The psychological state of the Conservative government

The Conservative party, led by David Cameron, have been in government in the UK (with their Lib Dem coalition partners) for nearly two years now.

Politically, if you ignore Cameron's involvement in the war with Libya, the Conservative government's time has been dominated by a series of controversies, so much so that they have defined their time in office: the austerity cuts; student fees; health and education reform; the Liam Fox resignation; the UKBA controversy (fresh in the news today); and the future status of Scotland.

That's a pretty long list for a party that's less than two years into government. And let's not forget, that's a government led by a party than didn't win an overall majority; the two main "left-of-centre" parties have more MPs in parliament put together than the UK's sole "centre-right" party. Only by the grace of the Lib Dems do the Conservatives earn the right to govern.

By comparison, when the Labour government came to power in 1997 with a majority of more than 170, its main priority was to avoid controversy at almost every turn, so that its first two years in power were virtually empty of bad headlines. The only exception was over the introduction of tuition fees. The major changes it did bring about in the first two years - on things like the minimum wage, and devolution to Scotland and Wales (and later, following the success of the peace process, Northern Ireland) - it did with broad public support.

It is obvious to say that circumstances in the UK have changed since then. Yes, the financial crisis, partly brought about through the Labour government's reluctance to regulate the financial industry, has changed things. But that does not explain, even less justify, the mentality of the Conservatives.

Depending on the issue, the Conservatives' attitude to government has varied.

On the austerity cuts, government has shown a myopic narrow-mindedness (what they call "determination to see things through"), even in the face of evidence of the folly of their approach and the clear plight being caused as a result.

On the health reforms and education reforms, the relevant Conservative ministers have shown a disregard for others (failing to ignore the concerns of professionals, let alone the principles of democracy, given that they have no mandate for "reform").

On student fees, the same behavioural pattern was shown - intransigence and lack of empathy in the face of criticism and the needs of young people.

The Liam Fox resignation displayed the arrogance and casual disregard to proper behaviour, favouritism and cronyism that many Conservatives are habitually guilty of. In other words, behaving as though they were above reproach.

Meanwhile, the way that the Prime Minister and his ministers have been dealing with the constitutional wishes of the Scots (independence or otherwise), is with a similar bloody-minded unwillingness intransigence and narrow-mindedness. Given the fact that the Conservatives' natural political support in Scotland is negligible, this attitude is even more unfathomable. The Conservatives have no moral voice in Scotland; they rule the nation as though it is a virtual colony. Thus they indirectly generate support for the policy that they say they totally oppose.

Lastly, and most recently, is the UKBA controversy. This was a border fiasco that a report has shown was at least indirectly the result of governmental confusion and ministerial incompetence; yet the minister responsible, Theresa May vents only scorn at the border officials who were trying to do their best under confusing governmental advice, while failing to take any responsibility on her part.

So, taken as a whole picture, the Conservatives' approach to government can be summed up as having the following characteristics: lack of empathy to others' misfortune, intransigence, narrow-mindedness, arrogance, failure to accept responsibility, and incompetence.

There was a documentary some years ago about the psychological behaviour of corporations, coming to the conclusion that if corporations were psychologically analysed as people, they would be considered psychopaths.

One wonders, looking at the behavioural traits mentioned above, what conclusions would be reached if the Conservative government as a whole were measured in the same way.

Greece's collective nervous breakdown

Greece is a country and civilisation with a long history, the longest in Europe. But in its four thousand years of history, what it is going through now must rank as being one of the most humiliating episodes in its national history.

We'll forget about some of the ancient past for the sake of brevity; the 300 Spartans, the wars with the Persians, and so on. We'll forget Greece's occupation by the Romans for four hundred years. Moving on, we'll forget (for the moment) about the Fourth Crusade; that moment when Constantinople, Christendom's richest and most populous city at the time, as well as it's intellectual heart, was looted bare and half burned to the ground by fellow Christians. We'll forget about the Byzantine's long and painful decline after the Fourth Crusade until its eventual overthrow by the Ottoman Turks. We'll forget about Greece's occupation by the Turks for nearly four hundred years. We'll forget about Greece's occupation by the Nazis during the Second World War, and the bloody civil war afterwards. And we'll forget about the time when Greece was ruled by a brutal military junta, backed by the CIA during the middle of the Cold War.

We'll forget all that for now. It's worth remembering that words like "trauma"and "psyche", as well as pretty much most words to describe government, such as "democracy", "tyranny"

and "anarchy", are Greek. These could all be applied to describe in different ways the state of Greece today.

