The End

The running will continue, as will the fandango between rich & poor, conservative and progressive. But this season of blogging has finally drawn to a close. Thank you for reading.

Haiku 5: forensic political analysis

Several good runs.

Cameron visits Scotland.

Patronising arse.

Haiku 4: Cameron waffles unconvincingly against Scottish independence

Dawn run. Buds on trees.

A disunited kingdom.  

Fur coat and no pants.

Haiku 3: US leads/UK follows

Fine run, much drier.

UK wealth gap gets bigger

When managed by toffs.

Haiku 2 - reflection on positive use of celebrity

Brisk run through bird song.

Sean Penn supports Malvinas.

No knighthoods for him !

Haiku post for time management related reasons of brevity

Good but murky run.
Cameron is still useless.
No progress there then.

Dump Trump

A good fast run through the rather dreich woods

Donald Trump is a rich American person who plays golf. His dad left him a lot of money, and he made more through property speculation and casino ownership. Seemingly because his mother came from the Western Isles of Scotland, he is developing a “golf resort” for other rich golf enthusiasts, on the east coast, near Aberdeen.

The Scottish government is a democratically elected body, with a policy of developing renewable energy through various means, including offshore wind farms, one of which is planned for a site just off the same stretch of east coast.

In response, Trump has predictably gone on the offensive, in both senses of the word, to protect his sensitive punters from the hideousness of renewable energy generation.

Every cloud has a silver lining though and, whilst the prospect of a loud-mouthed American behemoth stomping around trying to subvert the Scottish government is not attractive, perhaps schoolchildren will be able to learn something about the perils of being on the receiving end of neo-colonial arrogance.

Mutha of parliaments

A damp but refreshing run by the loch this morning before returning to the flesh pots of Glasgow.

George Monbiot recently cited an article in the journal Psychological Science, which argued convincingly that people with conservative views are likely to be of low intelligence. Yesterday's proceedings in the UK parliament appear to confirm this. Ed Milliband put forward a reasonable case that the deeply unpopular proposed changes to the NHS were being handled so incompetently that they should be scrapped. Prime Minister Cameron's response was, essentially, "Yah boo, nobody likes you, not even your brother, and I'm going to do it anyway !!!" 

True, Monbiot goes on to castigate the liberal left for letting conservatism win (ref), but therein lies a much bigger debate about the greed and selfishness that pervades fragmented societies.

Just another day

Ascribing human emotions to other animals is not a cornerstone of respectful inter-species co-existence, but the four red deer, who had strayed into a field where they don't belong, did look very embarrassed as we ran past this morning.

Back at base, a quick scan of the news reveals a collection of domestic headlines which don't really need further comment:

• Ministry of Defence cutting 54,000 jobs with no coherent strategy (Guardian)
• PM says Health Secretary has my full support, and denies National Health  Service bill disaster (Independent)
• England football team manager resigns (The Times)
• Duchess of Cambridge goes to exhibition all by herself (Daily Telegraph).

No further comment that is except for the enduring mystery of why the game of football is seen as so newsworthy. I'd like to think that it reflects a strand of child-like innocence in our society, but probably it has more to do with testosterone and transferred aggression.

Democracy ?

A spectacular sunrise over Ben Nevis this morning, and a possible sighting of two sea eagles as we ran beside the loch.

David Cameron has been very enthusiastic about upholding the freedom of Falkland Islanders to determine their own future, rather less so with the people of Scotland, and not at all with the myriad opponents of his health & social care bill, to whom he is condemning a future of further privatisation, profiteering, and corner-cutting, in welfare services. The only supporters of this bill seem to be Cameron, Health Secretary Lansley, and the private companies waiting to grab a bigger slice of the cake. Oh, and Nick Clegg.

QE2

A chilly but enjoyable pre-dawn run by the loch, relishing the tang of seaweed on the shore.

And so the Queen of Britain has been in post for 60 years. The conservative media have gone into a predictable hyperspace of obsequious drivelling about how her Royal Magnificence has been the kindest, wittiest, most Christian being, with the best dress sense, that has ever walked our planet. And so on. The left-leaning media are generally maintaining a polite silence.

Now it’s true that, during those 60 years, she has broadly stuck to her job description and avoided public outrage, unlike her husband & sons which, in these times of moral turpitude and short concentration spans, is something we should probably be grateful for. On the other hand, given her extensive and expensive support team,  the limited range of her actual work, and the large number of other people losing their jobs, arguably such a performance is the very least we could expect. 

So that's what it's all about

A dank and misty morning along the loch-side, with border collie Benn & I both comforted by the miracle that is a fluorescent yellow jacket.

A small paragraph modestly tucked away on the Independent website today (ref) suggests a compelling explanation for the global history of wars, violence, aggression, snobbery, elitism, competitive sport, and large motor cars. And the answer is....sex, or rather, the contagious genetic programming of males to compete aggressively against "outsiders" for sexual partners. Which is bad news in a male-dominated world, and leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the planet should be ruled by people who have no interest in impregnation, whilst those who want to breed should be restricted to safe & useful activities such as growing vegetables.

Not in our back yards

A good, chilly, and rather slippery run this morning.

One hundred and one conservative members of the London parliament are baying to reduce the £400m annual government subsidies for onshore wind farms, and to make it easier for local people to stop new farms being developed in their vicinity. Not a very edifying spectacle, and probably much more to do with protecting their Middle England constituents from the horror of seeing where their electricity comes from than with making a serious attempt to save money.

To put that £400m into context, the official projected cost for renewing the UK’s Trident nuclear missiles is £20bn. Unofficial estimates suggest maybe £90bn. In other words, between 50 & 225 years worth of subsidy, just in case Chancellor Osborne has lost his calculator.

Let them eat cake

A stunningly beautiful run, with dawn breaking behind Ben Nevis and the shoreline of the sea loch encrusted with ice.

Less beautifully, benefit fraud (poor people being dishonest) allegedly costs the UK around £1bn per year. Tax evasion (rich people being dishonest) costs £15bn. Tax avoidance (rich people being amoral) costs £70bn. And no prizes for guessing which of these our government has selected as an easy target. Suffice to say it still pays to have friends in high places, which must be what Cameron means when he waffles about caring capitalism.

Cameron stamps his foot again

Another very cold & speedy dawn run along the loch-side road which, interestingly, was originally built to help the English subjugate the Scots.

Talking of imperialism, the Falkland Islands, AKA Islas Malvinas, were the subject of colonial squabbling amongst Spain, Portugal & Britain from the 16^th century until 1833 when Britain pushed to the front of the queue and established a spurious ownership of these small islands 4000 miles away. Now the squabbling is between Britain and Argentina, and David Cameron is raising the stakes by sending his best boat and Prince William, to show those Argentinians that they can’t just make arbitrary neo-colonial claims of ownership. According to the BBC, Prince William has been replaced during his absence by a cocker spaniel, but we don’t yet know what will replace Cameron’s best boat at bath-time.

Honours without honour

A bitterly cold but beautiful run along the loch side this morning.

I’m glad to report that knighthoods are rarely offered to people who are rude about the Queen or the government, but past recipients have included Benito Mussolini, Nikolae Ceaucescu, and Robert Mugabe, all of whom eventually had theirs confiscated for bad behaviour.

Fred Goodwin, CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2008 when it had to be bailed out with £45bn of public money, has also finally had his knighthood taken away by the Queen. This seems quite reasonable, given his track record, except that there is more than a whiff of cheap & easy political point scoring by David Cameron, rather than evidence of a serious attempt to rescind the benefits awarded to those who presided over Britain’s contribution to the global banking crisis.