Farewell to the European Union! Hello to the Union of Subservient State Republics!

In 2016, while writing the first draft of my forthcoming book, 366, I came across a book called The Rotten Heart of Europe. It’s about the European Commission, written by a European Commission employee, who became an ex-European Commission employee for writing the book!

Now it is 17 February 2017 and I have received an email announcing the publication by the European Commission, of the FET Flagship Interim Evaluation Report – the report which I spent 2016 writing with the FET Flagship evaluation panel. The email carries the header The FET Flagships receive positive evaluation in their journey towards ground-breaking innovation. It is of course a propaganda message – that’s what the European Commission produces these days.

Moving forward in time, it is now 22 February and a journalist has published a blog with the title: Human Brain Project: Bureaucratic Success Despite Scientific Failure.

Back in time now to 17 February and after downloading the pdf version of the report in the link in the propaganda email, I visit the Participant Portal, login into my entry in the experts’ database where I then remove what I can of my CV, replacing the content with the statement information removed. I then login to my domain name control panel and delete the email that is used as my access to the European Commission’s electronic tools, and the one by which official requests to undertake tasks for the European Commission are sent to me.

Thus now do I walk away from the European Commission, and in doing so I am implementing an idea that first appeared in my mind while sitting in a consensus meeting, in Brussels, in 2011. It was the proposal evaluation exercise that led to the six pilot projects from which the two Flagship projects – Graphene and the Human Brain Project – were eventually selected for funding. But I am not abandoning the peoples of Continental Europe to the fate that awaits them!

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) is one of several European Institutions. It carries out audits of the European Commission. It has several types of audit. One of them is called a performance audit. According to the ECA web site this type of audit asks questions such as: Do the EU funds provide value for money? Have the funds used been kept to a minimum (economy)? Have the results been achieved with the fewest possible resources (efficiency)? Have spending or policy objectives been met (effectiveness)? Perhaps it might also turn over stones like STARTS, and see exposed there the waste of public money that STARTS is, and the disingenuous claims, ignorance, etc, upon which it is founded by people in the European Commission who think that they can spend public money on their image making activities – propaganda – and that no one will see because? Good question! Why will no one see?

In 2013 I was the independent observer for the Marie Curie ITN evaluation. I have often wondered which report was submitted to the Programme Committee – the one that I wrote detailing the catalogue of avoidable and damaging events that took place during the evaluation or the one that the Research Executive Agency (REA) wrote covering up this disaster? This latter report and the cover-up I refused to be party to.

Here are some words that I have, since I first became involved with EC research projects in 1986, come to associate with the European Commission: technocracy, incompetence, corruption, ignorance, delusion, cover-up, manipulation, deception, illusion, fantasy, propaganda, elitism, contempt, ideology, scientism, …

Here is a spokesperson for the German Federal Government reading from a most unusual document to find in the public domain – Position Paper of the Federal Government on the Horizon 2020 Interim Evaluation:

“In many instances the discussions on the work programme are inadequate. Drafts of the work programme are often made available without sufficient notice in spite of the principle of comitology which stipulates that drafts must be made available 14 days before the Programme Committee meeting. The scope and quality of the data provided is also often inadequate. This means that the Programme Committee cannot fulfil its function as a counselling and control body. The coordination of Member States’ activities with activities at EU level cannot therefore be guaranteed.”

I recall writing, in the FET Flagships Interim Evaluation report, a very clear and strong statement relating to the same matter as the German spokesperson just raised, about how the Programme Committees are not provided with satisfactory information about the FET Flagships. Is this strong and clear statement still there?

Here is an extract from one of my previous blogs, the one that goes by the title Desiderata for People STARTing to STEAM:

“START by learning about DG CONNECT’s former European Commissioner – the one that could be said to be responsible for ICT ART CONNECT – who now finds herself investigated for not declaring the holding, while in office, of a directorship in an offshore company; a clear contravention of conditions laid down in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. START too by learning of OLAF’s investigation into alleged fraud by the company that led the ICT ART CONNECT project. More revelations will no doubt in time come, when the world learns of the artistic voices that DG CONNECT silenced; so reflect before STARTing to STEAM, that DG CONNECT’s woes might, one day, be yours too.”

