Scoins.net

One might think this is a very straightforward topic; degrees can be 1sts, 2nds or 3rds, where the bulk are the middle class, divided into 2:1 and 2:2.  While largely correct, that is not the whole story. I explore this.

The student room supplied this brief description:

1. ◦First-Class Honours (First or 1st) (70% and above) (OPEN UNIVERSITY 85%+)
   
2. ◦Upper Second-Class Honours (2:1, 2.i) (60-70%) (OPEN UNIVERSITY 70-85%)
   
3. ◦Lower Second-Class Honours (2:2, 2.ii) (50-60%) (OPEN UNIVERSITY 55-70%)
   
4. ◦Third-Class Honours (Third or 3rd) (40-50%) (OPEN UNIVERSITY 40-55%)
   
5. ◦Ordinary degree (pass) (OPEN UNIVERSITY AWARDED AT 300 CATS POINTS)
   
6. ◦Fail (no degree is awarded)
   
7. ◦Unclassified (some degrees aren't classified eg medicine or masters degree)
   

Wikipedia tells us that classification began at Cambridge separating the middle half from the upper and lower quartiles, which is norm referencing, isn’t it?

Things are a bit different at Oxbridge1, where the degree is awarded on examination results. You may think this a fine, almost irrelevant distinction. At Cambridge there are exams at the end of every year, [prelims, tripos parts one and two], while at Oxford there is a year off [Moderations at the end of the first year and Schools (Finals) at the end] so the second year could be truly enjoyed, exam free—such a rarity in over-tested modern Britain.

Why would you care? Well I remember being lectured (you wouldn’t use the verb taught) by the excellent CA Coulson; 1928 Trinity Cambridge, 1931 graduated in maths, 1932 graduated in natural science (by taking Tripos part two in Physics), PhD in 1936.2  Cambridge 1928-38. Coulson demonstrates that from the Oxbridge point of view it is not a matter of time served, but exams passed. Actually, he may well have sat schools / finals earlier and I was told (1972) he’d also taken finals in Chemistry. The rules in the 70s were that a degree would be awarded after a number of terms of attendance (who ever said there was any work done?), preventing no-one from sitting more exams and collecting more degrees, just not allowing the award itself until sufficient time has passed. You may think this a small point.

Things are a little different in Scotland too, where most universities have a foundation year, award an ordinary degree at the end of two more years and an honours degree at the end of one more, a four year course. Sticking out for a Masters would add a fifth year.

A fourth

The prompt to write this piece at all came from JCM in California, who asked me to “parse Ruskin’s 4th class degree”. What follows is based upon my reply.

Fourths were, as I understood it, given to people who hadn't quite done enough to be given a degree, but had done enough to be not denied one. I think they ran from 1831 to 1973. A typical example would be to have completed one question in Finals correctly, thus indicating that they were able to 'do' the subject, but did not convince the examiners that they had do more than have a sporadic familiarity with it. To test the validity of such an offering in Finals (also called Schools) a fourth was only awarded after an interview, known as a viva, or viva voce (live speech, my translation). One of the famous strategies was to set a target of having a 4th and a Blue, thus demonstrating that one could achieve practically anything by doing just enough. Such people were, apparently prized as employees, presumably mostly as salesmen. I tried and failed at this, having a third and being Blues reserve.  I think they stopped about the time I finished, 1974, but I found this difficult to evidence.  There was no suggestion that a 4th was given to those who were there only to win Blues (one can only win a Blue in competition with the opposition (Cambridge); what one might call a ringer. I have no doubt that places were and have been and are given to those who enhance the university side, but the degree work is still required. that said, the systems for regulation are sufficiently well hidden, in an old boys' club sort of way, that it would be easy to think they could be circumvented. I suspect that the British system is a little more correct that that, political exceptions aside.

It would not be right to declare that 1, 2.1, 2.2, 3  is equivalent to what was 1,2,3,4. Not at all. You might study the concept of going to university and doing self-directed work and then being called to account for what one had studied to test whether one would be awarded a degree, the original (as I understand it) route to a degree, as in Newton's day.

What would happen now would to be granted an Ordinary degree, not Honours.  I had a friend who sat Finals and received an ordinary degree; he was invited to stay an extra year, to sit Finals again and receive honours; which he did.  He has just retired as a very senior figure at Cisco (who make hard drives).

Aegrotat degrees are awarded to those who are prevented by illness from sitting finals. This is then a dgree awarded but unclassified.

Masters

You might recall that I've told you (a lot of people who question how I got an MA on no work, idle bugger that I am) that Oxbridge degrees 'mature' to Masters.  There are different ‘levels’ of education defined by the national Qualifications Framework and the Qualifications and Credits Framework. See gov.uk.

Low (D-G) GCSEs are level 1;

Good GCSEs level 2;

A level, IB, BTECs, NVQ(3) all level 3;

Certificate of Higher Education, HNCs, NVQ(4) all level 4;

HNC, HND, BTEC professional diplomas, foundation degrees, diplomas of higher Education,  level 5

BTEC Advanced Professional Diplomas, Bachelors degrees with / without honours, PGCE level 6

diploma in translation, more BTEC awards, NVQ(5), masters degrees, other postgraduate certificates, all level 7

Doctoral degrees level 8

There is a table on wikipedia in an article about the European Qualifications framework or try to see the real thing3 that explains the general definitions, so you can see how an academic body would apply for recognition of an existing course or equally how they’d propose to raise the standard of a course to reach a targeted level.  Well worth reading.

