Map o' the Day

Zooming in on the capital...

David Cameron, whose family surely wouldn't have any of their millions hidden away in tax-havens, will be addressing this any day now.

And yes, the actual map is interactive and searchable (sadly only by address), if you want to see properties down to the level of individual flats & parking-spaces, and which shell-companies based in which countries or territories, which as the Eye points out may or may not be tax-havens, own them.

Better a screenshot of this address perhaps, than some random flat owned improbably by a company in Liberia.

Though the Channel Islands, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong, Seychelles, and the like sure do seem to own a remarkable amount of property in London, for what are surely, entirely normal legitimate reasons.

Tony, Tony, Tony

Wait, Tony Blair actually admitted to being wrong about something ?  That can't be right, surely ?  That Tone ?  Our Tone ?  That lying corrupt egotistical pile of human excrement ?  Never.

Tony Blair has admitted his government made a "mistake" by failing to do enough to ensure that devolution of powers to Scotland did not undermine the United Kingdom's national identity.

The former Prime Minister insisted that he still believes he was right to create national assemblies in Edinburgh and Cardiff in 1999, arguing that resisting demands for the devolution of power would have stoked up demand for outright independence.

Bullshit !  There was more no urgency for devolution specifically in your time than there was for reform of the Lords, and your response to the one was as cack-handed as the other.  As always, you were looking more to your own legacy as the great reformer, seeking to re-make British 'democracy' in your own image than you were thinking through the long-term consequences of your actions.  In the case of the Lords, you could have left things as they were, could have engaged in a long-term review of the options available, could have respected the consistent will of the electorate for an elected House.  But no...Tony knew best as always, and so the great overcrowded House of Political Cronies was born.

If you wanted to a) deflate the movement for independence in Scotland*, and b) address the broader concern of lack of representation across the UK** (including in England) by the ever Home County-centred government in Westminster, you could have come up with a plan for more regional and citywide devolution.  Instead of which, you completely ignored the English question, which has led us today to this EVEL nonsense, whilst you established 'national' assemblies in Scotland and Wales based upon largely arbitrary borders dating back to Norman times.  And then what ?  At best, perhaps you could buy the unionists some time whilst you re-thought a broader strategy...

But, in a new book entitled British Labour Leaders, he acknowledged that he did not understand at the time the importance of maintaining cultural unity between the different parts of the UK.

You didn't have any strategy, whatsover, did you ?  You created 'national' assemblies, and what, you thought they would tire of power after a few years and beg Westminster to re-absorb their responsibilities ?  That the Scots & Welsh seeing functioning assemblies governing over their respective 'nations' wouldn't beg the obvious question, why not more powers ?  Why draw the line here and not there ?  Why be governed by an unresponsive body tucked away in the furthest regions of Southeastern England at all ?

His admission came after a new poll, published almost a year after the referendum, showed for the first time a majority of Scots would support independence if another vote was staged now.

Don't fuckin' blame 'em !  Especially after how they were treated not just by the increasingly fascistic 'Conservative' party, but also by members of yer so-called 'Labour' party in the last election.

...Mr Blair admitted in his 2010 memoirs that he was “never a passionate believer” in devolution and he always thought creating a Scottish Parliament was a dangerous path.

Yes, yes it was.  Arsehole.

...Mr Blair said: "I did feel that we made a mistake on devolution. We should have understood that, when you change the system of government so that more power is devolved, you need to have ways of culturally keeping England, Scotland and Wales very much in sync with each other.

“We needed to work even stronger for a sense of UK national identity. But I don't accept the idea that we should never have done devolution. If we had not devolved power, then there would have been a massive demand for separation – as there was back in the 60s and 70s."

Funnily enough, people who are part of the same country, with the same basic culture, speaking the same language, and with a strong shared history, including shared sacrifice in war, tend to develop a pretty decent shared identity...until nationalist radicals seek to divide them, and find their efforts enabled by incompetent overconfident ego-mad politicians.  Politicians have many ways of dividing people, but building up cultural identity artificially from your spindoctors' offices in London...not so easily done.

Aw, feck it !  I wish the eventual independent Republic of Scotland well.  And Wales too, if they go that way.  Blair, Brown, Cameron, and their ilk, on the other hand can go fuck themselves.


* Not that I believe for one moment you respected the absolute right of the Scots to independence if that be their choice.

** Nor that you ever gave a damn about that issue either, given your consistent anti-democratic decisions.

Does the Grauniad Only Exist to Piss Off Non-Wankers ?

So, a British Olympian tweeted his disappointment in the new kit for the Brits...

Well this isn't right... Where's the Union Jack!?!? @BritAthletics (this is the kit for worlds) pic.twitter.com/RAVoi6yRex

— Greg Rutherford (@GregJRutherford) August 13, 2015

I was inclined to agree with him, especially given the inclination of the government to shit over both the flag and other traditional designs in recent years.  And given the recent (although increasingly due to DC & Co., sadly seemingly temporary) vote on Scottish independence, why not celebrate the flag ?  But no biggie, really.