Greece as a nation-state is in collective meltdown. It just hasn't realised it yet. For decades (since the fall of the military junta, but moreso in recent decades), successive governments gave generous salaries and benefits to their population, in order to satisfy their wants and to garner popularity. At the same time, Greeks, from politicians down to hairdressers, were doing what they could to defraud the system, subsequently draining the government's revenue while at the same time the government was doing what it could to spend even more of it.

So it's no surprise that Greece would eventually find itself in a state of virtual bankruptcy. The question was what to do when the government eventually was forced to admit the truth to itself and to the public.

What it did do, considering that Greece was in the Euro, along with sixteen other countries, was ask for help. And because of the collective nature of the Euro (that when one country is screwed, the rest may well follow) the European Central Bank (mostly bankrolled by Germany, the Eurozone's strongest country) was obliged to provide it.

But Germany and the ECB were not in a sympathetic frame of mind, and in order to give Greece the money it needed to keep functioning, it asked for a lot in return, and (as the Greeks did not have trustworthy history of keeping to commitments) in a fairly short space of time. The result of that? The Greek government is forced to tear the guts out of its own institutions: government assets sold off to (foreign) privatisation; massive government lay-offs, salaries and pensions cut and cut again; meanwhile taxes are increased again and again. The consequence? Fury on the streets; 100,000 homeless in Athens; middle-class workers forced to queue for church handouts - a population and a country of modern Europeans, reduced to virtual poverty to pay off a loan.

Greece, in other words, is no longer in control of its own fate. The government, paralysed by the fear of being kicked out of the Eurozone and having to fend for itself under its own currency on one hand, and a fury at being a virtual hostage to a foreign power on the other, is stuck in a death-spiral trajectory. But this death-spiral of poverty is due to last for several more years at least, if Greece is to pay back its debts to the ECB/Germany. Meanwhile, in the real Greece, outside the parliament, it is clear the people cannot tolerate this forever. Already there has been looting and burning of buildings.

Greeks have been here before, though a long time ago. The Fourth Crusade of 1204 occurred when Crusaders were sent to Constantinople, then the capital of the Byzantine (Greek) Empire, in order to replace one emperor with his nephew on the throne. The nephew had promised a large financial reward to the Crusaders for this service. However, the empire at this time was practically bankrupt due to governmental mismanagement. The Crusaders forced the nephew, once installed on the throne, to raise taxes and loot the churches of gold and valuables. Riots were not long in coming, and within a matter of months the nephew was forced from the throne and replaced by a Greek who was not a pawn of the Crusaders. As a result of this, the Crusaders attacked the city a second time; this time, when they entered the city, it was looted bare of valuables and partially burned to the ground.

Greece these days is in a similar bind of its own making; only now, instead of being held hostage to Crusaders, it is held hostage to bankers in Frankfurt.

It's not Germany's or the ECB's fault that Greece is a financial colony. Greece could have decided that the best thing to do, given the kind of strict conditions that the ECB offered, was to choose to leave the Euro and fend for itself, using its own strategy. Some German politicians, secretly would prefer that; it would make it easier for them, and easier on the stability of the Eurozone.

There is to be an election in Greece in a couple of months, and I guess the question that most Greeks will be asking when the make their vote will be "Who runs Greece?". It is up to them to decide.

Incomparable Edinburgh

For those of you who haven't been to Edinburgh, you really should. Really. Truly.

Here's why.

People talk about cities like Paris, Venice, Rome, St Petersburg, Prague and Istanbul as being amongst the most romantic cities in Europe, if not the world.

But what makes a city romantic, evocative, and distinctive?

For those who adore Paris, they talk about the sights (the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Champs Elysee, Notre Dame, etc.), the River Seine, and the overall beauty and gracefulness of the city. Now, all this may be true, but there are also many people who have also been to Paris, and leave feeling underwhelmed and disappointed. I tend to sympathise more with the latter view: as much as Paris is beautiful, the Eiffel Tower, once you take a photo, is nothing more than a photo opportunity; the Champs Elysee is incredibly over-rated; and the city is horrendously expensive and populated with an irritable and pretentious population. Only the Louvre, in my view, is a truly outstanding destination, rightly famous for its art and a place to while away hours on end.

Well, I don't want to go through each of the places I mentioned; after looking at Paris, I guess you get the point I'm making: many of the most famous "romantic" cities in the world can be a disappointment; it depends on your perspective.

Which brings me to Edinburgh.

I've been to this city three times now in my life, the last just a few days ago. To those who don't know the geography of the city, Edinburgh's centre is a few miles inland from the sea, south of the port of Leith (although this is these days just a suburb of the city itself), with a vista of several hills in varying directions from the city.

