Will the UK become an international powerhouse after Brexit?

This article is inspired (understanding inspiration not as the elicitation of higher artistic endeavours, but rather as a call to action) by reports in The Express that Harvard economist and entrepreneur Michael Burrage claims exactly the above. You can read the article here. 

This is an interesting example of how you can get statistics and numbers to say pretty much anything that you want, and to reflect any kind of truth you are interested in peddling.

The so called ‘research’ (this is a word that unfortunately is used more and more loosely in our modern World) states that WTO rules would be the best solution for the UK. The arguments to justify this statement are, as is often the case, sensible at first sight and fatuous and disingenuous as soon as a bit of thought is put into it.

The ‘eminent’ Mr. Burrage points out that:

• ·        Trade between the UK and EU countries has grown by an average of 0.9% per year between 1993-2015.
• ·        Trade between UK and third countries which have trade deals with the EU has grown by 1.9% per year in the same period.
• ·        Trade between UK and third countries with no trade deal with the EU (trading under WTO) has grown by 2.9% per year in the same period.

This appears to indicate that most growth comes from countries with which there is no trade deal. 

There is nothing wrong with this data, what is surprising, is Mr. Burrage’s conclusion: it is better to be under WTO rules than under a trade deal, because trade grows quicker under WTO rules. This seems counterintuitive. Can it really be true? Let’s look at it in a bit more detail.

The first thing that is wrong with Mr. Burrage’s argument is really an oxymoron (and the second part of this word may provide clues as to who Mr. Burrage really is). Mr. Burrage tells us that trade growth with third countries is growing at 2.9% per year while the UK is within the EU, and seems to conclude that exiting the EU and trading with it under WTO rules is the best way forward for UK trade. The data seem to show that ability to trade with third countries is not impaired by being in the EU, in fact, trade seems to be developing nicely. The argument seems to be that the growth is specifically justified by the fact that these countries are traded with under WTO. This combines two well known psychology biases, such as attribution bias, the attribution of a cause to an effect, even though they may not have a causality relationship, and illusory correlation bias, attributing correlations to non-correlated events which happen to occur simultaneously. We will look at this a bit more later.

Lying with numbers

But firstly, let’s look at Mr. Burrage’s disingenuous use of numbers. I call it disingenuous as I have to believe it is intentional and not just an error. I refuse to believe that one can graduate Harvard and teach at LSE without developing a basic understanding of simple arithmetic. The problem is in the use of percentages. Percentages are only informative when the base is known. Let us use a simple example to explain this. Imagine I have a company that sells, for example, software. My company does 100000 units of trade with the EU, and 1000 units of trade outside the EU. I analyse the growth in my trade, and I observe that, in the last year:

• ·        Trade with the EU grew by 900 units (0.9% growth rate)
• ·        Trade outside the EU grew by 29 units (2.9% growth rate)

If I look only at the growth rate in percentage terms, then I would conclude that my future is outside the EU, despite the fact that the EU has contributed 900 units to my growth and third countries have contributed 29. The percentages, without the base, tell the opposite story.

Therefore, Mr. Burrage, we need the whole story. Not only the percentages, but the starting points.

Ignoring critical information relevant to explaining an observation

This is what in psychology is known as congruence bias, testing specific hypothesis and ignoring others. Let me explain what I mean by this:

The World’s faster growing economies in the last few years have been, in absolute terms (this is what matters here, not percentages, but which economies have grown most in absolute currency terms, as they are the ones with which trade is expected to grow more in absolute terms – and, since UK trade is relatively constant as a base, in percentage terms), China, US, India, Indonesia, Japan and Brasil (they are responsible in absolute terms for a huge amount of the World’s economic growth – see this for example).

This is important because, right now, most of these countries are in the third category. Mr Burrage infers that growth is larger in the third category because we trade with them under WTO rules rather than trade agreements. I think that the fact that these countries are growing fast is a more likely explanation for the speed of trade growth. This relationship is obvious, the faster the country’s economy is growing, and the bigger it is, the faster our trade with it would grow. Whether under WTO or trade agreement, the growth will occur, and there is no information or argument to justify that the growth is faster under WTO. The fact that some of the countries in the fast growth category trade under WTO rules with us is a circumstance, not a cause. In fact, if you were to move China and India to the second category (as they are about to do, with trade agreements about to be signed) this would immediately change the percentages to higher growth in category 2, and lower in category 3. The reason why trade agreements are in advanced negotiation is, of course, that they will make trade grow even faster.

I therefore make a case here for changing Mr. Burrage’s arguments from:

Trade growth for the UK is greatest in percentage terms with countries outside the EU with which there is no trade agreement, and therefore, this proves that UK should exit the EU and not have any trade agreements.

To:

Trade growth for the EU and the UK is greatest in absolute terms with the EU and the US, and behind them, with large global economies growing fast. Therefore, we must trade as much as we can with the EU, the US and large, fast growing economies. We already are part of the EU, which takes care of the first, and as part of the EU trade agreements exist with the US, which takes care of the second, and are in late stage negotiation with China and India, which takes care of the third.

It would now seem, by using Mr. Burrage’s information correctly, that the UK should stay in the EU and stop vetoing the Indian trade deal.

BTW, the latter is an interesting point. The EU has no trade deal with India yet. This is a trade deal Brexiteers are claiming will be struck quickly by the UK once UK exits the EU, due to the special relationship and common history between UK and India. If you study the EU-India trade deal, you will find it is ready to go, but being vetoed by the UK for 2 reasons:

• India’s insistence in keeping tariffs on scotch whisky
• India’s demands for easier circulation of people to Europe

I am very interested to see how the UK is going to do a quick deal with India without accepting those 2 demands, which are non-negotiable for the Indians. It may well be that the demands are finally accepted to get the trade deal under pressure but, if they are, why not accept them within the EU, stop vetoing, and start trading?

As for Mr. Burrage, he exhibits such an interesting collection of cognitive and psychological biases in his reasoning that I would suggest he enrols as a study case with a Psychology Institute. This I think is where his true value would be, since his analysis is not really needed in economics or geopolitics, at least not until the biases are studied and removed.

Is prison for Catalan independentist leaders good for Spain?

The last few days have seen the arrest of Carles Puigdemont and Clara Ponsati, after judge Llarena reactivated their international arrest warrants. Carmen Rovira has absconded, and will most likely be subject to a further international arrest warrant.

The arrests have been greeted with joy and celebration by a section of the Spanish population, the Spanish nationalists, whose position in this issue is to diametrically oppose any initiatives by Catalan separatists. These Spanish nationalists see the arrests as satisfaction for their thirst for revenge against those who dared challenge Spain. The Catalans will not get away with it. It is important for moderate Catalans (I have given up on the others) to understand that those feeling so vindicated are a section of the Spanish population, by no means all.

When analysed objectively, it is difficult to see how the arrests can be good for either Spain or Catalonia. They will undoubtedly result in the further radicalisation of the more extreme sections of both sides of the Catalan independence debate and, therefore, foster further division, making the political situation more difficult. Further erroneous claims of political imprisonment will be issued by separatist leaders (I blogged on the issue of political imprisonment in Spain in a previous post). The Spanish nationalists on the other side of the debate will talk of just deserts.

The fact that this step is negative for stability in Catalonia, unfortunately, cannot be a consideration which helps prevent it. This is democracy, which is based, above all else, on the separation of powers. This means that the judicial cannot decide politically what it tries or does not try, it must proceed on evidence. It also means that the executive cannot decide what it takes and does not take to court, it must challenge in court any perceived breaking of the current law of the land which falls within its remit.

In this democracy, therefore, Judge Llarena cannot act politically. He must follow the legal process. His duty, as a judge, is to, once presented with an accusation of rebellion which has enough supporting evidence, try it in court, to establish whether it has taken place. In this case it would appear that there is indeed sufficient evidence that this may have been the case, although it is not clear cut when one reads the relevant article of the constitution and the jurisprudence. But, whether rebellion has or has not existed can only be decided in court, and therefore it must be tried.

