83th anniversary of the BBC Television Service, known as BBC1 since 1964, also Nick Boles's 54th birthday and would have been Keith Emerson's 75th
© Roger Waters, 1977
Comfortably Numb 🔊
© David Gilmour, Roger Waters, 1979
Two days after the end of the Second Brextension and on the second day of the Third Brextension, the situation remains just as chaotic as ever. Admittedly the once-United Kingdom has never been so close to exiting the European Union, but then we have never been so close to the Sun turning supernova. And now we at last have the Snap Christmas Election on the schedule and 'tis this time of the year when pollsters crank up into overdrive and start feeding us one poll a day as if we didn't have too many to process already. Of course the First Minister of England blames the Loyal Opposition for getting him the election he always wanted and has warned his backbenchers that it will be a tough one for them. But we know he is a pathological liar so that probably means he actually expects to win in a landslide. He may be right or he may be wrong but right now I don't see Labour coming back to life as they did in 2017, and I have a hunch they may suffer a prolonged eclipse instead. So before we all succumb to polling sensory overload, here is how voting intentions were trending just before Commons seppukued.
Labour and Associates are desperately clinging to their belief they can overturn bad polling just as they did in 2017 (more on this later). One major flaw in their reasoning is that back then the swing towards Labour only started after the snap election was called and the campaign started in earnest. The situation is quite different this year as the campaign has de facto already started on the day Johnson was anointed as First Minister of England and only Labour seem to have missed the memo and wasted time on internal disputes and their deselection process instead of decisively targeting the Government's obvious weaknesses. And then one day you find two years have got behind you, no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. Also one of the inconvenient truths Labour have to live with is that their Fearless Lider Maximo has become a liability. Regardless of what the usual 'beauty contest' favourability polls might say, the best evidence is the trendlines of the 'Preferred Prime Minister' polling. Here is where we stand right now after undecideds and none-of-the-above removed, with Corbyn facing Theresa May first and then Boris Johnson.
These 'Preferred PM' trendlines are quite interesting and revealing. Until March Theresa May was steadily consolidating her lead over Jeremy Corbyn until it reached roughly 65-35. Then came the last days of May (oops, this one definitely not Pink Floyd but still a good punchline), which dragged on for months, and the European Election campaign totally changed the trend with Corbyn now steadily improving his ratings to a more satisfying 55-45 towards the end of May's Premiership. Then we have a major upset after Johnson's Accession and the general trend reconnects with the pre-March trend with Johnson right now scoring roughly 70-30 against an unpopular Corbyn. Labour hopes now that the campaign will decisively alter such trends and they may have a point here. Corbyn is certainly a better campaigner than the average Tory bigwig and proved it in 2017. But then he was the new sensation and faced a surly May who did not even believe in her own campaign motto. Johnson is a wholly different beast but also quite unpredictable. He can be seen bumblingly waflle-piffling at PMQs when asked serious questions he did not expect and has no prepared soundbite ready to use. But he can also be a class entertainer for friendly audiences, making shite glitter like gold and blatant lies sound like self-evident truths. So here is the gamble: which Johnson will Corbyn confront in TV debates if there are any?
But of course the best moment of this mind-numbing Parliamentary week was John Bercow shedding a tear at his own eulogies while Ross Thomson wondered what the fuck he was doing here, and Jacob Rees-Mogg wondered what the fuck Boris was ranting about with his tennis ball machine, Stephen Hawking and Tony Montana. Also note how graciously Jeremy Corbyn responded to the gutter jibes at his Grenfell Tower tribute tie from the Tory backbenches. Wankers will be wankers….
© Roger Waters, David Gilmour, 1979
Let There Be More Light 🔊
© Roger Waters, 1968
Surprise Snap General Elections have a bizarre life of their own, especially when the due date has been postponed as many times as Brexit and it finally happens after a quasi-elephantine gestation period. Some days before Commons' Suicide Vote, Owen Jones urged Labour to accept the challenge of a quick snap GE and his 'bite the bullet' headline sounds quite appropriate when you look at current polls. His piece is an odd mix of sensible analysis about the Labour centrists' ulterior motives and likely LibDem and Tory electoral strategy, and fanciful wishful thinking about Labour's prospects. Thinking that Labour could reverse the current trend in a 2017ish upset comeback is as realistic as predicting LibDems could unseat Ian Blackford however hard they try and whatever pact with the devil they sign. Barely kidding here as those who followed my ramblings in an earlier incarnation of this blog might remember I predicted in 2017 that Tories would unseat Angus Robertson but would fail to unseat Pete Wishart. There is also one fucking massive difference between then and now: May was offering nothing but strong and stable cooshite, Johnson is offering all of strong and stable national-populism. Makes one fucking hell of a difference, as the current polling shows. Current Poll'O'Polls includes the last six conducted between 23 and 30 October, so almost entirely before the Commons' Self-Destruct Vote, a way to evaluate where we start and provide a semblance of Point Zero from which to assess changes in later polls. Super-sample size is 19,030 thanks to a big YouGov internal poll, with a 0.69% theoretical margin of error and it's as bad as can be for Labour. Upside is that it can only get better, or can't it?
Owen Jones tried to make his point again a few days after the piece I mentioned earlier. I think Owen is too clever by half for his own good, and surely he can come up with something better than advocating the 'least-worst option'. If even the Crown Jewel of Media Corbynistas can't find the punchline to properly motivate the troops, then I guess he and Jeremy (The Other One) should pray that Boris Johnson proves as bad at facing real people during the campaign as he is at PMQs. Because, ye ken, sometimes even atheists get their prayers answered. The Guardian, never tired of stating the obvious, once again warned us how volatile the electorate are and how uncertain a 'cold snap' GE would be. Though there is some comic relief value in them arguing repeatedly that this or that could definitely happen unless of course the exact opposite happens, definitely. Some numbers from the most recent YouGov poll support the idea that uncertainty has become a certainty: only 56% of respondents will definitely not change their vote, 22% are bored at the prospect of the snap GE and only 5% excited. And of course traditional party loyalty might come back with a vengeance and annul the Brexit divide that the Guardian now sees as the most important determining factor. Until they make up a better one, insert Dreichness Factor here. Sad truth is that Labour still have a lot of work to do to bring disgruntled voters back home, as the breakdown of voting intentions by nation and region again shows.
Remember that Labour bagged a majority of the popular vote in the North in 2017, about 40% in the Midlands and 30% in the South. What we have now is quite alarming for them, especially as they are convincingly weakened in London, overtaken by the Tories in the North and near-dead in the ditches in Scotland and Wales. Labour might also consider that Momentum's very successful crowdfunding is but a drop in the ocean when Tories have unlimited access to dosh-heavy expatriate hedge funds and tax-evaders, and will aim for the best election dark money can buy. The SNP will undoubtedly welcome polls showing they could bag more votes than Scottish Conservatives and Labour combined but should never take anything for granted, today even less than yesterday. Pollsters' performance in 2017 was even more awful in Scotland than elsewhere, with the last week's polls projecting into 42-45 seats under voting patterns that prevailed back then and we know what happened next. Voting intentions are distinctly less volatile in Scotland than in the rest of the UK recently, but the SNP must also be prepared to face a variety of Doomsday scenarios. Voters willing to give Jeremy Corbyn a chance even it that means electing a number of anti-Corbyn Labour MPs. Voters willing to support the LibDems in their extreme 'Undo-Or-Die' anti-Brexit stance. Or simply an unwritten Better Together Revamped pact that did happen and worked in a number of key seats in 2017. Many reasons for the SNP to concentrate on the mandate for Independence and Westminster's abject mishandling of reserved matters, and avoid being dragged again into debating the Scottish Government's performance on devolved matters. Failing that, 13 December 2019 will be as bad a day as 9 June 2017 despite all the favourable polling of the last few months.
Pigs On The Wing © Roger Waters, 1977
Dogs © David Gilmour, Roger Waters 1977
Us And Them 🔊
© Roger Waters, Richard Wright, 1972
On such polling the Conservatives would conclusively win another term, and possibly a full one this time. Which is only up to them of course, and the amount of rebellion Johnson can trigger within the new swarm of dark blue MPs when he makes it clear they are but lowly cannon-fodder expected to obey the whip, or else…. There is every reason to be lost for words when looking at such results as there are so many reasons to end a decade of Tory rule even if the alternative is something of a leap into the unknown. Anyway my model, and others available online, all agree that current polling will deliver a Conservative majority, which might be anything from 60ish seats to 140ish seats, the average being a solid 91-seat majority with the Conservatives back roughly to between their 1979 and 1983 results and Labour to between their 1918 and 1923 results. As they say, history loves to repeat itself: first time is tragedy, second time is farce, third time is porn….