The old city (what is called "Auld Reekie") is built on a hill, more like a ridge, that slopes up from the east to the west on a gradual gradient, reaching a cliff-top summit at the western end, on which is perched the castle. The old city, therefore, was built on this long but fairly narrow ridge, about a mile or so in length. The main street, called the "Royal Mile", runs right down the crest of this ridge, from the castle in the west, to Holyrood Palace, at the eastern extremity of the old city.

The old city slowly grew from its beginnings in ancient times, around two thousand years ago, to gain most of its current size and appearance about four hundred years ago. By the early eighteenth century (around the same time that Peter the Great of Russia was building St Petersburg), it was decided that Edinburgh needed to be expanded, as the old city was becoming dangerously overcrowded with tall medieval tenements. Therefore, north of the old city, just beyond the loch that then lay beneath it, a New Town was built.

The New Town was designed on classical principles, as St Petersburg was, with wide and straight streets, squares and parks, and rows of spacious housing. As an aside, it should not be forgotten that Edinburgh's classical legacy (of being called the "Athens of the North") owes as much to the city being the birthplace of the Enlightenment, as to its architectural classicism.

Over the following centuries, additional features like statues were added in squares and at intersections, and while the city was further expanded again as other suburbs were added over the next two hundred years, those same classical principles were not forgotten. The loch separating the old city and the "New Town" was eventually drained and turned into a park, giving the city centre a further dose of character; finally a bridge was built over the basin that separated the two parts of Edinburgh's centre.

For that reason, Edinburgh remains a city steeped in history, with much of the city, proportionally much more than London, looking more or less the same as it did one or two hundred years ago. Not only is there the medieval old city, dramatically perched on an angled ridge that rises to a summit crowned by the castle; the old city also overlooks the so-called "New Town" below - acting as the contemporary centre of the city, but in fact a grandiose eighteenth-century creation of classical urban planning and architectural ambition.

So that leads me to the comparisons.

If you look at the old town and new town of Edinburgh separately, Edinburgh's new town can be compared architecturally with cities like St Petersburg or Paris, or the Scandinavian capitals of Copenhagen and Stockholm; though it makes the most sense to fairly compare it to St Petersburg as they were near-contemporaries when they were built, and with the same classical ideals and scale of ambition in mind.

If you look at the old city, it compares quite well with some of the old European cities such as Krakow (an old city with a castle on a hill) or Prague (ditto, though with a river separating them), or even Tallinn (like Krakow, an old city beneath with a castle on a hill). But I know of no major European city that has a medieval centre built on a ridge with one long main street, as the "Royal Mile" in Edinburgh. What is unique about the Royal Mile is that its length has been used to emphasise its status as a royal capital, lined with suitably impressive medieval buildings; no other medieval city in Europe is able to show off its stature on such a long, straight thoroughfare. The length of the Royal Mile also allows it to have, as I see, two different "characters": the western (higher) end, mostly "High Street" and up to the castle, retains the most impressive buildings; the eastern (lower) end ("Canongate"), is narrower, has more modest buildings, and so feels cosier, like walking through an ancient country town.

The combined city centre of Edinburgh as a whole reminds me in an odd way of Istanbul, albeit with some role reversal. In Istanbul, Beyoglu/Taksim, sitting on a ridge across the water from the old city, is the commercial centre; in Edinburgh, it is the old city that sits on a ridge, with the "Royal Mile" comparable to (if a little longer than) Beyoglu's famous "Istiklal Caddesi", while it is the commercial centre (the "New Town") that is beneath the old city; separated by a park, or accessed by the North Bridge (the Galata Bridge in Istanbul serves a similar function).

Looking at the wider geography of the city, though, Edinburgh as a city in its entirety shares some characteristics with Athens. Athens has its most famous ancient area on a cliff-top hill in the city centre, the Acropolis; Edinburgh has its castle and medieval city on cliff-top hill in the city centre. Athens' suburbs are punctuated by hills; as are Edinburgh's. Athens itself sits close to the sea rather than next to it; since ancient times the port of Piraeus, a few miles distant (though now a suburb of the Greek capital) acted as its link to the sea. In Edinburgh, the port of Leith serves the same function as Piraeus does to Athens. So in more ways than one, Edinburgh can call itself the "Athens of the North".

But, as I've said, after going through all these comparable cities, none fit Edinburgh's mould exactly. Edinburgh is just unique, and for that reason, deserves more respect and attention than it gets on the tourism circuit.

Paris, Rome, St Petersburg, Istanbul, and others, all have something to offer; but Edinburgh manages to have a heart than contains the spirit of them all.

Who'd be a teacher in the UK? And who'd want to be a teenager?

In the latest batch of education "reforms", the Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, has declared a revamp to the inspection system, as described here by the BBC.