This is because ( recently discovered) the EU rules for what constitutes a Masters (level 7 on the new scale) requires a significant part of the degree to be based upon independent work (not research, study). Which Oxbridge satisfies, clearly (in the sense that this has been ratified, not that it is self-evident, though I'd confirm it). Since the support systems in both Ox and Cam are deliberately scanty, I can confirm that doing a degree there forces an independence of study that you would not find at other British universities except on specific masters courses. My understanding of Socratic method suggests to me that some of the Ivy league universities go a similar route.

So in effect the MA (Oxon) and MA (Cantab) are honorary degrees. So, you ask,what happens if you actually want to work for one? Many pass it straight by and go for their doctorate (PhD most places, D Phil at Oxford). However, there is a worked Master’s course, called the Master of Studies, MSt, which is available at Oxon and at Cantab (and, I learned, Dublin, Newcastle and Australian National). I had wondered. Lonely, in a cloud...

I remember father used to annoyed that Firsts were awarded too easily, arguing repeatedly that a First represented a dramatically small percentage of the population (and I’d expect him to argue for a mark two standards deviations above the mean to be a general guide). I found some comment on the dumbing down of degrees to match those of A-levels, trending up steadily from 2007-12. As ever, there are loads of figures largely telling you that the author can’t do maths well and looking at a short period. trying to answer this, I discover (pdf link) the number of degrees (irrespective of the class) 1950 17,300 and higher degrees 2,400 compered with 2010, 331,000 and 182,600 respectively. Forget % increase; that’s 19x and 76x. Proportionally, four times more people going on to a second degree. But to keep that in context the proportion in education at 17 went from 7% to 76%. See below5. You might be interested to look at grade inflation, which provided what I was looking for elsewhere (why did I bother?)

UK: Percentages of good Honours awards

(1st and upper 2nd) by Institution

1983–4    1984–5    2006    2008    2012

Cambridge             57            49         84        85        87

Warwick                 34           42             79        76        81

Exeter                                             41           45.3          75        80        83

Robert Gordon                                  9           12             53        54        55

This doesn’t tell us how many firsts there were, but first and 2.1 degrees.  taking data from the same site, using data from the HESA, I made this:

Year         1st %   2.1%  2.2%   rem%

2014         18.8    47.0    22.8    11.4

2010          14.4   48.3    29.8      7.5

2000            8.7   45.3    36.3      9.8

1996            6.9   40.8    35.4    17.0

Now way back in the 19th century when grading began, the original suggestion was to grade the passing quartiles, so the top quarter was labelled first, the middle had second, the bottom quarter third—and not declaring what fraction may have failed.  When I was in school, the whole idea of first was exception and you will appreciate from your Maths that this might well imply two standard deviations from the mean to be the measure. So even 5% of awards being classed as First would be, in most years, too much. I remember a discussion with my tutor at Oxford, in which we looked at the distribution of results, which displayed a bell curve with a hiccup around the third / fourth / fail mark, as happens when two distributions exist.  I have a poor image inserted until such time as I can create my own. Ignore the x scale; the majority distribution is the blue one and the red should be enormously smaller. The green aggregate line, once we have adjusted the two populations to produce the effect, will have a dip (as in the top distribution) and a local maximum on the left. The place at which the gradient is most negative is the pass mark and the bump to the left until the pass mark level is reached again represents those who might usefully be given a viva (and hence a fourth, an ordinary degree or a fail). I will try to produce what I need to show on my own.6

I found this on The Tablet, from which I quote selectively.

 "Fourths were first granted in 1831, when Sidney Herbert, of Oriel, obtained one, while his future colleague, Gladstone, of Christ Church, was carrying off a double-first ; but a fourth was for a long time an honour of doubtful signification, for the examiners placed in that class passmen who had gone through their examinations with signal credit, and this they did without designating these passmen as 'Honorary Fourths.' When the late Lord Justice Thesiger was raised to the Bench at so early an age that his appointment was much discussed, the fact of his having won a Fourth only came out; but his former tutor explained that this was an Honorary Fourth, which proved that if Thesiger had not been prevented by ill-health from trying for honours he would probably have secured a first.

There is no objection to calling this class, in specified instances, an Honorary Fourth, if it is at the same time understood that, in those instances, it means something more. If the Times writer had looked back to the paper of October 21, 1880, he would have found this :— Ultimately, however, Mr. Thesiger did not go in for honours in the final classical school, and he accordingly went in for an ordinary pass, and was placed as a compliment in the Fourth class. His papers in the schools [final exams, Cris] were so well done that, upon going in for the viva voce part of his examination, the examiner, after asking him a couple of questions advised him to allow the whole of his pass papers to be annulled and to go in for Honours. This was a most distinguished compliment, and Mr. Gordon, his tutor, assured us in a letter which we published in 1877, that he only remembered two other instances—that of the late Mr. Stephen Denison, who took the examiner's advice, and was placed in the First class ; the other, Mr. German Lavie, who was unable to act upon the examiner's advice, and received his Honorary Fourth. Mr. Thesiger followed the latter example.

