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Dear Leaver, your Perfect Brexit is going to be tricky…

Posted in Politics on August 19, 2016 by telescoper

Here’s a very detailed and interesting post about the possible forms if relationship the UK might have with the EU after BrExit. If BrExit ever happens, of course. And if the UK still exist if it does…

Nog's avatarNog's Musings


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Hi Excited Leaver,

Note: originally this was written during a discussion with a leaver (Rod, I hope you are out there and doing well) but was then turned into a more generic post.

So, you’ve won the referendum and you’re excited about that great new deal we’re going to do with the Europeans. Let’s just recap the deal you’re after:

Access to the single market – basically it’s trade more or less exactly like we have now with the EU.  BUT you want to drop some of the extras:

  • No EU contribution
  • No Freedom of Movement
  • No pooled sovereignty

Seems simple enough, just a free trade deal? And of course you’ve been told we’re in a strong position, there’s that huge Trade Deficit as we buy far more than we sell so you’re confident we can drag the EU to the table and get the deal the…

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Simone Manuel and the Racism of Fred Hoyle

Posted in Biographical, Politics, Sport, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , on August 14, 2016 by telescoper

Reading just now about Simone Manuel, the first black person to win an Olympic Gold medal in swimming, I suddenly remembered a bizarre event that has been lurking in the back of my mind since 1985.

In September of that year I attended a Summer School for new PhD students in Astronomy, held in Durham. I have posted about this before actually, primarily because it is interesting how many others who attended that School are still around, in senior academic positions.

Anyway, one evening during the course of this meeting there was a public lecture by non other than Sir Fred Hoyle, many of whose books on cosmology I had borrowed from the public library when I was at school and played a big part in encouraging me to study physics at university.

But Fred Hoyle’s talk that evening (to a packed lecture theatre) was not about physics but about his pet theories about the evolution of life, most of which are now generally regarded as nonsense.

At one point in his somewhat rambling discourse he digressed into the subject of the sporting abilities of different racial groups. His first assertion was that black people (by which he meant people of African origin) do not make good swimmers because their bones are too dense and the consequent lack of buoyancy is a significant disadvantage. “Have you ever seen a black swimmer in the Olympics?” he asked. None of us had, of course, but couldn’t that be because of other reasons such as lack of access to swimming pools? No. Fred was adamant. It was down to biology. I assumed he knew what he was talking about, so kept quiet.

He went on to argue that black people were also disadvantaged at tennis – not because of social factors limiting access to tennis courts – but for reasons of “poor hand-eye coordination” which he also asserted to be an inherited characteristic. This time I knew straight away he was talking drivel. The previous summer I had watched the brilliant West Indies cricketers thrash England 5-0 in a test series; their hand-eye coordination certainly wasn’t poor. And neither was that of Arthur Ashe who had  beaten Jimmy Connors in the Men’s Singles Final at Wimbledon a decade earlier,  nor the majestic Serena Williams who is probably the greatest female tennis player the world has ever seen.

These examples left me not only deeply suspicious of Hoyle’s racist attitudes but also staggered by his completely unscientific attitude to evidence. Great theoretical physicist he was – at least early in his career – but being expert about one thing doesn’t mean can’t make an utter fool of yourself if you blunder into another field. Sadly, theoretical physicists do have a greater tendency than most scientists to forget this.

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Ghent for MaxEnt

Posted in Biographical, Politics with tags , , , on July 9, 2016 by telescoper

Just a quick post to mark the fact that I’ve arrived in the fine city of Ghent for the forthcoming MaxEnt 2016 (Bayesian Inference and Maximum Entropy Methods in Science and Engineering). The trip from Brighton was pleasant and disruption-free (Thameslink from Brighton to St Pancras, Eurostar t0 Brussels, and local train to Ghent, all components of which journey were on time).  In fact I travelled from London with a British contingent of the conference: John Skilling, Steve Gull and Anton Garrett (a regular commenter on this blog). We got here in time for dinner al fresco in a square near my hotel overlooked by an interesting local landmark:

Ghent

 

My Flemish isn’t marvellous but I translate the words at the top of the building as Socialist Workers’ Party, although it does seem a rather grandiose building for that!

Anyway, I hope to be able to do a bit of Bayesian blogging from Belgium while I’m here, during the next week. The meeting itself starts tomorrow..

