Non Proportional Representation (Part 1) - UKIP & BREXIT

UKIP's 2015 Single Parliamentary Seat and BREXIT

The table below shows how the out-dated and un-representative UK voting system in 2015 disenfranchised almost 4 million UKIP voters. Whether one likes UKIP or not, and I really, really don't, the fact that they only had 1 seat in parliament when the should have had 82 was a complete travesty of a representative democratic process. They were clearly the 3'rd largest political grouping in the country, more than the Lib Dems and Greens combined or (a subject of later post) all the "Non-English" parties combined who have some 76 seats when they "should" (by strict proportion) only have about 42 seats i.e almost half the the 82 seats UKIP should have had.

I'm convinced now, thought I never thought of it at the time - so strong was and is my aversion to pretty much all aspects of UKIP,  that this totally undemocratic lack of representation of UKIP supporters and a wider disillusionment with UK mainstream politics was one of the key factors behind the EU referendum result and then inevitably to the current BREXIT debacle.

There was in my circles (all pretty much pro-EU) a deep misunderstanding of the depth of the disenfranchisement and level of concerns about the largely pro-EU position of the main parties Tories, Labour and Lib Dems. All of whom, albeit for differing reasons, were often likely to cast anyone even raising questions about e.g EU free movement policies as simple-minded, little Islanders or just xenophobic bigots. In turn this led by a sort of unthinking, semi-conscious, rationalization to many people, including myself, to think it it was "OK" or ar least not a big deal to disenfranchise almost four million fellow UK citizens because one didn't agree with their views. It is a painful personal realisation that in doing so I was therefore by no means blameless in respect of the current BREXIT debacle.

UK Election Results - 2015
Party	% of the vote	Number of  votes	Actual Seats	Proportional Seats	Seat Error	% Error
Tories	36.9%	11,334,226	331	240	91	38%
Labour	30.4%	9,347,273	232	198	34	17%
Libs	7.9%	2,415,916	8	51	-43	-84%
SNP	4.7%	1,354,436	56	29	27	95%
UKIP	12.6%	3,881,099	1	82	-81	-99%
Greens	3.8%	1,157,630	1	25	-24	-96%
DUP	0.6%	184,260	8	4	4	105%
Sinn Fein	0.6%	176,232	4	4	0	7%
SDLP	0.3%	99,809	3	2	1	42%
Plaid Cymru	0.6%	181,704	3	4	-1	-22%
others	1.8%	553,893	3	12	-9	-74%
	Total Voted	30,686,478	650	650	Total Seats

I do however still regard, now somewhat ruefully, Stewart Lee's brilliant sketch about UKIP's Paul Nuttall as one of his best..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKEsyIuTrO8 

Chinese Whispers and Fake News

I'm beginning to truly realise how incredibly difficult it is to navigate your way through the minefield of modern media and the Internet. It's rapidly becoming very problematic as new techniques for deliberate media manipulation  i.e via fake news are developing  at an increasing rate but also the more random effect of the rapid cascading of social media articles generated via Twitter and Facebook on a huge range of issues which are in many cases completely baseless.  Some are started by simple misunderstandings and spread by ignorance, but some are due to coordinated malice. The consequences are not only confusion and misunderstandings about politics, economics, science current affairs and of course climate change but incitement to racial hatred and mob "justice" and the  lynching of totally innocent people.

The problem is compounded by the apparently increasing lack of rigour being applied not only by main media outlets such as the BBS but also a range of  public institutions and even governments themselves in the assessment of the likely credibility and expertise of the source.

Example 1 :  Science/Health  - "Twenty Three times more toxic"

The paper below analyses in some detail how a completely baseless claim about passive smoking being "23 times more toxic in cars" came to find it's way into mainstream media such as The Times/ /being referenced in scientific papers i.e peer reviewed papers  that underpin the scientific establishment / various medical journals and used to support specific public health policies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2871202/

Example 2  :Foreign Policy - UK invasion of Iran & the Dodgy Dossier 

The claim the Saddam Hussein had WMD in sufficient quantities and with the ability to use them in very short timescales was it appears partly based on work by a graduate student Mr Ibrahim al-Marashi for his thesis, " Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation". We all now know the WMDs claims were false but how on earth was the work of a graduate student and an openly Anti Saddam Hussein opposition supporter and therefore certain to be biased  - seen as an acceptable source for a foreign policy resulting in a war that destroyed hundreds of thousands of peoples lives and cost billions of pounds. His article was originally written for the Middle East review of International Affairs (MERIA) edited by Barry Rubin (now deceased), an American born Israeli and again highly unlikely to provide a fair and balanced view point on anything to do with Iraq as evidenced below

https://web.archive.org/web/20051023050337/http://meria.idc.ac.il/british-govt-plagiarizes-meria.html

