This is important

C'est important, car il y a beaucoup d'opinions et politiques qui sont basées sur une conception erronée de la situation:

Nos dernières recherches suggèrent que la perte de gain lié aux enfants est un phénomène omniprésent dans tous les pays développés. Dans un article récent (Kleven et al. 2019a), nous présentons des données transnationales sur les pertes de gain dans six pays qui couvrent un large éventail de politiques et de normes : deux pays scandinaves (Danemark et Suède), deux pays de langue allemande (Allemagne et Autriche) et deux pays anglophones (Royaume-Uni et États-Unis). En utilisant des données comparables et une méthodologie similaire dans les six pays, l'analyse révèle des similitudes frappantes dans les effets qualitatifs des enfants, mais aussi des différences marquées dans l'ampleur de ces effets.

La figure 1 montre l'évolution des revenus totaux des hommes et des femmes sur le marché du travail au fil du temps, par rapport à l'année de naissance de leur premier enfant, au Danemark et en Suède, tant pour la mère que pour le père. Dans les années précédant la naissance du premier enfant, les revenus des femmes et des hommes suivent à peu près la même tendance, mais dans les années qui suivent la première naissance, les revenus des femmes diminuent de 30% au Danemark et de 60% en Suède. Alors que  l'effet d'avoir un premier enfant soit important pour les mères sur le marché du travail, l'impact sur les pères est soit inexistant, soit faible. Au Danemark, les revenus des pères restent essentiellement inchangés, tandis qu'une légère baisse de revenus après la naissance du premier enfant est observée chez les pères suédois. Cela pourrait refléter un congé parental plus généreux et/ou une incitation plus forte dans le système suédois pour les pères à passer du temps avec l'enfant lorsqu'il est encore très petit. Toutefois, la baisse des revenus des pères suédois est relativement faible et s'estompe rapidement avec l'âge du premier enfant.

En fin de compte, malgré le fait que la Suède et le Danemark ont mis en œuvre des politiques familiales progressistes au cours des dernières décennies, les résultats sur le marché du travail des mères par rapport aux pères dans les deux pays restent fortement pénalisant. Dans ces pays, la perte pour les femmes est d'environ 20-25% dix ans après la naissance du premier enfant.

https://voxeu.org/article/child-penalties-across-countries-evidence-and-explanations

https://voxeu.org/article/child-penalties-across-countries-evidence-and-explanations.

Our latest research suggests that child penalties are a pervasive phenomenon across all developed countries. In a recent paper (Kleven et al. 2019a), we provide cross-country evidence for child penalties in earnings for six countries that span a wide range of policies and norms: two Scandinavian countries (Denmark and Sweden), two German-speaking countries (Germany and Austria), and two English-speaking countries (the UK and US). Using comparable data and a similar methodology across all six countries, the analysis reveals some striking similarities in the qualitative effects of children, but also some sharp differences in the magnitude of the effects.

Figure 1 shows the evolution of total labour market earnings of men and women over time, relative to the year of birth of their first child in Denmark and Sweden, for both mothers and fathers. In the years up to the birth of the first child, female and male earnings follow almost the same trend, but in the years just after the first birth the earnings of women drop by 30% in Denmark and by 60% in Sweden. While the labour market effect of having a first child is large on mothers, the impact of fathers is either non-existent or small. In Denmark, fathers’ earnings remain essentially unchanged, while a small dip after the birth of the first child in earnings is observed for Swedish fathers. This could reflect more generous parental leave and/or a higher incentive in the Swedish system for fathers to spend time when the child is still very small. However, the dip in Swedish fathers’ earnings is comparably small and fades away quickly with the age of the first child.

The bottom line is that despite the fact that Sweden and Denmark have implemented progressive family policies over the past decades, a substantial penalty remains on the labour market outcomes of mothers relative to fathers in both countries. In these countries, the child penalty on earnings for women amounts to around 20-25% ten years after the birth of the first child.

Tenets of a viable 21st century conservatism

Je n'ai pas encore regardé la vidéo, mais j'aime bien déjà cette liste. (La vidéo est en anglais mais il y a moyen de mettre des soutitres - générés par ordi, donc ça vaut ce que ça vaut.)

Les principes d'un conservatisme viable pour le 21ème siècle

1. Les hypothèses fondamentales de la civilisation occidentale sont valides.

2. Une existence social paisible est préférable à l'isolement et à la guerre. En conséquence, cela exige  à juste titre un sacrifice de l'impulsion individuelle et de l'idiosyncrasie.

3. Les hiérarchies de compétence sont souhaitables et devraient être favorisées.


4. Les frontières sont raisonnables. De même, les limites à l'immigration sont raisonnables. En outre, il ne faut pas supposer que les citoyens des sociétés qui n'ont pas évolué des droits individuels fonctionnels fondés sur des principes politiques tiendront des valeurs conformes à ces politiques.

5. Les gens devraient être payés afin qu'ils soient capables et disposés à exercer des tâches socialement utiles et souhaitables.


6. Les citoyens ont le droit inaliénable de bénéficier du résultat de leur travail honnête.

7. Il est plus noble d'enseigner aux jeunes les responsabilités que les droits.

8. Il vaut mieux faire ce que tout le monde a toujours fait, sauf si vous avez des raisons extraordinairement valables pour faire autrement.

9. Le changement radical doit être considéré avec suspicion, en particulier lors d'un époque de changement radical.

10. Le gouvernement, local et distal, devrait laisser les gens vaquer à leurs occupations autant que possible.

11. Les familles biparentales hétérosexuelles intactes constituent le socle essentiel pour une politique stable.

12. Nous devrions juger notre système politique par rapport à d'autres systèmes politiques réels et non à des utopies hypothétiques.

Haven't watched the video yet, but I think I can get behind most of this:

Tenets of a viable 21st century conservatism

1. The fundamental assumptions of Western civilization are valid.

2. Peaceful social being is preferable to isolation and to war. In consequence, it justly and rightly demands some sacrifice of individual impulse and idiosyncrasy.

3. Hierarchies of competence are desirable and should be promoted.

4. Borders are reasonable. Likewise, limits on immigration are reasonable. Furthermore, it should not be assumed that citizens of societies that have not evolved functional individual-rights predicated polities will hold values in keeping with such polities.

5. People should be paid so that they are able and willing to perform socially useful and desirable duties.

6. Citizens have the inalienable right to benefit from the result of their own honest labor.

7. It is more noble to teach young people about responsibilities than about rights.

8. It is better to do what everyone has always done, unless you have some extraordinarily valid reason to do otherwise.

9. Radical change should be viewed with suspicion, particularly in a time of radical change.

10. The government, local and distal, should leave people to their own devices as much as possible.

11. Intact heterosexual two-parent families constitute the necessary bedrock for a stable polity.

12. We should judge our political system in comparison to other actual political systems and not to hypothetical utopias.

