Ryding to nothing

I was a little bit disappointed by the USA's meek surrender at Gleneagles in the Ryder Cup.  While I always prefer Europe to win, it could well be a pyrrhic victory is the USA loses interest in such transatlantic rivalry.  For much of its existence, the USA virtually bullied the GB and Ireland team to the extent that to save the tournament from predictability, the franchise this side of the pond had to be extended to all Europe.  The irony is that GB and Ireland have enough gold players to hold their own against the USA.  But whereas the British Isles may have been happy to be thrashed on almost every occasion, clinging to the coat-tails of greatness, the repeatedly stung pride of the Americans is harder to bear for them.  In the seven tournaments since 2002 (the rearranged fixture following the abandonment of the 2001 fixture in the wake of 9/11), the USA has only won once and that on home soil.  They came close two years ago at Medinah but the record books will only show another US defeat.  At the time of the last US victory in 2008 after three consecutive European wins, it was said this was essential to keep American broadcasters and thereby viewers interested in the event.  A win two years from hence assumes the same importance.
In 2008, Nick Faldo's divisive leadership as captain undermined the European effort where one might say the US won by default.  A good captain makes all the difference.  Tom Watson in 2014 was not a good captain.  Turning it around, at Gleneagles it could be said that the European team would have won by default had Faldo been reappointed.  Paul McGinley though was clinical.  You don't win 16 and a half to 11 and a half by accident.  The scale of the victory might prompt a root-and-branch reform of how Americans approach the tournament, beyond the simple expediency of dropping Tiger Woods, who was the alleged cause of the jinx (I guess he wasn't then...).  Critiques often extend to the American way of life, attacking the US team as too individualistic (and thus unable to work with each other) and failing against the togetherness of the Europeans.  But the US side needs to find a great captain first.
Watson, in his concession speech, thanked the warm Scottish welcome and was similarly patronised by the crowd.  When it was announced that First Minister, Alex Salmond, was to present the trophy to McGinley, he did not receive a warm Scottish welcome, with loud and sustained booing until the trophy left his hands (reminiscent of the discontent expressed towards Brazilian president Dilma Roussef and FIFA chief Sepp Blatter in July).  The size of the crowd disappointed the Gleneagles organisers, largely down to the uncertainty created by the referendum and the crowd were not in forgiving mood towards the man who spearheaded efforts to break up the UK.  He is as tarnished as the elite he had castigated.

The dog ate my homework

David Cameron has been called the boy who leaves his homework to the last minute but always pulls it out of the bag and gets top marks.  On his watch, Scotland remained part of the Union and he undermined an attempted leadership coup by announcing an In/Out EU referendum in 2017 (though a leadership challenge would have drawn the sting - John Major's 1995 gauntlet were under vastly changed circumstances).  Cameron knows how close the 2015 General election will be and must try all kind of underhand tactics.  Hence the firecracker he threw into the Labour party conference on the morning of the Scottish referendum result with "English votes for English laws."  Subsequently, Labour were faced with questions about that rather than they wanted to talk about like the NHS and the deficit - maybe this partially the reason why Ed Miliband forgot to mention the latter in his conference speech.  Labour got a conference anti-bounce which is impressive in some ways.
But the Tories have had their own conference undermined on its opening weekend.  If you live by the sword, you die by the sword.  One MP had to resign as Minister for Civil Society with some decidedly uncivil behaviour in sending explicit imagery to what turned out to be an undercover journalist.  But more than that is the defection of a second Tory MP to UKIP.  Reckless by name and reckless by nature, Mark should be right at home in his new party with missing a Budget vote because he was too drunk.  However, unlike the impoverished Clacton-on-Sea, Rochester and Strood's patricians and burghers may not be so forgiving of Reckless and he may not win back his seat, despite taking roughly 50% of the vote in 2010.  The Conservative constituency chairman is 'furious and disgusted', not least because Reckless assured him just 48 hours previous to his defection that he had no intention of doing so.  Indeed, the ex-Tory may the mirror the General Election, splitting the right-wing vote and letting Labour in to win (the party of democratic socialism topped the poll in the constituency - then known as Medway - with Bob Marshall Andrews, QC, in 2001 and 2005).  The public may not be impressed with Labour but a united party will always triumph over one tearing itself apart.  David Cameron threw his irreconcilables red meat in an attempt to appease and Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless have come back to bite the hand that feeds them.  As the Polish foreign minister said, it was weak party management and he should have told them where to get off; it could well contribute to the end of Cameron's tenure as both prime minister and Conservative leader.  He did well in the mocks but when it came to the real exam, the schoolboy left his studying just too late.

Karimov the lame

Although not as sealed off as the Democratic [Ha] Peoples' [Ha] Republic of Korea, the straightforward Republic of Uzbekistan conforms to all the oriental despotic hallmarks and with the ancient cities of Samarkand and Bukhara that were the powerbase of the fanatical conqueror Tamerlane (or Timur the Lame), it should come as no surprise that President Islam Karimov should continue that tradition from his capital at Tashkent.  After all, in another post-Soviet country, Georgia, Josef Stalin is lauded.
In violently crushing any hints of protest and with allegations that he boils his political opponents alive (turn-of-the-century British ambassador Craig Murray was dismissed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office after expressing his criticism too vehemently of the then key western ally), Karimov matches the brutality of Tamerlane but with recent events he is akin to another ruthless leader - the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus.  The first African raised to the purple, his streak of cruelty earned him the name 'the Punic Sulla' (the wars against Carthage were prefaced 'Punic' after Phoenicia and Sulla was a first century BC dictator famous for his lethal proscriptions on the Roman elite), purging the Senate of his opponents with at least 29 senators executed and riding his horse back and forth over the corpse of a dispatched rival.  In AD 202, Severus started to think about the succession of his dynasty.
The 75-year old Karimov, according to some reports in poor health, must also be pondering who will follow him and secure his 'legacy'.  This makes the trial of his eldest daughter, Gulnara Karimova, all the more surprising.  Karimova was one of the most powerful people in Central Asia.  In the words of analyst Reid Standish, "she was untouchable."  Boasting her own fashion and pop music career, Karimova also represented her country at the United Nations outpost in Geneva and had her finger in many other business enterprises. Since March though she has been under house arrest with all communication barred, including her Twitter account where she had chronicled the breakdown of her relationship with her autocrat father.  In early September, state prosecutors charged her with systemic corruption.  Once considered a contender to take over the reins from her father, she may have believed too much in her untouchability as a power vacuum emerged and misjudged the strategy of Rustam Inoyatov, head of Uzbekistan's national security service, the SNB.
Septimius Severus made his best friend, Gaius Fulvius Plautianus, the commander of the Praetorian Guard, the imperial bodyguard and gave him further extensive responsibilities and great wealth.  According to the historian Herodian, "he misused this power to commit all kinds of acts of cruelty and violence in everything he did."  Plautianus was even rumoured to castrate grown men to serve as eunuch attendants of his daughter, Publia Fulvia Plautilla.  But Plautianus is not the model for Inoyatov but Karimova.
In December 2013, Karimova claimed on Twitter that Inoyatov (who has the president's ear) had turned her father against her in a bid for power.  A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable details Inoyatov's role as a gatekeeper.  Like a modern-day Lucius Aurelius Sejanus (another Praetorian commander) having sole control over access to the Roman Emperor Tiberius (who for the last ten years of his life conducted imperial affairs from the island of Capri), thereby gaining a stranglehold over official appointments, Inoyatov also extorts from various cabinet ministers to keep them in line and stop any from developing close relationships with the autocrat.  Also, like Sejanus, who poisoned Tiberius' son, Drusus, Inoyatov has poisoned Karimov against the progeny who most challenged the security chief.
Septimius Bassianus (known more famously as Caracalla, for the cloak he wore) vituperatively objected to the marriage arranged by his father Severus, betrothing him to Plautilla.  Refusing to eat and sleep with her, he threatened to kill both her and her father Plautianus when he, Caracalla, became emperor.  There are several accounts as to the denouement - in one version, Caracalla persuaded three centurions to bring false information against Plautianus, claiming the latter had ordered them to assassinate Severus and Caracalla (for Herodian the plot was real but was similarly exposed).  Either way, Plautianus was summarily killed and his body was thrown out into the street, while Plautilla was exiled to the island of Lipari.  As historian of antiquity, Chris Scarre, puts it, "But the hatred live on and Caracalla had her killed as soon as he came to power."  A similar fate could lie in store for Karimova once her father is dead.
In a sense, she has only herself to blame.  Though she was being investigated for corruption in her business dealings in Switzerland and in Scandinavia, it is rule by law rather rule of law that prevails in Uzbekistan and there are definitely certain people who are above it.  In that way, the domestic charges brought against her would never have materialised had she maintained her exalted position.  Like haughty Empress Matilda, daughter and anointed heir of English king, Henry I, she has been deposed by a male clique.  Matilda went on to marry a Holy Roman Emperor, was widowed and then married the powerful Duke of Anjou.  Successful in battle against the usurper King Stephen, her arrogant manner alienated her subjects and she was driven out of London before she could stage a coronation.  (It was to avoid such chaos that King Henry VIII was determined to have a male heir.)  Karimova has been punished for her presumption.
She could consider herself fortunate to date to enjoy the luxury of house arrest.  The September report by Human Rights Watch chronicles the awful abuse meted out to those who cross Tashkent's elite.  The allegations of torture in the report include simulated suffocation, beatings, electric shock, hanging by wrists and ankles, as well as threats of rape.  Human Rights Watch says that the prisoners include people who have tried to uncover corruption or seek democratic reforms.  Prison sentences are arbitrarily extended for violation of regulations such as 'incorrectly peeling carrots' in the prison kitchen.  That recalls the treason trials that disfigured the end of Tiberius' reign (Sejanus, so memorably played by Patrick Stewart in I, Claudius, had met a sticky end by this point) where one distinguished ex-consul was condemned for carrying a coin, which of course bore the emperor's likeness, into the toilet: "With my coin [i.e. head, that is, presence] in your bosom, you turned aside into foul and noisome places and relieved your bowels."
There are upcoming elections in 2015 and though these are just for show and to ensure the efficiency of governmental machinery (like the 'Sovereign Democracy' as practised in Putin's Russia), they may be the last good occasion to jockey for position and win favour from Karimov before he dies (then again, he could be like Robert Mugabe and go on to the age of 90, but Mugabe is exceptional).  Though ostensibly consolidating Karimov's power further, it illustrates his weakness as people plan for his aftermath.  In the race to become next top dog in Uzbekistan, Inoyatov is in pole position.

