I've Crunched The Numbers...

I had another odd moment of synchronicity earlier this morning.

My wife asked last night if I was going to vote in the upcoming general election, and our conversation popped osmotically back into my head while I was deploying my first poop of the day.

I thought about the Brexit vote in 2016, and how that went. I thought about the map shown after the Brexit result, on which Scotland was a single, solid colour.

I thought about the IndyRef vote in 2014, and how that went. I thought about the episode of Question Time I saw where it seemed the only talking point the Conservative panel member had was how the SNP refused to rule out a second referendum.

And then I imagined a husting, somewhere in Scotland, in the run-up to June’s general election. Davidson and Sturgeon at their respective podiums. Says Davidson: “A vote for the SNP is a vote for splitting the nation. Conservatives are the only alternative if you want to remain part of the UK! Vote for us!”

Says Sturgeon: “What about the EU? Brexit? Free trade? Energy dependency? Global destabilisation? You’re accusing us of being a one-policy party, yet you seem unwilling to talk about anything else...”

What can I say: thinking about politics loosens my bowels.

Birds on the Wire

Later this morning I nipped in to Twitter to catch up on things, and saw the following tweet from Chris:

Whatever the @Conservatives manifesto in England they're decidedly monotone in Scotland, no policies, no mention of #brexit just #indyref2 pic.twitter.com/orAXoMff6O

chris third (@krs3) 18 May 2017

It neatly encapsulated the entire train of thought from earlier, and gave me a slight buzz of precognition.

How Come?

I began to wonder why that might be the overriding message in the run-up to next month’s general election. Surely the Conservatives can’t believe the only issue Scots are concerned about is another referendum on Scottish independence?

“Hang on a moment,” I thought, “maybe the content of that pamphlet is targeted, specific to the area where Chris lives.”

So I had a wee look at the numbers.

These Are Not The Voters You’re Looking For

I gathered the Scottish vote totals from articles on Wikipedia, stuck them into Notepad, and put them side-by-side, to see if I could fathom anything meaningful. Obviously I’m no statistician, but sometimes numbers can be eager to tell their story.

After 10 minutes staring at the 2 columns, only one thing stood out:

• almost a million fewer people voted in the Brexit referendum

Otherwise, the only other conclusion I came to was that there are:

• voters who wish to remain in the UK and remain in the EU
• voters who wish to remain in the UK but leave the EU
• voters who wish to leave the UK but remain in the EU
• voters who wish to leave the UK and leave the EU

There are also:

• voters who didn’t vote
• voters who are ineligible to vote, for various reasons

I also took a quick look at how the Conservatives are doing in Scotland:

---

All of this got me thinking - twice, on a Sunday - about the process of manipulation that goes into convincing a sufficient number of people to cast their vote on a concept so profoundly complex and far-reaching that it seems unlikely that any one individual could grasp the implications of either outcome.

Admittedly, that’s a point of view born of ignorance. Maybe I’m in a minority of voters who are ill-informed regarding the historical, economic and social context within which these referenda take place.

On the other hand, if I were to allow myself a moment of cynicism, are we not all making it up as we go along, as best we can? Basing our decisions on past experience, in the best scientific tradition, to see if the theory continues to hold? From Pope to President, from peasant to prince.

Over tens of thousands of years humankind has organised itself into supposedly self-governing groups, reshaping the world around us to satiate our creativity. Satellites and Twinkies. Saudi arms deals and breaking news about Strictly.

Almost within living memory, words written on paper passing from hand to hand was the only means of communicating across continents, until we got a wire under the sea. Now we have the world in our pocket - for as long as we keep it charged.

Well, some of us.

There’s 7.5 billion of us bipeds milling around, fulfilling a genetic obligation to keep going, without any specific purpose. Making the world a better place is a loaded proposal: according to whose values? What’s your definition of done?

There are questions of science, philosophy, and spirituality that continue to go unnoticed unless it be in service of generating upvotes - when they're not being used as justification for barbarism.

And in the midst of all that, a copious amount of time, energy and money (also known as fucks) is going into manipulating the opinions of an electorate to get them to vote one way or another in a popularity contest dressed up as democratic freedom.

Pictures like this sum it up for me:

Perhaps I’m insufficiently passionate about my role in shaping the world, but I can’t help thinking that if I was invested in the result of a decision which would affect my life and the lives of those around me, maybe for a couple of generations, and the result of that decision ended up aligning with the opinion I held, my reaction would be more along the lines of Phew; that was close. Hope we made the right choice.

Update

Here's another from the aftermath of the General Election: