If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.

Let's see if we can find it!

1929-12-04

The earliest I can find is in the archives of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency who published this snippet:

Is this likely to be true? What other evidence is there that Einstein was there and made those remarks?

1929-11-12

Flicking back a few weeks in the JTA archives is this evidence - "Sorbonne bestows degree on Einstein."

1929-11-09

There are also contemporary photos of the ceremony which are included in various press clippings.

Is there anything previous to 1929?

1922??

Alice Calaprice's Quotable Einstein has the quote but attributes it differently:

From an address to the French Philosophical Society at the Sorbonne, April 6, 1922. See also French press clipping, April 7, 1922, Einstein Archive 36-378; and Berliner Tageblatt, April 8, 1922, Einstein Archive 79-535

I wasn't able to find the French press clipping - but the German paper is available.

My German is rusty and that font is hard but I don't think it says anything similar to the above quote. I think the 1922 date is merely the confusion between two different visits to the Sorbonne - which is the same conclusion as Wikiquote editors came to

Contemporary reports

OK, so what other sources are there for the quote? The JTA says:

The local papers feature a summary of the brief address made by Prof. Albert Einstein […]

So I suppose they were just re-reporting what others had said. Let's take a look in some of those newspapers via Bibliothèque nationale de France who have an excellent archive of newspapers.

There's a rather detailed report from L'Œuvre - but that makes no mention of the anecdote.

Similarly, there are other interviews and contemporary commentary - but this remark goes unnoticed by all of them.

I read through several dozen French papers from November 1929 until early December. I couldn't find anything resembling the remark in any of them.

OK, what about the German press?

Again it is possible to search German newspapers for those specific dates - and there are plenty of contemporary reports.

Nothing about him being a Weltbürger that I could see.

Similarly, British newspapers don't make reference to the joke despite their endless coverage of him.

Google's shitty AI hallucinates the quote as appearing in The Saturday Evening Post.

While that issue does have an extensive interview with Einstein, there's nothing even vaguely similar to the sentiment about being a citizen of the world. Never trust an AI!

Is it likely?

Einstein is endlessly quotable - and had a good ear for a pithy turn of phrase. However, he was accompanied on this trip by the German Ambassador. Would it have been prudent for him to make such a politically charged joke in front of that audience?

Minced Oaths

Perhaps this is a mangled quotation? Einstein said something similar several years before the purported 1929 quote.

In Herman Bernstein's 1924 book "Celebrities of Our Time Interviews", there's the following quote:

That's much less pithy, but carries largely the same sentiment.

The original can be seen in the British Newspaper Archive of 1919

Dr. Einstein's Theory.

We publish to-day a translation of an article written for our readers by ALBERT EINSTEIN

[…] He adds that the different descriptions of him in England and Germany form an amusing example of relativity to the sentiments of the two countries. He is famous just now, and was described in our columns as a Swiss Jew, whereas in Germany he is called a German man of science. He suggests that were he suddenly to become a bête noire, the descriptions would be reversed, and he would be stigmatized here as a German man of science and in Germany as a Swiss Jew. We concede him his little jest.

However, do note that this is described as a translation. In his letter to Paul Ehrenfest on the 4th of December 1919, he says:

By the way, I myself participated in the cackling by writing a short article in the Times, in which I thanked our English colleagues, said a few things to characterize the theory, and at the end produced the following witticism: A simple application of the theory of relativity: today German newspapers are calling me a German man of science, the English, a Swiss Jew. If I come to be represented as a bete noire to the readerships, I should be a Swiss Jew for German newspapers and a German man of science for the English.'

See The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 9 The Berlin Years. I cannot find the original letter, but I assume Princeton's transcribers and translators are accurate.

Either way, that's two reputable sources which have Einstein expressing something similar. Perhaps the joke was repeated and refined by him as the years wore on? Perhaps an eager journalist took a half-remembered quote and gave it new life? Perhaps.

Where next?

Well, dear reader, that's where you come in! I've exhausted all my research prowess. If you can find a transcript of his remarks, or a report older than the JTA's of the 4th of December 1929 where Einstein talks about being a "citizen of the world", please drop a comment in the box!

This book is excellent at describing the symptoms of madness which have beset the world. It expertly diagnoses the causes which have led so many people into a mirror-realm of fantasy. Sadly it falls short of prescribing a cure. I doubt anyone who has fallen into the conspiracy mindset will read this book - but I hope if you read it you will become inoculated against the brain-worms.

Let's start at the beginning.

If the Naomi be Klein
you’re doing just fine
If the Naomi be Wolf
Oh, buddy. Ooooof.

How did Naomi's titular doppelganger move from feminism to fanaticism? How do well-meaning people square the circle of aligning themselves to people who spread hate?

At the same time, how do people like Naomi Klein justify spending hours obsessively listening to hate preachers? Can you stare into the abyss without it staring back into you? I'm not entirely sure that it is possible to binge on madness and stay objective. It reminds me of this classic:

“don’t use q-tips to clean your ears, you’ll just push the wax in further!!” well, yeah, sure, except for my special technique. if I use my special technique then it’s fine.

There's a deep well of sadness running through the book. So many people with an unending stream of pain clutching on to anything which might give them purchase in a confusing an uncertain world. Is it any wonder some of them latch on to weird racists with their simple solutions to complex problems?

The depressing thing is that sometimes the conspiracy-theorists are right. They can see that there are global conspiracies - but attribute them to [ethnic minorities|Marxists|the gays] rather than rapacious capitalists. Similarly, there are bitter lessons for the intellectual left who have comprehensively failed to advance progressive arguments and values. Many of us are more concerned with the purity of theory rather than implementation. You can't shame the public into understanding.

There's a slightly weak section on algorithmic amplification of abuse. Depressingly, Klein points out the perils of oligarch-owned social media yet she is still on Twitter and hasn't joined more equitable platforms.

The book also straddles an uneasy line between reportage and public therapy. Large parts feel like self-flagellation mixed with Freudian self-analysis. It demonstrates exactly how the grift works, why it is so effective, and what the surge of irrationality is doing to the world.