The Palace stormed

Following Newcastle United's trip to Gillingham in the second round of the League Cup, I again journeyed to see the black-and-whites (though they were playing in their grey 'England Euro 96' change kit) as the Toon pitched up in south London for the third round match against Crystal Palace.  A painful, winless start to the Premier League season has seen Newcastle find solace in this modest run in the Capital One Cup (or as the Selhurst Park announcer put it, living in the past, the Carling Cup - he might as well have called it the Milk Cup or the Littlewoods Cup).  The Magpies only winning goal so far in any competition had been off a Gillingham defender.
There was a modicum of hope in the Croydon expanses as United had beaten the Eagles on the previous five occasions on the latter's home turf and whereas Neil Warnock had made 11 changes to his first team following a creditable 3-2 win at Everton, Alan Pardew - needing a victory of any kind - had only made four alterations to his starting line-up since the last-gasp draw against Hull City last Saturday.  With so much disruption, the quality of football was not high, despite the final scoreline of 3-2 suggesting box-to-box thrills.  As soon as either team built up a head of steam, ultimately they were wasteful.  There wasn't even the raucous passion displayed by Gillingham fans (bar a corner of Palace ultras) to warm the cockles, though at least the Newcastle travelling fans had no aspersions cast against their perceived lack of support this time.
After a relatively bright opening period where Newcastle kept passing in front of the opposition goal without ever really looking to threaten it, Palace took the lead slightly against the run of play.  A trip by Daryl Janmaat on the tricksy prodigal son Wilfried Zaha saw a penalty awarded and Janmaat on his back, disbelieving at how his rush of blood to the head forced him to try and nick the ball rather than just shepherd Zaha who was going nowhere.  Dwight Gayle stepped up to smash the penalty home, though goalkeeper Rob Elliot guessed the right way.
This was looking bad as the last time the Magpies had come from behind to win had been a year and a half ago.  Nevertheless, a first proper attempt at goal led to Newcastle's equaliser, silencing the ironic praise for ex-Palace player Pardew from the home stands.  Occurring at the other end of the pitch, I didn't a good view of it and that kept my passions in check as I was sitting in a home section with a Palace-supporting friend.  Emmanuel Riviere finally opened his account for the club after his summer move from Monaco and even if it had been against second-string opposition, as Alan Shearer used to say, they all count.
After the half-time break, some nifty footwork by Sammy Ameobi with his telescopic legs saw him bundled over by two Palace players in exactly the same spot that Janmaat had committed the foul on Zaha.  Riviere made no mistake with the penalty, putting it high into the net down the middle (a risky strategy).  Thereafter, the better chances fell to Newcastle on the counter-attack, though again it was more butter through a blowtorch rather than vice versa.  At one point, the Magpies were two-on-one but a complete lack of confidence led to an abdication responsibility for the shot.  Shoot?  No, pass. Shoot? No, pass back.  Shoot?  No, pass back again and oh look the goalkeeper's collected it.  Jack Colback was clearly frustrated at such dithering and on the next foray, he showed them how to do it or rather not as his ball went high into the stands, almost taking out the television cameraman (a pitchside photojournalist had earlier been wiped out in a tackle that slid outside the boundary), but at least he was being decisive.
3-1 would have sealed the result but with just one goal in it there was always hope for Palace.  As at St James' Park three and a half weeks ago, the Eagles snatched an injury-time leveller.  It was a night for debutant scorers as substitute Sullay Kaikai managed to bundle the ball in to take the game to extra time.  Before the game could resume, the scores were read out from around the country, plus it was announced that the winners of the tie had the dubious reward of being drawn away against League Cup holders (and Premier League champions) Manchester City, the Citizens drubbing Sheffield Wednesday 7-0 on the night (though it was 0-0 at half-time).  Newcastle haven't beaten City in the last fifteen attempts, losing every match since the Magpies' return to the Premier League (and as a curio, in Pardew's nearly four years in charge, he has had only one cup game at home - of course, that had to be against City).
Such a massive disincentive seemed to dampen the ambition of both sets of players for a while but the teams seemed to conclude that a win is a win and eventually went for it with a bit more gusto - a bit too much gung-ho spirit from fringe player Mehdi Abeid whose foul drew a second yellow card and an early shower on the 100th minute.  Counter-intuitively, Newcastle looked a better side after Abeid's dismissal, their performance making them appear like the team with the extra man.  The pressure told and defender Paul Dummett scored with a diving header with eight minutes remaining, prompting a joyous celebration with the players coming to the away stand section.  There was still time to blow it though and Elliot was forced into an outstanding, Shay Given-esque one-handed point-blank save.
So, I have been party to both of Newcastle United's wins though I won't be making a midweek trip to Manchester.  My presence hasn't been the deciding factor, more the mediocre quality of the southern-based opposition.  The match finishing at 10.30 p.m., I pitied the away fans making the long journey north, I myself getting home just before half past midnight.  At least a trip across the Pennines won't be so deleterious to their sleep patterns unless the result is truly horrific.  As always with United, there is a cloud to every silver lining.