So, how does the Graun. respond to this shit ?  Why by having some asshole shit all over not just 'Team GB's kit, but the Union Flag itself...of course...As one does.

The trouble with the United Kingdom’s flag, when you come to think about it, is that it is really quite ugly. I have every sympathy for the designers who removed it from the British athletics team’s vests for the imminent World Athletics Championships in Beijing. Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford has complained that “it isn’t a British kit any more” because it hasn’t got the union flag, but the decision makes sense aesthetically. The new vest is an elegant flowing dance of red, white and blue – the flag’s colours, remember – and has Great Britain written on it in big letters. It just doesn’t have that jagged, explosive, aggressive flag.

So, your problem with the Union Flag is an aesthetic one, right ?

I don’t mean the union flag is aggressive because it embodies an imperial arrogance or a coercive union that keeps Scotland in its place. No, it just looks as if it does.

Nothing to do with divisive politics then...Go on, do say...

Look at it, if you can bear to. With its cluttered burst of both right-angled and diagonal radiating lines, the British flag is heavy and overbearing, forceful and strident. On a battlefield it would make sense. Sure, this virulent standard served to rally regiments at the Battle of Waterloo. But today? At sporting events? It looks crap. Instead of suggesting unity, its sharp-angled divisions imply fragmentation. In fact, the relentless dynamism of its design evokes the shock and shatter of a cannon ball smashing into a French ship at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Who wants a dynamic flag, with any sense of urgency or purpose, huh ?  And those 'sharp-angled divisions' sure as hell put me in mind of a 'cannon ball smashing into a French ship at the Battle of Trafalgar'...wait, you meant that as a...bad thing...right ?  So, anyway, go on with your aesthetic critique...

This was fine when Britain ruled the waves but its military hysteria makes no sense nowadays. To see how visually repellent* the union flag really is you just have to contrast it with a truly great national flag, that of the United States. The American flag is beautiful, as the artist Jasper Johns saw very clearly when he made one out of collage and waxy paint. The stars and bars** are soothing and reassuring to look at. Those layers of repeated lines have a quality of minimalist art, although they date from long before such art was invented. Perhaps America’s flag has had a hidden influence on all its art movements, not only on Johns. The bars hang there in harmony and peace, and the stars float majestically in their blue ether.

You.Have.Got.To.Be.Shitting.ME.!!!  The American flag, scraped hastily together out of scraps of its own forebear ?  That stripey-assed Waldo-esque remnant of centuries past ?  I'll acknowledge that there are in fact worse flags...by far...but, as a symbol of the supposed leader of the free world, the US flag is a joke.  I could take your argument seriously if you acknowledged just about any other iconic flag but that one...

...The same goes for the French tricolour, another of the world’s most attractive flags. Its simple rectangles of colour are bold but beautiful. No wonder it has been imitated by so many other nations in varying colours.

Erm, yes.  Yes, indeed.

You don’t see many other countries imitating the British flag.

Wha...wha...what ?  Never mind how many flags explicitly incorporate the Union Flag directly, such as a certain US state, or are otherwise symbolically based upon elements of the Union Flag, such as the flag of the United States itself, or use similar motifs such as Jamaica.  Just WTF are you talking about ?

The flags of the United States and France are the results of 18th-century revolutions that gave their creators a sense of starting afresh. No ghosts of the past or compromised histories influenced the design of these revolutionary standards. On the contrary, they needed to be totally new, to symbolise new constitutions, new beginnings. 

Bull-fucking-shit !

...Perhaps Rutherford’s objection to the British flag’s disappearance from the national British athletics team’s kit reflects an anxiety about insidious anti-union propaganda, as if in the age of SNP triumph it is becoming politically incorrect to sport unifying British symbols too proudly. But I would argue it the other way around. Perhaps the union flag itself is a psychological boost to nationalists who want to break up Britain. Its sheer pompous ugliness unconsciously damages the image of the union.

Fuck you !

So here is an idea to save the United Kingdom as a political, emotional and cultural entity. Let’s invent a new flag. Let’s visually forget the history of internal compromise and external violence this flag so unattractively embodies. A new flag for a new Britain might help us love our – whole – nation again.

Like you give a flying fucking shit about the union...I just shat all over the evil emperialist entity that is the English, and would much rather see the damn thing dissolved, but yeah, let's fantasise about a new 'Union Flag' that we could all celebrate after we finally killed the beast...  Not that we need bother given said arsehole's fondness for the flag of the United States of America:

US Flag with 51st star for additional state, such as Puerto Rico

One single solitary identical star added for each soulless entity added.  That's it.  That's your glorious national identity right there.  Inspirational, isn't it, that slight adjustment in the field of stars ?...

Far far more inspirational than a simple symbol of the union of three*** nations thus:

I've said it before...I'll say it again... I hate the fuckin' Guardian.


* He actually said this; If he said this in, and regarding the country whose flag he apparently worships, he would likely be shot dead on the spot.

** You really do not want to use that phrase regarding American flags.

*** The Welsh were fucked with the flag, I will admit that much.  And the flag would be much cooler with a dragon.  No...Doubt.