In brief, Wilshaw intends to remove from any inspection teams the previous requirement to give notice to any school or college for inspection; he also wants to re-assess the grading system for schools so that any school that is consistently graded as "satisfactory" (compared to the opposing extremes of "outstanding" or "deplorable").

Wilshaw says that "we have tolerated mediocrity for far too long" in our education system. His inference is clear; that our education system is broken, and that poor teaching is to blame. On the first point he may well be right; on the second, he is completely wrong.

Now, I'm not saying that all teachers are perfect, or that we should not strive for better standards, but the "Chief Inspector" (read "Chief Persecutor") of Schools is doing what all politicians do: treating education as a political football.

Education is a stressful profession to get into in the the UK. The financial rewards are modest, in spite of the government's encouragements and incentives for people to train as teachers. Due to previous "reforms", many schools "compete" for students (and therefore government revenue); this is meant to help improve standards. Teachers are regularly assessed in their techniques to check that they are giving the best quality teaching. Teachers are meant to act as motivators for students who are also being assessed themselves more and more.

(The schools system, to paraphrase Sir Ken Robinson, has become a factory: teachers no longer really "teach"; they show students how to best pass exams, which he talked about here. I'll talk more about the "industrialisation of education" later.)

Teachers nowadays are given more and more responsibilities than ever before, yet with less and less real power: a textbook recipe for disaster. Due to "safeguarding" issues, they are given the task of looking after the social care of their pupils; meanwhile, to those youths who are anti-social or worse, they can do little in class except follow bureaucratic "procedures". No wonder, then, that some school classrooms in the more deprived and socially-dysfunctional parts of the country resemble war-zones. And all this while teachers are meant to be doing what they can to "raise standards" in those very same war-zone classrooms.

So the Chief Inspector's recommendations, to introduce "on-the-spot" inspections, will send panic through the corridors of our high schools. Teachers already are stressed about the current regime of constant pressure to raise the game while using less cash and with more and more extra responsibilities. Anyone saying that teaching and studying is easier than it was before, simply has not been in a modern UK high school.

And the idea that schools can no longer rely on "mediocrity" to avoid criticism is to simply be ignorant of reality, let alone logic. Anyone understanding how averages work in mathematics or in anything that can be measured, will know that "being average" is by definition the norm. Expecting all schools to be "outstanding" simply means that your method of measurement is skewed, and therefore unreliable. Not all teachers can be "outstanding"; this is because they are human beings, not robots. Neither are students, and it would be absurd to expect otherwise.

Education in the UK in the 21st century is, to use the former Home Secretary John Reid's quote to describe his ministry, "not fit for purpose". I talked before about the "industrialisation of education". This problem began with Labour's seemingly admirable aim to have half our young population in university. This instinctively meant that A-levels and GCSEs gained even more credence (read "status") so that young people were expected to have a degree in order to get a good step up onto the career ladder. Hence the problem we now have at our "industrialised" schools that Sir Ken Robinson talked about. It's all about passing exams and getting the best grades for the students; a conveyor belt approach to getting young people into university.

And for what? It's only now that the country is in a recession that we see the lack of vision and myopic thinking that has led to an entire generation of educated, unemployable young people.

The point is this: the degrees that young people are doing are in many cases, effectively useless. Employers have been guilty of putting too much focus on having a 21-year-old candidate with a degree, rather than a 21-year-old with five years of relevant or useful work experience; employers value a piece of paper over the actual experience of being in the work environment. What is the point of an academic university system that bears little relation to the kind of skills and knowledge that our young people actually need in today's working environment? This is the precise reason why many of them cannot find a job; the UK doesn't need 20,000 Sociologists; it doesn't need 20,000 historians - it needs young people with skills that will keep the UK competitive in the world. And our education system is not built for that as it stands.

Our education system is completely out-of-date. Apart from the skills issues I've mentioned, there should be a comprehensive look at our "industrial" education system. We need an organic education system. This means looking at completely restructuring our approach to people and education. The "traditional" subjects (maths, literature, science etc.) are no longer enough; nor are they the best way to find a young person's talents.

Finding a child's talent means using a holistic approach, using a wide variety of methods of teaching in in order to pry out young people's talents. As things stand, a child is pigeon-holed up to the age of eighteen, and therefore is limited in knowing what educational choices best suit them. It's a miracle that so many people at the age of eighteen have a clear idea of what career would best suit them: the primary and secondary system gives so little scope for a young person's self-analysis of their talents; as things stand, our education system is nowhere near vocational enough.

Teachers in the UK are undervalued; students in the UK are being taught the wrong things. Both are the fault of the knee-jerk logic and short-sighted thinking of the government towards education.

