Longrider

Even if he loses, he will stay on?

The likelihood of a hung parliament has prompted Whitehall to draw up contingency plans that would give Gordon Brown extra time to form a viable administration if there is no clear winner at the general election.

They’ve been bigging this one up for a while now. I recall something similar in the lead up to 1997 and look what happened then. There’s a bit of me that suspects that people are not telling the truth when questioned by pollsters. I wouldn’t.

Anyway, that’s not what really makes the eyes pop – after all, planning for such an eventuality does make some sense and allowing time to form a workable government isn’t particualry contentious. But this:

Senior Whitehall sources stressed tonight that Brown could remain prime minister and try to create a working majority even if the Tories were to win most seats.

I’m sorry? Run that by me again?

Senior Whitehall sources stressed tonight that Brown could remain prime minister and try to create a working majority even if the Tories were to win most seats.

Yup, that’s what I thought it said. So he loses the election and the Tories have no overall majority, but the most seats, so are, therefore, the winners and Brown stays at No 10? Really?

Oh, but it gets better…

It also emerged today that it is possible that the chancellor, Alistair Darling, could even remain in his post – in charge of policy on sterling – pending the formation of the government, even in the event that he has lost his parliamentary seat.

Oh, come on now… Someone’s taking the piss. I’ve slept a whole day and it’s April 1^st. I know that Brown doesn’t much like the inconvenience of elections, preferring appointment, but someone who no longer holds a seat in parliament remains ensconced in No 11?

That scenario would arise because Brown would remain as prime minister, and therefore responsible for all ministerial appointments, until it were clear that he was unable to secure a majority for his Queen’s speech.

Not good enough. If they have lost, they have lost. Pack up and move out. The party with the most seats should then be asked to form a government. All this worrying about the effect on the pound would have a little more credibility if they hadn’t completely screwed the economy when they were in a position to avoid the worst of the recession.

Senior Whitehall sources were keen to stress that it would be Brown’s duty to remain in place until it were clear that a successor exists who was capable of securing a majority for their own speech.

His duty is to fuck off as soon as possible. The successor would be the leader of the party with the most seats – that’s how it works.

Via the Bishop, we hear what the watermelons usually avoid telling us as James Lovelock, interviewed by Leo Hickman makes some uncomfortable comments for the AGW crowd:

We need a more authoritative world. We’ve become a sort of cheeky, egalitarian world where everyone can have their say. It’s all very well, but there are certain circumstances – a war is a typical example – where you can’t do that. You’ve got to have a few people with authority who you trust who are running it. And they should be very accountable too, of course.

But it can’t happen in a modern democracy. This is one of the problems. What’s the alternative to democracy? There isn’t one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.

There you have it. We are not at war, and as Lovelock himself points out, the case for man made global warming has certainly not been helped by the corruption of science by the likes of the University of East Anglia. He also states that the science is weak in places (well I never).

I am no great fan of democracy as it invariably leads to the trampling of minorities by the majority. It is merely a means to an end; liberty (or at least, it should be). Lovelock’s suggestion would have us all trampled by a demagogue in the name of Gaia. His assumption that we are too stupid is a supreme piece of arrogance as are his comments that the sceptic blogosphere are going to look weird:

I think the sceptic bloggers should worry. It’s almost certain that you can’t put a trillion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere without something nasty happening. This is going to resolve itself and global heating is going to come back on stream and it’s these bloggers who are going to be made to look weird when it does. When something like this happens again, they’ll say we had all this before with ‘Climategate’. But there’s a danger that you can go off too strong, like they have. They are not sufficiently aware of the longer-term consequences

I am well aware of the possible long term prospects. Climate has always changed and it always will change. I cannot say for certain whether we are having a significant impact – and, importantly, neither do the scientists, or they wouldn’t be so ready to dissemble about their data. What is important is the ability to adapt. And taxing us to penury is not adapting. If we replace democracy – an admittedly flawed system – with something else, will it be better for liberty or worse?

Close your eyes for a moment and picture Gordon Brown deciding that he will now lead a war cabinet – a coalition government of national unity for the foreseeable future and this will be a long war. How does that make you feel? So, should we follow Lovelocks’s thinking and suspend democracy?

I think the sceptics have done us a good service because they’ve made us look at all this a lot more closely and hopefully the science will improve as a result. But everything has a price and an unexpected price may hit these bloggers. It’s the cry-wolf phenomenon. When the real one comes along, they’ll be laughed at.

