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New Richmond News
Soras are heard, but rarely seen
Wisconsin statewide news roundup - July 1
Earning her stripes
Prescott businesswoman dies in motorcycle crash
Twin Cities man accused of using cellphone to record a boy showering
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Star Prairie
Deer Park
crime and courts
Football teams hold summer contact days
American Legion baseball teams playing frequently
New Richmond's Caleb Manecke is MVP of Wisconsin Baseball All-Star Classic
Three aces struck in four days at New Richmond Golf Club
New Richmond Millers win on a rare shutout, top Spring Valley, 2-0
MS students create transition video for fourth graders
St. Croix Central board approves funds for energy projects
Somerset MS students 'cut shoes' on last day of school
NR Rotary seeks host families for Brazilian exchange student
PANTHER PAUSE: Making summer count
NRHS fiftieth reunion
Beukema is this year's Dairy Heritage Calf Project recipient
Willow River summer programs announced
Longtime NR leaders, Dr. Craig and Tom Doar, pass
July 2 truck and tractor pull will put new Hammond track to the test
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arts and entertainment
16CV168 LaMoine Roatch vs James Barber, Ruhiza Barber
Town of St. Joseph - Invitation for Bids - Garage Bldg Shell Package
Village of Somerset - Ordinance A-630Z
Upper Willow Lake Protection & Rehabilitation Dist Public Mtg Notice - July 20
Village of Somerset - Ordinance A-628
Greg Brinkman, 69
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Thomas Doar, 95
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Janis McGee, 54
Our View: Elections inch closer
Father's Day has come and gone, but we don't forget
Letters to the Editor: June 23, 2016
Letters to the Editor: June 16
INHUMAN NEWMAN: With every day, a battle against cancer is won
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August 29, 2013
Spartans inflict another Bloomer heartache
Bloomer keeps coming back for more, but each time, the Somerset football team finds a way to frustrate the Blackhawks. Somerset and Bloomer clashed...
sports / high school
August 29, 2013 - 3:47pm
Eight turnovers weigh down Panthers
There's an old coaching adage that says "It's not where you begin a season, it's where you end it." The St. Croix Central football team is leaning heavily on that philosophy after a discouraging 27-21 loss at Baldwin-Woodville in the 2013 season opener last Friday. The Panthers turned...
sports / high school
August 29, 2013 - 11:14am
August 28, 2013
Full color football
Black and Orange were on full display when the first Tiger Football Community Night was held at the New Richmond football stadium last Wednesday....
sports / amateur
August 28, 2013 - 11:14am
August 23, 2013
Somerset football wins in overtime; New Richmond loses opener
The Somerset football team began its 2013 season with another heated battle against Bloomer. New Richmond's football squad began its season with an inspired first half, but the Tigers couldn't finish off a win against River Falls. Somerset's Alex Praschak scored the game-winner...
sports / high school
August 23, 2013 - 10:21pm
Full color football: Rainbow of youth football teams highlights Tiger Community Night
Black and Orange were on full display when the first Tiger Football Community Night was held at the New Richmond football stadium last Wednesday....
sports / high school
August 23, 2013 - 1:42pm
Enthusiasm abounds in New Richmond football program
There's a renewed sense of enthusiasm circulating through the New Richmond football program. New coach Keith Badger has quickly instilled a...
sports / high school
August 23, 2013 - 12:04pm
St. Croix Central football won't be pressured to pass
The 2012 St. Croix Central football team featured one of the most successful pass attacks in the state. That doesn't mean the Panthers are committed...
sports / high school
August 23, 2013 - 11:51am
August 15, 2013
Time changed for St. Croix Central football scrimmage
The starting time has been changed for the high school football scrimmage that will be held at St. Croix Central on Friday. The scrimmage will now start at 1 p.m. It had previously had an 11 a.m. start time. The change was made so that anyone involved in the scrimmage could...
sports / high school
August 15, 2013 - 11:10am
August 8, 2013
Camps get athletes ready for fall seasons
The final weeks before the start of high school sports are a flurry of activity as coaches look to augment their athletes' knowledge and skills...
sports / high school
August 8, 2013 - 9:05am
July 25, 2013
Witzmann knows NFL is an option
Bryan Witzmann has heard it from fans and from pro football agents. The mammoth South Dakota State offensive tackle from Somerset isn't looking...
sports / amateur
July 25, 2013 - 7:53am
June 28, 2013
Shared football camp has multiple benefits
The annual football scrimmages between Somerset and St. Croix Central took on an additional element this year when a third team, St. Croix Falls,...
sports / high school
June 28, 2013 - 2:19pm
June 20, 2013
Elmore verbally commits to Gophers
Somerset football fans won't have to travel far to see standout tight end Gaelin Elmore play his college ball. Elmore, a top-ranked 2014 prospect,...
sports / high school
June 20, 2013 - 2:49pm
May 17, 2013
Eckert resigns as New Richmond varsity football coach
New Richmond varsity football coach Jason Eckert has submitted his resignation from his football post. Eckert informed the Tiger players of...
May 17, 2013 - 1:08pm
A fund-raiser for Somerset football all-stars this Sunday
A fund-raising event to send six Somerset football players and coaches to the WFCA State All-Star Game will be held this Sunday. The Spartan Football All-Star Game Recogntion Fundraiser will be held from 2-4 p.m. on Sunday, April 19, at General Sam's in Somerset. Admission is $10...
May 17, 2013 - 9:13am
April 26, 2013
Three Somerset players, Central's Nyhagen chosen for WFCA All-Star Game
The area will be well represented at the 2013 Wisconsin Football Coaches Association All-Star Games in July. Three Somerset players and three...
April 26, 2013 - 9:37am
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text: Military Beyond American Legion: Younger Veterans Look For New Connection By Patricia Murphy • Nov 13, 2015 As traditional veterans organizations like the American Legion and VFW lose members, younger vets are gravitating toward dozens of smaller, more specialized groups that offer a social outlet and opportunity to serve. Veterans Groups On The Decline By Laura Lee & Frank Stasio • Nov 11, 2015 Fort Rucker / Flickr Creative Commons For many veterans of World War II and Vietnam, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion posts were popular social gathering places to share stories of war experiences. And they were powerful lobbying voices in the political sphere. But across the nation, participation in these organizations has declined. Veterans groups are making new efforts to recruit younger members. Agencies Work To Honor NC's 800,000 Military Families By Eric Hodge • Nov 11, 2015 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs People across the state are honoring those who served in the military on this Veterans Day. There are parades and ceremonies in many communities and other events where veterans get to tell their stories of service. Cornell Wilson, Jr. is the Secretary for the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs for North Carolina. He says it is always important to thank veterans for their service. "We have roughly 800,000 veterans in this state, a combination of retirees and those that just got off active duty and they are a very vital part of our community," says Wilson. Veterans Groups Have Long History, Uncertain Future By John Ismay • Nov 10, 2015 Groups like the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars have served former service members for a century. But declining membership threatens to lessen their influence. Listen Listening... / John Ismay reports on the history on America's veterans organizations. Should Women Be Drafted? Congress May Have to Decide Soon By John Ismay • Nov 3, 2015 As more military jobs are opened to women, Congress may face the question of whether to require women to register for the Selective Service. Listen Listening... / John Ismay reports on the question of whether women may be required to register for the Selective Service. Study Seeks To Help Military Families Weather A Parent's Deployment By Rebecca Martinez • Nov 2, 2015 MC2 Tiarra Fulgham / Wikipedia RTI International is studying whether a family-skills building program can help military families thrive as a parent transitions into and out of deployment. Senior Project Manager Jessica Nelson says deployment puts unique stress on a family. U.S. Teams Search For Missing WWII Remains In India By Charlie Shelton & Frank Stasio • Oct 28, 2015 United States Army Air Forces / Wikimedia Commons Hundreds of U.S. aircrafts were lost during World War II along a remote military supply route in the Himalayas called the Hump. The treacherous terrain caused hundreds of World War II service members to crash, scattering their remains along the region. For decades, families have waited for the lost veterans' remains to return to the U.S., but a border dispute between India and China has stalled military search efforts from recovering the remains. The Rise Of ISIS By Frank Stasio & Andrew Tie • Oct 28, 2015 Marvin Joseph / The Washington Post In the late '90s, there was a group of very dangerous Islamic radicals in Jordan. They were such a threat that the country had reopened an abandoned prison in the middle of the desert as a way to isolate them from spreading ideas to other prisoners. After Years of Delays, U.S. Teams Seek To Recover WWII Remains In India By Jay Price • Oct 28, 2015 JPAC/Jesse M. Shipps A U.S. recovery team has returned to a remote part of India to try to retrieve the remains of troops killed in World War II. Family members say a border dispute between India and China has delayed recovery efforts for years. Listen Listening... / 7:18 Jay Price reports on efforts in India to recover the remains of American troops from World War II. 'Birth Of A Warrior' Documents The Transformation From Civilian To Soldier By Frank Stasio & Andrew Tie • Oct 22, 2015 Raymond McCrea Jones What makes someone want to become a soldier? What does it look like to transition from a civilian to a soldier? How does it affect individuality? Raymond McCrea Jones, who used to be on staff at the New York Times, wanted to answer those questions. He embedded himself in a company of 162 Army recruits at Fort Benning in Georgia for 10 weeks. His fly-on-the-wall photos show the experience of basic training, from 4 a.m. wakeup calls to grueling field exercises. Pages« first ‹ previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … next › last »


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SALT LAKE CITY — State air regulators are seeking to fund projects to help improve Utah's air quality.
