that my cosmopolitan identity - always lived in a big city (this one), pluralist values, sceptical about 'belief' (monovalent) 'values' 'nation' 'identity', coldly hostile to the increasing heteronomy of the public sphere (the collapse of the political to the mediatised, the corrosion of judicial independence, the colonisation of education at all levels by the executive, the craven subservience of both parliament and the 'serious' media to populism, the para-militarisation of the police), welcoming rather than fearful of strangers, not locking my door at night - is all no longer thought, even charitably, to be a coherent position: just a symptom of my over-education, privilege, or excessive abstraction. But these are the issues that matter to me.

Lordship 516 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Boris' Titanic success has had its first scrape > with the iceberg..! > > Great High Court decision - precise & supporting > actual democracy. Agreed its a great decision (although Supreme Court next). But not sure about the 'actual democracy'. The judgement is very clear that it is about constitutional powers and they find that the executive do not have power to change the law (quite right too!) - triggering article 50 will impact on existing law-given rights so it needs an act of parliament. So for me, the judgement supports representative government AGAINST democracy if one understands the latter term as 'the will of the people' or whatever. As they say, no such will is of any interest to them IN LAW - again, quite rightly. May is simply trying to short-circuit due process here by appealing precisely to democracy - a terrible thing to do. I remember that excellent book Bernard Crick wrote called In Defence of Politics in which one of the chapters is In Defence of Politics against Democracy - should be compulsory reading in the new academies.

constipated

I think there is only one response (and it applies much more generally of course): "And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with them twain" (King James modified for sexist language) Perhaps the only lesson from Christianity that makes any sense.

I think this is quite complex. Belief in facts as presented to self-evidence was dubious enough with first philosophy. The usual clich? but its good: the bent stick in the water. By the early C19th it was no longer even a possibility if you were at least semi-educated. What for example was mesmerism (I'm reading Winter's excellent book)? So for a long time claims were made to a 'magnetic power' - the magnetism transferring from the hands of the mesmerist to the subject. A lot of money in it from the gullible. But people, in rejecting this, did not see the auto-suggestion that we can see (i.e. hypnotism is a later category of understanding). Or psychoanalysis - #its a fraud#. Yet people certainly have hysterical symptoms (speaking personally, you understand). I think that it got far more problematic in the C20th - the quotidian is false. Our everyday sense of time, space, substance are all errors or misrecognitions even according to A-level physics. Where then would one find 'a fact'? In a children's book or unsophisticated religious text perhaps: nowhere serious.

For my parents (who do not live in London) the critical issue is the high driving/passenger position - with age and arthritis the low position of a normal car is very difficult to get in and out of. Perhaps along same lines, also greater visibility (even if at cost to visibility of others).

No it cannot be about function. That would mean it had an essence as being-for something in advance of the practice in which it was recognisable. There are no glasses, tables or ashtrays: we reify constellations of signifiers as things (here, as prototypes) and then tell children they are beings - 'get your elbows off my table or I will hit you' (I remember).

polyphagous

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > So which way is it Rendel? - it has to be agreed > by everyone (so includes say Ireland - who won't > want us punished) or actually just Germany & > France willing (maybe) and capable (probably ) of > taking that hit, in contrast? > > You are arguing both sides of a coin - the fact > that everyone has to agree potentially plays to > 'our' advantage too. There will be compromises is > my hunch. ???? I know I am dense and often misread your posts, but I really do not understand this at all. Of course there will be negotiations and attempted compromises after article 50. But Rendell makes the key point: try compromising when the many countries are themselves not one. So we will be going into a one way street when article 50 is triggered (there is no clause for reversal) where the outcome will be decided on whether the many EU countries agree to what May thinks she can satisfy Parliament (or perhaps just the electorate given that she seems no longer to believe in representative government) with. That does not look like a betting proposition to me, does it really to you?

