An open letter to the Rt Honorable Theresa May, Prime Minister and all Members of Parliament of the United Kingdom

We haven’t spoken before, but I believe that I am typical of many British citizens who feel the past few weeks have been a nightmare and we still haven’t woken up. People like me have typically been less than fully engaged with politics and politicians, especially with the many, many reasons we have been given to distrust you over the years. That said, I have voted in every general election since I was 18 (predominantly Labour) and voted in the referendum (Remain).

In recent weeks we have witnessed what appears to be the breakdown of normal(!) rational politics and have been left watching as our countries political leadership, for the two main parties at least, has imploded. It’s more like an episode of Yes Minister or the Thick of It than reality. But the final straw for me came today when I heard on the Today programme that you believed there was no need for a general election as you had a “clear mandate” from the people.

 I beg to differ.

 Hindsight is a wonderful thing and the following matters have become clearer in recent weeks:

• The Chilcot report has made it clear that for a Prime Minister to take important decisions without clear cabinet discussion, consideration and support is inadvisable - yet you have declared your position and way forward without even appointing your cabinet, never mind discussing these issues which will impact generations of your voters.
• It appears common consensus that the Referendum vote was deeply flawed with both sides misleading and blatantly lying to the electorate, resulting in a narrow victory for Leave.
• The fact that all prominent Leave campaigners have now withdrawn from the process of enacting what they were campaigning for and their inability to follow through with their campaign, clearly calls into question their motivation (if not their morals and political judgement)
• Post Referendum polls and anecdotal media coverage have highlighted that significant numbers of people who voted leave, now regret it, either through misunderstanding the consequences of their actions or disbelief at the lack of planning by both the Leave camp (and the Government) for a successful Leave campaign
• It is also clear from the 4+ million people who signed the Petition for a second referendum if the difference in vote was too narrow, that such a narrow victory should not be binding. There is sufficient precedent from other countries that such an important decision, should be contingent on a larger majority and a minimum turnout. Throw in the fact that unlike the Scottish vote on independence, 16 and 17 year olds were not given the vote on this issue and judging by the actual votes cast by the younger generation, it is a matter of mathematics not politics to easily call into question the value of the Referendum result.

– yet you state Brexit is Brexit and we have to make it work – there is no legal obligation to move forward with Brexit and a strong opinion, such as 1,000+ legal experts who state that Parliament should be given a vote on the issue.

 Finally, if we look at more recent events regarding the leadership of the Conservative party and Labour Party. You have bene elected leader of your party and Prime Minister in waiting, based on 199 votes and this has been approved by the 1922 committee. How do you reconcile this decision with the fact that when Gordon Brown took over as Labour leader from Tony Blair, in a similar leadership contest, you stated very clearly that he had no democratic mandate and called on him to call a general election. 

The Labour party is similarly in disarray with it’s incumbent leader Jeremy Corbyn still in situ, despite a vote of no confidece by the parliamentary Labour party and is seeking legal guidance regarding the forthcoming leadership challenge to see if he can stand without gaining sufficient support of his own MPs. 

I hope you can understand why, we, the voters, feel deeply dissatisfied with our political leaders right now. 

 To summarise, I would like you to put yourself in our position, very soon we will most likely have: 

The Government

• A Prime Minister and leader of the Conservatives, voted on by 199 people – that’s about 0.0004% of the c46million people that were eligible to vote in the Referendum 
• A new cabinet, personally chosen by you, making compromises as to your choices to try and bring together your party with the long running deep divide over Europe 
• A stated objective of moving forward with Brexit, without giving your cabinet an opportunity to discuss it and the power to act upon it using the Royal Prerogative 

The Opposition

• Probably a newly elected leader, hopefully voted upon by the current party membership, which will be c500,000 by the time the poll happens – about 1% of the 46 million. 
• A newly elected Shadow cabinet, again chosen making compromises as to choices to try and bring together their party with the long running deep divide over Europe 

The People 

• An “unclear mandate” from less than 50% of the adult population of the UK, even smaller if you give credence to recent opinion polls 

In conclusion, if it’s not too much trouble, I think the moral route forward is to do the following:

• Call a general election for September to give sufficient time for the new political leadership to settle in before campaigning starts 
• To call on all parties and candidates to make a clear and unambiguous statement regarding their position on Brexit and Article 50 
• Add a new referendum question to the ballot paper – but with a clear statement as to the required percentage of vote and turnout to add validity 
• Allow 16-18 year olds to vote 

 We will then, hopefully have a Prime Minister and elected party (or coalition) with a very clear mandate from the electorate to take the important next steps on this journey we have started. 

Also, just as a last thought, next time we have such an important decision to take as a country, leaving it solely in the hands of people who voted for Boatry McBoatface is probably a bad idea…just saying.

Regards 

 ~ Dave Mutton 

 p.s. Disclosure - I just joined the Labour Party today, specifically to vote in the upcoming leadership election, but also because I’ve considered taking a more active role in politics for a few years and recent events have compelled me to start down THAT journey – who knows where it will end.

