Archive for October, 2015

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Johor could manage without Malaysia, but Malaysia without Johor would collapse

October 18, 2015

The corruption in the Malaysian body politic runs deep and is even getting to be too much for the Malay Royal families. The 1MDB scandal may be the last straw. The Royal families are very keen to distance themselves from the shenanigans which the Prime Minister is now enmeshed in. So much so that the spectre of secession has been raised.

BBC: Malaysians are no strangers to money politics but the high-profile players and the amount of funds allegedly involved in the so-called “1MDB scandal” have gripped the nation.

It stems from Prime Minister Najib Razak’s strategic state fund called 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) set up in 2009 when he came into office. The fund is meant to turn Kuala Lumpur into a financial hub. It started to attract national attention when it missed payments for the $11bn (£7.1bn; €9.9bn) it owes to banks and bondholders.

Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has said the fund has taken on too much debt and lacks transparency. He has also criticised Mr Najib’s family’s “lavish” lifestyle, which has been regularly discussed in the local press.

Then the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported it had seen a paper trail that allegedly traces close to $700m from the troubled fund to Mr Najib’s personal bank accounts. Mr Najib is now facing calls to prove his assets are legal.

The Southern state of Johor with its proximity to Singapore is exposed daily to the differences between what Singapore has achieved and what Malaysia has not. So much so that the Crown Prince has now followed his younger brother’s warning shot from June this year to remind the politicians in Kuala Lumpur that if the accession agreements of 1948 are breached then Johor could well decide to secede from the federation.

the 13 states in the Federation of Malaysia

The States of Sarawak and Sabah would follow Johor’s lead and while actual secession is probably a long, long, way away, this is the first time in a long while that I can remember secession being used as a threat – and being taken with some semblance of seriousness. There is even analysis to show that Johor could well go it alone

Malaysia Chronicle: His Royal Highness the Tengku Mahkota of Johor has stated that if Putrajaya breaches the terms behind the Federation of Malaya, Johor as a state may be forced to secede.

His Royal Highness also took great pains to echo the feelings of misery felt by millions and declared that the Royal family was “not a part of this current mess”.

From an economic point of view, how would Johor fare if it were to go its own way? Would it be better off or worse off?

Firstly, if Johor were to become an independent nation, it would probably be a monarchy, governed like an Emirate, as opposed to a Constitutional Monarchy. Some argue that given the experience of countries the last 10 plus years, monarchy as a form of Government may actually hold better prospects than democracy for young democracies with weak law enforcement.

From an economic point of view, Johor would (be) really well positioned. It would probably have extensive rail and tunnel links with Singapore and the flow of goods between Johor and Singapore will be more like the flow of goods between England and France. There would probably be at least two to three high speed rail links into Johor from Singapore creating a megapolis, albeit between two different countries.

As an independent state, Johor will need its own central bank. This will enable financial intermediation and ensure greater economic progress. But it would probably need to be capitalised with a loan of about US $10 billion. From then on, the Johor as an independent country will be responsible for management of its own domestic and external trade. ……

…… Johor as an independent developed state could easily hold a population of 10 million ten years after independence, which means that its GDP is a staggering USD $400 billion; comparable to the entire GDP of Malaysia. …….

Malaysia without Johor would mean a country sharing a border with Negeri Sembilan, Malacca and Pahang. Some parts of this border cuts through virgin jungle and Johor would be required to protect its border, much the same way as the Malaysia – Thai border is protected.

But this would probably mean the demise of Malaysia as a country. Johor can survive without Malaysia, but can Malaysia survive without Johor? Malaysia will probably enter into a severe economic recession and end up as a failed state should Johor secede.

The Malaysian government is not amused, but the general disgust with government ministers and the ruling party is now quite high. Even Mahathir, the former Prime Minister, has seen it as necessary to criticise the present regime.

Interesting times and a possible Balkanisation of Malaysia.

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European nuclear moratoria are ineffective and counter-productive as China plans 110 nuclear plants by 2030

October 18, 2015

Update! Numbers have been corrected. By 2030 China plans 110 nuclear plants in operation which is another 60 reactors in addition to the 50 currently in operation or under construction. (I had earlier assumed that the plan was for 110 new reactors).