And it is teachers and students who are suffering in the real world.

Syria and the Great Game Of The Middle East

It's ironic that the so-called "Domino Theory" that the USA predicted would cause South-East Asia to collapse into Communism in the Cold War was proved so wrong, whereas the same "Domino Theory" has been proved right where it applies to democratic uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.

A year on from the Arab Spring, and of all the uprisings and protests that proliferated across the region, the one that was one of the first, and in the country with so much strategic and political baggage, remains the most violent, the most tenacious, and the most intractable; a situation that retains the strongest danger of being a Pandora's box.

The first thing to be understood about Syria is the nature of its society and its government, before we talk about the plethora of wider issues.

Like Iraq and Lebanon, Syria is a multi-faith, multi-ethnic country created in the aftermath of the First World War. The ruling Baath party came to power in the sixties, the same as their former namesake in Iraq. In Iraq the Baath party was a party that had the support of the Sunni minority over a Shia majority (as well as Kurds and a small number of Christians); in Syria, the Baath had the support of the Alawites (a Shia sect), who ruled over the Sunni majority, with Christian acquiescence.

In both Iraq and Syria, in spite of the religious differences, the Baath were a secular party that encouraged the active suppression of religion; during the Cold War, and as allies of the Soviet Union while the USA were allies of Israel, even the Prophet was in danger of being seen almost as a person of ridicule, although the Baath in Syria and Iraq were always keen to indulge Islam where useful.

So, with Iraq liberated, Syria remains the only bastion of the Baath party: a party that, by definition, is the party representing a small religious sect, now atrophied by five decades of rule into an elite clan that remains in power by sheer force of will over an opposing Sunni majority, backed up by the fear of religious and civil war.

Bashar Al-Assad has remained in power through using similar techniques to Saddam Hussein; a personality cult, an efficient police state, and fear of sectarian civil war as the only alternative to the father of the nation. Saddam Hussein used his sons to ensure that his regime stayed in place through brutality and paranoia; Bashar Al-Assad uses his brother, Maher for the same purposes (more about him later).

But Bashar's situation still has some crucial differences. For a start, there is the personality. Saddam Hussein seemed to come across as the "Stalin of Iraq"; a gangster-like figure who ruled Iraq by his singular force of will, backed up by his male offspring and extended family. By comparison, Bashar Al-Assad seems on a personal level as threatening as, say, John Major: as much as Bashar might sound the tough guy, it hardly ever sounds natural or believable. In fact, Bashar does not appear to have the natural leadership skills, because it seems not natural to his personality; in every interview seen of him, he sounds passive, his voice soft, difficult to carry. When you see him at party rallies in front of his closest, most fanatical supporters, his body language even there seems slightly awkward, almost embarrassed of his supposed supreme power and popularity.

This is where Maher, his younger brother, comes in. Bashar was not, in fact, meant to be destined for power; that was meant to go to his elder brother, Basil, who died in the mid-nineties. The status as heir apparent then passed to Bashar, so that when his father, President Hafez, died a decade ago, Bashar was still getting to grips with the role.

Interestingly, soon after Bashar came to power, there was a movement towards modest political reforms backed by the new President, seemingly in order to make some sort of clean break with his father's leadership style. This didn't last long, though: Maher has been leader of the army and security services since Hafez died, and he quickly put wind to any real steps towards reforms. Those calling for freedom and a democratic process were quickly suppressed by the military; since that time, Bashar has not bothered to make any further efforts at reform.

And so we get to the situation of a year ago. With what we know of Bashar's personality, it can be quickly guessed that it is Maher who is the real power behind the throne, along with the elderly patricians of Hafez's generation. It is Maher who has been orchestrating the military campaign against the majority of his own country's people; Bashar has, more than likely, been stuck in a bubble of his Baath hardliners who urge further fighting and brutality because they fear for their own lives if they fall. Meanwhile, the likes of Maher and others like him are in a psychotic death-march to genocide, intent on killing anyone who gets the way of the regime, using any spurious justification possible.

So that's a summary of the internal situation: a virtual genocide by a government, who have declared war on most of their own people; furthermore, it has become a sectarian genocide, because it is effectively the government of the Alawite sect persecuting the majority Sunnis. Gaddafi also committed genocide; due to the swift actions of the international community, the worst of the violence was over within the first few months, leaving the remaining six months a gradual war of attrition across the wide open spaces and desert towns and cities of Libya.

Alas, those being persecuted in Syria have seen no such response from outside after almost a year of unrest and virtual civil war. Apart from the political reasons, which are many (and I'll go into those shortly), there are also tactical differences that explain why the same response as in Libya has not happened.