It’s not the sceptics who have been crying “wolf!” it’s the alarmists. And it is not the sceptics who didn’t believe in global cooling in the nineteen seventies who are looking foolish now.

Overall, Lovelock’s thoughts make more uncomfortable reading for the alarmists than the sceptics – scathing as he is of the UEA behaviour. And, I think, he does us a favour by exposing just what the warmists really want; unbridled power, the destruction of civilisation and capitalism and preferably a return to a medieval, agrarian existence with all that that entails.

I think I’ll take my chances that in thirty years someone might laugh at me.

Via Leg Iron, I came across this little story. Bearing in mind the source, it is probably wise to exercise some scepticism. However, it tickled my humour glands, so I thought I’d share.

Juunk[sic] food may be as addictive as heroin and tobacco, a study has shown.

Obesity researchers found fatty and sugary snacks trigger the same ‘pleasure centres’ in the brain that drive people into drug addiction – making them binge on unhealthy food.

The findings could partly explain the soaring obesity rates in Britain and the success of fast food outlets.

Oh, please… I’ve eaten so-called junk food in my time and have never experienced any cravings. Apparently, rats became addicted during the experiments, so that proves it.

Experts studied rats fed on cheesecake, bacon and sausages. Soon after the experiments began the animals began to bulk up and show signs of addiction.

‘It presents the most thorough and compelling evidence that drug addiction and obesity are based on the same underlying neurobiological mechanisms,’ Professor Paul Kenny said.

No. It. Doesn’t. I repeat, I’ve eaten this stuff and have never experienced any cravings. I am not addicted to hamburgers or chips (and certainly not cheesecake – horrible sticky confection, ugh!) and never have been. I’m as skinny as the proverbial rake as well. While humans are, indeed, mammals, we are not rats (well, most of us aren’t).

Britons are the world’s biggest junk food addicts.

Evidence?

At the same time, the average adult eats just over three portions of fruit and vegetables a day – the recommended number is five.

No. It. Isn’t. My recommended intake of fruit and vegetables is whatever I decide it is.

We will also get through 22,000 ready meals, sandwiches and sweet snacks in a lifetime – just under one a day.

Yes. And? So?

This article is long on hyperbole and short on facts. So, given the source; normal operation, then…

The Beeb indulges in a blame it on the baby boomers piece, which gets really, really silly.

Baby boomers don’t dominate the country in size alone; living through various employment and house price booms, they are the richest and most powerful generation that ever lived.

They account for 70% of MPs in Parliament, they populate the chairs of company boardrooms, and they head up the majority of the country’s civil and cultural institutions. Boomers, to put it simply, run the country.

Sigh… Thirty years ago, it was the previous generation that made up the majority of MPs, headed the boards of industry and ran the country’s civil and cultural institutions; and in thirty years time, it will be our sons and daughters.

And, despite the recession and massive public debt, the next generation will, likely as not, do better still, with ever more personal wealth.

It’s not surprising then, that fingers are starting to point at boomers in the aftermath of the Credit Crunch, Copenhagen and the MP expenses scandal. After all, it all happened on their watch.

Ah, here we go… It’s the fault of a generation. Not the fault of specific politicians who were in a position to take effective action – like not selling off the gold reserves at an all time low or simply putting money aside in the good times to cushion against the bad ones. No, let’s be simplistic and blame a whole generation.

As the first wave of baby boomers approach retirement age – it’s 65 years since the first were born, in 1945 – the bill for clearing up these disasters will be paid by their children.

The bill for Gordon Brown’s disasters will be paid for by the next generation.

The charge from an increasing number of commentators, politicians and pressure groups, not to mention young people themselves, is that baby boomers mortgaged their children’s future for their own short-term benefit. Comparing the lifestyles of these generations, it’s hard to disagree.

No it isn’t hard to disagree. It’s very easy to disagree. It’s simplistic nonsense. If there is a charge to be laid, it is that the electorate – all of those who did so (myself included) – fell for the New labour con trick. It has nothing to do with generations.

Baby boomers collectively own close to £500bn of the UK’s assets, which is four-fifths of the entire nation’s wealth.

Yes. And where will that wealth go when my generation pops its clogs? Oh, yeah, that’s right; the next generation. So what our parents worked for and we worked for, they will inherit. That’s how it works.

