The schools are finally back. After nearly two months without forced cognitive labour to tire them out, the kids are back at their desks. They’ve been on holidays, they’ve had and then wildly embellished a million adventures, and they’ve totally forgotten what it was they were doing before the break. I am now woken by my alarm at 06:30 instead of my child at 06:00. Work is once again where I use my brain, rather than where I try and preserve it for a hundred million questions when I get home. Why is my leg itchy? What’s a larynx? Why do we have toes? Can you explain nuclear physics to me in terms my 8-year old mind will understand?

And it’s on a similar note that parliament has returned to business. The pre-summer, end of season finale of Brexit left half the country in shock and all of it wondering how things will play out. The various starring roles made lots of announcements, then vanished off on their holidays. Presumably to Europe, while the exchange rate is still just about manageable and before they need to pay for visas.

But now they’re back and the story can continue. Only apparently the director walked out and nobody knows what order all the words go in. Like the kids, it seems parliament have totally forgotten their lines and have decided to ad lib. Many, it seems, have even lost track of what role they’re supposed to be playing.

For example, take David Davis, the man entrusted with heading up our negotiations to leave Europe. He has been a vigorous Leave campaigner and, prior to that, a bit of a loose cannon. His approach in the past has taken him so far as to leave parliament to try and shake things up. Not always a bad thing and, as I constantly hear at the office, a disruptive approach can often be the most beneficial in the long term. I do think, though, this time he may have gone a bit too far.

As his first major public move in making sure we have the strongest negotiating hand possible, he has said British businesses are fat and lazy. That, as an economy, we’ve become too dependent on Europe for an easy ride and can’t operate properly on our own. I’m not sure what message this was supposed to send, but what it says to me is:

• We were better off in the EU because it gave us lots of financial benefits that otherwise we’d have to work really hard for.
• We’ll bend over and accept whatever deal is offered because without Europe we’ll run our businesses into the ground and not be able to afford our golf memberships anymore.

Which I can only interpret as “I was wrong and this looks really hard, so I’m switching sides”.

But Davis has always been a bit of a loon, so taken in isolation that wouldn’t be entirely surprising. However, he’s not the only person who has apparently forgotten which team he’s playing for. Ken Clarke has gone on record saying the referendum isn’t legally binding and that parliament can vote to ignore it. But Clarke has also always been willing to stray from the party line, so maybe he’s another outlier?

Seemingly not. None other than our new Prime Minister – an equally avid Remain supporter – is also a turncoat. While going no further than parroting tautologies when asked to define Brexit, she is apparently determined to force it through. Setting an entirely new (not to mention legally questionable) precedent, she intends to trigger Article 50 without consulting parliament or allowing a vote on the matter. Aside from my personal stake as someone who desperately wishes the referendum had never happened in the first place, I’ve a few concerns about this.

Firstly, it will set a precedent and that is the foundation upon which our legal system is based. It enables the government to (legally) misinform the public over any old matter, hold a quick referendum on it and then enact the outcome. All whilst shirking any responsibility, because the buck has been passed to the electorate. Who they spend lots of money lying to. Money that they took from the electorate. We are literally paying them to misinform us and then ask us to do their job for them.

Secondly, we live in a parliamentary democracy. Either MPs have a job to do and responsibilities associated with that or they do not. If we’re moving to a direct democracy, we need to do so properly and make the structural changes necessary to make it work. This would include not wasting a fortune on parliamentarians who are no longer relevant to our political process in the way they once were.

This isn’t the only thing May seems to have forgotten her previous position on. Initially, she surprised many – myself included – with lots of progressive-sounding promises about fairness and unity. Pan-socioeconomic restructuring to reinvest the disenfranchised and introduce accountability to the bloated 1%. It warmed my tiny collectivised heart. Maybe things weren’t going to be so bad after all. Feel free to laugh at my naivety. I certainly have done.

As a way of opening parliament to the new year, she has announced a plan to bring back grammar schools. It’s a potato so hot that even Captain Starchy himself, David Cameron, saw fit to distance the Conservative party from it. It is one of the most divisive topics of recent political history, seen by many (including pretty much all the experts and the entire academic community) as regressive and classist. To counter this notion, the Prime Minister pointed out that most of government got where they are today – I think she means the gravy train – thanks to grammar school educations.

But Herculean flip-flopping is best enjoyed with friends. To add insult to injury, May has made Justine Greening Education Secretary. This was another of those “oh, this could be worse” moments I had as the shock of Brexit wore off. Greening was someone I had hoped would get the role. She seemed fairly good and relatively forward-looking. Now she has the dubious honour of being the first Secretary of State for Education with an entirely comprehensive school education and the first Secretary of State for Education in the 21^st century to try and re-implement selection-based grammar schools.

It isn’t just the Tories who’ve lost the plot, though. Corbyn gave an unusually popular performance in response to grammar schools, gaining praise even from some of his critics. The Parliamentary Labour Party – who mostly went to grammar schools – still hate him, but at least his grammar school education prepared him to tear apart the idea of more grammar schools. Which they hate nearly as much as they hate him for supporting people who, historically, have been the most disadvantaged by the existence of grammar schools. A group which happens to overlap quite heavily with the Labour vote.

This is, I think, a symptom of the fundamental problem with Labour: they have no idea who they are or what they stand for. At the moment, they don’t even seem sure who was arguing with who, over what, why or which side of the argument each of them were on six weeks ago. Owen Smith’s challenge for the leadership seems to be based on a platform of “I stand for exactly the same things as Jeremy only I also don’t”. The leadership contest results are due within the next week or so.

I think as a party they’ve realised it’s a lose-lose situation. If the PLP element win, they lose the people they’re supposed to represent and need to vote for them. If the people who vote for them win, the PLP will have to actually represent them. An absurdity that hasn’t been seriously considered since early 1997 and an affront to their privileged Fabian sensibilities.

So basically we’ve got 600+ people who were for either leaving the EU or staying in it. The former got what they want and now have buyer’s remorse. The latter have reached the point in the cycle of bereavement where they’re trying to make the best of the new world in which they find themselves. And everyone – inside and outside of Westminster – is still entirely in the dark as to what Brexit actually means. Other than, of course, Brexit.

It’s no wonder political pundits have such a hard time making accurate predictions. The entire process is insane.

By the end of today, we will have a new Prime Minister and it will be Theresa May. It says everything about the pace and direction of modern politics that this isn’t the worst news we could be faced with. At the rate the – already hilariously low – bar is being lowered, by next week we’d have seen Donald Trump, an undead Pol Pot and two-thirds of a badger carcass joining the race.

I have never been a fan of May, who strikes me as an authoritarian introvert with a dangerous moralistic streak. However, all sewers must have a shiniest poo and in this leadership race she is it. As mentioned in my previous comments – not dreadfully inaccurate, although Crabb and Leadsom swapped places– she was up against:

• Liam Fox, who couldn’t even win his own vote.
• Evil Pob.
• Stephen Crabb. A man who thinks you can cure gayness but not being a creepy hypocrite.
• Andrea Leadsom, who cut short her promising career writing fantasy fiction in order to dive on the grenade that was her own jaw-dropping inexperience.

The first three weren’t really a worry, but the news of Leadsom dropping out of the race was a welcome relief for a number of reasons. Firstly, the idea of a grassroots uprising amongst the membership wasn’t completely fanciful, so it was plausible she could have won. Secondly, that happening would have been absolutely awful. Not least because she’s a buttoned-down, moral-majority bandwagon type, a British Sarah Palin-lite.