To begin with, the UN declared a no-fly zone to prevent attacks on civilians. The air attacks happened in Libya partly because the sheer size of the country, the distances between towns, and the terrain, meant that air attacks were the easiest way for the Gaddafi regime to deal with the unrest. The Al-Assad government has had no urgent need for air support, so therefore a no-fly zone, even if it were supported in the UN, would be pretty pointless.

The Western powers then took the UN resolution with such a broad interpretation that they used it to justify air attacks on Gaddafi's military instillations and hardware. Furthermore, some countries also began supplying the opposition with more effective firepower. These things have not happened either because there is no UN agreement on a tactical resolution to the conflict; Syria is seen as "messier" from a tactical point of view because there are more closely-packed urban areas than in the open desert of Libya.

But the main issues are political, and these are many. Apart from the sectarian nature of society that brings about discouraging comparisons with Iraq, the wider outside implications of the fall of the Al-Assad government is what caused the real sleepless nights in the major capitals in the region and the wider world.

Going back to the Cold War, Syria contains Russia's only naval base that exists outside of the immediate Russian sphere of influence; of obvious strategic value to Russia, any change of government would make Russia feel uncertain to the status of this prized piece of real estate. Apart from that, Russia has always been keen to discourage any country's internal affairs being interfered in from the outside. This is a point of principle, but one that houses an obvious self-interest. Looking back to 2008: in February of that year, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, a historic Russian ally; almost immediately, Russia supported the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia, resulting six months later in war. So, point taken.

The Al-Assad government are Alawites, a Shia sect; since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the ties between Iran and Syria have got closer and closer; these days the Middle East is diplomatically as divided like during the Cold War (or like the years leading up to the First World War in Europe), with Iran and Syria on one side (implicitly backed up by Russian and Chinese "neutrality"), and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States on the other (implicitly backed up by Western "democratic values" from the US, Turkey and Europe).

For that reason, no-one is really sure how Iran would react if the Al-Assad government fell.

This partly depends on the nature of its removal (a clear outside intervention could easily be seen as a "provocation" leading to God-knows-where, whereas internal removal by the opposition would put Iran in a trickier position).

It also depends on the state of play within Iran itself: whoever is really in charge, the Ayatollah or Ahmadinajad or the more "moderate" in the regime voices at the time.

And it also depends on whatever mood music is coming from the West; if the Iranians feel threatened and encircled due to Western intransigence and rhetoric, they may well lash out in desperation if the Al-Assad regime fell. If the West plays a more considered game, some sort of accommodation might be reached; if not, then things could get very sticky, very quickly.

In that sense, although the Middle East in 2012 may seem like a re-hash of the Cold War alliances, in another sense it feels more like Europe in 1914: Syria is like Bosnia, Damascus like Sarajevo; in itself a fairly small and not massively important country on paper, but a geopolitical powder-keg sitting on a melting-pot, primed to explode.

It's often forgotten that the Balkans, the birthplace of the Great War, had for the first thirteen years of the 20th century, been host to a number of minor conflicts and internal insurrections. So, in the same way, has the Middle East for the first eleven years of the 21st century. The territorial boundaries of the Balkans were drawn and squabbled over by various imperial powers from the 1820s onwards, right up to the 1910s; the same could be said of the Middle East if you shift the timeline forward a century.

In any case, it seems almost unthinkable that the current situation in Syria could last as it is for another twelve months. Somehow, it appears that there will be some sort of Syrian endgame in 2012. But what?

As things stand, with the Arab League shunning Syria, yet still not yet ready to take the plunge militarily, and with the USA and Europe most likely to do what they can to cause problems for the Al-Assad regime short of getting involved militarily, the most openly vocal critics, with the means at their disposal, as well as the moral force and support of regional powers to do something meaningful, are Turkey.

There is a kind of clear logic to the thinking that, since the Turks' excellent relations with the Arabs, some kind of intervention, with the support of willing Arab forces from, say Jordan and/or Saudi Arabia and Qatar, could well happen. This, at least would have clear moral support from the likes of the Arab League, and without the need for direct Western involvement. Besides, much of the Syrian opposition are based in Turkey.

Although what Iran might think of such an intervention is another matter, but as I suggested earlier, what Iran thinks about the likes of Turkey is also important. As far as I know, Turkey retains cordial relations with Tehran, so this might hold back the more hard-line elements of the Islamic regime from winning the argument.

But, then again, it's also hard to deny that if the Al-Assad regime does fall sometime this year, that there could well be a bloodthirsty period of revenge by Sunnis against the Alawites. After what they have been subjected to for the past year, one could hardly blame them for wanting it. That could then, at its worst, provoke a further counter-backlash by Shias in Iraq and Lebanon, instigated by Iran.