Perhaps I can fix it if I just read one more book. Just one more paragraph will make it all make sense. I'll grab on to the classics in the intellectual library to stop me sliding down the path to oblivion. Just one more book.

The modern web isn't like that.

You can make your HTML as malformed as you like and the web-browser will do its best to display the page for you. I love the todepond website, but the source-code makes me break out in a cold sweat. Yet it renders just fine.

Sure, occasionally there are weird artefacts. But the web works because browsers are tolerant.

You can be crap at coding and the web still works. Yes, it takes an awful lot of effort from browser manufacturers to make "do what I mean, not what I say" a reality. But the world is better for it.

That's the crucial mistake that XHTML made. It was an attempt to bring pure syntactic rigour to the web. It had an intolerant ideology. Every document had to precisely conform to the specification. If it didn't, the page was irrevocably broken. I don't mean broken like a weird layout glitch, I mean broken like this:

The user experience of XHTML was rubbish. The disrespect shown to anyone for deviating from the One True Path made it an unwelcoming and unfriendly place. Understandably, XHTML is now a mere footnote on the web. Sure, people are free to use it if they want, but its unforgiving nature makes it nobody's first choice.

The beauty of the web as a platform is that it isn't a monoculture.

That's why it baffles me that some prominent technologists embrace hateful ideologies. I'm not going to give them any SEO-juice by linking to them, but I cannot fathom how someone can look at the beautiful diversity of the web and then declare that only pure-blooded people should live in a particular city.

How do you acknowledge that the father of the computer was a homosexual, brutally bullied by the state into suicide, and then fund groups that want to deny gay people fundamental human rights?

The ARM processor which powers the modern world was co-designed by a trans woman. When you throw slurs and denigrate people's pronouns, your ignorance and hatred does a disservice to history and drives away the next generation of talent.

History shows us that all progress comes from the meeting of diverse people, with different ideas, and different backgrounds. The notion that only a pure ethnostate can prosper is simply historically illiterate.

This isn't an academic argument over big-endian or little-endian. It isn't an ideological battle about the superiority of your favourite text editor. There's no good-natured ribbing about which desktop environment has the better design philosophy.

Denying rights to others is poison. Wishing violence on people because of their heritage is harmful to all of us.

Do we want all computing to go through the snow-white purity of Apple Computer? Have them as the one and only arbiters of what is and isn't allowed? No. That's obviously terrible for our ecosystem.

Do we want to segregate computer users so that an Android user can never connect their phone to a Windows machine, or make it impossible for Linux laptops to talk to Kodak cameras? That sort of isolation should be an anathema to us.

Why then align with people who espouse isolationism? Why gleefully cheer the violent racists who terrorise our communities? Why demean people who merely wish to exist?

The web runs on tolerance. Anyone who preaches the ideology of hate has no business here.

"We want to provide value for money," I said, "so we propose that running five small pilots of [thing I still can't talk about]. We know there are multiple technologies which could work. But we don't know which one will work best."

"How will running something five times save the taxpayer money?" They asked, quite reasonably.

I replied, somewhat smugly, "Big technology projects often fail because they get very far along before a critical flaw is discovered. If we run some pilot programmes, we hope to discover those problems before we go too far down the wrong path."

"But running five pilots will cost more money?" They replied, with a smugness born of a thousand encounters like this.

I had the uneasy feeling I knew where this was going. "Yes, in the short term, it will cost more."

"Why don't we just run the pilot with the technology which will work best?" They asked earnestly.

I had one of those "Pray Mr Babbage" moments and took a moment to compose myself.

I gently explained that we wouldn't know in advance the results of the experiment and, without going too far into The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, falsifiable hypotheses were probably the best way to discover the truth.

Apparently their PPE degree was worthwhile because they accepted my arguments - albeit only with funding for 3 pilots.

From their point of view, it was perfectly rational to reject experimentation. Each failed experiment is a waste of taxpayers' hard-earned money. How do you look your constituents in the eye and say "80% of our budget was spent on failure"? It is political suicide.

Which leads me on to this brilliant blog post by Mark Sewards MP. In it, the MP describes the process of setting up an "AI" counterpart to answer his constituents' questions.

So far, so zeitgeisty. But rather than just slap a label on an LLM and call it a day, the MP for Leeds South West and Morley actually spent time thinking about what he and his team wanted out of this experiment. They didn't just launch and bugger off; they tested and refined.

The experiment was a success. Not because it reduced his case-load and allowed a tech company to profit from misery. But because it taught him (and others) the limitations of technology. It shows exactly what doesn't work. If a person can't understand where the boundaries are, they'll never learn how to successfully master anything.

As Mark said:

What didn’t it do? It didn’t save any time. I read every single transcript to ensure we didn’t miss any questions from constituents. I can see this technology working alongside a casework team, but it needs a lot of refinement. I took this leap to understand what AI might be capable of and what it isn’t yet. I understand why some dismissed the model out of hand, but I think the potential is real, even if that’s all it is for now – potential.

Experimentation is hard because it leaves us vulnerable. It shows that we don't know everything and that humbles us. We need to loudly celebrate politicians who try something new and are honest about where it goes wrong.

There is so much more to be learned from failure than success.

Every one of us has tried to have an argument with an employee of a big company, and it always goes like this:

the human being you are speaking to is only allowed to follow a set of processes and rules that pass on decisions made at a higher level of the corporate hierarchy. It’s often a frustrating experience; you want to get angry, but you can’t really blame the person you’re talking to.

So should we give people more discretion in which processes they follow?

In some cases, yes! The article contains some compelling examples of when "breaking the rules" is the preferable outcome.

But there are some unacknowledged downsides to letting people decide which rules are applicable - and that's people's personal prejudices.

The article say some of the discontent with the modern world can be blamed on over-adherence to rules. For example:

The skepticism toward judges? It fits. They often seem more devoted to procedure than to justice.

Imagine a world without sentencing guidelines. Perhaps the judge is from a different tribe to the accused and punishes them much more harshly than a clan-member. Would that seem fair?