But now, 24 hours on, the relief is gone. We need to accept that our new PM has previously called for us to ditch the European Convention of Human Rights & Fundamental Freedoms so she can fully realise her dreams. These particular dreams are unfortunately of a police state with no respect for privacy. I realise she did something sensible about Stop & Search, but not because it was totalitarian. Just because it was racist. We all (hopefully!) agree that racism is bad. But if it’s someone’s only objection to Stasi-esque police tactics then I’m probably not going to invite them to babysit. Certainly not to run my country.

So it’s something of a disappointing victory, in the sense that while it could have been worse it could still have been much less worse. Unworser. More good. But what shall this new era bring? At the moment we can only guess at details, but we can be fairly confident of a few things.

First and foremost is that the new government has no intention of holding an early election. There are a couple of things to mention on this. One is that Theresa May is on record for criticising Gordon Brown for not calling a General Election when he inherited the gently steaming corpse of the Labour Party. There’s more than a hint of hypocrisy in her not doing the same even as she dances on the Grave of Dave.

Another is that it’s almost certainly not true. Labour are tearing themselves apart, the Lib Dems are still cleaning bits of Nick Clegg off the walls of party HQ, and UKIP have lost their prize dickfigurehead and are yet to settle on a replacement. The Brexit vote is still mobilised and likely to vote for a Tory government that’s apparently determined to force the issue through. In many ways, now would be a great time to call for a general election. The only reason it would make sense to claim to not call one is if you’re planning on doing so and don’t want anyone else to try and sort their act out before you do. Either that or we’re about to see a political move known as The Callaghan, in which case invest heavily in placards in the run up to 2020.

Related to that is the mantra ‘Brexit means Brexit’. I’m not entirely sure I buy into the sincerity of that, especially as Phil Hammond is already setting the scene for an extended negotiation and exit process. 7 years has passed? Best have another referendum! However, it does also tell us two other things about how May wants the start of her premiership to be perceived. First, as a continuation rather than a revolution, following through (in both senses) on the foundations and commitments of Cameron’s run as PM. Second, as someone who can bring the UKIP swing-vote back into the fold to vote for the Conservatives in the next General Election in 2020. Or February next year. Potato/potato.

We’re also hours away from finding out who will be what in the new cabinet. Hammond, Greening, Rudd, and Grayling (urrgh…) are all tipped to do well. Bloody Stupid Johnson might get a cabinet role somewhere relatively harmless. George Osborne my find himself somewhere like the Foreign or Home Office, if he’s booted from the Exchequer as seems likely. Crabb may have netted himself a minor cabinet role, as suggested previously and now I’ve said it twice, I really need to be right about it, even as I hope I’m not. Priti Patel is unfortunately in with a chance of a more important role. Fox is likely to be ignored completely, despite his Brexit campaign credentials, and Gove may or may not be stripped of Justice Secretaryship. And/or ground into paste and used to fertilise the garden at No. 10 as an object lesson in how not to run a political career.

One thing I will be very interested in seeing is who will be heading up Brexit negotiations. Common sense would dictate that will be a post all in itself (BSJ, maybe?) as otherwise the Foreign Office is going to get very little else done for the best part of the next decade.

Other than that, all we’ve got is a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises. More social justice, less economic disparity, more accountability, a fairer Britain, a Winston Churchill for every home etc. etc. For those of us with a more cynical bent, that translates to empty gestures to appease the credulous even as there are more and more punitive cuts made to vital public services.

Addendum

The above was written yesterday, 13/07/2016. However, due to important business involving standing in a field drinking beer while admiring laughably expensive motorbikes, I didn’t get around to uploading it. In the time since, there have been a few updates.

• There apparently will be a Department of Brexit, although it’ll likely be called something like the Department of Making Our Bed And Sleeping In It.
• Liam Fox still hasn’t been deported to the bottom of the sea and might even get a token frontbench job.
• I’d somehow completely forgotten that Theresa May has a personal dislike for Michael Gove. Of course, everyone does these days and that’s only right and proper, but May really hated him before it became cool. Don’t expect much mercy, but if he does keep his job us Justice Secretary then it should be seen as an indicator that the unity/continuity cards are being played in full force.

The Tory candidacy race is only into day two of around sixty and it’s already questionable as to whether anyone will survive to the end. The first big casualty was Boris Johnson, who decided this one looks a bit rough and got a taxi home to rest up for the next race. Of all the candidates who’ve got bounce-back, he’s the best equipped to reinvent himself over the next few years.

Michael ‘Pyrrhus’ Gove, on the other hand, has exploded onto the scene only to find his target – and therefore his impact – nowhere to be seen. Without Boris to grapple with, he has just ended up looking like a treacherous windbag. He puts me in mind of the vulnerable kid at school who decides to try and impress the popular kids by one day turning up to class with a gun. Rebellion is one thing, but there’s a line.

Likewise, Conservative politics is a vicious game where respect is earned by playing by the – admittedly rather scant – rules. For this game to operate, there needs to be at least some basic sense of stability, which includes knowing exactly who the players are. The reason Gove is now finding himself friendless and vilified is not because he hamstrung Boris on the starting block. It’s because he didn’t have the decency to let anyone else in on the plan beforehand.

This has thrown a bone out to the other three, as every race needs someone to come second. It’s now looking like Andrea Leadsom is favourite to lose least badly to Theresa May. However, with all the shenanigans going on at the moment, it’s possible she’ll drop back. Stepping aside in 3^rd out of choice can net you a top cabinet job and avoids the disgrace of being seen to lose. With Liam Fox still determined to be the least popular man in parliament, that means Stephen Crabb could appear as the surprise sacrificial lamb in the final two.

What does look certain is that Team Brexit have managed to take themselves out of contention. Gove declared war and Boris, being who he is, suddenly declared he was bored and sodded off. A cynic might say he suddenly saw his side-line in journalism as a way to rewrite history as it happens, preparing the ground for future battles. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Meanwhile, over in the Labour camp (not yet that kind, but the situation is deteriorating fast) the Benny Hill theme music is still stuck on loop. Jeremy Corbyn has received a bit of support from Scottish Labour, albeit nearly a week after the only Scottish Labour member to actually hold a seat resigned in protest. He’s also got the deputy leader of the party telling him that, seriously now, maybe he might need to give it a rest.

However, tens of thousands of new members are signing up to the Labour Party, so Corbyn may end up carrying an even greater popular mandate. Currently he needs it, because nothing short of a miracle is going to keep him in his job much longer. The biggest problem is if he runs again and wins again. There simply won’t be enough humble pie to go around the shadow cabinet. Austerity truly has hit us all.

This sudden influx of members may also be why Angela Eagle continues to hold off declaring her leadership bid. Until anyone knows what the demographics of these new members are, that makes sense; standing against Corbyn just as he gains another 60,000 open party votes would be futile. That said, this is Angela Eagle we’re talking about, so assuming her decisions are based on facts or logic isn’t going to get us anywhere.

Tom Watson is also reportedly in the running. Or will be once there’s a running to be in. Until then he’s trying to find a way to send the words “step down” back to about 1986, where it’s believed Jeremy’s attention was last seen. He’s showing more nouse than most of the rest of the party though, as he realises that no confrontation is about the only thing that will leave the party standing.

Yvette Cooper could make a showing. She’s been consistent-ish in wanting to close the wealth gap and is a big supporter of more public spending, affordable housing and being married to one of the worst people to ever enter parliament. So can we accept a leader who has Ed Balls dripping poison into her ear each night? I don’t know. As a possibly mitigating factor, she stands out as being one of the few Labour MPs who I’ve ended up thinking more highly of the more I’ve read about her.