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/rubin-reports/why-the-mass-media-cant-report-honestly-on-israel/2013/11/05/

1. Never simply assume that because it's presented by the mainstream media e.g TV that its factually based, true or objective . 
2. Be sceptical, about what you read from pretty much anywhere 
3. Try and identify the likely vested interests behind any article whether it be e.g anti-alcohol campaigners, environmental activists, large companies ,  
4. Think Where's the Money? - The "root of all evil " is probably the 1st thing to think aboout i.e "How is what I'm reading being funded and by who and why. It's seems to me to be increasingly rare for articles to be published purely to be informative and its a tragedy that the taxpayer funded BBC, supposedly, free from such biases has become primarily a vehicle for promoting the "de-facto" UK establishment consensus whether it be about health politics climate change or anything else.

This uncontrolled and rapid dissemination of unverified information funding it's way into the scientific literature combined with as in AGW Groupthink and the end justifies the means zealotry if e.g  the AGW lobby and their increasingly strenuous attempts to suppress any debate or opposing views  constitutes an existential threat  to  the scientific process as a whole.

If what you say is accurate ..

Why Isn't there an Organised Group Questioning AGW (Climate Change) ??

Well the simple answer is there IS  -  There is a policy foundation set up by none other than Lord Nigel Lawson ex Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer under Mrs T.  The group is called The Global Warming Policy Foundation - who produced the paper on Groupthink (see earlier blog) and on Climategate.

https://www.thegwpf.org/

If  34 years ago during the miners strike someone had suggested that in 2018 I would find myself agreeing on anything with Nigel Lawson, who I held and still hold jointly responsible for one of the most cruel and destructive episodes in UK industrial history leaving a bitter legacy to this day, I would have said (but in much stronger terms ) that was very unlikely.

However one of my aims in writing this blog is to encourage critical thinking /review, myself included so.....  Here's one passage, my highlighting, from a Nigel Lawson essay that may prompt some political /moral angst :

" But what moves me most is that the policies invoked in its name are grossly immoral. We have, in the UK, devised the most blatant transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich – and I am slightly surprised that it is so strongly supported by those who consider themselves to be the tribunes of the people and politically on the Left. I refer to our system of heavily subsidising wealthy landlords to have wind farms on their land, so that the poor can be supplied with one of the most expensive forms of electricity known to man.!

His whole essay is below - have to admit it's clear, well written and I consider fair, though in a few minor passages the harsher Nigel Lawson of old creeps out .. sure you'll be able to easily spot them.

https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2014/05/Lawson-Trouble-with-climate-change.pdf

Stewart Lee clips

Not everyone's cup of tea

Here are a small selection of links to Stewart Lee at his best covering a range of different topics  These may - almost certainly will - "offend some viewers" so please ignore them if you don't like Lee's very direct, self analytic and sometimes very challenging style. Note: If you don't like him and don't find him funny you will see in clip 5 you are not alone...

1. Cats feet towel / Vomit /Joe Pasquale /Jesus

https://youtu.be/ZASLvh9Up6w

2. Braveheart Scottish Gaelic history

https://youtu.be/tHA1ufmLZQY

3. Ratko Mladijc

https://youtu.be/_cGwxeec-CY

4. "Anti - Muslim" Comedy ( trust me its not anti Muslim)

https://youtu.be/wOb2KQHr7V0

5.Internet trolls

https://youtu.be/78Puggk5MCA

" Do-Gooders"

Clarification on Terminology 

When I use the term "do-gooder" I'm referring to somebody who claims to do good, would like to be seen as doing good, but who in reality nearly always is not.

The type of person I'm thinking of is the type of an anti abortionist quite willing to punish a woman for having or even trying to have an abortion but who cares nothing for the actual woman or her child. The most illustrative example I can think of is a certain character from JB Priestley's play "An Inspector Calls" - if you know the play I'm sure you'll know exactly who I mean - if you don't I recommend, when you have the time, to watch it. 

Another example is a certain female prime minister yes I'm sure you know the one ...

Claiming she wished to to "do good" 

https://youtu.be/UhXlAGmUitU?t=35

Resulting in  ..

https://youtu.be/brP6D_AICJA?t=109

https://youtu.be/5o98_hia8tA?t=44

Protein Fat Carbohydrate HDL LDL - Not as is seems

You Don't Need carbs / "Cholesterol is Cholesterol"

The podcast link below  takes you to a talk by nutritionist Zoe Harcombe,

https://www.simpleasfat.com/cholesterol-science-zoe-harcombe/

which I think, unless you're already well up on this and way ahead of me, will I'm pretty sure give you serious "pause for thought" about the health advice we are being given and why ..