???? I think that could work both ways. If the EU is as disunited as you say then them reaching what has to be a unanimous agreement on the article 50 terms looks like a pipedream. The legal side is clear: no unanimity no agreement and the UK just ceases to enjoy EU membership (free trade, customs union, everything) like it or not. For sure, some countries will want to be tender-minded, others tough: but it only takes one country to scupper the entire deal. As for the fiscal side, as you say it is out of control already. So an avalanche of promises to keep foreign companies here looks time inconsistent. With rising public borrowing it won't take much to provoke a sterling crisis, then rates shoot up and the government panics before a general election - prints money to avoid spending cuts. The soft side of the tory party always go for this. Add the not improbable rise in the oil price by then and ... Meanwhile BBC just running news update on marmite: the price has shot up by 12.5% at certain outlets (those of us who are wise virgins got stocks in a while ago, it has a shelf life of a couple of years). As Blair (wow, can I really be becoming a Blair supporter) says - perhaps there should be some mechanism for people to express regrexit.

According to The Times this morning the guarantees (secret but made in writing) are likely to have promised UK government subsidies for any tariff costs Nissan has to pay on their car exports from the UK post Brexit (an event that is still two years three months away). If we have to leave the customs union (after hardball by EU leaders and Belgian citizens) then that is quite a promise. Or is this a case of 'hard exit' talk and 'realistic exit' action? With the swivel-eyed section of the Tory party haven taken over the asylum I suspect its just desperation. In any case, it won't be the fiscal state of this government that is blown apart by what will have to be more and more of such promises now the precedent has been set, but of the next.

there seems to be a dodgy assumption here that WW2 has come to an end

mikeb Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What I would really like is one of these > > http://stephenwalter.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015 > /04/RIVERS-OF-LONDON-2014-2.jpg > > But they're just a bit more expensive ... There is a great one here of our noble borough including 'Dullidge'. But as you say ... http://www.tagfinearts.com/stephen-walter/southwark.html

I don't understand why these scams are not traceable. Why is it legal for firms to call me everyday? And why have those that gave them my name not been prosecuted? (I know how, but it should be if it is not already, illegal.) OK I can cope. But my very elderly parents CANNOT. It is like the banking scams. Banks could end these immediately (only transfer money to validated accounts, and then only at their own, not the customer's, risk.) Yet the regulatory authorities just go on about other things (today that they seem to have given up their inflation target). The technology is there and trivial. Yet nothing is done.

Yes, the technocratic solution (independent Bank of England, Fiscal Policy rules, Office of Budget Responsibility) produces a time-inconsistent policy - that is, the more it is hard-wired into the system as a set of rules (for an allegedly timeless good) the more the system falls apart over time. Most generally (well beyond economics), this was a major insight of Kant: "... a concept of the understanding, which contains the general rule, must be supplemented by an act of judgement whereby the practitioner distinguishes instances where the rule applies from those where it does not. And since rules cannot in turn be provided on every occasion to direct the judgement in subsuming each instance under the previous rule (for this would involve an infinite regress), theoreticians will be found who can never in all their lives become practical, since they lack judgement." I am so in awe of Kant!

A 'senior civil servant' last weekend was quoted as saying they 'are away with the fairies'. True dat.

No it isn't BS. Read Christopher Ricks for the academic judgement on Dylan. I know experts are ridiculed these days but Ricks is worth reading, and Dylan is worth renewed attention. Not that the Nobel prize committee is usually right!

Think I will remember this as the day people began to get a glimmer of the future. Most firms are at least partially hedged against the fall in sterling until early next year. After that ... Long term infrastructure projects boost the supply side, but they take decades (and often turn into white elephants). This potential is in any case already more than offset by the appalling anti-EU-worker rhetoric - as prices rise and wage demands grow there will simultaneously be a shortage of labour as the EU workers depart, raising wages further - these costs rising at exactly the same time as input prices for firms increase dramatically from the fall in sterling (about 20 to 25%). We have seen this before: it is always the state-ist wing of the Tories that inflicts this kind of madness (viz Barber in Heath's government) (there are of course other kinds of madness inflicted by the other wing). And this leaves out of the picture further rises in the oil price (not yet translated into petrol prices) and a greater downward spiral of sterling (particularly when the public finances are admitted). I think all politicians should be shown graphs of just how quickly inflation has spiralled out of control and so often in the UK since WW2 - each time we were told that it was not going to happen and everything was ok.

