The Politician's Lies

“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche

“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” 
― Adolf Hitler

All politicians lie; let's start from that position. If you want to claim that your favourite MP doesn't, please come back to me with a fact check on all of their public pronouncements since they were elected proving your point, and we can talk again, but for the moment, let's just assume that all of them lie. Not all of them lie all of the time, not all of them lie blatantly, not all of them lie egregiously, but they all lie sometimes, whether it is by necessity - in the interests of national security perhaps - or to protect themselves, or their party, or for gain or to smear an opponent. They all lie at some point, and it would be naive to believe otherwise.

 

Edmund Burke

Even when they are not patently lying, politicians are not averse to creating misleading impressions, as in the famous case of Cabinet Secretary Sir Robert Armstrong during the Australian 'Spycatcher' trial in 1986.[1]

Lawyer: What is the difference between a misleading impression and a lie?

Armstrong: A lie is a straight untruth.

Lawyer: What is a misleading impression - a sort of bent untruth?

Armstrong: As one person said, it is perhaps being "economical with the truth."[2]

"We have no plans to increase income tax at this present time," a politician might say, when questioned about future policy. When, six months later, income tax has gone up, that same politician can say that there were no such plans when he made that statement, and whether they were telling the truth or being economical with it, we cannot say.

But whereas politician's lies have traditionally been reactive - offering misleading answers to interviewer's questions - they are now more commonly proactively making false statements, floated in speeches or increasingly, in Tweets. According to The Washington Post, as at 1st April this year, Donald Trump had made 9,451 false or misleading claims since taking office. Now you can say what you like about Trump, but in the field of falsehoods, he has few peers, and where he outshines all other political liars is with the sheer absurdity and pointlessness of his false statements, statements that are so easily disproved, such as the size of the crowd at his rallies, or his claim that the Great Lakes  "are beautiful. They are big, very deep, record deepness, right?” Beautiful they may be, of record deepness, not so much, not even the deepest in the United States. Lying often enough actually reduces scepticism; we can only take so many lies before they lose their power to shock and become the norm. Trump has actually gone past the point of simply lying; he now just makes stuff up - often pointlessly - to the point where it has become the norm.

When Trump opens his mouth - or tweets - I just assume he is lying or simply making stuff up

While all politicians have always lied to us at times, it now seems that they all lie, all of the time, so much so that our default position when a politician answers a question or makes a statement is that they must be lying unless there is evidence to prove otherwise. During the EUR Referendum campaign, Boris Johnson made much of the supposed £350 million a week he claimed Britain would be better off once out of EU, a claim that was much repeated even after it had been thoroughly debunked, and one so outrageous that a private prosecution was brought against Johnson on the grounds of misconduct in public office. The case was quashed in the High Court after Johnson's QC, Adrian Darbishire, argued that the criminal offence of misconduct in public office did not cover political lying. We can conclude from this therefore, that lying in public office is to be expected, and there is nothing we can do about it.

Boris Johnson and the bus with the discredited message.

The current process to elect a new leader of the Conservative Party, together with the ongoing uncertainty around Brexit - which has been the principal driver for the need to find a new leader for the Tories - is a pretty unedifying spectacle. While Boris Johnson is favourite for the role, his progress towards the top job seems to be predicated on a campaign of damage limitation. The thinking seems to be that the job is his to lose, but that his chances of losing would be significantly increased in the event of him making any public appearances or pronouncements. There is method in this apparent madness, following some of his past remarks about niqab wearers, and 'flag-waving piccaninnies,' among other gaffes.[3] 

Johnson's 'amiable buffoon' persona has always been more like that of a comedian than statesman, and it's wearing a little thin. In this context, it seems that comedians are, bizarrely, more likely to be taken to task - or at least have what they have said, taken more seriously - than politicians. I cannot confess to being a huge fan of either Jo Brand or Frankie Boyle, both of whom have found themselves on the end of criticism and been threatened with action by the police over jokes they have made recently. Boyle joked, "Where are the IRA when you need them?" after Theresa May had spent a weekend at Chequers with Brexit supporting Tory MPs, while Jo Brand suggested that battery acid rather than milkshakes be thrown over politicians. 

