From Serial Liar to Escapist

Boris Johnson rules himself out of Tory leadership race – video https://t.co/uDNZW90hKh

— The Guardian (@guardian) June 30, 2016

I read this, today, ideally I should have been happy that the Former Mayor of London whose only claim to fame was successful conduct of Olympics with an exorbitant budget and overseeing the housing in London skyrocket, increasing transport fares after promising to decrease; I should have been glad that this liar decided to not become the Prime Minister of a G-8 nation.

A picture speaks a thousand words

But then, now  that we think of it, when Cameron announced the referendum in February, 2016, Johnson was yet to pick a side even though he had Eurosceptic leanings. At least, with regard to Farage or Gove, whatever my disagreements are with them, I knew where they stood with regard to issues but with regard to Johnson, he has been pro immigration, pro single single market and at the same time, decided to campaign against the membership. Yet, after announcing that he was going to campaign for leaving the EU, he made strong statements about taking measures to curtail immigration, such as introducing points system; even though evidences have suggested that such measures have in fact increased immigration; like in the case of Australia, where in Victoria, a majority of them have at least one parent born outside the country. He spread further lies about how he would save 350 million pounds a week and spend it on NHS instead, a figure which was confirmed as misleading and now, after the vote, Farage confirmed that it can't be guaranteed.

It was evident that Boris Johnson had no plan as to what to do after leaving the Union, not that he ever had plans about anything, his absence at the House of Commons since the 'no vote' has not gone unnoticed, considering he might be asked to express a plan if he goes to Westminster, if not at the house, by the media when he walks out. So, when his close ally, Michael Gove decided to run leadership himself, our lad Boris pulls out saying; 'I am not that person who could give the country that direction'; I fail to understand how he believed he was the person to lead a campaign but not after the campaign.

Boris Johnson was the face of the campaign that spread the lies, now has created the mess, the 350 million that he promised has perhaps already been lost with the pound plunging and the markets crashing and after creating this mess, he has decided to chicken out and let someone else handle the mess that he has created. For once, I genuinely wished he had become Prime Minister, own up for his false campaign and accept responsibility for the mess that he has created. Boris Johnson steered the ship to unknown waters and now that the ship is too deep into it, he has ended up becoming the first person to run away from it, leaving the ship directionless.

Michael Gove, the likely alternative, is no commendable person either, while Boris promised more spending on the NHS, the Lord Chancellor has been sceptical not just about the EU, but also about the NHS. Moreover, he also had similarities with the other members of his campaign, when it came to spreading lies, when he claimed support of the former England football player John Barnes, only for Barnes to deny and pledge support for the Remain campaign.

It is unfortunate that UK are being placed under such uncertainty, owing to the petty politics and ego of the Tories where a serial liar manipulated the people into voting for a particular choice and now that it has gone disastrous, he has turned into an escapist. One can only hope that things become better with time.

Have a nice day,

Andy

David's Delusion

As Britain is set to be in limbo for the next three months, the man currently at the helm chooses to do nothing.

I was watching the House of Commons session live, yesterday, the first session since the vote to leave the European Union, the Union that had given the continent peace and stability for seven decades. With that said, I was observing David Cameron answer questions posed to him by the various MPs. While I appreciate the gracefulness with which he has accepted the defeat of his campaign to remain in the EU, I couldn't help but observe three things:

1. A Labour MP (not a very commendable one, a geriatric Eurosceptic himself) had addressed Cameron as 'Dodgy Dave' in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal which led to the MPs suspension from the house. However, David Cameron, yesterday, was in every way, being dodgy, evaded every difficult question saying that it was for the next government to decide, which won't be in place for another three months and yes, the only thing about changes in the UK, the best answer he had was that at present, UK is still a member of the Union and there would be no change till then and the negotiations have to be carried on by the new government. 

2. Nobody but Cameron could make as many contradictory promises totally incompatible with each other; the last time the Brits did such a thing, I recall was with regard to Palestine, with a plan to capture it for themselves in an agreement with the French, a promise to the Arabs provided they revolt against the ruling Ottomans (which they did) and also to the Zionists. Alas, such contradictory promises led to disastrous results. Some such promises made yesterday included the following:

• A particular MP had stated that there were a lot of EU citizens in his constituency and they are worried about their future for which the PM assured a retention of the status quo. 
• However, another MP, a Eurosceptic, who cited the same thing and said now that the country voted to leave, steps must be taken by the Prime Minister to contain the number of immigrants in his constituencies to which also, he agreed. 
• While the Leave camp was largely sceptical about the so called regulations imposed by the Single Market, Cameron asserted that he'd actively try to ensure that Britain has its place in the single market. 
• Agrees that no contribution would be made to the EU budget but still wants to be part of single market while agreeing that no country exists as of today, which does not contribute to the EU budget but has access to the single market. 