A more United Kingdom

David Cameron's 'strings attached' rabbit-out-of-the-hat announcement that English laws made by English MPs would be part of the constitutional revision package has sparked impassioned debate.  Alex Salmond continues to play the media whore when Cameron made an unguarded remark to Michael Bloomberg about our 'purring' queen, unable to face up to his whole political career ending in failure; on the 'English package', he used his usual sophistry, saying 'No' voters were tricked by pledges of DevoMax, making out that people only voted 'No' because of DevoMax, a blatant abuse of the truth.  In Labour, Ben Bradshaw and others have formed 'English Labour'.
I'm all for a formal federalism in the UK, discarding the West Lothian question to the dustbin of history in one fell swoop.  The USA and its states and Germany and its länder are more united, not less because of this system and more democratic too.
In a sense, we are going back to our roots, as the late Anglo-Saxon state had significant devolved elements that built up mass support for the system and the elite who operated that system.  In the words of Geoffrey Hindley (in his A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons, p. xliii), consider "the courts of the shire and its subdivisions, all part of a system of royal justice that was in a significant sense popular, attended by and presided over by men [a patriarchal society, natch] residing in the locality." Central authority fostering local loyalties to local units to reinforce itself, whilst also serving as a useful buttress against autocracy.  Practical advantages also accrued as Emma Mason explains regarding King Harold II's forced march north 948 years ago to rout Harald Hardrada's Norwegian opportunism: the English king "was joined on the way by contingents from the regions through which they passed, which in itself indicates both the efficiency of his courier and also the national respect for Harold's authority." [The House of Godwine, p. 149].  The centralised state worked for its people and the populace responded to defend it.  M.K. Lawson (in Cnut, p. 15) details how the Normans let the powerful institutions that had been developed decline and fall into abeyance.  If the late Anglo-Saxon state was "ahead of its time" (as surmised by Hindley), we finally may be catching up with our forefathers.

The quest for justice

After a weekend away in the Midlands and several days of dissection of the Scottish referendum result, this coincided last night with catching the second half of Krull.  Released in 1983, I heard it was meant to be a British riposte to Star Wars (irrespective of the fact that much of the latter was made in England).  David Cameron's unashamed posh boy shtick in the wake of the referendum tied in with the protagonists of Krull.  I was quite struck by how many federates of the hero were killed without so much as a second thought all to ensure that the king gets his rocks off with his damsel in distress and establishes a royal dynastic dominion throughout the galaxy.  Many fall in battle in Star Wars too but the original trilogy at least is far more egalitarian, as people die to throw off the shackles of empire not shore it up and yes, there are princesses, but they engage in a fair bit of the fighting themselves unlike the retrograde Krull.  Aside from the ludicrous plotting and often dubious production values, Krull is an affirmation of the class system, where subordinates know their place to a (kind-hearted) overlord, whereas Star Wars is a stirring search for freedom, elucidating the true meaning of the quest meta-narrative.  Mixing aliens and sword and sorcery does not always a classic make.  As much as anything, Krull's ignorance of the essence of a quest is the cause of its failure.

United we stand

First reaction is language that Gordon Brown, the son of the Manse, would recognise - rejoice, again I say rejoice!  The Union is preserved.  I'd like to thank all the Scots who voted for 'No' - you are a tribute to Scotland, the UK and the world.  Of course, were to believe the Nats, the English jackboot will now come down on them, but really they knew they weren't oppressed.  The 'Yes' campaign adopting the cast-iron certainty of American electioneering - "When Scotland votes 'Yes'" - was repugnant to traditional British balloting and thankfully did not prevail.  45% to 55% in electoral terms is a landslide. Reminiscing about a certain Norwegian football commentator updated for today, Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon, John Swinney, Tommy Sheridan, Sean Connery, Irvine Welsh, Alan Cumming, Brian Cox, Frankie Boyle, the Proclaimers, Mogwai, Franz Ferdinand, Andy Murray, your boys took a hell of a beating!  A hell of a beating!
Over two million 'No' votes.  28 out of 32 counties went 'No'.  At no point in the night were 'No' behind.  Again, John Reid ends up on the winning side in a high-profile referendum, this time on the side of the angels.  Gordon Brown, like Cincinnatus, has saved the state and can now return to retirement.  Can't wait for Private Eye to excoriate the mass media for doing the 'too close to call' Obama/Romney 2012 dance again, for nope, it was not even close, but it was decisive.

The end of the party?

This time tomorrow we will all know the outcome of the Scottish independence referendum, barring some administrative hiccup.  Since I was 'quietly confident' of a John Kerry victory in the 2004 presidential election (well in comparable terms he was better than the incumbent Dubaya), I try to eschew positivity for my preferred choice.  Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.  I will be disappointed if there is a majority for separation but I can now accept an 'independent' Scotland with equanimity.
I treasure, in essence, all that goes with the Union.  I'm not the only one.  Around the world, there been support for staying together, with a reaffirmation in the last days from the two most powerful countries in the world.  China once more expresses a desire for the Union, struggling with its own separatist problems (the abominable treatment of a moderate Uighur scholar is truly what it means to be oppressed, far from the flights of fancy by Scottish nationalists).  Our transalantic cousins have also been vocal in their support, both in Ottawa and Washington D.C.  In the Beltway, the preservation of the UK in its current form is one of the few topics that can unite Republicans and Democrats behind a common statement.  Two days ago, Bill Clinton made his second intervention in the debate and yesterday Barack Obama used the official White House Twitter account to repeat his backing for the Union as currently constituted.
Thinking of the USA and Canada is constructive.  Though the media rarely follows the Reithian rule of 'inform, educate, entertain', it does still present the news as interesting and immediate in its relevance to our lives.  For all the puffed-up 'neck-and-neck in the polls' talk, it might be wider than predicted.  It was said of the 2012 presidential election that it was 'too close to call' but Obama went on to beat Mitt Romney by five million votes and utterly trounce Romney with a landslide in the electoral college.  Private Eye punctured the pretensions of the pundits with glee.  Going back twenty years though, Quebec's independence movement fell short by an incredibly narrow margin, garnering 49.4% of the vote in the binary 'Yes/No' ballot.  Regular polling in Scotland say 93% of people will have voted by the end of today, with only 1% categorically rejecting their participation.  It will be nigh on unprecedented for a modern, entrenched democratic society to produce a turnout of 99% but in that event, if the 'Yes' campaign can take 80% of the remaining undecided who may vote, they would overhaul the the 'No' or 'Better Together' campaign.  So it could be: what was all the fuss about or wow, that was tight.
The worries about federalism from Thatcherite MPs doesn't concern me.  It is overdue whereby central government formalised its relations with the regions to prevent arbitrary prejudices being imposed from on high (e.g. the trialling of the poll tax in Scotland, not that it led to an immediate collapse in the Tory vote, the Conservatives winning two more seats North of the Border two years later over their 1987 result).  It is the belief that should Scotland stay in the Union, the proposals (some would say 'bribe') outlined by the 'No' campaign would make the land of Robbie Burns quasi-independent but that is only in comparison to what went before.  It could be said that the Länder in Germany are quasi-independent or for that matter the states in the USA, yet centrifugal forces show no signs of existence in these countries, let alone being overwhelming.
It hasn't always been the most pleasant of campaigns (clocking in at well over 700 days).  The police chief of Scotland says it has been by and large respectful and it exaggerates the case to talk of bullying and intimidation (though one wonders about his own affiliation when it comes to voting).  Nevertheless, the police chief is wrong.  CyberNats have kept up their steady drumbeat of nastiness, with pro-Union online activists rarely reaching such a pitch and focusing greatly on Alex Salmond (who is important as it will be he, not the Scottish people, who will negotiate an independence settlement with London should 'Yes' be successful).  Jim Murphy has been egged while trying to give a speech, Ed Miliband was first drowned out at the start of his tour of Scotland and later ambushed, jostled and heckled by foulmouths after his itinerary for a walkabout in Edinburgh Mall was leaked (not nearly as damaging though as the internal SNP memo that was leaked detailing a £450m black hole in Scottish NHS finances in the event of independence).  George Galloway has been threatened with a bullet.  'No' posters have been torn down or defaced while 'Yes' posters have all remained intact, according to the Scotland's 1990 Rugby Grand Slam-winning captain, David Sole, among others.  There have been 'Yes' protests against the BBC for 'bias' (code for legitimate reporting), demanding the sacking of its chief political editor, Nick Robinson, a sinister call in the context of an independent media.  There has been Salmond's direct pressure to intimidate St Andrew's University into supporting 'Yes' and indirect anti-English rhetoric.  The aggression of some of the 'Yes' campaign comes from the very top of the self-proclaimed 'chippy' SNP.  Yet according to the police chief of Scotland all is hunky-dory - he must be hoping to becoming the top cop of an entire country.
The oil claim has been one of most rancorous, the 'Yes' supporters saying it will be a bounty that will last long enough to diversify the economy into other sectors (if not last for 100 years), while 'No' and many oil experts predict a precipitous decline in oil revenues after 2018 as the easily accessible fields run dry.  Neither side has paid enough attention to 'Dutch Disease' which can hollow out a country's manufacturing and services economy and make a country even more dependent on the volatility of the markets.  Within the home of a larger UK economy, this threat doesn't exist.
For every argument, there is a counter-argument and the vast majority are set firm in their beliefs.  I hope Scotland remains part of Team GB (while remaining Team Scotland in their own right for certain events) but I won't any predictions until the dust has settled.

