More Eco Loonery, by Wiggiatlarge

At this moment in time it seems that every Brexit report, ad nauseam, is matched by another launch of "save the world for the children" or alternatively another green measure, some think tank backed by government (our) money has come up with to further ensure more penury for the little people in the not too distant future, usually following some new report of a climate model that spells out doom for all, yet no climate model has been correct on anything.

Naturally all these schemes come with the approval badge from those who either gain from it financially or find comfort in doing the ‘right’ thing regardless of consequences they will never have to endure.

I notice that any ‘good’ news on the sustainable front is given priority in the news. A report that for the first time sustainable energy provided more than 50% of the total needs omitted to tell that the quarter they were referring to was the three months of a very hot summer and the longest days when demand was at its lowest; of course when those still overcast drab and very cold winter days come come along and the sustainables only provide zilch there is no headline, only the threat of power cuts, which neatly brings me to the next nonsense in the eco world.

The 2050 target for zero emissions cannot possibly be reached with our current infrastructure. The National Grid report here talks of the need for 85 gigawatts needed by 2050 as against 60 now. In the light that they can’t get a single new nuclear plant built in twenty years, that can never be achieved with a combination of running down coal-fired power stations and replacing them with the weather-reliant wind and solar systems. And none of the figures show any allowance for the expanding (forever) population: official figures say that the next ten years will bring in 3 million extra, enough for another 3 Birminghams alone, never mind the endless illegal migrants that are reckoned to be anything from 1 to 10 million according to which report you want to believe.

These are basic facts. Silly claims that smart meters will make an eight gigabyte saving are pie in the sky: there is no proof for that assumption and it is just another push to get control of your energy so they can decide what you get and what you pay, never believe anything else on that front. Smart meters give the power companies the ability to decide what you can have at a given time and ramp up the price during peak periods, like the motor car in whatever form that takes it will be priced to dampen demand and use, they will have no choice because of the lack of the right type of infrastructure.

This quote from a government minister on smart meters….

‘Eventually, residents would be able to choose real-time tariffs, to switch on appliances when energy is cheapest' - i.e. you can use your kettle and save money if you put it on at 1 o'clock in the morning, plus he gives a veiled threat to those who have not complied and sought to have smart meters fitted…..

‘Lord Duncan admitted there had been "hiccups along the road", but there were potentially "big incentives" for people to agree to a smart meter being fitted. He added that those who stuck with "relic meters" risked "very high" maintenance costs.’ There are so far no advantages in smart meters for the consumer,  all the advantages are for the supplier and the veiled threat is just that. What high maintenance costs? Or are they going to charge us an exorbitant rate for meter reading as you have failed to toe the government line?

Still we will all be able to travel by train when we are priced off the road….



The contrasting views on future needs were highlighted in a Times business report on the aviation industry, in which it was stated that world-wide the number of aircraft expected to be in operation by 2050 will have doubled to around 44,000 - interesting in the light of what we are told re travelling by air, could it be just us being stopped from flying as it appears no one else will be ! And certainly not those celebs who happily pose with the likes of XR (Extinction Rebellion) protestors to boost their green credentials while at the same time totally ignoring the same advice regards themselves. (The Guardian forecasts 48,000!)

Naturally the population explosion world-wide is left out of any energy plans, yet how can that be? Every extra person on the planet will require feeding and will have have an energy requirement. Both needs are now being strangled at source by the green lobby yet they believe this is good for us, the same people who claim we are at fault as a prime industrial nation for the ‘horrors’ of climate change - which we aren’t - also benefited and are where they are in the pecking order because of the industrial revolution started in this country.

An interesting short video on where the population is going from the beginning of man on this earth or at least from when significant numbers had established:



Unless another form of propulsion is advanced as with hydrogen to become practical the EV (electric vehicle) will become the status quo, and I don’t oppose that; but with all the pressure from the green lobby groups and the energy companies who see the long term future and another fuel bonanza it cannot be done. The costings for the infrastructure involved are enormous - one estimate showed around 180 billion for the charging infrastructure - and we already lag far behind many other western nations in that respect.