I wrote to the Times explaining that, Mr. Gordon, writing in perfect good faith, was not aware of what had occurred before he took his own degree;  and giving all the details which you obliged me by printing in the Tablet of November 6, 1880. 

It will be seen that the person whom the Times writer, with easy familiarity, describes as Sidney Herbert of Oriel, shared with three others who, probably for varying reasons, decided to take a pass only, and not go into the Honour Schools—the Hon. G. F. Harris, of Christ Church, E. Otto Trevelyan of C.C.C., and the present writer— the "distinguished compliment" of being invited by the examiners to act, as the examiners of the later day invited Mr. Denison, Mr. Lavie, and Mr. Thesiger to act. I venture to quote a few lines of my letter in the Tablet of November 6, 1880 :— "After our examinations, viva voce and on paper, were over, the examiners sent with our testamurs a message that they wished to see us. They saw us one by one, and I presume used much the same language to each of us."

I recollect with pleasure the handsome friendly manner in which I was told that what I had done had so fully satisfied them, that they intended to put me in the Fourth class ; and, further, asked me to come in for higher honours. My dear friend, E. Otto Trevelyan alone of the four, accepted the offer and received a higher class.

July 21, 1883. DANIEL PARSONS, M.A., Oriel College.

DJS 20160502

Top pic from google images. I had a hard time finding Oxford MA graduates, being the ones with a red lining to their hoods. Far more like the one below with BA hoods in the foreground.  Since the maturation period is short, I imagine very few buy these gowns. I (own and) used my MA hood throughout teaching at Shiplake, it being required dress in church and at ‘official’ functions. I’m sure some parents acted differently when we dressed in sub fusc for Parents’ Evenings.

The gowns shown (from the Oxford supplier, Shepherd and Woodward; these found on the university site) are: Top row: MTh(eology) graduate, BM(edicine) graduate, BA graduate, MFA (Fine Art) graduate. Bottom row: MSt (Studies) graduate, MA graduate, DPhil graduate (PhD elsewhere).

I have not listed websites visited on this occasion, unlike my recent habit, not just because I forgot, but also since so many proved useless in looking for this content. Where I found a use, it is linked.

1 Oxbridge = Oxford and Cambridge.

2 Amazing man. Able chemist, physicist, mathematician. Lecturer in Physical Chemistry UCL 1945-7; Oxford, Chair of theoretical Physics, Kings London 1947-52; a founder and first director of the Maths Institute in Oxford (1952 to 1974); Chair of Theoretical Chemistry, 1972. A conscientious objector during WWII, he taught Maths Physics and Chemistry at Dundee, a heavy load. I note also that he was Stanley Rushbrooke’s PHD supervisor; I knew Prof Rushbrooke as my father’s immediate boss at Newcastle and met him often when small (the ‘50s and ‘60s). The link refers to father but gets his initial wrong.

3 I failed to find the real thing, but I didn’t try very hard.

4 In Scotland it is usual to have Honours after the 4th year, and an ordinary degree at three years. I suspect that the Scottish Higher School certificate is judged to be between AS and A-level rather like Chinese Gao Kao; something to do with the number of subjects; I think the total learning is similar but the system judges that the depth of knowledge is the issue. That contrasts with the steady dumbing-down issue, surely: at what point have we learned knowledge in a way that somehow loses the ability to analyse what we learn?

5 . c1950

1. •In 1951 there were 27,700 public primary schools or departments in the UK. These were attended by 4.8 million pupils, there was an average of 171 pupils in each school and an average of 30 pupils per teacher.
   
2. •   In 1951 there were 5,900 public secondary schools in the UK. These were attended by 2.0 million pupils; there was an average of 342 pupils in each school and an average of 20.6 pupils per teacher.
   
3. •  7.7% of central government revenue was spent on education in 1949-50
   
4. •  In 1949-50 there were 2.4 million students who attended grant-aided establishments of further education (again mainly evening and part-time courses) in England and Wales.
   
5. •  In 1953-54 10.7% of the relevant age group passed five or more GCE O levels at schools in England and Wales. 5.5% of the relevant age group passed one or more GCE A level and public sector schools and further education establishments.
   
6. •  In 1950 17,300 students were awarded first degrees and 2,400 were awarded higher degrees at UK universities.
   
7. •  In 1950 30% of 15 year olds, 14% of 16 year olds and 7% of 17 year olds were in full-time education in England and Wales.
   
8. •
   c2010
   
9. •  In 2010-11 there were 21,281 public sector mainstream primary schools. These were attended by 4.9 million pupils, there was an average of 231 pupils in each school and an average of 20.4 pupils per teacher.
   
10. •In 2010-11 there were 4,072 public sector mainstream secondary schools. These were attended by 3.9 million pupils; there was an average of 943 pupils in each school and an average of 15.3 pupils per teacher.
    
11. •The average salary of full-time qualified teachers in public sector schools in England was £34,700 in November 2011.
    