Nagorno-Karabakh the heartland

This week European football starts in earnest with groups stages, the qualifiers over.  Sadly, this year Sheriff Tiraspol did not make it and so won't have a chance against England's two remaining representatives in the Europa League.  FK Qarabağ, however, did make it.  They have a gala draw, being pitted in the same group as Internazionale of Milan.  St Etienne (a faded giant) and Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk (struggling with the upheaval in the Ukraine) are not as daunting and it would not be impossible for them to reach the knockout stages. There could they face off against English opposition (by the luck of the draw) but only if they play Tottenham Hotspur, as Sheriff did in last season's group stage match, would there even be a chance off myself going to see them (Merseyside - with Everton - for a whim is out of the question).  Unlike Sheriff, they don't base themselves in the breakaway territory of Nagorno-Karabakh (note the different spelling), which I feel diminishes their exotic cachet.
It's been a important month for this Armenian enclave.  The president of Azerbaijan did some sabre-rattling, threatening to recommence live hostilities, ahead of a tripartite presidential meeting in Sochi (maybe in the same suites that had been initially reserved for the G8 meeting that never occurred) between Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.  The summit passed off without substantial changes, except to reaffirm that Moscow still has political clout in the Caucasus.  Across the Atlantic and the Rockies, at the end of August the Californian State Senate passed a resolution recognising the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh, after pressure from the powerful Armenian-American lobby.  Like similar decisions in the past from state legislatures such as Maine, Rhode Island and Louisiana, it has no bearing on US Federal policy.  Even if not internationally recognised, the authorities in the 'capital' of Stepanakert have been welcoming displaced minorities from Iraq such as Yazidi Kurds (admittedly in small numbers) to settle.  Humanitarian in outlook, it also works to enhance the diplomatic prestige and international awareness of Nagorno-Karabakh; there is also a historical hinterland to such a move - in early Soviet times, the region was called Red Kurdistan, so in a way Stepanakert is 'welcoming home' brothers and sisters.  The trouble is that some of the proposed settlements are outside the defined boundary of the enclave, on occupied Azerbaijani land.  Already, 35 Armenian families from Syria (about 130 people in total) are in violation of international law.
In addition to the deaths, at the start of September, the International Committee of the Red Cross issued a press release stating that there are still more 4,500 people registered as missing from the conflict that raged in the dying embers of the Soviet Union.  It is a running sore in Azerbaijan and though some sort of federal arrangement probably is the way forward, whether the authorities in Armenia could ever consent to divest themselves of the occupied land corridor between themselves and their ethnic kin in the breakaway republic is moot.  Peter Lyukimson, who wrote Nagorno-Karabakh: chronicles of a conflict.  Notes of a Jew from Baku declared that, "For every Azerbaijani, Karabakh today is the same as Jerusalem for the Jews, the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius and Yasnaya Polyana for Russians, Versailles and the Bois de Boulogne for the French..."  Similarly, after a century of persecution, many Armenians still feel themselves to be aggrieved, with the current international borders confining Yerevan's dominion to just 10% of historical Armenia at its greatest extent.
In the USA, Section 907 (a Federal policy) is still in force.  It defines Azerbaijan as the aggressor in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.  This means despite being a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Washington DC is not entirely impartial, though a desire to maintain equitable relations with resource-rich Baku was enabled by George W Bush's War on Terrorism, supplying arms to the regime to combat.  Moscow's balancing act has a military alliance with Armenia complemented by heavier arms transfers to Azerbaijan.  France, the third of the three co-chairs, seems to prefer to forget the conflict like the rest of the world.  The disastrous polls for President François Hollande means he will probably be always viewed as a failure but he could be Jimmy Carter-like and invest the capital of his office with finding a modus vivendi in the frozen conflict - I'm sure a majority of Armenians in France (where the last King of Armenia is buried - in St Denis, Paris) are already disillusioned with his leadership for matters pertaining directly to France.  Only with a resolution can FK Qarabağ return 'home' from their current self-imposed exile on the shores of the Caspian Sea but the prospect appears as distant as ever.

Quality Control

In my line of work in Births, Deaths and Marriages at The Telegraph, when hundreds of pounds are exchanged and notices become a source of public record, accuracy is key, both to satisfy the customer and uphold the reputation of the publication.  The Times are more lacksadaisical in their checking - one egregious example recently was that they put a notice about the D-Day landings under a 'Legal Notices' headline.
For me, zeal in being correct is important.  Two examples from August illustrate my point.
Firstly, we received an email with this text:
"McGREGOR, Linde (nee Berger) (Edinburgh). On Monday 11th August aged 93. Born Lubsdorf, West Prussia, married Neill (deceased 1976), mother of John and Alexandra, grandmother to Ruari, Andrew, Joanna and Iain. Private funeral, followed by commemoration on 15th November. Venue tba."
Now, of course, we would always put the accent on the first 'e' of née but what drew my attention was the mention of West Prussia, as when Linde was born, West Prussia no longer existed - it was part of Poland and called the Polish Corridor.  As is my way with names from mainland Europe, I check for special characters and I find Lubsdorf is actually Lübstorf and it is in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (i.e. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, hence the geographical-historical mistake over West Prussia).  After pointing this out to the funeral director, he came back after consulting with the family, who had talked to Mrs McGregor's nonogenerian sister, saying that family had settled on 'Mecklenburg'.
The second was:
"HOLLMAN, Dr Arthur died on 13.08.14 from cancer in his 91st year. Sustained since his wife Catharine’s death eight years ago by the love and affection of their daughters and eight grandchildren. He was a cardiologist, medicinal plantsman and cardiac historian. In 1971 he saved the mmHg for blood pressure measurement when Brussels was replacing it with the kilopascal. No flowers please. Donations if desired for St Michael’s Hospice via the Funeral Director Arthur C Towner Ltd, 2-4 Norman Road, St Leonards-On-Sea, TN37 6NH. Funeral at Pett Parish Church TN35 4HE on 29.08.14 at 14:00h and afterwards at Pett Village Hall. Memorial event in London to follow later in the year."
The digital dates instantly get changed into analogue but what piqued me was the claim, tossed in with ill-concealed contempt, about 'Brussels'.  In fact, it had nothing do with the EEC as then constituted, not least because Britain wasn't part of that club until 1973.  I was determined to present the correct information and after about 20 minutes of research into blood pressure and various journals on the matter, I could state with precision that, in 1971, it was the organisation the General Conference on Weights and Measures replacing mmHg with the kilopascal.  The meeting took place in Sèvres, a suburb of Paris (where the Allied victors in World War One signed a peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire).  So absolutely nothing to do with Brussels whatsoever.  The funeral director accepted the change to " In 1971 he saved the mmHg for blood pressure measurement when the General Conference on Weights and Measures was replacing it with the kilopascal."  Clearly, as in the case of Mrs McGregor, the family had misremembered the details of the subject, in this case associating anything (especially regarding perceived imposition) to do with the European mainland as 'Brussels'.
Once I did leave an historical error in place as it would have meaningless to change it to being correct.  One Derek Burrington Wheatly, it was asserted, was born on 21st December 1933 in Islamabad.  Now, Pakistan did not exist in 1933, let alone the purpose-built capital of Islamabad, yet to list an obscure village in British India would not have aided general comprehension, as I discussed with the funeral director.