Frankie Boyle and Jo Brand

Meanwhile, ex-British Army veteran Tony McNally had a visit from the police over a Tweet (since deleted) in which he joked that “it’s time for a military coup to sort Brexit out." Police apparently gave 'advice' to Mr McNally regarding his tweet, while there were calls for both Boyle and Brand to be sacked by the BBC. 

Falklands War veteran Tony McNally had a visit from police after his jokey tweet was taken literally.

Brand's remarks, which were made on a radio panel game, Heresy, the object of which is to "challenge established ideas and question received wisdom," were investigated by the police, and condemned by Nigel Farage, one of the politicians who has recently been 'milkshaked.' Farage said, “This is incitement of violence and the police need to act.” This is the same Nigel Farage who said that in the event that Brexit is not delivered to his taste, he would “don khaki, pick up a rifle and head for the frontlines.” 

Having been 'milkshaked' once, Nigel Farage stayed on his bus next time.

I'm fairly certain Farage would say he was speaking metaphorically, but anyone who could take Jo Brand's comments literally would, I imagine, be feeble minded enough to take Farage's equally literally. Shortly after the launch of his Brexit Party, Farage said that "We can again start to put the fear of God into our MPs," another statement that those who might take Brand and Boyle's comments seriously might similarly take as something more sinister than I imagine Farage would claim he meant.

Even more inflammatory were remarks made by Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell at a public meeting in Liverpool in 2014, when he said of Tory MP Esther McVey - who was one of the initial candidates for the post of leader of the Conservative Party recently - "why are we sacking her, why aren't we lynching the b*****d'?" John McDonnell would argue, I suppose, that this was a joke, and that he did not say it directly because he was quoting someone else; he says that he was not inciting violence. But neither was Jo Brand, neither was Frankie Boyle, and neither was Tony McNally, yet there were calls for sackings and police investigations in their cases. McDonnell - and presumably the person he was supposedly quoting - appear to have escaped censure or investigation, although understandably, Esther McVey said of McDonnell, "He made life difficult and dangerous. He was a bully, he was inciting violence."

Recent events suggest that we have now reached the somewhat surreal situation whereby society now demands higher standards of comedians than of politicians. It would be funny if it weren't so damned serious.

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[1] Spycatcher was a book written by form MI5 officer Peter Wright, first published in Australia in 1987. The British government attempted to have it banned.

[2] "Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatsoever: But, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth." Edmund Burke, 1796

[3] A list of some of Boris Johnson's gaffes and blunders can be found on the Independent website at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-conservative-leader-mistakes-gaffes-prime-minister-theresa-may-quotes-a8928791.html

We Are Being Watched

There is no single, reliable source of information on how many CCTV cameras there are in the UK, but it is estimated that there are between four and six million. It is easy to think that, like Big Brother in George Orwell's 1984, the majority of these cameras are government owned and controlled, that we are under constant surveillance by the police and the state, however, the number of cameras controlled by local government is thought to be as low as one in seventy.[1] So the majority of the cameras that we see - or don't see for that matter, as many are not in public view - are privately owned and used to protect private premises.

Watch any TV crime drama in which CCTV is used to catch the bad guys and the images are crystal clear, and the details sharp as a pin. Zoom in and the detectives can read car number plates, the logos on clothing and distinguishing features on people captured on film. Then watch any news report, and CCTV captured that is then released to the public to try to identify victims or villains is such a blurry, pixelated mess that it makes one wonder how it can ever be useful in solving crimes. 

CCTV imagery as imagined in TV fiction...

...and the reality.

Well, apparently more so than one might imagine, as according to a study by Nottingham Trent University, CCTV cameras provide evidence that is useful to the police in two-thirds of the investigations in which they are available.  Useful CCTV images increased the probability of a crime being detected from 23% to 48%, the study found, although their usefulness very much depended on the type of offence, as this table shows.