I can go on but I would stop here with regards this aspect. 

3. Cameron, promised that there would be no consequences to Brits living in other parts of the EU, UK would still have access to the single market, and no tariffs would be imposed on British goods despite staying out of EU membership. Imagine if Cameron says he is leaving No. 10 this September but still would do everything to retain all his powers and privileges as Prime Minister; the above promise is as absurd as that, I mean, why would the EU agree to all the demands of a non-member Britain? As such, the EU has made it absolutely clear that Britain got the best deal that they could offer and if they opt to vote out, they would not be treated with kid gloves. 

What I also understood from yesterday's discussion that the Leave campaign has no plan as of now, as to how to take the country forward, and in fact a Leave campaigner is known to have said that they had plan and it was No. 10, who was supposed to have had one. Moreover, the 350 million more towards the NHS, the nonsense which was being publicised by the Leave Campaign; the poster boy of the campaign, Nigel Farage, has already distanced himself from the claim that he can't guarantee that. Be that as it may, regarding the Leave campaign's lack of planning; Cabinet Minister Priti Patel, when she was asked about how she'd use the excess money, she said 100 million towards the NHS and had no clue as to how she'd use the rest. Well, this 350 million number (false) was probably the one that probably put the Leave campaign 4% ahead in the referendum and after everything is over, Farage is callous enough to admit that they lied and the people aren't even given a second chance or a second thought. 

Britain has succumbed to the opportunism of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage and from what I can anticipate, France would do their best to make Brexit terrible for Britain so that they would be able to keep the far right movement in their own country at bay. The French were probably dreaming of the days when the British would be at their mercy and it is ironic that finally, the British have given it themselves, without any effort from the French (Le Pen's insignificant voice is not considered). 

While it is senseless to expect Britain to go back on this stupid referendum, and even worse, the future of Britain is uncertain for the next three months as Cameron promises to do nothing till the next government takes over and of course, the to be new government, as of today, have no clue what they are going to do anyway while the Pound is on the run and the FTSE is on a free fall. 

All I would say is, I hope that Europe doesn't return to its dark ages yet again.

Have a nice day,

Andy

Sentiments over sense

Traffic signals are a menace and we all know it. We hate waiting those few seconds and feel that the entire system is programmed against you to make you stop everywhere. You find that a lot of them are there at an unnecessarily short distance and find the system in place has some flaws and frustrated over them, you gather a band of people who agree with you and start a movement. The movement would obviously grow in size, because, naturally, a lot of us hate it though none of us know what would happen with the lack of it. So yes, the movement grows in size, politically becomes a menace, and finally, a referendum is agreed, that depending on people's vote, they would abolish the system altogether.

So, the campaign starts, and those in favour of retaining them talk about the problems that one would face in the absence of it and the people from the movement immediately shun in saying that those in favour are running a fear campaign, their thoughts are filled with hate, while we are having a positive approach to the whole thing. When such an argument is used, those in favour are stumped and someone who has not made up her / his mind might think that it is a valid point but just to go a little deeper into it, there is no other way to campaign for status quo except for explaining the consequences over the lack of it; for, the benefits of its existence are being experienced by people any way. If somebody is being swayed by this 'negative' campaigning accusation for a referendum is downright stupid.

So, with that said, the vote comes, and with this negativity assumption, the movement manages to sway the undecided voters and finally, by a narrow margin, get the law to abolish all traffic signals. Fine, it is a revolution but is that a right way ahead? We all know the mess it would create without them, with gridlocked traffic, increased accidents and a lot of other problems. Yes, a majority of the people wanted to get them out of the way but then, just because a majority voted; is that the way forward? That is when a sensible government should issue a statement as to why they reject the narrowly passed popular vote and do what is best for the people. After all, a successful organisation in business is the one that delivers its customers what they want even though they might not know that they want them.

With that said, enough of allegories, think of it with the recently concluded referendum over Britain's membership with the EU. The European Union is a body that has achieved something; an idea which somebody would have laughed at even last century - six decades without war. Yes, Europe, after the second world war, saw extreme stability, thanks to the Union that brought it in. I fail to understand as to how, the older electorate, those who had their childhood ruined by the war could actually vote to leave the Union that has given their grandchildren a peaceful childhood.

The EU definitely has its flaws, but the hate campaign that Leave carried out with regards immigration, I fail to understand why all blame has been placed on the EU when immigration was happening all across Europe even in the 19th and 20th (pre EU era) centuries and in fact, the UK has benefited more from the free movement of labour and capital from other European nations. But still, people had certain sentimental opposition that Brussels holds a lot of power, a judgement by the Crown Court being potentially overturned at Luxembourg which they had problems with, these are all purely sentimental reasons and when you choose sentiment over sense, things don't go very well.