But that's just one of many possible outcomes. Like throwing dice in a deadly game of chance. The Middle East in 2012 could turn out into a new version of the Balkans in 1914; albeit, with even higher stakes.

The Diamond Queen? Let's think about that...

Yes, it's the Queen's sixtieth anniversary as monarch of the UK and head of state of a bunch of other former colonies. Wonderful.

Before I go on, I should say this as a disclaimer: I have nothing against the Queen as a person. As far as I see, she seems like a nice woman, overall. True, it's been said that she cordially detested Diana after her divorce with Charles, and the way she initially dealt with Diana's death made much of the public question their loyalty to her person, but no-one's perfect. Queen Victoria, after the death of her husband, Albert, was not seen in public for something like thirty years. Thirty years! That's like if Elizabeth's husband, Philip, had died in, say 1970, and she stayed out of sight in Balmoral till the turn of the millenium. No wonder that the calls for the abolition of the monarchy reached their height during the middle of Victoria's long years of isolation.

No, the point of what I am saying is not to defame the Queen or the monarchy as a whole. In general, I'm a constitutional agnostic: I'm indifferent to if the head of state is elected or born to rule, so long as the government is democratic. What I'm objecting to is the sickly-sweet, gushy, pseudo-hagiographic portrayals of the Queen by the media. She's not a saint, or a national treasure, really: she's just a person who's had a very specific upbringing.

Yes, the Queen has been there for sixty years; yes, she has been, to paraphrase the media "the stalwart of British values and continuity through decades of unprecedented social and technological change" - but come on! So, by that definition, has practically any person over the age of seventy.

Any person who grew up during the Second World War can say the same thing, and, moreso can any person who actually fought for the country during those "darkest hours". I respect the Queen as much as I respect any person who has done something for the sake of others; but it would be much more fitting for the media to, rather than glorify "The Diamond Queen", better to celebrate "The Diamond Generation" - the generation that fought for the survival of Britain and (what was then) the Empire.

The Queen is now well into her eighties. That age, and the anachronism of her values, were starkly exposed with the death of Diana; she was seen to be out of touch, not realising that the idea of "stiff upper lip" had been slowly growing out of fashion for years. It took the midas touch of Tony Blair to carefully point her in the right direction, and show a public human side that did not come instinctively. That must have been a real eye-opener for the Queen at the time; for a monarch that had known nine Prime Ministers to be outshone by a fortysomething political newcomer.

Yes, the Queen has been through a lot in her life. Her younger sister, Margaret, was often stealing the limelight with her with her larger-than-life charisma and relationships. Yes, if Margaret had been the elder sister, the monarchy would rarely have seemed dull to the public. Margaret shared her charisma and love for the risque with her uncle, Edward VIII, and her great-grandfather, Edward VII. Margaret was also like her mother, the forever-popular and charismatic Queen Mother; Elizabeth, however, was her father's daughter.

If one was being unkind, where the media uses euphemisms as "a reign of assured stability", you could say that the Queen's long reign has been pretty dull compared to some previous monarchs. But I am not unkind: any monarch's reign mostly depends on the personality of the monarch, and the Queen has from the start of the reign made it clear that she sees her role as maintaining a sort of symbolic rock of understated but secure British values.

In terms of values, it can fairly be argued that the Queen no longer "represents British values", as Britain has not just socially progressed, but has been socially transformed almost beyond recognition from 1952, when Elizabeth Windsor became Queen. Not only is she one of the longest-reigning monarchs of the UK, but she has been monarch through a time of unprecedented social change (and I say this even though I realise am repeating the same sickly-sweet phrases the media use). By that definition, there is an argument for saying that the Queen should abdicate in favour of someone more suited to reflect British values as they stand in 2012 rather than in 1952.

But that would be to misunderstand the Queen's temperament. She is not the kind of person to abdicate for sake of convenience; for her, it is a lifelong commitment that she made upon her coronation. If that means she is still Queen come 2020 and beyond, then so be it.

That's what it means to have a monarchy: a monarch is for life, not just for Christmas.

Your Will Is Not Your Own: why intelligence is linked to free thought

I recently read a Daily Mail article that talked about Canadian study linking prejudice and conservative thinking with people that have had lower intellectual capabilities as a child, here.

Am I surprised by the link? No, not really. It doesn't take a genius to work out that reactionary politics is a draw for those who look for simplistic explanations and easy solutions.

For an obvious example, there is a reason why the left-wing is more sympathetic towards the unemployed that the right. Norman Tebbitt, the infamous vanguard of the Thatcherite right, said that unemployed people were lazy; they didn't have a job because they couldn't be bothered looking for one, his own father, when out of work "got on his bike and looked for a job".

