Scottish Independence - Vision versus pragmatism

If recent surveys are to be believed, the yes campaign for Scottish independence is not doing very well and so political questions are being asked why this is the case. Having met and worked with a fair few Scots over the years, I think I have the answer. For some reason, Scots tend to be very pragmatic. I cannot explain why, maybe it is a cultural trait brought on by the weather!

Actually, I think the SNP and the yes campaign are doing a very poor job of selling their case and as a professional civil servant (with Machiavellian leanings, let's not deny that!) I can recognise some of the tactics the yes campaign is using which is so spectacularly failing. They are too reliant on making the emotional case for independence and they are totally failing to make the pragmatic or hard nosed case that the Scots want to know about. Listen to them when they answer questions, the responses are always about how wonderful and liberating independence would be with Scots choosing their destiny and making their own vision. I think they could just save everyone a lot of waffle and simply say, "vote for independence because we all hate those Conservative/Southern tossers telling us what to do!"

I have never been able to fob off a Scot that I have worked with by giving a vague answer talking about 'vision' or 'choices'. Like I said, they always seem to be very pragmatic and can smell bullshit! The staff members who I count as the best staff I have managed have all been Scottish and I put this down to, in part, their willingness to challenge me and to try and drill down to the facts.

So what 'facts' do the SNP use to support their case for independence as well as their more emotive arguments?

I have paid a fair bit of attention to the debates, both for professional reasons and out of curiosity and I have to confess that as an outsider who is meant to be looking for this sort of detail I cannot even answer that question. Even more of an issue for me is that I have read a bit of SNP sponsored analysis and assessments of what an independent Scotland would mean in a practical sense. I threw all those reports away with disgust, the quality of analysis was so bad. Their is plenty about their 'vision', but absolutely nothing about how they will make that vision a reality.

I should like to use a simple example. When Philip Hammond, then recently made Secretary of State for Defence, was told of Alex Salmond's plan to ask for the Scottish proportion of the armed forces, his response was devastating. "The UK Armed Forces are a highly integrated and very sophisticated fighting force.The idea that you can sort of break off a little bit, like a square on a chocolate bar, and that would be the bit that went north of the border, is frankly laughable." You need to only to have a cursory glance at the UK armed forces to realise that he is right. For a more in-depth analysis of the poor thinking that went into this policy by the SNP, this rather good post from the thinpinstripedline covers it rather well.

But let us move on from those flaws and focus on the parts that matter to the Scots. Reportedly many Scots are anti-nuclear weapons and the SNP are very happy to espouse their 'vision' of Scotland being nuclear weapons free. Of course this really means nuclear submarine free since all the submarines, nuclear armed or otherwise, tend to be supported from the same base. Having set out this 'vision' how do the SNP intend to make it a reality? More importantly, how do they intend to deal with the consequences of this policy? Remember that in politics almost nothing is black and white, there are always consequences. Well believe it or not, the SNP did sponsor a report into this issue. Unfortunately, they seemed to have given it to Greenpeace to do the analysis. It is so bad, I will not even link to it for fear of promoting a travesty of economic analysis! Effectively, the SNP have no plan or even any credible economic figures to even form a plan. Thus the thousands of Scots living on the west coast who directly or indirectly benefit from the millions brought into the local economy by the Clyde naval base would lose a significant source of income. This does not even touch on the likelihood of the British government in a pique of anger at losing the independence vote scrapping naval ship orders and refits conducted at both Glasgow and Rosyth dockyards. What was that about pragmatic Scots and turkeys voting for Christmas..?

This is just defence. Look at SNP policies and (lack of) analysis on various other important issues such as energy generation, economic policies, fishery management, funding the NHS, being a part of Europe... the list goes on. There is a complete lack of anything proving that Scotland would be better off. The Scottish Executive has civil servants, what are they doing? Aren't they drawing up any detailed plans on how to sustain an independent Scotland? Surely they are not going to start doing the work on trying to exploit Scotland's strengths after the date of the referendum with no preparatory work being done beforehand? As a UK civil servant, where do I start if I am told to work with the Scottish civil servants on 'sorting things out'? One of the most frustrating aspects of my job is dealing with people who do not really know what they want. I shudder to think what this would be like on a national scale.