It's over ... C'est fini

A partir du 21 mai passé j'ai décidé que je m'en fous du CO2 et du réchauffement de la planète.

Puisque les Verts en Suisse ont réussi à faire passer leur loi pour fermer sans renouveler les centrales nucléaires, abandonnant ainsi un système qui produit de l'électricité sans CO2 à plus de 95% pour faire comme plutôt comme les Allemands qui sont maintenant à environ 50% de CO2 pour leur électricité - grâce au fameux Energiewende (EnergieEnde?).

Honnêtement, c'est comme le coup du diésel qui était censé être tellement mieux parce que ça produisait moins de CO2, mais 'oups' désolé, ça te tue ton monde tout de suite avec les NOx et les particules fines.

Déjà que la production ou non de CO2 par la Suisse n'y changerait rien au niveau mondiale, tellement on est petit, mais cette dernière votation me convainc que les Verts s'en foutent de l'environnement, et comme disait ce gars, c'est simplement des anticapitalistes, qui (c'est moi qui rajoute) veulent instaurer l'égalité par un appauvrissement forcé.

Et oui, je suis fâché, parce que j'ai fait des recherches, j'ai posé des questions, j'ai essayé (à mon niveau) de faire des calculs, et je crains très fort qu'on va dans le mur grâce à une politique du "on trouvera bien quelque chose".

 

On dit que les politiciens populistes entretiennent la menace extérieure pour mieux maitriser leur monde. Mais n'est-ce pas la même mentalité esclavagiste qu'on trouve chez les 'écolo'? Qui projète un désastre à venir après l'autre dans le but de contrôler nos comportements. Imaginez un instant que demain matin quelqu'un trouve un procédé qui neutralise complètement les déchets nucléaires. Vous croyez vraiment qu'on pourra arrêter de s'inquiéter? Non, c'est une question de croyance et de religion. Ils ont besoin de croire au désastre futur pour continuer à justifier leur désir de pouvoir sur les autres.

Et ben, moi je dis non, stop. Assez.

 

I officially no longer care about CO2 or global warming.

On Sunday, the Green agenda was voted-in here in Switzerland: they have decided to progressively shut down nuclear power stations without renewing them. And so we pass from a system which was producing more than 95% CO2-free electricity, to an unknown future which looks alarmingly like Germany, where their Energiewende has them producing more CO2 instead of less.

It's a bit like the diesel scam: so much more 'ecofriendly' because it produced less CO2, then "oops, soz everyone", it kills people straight away with NOx and particulates.

For starters, Switzerland is so (relatively) small that its CO2 production (or not) probably wouldn't even register on a global scale anyway. That is, we could return to the stone-age tomorrow and it wouldn't make the slightest difference. The potential consequences and inconsistencies of the plan we have voted in has convinced me that (as this guy says, in the original) Greens don't care about the environment, they're just an anti-capitalist front. They want to bring about equality by making everyone poor. By force.

Yes, I'm angry, because I've done quite a bit of research, asked questions, tried (as best I could) to do the sums, and I really fear we're heading for the cliff with politicians operating on the basis of "something will turn up".

They say populist leaders and dictators play up the threat of the external enemy to maintain power over their people. But isn't that the exact same mentality we find in Green-land? They predict one impending doom after another, and use that to justify dictating what everyone is allowed to do or not do. Just imagine that tomorrow morning someone came up with a cheap and safe solution to eradicate nuclear waste. Would they all say "phew" and get on with their lives (and let us get on with ours)? No, they need to continue to believe in future disaster in order to justify their desire for power over others.

I, for one, am getting off the merry-go-round.

Nuclear fear

Watch this.

No, go on, watch it, it'll only take few minutes.

Fundamentally, Greens don't like people.

About experts

There was a potent sound-bite in the Brexit campaign, about people having had enough of experts.

The experts and their acolytes are still choking on that one :)

But I've been thinking about this recently, because on the question of electricity generation, I rather am for listening to the experts (as you'll have gathered from yesterday's post, if you bothered to trawl through it).

So I was happy to come across this comment, where someone has expressed what I hadn't quite got around to thinking:

So… nobody who actually knows anything about, say, energy or industry or economics thinks it’s a good idea to carpet Britain with expensive, unreliable windfarms. But the ‘experts’ do.

Nobody in real life thinks it’s a good idea to replace the English with Somalis, Syrians and Sudanese. But The Economist says it’ll boost GDP by 1% and The Guardian says having our own country is racist so the ‘experts’ do.

Nobody who owns a map and remembered the Iraq war thought it was a good idea to attack Libya and turn it over to Islamic fanatics. But hey – ‘experts’!

The rest of the comment is worth a read, but slightly less politically correct, so you can click through if you're not going to be offended by further abuse of experts and their followers.

Votation 27 novembre

En 2015, les centrales nucléaires représentaient encore 33% de la production suisse. [1]

La clé pour comprendre
Pour qu’un réseau électrique fonctionne, il faut qu’à tout moment l’énergie qui rentre corresponde à l’énergie qui sorte. Puisqu’on ne peut pas piloter la demande, il faut adapter l’approvisionnement, au moyen de sources très réactives. [9]

Le défi de l’éolienne & du solaire
Les sources renouvelables sont intermittentes et fluctuent avec les saisons. Du coup à l’imprévisibilité de la demande s’ajoute l’imprévisibilité de l’approvisionnement.
Il faut donc avoir des sources d’énergie alternatives pour les jours calmes et gris, et également trouver un moyen de stocker les surplus de production. [6]

L’avantage de nos montagnes
La Suisse a une grande capacité de stockage hydroélectrique. Cependant, alors que cette capacité est suffisante pour lisser des variations journalières voire hebdomadaires, elle ne peut pas absorber des fluctuations mensuelles ou saisonnières. [3]

CO2
La Suisse fait figure d’élève exemplaire en Europe, avec seulement 4% de sa génération d’électricité provenant de sources émettrices de CO2 en 2015. [2]

Il sera très difficile, voire impossible, de remplacer les centrales nucléaires avec des sources uniquement renouvelables et non-émettrices de C02, que ce soit en Suisse ou importé de l’étranger. [4]

Importation d’électricité ‘sale’
Il est dit que la Suisse importe déjà de l’électricité ‘sale’. En effet, l’Allemagne s’est obligée à acheter en priorité l’électricité de ses sources renouvelables. [8] Cela la contraint à brader ses excédents de production à base de charbon à ceux qui ont des capacités de stockage. [7]

Economies d’électricité
Si tout le monde diminue sa consommation d’électricité de 1% (p.ex. débrancher les chargeurs), le besoin global de la Suisse diminuera de 1%. Autrement dit : presque rien.