 

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Chilcot Reactions

Posted in History, Politics with tags , , , on July 6, 2016 by telescoper

At long last, the Chilcot Report on the UK’s involvement in the 2003 Iraq War has now been published. It’s a mammoth document which can obtain in full here. Even the Executive Summary is 150 pages long.

I’m going to put my cards on the table straight away. I opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and have never wavered from that opposition. I would feel vindicated were I not so saddened by the agony the invasion unleashed.

I’m not going to pretend to have read the whole document, or even all of the Executive Summary, but all the reaction I’ve seen suggest that it is unequivocal in its condemnation of the (then) Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Here is an example:

Chilcot

I sincerely hope that Blair’s reputation will not recover, and indeed hope that some form of legal redress can be sought against him. Attention in this country is focussing on the 179 service personnel who lost their lives in Iraq either during, or as a direct result of, the invasion of Iraq. However, let’s not lose sight of the fact that it was the Iraqi people who suffered most – over 150,000 are thought to have been killed, though such is the chaos of a country ruined by invasion and its aftermath that the true figure will never be known.

A few days ago we remembered the thousands who died on the Somme with the words “Lest we forget”. We shouldn’t forget Blair either…

 

 

 

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The Habitability of the Universe

Posted in Politics, The Universe and Stuff on June 30, 2016 by telescoper

It’s important not to get carried away by the post-referendum doom and gloom. Abraham Loeb’s recent paper on the arXiv suggests the Universe will only be habitable for the next 10,000,000,000,000 years or so. This means that the current state of political chaos  won’t last for ever, though I wonder the paper doesn’t make it clear if Article 50 will have been triggered by the time the last star goes out.

Is life most likely to emerge at the present cosmic time near a star like the Sun? We consider the habitability of the Universe throughout cosmic history, and conservatively restrict our attention to the context of “life as we know it” and the standard cosmological model, LCDM. The habitable cosmic epoch started shortly after the first stars formed, about 30 Myr after the Big Bang, and will end about 10 Tyr from now, when all stars will die. We review the formation history of habitable planets and find that unless habitability around low mass stars is suppressed, life is most likely to exist near 0.1 solar mass stars ten trillion years from now. Spectroscopic searches for biosignatures in the atmospheres of transiting Earth-mass planets around low mass stars will determine whether present-day life is indeed premature or typical from a cosmic perspective.

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The BrExit Threat to British Science

Posted in Politics, Science Politics with tags , , on June 29, 2016 by telescoper

After a couple of days away dealing with some personal business I’ve now time to make a few comments about the ongoing repercussions following last week’s referendum vote to Leave the European Union.

First of all on the general situation. Legally speaking the referendum decision by itself changes nothing at all. Referendums have no constitutional status in the United Kingdom and are not legally binding. The Prime Minister David Cameron has declined to activate (the now famous) Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty which would initiate a two-year negotiated withdrawal, preferring to leave this to whomever succeeds him following his resignation. None of the likely contenders for the unenviable position of next Prime Minister seems keen to pull the trigger very quickly either. The United Kingdom therefore remains a member of the European Union and there is no clear picture of when that might change.

The rest of the European Union obviously wants the UK to leave as soon as possible, not just because we’ve indicated that we want to, but because  we have always been never been very committed or reliable partners. In the words of Jean-Claude Juncker: ‘It is not an amicable divorce, but it was not an intimate love affair anyway.’

I don’t blame the 27 remaining members for wanting us to get on with getting out, because uncertainty is bad for business. Two years is more than enough time for big European businesses to write British producers out of their supply chains and for international companies now based in the United Kingdom to relocate to continental Europe. The current gridlock at Westminster merely defers this inevitable exodus. In the meantime inward investment is falling as companies defer decisions on future plans, casting a planningblight over the UK economy.

My own view, however, is that the longer the UK waits before invoking Article 50 the greater the probability that it will never be invoked at all.  This is because the next PM – probably Boris Johnson – surely knows that he will simply not be able to deliver on any of the promises he has made.

For example, there will be no access to the single market post-BrExit without free movement of people. There won’t be £350 million per week extra for the NHS either, because our GDP is falling and we never sent £350 million anyway.  All the possible deals will be so obviously far worse than the status quo that I don’t think Parliament will ever pass legislation to accept a situation is so clearly against the national interest. I may be wrong, of course, but I think the likeliest scenario is that the referendum decision is kicked into the long grass for at least the duration of the current Parliament.