Normally, this lack of detail does not matter in politics and when campaigning on an issue. Good looks, down to earth charm, appealing to emotions and an inspiring oration on how wonderful life will be are the tools of the trade for the competent politician selling their big idea to the electorate. This is the fundamental flaw with democracy, appearance and emotion is everything, substance and hard nosed realism is meaningless. Yet the Scots seem determined to prove this is not the case with them. They may yet teach the other regions in the UK something about democracy during this referendum. Pragmatism and critical analysis have their place in a functioning democracy, lose it at your peril!

Energy strategy? What energy strategy!

When it comes to examining UK energy policies and strategies for the National Grid for the last fifteen years and up to the present day, things do not look rosy. If I were to articulate UK aspirations for its future energy consumption, I would break it down into two clear objectives:

1) Reduce the environmental effects of current energy sources (I do not just mean reduce carbon emissions).

2) Get away from unstable sources of energy such as foreign oil and gas.

Governments of various colours and in various countries seem to broadly agree with these objectives, but the UK government (past and present) is making a pig’s ear of it! Prevarication, self interest, contradictory policies, greed and incompetence all feature in the rich tapestry that is the recent history of UK energy generation. This is immensely frustrating because with clear leadership and sensible planning and management the two objectives named above can be achieved. I do not believe they are mutually exclusive and in fact I also think there are several opportunities that can be exploited. Sadly the incoherent approach to this issue is having a ripple effect across much of Whitehall disrupting other areas of government business, what should be simple has become complex.

So to repeat one of my favourite phrases when faced with a complex problem, “Let’s simply.” What are the options for obtaining more energy for the grid.

Options for construction available now

Nuclear power plants

Coal fired power plants

Gas fired power plants

Oil fired power plants

Wind farms

Solar panels

Dam projects driving turbines

Tidal barriers

Biofuel

Energy from Waste

Possible future construction options

Fusion/thorium power plants

Underwater turbines

Wave power

No doubt there are a few choices I have missed, but the above seem like a nice wide choice to me. Let’s rule out the impractical ones first. That means coal and oil are out as these run counter to the objectives stated above. We can rule out solar for the UK Grid except for micro generation. I definitely think solar should be used for people’s homes, but I find it rather annoying that solar panels are still horribly expensive and no one has yet been clever enough to make them resemble roof tiles thus improving their looks. While solar would benefit individual householders, this is not an answer to powering the Grid. I am also outright rejecting biofuel. It cannot be generated in any kind of sustainable way to fuel the National Grid or as a vehicle fuel. Anyone who says otherwise is deluding themselves or psychotic enough to willingly suggest we condemn millions of people to starvation.

Gas power is a bit of a gamble right now as to make it compliant with the objectives makes the leap of faith that the UK is able to exploit domestic gas reserves, mainly through fracking. I am assuming that methane gas generation from agricultural means is unsustainable for similar reasons to biofuel. I am going to rule gas out at this stage as it currently relies on foreign gas reserves unless proven otherwise. It may well be that fracking will prove to be viable, but you cannot make a multi billion pound decision on a maybe! OK I lie, the government makes those decisions all the time, but I am going to make the small point that if the UK does have enough shale gas to be worthwhile, it might be best to use it for powering vehicles rather than power stations as gas can use the current infrastructure methods with relatively minor adjustments. This is a decision that is best put off until we have the ‘ground truth’.

I have put underwater turbines and wave power as possible future options and I have to confess they hold a great deal of appeal to me. Sadly the investment in this area has been lacking and so I am not aware of anyone who is able to claim these are options available today. I definitely think research money needs to be poured into these areas in a big way. Sadly this money is being hovered up by wind farms. As for fusion/thorium, I attended an excellent lecture on this topic last year by a scientist specialising in this field and so I know we are a long way away from being able to deploy it, thus this option goes into the long term research pile.

Energy from waste (EfW) does have its uses and is a much better way to get rid of rubbish than landfill. I have no reason to doubt government claims that a properly managed EfW plant does not cause adverse health impacts to nearby residents, but I am aware that lots of people have their doubts on this matter. Either way, I can only see a limited future for EfW plants, they can contribute to the national grid, but due to NIMBYism and the logistical impracticalities of trying to funnel huge amounts of rubbish to them daily, I just cannot envisage there being that many of them. Like solar, they can contribute rather than deliver anything hugely substantial.