Also of interest is Dan Jarvis. MP for Barnsley, which had a 68.3% Leave vote, he would be a credible man to try and re-engage the voters Corbyn tried and fail to connect with. In terms of political position, he seems moderately progressive, supporting economic and gender equality, as well as being quite passionate about the NHS. He’s a bit light on experience, but making a run of it and then stepping aside could win him a more interesting shadow cabinet role. Perhaps Defence, which would play will with his military background. However, all this is rather sensible for Labour and is therefore almost certainly not what will happen.

I have to admit to knowing very little about former shadow business secretary, Owen Smith. From what I can gather, this is being seen as a benefit to his potential leadership. I’ll leave the implied statement about the Labour MPs we do know a lot about just here… But apparently he’s another one with good left-wing history, so maybe all isn’t lost.

The only other potential name of any significance is John McDonnell. Until yesterday, I’d not even have considered him a possibility, but now Michael Gove has redefined “definitely not, never ever in a million years” to mean “sure, why not!” it seems feasible. My gut instinct is he’d be better off hanging around for Corbs to cop it and then stepping into the role by inheriting the popular vote. However, lunacy abounds, so he might get impatient and press the matter more aggressively if things don’t look like changing in the next couple of weeks.

All of which points towards both parties attempting to return to somewhere at least close to their pre-referendum status quo. Labour are conceding that they need to be a bit more left wing than under Blair (i.e. at all), while the Tories are conceding that they’ve ruined the country far faster than they’d intended and should probably do something about it. Like squabble.

This raises an interesting possibility and one that, depressingly, was so unlikely I’d not really considered it. If the Tories are set to bicker amongst themselves more at the same time as Labour realising that it might be a good idea to bicker amongst themselves less, we may end up with a more balanced House of Commons.

I feel completely ridiculous even suggesting it. But… maybe?

Today has been probably the most entertainingly bizarre day of British politics in living memory. As a terrible junkie for politics in general, I’ve been so enthralled that I’ve managed to put aside the horror of what caused it all. I woke up expecting to find Jeremy Corbyn a naked, limbless torso, deserted by even his appendages and clothing. Something to look forward to at any time, but an unambitious non-event compared to what actually unfolded as the day went on.

Taking a detached view of it all, it’s been surreal and entertaining in equal measure. I’ve laughed, I’ve groaned, I’ve been absolutely fascinated. So what has actually happened and can we draw any conclusions – or at least predictions – from it? Of course we can! They might be wrong, but they’re (mostly) worth thinking about.

First of all, it was becoming increasingly clear that the Conservatives had decided to follow Labour off a cliff. Whether this was out of some warped sense of parliamentary solidarity or just an acute case of folie á deux is hard to say. The case for a major upheaval to the existing party status quo that I hinted at in my previous update is looking stronger.

Not only have Labour gone into meltdown, but now the Tories are stowing their monocles and engaging in righteous fisticuffs as well. Quietly, lost in all the noise, a major financial supporter of the leave campaign is looking to ditch UKIP and form a new, Farage-less alternative. Nobody seems to know what the Lib Dems are doing, which suggests they’re currently bucking the trend by continuing with business as usual.

The headline act has been Tory party leadership contenders. It’s an update in its own right, so you can read it here. But what about the big picture and what all this means?

As mentioned, amidst all the smoke and gore, UKIP looks like it might be in trouble. Arron Banks, who has pumped a fair few pennies into the leave campaign, is talking about replacing them. I suspect this actually translates to “wooing a few Tories from the far right and burying Farage in compost”. By the standard of the times, that’s almost good news. It certainly points to a re-drawing of party lines and possibly the political landscape in general.

With the SNP rendering the rest of the UK helpless against Tory-dominated politics, such a schism does make sense. There’s room for another party, with a left/centre-right/very-right arrangement emerging. Exactly where the new borders will be drawn is hard to tell, but I think something like this is on the cards.

Then there’s the future of Boris Johnson, who is now free to pick where he lends his weight. I don’t think it impossible that his side-stepping of execution today might be a nod towards Theresa May. There are people worse-placed to add perceived unity to a Remain-led Brexit government, certainly. It would also give him a shot at a proper cabinet position, which further bolsters his inevitable future bid at party leadership however many years down the line.

Moreover, with May’s statement that “Brexit means Brexit”, Johnson could have a degree of plausible deniability in heading up negotiations that eventually leave us still part of Europe. It would look less like an establishment stitch-up, ignoring the democratic wishes of the electorate, if such a ‘failure’ were led by a man who fought hard to leave. He’s also the flip-floppiest person in parliament, so scruples wouldn’t get in the way of such a stunt.

There’s been one other particularly significant bit of news that might tie in with the above. This is Standard & Poor’s downgrade to the EU’s credit rating forecast. While Britain is taking – and will continue to take – the brunt of the pain from all this, it shows there’s still plenty to go around elsewhere. The reason for the downgrade was ‘continued economic uncertainty’. If the UK government were to drag its feet in implementing Article 50, this uncertainty will go on and on. The longer it lasts, the worse it will get. We may then find ourselves playing chicken with the EU: give us what we want or we’ll trash your credit rating even more.

That, combined with the May/Johnson scenario outlined above, could feasibly – but not yet probably – give us the bartering chip we need. Ever increasing pressure on an already bruised EU might put an unexpected concession on the table. We have to say we’re very, very sorry and give up part – or all – of our rebate. In exchange, we get to stay in the EU and are given some concession on freedom of movement. This would most likely be along the lines of limiting it only to those who have already found work before they arrive and/or restricting the right to bring family members with them.

It is, admittedly, a long shot at this stage. However, based on the fact that the UK Conservative Party is home to political chicanery par excellence, I don’t think it entirely impossible. It is, if nothing else, a reason to hope the outcome won’t be as dreadful as seemed certain just a few days ago.

The Tory candidate announcements today have provided a spectacle in themselves. Gleefully Machiavellian, the boys (and girls) in blue have stepped up to show Labour what real back-stabbing looks like. The disintegration taking place around Corbyn is akin to a siege, determined but ultimately possessed of some restraint. The Tories, on the other hand, are engaging in wholesale carnage, a kind of madcap carnival of exuberant slaughter. It’s mutually assured destruction, go hard or go home, win-at-any-cost free-for-all bedlam.

It all started with the fairly uninteresting but vaguely amusing bids by three party non-entities. The biggest name here was Liam Fox, woken like a fascist Yogi Bear by the scent of fresh blood. He won’t win because everybody hates him, presumably not least of all the two MPs who put his name forward. People have heard of him, but that’s by no means an asset to his candidacy.

After that, the next biggest name was Andrea Leadsom. Or “Who’s that?” as she’s known to her colleagues. She also won’t win, which is probably for the best because I’m not entirely convinced she isn’t just Michael Howard in drag. Of even lesser significance is Stephen Crabb, who is only noteworthy for three things: being homophobic even by Tory party standards, having rotating eyes, and a beard he borrowed from the local rugby team. It goes without saying that he won’t win either. He’s such a fringe candidate that people don’t even know him as “Who’s that?” because they don’t notice he’s in the room in the first place.

That’s 3 of the 5, leaving only the big names: Theresa May and Boris Joh… – wait what the… Michael Gove? For real? Everything just got brilliant. Splattering Boris Johnson’s blood over their supposedly shared golden ticket to power, Gove announced he was running. Completely out of the blue. It was sensational.

There are two sides to Michael Gove. One is an almost endearingly weird geek, fiercely intelligent but lacking the polish and likeability usually desirable in a candidate. The other is a Midas-esque grim reaper, whose very touch turns things to buggered. He did it to the education sector, he did it to David Cameron and now it looks like he’s done it to Boris.

