The EU vote raises the same question that is never explicitly asked.

Why do Labour and the Lib Dems never vote against Europe?

This was largely the question posed to me by a friend when the discussion of exiting Europe came up. I have to be honest, I had to think. If the population of the UK wants to get out of Europe, which it does (why else would a government be so scared to hold a referendum?) surely it would be easy money for Labour or the Lib Dems to cash in on this by saying they would exist Europe.


Well, the reason begins with this; no one believes in independence anymore. Confused? Let me lay it out. Power is dictated by money, whoever has the most money, has the most influence and has the spare cash to spend on financing a nice shiney military. But even without guns money gives control (more on this a little later). To get money you need a good economy.

The US has a good economy, for example, because it has low tax, highly skilled workers and a huge home market. If you don't know what I mean by a home market take this example.

Your name is Bob, you like in the US, you make a product which brushes your teeth for you. You can now sell that to the whole US population of 300 million people at $5. You make $1.5 Bn.

Your name is Francois, you like in France, you make the same product. You can now sell it to the whole of France's 65 million people for $5 which makes you only $325million.

If you want to sell else where you need translation, you need to address the change in cultures their toothpaste tubes don't fit etc etc. This all causes expense and profit margins go down.

In short, if you live in a big country or area with the same rules and regulations and culture, you make more money.

This is why the US is so rich. Everyone speaks the same language, drive on the same size roads, has similar values and so on.

Great. Lesson one, done.

Lesson two I'm going to abridge to stop this getting too big. The more money a country has the more you can get other countries to do what you want. If they don't do as you ask, sell all your investments in their country and their economy goes down the pan, people lose jobs, the leader gets kicked out, and you start the process again.

So with this in mind the leaders of the UK know that if we go it alone, we're going to get screwed with by countries like the US. So we need to get along side someone equally as big. The two obvious options at the moment is the EU and the US. Frankly I'd rather get on side with Australian, New Zealand and Canada, but whatever.

This is where the explanation comes in for Labour's and the Lib Dem's behaviour. Everyone in Parliament knows we need to choose between the EU and US... how do they decide?

Ideology.

The United States is a free market, free speech, small government, morally Christian kinda place.

Europe/the EU is 'generally' is a protectionist, socialist, big government, morally secular kinda place.

Labour is protectionist, socialist, pro-big government and morally secular
Lib Dems are big government, morally secular
The Tories are for free speech, small government, free market, and half of them are morally Christian.

Get it?

Basically this is lifes play ground and we're having to choose who our friends are. Each party is trying to pick the ones that are most like them. This is just an epic sized question of "do you hang around with the junkies, the nerds, the jocks or the Crispys?"


You're not going to spend your life on your own, so it is time to choose some friends. But be careful who you choose, "Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits.” or another proverb "The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray."

Now I'm not saying Europeans are evil or good or vis-a-versa. But you will become more like your friends, whomever they may be. Whether they are good or not.

So the next time you heard about a EU treaty and who has voted on it and how. Don't look at the small picture, whether the treaty has merit or not. Look at the bigger picture of the aims of the two parties, because I'm willing to bet that there is one group of people who will vote for it no matter what it says and others who will vote against, almost everytime.

That's because the question is not about that individual treaty really, rather it is about the country you want to live in in 30 years: a socialist leaning, protectionist, big government secular one, or a free market, small government (slightly more) Christian one.

That is the question for the EU vote, and that will ALWAYS be the question for each EU vote.

London's burning

As we all know London has spent the last few days being on fire while gangs roam the streets looting shops and burning cars.

I haven't seen anything like it in my lifetime, but then I'm unable to recall the Brixton riots. Now apart from the fact our reletively civilised country has had images captured of it looking more like a third world pit, something else really troubles me; the reaction of the public.

Now most of it has been appaul at the behaviour of the looters and rioters. So far so good. People should be appaulled and I'd be more worried if they were not. But my concern rests largely with the reaction after that.

