Ho hum

Haven't posted for a while, so how about a few minutes of James O'Brien to pass the time.

Will the real Chancellor please stand up?

Sajid Javid: The only thing leaving the EU guarantees is a lost decade for British business

Britain is better off in. And that’s all because of the Single Market.

It’s a great invention, one that even Lady Thatcher campaigned enthusiastically to create.   

The world’s largest economic bloc, it gives every business in Britain access to 500 million customers with no barriers, no tariffs and no local legislation to worry about. It’s no surprise that nearly half of our exports go to other EU nations, exports that are linked to three million jobs here in the UK. 

And as an EU member we also have preferential access to more than 50 other international markets from Mexico to Montenegro, helping us to export £50 billion of goods and services to them every year. 

Even the most conservative estimates say it could take years to secure agreements with the EU and other countries. 

Having spent six years fighting to get British businesses back on their feet after Labour’s record-breaking recession, I’m not about to vote for a decade of stagnation and doubt.

Brexit: 'No alignment' with EU on regulation, Javid tells business

The chancellor has warned manufacturers that "there will not be alignment" with the EU after Brexit and insists firms must "adjust" to new regulations. Mr Javid declined to specify which EU rules he wanted to drop. 

Speaking to the Financial Times, Sajid Javid admitted not all businesses would benefit from Brexit. "We're also talking about companies that have known since 2016 that we are leaving the EU. Admittedly, they didn't know the exact terms."

I'm old enough to remember a time when the Govt promised us the “exact same benefits ” as membership of the single market. Good to know that all those Brexit voters knew exactly what they were voting for. Shame they still haven't managed to share their vision with the rest of us.

Maths homework

For those who struggle with arithmetic, £130Bn is more than 14 times the annual contribution of £9Bn that the UK currently makes to the EU. The end-of-year £200Bn estimate is more than 22 times larger, and exceeds the totality of our contributions over the entire 47 years of our membership. It seems a hefty price to pay for a blue passport and a new 50p piece.

Of course the long-term damage is far greater than can be measured in purely economic terms. Students and the young in particular will be thrilled that the Govt has recently refused to commit to participating in the wildly popular and effective Erasmus exchange program. The rest of the EU members and associates will no doubt be devastated that they will only have 30 countries to choose from rather than 31.

In unrelated news, the racists who told Meghan Markle to f off back where she came from, are apparently upset that she has decided to do just that. Shrug. Some people just love to hate, I guess. The story even got a mention in the Guardian which has obviously gone down-market.

Just when you thought you'd heard the last about brexit

Not that any of my readers would be deluded enough to think that this is going to go away any time soon, just because Johnson wants to pretend it will.

Brexit, in some form or other, is going to start actually happening at the end of the month. I'd call it a grotesque act of self-harm but of course a lot of those who are going to suffer will be those who have opposed it at every turn. In fact it is not so much self-harm as intergenerational conflict. 

Here is the horrific split of voting preference versus age in the 2019 general election:

Now I know what you're thinking, old people have always tended to vote tory. True to a small extent, nothing like what has happened recently. Here is the longer set of results from 1992 onwards:

The blue lines do trend modestly up to the right, and red ones down but it was only since the brexit referendum that age became such a sharp dividing line, with roughly a 3:1 split of old voters voting one way and 3:1 split of young voting the other in the recent election.

What we have now is nothing short of an ideological war being waged on the young by the old. Having had all the opportunities and benefits of EU membership for most of their adult lives, they are denying this to their own children and grandchildren based on their anti-EU obsession. This isn't just an accidental consequence of not thinking about things, when specifically asked about the possibility of family members losing jobs due to brexit, a majority of brexit voting pensioners actually said they didn't care, they wanted their precious brexit anyway.