His involvement in things is so virulent that it doesn’t discriminate between good and bad. This has led at times to oddly positive destruction, such as his unweaving of Chris Grayling’s 15^th century legal ‘reforms’. Even when he tries to do good, the result is a heap of steaming detritus. As an example, he attempted to reinvigorate the English curriculum by dragging it back to the eighteen hundreds with British ‘classics’. This was at the expense of more modern classics that happened to be by non-British authors, such as Steinbeck. If you squint, you can see what he was trying to do. But no matter how hard you squint at a pile of turds, it is still a pile of turds.

By taking BoJo’s legs out in such a way, Gove was casting himself as the ‘true believer’ of Brexit. His position was one which was defined by his opponents. On the one hand, Theresa May was a (quietly cautious) Remain supporter. On the other, Boris Johnson was the flaky, erratic empty balloon, the eternal opportunist with no conviction beyond that which is currently expedient to his own goals. Casting himself in this light, Gove was simultaneously the voice of the people (at least, those who’d voted to leave) and the intellectually superior man of conviction. God save us all from conviction politicians.

It was already riveting stuff and had I not been so busy at work, I’d have been obsessively refreshing news feeds. Then I popped out to get some lunch and found myself standing still in the middle of the pavement, staring at my phone with an idiot grin. Boris showed that mercenary bandwagon-hopping was as much a boon as a burden, in his typically theatrical style. Is he a man of conviction? No. Is he a slippery bastard who knows who to live to fight another day? Oh lord, is he. I don’t like him, but I can’t help but admire his ruthless adaptability.

By announcing that he wouldn’t run after all, he put himself outside of the unchecked butchery that is the Tory leadership contest. He can fade into the background while everyone else is busy committing brutal character assassinations on each other. He may well be hedging his bets that Brexit will ultimately flounder. Instead, he can wait for a time to reemerge as the man who stared into the abyss, jumped into it and then walked out the other side. Reformed by some arcane wisdom, he’ll present himself as the man best placed to fix the mess he helped create.

He also kept his leadership ambitions alive, with a possible shot at a cabinet position under May. Leading, for instance, the Brexit negotiation team. He has the leave credentials, after all. He also has the kind of persona that might just about let him get away with completely back-tracking and making it look like he’s kept us in Europe and won some concessions along the way. Just like he always intended. Honest.

So now Gove’s position is jeopardised. No longer the thinking-man’s leave candidate, but an intellectual equal facing a long-touted party leader who commands a lot of respect and who lacks all of Boris Johnson’s weaknesses. He has also lost his claim to integrity, becoming the untrustworthy traitor to a publically popular former friend. A man who was strangely likeable, whilst also being a colossal twat.

Which leaves Theresa May in a very strong position. She’s a long-serving Home Secretary with several populist successes under her belt – Hillsborough and Stop & Search being the main examples. She has always been critical of Europe, but without crossing the line into campaigning to leave it. She might look like Emperor Palpatine’s mum, but in terms of political big-hitters she’s the best the Tories have got. I might not like her, but as with Boris, I can’t help but respect her ability.

So now the gloves are off and it’s every (wo)man for themselves. I think May is the obvious winner here, which is backed by the huge lead she has in terms of in-party supporters. What she’ll do once the bullshit and pandering of the leadership elections are over, only time will tell.

After spending the weekend in a wounded and, arguably, defeatist funk, I’m finally finding myself able to be a bit more rational about what has happened. The initial shock has worn off, the anger is down to a low simmer and sense of betrayal filed under “revisit later”. It’s part… not acceptance, because I don’t think I ever will accept the result as truly legitimate, let alone right, but something similar. Resigned pragmatism, let’s call it. But it’s also part mild hope that we may yet not follow through on this lunacy after all.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pretty damned cross, disgusted and afraid. But it’s no longer on an all-consuming level. I’m able to think about it without wanting to cry or break something. So I’ve started giving a bit of brainspace to how we can proceed, what we should be doing to clean up this mess as best we can.

There are lots of layers to our situation, all of which present their own challenges and opportunities. The most immediate are probably the financial ones. Then there’s the social ones, while the country resettles itself around some newly defined divisions. Finally, there’s the political ones, which are clearly going to be more significant than most had guessed at.

The Economic

As is to be expected, the first thing to happen was economic chaos. The markets will continue to wobble about trying to decide where the lowest-risk/highest-reward ground state is until – if – we enact Article 50 and get handed our international P45. The pound is going to take a hammering, to at least a fair degree, but this needn’t be all bad.

We can take the opportunity to look at bringing some industries back ‘in house’. This would be particularly sensible if we prioritised the energy industry, our transport infrastructure, construction, engineering and IT. Firstly, because we need to be more self-sufficient now importing isn’t as favourable and we’re currently outsourcing too much as it is. Secondly because they all bring with them easily exportable benefits, either in the form of goods or of services. A weaker pound should make us more competitive at selling them out to the world than we have been, so we can cut our costs and increase our profits.

As an aside to this, I know a lot of people would be quite vocal about the same argument for ‘manufacturing’ in general. It’s easy to hark back to the days of the British car industry, for example. However, we’d now be far more dependent on international commodity markets in order to import the raw materials. We’d also be competing against some well-established giants, such as Germany, and therefore starting from the back of the pack. I don’t think it would make sense to play against others’ strengths in such a way, so we should be more choosy about where we invest our efforts.

Pushing to lead in renewable technologies or precision engineered parts would be a worthwhile goal, reached via applying our efforts to our own ailing infrastructure and skill pool. Better transport infrastructure and more affordable homes, so Britons are more invested in and able to capitalise on the British economy itself.

We should also be eagerly modernising our national data infrastructure so we’re well placed to compete in the ever-important Information Realm. This will surely be the 21^st century’s equivalent to colonial-era India & Americas, providing a vast market for goods and services the world over. One that is less reliant on imported materials and which we should be well-placed to populate with skilled workers.

There’ll be more financial aftershocks as the terms of exit are made clear, especially if – as looks likely – London loses a lot of EU service institutions. We have long needed to shift away from our dependence on financial services, a move curiously absent nearly a decade on from the global financial crisis of 2008.

Meanwhile, we need to revisit what it means to ‘grow’ outside of the tunnel-vision world of banking and GDP as a measure of how much money is moving around. A significant part of the leave campaign was fearmongering talk of healthcare tourism. Whether it is real or not, I’ve been wondering to myself if the assumption such is a bad thing may be a faulty one. I’ve not heard anyone seriously float the idea so make of it what you will, but couldn’t we turn it into a good thing? By investing in our healthcare system to a point where it has the quality and the resources to handle extra capacity over domestic needs, we could use it to turn a profit. Come to Britain to get fixed! For example, people coming over from places like the US for more reasonably priced treatment would not only bring money, but also undermine the growing danger of transnational HMOs.

While we’re on public spending, we’re going to need to look at welfare reform. The economic impacts of Brexit are going to hurt people, which tends to mean ‘hurt poor people’. Rather than risk even greater disenfranchisement and worsening the situation that led to all this, we should protect against it. The stealthy, patronising ‘privatisation for your own good’ project of austerity needs to be dropped if we are to grow – socially and economically – in our new, more isolated environment.

Of the few points I do think many leave supporters got right, a conscious decision to build an economy that is sustainable and works for its constituent parts is probably the best. The post war project of the enfranchised electorate, who are getting a good deal from their country, needs to be restarted. We should have a majority – a vast majority – who have enough invested in society that it is in their interests to protect it and grow it.

The Social

So from the economic arguments, I think we can draw a fairly strong conclusion that a socially invested population is a Good Thing. Not only is it healthier and happier, but is more resilient, cohesive and better able to be outward looking and constructive.