This effectively leaves the UK with looking at nuclear power or renewable energy as its best options. This is no kind of earth shattering revelation, but it helps to recap why we find ourselves with these options. For me, a complex picture has been simplified. Now it is time to dig a bit deeper into the implementation of these options.

Implementing tidal barriers

The fact that we do not have more of this form of power generation is down to lack of vision and lack of sensible planning and financing. Like EfW and solar, it probably could not meet all our electricity needs without having a disproportionate effect in various unspoilt areas. However, there is definitely scope for at least building a number. One of the most prolific, reliable and untapped resources available to the UK is being completely wasted. It is nothing short of stupid and the government's unwillingness to properly fund this sort of option itself does the UK a great dis-service. Waiting for the private sector to fund such big projects is pointless as history has shown that only governments are really prepared to make this sort of long term investment.

Building wind farms

I see a role for wind farms, just not in the numbers so desperately put forward by government policy. For me, this technology is readily implementable, hence its appeal, but its returns will not justify the huge capital outlay currently being committed into it. The reason being is due to its intermittent power output, their unpopularity with locals and the disruption they cause to important systems such as radars. Where I do see a role for wind farms is when linked to a dam/resevoir project. The power gets generated by the water flowing down from the dam or reservoir and a small number of wind farms can be used to power the pumps that push the water back up again. Again, wind farm or wind farms linked to a dam is an option that contributes to the needs of the Grid, but cannot in themselves satisfy the requirements.

Implementing the nuclear option

Well known technology with a pretty good safety record in the UK, there is a lot to be said for nuclear and many people already have. The biggest issue, as it has always been, is what to do with the waste. Sadly attempts by successive governments to privatise or delegate the management of this problem has been an unmitigated mess. This does not help allay a negative perception of nuclear power held by the population at large. In short, the nuclear industry and successive governments have buggered it up, covered up their poor decisions and so few people trust the nuclear option. The government now needs to recover from the poor decisions made in the past and rebuild some kind of new nuclear power capability. This is not going well and with now only one French company able to dictate terms the situation is not going to get better. This obsession with trusting the market to make big investments without significant subsidy is a complete fallacy. It is true of nuclear as of any of the other power generation options available.

Conclusion

Well I do not want to run around screaming that we are doomed and I say that as I suspect that when things get desperate someone will, by necessity, show some leadership and make things happen. Just expect the whole process to be very painful and very expensive.

However, if the UK government suddenly became rational and started to make decisions today to try and puruse the objectives stated above then the options really are quite simple as there is effectively little choice. For starters, a minimum nuclear option needs to be pursued sufficient to ensure that it covers the minimum power requirement for the UK in 10-15 years time. As a stop gap, some gas power plants will probably need to be built or upgraded to keep the lights on, but if shale gas is proven as viable then expect this to become a major solution even though the gas should go to transport or export. Everything else will have to go into renewable power generation. There will not be one solution that can be used, wind power alone will not do it, nor will the others as it effectively has to be a bit of everything.

Which brings me neatly onto the opportunities. If only the UK was significantly investing in nearly all the renewable/sustainable options outlined above, not just wind power (mainly wind, tidal, wave, under water and nuclear), I think it would set the UK up for being able to export that expertise and technology. There is no doubt that there will be a huge demand worldwide for sustainable energy generation and various countries will be interested in various solutions. There is a gap in the market for these sort of technologies and the country that corners this market will make a fortune. Most of those at the top of the coalition get this, but they seem incapable of implementing it, crippled by vested interests and hostile backbench MPs. This lack of leadership and foresight will cost the UK a unique opportunity and while it is not impossible to come back from this, there can be no doubt that other countries will soon overtake the UK and try to claim the wealthy prize that lies at being the successful leader in this field. We had our chance and we are blowing it. The success of nations in the 20th century revolved around securing access to energy and resources and using it for their development, I doubt very much the next century will be much different in that regards.

Disclaimer: I am not a passionate advocate of the green movement who, with some notable exceptions, do not think things through very well or argue their case with anything more than idealism. As a civil servant I have just looked at the opportunities that are available to the UK and I can see the dangers of not gaining self-sufficient and sustainable power generation. The UK in itself cannot make more than a smudge in reducing world carbon emissions nor can it really persuade other developing countries to cut back on their own development. But the UK could just focus on making the technologies work at which point the economic case would far outweigh the environmental case as far as other countries are concerned and thus the objectives of the green movement would be met by simple self promoting economics.