These are all on public record and are open source, so I am not violating any data protection rules.  My passion for political geography and history allowed me to pick up what others might miss.  Though I excoriate The Times for the laxity of its Announcements page, its sponsorship of history atlases has greatly expanded my knowledge from my teenage years onwards - in 1995 I bought The Times Compact History of the World.  Last year, I brought myself up to date with The Times Concise History of the World, a larger tome published in 2013, with bigger maps, revised text and pictures (Compact had none of the latter). It is a most superlative work.  I profess though, I did notice some errors and ambiguities and I will email both the series editor Geoffrey Parker and the publishers, in the hope that they may be corrected for any future instalments of the series.  It is not to nitpick but to raise the standard yet higher.  Below are my findings:

•  P. 15, Map 1: ‘Mammoth steppe’ is displayed extending into Korea on the left-hand segment of the map, while the right-hand segment (showing East Asia and Australia) does not show it in Manchuria or Korea.
• P. 23: In the fifth paragraph, first sentence, it would read better as “…though the 10^th century saw the beginnings of…” rather than “… and the 10^th century saw the beginnings of…” in the context of Assyria’s recovery from the ‘Dark Ages’.
• P. 28: I would question the assertion that Buddhism is Asia’s ‘most pervasive religion’ (second paragraph, last sentence) given the predominance of Islam from the Aegean to the Indus, Aden to Astana and Baku to Kashgar, with Indonesia, Malaya, Mindanao, the Maldives and significant pockets in India and Burma
• P. 35: The Jewish Revolt against Roman rule is stated as 64 BC when in fact it is 130 years later in AD 66.
• P. 36, Map 1: Alpes Poenninae is misspelt as Alpes Penninae.
• P. 37, Map 1: (i) Cilicia, Syria and Judaea are colour co-ordinated as public provinces when in fact they are imperial provinces. (ii) It is ambiguous having Judaea as a client kingdom from 41 -4 as the latter date could be either BC or AD to the uninitiated.
• P. 44: it is an exaggeration to state that ‘persecution by Timur and other rulers extinguished’ Christianity in Asia.
• P.67, Map 1: Little or no plague mortality is displayed only for Aquitaine and English Gascony, when it should also be displayed for Bruges, the area around Milan, Poland, northern Bohemia and north-eastern Germany. 
•  P. 70, Map 2: Oran is stated as an Ottoman possession in 1520 when this was not the case until 1708.
• P. 72: the Incan city of Huánuco is misspelt as Huánaco.
• P. 83, Map 3: The Papal enclave of Avignon and the Principality of Orange are not displayed (the latter ceded to France in 1713 should also be colour co-ordinated as such).
• P. 84, Map 2: Though titled ‘Russian expansion in Siberia’, for consistency the map should show additions made in the Vyborg area and Estonia at the very edge.
• P. 93, Map 1: (i) it is incorrect to state that Algiers was a Habsburg possession from 1510 to 1529 when Ottoman-sponsored pirates held it between 1516 and 1520.  (ii) Prussia has been subsumed into Poland
• P. 93: the first sentence of the final paragraph should omit the word ‘was’ or reword as ‘was forced to abandon’, to wit “… at the peace of Westphalia (1648), the emperor was abandoned virtually all his powers in Germany…"
• P. 96, timeline: Ceylon and Burma were independent in 1948, not 1947.
• P. 100, Map 2: The borderlines dividing up Great Britain are erroneous in an international context, for as the text makes clear, after 1707 the island formed a single economic unit
• P. 105, Map 3: (i) the red line 36° 30’ is unexplained by the legend.  (ii) Are the slave population percentages part of the total population, the total workforce or some other measurable statistic?  It is unclear.
• P. 113, Map 1, legend: the orange demarcation should read’ Northern boundary of Mexico’.
• P. 116, timeline: (i) Greece is listed as gaining independence in 1822 when actually they declared independence in 1821 and did not fully gain independence until 1832 (Treaty of Constantinople).  (ii) Belgium is listed as gaining independence in 1831, but it was actually 1830 (at the London Conference of that year).
• P. 118, timeline: The ‘South African (‘Boer’) War’ should be ‘2^nd South African (‘Boer’) War’.
• P. 119, Map 2:    (i) Spanish Rio Muni in Africa is colour co-ordinated as Portuguese; (ii) Zanzibar is omitted (it became a British protectorate in 1890); (iii) there is no display of French enclaves in India; (iv) some raw materials (an empty diamond, a horizontal black box) are not listed on the legend; (v) the legend is unclear when it mentions ‘sphere of effective’; is this influence (as opposed to ‘proposed’) or control?  (vi) If princely states are represented in the colour palette of the legend, why are there dotted lines across a partial part of India?
• P. 126, timeline: the Panama Canal opened in 1914, not 1904.
• P. 127, Map 1:    (i) Serbia is too large for 1900; (ii) Germany’s pictorial depiction encompasses Lithuania and much of Russian-controlled Poland; (iii) Serbia and Montenegro are colour co-ordinated as being part of the Ottoman Empire when they were not in 1900; (iv) Italy’s depiction encompasses Trieste and the Alto Adige; (v) Norway is pictured as independent of Sweden (though this did not occur until 1905). (vi) South Sakhalin is divided when this was not the case in 1900.  (vii) Spanish Morocco did not exist in 1900.  (viii) Mauritius and Socotra not coloured ‘British’. (ix) Puerto Rico not coloured as ‘USA’. (x)  Trinidad and Tobago is not present on the map.
• P. 129: it is incorrect to refer to the ‘Soviet empire’, as empires draw resources from the periphery and direct them to the centre, whereas the USSR directed resources from the centre to its periphery and from periphery to periphery as part of its ideology.  ‘Soviet state’ or ‘Soviet realm’ would be more appropriate.
• P. 130, Map 1: By 1928, Mongolia is not referred to as ‘Outer Mongolia’  - a Chinese imperialist term denoting distance from Beijing – rather Mongolian People’s Republic.
• P. 133, Map 1: (i) While legitimate to display divisional lines in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (which had separate parliamentary jurisdiction), it is erroneous to divide up Great Britain with such lines (as Welsh, Scottish, English (and Irish) MPs were represented in one parliament).  (ii) Miscolouring of coast southwest of Montenegro.
• P. 133, Map 1, Map 2: Luxembourg was invaded and occupied by Germany but the maps imply otherwise, as it is colour co-ordinated in the same manner as the Netherlands, which was not invaded (but remains ‘behind’ the front line).
• P. 136, Map 1:    (i) South Tyrol’s border is not at its fullest extent; (ii) the northern line of the border of Alsace-Lorraine is in the wrong place; (iii) Saarland is in the wrong place; (iv) East Prussia extends too far to the south-west (touching the Vistula); (v) the pre-war and post-war borders of Schleswig-Holstein are both incorrect;; (vi) the demilitarised Rhineland is not at its fullest extent; (vii) the Vatican City regained independence in 1929 and this could be rendered in the legend as ’19 Vatican City independent’ with a directional line pointing to the centre of dot representing Rome.
• P. 138, Map 1: (i) Tannu Tuva not delineated.  (ii) Aden protectorate not marked out or coloured.  (iii) Spanish Rio Muni and Portuguese Cabinda coloured as part of gold bloc.
•   P. 140, Map 1: (i) Ploesti is in the wrong place on the map (Map 2 on p. 141, shows its correct location, south of the Carpathians); (ii) Glasgow, Newcastle and Belfast are not displayed as ‘major cities severely damaged by bombing’.
• P. 141: (i) Map 2: Petsamo is displayed as outside the Finnish border;  (ii) the use of ‘egregious folly’ (paragraph 2, final sentence) is tautology; a more appropriate adjective would be ‘extreme’.
•   P. 145, Map 2: absence of a comma in ‘1,000 National Guards’ called in to suppress rioting in Rochester in 1964.
• P. 146, Map 1: the Lithuanian SSR does not have the correct eastern border.
• P. 146, Map 3: Belgium’s ‘Net Marshall Aid as percentage of national income 1948-9 must be incorrect as it means the Belgian economy at the time was three times the size of that of contemporaneous France.
• P. 148-9, Map 1: though Albania is tiny and already incorporating ‘control or influence secured by 1954’ and the Warsaw Pact, there should be a way to display to show ‘turned antagonistic to USSR from the early 1960s’ (maybe around the ‘Warsaw Pact’ red line).
• P. 149, Map 2: the Azerbaijan SSR and Turkmen SSR are not located within the border of the ‘Soviet Union 1945 (despite ‘prison camp’ skulls being present).
• P. 153: there is no indication of South Korean democracy, a misleading omission.
• P. 154, Map 1: No mention of Senegambia’s abortive federation.
• P. 155, Map 1: (i) Surinam’s independence from the Dutch is ignored; (ii) Macau was still a colonial possession in 1998 yet it is displayed as no longer Portuguese.  Better to say, ‘Colonial possessions in 2000’.
• P. 157, Map 2: It is completely misleading to label ‘Ansar al-Islam and terrorist camps’ in Iraq as if this provided legitimate justification for the 2003 invasion.  The Senate Report on Pre-War Intelligence on Iraq, issued in 2004, concluded that the Saddam Hussein regime viewed Ansar al-Islam as a threat to its survival.  For its part, Ansar al-Islam called Saddam Hussein its sworn enemy.  Further, while Ansar al-Islam existed in Mosul and Halabja – beyond the reach of Baghdad – it was never in Karbala before 2003.
• P. 158: Lower-case ‘f’ for ‘fascist (first paragraph, last sentence).
• P. 160: Lower-case ‘f’ for ‘fundamentalism’ (fourth paragraph, last sentence).
• P. 161, Map 1: (i) South Sudan’s independent status is not displayed; (ii) Colonel Gaddafi’s name is misspelt; (iii) Zaïre, not Zaire.
• P. 163, Map 1: 2002 Thai ‘War on Drugs’ needs a comma in ‘over 1,000 shot dead’.  
• P. 166-7: (i) The title of the spread is incorrect – Europe since 1973, not 1945; (ii) Map 1: Albania’s application to join the EU is not displayed; (iii) Map 1: Yugoslavia did not exist in 2007 – Montenegro and Serbia split from their union in 2006; (iv) the colour co-ordination for new members of the EU jars – it would be better to have gradations of blue. (v) Map 2: Northern Ireland’s vote for devolution is not displayed; (vi) Paragraph two, sentence five: ten countries joined in 2004 (Cyprus, Malta, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia), not eight.
• P. 172, Map 2: (i) France is not given a ranking in 2000 for a 50m+ population; (ii) for some reason there is no information for Belize (maybe its government does not hold these records).
• P. 173, Map 1: (i) Washington D.C. is not displayed as a ‘site of religious terrorism’ (2001); (ii) the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ethnic war; scholars on the subject are agreed that religious division plays no part and so it is erroneous to portray it as such; (iii) Assam is not coloured as part of India; (iv) Bhutan and Timor-Leste do not appear on the map; (v) half of Georgia’s borders have disappeared.
• P. 174, Map 1: the size of the Indian economy is inaccurate (in 2005, it was $834bn, not $3,729bn; adjusted for PPP, which this part of the legend does not state, India was $3,611bn).
• P. 175: accompanying text to the image “A Euro coin” is incorrect to state ten new states joined in 2004-07 because twelve new states joined in that period (Cyprus, Malta, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovenia).
• P. 180: Bizerta is on p. 93, not p. 937.