Oh yes – STARTS! Science Technology and the Arts: The Artistic Voices that DG CONNECT Silenced. See the list of words that I provided above.

Here is that German Federal Government spokesperson again, reading from that very unusual report:

“On the matter of generating European Added Value, it remains to be shown whether and with what outcome the EU has been able to make substantial progress through concerted action. We are now seeing a growing trend towards autonomous action on the part of the Commission. The European Commission must not set political agendas without consulting the Member States.”

Here now is Sir Walter Scott reading some lines from his play Marmion:

“Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

Do you know what mushroom strategy is? I first heard this term many decades ago, in connection with what a company called ICI, I was told, used to do to its employees: keep people in the dark and shovel lots of horse manure on them!

Now I will read some words from the Treaty on European Union:

“The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.”

The European Commission does not comply with this article, which is why, many years from now, people will look at what the European Commission did, and be surprised that it was possible, given what I have just read, to which will come the reply that, these types of words were also written into the constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which too had an elected Parliament, which just rubber stamped, what the USSR's version of the European Commission had decided to do.

Thus in Continental Europe did the Union of Subservient State Republics come to be! The process has already STARTed as the German Federal Government spokesperson has just indicated. Back to STARTS again – soon, I think, I will START work on a new book called Art-Science Fakes: An Epistolary Tale of Scientific Reduction to Ignorance. This will be a story about how STEM people, including those in the European Commission, as well as some artists, are rewriting art’s history to make it fit with their ideology and the rule of science and reason, which you will find is what the new USSR will be based upon. Thus will the people of Continental Europe once more fall under the tyranny of perverse ideology and dogma! And the rewriting of art’s history is an attempt by this new ruling class in waiting, to use art to legitimise their forthcoming rule, and the crimes that they will reason are necessary for the sake of the rule of science and reason.

I have seen the future of the peoples of Continental Europe, and it is your past!

And what exactly will take place that will lead the European Commission to do the things that it is going to do? The answer is very simple; what has always been the case – world events! Some of these you have already witnessed. More will follow.

Thus, now disconnected from the European Commission, and soon to be outside the EU, the Customs Union, and the Internal Market, will I walk with you to the edge of doom! Have you learned yet how to listen to me, fair lady with the beautiful soul, for I speak to you and to you alone?

Desiderata for People STARTing to STEAM

On Yasmin, they do discuss, if STEM to STEAM, is but hot air, all moist, and probably cloudy too! Thus to this rattling about in non-viscous cyberspace, we now turn, to add a very humble creation of poetic kind. A very delightful title too, we formed, for this strange way of knowing, through performing; a process, you may note this time, is founded in adapting. We call our strange rendition: Desiderata for People STARTing to STEAM.

Desiderata for People STARTing to STEAM

Go placidly amid the hissing noise of STEAM, and remember what peace there may be in silence for it is hard to find in STARTS and STEAM. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons, even those hissing STEAM and those STARTing to talk nonsense.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even those caught up in the ideologies of STARTS and STEAM; they too have their story, even though it is often quite empty. But pick your acronyms carefully, lest poetics be used to expose shallow graves, where lay foul phantoms of inaccuracies, myths and disingenuous claims, ready to lead astray unwary travellers lost in art’s romantic mist.

Avoid loud noisy artists and STEM people STARTing to STEAM; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may find yourself wondering what lesser god STARTers and STEAMers worship.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time, especially now that STARTS and STEAM are in fashion; these are but a passing interest of the grazing herd, so your humble achievements may in the end outshine all that STARTS and STEAMS.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery; especially when STEAM clouds the true nature of STARTS intentions. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Even in STEAM there may be a few – a very few – golden threads.