I'll Say It Again: Cameron Killed the Union

This thing with EVEL (English Votes for English Laws) is just stupid and petty.  With English MP's already making up the vast majority of seats in the House of Commons, it isn't likely to have any practical impact, and is essentially just a sop to English nationalists* and Tory MP's, as a sort of 'revenge' for the degree of powers devolved to Scotland, and as an attempt at placating the anger at the concessions that were desperately made during the last minutes of the referendum for independence.

More than petty, it's childish.  And it was utterly insane at the time to start talking up EVEL when the votes of the referendum had scarcely been counted, but the Tories could have quietly dropped the matter after the election, were they serious about maintaining the union, which increasingly, it would seem they are not.  And were they a party of grownups, which also, clearly they are not.

And to push it through by simply changing the rules of parliamentary procedure, when this is something of such constitutional significance is disrespectful not just of the Scots, but of the entire nation.

But I'll let the Indy speak to the matter, in this Q&A from an article which they have headlined 'Nicola Sturgeon threatens second independence referendum over 'English votes for English laws', which is the way everyone seems to be framing it, though I haven't seen an exact quote to support the assertion of a threat, beyond that she suggested it would increase support in Scotland for another referendum.  Which it obviously would.

Q&A: English votes for English laws

Q. So is that it – the West Lothian riddle, finally solved?

A. Not quite. Grayling has merely restructured Westminster’s political games  rather than deliver a  genuine solution. The Tory MP Martin Vickers asked where Grayling’s “stumbling” was heading towards. The answer is either a federalist UK, or Scotland leaving the UK.  No democratic chamber where there are two classes of members is likely to endure.

Q. Surely the government has thought hard on this?

A. No they haven’t.  After the panic-ridden deployment of the “vow” to keep Scotland in the UK club, it took Downing Street only a couple of hours to wreck any post-referendum unity. William Hague was quickly despatched to sketch out a plan to placate English Tories angry at the concessions Scotland was about to be handed. John Redwood offered a plan strikingly similar to what Grayling told the Commons, suggesting not much more thought has gone into this.

Q. The SNP members in the Commons, all 56 of them – they’ll be furious?

A. Furious at what?  The SNP have a vested interest in seeing the union fail, and Pete Wishart  is entirely correct in forecasting Grayling has helped the nationalists’ cause. Extend the consequences of what this means and it’s hard to see how a Scottish MP can ever again become prime minister, or indeed hold many of the top ministry jobs. Limit the ambition of members of any club, and they’ll take their business elsewhere – in this case out of the union.

Q. Is the change really that big?

A. There will be three new legislative grand committees: one for English MPs, one for English and Welsh MPs, and one for English, Welsh and Northern Ireland MPs. They will dictate what a lot of the full House gets to vote on.

Q. So where are the Scots?

A. Exactly.

Q. The SNP MP Ian Blackford asked why the Conservatives are bothering with all this - why not just create an English Parliament ?

A. Good question. Scotland already resembles a one-party state.  The nationalists have tight control of Holyrood.  Labour, the LibDems and the Tories all have only one MP north of the border. This isn’t an English Parliament, but it’s close.

Hundreds of years of unity destroyed in such a short space of time.  And peoples who have intermingled (genetically, culturally, linguistically) for generation upon generation upon generation, now likely to be artificially divided along the lines of ancient arbitrary borders that haven't held that much significant relevance for centuries.  And David Cameron's party would seem to have destroyed it in the course of just one electoral cycle.


* And it still seems a little bizarre to me that there could even be such a thing as English nationalism.  The degree to which a truly Welsh or Scottish identity exists separate from a British identity is vastly overstated, never mind the degree to which one could separate out an English identity.  Other than geography, what does it really mean to be 'English' and not 'British' ?  No-one seems to know.

God Bless the Unofficial Opposition

This is how it's going to be, isn't it ?  Until perhaps Nicola & Alex finally admit to plans for a second referendum.

If we're honest, the stupid naïve nationalism aside, the SNP is the sort of party would-be Labour-voters (and many Greens and some Lib-Dems) were hoping for when they wrote in an 'x' besides the name of a far less credible and/or far more compromised and corrupted party in Westminster.  Thanks to the last-minute desperate fearmongering of Cameron & co., the Union may only have (last year's seemingly now pointless referendum not withstanding) a few years remaining.  But, in the interim, and with the usual slightly-less-right-wing suspects in Westminster politics utterly impotent, Nicola Sturgeon may well be the Union's best defender of traditional social-democratic values.  Alba gu bràth ?

What Family of Nations ?

Is it really just over half a year since the referendum for Scottish independence ?  Hard to believe perhaps with the Tories and the national UK media tripping over one another in England to come up with ever more outlandish scaremongering claims about Nicola Sturgeon & the SNP.  All the promises, all the pandering, all the out-right bribery...  And with the referendum so soon forgotten, and a general election underway in which the SNP could decide the balance of power, it's throw Scotland under the bus time.  If it weren't for Trident, I'd almost be rooting for the SNP myself at this point.