Some thoughts

This essay has been a long time coming, as my thoughts on how to implement have changed as the price of gold and silver have climbed and inflation has bit since the pandemic. It will briefly summarise my thoughts on the desirability of a gold standard, and then describe a practical plan for doing so. It is focused on the UK but other countries could adopt a similar plan, and based on current (August 2024) gold prices . Humans have used various forms of currency since the dawn of time. Gold and silver coins have been used since Lydia minted their Stater . Dominic Frisby has written extensively on the history of the Gold Standard, house prices and wages in gold , and its industrial uses so I'm not going to recount them here, merely add that I've been reading about this topic since Detlev Schlichter's Paper Money Collapse came out 10 years ago. Since my early teens, I've also been interested in coins and money, bringing coins back from foreign trips and collecting b...

Yesterday I left the following comment on F211 : As for of the future of the Met, I'd suggest putting all the Specialist Operations (royal protection, counter terrorism, etc) under the national crime agency, and breaking up the rest into separate forces for each of London's 32 boroughs. It looks like I'm not the only one to suggest this:  Is it time to break up the Met? It would involve a structural overhaul of policing in London, to create a new service with a fresh identity, ethos and mission, focused on the capital, and a separate body responsible for national counter-terrorism and security. To expand on my comment from yesterday, one of my guiding principles is that individuals are the best equipped to make decisions about their lives, so power should be exercised at the lowest level possible and flow up from the bottom, not from the top. Additionally, it is easier to hold officials to account locally and has more influence when there are fewer voices clamoring for th...

 Reviving this series in a timely manner, following of from today's announcement on making maths compulsory until 18. Working in schools I've thought about this topic a lot. I have to agree with this assessment in the speccie: 'What is the point of making these students sit through two more frustrating, futile years, especially when there is such a huge gap between our current curriculum and its applications for most people? It would be one thing to request students to undertake some sort of qualification in financial literacy or the basics of economics and business. But why submit students who are far more suited to a vocational education to polynomials and logarithms?' Part of the problem with the current system is that it was designed for when the school leaving age was 16, now it's 18 (I do find it amusing that it is often those who argue for keeping youngsters in full-time education until 18 are also the same who argue for lowering the voting age to 16, but I ...

Following on from Northern Ireland, let us consider options involving Scottish independence. It looks likely that next month's Scottish Parliament election will return a pro-independence government, either an SBP minority or formal SNP-Green coalition. If this does happen then, as this article clearly argues, it would be best to negotiate clear terms of the divorce before any poll.  One concrete term I would expect to be made is for the naval bases  Faslane  and  Coulport  (Trident submarine bases and missile stores, see  here  for more info) to become Sovereign Base Areas (similar to  Akrotiri and Dhekelia , or the I rish treaty ports ) on a 99 year, renewable lease. Other bases such as  Glen Douglas ,  Rosyth , and  Lossiemouth  could potentially also be leased or retrained by the rUK. Furthermore, I would negotiate an opt-out for regions that vote no to independence to succeed from Scotland to remain in the rUK in the ...

 I hadn't intended to cover this topic again so soon, but the resignation of  Arlene Foster  has led to speculation on the future of NI. As this Spectator article notes: The challenge is two-fold in advance of 2022’s Assembly election. First, retain the support of those who believe the party has betrayed Unionism by failing to prevent the introduction of the Northern Ireland Protocol. Second, regain the support of that unaligned chunk of the electorate who previously lent them their vote come polling day, who have now been put off by the party’s attitude and vote Alliance, Ulster Unionist or not at all. Failure to achieve these two aims could allow Sinn Fein to become the largest party, a doomsday scenario. It could well be the case that if Sinn Fein wins the 2022 Assembly election and they call for a border poll (which the UK is legally obliged to hold thanks to the Good Friday Agreement). If there is a yes vote this could cause protests and violence from the Unionists c...

Following on from the last post, The idea of updating the UK flag has come up a few times over the years. Here are my ideas for a new flag based on the scenarios previously described, in the same order of different scenarios: 1) Kingdom of Great Britain and Ulster: As there would still be the four nations making up the UK there would not be a great need to change the flag. However, this could be an opportunity to add Welsh representation, such as this idea from Wikipedia : 2) Kingdom of Great Britain: If Northern Ireland goes, revert to the pre-1801 flag. These flags already exist, the following are my designs. 3) United Kingdon of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland: If Scotland goes, replace the St Andrews cross with St Davids. In addition, St Patrick's cross is made wider ( Currently The red saltire of St Patrick is offset such that it does not relegate the white saltire of St Andrew to a mere border. )  This could be also be used in the event that NI is repartitioned. 4)...

Another new series, as the name suggests these posts will look at options for renewing the institutions, policies, and purpose of the UK for the rest of the 21st-century and beyond. To begin with, I will consider the fundamental issue of what changes could happen to the territory and name of the UK. The relationship between the 4 nations that make up the UK has been under strain ever since the devolution initiatives of the Blair government, but especially since the 2016 Brexit referendum. Both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain, this has led to renewed calls for Scottish Independence and the Reunification of Ireland. This post will show 4 possible scenarios for a future Britain. Before moving onto these scenarios, a quick recap on the origins of the name of the UK, as this influences the names I use of successor states. To put it simply: England (and Wales) + Scotland + Kingdom of Great Britain, Kingdom of Great Britain + Northern Ireland = United Kingdom of Great Britain an...

The current riots in Northern Ireland reminded me of this old article at Strange Maps:  Is Ulster Doomed? . Since this year marks the centenary of the original partition of Ireland , so it is perhaps time to reconsider the current arrangements. As things stand under the Good Friday agreement NI remains part of the UK until the population wishes otherwise. Depending on how you count it  polls suggest  growing levels of support for a change.   However, reunification would have a high cost for the Republic (assuming the UK ceased all financial support for the province), while leaving a large population unhappy with the result. A co-dominion would be a short-term solution, but would probably only delay the event. So let's look at a more off-the-wall suggestion, as brought up by that Strange Maps article: repartition. Looking at the last general election result we could see the new borders set so: While the 2017 map is basically the same: These are both similar to o...