Remplacer les voitures polluantes à CO2 par des voitures électriques va augmenter notre besoin d’électricité, et non le diminuer. Idem pour les transports publiques. On évoque aussi l’isolation des bâtiments : mais s’ils sont chauffés au mazout ou au gaz, cela n’économisera pas d’électricité.

C’est la faute aux riches !
Les centrales Suisses sont majoritairement propriété des cantons et communes. Ainsi les « barons du l'électricité » c’est nous. [5]

Forcer la main
La sortie du nucléaire suppose une augmentation massive du nombre d’éoliennes (par centaines) ; la sortie dans l’urgence nécessitera certainement des « court-circuit » aux procédures de consultation habituelles. [4]

Sources d’information
[1]http://www.bfe.admin.ch/themen/00511/?lang=fr
[2]http://www.bfe.admin.ch/php/modules/publikationen/stream.php?extlang=fr&name=fr_683280437.pdf (beaucoup beaucoup de statistiques informatives ici)
[3]http://www.bfe-gis.admin.ch/storymaps/WK_WASTA/index.php?lang=fr (selon mes calculs, environ 1500Gwh de pompage-turbinage mixte correspond à 25 jours de la production nucléaire en 2015)
[4]http://www.strom.ch/fr/energie/avenir-de-lelectricite.html (cette page présente 3 scénarios pour la sortie du nucléaire, mais attention il s'agit de la sortie pour 2050, et non 2029!)
[5]https://www.kernenergie.ch/fr/les-centrales-nucleaires-suisses-_content---1--1321.html
[6]https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89nergie_%C3%A9olienne
[7]https://clubenergie2051.ch/2016/07/11/debacle-de-lindustrie-electrique-suisse-et-transition-energetique-allemande/ (cette page est clairement pro-nucléaire, mais illustre la complexité des interrelations entre technique, politique et économique, et les interdépendances avec nos voisins)
[8]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Sources_Act#Renewable_Energy_Sources_Act_.282000.29 (in English, désolé)
[9]https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9seau_%C3%A9lectrique#.C3.89quilibre_production_-_consommation

Mais les risques ?
Si on croit vraiment que le problème est l’âge des centrales, il faudrait en construire des nouvelles.

Qui est apte à juger des risques de nos centrales et de la radioactivité ? Pas moi :

https://www.kernenergie.ch/fr/fragen-antworten.html

http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2016/04/26/30-years-since-chernobyl-and-5-years-since-fukushima-what-have-we-learnt/ (En anglais)

(Habiter à 80km d’une centrale nucléaire pendant un an expose à autant de radioactivité que manger une banane : http://xkcd.com/radiation/ - en anglais)

This weekend the Swiss are voting on whether to shut down their nuclear reactors extra fast (by 2029) rather than in 2050 as planned.

I'm agin, for all the reasons above.

Gngngng

I know next to nothing about negotiation, but I do know that you don't talk down your own side's chances before you've even started:

But Mr Fox was criticised by former deputy PM, now Lib Dem EU spokesman Nick Clegg. He said: "Liam Fox is delusional about the impact of Brexit on British trade with the rest of the world. Unbelievably, he claims to be 'taking an axe to red tape across borders'.

"The truth is that leaving the EU's customs union and single market will bring a deluge of new Brexit red tape down on the heads of British businesses who export to the continent."

Dear Mr Clegg, please pen your eyes, this is bigger than party politics, this is about your country.

You also avoid letting your adversary know what your bottom line is, so this:

ex-chancellor Ken Clarke, told the New Statesman Mrs May was running a "government with no policies" which has no idea how to carry out Britain's exit from the European Union

is equally dippy.

Interesting ... Intéressant

Dans les commentaires ici:

Cher UE,

Comme vous le savez, nous partons. Si vous avez besoin d'accès à notre marché intérieur, vous devrez nous donner accès à votre marché intérieur sans autres droits ou conditions. Nous ne paierons pas pour l'accès à votre marché intérieur et de même, nous ne vous facturons pas pour l'accès à notre marché intérieur.

Nos banques, comme vos banques, vont continuer à travailler comme avant, sans entrave.

Votre flotte de pêche ne pourra plus pêcher dans les eaux du Royaume-Uni, tout empiétement par un navire de l'UE, sera susceptible d'être coulé sans avertissement supplémentaire ou provocation.

Tout citoyen de l'UE qui gagne sa vie, non subventionné par l'Etat (assurances sociales) peut rester, des citoyens de l'UE sans emploi ou qui touchent des prestations devront quitter le Royaume-Uni. De même, tous les citoyens du Royaume-Uni dans les pays de l'UE pourront rester en place sur la base des mêmes dispositions que celles ci-dessus.

Cet accord est régi par la loi du Royaume-Uni, si vous ne l'acceptez pas, les règles de l'OMC seront applicables.

Cordialement, La nation souveraine du Royaume-Uni

Remainers in mourning stop reading now...

From the comments here:
Dear EU, 

As you are aware, we are leaving, if you require access to our internal market then you will need to allow access to you own internal market with no other rights or entitlements. We will not pay for access to your internal market and likewise, we will not charge for access to our internal market. 

Our banks, like your banks, will continue working as before, unhindered. 

Your fishing fleet will no longer be able to fish UK waters, ANY encroachment by ANY EU vessel will make it liable to be sunk without any further warning or provocation. 

Any EU citizen in GAINFUL, non-state subsidised (benefits) employment may stay, any EU citizens without a job or claiming any benefits must leave the UK. Likewise, any UK citizens in EU countries should be allowed to stay in place based on the same provisions as above. 

This agreement is governed by UK law, if you do not accept this the WTO rules will apply. 

Regards, The sovereign nation of the UK..

Euro & Brexit

Promis, des photos de vacances viendront bientôt!

Joseph Stiglitz on the Euro:

The euro was flawed at birth. Even the best policymakers the world has ever seen could not have made it work. The eurozone’s structure imposed the kind of rigidity associated with the gold standard. The single currency took away its members’ most important mechanism for adjustment – the exchange rate – and the eurozone circumscribed monetary and fiscal policy.

Another Guardian article on Brexit:

But in other respects, Brexit has been a help. It has forced the government to take a long, hard look at the British economy – something that would not have happened without the shock administered by the referendum. It’s brought home the fact that most of Britain feels disconnected from the economic story peddled by successive governments..

Guardian dissing Euro and talking up Brexit, who'd a thunk it?

(Normal service should resume shortly...)