Reflecting on the EU Referendum Vote

I’ve been reflecting on the EU Referendum and the disastrous outcome. The common response to people like me is to claim it was democratic and we have to accept the result, but was it and do we? Fundamentally, I believe the Referendum was flawed. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it does help us look back and reflect on what we could have done differently and I think there are several big problems with the vote. Firstly, INCLUSION, I have posted several times during the campaign about the decision NOT to offer the vote to 16 and 17 year olds as was done in the Scottish vote on devolution. I was surprised this wasn’t the case and even more surprised that nobody seemed to be talking about it. The argument at the time in Scotland was that it was such a huge decision that would have longer impact on that generation – so why didn’t we do it for the whole of the UK. Second, with such a huge important decision, we should have adopted the Australian model and made it compulsory to vote. Without this, only 46m were eligible by registering and only 33.6m actually did. It’s shocking that people chose not to vote in such a huge decision, I wonder how they feel about the result. Third, I think the vote should have been open not just to UK citizens, but to anybody who had the right to that citizenship. That means anybody who has lived here for 5 years and no intention to leave – they have made this country their home and should have had the opportunity to have a say on its future. This might be a bit controversial, but actually if you were going to vote Remain then you are European minded and believe together we are stronger, perhaps we should have tested that principle in the vote. Finally, a word about the PROCESS. Before the vote and during the campaign I don’t recall any discussion or explanation as to how it actually would work and more importantly how different it was from the usual election when local votes are tallied to decide the local area decision – and not aggregated for the national count. I had never even considered that people would do a “protest vote” and was shocked to hear interviews with people who had done exactly that and were shocked at the outcome. This is a failure of both campaigns not to inform and educate as to how it all worked. Put all these factors together and I believe we had the perfect storm of limiting the total voting population whilst not ensuring that those who were actually motivated to vote were well informed about the consequences of their actions . What can we do about it? I honestly don’t know if we can, but I will support any democratic and legal actions to reverse this terrible, terrible decision.

RIP Iain M Banks

I haven’t written on this blog for a few years, spending more time on Facebook and Twitter, but the sad news yesterday of the untimely death of one of my favourite authors, Iain Banks made me think I needed to write something longer than 140 characters and more permanent than the ephemeral nature of a Facebook status.

During the late 80’s, early 90’s I worked in the book industry for the, now defunct, retailer Dillons and I was fortunate to meet Ian on many occasions through my various marketing roles. I would even say we became friendly and I want to share a few moments of my recollection of the man himself.

First about his writing, I was always a fan of his books, his dark humour, complicated characters and casual disregard for traditional story telling – like not killing off your main characters in a particularly gruesome fashion in an unexpected moment. When I read George Martin’s Songs of Ice and Fire books, I thought of Iain when reading the “Red Wedding” scene. Of course this week, that scene was also brought to life in the HBO series causing a lot of anguish amongst the fans who haven’t read the books. I can imagine Iain sitting there watching that giggling and nodding in agreement.

One moment I will always recall happened when I was reading my favourite Bank’s novel – “Use of Weapons”. The book has a wonderful convoluted plot with a two interwoven timelines, drawing you in as one unfolds in the past informing the other that is the now. The book kept me riveted right down to the last page, when he hits you with the most unexpected twist – I will not say more if you haven’t read it.

Anyway, that twist wasn’t the moment I am talking about. The bit I remember most fondly is part way through the book and happened whilst I was travelling on the underground one day, reading. There is an undercurrent of dark humour through all of Bank’s books, but this one scene involving an unusual gift for a character had me guffawing out loud on this packed tube train. I didn’t even realise I was doing it until the woman next to me shuffled a few feet away with a worried look in her eye.

In my role at Dillons, as Promotions Manager, I was responsible for choosing which books to promote across the chain and when Feersum Endjinn was published in 1994, I chose it to be one of our featured titles across over 90 stores. It was the first time that Dillons had ever promoted a single science fiction title and the publisher, Little Brown was delighted. Some of our shops were unhappy about the choice of promoted title, but with a bit or persuasion and once they saw initial sales, were also pleased and It certainly seemed to help his backlist sales.

At the time, I was going through one of my periodic times of hirsuteness and I have to say there was slightly more than a passing resemblance between Iain and myself (unintended). This became clear at the launch party for Feersum, in a dark dingy bar somewhere in London, when I spent a good fifteen minutes trying to convince a few booksellers from Waterstones that I wasn’t in fact the man himself. The lack of a Scottish accent should have been the giveaway, but they were not convinced until I dragged them over to Iain and introduced them. Iain found the idea hilarious and said that on his next book tour, could I come along as his signing “stunt double” for when he got bored and his wrist was tired.

After moving on from the book trade into more general marketing roles I lost touch with Iain, but met him again last year at a British Library lecture on “Utopia” in fiction. I had a brief chat with him, he seemed to remember me and actually reminded me of the stunt double story.