And let's not forget that there are about 2.5 million voters who have never been allowed to vote on brexit because they were under-18 at the time. Well over a million brexit voters are already dead (that's just simple demographics) and yet their views are literally held in higher esteem than real live people who are going to suffer the consequences for decades to come. Even if not a single person had changed their mind (and I'd agree not many have) then we would have had a majority for remain for the past year. That pretty much agrees with all opinion polls now for the past year and more, not to mention the election result itself where the tories (and brexit party) totalled about 45% of the vote versus the 55% from parties who wanted at least another referendum on the details if not outright opposition. Nevertheless, that's the way our system "works" and the tories have the power to do whatever they want for the foreseeable future. They, and those who voted for them, own the consequences in their entirety, especially after they've spent the past few years yelling that they know exactly what they voted for. A bit odd that they never managed to agree what that exactly was (beyond a few trivial slogans), but never mind. I'll not bother predicting because there is not yet any clear picture of what they want to achieve.

Remember the heady days of 2016 when the brexiters told us that we held all the cards and our negotiation with the EU would be the easiest trade deal in history? Now there is no more talk of sunlit uplands, brexit is at best presented as a tedious, costly and difficult task we need to try to get through before the tories can start to undo the damage caused by whoever it was that happened to be pretending to govern the country over the past decade (don't anyone tell Johnson who was in the cabinet over the past few years....). In fact it's such a good idea that the govt is banning any mention of it from February, even though the fun will barely have started at that point.

Some more brexit bonus

Assuming your primary aim is to dissuade well-qualified immigrants who will contribute to our scientific advancement and cultural and economic growth, that is. 

The first figures have emerged demonstrating that Brexit uncertainty has adversely affected UK research. They show Britain's annual share of EU research funding has fallen by nearly a third since 2015. The analysis by the Royal Society suggests scientists are choosing not to work in Britain, with a 35% drop in those coming to the UK via EU schemes.

Hooray!

Outcomes

At the start of the year I made some predictions. It's now time to see how I did.

In reverse order....

6. The level of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase (p=0.999).

Yup. I don't really need to wait for 1 Jan for that.

5. 2019 will be warmer than most years this century so far (p=0.75 - not the result of any real analysis).

As above, I know we've a few days to go but no need to wait for this one, which has been very clear for a good while now.

4. We will also submit a highly impactful paper in collaboration with many others (p=0.85).

Done, reviews back which look broadly ok, revision planned for early next year when we all have a bit of time (31 Dec is a stupid IPCC submission deadline for lots of other stuff).

3. Jules and I will finish off the rather delayed work with Thorsten and Bjorn (p=0.95).

Yes, the project is done, through the write-up continues. Actually we hope to submit a paper by 31 Dec but there will be more to do next year too.

2. I will run a time (just!) under 2:45 at Manchester marathon (p=0.6).

Nope, 2:47:15 this time. The prediction was made just a few days after I'd run a big PB in a 10k but even then I thought it was barely more likely than not, and it got less likely as the date approached. 

1. Brexit won't happen (p=0.95).

On re-reading the old post, I have to admit I cannot remember the precise intention I had when I wrote this. Given the annual time frame of the remainder of the bets, and the narrative of that time being that we were certainly going to leave on the 29th March (as repeated over 100 times by May - remember her? - and the rest of them) I do believe I must have been referring to leaving during 2019. After all, I could never hope to validate a bet of infinite duration. So yes, I'm going to give myself this one.

On the other hand, I did actually think that we would probably not be stupid enough to leave at all, and clearly I misunderestimated the electorate and also the dishonesty of the Conservative Party, or perhaps as it should be known, the English National Party.

I have learnt from that misjudgment and will not be offering any predictions as to where we end up at the end of next year. Which is sort of inconvenient, as we are trying to arrange a new contract with our European friends for work which could extend into 2021. Our options would seem to include: limiting the scope of the contract to what we can confidently complete strictly within 2020, which is far from ideal, or shifting everything to Estonia (incurring additional costs and inconvenience for us, though it may be the best option in the long term). Or just take a punt and cross our fingers that it all turns out ok, despite there being as yet no hint of a sketch of a plan as to how the sales of services into the EU will be regulated or taxed past 2020. It is quite possible that we'll just shut down the (very modest) operation and put our feet up. 