As for the Spanish government, many in Catalonia speak of the lack of zeal shown by the Spanish government when pursuing corruption as a justification for the claim that the same lack of zeal should be shown in the Catalan case. However, this is not an argument. Two wrongs don’t make a right. On its merit, alleged rebellion must be tried. The fact that corruption has not been pursued with the same enthusiasm has certainly done significant political damage to Spain and represents, in my opinion, clear grounds for the current Spanish government to resign, and for some of its leaders to potentially see their day in court in due course. But it is irrelevant to the course of action that should be followed in Catalonia. Catalans making this argument should also remember that a very significant section of the Spanish population feels equally aggrieved by the dereliction of duty shown by the Spanish government in corruption cases.

So, if we accept that a trial is necessary, then we move to the question of imprisonment pre-trial. Judge Llarena has the duty to decide whether the accused should be detained prior to the trial on the basis of the Spanish legislation. To be clear, and I have blogged on this previously too, the Catalan leadership is rightly detained, on the basis of current legislation, because of what they are accused to have done in October 2017, and because there is risk of flight and/or of re-offending (this is obvious in the latter arrests, as the subjects have fled already). It is very sad, however, to see politicians that represent a significant percentage of the Catalan population in jail. It may be morally wrong, maybe even unjust, this is of course a matter of personal opinion in this specific case, but in practical terms, it is unavoidable. It would be very dangerous to change the legal system to allow rebellion just because in this specific case it has significant support. Such a change would allow, for example, military coup d’etats, like Tejero’s in 1981.

Legal process must therefore take its course, whether it is positive or negative for the current political situation. The best would be for it to be as swift as possible. Personally, I hope that the result is absolution on the basis that not sufficient proof exists that there was inciting to violence. This will be a matter of interpretation for the judge, and my information, like everyone else’s, is based only on anecdotal evidence. That is the reason why some time must be given for both sides to build their case and present clear evidence of such inciting to violence, and for the security forces to investigate it. If doubt exists, then principles of presumption of innocence prevail.

I am under no illusion that, should the result be absolution, the tried would seize the opportunity to present it as reivindication of the justice of their cause, rather than proof that the Spanish democratic system is alive and well, therefore driving an even bigger wedge through Catalan society. They will speak of unjust imprisonment and prosecution, further radicalising their supporters. The Catalan leadership has long ago chosen to, like any populism, reduce democracy to the decision of the majority at a specific moment in time. Democracy is much more than this. It is separation of power. It is rule of law. Otherwise, we would have to call the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing in the old Yugoslavia, the execution of homosexuals in Muslim countries and the massacres in Rwanda democratic. Anyone who feels tempted by the siren calls of populists to reduce democracy to a simple vote, should remember those and the many other examples when the majority has been wrong and democratic institutions have not been in place to protect the minorities. The Catalan leadership should retake the path of change within the law. They claim it to be impossible because they failed once, and they justify their acting outside the law on this basis. This, of course, is intellectually corrupt. The fact that you don’t get your way at the first attempt does not justify breaking the law after that. This should be obvious to many who have supported the illegal actions of the Catalan leadership. I have also blogged on what path I believe they should follow.

Whatever the outcome of the trial, our current politicians, both in Catalonia and Spain, have failed us completely. They have missed every chance to build bridges, to reach out to the other side. They have played by the modern politics playbook. Speak only to and for your side. Drive radicalisation and reinforce the difference, not the common. Destroy, instead of build. They have behaved with irresponsible victimism and dishonesty on the one side, and with intolerant bullying on the other. It is time for new leadership on both sides of the divide, and for a clear, mature and responsible approach to the process. It is, however, difficult to see how this may ensue given the drift away from rationality observed in significant sections of the population, prepared to accept any argument just because of which side makes it, instead of exercising critical review.

The Catalan solution

I have blogged quite a lot on Catalonia, mostly on very specific issues, rather than on the overarching situation. This may have led many to misconstrue my actual position on Catalonian independence. I feel, therefore, that I should write one post on this subject, my first and probably last one, to state my position and to explain what I would regard as a viable solution.

So, let’s start with my position. I don’t have one. To me, it is fairly irrelevant whether Catalonia stays in Spain or leaves Spain. This is not because I don’t care, but rather because I find the concept of nationality anachronistic and outdated. This applies to both Catalan and Spanish nationality. The challenges that face humanity nowadays, and which concern me, cannot be solved or even addressed from the frame of specific nations. Rising global inequality, climate change, the excessive power and impunity of global corporations, religiously motivated violence, political extremism, diseases, populism and the erosion of democratic values. That is a non comprehensive section of my shopping list. Not a single one of those problems can be solved, or even influenced, by Spain in isolation, let alone by Catalonia. Nationalism, to me, is a distraction, which prevents the population from focusing time and energy on real problems, worth solving. Every day, I interact and collaborate with people all over the World, regardless of location or nationality, on the basis of knowledge and potential contribution. My relationship with Catalonia will therefore not change, whatever the outcome of what has been called its independence process.

One thing I care profoundly about, however, is the strength of democratic institutions and the respect for the rule of law. These are necessary conditions to solving all the problems I refer to above, and therefore critical to humanity’s progress. I would therefore wish for the solution to the Catalan problem to be found within that framework. It could work, as follows:

A vote should be held in Spain to decide whether to allow Catalonia to hold a referendum on its independence. This could happen in one of two ways, for it to have political legitimacy:

• ·            A general election in which parties included in their program and manifest their position on allowing such a vote, since support of 60% of Parliament is sufficient to change the Spanish Constitution. Parties should, in my view, either support a Catalan referendum or come up with a really good reason against it, based on political and ethical considerations, not economic ones (the economy, in the long term, would be impervious to the outcome of the process, so long as, in the case of independence, the right treaties are put in place to create a reasonable relationship between Catalonia and Europe). Parties campaigning for No should also offer a solution to the section of the Catalan population that are unhappy with the status quo, a solution which may well mean more devolution of powers.
• ·        A Spanish referendum. In the case of a referendum in Spain, parties should campaign for a Yes or a No vote. But the referendum in Spain should not be held on whether Catalonia should be independent or not. The question should be strictly whether Catalonia should be allowed to vote on its independence, and under what terms. That is the only decision Spain is entitled to make in light of the current legislation. This distinction should be clear, and Catalan politicians (from both sides) should get as much representation in the public debate as Spanish politicians. All voices should be equally heard.

Should either of these two processes prosper, a referendum should then be held in Catalonia. A legal one, the first ever referendum on Catalan independence. Prior to it, guidelines should have been developed, by both sides, on the future relationship between Spain and Catalonia. The Catalan people should not be presented with a jump into the unknown, á la Brexit, but rather with a clear outline of what would be possible and with procedural clarity, should Yes win. Also, with clarity on what changes to the status quo would be possible should No win.

This is a difficult process. Many reading this may be disheartened by it. They may think it impossible. But there is no reason why it is impossible. Current entrenchment of positions is a result of bad, confrontational politics, in both cases intolerant of the views and concerns of the other side. The Spanish people (and at this point I include Catalans here) should demand the opposite. Nation building, no fostering of division. If both sides believe and accept the process, there is no reason why it cannot work. And, more importantly, it is the only way to proceed without prostituting democracy, corrupting the rule of law and creating long term, dangerous scars in both our societies.

Are there political prisoners in Spain?

I seem to keep having to blog about populism, in an effort, I guess mostly ill fated, to try to defend truth on the face of unashamed, relentless and unscrupulous attacks. I started this blog because of some of the claims around Brexit. I could have written many blogs, but wrote very few, due to lack of time and, frankly, sometimes energy. Then it was Trump. And now, Catalonia. These are not the only three big examples of populism and demagogy in current politics, but as a Spaniard living in UK, they are certainly the most relevant.

One of the many attacks on truth and democracy currently underway in Catalonia are those based on the message that Jordi Sanchez, head of ANC, and Jordi Cuixart, head of Omnium, both pro-independence organisations, are political prisoners, incarcerated in Spain because of their political opinions.