The customer service agent just doesn't like people of your gender, and refuses to process your refund.

You give the bank manager a firm handshake and he approves your loan - even though you don't technically qualify you look like a decent sort of chap.

And on it goes.

Look, there's no doubt plenty of bias encoded within processes. All processes should be regularly reviewed and updated. Breaking a process in extremis can be a good idea. When confronted with an inflexible policy, you may feel like a mere cog in a machine - but at least the machine is prevented from discriminating against your type of cogs.

A well-defined process dehumanises both sides.

That sounds like a pretty good book!

Instead, we get "what I learned on my holiday to the USA by Jon Sopel aged 57 and ¾".

We learn, for example, that America likes guns. There's a bit of an analysis of why and how lobbying shapes it, but it is fairly surface-level stuff. There's a little bit of a comparison with the UK's attitudes, but not much. Similarly, they're much more religious, racist, and have a convoluted relationship with the truth. Their constitution, elections, and media landscape are also different. It feels like pop-facts rather than anything deeper.

There are some brilliant insider anecdotes which, thankfully, don't stray into fawning name-dropping. For example, this little nugget about the Hillary Clinton victory rally that never was:

Throughout the evening two men were posted to each corner of our broadcast ‘riser’ and they sat at machines with large conical funnels pointing upwards. These were the machines that would launch into the air millions of shards of shiny paper to recreate the effect of a glass ceiling shattering.

He also makes some grimly accurate prophesies:

And are you really going to start a trade war with China – and everyone else for that matter, with all the consequences that might bring for the global economy?

Towards the end, when discussing how Trump came to dominate, he says:

Books much weightier than this will be written about the abject failure of the conventional media to comprehend fully the parameters of this new world

I think I was expecting this to be a bit weightier and to set out some way forward.

This morning, I took a reading from our generation meter:

19MWh of electricity stolen from the sun and pumped into our home.

That's an average of 3,800 kWh every year. But what does that actually mean?

The UK's Department for Energy Security and Net Zero publishes quarterly reports on energy prices. Its most recent report suggests that a typical domestic consumption is "3,600 kWh a year for electricity".

Ofgem, the energy regulator, has a more detailed consumption breakdown which broadly agrees with DESNZ.

On that basis, our solar panels are doing well! A typical home would generate slightly more than they use.

Net Zero

What is "Net Zero"?

Put simply, net zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) that's produced and the amount that's removed from the atmosphere. It can be achieved through a combination of emission reduction and emission removal. National Grid

I don't have the ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere⁰ so I have to focus on reducing my emissions¹.

Numbers

All of our panels' generation stats are published online.

Let's take a look at 2024 - the last complete year:

Generation was 3,700 kWh - a little below average. Obviously a bit cloudy!

We try to use as much as we can when it is generated, and we store some electricity in our battery. But we also sell our surplus to the grid so our neighbours can benefit from greener energy.

Here's how much we exported last year, month by month:

Bit of a dip during the disappointing summer, but a total export of 1,500 kWh.

We used a total of (3,700 - 1,500) = 2,200 kWh of solar electricity.

Of course, the sun doesn't provide a lot of energy during winter, and our battery can't always cope with our demand. So we needed to buy electricity from the grid.

We imported 2,300 kWh over 2024.

Quick maths! Our total electricity consumption was 4,500 kWh during the year.

Very roughly, we imported 2,300 and exported 1,500. That means our "net" import was only 800kWh.

There's a slight wrinkle with the calculations though. Our battery is aware that we're on a a dynamic tariff; the price of electricity varies every 30 minutes. If there is surplus electricity (usually overnight) the prices drop and the battery fills up for later use.

In 2024, our battery imported about 990 kWh of cheap electricity (it also exported a negligible amount).

If our battery hadn't been slurping up cheap energy, we would be slightly in surplus; exporting 190 kWh more than we consumed.

So, I'm happy to report that our panels take us most of the way to a personal net zero for domestic electricity consumption.

A Conclusion (of sorts)

The fight against climate change can't be won by individuals. It is a systemic problem which requires wholesale change in politics, industry, and regulation.

But, as a society, we can all do our bit. Get solar panels, install a heat pump, buy more efficient appliances, walk or take public transport, switch to a more sustainable diet, learn about your impact on our world.

More importantly - tell other people what you're doing!

Speak to your friends and neighbours. Shout about being more environmentally conscious on social media. Talk to your local and national politicians - explain to them why climate change is a personal priority. Write in favour of solar and wind farms being installed near you. Don't be silent. Don't be complicit in the desecration of our planet.

Bonus referral link

The import and export data is available via Octopus Energy's excellent API. They also have smart tariffs suitable for people with solar and / or batteries. Join Octopus Energy today and we both get £50.

If ever there was a moment to yell "WHAT IS YOUR THEORY OF CHANGE???" that moment is now and we should all be yelling it at Just Stop Oil.It seems to me their theory of change is to make enough people pissed of with them that... er, um... Step 2: ???Step 3: Profit!! Wait, that's not right.

— Suw (@suw.bsky.social) 2024-06-20T08:44:13.991Z

Saul Alinsky's book is part instruction manual, part memoir, and part howl of despair. Why is The Left™ so shit at organising and utterly incapable of effecting lasting change?

In part, I think, is that we (over) rely on volunteers. Who wants to stand outside on a rainy day handing out leaflets to the public? Only a few die-hards committed to the cause. But a billionaire can simply pay people to promote their ideology.

The other issue is that we have comprehensively failed to educate the next generation. All of our experience is either trapped within incomprehensible books, or jealously guarded by true-keepers-of-the-flame. Or we've been locked up, shunned, or killed.

My fellow radicals who were supposed to pass on the torch of experience and insights to a new generation just were not there.

The book is originally from the early 1970s, but it remains depressingly relevant.

The establishment in many ways is as suicidal as some of the far left, except that they are infinitely more destructive than the far left can ever be.