The Utah Division of Air Quality is looking to award a total of $250,000 in grants and another $250,000 in loans from the Clean Fuels Grant and Loan Program. Funds are awarded to help businesses and governments to purchase clean fuel technologies that reduce emissions.
Proposals must be submitted to DAQ no later than 5 pm on Dec. 13. The awards will be announced in March.
"A significant portion of Utah's air pollution comes from vehicles," said Bryce Bird, director of DAQ. "By providing incentives, the state can work with local governments and the business community to increase the use of clean fuel technologies to reduce emissions from vehicles."
Since 2009, DAQ has awarded $981,658 in grants and $366,667 in loans to more than 21 different organizations. Projects have included the conversion of cars, trucks and shuttle buses to natural gas as well as the purchase of natural gas refuse trucks, freight trucks, transit buses, street sweepers, aerial truck towers, glass recycling vehicles and refueling stations.
For more information, visit www.cleanfuels.utah.gov.
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text:
This week let's get out there and get some night shots.
Must be a night shot. Post your best and good luck!
We will be running one challenge per week…….The winner of the group challenge each week will be the groups new avatar the next week so good luck to one and all !!!! Please remember to submit your art to the group or it can't be featured
Cover Image: Moon Phases by mrthink
Moon Phases by mrthink was voted the most popular entry in this challenge with 6 votes.


text:
Egg Splat on White with Whole Yolk
Credit: Annabelle Breakey
Creative #: 131976517
License type: Royalty-freeRoyalty-free pricing is based solely on the size of the product you need, not the specific use. You don't have to pay any additional royalties on a use-by-use basis. Once you license a royalty-free product, you may use it multiple times for multiple projects without paying additional fees. (Pornographic, defamatory, libelous or otherwise unlawful use of any image is, of course, prohibited.)
Collection: DigitalVision
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Egg Splat On White With Whole Yolk Stock PhotoColor Image,Cooking,Crushed,Directly Above,Food,Fragility,Freshness,Misfortune,No People,Photography,Square,Studio Shot,White BackgroundPhotographer Annabelle BreakeyCollection: DigitalVision Annabelle BreakeyEgg dropped from above and broken on a white background


text:
The fight for water: Here's why the West's oldest battle could hit you at the tap
The state has set a water conservation goal to reduce by 25 percent the overall consumption of water by 2050. Utah's population is predicted to double by that year, according to the state Water Resources Division and available water is not enough to keep urban taps flowing.
"Even meeting that goal of conservation, we will still need 200,000 acre-feet of new water from reservoirs, pipelines or wells," said Dennis Strong, director of Utah's Division of Water Resources.
An acre-foot of water is defined as the volume of an acre of water to a depth of one foot — about enough to sustain a family of four for a year.
Sharing water
Utah's share of undeveloped water from the Colorado River will be long gone by 2050, Strong said, noting problems with allocation levels.
"There's going to be real challenges for water managers in the future. There's already more water allocated than what exists, but of course not everybody is using the water all the time. It is going to get to the point where you can't take any more from the Colorado."
California, which has historically enjoyed the excesses of the Colorado River, has been given a deadline to come up with ways to reduce its dependency on the water in the face of a growing Southwest and a river that is increasingly tapped by states that have rights to the water. Sooner or later, Strong said, all those rights will be used up, and what claims haven't been acted on will be as dry as the paper they're written on.
Depending on those flows, most agree, is becoming more difficult given the water that has already been carved out and the fickle nature of the weather. Even those who question climate change concede the extreme variability in the amount of water flowing into the upper and lower basins and the increased demands on the system.
With this past winter's snowpack well below average for the Colorado basin states — dipping down at 50 percent or below of what states normally get — this year is shaping up to be near-record setting for drought for the Colorado River system in Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico.
Additionally, a complex water sharing agreement for the Colorado River mandates that 8.2 million acre-feet of water must flow downstream each year to the lower basin states of Nevada, Arizona and California, even if it means states like Utah have to curtail consumption.
"At the end of the day if the users of the Central Utah Project think they are going to be unaffected, they're delusional," Mulroy said. "You cannot fix this problem unless everyone's at the table. Quite frankly, the choice is very simple because failure is not an option."
Strong said the unpredictability built into the flows of the Colorado River makes it imperative to take care of the water delivery system already in place for Utah's residents.
Lawmakers, he said, will have to decide the importance of the state's future water supplies by committing money to new projects — like more efficient water treatment plants, lining canals to prevent loss of water or building new pipelines to convey water to where people reside.
If lawmakers decide having enough water is critical, Strong said they'll have to write a big check — $15 billion — to make improvements and plug problems to the existing water delivery system over the next 20 years. Otherwise, the water already there will compromised by inefficiencies.
"We have to decide if water is an essential service like we have already decided with schools and roads," Strong said, pointing to an aging infrastructure in need of repairs.
The push for growth
With so much of the Colorado River water — 80 to 85 percent — being used for agriculture in the region, the lure is to grab and develop that water for use in homes, to keep cities thriving.
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text:
|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|Oct 12, 1993
|Filing date
|Oct 3, 1991
|Priority date
|Oct 22, 1990
|Fee status
|Publication number
|Riichi Higaki, Yoshikazu Iida
|Original Assignee
|Nikon Corporation
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (3), Referenced by (3), Classifications (9), Legal Events (4)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
1. Field the Invention
The present invention relates to an active distance measuring apparatus which projects modulated light to an object and measures a distance based on reflected light.
2. Related Background Art
As an active distance measurement apparatus of this type, an apparatus which pulse-modulates an infrared ray and projects it to an object has been known (for example, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,758,082 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,008,695). As a photo-sensor thereof, a photo-position sensing device (PSD) which takes out photo-currents I1 and I2 from a pair of output electrodes in accordance with an incident position of the reflected light has been known.
In such a distance measuring apparatus, the photo-currents I1 and I2 which are alternating current signals having a frequency equal to that of pulse-modulated light are periodically switched and they are converted to photo-signals S1 and S2 by current-voltage conversion amplifiers. The signals S1 and S2 are further amplified to appropriate voltages VS1 and VS2 by amplifiers. Then, the voltages VS1 and VS2 are sequentially A/D-converted and signal levels are read a plurality of times and they are added, and distance data L is calculated by a central processing unit (CPU) as follows. ##EQU1## where α is a constant.
In the above prior art, since the photo-currents I1 and I2 are sequentially processed, a ratio of the photo-currents I1 and I2 varies where a reflective index varies while a distance to an object such as a swinging curtain, does not change between the processings of I1 and I2. This creates an error in the distance data L.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an active distance measurement apparatus which eliminates influence of a change in a reflective index of an object and provides an accurate distance measurement signal.
In order to achieve the above object, the active distance measuring apparatus of the present invention comprises a projector for projecting modulated light to an object, a photo-sensor for sensing the modulated light reflected by the object to produce a pair of alternating current signals in accordance with a distance to the object and a signal processor for producing a distance signal in accordance with the pair of alternating current signals. The signal processor includes detection means for detecting a voltage corresponding to each of the pair of alternating current signals a plurality of times and adding the results of such detection and repeats such detection and addition a plurality of times, and operation means for producing the distance signal based on the output of the detection means.
FIG. 1 shows a configuration of a distance measuring apparatus,
FIG. 2 shows a flow chart of a process for calculating distance data,
FIGS. 3A to 3D show time charts for explaining read-in of data, and
FIGS. 4A to 4D show details of portions X-X' of FIGS. 3A to 3D.
An embodiment of the present invention is explained with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4A through 4D.
An infrared ray projector 1 which projects an infrared ray has the flashing thereof controlled by a projection circuit 2 as shown in FIGS. 3A and 4A, and projects modulated light to an object. A photo-position sensing device (PSD) 3 senses the modulated projected light reflected by the object and produces photo-currents I1 and I2 in accordance with the photo-sensing position. The photo-currents I1 and I2 are alternating current signals having a frequency equal to that of the modulated light. A switch 4 is switched by a command from a CPU 8 as shown in FIGS. 3B and 4B to select one of the pair of photo-currents I1 and I2.
A head amplifier 5 is a current-voltage converter having a characteristic of a band-pass filter which passes the frequency of the modulated light and it converts the photo-currents I1 and I2 to photo-sense signals S1 and S2 without influence by steady state light. The photo-sensing signals S1 and S2 are supplied to an amplifier 7 through a coupling capacitor 6. The amplifier 7 amplifies the voltage-converted photo-sensing signals S1 and S2 to voltage signals VS1 and VS2 and a gain thereof is variably controlled by the CPU 8 so that a maximum amplification is attained without saturating the voltage signals VS1 and VS2. The voltage signals VS1 and VS2 amplified by the amplifier 7 are converted by an A/D converter 9 to digital signals based on voltages V1 and V2 measured from a ground level (GND) as shown in FIGS. 3C and 4C. The CPU 8 controls the respective units in accordance with a process to be described later to produce the distance data.
The process for calculating the distance signal is now explained with reference to the flow chart shown in FIG. 2.
In a step 100, the respective units are initialized. In a step 110, a voltage signal V0 produced when the gain of the amplifier 7 which is a reference to the calculation is minimum is read. In a step 120, the flashing of the projector 1 is initiated (at t1 in FIG. 3A). In a step 130, the gain of the amplifier 7 is set, and the voltages V1 and V2 are read in steps 140-200.