An aggressive Russia? No, on the defensive

In recent days, Russian president Vladimir Putin has been in Mongolia, as part of his own Ostpolitik, finding new non-Western partners with whom he can do business. With claims persistently linking Russia to the destruction of Flight MH17 over Ukraine (most recently from BBC’s Panorama), I asked Mongolian analysts what would happen had Russia accidentally destroyed a jet airliner of the national carrier MIAT. They said there would be an apology from the Kremlin and swift access to the crash site but there would be no further consequences, essentially because Mongolia’s power is at a vast disparity to that of Russia.
Putin’s prickliness towards any questioning of who brought down Flight MH17 – and an apology is out of the control - could be that he feels threatened, not especially by sanctions as by geopolitical encroachment. Having declared that the collapse of the USSR was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century (a dubious claim given other horrors), the steady advancement of NATO and the EU into countries under Moscow’s control or jurisdiction has alarmed him. As Putin stated after the annexation of the Crimea, there is only so much a spring can be coiled before it will bounce back.
Many accuse Putin of being a bellicose aggressor, prepared to stop at nothing to recreate the USSR, but that may be an overly crude portrait and could create unnecessary clashes in the future as both sides indulge in posturing. The great political theorist Kenneth Waltz (the father of scientific ‘structural realism’) conceived of states as self-contained actors who, existing in an anarchical world order, are power-maximisers. Some of his pupils believed states sought to maximise their capabilities so as to better dominate others, but Waltz himself thought that countries built up their power in order to defend themselves.
Since coming to power on the last day of 1999, everything Putin has done has been to unite and protect Russia, a fissiparous entity prone to centrifugal forces. As a former KGB agent, he has done this the only way he knows how by accruing greater power to the centre – and if this impinged on democratic freedoms so be it. This emphasis on the security establishment may have left him a prisoner within it but the direction of travel is the same - to defend Russian integrity and borders. In the second Chechen War, Putin brutally demonstrated the disintegration process that had been ongoing since 1991 had come to an end. In 2008, he provoked Georgia into a war after the Bush administration overly familiar with the new anti-Russian regime and seized two pieces of nominal Georgian territory to deter NATO from ever inviting the Caucasus country into its alliance (Georgia has sought to apply again in the current febrile atmosphere). Then, after Putin’s puppet, ex-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, fled protests following the latter’s volte-face in snubbing the European Union for Putin’s Eurasian Union, Putin acted swiftly to seize Crimea and then foment unrest in eastern Ukraine.
If Russia is to be denied indirect control in areas the Kremlin regards as its backyard – the so-called ‘near abroad’ – and Western institutions encroach right up to its borders, it will take as much territory as possible off the state that wants to join the West. It’s a gamble, this pushback but so far Putin has not pushed too far. In 2008, had he wanted truly to recreate the Soviet Union, he would have completely conquered Georgia as was within his power. As Putin told outgoing European Commission chief José Manuel Barroso, if the former wanted he could take Kiev in two weeks.
This salami-slicing indicates caution. Putin once speculated that it was possible for Russia to join NATO and complete the dream of a common security zone from Vancouver to Vladivostok. But the accession of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to NATO was an affront and when democratic revolutions took place on Russia’s doorstep in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, invariably supported by the George W Bush administration, Putin saw one direction of travel from the West – to undermine Russia. Good realist that he is, the change of White House occupancy from Bush to Barack Obama did not alter things – individuals cannot change a state’s basic nature – despite the public relations stunt of a ‘reset’. If the West was to exclude Russia, then Putin would take for Russia what it could before it was irrevocably lost. If Georgia had been part of NATO in 2008, Russia would have been far more circumspect in its actions to avoid a full-scale war with the West.
So while there is a desire to give Putin a bloody nose for what he has done in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, from his side he is acting in what he sees as Russia’s long-term interests. The sanctions regime may be tough but he was reaching out to new allies in East Asia, in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and in Latin America before they were applied. If the West sought to undermine Russia, then he would seek like-minded allies who would support it. The actions of the West in the first half of the last decade have set in motion a geopolitical confrontation that will take years, if not decades to abate.

Beyond satire but not the saltire

Extremely odious in terms of its regime, North Korea does provide good copy all the same.  In a move reminiscent of the quixotic Albanian-Chinese entente of the 1960s, the DPRK has come out as the first country to support an independent Scotland.  Where even the likes of Luxembourg are opposed to Scottish independence, Pyongyang thinks differently.  Apparently, the top bods in North Korea's ruling circle believe they can trade natural resources in exchange for the fine Scotch whiskey so beloved by Kim Jong-Un, following in the footsteps of his father.  Maybe the hermit kingdom would wish for the quasi-fascist Northern League to achieve their dream of setting their own state (in imitation of Mussolini's Salò Republic) so the North Korean hierarchy can cut a deal and sate their demands for Ferrarris.