This is not an unexpected result when polls show the Conservatives leading by 14% overall and 18% in England, where all elections are decided and all fantasy dreams come to die. But of course the punditariat and commentariat relentlessly urge us to not believe the polls because, ye ken, it's us who decide who represents us, not them. Sure, lad, we had noticed. And now even one the most prominent pollsters tells us we shouldn't trust his own work. Which is of course nothing but a massive and concerted cover-your-ass operation, with the added hilarious bonus that some in the commentariat already launched a pre-emptive strike against themselves, arguing that they can't make head or tail of what is happening outside their London bubble because, ye ken, oiks are so unpredictable. So it's our fault if the punditariat again misrepresent our possible futures just as they repeatedly did our possible pasts. When polls are again proven wrong on Election Night, be ready for some fancy the-dug-ate-my-crosstabs defence from pollsters combined with some unimaginative I-was-just-following-pollsters defence from the commentariat. Could be fun and we might also get some real results thrown in every now and then. Consider yourselves warned.
The projected breakdown of seats by nation and region only confirms the magnitude of Labour's debacle even in their historic heartlands and supposedly safe seats. After such dismal results, Corbyn would obviously be slipstreamed into retirement whether he likes it or not. Which begs the question: and then who? Recently John McDonnell wished that a woman be elected to succeed Corbyn. Then you remember that Labour's NEC has fuck all power to enforce an all-women shortlist for the party leadership. And you realize that a recent poll of Labour members says the favourite would be…. Emily Thornberry. So why not keep Jezza after all? But first Labour should make the best of the bad hand they were dealt and focus on hitting hard where it hurts most. Like not getting embroiled in a Kill Deal Bill controversy, but just stress that Johnson had the votes as his worse-than-May's WAB passed the second reading and he chose to put it on the backburner and gamble on the snap GE. Then just ask what the Government's line on the NHS is today, and how they have changed it from yesterday's. Ironically 'tis is the time you realize even a shameless bastard like Alastair Campbell comes in handy when you're faced with an impossible task, too bad you kicked him out. Nae kiddin', lads. And while we're here, tell Richard Leonard to forget secret funny handshakes with the Scottish Tories, toxic brand on top of toxic brand just makes toxicer brand. Juist sayin'
© Roger Waters, 1977
Dominoes 🔊
© Syd Barrett, 1970
Under current polling 135 seats would change hands, close to what happened in 1874 when William Evart Gladstone lost the Premiership to Benjamin Disraeli after a not totally thought through snap election where Liberals massively lost seats though winning the popular vote by 8%, or in 1892 when Gladstone secured his fourth non-consecutive term as Prime Minister though his Liberal Party lost both the popular vote and the election to the Conservatives, but finally bagged a 35-seat majority thanks to the support of the two Irish pro-Home Rule parties. Don't take that as any sort of hint Jeremy Corbyn could cruise to Number Ten with SNP support as it won't happen. Christmas Snap Election Night is indeed more likely to be soundtracked by the sound of Labour seats falling one after the other, from marginals to supposedly safe ones all across the UK, with Scotland being the least of Labour's worries. The summary and cartography of this year's predicted gains and losses just show how deeply Labour would be hurt all over the UK.
The Labour frontbench would lose fifteen members (two Shadow Secretaries of State, eleven Shadow Ministers, one Opposition Whip and the Shadow Deputy Leader of Commons). Adding insult to injury, another major embarrassment for Labour would be Lindsay Hoyle sitting in the Speaker's Chair for only one day as the current favourite to succeed John Bercow on Tuesday is also predicted to lose his Chorley seat to the Conservatives. Of course standing against the Speaker is out-of-convention, mostly, but probably not out-of-character for the current Tory brand of loonies. Labour would also suffer a number of highly symbolic losses: Batley and Spen (Jo Cox's seat from 2015 until her brutal murder), Sedgefield (Tony Blair's seat from 1983 to 2007), West Bromwich West (former Speaker Betty Boothroyd's seat from 1974 to 2000), Battersea, Kensington, City of Chester, Canterbury, Peterborough and Portsmouth South (their surprise gains that led to Theresa May losing her majority in 2017). The Conservative current frontbench would be much more lightly wounded, losing only one Secretary of State (EU-subsidized Brexiteer farmer Alister Union Jack), three Junior Ministers (including Alex Salmond's Nemesis Colin Clark), two Parliamentary Private Secretaries (Cabinet Secretaries' bag-carrier-cum-rats who are nothing but expendable underlings anyway) and one Commons Whip. Nothing too serious then….