This, if true, would of course be very serious. Modern democracies don’t imprison citizens because of their political views, right? So how can this be happening in Spain? Is it? In the face of all the confusion and mixed messages, the best approach in my view is to state, and stick to, the facts. Those that put their opinion ahead of facts will still not listen, but those who are trying to understand reality, rather than to fit reality to their World view, can maybe find this approach useful in these kind of situations.

So, in the next few paragraphs, I will tackle the question: Are the 2 Jordis political prisoners?

First we should probably define what a political prisoner is. We can use several different definitions. In the Cambridge Dictionary, a political prisoner is: someone who is put in prison for expressing disapproval of their own government, or for belonging to an organization, race, or social group not approved of by that government.

In 2012 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) outlined a set of conditions for someone to be considered a political prisoner. These are:

• Their detention violates any of the protections of the European Human Rights Convention
• Their detention is imposed purely for political reasons
• The time or conditions of their detention are not proportional to the crime committed
• Their detention is discriminatory when compared to other people
• Their detention is the result of a judicial process which is clearly unjust and politically motivated

Any of these criteria suffice. Catalan nationalism would have us believe that Sanchez and Cuixart have been jailed by the Spanish government for defending their independentist ideology.

This sounds shocking, and, were it true, it would represent a serious repression of civil liberties. But, is it true?

So, let’s start with the first part of the sentence. They have been jailed by the Spanish government. This is outright incorrect. The Spanish government does not have the power to jail in Spain. It is the judiciary, who judges, sentences and jails. And they have been placed in preventive prison by a judge, not by the government (you can download the whole sentence here, and you should if you are keen to have a well founded opinion, it is well argued, although it is in Spanish).

Why have they been jailed? Is it because of pacifically defending their independentist ideology? In this case, the best thing is to check what Sanchez and Cuixart are actually accused of, and compare that to the law of the land, in this case, the Spanish penal code. The public accusation is claiming that the 2 Jordis headed an organised group which, on 20^th and 21^st of December, surrounded the Economy Catalan Ministry and prevented the Spanish Civil Guard and a judge of the National Court from exiting the premises after arresting some politicians following a court order. The impasse lasted 5 hours, during which the Spanish Civil Guard could not exit the building and were retained against their will. In order to exit, they would have had to resort to violence, which they did not. The judge of the National Court had to eventually leave the building through the roof. In addition, during the incident, 3 cars of the Spanish Civil Guard were burnt, although there is no evidence or claim that the cars were burnt directly by Sanchez and Cuixart.

What does the Spanish Penal Code say? Article 554 translates as: ‘Persons are guilty of sedition when, without being guilty of rebellion (which would be more serious – my comment) rise publicly and tumultuously to prevent, by force and outside the law, the application of the laws or to any authority, official corporation or public servant, the legitimate exercise of their functions or the fulfilment of their obligations or of judicial or administrative resolutions’  

Let’s break this apart and analyse it:

• Are the Jordis persons? Yes.
• Did they rise publicly? Yes, this event did not happen in their private property, but outside the Catalan Economy Ministry, and therefore, in a public area.
• Did they rise tumultuously? Tumultuously means in a multitude, therefore, in a large gathering. There is no specific number at which a multitude starts which I have been able to find, but ANC and Omnium claim themselves that there were 40,000 protesters concentrated and, even though there may be exaggerating for political reasons, photos of the event clearly show there were several thousands of people. Therefore, it is a multitude, and they rose tumultuously.
• Was the multitude preventing the application of the laws? The Civil Guard and the judge were there to arrest several individuals accused of breaking the law. Therefore, that is a yes.
• Was the multitude preventing an authority, an official corporation or a public servant? The judge is an authority and a public servant, the Civil Guard is an official corporation and an authority. Therefore, yes.
• Finally, were they preventing by force and outside the law? This may be the most contentious points, since all the others are clearly undeniable, and different people will have different opinions of what ‘by force’ means. Does forming a cordon and telling the Civil Guard that they cannot leave the building unless they leave those arrested, and keeping them there for 5 hours, constitute force? People may have different opinions on this. But, to answer it, I would replace the Civil Guard with a group of women or children. If their liberty was curtailed in the same way by a mass of several thousand people, would that be considered by force? I would think probably yes.

The above list seems to show there is significant evidence that Sanchez and Cuixart may have violated article 544 of the Spanish Penal Code.

And this is another important point. Sanchez and Cuixart have not been condemned. So far, they have been accused. The decision the judge has to take, at this point, is: Is there sufficient evidence of a crime being committed that justifies the court judging it? Now, please look at the list of points above compared to the article 544 text. Different people, depending on their political slant, may have different opinions as to whether a crime was really committed, but based on the information available, can anyone really reasonably claim that this accusation should be thrown out before going in front of the court? There seems to be very little justification for a trial not being conducted, in this case. Given the evidence available, i think it is clear that we can safely say that a trial is at least in order, and therefore, there is no discrimination in this case, and no indication of political motivation and judicial corruption on this accusation going to court.

This brings us to the next and final question. If the Jordis have not been tried yet, why are they in jail? This, again, takes us back to the judicial system, and, in this specific case, to jurisprudence, or judicial precedent. The 2 Jordis are detained awaiting trial, in a situation of Provisional Detention Without Bail. In most crimes, while the accused are awaiting trial, they are freed under certain conditions, sometimes posting bail, and sometimes with some additional restrictions. However, freedom is not granted, and accused are detained in Provisional Detention Without Bail, when one of the following circumstances arise (for the best background I have found on this, read page 17 of this PDF, which is in Spanish), in the opinion of the court:

• The accused may escape and not attend the trial
• The accused may use their freedom to alter, hide or destroy evidence
• The accused may attack the victim
• The accused may continue to commit crimes

Given the fact that the 2 Jordis have declared publicly that they do not recognise the authority of Spain, the Spanish Law or its courts, the first risk is definitely there, as well as the fourth one, since they themselves have indicated that, if freed, they will continue to act in the same way that has taken them to this detention in the first place. In fact, their defence tried to bring politics into the court threatening the judge with further alterations of the peace should the 2 Jordis not be freed. (This is undemocratic mafia-like and a lot more serious than it looks at first sight, but I will leave that for another post). Therefore, again, it is difficult to claim that the actions of the judge are disproportionate or discriminatory.

In this case, it is also helpful to remember that other high profile cases in Spain have, in the last few years, seen people detained provisionally without bail. I have not researched this, other than to find that 100,000 people are detained without bail in Europe annually, but 2 very recent high profile cases are those of Barcenas, the treasurer of the PP, the Spanish government party, who spent 2 years and 3 months in Provisional Detention Without Bail, between 2013-2015, accused of corruption, and justified by risk of escape and of destruction of evidence, and of Jose Maria Villar, president of the football federation, again accused of corruption and in Provisional Detention Without Bail for the same reasons as Barcenas. It is also worth remembering that, in the same hearing, Josep Lluis Trapero, another accused, was freed on bail, which seems sensible as it appears clear that he will not escape and he has no opportunity to commit crimes again, since he is at the moment suspended from his post.

I therefore cannot find any arguments against the line of legal reasoning that has taken Sanchez and Cuixart to this situation. Those claiming injustice and calling them political prisoners should remember that political prisoners are not those people detained that you politically agree with. There is a legal process and a set of circumstances that defines a political prisoner, which we have analysed above. I would encourage anyone who wants to continue to make these claims and to attack the democratic reputation of Spain to comment with a line of argument that highlights any weaknesses in this reasoning, as, if found, I am completely open to changing this analysis. This is something I missed in the case of Brexit, with Trump, and now with Catalonia., so it would be great to get some debate.

Thanks for reading!

Is Spain a democracy?

I never thought I would have to write anything to answer this question. However, after a long time quiet on this blog, once again because of regrettable absolute lack of time to write, I have found myself today having to drop everything I was doing to write this article, with the aim to set the record straight on a few things which I think most people are missing when evaluating or commenting on the situation in Catalonia today, 1^st of October.