I'm still waiting for the brexiters to tell me how any of this is in the country's interests. But that's a rant for another day. Perhaps it's something to do with having enough of experts.

As for scoring my predictions: the idea of a “proper scoring rule” is to provide a useful measure of performance for probabilistic prediction. A natural choice is the logarithmic scoring rule L = log(p) where p is the probability assigned to the outcome, and with all of my predictions having a binary yes/no basis I'll use base 2 for the calculation. The aim is to maximise the score (ie minimise its negativity, as the log of numbers in the range 0 to 1 is negative). A certain prediction where we assign a probability of p=1 to something that comes out right scores a maximum 0, a coin toss is -1 whether right or wrong but if you predict something to only have a p=0.1 chance and it happens, then the score is log(0.1) which in base 2 is a whopping -3.3. Assigning a probability of 0 to the event that happens is a bad idea, the score is infinitely negative...oops.

My score is therefore:
0 - 0.42 - .23 - .07 -1.32 - .07 = 2.11

or about 0.35 per bet, which is equivalent to assigning p=0.78 to the correct outcome each time (which is just the geometric mean of the probabilities I did assign). Of course some were very easy, but that's why I gave them high p estimates which means high score (but a big risk if I'd got them wrong). I could have given a higher probability to the temperature prediction if I'd bothered thinking about it a bit more carefully. The running one was the only truly difficult prediction, because I was specifically calibrating the threshold to be close to the border of what I might achieve. It might have been better presented as a distribution for my finish time, where I would have had to judge the sharpness of the pdf as well as its location (ie mean).

My latest brexit prediction

Thought I'd better make a prediction before tomorrow's verdict: the Supreme Court will rule the matter justiciable, it will furthermore conclude that Johnson lied to the Queen, but it will not demand a specific solution such as reopening parliament or declaring that the prorogation was null and void. This option was not even discussed on the "Talking Politics" podcast I listened to over the weekend, and since they've reliably got everything else wrong about brexit for the past three years, it's a slam dunk.

No, honestly, though I do think it's a plausible outcome I wouldn't attach a very high probability to being right on this. The story of brexit has been one of unpredictable twists and turns, even if the final outcome is amply summed up in this pie chart:

And here's some more twitter fun:

They lied to you pic.twitter.com/LN5eunkjIc

— Brexit Bin 🇪🇺 🇬🇧 #FBPE #RevokeRemain (@BrexitBin) September 21, 2019

Probably takes a click to make the gifs/videos play. [Oh, the second one doesn't seem to work. That's a shame. Well, it was just a long list of brexiters pretending everything was going to be great a couple of years ago, and now pretending that they never claimed it was going to be great. Just the usual lying liars lying.]

Oh how I long for the days when a PM syphoning off 100k of public money to one of their mistresses qualified as a proper scandal. These days it barely rates a mention on the BBC, and only then after people have baited them for a day over why they haven't covered it.

Meanwhile the Labour party conference has managed to create an outcome that is even worse than anyone imagined possible, not merely sitting on the implausible brexit unicorn fence but choosing to do so through a show-of-hands vote that many think was called the wrong way or at least too close to call without a proper count. What a shambles.

At least the LibDems have got there finally. I can snark at how long it took them to get there but they are still well ahead of the other two parties.

Bracing for brexit

So, the Govt has decided to splash £100m of our money on telling us to do what it has signally failed to do for the last 3 years - get ready for brexit. Of course the main aim of this marketing campaign is really to soften up the population for the supposed inevitability of brexit at the end of October, and hoodwink them into thinking that if it "happens" then that would be the end of the matter, rather than the start of decades of negotiation, argument and recrimination over the subsequent arrangements.