Be yourself, especially, as others most often are not. Do not feign affection for STEM, especially now its destructive nature is revealed. Neither be totally cynical about art-science and art-technology lovers; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment love is as perennial as the grass, even the naïve sort that is most of art-science and art-technology. Neither of these actually exists though, for there is only art, which is always made with whatever is at hand – paint, data, glass, code, stone, electronic junk, toys, cables, books, photographs …

START by learning about DG CONNECT’s former European Commissioner – the one that could be said to be responsible for ICT ART CONNECT – who now finds herself investigated for not declaring the holding, while in office, of a directorship in an offshore company; a clear contravention of conditions laid down in the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union. START too by learning of OLAF’s investigation into alleged fraud by the company that led the ICT ART CONNECT project. More revelations will no doubt in time come, when the world learns of the artistic voices that DG CONNECT silenced; so reflect before STARTing to STEAM, that DG CONNECT’s woes might, one day, be yours too.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully accepting that inexperience and the pursuit of fortune and glory means that much that is proclaimed as new by those STARTing to STEAM will be found in old reports, papers and books. Beware of bodies whose job it is to scrutinise public expenditure – they may ask for a refund of public money spent just reinventing what is in these aging publications.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in the sudden misfortune of having to put up with empty-headed people who START talking nonsense. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness, and soon the empty-headed ones will be gone, as no sooner will they START to STEAM, will they run out of STEAM.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself and ignore most of this STEAMing. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here, and pursue a less noisy, more thoughtful course away from the hissing sounds of STEAM.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, for probably God has inflicted STARTS and STEAM on those artists and STEM people who do now so much noise make, as way of punishment for sins committed in the past – poetic justice so to speak!

And whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of STEAM, keep peace in your soul. With all the sham, drudgery and broken dreams of STARTS and STEAM, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy, and stay away from those noisy people STARTing to hiss STEAM.

Thanks to Max Ehrmann who wrote the original Desiderata. And what aesthetic in the above Desiderata for People STARTing to STEAM is to be found? Most certainly playfulness is woven into the words, but what else, you may wonder. Is there more? Can you not see? We leave you to wonder and to discover for yourself, for we are not in the business of being totally unambiguous!

Kima Wheel, Roundhouse, Curtain Call and a Beautiful Heresy

Thus begins the beginning of that which I spoke in time recent past, for it seems now I am ready to begin, and thus do I begin …

I stand in Roundhouse – a kind of Globe – which is, as informing name tells, a circular place, where space is bent into curved form, and lying within there sits for some moments in time, another round construction known by the name of (Ron Arad’s) Curtain Call, creating an inner space and an outer one too, within the curved space that I have just entered into. And what appears is what you want to appear, made so by the projecting power of technology which is a means of displaying creation and seeing sounds, as you will soon, by these revealing words, find.

Kima Wheel is a wave from the imagination that comes forth specifically to fall upon the 360 degrees of canvas called Curtain Call, which unlike a normal curtain is not a barrier to freedom of movement of performers or audience, who move in time and space as this is not a strict classical Ancient Greek separation. The wave this time is a wheel of poetry, and comes by virtue of Anelema Group, which one might say, is a different way of looking at that which passes through our lives daily, often unnoticed, but without which there could be no life at all, which, if you care to see, is more than just science and technology, or art made with such.

Thus now I have set forth the scene in kind of Prologue form, befitting of the theatrical context which now before you will unfold.

It’s about emotions it seems – feelings, all very subjective and quite a contrast to most art-science and art-technology, being as they often are, though few can see, but manifestations of a certain strand of Enlightenment thinking, the stinking corpse of which lies rotting all about. Yet Enlightened minds sense only reek, and do not see that they are the corpse that decays, which is giving off the decomposing smell.

In the world – another Globe – here and there, come glimpses of a new and different age slowly taking form, being illuminated by light from eastern directions originating – some dare to call it the Age of Tao. That’s me, referring to myself. I am inclined to be self-referencing at times.