Type of Offense	Usefulness of CCTV Cameras (in cases where images were available)
Robbery	62%
Serious Assault	61%
Theft from Shops	53%
Public Order Offenses	44%
Theft from Motor Vehicles	16%

The images from CCTV - no matter how grainy - that are used in appeals for information from the public and in police investigations, often rely on individuals, vehicles, places and the like being identified by other people, but increasingly technology is being used, which is where a lot of concerns have begun to surface.

Civil rights group Liberty, which describes itself as "an an independent membership organisation that challenges injustice, defends freedom and campaigns to make sure everyone in the UK is treated fairly," has begun a campaign against facial recognition technology and practices which some UK police forces have begun to introduce. 

In Wales, where South Wales Police have been trialling facial recognition technology for a few years, Ed Bridges has started legal proceedings against the force, arguing that the use of the tool "breached his human right to privacy as well as data protection and equality laws."

Ed Bridges. Picture: BBC

And in my part of the world, the Metropolitan Police have also been trialling facial recognition, and in a recent deployment in Romford, a man who covered his face to avoid it being captured by the camera ended up with a £90 fine for disorderly behaviour after being challenged by police. Interestingly, the Met's website says, "Anyone can refuse to be scanned; it's not an offence or considered ‘obstruction’ to actively avoid being scanned," so the chap fined in Romford was not charged for avoiding the cameras, but for what happened after police challenged him, although whether police were entitled to challenge him is moot. 

Mr Bridges is no doubt aware of the plethora of other cameras that record his image, whether it be when he enters a bank, shopping centre or railway station, and presumably is happy that they don't breach his right to privacy nor data protection laws. I suppose his argument is that neither shops nor transport hubs can use his image to see if he is wanted for some criminal offence, but there again, that isn't the argument he is using against the police. But if the average Londoner is caught on CCTV 300 times a day, then in the majority of those cases, someone sensitive to their image being captured - for whatever reason - would not even be aware that it had happened.

The Met's trial of facial recognition technology has concluded with the London Policing Ethics Panel publishing a report supporting its further use so long as certain conditions, including that " It can be evidenced that using the technology will not generate gender or racial bias in policing operations,"  are met.

One of Liberty's objections to the use of facial recognition technology is that while its usefulness in spotting terrorist suspects and preventing atrocities is clear, the technology is being used for "more mundane policing, such as catching pickpockets." I very much doubt that the victims of thefts would describe the crime against them as mundane, nor do I think it appropriate that the police are proscribed from using all of the technology at their disposal in investigating certain offences. After all, we would not say that fingerprints could only be used in investigating robberies, or that DNA evidence could only be used in cases of sexual assault. That would be like asking the police to do their job with a hand tied behind their backs.

Liberty - and other opponents of the use of facial recognition technology - do have a point, however when they say that women and racial minorities are not identified accurately by the technology, but that in itself is not sufficient reason for the technology not to be used, more a reason why it ought to be refined and made to more accurately identify groups of people that it currently finds hard to distinguish properly. Of course, that's easy for me to say, I'm neither a woman nor a member of an ethnic minority, and therefore statistically much less likely to be misidentified, but this sort of technology only improves through use, that is to say it 'learns' and inevitably, there will be misidentifications. When it was used at football's Champions League Final in Cardiff in 2017, it scanned about 170,000 people and wrongly identified 2,297 people out of 2,470 potential matches with custody pictures (i.e. those wanted for various offences), which is a startling 92% error rate. None of these people were arrested by the way, and I am sure that the errors in identification were invaluable in improving the software.

I fully understand the concerns that are held about misidentification, about the distress and inconvenience that people who are misidentified will experience, but arguments against the use of the technology, such as those advanced by Ed Bridges - who claims that as well as his right to privacy being breached, he was distressed by having his face scanned - strike me as specious. Anyone who has ever owned a smartphone, conducted an internet search, opened a bank account, entered a shopping centre, taken an overseas trip, bought anything online, or driven a car has abdicated any rights to privacy that they might have thought they had already. If you are worried about privacy, or what data organisations might hold about you, don't do any other the things I've just mentioned. Facebook and Google already know more about you and me than any police force is ever likely to,  and the chances of being erroneously identified as being wanted by the police are, in the grand scheme of things, infinitesimal.