They’ve turned into micro banks, loaning sometimes huge sums to their children each year.

And? So? My parents couldn’t do this to help me. This means that the current generation are fortunate to have this facility. Go back a couple of generations and it will be unheard of.

The majority of boomer wealth comes from the sale of houses. As first time buyers in the early 70s, they would have borrowed three times their annual income to purchase a two-up-two-down for £60,000 in today’s money. They’re selling them on for £160,000 in 2010. Young adults need to borrow 6.5 times their salary to afford those prices.

Now this one is an issue. Longrider Towers in Bristol cost £34k back in the late eighties. Nowadays even after the recent drop in prices, it’s probably worth around £140k. The average salary is about £20k or a bit less. I was on £8k in 1987 and Mrs L was on a similar income. Although our situation is not as dramatic as some, the sheer rise in house prices is making it difficult for first time buyers. However, to merely blame it on a generation is simplistic.

As young adults, baby boomers had a fantastic start in life, with free education, paid apprenticeships and work contracts that lasted an average of 10.4 years. Today’s youngsters become adults with an average of £20,000 in student debt and struggle to find jobs that last an average of 15 months.

Okay, let’s knock this “free education” malarky on the head. I did not have free education. It had to be paid for – out of taxes. That means ultimately I paid for it. Indeed, I have paid vastly more in taxes than I have ever drawn out in education or health for example. I don’t think that the student loan idea is a good way of funding it, but please, do not insult my intelligence by telling me that this stuff is free; it ain’t. It’s bloody expensive and someone has to pay – why not the person who directly benefits?

And, of course, we are responsible for ruining the planet:

But the greatest consequence, according to the environmental movement at least, is a legacy that cannot easily be quantified.

“The same generation which let the economic system collapse, is now knowingly setting us on another disastrous course towards ecological collapse” says 24-year-old Greenpeace campaigner Joss Garman. “The baby-boomers have failed to take action to cut carbon pollution. Our parents’ generation will be remembered for having left it up to us to deal with the climate crisis.”

Despite the wheel falling off the AGW bandwagon, we are still hearing the screeching alarmists. I really can’t be bothered to deconstruct the sheer idiocy of Joss Garman, except to say that when he is my age and the apocalypse is similar to the great global freezing scam of the nineteen seventies, he will look a little foolish – more than he does now. Every generation has its end of the world cult. AGW is ours, for our sins.

“It might not be free any more,” says Mr MacKenzie, “but education is much less a middle-class pursuit. Thirty-five per cent go to university now as opposed to 5% in my day.”

Ah, yes, more of that free education stuff. In his day, the majority coughed up to pay for the 5% through their taxes. These days we have more and more people coming out of universities with degrees in media studies and humanities that are of no use in the workplace and the degree has been devalued as a consequence. And, why is it that so many of these graduates seem to end up in call centres?

As an aside here, I was talking to a student last year who is studying philosophy. On being asked what he was planning to do when he left university, he said, in all seriousness, “go into management”.

“Baby boomers didn’t set out to make the next generation foot the bill,” says Mr Andrews. “but I don’t see a willingness from boomers to do anything about it either.”

Damn right, I’m not. What a stupid and whiny article.

Henry Porter serves up another reminder of just how much the UK is aping the defunct DDR.

The last days of this dreadful government are being accompanied by an attack on rights and privacy that seems unprecedented during Labour’s 13-year rule.

The government is now drawing up plans to amend the Postal Services Act to allow tax inspectors to intercept and open people’s mail before it is delivered. Given the state’s ambitions to collect all communications data this is hardly surprising, but we must ask ourselves how many more rights are seized by government and its agencies before Britain becomes the GDR‘s most obvious European imitator.

Who would have thought, in the dying years of the 20^th Century, that the United Kingdom would slide inexorably into acquiescent totalitarianism by the end of the first decade of the 21^st? Not by the gun, the bullet or the bomb; not by armed insurrection or war; but for the chiiiiilllldreeen, for health and safety – oh, yes, most certainly safety, for it is a human right these days to be safe. Safe from the monsters under the bed. Safe from the bad people who say things that might upset us. Safe from offence or, horror of horrors, lack of respect. Safe from things that might happen and we must all be controlled, just so that they don’t – even if they weren’t going to anyway; just to be sure. And we must be made safe from ourselves, because, like naughty children, we are too fat, too thin, eat too much salt, eat the wrong size chips – and too many of them, drink too much alcohol and smoke like a 19^th Century Blackburn mill. So we must be told what to eat, how much to eat, what we must not eat – and certainly, oh, most certainly, no tobacco, no alcohol and no mind-altering substances. We, the good little proles under the all-seeing all-benevolent eye of the brave New Labour project, must live forever in brain-dead tedium; our bodies temples of radiant health and fitness as dictated by our all-knowing, all-wise masters in Westminster, who know better than we what is in our best interests.