© Syd Barrett, 1967
If 🔊
© Roger Waters, 1970
On current polling there would be only 51 marginal seats in the whole UK, far fewer than in 2017. The widened gap between the Conservative and Labour votes has also reduced the overall number of possibly competitive seats to 144, so just 22% of the whole House. The complete cartography of marginals and the resulting alternate outcomes leave little hope of prevailing to the Loyal Opposition. For now. After all the game has just begun and it's just E-40, and a lot can happen in 40 days. After all Labour was leading by 4% 40 days before the 2015 election and…. oops…. might have been a slightly awkward example. You'll like the other one better: the Conservatives were leading by 17% 40 days before the 2017 election and…. by the way did I say already how unlikely I think this will happen again? OK never mind….
The worst case for the Conservatives on current polling would be a 48-seat majority and the best case a 133-seat majority. A better array of possibilities than May ever had in her last two years at Number Ten, but of couse she was much less of a clear and present danger to Labour's electoral prospects. May was more like "we'll burn that bridge when we come to it" and Johnson is definitely "we'll double-cross that bridge when we come to it". His total lack of self-awareness and fuzzy relation with even the most basic facts could prove an asset, however distressing that sounds, unless some in the MSM unexpectedly grow baws and solidly challenge Boris's envoys to the political programmes. Interesting moment could come when the Tory-In-The-Studio is asked to elaborate on their extravagant promises in the Queen's Political Broadcast On Behalf Of The Conservative Party, the ones they don't have the first penny to fund. Unless of course they make you believe they will get an unlimited supply of dosh from the money-trees on Grantchester Meadows, the ones near the endless river where the unicorns gather to drink. Labour know what they have to do: debunk the lies and not let themselves be caught off balance by the counter-lies, or else they will just be hopelessly waiting for signs that the tide is turning but will never actually see them.
© Roger Waters, 2017
Obscured By Clouds 🔊
© David Gilmour, Roger Waters, 1972
Now is as good a moment as any other to focus on what pollsters call 'house effect' and many other 'pollster bias'. Brits do love their election polls, with 78 conducted over the last four months by eleven different firms, a large and diverse enough sample to allow for relevant scrutiny. All pollsters involved are members of the British Polling Council (BPC), chaired by Oor Very Own John Curtice, and abide by its disclosure rules. But of course these rules say nothing about the validity or reliability of any poll or 'the merits of methods employed in specific surveys' (their wording). They just set a framework for ways to make all relevant information available to the public so they can make their own informed judgement on the results of any given survey. But as you might expect, these rules have more loopholes in them that Swiss cheese, especially when it comes to the infamous 'weighting, filtering, modeling and imputation procedures' (again, their own wording) used by pollsters, whatever the sentence may refer to, or not. Let's just see what pollsters have to say about the key factor in the snap GE: the Conservatives' lead over Labour. Chart shows the datapoints for all 78 recent polls, with trendlines added for the average of all polls and the four more prolific pollsters over the last four months (YouGov with 26 polls, ComRes with 14, Opinium with 11, Survation with 7).
First striking result is that the YouGov and ComRes trendlines are almost parallel with the general trendline also almost parallel in between them, and Opinium and Survation delivering more 'erratic' results. So you might conclude that YouGov has a 'Tory bias' while ComRes had a 'Labour bias' in their methodology and the way they translate their raw results into their headline results. Key here is the BPC rule about weighting that reads 'this procedure ascribes weights to respondents in order that their number within the weighted base more closely matches the known profile of the population being surveyed'. And here is your loophole big enough for a fully loaded aircraft carrier to sail through. The weighted base does not have to be a perfect match for the surveyed population, effectively meaning that 'statistically insignificant' (my words, not theirs) deviations are perfectly kosher. So one pollster can just over-represent one specific demographic by 1% and under-represent another one by 1% while the pollster-on-the-corner tweaks his crosstabs in exactly the opposite way and you increase the gap between the leading party and the runner-up by 2% while still being within the rules. Which is what the summary of predicted voting intentions by pollster shows.