The European nuclear industry is almost dead as a consequence of,

  1. the ban on nuclear power in countries which have succumbed to environmental political correctness (e.g. Sweden, Germany…)
  2. the ridiculously long and costly permitting processes (environment and safety) in countries where nuclear power has not been banned (UK, Finland…)

As a contribution to the global use (or non-use) of nuclear power, the European reluctance to use nuclear power is entirely meaningless. For the objectives of killing the European nuclear industry and raising costs for electrical power in Europe, the anti-nuclear lobby has been entirely successful.

China currently has 23 nuclear plants in operation and 27 under construction which will be in operation by 2020. By 2020 the Chinese nuclear generating capacity will have almost tripled from the 21GW, 2014 level to be about 58GW in 2020. They have just announced their next five-year plan and some long-term strategies. Another $78 billion has been earmarked to reach 110 nuclear plants in operation by 2030. These plants will be built using indigenous Chinese technology. This technology is now available for export. It is being actively considered for projects in Pakistan and Argentina and now China is even a possible investor in the UK. Each Chinese nuclear plant has a capacity of about 1.1GW (1,100MW). At $78 billion for a further 60 plants, the investment cost planned is about $1200/kW. This is incredibly low, not just for nuclear plant, but for any type of power generating plant. Even assuming a volume effect, it can be expected that Chinese nuclear power plants could be exported at about $1,200-1500/kW.

The Hindu:

China plans to build 110 nuclear power plants by 2030 with an investment of over $78 billion overtaking the U.S. which has 100 such plants amid criticism that Beijing is yet to implement enough measures to develop safety controls in existing projects.

China will build six to eight nuclear power plants annually for the next five years and operate 110 plants by 2030 to meet the urgent need for clean energy, Beijing-based China Times quoted plan analysts as saying. China will invest 500 billion yuan ($78.8 billion) on domestically developed nuclear power plants, the report said. According to the China Times, the country plans to increase its electricity generation capacity to 58 gigawatts by 2020, three times the 2014 level. 

China currently has 23 nuclear power generating units in operation and 27 under construction, about one-third of the world’s unfinished nuclear units.

The construction resumed after the Chinese government which put the brakes on nuclear power plant approvals after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan in 2011 permitted their construction after a safety review.

nuclear sites in china (graphic world-nuclear.org)

nuclear sites in china (graphic world-nuclear.org)

In Europe the Olkiluoto #3 nuclear plant of 1,600MW in Finland, was first expected to cost about $2,000/kW, but with all the delays and cost overruns it is going to end up costing about $5,300/kW. Even if the unnecessary approvals and cost overruns incurred just to satisfy the environmental lobbies were not there, the investment cost for new nuclear capacity in Europe would still be about $2,600-3000/kW (compare that with about $1,100/kW for gas fired plant, about $2,500/kW for a coal or onshore wind plant and about $6,800/kW for offshore wind power).

As a comparison, India currently has 21 nuclear rectors in operation with a capacity just under 6GW. A further 6 reactors giving another 4 GW are under construction. The Indian plan is to reach about 63GW of nuclear capacity by 2032 which, of course, will not happen. My experience of Indian power planning is that about 60% of the plan will be implemented (though the track record is improving). So it is quite probable that India will construct around another 40 nuclear reactors (@800MW/reactor on average) by 2032. (In that period Indian coal consumption would also have trebled).

At the Chinese cost of exporting nuclear plant for around $1,200-1,500/kW, it is only to be expected that the electrification of Africa and nuclear expansion in S. Asia will be satisfied to a large extent by nuclear power.  A big chunk of that would be with Chinese technology. I have no doubt that European nuclear plants operate to much higher safety standards than the current Chinese reactors, but the European nuclear industry is now dead and it is Chinese nuclear technology which will be affordable and will prevail.

Considering the goals it was set out to achieve, the European anti-nuclear stance has been totally ineffective (except locally in Europe) and grossly counter-productive:

  1. it has no long-term impact on global use of nuclear energy,
  2. it has effectively killed the European nuclear power industry,
  3. it has effectively reduced the safety levels of all those nuclear plants that will be built over the next two decades, and
  4. it has increased the cost of electric power in Europe.

It is worth remembering that while the Great 2011 Earthquake and Tsunami killed some 18,000 people in Japan, the Fukushima accident it caused has killed no-one directly due to radiation. Now, less than 30 years after the major disaster at Chernobyl, the area is very far from being some nuclear waste-land, and plant and wild-life are thriving as never before in the region.

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A loss of elegance in the nature of matter

October 17, 2015

Physics is losing the elegance it once had.