And, it is under the guise of tobacco that this egregious little plan has been hatched. So it’s for our own good – as all of these new laws are. We need to be controlled, cajoled, chivvied and nagged like the recalcitrant charges that we are, or we wouldn’t behave as our enlightened political masters want us to behave.

Quoted in the Daily Telegraph, Heather Taylor, a senior tax partner at Grant Thornton, said: “This seems like a very small and limited change, but it could be a very big step for increased powers HMRC. Once new powers are in the hands of HMRC they tend to be extended.”

Well, that goes without saying. We can also add to that, that any powers dished out to these people will be abused. All that is in doubt is the timing. Do we measure in hours or minutes these days?

It seems extraordinary that we are about to allow the exact same type of interception to be established in Britain with such little complaint. How long will it be before we protest?

Porter isn’t the only one asking that question. Britons have become creatures of passive compliance. Sure, don’t rock the boat and don’t make a fuss in polite company are admirable traits in their place – but surely the time has come to scream the house down? Time, is it not, to hold those responsible to account? Would our forebears who took to the streets, who fought a civil war and suffered ignominious death for their liberties look kindly on the current X-Factor generation?

I think not.

Step forward, Carl Gardner, Stasi apologist.

My fear is that limiting the retention of DNA unnecessarily now may hobble a technology that could be a very powerful tool for identifying offenders, eliminating innocent suspects and protecting human rights in 30 or 50 years’ time. The growth of the DNA database over the last 10 years has been a brave experiment; I hope it won’t be closed down prematurely. The government is right not to “gold-plate” the European court’s judgment, which ruled out only a blanket policy of permanent retention. The current proposals will almost certainly withstand a further human rights challenge, and should be defended in court if necessary.

So, Gardner does not believe that HMG should obey the law. He is also, it seems, ignorant of the false positives aspect. As commenters to this risible article point out to him, our DNA is none of the state’s business. Sure, it can be a useful tool when carrying our an investigation; but it isn’t the magic wand that people like Gardner seem to think that it is. I really don’t care how brave the experiment is; I’ve not committed a criminal offence, so I have no intention of sharing my DNA with the state. If I was arrested and subsequently released without charge, or acquitted, I would fight tooth and nail to get myself removed from the database. Gardner’s brave experiment can go hang. I repeat; my DNA is none of the state’s business.

Oh, but it gets better. As is so often the case with the Guardianista, those pesky civil liberties are just such a damned nuisance and why do we bother with such abstracts anyway?

The best reason to back the government, though, is that civil liberties concerns about DNA, now almost conventional wisdom, are abstract and overstated. What’s the actual fear?

Sigh… There is nothing abstract about them, nothing. Nor are they overstated. As other stories point out, our basic liberties have been eroded by this government in an unprecedented manner. Civil liberties is the lone warrior, standing above the bloodied and battered bodies of his fallen comrades as the invading barbarian hordes descend to finally snuff him out; the inconvenient refusnik, who doesn’t know when he is beat and just won’t have the decency to surrender, that must be destroyed for the good of the new order.

Civil liberties are the bedrock of a civilised society. Without them, we are back in the Eastern Bloc during the cold war; a place where people watched what they said, for fear of being overheard and their words used against them. Couldn’t happen in 21^st Century Britain… Could it?

Some say retention violates the presumption of innocence – but that principle does not mean nothing at all can be done to a presumably innocent person. If it did, arresting and questioning suspects – vastly more serious invasions of freedom than storing numbers on a computer – would also be ruled out.