Firstly, let me start by declaring that I deem the situation as extremely sad and regrettable. Let me also say that, as a Spanish citizen, I fully support a democratic process which allows Catalonia to vote on its independence. This article is not about the Catalonian independence process, but ONLY about 1st October. Let me also say that I know full well that, by writing on this issue, I will make many enemies and no friends.

However, I feel compelled to do it, after reading my twitter feed and seeing the reaction of people I normally regard as clear progressive thinkers when confronted with images from Catalonia. Vince Cable, the LibDem leader, calling police behaviour unacceptable and asking for the Spanish ambassador to be summoned by the Foreign Secretary to explain. J.K. Rowling calling police actions repugnant and unjustifiable, and people like Peter Frankopan, a historian I admire, and writers like Simon Worrall, enthusiastically retweeting some of these ill advised declarations. I have also had conversations with Catalan people and been surprised by their lack of understanding of what living in a democracy actually means.

The sentiment behind the manifestations of these commentators seems to be that the actions of the police are repressive and unwarrantedly violent, and that the Spanish government must be brought to task and asked to respond for this undemocratic behaviour. In the next few paragraphs I will try to deal with these three accusations, repressive, unwarrantedly violent and undemocratic.

Firstly, these commentators, in their (I still want to think) well intentioned progressiveness, are immediately antipathetic to images of police confronting citizens in any way. I am too. However, before an accusation of repressiveness can be levelled, one must at least do some basic analysis. Spain is a democratic country, which enshrines in its Constitution and derivative legislation the right of its citizens to pacifically demonstrate, protest and voice their opinion. The Spanish police would not seek to repress any of these rights (I would not have so confidently said this 25 years ago, but we have come a long way) and, should it, then its actions could be rightfully called repressive. The citizens in the images we receive from Catalonia have full rights to protest and demonstrate, and an overwhelming majority of Spanish citizens would recognise them those, as they would to any other Spanish citizen. In fact, until today, they have freely demonstrated and protested as many times as they have seen fit. But these citizens in the images, confronting the police in a way that makes most of us lefties remember the good old days of student and popular uprisings, are not demonstrating. They are breaking the law. And this point seems to have been missed. They are breaking the law, and obstructing and resisting policing. Any modern democracy sets its foundations on the rule of law, and the security forces are there to protect it. And, when the law is broken, we expect the police to act. We may, at a personal level, be more sympathetic to some law breaking than to other, but, you see, the problem with democracy is that us individual citizens cannot decide what laws can be broken and which cannot. And how do we know that these citizens are breaking the law? Again, democracy has a guide to this. We know, because it is not the executive power (the government) that says so, but the judiciary. In democracy, separation of powers ensures that the executive cannot abuse its remit, and this is a well established principle in Spain. The Spanish and Catalan judiciary have both, on the basis of the legal framework with jurisdiction over this dispute, ruled that the proposed referendum is illegal. Therefore, when the police act to prevent the voting, they are not doing so as the strong arm of a repressive state, but rather acting on behalf of democracy, as it is their duty. Were these citizens legally protesting or demonstrating, as it is their right to do, any actions by the police to prevent them from doing so would be repressive and in contravention of the law of the land. But, when these citizens vote in an illegal election, and try to prevent the police from policing, they are committing a crime, or accomplices of a crime. This may sound hard, but the rulings of the Spanish and Catalan judiciary have left us in no doubt that these activities are illegal, and therefore, the police have no choice but to enforce the law. If they don’t, then that would be undemocratic, as the police would be abrogating unto itself the power to choose which laws should and should not be enforced (which, in fact, is what the Mossos d'Esquadra seem to have done, choosing not to enforce the law or the orders of the judiciary, and as a result placing themselves outside legality and as a downright undemocratic agent in these unfortunate events).

I find it difficult to believe that Mr. Cable, Ms Rowling or Mr Frankopan would be supportive of illicit activities in fellow modern democracies, which seek to subvert the rule of law.  I can therefore only surmise that, should they give proper consideration to the fact that the police are acting on a judiciary ruling, they would agree that the actions of the police are not repressive.

Let’s move on, therefore, to the question of whether the police are acting with excessive and, to quote Ms Rowling, unjustifiable violence. In modern democracies, police are entrusted with policing with minimum necessary force. They must keep force to a minimum, but they must police, first and foremost. A tenet of policing is that if force is necessary, police will not walk away, they will exercise it, in a measured manner. And this throws a different light in what is going on in Catalonia with policing. We must evaluate the use of force by police from the perspective that they are fighting what, in law, is a crime. If a bank robbery was taking place and some citizens were confronting the police and preventing them from entering the bank to stop it, how would we expect the police to act? Is there a difference in this case? If we realise, as we have to, that a crime is being committed (and please remember that I am commenting strictly from a legal viewpoint and not getting into the morals of the matter), then we must expect the police to not stand down.

Of course, in some cases, the force used by the police may be excessive. I am not saying that it is not, I have not seen most of the incidents and, in any case, I am prudent and democratic enough to realise that it is not up to me to unilaterally be judge of that (I wish Mr. Cable or Ms. Rowling were capable of similar restraint before throwing themselves onto Twitter), since our society already has a judiciary body entrusted with this task. The citizens in the images have full access to the judiciary and democratic protection Spain affords all its citizens. I can assure all readers that all police actions will be investigated (in fact, the process is already underway if you, once again, listen to the judiciary) and further, any aggrieved citizens have the right to report any police malpractice. Once again, this is the advantage of democracy. We don’t need Twitter judges, we have real ones.

In conclusion, before judging what is going on in Catalonia, we need to remember that the law is being broken in a democratic country. It may be an unjust law in the eyes of many, but that does not give citizens the right to unilaterally break it. I am sure that most of those citizens are well intentioned, believe in what they are doing and are not well informed about the exact workings of democratic institutions. It is their political leaders that have failed them, by leading them into an illegal course of action.

As for the Twitter commentators that got me back to blogging (and I do at least thank them for that), a word of caution. We live in dangerous times when progressive opinion leaders are happy to support the breaking of the rule of law in modern democracies, on a whim and without due consideration for the consequences of their actions. Being a public figure brings responsibility in a democracy. 

In the particular case of Mr. Cable, this is of course more serious, as his role is in political leadership, in a democratic country which would handle an attack on its law and security exactly in the same way as Spain is doing. I would just remind him that I do not remember Spain summoning any British ambassadors to Madrid when the British police dealt with mining strikes or the London riots. Mr. Cable, you should know better. Let the Spanish democratic process run its course, we don’t need, or want, your undemocratic moralising. We need to find a way to bring about a negotiated solution that resolves this issue pacifically and within the rule of law, and you are not helping. Once you decide to support the subversion of the rule of law, you place yourself in very unsavoury company.

The future is coming. Not to a galaxy near you, to your own - and it is a lot more exciting than you may think

I will start this article with a warning. Contrary to my usual aim, this is not a facts analysis article, designed to use facts to unravel usually held misconceptions. It is rather opinion and vision. I sent it to some mainstream media last year, but it was not published, so I have now decided to publish it here.

Last year brought us some political events which shook our understanding of the World in such a way that it was hard to pay attention to anything else. But many other things, more relevant in the long term, happened, and were missed. For example, news that a driverless truck operated by Otto, a technology start up owned by Uber, had made the first driverless delivery of cargo in human history. The truck drove 100 miles unassisted in the State of Colorado, from an Anheuser Busch brewery to its final destination. It is true that a human was in the cab and drove the last few miles in traffic, and a patrol car followed the truck throughout its journey. However, it is now surely not long before the technology is trusted enough to avoid these then superfluous precautions. The writing is on the wall.

The first reaction to these news is probably: Cool that we can have a truck drive itself. After a bit more thought, this is a lot cooler than it first appears, but it also has complex implications. Firstly, it is easy to see a not distant future in which driverless trucks, powered by electricity, move all goods at times and through routes with lowest impact to traffic, unencumbered by current needs to organise trip times and routes around the inflexible, prone to tiredness, obsolete human drivers. A World without trucks on motorways when humans are driving and without diesel fumes from HGVs? Sign me up!

