Foreign Perspectives

Looking at course reviews before you’ve started a course seems to be completely different to looking at them once you’ve started on the same course sometimes.

Take the astronomy course that I’m doing at the moment. The key words in the reviews of it could be summed up as “fascinating” and “maths”. Critically, none of them use “challenging” (read: “very difficult”).

Reading those reviews a year ago, the course sounded quite interesting to me. The maths didn’t bother me as I’ve done quite a bit before this although I did slip in the Maths for Science (S151) course just in case my very rusty university maths needed a bit of oiling. So, in effect, it read as a fascinating course overall.

Over half-way through it has a different feel to me. There is quite a lot of maths in it or at least in the cosmology half of the course and I’d say that a glance at that section in advance would put off many a prospective student of the course. However, what I’d not allowed for was the sheer amount of time that it would take up. The course materials are, as usual, very readable but the time needed to do the assignments is far, far beyond anything that I’ve ever needed to take doing an assignment before. Quite why that should be, I’m not quite sure but it seems to be a combination of the time taken to type up all the symbols used (which is substantial, even on a short answer) and the amount of leafing back and forth to find out various facts required to answer the questions. Overall, it seems to equate to something like double or more the amount of time needed for any previous assignments that I’ve done at this level.

I’d also question the “fascinating” aspect that many mention in their comments. Yes, there are lots of pretty pictures and going through the theories as to how the various objects depicted got to be that way is interesting at the start but somehow the long list of theories that seem to build up like a freight train seems to get tedious all too often. So much so that it has me questioning whether I should carry on with physics at all. Yes, it’s that bad sometimes. Oddly, biology which seems to have just as many theories knocking around doesn’t ever seem to get to that building freight train stage and that’s puzzling.

Anyway, must get back to the assignment now… for reasons which escape me, I “knew” that the return date was May 19th but it’s actually May 14th so I need to get a move on!

Despite the last minute wobbles, I suspect that this could prove to be one of the most stable of partnerships.

Why? Well, because for the first time in a very long time it will give the Liberals experience in government. One of the problems that they have had in recent times has been in convincing people that they had the strength to take part in government. It’s all very well standing on the sidelines in opposition and putting forward all kinds of ideas when you know that you will never have to take responsibility for implementing them. Taking an idea from the original concept through to implementation is something quite different and it’ll be interesting how the coalition takes to that.

So, at least in the medium term, there’ll be quite an incentive from the Liberals to make this work. On the other side of the fence, the Conservatives will have the advantage of having intimate access to the Liberal party’s ideas machine which has had the advantage of not having to worry about implementing their ideas and therefore has often came up with good ideas that would have been rejected at early stages by the other two main parties. Not all of those ideas will be workable but many of them may well be.

What will be a problem is the time about three years from now when the lights of the oncoming election will be seen. That pre-election period is going to be “interesting” for both parties and the working of the government generally.

It was a little wobbly this morning but at last Labour did the right thing and abandoned any thoughts of attempting to prolong their lame duck government. Most surprising was last night when John Reid came out and said directly that it simply wouldn’t be right for the Labour party to even think of some cobbled together coalition. It was into this morning though before the various spin doctors admitted that withdrawal was the only democratic thing to do.

This evening the new Conservative led government is in place or at least the Prime Minister is as he has yet to appoint his Ministers. That has the effect that he’s in full charge of the country this evening, albeit will a full complement of civil servants to keep a handle on it all. Changes in government are the only time when the UK is effectively run presidential style and it’s generally for a very brief period.

One final issue not yet resolved is the approval of the coalition by the Liberal Democrats which should happen later this evening all being well. Should all not be well and they reject it, we still have a government but a minority one.

At the changeover there were all the usual thank you gestures from both Brown and David Cameron. Not that anyone really believes them, of course.

Somehow I feel that this is nearing the end game.

Yesterday it became clear that Clegg doesn’t have enough from the Conservatives to suit him. The turning point on that seems to be a Liberal requirement to have proportional representation used in UK elections. On offer from the Conservatives was a referendum on the issue which does seem to be the correct approach. At the same time Labour came up with a guarantee to implement the change. Bearing in mind that this change is supposedly going to result in continual coalitions it’s clear that the current Labour government are only offering this as a last ditch way of staying in power.

Will David Cameron take the chance of ditching the Liberals and running with a minority government today? Probably not though I’d say he and his team are thinking of doing it very soon.

The Liberals revealed their true colours today. It was never so much what was in the national interest as what was in the Liberal party interest.

Thus, whilst clearly the economic issues should have been the most important, there was always the demand for PR which, the Liberals think, will best suit them. If PR did pan out in the way that the Liberals think it will, coalitions will be the order of the day and the power of the Liberal party will rise as dramatically as it has done in the last week. Do they deserve such power. Clearly not, if the negotiations this week are anything to go by.

But, what should David Cameron do now? If I were him, I’d be calling Buckingham Palace tomorrow morning with a proposal. First, Brown would be out: he clearly doesn’t have the support of either the Commons or the country. Next, I would propose myself as the Prime Minister on the understanding that what I would do, within the shortest period administratively feasible, would be to dissolve Parliament and hold another election. Whilst this would ordinarily be a high risk option for him, both Labour and the Liberals are showing how bad they are more and more as the days go by and so the chances of a landslide Conservative victory are rising as each day passes.

Will he do it though? If Labour and the Liberals get together I’d say yes for sure, if not it’s increasingly likely.