You know you have a Guardianista on the end of your line when the old logical fallacies are trotted out. The indefinite – or merely long term – storage of DNA is not comparable to the questioning of a suspect. Indeed, the taking of DNA from a suspect is fine. No one, so far as I am aware is arguing otherwise. However, once the investigation determines that they are innocent – or they are acquitted, then they are innocent people and they are no longer suspects. Therefore there is no need to retain their DNA, just as there is no need to keep them in a police cell. The temporary inconvenience of questioning – and even arrest – does not compare to the lifelong assumption of guilt associated with registration on the database. Has Gardner not heard of Lorraine Elliott? Of course people will be presumed guilty. It has already happened. Just as we all knew that despite the assurances, airport scanners would be abused – and in short order, they were. The more power you give to the state, the more it will abuse that power. And information is power.

…retaining DNA profiles does not meddle with anyone’s soul.

No one said it does. What we have said; consistently, is that it is no business of the state’s. Not the same thing at all, is it?

Metaphysics aside, being on the DNA database takes away no freedom (and yes, if the bill gets through, I’ll go on it voluntarily).

Lorraine Elliott lost her job. Perhaps if you volunteer, you will lose yours, eh? And if you are so keen, why are you waiting? Go on, do it now. Put your money where your CiF is.

If people’s DNA is kept without their consent, it is affecting their freedom; their freedom to keep their information to themselves and away from the prying, malign eye of the state.

Against this, keeping even innocent people’s DNA for six years is amply justified in order to fight crime.

This is risible bollocks of the 24 carat, diamond encrusted variety. DNA retention does not fight crime. In certain circumstances, it will help in an investigation. Gardner has been watching too much CSI.

Alan Johnson should take his case to the people.

Oh, yes, please. Bring it on… Going by the majority of the comments in the Groan; a blatantly statist newspaper, the outcome will be wonderfully bloody.

An interesting article on CiF – even if it tells us nothing new – that serves as a reminder about what can happen if employers decide to search for our online activities.

Professional conflict around internet use is a subject I’m well-versed in, having experienced everything from management looking up my Twitter page in search of evidence that I was unhappy at work, to being blacklisted from a well-known arts title for apparently “showing disrespect” towards it in a blog entry. The latter, which happened early in my career, was particularly baffling and happened after I had applied there for work experience and openly listed the blog on my CV – would anyone really want to work for nothing somewhere they disrespect? Similarly, a friend and comedy-sketch writer was once turned down for an administration job after being told matter-of-factly that the company had found his comedy blog during an internet search and had considered it “completely inappropriate”.

I have mixed feelings about this issue. On the one hand, when we publish online as I am here, it is available for anyone to see. That is in part why I publish pseudonymously. Sure, if you want to, you can find out who I am, but a casual google on my name won’t just turn it up. Mostly what you will find is my cat stuff or out of date information relating to my Network Rail days. If you dig into some of the links, then yes, here it is in all its glory. Not that I feel ashamed of what I write, it’s just that “Longrider” is not entirely who I am, just as the “Devil’s Kitchen” is not entirely who the author is. The pseudonym is a persona through which we vent and express perhaps some of our more extreme thoughts. Thoughts, maybe, that we might not want to readily share with our employers for the sake of a quiet life. I don’t swear as much in real life – although I am prone to dropping the odd extreme libertarian idea into conversations to see what comes out the other side.

That said, I do have concerns about employers seeking out the witterings of employees. It is akin to slipping into their local and eavesdropping on their conversations with the express purpose of holding those conversations against them. What we say online really is nothing to do with the employer. They pay us to do a job of work. During work hours, what the employer says; goes, and that’s fair enough. Outside of work, providing it does not impinge detrimentally on the employer, it is none of their business and that is the way it should stay.

Upon which point; I would never give my blog details to an employer, let alone put it on my CV. This is outside of work and outside of work is where it stays. I resist absolutely any and every attempt by employers to probe into my personal life. What I do in the way of extracurricular activities is none of their business and I have always ensured that it stayed that way.

But just because it’s possible for employers to unearth background information that once would have been the preserve of the most diligent East German spy, does that mean they should?

Probably not, but human nature being what it is, they will. So, the best thing to do is to be careful about what we share, how we share it and with whom. Pseudonymous or anonymous publishing helps here.

There is a common belief that people who share information online are deliberately seeking attention, and therefore have it coming. Yet thinking that anyone with an online presence is out for publicity is as boneheaded as the idea that anyone who dresses up nicely is out to have indiscriminate sex.

I’m inclined to agree here. I don’t publish this blog to seek attention, I do it as a catharsis. It started (six years ago, now) as a way of raging against the government’s control freakery and erosion of civil liberties. And here I am still doing it. It’s a way of getting the rage off my chest without bursting some serious blood vessels. If people read it and it causes them to think about the issues, then that’s a bonus. So, yes, I’m no more attention seeking than the girl in the short skirt is asking for it.