I've had a  quick WIKIPEDIA sanity check, acknowledging I  don't have even an 'O' level in Biochemistry, which confirms some key things :

• there is only one type of Cholesterol and its essential to human life 
• HDL and LDL are lipoproteins that transport cholesterol ..  not Good and Bad  cholesterols
• your body doesn't strictly need any carbs they are not an essential nutrient 

Her cholesterol analogy about mistaken thinking e.g assuming that as there are nearly always firefighters and lot of water sloshing around at the scene of a fire so "obviously" fires are closed by fireman and water .. is clever and her delivery open and frank answer to the many Qs  (all the one you want to ask yourself)  are clear and engaging 

If nutrition, health diabetes /cholesterol, heart disease are issues or of interest to you I thoroughly recommend it - if not no problemo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrient#Macronutrients

https://blog.myfitnesspal.com/ask-dietitian-can-you-survive-without-carbs/

Mobile phones and Cancer (on-going)

I’m usually, except for climate change & AGW in my view a special case, a bit of what may be termed a “conservative/main stream" thinker when it comes to technology issues - probably due to my scientific /engineering background and of course a comfortable suburban life in that bustling metropolis of radicalism otherwise known as Billingshurst .

So on being prompted to consider the potential dangers of 5g comms I was a bit surprised to find that one of my existing “perceptions” or “starting points” - I’m using those terms to mean something one thinks but couldn’t say exactly why one thinks it or where they got their position from - was that the mainstream position on non-ionising radiation i.e type of Radio Frequency Radiation (RFR) produced by mobile phones, Wi Fi Television broadcasts etc did not cause cancers .

However on actually checking - Groupthink not happening here my boy 😇, the World Heath Organisation WHO position on mobile phone type RF, which I will take as mainstream, is actually 

“possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), a category used when a causal association is considered credible, but when chance, bias or confounding cannot be ruled out with reasonable confidence..”.

 http://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/electromagnetic-fields-and-public-health-mobile-phones

Now decomposing that statement .  

1. It does not say, nor can it by itself be used to support an argument, that “mobile phones do cause cancer”   
2. It does not say “mobile phones don’t cause cancer”
3. It does say “possibly  mobile phones cause cancer”

So even in a mainstream scientific sense it is perfectly legitimate to have and to voice concern /uncertainty about the safety of 5G, RFR  and mobile phone use in general

So digging bit deeper ...

Why do the WHO have this concern ? Well partly it is due to recent studies by the National Toxicology Program (NTP) of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences e.g as reported in an alarmist media piece below . 

https://www.independent.co.k/news/health/mobile-phone-cancer-radiation-rats-tumours-research-science-toxicology-study-a8612641.html

Pretty scary stuff ! and reported, but with more detail on the study also in :

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181101133924.htm

However and back to my theme on remaining highly sceptical of alarmist media representation of "scientific studies" when you look at at some more independent reviews of the original NTP study a pretty different picture emerges (my highlighting )

-----extracts---

1. The animals exposed to radiofrequency fields  lived significantly longer than the controls (and cancer risk increases as you get older).

2. The radio frequency fields are not relevant to mobile phone use (they were strong enough to increase body temperature in the rats by over 0.5 degrees, whereas a mobile phone can’t increase body temperature at all).

3. The results were only reported for male rats, but not female rats, or male or female mice (which makes the relevance of any results to humans questionable).

And most importantly…

4. There is no indication that any of the results are statistically significant (i.e. not merely due to chance). This is particularly important as sensible patterns were not observed within or across rodent groups, and also because the reported findings are inconsistent with previous research findings. If chance was ruled out using statistical techniques, the reported ‘evidence’ of carcinogenicity would vanish.

------------------
ref
https://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2018/11/02/mobile-phone-cancer-link-in-rats-expert-reaction/

So my current position  :

• I agree with some reviewers concluding statements  i.e 
• "The NTP rodent carcinogenicity study does not provide evidence that the radiofrequency fields relevant to mobile telecommunications can cause cancer.”
• "So here we have a study that found evidence, some of which is pretty weak, of effects of mobile phone radiation on tumours in rats, and which tells us pretty well nothing direct about risks of actual phone use in actual humans. I’m not going to stop using my mobile phone in the light of this.”

• but also support the WHO statement from the earlier ref: above that : 
• "While an increased risk of brain tumors is not established, the increasing use of mobile phones and the lack of data for mobile phone use over time periods longer than 15 years warrant further research of mobile phone use and brain cancer risk. In particular, with the recent popularity of mobile phone use among younger people, and therefore a potentially longer lifetime of exposure, .."