In a step 150, the switch 4 is positioned to A (photo-current I1) (at t2 in FIG. 3B). After the output of the amplifier 7 has been stabilized, the voltage V1 is sampled n2 times at a timing which causes the timing of data sampling in FIGS. 3D and 4D to L0 in a step 160 (at t2 in FIG. 3B) and the samples are added. In a step 170, the switch 4 is positioned to B (photo-current I2) (at t3 in FIG. 3B). In a step 180, the voltage V2 is sampled n2 times (from t4 in FIG. 3B) like in the step 160, and the samples are added.
The above steps 150-180 are repeated n1 times. In a step 210, the flashing of the projection 1 is stopped. In a step 220, the CPU 8 calculates the distance data in accordance with the formula; ##EQU2## when γ is a constant.
Finally, in a step 230, the distance data L is outputted.
In the above embodiment, in the return from the step 200 to the step 150, the process of reading and adding each of the voltage signals VS1 and VS2 a plurality of times is repeated as shown in the flow chart of FIG. 2. In the prior art the distance measurement may include an error if the reflective index of the object changes between the readings of VS1 and VS2. By repeatedly reading and adding the voltage signals VS1 and VS2 a plurality of times, the voltage signals VS1 and VS2 are averaged and the accuracy in the measurement is improved. Accordingly, the accuracy in the distance measurement is improved for the object whose reflective index changes between successive readings.
|Cited Patent
|Filing date
|Publication date
|Apr 14, 1986
|Jul 19, 1988
|Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
|Distance detection apparatus
|Feb 2, 1989
|Mar 20, 1990
|Nikon Corporation
|Active distance measuring apparatus
|Jun 22, 1989
|Apr 16, 1991
|Seikosha Co., Ltd.
|Rangefinder for camera
|Citing Patent
|Filing date
|Publication date
|Apr 27, 2000
|Aug 24, 2004
|Simmonds Precision Products, Inc.
|Apparatus for measuring height of a liquid in a container using area image pattern recognition techniques
|Aug 9, 2004
|Feb 9, 2006
|Lewis James M
|Docking monitor
|Mar 31, 1995
|Oct 2, 1996
|Koch Alexander W Prof Dr Ing H
|Measuring speed, length or height using laser beams for measuring speed or size of object in industrial or traffic application
|U.S. Classification
|356/3.04, 356/403
|International Classification
|Cooperative Classification
|European Classification
|Oct 3, 1991
Owner name: NIKON CORPORATION
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST.;ASSIGNORS:HIGAKI, RIICHI;IIDA, YOSHIKAZU;REEL/FRAME:005865/0887
Effective date: 19911001
|Mar 31, 1997
|Fee payment
Year of fee payment: 4
|Mar 22, 2001
|Fee payment
Year of fee payment: 8
|Mar 15, 2005
|Fee payment
Year of fee payment: 12


text:
Science journal retracts study on GM maize
New Delhi: Netherlands-based science and health information provider Elsevier has said its journal `Food and Chemical Toxicology` retracted a study that revealed genetically modified maize led to tumours in rats after the probe found it did not meet scientific standards.
Elsevier`s Food and Chemical Toxicology journal had published the study `Long term toxicity of a roundup herbicide and a roundup-tolerant genetically modified (GM) maize` done by French researcher Gilles-Eric Seralini in September 2012.
The study has been retracted because no definitive conclusions could be reached with a small sample size, it said in a statement.
"A more in-depth look at the raw data revealed that no definitive conclusions can be reached with this small sample size regarding the role of either NK603 or glyphosate in regards to overall mortality or tumor incidence," it said.
"This retraction comes after a thorough and time- consuming analysis of the published article and the data it reports, along with an investigation into the peer-review behind the article," the journal said.
Shortly after the publication of the study paper in the peer-reviewed journal, scientific community across the world raised concerns about the findings of the study, which said rats fed Monsanto`s GM corn suffered tumours, it said.
Due to the nature of the concerns, the journal requested to view the raw data.
"The retraction is only on the inconclusiveness of this one paper. The journal?s editorial policy will continue to review all manuscripts no matter how controversial they may be," it added.
There is controversy over use of GM foods in some countries including India because of safety concerns. Indian government has allowed commerial cultivation of Bt cotton but has put a moratorium on Bt brinjal.
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text:
Gerry Hassan
Scottish Review, June 28th 2016
These are surprising times in Britain and its politics. Cameron gone. England and Wales dragging the UK out of the EU. The England football team defeated by Iceland. And somehow Jeremy Corbyn was meant to be the antidote to these political times.
He was different from the typical 21st century politician, a throwback to the days when all male left-wingers were like underpaid sociology lecturers – badly dressed and presented, rambling but affectionate and with their heart in the right place. Corbyn was never the answer, but he has quickly become the problem, and part of a much bigger set of problems that can't be ignored – namely, will Labour survive?
It is understandable that some want to stand by their man against right-wing plotters, the media and enemies everywhere, but it is time for Corbynistas to think of more important things.
1) The election of Jeremy Corbyn was a shock to everyone in British politics – himself included. He never initially wanted to be, or thought he could be, in charge – and he was right to make such a call.
2) The Corbyn revolution was a reaction to years of discredited, manipulated, managed politics, and in particular, its apposite in the years of Blairism and New Labour. That's only natural; but it is not enough
3) Many people understandably wanted a more authentic politics. One less slick and spin driven; less focused on presentation and personalities. In their revulsion from a politics of command and control, Corbynistas have embraced the exact opposite: a more incompetent politics.
4) Corbyn was elected on September 12th last year. It has been an unimpressive nine months since then. John McDonnell on Sunday asserted that 'we are on the path to a majority Labour Government'. Corbynistas have cited the four parliamentary by-elections since and the May local by-elections as proof of progress, but in reality, they show a very mixed picture. At best, it is one of survival, and other evidence, such as Labour or Corbyn's poll ratings, paint a much gloomier situation.
5) Anger against the New Labour and Tony Blair years and the state of politics today is not enough. Nor is calling anyone who disagrees with Corbyn and McDonnell as 'Blairite' accurate or helpful. If this were in any way true – most of British politics, and large parts of Scottish politics, including the SNP, could be called 'Blairite'.
6) Corbyn's mandate of 251, 417 votes was impressive. But it is not as constantly stated, 'the greatest mandate ever'. Blair won 511,148 votes in 1994 – twice the number. Corbyn did win a higher percentage – 59.5% compared to Blair's 57%, but several previous Labour leaders elected – Neil Kinnock in 1983 (as well as his 1988 re-election) and John Smith in 1992 – won a much higher share.
7) Labour historically doesn't do coups against leaders. George Lansbury was pushed out the door in 1935, but technically fell on his sword after Ernest Bevin humiliated him at Labour conference. There was the failed coup against Blair in 2006, which led to him resigning more prematurely than he wished in 2007. That's the sum total of Labour moves against leaders in its history. Until now.
Historically Labour's attitude to leader has been one of constantly undermining, plotting and briefing against them, but of ultimate loyalty. Thus, the culture of dissent and factionalism is the relief valve to leadership loyalty. The origins of this are to be found in the ethos of labourism, and how it has been shaped by the experience of the labour and trade union movement through the years, and working class solidarity. It is one of the few, perhaps the only, tenet of labourism left standing.
8) The politics of principles matter, but so does the politics of competence, and being able to do things. Corbyn may be bad at doing things politically – speeches, strategy, understanding and performing at key political moments – but Team Corbyn are arguably worse. The infamous Corbyn VICE film showed a couple of damning instances about what the 'new politics' so heralded by the great leader actually amount to. And radical they turned out to be.
With the Tories on the ropes, Corbyn's 'new politics' involved letting them off. The VICE film showed Corbyn discuss with his team the crisis of the Tories after the resignation of IDS, and Corbyn proposed not to bring the subject up in his response to Cameron. No one in Team Corbyn demurred.
Worse last Friday as the world post-Brexit vote emerged, Cameron resigned as Prime Minister. Corbyn at this point had already done BBC and SKY interviews, and as he was on College Green, his team were asked by broadcasters if he would comment on Cameron's resignation. To their incredulity, they were told that the Leader of the Opposition had done enough interviews and would not be commenting on the resignation of the Prime Minister. Basically, Team Corbyn are comprised of people who don't know how to do politics.
9) The politics of principle continued. It is fine to rage at the crimes of New Labour, but Corbyn's politics are formed in the hard left bubble which has existed as if the last 30, indeed 40 years, have never happened. Over that period, there have been huge and dramatic changes in the domestic and international economy, industry, class, capitalist power, and the ability of government and the state to make the progressive case, all of which have sailed Corbyn by and on which he has had nothing to say. Corbyn is a conservative, not a radical: a conservative left-winger, who believes the height of left-wing thinking was around 1975.
10) Anti-Toryism is one of the big leitmotifs of the left. But taking it to the extent Corbyn has done in the EU referendum is self-harming. The supposed logic was informed by the experience of the Scottish independence referendum, and the damage done by Labour sharing a common platform with the Tories. No counter is ever put to this account: of what voters think if you strategically agree with opponents, but refuse to share a platform with them as Brown did in the indyref, and Corbyn recently. As one voter said on 'The Victoria Derbyshire Show' this week 'Corbyn didn't want to share a platform with the Tories, but is happy to do so with Hamas. What does that say about his politics?'