I suppose I am just old-fashioned but I learnt that simpler was better and more elegant – whether in mathematics or science or engineering or literature or poetry.  Shorter reports rather than longer ones, simpler language if more precise, lighter machines rather than heavier ones, elegant physical structures rather than complex ones. No waste, no extraneous fuss. Necessary and sufficient was the ideal.

In the ancient world, all things were made up of fire, water, air and earth. It was a simple. elegant and powerful model to explain the world of matter.

 

Matter a la Aristotle

Matter a la Aristotle (image honolulu.hawaii.edu)

Then in the modern world, 2,500 years later, when over 100 different elements had been discovered, and where each element was built up of unique, fundamental atoms, an even simpler, more elegant and powerful model was discovered/developed. All atoms of all elements were found to be built up from just 3 elementary particles; the proton, the neutron and the electron.

Rutherford-Bohr atom

Rutherford-Bohr atom

It has been downhill from that peak of elegance ever since.

Physics has become a Big Science where billion dollar sledgehammers are used to crack little nuts. Pieces of nut and shell go flying everywhere and each little fragment is considered a new elementary particle. The Rutherford-Bohr model still applies, but its elementary particles are no longer considered elementary. Particles with mass and charge are given constituent particles, one having mass and no charge, and one having charge and no mass. Unexplainable forces between particles are assigned special particles to carry the force. Particles which don’t exist, but may have existed, are defined and “discovered”. Errors in theoretical models are explained away by assigning appropriate properties to old particles or defining new particles. Every new particle leaves a new slime trail across the painting. It is as if a bunch of savages are doodling upon a masterpiece. The scribbling is ugly and hides the masterpiece underneath, but it does not mean that the masterpiece is not there.

Atom in the standard model 1 - CPEPweb

Atom in the standard model 1 – (image CPEPweb.org)

Atom in the standard model 2 - CPEPweb

Atom in the standard model 2 – (image CPEPweb.org)

The “standard model” does not quite fit observations so new theories of dark energy and dark matter are postulated (actually just invented as fudge factors) and further unknown particles are defined. The number of elementary particle have proliferated and are still increasing. The “standard model” of physics now includes at least 61 elementary particles (48 fermions and 13 bosons). Even the ancient civilisations knew better than to try and build with too many “standard” bricks. Where did simplicity go? Just the quarks can be red, blue or green. They can be up, down, charm, strange, top or bottom quarks. For every type of quark there is an antiquark. Electrons, muons and taus have each their corresponding neutrinos. And they all have their anti-particles. Gluons come in eight colour combinations. There are four electroweak bosons and there ought to be only one higgs boson. But who knows? CERN could find some more. I note that fat and thin or warm and cool types of particles have yet to be defined. Matter and antimatter particles on meeting each other, produce a burst of energy as they are annihilated. If forces are communicated by particles, gravity by gravitons and light by photons then perhaps all energy transmission can give rise to a whole new family of elementary particles.

The 61 particles still do not include the graviton or sparticles or any other unknown, invisible, magic particles that may go to making up dark matter and dark energy. Some of the dark matter may be stealthy dark matter and some may be phantom dark matter. One might think that when dark matter goes phantom, it ought to become visible, but that would be far too simple.  The level of complexity and apparent chaos is increasing. Every new particle discovered requires more money and Bigger Science to find the next postulated elementary particle.

When CERN claimed to have found the God Particle – the higgs boson – they still added the caveat that it was just one kind of the higgs boson and there could be more as yet unknown ones to come. So the ultimate elementary particle was certainly not the end of the road. Good grief! The end of the road can never be found. That might end the funding. And after all, even if the God Particle has been found, who created God? Guess how much all that is going to cost?

Forbes: The Large Hadron Collider took about a decade to construct, for a total cost of about $4.75 billion. There are several different experiments going on at the LHC, including the CMS and ATLAS Detectors which discovered the Higgs boson. CERN contributes about 20% of the cost of those experiments, which is a total of about $5.5 billion a year. The remainder of the funding for those experiments is provided by international collaborations. Computing power is also a significant part of the cost of running CERN – about $286 million annually. Electricity costs alone for the LHC run about $23.5 million per year. The total operating budget of the LHC runs to about $1 billion per year.

The Large Hadron Collider was first turned on in August of 2008, then stopped for repairs in September until November 2009. Taking all of those costs into consideration, the total cost of finding the Higgs boson ran to about $13.25 billion.