Democracy, the sequel

Désolé, touours pas de traduction :)

OK, here we go, here we go, here we go. Last stretch before the big day!

Fasten your seatbelts, this is somewhere between stream of consciousness, brain-dump and random thoughts. There is not necessarily any connection between one paragraph and the next.

Concentration of power is dangerous, even if you like or trust the current holders of it.

Watch Brexit the movie, at least, or if you're more leftwards inclined, the Lexit movie. Guess which one talks about immigration? (Disclaimer, I stumped up $25 for the Brexit movie).

Unchecked, a bureaucracy will only ever grow, and beyond a certain size, it's main aim will be to maintain its own existence.

I find it astounding, disappointing, yet also profoundly encouraging that the level of discussion has been far more civil, reasoned, informative on private blogs than in the 'mainstream' media.

Here is an example of polite, gentle, faith-inspired (and conflicted) personal thoughts: My Brexit Frustrations.

On the topic of mainstream media, it has been pointed out that newspapers don't influence their readers, they publish what they think their readers want to hear. Here is a marvellous bit of Yes Minister on this topic.



Many of the 'experts' who are for remain also advised us to join the Euro back in the day (see Lexit video for that).

Broken promises: Forty years ago, those who warned that the Common Market was going to morph into something far more invasive were called prophets of doom.

On the subject of the Euro, the Eurozone, and what I said in my last post, the technical term to describe my train analogy is apparently 'optimal currency area'.

One argument I have read for Remain which seems incredibly weak to me is "getting out to save ourselves is selfish". Staying on a sinking boat is not selfless, it's stupid.

Which way do you think the Queen would vote, and why? (If you care)

Nearly all Remain arguments are anti-leave, but not pro-EU. This is disconcerting, and disappointing, as one of the big criticisms of Leave is that "nobody knows what will happen afterwards", and this is contrasted to a presumed stability if we vote to Remain. But the EU is not static either, and I don't think anyone can predict what is going to happen in the next 10 years if we stay in. Except that things aren't looking great.

On the subject of "what happens next", here is a Daniel Hannan article about a 'gentle' leave.

And here is Tim Worstall (not everyone's cup of tea): The economic truth about Brexit is really very simple. If we follow sensible economic policies after leaving then we’ll do well. If we follow stupid economic policies then we won’t. The major difference will be that we get to decide, after leaving, which economic policies we wish to pursue. And unless we think that we’re all so damn stupid that we need the European Union to tell us which is which, making our own decisions does sound rather better, doesn’t it?

It seems weird that TTIP and ISDS (a supra-national tribunal) are considered 'bad', but that the ECHR ECJ (a supra-national court) is considered 'good'.

Farage's immigrant poster seems very much like an own-goal to me. The other half piling on behind Jo Cox's murder is pretty low too.


I find it ironic that some of the people who have doubts about whether one can trust voters to do the right thing seem to simultaneously be basing their own decisions on what they don't like about particular faces in the campaign. If that's their version of democracy, I can understand their doubts... To me, the fact that many individuals are agonising over their vote, when statistically-speaking it will "make no difference" is a confirmation that democracy is not dead, nor useless, and it confirms my hope in my fellow democrats.

Reform in our time? I have read several people plaintively hoping that somehow staying in will provoke some kind of reform. 10'000 over-paid functionaries in Brussels says no, as far as I'm concerned. Systems never change unless forced to. And saying 'yes' is not force.

I feel that the Remain camp could also be branded as 'Little Englanders': they have managed to convince themselves that the UK is too puny to survive on its own (fifth largest economy in the world), and that we really need the EU. There is a sort of acquired helplessness which is also reflected in the general population. More than ever, western countries need an entrepreneurial "get up and go" attitude. Some people are warning that the "robots are going to take our jobs". If you are a factory worker, that is not new news. But for the middle class office drone, the next few years are going to be similarly uncomfortable. The days of big companies employing halls of office workers to do the same thing are going. Maybe big employers are just a historical 'blip', and we are heading into a time where people are going to have to be creative and not only create their own jobs, but invent whole new professions? Unfortunately "the government owes me a job" is so ingrained in our collective consciousness (mine included), I fear there's going to be a lot of pain ahead.

People ignoring, downplaying, ridiculing fears about immigration (whether job loss or 'cultural invasion') are playing with fire as much as people playing up those fears. You may consider this inflammatory, but the Cologne attacks were not a right-wing hoax, Rotherham did happen, Calderdale too. Explaining them away helps nobody.

Finally, for a bit of 'balance', here is a link to a video by a professor of EU law, who is totally Remain, because 'unpicking' forty years of lawmaking will just be too complicated. Very instructive, but made me think that this is a reason why democracy is better than technocracy: experts see everything through the lens of their own area of expertise. He maintains that regulations and standards are not about protectionism, I don't buy that: though I concede that they're not solely about protectionism. Another lawyer pulling the opposite way.

Yes Minister is really good:

Democracy

Désolé, un jour je ferai peut-être la version française!

(This is long, very long, much longer than I expected. Please make sure you're sitting comfortably!)

I'm not an expert on democracy. I mean, I don't get called up by the media to expound on the subject*. But I have thought about it quite a lot. And though this post is provoked by Brexit discussions, my thinking started way back, with the invasion/liberation of Iraq, and the 'Arab Spring'.

I haven't had time to form a coherent essay on the topic, so I'll just throw out some possibly interrelated musings. (Also, when reading, prefix everything here with 'I think, maybe'...)

-- Introductory aside --
One can base religions on how one thinks people should act. When discussing politics, it's better to start from how they do act. You might think it a good idea (I do) that people should have all things in common and freely share with their neighbours, both near and far. But if you're counting on them doing it voluntarily, you may have to wait a while. Also, people might say that they prefer buying British (or insert country of choice), but you may be disappointed to discover that, by and large, when given the choice, they'll buy cheapest (otherwise import tariffs would not be necessary...).
--------

Democracy is a culture, not a system. Maybe 'western' intentions were misrepresented in 2003: but the idea that one could just turn up in a country like Iraq and 'switch on' democracy, as if it was just a question of handing out ballot boxes, seemed crazy to me even at the time. I think democracy is more like a flower, it needs time to grow. That is, society needs to 'grow into' a 'democratic mindset'.

Because, to me the aim of democracy is not primarily deciding how to run your country, it's avoiding civil war. In that sense, the answer is less important than the process. Everything hinges on how the 'minority' will react to defeat. They need to be 'good losers'!

Maybe not a coincidence that the UK is the oldest democracy? :)
And unsurprising that some Arab nations might not be 'ripe' for democracy just yet...