The retail price of EVs is simply not on. Very little R&R is required to produce ICE (internal combustion engine) cars, yet despite manufacturers' claims of huge investment, electric motors have been around longer than the combustion engine, and still a recent report gave a figure of around £800-900 for an electric motor to power an average EV. Electric motors require no expensive gearbox and very few engine ancillaries, only the battery is expensive and the price there has plummeted as they become main line; so why the ridiculous cost? To which we know the answer: as with all 'new' technology the initial launch period is where manufacturers  make their money, as with e.g. mobile phones and cameras.

No one yet has given a solution to the recycling of the enormous amount of batteries that will start to end their useful life in the near future; not just car batteries but the already surging popularity of cordless, battery-powered tools and appliances. Anyone looking at the battery collection points in supermarkets sees overflowing containers of just the small batteries used in items like phones etc. The thought of car batteries being on that scale makes the mind boggle on that scale and as I've said, apart from mouthings in some quarters no evidence of a solution has appeared.

One of the more interesting and ludicrous aspects of all this Greta Hamburger attack on everyone to 'save the planet' has been people calling out the hypocrisy spouted by resource-wasteful celebs who then back track to the position that although they carry on doing what they do, they have warned the rest of us. A typical statement came from Lewis Hamilton of all people, who will no doubt claim that the ridicule heaped on him is because he is black or at least half black. This is what he said.

"It's not easy as we're travelling the world and our carbon footprint is higher than the average homeowner who lives in one city," said Hamilton. "That doesn't mean you should be afraid to speak out for positive change."

Hamilton used his Instagram feed last week to say he felt "like giving up on everything", that the world was "messed up" and to ask people to follow his example in taking up a plant-based diet to help the environment.”

So in his case eating beans makes his air travel and driving cars that guzzle fuel perfectly OK. "Bizarre" doesn’t cover it. 'Give up on everything' - we shall see, that is one of those statements like, “I will leave the country if we exit the EU”:  it never happens,  and he is far from alone. Most of the XR leaders have been found to be a long way from following their own diktat, but it was forever thus.

It could be that all the above is not worth worrying about anyway, just the demographic part. It might well be the case that those third world countries that are expanding at these alarming rates will simply decant to the west in numbers that are never sustainable and we all go back to third world living, something else there seems to be scant concern about in the minds of those who govern us.

Mad Max, anyone?

(cusp of) FRIDAY MUSIC: Samhain (Halloween) by JD

Our modern Halloween festival is really an American invention which takes the Christian festival of All Saints Day (or All Hallows) and takes its more ghoulish appearance from Mexico's festival Dia de los Muertos which is a three day festival and sometimes more than three days, depending on local traditions (and exuberance).

Halloween is often mistakenly thought to have its origins in the Celtic festival of Samhain. This is not true because the Celtic tribes of these islands, of Hibernia and Caledonia, left no written records. The only written records come from the Romans 2000 years ago and they are not exactly reliable or unbiased.

Some people have claimed that Samhain was actually a Celtic god. In fact there is no convincing evidence to support this. It seems likely that this is a misinterpretation of Celtic paganism by those of a theist persuasion. And the word 'pagan' is itself also the subject of wild speculation.
The word comes from the Latin 'paganus' which was used to describe country dwellers; then, as now, city dwellers regarded those in the countyside as ignorant yokels. The Roman influence in the UK has been long lasting.

Samhain was absorbed first by the Romans into their Feralia, a festival of the dead, and also with their harvest festival in honour of Pomona. This merged Roman festival was itself incorporated by the Christians and rebranded as All Saints Day, leaving the night before to become all hallows eve, hallows e'en, thus Halloween. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain

It was a standard practice of many early religions, especially the Christian church, to take local customs and places of power and co-opt them into their own belief system. This was probably one of the earliest known examples of the "embrace, extend and extinguish" strategy that (unfortunately) is so commercially successful today.

You can forget about any of those 19th century inventions of Druidry or Paganism or witchcraft, all of which claim to be a direct lineage from the past but are, in reality, based more on the Romantic movements of recent European history.

Samhain has survived in the oral traditions and the music of the Celtic tribes.

Why We Should Have A Second Referendum

The article below has since been published almost verbatim on The Conservative Woman under the title "Deal or No Deal – let the people decide."

