Interesting Links for 20-02-2019

[andrewducker]

Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

(tags:work working_hours happiness stress )

Some thoughts on Swindon, Brexit, and Labour

(tags:politics labour UK europe )

Honda's Swindon plant closure could lead to 7,000 job losses

(tags:jobs uk cars japan europe doom )

National Lottery confirms that it will support Mermaids with a grant of ??500,000 over the course of 5 years to help transgender and gender variant children and their families

(tags:transgender lgbt GoodNews lottery uk charity )

Multiple Whistleblowers Raise Grave Concerns with White House Efforts to Transfer Sensitive U.S. Nuclear Technology to Saudi Arabia

(tags:usa saudiarabia nuclearpower secrets )

Brexit backstop: May rules out 'Malthouse compromise' (and, thank goodness, the cabinet turns against No Deal)

(tags:politics UK europe )

Overwatch randomized trial on gender

(tags:gender gaming )

Inside The Keret House - the World's Skinniest House

(tags:viaJane design architecture housing Poland )

Drainage basin maps of the world

(tags:maps rivers viaDanielDWilliam )

Uncleftish Beholding

(tags:language english )

WiFi Hides Inside a USB Cable

(tags:security usb wifi )

How A London Orchestra Broke International Law

(tags:history music video viaSwampers )

Captain Marvel first reactions are in, and it's another big hit for the MCU

(tags:marvel movies review )

The Home Office 2018 counter-terrorism strategy shows how to treat returning ISIS members with babies. Sajid Javid is going counter to everything it says.

(tags:politics terrorism mother citizenship OhForFucksSake Conservatives )

Westminster stunned as three Tory MPs quit and join the Independent Group

"The avalanche has already started; It is too late for the pebbles to vote."
(tags:politics uk Conservatives )

Comments

[calimac]

6) So May is still trying to find some form of words that will persuade the MPs who voted against her plan to vote for it? That reminds me of our cat trying to find some form of meow that would persuade us not to take her to the veterinarian. If she succeeds, I will be more astonished than by any other outcome.

12) I don't know about all those treaties, but the basic thrust of the piece on rising concert pitch is correct to my knowledge. I'd just comment that the higher frequencies that the video calls "harmonics" are usually referred to in this context as "overtones". Both terms are correct, but the latter is more usual.

15) And that's more Tory MPs than who joined the SDP. Already 2)'s "betting against the Tory Party splitting is the sensible bet" looks obsolete.

[andrewducker]

(6) "One of these doors must lead into summer!"

(15) I'm hoping more follow, but we'll see!

[danieldwilliam]

I was just thinking that I ought to quantify how many Tory MP's leaving the Tory party equals a split. Also, what other factors would constitute a split. Some kinds of ongoing political effect I think. I think it's more than just a handful of MP's resigning the whip.

Two was insufficient when Carswell and Reckless joined UKIP in 2014. Unless one argues that the Tory Party was already split, with UKIP forming the right-wing anti-EU splinter.

Three, I think, is not enough to count as a split.

Ten is probably getting there - particularly if they have a broad ideological and policy alignment and the prospect of some ongoing electoral effect and / or menace the Tory Party in a vote of no confidence.

[calimac]

I'm thinking not just of what's happened so far as of what's now more likely to happen next.

[danieldwilliam]

Well yes.

Three can easily become four or five. Five can easily become ten. Or not. Knighthoods for everyone who stays.

Ten is probably enough to change the reckoning on a VONC. Or threaten to do so enough to gain concessions. But do those ten have legs and coherence on a platform? Are there a million disaffected centre-right, pro-EU Tory voters concentrated in the suburbs of London and Manchester and Birmingham for those ten to hold their seats in a snap election? Or in 2022? Do the defectors understand the sort of campaigning model that the Lib Dems do and the Tories don't? Can they reach a de facto electoral accomodation with the Lib Dems?

Or do they all just bundle in to the Lib Dems?

If so, does that make the Lib Dems an attractive enough proposition to take votes off the Tories? What happens if the eight (if it is still eight) former Labour MP's also join the Lib Dems?

[andrewducker]

My Lib Dem friends are horrified at the thought of these people joining the party.

[calimac]

And the echoes of history rebound once again, since the Liberals of 1981 were horrified at the thought of the Social Democrats joining their party, which is part of the reason why they initially didn't, and why it was initially so agonizing when many of them finally did.

[danieldwilliam]

That was the impression I got. Not liberal enough for the Liberals.

Difficult decision for the Lib Dems if the 8+3 express an interest in joining or being allied in some way. If one is more than averagely aware of British politics you can see how and why the Lib Dems don't overlap philosophically, ideologically a huge amount with the 8+3. However doubling your numbers in the House is tempting and there might well be enough potential *policy* overlap (excluding Brexit) that the 8+3 might fit in, for a bit.

[andrewducker]

I think that working with them is more likely.
plenty of things they want in common.

[danieldwilliam]

There is probably a mutually advantageous madman strategy where the two and one half groups pretend to play each other off against each other.

Hey there Tories, Sir Vince Cable here - nice minority government you have there shame if anything happened to it. By the way, my good friend My Umunna would like to talk to you about a few things - better be nice to him, he's not in our party and we can't really control him and he's one crazy, chrome plated dude.

followed by

Hey there Tory scum, sorry, honoured legacy Conservative Party, Chukka here, - nice minority government you have there etc, etc, etc. By the way, my good friend Ms Soubry would like to talk to you about a few things she's cooked up with Uncle Vince - better be nice to her, we don't even have a party to throw her out of and she's one crazy, pissed off lady right just now.

followed by


Hey there Teressa, Anna Soubrey here. I presume that Rees-Mogg's head is in the post, yes?

[danieldwilliam]

This summary of polling and electoral research is interesting.

Not convinced there is room for a "centrist" party.

[alithea]

Not least because 'centrist' isn't really something you can base a whole party round - I would suggest that all the current parties have members who would consider themselves occupiers of the centre ground on many issues.

[danieldwilliam]

I agree.

I don't think "centerism" necessarily implies a programme of government.

It could. It depends what one means by it. If what one means by it is a 21st century version of the Butskillites consensus incorporating the most useful elements of both social and liberal democracy then that gives you a positive programme for government, particularly if one intends to use a lot of evidence based policy and a somewhat technocratic approach.

It works less well if you mean trying to be in the middle of the other parties, or trying to negotiate a compromise between vegans and carnivores or finding the man on the Clapham omnibus and responding to his "legitimate concerns" about immigration and health and safety.

I've found watching the conversations in the Liberal Democrats about how they are (or ought to be) a *radically* Liberal party rather than triangulating between the economic policies of the Labour and Conservative Parties whilst being a bit nicer to immigrants and the LGBT community illuminating.

[alithea]

Yeah, I'm fascinated by how differently the English LDs I know think to the way the party behaves in Westminster, and also compared to the local(ish) activists (who were mostly getting on far too well with St Andrew's old boy Tories at the election count I attended - but then they do have ruddy Ming Campbell, who is a long way from a radical liberal).

[calimac]

Right now I'm just thinking about the Tories splitting.