However, there is a flip side to this coin. It does not need to be negative, but it will be, unless we start planning for it right now. What are all those delivery and long distance drivers going to do for a living? This immediate thought is closely followed by much wider ranging ones: And what about taxi drivers, Uber drivers, airplane pilots, train drivers, air crew, air traffic controllers? Our transportation system will soon and inevitably be replaced by automation. And the same will happen to many manufacturing jobs. A little later, to many other jobs, such as diagnosers (doctors), treaters (doctors) and surgeons. Postmen. Retail employees. Soldiers. Bankers. The more you think about it, the longer the list gets, the question for each one of these professions being when, not whether.

This, believe it or not, is good news for the working people of the future. But only if our education system does not let them down by preparing them to do jobs which will no longer exist. A major rethink of how we educate is urgently needed. And not only of how we educate. Also of how we conceive work and working careers.  Our thinking about all these issues is currently constrained by experience. A backward looking understanding of education and work would lead to the conclusion that unemployment will soar with the advent of automation, bringing about all the social problems we expect from low occupation figures. That conclusion, however, would be a result of framing our vision of the future on our learning from the past, rather than on a detailed understanding of the new opportunities afforded by technology.

A major change in paradigm is needed, which can deliver much happier and well off humans. Automation can only contribute to a better society, and that means a better life for you and me, if we use it in the right way.

So, how can it do this? For example, automation enables a model where a general, significant guaranteed income is possible for all citizens of the World. The need to work as a means to survive could disappear. Sufficient goods could be available to cater for all. The biggest question this leaves is: What is everyone going to do and how are we going to distribute? And this is where the future really gets exciting.

Imagine a World, 20 years from now, where a group of individuals decide to drive an initiative to solve a human problem. For example, energy. These individuals crowd source, not only for funding, but also for skills and labour. A mission statement could read something like: ‘We are going to solve nuclear fusion in the next 20 years and deliver free energy to all, and for that, we need as many physicists, hardware, electronic and software engineers as we can get’. Based on this initiative, humans interested in this project could train themselves, unimpeded by the need to work for a living, to fill those roles and contribute to that effort, drawing huge rewards, both pecuniary and in self-realisation, when it succeeds. Education material would be readily available (MIT and many other educational institutions are already making their teaching available online, allowing millions to potentially qualify in anything that interests them). 10 million ex taxi drivers, delivery drivers, doctors and soldiers, even bankers, could train as physicists and join the effort. Solutions would be arrived at much faster than with current economic and research models, and every human problem solvable by human endeavour could be tackled simultaneously. When a solution is achieved, we all benefit. Cancer, poverty, heart disease, fundamentalism, conservation, biodiversity, climate change and many other problems could cease to be intractable.

Utopia, I hear you say. But it is not. This picture is very close to being possible. Some of the key elements needed to make such a model work are:

• Significant guaranteed income for all. Possible? With better distribution and the new work force of automation, yes. Tick.
• Communication platforms which allow humans anywhere to become aware of collaborative projects and join them. Tick.
• Data repositories and project management tools which support this massive size collaborations. Tick.
• High quality educational resources freely available to all those who want them. Tick.
• The will of humankind to change the way we understand and address the World around us and believe that such a future is possible. This is most likely the biggest obstacle. Change is never easy, and typically those who stand to lose in the short term will oppose it, whilst most of those who stand to gain in the long term do not realise it, or wait and see.

What does this mean for individuals and for education? Individuals will be able to work in different projects, even changing discipline, and to re-educate whenever desired to change fields and join new efforts. Challenging? Yes. But would you rather spend 40 years behind the wheel of a taxi, or behind a desk in your own groundhog day, or solving the World’s real problems and continuously learning in the process. The satisfaction derived from the latter alternative is immeasurably higher. For our education system, this means we need to equip our young people to be able to learn, retool and switch disciplines continuously. Emphasis and effort should move from delivering and teaching content and information, which will in future be available in external media, easily interfaceable with humans (wearable clothing, accessories, tablets and other devices), to teaching how to quickly and effectively use available information to create solutions. Current educational focus on memory, information retention and structured thinking, all of which computers can do better than humans, needs to shift to efficient usage of technology, synthesis capacity, puzzle solving and creativity. A population with these skills will be in a position to benefit hugely from the great opportunity afforded by the impending obsolescence of most of today’s occupations. Work will be something you do anywhere, at any time, in any field, with whatever approach and within whatever structure you choose at any given time. Training choices will not determine the next 40 years of your working life, trapping you in a monotonous profession, but equip you with flexibility and the power to derive satisfaction from any endeavour you choose to undertake. A new security would be found in freedom, flexibility and adaptability.

We need to commit to this vision, and we need to do it now. Automation is coming. Our societies need to develop humanistic ways of life and distribution models which ensure that automation is not used to increase corporate profits, by reducing costs whilst keeping benefits away from the workforce. We need to collectively choose to use technological advancement for the betterment of all our lives.

Current events such as Brexit, the rise of populism, the American election, nationalism and fundamentalism are the result of large swathes of the global working population seeing the writing on the wall and no longer understanding what their place in the World is. They can see their jobs and skills becoming obsolete, and they cannot see how they may replace them. Technology and globalisation are overwhelming for Neolithic Man. The time has come to evolve. To understand what our technological prowess can offer us, and to adapt to it. As part of the process, we will need to address many other social constructs which are no longer relevant, such as office environments, large educational establishments, pension systems, traditional marriage, country borders, etc. But this will be part of the process. The start is the change in the conception, by the majority of the global population, of the opportunities the future offers and the shedding of all limiting assumptions rendered irrelevant by our newly acquired technology. Lose the fear. Embrace hope.

So, are UKIP dead, or are they playing dead?

I have been disappeared for too long, completely failing to deliver on my intention or commitment to publish once a week. I will not be able to make good, but hopefully I can at least pick that intention up and carry it on from here.

Today I want to write about UKIP. It is something I have debated long and hard whether to do. 

Should I even acknowledge UKIP by writing about them? Do they deserve that exposure? As much as I despise most of their views, they have the support of a significant percentage of the UK population, were instrumental in engineering the Brexit referendum and are therefore a force to be reckoned with in UK politics. As a UK immigrant, I guess continuing to ignore them, although good for my mental health in the short term, is not sensible in the midterm.

Common wisdom is that UKIP have had their day, have served their purpose and will now disappear from UK politics. However, I am not so sure. I think that Mrs. Nuttal and Farage, although they are in my view certainly Nuts and a Farce, are a lot more dangerous than they look at first sight.

It is clear that there is a lot of anti EU sentiment in the UK, I could argue and prove that in another post, but I think most people, after the referendum, are probably prepared to accept that, so long as I limit the statement to:  ‘A significant percentage of the UK population are anti British membership of the EU’. UKIP preaches to this constituency. If you listen to their new mantra (now that the £350Mn a week for the NHS, etc. have banished), they continuously repeat the following, which I paraphrase in the interest of brevity: ‘We are here to ensure that Theresa May delivers the Brexit deal the UK want. She may not, and if she does not, we will be back’. So, a failure by Theresa May to deliver the deal UKIP and many Brexit voters believe they should get, would see UKIP come back stronger than ever. Can Theresa May deliver that deal? Basically, is the UK in a position to get all they want from the Brexit negotiation?

Again, if you listen to Paul Nuttal, yes, definitely. The argument, repeated again in the election radio debate today, goes like this: ‘The UK has a big trade deficit with the EU. The EU sells more to the UK than the UK sells to the EU. Therefore, the EU needs the UK more than the UK needs the EU. Therefore, Theresa May has a strong negotiating position and should deliver the deal Brexit voters expect’. This all seems logical at first sight. If the first statement is true, the others may well seem to logically follow… The EU is making money out of its relationship with the UK, so how could they not want to make a deal?