I had a look at the govt site, and for a small and simple company such as BlueSkiesResearch, there are pages and pages of vague verbiage that mostly miss the point and nothing that explains whether or not we would be able to travel to the rest of the EU to work there as we did in Hamburg and Stockholm over the last few years. Probably the best strategy will be to just lie and pretend it's a holiday. Of course there's no guidance for that either but we can be fairly confident that this would be sorted out in time for our next trip (probably the EGU meeting in Vienna if any Austrian immigration officials are reading).

More consequentially, I've also applied for - and received - Estonian e-residency (jules has also applied, but a bit later so hers has not come through yet). This will enable us to establish a business over there within the EU and hopefully allow easy participation in such things as Horizon2020 and its successor funding programmes. I know the govt had promised to support existing grants but the point is to be able to apply in the future.

Of course an inevitable consequence of this - on top of the time and money wasted, which will amount to a few hundred pounds by the time it's done and dusted - is that our company will be paying corporation tax in Estonia rather than the UK. Just one more bit of pointless self-harm by the idealogues.

I've still got to go to London to pick up the id card, that's more time and money down the drain. Perhaps after visiting the Estonian Embassy I'll take a stroll along Downing Street and chuck a few petrol bombs at No 10. Only joking, I'll probably take a milkshake.

Of course the most likely outcome - as I have said consistently for over three years now - is that we actually remain in the EU after all, when this colossally stupid act of self-humiliation collapses under its own dishonesty and idiocy. In the meantime, the damage mounts up and whatever happens now, the harm will take decades to recover from.

The sociopaths have taken over the asylum

Just in case anyone was in any doubt about the nature of the swivel-eyed loons who will shortly be picking our new PM....

Marching in London to stop BREXIT

It was both immense and immensely good humoured.

Got to the end of the "assembly area" at Marble Arch in London, 0.8mile away from the start at Hyde Park Corner, a bit before 1pm. Joined the throng and inched down the road. Got to the official start in 90mins or so (apparently they started an hour early because it had got so full), and then moved marginally more quickly. Another 0.6 miles (about half the total distance of the march including the assembly area) and it was past 4pm and time to head for Euston station and home.

Hope it worked!

Very cross Britons:

Special places in Hell and having a nice chat while enjoying your sarnies.

Yorkshire!!! (Saw about 4 sets of these)

 Lancashire:

Labour Party and reformed Leavers (#RemainerNow):

Wales:

Peoples behind us - not even close to the start yet:

Nigel quotes are always good for a laugh...

Librarians!:

Jobs and grand children:

Aristotle?

James!

jules!

Pets:

If only...

Hmmm...?

Environment:

ITV report of the event quite good.

And here's their video:

More Brexit

Stoat has called for another Brexit comment. I actually don't have a whole lot to add to what I said last time. It is clearly a mug's game to try to predict the day to day rollercoaster - it has been amusing to listen to podcasts which are hopelessly out of date within 24h as some previously unimaginable option is proposed or the Govt reneges on yet another promise. It has on occasion been headline news when the Govt merely reaffirms something it has already announced. And the Parliament channel has probably never before had such a large audience.

The basic reason for the short-term unpredictability is that there are 650 MPs and any number of SPADs etc forming their own alliances and opinions and making tactical decisions based on what they think may happen...no-one is voting on the direct basis of a rational preference ordering but maybe on the basis of what they think may increase the ultimate chances of the outcome they prefer, or perhaps just what will curry favour with their pals. And in some cases this may have more to do with seeing May win/lose than in anything to do with Brexit itself. Brexiters aren't even trying to be honest any more, whether in media interviews or even the House of Commons - perhaps the most impressive example (at time of writing!) of which was Brexit Secretary Steven Barclay closing Thursday's debate by imploring the House to vote for the Govt motion "in the national interest" before walking straight into the Noes lobby to vote against it. So trying to predict the short-term tactics, when motions are being won and lost by as few as 2 votes, and amendments are tricksily worded and edited and withdrawn on backroom discussions, is a bit futile.