The comparisons between the nationalists and the communists are telling.  One leader is a rotund, paranoid megalomaniac, determined at all costs to silence his critics and impoverish his people, the other is Kim Jong-Un.  The Scottish National Party rival North Korean state news for Walter Mitty-like pronouncements, evasion and pique.

Scotland, please stay

It is one week now until the referendum on the future of Scotland, whether to leave or remain in the Union.  There will be a near unprecedented turnout for a ballot within these shores.  The Better Together campaign, co-ordinated from Downing Street with Alistair Darling as the 'face', has badly miscalculated.  First of all, the question was badly phrased, as pyschologically people are inclined to want to be positive, to say 'yes' rather than 'no' (how do you think the phrase 'yes-men' came about?); rather the question should have been "Do you want Scotland to be an independent country [tick here] OR Do you want Scotland to remain in the Union [tick here]'.  It was grossly irresponsible of David Cameron to agree to a straight 'Yes' or 'No'.  Secondly, they were too complacent, as prior to the launch of the campaign, polls regularly showed that a mere 30% of Scots supported 'independence' (whatever that means in an interdependent world) and they never believed that a majority would support it, allowing the 'Yes' campaign to steal a march in terms of grassroots support.  Thirdly, they thought a negative campaign focusing on the dangers of breaking away would do the trick - it had worked in the referendum on Alternative Vote electoral reform and even in Scotland a majority voted against that (those Labour politicians that opposed AV like Jack Straw, Margaret Beckett and John Reid will be seeing chickens coming home to roost if Scotland does become independent and Labour loses a swathe of MPs, making it nigh impossible for Labour ever to have a majority again).  Instead, all the negativity has allowed the SNP to claim 'the vision thing' (as George H W Bush put it) and many Scots have found it downright patronising, determined to thumb their nose at it, putting out of their mind, the very real risks.  The 'No' campaign (which was forced to re-christen itself Better Together) should have articulated more clearly and forcefully the emotional aspect of staying with the Union which very much does exist.  Pushing Gordon Brown front and centre of the campaign was long overdue.  Like the Roman politician Cincinnatus, he comes out of (semi-)retirement, leaving his plough to be acclaimed dictator of Rome to save the state and then, once the danger has been averted, relinquishes power to return to his farm.  Whether Brown has the same impact as Cincinnatus remains to be seen.
These are campaigning problems, the equivalent of tying one hand behind your back that you think it so easy.  To underestimate one's opponent is always a recipe for disaster.  The phrase 'recipe for disaster' was also used by Economics Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman.  The economic side might not matter to Scots who have yet to see their incomes rise back to pre-Great Recession levels but with Royal Bank of Scotland planning to relocate from Edinburgh to London (the capital of the Auld Enemy), humiliations don't come bigger than that.  The 'Yes' campaign have struggled to overcome the known risks of separation, preferring to paint them as unknown risks, quietly sidestepping the unknown risks of their own and this has been very successful.  That Scotland might become an international pariah, with a currency dependent on a 'bitter foe', barred from access to the EU for at least five years and maybe indefinitely, with the wrath of NATO allies breathing down upon it, to all this the diehards say 'bring it on' and the new converts claim it all to be exaggeration.  The dirty tricks and downright lies of Alex Salmond matches the unscrupulousness of those who opposed the AV referendum (and has a near parallel with George W Bush tricking enough Americans into the validity of the Iraq invasion, not to mention the dishonest destruction of John Kerry's military war record and reputation in the 2004 presidential election).  He is not alone, but the foremost of his SNP cohorts (by contrast, allies of the SNP, the Greens and the Scottish Socialists don't get a chance to express themselves to national journalists).  Accusing the 'No' campaign of scaremongering, the SNP does the same over the NHS, even though the health portfolio has been under the sole control of the Scottish parliament in Holyrood.  The painting of all England as a perpetual Tory government is wrong on so many levels it is untrue.  Angus Robertson, the SNP's leader in Westminster, was pressed by the Welsh John Humphrys that the Holyrood parliament already has tax-raising powers and hasn't used them in the seven years the SNP has been in power.  Robertson retorted "That is the same patronising way that drives people to vote 'Yes'."  Incredulous at this attack on his impartiality, Humphrys hit back, "It's not patronising, it's a fact."  Robertson wavered, saying "Well, I didn't like your tone," before going on to deal with none of the substance of Humphrys enquiry.  This is standard SNP practice - try and delegitimise those who ask awkward questions and if these people stick to their guns, reply with a non-relevant soundbite.
Recently, Salmond has been comparing the referendum to the 1994 elections in South Africa - not just a completely incorrect parallel but an offensive one too - Scots are not in the same position as black people under apartheid and Salmond has none of the stature nor maturity of a freed Nelson Mandela and to make such a connection degrades the struggle in South Africa - I'm surprised Jacob Zuma, the South African president, hasn't denounced it but he's probably too busy making a mess out of his own country.  Instead of Mandela, Salmond more closely resembles the dodgy Montenegrin prime minister Milo Đukanović, who inveigled Montenegro out of its union with a democratic Serbia to increase his own power.  Montengro has not done any better as an independent country and is a 'colony' of the European Central Bank, having no currency of national bank of its own and using the Euro as its currency with no say as to what happens to the Euro.  Interestingly, the EU set the terms of separation as requiring a 55% vote in favour in a referendum - the ballot to leave passed the threshold by a mere 2,300 votes.  Also, with Slovakia after its separation from the Czechs, after a few years many of Slovakia's citizens regretted the 'Velvet Divorce', finding themselves financially poorer than they were in union (the Czechs themselves were culturally poorer as fewer Slovakians came to Prague to make their name).
None of this makes a difference to the true believers of Scottish independence.   This morning on BCC Radio Five Live, a convinced 'no' supporter challenged his neighbour, a proud 'yes' voter, over her determination to claim 'freedom' and show 'courage' (which by implication says that those who don't vote 'Yes' are opposed to freedom and deficient in courage - the ugly side of nationalism).  He said, "Freedom and courage don't pay the bills."  Her response?  "Yes, they do."  No explanation as to why they pay the bills, just a bald statement that they do.  The impartial journalist asked the committed nationalist woman if she was drawn to the romance of her cause.  Equitably, she stated, "This has nothing to do with romance," before in the same breath saying, "We've been fighting since 1730 to rid ourselves of English oppression.  I've lived in London for 25 years and we're all a joke to them and not just the kinky ones who go to public school."  'Nan', as she is known, delivered the same risible diatribe as has been heard from 'Yes' supporters (from 'vox pops' such as this to the very highest levels) throughout the campaign.  Nan not only lives in a world of contradictions but also a fantasy one too - it's not Scots who English find a joke; more likely it is the microscopic sliver of English society that she encountered who found her a joke.  I wonder if she - or any 'Yes' supporters - have encountered Welsh and Northern Irish people.  Nan reminds me of Miss Gilchrist, the elderly handmaid to an Irish middle-class couple in early 20th century Dublin, in the historical novel Strumpet City.  Miss Gilchrist was so devoted to the cause of Irish nationalism that no-one came close to the handsome young nationalist she saw in her youth (and never saw again) and so she never married, rationalising it away in her own prejudices towards the 'English' as the cause of her misfortunes and that the path she took has served her well.  It grossly simplifies a lovingly drawn character but Miss Gilchrist did pop into my mind.
It is little observed but in the event of independence James Bond would report to spymasters in Edinbugh - being half-Scottish and half-Swiss, MI6 would be taking a risk employing a fully fledged foreign national in their 00 bureau. I'm sure Sir Sean Connery would approve, from his home in the Bahamas (ah, such commitment to his native nation).
The only out-and-out positive I can find for Scottish independence is that there is no capital city beginning with 'E' so Edinburgh would fill that gap.  There is a capital city for every other letter of the alphabet apart from (unsurprisingly) 'X' (the closest relative being Coleridge's Xanadu of Kubla Khan).  It is a little bizarre that a vowel should not have a capital city but 'Scrabble' letters like Q and Z should.
My opinion, based on facts and emotion, is that both Scotland and the rest of the Union will be diminished if break-up occurs.  rUK (or whatever it will be called) I think will be okay in the medium- to long-term but I think Scotland would be in a very sticky position in the short-, medium- and long-term.  I would be desperately sad if the island became divided.  I have Scottish, Welsh and English blood in me and it would be like dividing me.  English diffidence and pride makes it hard for pro-Union English campaigners to say but England needs Scotland as much, if not more than, as Scotland needs England.  It has been Scots who have put the 'Great' in to 'Great Britain - at every echelon of society for the last 300 years they have ensured the country was as successful as it has been, not least in the collaborative fields of sport, academia and finance.  There are half a million Scots living outside Scotland in the rest of the Union.  We are a family and while every family has its ups and downs, by sticking together we are stronger.  The clout of England gives Scots a run at the top table of international politics - in 1997 most of the important position in the Labour cabinet had those who either hailed from Scotland or had Scottish heritage (Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary, Defence Secretary and more).  Help us and by helping us, let us help you.  As Abraham Lincoln said in the context of the American Civil War (quoting Jesus Christ) "A house divided against itself cannot stand."  Please stay in the Union Scotland - we in the rest of the country love you more than you know and just as we can't abide being without you, neither can we abide seeing you get hurt.  Together we have done, do and will do great things.