I’ll not reiterate the points covered already, other than to emphasise that it is a failure to pursue this end that led us to where we are in the first place. If we learn nothing else, we must take from all this the fact that an invested, involved society is the reason for preferring one political or economic model over another. When presented with a choice, the first question that comes to mind should be “will this make it better?” not “am I pissed off enough to hit this until it breaks?”

First of all, there are some dangers that the current situation has brought to the fore. Perhaps most worrying is the rise of what is generally considered the ‘far right’. I use the scare quotes because we must be careful to recognise it’s not really leftwing or rightwing in nature. It is nothing more – but also, I must stress, also nothing less – than a movement of nationalist hate, of fear turning to fascism and disenfranchisement turning to division.

It needs to be made very clear that it will not be tolerated, which in turn means it cannot be pandered to for political gain. A line needs to be drawn in the sand, whereby people who support such put themselves outside of the political discourse, unless they open up and engage with alternative perspectives. Liberalism and democracy are fine traditions, but they can only function as reliably beneficial ideologies if they protect themselves against illiberal and anti-democratic forces. Secularism can and should tolerate difference, but only for those elements which will tolerate it in return. This is not a moral statement so much as a definitional one: if they do not have boundaries, they do not have meaning.

All of which feeds into the realisation that we need to have a deep, far-reaching rethink of the goals and approaches to our democratic system. Democracy has seen its successes due to the fact it is a self-correcting system. It allows for the testing of different views and ideas, which all eventually moderate each other. By such a process, we find what works best in general and can seek ways to improve it further.

The key to this is education. Better education has demonstrable economic benefits, in terms of more exportable skills, increased rates of technological and scientific innovation and general wellbeing. Beyond this, it also means the people involved in the honing of concepts and practices (as mentioned in the previous paragraph) are better equipped to do it well. We are more likely to come up with new good ideas and solutions, as well as being better able to identify, address and avoid bad ones.

In being keener spotters of bullshit and greater contributors of value, we’ll make less mistakes and more positive steps forward. There needs to be a respect for facts and an accountability imposed on those who try to distort or outright bury them. We can only do this if the majority of people are educated properly in critical thinking. We need to be a society that understands the importance of facts, respects them even when we don’t necessarily like them and are able to assess them constructively.

But in doing this, we don’t want to end up indoctrinating ourselves into a single accepted version of the truth. Received wisdom is not the same as wisdom received. History is full of movements that started off addressing a legitimate problem but failed to recognise when the world had changed in such a way as their efforts became irrelevant or even harmful. There is no one set of answers and we need to be awake to this reality. The solution to one problem may bring into existence other problems. A problem once solved may resurface.

So we don’t want a homogeneity to overwhelm us, to become drones to the status quo. Democracy only works if there is internal dissent, but we need to foster an environment where it is useful rather than disruptive. We need to understand that disagreement doesn’t mean division. To understand that this project, no matter how strongly we be attached to our own position or opposed to that of others, is one of cooperation rather than conflict.

We are all, essentially, meat-based problem-solving machines and we are working on at least broadly the same set of problems. By working together, listening and contributing in equal measure, we stand a far better chance of solving them than if we’ve convinced ourselves we’re all working towards different goals. Whether we are working together or not is probably a matter of perspective, but we certainly should be.

The Political

The kingpin to all this is our politics. It is what governs and enacts our economic and legislative decisions. We have a political system in the first place only as a tool to do this on our behalf. So if we want to bring about positive change, we need to make sure that tool is a good one, well-crafted and wielded by people skilled in its application. I think the one thing all on both sides of the Brexit debate can agree on without hesitation is that is not currently the case.

I think that the single most important change needed to fix this is to increase political accountability. Manifesto promises should not be made unless they’ve been well-enough considered to be followed through with. Don’t promise no raise to university tuition unless you know you can afford to deliver it and intend to do so, for example. We are people meant to be persuaded to allow politicians to represent our interests, not to be brought over with promises that they have no intention of keeping.

So we need to reform legislation surrounding political discourse. This might be for ‘grand campaigns’ such as general election manifestos or referenda, but equally it should apply to the day-to-day outpouring of statements from public figures. I don’t pretend we can eliminate PR-waffle and creative wording, but we should dissuade them as best we can. We should certainly make outright, demonstrable lies more painful than they are profitable.

Even then, they will still be told. But when caught out, there must be consequences. There’s some value in us being educated well enough to see the lie coming, but there’s even more in being able to sanction those who tell it to us.

We also need vote reform. Again, this shouldn’t apply to just general elections, but anything that is put to the people to decide. We should be past the simplistic mentality of tyranny by majority or first-past-the-post “that’ll do-ism”. Until recently, it seems about 52% of the voting public were unhappy with the status quo. That is wrong. Now, 48% of are unhappy with the new status quo. That is also wrong, in near-as-damn-it equal measure.

That means a step away from binary thinking, of proportional representation – I don’t mean the voting system per se, but definitely the concepts underlying it – and multifaceted decision-making processes. This may necessitate the most significant change of all, which is to our current party-political arrangements.

To this end, it seems desirable (and currently quite likely) that party lines be redrawn. Maybe we need to get more used to coalition governments, but amongst a wider range of more equally-balanced parties or even sub-coalitions. As an example, rather than an actual suggestion, the left of Labour could merge with the majority of the Lib Dems and Greens. Others could merge with the centrist elements of the Tories, with the right of that party setting up shop with UKIP.

This could have several benefits. It would increase the chance of a two-party coalition that has to focus on compromise over ideological opportunism. It would prevent the kind of real politik manoeuvring that pushed Cameron into calling the EU referendum in the first place, as appeasing the fringes would be less valuable than finding common ground with the other major parties.

I should perhaps repeat that the above is just an example. I think it would be better if we were working with perhaps five or six factions who have to work towards compromise, rather than just three. However, the underlying sentiment should be clear; less one-party power, less unfettered ideology, more representation of interests across a wider spectrum of society.

But even at the level of the ‘big picture’, there are changes that could and should be made. The left in this country needs an internal revolution of perspective. It needs to accept that markets matter and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It should look at how to make them work fairly but without destroying competition, not how to simply make them go away. The fantasy – as appealing as I and many others may find it – that we can reach some sort of meritocratic utopia will only be realised if we become a post-scarcity civilisation. Regrettably that is a very long way off indeed.

Meanwhile, the right needs to get back to brass tacks. At root, it comes from the individualist approach of a society of equal opportunities, healthy but above-board competition between members and socio-economic Darwinism. There needs to be some honest introspection by many on the right as to whether this is the direction we’re headed. It would also be helpful to envisage what kind of end goal we’d like that evolutionary process to lead to. I’m pretty sure that it shouldn’t be one of corporatism and structural inequality.

Both sides need to make sure the outliers are not courted to make up the numbers. The dangers stemming from far-left or far-right extremism aren’t just threats to our society, but have global extent. We must not legitimise or otherwise fuel them. If we think that, as a species, we’ve outgrown totalitarianism and large-scale war, we’re deluded. We still regularly exhibit an alarming lack of compassion and propensity for indifference towards suffering that we should be deeply ashamed of. And deeply worried about.

If I could summarise all the above into a relatively simple idea, it is this: we need to prove we meant what we said about wanting to improve Europe. We need to become – apparently on our own, for now – what we wanted it to be and what many of us believed it could be. Our goal should be to become a microcosm of that. To lead by example and, it is my hope, with the aim of one day being able to reintegrate with the EU in a way that is to the benefit of all.