12. • Expenditure on education made up 13.3% of total public sector expenditure in 2010-11.
    
13. •  In 2010/11 there were 4.9 million learners who started a publicly funded further education course in the UK.
    
14. • In 2010/11 79.6% of pupils in their last year of compulsory education in the UK achieved 5 or more GCSE grades A*-C or equivalent. In 2003/04 39.2% of the relevant age group passed two or more A levels or equivalent.
    
15. •  In 2010/11 331,000 full-time students were awarded first degrees at UK universities and 182,600 (all modes) were awarded higher degrees.
    
16. • At the end of 2010 88% of 16 year olds and 76% of 17 year olds in England were in full-time education.
    

6 Watch what then happens to my graphic!!

When I was writing about stupidity I was close to including a refusal to use mathematics. Where most of the time I mean arithmetic. I really do not understand why it is that we so readily accept that, for example, it is acceptable for someone in the public eye to say “I could never do maths” followed so often by a statement which illustrates a failure to make logical statements.

It could be that the habit of testing mathematical statements for truth, “This really is equal to that” never percolated. It could be that a failure at an early age to be satisfied with ‘getting things right’ leads to be happy not getting things right, as an expression of the status quo.

For those people who don’t know whether they fall into either camp, I’ll give some examples of cases where I think using maths would be appropriate:

1. 1.   Shopping at the supermarket and keen to underspend, you see Scotch Eggs at 30p each, 75p for two and £1 for 3. You want some, maybe three or four. What do you do?
   
2. 2.   A group walking on Dartmoor have a planned route for say 30km and, after two hours it is nine o’clock and they have covered 5km. When do they expect to finish?
   
3. 3.   You’re driving in a 20mph zone. You are expected to be able to stop in a short distance; standard tables suggest 40ft or about 13 metres. Assuming those conditions apply and that there may be circumstance in which you’d be expected to stop, how fast would you be going at the notional non-impact point if instead you were doing 26mph? Put it another way, how far beyond the expected stopping point would you actually stop?
   
4. 4.    A similar group on Dartmoor are not enjoying walking on wet heather in springtime. One of the group observes that they all walk faster when on any sort of track, including a sheep track. If they changed from going directly to their intended target and instead took the next available acceptable sheep trail, how far off the desired direction could they go and still be going faster in the desired direction? Try for a guess in multiples of five degrees before you go work it out.
   

1. 1.   The single eggs are significantly cheaper. I am not the only one to notice this. Why then do people choose the other offerings? Mostly because they don’t want to think about the numbers, I suggest.
   

2. 2.    Continuing at the same rate, they would expect to finish this route in twelve hours, ten more from noticing the time, so 19:00. Which, for many groups, means that they will not finish this route. Which in turn means that they have a problem that should have been addressed before they started. It is likely that they have (i) someone inexperienced added to the group who has a problem so that this has not been factored into the plan. If completing the route is important then (i) this needs to be communicated and there are consequences such as a late finish or someone dropping out or (iii) the route need to be modified to accommodate what today’s group can achieve. In a sense, it needs to be clear what it is that constitutes a success for the day. From experience, such a group would make far better time if they ceased stopping to regroup and found a speed that their slowest member can walk all day. Boring but true. I still do about 5kph on rough ground, but my stopping is under a minute an hour. But then I can (and do) do arithmetic.  Incidentally, this was a fairly common problem at PMC and generally a 19:00 finish was okay, where a 21:00 finish was dubious and was often dealt with by abandoning that route, though our action rather depended upon the weather and which training weekend it was.
   

3. 3.    You are supposed to already know your stopping distances. It was easy in the bad old imperial days of miles and feet; for speed S mph, the total stopping distance was made up of thinking distance S feet plus braking distance of S2/20. At 20mph that is 20+400/20=40 feet. At 26mph you need 26+676/20=60 feet (a tad less) and, at. At the 40 foot mark you’d have been braking for 14 feet, so the speed at that instant would be whatever needs 26 feet to stop in, S2/20=26 or √(26x20)=23mph. At impact you’d STILL be over the speed limit. So why do you NOT obey the limit in a 20 zone?
   

4. 4.    Exciting, an excuse to use geometry. Say speed on the Dartmoor-standard rough stuff is R and about 3kph. Say speed on a sheep track is S and about 4kph. Differences of 0.5 to 1.0 kph are normal, based on a lot of observation by me. Bigger differences are possible, but once it is learned that this approach works, the calculations are moot (because it is now a strategy). Draw a right-angle triangle with the longest side S and the middle length side R. The cosine of the angle between these is R/S. For 3 and 4 we get an amazing 40º.  For 3,5 and 3 we get 31º. For 5 and 4.5 we get 26º. In other words, you can look quite a long way ‘off-direction’ for any surface that will be quicker to walk on and that such a choice will succeed in comparison to plugging away at a compass direction. You don’t do this if working/walking in bad visibility. Most of us do open-ground walking in relatively nice weather. This simple calculation—once seen, it is not as if you’re going to refine it—shows that there will be gain a long way off target. Obviously you will need to compensate with another such track in a while, but this applies also to very short-term choices (i.e. within several paces) as it does to long stretches.  I have noticed recently that on wet ground the ‘path’ is actually slower than using the ‘rough’; I am aware that on Lakeland hills, some stony paths are slower than the adjacent grass (now the policy is seen to be bad for one’s personal erosion coefficient). I also notice these states are significantly changed by the current degree of slope. The situation is similar but different if running.
   