11) The EU referendum result has been matched by Corbyn's misjudgement post-vote. The leadership claimed on the Friday morning after the vote that 'Corbyn has showed that he is far closer to the centre of gravity of the British public than other politicians'. Subsequently, with the referendum result sinking in, they claimed they had done all they could to win. Corbyn supporters like Paul Mason have trundled out this line – missing the basic math that 63:37 divide of Labour voters contributes to the 52:48 Brexit victory.
12) Running through the Corbyn debacle are deeper historic weaknesses. One is Labour's culture of insularity: of believing that what matters is the internal debate, winning the party, and getting the policy position correct. Labour insularity was created originally because the party was different from the others: it wasn't a bourgeois party. Yet, now the idea of winning the party as everything, getting 'our' policy right on Trident or austerity, is symptomatic of a self-reinforcement loop where speaking to the party faithful and true believers matters more than winning over voters.
13) This connects to a wider problem of growing left-wing infantilism and intolerance. There is a link between this and the demise of the original working class culture and ethos of 'them' and 'us' solidarity which gave sustenance and roots to the parties of the socialist and social democratic tradition. The last forty years have seen the left retreat, humiliated and defeated, and the communities and worldviews of collectivism which gave an underpinning to the centre-left, wasting away. This has led to a howl of rage and anger from left activists – which is a response to the world tilting in the opposite direction, and feeling of powerlessness, which then produces the expression of the Corbyn phenomenon.
14) Another dimension of this is that Corbyn personally is the product of what is in effect, Labour aristocracy: the insular inner world of Labour and leftism which talked to itself. Corbyn's own story is that his parents met in Conway Hall, London, on a committee about the Spanish civil war (which was well over by this point).
This Labour inner world is filled with characters: Corbyn, the Benns, Douglas and Wendy Alexander, Gordon Brown, to give a few examples, of people who grew up in the party as an automatic choice from the cradle. Douglas Alexander once said that when he was growing up, it was in a culture of anti-apartheid and campaigning for tackling global poverty, and that the bigger choice of party and tribe had already been made for him.
There is something about that experience which hurts Labour and the left, and warps the critical facilities of the people in question. A good example was the indyref, where many Scottish Labour people had never ever thought seriously of the merits of independence. They were against it because they were Labour, and it came from the SNP, and thus, they had no understanding of the appeal of it, to begin to put together a convincing argument against.
A final thought. Corbyn's rise is a reaction to a whole set of crises, but it also represents a reactionary politics: a yearning for simpler times, and offering a simplistic explanation of what has gone wrong in Labour: boiling it down to New Labour and Tony Blair. If only things were as straightforward, and the correct leadership and line brought about change, the world would be very different. But underneath this is a hope to turn back the clock to pre-Blair or pre-Thatcher, with little historical knowledge of what was wrong then, and why they arose.
Corbyn is an embodiment of a political culture which is passing away: labourism and the left variant of it. There was never any real prospect of his leadership creating the space or resources to herald a genuine 'new politics', but instead his interregnum means that the party's future looks even grimmer than it did a year ago after the 2015 election defeat. The British Labour Party, just like its Scottish offshoot, does not have a divine right to exist, and on its current behaviour, it is literally fighting for its life.
So far the Corbynista-McDonnell left don't seem to recognise much about this. They are in ways they don't seem to understand, as much prisoners of Labour's culture, as those who have passed before them, shaped by this culture of insularity and an outlook of party supremacists, trapped in the notion that a mythical past is what matters, and revisiting and wanting to rectify previous defeats. These latter points were always the way Labour thought of the world: from Taff Vale, and the General Strike of 1926, to the bankers' ramp of 1931. It is a worldview which has ill-served Labour.
The politics of Corbyn and McDonnell are part of the death rites of Labour. At this late stage, when the UK faces so many challenges, and a hard right ideological project to take the UK out of the EU, changing leader isn't enough. Switching from Corbyn to McDonnell would be an even more dangerous serious note. The days of labourism and its left variant are over. We are getting close to saying the days of Labour itself as a serious electoral fore are coming to an end. Is that really what Corbynistas want to be part of?
Gerry Hassan
Sunday Mail, June 26th 2016
This is what the death of a nation looks like – petty nationalism, populism, fact-free politics, and surprises everywhere. This is the world of 'little Britain' – and it isn't pretty.
These are unpredictable times. There is anger and frustration. Whole sections of British society feel that politicians, elites and experts don't understand them. Such is their desperation and feeling of powerlessness that many felt that Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are the answer.
This referendum is about Europe, and has been a long time coming, but is also a proxy about so much more. It's about the right-wing English press, the media and public obsession with personalities (even in politics), immigration, austerity and the 'left behind' working class.
Cameron gambled a second time for high stakes in a referendum and lost. That is bad enough, but he has lost the main strategic union for the UK internationally, and may have brought the union between Scotland and England to a bitter end.
This is the biggest Prime Ministerial disaster since Eden lied over Suez in 1956, and Chamberlain went to Munich in 1938 to appease Hitler. Both had to resign and their reputations never recovered. Perhaps the only greater disaster for a PM has been Tony Blair's Iraq folly and subsequent fall from grace.
Pressures abound. There is the Irish question and issue of the Northern Ireland border – which in the event of Brexit could become a hard border between an EU and non-EU member and jeopardise the peace process.
Scottish independence is back on the agenda – after the country voted emphatically to remain in the EU. It isn't going to be easy or simple. Leave aside the perma-political campaigning of the last four years, and there are going to face numerous obstacles.
First, there is a complex mess to navigate. The UK will begin negotiating to leave the EU, and the Scottish Government, along with the Welsh and Northern Irish administrations will be consulted on this. Nicola Sturgeon will want more – direct access and a voice in critical discussions.
Second, Sturgeon has to gain herself time and wriggle room to balance those impatient who want a referendum as soon as possible, and those more cautious. This entails both being calm and building a sense of momentum and inevitability about independence.
Third, progress has to entail a post-mortem over the 2014 offer. This has to examine, as the Nationalists have so far refrained from doing, what stopped people voting for the previous package, what they were feart of, and what were the most flawed and unconvincing details.
Finally, we cannot march forward under the banner of Nicola Sturgeon's leadership and the nebulous 'idea' of independence. A plausible package has to come up with better answers on the currency, monies, national debt, difficult choices, and a version of an independent nation that isn't under the tutelage of the Treasury and Bank of England.
Something else has to change. The SNP has to govern and do politics in a different way, instead of giving the impression it always has all the answers. Many No voters last time were not completely indisposed to Yes, but worried about tone and attitude. This coalesced around concern over Alex Salmond, the limits of nationalism, and SNP centralism and arrogance.
Sturgeon has to strike out in a number of directions. One could be an independent panel of No voters to act as a check and balance, to refer any new proposals to. Maybe it could be headed by a high-profile No voter – someone like J.K. Rowling, rather than any fading or former politician.
Across swathes of England, a rather mean, nasty, narrow-minded nationalism has arisen. Our nationalism is civic, moderate and profoundly outgoing, but this is not a moment for Scotland to speak with a nationalist voice. This is a time to stress democratic values, consensus and unity.
Scotland has voted, not just last week, but repeatedly to stress its progressive, modern and European credentials. Unfortunately, whereas once these could be taken as a given, now each is in crisis and decline. All over the developed world, what it means to be centre-left and a modern nation, along with the idea of Europe, no longer have the certainty they once did.
Everywhere in the world bar Trump and Putin, there is sadness and loss at how Britain has voted. This is what a people's rebellion looks like, kicking against the sticks, and not knowing what it will result in.
We cannot escape the choppy waters that surround us and define our age. But we can choose to react with calmness, empathise with our confused English and Welsh neighbours, and demand of our national leaders that they speak for us, and the national interest, not just for their party. The stakes have never been higher.
Gerry Hassan
Scottish Review, June 22nd 2016
The UK has already left Europe. It never really joined in any real sense.
National debates like this reveals much about the psyche of a country, and how it sees its collective hopes and fears. For one, it illuminates a lot about the ghosts of the past that haunt a country. In the Scottish indyref, for example, a great deal of this focused on the perceived legacy of Thatcherism and deindustrialisation.
In this European debate, the ghosts seemingly ever-present are those of the spectre of German dominance of the continent and the dark empire of the Nazis, Hitler and World War Two. Further proof, if it were needed, that this has a vice-like grip on the British imagination, was given by the recent controversy over anti-Semitism sparked by Ken Livingstone, which revolved around Hitler's relationship with Zionism, lacking any sensitivity or interest in historical accuracy.
The 1975 referendum campaign, 41 years ago and 30 years after World War Two, had little to no references to the Nazis and Hitler. People were too close then to the horrendous, murderous events of the war, and careful to not appear tactless or make offensive comparisons.
Then, a whole swathe of British politicians had fought in the war. To give a couple of examples: Ted Heath, leader of the Conservatives until February 1975 was involved in the D-Day landings; Denis Healey, Labour Chancellor, landed at Anzio, south of Rome in 1944; Fitzroy Maclean, a Scottish Conservative MP in the 1960s and 1970s, had been British ambassador to Tito's partisans in Yugoslavia.
The rise of fantasy Nazis in our culture has occurred as we have got further removed from World War Two. As the generations who fought in and experienced the war have passed away, our culture has got less deferential; in places more democratic, but in other ways coarser, and literary and historical references thinner. Compare the great parliamentary debates of Britain declaring war on Germany in September 1939 or the Norway debate in May 1940, the last of which brought down Chamberlain as Prime Minister, and laid the ground for Churchill entering Downing Street.