I wish to argue for a second, binding referendum to choose between the final draft Withdrawal Agreement, and leaving the EU without one. I hope this case will be brought to court and succeed.

There must be no option to remain. The decision to leave the European Union has been comprehensively confirmed:

• ·         The 2016 Referendum, in which a record number of citizens participated, was preceded by oral and (in the Government’s pamphlet) written assurances that the result would be binding. The majority was for leaving, by 52% to 48%.
• ·         In the 2017 General Election 579 Conservative and Labour MPs gained their seats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Kingdom_general_election on manifestoes that committed them to exiting the EU.
• ·         Parliament then passed the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 on the Third Reading (17 January 2018) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_(Withdrawal)_Act_2018#House_of_Commons_Report_Stage_and_Third_Reading .
• ·         An attempt in the Lords to pass an amendment allowing a second in/out Referendum was decisively defeated on 30 April 2018 https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/953298/brexit-news-eu-uk-house-of-lords-second-referendum-final-deal-defeat-lib-dem-theresa-may .

Quite rightly then, ex-PM Theresa May told Parliament last week that any attempt to overturn the 2016 result would be the “most egregious con-trick on the British people” https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1192892/Theresa-may-speech-brexit-vote-today . That is putting it mildly: if Parliament breaks this, it breaks its moral right to govern. Pace Matthew Parris https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/the-question-a-second-referendum-must-ask/, there is no revisiting that part of the nation’s decision.

Yet that is only the first part; the second is to address the terms of withdrawal.

In the “Miller I” case of January 2017, the Supreme Court ruled https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(Miller)_v_Secretary_of_State_for_Exiting_the_European_Union#Judgment_2 that unlike with other international agreements, the Government could not withdraw from the Lisbon Treaty without reference to Parliament, because constitutional issues were involved. Leaving entailed the loss of certain EU member citizen rights, and ECA 1972 had not expressly conferred a power on the Secretary of State to alter them. Hence the right to a “Meaningful Vote.”

But this raises the question of whether Parliament itself is fit to make that choice without reference to the people, whose interests they supposedly represent. The 2018 Withdrawal Act was passed 324:295 (52% to 48%, again!), but if the division had been according to the number of constituencies in which the majority voted Leave in the Referendum, the Ayes would have been 406; and if all Conservative and Labour MPs had honoured their manifesto commitments, the Ayes would have risen to at least 579 (or 89%).

Why these discrepancies?

• ·         First, Parliamentary parties juggle issues for electoral advantage. Currently https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50194685 the SNP and Libdems want an extension to the Article 50 negotiations, an amendment to the Fixed Term Parliament Act to allow a mid-term General Election to be authorised by simple majority, and an early GE date, in order to unseat Johnson as PM and "remove the risk of a devastating no-deal Brexit," so leaving us with no alternatives; and Labour opposes an early election outright “unless a no-deal Brexit is taken off the table.” The PM thinks a GE will give him a secure mandate; the Opposition parties think they may gain instead, but use Johnson’s desire for an election as a lever to close down options on an issue of the most profound importance.
• ·         Second, politically there is internal division and philosophical confusion. In part this arises from the nature of the EU itself, which seems to stand for international cooperation and free trade, yet at the same time is a protectionist trading bloc, and yet through enlargement has undermined pay levels and security of employment for its Western European workforces. Hugh Gaitskell explored the ambiguities for Labour back in 1962 https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/1999/1/1/05f2996b-000b-4576-8b42-8069033a16f9/publishable_en.pdf .
• ·         Third, individual MPs and Lords may have personal interests that could be affected by Brexit – investments, business dealings, possible future employment and preferment etc – even, under certain circumstances, EU staff pensions https://fullfact.org/online/EU-staff-pensions-criticism/ . Rudd and Letwin are already making money https://order-order.com/2019/10/25/bank-america-pays-remainers-rudd-letwin-10000/ on the talk circuit.
• ·         Fourth, there are foreign powers who have long taken an interest. For example, the US Democratic Party is siding with Ireland against a hard border https://euobserver.com/foreign/144688 , thus combining America’s CIA-backed policy of ramming us into Europe https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/27/the-european-union-always-was-a-cia-project-as-brexiteers-discov/ with their old green-Chicago-River paddiwhackery https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9935908/River-turns-green-for-St-Patricks-Day.html .

