Politics

I have told various people of my intention of voting Labour, despite my reservations about Corbie. At least he is decent, if not very effective.

But this lunch time we get a flier from the Liberals, who tell me that they came a decent second to the Conservatives (failin' graylin') at the recent European elections here at Epsom. And that the combined votes for Liberal, Labour and Green comfortably exceeded the Conservative vote. A reasonably clear case for tactical voting, despite my reservations about Swinson. A bit too much like the lady who leads the North Britons for my taste.

So for the moment, tactical voting and Liberal are in, Labour are out. A degree of consistency here, in that I voted Liberal at these European elections, mainly on the grounds that they were the only party to back remain.

Then today another candidate volte-face. I have been ban the bomb, unilateral nuclear disarmament and CND since I was an adolescent. Even went on the odd Aldermaston march. But I read this morning in the climate change book noticed only yesterday at reference 2, that when the chips are down and millions of migrants are pouring out of the flooding delta lands of the Indian subcontinent, their reasonably near neighbours in the Middle East, many of them flush with the oil money which made the floods in the first place, might well want nuclear weapons with which to face the future. Perhaps to use to parlay for food or land. Perhaps to face down the countries from which the migrants are coming. And as things stand, I don't think we would be able to stop them. Israel today, Iran tomorrow, Saudi Arabia the day after. Who knows who else.

And with people like that joining the nuclear club, maybe not such a good time to be leaving it. Plus, it is less than 15% of our defence budget, say £5b a year from a defence total of £40b from a UK GDP of £2,000b. See reference 3. Plus, I imagine there is helpful spin-off for the civil nuclear industry, in which I continue to believe. Better bad stuff down some very deep hole in Cumbria than carbon dioxide at 1,000ppm in the sky - a level not seen since the Eocene. For which see reference 4.

Still mulling over this one. I might even confer with one or two people.

PS: the lady who leads the North Britons was telling the newspapers only the other day, that she was a nuclear disarmer. Maybe the problem is that we keep said armaments near Glasgow. No problem if we relocated them to the Mersey or Milford Haven. And what about Scapa Flow, home fleet anchorage at the time of the First World War?

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/duty-done.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/amusement.html.

Reference 3: How much do we spend on nuclear weapons - Ian Davis for the British American Security Information Council - 2018. Perhaps a source with an axe to grind, but at least it is a source. The figures do look to be there - if I could get around to reading them.

Reference 4: a 40-million-year history of atmospheric CO2 - Yi Ge Zhang , Mark Pagani , Zhonghui Liu , Steven M. Bohaty and Robert DeConto - 2013. The source of the snap above: 'Figure 3. A comparison of alkenone-based pCO2 composite from multiple marine sites as compiled in the study of Pagani et al. and ODP Site 925 record since the Late Eocene. Antarctic glaciation thresholds (approx. 750 ppm) and Northern Hemisphere glaciation threshold (approx. 280 ppm) deduced from climate models are marked by dashed lines'. All very tricky - but the bottom line looks clear enough: there was a lot more of the stuff back in the Eocene - when things were very different to what they are now.