Rather inevitably as events are going on people are asking why this has happened. The disturbing thing is that people start looking for 'big' explanations rather than the small. Socio-economic factors being the obvious and easy choice. Essentially many of the looters (although not all) are from poorer economic backgrounds. In addition we're going through econonmic hard times, so I can see it is going to be exceedingly popular with some people to say that the reason for the riots is due to the economic climate. This is wrong, and dangerous.

To begin economic times are hard, but they aren't really THAT hard. When one can't get food for yourself and your family, I appreciate that a natural tension develops. This is because when a hard working man can't obtain sufficient food for himself and his family, it is highly likely (unless there is a famine going on) something wrong with the way society is structured. Riots usually result in unheaval and so it is almost a logical reaction. This isn't what is going on at the moment.

For all our economic hardship everyone still have food and clothes and the government is still doleling out the benefits are usual, no crisis there. This is further supported by what is being looted; bread? Oats? Clean water? No. What is being looted is DVDs, CDs, wiskey, wine, in other words luxuries, things that people don't need, but want.

People don't need rose wine any more than I need fresh pressed orange juice each morning. It is nice, but not essential. In other words, it is something one has to work for. If the work isn't around that is unfortunate, but that is how economics works. Give it a couple of years and there will be money around again... unless all your businesses have been burnt to the ground by looters, that is.

This is not the only thing that shows that the riots are not about economic needs. Swansesa, South Wales, is a bit of a dive. Not completely, but it certainly isn't Cambridge. There are few highly skilled jobs to work towards and the average income is quite low. So too in the Rhondda Valleys, so too in Glasgow, and yet no one in these areas are rioting. A quick glance at the BBC news website for Scotland reveals that it's main story is about roads being flooded. The only arrests in both Wales and Scotland have been to do with people encouraging rioting on facebook and other social media sites.

Now, when one considers that the Welsh and Scottish have just as many deprived areas as the English, clearly it can be seen that this is nothing to do with poverty.

There is one explanation and one alone, there are people, who want things that they haven't worked for and they have no concern for those who have. They are selfish and believe they have a right to things that other people have, even if those people don't really have them at all. After all does a shop keeper really 'own' the widescreen TV on the shop floor? Legally it is his, but it doens't mean he watches a good TV at home, it is his, but his to sell to someone else, it is his livelyhood. Further the retail industry has been sufferring of late, which actually suggests no one really has the money for these things at the moment.

So what is the cause of the riots? Greed. Pure and simple. I want, I don't want to wait, I want it now, and I don't care who suffers as a result. A similar but slightly different kind of greed that makes the banks try to stop the UK from regulating them properly, while giving themselves huge bonuses. I want, I want now, I don't care who suffers. Although at least with the banks the sufferring is slightly less direct than with the rioters.

This then is the first thing that needs to be acknowledged by society. Greed is what has caused this, greed and a desire to put 'me' first and screw anyone else, "stuff your neighbour" if you will. Any talk of lack of opportunity or feeling 'let down' by the government it looking in the wrong place. It also undermines the behaviour of those who are also poor, but aren't burning down their neighbour's shop.

The second issue society needs to, and no doubt will consider, is what to do to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again. That is a good reaction. Self-reflection is an important requirement for improvement in almost any aspect of one's life. But the issue is that we have stopped 'self-reflecting' and started 'government blaming'.

Now don't get me wrong. Anyone can read the rest of my blog and see that I do my fair share of slating the government. There is no doubt there. However, there is a time and a place. This is neither the time nor the place.

The government after all have no interest in either ruining the economy or having riots in the street. Both look very bad on the government and so we can rule out intentionally damaging either. After all even if David Cameron is a millionaire, he has his money in shares just like everyone else and so he wants the economy to improve even if it is for no other reason than for his own bank balance to increase.

But the main issue is, and this really needs to sink into our consciousness as a society:
THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT CONTROL EVERYTHING.

If they could, then the thing that we really need to worry about is not a few rioters in the street but the fact we have a totalitarian government so powerful it can control everything and everyone. That would be far more dangerous and probably result in far more suffering event than what we have now.