We ordinary people feel more and more like Lewis Carroll’s Oysters, trying to gain the attention of the Walrus and the Carpenter while the latter are only interested in having enough bread and butter to eat them with.

The consequences of Brentry and Brexit are usually couched in economic terms. Even Wilson bribed us in 1975 with the promise of “FOOD and MONEY and JOBS" http://www.harvard-digital.co.uk/euro/pamphlet.htm (we then got more expensive food, less money and fewer jobs) while not telling us that in time we were to be absorbed into a sprawling new country. If the debate were to centre itself on democratic principles, our Remain politicians would be embarrassed at their own exposure, like Adam and Eve after eating from the Tree of Knowledge.

For it is clear that the electoral system is dangerously flawed. Democracy depends on the acquiescence of the losers. The winners do not win convincingly – no party has held power on the basis of a majority of votes cast nationally, since 1931 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_elections_overview#1929%E2%80%931951 ; in the 2005 GE only 220 MPs won an absolute majority in their various constituencies and in 2010, only 217. Conscious of the exclusion problem, Parliament debated electoral reform in 1931, but failed to agree because the Commons wanted AV and Lords preferred PR. In the 2011 Referendum both major parties opposed the Alternative Vote because they felt it would cut into their portions of the cake, and let the LibDems starve amid plenty.

So, Parliamentary seats do not accurately reflect voter preferences, and MPs and Lords feel free to ignore them anyhow. Brexit and the choice of ratification or rejection of the terms cannot safely be left to this Parliament, nor can a General Election with all its complexities properly resolve the matter.

We have already accepted the principle that this is no ordinary issue but a great Constitutional one. Even our entry into the EEC had to be validated post facto by a referendum, though the result was skewed by political pressure on Fleet Street at a time when there were fewer alternative sources of information and analysis. If Gina Miller won her case because our rights were involved, then we should also remember that joining the EEC not only conferred rights, it took them away, and what we lost thereby in democratic terms is far more than what we gained. Implicitly our leaders had agreed to a progressively huge loss of power – not only the British State’s over its own affairs, but of the British citizenship’s over its rulers.

And we now know for certain that Heath lied. He knew from 1970 on that the project was for a superstate https://campaignforanindependentbritain.org.uk/britain-europe-bruges-group/ . How many in Parliament knew this? We certainly didn’t – Con O’Neill’s briefing was kept secret for 30 years. It could be argued that lacking Parliament’s and the people’s informed consent, we have never validly been a member nation of “Europe.”

As far as my own rights are concerned, I say that HMG no more has the power to strip me of my British citizenship and make me a citizen of the EU, than it has the right to make me a Russian or Kazakhstani without my consent.

And because there are aspects of the current draft WA/PD that bind my Government’s hands on many important and enduring sovereign matters such as foreign policy https://www.brugesgroup.com/blog/the-revised-withdrawal-agreement-and-political-declaration-a-briefing-note , it will not be valid unless I and a majority of my fellow citizens agree.

There must be a Meaningful Vote; a People’s Vote; a New, Confirmatory, Second Referendum – on Deal or No Deal.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Capercaillie, by JD

With all the wonderful music currently available I seem to have overlooked, so far, the wonderful Capercaillie one of the best of the traditional Scottish folk bands. Hailing from Argyll, the band was founded in 1984 by Donald Shaw and led by the voice of Karen Matheson, a voice which is as clear and pure as the waters from a highland spring.

They performs traditional Gaelic and contemporary English songs. The group adapts traditional Gaelic music and traditional lyrics with modern production techniques and instruments such as electric guitar and bass guitar, although in recent years they have returned to a more traditional style and their repertoire includes music of the Celtic diaspora from Cape Breton to Galicia.