Clearly, life is more complex than that. While it's true that there are always a small percentage of people who genuinely are work-idle, the vast majority are unemployed due to a wide number of social and economic factors. People who are left-wing tend to see this; people on the right, often don't.

The same thinking goes for poverty: the left-wing cites the huge number of social and economic factors involved that can create and exacurbate poverty; the right may well just as well say people are poor because they lack the motivation to better themselves.

I could go on. Immigration is another famous example. The conservative right claims that immigrants take away jobs that would normally be available to natives; forgetting the fact that most immigrants do the jobs that natives usually don't want to do. This is true in Dublin and Doncaster as much as it is in Dubai. Again, while there may be a small proportion who are there to milk the generous benefits of living in civilised society, the vast majority start from the bottom rung, and only make any progress through working far harder and in far worse conditions than the natives. Immigrant-bashing from the right is not only wrong-headed, it's also immoral.

What is evidently true is that it's only by looking at any issue with the complete range of factors that a rational answer can be arrived at. This is what the scientific study mentioned in the Daily Mail is getting at: rationalism and free-thought (rather than prejudice and narrow-mindedness) go hand in hand with intelligence. Anyone bringing easy answers to complicated issues is using either lazy thinking or, bluntly, missing something in the head.

Does that mean that Karl Marx was smarter than, say, Ayn Rand? Well, there's a convincing argument that relying on simplistic models of society and human nature, as Ayn Rand does when arguing in favour of a complete free market, is not backed up by any real evidence. Whenever Rand's ideas were put into place, they tended to result in the opposite of what she intended.

Am I saying that Communism is therefore intellectually better than Capitalism? Communists certainly believed they were, and when the Soviet Union existed, those in power in Moscow (at least, at the start) believed that they were involved in some kind of quasi-scientific venture.

What went wrong with Communism is that it forgot that people by nature want to have free-will. That was one reason why Capitalism, for all its faults, was ultimately more successful: the attraction of free-will, over the will of the state, won the day.

However, the Great Crash of 2008 brought the flaws of Capitalism into sharp focus; nowadays, people would rather the state have a bigger role in society; they would rather sacrifice some of their "free-will" in order to ensure stability in society as a whole. That demonstrates the fact that many people understand that life is not an "either-or" choice; life is complicated and messy, and that's why there needs to be a middle ground between the things that individuals do best, and the things that government can do best. Few people these days would agree with Ronald Reagan that "government is the problem". In that sense, people nowadays are more left-wing than they were, say, thirty years ago: they recognise much better, and in much greater detail, what things individuals do well, and what things government should be responsible for.

This issue of free-will doesn't only apply to politics. Although I am not openly religious (I have stated on my Facebook page that I am a Stoic Pantheist), the issue of free-will and religion can't be avoided while we're on the topic. Just as some right-wing people prefer the certainty that simple answers give (which also allows them to abrogate their thinking to those in power), people who are religiously conservative prefer the simple answers that their divine texts give.

Therefore, by definition, people who blindly rely on a religious text, without using their own minds to decide if it is something justifiable, cannot be considered rational or intelligent. Those who willingly choose to throw away their free-will to a religious text without question, are implicitly admitting to their own intellectual emptiness.

Some people, however, explain their conservative habits through national "culture"; a catch-all word that can be used to excuse the most abhorrent human behaviour, as well as an excuse for those already of weak mind and evil intent, to carry out their moral depravity.

There are many possible examples I could cite. The example in Pakistan, of a TV show host harassing young couples in a park to check if they are married, is relatively mild one. In Azerbaijan, journalists throwing false allegations at a pop star in a live question-and-answer session, is another. In Croatia, young couples may also be harassed by locals if they are suspected of not being married. In the USA, doctors who carry out abortions can be killed.

So what I am saying does not necessarily depend on the religion itself; it depends on the extent to which people decide to use religion or "culture" to pursue their own prejudices and ignorance. It is perfectly possible to be rational and free-thinking, and religious; a good example I saw recently was the conduct of the Amish people in rural USA, who follow the Bible more closely than the conservative fanatics, but with none of the blind ignorance and fervour. The Amish can calmly and rationally explain why sex after marriage is a good idea; the Taliban cannot. The Amish can calmly and rationally explain why their men and women wear the old-fashioned clothes they do; the Wahhabists cannot.

Your will is your own. To rely on one simple answer for everything, whether it be from "culture", a religious text, a one-size-fits-all solution, or a knee-jerk reaction, is demeaning to your own intelligence and humanity.