Then turn to recent big House of Commons debates such as the Syria debates of 2013 and 2015. Previous occasions are rich with historic and cultural references such as in May 1940 Tory MP Leo Amery calling out to Chamberlain 'In the name of God, go' – a direct quotation from Oliver Cromwell's words to the Long Parliament. No such evocations are evident in the Syrian debates, but the shadows of 'appeasement', Munich and fascism are ever present.
So many things have been missing. One is a proper understanding of the UK economy. Both Remain and Leave have parroted the mantra that 'the UK is the fifth richest country in the world' – without any depth or economic literacy. What unites both camps is a belief in 'the Great British economic miracle' from the 1980s onwards. This argues that whereas in the 1960s and 1970s the UK was 'the sick man of Europe', Thatcher halted economic decline and 'put the Great back into Britain'.
Therefore, the underlying weaknesses of the UK economy go unmentioned. The huge debt overhang as a percentage of GDP, the Balance of Payments structural deficit, the 'crowding out' which the City of London's dominance does to any real economic activities, the lack of corporate investment, the long term productivity gap, and the model of cannibalistic capitalism which produces such vandals as Philip Green (BHS) and Mike Ashley (Sports Direct). The British economic bubble of the last thirty years is taken as a real, sustainable transformation, despite all evidence to the contrary. The difficult truth is that irrespective of Remain or Leave winning, future economic storms are already gathering for the UK.
Also absent, posted missing, has been the British Labour Party. Jeremy Corbyn has not gone out and campaigned for the EU, leaving it to Alan Johnson. He has done one TV question and answer with a live TV audience. He has faced much criticism for this non-presence, even taking a holiday in the middle of the campaign.
However, Labour's ambivalence underlines its wider malaise as the party's traditional working class supporters have shown little enthusiasm for an overt pro-EU message. Absolutely critical is the point that in a binary referendum, one legitimate approach is to sit it out. This debate has not been of Labour's making or calling, and isn't on Labour's terrain of a social Europe, so it has for internal party dynamics, and to maximise the pressure on Cameron and Osborne, left them to front most of the Remain case.
Similarly, but much less pronounced, the SNP have in many respects, gone through the motions. Nicola Sturgeon has made several pro-EU interventions, but the party know this isn't their battle, and that Remain or Leave – indyref2 is a fair while away. Sturgeon has had to undertake a careful balancing act, of keeping the increased party membership happy with the future prospect of independence, while playing a longer game, of not alienating those floating voters who have to be won over in any indyref2. It has seen a bit too much of trying to have your cake and eat it, and without any clear, strategic leadership.
There is still a chance that Britain will vote to Leave. But then the UK has always been at best semi-detached. A close vote to Leave would see a Scottish sizeable Remain vote. Then Sturgeon is faced with a difficult situation. Does a pronounced Scottish Remain on a 55-60% turnout over-turn an explicit pro-union mandate on an 85% turnout? Her most passionate supporters will say yes; she will remain canny and try to play a longer game. This is the dilemma that the SNP and Sturgeon have done all they can to avoid. Why would approximately one million or so Scots voting to remain in the EU, trump two million Scots explicitly voting to endorse the UK union?
This week is more than likely to not end the conundrums and choices flagged up in the referendum. A narrow result either way doesn't conclude the debate or decide anything. It is even possible that a narrow Remain vote represents the worst of all worlds: with Cameron's qualified Euro position hardly endorsed, and England's Leave constituency either narrowly winning or just losing. This could leave it, in the former case, being over-turned by a mixture of the Celtic nations, and in particular, Scottish and Northern Irish Remain votes. Similarly, a slender Leave vote, particularly on a low turnout, may not be seen by the UK Government as an absolute mandate for an unconditional Brexit.
Everyone has denied this during the campaign, but say, a 54:46 vote for Leave, on a turnout of, about or under 60%, may not be the end of the matter. Instead, it might lead to the negotiation of a different, more formally distanced, British relationship with the EU, while in name remaining a member. The EU post-vote in such circumstances will do all it can to not lose the UK, with the blow to reputation and status it entails, along with years of instability. All of this would require in all probability, a second referendum, which would not be plain sailing. And that's without even touching on the Scottish ramifications.
This brings us to the state of what passes for British democracy. For most of the existence of the UK, British elites have believed their political system is close to perfect – 'the mother of all Parliaments', the right mix of checks and balances, combining the will of the elected, with the restraint of the unelected Lords.
That self-assuredness was already beginning to wither by 1975, hence the recourse to the first ever nationwide referendum. Things haven't gotten any better today, and large parts of British public life, institutions and professions, are viewed with scepticism, bordering on (in places) suspicion and contempt.
This is where the conduct of the European referendum has become part of the problem. The denigration of experts and facts is widely commented upon. Less is the partisan use of bodies such as the IMF, OECD, Bank of England and others to sell back to us what is, in effect, UK government propaganda. Whereas in 1975, Prime Minister Harold Wilson stayed mostly above the fray, today Cameron and the main organs of the UK Government have churned out endless pseudo-campaign facts and assertions, to try to boss a wary electorate to vote for Remain. In so doing, it has cost them and the respective institutions dear.
This has been an awful campaign. The rise of populism, the emergence of post-truth politics, the vulgar nature of much of Nigel Farage and UKIP's politics, are self-evident, but equally appalling is the misuse of government and public agencies by Cameron and Osborne, something seen in the indyref, but now reaching hyperdrive out of desperation.
The referendum has come about because of the decline in trust in politicians and the political classes, and sadly, their behaviour in this campaign has merely added to the sense of corrosion and disbelief people have in party politics. Where that leaves us is somewhere not very pleasant and rather ugly, and to which, the immediate solutions aren't very clear. This is the world of the neverendum. In the country of Neverland.
Gerry Hassan
Scottish Review, June 21st 2016
Sometimes we should struggle to find the appropriate words. This is such a time and moment. A campaign that has already reached new lows plummeted to depths previously unimaginable with the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox.
Two thoughts. First, this is a much more exceptional tragedy than commentary has so far stated. The killing of Jo Cox is rightly said to be the first murder of a British MP since Ian Gow at the hands of the IRA in 1990.
Historically, eight MPs have been murdered in the history of the UK – six at the hands of the IRA/INLA and Irish Republicans. This underlines the unique awfulness of the death of Cox. She is the first national politician to be killed – other than by Irish Republicans – since Spencer Perceval who was assassinated in the House of Commons whilst Prime Minister in 1812.
Second, something has gone way wrong in this campaign. The level of hateful, virulent, right-wing populism from Nigel Farage, UKIP and the Leave.EU campaign, has been a new low. The shock and awe tactics, the coarseness, base attitudes, vulgarian characteristics, and contempt for others, facts or truth, are a threat to any kind of democratic debate. There is no direct link between the Leave campaign and the death of Jo Cox, but all hatred needs a sea to swim in, and Farage and his gang, have provided that. They need to look deep into their souls, if they know how to, and ask what kind of human beings they are.
As in the indyref (which in comparison appears a Socratic exercise), the voices of don't know, unsureness and ambiguity, have been silenced in favour of organised certainty and closed minds. This is how our politics, media and public debate has evolved. By chance this weekend I watched the film 'Best of Enemies' – that covers the famous 1968 William Buckley Junior v. Gore Vidal TV debates, offering a harbinger of the future which we now inhabit
Buckley v. Vidal ran ten TV debates during the 1968 US Republican and Democratic Party Conventions, and can be seen as the moment when illumination and education gave way to entertainment and superficiality in how politics and ideas are discussed. At the film's conclusion, one commentator cites Wallace Stevens's poem 'The Snow Man', with the opening line 'One must have a mind of winter' and that concludes:
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
That is what we are losing in the noise and insults – the ability to see 'the nothing that is.' The path of the last forty years hasn't worked for anyone, bar second-rate populists, dodgy leaders, and self-interested elites. We have had many warnings, including the tragic death of Jo Cox. When will we listen, wake up and take a different course?
Gerry Hassan
Sunday Mail, June 19th 2016
The Euro campaign has been without any joy or love, and has reached depths unseen for decades in British politics – reducing complex subjects to the gutter.
This last week has been a humbling one. The tragic death of Labour MP Jo Cox, the UKIP poster 'Breaking Point' on the threat of mass immigration coming to the UK, and the disgraceful antics of Leave.EU (the UKIP dominated Leave campaign) linking the Orlando massacre to Muslim immigration.
It has been a long low road to this sad point. Left-wingers and liberals have for decades evaded talking about immigration. Labour, in particular, have avoided any real conversation with its voters for the last fifty years on the subject. As a result, UKIPers and right-wingers have burst through this spiral of silence, claiming 'politically correct' censorship, and ended up using a language of stigmatisation, populism and cheap solutions.
There has been no real pro-European argument. It has been reduced to two uninspiring and basically Eurosceptic campaigns. The first is softly Eurosceptic, led by Cameron, Osborne and Labour, and pragmatically for remain; the second, fronted by Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, has become nasty, base and without any seeming principles. Both have traded bogus figures as if facts don't really matter.
Even before the death of Jo Cox, journalist Alex Massie dared to ask 'Has England gone mad?' in a wave of crazed, emotional Euro hatred. Afterwards, to dare to make any connection between the politics of hatred and irrationality and the ultra-right politics of killing someone, produced from even supposedly thoughtful Eurosceptics, a mix of denial and rage.
Former Tory MP Matthew Parris asked if the Leave campaign with its constant thread of banging on about the evils of EU immigration, was really believable: 'Is it really the Polish plumber rather than the Bengali bride whom your average Leave voter wants to keep out?' To state the obvious, this is clearly not the case.