Many opponents of facial recognition technology are also likely to be concerned about the levels of crime - especially knife crime - in London, and will be keen that the police do something about it. Whether the police are able to use all of the tools potentially available to them might ultimately depend on whether one man's right to privacy trumps another man's right not to be stabbed.

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[1] Source: http://www.ciafireandsecurity.co.uk/how-many-cctv-cameras-are-there-in-the-uk/

Cruising Under The Midnight Sun

Cruising holidays are becoming increasingly popular, so much so that somewhere in the region of 314 ships, capable of carrying 537,000 passengers were in service at the end of 2018, and the total number of passengers carried that year was around 26 million.[1]

When I first met my wife, she was working for P&O Cruises, and a major perk of her job was cheap holidays on their ships, so naturally the first holiday we took together was a cruise, on the long since decommissioned SS Canberra, which notably had been requisitioned as  a troopship during The Falklands War in 1982.  As impressive as Canberra was, with her capacity of 1,700 guests and a tonnage of 49,000 tons, she would now be dwarfed by ships such as Royal Caribbean's Symphony of The Seas, which can carry up to 6,600 passengers, and which weighs in at 228,000 tons. Canberra was recognisable as a ship, but today most cruise ships look more like hotels that have been plonked on a barge, and while Canberra had all the amenities that a cruise passenger might expect in the 1990's, today's behemoths include facilities for activities previously completely unassociated with cruising, like rock-climbing and zip-lines.

Recognisably a ship, SS Canberra...

...while the Symphony of The Seas is more a hotel that floated away.

Even in the 1990s, when I took my first cruise, the perception of the typical passenger was either the "newly wed or the nearly dead," and that cruise holidays were for the wealthy or otherwise were a once in a lifetime experience. More, and larger ships, offering a wider range of amenities, has meant more competitive pricing and greater capacity. The average age of cruise passengers is coming down, cruising has lost its exclusivity and elitist image, and is now more egalitarian and family oriented.

After Val left her job at P&O, we stopped going on cruise holidays, apart from a trip to the Hawaiian islands in 2009 on Golden Princess, which at 108,000 tons and carrying 2,600 passengers remains the largest ship I have sailed on, albeit that it is a minnow compared with Symphony of The Seas. 

Golden Princess moored at Hilo during our cruise to Hawaii in 2009

The atrium aboard Golden Princess

This year, however we have taken a cruise of quite a different nature to what, one imagines, is the norm these days; we've just returned from a knitting themed cruise to Norway. I am not a knitter, but Val is, and in recent years she has been following Carlos Zachrison and Arne Nerjordet, a pair of designers and celebrity knitters, on YouTube. Apart from their YouTube channel, Arne & Carlos, as they are more commonly known, have published a number of books and make regular tours showcasing and demonstrating their work, so when Val discovered that they were knitting under the Midnight Sun on a cruise along the Norwegian coast, she was keen to take part and combine her interests in knitting and cruising[2]. Despite my lack of interest in knitting, I went along for the ride, and the scenery.

The ship, the MS Finnmarken is part of the Hurtigruten company's fleet, and at 15,600 tons and carrying just 919 passengers, struck me at first sight as little more than a superannuated car ferry. And in some ways it was. 

MS Finnmarken berthed at Trondheim

The antithesis of the modern leviathans of the seas, the Finnmarken doesn't have the range of bars, restaurants and theatres that larger ships have. There's a single restaurant, a small cafe, a couple of bars, and a small swimming pool, but no theatre, no entertainment, and certainly no climbing wall! Unlike the 24/7 dining experience offered by the large ships of the Carnival and Royal Caribbean lines, there is little opportunity to stuff yourself between meals on the Finnmarken; this may have been the first cruise I have been on where I came home weighing no more than when I first embarked.