But there must surely be others as well, who can see that Europe’s time – the age of the West – is done, and to go with it too, must be those Abrahamic secular beliefs – that’s Western Capitalism and Western Science and Technology, if you are wondering. Western Communism is already just about gone, and what goes next, is the rest, and by my hand will their demise be hastened, and thus will strange beliefs be despatched to the past where they do belong. ’Tis about the power of the pen, which becomes even more powerful when combined with other forms of expression as you will see anon!

Now is the beginning of the age of the universality of humankind. So no more cultural colonialism please – are your listening you people in Brussels, Washington DC and all those other cities of Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece, where you still foolishly pursue those dated dreams of making all the world European? How does the thought of a Taoist Science and Technology make you feel? In the East there is the West, and in the West there is the East. It’s not a binary, or a duality, but a unity – a unity of opposites, which your fragmented minds cannot easily digest. That goes for art-science and art-technology too, which are ever so binary because of the dominance of Western minds that see only such separations. Everything is connected – can’t you see?

Where to look is the empty space so to speak, waiting to be filled by those who dare to pursue a different dream. You will also find that what comes forth will be very Kantian too! That’s another dimension to it. ’Tis a very beautiful heresy built on a different foundation to that which Western minds construct.

Back to the curved space and then comes the moment – it’s the aesthetics of participation – so the audience becomes, for a time, the creating force – let’s not here bother with the rhetoric and the postmodern ideology for this is already history, and I am very much alive. This is the moment to put the world back together again in different form, and so do I raise from the dead, theory too. To see, to know, to understand, to find something new, and in doing so to become different people – these are the goals that I pursue.

Continuing – I am back to the curved space again: hesitantly at first, I begin to speak those words that come from my own shaping hand and with eye I see, images formed, while being immersed in my own sound, and that of others too. This imaging of sound I discovered before appearing is made possible by virtue of technology, of neural networks, produced from research of the type that leads to PhDs. And the emotional moment is then transformed, and cognitive becomes, as I know that once again I am creating from words, visual images, for whatever reason do I in this strange scriptovisual process participate. It’s something to do with morphogenesis rather than morphostasis, if to cybernetic concepts you are inclined.

And then I am lost in my own world of the mind, afterwards thinking: was that the intention or is this serendipitous action? Interactive art is a place where the unexpected sometimes happens. To be or not to be that is the question, whether it is better to be highly scripted, or very open, or somewhere in between? It is after all, just like a play – Act 1, Scene 1, enters …(but not necessarily linear). It all depends upon what you want to achieve is the answer to the question.

Then I want a pen and desk and to start exploring, but this is not the venue for such things, yet evidently it becomes possible to compose images with words, hence my intuitions are confirmed, for: in the beginning was the image, and from the image came forth the word, and to image doth the word return. That’s what the image called Genesis in Reverse (on the homepage of my web site) is saying. But why is the question? As I said it’s something to do with morphogenesis and the making of something transformational – most art-science and art-technology is not, but I keep looking for something that might be, or have the potential for such. It is a long, long quest. Did I find sight of journey’s end in Kima? Only time will tell, but Kima in its many different manifestations, bringing together at different times, music, performance, immersion, dance, poetry, technology, sound, image and synaesthesia, does make for something very different to the normal explorations of an art space that is now at least six decades old. And being so old it has become a source of much dissatisfaction within me, as indeed has literature which is even older – thus another reason deep within for the quest that I have embarked upon.

Thus then finding that I am not anymore able to compose, I take on a different role, exploring through vicarious interaction that which lies around. Then it is done and I am gone to another place in London, where some conceptual art from the past lies waiting to be explored, and there I do find, more information about the image and the word combined – another serendipitous moment in time.

Intriguing possibilities is the ending phrase that comes forth from of this waltzing encounter with word and image, bound together in ways it seems that still lie unseen.

II.1

Enter Marshall McLuhan and Paul.