Underneath the froth, this is a vote driven by trust and lack of it. Remain supporters trust authority such as the Bank of England, Institute for Fiscal Studies, and IMF. Leave supporters do no trust any authority, preferring gut instincts.
Moreover, this vote is about the last crumbling hold of traditional authority – the Treasury, Bank of England and global institutions. There is a hyper-Thatcherite scorched earth policy – which is suspicious or hostile to nearly all authority and experts.
Until the murder of Cox, Britain was on the verge of voting to leave the EU. Now there is the prospect that the country will pull back from the edge, and narrowly vote to remain. The question is whether, by the margin of victory, and in these harrowing circumstances, it will decide anything.
Even a close vote to leave would see a Scottish sizeable remain vote. Then Nicola Sturgeon would be faced with a difficult dilemma. Does a Scottish remain on a 55-60% turnout trump an explicit pro-union mandate on an 85% turnout? Her most passionate supporters will say yes; she will remain canny and play a longer game.
I have always been pro-European and pro-EU. Despite this I have been inclined towards voting Leave – due to the absence of a genuine pro-European campaign, and to fire a shot across the British and European establishments. But now I know I cannot have anything to do with one of the most shaming campaigns in living memory.
There has been little uplifting sentiment. One rare expression this week was a Dutch newspaper, responding to 'The Sun' coming out for Leave. They wrote to their British neighbours: 'We not only love, we need you' and continued, 'An EU without the UK would be like tea without milk. Bitter. So please, stay. Stay with us.'
This campaign has left millions of us unsure and unrepresented. But the above sentiment and tone from our friends on the continent, along with the death of Jo Cox, and the disgusting sentiments of part of the Leave campaign, are enough to persuade me, at the last minute, to vote Remain.
Our politics and our democracy have not emerged well out of this referendum. We have to be able to conduct ourselves better than the last few weeks, and to use better arguments, listen to opposing views, and allow for unsureness, more than we have done. This debate has been a warning of a future which doesn't work for anyone, bar those peddling simplistic, dishonest, hateful answers. Lets stop and change or the deceptions of Trumpland are coming shortly to devour us.
Gerry Hassan
Bella Caledonia, June 17th 2016
This is an attack on all of us. The murder of Labour MP Jo Cox is an assault on parliamentary democracy but disgracefully not as much a shock as it should be. Part of British politics have sunk that low.
This is an age of anti-party politics – of anger at the political classes and of populist indignation and cynicism. Across Europe, there has been the rise of racist, xenophobic and anti-immigration parties, and even the re-emergence of neo-Nazis as electoral forces in Greece and Hungary. And that's without mentioning the hideous phenomenon of Donald Trump in the US.
The centre-left and political establishments across the developed world have not known how to respond, and whether to appease or engage with their voters – or to take them head on.
Britain's European referendum, called by David Cameron, was meant to lance the boil of the Euro issue in the Tory Party, and the threat from UKIP. It has worked in complete reverse, and little more than a year after the unexpected 2015 Tory election victory has galvinised Cameron's critics, UKIP and Eurosceptic Tory opinion, and helped consolidate a hard right populist politics.
Before the tragic murder of Jo Cox, this referendum had already had several new lows – taking it into Powellite territory and language. On the morning of the attack on Cox, Farage unveiled a poster with the words 'BREAKING POINT' and a photograph of a long human convoy waiting to get into the European Union. The message was clear. This was the price of UK EU membership – a tidal wave of human misery building up with the sole intent of getting into the UK.
The day before the Farage flotilla sailed up the Thames to be met by the forces of Captain Bob Geldof commanding the opposing forces of the Remain flotilla. There was some good joshing and Geldof calling Farage 'a fraud'. Yet, it got heated and ugly. One fishing man called out: 'Hitler did it with gas! Merkel does it with paperwork!' Others shouted 'traitor' at those opposing UK withdrawal from the EU.
Two days previous Leave.EU's grotesque poster played on last weekend's Orlando massacre and homophobic hate crime with the slogan 'Islamic Extremism is a Real Threat to Our Way of Life' followed by 'Act Now Before We See an Orlando-Style Atrocity Here Before Too Long.' Although not of their doing, this was a huge embarrassment to the officially designated Vote Leave campaign.
Leave.EU have been running a squalid gutter campaign – the like of which has not been seen in mainstream British politics since the infamous 'If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour' by-line in Smethwick 1964. Last week Leave.EU issued an offensive cartoon of an EU ship heading over a waterfall to disaster. On first examination, it didn't look too bad, but closer scrutiny revealed its deep racism. In the middle of the ship were two bearded figures, one with a scimitar and the other a bag of money, the former forcing a blond Aryan man to walk the plank. This draws on anti-Semitic imagery, but here these figures are portrayed as Muslims. And just for good effect a cannon called 'Diversity' shot a hole in its own deck, with a shark swimming in the sea labelled 'Political Correctness'. This is how far British politics have fallen.
The backstory to this is the rising tide of anti-immigration, anti-foreigner, right-wing, populist, xenophobia sentiment. The emergence of UKIP as a serious electoral force, winning the national vote in the 2014 Euro elections, and almost four million votes in the 2015 UK election (but due to FPTP only one seat), has reshaped British politics and seen the mainstream Westminster parties react in confusion.
The Remain camp in the EU referendum haven't run a good or decent campaign, or one inspired by enlightened values. Instead, it has been about bogus economic figures and threats, how Brexit will destroy the great British property boom, and hence almost, the British way of life, and if we are not careful, civilisation itself (that later point was Jonathan Sacks' ridiculous point).
The Leave camp have plummeted depths unseen for decades, and yet, after the tragic death of Jo Cox, still have numerous apologists. For example right-wing blunderbuss Rod Liddle still argued that there was an equanimity between the Remain and Leave campaigns of awfulness and vileness, writing: 'The claims on either side of the Brexit debate are hyperbolic, exaggerated, idiotic.'
Jo Cox's death at the hands of Thomas Mair has a wider context, beyond the actions of a lone, perhaps mentally unstable, killer. First reported as saying, when he attacked Cox either 'Britain First' or 'put Britain first' it now emerges that Mair had far-right and neo-Nazi connections, and was a supporter of the neo-Nazi National Alliance.
A comparison between the EU referendum and Scotland's experience of the indyref is a salutary one. While many, mostly on the pro-union side, complained about intolerance and over-zealousness by some independence supporters, our democratic explosion can now be seen as an almost Socratic exercise in public debate and deliberation compared to the Euro referendum.
That is worth emphasising to those who tried to dish the 'Big Bang' of hope and imagination which ran like an elemental force through Scottish society. The worst physical violence against a senior public figure was the egg thrown at Jim Murphy. Yet in places, there were elements of uncontrollable rage and fury which benefitted no-one including some more blinkered independence supporters calling pro-union figures 'quislings' and 'traitors'. And from extreme pro-union opinion, there were an array of 'Nazi' and Hitler references towards Scottish Nationalist supporters, often focused on, but not exclusively on what various SNP leaders did and didn't do in the Second World War. None of this helps their respective causes.
Political passion, energy and enthusiasm are wonderful things. Fanaticism and blinkeredness are complete and utter negatives. One galvinises and enhances democratic debate; the other, disfigures and diminishes public life. As Brendan Cox, Jo's husband, so eloquently said immediately after her murder 'Hate doesn't have a creed, race or religion, it is poisonous.'
The referendum has become to all intents and purposes a cultural war – with a corrosive, pent-up, uncontrollable set of emotions, anger and hatred given permission by the Leave side. Is this really what Britain amounts to? Where now is the idea of the UK as a tolerant, welcoming place? We all know this was in many respects a myth, but is the conduct of the referendum campaign really who some of us are?
One tragic killing cannot define a country, but it can encapsulate a campaign and an issue. Both Remain and Leave have run Eurosceptic campaigns – the first, soft, the second, ugly and unapologetic. But we have to take on and challenge the politics unleashed by the Leave argument, and say 'Not in My Name' to their despicable, ugly populism. We are better than this. If that is so the haters have to be called out and defeated, otherwise the future might well be theirs.
Gerry Hassan
Scottish Review, June 15th 2016
There is something about Scots and class, and in particular about working class identities.
Many Scots define themselves when given a choice as working class, yet in terms of occupations and status, on any definition, a majority would be categorised as middle class. Interestingly, in some surveys, a majority of such middle class people reject this term, and call themselves working class (one survey a decade ago saying that 52% of middle class people identified as working class).
Some of this is history, tradition and culture. It is intertwined with perceptions of where 'we' collectively have come from, and where we have ended up – the effect of Thatcherism, huge economic and social changes, and the winners and losers of the last 30 years.
Moreover, this is about in-betweener Scotland. One-third of Scots grew up in what could be called working class backgrounds, and then in terms of jobs, status and income, became middle class – but often not in terms of self-identity. This often expresses itself in a combination of working class roots, centre-left politics, a heightened sense and articulation of difference, and perceiving 'middle class' as being associated with 'selling out'.
There seems to be a fascinating and sensitive series of trip-wires in Scotland on class. A couple of years ago I interviewed as part of my PhD fifty of the country's leading commentators (including the esteemed editor of Scottish Review). The interviews were in-depth, covering the origins of people's views and beliefs, including on politics and public life.
At the end of each interview people were asked to give their date of birth, national identity and self-identified class to create an overall picture of the sample. Despite the emerging noise of the indyref, nearly every single person navigated the national identity question without a thought and with ease. Yet, when it came to the class question it was the opposite, proving to be a dangerous mindfield for many.