As often, however, first sight appearances can be deceiving. Populism prays on lack of analysis. So, what does analysis tell us? What are the facts? (I am at least returning to my commitment of writing about facts, and yes, I admit the first part of this article is too opinionated, but, from here on, we are going to deal in facts and allow you to make your own mind up).

Firstly, what is the real trade situation between UK and non-UK EU? The numbers from the Office of National Statistics (https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/bulletins/uktrade/mar2017) are as follows: UK exports to the EU for goods and services were £242bn , whilst imports were £302bn in 2016. A £60bn deficit. So, Paul Nuttal’s first statement is right. The EU is making money out of trading with the UK. Is his conclusion right, does this fact put the UK in a strong negotiating position with the EU? To understand this, we need some more numbers. This is what is commonly known as context, something most politicians (some more than others) and many voters (idem) often ignore.

Visits and research in a number of sources (IMF, Eurostat, Office of National Statistics, https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp, (http://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/),  (http://data.worldbank.org/region/european-union and (http://www.eudebtclock.org provide the following information about the 2 economies (all in Billions of GBP per annum, 2016 numbers).

UK and EU macroeconomic numbers in billions of  GBP

For a lot of people, these large macroeconomic numbers don’t mean a lot, so things are easier to understand if you turn them into smaller numbers, such as those used by a family or a small company.

Let’s take the UK first, and imagine it is a small company, UK Company Ltd, which has total annual revenues of £100,000 from sales (that would be the total export). If we translate the rest of the numbers to the same base, UK Company Ltd is buying in £110,182 in total, and therefore losing £10,182 per year from trading. UK Company Ltd is selling £44,000 per year to EU Company Ltd, its biggest customer. Imagine a situation in which the contract with EU Company Ltd was cancelled (the equivalent to a super hard Brexit). Now, suddenly, UK Company Ltd is selling £56,000, whilst spending £110,182. The loss has gone up to £54,182, nearly the same amount as the total revenue. To break even, UK Company Ltd, would ,have to increase its sales to other customers by 96.7%.

Now let’s look at EU Company Ltd, also with revenues of £100,000. It is buying in £94,830, therefore making a small profit of £5,170. Its biggest customer is UK Company Ltd, to which it sells £16,787. Imagine a situation in which the contract with UK Company Ltd was cancelled (the equivalent to a super hard Brexit). EU Company Ltd is now selling £83,213, whilst spending £94,830. The loss has gone up to £11,618. To break even, EU Company Ltd would have to increase its sales to other customers by 14%.

The question you have to answer is, which party stands to lose more from a cancellation of the contract? Which company needs the other more?

Now let’s look at imports and what a lack of a trade agreement may do, by introducing tariffs. For this example, I can use a family. The UK family has 2 working parents with total budget for the year of £50,000, to use a number familiar to many (its GDP). It spends £5,278 per year with its electricity supplier (EU PLC). Suddenly, due to an oil crisis (Brexit and introduction of tariffs), there is a 25% increase to its electricity cost. The family now has to find an extra £1,319 per year to pay for electricity, but wages are constant.

Down the street lives the EU family, which also has 2 working parents with total budget for the year of £50,000. It spends £749 per year with its electricity supplier (UK PLC). Suddenly, due to an oil crisis (Brexit and introduction of tariffs), there is a 25% increase to its electricity cost. The family now has to find an extra £187 per year to pay for electricity. The parents get an annual wage increase of 2.5%, or £1,250.

The question you have to answer is, which family stands to lose more from a tariff increase by its electricity supplier? Which will struggle more? Which family is therefore in a better position when going to the negotiating table and risking the introduction of such a tariff?

The point is that, whilst exports from EU to UK are bigger than the other way in absolute terms (if we forget the billions, £302 and £242 respectively), as a percentage of the UK and EU economies, both exports and imports from the EU are much bigger for UK, than the other way, because the EU economy is so much bigger.  To drive the point home, £242 (the UK exports to EU) mean a lot more to a guy who earns £2,861 per month, or £17.88 per hour (the UK GDP) than £302 (the EU exports to the UK) mean to a guy who earns £16,152 per month, or £100.95 per hour (the EU GDP). In a poker game where the player who earns £17.88 per hour in his day job has £242 on the table, and the player who earns £100.95 per hour in his day job has £302 on the table, the second player is going to be a lot more relaxed, £302 makes no real difference to him. This, of course, is not a poker game. It is a serious negotiation between 2 political entities which have a lot at stake, but it seems that the strong negotiating position is with the EU, and that Theresa May will bring back the deal that the EU want, which may well not be bad for UK, but which will most definitely not be the one Brexiters want, since they want it all in exchange for nothing.

The final question, which you also have to answer yourself is: Does Paul Nuttal really not understand this? Or are UKIP deliberately massaging the truth to set up Theresa May for failure, in the expectation that such failure would bring hordes (I choose the word carefully) of angry, disappointed voters, back to the UKIP ranks?

The Empire is falling

The last few months have seen two electoral events which have shocked the political establishment. In both cases, the political class, intellectuals and polling organisations got it completely wrong, predicting electoral victories for the status quo, and being shocked by the victory of the anti-establishment options.

There has been a lot of analysis about what this means, why it has happened, and why it was missed. Most of this analysis, however, is wrong. The reasons for those votes are also completely wrong and, in many cases, will achieve completely the opposite outcome that the voters intended.

The elites are scratching their heads. Particularly, the progressive intellectual elites. How is it possible that large numbers of voters, in protest against the inequality and lack of opportunity they perceive in society, have voted for quintessential paragons of inequality? How can Donald Trump, a multibillionaire who has amassed massive wealth gained from the work of others, be seen as a better chance for the working class than more progressive political propositions? How can the British voters vote for an option which will clearly make their country, and particularly its working class, poorer, by destroying jobs and pushing the UK into a low corporate taxation model where workers share more of the burden? This seems to make no sense, but the fact is that it makes perfect sense.

These voters are angry and scared. The World is changing very fast, and it is becoming something completely different to the World they grew up in. Globalisation is going at breakneck speed, and has created huge wealth. However, it has also created huge inequality, which has been exacerbated by the 2008 recession, which brought about a huge, obscene even, transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to financial institutions and their shareholders. New millionaires are created every day in places like Silicon Valley. But, to a large percentage of the population, what these people do to become millionaires is incomprehensible. The thought that you can create technological tools, trade globally without barriers and be hugely successful very fast is an insult to the people who have not learnt the skills (and I use this sentence carefully because I think 99% of people have the capability) to take advantage of these opportunities. This is logical. The way of life of this section of society is under siege. They can see their jobs becoming extinct or irrelevant, they can see themselves being replaced, and they cannot see what the alternative is. Automation, as well as foreign competition, will render most of their occupations obsolete. And when this happens, how are they going to survive?

The inhabitants of Western economies have grown in an environment in which they were the privileged few. Despite the fact that global output and wealth was much lower 30 years ago than today, 30 years ago the great majority of it was shared between a few hundred million, in the West. Everyone else was brutally poor, and that was not our problem. What has happened in the last few decades is that we are suddenly having to share our wealth with many others. With billions of Asians and South Americans joining the global economy, manufacturing goods and providing services. These guys are training themselves and building their competitiveness, and they want a share of the global output. We, used to keeping the great majority of the output to ourselves, don’t like that.