Those examples barely use GCSE maths. What they require is a willingness to look at the numbers and see that there is a useful question to ask. You agree, I hope, that the maths above is pretty easy. My point is that such a question is too often not posed. What used to drive me to distraction (rage, wanting to be elsewhere) is not just the failure to recognise the message in the numbers, but (far more often) that there is a refusal to act in line with the result. A sort of “Yes, but this doesn’t apply to me”, which could be translated as really not caring at all.

On Dartmoor, where such evidence often results in simply recognising that “Today is going to be a long day”, these are non-dangerous results. The group will eventually learn that they go  at <this speed> and that this means in turn a ‘day’ is <that long>. Eventually they will address underlying problems, all which could be classed as preparation (from being fitter, to having better kit, to having a lot less kit, to sharing the weight around to balance abilities, to picking better routes, to waking up to the challenge as a whole.

On the road, I find the ignorance of risk astonishing. I agree that frequently one is left wondering why a piece of road has a particular limit. I picked the 20mph zone deliberately, since there it is common for other users of pavement and road to act on the assumption that 20mph means a 40foot stopping distance, that is, typically young pedestrians learn that this is a ‘safe’ place to act in ways that elsewhere would be grossly irresponsible. We call this ‘safe’. Yet every day you drive through such a district you are aware of the significant numbers of road users that exceed the designated limit by so much that they would still be over the speed limit at the point of impact.  It may be relevant to quote the African saying in translation “If you want to go quickly, travel alone; if you want to go far, travel together”. For long distance walks, the trick is to reduce the stopping to a minimum.

More advanced forms of these same questions:

31. 31.Assuming you are aware that many people exceed the posted speed limit, then for speed limit L, at what expected stopping distance do you not only fail to stop in time but are still exceeding the posted speed limit? Does that inform your driving style? Might you use that to inform others? [Excuse for use of algebra, but the problem is not can you do that, but can you set up the algebra to be done, the difficult bit that goes first].  
    
32. 32.Speed vs Safety essay 156,  uses the term marginal speed. If you have 10% excess over the posted limit, what is your residual speed at the point when you ‘should’ have stopped?
    
33. 33.(and 2) If out walking on open ground, are you aware of your changes of speed? Of direction? Are you aware of the many micro-decisions you make that constitute such walking? How do you modify those choices with regard to what you can see? This might be asking you to assess your own capacity for use of feedback. Does it matter ho much you lift your feet in taking a step? Does that answer vary with the ground? if it does, do you use that information in making short-term route choices?
    

Oh, you complain, that’s not maths. well of course it isn’t: Maths is the tool for doing other stuff, rather like language is for communication.

I am sure that the hard parts are:

•    recognising what would lend itself to such a problem. Indeed, often, recognising that there is a problem at all.

1. •   acquiring the data (but I note that very often the data is in front of us already, begging the question to be asked)
   
2. •    setting up the maths to be done. I often said to classes that the world doesn’t actually need very many super mathematicians. what is doe s need is a lot of people who recognise that there is a problem to pose and that these people be able to communicate what that problem is so that a solution can be found. And communicated back to those who are expected to make non-mathematical decisions based upon something better than an unexplained reaction.
   

Why do we do maths? Mostly because we need it to explain so many things. I am noticing increasingly a connection between an inability to explain (many things) and a low ability to do maths. Where perhaps what I mean is an ability to think in mathematical terms, for there are many people with an acceptable qualification in maths who persist in the refusal to apply any such thinking. it is one thing to fail to spot some possible mathematical application. It is entirely something less to deny the evidence and to refuse the result.

DJS 20160419

Happy birthday, JP

I resisted the inclination to use medical risks, though I am not entirely sure why. A rich field: perhaps I am open to suggestions. What would be appropriate?

What is the point in Maths? “A point has no size, but simply marks position. See Essay 31

See several other pages on this site, not all in Lower School Extension work:

pensions

walking, fuel

tiling

going to Cambridge

Seeds

31: Let L be the Limit, your fast speed is F, your stopping distance is supposed to be S2/20+S and in practice it is F2/20+F, so the difference in distance, ΔD, is L2/20. Multiplying all through by 20, we have

F2 -L2 +20(F-L) = L2  Rearranging, F2+20F = 2L2+20L = 100∂. Solving for F, F=10[√(∂+1)-1]. Giving:

L          20     30     40     50     60     70     mph

100∂    12     24     40     60     84    112

F          26    40      64     68     82      96    mph

T                    0      48     57     66      75    mph

T is that speed that leaves you doing 30 mph at the expected stopping point:

Let 100ß be defined as 900 + L2-20L;  then   T=10[√ß+1)-1] and we can add a row reading, T≥30.

Look what that means at motorway speeds!