But democracy also depends on how the majority treat society's losers. Richer Londoners may (grudgingly) concede to effectively footing the bill for the unemployed 'up North'. I'm less certain that Germany's 'hard workers' are so keen on part of their retirement funds going towards bailing out Greek pensioners.

Ultimately, this boils down to there being some kind of shared 'us' which can survive election defeats, and which is strong enough to stop redistribution seeming unfair (even though it may still be unpleasant). Thinking about it, this notion of 'us' is probably the thing that makes democracy 'non-switchable'. You may say that people should feel a common bond with all humanity, but that takes us back to my introduction.

For better or for worse, the closest (or largest) thing we currently have which looks like an 'us' is the much-reviled 'nation-state'. You may deplore this, and in future maybe things will change, but I doubt that things will go well if you try to impose that change from above.

And this is why 'mass' immigration is a problem. People saying it's about racism are being disingenuous, or they are genuinely out of touch. In the UK, in any case**. Obviously, on the street the biggest gripe you will here is about 'foreigners taking our jobs': I'm not going to go there for several reasons***, (but I think this guy's (7m10s) take on the situation is hilarious).

So, in my vision, it's not about what colour the foreigners are, it's about how fast they're coming in, and how fast they're integrating (de-foreignating). And that's not racist, it's nationalist (or culturist, or societist, whatever). Sorry if you think that's a rude word. People have big arguments about 'multicultural' society. To me the only multicultural society that can work is the one where individual people have multiple cultures (Pakistani/English, Swiss/English, Welsh/British), not the one where you have multiple cultural groups who adamantly stick to their separate identities.

You can argue to the cows come home about what 'integration' actually means, but at the end of the day it comes back to this shared notion of 'us'. If you don't want to learn the lingo, I don't think you should be voting (and this isn't racist either: I don't have much truck with English people here in Swissland who can't be bothered to learn French, and instead just talk louder English).

One reads that the EU project was designed to prevent wars, and that it has succeeded. I'm not sure how you could go about proving that correlation is causation there, but I'm (obviously) sceptical of such bold claims****. Sometimes proponents of this theory will concede that there was the war in Yugoslavia, but that was in Europe, not in the EU. Personally, I wouldn't draw attention to Yugoslavia. It was a 'common market', with a 'single currency', and that didn't stop them killing each other! In my simplistic world-view, their 'us' died (if it was ever really there in the first place).

Same thing in former African colonies which were cobbled together with rulers and pencils, but no regard for ethnic affinities, and were thus hobbled for the future.

So the 'Us' is my first, long-winded point, I guess.

The second is 'democratic weight': how much politician is my vote worth? In this regard, I'm increasingly influenced by my experience here in Swissland. In my medium-sized town of 11'000 people, my vote is worth 11'000th of a politician (well, it's more complicated than that, I have several votes for several seats, but you get the gist). That's pretty good, I feel like my vote makes a difference. If I try and get a meeting with the mayor, there's a chance I'll get a hearing (yes, I've tried), and the politicians are close enough that the population has an eye on them and if there are any shenanigans, there's a chance of it coming out. (As the saying goes: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer!). The politicians are also less likely to want to sell their actual neighbours down the river.

There is a question of 'democratic distance' too: how close to the 'top' do my votes go? In Swissland, at the national level, your vote is once-removed from the top governing body (two if you count the president of the Federal Council, but that changes annually and is largely symbolic). In the UK it's a definite two (and doesn't count the House of Lords). For the EU, it's a clear three (if I've correctly understood!).

So yes, I'm a localist, I guess. Decentralisation all the way. What can be done and decided locally should be, and what needs to be done collectively should be decided collectively. That's why I'm against moves to combine towns into larger agglomerations here in Swissland: representativity (hmm, spell checker doesn't think that's a word) is more important than efficiency or rationalisation.

There is an undercurrent of deep cynicism and distrust in politics on both sides of the Brexit debate, and elsewhere across the world. Some of it is surely merited, but I would tend to be a bit less harsh. I think that most people genuinely get into politics because they want to make things better, but they end up having to project more confidence and competence than they actually have. This is another reason to be a localist: I'm sceptical that anyone really knows how to run a country (let alone a continent!)

Conversely, I find the distrust of 'the people' (and by extension, democracy) even more worrying. And it's clearly something that drives 'the people' crazy: suggesting that they will (or have) voted 'wrong'. I sometimes wonder what to think about a (hypothetical) politician who does what the people want as opposed to what he thinks is right: filthy populist, or ultimate democrat?

Does that mean that the people will always vote 'right'? Well, probably not, by my definition of right, but the majority will accept the result, because they voted for it, and if there is enough 'us' the minority will accept that, well... better luck next time.

Can the people be trusted? Again, Swissland influences me here: with more direct democracy than anywhere else, it is interesting to observe that people don't generally vote on the basis of immediate self-interest (I mean, they've voted against extra holidays, and just this month against a universal basic income). Of course places with less frequent votes are more exposed to the risk of protest votes: obviously to my mind that's not a symptom of too much democracy, but not enough!

Some of this is only tangentially related to the in/out remain/leave debate, but it was useful to me to try and get some of these things out of my head...

So what about Brexit? Based on the above, you can probably guess which way I am inclined, but you hopefully also understand why. But I'll throw in a few further thoughts:

- Some of the cases for remain seem to be inspired by a very anti-British, pessimistic, post-colonial-guilt complex: ironically, though leavers get accused of being 'Little-Englanders', it would seem that it is remainers who haven't actually travelled enough. Because most of the foreigners I've met genuinely admire the English (or British, they have trouble working out the difference, sorry). They can't get over the creativity, love the sense of humour (though they don't always get it), and are even a bit jealous sometimes. Yes, they belly-ache about us being different and difficult, and 'insular', but generally, they have a higher opinion of us than we do of ourselves.

- Look at what the EU is doing to Greece. You can moralise about them being a lazy bunch of wasters, but the Greek people are being sacrificed in order to 'save' the Euro. And the economic situation is blocked in a political stalemate where Greece can't possibly pay off their debts, but the rest of the Eurozone can't do the obvious thing and forgive the debts, because that would mean admitting to their populations that yeah, they splurged all their money, and it's never coming back.

- Since before the introduction of the Euro, I already had a rather sceptical, engineer's view of things. It seemed to me that having a single currency across disparate economies was a bit like welding the carriages of a train together. Wonderful until you get to the first bend! Right now the Eurozone is  also blocked in political stalemate: to make it 'work' would mean 'ever further integration' to harmonise their economies, but that would mean Germans continuing to bail out most of the South of Europe. T'ain't gonna happen. And the other way is backwards, and no EU-politician wants that to happen on their watch. The future is not looking good.