The huge miscalculation is to think we can stop it. US and UK have extremely self centered views of the World economy. These views hail back to a time, not long ago, in fact less than a generation, when their markets, together with a few countries in Europe, were the only ones that mattered. They had the consumers and the spending power, and they therefore called the shots. They could choose who to trade with and in what terms. But this has changed. So now, Americans want to stop the effects of globalisation by building walls and isolating, and they think that will protect their jobs and their economy. But the World economy is going on outside America. Manufacturing, technical development, and services are produced everywhere and, more and more, consumed everywhere. By 2100, 9 Bn of the planet’s 11Bn population will be in Asia, Africa and South America. These markets don’t need the US and the UK. The World economy can continue to develop without them. By building walls, the Americans and the Brits will be keeping themselves outside of the World economy, not keeping others outside of theirs. China famously did just this in the XIV century. They were the World’s most powerful trading economy, the most advanced technological society. They were a long way ahead, technically and economically, of everyone else. And they had built that position through relentless trading over the silk roads and by sea. But, at some point in that century, the emperor decided that trading with outsiders was sharing Chinese wealth, and he reasoned that Chinese wealth, most of the known World’s wealth, should be for the Chinese people. As a result, China closed its borders. This allowed Europe and the Middle East to thrive without competition. Rather than sharing their wealth and leading global progress, China stepped out and conceded global leadership to incipient economies in Damascus, Baghdad, Cordoba, Spain, Venice and Genoa. Development continued, global trading accelerated, but China did not participate. They thought the global economy would not continue without them, that by closing the gates they were keeping wealth within, but they were actually keeping themselves away from the newly created wealth. It has taken China 650 years to regain their position in the global economy.

Now US and UK are doing the same. They are closing the gates to 6Bn consumers, to protect their markets of a few hundred million. They think they are losing their jobs to immigrants, when they are losing them to workers that compete from a distance and never need to visit their countries. Instead of taking advantage of their head start to provide higher end services and products to those growing economies, they stop trading and accelerate the change in the World Order. It has happened in Egypt in 700BC, in Greece in II C BC, in Rome in 476, in China in the XIV century, in the Middle East in the XVI Century and in Spain in the XVII Century. Now, it is the turn of the US and the UK. Old empires that prefer to ostracise themselves than to participate in more equitable development. Used to always winning, we don’t like competition.  

And this approach is not only doomed to failure and sure to accelerate our demise. It is also morally wrong. It is based on the premise that keeping others poor is justifiable to keep our wealth, on the concept that our life and that of our compatriots is more deserving than that of people from other nations. Why should this be the case? We are all human beings, with the same rights, the same aspirations. We should be leading the World in finding economic models which benefit all by improving wealth distribution and accelerating wealth generation. Not stepping out of the game and letting others take our wealth. Because they will. Globalisation will not stop, it will continue. Geopolitical wealth redistribution is beneficial to 6Bn people, even if a few hundred million backward thinking individuals in the West see it as negative. And 6Bn people will, in this modern age, prevail. We can join them, or we can watch from outside. That is the choice we have. And we are choosing the second option., at least in UK and US.

When does telling the truth become lying? (you could even ask the BBC)

This article is a bit of a detour from my usual themes, as it does not directly relate to international politics, although the underlying theme has had, in my opinion, a huge effect on political decisions we have seen electorates take in the last few months.

The article is prompted by the main story run by BBC Radio 5 Live, in the UK, in the news items during the breakfast program on Wednesday 8^th of February. The headline was:

UK Police forces have spent £22Mn paying informants over the last 5 years. During the same period, police budgets have been cut by 18%. This was followed by the question, by the presenter, of ‘Is this good use of public money?’.

The first statement is a news item, as the information has become available through the publication of a Freedom Of Information Request appertaining to the financial years 2011-2015 (for an example of what these look like, you can read the FOI reply by the Met Police, the biggest spender, here. An internet search will give you access to the replies of the other police forces, if you have the time and energy to combe through them).  The second statement is not news, and it is completely irrelevant to the news in the first statement. It is clearly designed to generate an emotional response in listeners. A lot of money is being paid out to informants by the police while their total budget is being reduced. The program anchors seemed quite outraged by this use of public money.

The news item offered very little further detail, other than the biggest spender was the Met, with around £5Mn, with the Northern Ireland Police force in second, with £2Mn.

All the statements in this news item are correct, or close to correct (I have found different figures for the reduction of police budgets, but all between 18% and 21%, so let us accept that the data are primarily correct).

So, the message seems to be police are giving a lot of money to informants, money they don’t have. The second statement, about the 18% reduction, must be there to elicit a feeling in the audience that police don’t have that money to pay out. Some may argue that it is there to provide context, but it is not, it is there to take out of context. It cannot provide context because it is in no way comparable or related to the figure in the first statement, absolute monetary values cannot be compared to percentages in the absence of any other information.

Let’s now look at what may have been appropriate context and an appropriate framing of the reporting of the results of the Freedom Of Information Request, had the aim of the BBC been to inform the public:

First question is, is the money being spent on paying informants a large sum? There are 45 Police Forces in the UK, of which 43 replied to the FOIR. The period is 5 years. Therefore, £4.4Mn are being paid to informants per year, an average of £102,326 per police force (£8,527 per month per police force). The number looks a lot smaller when presented like this.

To put it further into context, we could look at total police budgets, and whether the money paid to informants is significant within those budgets. The budget for police forces in the UK for 2015 was (you can find these numbers in many places, this PDF is a police funding report to the UK Parliament):

• England: £7.4Bn
• Scotland: £1,064Mn
• Wales: £743Mn
• Northern Ireland: £661.5Mn
• Total: £9,868Bn per year.

We can now get some understanding of what the number actually means. The money paid out to informants is 0.0446% of the total police budget. To translate that to numbers most people can understand, for every £1,000 the police spend, 44pence are paid out to informants. It is now starting to be difficult to understand how this item makes it into the major headline of a mainstream news program. The equivalent in household terms would be a member of a couple sending repeated emails, every half hour, to their partner to explain that they are going to spend £1.20 of their £3,000 monthly salary on something necessary but unpopular. Or the headteacher of a small rural school convening an urgent meeting of the governors to inform them that he intends to spend £22 of the £50,000 budget in extracurricular education, and the governors starting a consultation to see whether that expense is sensible.

Another way to look at this is, if the police did not spend this money in informants, what could the police do with it. Could they police better? Let’s look at this, and for this, we can focus on the commonly used metric of number of policemen on the street. The UK has just over 202,868 personnel measured in Full Time Equivalents (basically, this means that two part-time people working half time count as one Full Time Equivalent). The average cost per FTE, dividing the total budget by the number of FTEs is £48,494.59 per annum (don’t jump at this number, this is not the salary, is the full cost of providing policing, per head).

So, let’s imagine that police stopped paying informants and added more policemen to do the policing. The money saved on informant payments would allow to pay for 90 more policemen across the country, taking the total number from 202,868 to 202,958 (it is not only you who has to look twice at the number to tell the difference, in practical terms, there is no difference).

Now that we have established that the police are paying a very small and irrelevant amount of money to informants, let us look at the naming and shaming. The biggest spender is the Met, over £5Mn over 5 years. Northern Ireland Police £2Mn. No more information was given out, the numbers get small, so not worth reporting. Let me tell you, for example, that West Midlands has paid £974,953 over 4 years. So, the Met is paying 5 times more than West Midlands. The Met, as the information is presented by the BBC, is paying 2.5 times more than the second biggest spender! How profligate!

Now let us try to put that into context, which is actually very easy. It is obvious that the amount of policing relates to the size of the police force and to the population policed. Every item of policing would be expected to be more or less proportional in amount to these context metrics. If we work on the basis that population is the key metric, it turns out that the Met is not the highest spending, Northern Ireland spends a lot more (to be expected I think in light of the previous troubles in the territory and the fact that some of these remain under the surface).

Finally, let us look at the claim that these amounts have been spent while budgets for policing were reduced by 18%. Putting these two facts in the same headline generates the impression that police are throwing money at informants even when they have less. But, how is the money paid to informants evolving? If we look at the numbers, once again in the FOIRs, we find:

• Met Police have reduced the money paid to informants by 15% since 2012, and by 49.5% since 2009.
• Northern Ireland Police have reduced the money paid to informants by 31.5% since 2011.
• West Midlands Police reduced the money paid to informants by 46% between 2011 and 2014.

The police force are actually reducing the amount paid to informants faster than their budgets are reducing.