32: Let L be the Limit, your speed is S=1.1*L, your stopping distance is supposed to be S2/20+S and in practice it is L2/20+L, so the difference in distance, ΔD, is (S2-L2/20 +(S-L) = (S-L)(S+L+20)/20. So your residual speed, R, is when R2/20 = that difference, so R2= (S-L)(S+L+20) = (0.1 L)(2.1L+20)

= 0.21 L2 + 2 L

L          20     30     40     50     60     70     mph

S          22     33     44     55     66     77    mph

ΔD         6     12     21     31     44     58      ft

R          11     16     20     25     30     34    

As one of my few American friends commented in an email last week, one might be aware of an election. He actually wrote, “ There is an election here... not the 6-week cycle you have in the UK... but a beauty contest of sorts.”

There is no easy way, short of living outside your own nation, to know how thoroughly an election is covered elsewhere. I can say that I have been made very much aware of the impending US election for about the last year. I wonder how you feel about this.

What has been attracting my attention is how low the turnout is in the US. As with the UK, the USA is pretty good at letting you have access to data. The biggest vote that occurs in the US is for the presidential elections, not to be confused with things that have a (far) lower turnout. It is much the same in the UK, where the lesser event would be (local) council elections. Just to explain to non-Brits, we elect our Member of Parliament by voting for a person in a party. The party with the most elected MPs tries to form a government from those elected (easy if they have an absolute majority). We do not vote for our Prime Minister, however the media portray the elections. It is difficult in Britain to be a voter for an individual—you’d have to join a political party and I don’t think you can join more than one. If you did that, you’d have a vote for an individual to become your MP. In the case of some parties such as Labour, you’d also have a vote for the party leader.

Voting in Britain is open to all over 18 (which we are considering revising downwards to 16) and you can lose your vote by various means, but that accounts for very few people. In principle uk.gov chases people up to give them a vote. You have a vote if living abroad (for less than 15 years); you don’t have a vote if you’re in prison; you don’t have a vote if you’re declared unable to exercise suitable judgement (which I have interpreted as ‘otherwise incarcerated’).

In the US some of the situation is reversed. You have to go register to vote, a demonstrably non-trivial exercise. We need to distinguish (in the US) between (i) being of voting age, (ii) being a US citizen and (iii) being a voter. These are three successively smaller numbers. Political scientists refer to voting age population, VAP, and voting eligible population, VEP—those actually able to exercise a vote.

What most turnout data shows is % vote of registered electors, ie votes/VEP, which is already a subset of the citizen population. Example, 2014: 240 million VAP, 220 million citizens of voting age who could have registered, a significantly smaller number registered to vote and 92 million of these voted. I found these numbers not equally recorded. What follows is here is from electproject.org, numbers in millions to the nearest tenth:

2014  VAP 245.7       VEP 227.2     Total ballots counted 83.2,   Highest office ballots 81.7

So the turnout was 36% or 33% depending which base you choose. BUT this VEP takes no regard of who is actually registered to vote. PolSci term not found.

The preferred turnout rates are those calculated with the voting-eligible population as the denominator. The voting-eligible population (VEP) represents an estimate of persons eligible to vote regardless of voter registration status in an election and is constructed by modifying the voting-age population (VAP), by components reported in the right-most columns (scroll right in the spreadsheet).

This is including the 7.6 million US citizens overseas, who have to do a bit more work to exercise a vote. Some states disenfranchise (deny the vote to) felons in various categories.

And at last I can find a number for voters from here, statisticbrain, which says

2012  VEP 219.0, registered 146.3, voted in 2012 Presidential election 126.1

that is, on just these figures, voting might be high, at 86% of the registered population, or seen to be genuinely low at 57% of those who could have registered. 57% is equal to the lowest turnout in Britain for a general election (the year Blair returned as PM).

TYhe reason to quote presidential elections is because this is the one with the highest turnout and I suspect the most readily available figures. US sources give a great deal of sub-data, breaking voting down by age, ethnicity, income and educational state. I found evidence from LSE that the US sees a correlation between years of learning and likelihood to vote (more years, more likely to vote) but that this is not so in the UK, for which they point to obstructions to voting in the US. Significantly, a project to increase educational years did not affect voting behaviour. Barriers to voting can be explored here, and I quote selectively:

The timeframe individuals are allotted to register to vote is not the only obstacle preventing Americans from voting, it is one of many. Co-Director of LDF’s Political Participation Group, Kristen Clarke, ... provided examples of several barriers to voting, among them the implementation of mandatory identification and “purge” programs by states, the failure of designated registration entities to carry out their responsibilities, and the use of voter suppression tactics.

The implementation of mandatory identification regulations has a disparate impact on underprivileged and minority voters who lack access to the forms of identification required. States who have adopted or are attempting to adopt mandatory voter identification requirements allege to be combating voter fraud despite a severe lack of evidence that voter fraud exists or poses a threat. Instead of protecting the integrity of political participation, strict identification requirements harm it by disenfranchising eligible voters. 

In many jurisdictions, DMVs and other social service agencies are failing to carry out their responsibility to make voter registration opportunities available as required by The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).  As a result, tens of thousands of otherwise eligible individuals miss a critical opportunity to register to vote.