It is refreshingly practical. It all hinges on one thing - what's your theory of change? How do you think your actions will lead to change? If you don't have a realistic model of human behaviour, you are dead in the water.

These rules make the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one who uses the tired old words and slogans, calls the police “pig” or “white fascist racist” or “motherfucker” and has so stereotyped himself that others react by saying, “Oh, he’s one of those,” and then promptly turn off. […] If the real radical finds that having long hair sets up psychological barriers to communication and organization, he cuts his hair. If I were organizing in an orthodox Jewish community I would not walk in there eating a ham sandwich, unless I wanted to be rejected so I could have an excuse to cop out.

I remember reading the novel "Goggle-Eyes" in the 1990s which effectively skewered the alienating an ineffective way most protestors behave.

It is, as you'd expect from someone deeply involved in American politics, mostly focussed on US issues. But it is forthright and bombastic enough to be universally relevant - even today. When discussing how you get an idea into people's heads:

As Whitman put it: “The goal once named cannot be countermanded.”

Brexit Means Brexit. Make America Great Again. Where's the equivalent pithy goal for the left? "Defund The Police"? A phrase which seems almost calculated to be misunderstood.

If any of you have been to a Trade Union meeting, you'll recognise the following scenario:

The agendas of those labor union mass meetings were 10 per cent on the specific problems of that union and 90 per cent speakers on the conditions and needs of the southern Okies, the Spanish Civil War and and the International Brigade, raising funds for blacks who were on trial in some southern state, demanding higher relief for the unemployed, denouncing police brutality, raising funds for anti-Nazi organizations, demanding an end to American sales of scrap iron to the Japanese military complex, and on and on.

Personally, I'm not a fan of that. Too many people get distracted by the "glamorous" work of supporting a hundred myriad causes. So many different causes are confusing and alienating to many. The left need focus.

The sadly inevitable rise of populism also gets a look-in:

Power is not to be crossed; one must respect and obey. Power means strength, whereas love is a human frailty the people mistrust. It is a sad fact of life that power and fear are the fountainheads of faith.

The cult of personality is dangerous. It is anti-intellectual. And, I suspect, that is why it succeeds.

It has quite a lot of hubris, but is endlessly entertaining:

I feel confident that I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday.

The book gets to the heart of the matter. We need organisers who not only understand the world, but know how to make effective change.

Once one understands this internal battle for power within the status quo, one can begin to appraise effective tactics to exploit it. It is sad to see the stupidity of inexperienced organizers who make gross errors by failing to have even an elementary appreciation of this pattern.

Some elections ago, the radical left in the UK were saying that they may have lost the election, but at least they won the argument - to which anyone with a shred of sense says "so fucking what?" The only way to effect change is to have power. That's it. That's the whole game. Being intellectually correct is satisfying. Being morally pure and righteous feels amazing. Neither changes the world.

The rebuttal is usually "we would have won if the media weren't so crooked" - to which anyone with a shred of sense says "so fucking what?" That's the whole game. You can't assume a perfect rational world full of spherical cows.

The basic requirement for the understanding of the politics of change is to recognize the world as it is. We must work with it on its terms if we are to change it to the kind of world we would like it to be.

It is, although I don't quite realise it, the depths of the pandemic. Everyone is relegated to working from home. Thousands of Civil Servants trying to keep things running from their kitchen tables, on dodgy WiFi, with crying children in the background.

Things are happening quickly. Much more quickly than ever before. Perhaps that's a good thing, but it doesn't leave much time for preparation. I know it is terribly clichéd of me to think I'm in an episode of The West Wing, but this scene keeps running through my head:

Today I have meeting with one the Internet's "Main Characters". You know, that politician. The one you (and certainly I) have send snarky tweets about - the duplicitous lickspittle. Every time I see them on TV I physically cringe. How can someone like that be part and parcel of the democratic process? Ugh!

The Zoom call flickers to life. A couple of dozen people start appearing like the world's dullest advent calendar. The Minister is, of course, late. The twat. We make small talk and eventually their grinning mug graces us with their presence.

I've seen this wazzock lose their rag on Question Time - there's no way they can manage a meeting with this many people.

But… I'm wrong. I'm very wrong. They are collegiate and welcoming. They acknowledge the strain we're all under and give us a reassuring - and human - thanks for our hard work. They have complete command of the room. They know who to call on to ask a question. Their follow ups are friendly and incisive - not flippant and ignorant.

They're as good as any CEO I've worked with.

And then they turn to me.

My job is simple. They have requested something from our department. It is my job to say "no".

I'm nervous. Lockdown has worn me down and there's every chance I'll make what's euphemistically called "a career limiting remark".

"Terence! Thanks so much for joining us. I know you're all frightfully busy. Have you had the chance to consider...?"

I give them the bad news. I distil several hours of technical discussions and (small p) political wrangling into a couple of sentences. I brace for impact. Surely this smug git isn't going make me walk the plank?

"I see. What about...?" they then launch into a, frankly, excellent dismantling of my position. I cynically wonder who has been briefing them. But as our conversation progresses (!) it's clear they've actually read the paper we presented them. They know the science, the law, and the technology.

I wasn't prepared for the fact that they were… competent!

However after a few minutes (that feel like an eternity) they concede. I am right. They are wrong. There are no fireworks. No histrionics. No sloganeering, Gish-galloping, or threats. They are charming, intelligent, and happy to be contradicted.

The eye of Sauron moves on. I breathe. If we had capitulated, I'm sure the decision would have been in the papers. It might even have been in (what we're all grimly calling) The Inevitable Public Inquiry. As it is, it will be a dusty footnote about what might have been.

Later that night, I scroll through Twitter. The Minister's account pops up - and they're spewing the sort of appalling rhetoric which would make a Roman Senator blush.

I speak to my mentor about the encounter. "Politicians aren't the characters they play on TV," they say.

Sure, some of them are idiots. But it is hard to be elected without having some level of charm and ability to make personal connections.

Yeah, a few are promoted above their ability, but many are quietly competent at running a department of thousands of people.