Like an awful lot of people I know, I’ve woken up this morning to a nightmare scenario. I don’t mean the simple fact of being outside the EU, although that is a terrible blow in itself. I mean the longer term implications.

I know this might sound like nothing more than hyperbole, that some people might think it’s an infantile over-reaction to things not going ‘my way’. I can see why it may look like that, so I want to explain why I feel it’s such a disaster.

Our political process is far more broken than we thought

Mainstream politics in this country is completely out of whack with the feelings and attitudes of the electorate. It’s no secret that we’ve got a political class that is disproportionately made up of people born in a bubble that they never leave. Other than for those inside the bubble, this is common knowledge.

The electorate cannot properly communicate their feelings to the political establishment. Increasing concern surrounding a specific issue is consistently under-estimated. Frustration over something spills over into people getting pissed off and ranting incoherently, which leads to them being dismissed as fringe lunatics.

Equally, the establishment either can’t or don’t communicate information back to the electorate. Too often it is most politically expedient to ride a wave of vox pop sentiment, exploiting it to remain in power. Then while all the parliamentary rhetoric is still settling, they move on to the next vote-winning cause without actually doing anything.

This boils down to political laziness, the path of least resistance. Rather than do things the hard way and explain the case in the clearest, least partisan terms possible, MPs will just nod along, say the right words and then not actually act upon them. Opportunities for small, incremental fixes are missed and we end up with discontent building up until there’s a huge, sudden over-adjustment. It was what happened with the trade unions and nationalised services, and now it’s what has happened with migration and legislative authority.

And in hindsight, none of this should be surprising. It has become apparent that the tools we have for bridging this disconnect aren’t fit for purpose. Opinion polls don’t report accurately. Political campaigns run riot with the truth, in the absence of any regulatory obligation to actually tell it. Normal, grounded terminology is banned from the public debate, so nobody ever admits they got it wrong and this just feeds into the frustrations of people who’re already feeling ignored and marginalised. For anyone watching the BBC’s referendum coverage last night, I point you towards Angela Eagle’s downright demented denial of reality and Iain Duncan Smith’s “I didn’t say that, absolutely not, that wasn’t what I said, wasn’t it very funny and clever of me to say that” routine.

We aren’t playing by the same rules. If we were working from things at least resembling facts, we’d have a common ground for the discussion. Instead, we’re talking about completely different realities, using different meanings. We’re fed lies, expected to believe them and then treated with surprised contempt when we do just that. Our complaints that our concerns aren’t being addressed are met with two stages of equally asinine response; first we are told they are in fact being addressed when we can see that quite obviously isn’t the case, then that we aren’t really concerned about those things anyway.

Geopolitical Effects

This is going to cost us. A lot. Austerity is and has always been New Speak for ‘creeping privatisation’. Instead of being accountable for their own ideological impositions, the government in general and leave campaign in particular have blamed it on the EU. The great irony of this is we’re now facing a major economic downturn that will almost certainly force more cuts and further depress the job market. There may well be a many people who voted along these lines who will have a lot of egg on their face in the near future. That’s probably a good thing because, as a consequence of all this, those same people are unlikely to be able to afford luxuries such as food.

Another knock-on of this will be the increased pressure from other European Union member states to hold their own referenda. As a worst-case scenario, this could lead to an eventual breakup of the EU, which at a time when Russia is flexing increasingly nationalistic, expansionist muscles could be catastrophic. Assuming that any and all steps will be taken to avoid that risk, we’re not going to walk away from this with a sweet deal and a fond farewell. We’re going to be made an example of, to scare others thinking of following our lead into staying put.

I’ve heard quite a few people say that we shouldn’t worry about this, because we can negotiate ourselves a positive exit deal. This is a lie. The reason we can’t is because, according to the rules surrounding Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, we won’t be involved in the negotiations. All parties other than the exiting party decide the deal. Those same parties who will want to make sure no-one jumps on our bandwagon. And their friends, which in political terms means ‘biggest trade partners’, such as the US and China, are likely to play along.

Probably of the greatest concern – again, assuming the worst case scenario of World War 3 is avoided – is what will happen to that other union, the United Kingdom. Scotland have already announced their intention to hold a second independence vote, which in this new context is likely to lead to them leaving the UK. Northern Ireland is also going to become extremely problematic, as it will now need border controls with the rest of Ireland. A resurgence of violence in the region is probably also on the cards. Amongst the many problems these two aspects will bring, one is a further diminishing of the UK’s value as a trading partner and therefore political clout on the world stage.

The long-term domestic picture

Here’s where things look really grim. If we look at the above from a holistic point of view, we find some particularly disturbing outcomes. I don’t have the time, insight or energy to identify them all, let alone outline them, so I’ll just cover the two I find most worrying.

Things are going to get a lot worse in terms of the economy. Not only does this have a direct impact on quality of life, but it also further fans the flames which mobilised much of the leave vote in the first place. Only now we’ve got no ‘outsider’ to blame. In such situations, what usually happens is people start blaming each other. Far from learning the lessons so graphically and tragically highlighted by the death of Jo Cox, we can expect to see the polemic become more heated, more internalised in its scope but more externalised in its expression.

That’s bad enough at the best of times and, looking back, these last few years may be viewed as the best of times. Going forward though, there is one danger above all others that I think is very real. If Scotland votes to leave, it takes many Labour – and now SNP, but the practical impact will be the same – heartlands with it. This hands a lasting and substantial electoral mandate to the Tories. It shifts the political centre a long way to the right. At the same time, the Tories themselves are taking a step to the right, with Cameron’s resignation almost certainly paving the way for someone like Boris Johnson leading the party.

Our political landscape may well have just changed irrecoverably. If Scotland does indeed vote for independence, it’s plausible that we will have a generation of Conservative rule, just as the party falls into the hands of newly-invigorated neo-Thatcherites. All coming to be with more of an appetite for US-style laissez-faire corporatism and less regulations to hold them back.

So my reasons for such despondency at the referendum result are twofold: sadness at what has been lost and despair at what is to come. I’m not being petulant at ‘losing’, nor do I dismiss the concerns or intelligence of all those who voted out. I’m simply looking at the world and asking myself “where does this path lead?”. I really, truly can’t see it being anywhere good.

Sometimes, I need to write about something but just don’t know how to start. Whatever it is that has incited the need to write is either too wonderful, too weird or too terrible to introduce ‘naturally’. It would either sound glib, blasé, cold, mundane… or just awkward. Today the cause is definitely in the ‘terrible’ category and the tone is all of those I mention plus more.

So maybe back a bit, to what I’d wanted to write when I got up this morning. I’ve been getting increasingly edgy about the whole EU referendum polling and trying to keep myself calm by saying “pre-election poll bump” under my breath all week. I am very firmly in – and disappointed by the case-making skills of – the remain camp. Leaving will be a disaster. There’s nothing tangible to be gained, the entire case for exit seems to be based mostly on lies and I’m feeling increasingly ashamed to be British. And even, more broadly considering what’s going on in the US, the Middle East and the rest of the world, to be human.

I was going to set out some arguments for why I feel so strongly this way. I’m a pragmatist when it comes to politics, so it’s not out of ideological fervour that I want to stay in. It’s that, based on the facts, I literally can’t see why anyone would think leaving the EU would be a good idea. It isn’t. It’s a terrible idea and I can’t help but conclude that people are voting based on feelings, not careful consideration or facts.