Sure there will be a power struggle between supermarkets and producers (general quality of life is surprisingly dependent on two multinational producers - I REALLY do not want to eat Tesco-brand-marmite, and I must have Hellman's not some substitute). There will also be room for serious contest here between Unilever and Proctor & Gamble. Of course the multinationals will win: Unilever only does 3% of its business in the UK it can leverage in a way Tesco would be very brave to try (prolonged empty shelves anyone?) And this is just the first round: think Tesco may have 'first mover disadvantage' here in game theory terms. But my real interest in the story is the populist reaction by some commentators that if the pound falls by 20% then imported produce should stay the same price - after all we got our country back and marmite is British so how dare they try to 'profit' from Brexit, these foreign companies need taking down a peg or too, so well done to Tesco for flying the flag! Meanwhile, see petrol prices.

It is also not unrelated to the Halloween frenzy that is already kicking off amidst the xmas (!) offerings that compete with it in the supermarkets at the moment. The link for me is the licence they both bring to turn the world upside down (I suspect why my parents never even mentioned Halloween - quite right too). If a (scary) clown is a disruption of norms of face-to-face interaction so is 'trick or treat' and the faces carved into pumpkins. In the anthro lit clown-like costumes are described as often adopted at key rites of passage - where one customary kind of identity has to give way to another (e.g. from childhood to adulthood - just as Halloween marks seasonal change). The scariest ones are in Bateson's brilliant book Naven if you want a few sleepless nights about what it means to be human. The point being that with us the social ordering of these things breaks down: in Halloween because of individualistic consumerism, with Clowns when they are taken out of the traditions of the circus and used as a way of intimidating people (with no ritual circumstances or justification attached).

Glad we both agree. I certainly apologise to you. In mitigation (only), the post thread topic.

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Er, i'm scratching my head here but isn't all that > fairly standard in most countries of the world - I > think most existing EU countries have something > similar; I think a US Green Card is similar - > unless you have completely free borders and free > movement that sounds pretty reasonable? I very much think that is what Amber Rudd thought before putting it in her briefing notes. Where's the harm in that? After all, we are leaving the EU and without compromise, so EU workers are now just 'alien' (despite them being here under Treaty). Then her brother - who objected strongly and in my view courageously to her language - had her 'scratching her head', and the Financial Times (oh those supporters of stupid cosmopolitan liberalism) published one of the most scathing leading articles today on her and May that I have ever read (where indeed is wealth created in the UK?) but she really thinks it is 'fairly standard', and (again, very perplexingly and they must just be stupid) foreign countries are widely reported (although not in the Daily Mail) as worrying what the f... is going on in the UK at the moment. And later today (oh, how I love politics) a government spokesperson (having presumably scratched their head) announces they have 'no intention' of doing anything at all that sounds so 'pretty reasonable'.

Jenny1 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think Rudd and May may be more authoritarian > than you suggest jaywalker They are certainly authoritarian-illiberal-statist-micro-managing-conservatives. One only has to look at the new IP Bill to be sure of that. But they are not authoritarian in the sense I used it in the post. > Also.... > > It has nothing to do with Brexit as such - the > > majority of those voting for Brexit are > perfectly > > sensible people > I disagree. I think that this (by which I mean the > new acceptability in political life of singling > out foreigners) has a lot to do with Brexit. Yes, Brexit has indicated to a cynical government that there are votes (and quite a lot of them) to be had by appealing to anti-immigration sentiments, including reactionary ones. It has excused all sorts of mischief. My point was that one cannot pin such sentiments on those who voted for Brexit per se - many perfectly sensible people voted for it (one can even be sensibly anti-immigration). I think we both disagree with the latter, but so what? What matters to me is isolating the appeal to the authoritarian and that is not a matter of Brexit as such.