I am not a physicist, so maybe all this cost for the sledgehammer approach is worthwhile. I don’t comprehend the “standard model” but I can’t help feeling that many of the current “discoveries” in physics are primarily concerned with getting further funding. So when the CERN public relations machine goes into overdrive and issues breathtaking prose about awesome new finds, I tend to reach for the salt. A “standard model” it may be, but simple it is not and elegance is a long, long way away.

“Simple” and “elegant” are value judgements. I look forward to the time when physics and physicists simplify their house(s) of magic and fantasy and return to those values. And preferably with some elegance and without the sledgehammers of Large Hadron Colliders and supercomputers.

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,

And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum

But for the structure of matter, 61+ elementary particles is not just inelegant. It is becoming downright ugly.

 

 

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Ancient Chinese teeth confirm many and older Out of Africa events

October 15, 2015

Over at 6,000 generations I post about the new paper about the 47 human teeth found in Fuyan Cave, Daoxian, China which are between 80,000 and 120,000 years old.

The 47 human teeth found in Fuyan Cave, Daoxian, China. photo S. XING AND X-J. WU via DiscoveryNews

There were clearly many Out of Africa or Africarabia events starting from 130,000 years ago both before and after the Toba explosion.

80,000-120,000 year old modern humans in S China confirm many and older Out of Africa events

The single Out of Africa event for modern humans is clearly far too simplistic. It is also clear that there were many back to Africa movements as well. Humans expanded sometimes because their old habitats were no longer viable. But, it seems, humans also explored and expanded into new territories from regions of plenty and where they maintained some contact with where they had come from. Probably, just because they could.

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Clinton has just 20% chance of winning against any Republican says incumbency model

October 14, 2015

According to a model based on how an incumbent fares in an election from 450 elections in 35 democratic countries, any Democrat has only a 20% chance of beating any Republican for the US Presidential election.

Clinton's chances

Clinton’s chances

The model shows that Barack Obama’s current approval ratings are not high enough to allow a successor to get elected, though he would, as an incumbent, have an 80% chance of being reelected himself. With his current approval rating of 45-47%, any successor would only have a 20% probability of winning. Even if Hillary Clinton is an exceptional candidate, it will not be enough to overcome the inexorable hand of this incumbency effect.

Clifford Young and Julia Clark in Reuters:

Elections are not mysterious events subject to the whimsy of unpredictable candidates and voters. They’re actually highly predictable, with a set of variables that influence outcomes in familiar ways. Because of that, we can say, with reasonable confidence, that a Republican will be moving into the White House in 2017.

That conclusion is based on the results of a data model we created, and is primarily the result of two factors, both related to the challenges faced by “successor” candidates — candidates from the same party as the incumbent. First, a Republican will win because voters typically shy away from the party currently in power when an incumbent isn’t running. In fact, a successor candidate is three times less likely to win. Second, President Barack Obama’s approval ratings are too low to suggest a successor candidate will take the White House.

At this point in the election cycle, poll data asking the “horserace” question (“Who will you vote for in November 2016?”) can be very misleading. This far from Election Day, published poll data is off by an average of 8 percentage points compared with the true election outcome. That’s an enormous number when we’re used to elections where candidates win by two to three points.

Time Before Election

Average error of polls (compared to final results)
One week

1.7%
One month

2.7%
Two months

3.8%
Three months

4.8%
Six months

5.8%
Nine months

6.9%
Twelve months

7.9%

Source: Ipsos analysis of 300 polls across 40 markets from 1980 through current

So we created a much larger database of elections by looking beyond the United States to hundreds of presidential and parliamentary elections in democratic countries around the world. This exercise gave us far more data to work with: a sample size of more than 450 elections from 35 countries.

The most important finding from our model is the power of incumbency: if you already hold the office you seek, you are far more likely than not to retain it. Our model showed that incumbents have a threefold greater chance of beating their opponent. When no incumbent is running, successor candidates (in this case, Democrats) are three times less likely to win.

From our database of global elections we also learned about the importance of knowing where the public stands on the direction their country and leadership are going. Are they generally happy or unhappy with the government? There are a few ways to measure this, but the most universal (and therefore the one we use) is approval ratings of the sitting leader or president.