The fifty people were overwhelmingly middle class in how they saw themselves; although one person identified as upper class, then emailed me to say they had changed their minds. Yet, nearly two-thirds of the sample then launched into explanations about why they were or weren't middle class. It brought out all kinds of uncomfortable associations for people – of 'not selling out', 'not being Tory', having 'socialist ideals' or 'caring about poverty and injustice'.
Some kind of wider responsibility was evident in these responses, but so was an unease and even guilt. One person commented: 'Actually, I'd say 'stranded'. My tax return says, though, that I'm middle class'; another stated: 'In Scotland, people want to be working class. I want to be working class but it is bollocks.'
'Transition' as a word is on trend at the moment. When I was young, people talked about 'the transition from capitalism' – at least in left and Labour circles. Now transition is about personal identity politics, rather than structural change. It is used in discussions on trans people, sexuality and non-binary gender. In another way, transition defines Scotland and the search for non-binary identities – of class, national identities and politics. It is there in a huge swathe of Scotland, but often struggles to find a voice, language, and even, recognition.
Yet, class as a term, what it means, and how it is interpreted is always changing. Just because Scots defined themselves as mostly working class in 1979, and do so today, does not mean that those terms and what flows from them, hasn't undergone dramatic change.
An element of the inbetweener story is a generational account of working class lives changed for the better. Between 1950-80 a huge number of people moved into council houses across this country. For nearly everyone, for all the problems of Glasgow hi-rises and the estates that emerged, with few community facilities and often increasing problems over time, this was an experience that offered betterment, wider opportunities, and even a sense of liberation.
My parents moved into the Ardler council estate in Dundee in 1968. For them and a whole group of working class people, this was a transformation, compared to where they had grown up as children. This was a world of security: with protected tenancies compared to the uncertain world of private leases. There was still a prevailing ethos of solidarity and inter-connectedness, as people looked out for one another, knew their neighbours and had a concern beyond their front door. Finally, all of this was underpinned by the stability of rising incomes, prosperity and near to full employment.
Writing this, I am invoking a world which has mostly disappeared. It is a lost Scotland that cannot be brought back into existence. Mass municipal housing, the employment and economic structures, and form of managed capitalism of that period, have gone forever. So there is little to gain from engaging in a sentimental nostalgia for a past that cannot – and is not coming back.
Two points spring from this. Firstly, the liberation that council housing gave a whole generation, and the values and opportunities that it nurtured have to be recognised and celebrated. How do we sustain the conditions of security and solidarity in housing and society today? Secondly, as this is a generational perspective, there has to be some cognisance of how different things are for the 'Generation Rent' who have grown up since the decline of council housing.
All across Scotland and the UK large numbers of young-ish people have become inadvertently and unwillingly members of what is called the precariat: defined by fragile jobs, employment conditions, pay and prospects. They are often highly educated, articulate and motivated, but managing a portfolio of jobs and projects, or working in an area with no relation to their skills or vocation.
In England, this is made worse by the willful and on-going destruction of council housing by the Tories. To add fuel to the fire, there is the attack on social housing, with right to buy housing association properties and the retreat from any commitment to building social housing.
Scotland isn't engaged in that outright attack on renting, but that doesn't mean it is much easier for younger folk. There is a Scotland out there, of twentysomethings and early thirtysomethings, who struggle to make some of the big decisions in life: about starting a family, getting married, thinking about setting up a permanent home.
This Scotland is mostly missing from how we think about our country. This is aided by, indyref apart, this group being less likely to be on the electoral register, less likely to vote, and not a member of, or connected to, a political party or trade union. Overall, their politics tend to be 'soft' SNP or Green, but no party or philosophy really talks for or champions them.
Scotland needs to recognise that for all our working class stories and myths, there are many different manifestations of class. The Babyboomer working class generation of my parents defined much of the post-war period. Then there are those of us who grew up as the children of this group and experienced the best of municipal Scotland and its subsequent decline. Both groups I think owe something to the next generation – to not just think of ourselves, or define our identities by the past – but to look at how we best build inter-generational solidarity. There is a big role for the Scottish Government, public bodies and debate here, on issues as varied as housing, land ownership and inheritance tax.
A Scotland where large parts of society baulk at calling themselves middle class isn't proof we are compassionate and care for others. We have to act on these words and definitions, and address what a 21st century Scotland of security, solidarity and stability – in a world of constant change, flux and adaptability, would look like? Once upon a time young people and the working class were seen as the future, but what kind of future beckons for young working class Scotland, unless we dramatically change course?
Gerry Hassan
Sunday Mail, June 12th 2016
'They think it's all over. It is now.' These are some of the most famous words ever in the history of British sporting commentary.
The fiftieth anniversary of 1966 is upon us. When England beat West Germany 4-2 at Wembley and became football World Cup champions. It is a long time ago, but as the European Championships kick off, with everyone taking part from the UK bar Scotland, the memories and myths of that triumph still linger.
1966 is obviously for English fans a time to savour and celebrate. It has always been much more complex for Scottish fans, and seen as a cross that has to be borne for many. One retort over the years used to be: 'they never stop going on about it', but that has become less true with the passing of the years.
Go back to the summer of 1966. In many respects it was then a very British triumph. The mascot of the games was British, not English. The union flag flew at games, not the St. George's Cross.
Many Scots were appalled at the time. There is the apocryphal story of the Scots football legend Denis Law on the day of the final taking himself off to play a round of golf so he wouldn't see the game, only for someone to ruin his day, by telling him the result at the 19th hole.
Other Scots celebrated, and others ignored it, football less saturating society. 'The Scotsman' and 'Herald' after the game didn't even carry the result on their front pages, the former's front cover trumpeting the news that the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh was changing its theatre policy as its top story.
This was for some more than an English triumph. How did the reaction of many Scots and parts of the Tartan Army, of seeing English arrogance, reach such proportions?
One explanation is that Britain changed in the years after 1966. It became more fragmented and divided. Scotland became more aware and assertive. Britishness has declined. But something else was at work in the realm of sport and culture.
Maybe more than England winning the World Cup annoying Scots, the reaction of England in the years hence, as champions and former champions, is what really grated with lots of Scots.
England did win and in the years after did go on about it a fair bit. Why wouldn't they? Imagine in some fantasy universe far away that a Scotland football team won the World Cup. Would we ever stop going on about? Part of our nation never would. Indeed, it could be argued such a triumph would contribute to us being a very different kind of nation – more confident, less defined by what we think of the English, and what we think they think about us.
Particularly galling to many Scots was the visible expectation of success which being World Champions gave the English. It made them think they were superior; which they actually were in the narrow sense of sporting achievement.
English decline came quickly. They were knocked out of the 1970 World Cup by West Germany, and then worse, in the qualifiers for the 1974 World Cup they failed to make the finals, being thwarted by a Polish team who held England to a draw at Wembley, which caused English angst and anger. Brian Clough, famously, lashed out at the Polish goalkeeper, calling him a 'clown'.
All of this gave further justification to some Scots saying they can't stop going on about it. After suffering so many footballing reverses, we couldn't make common cause, and say, we hear that you are hurting with disappointment, join the club!
Instead, some choose the path of Anyone But England. It is understandable, but small-minded. Because of what we perceived as English over-bearing, it was seen as permissible to be so petty and prejudiced.
I have a hope. Scotland has changed in so many ways for the better. I would like to live in these isles able to support a generous, confident English football team. At the moment, I don't support the Anyone But England brigade, but nor can I bring myself to automatically support England.
A big jump apart from Scotland again qualifying for future World Cups and European Championships, would be to stop seeing some of the world through the eyes of opposing England. Maybe that in itself is enough.
As for 1966. Isn't it time us Scots got over it? Stopped going on about the third goal that never was? And just let go? They did win the World Cup a long time ago, just like there were the Lisbon Lions and Barcelona Bears in the distant past.
Gerry Hassan
Scottish Review, June 8th 2016
One party stands head and shoulders above all others in Scotland – namely, the Scottish National Party. It has got there through its own efforts, hard work and virtues, along with the numerous mistakes and weaknesses of its opponents. Scottish Labour's long car crash was part tragedy, part comedy, but mostly of its own making. If it ever has an obituary written, it will say: 'died at its own hands'. The Scottish Tories have been toxic for a generation, even seen as unScottish and 'alien', a phenomenon only slowly beginning to change.
This then begs the question: nine years into office, what do the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon stand for? What kind of Scotland do they wish to bring about, bar one that is independent and self-governing? For some these latter qualities are enough, based for them on principle, but for many they are abstracts which need further detail, and should be the means to an end of wider economic and social change, not an end in itself.
In many respects, a large part of the last nine years of the SNP in office have been the years of light lifting, considering the disarray and weaknesses of their opponents. It has been easy to point the finger at 'London Labour', even worse 'Red Tories', and of course, the grip of Westminster. Things aren't always going to be so easy: opponents will be less incompetent, incumbents make mistakes, more powers are coming to the Parliament, and a decade of public spending cuts will take their toll.
Now the conventional answer to this question is, of course, that the SNP is a modern, centre-left, social democratic party. Whenever one writes of the crisis of social democracy across Europe and the entire developed world, some SNPers reply that you haven't factored in the success and achievements of the Nationalists.