Data here are limited to polls conducted over the last two months, so the overall picture is somewhat closer to the current trend. Included are all ten pollsters with two or more polls fielded within this timeframe, excluding only Hanbury Strategy who appear to make only random forays into the political world, not enough to determine a profile of their polling. The results are the weighted average of headline voting intentions published by each pollster, that is the tweaked triple-weighted data they release to the general public. You can see that, contrary to common wisdom, YouGov is not the most Tory-friendly of all. Opinium and Ipsos Mori lean even more in that direction while ComRes is the most Labour-friendly. The others are somewhere in between and a lot also depends on how much space their findings allocate to the Liberal Democrats. This is where seat projections come in handy, all of them of course using my own model. Then you can get different ones using one of the predictor options readily available online like Flavible's 'User predictions' or Electoral Calculus's 'Make you prediction'. Randomly diverging predictions are the price to pay in this day and age of DIY psephology where even a ten-year old with half a brain and a computer can show you yet another movie about how the next Commons will look.
Not that this exploration of the past says much as polls are as unpredictable as the commentariat's reactions to them or the way your pollster of choice might tweak the people's actual views. Get the right pollster and the right predictor algorithm and you can paint the political landscape pretty much any colour you like. Anything from a hung Parliament with Tories a dozen seats short of a majority, and unable to get one even with DUP support, to a hundred-seat Tory majority is true or has been true at some point or could be true one of these days in an unforeseeable future. Your pick. Obviously a lot of things might change anyway now that the lunatics are on the campaign trail. We will know soon enough if the Conservatives do live on borrowed time, as some in the left-wing commentariat think, while Labour are just biding theirs hoping for better days. 40 days to go until the final cut and until then don't believe everything John Curtice says, except when he says he doesn't know. Take what I say in a different way and it's easy to see that this is all confusion (fuck…. miss…. again not Pink Floyd, but good punchline anyway….).
© Nick Mason, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Richard Wright, Ron Geesin, 1970
High Hopes 🔊
© David Gilmour, Polly Samson, 1994
Now is the time for my usual detour to Scotland, and especially where we stand now on Independence. There are clear trends: support for holding a second Independence referendum is rising, support for Independence itself is rising too. Even polls with questionable ways to assess support for Independence show it. That applies to Scotland in Union's rigged wording of the referendum question, but also (sorry, Angus) to Progress Scotland's bizarre use of a 0-10 scale instead of the straight Yes-or-No question. If we focus on the trend rather than the numbers themselves, Scotland in Union's polling implies the Yes vote went up 2% between April and September, while Progress Scotland's polling implies it went up 6% between March and October. But a new feature of the debate is whether or not we should consider a Plan B that looks a fucking lot like an Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), as Angus MacNeil and Chris McEleny have proposed, admittedly without ever using the term 'UDI'. That the SNP Conference rejected it is irrelevant as it has obviously gained some traction within the Yes Movement and deserves being considered. So I considered it and decided I cannot support it. Independence is now 'within touching distance' as Nicola Sturgeon rightly remarked to massive cheers at The National's IndyRef2020 Rally, and the trend of recent genuine Indyref2 polls fully supports this view.
What we know from polls is that Scots are split roughly 50-50 about Independence vs Union. But nobody has the weest clue how many would support UDI, simply because the question was never asked. But I have a hunch it would be close to the 26% Progress Scotland found rating 10/10 on support to Independence. I also have a hunch that a move to UDI would alienate a fair share of the Soft Yes voters and of the recent No-To-Yes converts and possibly fatally hurt support to Independence. Besides it's not like Scotland lives on an island all by ourselves, figuratively of course. We must also pay attention to how our words and actions reflect on us and are interpreted in the outside world. Specifically within the European Union, and a move to UDI might not go down well down there. Just consider how Spain was always careful to point out they would not veto Independent Scotland rejoining the EU because the Scottish situation has nothing to do with the Catalonian situation and could not create a precedent. Precisely because the move towards Scottish Independence is based on obedience to the law and constitutional provisions, no matter how inconvenient they are for our cause. Then go for UDI and you bring back the Spanish veto. Any foolhardy move would probably also bring down explicit or implicit support for Independence in other countries, as EU leaders would probably refrain from expressing sympathy for Scotland if we don't play it by the book. And also consider the bigger picture.
The road to Independence is something of a tightrope walk on thin ice. One slip and down the hole we fall, and UDI might be just that. So ultimately there is no choice but the narrow way of legalism, even if it is English legalism and our resolve is put to the test. But there are clear signs the English Minister for the Union is treading on even thinner ice as the Precious Union is on the brink of disintegration. Support for Welsh Independence has reached 33% this year, up from 10% six years ago, and even Welsh Labour now supports their independence and ours. More strikingly 46% of Northern Ireland's voters now support Irish Reunification with 45% opposing it, as a majority of 'non-sectarian' voters would side with Republicans in a Border Poll. Westminster is also under pressure to grant extended devolved powers from the new elected Mayors in Northern England. And then there is London. To become Johnson's pet Singapore-On-Thames, wouldn't it need some special status too? Not independence surely but why not something pretty similar to the city-states in federal Germany? Whichever way you look at it, the writing is on the wall and the end is near for the Once United Kingdom As We Know It. Ceterum autem censeo Unionem esse delendam.