The final two videos here are from a broadcast of Radio Galega on Galician TV. The "Skye Waulking Song", is used in the Edexcel Music GCSE Specification from 2009 onwards. The song is in the world music section, and is used as a representation of traditional folk music combined with rock music.
https://www.capercaillie.co.uk/the-band/

Brocodile: New post on The Conservative Woman

Yesterday's post here has been published on TCW, with some side-glances and some of my more inflammatory stuff sensibly edited out to spare the public and guilty parties.

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/never-smile-at-a-brocodile/

Never Smile At A Brocodile

A version of this has been published on The Conservative Woman - edits are highlighted in green.

Well, they’ve voted for the WA (and PD) at the Second Reading, though not for the accelerated timetable  https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2019/oct/22/brexit-boris-johnson-deal-leave-eu-live-news?page=with:block-5daf4c148f08142786c4ffcd - they need to make sure the egg is fully addled before stamping the lion mark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_Marketing_Board  on it.

Some call this BRINO (Brexit In Name Only), calling to mind a horned but myopic and generally placid herbivore. No, it’s a Brocodile: a sly and lethally patient raptor, waiting for a bumbling gnu new Prime Minister to blunder into its wide, toothy smile. Old and crafty, it strikes with saurian speed at a negotiator’s vulnerability, and Boris is just a guy who can’t say no https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A18kYnP4Pec , which is why his domestic and our public affairs are in a terrible fix. (Yet De Gaulle could say “Non,” which is fifty per cent longer.)

At this point, the waterhole metaphor breaks down, for it’s not BoJo’s neck that will be twisted off in the EU’s death-roll. He spoke airily of dying in a ditch rather than delay Brexit; now we do have that delay, and absent a miracle we shall certainly not have Brexit. But ABdeP Johnson will be all right – perhaps he’ll take his little black book of contacts to an investment bank, like ACL Blair.

No, it is we who shall pay the price. In cash, in EU disenfranchisement, in the semi-detachment of Northern Ireland, in ceding control over fishing, taxation, business subsidies and other areas. In financial ruin, if the Eurozone collapses while we are still co-guarantor for the EIB’s debts; finally, perhaps, in blood and wreckage, if the EU’s ambitions for Empire and command of UK forces tempt them into fatal overreach.

Our leaders were never going to outwit the EU’s, who resemble the kind of lawyer who could write your will and surreptitiously make himself the sole beneficiary. The incompetent amateurism of HMG’s half-hearted efforts to free us are matched only by the Heath government’s in the process of joining.

Nor does our Government have much to fear from the Opposition, who are only determined that whichever way Pussy goes through the catflap she should still be stuck in the house. With all their procedural tricks, they are not an Opposition but a Subversion. Yet it’s not HMG that they are subverting: really both sides are after the same result – one is playing for time to complete their sabotage, the other is signing surrender terms while trumpeting victory.

No, it is we who are the enemy. How long and at what cost did we fight to cage an overmighty Crown within Parliament; and how much longer was the battle for universal suffrage, even now less than a century old https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/case-study-the-right-to-vote/the-right-to-vote/birmingham-and-the-equal-franchise/1928-equal-franchise-act/ ? We are John Major’s “bastards”, we, who opted to Leave, with our stubby pencils.

Yet so powerful are our combined votes, our Horton’s Who voices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horton_Hears_a_Who! , that they, too, must be muted. First Past The Post and the Boundary Commission result in a House of Commons where only some 220 MPs secure a majority of votes cast in their constituencies. In 1931 the HoC was for the Alternative Vote, but the Lords wanted PR, and the matter fell https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1931/jun/02/representation-of-the-people-no-2-bill ; 80 years later we reopened the issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum but by then it suited both major parties to keep things as they are, whereby psephologists and their databanks can calculate how to sway the swing voter in the swing seat.

But that’s not enough. Democracy depends on informed consent, and Power wants it to be managed consent instead. Enter mass communication technology (from newspapers to radio, TV and beyond) and mass psychology; and the counter-evolution of the masses’ awareness of power relations. Over the last few years, growing numbers of us have become sceptical about mainstream news, feeling that our perceptions are being moulded by selection and suppression of facts, and spin.