There are lots of analogies with climate change which can be useful - we can't predict the detailed weather (though we can for about a week which is rather longer than parliament right now) but we can predict that summer will be warmer than winter and the 2050s will be hotter than the current decade. There are also lots of lying liars in the climate change debate, and most of them are on the brexit side too, which could be helpful if it wasn't obvious enough already. But there are also underlying truths that are not affected by what people say. We are warming the climate, and it still remains the case that there is no brexit that has majority support, in fact quite probably none of the brexit options would even have substantial minority support if all the potential brexits were to be considered in a multi-way vote. Debatably, remaining in the EU just about has majority support overall, it's certainly the most popular single option and quite likely more popular than any other single choice in a head-to-head vote. It seems quite plausible that we will be testing that proposition in the future. 

Parliament revoking A50 immediately is of course the best action, but on that basis it's unlikely to happen any time soon. Of the options under regular discussion, a long delay would be my pref as it gives more time for people to come round to #nobrexitatall which remains the only sensible final state of the Galton board we are currently rattling our way down. That said, another lesson to be drawn from climate change is that few people ever change their minds due to evidence. While I'm not a fan of another ref ratifying May's deal I do think it's a plausible compromise and while I've already said it's a bit pointless to predict what will happen, it does seem (today!) to be a reasonably likely pathway. I'm not very confident about which way a referendum would go - I'm sure that many people will think that May's withdrawal agreement is "getting it over with" rather than in reality just starting an indefinite period of negotiation over a future trade deal, all the while being subject to EU rules while losing all influence over them. On the other hand, so many have sworn to oppose May's deal, for all sorts of reasons, that it would be the mother of all u-turns for them to vote for it.

One advantage a referendum does have is that it would force the "I voted brexit but not for this brexit" crowd to take ownership of their decision. Also the "oh of course I voted remain but think we should leave" group would no longer be able to hide behind someone else's decision. You brexit, you own it. We'll get to see how many people actually want to leave the EU, rather than just live off the betrayal narrative. 

One of the highlights of recent days has been the abject failure of Farage's Gammonball Run aka "March to Leave".

Day two of the #MarchToLeave. 77 people including photographers. @Nigel_farage should apologise to those marchers for this farce. But of course he’s disappeared. Shameful. pic.twitter.com/I2MRNsAOR1

— Led By Donkeys (@ByDonkeys) March 17, 2019

It's truly remarkable that anyone with Farage's supposed politics skills could come up with such a guaranteed stinker of a plan. Whoever thought there would be mass support for trudging down the east coast of England for 10-20 miles per day in March, paying 50 quid for the dubious privilege of watching Farage say a few words before driving away in his bus, needs their head examined. If you want a short-term prediction from my blog, it is that this march is called off for some hastily-made-up and implausible reason before it gets to London. The optics of a small rabble of shouty old men yelling abuse at everyone they encounter, versus the good-humoured million person march of all types who will be in London next Saturday, could prove more than a little damaging to their image. Quite why the media is still in thrall to this rump of angry ignorant bigots remains a mystery to me. The BBC actually sent a reporter and cameraman for the start of the march, and put it on national TV. Perhaps they were doing auditions for the Question Time audience next week.

If May's withdrawal agreement does get through at the 3rd or 4th time of asking (because hey, MPs are allowed to change their minds on a daily basis, but the common people should know their place even if they were too young to vote back in 2016) then we will of course have a longer-term future of internecine warring within the Tories as they bicker firstly over their new leader and then in subsequent years (as the "transition" gets extended over and over again) over what sort of relationship we should have with the EU. That should take us up to, oooh, about 2030 or thereabouts, by which time most of those still around will be wondering what on earth this was all about and hopefully by then (maybe sooner with luck) we'll be ready to apply for proper EU membership, as a poorer and smaller nation, and under substantially worse conditions.

And all those who voted for this shitshow will blame someone else.