It turns out that the BBC could have reported: ‘The Freedom Of Information Requests from UK Police Forces have been received. 43 out of 45 forces replied, which is fantastic. The figures show that the police are spending very little amounts in paying informants, and that they are successfully reducing these amounts faster than their overall budget is reducing. However, since the BBC asked the wrong question in the FOIR, we still don’t know how the value of the results produced by those informants actually relates to the money spent’ (that, by the way, is the question I would really have liked to be able to answer, it is the only one that matters, although looking at the figures I am quite happy to assume that probably the value generated by the informants is bigger than the money spent, who better than the police to evaluate that?).

This is as far as I feel it is worth carrying on with this analysis of BBC reporting style. The question is: why does the BBC present this information in the way they do, and not in the suggested alternative way. And this is not a problem on this specific issue. The way this news was reported is consistent with the way most news are reported. Every day, there are several examples of so call reporting that I could take to task in a similar way. There are extensive studies about the reason for this. The statement is ‘Good news doesn’t sell’, in several variations (if you want to read some research on this, you can look at this Columbian Journalistic Review of a Pew Research Center Study for People and the Press, on this subject, and that is just one example, there is a lot of academic research on this subject).

I am not going to go now into the consequences of the systematic misrepresentation of information by mainstream media. In fact, when you look at the messages behind Brexit and the Donald Trump campaign (of course I had to bring these 2 into this article!), they are anchored on misperceptions generated by these systematic bad news. Neither of them would have happened without them. This blog will aim to illustrate that, amongst other many things, but this is enough for today.

I leave you with the scary thought that the BBC has a very good reputation for neutral news reporting and, due to its funding model, has no real need to sell or prove audience figures. If the BBC is systematically doing this, what can we expect from its commercial counterparts?

Are Trump and Brexit voters trying to solve the wrong problem?

Over the last few months, political commentators and the so-called establishment have been shocked by the results of the electoral processes in the UK, voting for Brexit, and the US election, electing an unproven, unpredictable Donald Trump to the presidency.

How could this happen? A lot of analysis has gone on trying to explain it, most of it, in my opinion, misguided. Most analysts are focusing on how these results are the wrong solution to the problem. However, I think that the fact is that voters are addressing the wrong problem.

Both the UK and US electorates have voted in protest to what they perceive as being a worsening of their living conditions. Jobs are being lost to global competition and immigrants, life is highly pressured and unaffordable, there is lack of opportunity in our societies, etc. The problem, from voters’ perspective, is a lack of success in the UK and US economy. The economy is doing badly, this is impacting standards of living, and therefore the solution is to vote for political programs which promise (and sadly, that is all they do) success.

Common wisdom, and the narrative of the winning sides in both elections, goes something like this:

In the US, the Obama administration has failed at leading the recovery of the economy from the 2008 recession. Things are bad, and third party countries and foreigners are taking what is rightfully American. Trump is coming to the rescue, promising to make America great again.

In the UK, the EU has acted as a brake to the UK economy, preventing it from growing and succeeding as it otherwise might. The EU is slowing the UK down, with unwieldly red tape, curtailing the UK’s freedom to trade and flooding the country with uncontrolled immigration. The obvious solution is Brexit, which will make the UK great again.

I will look at whether Trump and Brexit are the right solutions to these problems in another post (in fact, they aren’t, but I don’t want too much of a spoiler here). But even before I do that, the first thing we should be looking at is whether these problems are real. And here is where facts come in. Facts used to be the way that reality was evaluated prior to decision making. Although they seem to have lost importance and to have been replaced by the loudest noise, I still believe they are the only logical basis to the decisions we take.

A few facts about the American economy you may or may not know:

The starting point is the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, which coincides with the beginning of the Obama administration (although its causes are to be found, at least in good part, in the financial sector de-regulation presided over by the Bush and, to a lesser extent, Clinton administrations). In 2009, when Obama took the presidency, the US economy in real GDP terms fell a massive 5.4%, with unemployment at its highest level in 70 years, around 10%.

What has happened since?

• In the third quarter of 2016, the US economy, in nominal GDP terms, has grown 3.5% (this is above the average growth in the US economy since 1940, no mean feat http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth).  
• The growth for 2016 is estimated at 3.1%. This is the highest in any ‘first World’ sizeable economy, with most other around the 1.5% GDP growth rate (https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/economic-data/countries-highest-gdp-growth).  
• 12 million jobs have been created since 2009, with unemployment at an all time low of 4.7% (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm). In fact, unemployment levels of below 5% are considered full employment, as this accounts for the percentage of people between jobs or willingly out of work at any given time in an economy.
• Budget deficit has been reduced by 60% since the trauma of 2009 (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.html).
• 20 million Americans have health insurance for the first time, as a result of Obamacare.
• On the downside, public debt has increased by 90% since 2008, so that is the big issue for the US economy (the average debt per capita is still looking good compared to many developed countries such as the UK for example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt).

This is, in anyone’s terms, an incredible recovery in a short period of time. The US economy is succeeding. Big time. So how can it be that Americans think they are doing so badly that they are choosing a candidate whose main promise is to take down the system? There are several reasons for this. I cannot enumerate them all here, but these are some of my favourite explanations:

• Negative news. The fact is, bad news sells better than good news. Fear sells better than hope. Human nature aims to protect what it has before aspiring to grow. Fear of loss is a much more powerful motivator than hope of improvement. This was discovered by psychologists in the 70s and has been the basis of sales and marketing theory ever since. As a result, the media, financed by advertising, publish majorly bad news. The growth in national debt in the US, and anecdotal stories about illegal immigration, get a lot more airtime than the economic recovery.
• Inequality. The distribution of wealth in the US has deteriorated in the last 8 years, worsening the prospects of those at the bottom of the economy. This is not by design of a socially progressive (at least by US standards) Obama administration, it is a global consequence of the dynamics of capitalism. By definition, it fosters inequality by ‘redistributing’ wealth (this is an euphemism for concentrating wealth in the hands of the owners of the means of production). This is classical economic theory, well studied by Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Milton Keynes et al.
• Envy and comparison with others. This was pointed out to me by a friend the other day. When humans compare themselves to others, that influences their perception of how they are doing. Success and failure, wealth and poverty, are relative terms, at least once you get over a basic line. There may be some truth in this. I don’t have any facts to back this up, only anecdotal evidence, which can be hugely misleading. If there is some truth in it, though, that would make some sense. Nowadays, we are bombarded by a culture of celebrity. The people we see in TV and in the media are wildly successful, earn unprecedented amounts of money and accumulate wealth and plaudits. If we compare ourselves with them, we may feel we are doing a lot worse than we really are.

And here comes the really interesting part. If we leave aside the rejection of immigrants, racism, and a few other, unedifying feelings which may have caused some pro-Trump votes but which Trump supporters are at pains to tell us are only a minority, we are left, when trying to explain the vote for Trump, and considering that he practically run with no program or plan, with two main explanations:

• A reaction against an establishment that is failing the American public, ignoring it and presiding over a significant deterioration of its standard of living,
• and the concept that Trump’s success in private life may equip him to show America the way to economic success.

Those arguments may stand in a situation where the economy is failing and the government is forgetting the working people. But, as we saw at the beginning of the article, the facts tell us that this is not the case. All the opposite.

And now comes the big question: In a reality in which the economy is succeeding, the recovery is well underway and Americans are getting access to universal services they never enjoyed before, but where they still have the problems of national debt and inequality, is the solution a president:

• who is a multibillionaire (multibillionaire status is typically a result of lack of equality, since most people are not multibillionaires),
• whose most clear policy is undoing most of what the previous administration has based the very successful recovery on,
• who is running on a ticket of greatly increased public spending and reduced taxation, hardly the recipes to reduce public debt.

That seems a real stretch. It seems that Americans may be voting to solve the wrong problem. 

Unfortunately, that has consequences and, in this case, some of them may be very serious, and contribute to very significantly aggravating the real problems, whilst undoing the real successes. I promised to blog on the Chinese and US relationship, but this post has got very long, so I will have to leave that for one of the next posts.

Before that, we should look at the vote for Brexit in the light of the real UK situation. My next post will be looking at some quite incredible facts about the misconceptions and fallacies that led to the Brexit vote.