The new social media have allowed a hundred flowers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign to bloom, briefly - some of them hermetic and rank, but that’s democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window ; now policed in the West, and suppressed in China in their tightly-controlled Internet. After the flowers, weeds: online disinformation campaigns have sprung up – the paid political trolls, the 77^th Brigade https://www.wired.co.uk/article/inside-the-77th-brigade-britains-information-warfare-military and so on.

Moreover, in our modern atomised society, where we drive to the supermarket in closed cars rather than rub shoulders in the classic forum, offline we have limited direct experience of what our fellows are thinking. So the dead tree Press have an opportunity to shape public opinion by the way they report the results of opinion polls.

For example, The Sun said “Brits tell MPs to vote for Boris Johnson’s agreement” https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/brexit/10165122/brits-back-boris-johnsons-brexit-deal/ based on a YouGov poll https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/10/18/two-thirds-leave-voters-say-parliament-should-acce which also revealed - further down – that only 17% of the general population thought it was a good deal, as opposed to 23% who considered it a bad one!

Or how about the Daily Mail, which did a savage handbrake turn on Brexit when Geordie “independence for Scotland, but not for the UK” Greig took over the editorship? It commissioned a Survation poll and concluded https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7589705/Daily-Mail-poll-reveals-Britain-wants-MPs-stop-delay-Boris-Johnson.html that half the nation backs Boris’ deal. Yet if you drill into the poll https://t.co/kiRyQXmIJA and look at Tables 59 and 60, you’ll see that more people “strongly opposed” the deal than “strongly supported” it (and only two-thirds of respondents answered that question anyway).

This is a complex issue, one where facts do matter and as Thoreau said https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/25/opinion/l-one-man-s-majority-654087.html , “Any man more right than his neighbours constitutes a majority of one.” I wonder what results we'd have got if respondents were restricted to those who did more than read the Daily Mail or watch BBC News, and instead looked at the online commenters' analyses of the pros and cons of the full deal.

It’s Them v. Us, I’m afraid. It was deeply ironic to watch ex-PM Mrs May castigating the Opposition in Parliament https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1192892/Theresa-may-speech-brexit-vote-today for failing to honour the statutes they helped enact - withdrawal from the EU, and the triggering of Article 50.

Did they mean it? she asked. Well, did she, when she then came to the Commons three times with her Withdrawal Agreement? Or her successor, who has returned with much the same, plus lipstick? Or those who now call for another Referendum, with a choice of a rotten deal or Remain - the latter being the one thing that was definitively ruled out in 2016?

Yes, we are being pushed into the jaws of the Brocodile. And I’m not smiling.

Guido's Chinese Whispers

I have combined and edited two recent posts to make one that I am submitting to The Conservative Woman. Here is what I have said:

“News is something somebody doesn't want printed; all else is advertising,” as Randolph Hearst said. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/77244-news-is-something-somebody-doesn-t-want-printed-all-else-is Over the last few years, growing numbers of us have become sceptical about the mainstream media, feeling that our perceptions are being managed by selection and suppression of facts, and spin.

So we season our understanding with a variety of alternative sources, many online. One such is Paul Staines, aka “Guido Fawkes,” who gives us a stream of Westminster gossip and up-to-date news. Some of us appreciate his support for Brexit, all the more valued since the Daily Mail did a savage handbrake turn when Geordie Greig took over the editorship.

But a couple of Guido’s recent posts have got me worried. I’m hoping it’s just owing to the pressure of constant publication, rather than consciously adopting the Government’s line on Johnson’s “deal.”

****************

On 18^th October, he bannered a piece with “Snap Poll: Public Want The Deal Passing” https://order-order.com/2019/10/18/snap-poll-public-want-deal-passing/ , subtitling it “Two thirds of Leave voters say Parliament should vote to accept the new Brexit deal.”

His source was a YouGov poll whose headline is very similar  https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/10/18/two-thirds-leave-voters-say-parliament-should-acce , but whose detail is troubling. Yes, 67% of Leave voters say they want Brexit done; but YouGov’s third table shows they feel they don’t really know enough. 31% think it is a good deal, 11% think it is bad, and 58% are neutral or undecided. This is a complex issue, one where facts do matter and as Thoreau said https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/25/opinion/l-one-man-s-majority-654087.html , “Any man more right than his neighbours constitutes a majority of one.” The general public is even more conflicted: 17% say the deal is good, 23% say bad – and since the 2016 Referendum involved everyone, not just Leavers, perhaps that should have been the headline. In Guido’s case, his headline and the subheading are at odds – the public is not the same as its Leaver element.