And, of course, they all play up to the cameras. Every sound-bite is a vote. Every spittle of fury a chance to go viral and raise their profile. Every stunt a chance to embed themselves into the nation's psyche.

We all code-switch. The way you talk to you partner isn't the same way you speak to your friends. The way you talk to your co-workers isn't the same way you speak to your plumber.

And the way politicians speak to their electorate isn't always the same way they speak to their public servants.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure that out.

Whoever you think this is about, you're wrong. I had the same experience several times throughout Covid and have amalgamated them into this parable of a blog post.

Sometimes these questions are sensible and journalistic. Sometimes they're vexatious. Sometimes they're a little silly.

The silly ones can be fun to answer. It's a good chance for a politician to show their human side. It's pretty hard to get wrong. I mean, unless the question is "What's the Minister's favourite pop song?" and they answer "I'm the Leader of the Gang by Garry Glitter".

Someone has send an FoI request asking:

Please, could you tell me the chancellor's preferred brand and type of biscuit?

Ah! That's a brilliant question. An absolute home-run for any politician. Unless, to mix your metaphors, you score an own goal.

The official response says:

We can confirm that the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, has a preference for Jaffa Cakes

This is despicable!

The UK's tax revenue office, HMRC, fought McVities (manufacturer of Jaffa Cakes) at a VAT tribunal in 1991. The crux of the case was this: chocolate covered biscuits attract VAT, chocolate covered cakes do not. Are Jaffa Cakes biscuits?

The answer?

The leading case on the borderline is that concerning Jaffa cakes: United Biscuits (LON/91/0160). Customs and Excise had accepted since the start of VAT that Jaffa cakes were zero-rated as cakes, but always had misgivings about whether this was correct. Following a review, the department reversed its view of the liability. Jaffa cakes were then ruled to be biscuits partly covered in chocolate and standard-rated: United Biscuits (as McVities, one of the largest manufacturers of Jaffa cakes) appealed against this decision.

Taking all these factors into account, Jaffa cakes had characteristics of both cakes and biscuits, but the tribunal thought they had enough characteristics of cakes to be accepted as such, and they were therefore zero-rated.

VFOOD6260 - Excepted items: Confectionery: The bounds of confectionery, sweets, chocolates, chocolate biscuits, cakes and biscuits: The borderline between cakes and biscuits

Jaffa Cakes are not biscuits. The law says so!

Now, Hunt isn't the first politician to make this mistake - First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon also made the same dubious claim. But, unlike Hunt, she presumably wasn't steeped in the day-to-day minutiae of tax affairs.

There's a serious point to my ramblings. It's always easy to give an off-the-cuff answer to a trivial question. But there'll always be some know-it-all who treats a lack of precision as evidence of a deep moral or intellectual failing. This is the reason why public figures are (usually) so guarded about their answers and have everything triple checked by professionals. It's easy for a slip of the tongue or a colloquialism to be aggressively misinterpreted.

Just as I am doing here.

But there are no regulations on political advertising.

There are dozens of smaller parties contesting the UK's General Election. Some are single issue parties, some are independents, some parties contest multiple seats, some contest only one.

Some parties are funded by individuals - some by companies.

Here's a thought experiment. What would stop the Red Apple Cigarette Company forming the "Legalise Tobacco Party"?

Their (hypothetical) platform is to allow smoking in public, lower the age of tobacco consumption to 14, remove taxes on cigarettes, and the resumption of tobacco advertising.

Single issue parties, which have the sole aim of decriminalising various narcotics, are a long-standing feature of British politics. The LTP just focusses on tobacco.

The UK's Electoral Commission has some rules for the registration of political parties. They're mostly around making sure names and logos aren't too similar to existing parties. There's also various rules around funding and other bureaucratic stuff.

If our theoretical Legalise Tobacco Party wished to contest every seat in the UK, they could spend about £34 million on advertising. They could run adverts in the press, on billboards, social media, and even - possibly - party political broadcasts on TV. All with a simple message:

Smoking is cool!

Vote for us to reduce the price of delicious Red Apple Cigarettes. Vote for the smoother tobacco - preferred by doctors - and suitable for children! We're the only cigarette with pep! And your vote guarantees that you'll look extra sexy while puffing on our brand. Vote for freedom! Vote for smoking!

Political adverts aren't regulated. The political party can make whatever claims they like, right?

As far as I can see - and I am neither a political scientist nor legal scholar - there's very little to stop a sufficiently determined company (or group of companies) from forming a political party. And there's not much that can be done about a political party making dodgy claims.

They might not get many votes, and it might cause enormous backlash to their brand, and I dare say the law would tighten after a stunt like this. But what would stop a group of mad billionaires from funding a political party in order to circumvent advertising restrictions?

One of the weird things about working in Westminster is how terrifyingly normal it becomes to work in grand old buildings, stuffed with grand old artworks, and staffed with grand old politicians. You turn a corner and there's a bit of Henry VIII's tennis court. There's a Tracy Emin hanging on the wall. That's the table where that peace treaty was signed. For goodness sake - don't sit on that chair!

Every time you open a cupboard door, you're confronted with a little bit of history.

While working in one building (I'm far too modest to say which) I was sent to grab a few extra chairs from a store-room. Oh, it is all glamour, let me tell you!

In amongst all the trestle-tables, old coffee urns, and discarded filing cabinets, was this:

Zoinks! The infamous Jenga Podium for erstwhile PM Truss.

Naturally, the only thing to do when you meet a celebrity is snap a selfie with them 😆

I've scrubbed the EXIF metadata so as not to reveal its top secret location.

This post is a little silly, but contains a serious message. Everything is kept. Short of deliberate destruction, every decision - good or bad - is recorded somewhere. Sure, the Post-It Notes might fall off, and the Zoom call wasn't recorded, but the consequences of those decisions linger on.

It's all there. Just waiting for an eager - or lost - Civil Servant to literally open the door.

The day the EU referendum was announced, the then Prime Minister came to visit our office. We were given a chance to talk to him in front of TV cameras.