Our model proves the power of presidential approval ratings. It determines that in order for a successor candidate to have better than even chances of winning, the sitting president must have an approval rating of above 55 percent. Because Barack Obama’s average approval rating is now at 45 percent, a successor candidate (i.e. Democrat) is unlikely to win. …….

…… In the coming months, Obama’s approval ratings may tick up. But they would have to pass the 55 point mark to give the Democrats even odds of keeping the White House. This is extremely unlikely, given the fact that presidential approval typically declines over time, and Obama’s ratings are no exception.

Some will argue that Hillary Clinton is special; that her chances are significantly better because, given her popularity and status as a “legacy” candidate, she seems more like an incumbent. But if we go along with that hypothesis and run it through our model, at Obama’s current approval ratings, Clinton’s chances of winning the general election are still less than half.

The Democrats have quite a mountain to summit to retain power past 2016.

The best strategy for Hillary would now be to stop throwing any money down the election drain until Obama improves his approval rating to at least 55%. That would at least give her a 50% chance of being elected.

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Opportunities for wealth creation needed rather than just redistribution of wealth

October 13, 2015

Credit Suisse has published its Global Wealth report and its accompanying Databook. The data are based on the world’s adult population of about 4.8 billion. What is immediately obvious is that the wealth is very badly skewed with 71% of the world’s adults having a net worth of less than $10,000, 21% have net worth between $10,000 and 100,000 while just 8% have wealth of over $100,000. (I have also added the line of those in extreme poverty).

However my take is that the pyramid is actually a reflection of wealth creating ability.  The challenge is to make wealth creation opportunity less sensitive to the having of wealth. That suggests to me that it is not just a redistribution from rich to poor that is required in the first instance, but the provision of wealth creation opportunity for those having lower net worth. If extreme poverty can be eliminated, and wealth creation opportunity be made less dependant upon having wealth, then we will have a resultant wealth distribution that automatically matches the wealth creation ability of individuals.

CS global-wealth-report-2015 (pdf)

CS global-wealth-databook-2015 (pdf)

The global wealth pyramid is particularly interesting (wealth being taken as net worth):

It has a large base of low wealth holders and upper levels occupied by progressively fewer adults. We estimate that 3.4 billion individuals – 71% of all adults in the world – have wealth below USD 10,000 in 2015. A further billion adults (21% of the global population) fall in the USD 10,000–100,000 range. While average wealth is modest in the base and middle tiers of the pyramid, total wealth here amounts to USD 39 trillion, underlining the economic importance of this often neglected segment. Each of the remaining 383 million adults (8% of the world) has net worth above USD 100,000. This group includes 34 million US dollar millionaires, who comprise less than 1% of the world’s adult population, yet own 45% of all household wealth. We estimate that 123,800 individuals within this group are worth more than USD 50 million, and 44,900 have over USD 100 million.

Global Wealth Pyramid - adapted from Credit Suisse

Global Wealth Pyramid – adapted from Credit Suisse

The take-away from this depends somewhat on from which side of the political spectrum the data are viewed. Looking from the left it is a strident call to arms to “take from the rich and give to the poor”. But this, I think, is just a little too simplistic. How net worth is distributed generally reflects not only wealth concentration but also wealth creation. Merely redistributing existing wealth will actually reduce the total amount of wealth that is created. The bulk of wealth creation thus lies at the initiative of those having the most wealth. It is this coupling between having wealth and wealth creation opportunities which needs to be addressed. It is wealth creation opportunities for those at the lower reaches of the pyramid which is the real need. It is the cliche – but true – of giving a man a fish (wealth) or teaching him how to fish (or create wealth).

Just redistribution will not increase the world’s wealth creation and it is more likely that it will reduce most for those having the lowest net worth. And that would be entirely counterproductive.

However there is little denying that at the top of the pyramid, the concentration of net worth can be almost obscene. Just 123,800 individuals are each worth over $50 million and 44,900 of them are each worth over $100 million.

Top of the wealth pyramid from Credit Suisse

Top of the wealth pyramid from Credit Suisse

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Swedish study says antioxidants also protect cancer cells

October 13, 2015

A new paper from Sahlgrenska Academy in Gothenburg shows that

Antioxidants can increase melanoma metastasis in mice, K Le Gal et al, Science Translational Medicine, 07 Oct 2015:
Vol. 7, Issue 308, DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aad3740

First antioxidants were good for you, then they were of doubtful benefit and now it seems they are positively bad. Many foods containing antioxidants have been touted for their health benefits and have included chocolate, fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, whole grains, maize, legumes and eggs. Red wine was on the list but the benefits of Resveratrol have already come under a cloud for alleged data tampering.