- I haven't seen any UK explanations of why people are queuing in Calais to get out of the EU. When I asked some French friends, they said it was obvious: no ID cards. In France, if you get stopped and can't show valid ID, you're in trouble. In the UK once you're in, you're in. That's not an argument against taking in refugees, but it's just to point out that the continental and UK 'systems' are very different. Which makes things like Schengen much more complicated. I've read stuff about differences with UK common law too, but know next to nothing about that, I'm afraid.

- Turkey. Sure, they're not even 'close' to getting in (according to pro-EU sources), but I honestly don't see why they're on the waiting list. That's stretching the 'us' a bit too far.

- I've read complaints that leavers, apart from leaving, don't have a coherent plan for 'what happens afterwards'. I think that's a valid concern, though I'd phrase it differently: I think they don't have a single plan, but I think there are probably several coherent ones. But the point is that we get to decide which one we want. (Referendum aside, the remainers don't have much in common either).

- Many of the remainer texts I've read seem to take a particularly dim view of our own politicians, while being prepared to suspend judgement about EU politicians (and bureaucrats). The 'lefty' types seem to count on the EU to protect us from own right wing government, or our own stupid plebs. This seems risky to me: if the likes of Orban, Le Pen, Wilders and AFD get in, will they suddenly start 'defending' us from a future Labour government? And as for 'stupid plebs': you already know what I think about that!

- On EU standards. This is an area to which I've had some 'professional exposure', and have had conversations with people who've been on standards committees, who were incredibly scathing about the process, the costs, and the underlying aim - which is much more about protecting the big European companies from smaller (or foreign - i.e. Chinese) competition - than it is about protecting consumer interests. And each country will happily stitch things up in their own favour.

Of course, if protectionism is your kind of thing, you might like that...

-----
Having said all that (are you still there?)... remainers rejoice! I've been away too long to be allowed to vote. And honestly I think it's quite right that it's the people living in the country who should decide on their future.

That's democracy, after all :)

* Pretty close to a contemporary definition of expert, I think)
** OK, maybe it's me that's out of touch, but 30 years ago we had a 'n___r' (that term was already out-of-bounds) and several 'p_k_s' (wasn't yet out of bounds) in our class, and of course they got 'abuse' for being 'different', but it was the typical school fare which was equally meted out to all difference (gingers, swots, etc.). In fact I think that meant we were already coming out of the other side of racism - we'd gone past the phase of "don't touch them, it's racist". Thirty years ago.
*** Starting with the fact that I am a 'foreigner' taking "someone's job" :)
**** Actually, I think there's a pretty good case to be made for 'peace through prosperity', though whether the EU was the source of prosperity or just a beneficiary is a moot point...

Craig Murray

Craig Murray has some (what I would consider) wacky points of view, but over the years that I've been following his blog, I have formed the definite impression that he is honest, honourable and not corrupt.

His witness statement thus makes for a rather depressing read.

Disabled workers should be paid more ... Les employés handicapés devraient être payés davantage

Un exemple merveilleux de comment les choses ne sont pas aussi évidents qu'on croirait:

Il ne faut surtout PAS le faire ! Ma sœur est handicapée mentale en raison d'un accident d'enfance (cela aurait été une mort subite, s’il n’y avait pas un médecin en visite chez nous ce soir-là); elle peut fonctionner et elle peut travailler, mais elle a la capacité mentale d'un enfant de 12 ans.

Dans le bon vieux temps où le Royaume-Uni avait encore des gens capable de réfléchir au Parlement il n'y avait pas de problème; elle avait un emploi où elle balayait dans un supermarché et remplissait les étagères. Bien sûr, elle faisait quelques erreurs et avait besoin de surveillance, mais c’était très bien pour le supermarché puisqu’elle ne gagnait pas beaucoup, et ne pas beaucoup gagner allait très bien pour elle aussi car elle n’était pas là pour l'argent, mais pour le sentiment de bienêtre, d’être en compagnie avec des collègues et le sentiment général de «normalité» qui lui donnait de la fierté à se lever tous les matins, mettre son uniforme et aller au travail.

Puis tout a changé. Certains ‘guerriers de la justice sociale’ aveugles ont décidé que c’était de la discrimination et devait cesser; il y avait une campagne où d'autres personnes qui avaient semble-t-il le même niveau intellectuel que ma sœur ont signé diverses pétitions et, en un rien de temps, le gouvernement avait succombé à la folie collective et a aboli l'exemption de salaire minimum.

Pour résultat le supermarché ne pouvait plus se permettre ce travail lent, les erreurs et la supervision nécessaires pour une personne gagnant son nouveau salaire et a dû la renvoyer. Maintenant, ma sœur gagne moins que ce qu'elle gagnait avant (son allocation d'invalidité couvre encore ses frais de subsistance, mais maintenant elle ne peut pas aller au local boire un verre le vendredi avec l'argent de poche qu’elle gagnait avant). Le cout pour le gouvernement est resté le même (ou peut-être légèrement augmenté car je pense qu'ils compensent une partie de cet argent de poche contre son allocation). Mais surtout ma sœur, au lieu de se sentir utile, de faire un travail et de se mélanger avec des ‘gens normaux’, est devenue une personne handicapée mentale déprimée, sans emploi, avec aucun sens de soi et dont la seule interaction avec les ‘gens normaux’ est quand elle passe aux caisses à son ancien emploi, et avec les bénévoles  du centre communautaire.

Je n’en veux pas au supermarché pour tout ça – ce n’est pas le travail de leurs actionnaires de maintenir l'emploi pour tous; il est de notre devoir, en tant qu'êtres intelligents et sociaux, d'assurer que nous offrons la meilleure vie possible pour les moins bien lotis. N’importe quel abruti aurait pu prévoir que cela se produirait; mais malheureusement les gens que nous nous infligeons lors des élections ne sont même pas assez intelligents pour être des abrutis.

(dans les commentaires ici)

A wonderful example of things not being as 'obvious' as they seem:

This absolutely MUST NOT be done. My sister is mentally handicapped due to a childhood injury (near cot death, only saved as a doctor happened to be staying with us that night); she can function and she can work but effectively has the mental capacity of a 12 year-old.

In the good old days when the UK had people with the capacity for intellectual thought in Parliament there were no problems; she had a job sweeping the floors of a supermarket and stacking shelves. Sure, she made a few mistakes and needed supervision but that was fine for the supermarket as she wasn’t earning much and not earning much was fine for her as she wasn’t in it for the money as it was the sense of well-being, the companionship of being with co-workers and the overall feeling of “normality” that gave her the pride to get up every morning, put on her uniform and go to work.
Then it all changed. Some mindless SJW decided that this was discrimination and needed to be ended; there was some campaign where other people with apparently similar brain function to my sister signed various petitions and, before we knew it, the government had succumbed to the collective insanity and abolished the minimum wage exemption.