This was my chance. I could ask a question - the perfect question - which would win the referendum and bring down the government. I spent the morning practising what I would say. I psyched myself up, and positioned myself in the PM's eyeline.

Of course, I wasn't called. And, of course, my question wasn't that great. The PM would have smoothly brushed me off. Or, maybe, I'd have had five minutes of fame on the local news. Or, more likely, I'd be fired.

Tomorrow, I have a call with the current Prime Minister. I expect it will be listen-in only with no chance of questions. But what if it isn't? I have fantasies of asking the question. The one which makes a madman reconsider his wicked life and repent. My mind is stewing. Could I craft such a question and get through to him? The one which trained journalists have so far failed to land.

No. Obviously not. At best, he would make a joke and move on. At worst, I'd irreparably damage my career - and sabotage the project I've worked so hard for.

The joy of capitalism means that I need to be employed to survive.

But.

Shouldn't I at least try? What's the point of being in the room if you can't speak truth to power? What's the point of promising to give professional, impartial advice, if that advice is curtailed by fear?

I'm not a super-senior Civil Servant. I'm a tiny pawn. He doesn't know me and my words carry no weight. My sacrifice means nothing.

Morally, I know that speaking out is the right thing to do. But can I find the words which protect myself and my team at the same time as speaking truth to power? I'll spend the night tossing and turning, trying to find the right words. Trying to find any words at all.

The next afternoon They didn't allow any questions.

It's the evening of the 2019 General Election. I am plagued by two thoughts.

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows.

You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. You read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read.

You turn the page, and forget what you know.

And

The pre-election period (purdah) is the term used to describe the period between the time an election is announced and the date the election is held. Civil servants are given official guidance by the Cabinet Office on the rules they must follow in relation to Government business during this time.

People tweet wrong things all the time. But, during this election, I've seen people I admire and respect tweeting out things I know to be false.

I don't mean slightly wrong about an esoteric policy. I mean balls-to-the-wall, head-up-the-arse, foot-in-mouth, inexcusably wrong.

I get that part of politics is enraging people to gather them to your cause. But these were people who I eagerly followed so that I could understand what was going on in an increasingly complicated world.

In normal circumstances, I'd've argued with them online. Sure, it's neither healthy nor a good way to change people's minds - but it would be something.

Purdah - a somewhat politically-incorrect term - prevents Civil Servants from commenting on things during the election. It's a sensible policy - but a bit annoying when People Are Wrong On The Internet. In fairness, I probably shouldn't get involved in arguments - that's best left to the press team.

But I am conflicted. I have first-hand, expert knowledge about a subject. I can objectively prove my arguments. Why shouldn't I be able to correct people's mistakes?

Even worse - and the thing that mildly terrifies me - if my idols are wrong about that thing, what else are they wrong about?

As such, constituencies are generally more equal in terms of electorate. But, of course, geography trumps geometry. So the Isle of Wight now has two constituencies of 56k and 54k, whereas the average constituency has 73k.

I wanted to know if these new boundaries meant that a political party could win the majority of votes, but still not get a majority of seats³. So I downloaded the data.

There are 650 seats in The UK. Obviously, if 649 of them had turnouts of 3 people - 2 voting for Party X and 1 for Party Y - and the last seat had 74k people vote for Y, then X wins with a minority of the national vote. But let's go for something more realistic.

The total electorate is 47,558,348⁴. Therefore, a party would need 23,779,175 votes to win a national majority.

If Party X won 100% of the vote in the most populous 316 constituencies, they'd have 23,844,185 votes. If Party Y won 100% of the vote in the remaining 334 constituencies, they'd have 23,714,163 votes.

So, yes, it is technically⁵ possible for a political party to win the majority of votes but still not win the majority of seats. In fact, a party could win 24,322,616 votes (51.1%) and still be one seat short of a plurality.

But what about…?

Is this probable? No. Even in the wildest fantasies of party faithful, no one is winning 100% of the vote in any constituency. England, Scotland, Wales, and NI each have their own political parties and vastly different electorate.

But is it possible? Yes. If Party X won the 326 least-populous seats with 100% of the vote, they would have a majority in Parliament yet only have 48.6% of the popular vote.

I'm going to take a few (somewhat controversial) subjects and explain what I mean.

Fundamentally, I believe that all energy companies should be nationalised and there should be a single energy supplier. I don't want to pay a dozen CEOs, a dozen finance teams, and for a dozen advertising campaigns. Privatisation has been a complete waste.

And yet...

When my previous energy company was being shit, I fired them. I moved to a competitor who had a UK-based call centre and would actually reply to emails. Later, I moved to an energy supplier who gave me API access to my account. I genuinely do not believe that British Gas would have introduced anything so innovative if left without competition.

I am fundamentally against privatisation on an ideological level. But I can't ignore that it is useful to be able move to a provider which better fits my needs. I like that I can choose to pay more for something which matters to me. And the same is true of broadband, parcel delivery, supermarkets, travel agents and lots of other services.

This isn't universal. Water privatisation hasn't worked. Trains aren't well suited to competitive pressures. I don't think the NHS should be further privatised. But, in some cases, privatisation has worked and I would be a fool not to adjust my political biases to take account of reality.

Let's take another example. Pretend, just for a moment, that you are anti-abortion. You believe that the ideal number of abortions in a country should be zero. Forget your ideological reasons - which countries have the lowest abortion rates? Well, it turns out to be the ones with high levels of sex education, easy access to contraceptives, excellent pre-natal care, and strong parental leave policies. And they all have legal access to abortion services.

If you truly want to reduce the number of abortions, there are a wide range of policies which actually work and don't involve demonising women and doctors.

On another topic. I fervently believe in the Year Of The Linux Desktop and I know in my heart-of-hearts that the UK Government and NHS would save billions if only they switched away from Google/Microsoft/Apple and embraced LibreOffice! But, realistically, the cost of retraining staff far exceeds any savings on licencing. I look at other governments which have attempted a wholesale switch to a new technology and I can't really see any long-term benefits.