Of course, perceived antioxidant benefits have not much influenced my own consumption of dark chocolate and red wine. But what the study finds is that  “the overall conclusion from the various studies is that antioxidants protect healthy cells from free radicals that can turn them into malignancies but may also protect a tumor once it has developed”.

So antioxidants can help prevent a cancer developing, but once the cancer is there antioxidants can speed up the progression of the cancer. Dark chocolate and red wine therefore remain on the  “good foods list” for those who do not have any cancerous cells.

Sahlgrenska Press Release:

Fresh research at Sahlgrenska Academy has found that antioxidants can double the rate of melanoma metastasis in mice. The results reinforce previous findings that antioxidants hasten the progression of lung cancer. According to Professor Martin Bergö, people with cancer or an elevated risk of developing the disease should avoid nutritional supplements that contain antioxidants.

Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, demonstrated in January 2014 that antioxidants hastened and aggravated the progression of lung cancer. Mice that were given antioxidants developed additional and more aggressive tumors. Experiments on human lung cancer cells confirmed the results.
Given well-established evidence that free radicals can cause cancer, the research community had simply assumed that antioxidants, which destroy them, provide protection against the disease. Found in many nutritional supplements, antioxidants are widely marketed as a means of preventing cancer. Because the lung cancer studies called the collective wisdom into question, they attracted a great deal of attention.

The follow-up studies at Sahlgrenska Academy have now found that antioxidants double the rate of metastasis in malignant melanoma, the most perilous type of skin cancer. Science Translational Medicine published the findings on October 7.
“As opposed to the lung cancer studies, the primary melanoma tumor was not affected,” Professor Bergö says. “But the antioxidant boosted the ability of the tumor cells to metastasize, an even more serious problem because metastasis is the cause of death in the case of melanoma. The primary tumor is not dangerous per se and is usually removed.”

Experiments on cell cultures from patients with malignant melanoma confirmed the new results. “We have demonstrated that antioxidants promote the progression of cancer in at least two different ways,” Professor Bergö says.
The overall conclusion from the various studies is that antioxidants protect healthy cells from free radicals that can turn them into malignancies but may also protect a tumor once it has developed. 

Taking nutritional supplements containing antioxidants may unintentionally hasten the progression of a small tumor or premalignant lesion, neither of which is possible to detect.
“Previous research at Sahlgrenska Academy has indicated that cancer patients are particularly prone to take supplements containing antioxidants,” Dr. Bergö says. “Our current research combined with information from large clinical trials with antioxidants suggests that people who have been recently diagnosed with cancer should avoid such supplements.”

 

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The Left Honourable

October 12, 2015

Jeremy Corbyn does not wish to kneel in front of his Queen. He went hiking rather than meet with his monarch. A dastardly act. So he is not yet a member of the Privy Council.

In Parliament he will now have to be referred to as “My Left Honourable Friend/Member”.

The Telegraph:

The Queen’s advisers told Parliament to strip Jeremy Corbyn of his “Right Honourable” status after Number 10 wrongly implied the Labour leader had joined the Privy Council, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Mr Corbyn was described on Parliament’s website as “Right Honourable”, which denotes membership of the centuries-old Privy Council, until late last week.

The Labour leader was also described as a “Right Honourable friend” by Prime Minister David Cameron when they faced each other in the Commons last month, days after he was voted in as Labour leader.

However, after Mr Corbyn failed to attend the first meeting of the Privy Council since the summer holidays with the Queen last Thursday, the “Rt Hon” title was removed from Mr Corbyn’s page on Parliament’s website.

The Left Honourable Corbyn (photo Irish Times)

It might seem appropriate, but, of course, there is some difficulty in being both Left and Honourable simultaneously.

Unless Corbyn is also schizophrenic.

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The top 10 nanny states of the “free world”

October 12, 2015

A “nanny” state is one which perceives itself as a “free democracy”, but

in which the government insists that it knows best what is good for its subjects and enforces regulations to control individual behaviour under the pretext of the “common good”, “public morality” or of “public health and safety concerns”. 