European Games

First off, a declaration. I am very much pro the EU, but not uncritically so. Even its most ardent supporters openly acknowledge that things are not perfect and a lot more needs to be done. For me, however, the EU is at its best when it protects EU citizens from their national governments. Without the EU, many bad laws would have been enacted by the British Government, particularly those that impacted on freedoms or our protections, particularly from large corporations. Examples such as the 90 days detention, the BT Phorm trials and the ongoing anti-competitive investigations by the EU into Microsoft, Apple, Intel and Google are prominent in my mind. So for all its faults, particularly in the way it operates and spends money, there are a lot of good things to say about what the EU does.

And so I now look at Cameron's speech on Europe which is still generating significant press coverage. My verdict is that there are some good principles in there. The Germans and the French do want the UK to get more involved, to push for beneficial change to the EU and to counter the perceived dominance of those two countries on most European issues. The UK is seen as a major player with a lot that it can bring to the table. However, I can only think that Cameron's strategy in pushing for this change is driven by political pressures, not by any realistic analysis of how best to go about bringing change and thus improving the EU. The European way of doing business is very much about obtaining consensus. Turning up from the beginning with a threat and a list of demands does not get things off to a good start!

My view is very much that Cameron (or any PM) should have simply signalled that the UK want to propose a number of changes which the UK feels is needed for itself, but would also benefit the EU as a whole. This could have been reinforced by a statement that the EU was becoming democratically tenuous in the UK (and other countries) and so it is critical that the UK government is able to demonstrate that the EU remains relevant and beneficial to the lives of UK voters. This is the sort of position that European leaders can understand and agree with. It is both a promise to be reasonable and a threat to challenge the democratic legitimacy of the EU if it cannot reform.

As for the issue of a referendum, Cameron is being as hypocritical as he accuses Alex Salmond and the SNP of being over the issue of Scottish independence. If you are going to have a seismic referendum, you should set the  date to be as short as decently possible only allowing enough time for a proper debate and not such a long period that it creates a whole load of planning and investment uncertainties. I am not saying that there should not be a referendum, but either it should be called quickly or Cameron should have left it as an unspoken threat for the EU to ponder over. That way, the UK has a strong hand in its negotiations, EU leaders can hardly be motivated to avoid the threat that a referendum brings if it is an inevitability. I fear, that the political pressure has over-ruled any common sense on this matter.

I know from my own work that being a leading member of  the EU brings significant benefits to the UK and I am going to share one example that illustrates this point. About five years ago I was dealing with a problem where working with the US was being problematic due to the way the Americans implemented their laws when co-operating with foreign governments. This issue was causing huge delays to work and creating a whole host of problems such as legal liabilities and delays to the UK. The UK had spent years trying to solve this problem, but to no avail as the Americans were not willing to change their position. My boss and I therefore approached our counterparts in the other five biggest countries within the EU to ask if they were having the same problems. Lo and behold they all replied that they were and so we set up several meetings to discuss it and to hammer out a strategy. We then invited the Americans to meet all six of us to discuss this problem which they willingly did. As a result, the Americans realised that they had a problem that needed fixing and so they went away and did so. For them, this was the ideal international co-operative scenario - the UK led the big European nations to clearly articulate the problem. Once the Americans proposed a solution, it could be agreed by the Europeans as a whole thus saving them from having to repeat the work for other countries and everyone went away happy.

Now of course, I can also give several examples of where working within the EU has not been so successful. But the example above illustrates why so many nations, both and and out of Europe want the UK to remain a leading member. It also shows how the UK is able to make itself more influential than if it tried to solve all these problems on its own. This is influence that political blustering and a UK only attitude cannot buy, it would be ludicrous to claim that giving it up would not have significant consequences. Is it worth what we pay the EU? That is a much harder question to answer, but what is clear is that the situation is far from black and white and the UK would be unlikely to be able to use the money saved to be able to protect its interests and influence world events as effectively as it does now.

How to make yourself very unpopular, written by the coalition!

Today's news is that the Home Office has decided to cut police pay, particularly for new recruits. Earlier this week, it was revealed that the police is suffering a huge decline in the young intake and thus the police forces are becoming older. In short, it looks like police recruitment is in for a rough time and there is no way that the current members of the police can see this scenario as anything other than they are getting screwed. A more Machiavellian outlook would be that this is a deliberate change that so happens to benefit companies such as G4s who just so happen to be significant contributors to the Conservative party coffers...