I wish I had known him better, not just through his books and those brief work related incidents, he seemed always full of life, full of humour and humble, never quite believing that he had created such wonderful worlds and characters. Like most successful authors, I believe he wrote for himself and we were just lucky to be able share in his creations.

Finally, I believe one of Iain’s favourite things was the naming of the spaceships in his Culture novels - if you haven’t read them, he ships are sentient, self-aware and names themselves things like: “No More Mr Nice Guy”; “Very Little Gravitas Indeed” and “Just Another Victim Of The Ambient Morality*

In an infinite universe, it is entirely possible, if not probable, that Iain himself has re-incarnated as a ship in the Culture universe and I wonder what he would call himself. “My other mind is an Author”??

Rip Off Britain

I saw a link on the BBC website to submit story ideas for Rip Off Britain - so I submitted this idea - something that has been bothering me for a long time.

One of the biggest rip offs in Britain today is the selling of concert tickets months if not years before the actual event.

Typically events from major music and comedy stars sell out within minutes of going on sale, for example earlier this year I bought tickets for Michael McIntyre’s tour for dates in September 2012, almost 18 months before the actual show at the O2. The O2 has a capacity of over 20,000. The tickets are sold for £35 each, that is a total of £700k gross ticket revenue for just one show.

Michael McIntyre’s tour has over 58 dates, 6 of which are at the O2. I decided to do some quick maths for his entire tour – the dates for which are published here

Tickets for the tour went on sale at the end of March, 2011 and according to the Daily Mail sold out quickly

So, over £24m was paid out, about 18 months before the events. What happens to that money? Presumably some of it goes on fees for the venues, booking agents etc. – but I assume a substantial part of it gets paid to the artists up front. The Daily Mail article says not, claiming that he will "only" make £2m from the tour if it sells out. So who is getting all that money?

But what really concerns me is the fact that I have to pay the money so far in advance. If I bought 4 tickets for the show, costing £140, I am missing out on the potential interest for that amount. Over 18 months that is equal to approx. £6.50 at 3% savings rate. So the actual cost to me of the tickets is £146.50, approximately 4.7% more than the advertised price.

Now that doesn't sound a lot, but if you multiply that by the total amount of tickets sold in the tour, that is 688,200 x £35 x 4.7% = £1,132,089 of missed interest by fans who bought tickets for this tour. How many big tours are there every year, 10, 20, 50?

If I place an advance order on Amazon for the latest album by Coldplay, or new novel from JK Rowling, they do not charge me anything until the product actually ships. So why should we be paying all this money so far in advance?

These big stars could advertise their tour as early as they like, but don't actually put tickets on sale until a month or two at the most before the shows. Anything else and I believe they are ripping off their loyal fans.

What do you think?

Last Day of NaNoWriMo

So this is the last day of NaNoWriMo and I have to admit defeat. I started OK, lost some groujnd, then pulled it back about mid month. However, this has also coincided with a manic period at work and something had to give.

But I don't think it's a complete failure, I've written more in the last month than I have done in years and I think it's good stuff too.

So my personal commitment is to keep on writing and get this novel out of my head. Obviously long term goal is to be published, but that, as they say, is another story.

Day 14 of #Nanowrimo

So after Day 14 of NaNoWriMo, I am up to just over 17,000 words. To hit the goal of 50,000 words by end of November, I need to maintain another 2,000 per day. From a practical POV, I am totally capable of creatively writing 2,000+ words per day, but it is a combination of motivation and time that stops me.

I wrote over a 1,000 words on the train to work today and aim to do it again on the way home, but yesterday was a different story. On the train into London I didn't get a seat, nor on the way home, so no writing there. When I finally got home about 8.45pm, I knew I should write something, but the combination of TV and family meant it was soon past 11 and I was just too tired.

I suppose if you are talented and lucky enough to become a full time author, you don't have these issues, but I'm a long way from that. But I will persevere, this is the most writing I have done for years and I feel really good about it

NaNoWriMo Day 8

So Day 8 of NaNoWriMo and it's been a busy few days, unfortunately mostly Birthday related at the weekend, so not as much writing done as I would like. After 7 days (not counting today yet), I'm only up to 3,737. Which is an average of only 467 words per day.

So to hit the 50,000 I now have to do over 2,000 per day for the rest of the month...ho hum

Day 1 of Nanowrimo

Spent several hours planning and writing last night, in a Mcdonalds of all places, whilst waiting for Hannah at her Irish dancing lesson. Only managed 790 words, but that was after a lot of planning and laying out several sections before actually writing something - could have written more, as was in good flow, but had to go and pick Hannah up.

If I get back into that flow today, then I hope to write 2-3 times that and get my stats back on track to write 1666 words per day. Note to self - must remember to update stats on the Nanowrimo site each evening as today it thinks it's Day 2, so my average is 395 words per day and it's predicting I will finish next March!