PAUL: Were DG CONNECT not listening? No they were not, for it is the funding of art that thou should do, not the development of unconventional and compelling products with under-funded afterthoughts, otherwise known as artists, in tow. And you get what you get, but you can get some interesting things if you know how to create the infrastructure to enable this. It seems I do and DG CONNECT do not, which is one of the reasons I engaged in critiquing DG CONNECT and what they did, and much more as well.

MARSHALL: I see many people do quote me – thus do they say, quite often, that the medium is the message. But it seems that is all they say. Do they not understand media? The point, most important, that I also made, is that our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. Feel free to quote me.

PAUL: And be it true that this thing that we now call STEM, that too is media?

MARSHALL: It be true as any truth be true. Art-science and art-technology too, for these are media as well. Better look therefore and see beyond the numb stance.

PAUL: We do.

Exeunt.

Enter Julia.

JULIA: Forgive us if we seem to be, that which you do not wish us to be, but the world of STEM, and its funding of art, are problems writ large for those who wish to see, for they have their own agenda grounded in morphostasis, and silent narratives too, which we are able to hear, for we walked among them unseen, and in preparation, spent much time while growing up, learning how to see – and what we see are little children playing in the rye, blindly unaware that they dance on the edge of doom. Now they dance with artists too. Better catch them lest they fall. So back to morphogenesis again! Thus we engage in a beautiful heresy and bid welcome to a time that surely must be what humanity will come to see as the inevitable turning, for no age lasts for an eternity.

Exit.

A change of direction

My first blog was published on 7^th July 2013. Since that date I have published a blog every Sunday without missing one entry. This constitutes a lot of writing, but the reasons that lay behind this activity have now become clear to me, and there is nothing further to be gained from this exercise. It is time to move on. Hence I will no longer be publishing a weekly blog. Instead I will only write blog entries when I feel the urge to do so. So now I am in the mode of producing occasional blogs.

This is the end. This is the beginning!

The aftermath of the UK’s EU Referendum: summing up

So to round up this business, what we can learn from our democratic exercise are the following:

• Many in the political class seem to be out of touch with the people and do not care.
• People who mislead while accusing other people of being misleading are hypocrites.
• EU leaders and the European Commission are the makers of their own woes.
• Many people in the UK do not like the EU including some of those who voted to remain.
• Some Scottish Nationalists voted to leave the EU, and some people who are not Scottish Nationalists voted to remain in the EU, and oil companies are beginning to close North Sea oil fields, all of which are the most expensive oil fields in the world to operate, so those who think the UK is about to disintegrate have little understanding of the complexities of the Scottish Nationals’ plight.
• Some people showed themselves to be inclined towards reducing complex situations to simple ones, and then on finding the evidence to support their simplified beliefs, arrived at the conclusion that those who did not agree with them, were wrong. This only happened of course to other people.
• You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time.
• The age of the expert is dead and gone but some people still have to learn this fact.
• Loudmouthed politicians who interrupt other speakers on a platform are probably the verbal bullies this sort of behaviour suggests they are.
• Those politicians that make verbal attacks on others and engage in scaremongering do so because they are unable to convince people through the power of argument.
• There is no appetite among many British people for any more of the EU’s ideologically-driven political integration nonsense.
• Most people who express concerns about the effect immigration is having on communities and on the job market are not racist or xenophobic, and it is grossly insulting to such people to brand them as such; the people who should be condemned are those who exploit nationalistic sentiments to pursue their political agendas, whether they be English or Scottish.
• Most British people are not anti-European but they are against those who act without the consent of the people to construct that which the people do not want.
• The future is cooperation among all nations, not clubs formed around rich nations only concerned with making themselves even richer.
• The age of empires is over, but people in Brussels have yet to understand this.
• The treaty that created the European Economic Community was signed in Rome for a specific reason – it was the wrong reason.
• Continental Europeans should listen to what the British people are now telling them and change direction.
• Britain is not an inward looking country and those who say that it is are just bad losers or are seeking to distort the actual situation; the United Kingdom is open to the world and will continue to be so.
• UKIP is not a political party that we want to grow in popularity in the UK, and now there is an opportunity to ‘see the back of them’; perhaps they will move north to Scotland and form the Scottish Independence Party (SIP)!
• Unelected Presidents of the European Commission are worthy of being held in the utmost contempt especially when they claim to be elected and make threats to the British people.
• American Presidents about to leave office should not be telling the British people what a future President of the USA will do.
• Continental Europeans are so busy looking over their shoulder at their past they do not see that they are walking in a circle.
• People seem to have very short memories and only see what they want to see, for the young people of Greece would not share the young people of Britain’s disappointment at the idea of leaving the EU, having now little option, thanks to the EU, other than to be unemployed or to emigrate.
• People who live in glasshouses should not throw stones because Australian wine is as good as French wine, British cheese is as good as French cheese, Japanese cars are as good as German/French/Italian cars, South Korean consumer electronics are as good as Dutch consumer electronics, British bacon is a good as Danish bacon, British butter is as good as Irish butter, and so on; and British people have the right to use their wallets to send powerful messages to those who threaten them! Is that not so Comrade General Secretary Juncker (or perhaps you prefer the title Emperor Jean-Claude – has a nice sound to it!)?