I will declare that I am not a police officer nor do I have any particular interests to defend on this issue, but I cannot help but imagine that the police feel pretty hard done by. Having covered for the Olympics thus not had much holiday, suffered pay freezes and pension cuts and worried about being on the front line at the next set of riots, I don't expect they feel particularly benevolent to the government right now. Traditionally, the Conservatives used to be able to count on a decent proportion of the police to vote for them. I doubt very much that is true any more.

In fact, I am pretty confident that the coalition has rather significantly lost of the vote of most of the civil service too. They feel pretty screwed over too. And with recent news that business leaders are worried about the anti-EU rhetoric, as is the US, and it looks like the coalition are fast running out of support from most quarters, including areas that would traditionally have been counted upon for some support. Like the Republican party in the US, they are in danger of running out of 'angry white men', or Euro-sceptics as they are otherwise known in the UK!

When they were in power Labour were terrible for making policies and promises specifically geared towards shoring up their political support rather than promoting good government. There are countless examples of this and the result were a lot of promises that were not funded. The coalition seems to have gone completely the other way and while this can be argued as possibly a good thing, if a bit politically suicidal, I would find it hard to argue that they are making good policies and winning support either. Without the support, they have almost no chance of implementing their policies, good or bad.

This behaviour from a politician is pretty hard to explain, after all, most shallow politicians are willing to sell their soul to win at politics right? Labour certainly did and it successfully kept them going for 13 years. So when one examines the behaviour of the coalition government and their apparent suicidal approach to gaining votes a rather disturbing pattern emerges. All those polices (cutting police pay, reforming the NHS, selling off national forests, privatising defence procurement, etc) all by amazing coincidence benefit significant contributors to the Conservative party. A coincidence? It is just too widespread to be written off as a conspiracy theory. If you take the view that privately the coalition knows it was left with an impossibly unpopular mess to fix, it can be easily imagined that those at the top have lost their motivation to win more votes. Thus we should ask what motivates them to shape government policy and endure the gruelling hours and criticism that results? A rather wealthy life after the general election in 2015 perhaps?

Before David Cameron became Prime Minister, he said that lobbying will be the next political scandal. That has yet to properly happen and so that particular cow will be milked for all it is worth before the game is up. Recent news coverage also states that MPs think they are not paid enough. I actually agree and I think these two issues are linked. Politicians should get a pretty generous pay from the state on the condition that they do not have second incomes or outside interests. If they are not prepared to accept this, then maybe they should accept, and the electorate should insist, that a career as an MP is not for them at that time. My sincere belief is that British politics would be in a better place when this happens. Sadly it cannot happen fast enough.

The Leveson report is in – Protecting liberty or curtailing free speech?

And so Lord Leveson has delivered his esteemed judgement in a truly impressive 2000 page report. Typical lawyers, they always have to go overboard with the wording! For all that, it is a serious study with a lot of analysis behind it and so none of its recommendations should be dismissed lightly or quickly.

Leveson has pretty much publicly confirmed what anyone who has had any professional dealings with the media already knows. On the whole they lie. A lot! The reasons for this are many, but it boils down to deadlines, lack of standards and professionalism and outright political or commercial bias. This is on top of the mistakes that any pressured written work will have. This is not to tarnish all journalists with the same brush, but for anyone who takes pride in their work it is unacceptable to put a misleading statement into the public domain, I still remain horrified by how often the media reports opinions and complete fabrications as fact. I am a big fan of proper investigative journalism, which in many ways mirror some of the basic principles in being a good civil servant – find out what is going on and get it confirmed/checked from more than one source if possible. If this is not possible, make this clear and say it is the best judgement that can be made with the information available.

Leveson draws a crucial distinction between what is put on the internet and what has a ‘big name’ behind it. The mainstream media claim to have the high ground when it comes to news because unlike some random blogger they have the resources and people to add credibility to their articles or posts. We cannot just make free market claims that if people do not believe the veracity of the press they will go elsewhere. This might be true of blogs in the ‘wild west’ of the internet, but the mainstream press is not as diverse and the tricks used to manipulate people are subtle and well used. In short, the mainstream press have a tremendous capacity to ‘influence’ people for good or for bad and so they have a lot of power. What Leveson highlights all too starkly is that this power is too often abused with little in the way of restraint or punishment against its misuse. In short, it is a very unhealthy situation for a democracy to be in and something has to change. He make take nearly 2000 pages to say this, but I can only say that I fully agree with Leveson’s observations of the problems of the press.