© David Gilmour, Polly Samson, 2014
Wot's…. Uh The Deal? 🔊
© Roger Waters, David Gilmour, 1972
'You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go'. Naw, you got it all wrong, that ain't Jacob Rees-Mogg addressing the House this week. That's Oliver Cromwell to the Long Parliament in 1653, but Eighteenth Century Jake couldn't have phrased it better. Now that we have the Snap Election, let's just go back to how we got here. The Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA) was devised to avoid snap elections at the Prime Minister's whim and requires a two-thirds majority for dissolution. Which in fact is not two-thirds but a fixed 434 votes as it's not two-thirds of votes cast but two-thirds of the number of seats regardless of how many are not taken (insert Sinn Féin here) or vacant. Which is why Johnson failed thrice to secure it though the Ayes were way above two-thirds of votes cast. So he took a different path to dissolution, with LibDems and SNP showing him the way, via a loophole in FTPA that requires only a simple majority to set a polling date per Section 2(7), without getting through the whole dissolution process under Sections 2(1) and 2(2), effectively nullifying FTPA and making opportunistic dissolutions legal and feasible again. The massive irony of course is that the stunt was totally unnecessary as Labour chose self-immolation and got Johnson his 434 and a few to spare.
This is where I disagree with the SNP's position on this. They actually supported the Tory view that if you don't agree with the law, you just abuse it to make it fit your agenda. Obviously this creates a very dangerous precedent that could be used against Scotland. The SNP agreed to circumvent FPTA by abusing it because they were eager to get a snap GE in which they expect significant gains, and in the end didn't even vote for it because they did not like the proposed date. Only Angus MacNeil acted consistently when he voted against the snap GE after strongly arguing against it earlier. So what would be their talking point if the next English Government decides to amend the long series of Scotland Acts to fit a hard-line Unionist agenda? Just bear in mind that Holyrood was made permanent only by a provision of the Scotland Act 2012, which could be easily repealed by a new Scotland Act supported by a Tory majority aided and abetted by LibDems and part of Labour. And then why would unionists stop at that and refrain from repealing parts of the founding Scotland Act 1998? They would probably not abolish devolution altogether as it would create a major outrage and constitutional crisis. All they need is to cut down the list of devolved powers and thus make Holyrood irrelevant. Johnson has already started going down that road with his not-so-veiled threat to undevolve NHS Scotland. Using an Act of Parliament to deliberately annul that same Act's core provision clearly opens the floodgates to other forms of legal abuse. Don't say you were not warned.
An added layer of uncertainty in the snap GE is 53 MPs standing down, which is still far below the current record (149 quitting in 2010) but will surely rise soon. The first Express and Star headcount on Wednesday morning was already overtaken by events as soon as it was published, so they quickly updated it. But it is surely already incomplete with some more announcements probably yet to come. So now it's up to Labour to actually campaign in England and prove their semblance of a manifesto is not just plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines. Don't even bother with Scotland lads, save money and energy for campaigning Doon Sooth. Up here I guess the SNP have quite hit their stride already and 'Brexit Bad, Indy Good' is definitely better than the 'Managers Of The Year' theme song of two years ago. Now they might find the Christmas campaign tougher than earlier ones and not only because the sun sets at 3pm in Stornoway and Perth. The SNP tend to base their arguments and talking points on hard facts, which is kind of a passé attitude in this age of Johnsonian Post-Truth. True or false is irrelevant, right or wrong does not matter, what counts is whether or not it's your 'sincerely held belief'. So you might sincerely believe that velociraptors roamed Flat Earth during Jesus's lifetime, that Surrey does subsidize Lanarkshire, that corporations are sentient beings or even that Jo Swinson is the next PM, and it's 100% halal and you may campaign on it. You might even get elected, for fuck's sake.
The next five weeks promise to be fun, or totally depressing, so stay tuned for further broadcasts.
Machiavelli's ideas are basically sound ones
Unfortunately, he was an optimist
(Andromeda, episode Double Helix, 2000)
© Roger Waters, 1992
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