And then I saw the news breaking this afternoon, about the crushingly sad murder of Jo Cox. Then, with a level of predictability that was almost equally depressing, I saw it immediately being politicised. Not by the campaigns. Not directly. But by the people on each side of the debate, the ones who care, the ones who will vote. A woman – a good, charitable one, by all accounts – died horrifically in unconfirmed circumstances. A representative of our democracy. Someone whose job was quite literally to represent us. All of us. Not just those who voted for her, but everyone. And the first thing many people sought to do was use it to win an argument.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s an important argument. One the victim herself considered important, too. Her attacker may or may not have felt strongly about it as well. Early reports suggest he may have, but it’s too early to tell and, to be honest, irrelevant. If it is linked to the referendum, this attack could have happened to someone on either campaign. It’s not about one side being nice and the other nasty. One being wrong and the other being right. There are some pretty hateful idiots on both sides. There are also many caring, earnest, well-meaning people on both sides. It isn’t about the sides, it’s about the way cases have been made, the standards we’ve (not) held ourselves to in promoting and criticising them.

But this reaction, this instinct to immediately point the finger at a single cause of something… that is I think, ironically, the primary cause of such tragic, senseless anger. Our entire political atmosphere has become poisoned by fear and hate. Partisanship and raw, unfettered ideology have dragged us free from facts, made us worry more how we feel than how we think – in contrast to what we think – and drowned out the quiet tug of conscience and respect for each other.

It doesn’t matter if you think X or Y about a matter, only how you reach that conclusion and then conduct yourself in advocating it. You are indeed free to speak your mind, but you are also responsible for your words. I don’t mean “he told me to do it” or “it hurt my feelings”, but that if you use your freedom to preach fear and hate of the other then you must understand that has an impact on the world. How we behave – including what we say and how we choose to say it – is an act of practical democracy, a will towards the world being a bit more that way.

If you are kind, that is a vote for a kinder world. If you are cruel, for a crueller one. And if you spread hate and fear, you are making the world a bit more fearful and hateful. When you attach that, parasite-style, to a popular issue, it can have a huge impact. Not only does it generally make the world a worse place, but it also risks triggering those who are vulnerable and unstable into doing something far more awful than your ‘mere words’ may have ever been meant to.

Now it hasn’t in any way been confirmed that Jo Cox’s killer had documented mental health issues, nor what motivation there was for his attack. However, I would suggest that anyone who carries out such an act must have had persistent or latent mental health problems. If we keep the tone respectful and the debate factual, such instabilities are left largely unaffected. We minimise the risk of them exploding into sudden, awful activity. But instead we pour fuel on the fire and fan the flames, which exacerbates those issues and has all-too devastating results.

It is not just here, of course. The rise of Trump, the Orlando attacks, Islamic State, Irish sectarian violence… it all rides on a tide of the same mentality, the herding instinct of the human animal. Western society, neo-liberalism, modern democracy; call it what you will, but it has been slowly poisoned by our failure to take responsibility in this way. We’ve been so negligent of how we conduct ourselves, both in public and within our own heads, that we’ve driven ourselves back to the problems we thought we’d overcome. In freely, incrementally, lazily allowing our behaviour and our rhetoric to mirror that of The Bad Old Days, when fascism rose and nearly destroyed us, we’ve returned to exactly what brought it about in the first place; fear and division. Blame and hate.

We’ve mistaken passionate advocacy for fear-mongering and bullying. An environment of hyper-ideological rhetoric and divisive finger-pointing has been explained away as healthy debate and freedom of expression. Removed from humility and respect for both facts and those with whom we differ, the only way to feel we’re progressing the discourse is to constantly up the ante. Shout louder. Be more extreme. Rely on shock factor rather than nuance. Those who argue with conviction are held as highly or more so than those who argue with consideration and caution.

But feeling strongly about something is no more licence to ignore contrary evidence or just plain respect and decency than it is to murder someone in the street. The responsibility for Jo Cox’s death is of course firmly at the feet of her killer, just as the actions of Islamic State are at theirs. But the responsibility for the environment that shapes the minds behind those actions is one we all carry.

At the very base of all things, we are accountable to one another because we are responsible for one another. This is our world and our actions shape it. Looking at the current state of things, we’ve taken particularly poor care of ourselves, as individuals and as a whole. No vote or ideology matters at all against the one metric that counts; what kind of people we make ourselves, what world we build in doing so and the care we take in both.

RIP Jo Cox. I’m sorry our collective failure cost you and your family so dearly.

 

 

 

The following is a collection of thoughts in response to an article I was linked to, run by Answers in Genesis. The article is titled Doesn’t Carbon-14 Dating Disprove The Bible? and it’s… not very good. Or honest.

The text that follows is from an email I sent someone on the matter. It is slightly edited, but only for formatting and aesthetic reasons; I’ve not removed any of the content proper.

For those fortunate enough to be unfamiliar with AiG, it’s an organisation run by the literal (and literalist) lunatic fringe of Christian fundamentalism. It spends an incredible amount of time and energy performing mental gymnastics trying to debunk well-established science. Originally this was solely evolution, but as their views are so profoundly wrong, it has now necessarily extended to pretty much the entirety of the scientific method and all modern scientific knowledge.

Although noted below, I am not a geologist, physicist or professional in any other related area of study. The thoughts are my own, based on reading up on the subject here and there over the years. Initially this was simply out of interest, but as the virulence of fundamentalist apologetics increased, I’ve looked into it further. I am under no illusions as to how far from an expert this still leaves me and do not wish for anyone reading this to mistake me for one.

However, the information is all out there & readily available. Sites like AiG rely on their readers’ confirmation bias preventing them from going out to check these things. I have not, with one exception, provided sources. This is part laziness, but also partly due to the information being so readily available online.

1. Misrepresentation of the scientific view

It does this extensively and is arguably all the article is: one big straw man. For example:

“Is the explanation of the data derived from empirical, observational science, or an interpretation of past events (historical science)?”

AiG and other creationist organisations like to paint ‘historical science’ as ‘science of origins’. It’s effectively a dressed-up version of the profoundly stupid question they used to bounce about, which was “were you there?” Firstly, ‘historical science’ isn’t solely or even primarily concerned with ‘origins’ at all. It’s simply science for anything that wasn’t under active observation at the time of occurrence. Not only are there many areas in which this is taken for granted as highly reliable – forensic science, for example – but to criticise ‘historical science’ as relying on interpretation of evidence is to completely misunderstand all science.

The methodology is that you go for the interpretation which relies on the least assumptions and best (most completely & accurately) explains the evidence. If that’s a problem for historical science, it’s a problem for all science. As it quite clearly isn’t – and the predictive element of the method can be applied equally to both to test this – we can only assume that AiG don’t understand what they’re talking about or do understand what they’re talking about and are being knowingly dishonest about it. I shall leave you to conclude which of these is in fact the case.

Another quote, this time an outright falsehood – again, up to you to decide whether it’s intentional or ignorant in nature – about what ‘science’ assumes regarding C-14 dating:

“A critical assumption used in carbon-14 dating has to do with this ratio. It is assumed that the ratio of ¹⁴C to ¹²C in the atmosphere has always been the same as it is today (1 to 1 trillion).”

This is not a critical assumption. In fact, it’s not even an assumption made by the scientific community at all. The assumption that is made is that the rate of decay remains constant. We know that the levels of C-14 in the environment have fluctuated significantly throughout history, being at various points higher and lower than they are now. We also know that the ratio of C-14 to C-12 has varied over time & adjustments are factored into calculations to take this into account. We’ve used independent methods to verify these variations, so they’re not just guesswork.

The above quote leads into another falsehood:

“If this is not true, the ratio of ¹⁴C to ¹²C is not a constant, which would make knowing the starting amount of ¹⁴C in a specimen difficult or impossible to accurately determine.”

If and only if there were no other way of measuring levels & ratios. Since there are, it actually becomes very easy to determine exactly that. Even better, it means we now have two methods of measurement that corroborate one another!