Many comments and articles have been written about how the British media is controlled by a small number of wealthy individuals and it cannot be denied this is one problem, but I would argue it is certainly not the only one. One of the other big problems is the belief that the press protects liberty. While this is true in part, what this belief does is provide a good excuse for vested interests to clamour against reform. The mainstream press is not just ugly, it is clearly corrupt, self-promoting and in worse cases actually restricts liberty not safeguards it. The most obvious cases of the way liberty is restricted are those of hacking victims and those who are victims of vigilante justice promoted by the press. Less obvious is the way the press curtails critical reporting for ‘editorial reasons’ or the fact that complex issues are dumbed down and presented in a way to reduce independent/critical thought by the reader. Liberty and free speech will not be preserved by entrusting its protection to a group of journalists motivated by a variety of factors, but by making sure the population at large is well informed and able to articulate its feelings in a coherent way that politicians can listen to.

The danger of the press is not only that they have colluded in reducing informed free speech by the population, but they have cluttered the communication from the population to those at the top and so the politicians themselves cannot clearly hear the ‘will of the people’. This has been frequently referred to as “the Westminster Bubble” The press are just as guilty as the politicians for this state of affairs and they live in a state of denial about their culpability. Leveson has challenged this and the completely hypocritical response from the elements of the press saying that he will curtail their free speech reveals the state of denial or worse still their desperate desire to preserve this unsustainable relationship which is significantly undermining British democracy.

In conclusion, I believe Leveson is totally right, a self regulated body cannot work and so some statutory legislation/regulation is needed. The trick is to do it in a way that preserves the essential components of liberty and free speech that are so vital for a properly functional democracy. A self regulated press has been shown to fail (through countless other enquiries) to do this and so another approach is needed and it needs to have teeth and to be free from political control.

Not enough plebs

There can be no doubt that UK politics has entered a very divisive phase with the mainstream press and politicians daily engaging in class war. The Conservative Party is politically vulnerable on this front and so opposition politicians have shed any reluctance in detoxifying politics and are sticking it to the Government every chance they can get.

It seems to be a successful strategy with a Conservative Party unable to manoeuvre itself clear of the political broadsides. Andrew Mitchell's 'pleb' comments really should not have been much of a story. It can hardly be a surprise that current or past Government Ministers of all political shades think little of the 'lower' orders. Yet the whole Mitchell saga fuelled the political narrative of a leadership completely out of touch with the mainstream UK. With so many rich and public school educated people sitting in the Cabinet it seems incredible that Cameron along with the Conservative and Lib Dem leadership seem to totally lack the political survival skills that necessitate more women and 'working' class visibility at the top of Government, but that is what is happening.

At the other end of the scale of the Conservative Party, MPs such as Nadine Dorries, with a more 'humble' background are making a political pigs ear of things. Whether she is going to the jungle of Australia to 'spread politics' or to pocket the £40k fee for making an arse out of herself is open to debate, but it will undoubtedly fuel the belief at the 'upper ranks' of Conservative Party that those plebs within cannot be trusted either. Meanwhile they still have no real strategy of making the Conservatives look more electorable and so they can only pray for an economic miracle, throw out a bevy of clever sounding policies or just give in and make sure they get as much out of being in charge as they can before they are voted out in 2015. Civil servants can only wonder if the latter strategy is being pursued at times due to the incoherent and unpopular policies coming out of No.10, however, like the Labour and Lib Dem politicians they are keeping their heads down and letting the Conservative politicians take the flak.

Class politics has always being prevalent in British politics, but it seems to have reached new levels now. In part this is because there can be no doubt that those at the top are protecting themselves and their friends while enriching themselves at public expense. However, what has made the narrative really acidic is a belief by the UK electorate that the politicians are really making a hash of the UK economy. In recent weeks I have been meeting a lot of business men and women in the course of my duties and I have yet to meet any that thinks the Government knows what it is doing. If they do not believe things are going to get better then it is no wonder that the UK economy is not being led by a private sector recovery. In the meantime the electorate just reads the headlines and despairs.

