It'll take you about ten minutes to get your head around this one - well worth a try:
About the author: Paul is a London-based blogger with a mixed track-record over at Never Trust a Hippy and a few other places. He usually writes about representative democracy and decentralisation. Follow him at www.twitter.com/paul0evans if you usually do that kind of thing. Read more from this author
Seven reasons why Gordon Brown should soldier on: see http://www.barder.com/ephems/1790.
Brian
Thanks, Paul.
And for anyone who hasn't spotted this already, contributions made to the debate here will also appear live on The Independent's site here: http://bit.ly/wefVu
David
Brian -
Many thanks for the suggestions; I have had a first pass at representing them on the map here (and please don't hesitate to suggest or make any further changes):
http://debategraph.org/flash/fv_indep.aspx?r=18241
Incidentally, which of the reasons do you find most compelling?
David
Thanks for this, David. I have enjoyed chasing the balloons on your ingenious debate map. The only comment I would make on it concerns one of the reasons for believing that an early Tory election victory would be a disaster for the country because Tory policy on Europe “would destabilise the EU”. I think it’s more that Tory actions in Europe would severely damage Britain’s influence in the EU, and thereby also damage our ability to defend and promote our national interests in Europe (and our national interest includes a strong, united and internationally effective EU). If the Tories, once in office at Westminster, go ahead with their plan to desert the present mainstream centre-right group in the EP for a new rag-bag of right-wing weirdos and extremists — and they are clearly determined to do so — they will alienate their main potential allies (Merkel, Sarkozy, and others) and find it very difficult to assemble a consensus for their point of view. And if they pursue their absurd policy of trying to re-open and re-negotiate the Lisbon treaty when all the other EU governments approve of it, want to bring it into force and move on, they will achieve nothing except to ensure that no-one who carries any weight in the EU will take them seriously. I doubt if either of these follies would actually ‘destabilise’ the EU, as the debate map suggests, but they might well destabilise our role in Europe!
I suppose I would regard my points 2, 3 and 4 as the most compelling, and equally so.
Brian
http://www.barder.com/ephems/
Brian -
Thanks for the feedback and for the very helpful clarification. I have had a second pass at reflecting the clarification on the map here:
http://debategraph.org/flash/fv_indep.aspx?r=19616
I suspect that there's further scope for refinement though; so please don't hesitate to suggest any further changes.
David