Here’s an example of something I find curiously common in and endemic to creationist arguments:

“Dr. Willard Libby, the founder of the carbon-14 dating method, assumed this ratio to be constant.” 

Groups like AiG seem to give undue weight of opinion to ‘founders’ of things. Whether this is an expression of the structure of their worldview or an attempt to avoid acknowledging subsequent, more recent & better informed opinions on areas, I don’t know. Either way it is little more than an argument from authority and carries no weight. The fact they feel the need to attack the oldest & least complete version of a position is telling in itself and, if there has been any development in the field at all, it is also a straw man argument. You could say that Newton ‘founded’ gravitational theory, but he didn’t know as much as we do now and his account was incomplete. It is not the current scientific position on gravity and therefore attacking it as such is a straw man.

The article continues:

“His reasoning was based on a belief in evolution, which assumes the earth must be billions of years old. Assumptions in the scientific community are extremely important.”

This is bare assertion and an attempt to poison the well in the mind of the reader. There is no evidence (at least that I can find – I would expect a reference if it were not readily available information) to suggest the basis for his assumption was his support for evolutionary theory. It is far more likely that he took the view out of adherence to the principle of uniformitarianism – that, lacking evidence to the contrary, the environment was constrained by the same factors then as it is now. This can be a flawed assumption, such as in this case. That it had anything to do with evolution, however, is completely speculative and therefore dishonest.

“Dr. Libby’s calculations showed that if the earth started with no ¹⁴C in the atmosphere, it would take up to 30,000 years to build up to a steady state (equilibrium).”

Why would we assume there to have been no C-14 in the atmosphere of early Earth? Based on everything else we know, it would seem likely that there was plenty of C-14 in the atmosphere at that time.

“What does this mean? If it takes about 30,000 years to reach equilibrium and ¹⁴C is still out of equilibrium, then maybe the earth is not very old.”

What it means is: if you make faulty assumptions and then extrapolate from them, you’ll likely get faulty conclusions. We know that the ratios and levels fluctuate, so we know that this ‘if’ is not the case. The 30,000 year figure is irrelevant (because it relies on things being other than as they are known to be) and we don’t expect Earth to be able to reach or maintain equilibrium in an environment where the decay rate is constant but the production rate is not.

This is followed by a similar argument based around geomagnetism:

“Other factors can affect the production rate of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere. The earth has a magnetic field around it which helps protect us from harmful radiation from outer space. This magnetic field is decaying (getting weaker). The stronger the field is around the earth, the fewer the number of cosmic rays that are able to reach the atmosphere. This would result in a smaller production of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere in earth’s past.”

We know that the magnetic field has varied even more widely than C-ratio and production has. It has been twice as strong and half as strong, not simply declining in a linear manner as implied here. At times there will have been ‘smaller’ [sic] production of C-14. At other times there will have been greater levels of production. This is, by the way, all lifted from the much-discredited work of Kent Hovind. There are many comprehensive rebuttals of his radiometric dating criticism, such as this one here.

“If the production rate of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere was less in the past, dates given using the carbon-14 method would incorrectly assume that more ¹⁴C had decayed out of a specimen than what has actually occurred. This would result in giving older dates than the true age.”

And if it were greater at others, we’d perhaps be getting ages that are in fact younger than the true age. Which is what we see, as it is known that many radiocarbon dates are in fact too young, not too old.

I could go through things in greater detail, but to be honest it is neither my field of expertise nor my inclination. If you can’t see from the above that the case being made in the article is a straw man of the scientific position and the evidence used to reach it, attacking assumptions that are not made and questioning conclusions that are not reached, no greater degree of thoroughness is likely to change your mind on the matter.

As one final note on this point, however, I would like to mention that dendrochronological data not only supports all of what I’ve said above, but shows the world to be older than AiG’s figure on its own. We have tree ring data going back around 9,000 years. All of it supports the C-14 data as I’ve argued, as well as showing that there were trees before the date AiG claims the universe even existed.

2. Fallacy of equivocation

All of the above seems a lot of hoops to jump through – especially ones that are easily demonstrated to be dishonest, should the reader be inclined to check – just to debunk a single radiometric dating method. One that, actually, only works over shorter time periods. As opposed to something like U-Pb dating, which is accurate out to billions of years. Not a single criticism is raised towards U-Pb dating or any of the other established and rigorously tested methods, all of which are at least as problematic for YEC as C-14 is. One would therefore assume that the article would keep its conclusion focused as tightly on C-14 dating as its criticisms were. Only it doesn’t do this:

“All radiometric dating methods are based on assumptions about events that happened in the past. If the assumptions are accepted as true (as is typically done in the evolutionary dating processes), results can be biased toward a desired age. In the reported ages given in textbooks and other journals, these evolutionary assumptions have not been questioned, while results inconsistent with long ages have been censored. When the assumptions were evaluated and shown faulty, the results supported the biblical account of a global Flood and young earth.”

This is extremely dishonest in several ways. Firstly, it tries to equivocate between “C-14 dating” and “all radiometric dating”, sneaking the latter into the conclusion when it is quite clearly not what the article has been discussing. “Radiometric dating (via C-14)” being referred to as radiometric dating is fine. Then equivocating this with “radiometric dating (in general)” is fallacious in the extreme.

Even if the criticisms had been valid – which, as shown above, they are not – then they would be of C-14 and only C-14. Shifting to then talk about “all radiometric dating methods” is a bait & switch argument, where “here’s a critique of C-14 dating” is then equivocated with “a critique of all radiometric dating methods” by swapping the latter in at the point of conclusion.

Additionally, it tries to bring evolution into the matter when it has nothing to do with it. The evidence provided by radiometric dating would suggest the same as it does now even if we knew evolution didn’t take place. It’s completely irrelevant and another indicator of the true purpose and mindset behind the article.

Finally, radiometric dating methods are not based on assumptions about events that happened in the past. They are based on evidence that has been gathered and observed, cross-checked and then applied to the historic record for comparison. What the conclusion of this process would be was unknown at the point the evidence was gathered. It was unknown at the point the evidence was being analysed. It was unknown what the cross-checking would turn up.

So this situation is that:

– We have an extensive body of evidence in one area

– We have cross-checked it against other independent but equally extensive bodies of evidence in other areas

– We find they all point towards the same conclusion

The best explanation for all of these taken independently and when considered together is that events happened that way in the past. This is entirely the opposite of an assumption! It is starting out not knowing & then, after careful testing and analysis, coming to a ‘most likely’ explanation. If evidence to the contrary were to turn up, the position would be revised accordingly

By misrepresenting & isolating the scientific position regarding a single tool, AiG then try to conclude that all tools are subject to the same conclusion. However, if looked at in the context of all those tools when cross-checked against one another, we see that single tool (in this case, C-14 dating) fits perfectly and it is the article’s criticism of it which is flawed.

There are of course many other issues with the article, which would take even more time to cover than I’ve already spent. Not least the sentence early on which states:

“When a scientist’s interpretation of data does not match the clear meaning of the text in the Bible, we should never reinterpret the Bible.”

This is open admission that the scientific process is not being followed or respected. That being the case, none of what is thus argued carries any scientific weight, no matter how many pictures of atomic nuclei or out-of-context, anachronistic quotes are given alongside.

Unbiased, open-minded scientific enquiry is based on the statement “I will conclude most likely whatever the evidence suggests most likely”. The above quote from the article is saying “I will conclude my starting assumption, regardless of what the evidence suggests to the contrary”. I would hope that it would be obvious why this would be a problem, with regards to methodology and also for the credibility of a source.