Further compounding the problem is the fact that many individuals with criminal convictions are frequently unaware of their eligibility to register to vote, as laws vary greatly by state. The confusion over the impact of felon disenfranchisement laws frustrates efforts to create an environment of robust political participation for all Americans.

This site goes on to describe behaviour at the point of voting which strikes me as grossly improper and arguably undemocratic (in that it prevents democracy from occurring). This is not acceptable behaviour from a country which purports to have opinions on the democracy of other states.

I tried to explore the situation of US recent elections and found some conflicts.

For example, Pew Research has a webpage that shows 1 in 6 of votes were somehow not recorded. Determining who actually went to the polls and who did not is a challenge because, while the presence of a record of voting almost certainly means that a person voted, the absence of a record doesn’t necessarily mean they did not. Unh? It depends where you collect data from, and when sources are not common we should expect there to be mismatch. This site goes on to correlate being relatively poor with over-reporting their voting. It is easy for ‘the system’ to lose touch with someone who has moved (it is a lot of work to maintain a database and it is hard to persuade the state to fund that unless and until mechanisms are put in place to force the records to occur [helped in Britain by a high proportion of owned, lived-in pr

operty]. Quoting Pew again,

...

those who have lived at least five years at their current residence are significantly more likely to have their self-reported vote match the voter record than those who have a shorter residential tenure (12% vs. 26%). Renters (27%) are twice as likely as homeowners (13%) to say they voted but to not have a record of voting.

Pew explores a variety of aspects of voting habits or their lack, including

, which looks at the 60% of VAP that won’t vote. See inset graphic. They’re younger, they’re racially and ethnically diverse, they’re less affluent and less educated. About half of this population does, by various measures, look to be disenfranchised, one way or another.  I recommend looking at

.

This is a dire situation for the US. What it says to me is that the government (the elected political element) is NOT fully representative of its populace, but of the active half or so that voted. One could argue that it is ever thus, but I see something like a quarter of the US VEP effectively excluded. Not good.

I find this situation alarming. In Britain we are alarmed by what we call voter apathy, having a vote and failing to exercise it. In a first-past-the-post [FPTP] system I have a single mark to make to cast my vote; my vote is within walking distance of home (at worst I’ve had a 5 minute drive); the polling station is quiet, business-like and very serious. I don’t have to take a polling card because if voting at my home location I am already on the list—at least once I have carried no way to prove that I am who I say I am but was known to the officials Britain has some odd ideas about paper proof of who you are, generally distinguishing between the paper and the person [is it me you want to see, or my passport? Which is allowed across a border?]. On the downside, if I live in a constituency with a traditional and large majority, as I currently do, then my vote has virtually no effect whichever way I cast it. To be politically effective I need to go meet my MP and engage even more actively. As I have written before recently, this last election was the first time I have had a vote and not already met the incumbent. My current MP represents me whether or not I voted for her; it is up to me to engage. Or not. I do not see that I have much choice to not-vote. Indeed, I see it as all the more important to vote in council elections, European elections and referenda, where the result is far less certain and the turnout lower, so my vote is relatively more significant.  Turnout in Britain generally varies between 55% and 75%.

This page from Pew Research shows the gap between registered voters and VAP across nations. Look at the space between the two blobs. Some of these countries have compulsory voting (i.e. it is some sort of offence to not-vote). Circumstances for failing to be registered for voting vary widely, but typical situations arise from moving residence or being away from one’s usual residence (and failing to have done those things that preserve one’s ability to vote). An issue with postal voting in Britain is that this can easily result in a biased vote [Imagine: family sitting round a table with voting forms and immediate ‘peer’ pressure to conform with the loudest opinion. Authority figure demands all vote his way. Me, sexist? To me, this is failure of democracy. Do your own research on this, please.]

Of course, what is at issue for me is voter participation. To my way of thinking, we should be encouraging all of every population to be active politically or to make a conscious decision to be inactive, not a move made out of apathy. I understand that for many of us we largely don’t care what our representatives think, in a leave-me-alone sort of way. That works while those who are active generally agree with your own views and while those who do the representation engage in ways that makes them appreciate what is right and wrong in their local area. View the variety of systems for registering a vote at wikipedia, please.   Read there how the UK system is in need of up updating; the US has a different range of problems; compare both of these with the Australian and Canadian systems.

DJS 20160405

http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout-data

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p20-577.pdf

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/06/u-s-voter-turnout-trails-most-developed-countries/

http://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/barriers-voting

http://cee.lse.ac.uk/ceedps/ceedp108.pdf     connecting education and turnout

http://www.statisticbrain.com/voting-statistics/   read why people (say they) don’t vote

•behaviour that shows a lack of good sense or judgment: the quality of being stupid or unintelligent: that state that follows from having a load on information on a topic and then failing to use it.

•a lack of intelligence, understanding, reason, wit or sense. Stupidity may be innate, assumed or reactive – a defence against grief[ or trauma. (wikipedia).

Stupidity - failing to use the information you hold.

stupidity (noun)

1. •behaviour that shows a lack of good sense or judgment: the quality of being stupid or unintelligent: that state that follows from having a load on information on a topic and then failing to use it.
   
