Posts tagged 'Politics'
Focusing on the Controllable
One of the main components of the Stoic philosophy is the dichotomy of control. The vast majority of things that happen are not under our control. We may be able to, at best, influence things. The things that are under our control are very limited and essentially boil down to …
It Wasn't All Bad
I am noticing lots of people complaining about the state of the world, good riddance to 2019, hopefully the next year will be better. I fear that we are too quick to dismiss the progress that has been made. This could be progress on a personal level, as a society …
Silly Graphs
And this elections prize for most deceptive graph that I have seen goes to the conservatives.
To be fair, I have mostly been ignoring this election as far as possible, but the flyer put through our door managed to surprise me at its creativity.
It …
Armistice
After yesterday's post, though more about the different services to commemorate the end of the first world war. I knew that the day was called Armistice Day, yet it had never occurred to me to ask what armistice actually meant.
It means the end of fighting. Not necessarily lasting peace …
Remember What?
On Remembrance Sunday, what are we actually remembering? Are we remembering the horrors of war? The huge destruction of lives and families? The horrors that those that survived had to live with.
Or have we started to remember something else? Have we started to instead remember a romanticised version of …
The EU Has Been a Good Fall Guy
Over the weekend we were discussing how people view the EU and, in particular, the idea that it is somehow undemocratic. I don't intend to go into detail about how this is silly when compared to Westminster with its First-Past-the-Post voting for one chamber and complete lack of voting for …
Voting Tomorrow
Tomorrow will very likely be the last time I get to vote in the European elections. I am not completely sure who I will vote for.
It is a proportional representation system, therefore the choice should be simple: vote for the party whose policies match your own the closest. And …
Voting for the EU Parliament in Scotland
Back in 2014, I was curious how the proportional representation system used for the EU elections, the D'Hondt method, worked. I built a simple javascript program to allocate the seats based on the number of votes for different parties, then added recent opinion polls to the page to see how …
Pedal on Parliament Weekend
This weekend will host numerous Pedal on Parliament protests around the country. Pedal on Parliament is a campaign to improve facilities for active travel, that is walking as well as cycling. The theory being that if there are better facilities, safer and faster paths, more people will travel by active …
Sonder
This evening, I am feeling sonder. Sonder is, according to [the dictionary of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own”1.
As I look out at all the houses I can see across the valley …
Who is an Engineer
There has been a campaign for some years to try and get the term ‘Engineer’ protected in the same way that Architect and Doctor and a few other professions are. The reason being that engineers who have had to attend university to get a degree in engineering and then do …
A Note on Banknotes
So an MP1 has lodged a bill that would attempt to "oblige" acceptance of Scottish banknotes south of the border.
What a waste of time. Maybe if something like this was introduced 50 years ago it would have had a use, but considering the decline in cash payments, there …
Ending Ending the Draft
Vox have recently published a series of articles asking various people what they think will be considered barbaric or unthinkable in 50 years time, in a similar way to the attitude towards smoking has changed in the past 50 years.
There were the sorts of predictions I had expected to …
Ending Daylight Savings Time
I see the EU have voted to scrap daylight saving time. Something I fully agree with. Stick with GMT (or UTC) and not bother switching clocks twice a year.
If you want more daylight in the summer, get out of bed earlier.
Thoughts on the Workplace Parking Levy
As part of a budget deal, the Green party have persuaded the SNP to allow councils to introduce a workplace parking levy (WPL) that will charge employers for every parking space they provide for employees. Employers can then decide to either pay the levy themselves or to pass on the …
Giving the Young the Vote
There was a few news stories earlier this month about Prof David Runciman, The head of politics at Cambridge University, had proposed giving children as young as 6 the vote.
This was in response to the debate about dropping the voting age from 18 to 16, something I support, but …
A Short Message to Your Leader Part 2
Monday's post, posted the question, if I could send a short message to my countries leaders, what would I say?
I have already stated that a simple "Don't be evil" is a wasted opportunity. Similarly I don't want to waste the opportunity by writing abuse (though there is a part …
A Short Message to Your Leader
When filling in a Google survey, I was asked, if I could send a short message to my countries leaders, what would I say?
I hadn't given this question any thought before and (as it was a quick survey) I just gave a quick answer:
Don't be evil
After writing …
The Problem With the EU Referendum
The thing that drew me to the Yes campaign during the Scottish Independence Referendum was the positive hope for the future. They were saying 'these are the problems with the way the country is ran today and this is how we intend to improve things in the future'.
The No …
Stamp Duty Rates, Old vs New vs Scotland
A few weeks ago, the Scottish government announced the scrapping of Stamp Duty and the introduction of the "Land and Buildings Transaction Tax" and there were several graphs showing the old and new schemes.
After the Autumn statement announcement last week, which introduced a new stamp duty, I had wondered …
Yes Because
Apologies, I have been thinking about these all day:
“In politics, nothing is ever as good as you hope it’s going to be, but at the same time nothing’s ever as bad as you fear it’s going to be”.
- I am #yesbecause I am not happy with …