You think that benefits scroungers should be pursued relentlessly because they're draining the budget and causing a moral hazard. But, realistically, far more is lost to corporate tax fraud - every pound invested in tax investigations yields incredible returns. We can probably both agree that the ideal number of fraudulent benefits cases is zero - but the evidence shows we'd lose less if we tackle bigger issues.

I'm all for Constitutional Reform. A written constitution would be much better than the ramshackle collection of "traditions" which make up the UK's elusive operating manual. Although I can't help noticing that the US constitution didn't do anything to prevent Trump's excesses, nor did it oust him, nor is it preventing him from his on-going coup. Whereas the UK dumped two failing and dangerous Prime Minsters without much fuss.

You staunchly argue against the introduction of a minimum wage. You think it will depress the labour market, reduce salaries, and destroy collective bargaining. But you are wrong. We can have a spirited discussion about whether the rate should increase, or whether it should be the same for younger workers, but the evidence shows the introduction of the minimum wage hasn't led to disaster.

Imagine that you fervently believe that the UK should "stop the boats". Have any of the current government policies worked to reduce those numbers? Is there any evidence that countries with "off-shore processing" receive fewer undesirables? Not that I've seen. It looks like faster and fairer processing is both cheaper to the public purse and achieves policy goals better.

And so it goes.

I'm sure you can come up with a hundred more examples at various political extremities. Some things work and some things don't. Getting bogged down in dogma doesn't help anyone. Yes, I know that the founding document of your political philosophy says X - but at some point we have to put theory away and go with something practical.

This isn't me going all "Centrist Dad". I'm not even sure I'd describe myself as a technocrat.

I just want evidence-based policy.

Part of the reasoning behind this, so I understand, is to make it simpler for the Government to update the value of those fines. Rather than having to change every law in the land - and have tedious votes on them - it's possible to change one law and have its provisions cascade down to all others. Efficient!

The modern Standard Scale was brought in by the Criminal Justice Act 1991. The fines are:

(Source: Sentencing Act 2020)

As you can see, the fines increased quite dramatically from their old value.

And, since 1992 the fines have increased by... nothing!

The Bank of England's Inflation calculator estimates that a £5,000 fine in 1992 should be approximately £10,000 in 2023.

As I understand it, the Standard Scale can be increased via a Statutory Instrument. With the stroke of a pen (and a lot of behind the scenes work) the Justice Secretary could increase these fines so they kept up with inflation.

And that nearly happened! In 2014, a Draft statutory Instrument was published. It proposed increasing the Levels 1-4 fines by 400% - so Level 4 would go from £2,500 to £10,000⁰.

Quite why it was never published, I was not able to find out.

All I know is that during this time of rapid inflation, it appears that the Government are doing nothing to make sure crime doesn't pay.

It is estimated that in 2021, 77% of all offenders received a fine. That's approximately 737,000 offenders who are paying less than they would have thirty years ago.

The very least the Government could do is ensure that the criminals who do get caught, charged, and convicted have to pay a fine which reflects the severity of their crime.

If you've read any of his fiction, or listened to him talk, you'll know what to expect. An overview of how big tech has screwed us over and the consequences of those machinations. Unlike other writers, Doctorow provides eminently practical solutions.

Now, some of the solutions you'll be unable to implement unless you're an elected official. So now's a great time to write to your representative and ask them to take action.

He is relentless at pointing out the hypocrisy of big tech - fighting to carve out exceptions for themselves which they then deny to others. We get a full-on historical lesson about the VCR and how the fight for the right to party infringe copyright was won and lost several times.

I spent many years working inside the UK Government pushing the agenda of open standards and interoperability. So it was particularly gratifying to read:

Governments can—and should—have rules about interoperability in their procurement policies. They should require companies hoping to receive public money to supply the schematics, error codes, keys and other technical matter needed to maintain and improve the things they sell and provide to our public institutions.

That's what I did! It is getting better - but it is work that will never be finished.

Similarly, he accurately describes the problems with Standards Development Organisations:

standardization meetings and forensic examinations of firewall errors—is supremely dull. It combines the thrill of bookkeeping with the excitement of Robert’s Rules of Order.

I've been a member of many and - yes - that's exactly what it is like. But, I take slight issue at some of his suggestions on this topic. The ideal SDO has to be a compromise. No one gets to walk away entirely happy. This is the eternal "Devil's Bargain" - we all exchange a little bit of what we want in order to get closer to what we need. I'm not sure there's any way around that without centrally mandating specific technical choices.

Indeed, he goes on to say:

We won’t fix anything by demanding the impossible and shouting “nerd harder!” when tech companies fail to produce it. Nor will we fix anything by taking the tech industry at its word when it tells us that effective policies are flat-out impossible.

I'm a boring practicalist. At some point we need to do what works, even if it is ideologically unpleasant.

One of the things that Cory does well is "steelman" his opponents' arguments. He's excellent at taking on some big topics (CSAM and Blockchain, for example) and giving their proponents the benefit of the doubt⁰. And then he forensically takes them apart.

Cory's writing style is like his spoken style. The poetic rhythm is almost palpable - as is his love for sarcastic asides. It makes this - admittedly short - book supremely quick to read. I feel greedy asking for more - but the book does end rather abruptly.

If you work in tech, or go anywhere near tech-policy, this is a must read. It gives you the history of how we got here, explains the problems happening now, and warns about an uncertain future.

• The eBook is currently on sale for £4.50 from the publishers.
• You can follow Cory Doctorow on Mastodon @pluralistic

It starts off reasonably enough by describing the evolution of our legal system:

1. Law 1.0 says "Thou shalt not kill".
2. Law 2.0 says "Thou shalt not pollute. But, rather than specific legislation, we'll spin up a body to do the tedious work of enacting our policy".
3. Law 3.0 says "Thou shalt not drive over the speed limit. And we'll fit all cars with a chip that prevents them doing so".

I think that's fair enough assessment. Is "Law 3.0" a good thing or a bad thing? Perhaps we can have a discussion about the limits of technology and political philosophy? No, we just get this "argument":

The tyrannical implications of such a mode of governance are so obvious that it really ought to go without saying.