Social democracy everywhere is in a terrible state, battered by three decades of economic deregulation, social change and the weakening of working class collectivism and solidarity, and unable to deal with the pressures of globalisation, instability and immigration, which has seen a new wave of ugly populism and xenophobia. Not one traditional social democratic party in Europe has been able to ride these tigers and remain popular and true to a centre-left politics – not the French, the German, or even the Swedes and Norwegians. While the emergence of a populist new left such as Syriza in Greece has confronted the realities of what has been seen in Athens as the fiscal fascism of Berlin and Brussels.
We are meant to believe that Scotland, in the form of the SNP, has bucked these trends and provided a solitary oasis in this desert of the left. Apart from its smugness and insularity, it, of course, just isn't completely true. The SNP have much to be proud of in their history and office, but they haven't managed to yet buck global realities.
The SNP are not in their hearts a social democratic party. The clue is in the name: Scottish National Party. They are a party whose first and foremost aim is Scottish self-government, sometimes expressed as independence; at other points, as statehood, the latter of which can at times be expressed more flexibly.
Social democracy has become a secondary set of ideas to the SNP – which the party came somewhat late to in both its history and that of the centre-left – first beginning in the 1970s, and more convincingly in the 1980s. This has had a number of consequences rarely reflected upon: one of which is that this late conversion meant the SNP has always had a superficial and deeply unphilosophical relationship with this tradition. And this has mattered more and more, as social democracy since the early 1980s has been in retreat.
All across Europe and the developed world for the last three decades debates have raged about how the centre-left should adapt and respond to the great changes in our societies. How does social democracy respond to an age of greater individualism, choice and aspiration? What is the most relevant response to greater inequality, the super-rich and left behind? How can public services meet increased demand, both in terms of expectations and demographics, and allow people to have more say? And how does the centre-left make a politics of collective identities once class and workerist identities have weakened, and that of consumer and numerous hybrid-identities emerged?
In none of these debates and many more has the centre-left anywhere found convincing answers. This is not to argue that the right has had all the answers. Indeed, it hasn't, but it has unlike the left, been able to posit a vision of the economy and the future based on going with the grain of mega-change (deindustrialisation, service economy, deregulation, financialisation). That this worldview is now falling apart, and in places in tatters, even more shows the paucity and crises of the centre-left.
Scotland and the SNP isn't immune to all of the above. Nor have we somehow, unlike elsewhere, stumbled upon the answers. To be fair, much of this isn't just the responsibility of the Nationalists. Scottish Labour dominated our country for fifty years and while it did many Big Things, it didn't exactly prosper in the realm of ideas. Former Labour minister Wendy Alexander once said that Scottish Labour hadn't had an idea since 1906; I always thought that was a bit hard, and it had a few in the 1920s, but you get the point.
Scottish mainstream social democracy just hasn't done ideas and intellectualism: instead, its dominant strand has been practical and deeply pragmatic. And the SNP has continued this tradition. Throughout its recent history, thinkers such as Neil MacCormick have added considerably to intellectual debates on sovereignty and post-nationalism, but in the realm of economic and social ideas the Nationalist cupboard has been mostly bare: Stephen Maxwell being a lone exception exploring both big questions and policy dilemmas. To this day, nine years into office, the SNP seem strangely unmotivated by generating new policies and ideas, with no Nationalist or independence supporting think tank set up, and the leadership, seemingly uninterested in such possibilities.
Wait you might say, isn't this just a 'bash the SNP' argument? What about the list: free care for the elderly, no tuition fees, the council tax freeze, and the such like. First, of course, all of these Big Ticket items are redistributive, but not to those poorer or on below average incomes, but those on above average incomes. Second, the case is often put, never mind such detail Scotland stands proudly for universalism, unlike England. But this ignores that universalism per se, involves choices and selectivity. Scotland isn't a land of milk and honey, and we cannot afford to have universal universalism, so arguing for the above policies means putting them above others. In short, it means putting middle class and affluent interests ahead of those who are poorer and on lower incomes, and in typical Scottish traditions, dressing it up as 'progressive'.
The incantation of free care for the elderly and no tuition fees has become almost the holy grail of Scottish politics. Just as at the last UK election, Ed Miliband, decided for posterity to engrave his six point plan into granite, in what became known as the 'Ed Stone', maybe the SNP could do the same? Why stop at Alex Salmond's self-congratulation stone about no tuition fees: 'the rocks will melt with the sun before I allow tuition fees'? Why not raise your aspiration and reach for your very own 'Ed Stone'; indeed it could be our own 'Eck Stone', praising the achievements of our own dear former leader? That is the logical conclusion of a politics of past achievements, if you are not thinking about future choices.
To be more serious, the SNP have to come up with some answers for what kind of Scotland they want – beyond independence and the very short mantra of achievements. Apparently, there is to be a summer of independence, with SNPers and Yesers touring the nation (minus its former leader, Stewart Hosie), reigniting the cause of independence. Two wee problems with this are that there is no independence offer on the table, the 2014 one being dead in the water; and with that being the case, what sort of future Scotland is being offered, beyond the principle of independence?
A final thought. Scotland is centre-left and the SNP centre-leftish. This being the case is it not possible to start thinking, pushing and creating an actual, real, detailed politics of the centre-left? At the moment, a whole swath of Scottish respectable society, from the commentariat, to academia, professional bodies and the voluntary sector, have provided a 'left cover' for the SNP's centrish-soft-leftish politics.
That was fine and understandable in the early days of the SNP in office, when everything was fresh and exciting, but nine years in it isn't good enough. What chance that the Scotland which prides itself on being centre-left, radical, curious, and interested in ideas and debate, could actually contribute in some small way to the reinvention of social democracy? It is worth asking and even trying, and who knows might actually assist the SNP in answering some of the big questions.
Gerry Hassan
Sunday Mail, June 5th 2016
The EU referendum is so far one of the worst political debates in my lifetime, with no sign of it improving. It is unlikely to descend to the gutter of Trump v. Clinton coming up shortly. But it still leaves a lot to be desired.
The academic Philip Cowley this week compared the referendum to 'a shit game of football match, with little skill, in the pouring rain, on a Tuesday, but there still has to be a winner.'
There are good arguments for Remain and Leave. Remain can make the case for EU co-operation, the advantages of the single market, the EU's contribution to peace, prosperity and democracy across the continent, and the importance of stability in an uncertain world.
Leave can put an equally valid case. The EU is the only continent in the world bar Antarctica not experiencing economic growth. It is a declining bloc as a share of world trade (30% in 1980, now 17%); its bureaucratic consensus decision-making make it slow, and it has been unable to deal with such recent crises as Greece and immigration.
What kind of non-debate are we getting? Megaphone diplomacy, Armageddon threats, and a birdbrain history of Churchill versus Hitler. Some claim Churchill as a Brexiter, while Boris Johnson has signed up Hitler, along with Napoleon, as avid Europeans.
Both sides are telling porkies. Remain have said leaving the EU would trash the economy, raise the prospect of a technical recession, and reduce living standards. All of us could lose £4,300 per household per year, while house prices could fall by 18%. Central to these alarmist projections has been the debased role of the UK Treasury, who have already been down this route in the indyref.
Leave are on shaky ground. The constantly used figure of the UK sending the EU £350 million pounds a week is wrong. They have adjusted their campaign battle bus to the figure £50 million a day, but that is wrong too. These figures are net: don't count the UK rebate, or the monies we get back from the EU.
Then there is immigration. Remain say that the UK controls its borders, which is at best a half-truth. The UK is not part of Schengen, but cannot restrict EU nationals coming to the UK.
Leave have gone for broke on this. They have raised the prospect of Turkish membership of the EU, which isn't going to happen anytime soon. They have used the threat of 79 million Turks having the right to come and live in the UK, when only seven million currently have passports.
Ian Botham said the UK population could reach 100 million, when it is currently 64 million. But then again, lots of the Remain side, and Labour in particular, cannot bring themselves to say there is any limit on the immigration figures, or that the 330,000 net who came in last year, is unsustainable each year in the longer run.
Both campaigns are saying that we the people are powerless in the face of elemental forces more important than us. That's a dispiriting message, but as journalist Gary Younge said this week the debate has become reduced to a Tory internal one about 'fundamentalism of the nation' (Leave) versus 'fundamentalism of the market' (Remain).
So many issues are being left untouched in this. The EU has been a force for good, but is now at crisis point. The Euro zone and EU have big challenges ahead, which won't be raised before June 23rd by Remain or the EU.
What happens to the UK as the Euro zone and European Union become overlapping? Currently, nine of the EU's 28 member states are not Euro members, but most of the nine are committed to joining. What happens when only the UK and Denmark in the EU aren't members of the Euro? The two states will be marginalised in the corridors of power in Brussels, and even international forums.
The EU aids jobs and prosperity we are told. It does to an extent, but also damages jobs. Greek youth unemployment is 51.4%, the Spanish rate 45% – as a whole generation of European youth are left excluded from prosperity. EU unemployment is 21 million as large parts of the continent face decades of low to no growth.
The losers in this campaign so far have been the British people, democracy and political debate. Between the siren voices of Remain and Leave, there is little space for the millions of don't knows and a little light and ambiguity.
There isn't the huge gulf between Remain and Leave often portrayed. The UK is not going to become an enthusiast for European integration if we vote to Remain. However, Leave could have consequences for Scottish independence and Northern Ireland peace process.
There is even the prospect of a Remain vote being won by Scottish, Welsh and Northern pro-European votes overriding an English Leave, and beginning to unravel the UK from England. Just don't expect our political classes to talk about such things. How can we expect to be anything but confused?