Too long?

There’s a bit of a kerfuffle going on about whether Momentum is going to launch a mass purge of the PLP. I doubt they have the organisational skills, however I was interested in just how long members of the PLP had served as MPs and what the politics of the Party were when originally selected. So I scraped a list of the parliament site and organised it as a table. This note talks about the profile of the longevity of PLP members, and which leadership made them. Further thoughts on the political consequences have put in the comments section. …

Vulnerable

This popped up in one of my news feeds, it’s at the Daily Mail online site, but interesting and informed. Hastings argues that the two new ‘Fleet’ carriers planned for the Royal Navy, although unfinished are already obsolete.

He argues that they are very expensive and their strike power could be replaced with cruise missiles and drones which require considerably cheaper launch platforms. It is proposed that we buy US F35 warplanes to fly off them which are so expensive, that the numbers to be purchased have been reduced twice. The F35 is multi-role which means that it has an air defence capability but missiles (if you have enough) are good for fleet defence. Hastings also states, that the Navy now only has 17 surface warships all of which would all be needed to defend the carriers at sea which would be very vulnerable to the modern surface to surface anti-ship missiles.

He argues for their cancellation or mothballing, but while the decisions were taken under a Labour Government, the Tories have had seven years to do something about it and inherited responsibility with the publication of the 2010 Strategic Defence Review. …

Voiceless

At a presentation on Data Protection, last week, one speaker expressed the hope that new European Data Protection supervisory authority would establish a sensible compromise on the levels of fine to be made under the GDPR, with the British, Dutch and Irish hanging out for realistic fines and some of the Eastern European countries seeking punitive penalties. Sadly, for those who are relying on British influence on the new board, we may not have a seat. …

Republic

One problem with Facebook (& Twitter) is that they are rivers, once the water has gone by it’s gone and can no longer be seen. I have written this and posted here, because a friend contributed to a thread on Facebook on the Monarchy, which I can no longer find. He suggested that we have a choice between what we have today or an executive presidency like France and the US. It’s not true, most of the European Republics have weak presidencies that do what our Queen does, play a role in the formation of government, a job done mainly by convention and law. This could be done by the Speaker or any other indirectly elected citizen.

Personally I am motivated for a weak presidency within a Republic with a strong Parliament bound by the rule of law. i.e. Parliament must be bound by a rule of law.

I read this line, a long time ago, in “Man & Superman” by George Bernard Shaw,

My rank is the highest known in Switzerland, I am a free citizen

I think I want that! …

Research

Techdirt, providing a public service as ever have posted a piece on confusion in the US Federal Government agencies. Whenever seeking to censor material, one has to prohibit research into the censored material and the techniques used to enforce the censorship. This is equally true in technology, and since encryption is used to ‘protect’ material, in the US they have prohibited research into circumventing “Digital Rights Management” technology which is used by creative capitalism to manage pay-per-view. This has led to the absurd situation that, in the US, unlocking phones was a prohibited technology for a while. The Copyright Office, often seen as creative capitalism’s agents in Government, have come to the conclusion that the copyright laws interference with security research is a bad thing. Whether they’ll repeal those bits of the law is another matter. …