The failure of Left and Right

As many eyes are drawn towards the Scottish referendum and a baby that will be born to privilege, the scandal of many children not so well treated has slipped from the headlines.  That 1,400 children were abused in Rotherham is on a par with the level of disgust that the truth about Jimmy Savile engendered.  These kids, placed in the care of people who should have looked out for them, were criminally neglected and it is amazing that apart from a few resignations, the criminally negligent are still in positions of power.
That many of the sex offenders were of Pakistani origin has, inevitably, brought an onslaught from the Right about political correctness (in not wanting to be seen as racist in accusing a non-white man of being a sexual predator) and multiculturalism.  But the actuality is more complex than that, for the right-wingers misunderstand political correctness and multiculturalism and left-wingers misapply it.
It wasn't political correctness that kept people from speaking out, rather a mindset that wanted the perpetuation of the project of integration.  There may have been a few who were scared of the consequences of being a whistleblower but in general the people in charge did not want to rock the boat and were thinking of the furthering of their careers.
Multiculturalism is seen by right-wing pundits as the raising of ethnic minorities above 'traditional' white communities in terms of the benefits they receive, as well as allowing them to keep themselves to themselves and not assimilate with the wider British community.  The left has also misunderstood multiculturalism and believe it to be the same as the right-wingers but in a good way, thus where they have been in power they have promoted this vision.  Multiculturalism is emphatically not this.  The USA is the ultimate demonstration of multiculturalism - a melting pot where people hold onto their identities while forging new aspects of themselves in engagement with others.  People do not retreat to ghettoes (willingly) and refuse to learn the language of the land.  The Rotherham scandal happened as much through the poverty of intellect of those in office as the evil intentions of some in closed-off communities.

The pitfalls of presidentialism

Last week, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan moved from being the prime minister of Turkey to being sworn in as its president and he has big plans for his new post.  Having served two terms as prime minister, Erdoğan, like Vladimir Putin in 2008 (swapping the presidency for the premiership before a switch back in 2012), believed he needed to seek a new form of legitimacy for his continued rule.  Unimpressed by the constraints on the head of state in Turkey's semi-presidential system, Erdoğan wants to dramatically enhance his resort to executive powers and make Turkey a fully presidential republic.  His Justice and Development Party (AKP in Turkish) will need to win a two-thirds majority in parliament at the next parliamentary election - a plausible outcome - to amend the constitution thus granting Erdoğan the powers he craves.
It is a worrying development.  The political scientist Alan Siaroff affirmed that "[e]xperience suggests that once installed, direct presidential elections are not easily abandoned."  With the shining exception of the USA (and even that is in legislative deadlock), the analyst José Antonio Cheibub stated that "[p]residential democracies are considerably more brittle than parliamentary ones."  Cheibub goes on to dismiss the critiques that presidential democracies are 'institutionally flawed' (e.g. 'winner-takes-all' politics; lacking the stability-inducing flexibility of parliamentary democracies; aloofness) focusing more on their preponderance in "societies where democracies of any type are likely to be unstable," especially because such countries are more likely to suffer from military dictatorships and juntas.
Turkey is a country renowned for the interference of its army in political affairs, either overtly through coups or behind the scenes in shaping policy, the latter status giving rise to the term 'praetorian government' - an iron fist in a velvet glove.  Erdoğan could claim that he has banished this threat forever, subjugating the reactionary elements in the Turkish military and placing the entire set-up under firm civilian rule.  The generals were unhappy and those of the officer class that were not prosecuted resigned in their droves from 2011 onwards (partly to try and avoid arraignment themselves). In September 2012, after a 21-month trial, a court sentenced three former army generals to 20 years each in prison for plotting a coup.  Together with the generals, nearly 330 officers, including senior ones, were convicted for the would-be coup.  However, just because the military is becalmed does not mean that the conditions that permitted an overthrow of democracy or a stealthy injection of authoritarianism into it are gone.
Turkey is a very divided country between its secular and Islamic constituents and that is before one considers the ongoing security crisis in Turkey's Kurdish region and the increasing fractious relations between hardline nationalists and the Armenian community.  Erdoğan may feel that he needs to exercise an unwavering course to temper these passions but even as a prime minister he over-reacted - anti-government protestors were brutally treated when a wave of demonstrations shook Turkey in 2013 over the violent eviction of a sit-in at a park in Istanbul.  Similar harsh treatment was meted out to those who were angered by government complacency in a mining disaster earlier this year.  Thus the mechanisms which sustained army interventions are being deployed by the increasingly authoritarian Turkish leader.  Those that were disenfranchised by military interference are quite happy to give Erdoğan the benefit of the doubt, just as secular Turks were not much perturbed by the over-mighty nature of their top brass.
Juan Linz, in his seminal work The Perils of Presidentialism, outlined how compared to parliamentary democracies, presidential regimes leave "much less room for tacit consensus-building, coalition-shifting, and the making of compromises which, though prudent, are hard to defend in public."  When the air of moderation is thin, it is not surprising that many presidential democracies fall prey to 'backsliding' into dictatorship, as seen by President Alberto Fujimori's Autogolpe (auto-coup) in Peru in 1992 when he dissolved both Congress and the judiciary to unite the three pillars of government (executive, legislature and judiciary) in himself.  One could also cite when President Viktor Yanukovych made determined efforts to turn Ukraine from a semi-presidential system into a fully presidential one, embedding autocracy as he went until he fled (like the Roman Emperor Nero) - an act that obliterated his credibility (there was no 'coup').  Take also Egypt where President Mohamed Morsi, after being elected in the first free and fair elections in the country, pursued a divisive policy that sought to ensure that power permanently rested in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood - only when he encroached on prerogatives the military believed were their own, did the latter step in to remove Morsi.  It is no surprise that Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison for human rights violations, Morsi is being tried on much the same grounds (though with political revenge a guiding factor) and Kiev has issued an arrest warrant for Yanukovych for massacring almost totally unarmed protestors in Maidan Square.  Who is to say an Erdoğan presidency will buck the trend for the actions they were alleged to have committed and the paths they took?
The theory of political culture where a country's makeup determines its regime has to be treated with caution as it can descend into patronising, broadbrush assessments at best, prejudice at worst.  Nevertheless, Cheibub's advocacy, limited as it is to the study of presidential democracies, is persuasive, especially his focus on Latin America where presidentialism is dominant but so is the high level of regime instability.  Turkey also fits this mould.  Erdoğan was supposed to bring a new politics but more and more he is taking comfort in the old methods that brook no dissent, believing himself indispensable.  A decade ago, Turkey was being held up as a model democracy for the Middle East; now the picture is darker.  Styling himself as a father of his country is a retrograde step - such paternalism used to be called 'enlightened despotism'.  As Linz says, "[h]eavy reliance on the personal qualities of a political leader - on the virtue of a statesman, if you will - is a risky course, for one never knows if such a man can be found to fill the presidential office."  John Acton's warning that 'power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely' is still pertinent.  Erdoğan's virtues will be tested to the limit should he break free of his current constitutional shackles.  To date, the omens are not promising.