The net result was that the supermarket could no longer afford the slow work, the mistakes, and the supervision required for someone earning her new wage and she had to be let go. Now my sister earns less than she did (her disability allowance still covers her living costs but now she can’t go down to the local for a drink on a Friday with the pin money she previously earned). The cost to the government has stayed the same (or increased slightly as I think they offset some of that pin money against her allowance). But most importantly my sister has turned from feeling like a useful member of society, doing a job and mixing with “normal people” to a depressed mentally handicapped person, with no job, no sense of self-worth and whose only interaction with “normal people” are the workers at the checkout at her former job and the people who help out at the local community centre.
I do not blame the supermarket for this at all – it isn’t their shareholders’ job to maintain employment for all; it is our job, as intelligent and social beings, to ensure that we provide the best possible life for the unfortunate. Any moron could tell that this would happen; but unfortunately the people who we inflict upon ourselves when voting aren’t even intelligent enough to be morons.

(from the comments here)

Not correct, but...

Brexit

Vidéo en anglais, mais possible de demander des sous-titres en français en cliquant sur le premier des 4 icônes en bas à droite.

Les grosses entreprises adorent - et participent - à l'élaboration des lois et normes toujours plus nombreuses, car c'est le moyen idéal de tenir la concurrence (petits et/ou étrangers) à l'écart. Une forme de protectionisme qui prétérite le consommateur qui a ainsi moins de choix et doit payer plus cher.

Incidentally, this is why most big business is in favour of remain: they've already spent the money on compliance, and they also have people at the table making up the new regulations (yes, once they've finished one set, they start on the next). And all of this is a perfect (though underhand) form of protectionism: keeping the competition at bay. But obviously making the consumer poorer.

Give me your poor ... Terrible

Les photos de ce pauvre enfant mort sur la plage ont secoué le monde.

Suffisamment pour que les gens perdent la tête et tout perspectif.

Comme disait l'autre: "Si un père ici risquait la vie de ses enfants de la sorte, il se trouverait en prison et on lui enlèverait la garde des autres".

Mais il ne faut pas juger, parce qu'il fuyait la guerre en Syrie.
Sauf que c'était pas en Syrie, c'était en Turquie.

Vous n'avez certainement pas vu cet interview (avec la tante du garçon qui explique qu'ils avaient pondu ce plan de passer en Europe pour pouvoir faire soigner les dents du papa plus vite). C'est possible que la vidéo soit fausse. Mais c'est possible que tout soit faux, c'est ça qui est terrible.

Il y a beaucoup de façons de voir cette histoire. Ce que je ne comprends pas c'est pourquoi on s'est pas précipité tout au début pour accueillir les chrétiens persécutés de la Syrie et de l'Irak. Maintenant ça a tellement traîné que non seulement beaucoup ont péri, mais on ne peut plus distinguer entre les gens qui fuient la violence, les terroristes infiltrés, et ceux qui cherchent simplement à améliorer leur sort dans la vie.

Ce qui me semble évident c'est qu'on devrait prendre les réfugiés qui ont fait les choses dans l'ordre, et non ceux qui rentrent de façon illégale, dangereuse (et parfois violente). Et très honnêtement, je ne suis pas un 'multiculturalist', alors je trouve que quand le premier ministre slovaque dit "on prendra les chrétiens", c'est plein de bon sens, même si c'est ultra-pas-politiquement-correcte.

J'ai demandé à des amis français pourquoi ils pensaient que les réfugiés cherchaient si désespérément à sortir de la France pour aller en Angleterre - ce n'est pas comme si ils sont en danger mortel de vie en France. La réponse évidente (qui m'avait échappé) c'est qu'en France il y a des cartes d'identité, et si tu ne l'as pas, tu peux te faire débouter. Tandis qu'en Angleterre, une fois que t'es dedans, t'es bon.

Ce qui ne veut pas dire que je sois pour les cartes d'identité. Simplement pour des contrôles plus sérieux à la frontière.

Une chose qui m'a beaucoup remis en question c'est cette pensée: "Oui, mais ils doivent quand même être désespérés pour risquer leur vie dans ces bateaux?" Et je le pense encore, mais j'ai vu dernièrement ce reportage: Risquer sa vie pour éviter l'ennui "Il admet que sa situation n'est pas du tout désespérée. Il a un travail, même si ce n'est pas très bien payé, comme securitas, et il a un endroit pour se loger. Il n'est pas quotidiennement en danger mortel".

Puis il y a risquer sa vie pour se faire refaire les dents...

Mon cerveau a de la peine à assimiler.

Mais c’est important de faire travailler mon cerveau, car ici c’est une situation où n’écouter que son cœur peut vraiment faire des dégâts.

"Bien sûr, on est tenté de dire: ‘Qu’importe la définition stricte de réfugié. Si quelqu’un fuit la misère et la brutalité, et veut travailler, qu’il reste.’

Mais pensez où ça peut mener. Il y a des dizaines de millions, voire des centaines de millions en Afrique et au Moyen Orient qui viendraient.

Aucun pays ne pourrait assumer un nombre pareil." (Dan Hannan)

Hier, il y eu un énorme vote ‘en ligne’ pour pousser le gouvernement britannique à ‘faire quelque chose’. Ca m’a rappelé un peu l’église, où les gens disent souvent que "l’église" devrait faire quelque chose. Mais généralement, quand il s’agit de le ‘faire’, on découvre qu’il n’y a personne. Il n’y a pas d’église, il y a que des gens, des familles, vous et moi. Et si tout le monde dit "c’est notre responsabilité" et personne ne dit "c’est ma responsabilité", il ne se passera rien. Honnêtement, je pense que le vote aurait été plus crédible si les gens avaient dû payer en amont.

Est-ce qu’ils pourront loger chez vous ? Pour combien de temps ? A vos frais ?

Si ton ‘empathie’ ne va pas plus loin qu’un clic de souris, franchement… je ne sais pas quoi dire, mais peut-être que tu devrais la fermer aussi :)

Trois liens intéressants :

Qui est mon prochain ?
"Les six pays du Golfe : Qatar, les Emirats unis, l’Arabie Saoudite, Kuwait et Bahreïn, ont proposé zéro places pour des réfugiés syriens" - (Amnesty International)

La face cachée de l’empathie de Merkel ?
"L’Allemagne a un autre attitude vis-à-vis des migrants que le Royaume Uni parce qu’elle a vraiment besoin de gens, n’importe qui, pour boucher le trou de sa crise démographique" - (Britain in numbers)

C’est la faute à qui, pour finir ?
"L’Occident n’est pas coupable du chaos au Moyen Orient, c’est notre faute à nous ! Nous sommes des gens assoiffés de vengeance, prêts à verser le sang des autres pour des raisons idiotes. Le fait que vous n’ayez pas réussi à nous empêcher de nous détruire nous-mêmes n’est pas votre faute ! Nous sommes compliqués et difficiles à gérer ! Comprenez au moins ça !" - (Rita Malik)

The photos of that poor child have rocked the world, apparently.