The top 10 nanny states (11 including the EU) are

  1. Australia
  2. Sweden
  3. EU* 
  4. Norway
  5. UK
  6. Denmark
  7. Singapore
  8. US
  9. Germany
  10. France
  11. Ireland

*Note! The EU is not really a state but the Brussels mentality is fundamentally that of a super-nanny. 

A number of states which would otherwise make the list are excluded because they are not the “free democracies”  they claim to be.

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Finally, Swedish opposition acquires a backbone and returns to its job

October 10, 2015

Last December the Swedish, opposition, Moderate-party-led, right-of-centre Alliance, abdicated abjectly from its responsibilities. They signed a so-called December Agreement (DÖ- decemberöverenskommelsen) where they agreed not to oppose, en masse, any critical budget proposition put forward by the minority Socialist/Green government (with the support of the communistic Left party). They agreed to do this, believe it or not, not just for a year or two, but for two whole terms of government (presumably because they thought a quid pro quo could favour them if they were in a minority government after the next election). No doubt they felt it was the only way to get away from the disruptive and looming threat of the right-wing, anti-immigration, Swedish Democrats who hold the balance of power in parliament. The pink/green government, desperate to stay in power, also cravenly agreed to this, even though their budget for 2015 had been defeated and the previous governments budget has applied for 2015. It is ludicrous that they have been in power for a year implementing the previous government’s budget.

At the time, I thought it was a rather despicable Agreement made out of fear and not out of any conviction of what was right. It was an agreement totally lacking in courage and essentially abdicated the role of providing a serious opposition to balance the profligacies of a pink/green (+red support) government. Especially when the weak Socialist leadership was being forced to accept rather childish and incompetent ministers from the Green party. The Greens are sometimes so far to the left of the communists that they approach eco-fascism. The Moderate party had a new party leader then in Anna Kinberg-Batra and she was too inexperienced at the time. She has a reputation for being tough but this toughness has not yet been on display.

DÖ ripped

In any case, the Christian Democrats, a tiny little party but part of the Alliance, have just had their annual congress. (They too have a new party leader, Ebba Busch Thor, but she is extremely lightweight). The party congress rejected the party leadership’s lukewarm recommendation to ratify the Agreement, and voted against it. (I can’t help but feel that Busch Thor and the party leadership actually wanted the rejection but were too scared to openly say so). The consequence is that the December Agreement now stands annulled.

All the Alliance parties have confirmed the annulment. The government parties (socialists, greens and reds) are all moaning about the other parties being unreliable and that they are not to be trusted ever again. The Left communists are most upset at the risk now that the Socialists may abandon them and move to the centre parties to try and cobble together enough support to run a minority government. Probably the best bet for the Social Democrats is to abandon the Greens and The Left and move sharply towards the centre. The Swedish Democrats, who are riding very high in the polls, want a new election.

The government’s budget proposition is waiting to be approved in Parliament but this I think poses no great threat. The other parties have not tabled a joint budget and their individual budget motions will fall. Without a joint budget, which the opposition would have all supported, the Swedish Democrats do not have any opposing motion that they can join to overthrow the government. The Alliance have also said that they have no intention of bringing a no-confidence motion against the government, which the Swedish Democrats then could have taken advantage of.  The Alliance parties don’t want a new election just yet (they have no viable election strategy) and will merely abstain if the SD bring a no-confidence motion themselves.

A crunch could come next autumn in 2016 and even in 2017,  if the Alliance choose to present a joint budget proposition. So we are stuck with the pink/green/red budget for at least a year. It is not a very impressive budget. About 70% of the population will be worse off.

The issue for the Alliance parties will be to develop some kind of a strategy for winning the 2018 election. At the moment they have none. They have to find a way to get back their supporters who have switched their support to the Swedish Democrats. The only strategy visible so far has been to moralise with cliches. Trying to take a high moral position with an electorate already fed-up with sanctimonious preachers has not been very effective.

I could tell them how to do it – not that anybody will listen to me. The first step would be to show some courage. The second would be to start standing up for their own values and not just massaging them – out of fear – to fit perceptions of “political correctness”. (Courage is when fear is made subservient to purpose, but all the Alliance parties have been displaying an abject cowardice in making their actions subservient to fear).

At least we may now finally have an opposition with some backbone – but even that is not entirely certain. But it is an opportunity for Kinberg-Batra to show her mettle.

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Posted in Behaviour, Politics, Sweden | Comments Off on Finally, Swedish opposition acquires a backbone and returns to its job

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