Articles Tagged with “Politics”
01/05/2008: May Day
Today is May Day and also election day in London. Recent polls have shown alarmingly high support for Boris Johnson (or Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson to use his full name — yes, really!). Much as I enjoy Johnson’s antics on Have I Got News For You, I ask how someone who could barely be trusted to competently run a bath, could soon be running a city?
And not just any city, but one of the world’s major financial hubs. London, although just a city, has a GDP of 800 billion USD; an economy roughly the size of, say, the Netherlands, or Mexico. Or to put it another way, two Taiwans, or three Irelands, or six New Zealands, or the entire Spanish-speaking part…
03/02/2008: The World in 2050?
I drew this map and wrote the skeleton of this article in November, but have only recently gotten around to finishing it…
Empires
The US is occasionally referred to as “the only remaining global superpower”. By 2050, I believe that it will still be a superpower, but that others will have risen to join it.
The United States
The US will keep military bases in the middle east, even if its original reason to do so (namely oil) has diminished by the middle of the 21st century.
The European Union
Growing co-operation between member states, a strengthening European Parliament and weakening national parliaments will have transformed Europe into effectively one country, even if officially the member states retain some form of soverienty. Most importantly, by 2050…
15/01/2008: Privacy
Els despairs about some high-profile privacy and data protection gaffs in 2007 and asks can we still get some privacy in 2008?. Her use of the word “get” rather than “retain” is very telling — it’s not just a matter of retaining our current level of privacy, but of trying to claw back what we’ve already lost.
And it seems that privacy is one of those assets which is even harder to win back than it is to keep hold of in the first place. It’s pretty easy to, say, end up on some spam mailing list, but just you try getting your e-mail address off. Off all of them. Because once that information’s out there, it’s out there for good. Information wants to be free. But it works both ways you know.
21/11/2007: It’ll be in the Last Place You Look
Oops! The HMG (trading as Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs) has misplaced the personal data of about 40% of the UK’s population, including 15 million children. There is “no evidence that it has fallen into the wrong hands”, but there is no evidence that it has not.
This is the same government that plans for us to entrust them with fifty different pieces of personal data as part of their flawed National ID Card scheme.
This is one of many reasons why I support NO2ID.
Links:
18/11/2007: USD/EUR Exchange Rate Graph
The chart above shows the fall of the US dollar against the Euro over the last eight years, with some key events in American politics and economics noted, which may or may not be seen as causes or effects of the falling dollar.
17/11/2007: Belgium
A story that seems to have had surprisingly little coverage in the British media is the fact that for almost half a year, Belgium has had no official government. Since the elections of 10 June, no government has been able to form a working majority, despite a lot of effort from the Belgian royal family to broker a deal between rival parties.
Much of the problem stems from the fact that Belgium is a somewhat artificial nation. By the early 19th century, a large number of formerly separate micronations (the “low countries”), each with their own cultures and histories came under the rule of the House of Orange-Nassau. William of Orange united them, establishing the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. (William was also Grand Duke of Luxembourg, but the Grand Duchy was not incorporated into the Netherlands, and due to differences in inheritance laws in the two countries, the royal families of the Netherlands and Luxembourg have…
26/06/2007: The End of an Era
Tony Blair is to step down as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, and it looks like he’ll soon be taking a job as Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds. He’ll also apparently moonlight as a Middle East peace envoy — in other news, outgoing Deputy PM John Prescott will be taking up a position as head of Weight Watchers.
Here are a few Blair links…
22/06/2007: Political Map of the UK
(Requires Javascript.)
The Axes
A two-dimensional graph requires two axes — that is, two sets of scales on which the data points must be assessed. In politics there are many candidate axes, some listed below, of which we can only choose two:
- Traditional Left–Right division. Left– and Right-wing ideologies encompass a whole variety of different policy areas and are the standard method of classifying a political party.
- Libertarian–Authoritarian. This is a method of classifying parties according to how “free” they aim for citizens to be.
- Environmentalism. You could assess a party by how friendly its policies are to the environment.
- Euroskepticism. You could assess a party on whether it is pro– or anti-EU.
- Atlanticism. You could assess a party on whether it is pro– or anti-US.
I’ve chosen the first two from that list, as I felt they were likely to provide the most interesting picture of politics in the UK…
16/04/2007: BoJo on MySpace
The BBC on Politicians with MySpace pages:
In the UK, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell has registered on MySpace — and has an unofficial fan club page, “Proud to be a Minger”, with 161 members.
Meanwhile, the Boris Johnson Appreciation Society, which recognises the shadow higher education minister as “the vital free agent of British politics”, has stacked up a very respectable 7,751 members.
13/11/2004: The United (Welfare) States of America
Red E. Kilowatt wrote:
The endless flood of new people who are living at or below the poverty level make overwhelming demands on local public services. […] We might as well put up a big neon sign at the border that says, “Come one, come all.
You already have one. It says:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
Free Healthcare.
In a ranking1 of Japan, Sweden, Canada, France, Australia, Spain, Finland, Netherlands, UK, Denmark, Belgium, USA and Germany, the USA was ranked:
- 13th (last) for low-birth-weight percentages
- 13th for neonatal mortality and infant mortality overall
- 11th for postneonatal mortality
- 13th for years of potential life lost (excluding external causes)
- 11th for life expectancy at 1 year for females, 12th for males
In the USA there are1:
- 12,000 deaths/year from unnecessary…