Worse things beckon for the UK, with Cameron set to resign (who wasn't a great PM himself),  Boris Johnson is likely to take the post; a politician from whom I have never heard a single original idea or implement any great reforms as the mayor of London and in fact, during his tenure, the housing markets skyrocketed for which he barely took any steps to control other than blind rhetoric. Johnson, in fact, unlike Gove or Farage, had not even picked a side till the date of the referendum was announced and merely saw this as his quickest route to Number 10, after all, he doesn't hold any ideas or views other than opportunism. He holds traits similar to Trump wherein, throughout the campaign, he has contradicted himself multiple times and with such ultra nationalism on the rise, I shall not be surprised if Trump actually becomes the president of US. After all, if Boris Johnson can become Prime Minister in October, Trump may very well become President in November.

Farage said that if Remain went through, they'd push for another referendum in the future; would he agree to concede a membership referendum in the near future? I doubt it, which shows the extreme hypocrisy of this campaign.

A majority voted for an exit, yes, a slender majority of 4%; but is that the right decision? Even if a majority of people are misled to believe and vote for something, it doesn't necessarily that it is right, sometimes it might be downright ignorance and miscommunication leading people to believe otherwise and the saddest part of the whole affair is, a majority of the young people voted to stay in, but thing have gone against them and they would be the ones facing the consequences of not being in EU.

The larger consequence I fear is the collapse of UK as a political union with yet another referendum in Scotland, where, every local council voted to remain in the Union but are being forced out. In fact, one of the issues for discussion during the earlier Scottish independence referendum was, in fact, EU membership where the Better Together swayed voters to their side with the argument that an independent Scotland would have to go through the process of applying for EU membership and won't be granted automatically. But now that they are out of it and circumstances have changed, the vote might yield a very different result now.

Frankly, a lot of issues spoken about during the referendum (the consequences - the negative campaign!) had a lot of financial aspects involved which I couldn't have appreciated much if I didn't have a finance background.

With that said, I have a great respect for the democratic process and believe in democracy, and choosing the right leader and government to provide direction but not on all technical matters because, there shouldn't be a case where sentiment prevails sense and thereby, going against the interests of the people; which is ultimately against the very foundation of democracy.

Have a nice day,

Andy

Playing right into their hands?

Would the flag continue to wave at Brussels for long?

Disclaimer: I haven't had the time to read too deep into the subject, and the post is solely based on whatever I've casually read till date, I shall post a more detailed article on the subject when the reality is nearer.

I recently read an article which said that for the first time, a majority of the British people favoured an exit from the European Union, in the upcoming referendum following David Cameron's promise if re-elected to power. The immediate cause stated for the change of mind amongst the public was the tragedy that took place in Paris last month and that is what made me confused, as to whether we're giving in to what the perpetrators of the attacks wanted - a weaker UK, a weaker Europe.

The present decade, post the EU crisis has seen a rise in support for the Eurosceptics, especially the UKIP, who despite managing to win just one seat, is in fact the third largest party in the UK by vote share whose sole ideology is an immediate exit from the EU. Post the release of the results of this survey, Nigel Farage might have been celebrating privately but then - are we, inadvertently giving in to the plot of the perpetrators?

Brexit is not a new subject and has always been a discussion where the trends have been similar to the Scottish Independence Referendum where a silent majority opposed the idea but the loud minority were a significant number (refer to my earlier post on Noise or Voice) and all that you need to swing it in favour of the loud significant minority is ONE event and that is exactly what the perpetrators of the Paris attacks perhaps intended - rattle Europe, cause fear and distrust amongst the member nations and the last of it, provide a fillip to the Brexit movement ultimately weakening the Union.

Britain is isolated within Europe and historically, they could use this isolation to their advantage by controlling the seas but in the present era, it is doubtful whether that can still work, but that apart, there are a lot of ramifications on a Brexit - for starters, a significant drop in GDP upto 3% is estimated owing to a Brexit and I am not going to dwell on this too much as the exact figures are always under dispute. As Obama said earlier during a Brexit debate, the special relationship with a strong UK in a very strong Europe and not otherwise and hence, the special relationship with the US is under threat with a Brexit in prospect. Moreover, from what I understand, it could also threaten London's position as Europe's financial centre, with the speculation that many companies possibly moving to other locations within Europe and also, there is also the question of the relationship with the Netherlands, Malta and Cyprus who have significant trade interests in the UK.

