Yesterday the Tories suggested the concept of only having English MPs voting on English affairs. Then before that we had the “will he, won’t he?” game around the prospect of the PM calling a general election. On top of all that we have the gently simmering question of what to do with the House of Lords. For a country with no written constitution, we seem to be doing quite well at generating constitutional questions.

It seems fairly obvious that there are two reasons that we are having these questions. Firstly, we have no single written document stating how we shall be ruled, and secondly, as humans, we have a desire for the new and the modern. I have to say that I quite like the idea of the UK being one of only two states in the world to have an unwritten constitution. It is reflective of the fairly unique status of Britain as being a country that has tried on most forms of government at one time or another: absolute monarchy, republic, colony, imperial power and so on, but has finally settled on one without the need for a major modern revolution. But by slowly adopting and adapting, we have caused some little problems here and there in the make up of the state.

Due to the workings of my favourite bank, I am now in the possession of £40 worth of groceries, a home recycling centre, several pieces of music from iTunes and a copy of Casino Royale from Amazon, despite not actually having paid for any of them! It seems that if you enter your PIN incorrectly into an ATM just once, then your debit card is frozen until you ring a number in Spain and ask nicely for them to let you have your money back again.

I really don’t understand why one incorrect entry caused by a slightly jammed keypad should be cause for a block to be put on my account, but that is what seems to happen.

It would of course have to happen on the same day that my bike got a flat tyre just as I was leaving for uni, that I was late for my first lecture, and that I had forgotten to do the reading for my modern politics class, but I suppose that it is good to get all the bad things concentrated into one day so that they are over and done with!

When I first moved to Manchester for the first year of my course at Uni, I spent the first few weeks just settling in and trying to get used to the whole idea of living away from home and being in a city and country with a quite different culture from that which I grew up with. This past week, I have been sort of doing that again. I just started back at Uni for the second year of my course, and its quite strange how all the totally new experiences are mixing with lots of familiar stuff.

I have to find a launderette and work out how to use storage heaters and an Economy 7 water heater, but I know my way around campus and can find most of my lecture theaters without getting lost. It helps that I have a decent place to live this year. Last year, I was in a really bad hall of residence in Hulme, sharing a flat with people who I didn’t really get along with. This year, I have a comfortable flat in Didsbury which, thanks to their cheap furniture, almost resembles a page out of an Ikea catalogue. I’m still getting the hang of things, but I feel a lot more settled than I did last year.

Every year, 20,000 or so hippies congregate on top of the Mendip Hills in Somerset. It is called the Big Green Gathering. I just got back from this year’s Gathering, so I thought I would do a joint blog and photo posting.

The idea of the festival is to let people learn about green lifestyles, and swap ideas or bring important things to peoples attention. There’s also a lot of great music. One of the best experiences the festival offers is just to be able to know that you are not alone in caring about the environment. And with twenty thousand people in just a few fields, you pretty quickly get to see the full green spectrum! Among stall-holders this year were “Hunt Saboteurs”, the Simultaneous Policy people, and the Squatters Rights group who, rather amusingly, put up posters for a forum titled “Beyond Squatting” on the doors to every portaloo on site!

I have to mention the Simultaneous Policy people because their idea is just so unusual that I was surprised to see them back at this years festival. The gist of the idea is that nation-states can make decisions that could affect matters such as trade and investment more easily if they all make the decision at the same time. It removes the disadvantage in being an early adopter and possibly losing the trade or investment to another state which has not implemented the idea. To be perfectly honest, while it may sound like a good idea, I think that it is just really incredibly idealistic and naive to think that this could ever work in the current international community. Anyway, they seem like nice people with good intentions.

One of the musical highlights of the festival was Martha Tilston’s performance. I don’t think that she is particularly well known outside the realm of folk music, but she is an absolutely amazing artist. Because most of the audience got to the venue before she probably even left her tent, she had to tune instruments and warm up in front of everyone, but I think that just added to the experience. At the end, she managed to sneak off stage and out of the tent, leaving everyone in the audience still singing her last song!

It is official. I have entered politics! With my first letter to the Edinburgh Evening News, I have sparked two people on the EEN web forum to strongly disagree with me and call me a “career-driven supporter” of the SGP, speaking “no more than blatant propaganda”! Here are the posts in full:

#12(#10 Climate Truth) – Wow! It is good to hear from someone who can speak knowledgeably about these issues that have been reduced to no more than blatant propaganda by the Greens and too many career-driven supporters. Climate Truth’s comment refers to the latest IPCC report allegedly supported by “2,500 scientists” and to the “Summary for Policy Makers” which has been released in advance of the report proper. If I understand correctly, this Summary was issued before the report proper was finalised. However, it was announced that the report would not be changed except to bring it into line with the Summary – completely the wrong way round! The summary should be of the findings of the Report! It is not only Tom Redford who says such untruths with a straight face – Greens as a group are lying their way through the Press. A couple of days ago we had another who stated as fact something that was just not true, not misinterpreted, not misunderstood but just not true. And these people have the gall to suggest we vote for them!

#14Yes (12), I too dislike this propaganda that the Greens are using to present their argument. It implies that they have a very weak case so have to use the “big lie” to make their argument. Tom Redford says that Helen Martin “writes that the scientific community is divided on the matter of whether climate change is caused by human activities. This is simply not true.” That statement is simply not true, as Climate Truth says with significant references to dissenting scientists. At least Steuart Campbell, whilst supporting TOm [sic] Redford’s view, is honest enough to admit the reality – that pursuing the Greens’ policy would wreck the economy, a significant factor in my view. I had the privilege to attend the lecture given some months ago by Bjorn Lomborg, who left Greenpeace at the same time as one of the co-founders. They took the view that the argument had been won, that people were correctly concerned about ecology and it was no longer necessary to pursue confrontation to make their case. Too many Greenpeace activists enjoyed confrontation to follow their lead, leading to that schism. Lomborg argues that whilst everyone should be concerned about the planet, Kyoto required far more investment than the improvements that it could create. It couldn’t produce a realistic return on the investment, both in activity and financial cost. He even wrote a book about all the other steps that could be taken instead with far greater benefit to the planet and its inhabitants. He has been described as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He also disagrees with the IPCC “findings”.