I have 30 years worth of experiences now at my disposal as a result of the time I have spent in Brussels. For a writer it’s like discovering a diamond mine: Letters from an Exile; The Fable of the Chief Advisors; Tales of the Emperor’s Court; Adventures in Resource Efficiency Administration Wonderland; Inside the Union of Subservient State Republics; The War of European Union. Now I know why I went to Brussels!

I also now know that, the thought that came into my mind back in January 2011 while sitting in a meeting room in Brussels, that I should walk away from my involvement with the European Commission was the point when I recognised just how damaging the European Commission is, because they live in a make-believe world determined by their ideology, and not the real world. I will certainly be using the information that continually flows from Brussels for more satirical work about this deluded and ideological-driven organisation.

They say that the pen is far mightier than the sword. I say that the pen and the brush when combined are far mightier than that which is now taking shape in the world. It is surely time to build a different world to one that the European Union and other empires (Russia and the United States) are busy creating. And here is a foretaste of the books to come, which will START to show why the British people are right to reject technocracy, corruption and incompetence: STARTS – Science,Technology and the Arts: The Artistic Voices that DG CONNECT Silenced.

I have a report that I need to complete then …

I am done here. I am gone.

The aftermath of the UK’s EU Referendum: exploring social media’s imaginary realities #4

Now to the matter of that campaign, in the imaginary world of Facebook, called Keep Britain in the European Union. It has only 40,000 likes! Big data is telling you something, for sure!

This campaign (is that the right word?) says that Remainers must fight on, because, the Leave campaign – not sure which particular Leave campaign they are referring to here because there were several – deliberately misled. So if, (whatever) Leave campaign they are referring to, did mislead, so is Keep Britain in the European Union. For example, they say that the referendum was advisory. It was not advisory. They also say that only 37% of eligible voters voted for Leave, then say that 73% of younger voters supported Remain. Misleading!

Democracy works by counting the number of votes cast – the number of people who abstained is not counted. But let’s work with the opposite for a moment. In the young voter category, in the age range 18-24, only 36% bothered to vote. So 64% in this age group were not in favour of Remain. Thus, it follows that only a very small – a tiny minority in fact – of younger voters supported Remain – not 73%! Am I being misleading?

I could go on, but will restrict my observation to this question: who is deliberately being misleading, the Leave campaign (which ever one they are referring to) or Keep Britain in the European Union?

The matter of our departure is little mentioned now in the traditional media. It seems also to be decaying in social media – half-life approximately two weeks, as with the traditional media. The Twitter/Facebook generation have found something else to chatter about and so have the press. We are leaving and that is the reality and people have already moved on.

And for the third time, the disembodied voice asked: “What are you doing Paul?”

I now know what I am doing. I have been thinking, through writing, about the nature of reality and human beings’ relation to it.