The Finnmarken is comfortable rather than luxurious, and the cabins are compact.

A feature of sailing on such a small ship is that one notices the movement a great deal more than on the larger ones. Thankfully, the Finnmarken's itinerary meant that by and large it hugged the coastline's calmer waters, but on the occasions when it ventured into the open sea, the pitch and sway were enough to keep us confined to our cabin a couple of times.

But it was nice to be part of a small company of passengers, of which fifty were part of the knitting group - 36 active knitters and 14 non-knitting partners and spouses - which gave this trip a more intimate feel; we met  some lovely people, and the small scale of the ship - and the fact that we were part of a group - meant that seeing the same people frequently allowed us to develop more of a rapport with them than might have been the case on a larger vessel. 

Arne & Carlos and their knitting group - I'm far right, in blue. Picture from Arne & Carlos's blog.

Arne and Carlos turned out to be charming hosts; naturally they devoted the bulk of their time to the knitters, but they were happy to chat with us non-knitters too. The knitting element of the trip consisted of lectures, and mystery knitting kit that saw all those who took part leave the ship with a cowl in various states of completeness.

Val hard at work knitting.

The finished product.

Val and I decided to travel to Norway a day before the cruise departed in order to avoid any possibility of delays on our flight from London making us late for the sailing, and we were glad we did as Bergen, where we stayed and from where Finnmarken sailed, was delightful, if - like everywhere in Norway - eye wateringly expensive. A meal in To Kokker, one of the restaurants in the Bryggen area, and consisting of two main courses, one dessert, one beer and one tea, weighed in at 1128NOK, which works out at about £102. A pint of beer on board Finnmarken costs a hefty 109NOK (nearly £10). As you might imagine, I decided to limit my consumption!

Beautiful Bergen.

Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim.

The Finnmarken is not like your typical cruise ship in more ways than size. The last time Val and I went on a cruise to Norway - back in 1997 on P&O's Oriana - we called at just three ports (Narvik, Trondheim, and Bergen), the Finnmarken called at a staggering thirty-four, most for fifteen minutes to half an hour, to load or unload cargo, or embark and disembark the passengers who use the coastal services that the Hurtigruten line runs almost as a commuter service. The fact that Norway's major towns and cities, and therefore its population, are largely to be found along its coastline means that by sea is sometimes a more  logical and effective way of moving goods and people than by road. We stayed long enough at Ålesund, Trondheim, Bodø, and Tromsø to make it worthwhile disembarking, and at Trondheim we visited the Nidaros Cathedral, which was stunning.

Oriana in Romsdalsfjord on our 1997 cruise

Spitsbergen, again in 1997

Sadly, the weather was a bit of disappointment. Far from being The Land of The Midnight Sun, Norway - the northern bits anyway - turned out to be the land of Midnight Drizzle and Mist, although even then the scenery was stunning. In fairness, Bergen and the south were lovely - if a bit cool, unseasonably so, so everyone told us. But I wouldn't have missed this trip for the world, and highlights were the Troll Ladder Road, which had only reopened after the winter a couple of weeks previously, and where it snowed when we stopped to take advantage of the view, and Trollfjord, with its imposing rock faces rising above the ship, so close that you could almost reach out and touch them.

Finnmarken traversing Trollfjord last week. This picture
 was taken at 11pm, when it was still light, if not sunny.

Crossing the Arctic Circle, travelling north...

...and here's the certificate to prove it.

Cruising is these days a much less formal affair than it was even thirty years ago; formal attire at dinner is still expected on some evenings on some ships, however the Finnmarken was a completely casual affair. On this voyage it was the passage, the scenery, and the company that counted, not the tuxedos and the ball gowns.

Arne & Carlos's blog on the trip can be found at https://arnecarlos.com/tittel-how-to-crochet-a-scarf-using-self-patterning-sock-yarn/

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[1] Source: https://cruisemarketwatch.com/capacity/

[2] See https://arnecarlos.com/