Does this matter? Yes, it does. You can influence people by telling them that most of their fellows think a certain way – isn’t that one of the reasons to own a newspaper? Or to infiltrate the BBC?

******************

Cut to 21^st October: Guido tells us “Brexit Party Supporters Back The Deal” https://order-order.com/2019/10/21/brexit-party-supporters-back-deal/ and crows "Despite Nigel’s continuing opposition for opposition’s sake, it seems his usually loyal followers are abandoning him in favour of Boris’s new deal. Last man in the bunker…”

The facts? Out of 1,025 polled among the general public by Survation https://t.co/kiRyQXmIJA , a total of 15 (fifteen) Brexiteers “strongly approved” Boris’ deal. (Click on the link to see the whole thing – Guido’s stats are drawn from Sheet 3, Table 60.)

I am a little concerned that the survey was conducted on behalf of the Daily Mail – I’m sure that Survation will have done a professional job, but I wonder what the brief was; it covers a lot of ground, rather too much in my opinion.

Table 60 analyses responses to Question 26, which reads, "From what you have seen or heard about the government's Brexit deal, to what extent do you support or oppose the deal?"

Already we wonder what the respondents know – what are their sources of information, and how has it been presented? “Garbage in, garbage out,” as the techies say.

Moreover, the replies in this table are merely a subset of the total respondents - only 674 out of 1,025 - so the margin of error is greater. Even then, not all in that subset replied to all parts: the "current voting intention" line (line #1641, Columns Q-W) adds up to only 601 people, and only 596 people said how they voted in the 2016 Referendum (Columns H and I). We’re now down to a sample of less than 60% of people polled.

And Guido’s news about Brexiteers is not only cherry-picking statistics out of this reduced sample, but combining them to give a misleading impression of homogeneity of feeling. The 15 who say they intend to vote TBP next time and who "strongly supported" Boris' deal (Line 1641, Column T) are added to 36 who only "somewhat supported" it, to make a combined total of 51 people - then reported as "67% of Brexit Party supporters."

Step back: 1,025 people took part in the poll; of whom only 87 intend to vote TBP; of whom only 15 are strongly in favour of the deal. I say, if you really want to know what TBP supporters feel about Boris’ deal, do a more focused poll. 5,248,533 people voted for TBP in the 2019 European Parliament elections – there’s plenty of material there!

Using much the same approach, Guido tells us that 70% of Leave voters and 90% of Tories also back Johnson’s WA Mark 2. Is this a safe basis? I'm not inclined to think so.

In fact of ALL those who responded to question 26 and also indicated their voting intentions in the next General Election, only 137 "strongly supported" the proposed deal, and a further mere 158 "somewhat supported" it. Even adding them together - sheep with cows (Little Boy Blue, you're falling down on the job) - you get 295 people out of a total survey population of 1,025. 295 very variably informed people with probably very differently nuanced stances on their support for "deal".

I wonder what results we'd have got if respondents were restricted to those who did more than read the Daily Mail or watch BBC News, and also looked at the detailed analyses of the pros and cons of the full deal.

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We need informed consent, not managed consent; so we need commentators who view sources critically and present their findings judiciously. “If you can keep your head when all around you…”

For we’re not getting the straight gen from our leaders, are we?

It would have been comical, had it not been almost tragic, to watch ex-PM Mrs May castigating the Opposition in Parliament https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1192892/Theresa-may-speech-brexit-vote-today for failing to honour the statutes they helped enact - withdrawal from the EU, and the triggering of Article 50.

Did they mean it? she asked. Well, did she, when she then came to the Commons three times with a ball-and-chain Withdrawal Agreement? Or her successor, who has returned with much the same (lipstick on a crocodile, I call it)? Or those who now call for another Referendum, with a choice of a rotten deal or Remain - the latter being the one thing that was definitively ruled out in 2016?

Guido, we need people like you to be our compass, or we shall be lost on a sea of misinformation.