Sufficiently for lots of people to lose their heads and all perspective.

As someone pointed out on a site I read: "If a father risked his children's life like that in the UK, he'd be prosecuted and any other children would be taken into care."

But one mustn't judge, as they were escaping from war-torn Syria.
Except it wasn't Syria, it was Turkey.

You probably didn't see this interview anywhere (for those who haven't got the time, it's the child's aunt explaining that they hatched the plan of trying to get into Europe so the father could get his teeth fixed). I guess it might be a hoax. But then all of it could be.

There are so many ways to look at this. What I don't understand is why we weren't falling over ourselves to take in persecuted Christians from Iraq and Syria from the very start. Now the thing has festered so long that not only many of them have perished, but there is a situation where there is no easy way to tell the difference between people genuinely fleeing hardship, proto-terrorists, and simple chancers.

What seems obvious to me is that we should be taking the refugees who've done things by the book, not the ones who are entering illegally and dangerously (and sometimes violently). And quite honestly, I'm not a multiculturalist, so the Slovakian PM saying "we'll take the Christians" seems totally reasonable to me, even though it is totally non-PC.

I asked some French friends recently how come refugees were so desperate to get out of France and into the UK - it's not as if they're in danger in France ("France has a great many problems, but it is not a state where someone might have a well-founded fear of persecution" - Dan Hannan), and what about that lovely welfare state? The obvious answer (except that I hadn't thought of it) is that in France they have ID cards. And if you don't have an ID card, they can chuck you out. In the UK, once you're in, your in.

Note that this doesn't make me more in favour of ID cards, just more in favour of adequate border controls...

One thing that kind of swayed me in this was the thought: "Well, yes, but how desperate must you be to risk your life?". And I still mostly think that, but then you get reports like this (from the BBC no less): Risking death at sea to escape boredom "He admits his situation is far from desperate. He has a job, albeit a low paid one, as a security guard and a roof over his head. He does not fear for his life on a daily basis."

Or risking death at sea to get your teeth fixed.

I find that difficult to get my head round.

But it is important to try and get my head round, because this is something where just listening to your heart could go very wrong.

"There is a part of us, of course, that says: ‘Never mind the strict definition. If someone is running away from brutality and misery, and wants to work, let him stay.’ 

But think through the implications. There are tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, in Africa and the Middle East who would then make the journey.

No country could cope with numbers on that scale." (Dan Hannan again)

Yesterday, seeing the big push on the UK government voting site, where 300'000 people voted for the UK to 'do something', I was reminded of church, where people also often say that 'the church' should do something. But generally, when it comes to 'doing' it, one discovers that - to paraphrase Maggie Thatcher - "there's no such thing as church". There's just people, families, you and me, and if everyone says "it's our responsibility" but no-one says "it's my responsibility", then nothing is going to happen. Quite honestly, I think that vote would have been more credible if it had happened on Kickstarter, where people have to put their money where their mouth is.

Can they stay in your house? And for how long? And who's paying?

If your 'empathy' doesn't extend further than clicking on a link... well... I have no words, but you should probably shut up too :)

Three mildly related links you might be interested in:

Charity starts at home... or not?
"The six Gulf countries - Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain - have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees." - (Amnesty International)

A sneak peek into Merkel's motivation?
"Germany has a different position on migrants than the UK because it desperately needs people, any people, to plug the huge hole left by its demographic crisis." - (Britain in numbers)

Whose fault is it anyway?
"The West is not at fault for the chaos in the Middle East, we Middle Easterners are! We are the ones who have a bloodlust and long to shed each other’s blood for silly reasons. Your “failure” to stop us from destroying ourselves IS NOT YOUR FAULT!! We are a confusing and hard to deal with lot! Please get that!!" - (Rita Malik)

Jimmy Saville

For some reason, recent reading has led me to the story of Jimmy Saville.

It now seems to be generally accepted that he was a sex monster, but some doubt has been sowed in my mind by reading off the beaten path.

It is interesting that the modern mind seems to be taken in by the thought that sheer volume of allegations compensates for lack of evidence. A bit like if you add enough zeros you'll eventually get a number.

The idea is "all those people independently saying the same thing can't be making it up". Which is probably the opposite of the truth. If all those people had already read or seen reports of what 'that horrible man' had done, any making up most likely would be similar.

Except that it seems they aren't all saying the same thing: he seems to be variously accused of abusing young boys, young girls, teenagers, women, people in wheelchairs, pensioners, and even dead bodies. In public, in private, in hospitals, in cars, in dressing rooms. (I won't enumerate the different kinds of sex acts, you can go and Google those for yourselves)

So there is clearly a pattern there (irony).

This of course still leaves a nagging doubt: how come so many people would spontaneously come forward with these accusations? They can't just be in it for the kicks.

Well they could be, but the thing is, apparently they didn't come forward spontaneously, the police went looking for them. And this is not new:

Detective Superintendent John Robbins, of the Merseyside police, has described this new kind of investigation as ‘the reverse of normal police methods’. Instead of starting from a crime and setting out to find the criminal, the trawling procedure starts with the suspect (or an allegation) and then attempts to find the crime. Police officers trace and interview former residents of care homes and, during these interviews, more evidence against the original suspect, or against other care workers, almost unfailingly emerges. 

Note also that these people are probably aware (if the police don't directly inform them), that there is money to be made from this.

Generally I can spot 'conspiracy theorists' websites from a mile away. Black backgrounds, wildly changing fonts, miles of text mostly repeating itself, deviations from the main subject into half-associated weird affirmations about an unspecified 'them'. This blog definitely doesn't fit the pattern. If you've got the time, read this four-part series, then sit back and try to work out what you really believe.

Susan's story - Part 1
Susan's story - Part 2
Susan's story - Part 3
Susan's story - Part 4

In life (as much as I can judge by TV appearances) he clearly had an eccentric persona. But I suspect that the 'I always knew he was a baddun' is retrospective re-interpretation. So, it may well be that he was up to no good, but accepting unsubstantiated accusations just because "doubting sex-abuse victims just adds to their trauma" is not good justice.

And then they came for Cliff Richards!