That doesn’t solve the issue of BrExit blight, however. Which brings me to British science in a possible post-BrExit era. It’s all very uncertain, of course, but it seems to me that as things stand, any deal that involves free movement within Europe would be unacceptable to the powerful  UK anti-immigration lobby. This rules out a “Norway” type deal, among others, and almost certainly means there will be no access to any science EU funding schemes post 2020. Free movement is essential to the way most of these schemes operate anyway.

It has been guaranteed that funding commitments will be honoured until the end of Horizon 2020, but that assumes that holders of such grants don’t leave the UK taking the grants with them. I know of four cases of this happening already. They won’t come back even if we’re still in the European Union then.

Another probable outcomes are that:

  1. the shrinking economy will cause the UK government to abandon its ring-fence on science funding, which will  lead to cuts in domestic provision also;
  2. a steep decline in EU students (and associated income) will halt the expansion of UK science departments, and may cause some to shrink or even close;
  3. non-UK EU scientists working in the UK decide to leave anyway because the atmosphere of this country has already been poisoned by xenophobic rhetoric.

British science may “endure” after BrExit but it definitely won’t prosper. What is the least bad solution, if we cannot remain?

Answers through the comments box please!

 

 

 

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Britain votes to leave the EU

Posted in Politics on June 24, 2016 by telescoper

My once and future home….

euromovewales's avatareuromovewales

Today is a sad day for Britain and for Wales. The UK has voted to leave the EU.

Here in Wales we have overwhelmingly benefited from EU membership. Between 2007 and 2013 alone we received over £1.8billion in structural funding from the EU. Our universities prosper through EU co-operation and funding, a brand new campus in Swansea has just been completed – thanks to EU funding.

Those who have fought for remain, from across the political spectrum, have fought with love and wisdom. They have put aside party politics to fight for a greater, a stronger, a better UK – a better Wales. Thank you to everyone who got out and campaigned, who leafleted, who talked to friends about the benefits of the EU. Thank you.

Today we look back on what we have lost. Tomorrow we get together to help our broken and bruised country get back on its feet. This is a time to come together.

European Movement Council of…

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Dear Brexiteer. What we need you to do now.

Posted in Politics on June 24, 2016 by telescoper

I’m too desolated by the referendum result – and too busy – to comment for now, but here’s a post that encapsulates a lot of what I feel.

I continue to hope that we will remain in the EU. There may be another referendum next year. I think that’s always been Boris’ plan.

But in the meantime, Cameron has resigned and we’ll get a new right-wing government with new policies without a General Election having taken place. It’s a coup.

Those of you who voted BrExit because of the alleged democratic failings of the EU should ponder on that.

frpip's avatarfrpip

So well done, first of all. You listened to the arguments, the same ones I listened to. You heard all the same information I did, you listened to the same debates that I did, but you voted to leave. And you won. I take that – it was a democratic process and sometimes in the democratic process you lose, as I have done.

The referendum has activated the political energies of people who haven’t been interested in politics for some time, so we are told, and many of them are like you, who voted to leave. So here’s the plea of the losing side to you now.

Firstly, don’t stop – don’t stop with your political passion and activism, because we need you now. We need you to be active, we need you to keep talking to the people who you trusted with this vote, and we need you to…

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Referendum Day

Posted in Biographical, Politics on June 23, 2016 by telescoper

Today has been a very eventful day. First I was up at 6am to get to my local polling station in order to cast my vote in the EU Referendum  as soon as the doors opened. I then had to get up to campus and spent all day from 9am until now interviewing for a Lectureship in Probability and Statistics. In between there have been thunderstorms, torrential rain, and flooding. Also, after checking the bookies’ odds on the Referendum result, I decided to place an insurance bet on Leave of £100 at 10/1 against. Given the closeness of the opinion polls I think those odds are far too long.

I’m far too tired to stay up and follow the results coming in, but tomorrow morning I’ll wake up to find that the UK will remain in the European Union or that I’m £1000 richer.

Anyway, for those of you out there who still haven’t voted – perhaps because of the inclement weather – there’s still three hours to get to it!

keep-calm-and-vote-remain-2

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The EU Referendum – “Dishonesty on an Industrial Scale”

Posted in Politics with tags , , , on June 22, 2016 by telescoper

This short talk, by Professor Michael Dougan of the University of Liverpool Law School, has been widely circulated but I thought I’d nevertheless share it here as it explodes many of the untruths circulating about the European Union. There’s far more useful information in this than anything produced in the official campaigns on either side, so whether you’ve made your mind up already or not, please have a look..

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