But before I go too much into the isolation part of it - there are very little answers to the question from the Eurosceptics as to what would happen post Brexit, if it were to happen, except the very loose suggestion from Nigel Farage that he'd increase cooperation with the non-contiguous Commonwealth. The question to whether this would just be an exit from the EU or whether this would imply an exit from the EEA as well and the Council of Europe / the customs union are questions that don't have very precise answers - would UK continue to be a de facto member akin to Switzerland and Norway or are they going to isolate themselves totally? If UK is going to stay in the EEA, I guess Brexit is a mere symbolism where there would be no real result except that probably, Farage would have moved a step closer to No. 10. Moreover, what about the other complications - the UK have themselves aligned to the Maastricht Treaty in every way possible and if the government wants to repeal that, how long would such legislations take, driving the very question on when a real Brexit can practically happen? I wouldn't even get into the debate as to which side should Cameron be on, for the campaign as, members of his party have been on either sides and if an exit does happen, what would a subsequent Labour government which is pro Union do post being elected to power, if it happens?

Let me not get too much into technical details for two reasons - one; whatever I know is only out of what I have read casually from the papers that I get in a distant land and two; the technical aspects are certainly not the core discussion at Harrods or Hyde Park, it'd be all about how EU is the reason for the Paris attack and how moving out of it would secure Britain from all possible attacks. There is also the popular sentiment that the Romanians and the Bulgarians would stop grabbing British jobs and the dole.

But then, with a Brexit - we're just going to show that we've just made ourselves vulnerable, there would obviously be chaos for a while when one EU 3 member leaves the union and of course, this is exactly the opportunity that the perpetrators are probably looking for and we've played right into their hands, by swinging in favour of the result they want which is something that we should avoid at all costs.

This is a time when Europe ought to be together, the reason why Paris could get back strongly was not in spite of the Union but because of the Union (I know that this statement is a rip off from Gordon Brown), with the cooperation from Belgium, Greece and other member states alike and the enemy is common, even for Britain and it is the perpetrators of the Paris attack and not the European Union. This is a time where unity is required, more than ever, not just in Europe but throughout the world and more countries need to come together than break away. May there be success against the perpetrators of the Paris attacks and may the success of a joint European operation bring kill the Eurosceptic sentiment.

Long live Europe!

Have a nice day,

Andy

Noise or Voice?

Your level of influence on the people around you is often said to be very important and I'm someone who very strongly believes in it. However, the key question is, how do you achieve this level of influence and moreover, how do you judge whether a person's voice really has an influence on the people - often put in simple terms - whether the person has charisma.

While I'm really not sure as to how that is achieved, whether it is innate or whether it is something achievable by conscious effort but what I've observed over the years is that there is a misconceived notion on achieving the same and here I merely intend to touch upon this misconception.

What I find is, there are some kinds of people who are very loud, who push their ideas and views very aggressively and and make a lot of noise in the name of expressing theirs voice. Interestingly, such people have followers of two kinds, one set of people who are too submissive and another set of people who see themselves in that person and are equally noisy and obnoxious. What I'm immediately reminded of is the two recently concluded events that upheld the democratic traditions of the United Kingdom - one being the Scottish independence referendum, 2014 and the general election, 2015.

Where the former is concerned, whenever I read any article or watched any YouTube video regarding the same, I found the nationalists commenting all over the place as to how everyone is biased and the general public wants to vote yes in the referendum and accusing every journalist and panelist of bias. Anybody from a far away place such as myself, by reading such comments is that the UK is going to shatter and that the nationalists are going to win it hands down.

The next is the general election with respect to Nigel Farage and his party UKIP. Farage pushed his rather radical ideas in a very very aggressive manner throughout his campaign, which has been going on for sometime now, who ran a single point agenda and somehow believed that the single point would resolve every other problem that the country is facing. Even in television debates, he goes about making wild claims, in a very aggressive manner, a lot of them completely untrue, but then, just because there was a man standing behind the podium expressing something angrily, a lot of people I knew thought the statements to be legitimate. In fact, Farage's supporters were so advanced that I read in an article in The Guardian that going just by Google search against their name, Farage would heavily outnumber Ed Miliband to become the leader of opposition in the House of Commons.

However, the reality in both the cases was quiet different - with Scotland deciding to stay in the Union and Nigel Farage's UKIP winning just one seat in the 650 member house with Farage losing his own seat (for the purpose of this article, I'm going to ignore that fact that UKIP got more votes than Lib Dems and the SNP).

Coming back to my observations, what I see in all these cases, is that, the majority is always silent and are not really bothered by the noise that is created by the people who vociferously promote their thoughts and the truth is, they do so because they actually feel insecure about being in this minority that they try to show their presence by making a lot of noise and this goes on till the day when the silent majority finally decide to exercise their choice as Gordon Brown said, in his speech at Glasgow a day before the referendum - "The silent majority shall be silent no more".

So, all I wish to say is, especially to those who wish to gain an influence amongst the people around them, merely making a noise doesn't indicate that you're having a voice, you'd live under an illusion till you're pulled down when you needed that voice.

Have a nice day,
Andy