Unfortunately the civil servants just feel the same way, backed by the fact they can see it happening first hand and with that level of de-motivation, do not expect Government to get any better. You reap what you sow and having castigated the civil service and marginalised those not in the exalted ranks, the politicians are fast running out of lower level support, vitally needed to make their policies happen.

When computer games show the political past or the potential future of political interaction

I have always enjoyed playing computer games, particularly those that force you to think tactically or have a curious twist. Lately I have been thinking about a couple of games that provoked some interesting thoughts.

Let’s start with the past and my favourite game of all time which is Rome Total War. For those not familiar with the Total War style of games, these are strategy games played on the PC where you build and maintain empires and armies and get the opportunity to fight battles with those armies in real time. They are many games of this ilk such as Civilisation, but they way the Total War dynamics is crafted by the game developer has always been interesting to me. In Rome , they really introduced the concept of not only capturing towns by diplomatic or military means, but also in having to hold on to it. This could be done by garrisoning it, building cultural buildings such as temples or circuses to keep the population happy or rather more chillingly by simply massacring everyone. For experienced players, they soon learnt that logistically it was far easier to massacre everyone as it freed up troops to use to capture the next town. While Roman times was pretty brutal, this is perhaps a rather excessive game dynamic and so the Total War team made this much less of a ‘sensible’ option for their later titles.

This brings up the interesting social question, how many gamers took the lazy way out and used the massacre option more than they ‘morally’ should? What does this tell us about people or more pertinently political leaders today? While massacring settlements is hardly a popular or common way to do things these days (occasional and vicious hot spots in the world not included) if you were a party leader and it was easier to destroy your opponents with lies than by winning the intellectual argument, would you not take it? All is fair in love and war and it can be argued that democracy is simply war conducted by more civilised means. In war, there is no such thing as cheating to win (although treatment of civilians and prisoners is meant to be above this and held to a higher standard) and thus it cannot be denied that any political group would be tempted to take shortcuts to their political objective. In the Rome Total War game, you were slightly punished for being so bloodthirsty by having lower popularity ratings, but then if you ruled a huge empire with a large army available this was hardly a deterrence. So what deters democratic leaders of today? How can a proper democratic system punish cheaters? Sadly, the answer would seem to be “not very well”.

Let’s look at a more modern and strangely fascinating game that I have got into called DayZ. This game is very simple, you find yourself on the coast of a small country infested with zombies and other human players will be around too. There is no government, there are no rules and you have to find weapons, food and medical supplies and simply survive. This is a socially fascinating game because you soon learn that forget the zombies, an awful lot of people are willing to murder you for the contents of your backpack! Some people are willing to club together, pool resources and help you fight off the zombies, but you never know which type of person you will encounter and they may even stab you in the back later on. So what would happen in the real world if there was a similar break down in social order? Would most people get together or would a huge number be willing to do anything to survive including overriding social taboos such as murder? Be aware that this game is a little unusual, once you die, you have to start all over again losing any progress you have made. While not comparable to taking a life, there is a definite sense of loss.

It is an interesting and chilling concept that this is how people may choose to act and it is hard to deny that in the right circumstances DayZ could represent a realistic social dynamic. The important factor here is that the gamers do start from a position of not having a social group or community that they belong to. Sex, race, nationality or creed are irrelevant here. It is quite telling that those game servers where people co-operate with each other the most are the ones where gaming clans (let’s call them a voluntary community) have consciously set themselves up and only members are invited. If you are not a part of that community, the odds are high that you will get shot if the zombies don’t get to you first. Does this perhaps sound rather familiar?

Of course these are computer games free from moral and social constraints and so we should not read too much into them. But in these games normal people can make vivid choices and sometimes those choices can translate to real life. When playing in online games, I have learnt to avoid Russian servers for those games where teamwork is required. I cannot explain why, but for some reason the Russian servers are absolutely terrible for teamwork. Is it cultural, social? I cannot say, only that it is a pattern repeated again and again. Take away all constraints, give people the choice of being nice or nasty and too often nasty wins.

Does this mean people are not naturally willing to be nice to each other and so extensive social conditioning is what is needed to keep humanity flowing? Or does everyone just like to let off steam once in a while?