Further just logically people forget that the resources of the government are finite. We seem to thing that government is an everlasting stack of cash. But really the governments resources is only what you and I earn. Which means their resources are only our resources. Are you feeling the pinch? So in the government then. Can you only just make ends meet? Well that means the government can't tax you any more and if they do that will decrease the amount you can spend and that will hurt the economy. So basically since the police resources depend on the government and the government on us... and we're all broke. We need to start thinking of the government as the people who keep the basics of life ticking over, not the people who solve all of lifes problems.

Further, money, contrary to popular belief, can't solve all problems. Sending someone to university doesn't make them more intelligent. Giving someone £20 doesn't make them more moral and paying someone to do A-levels doesn't make them more hard working. So throwing money at the the problem won't make it go away. Giving the police more money would just mean more people in prison. Which means we'd need more money for prisons. Then they are always going to come out of prison and some point and the cycles starts again. It is incredibly expensive. The Budget for national offenders is around £4Bn. The home office has a budget of around £11bn together that is more than all the devolved spending in Wales.

The people who caused this were individuals. As a society we need to choose whether we accept this sort of behaviour and make excuses for it or whether we realise that it is we who dictate social norms and it is we who decided what is acceptable. We do it as parents and/or friends and/or work collegues and/or partners.

Listen to the clip on this website, then ask youself one question. Have WE (the people) go this balance right?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/​uk-14458424

The definitive guide to class in the UK.

This is starting to annoy me now. Everyone wants to express their opinion on why there is no class mobility. or why class mobility is so bad in the UK. The problem is most of the people who are expressing these opinions are journalists and politicians who chances are (by nature of their job) have no idea what problems there are for the working classes. So here it is, the definitive answer.

To begin after an introduction like that I feel I ought to explain a little about myself. Since this is the Internet and essentially anyone can read this however, it will be just that, a little.

My family heritage is based firmly in the working class. My fathers first job was digging roads and now I'm here a Barrister. So I feel I can state with confidence that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to class and class barriers.

Point number 1: Someone working class people just have an inferiority complex.

Some people who are successful in Britain still go on moping about how they don't really feel totally accepted in the middle class and how they still feel like outsiders. Allow me to put this in the plainest possible terms, just because you have an inferiority complex that doesn't mean that you don't fit in. What it means is that your insecurity is telling you that you don't fit in, despite the fact that you have in fact 'made it'. You have made the transition from one class to another. Your subjective feelings however are nothing to do with what anyone else thinks about you.

Admittedly this isn't something from which I suffer. As far as I'm concerned anyone who thinks they are better than me because they were born with money and I wasn't is actually proving the reverse. I have got to where they now are with less than what they had. This means that I'm superior, if they were as good as me then they wouldn't be where I am, they would be on a beach in Barbados living off their controlling interest in Virgin, in other words they would be Richard Branson, who now I come to think about it, wasn't born with money either, in fact he was born with very limited academic ability.

Point number 2: Some state schools are useless, but not for the reason you think.

Bla bla bla, private schools are so unfair, state schools aren't good enough bla bla bla. I'm so tired on this argument I don't know where to begin. The state school I went to was dire. I don't mean 'oh you didn't get an A*' dire, I mean 'pat that kid down for knives' dire. This got better at sixth form, but it was still no picnic. But the question to ask is why did it get better in 6th form? Th reason is that all the people who didn't want to be in school left. That is why it got better. It was still underfunded, the teachers still had to pay for their own white board pens, but the people who didn't want to be there left, and that is what counts. The attitude of the pupils who are there. Everyone in private school not only wants to be there, but wants to be there so badly that they are willing to pay £9,000 per year to be there. You don't pay that unless you really care about what you're coming out with (or you're so rich £9,000 is nothing but they often don't do well). The idea that public schools are better because they are better funded and therefore have better equipment is like me claiming that Marcel Fischer is a better fencer than me because his Épée cost more than mine. It may be true but it has nothing to do with why his is better (assuming he is of course!).