Ummm.... no? Perhaps we could discuss these supposed tyrannical implications?

The author is terrified that the Government is going to stop him running his dishwasher. You see, the Energy Bill says that technical experts can send a signal to smart appliances asking them to reduce their electricity use at certain times.

That's it. That's the horror he is railing against.

Pollution a bit high? Send a signal to ask your freezer to reduce its cooling temperature. Electricity prices going to spike in an hour? Tell people's cars to start charging now, but to throttle back later. That sort of thing. You know, save you a bit of money, reduce pollution, stabilise the energy supply. Terrifying...

Now, there might be a dystopian use of this. Perhaps the state could command all TVs to turn off when the opposition's political adverts are on. Perhaps they could turn off the car chargers of known protestors - thus preventing them from attending a demonstration. Maybe they'd turn off everyone's freezers in order to boost Tesco's profits?

This leads to some interesting questions. What sort of safeguards should we have? What level of control do people want? Who chooses the experts? Who secures the system? What similar problems have happened before? What are the positive ways this could be used?

But, nope, the post doesn't discuss that. It just continually reiterates a pathological fear of "technical experts" telling people how to behave. He wraps it up in a vague coat of morality - saying that we should be allowed to choose to break laws and face the consequences.

But, what are we actually talking about here?

A Thought Experiment

Let's say a power station fails unexpectedly in the middle of winter. There are several options available to us.

1. Wait until Parliament can reconvene to debate and pass a law which limits people to x kWh of electricity per day with a maximum of y kW at any moment.
2. Let people suffer rolling blackouts / brownouts as the energy supply struggles to keep up with demand.
3. Have a team of technical experts send signals to people's washing machines asking them to only switch on when there's surplus power.

Quite obviously (1) is impractical. The lack of speed and expertise is one of the (many) reasons Law 1.0 doesn't work in large complex systems which require a swift reaction.

And (2) is the sort of self-sufficient Libertarian nonsense which imagines a hellscape for everyone except themselves. Great! You can choose not to follow the law and let everyone else suffer the consequences.

And (3) is... boringly pragmatic. I guess with the slight risk that it might be abused to... what? Deny people their constitutional right to run a high power vacuum cleaner whenever they want?

Morality

The article makes this moral argument:

The speed limit does not compel us: we can choose to abide by it, or not. And this, most crucially of all, means that we have moral agency. We can choose to do right or wrong.

[...]

in its way, [Law 3.0] is the worst affront to the dignity of man out of them all, because it destroys the very conditions of moral agency. I reiterate: if one does not have the freedom to choose, because one is compelled to act morally, then one’s moral conduct is not really moral at all.

I don't really get that. We ban guns so that people can't choose to wave them about recklessly - because impinging on your freedom is better than clearing up corpses.

Rather more prosaically, we ban the sale of inefficient domestic appliances. Yes, the experts are being mean by forcing you not to make a moral decision about whether to waste electricity. Boo-fucking-hoo.

But, if this moral agency is so important, why isn't it available to "the experts"? Why shouldn't they be allowed to choose to take a bribe from a washing line manufacturer to switch off the nation's tumble-dryers? They can suffer the consequences of being caught, tried, and punished.

Law 1.0 - which the author is so fond of - would do that.

Or, we could use Law 3.0 to implement a technical measure which says such a signal can never be sent unless 4 our of 5 experts agree to it.

Civic Hygiene

A decade ago, I wrote up my thoughts on Civic Hygiene.

Civic hygiene isn't about saying we distrust our current government - it's about not trusting the next government.

I still stand by that. We should make it hard or impossible for a corrupt entity to abuse the power it is entrusted with. But that doesn't mean giving them no power.

In a democratic society we accept that we sometimes have to do things aren't in our direct personal interests in order to keep society functioning. Sometimes we can choose whether or not to obey (e.g. by breaking the speed limit) other times the state restricts us (by banning the sale of poisons).

If we don't make the transition to smarter and more responsive energy consumption, then we risk grid stability, more pollution, and higher energy costs. That damages all of us.

We should embrace new ways of organising ourselves. And we should embrace technological limitations which protect the majority. And those limitations must be safeguarded.

I don't know whether this law is well written, or whether there are adequate safeguards, or whether abusers of its powers can be punished. But I do know that this moral pontificating doesn't even begin to address the practical issues.

It is part biography and part political manifesto. Both parts work well together, but requires a degree of context switching. She contextualises all her political observations with personal anecdotes. This helps her make the case that large western democracies like the UK and USA are at risk of sliding into Russian style totalitarianism.

Cultural despair is the sense of loss, grievance, and anxiety that occurs when people feel dislocated from their communities and broader society as everything and everyone shifts around them. Especially when the sense of identity that develops from working in a particular job or industry, like my father’s image of himself as a coal miner, also recedes or is abruptly removed, people lose their grasp of the familiar. They can then easily fall prey to those who promise to put things—including jobs, people, or even entire countries—back in “their rightful place.”

She finely picks apart the policies which have led to people feeling like victims and demanding retribution, often via the medium of conspiracy theories.

The constant thread through the book is that it was almost impossible for her to get where she is today. At every turn throughout her educational and professional journey she was nearly thwarted. Sometimes because of her class, her accent, her gender, her foreignness, or simply not being part of the in-group.

How do we ensure that everyone has the opportunity to succeed? How do we stop UK institutions relying on word-of-mouth or excluding people with the "wrong" accent?

Unlike other books of this ilk, it contains lots of practical suggestions for how to democratise access to opportunities.

I have a few small gripes. Lots of UK-based concepts have short explanations into Americanese, but the reverse is rarely true. Yay cultural hegemony. There are also a few chunks of her biography which are simply missing - she casually drops in references to former employers she's not mentioned before. But, a biography isn't a CV so can be forgiven.

She lays into Trump with ferocity. I was kind-of hoping that he was different in private to his public persona. No such luck!

An excellent book by a dedicated public servant.