The article refers to Facebook specifically. As people commenting point out, a more competent user would have set the privacy setting so that the casual uninvited visitor could not see the offending remarks. For me, this is not an issue as I don’t have a Facebook account, nor do I have a LinkedIn one. Neither have I felt tempted by Twitter, so there’s only this place, really. And, as I am self-employed, my employer doesn’t give a stuff.

This time last week, I was mentally preparing myself to return to the UK. My ferry was all booked for the Friday evening. Then the car decided to misfire. Just a couple of times when cold. The symptoms appeared to be as if I had switched off the ignition momentarily. The following morning (Thursday) it died on me. And I had twenty four hours before setting out for Caen.

So, we called the breakdown service. The trouble with electronic systems in cars is that there is little for the amateur mechanic to look at and the messages were all conflicting anyway. I suspected something electronic but was out of my depth. Calling the breakdown service was an experience in itself. I hate menu systems when calling a UK number. Trying to catch the French rattled at me at high speed was just too much. I had to ask a neighbour to navigate it for me.

I have to say that I was impressed. We are in rural France and the breakdown engineer was with us in pretty short order – about 45 minutes. There was some humming and hahing, which seems to happen with breakdown chappies the world over. Eventually, he put his jump box across the battery and it fired up. So, that was it; the battery. Well, why didn’t it behave like a failed battery? I’ve had enough batteries fail in my years of riding and driving and this was nothing like a battery failing. Still, he decided to take it into Lodève to get a new battery fixed. A couple of hours later, having heard nothing, we called the garage who wondered what was going on. So we went in Mrs L’s car and waited while they changed the battery.

All of this delayed my packing somewhat. At about seven in the evening, I fired up the laptop to transfer some files over from the desktop ready for the off, when it hung. I rebooted. It hung again. I just couldn’t get Windows to load. Going into safe mode worked okay,  but in normal mode it wasn’t playing.

So, that was it, start again and reload everything.

I postponed my ferry booking for 24 hours and spent the Friday rebuilding the PC.

Having arrived in the UK, Mrs L tells me that the hard drive on the desktop has keeled over and died.

Technology; who needs it?

Has anything been going on in the meantime?

We’ve had a hard winter this year. Only last week we were experiencing snow and -10^oC temperatures. Then, like a switch being thrown, we are into +10^oC and above. The sun is shining, there is warmth in the air and the crocuses are out.

There are green shoots everywhere and we’ve been out sowing seeds for the summer vegetable harvest and we can lunch alfresco in the balmy warmth of the Mediterranean sun. Never mind the whinging gainsayers, summer is on the way. Soon we will see temperatures rising to 30^o+C. Bring it on.

Rupert Myers wibbles about women taking men’s surnames upon marriage – or, more specifically, the extreme feminist reaction to the custom.

There’s nothing wrong with a man saying that his wife should adopt his surname when they get married. While this is quite standard practice in Britain, the history of surnames is one of paternalism, discrimination, and the handling of women in a manner akin to property. Perhaps because of this, indignant feminist friends have recently forced me to defend my expressed preference for patrilinealism.

Mrs L chose to take my surname. Had she wanted to keep her maiden name, that would have been just fine. I have no issue about it either way. The same applied to my brother-in-law when my youngest sister preferred to keep her somewhat unusual maiden name. Their daughter has her father’s name. But apparently this is evil paternalism at work.

Britain ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination of All Forms Against Women on 7 April 1986, which states in Article 5(a) that we will “take all appropriate measures to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and custom based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes”, and at Article 16(g) that we will ensure, “on a basis of equality of men and women, the same personal rights as husband and wife, including the right to choose a family name”.

I have this horrible feeling – just a feeling, mind you – that most people couldn’t give a hoot about the issue. In that, it isn’t an issue for most of us and certainly isn’t about discrimination. We just get on with our lives while the Guardianista tie themselves up on knots of angst over something that really doesn’t matter.

Even today, the numbers who adopt the man’s surname as show that in most cases when this question has been addressed, the argument is won by men…

Or, more likely, they didn’t give it a second thought; there wasn’t an argument at all.

Still, I guess if this is the worst we’ve got to worry about all’s well with the world.

Oh… Wait…