My school was rubbish because the attitude of the pupils was not one of competition and wanting to get the best marks possible. It was because it was filled with idiots, who thought school was "s***" and then left to spend their life on benefits and shop lifting, that isn't a generalisation, that is two case studies.

The fact is if these people went to a public school they would be kicked out and their backward looking educational outlook would leave with them. That just didn't happen in my school because the state makes it illegal for them not to go to school. As a result the morons must go somewhere and that somewhere was the same place that I went to learn.

Now those of a Guardian reading disposition love to say that failing state schools is a fault of the government. This is rubbish. All my teachers did their best under the circumstances and a good few went above and beyond what was required of them. But that doesn't change the fact that you're teaching an idiot, not because they aren't intelligent, but because they place no value in knowledge, to mis-quote the famous philosopher 'Chris Rock' "nothing pleases a [chav] more than not knowing something". To go slightly higher brow, Proverbs 1:22 “ How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? For scorners delight in their scorning, And fools hate knowledge.

And this is something that Guardian readers can't grasp, some people are fools. They are not stupid, they do not lack resources, they lack no good only that they are fools. I don't consider these people below me or anyone else for that matter. I don't think they are particularly bad, 'but for the grace of God go I' as John Bradford once said (well technically referred to himself in the third person, but we'll ignore that for the sake of simplicity).

These people need support but it is not more money for teachers and it is most certainly not banning private education from the rich. There is little the state can do because the attitudes that these people need are instilled by their parents and their families at large, this is something that the state just cannot do, no matter how much socialists like to think it can. It is society at large which has an effect on these people, not some man in number 10 who will never see or meet them. But I guess socialists don't like that idea, because it means you can't just load the blame on Parliament and anyone who so evil as to be rich.

No, if people really wanted to reform the education system they would do thus: they would allow parents to send their children to whichever school they like. This way parents who care about education will all go to good schools with others who are the same. Those who don't care about education will let their children go to whichever school is easiest because they don't care. The former schools could then focus on the dizzy heights of accomplishment and the later could focus on providing the type ambition and life skills that they may not be getting else where. It isn't a perfect solution I know, but then as I've already said, this is just one fight that the state cannot sort out on its own. It is in the hands of their families.

Point number 3: No one asks at interviews what is your fathers occupation.

There seems to be a thought that somehow when you go for an interview you will be given the job because you are middle class or upper class. No I don't know about you but I've never been asked what is my fathers occupation in an interview, so I fail to see how they are going to know whether anyone is upper, middle or lower class (or anything in between). Dress code, language and accent can all be modified if needed rendering one class indistinguishable from the next. The only indicators are the names of the schools and the universities. Frankly if there was a new convention introduced that the name of the schools were not allowed to be put on CVs and application forms (replaced with a serial number instead) I would have no problem with this at all. As for Universities generally Oxford and Cambridge give preference to state school candidates so there is unlikely to be class bias there. There is of course the issue of contacts, but I consider nepotism separate from class discrimination, I will address this later.

Point number 4: getting more people to go to university would do nothing, in fact it would be a hindrance.

Labour thought that sending everyone to University would make things fair. It doesn't. Not even slightly. First of all, we need to face facts that not everyone is intelligent enough to do a chemistry degree, in which case teaching them media studies isn't going to cut it. Getting more people to go to University just devalues degrees, this means that the value of the degree becomes less important forcing people to decide on other factors, such as, oh I don't know, contacts! All the while we don't have any plumbers and so we have to import the whole of Poland to compensate (which I imagine the Polish aren't too happy about). Although the people who really are well off can afford to just do a masters or an MPhil putting them ahead of those who cannot afford to do so. This brings things right back to class and money, except everyone has wasted three years of their lives doing a useless degree when they could have been working. That's the thing about money, the rich always have more of it.

Point number 5: nurture or nature, logically it would make sense for middle class couples to have intelligent children.

