Daily Archives: April 30, 2017

Britain after Brexit: A mixture of Merrie England, Toytown and Singapore

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Julian Barnes wrote a wonderful LRB Diary piece about Brexit. I particularly liked this passage:

And what is the Brexiteers’ vision of our future, purified nation? It seems to be a mixture of Merrie England, Toytown and Singapore. Outward-looking in the sense of ‘open for business’, which tends to mean ‘up for sale’. Inward-looking in other senses. Morally depleted by cutting ourselves off from Europe and sheltering beneath Trump’s fragrant armpit. What might we end up as? Perhaps a kind of Bigger Belgium with quasi-American values – also, as Belgium might be, torn into separate nations again. Do we seriously think that those who voted for Brexit are going to be better off under this state-shrinking government? (I can’t recall the slogan ‘Poorer but Happier’ being used.) That the NHS will be properly funded? That the increasing numbers on zero-hours will not be exploited further? That the old winners will be the new, even bigger winners? Do we seriously believe that Mrs May will construct ‘a country that works for everyone’? To the pieties of our current political elite, I much prefer the old Portuguese proverb: ‘If shit were valuable, the poor would be born without arses.’

Jimmy Wales goes after fake news. Brave man.

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This morning’s Observer column:

What has come to be called “fake news” is a hard problem to solve, if indeed it is solvable at all. This is because it is created by the interaction of human psychology with several forces: the affordances of digital technology, the business models of giant internet companies and the populist revolt against globalisation. But that hasn’t stopped people trying to solve the problem.

To date, most well-intentioned people have gone down the “fact-checking” route, on the assumption that if only people knew the facts then that would stop them believing lies. This suggests a touching faith in human nature. People have been believing nonsensical things since the beginning of time and nothing we have seen recently indicates that they plan to change the habits of millenniums.

Think, for example, of the infamous lie put about by the Leave campaign in the referendum – that the £350m that the UK supposedly pays every week to the EU could be better spent on the NHS…

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