We all do it, even those who engage in the delusion that they think, that they are rational and objective, all of which flies in the face of the evidence that this is not entirely correct.

“What is it that we all do?” asks the disembodied voice.

What do you think we do?

The exact nature of what I am doing, or exploring, will be found in future writings, where ever they may appear.

The aftermath of the UK’s EU Referendum: exploring social media’s imaginary realities #3

That big red bus!

When is a promise not a promise? Several answers are possible. One is that, in a referendum with a simple question put to the people, no-one can make any promises and officially no-one did. Another answer is hermeneutics.

There is a belief, spread through both the real world and the imaginary world of social media, that a promise was made to spend 350 million pounds per week extra on the NHS, this being, the amount we send, some said, to Brussels. Were people not listening?

David Cameron was asked by a member of the public during a TV debate, to guarantee that the so-called reforms to the EU that he negotiated with the European Commission would be implemented if the UK voted to remain. He declined to give such a guarantee. I will leave you to figure out why that was so.

Putting aside the disputed matter of exactly how much is sent to Brussels each week, which probably is something that one can call into question, there was never any promise made to spend 350 million pounds per week extra on the NHS. Apparently, according to the Vote Leave campaign literature, one can build a new hospital every week with this amount. Why anyone would want to believe that we are going to build 52 new hospitals every year, is unclear, which is, if you take the headline statement as a promise, is what someone now has to do to fulfil the promise, which in fact was not a promise, because no-one promised anything, as no-one, other that the government, was in a position to do anything about the referendum result. And they promised (it was the only promise made) that they would implement the result of the referendum, which is what they are now doing. Which is why also, all those people on social media that have been saying that the referendum was only advisory are – lying is too strong a word. But it is not true that it was only advisory. This was made clear at the start. Did people listen?

Back to the big red bus and a few blogs back I mentioned that there were several organisations campaigning, independent of each other, on both sides – Leave and Remain. One of those organisations was the Labour Party, who campaigned on their own for Remain. And this is what they said in the leaflet that was delivered through the letterboxes of every household in Britain: “Working people and their families are protected with paid maternity leave, equal pay, minimum paid holiday.” The implication was that these benefits have been given to us by virtue of our membership of the EU. What they failed to mention is that going all the way back to the early 20^th century welfare payments and employment rights have been developing in the UK, largely as a result of Trade Unions, the Labour Party, and earlier, the Liberal Party. Yet no-one wants to criticise the Labour Party for making statements that are not strictly true. They were being economical with the truth, because they are political, and this is what political organisations and people do to advance a rosy picture of their version of the promised land.

There are many examples like this in the referendum literature. And on the big read bus there was the headline slogan: “We send the EU £350 million a week – let’s fund the NHS instead. Vote Leave. Let’s take back control.”

Hermeneutics is about interpretation. Evidently some people interpreted this as a promise, but it could never have been a promise, because, as already pointed out, the referendum was not about promises and manifestos, and the election of a new government, but the people being asked a simple question: do you want the UK to remain in the EU or to leave the EU? And on the web site of the Vote Leave campaign, one finds more beyond the headline:  “If we vote to leave the EU, we will be able to save £350 million a week. We can spend this on our priorities like the NHS, schools, and housing.”

It was also said, which people listening to the TV debates would have heard, that we can also spend the money on things that we are already spending the money on, like payments to farmers, etc. The point was that the UK Government would decide.

If you look at what went on during the referendum through the distorting lens of the media, any media including Facebook, and do not start thinking slowly and looking more deeply into what happened you end up like – many of those people in continental Europe, who, not being on the ground and engaged in the process, are just disconnected from reality, and, needing to construct a reality to explain what has happened, will construct a reality with the information they have, even when it is distorted. Likewise some people in the UK, who are still engaging in constructing a reality that demonises some people on the Vote Leave side, namely Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, but not others, namely Gisela Stuart. Strange behaviour, or not?

To think that one thinks!

To be continued …