Oh my, middle class children earn more! How can this be? Well lets just think this through shall we? Whether you think intelligence is due to DNA or whether you think it is down to your upbringing, either way this favours middle class children. Between the ages of 2 and 10 I constantly harassed my father with every question my youthful mind could muster. Since my father has the patience of Job, rather than telling me to shut up before he drove off a cliff (we were often in the car at the time I recall) he told the time and effort to answer these inane questions. When we were travelling we would have a game of 'Capitols', one person names the country the other person has to state the capitol city. To this end I was devastated the other day when I couldn't remember the capitol of Romanian was Bucharest. Anyway, the point is that my cerebral development had as much to do with my parents intelligence and reception to knowledge as it had to do with to which school I went. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that stupid parents cannot give birth to intelligent children, but logically it is going to be less likely. The result of this is obvious, intelligent children are likely to grow up and have high earning jobs. It isn't rocket science, and it isn't a class conspiracy.

While I did intend for this evaluation to be comprehensive, I didn't expect it to be so long, so I'm going to cut it in two here.

eBay: One Madrid Sewer system; unused

Just got back from Madrid, Spain, lovely place, beautiful architechture. It has great tasting food and the people are quite charming.

I few observations however:

1. Everyone smokes.
Really now, I think if Spain wanted to cut its carbon foot print just stop people smoking. The inner city is easy to get around and there isn't much congestion so they won't have much of a carbon foot print through cars. Smoking however must constitute most of their emissions! Whatever it is they smoke also smells about ten times as strong as what they have in the UK, it smells like pipe tobacco. Lovely... I also think maybe this ties in with number 2 which is:

2. Everyone is about 6" shorter than me.
Is this to do with genetics or smoking or something else? I don't know. What I do know is that wondering around I was about 6" taller than the average male. Back in the UK I'm about 2/3" taller but over there I was a giant.

3. The Madrid sewer system is presumably superfluous.
I don't know how any Spaniard has ever passed a single stool. For breakfast they have coffee. For lunch they have great tasting food, but none of it, really contains any fibre! The ratio of bread, rice etc to meat and cheese was about 60/40 meat. The result; great tasting food, and presumably a completely unused sewer system.

4. Very few people actually speak English... or should I say hable inglés.
This isn't a criticism, it is just an observation. I am sure that many have gone to Barcelona and found that everyone speaks English and expects Madrid to be the same. It isn't. Not even slightly. However, I actually prefer this to an extent. It forces me to get off my lazy English speaking back end and learn some of the lingo. It also means I know the magic of instantly, without thought, rememebering; 'one minute, please' when the cleaner starts walking into your room while you're still naked.

5. La Finca de Susana, if you're in Madrid and you can get to it, go.
Restaurant opening time 8:30, time I arrived 8:32... just managed to catch the last tables before it was full. Passing the next day twenty minutes before the place opened, there was a quene stretching down the street. This queue was there for good reason. When you can eat a stunning veal steak for under €10 and a bottle of wine costs the same as a glass over here in the UK you can hardly believe you're eyes. All this in a capital city. Can you imagine having a bill for two people come to about £35 in London? A bill for one maybe... Oh and it tasted ambrosial, just in case you were wondering.

6. Freemarket capitalists, they are not.
I was on my way to park Retiro when I couldn't cross a road. Unfortunately 200,000 people had turned out to support the workers Union the OOCC. At first this was all very interesting and a bit like a festival. There were lots of people drums and banners. Things seemed less friendly with the helicopters flying over head all the time and someone setting off fireworks that sounded like bombs going off. While I took the opportunity to pick up a leaflet and read about the protection of public jobs and so on, strangely I didn't take the time to explain to the crowd the benefits of free market capitalism. Strangely I didn't think it was the ideal time, unless I was in the mood for taking on 200,000 Spaniards in a Matrix revolutions tyle fight. Although one does see a strong correlationg between countries with economies that could do with a bit of a kick and a strong socialist contingent. I mean even before the recession Spain had 10% enemployment and so it isn't a surprise that people aren't happy about it. Although I am not sure what they think socialism is going to do for them.

7. The weather man was wrong.
One day of sunshine and the rest cloudy... that is what you think Mr Weatherman...