2. •a lack of intelligence, understanding, reason, wit or sense. Stupidity may be innate, assumed or reactive – a defence against grief[ or trauma. (wikipedia).
   
3. •pejorative term equivalent to fool, idiot, dumb, moron.
   
4. •mental slowness in speech or action (Theophrastus, via wikipedia)
   
5. •Etymology: from the Latin stupere, to be numb or astonished.
   

stupid (adjective) stupider, stupidest

1. •lacking intelligence or common sense: I was stupid enough to think she was perfect.
   
2. •dazed and unable to think clearly: apprehension was numbing her brain and making her stupid.
   
3. •informally used to express exasperation or boredom:
   

stupid |(noun, informal); stupidly (adverb)

1. •a stupid person (often used as a term of address):
   
2. •a person or an idea exhibiting stupidity
   

Examples of usage:

I can't believe my own stupidity

one of the stupidities of our age

a comedy of infantile stupidity

you're not a coward, stupid! 

she told him to stop messing with his stupid painting.

I show above some definition of the words based on stupid. I have no issue with the states of stupidity caused by external factors such as grief, somewhat less tolerance for self-inflicted states such as drunkenness but none whatsoever for those caused by a failure to do thinking. I apply those opinions to myself as thoroughly as I do to others. When trying to research enough to make (more) sense and while looking for an image to use at the top, I came across a number of posters, many of which I have taken the words from and posted below.  My favourite, in the context of this page. is:

The definition of stupidity: seeing the truth, knowing the truth and choosing to still believe the lies.

This is quite different from failing to disagree with the opinion of others; it is significantly an internal failure. That is similar (but different from the several sayings (quotes, homilies, whatever) referring to stupidity and love. These, to my mind, demonstrate that what looks like a sensible and current set of (life) choices will be disregarded in the face of finding what seems to be a life-partner. I have no difficulty in accepting that as a situation; an external event can cause reconsideration of all previous decisions.

No, what I have a problem with is much more the situation described in blue. Not quite the same, but closer to that than the other sayings. I suppose one could say is that what ’gets’ to me is the decision that is based on no admitted basis (and) that flies in the face of that which is admitted. All my data says I/we should do <this> but despite all of the evidence we’re going to do <that opposite thing>. That is a failure: where this is a failure to admit a value being ascribed to emotion, I decry that failure (the admission, not the emotion). Where this is obstinacy, I call this stupidity. Mostly I simply

I found, in searching for images to use, a lengthy set of cards from sources such as  som(ee)cards, Rotten cards, and yourEcards with sayings3 such as:

• If you don’t stop being stupid, the “bitch slap” in my hand might activate

• I’ll start being nicer ( or sarcastic, or an asshole) when you stop being stupid

• Stop being stupid - it’s my turn

• It’s great to fall in love. You stop being stupid for no reason and start being stupid for a reason.

• Love is being stupid together    (probably a popular one, best expressed, in my opinion by..)

• Follow your heart but take your brain along too because there’s a thin line between being in love and being stupid.

• Stop of being stupid    (the recursive version)

• There is no reward for being stupid! So please stop competing!!

• Being stupid is easy; the hard part is to hide it.

• Somebody can become a celebrity for being stupid. That’s what it’s come down to.

• Why is it acceptable for you to be an idiot bit not for me to point it out?

• I rejoice that despite being stupid enough for ten, your vote counts only once. Therefore you cannot vote to your level of stupidity. Huzzah!

jump to the label of stupidity. Indeed, I’m afraid I rate this sort of stupidity as near-criminal, by which I mean that whatever goes wrong in co

nsequence

receives no sympathy from me. I’m famous for a lack of sympathy mostly because so many occasions fall into the category where I deem it inappropriate. A very few (designated friends) will recognise the truth of that.

I extend this concept.

What offends is failure to use available information, that is to take uninformed decisions. There are layers of stupidity here, from a mild case that you might describe as failure to do due diligence (you could have found out but didn’t) up[ to what really gets my goat1, where you had the information in your possession and failed to apply it. Shades of grey possibly earning sympathy apply if you didn’t recognise that <this> information applied to <that> case for decision.

I do not claim to be immune from stupidity. Those who worked with me in China will be well aware that I’d call myself stupid quite often. I  enjoy occasions when someone attempts to change my opinion—when they do that constructively, by providing extra information. I would say that these were generally occasions when I had misread cultural symbols (applied European values to a Chinese). Forgivable to the rookie, not for my greater experience—to put that another way, I would label myself stupid for having failed to apply an earlier lesson. You could say I failed to learn from experience; once is error, twice is failure to apply the lesson learned, thrice is clearly stupidity.

This description of stupidity is not entirely but largely separated from my observation of the Far Eastern observation ‘say one thing, do a second, think a third’. This state I mostly ascribe to double-think as in 19842, holding two contradictory beliefs and ascribing to both. How else could one say one thing and believe something else entirely?. I have been exploring this extensively and one partial answer is that one tells lies internally. Answers to “how do I feel about this?” are modified so heavily by the situation (i.e. who one might be talking to besides yourself) that what is said to minimise offence or to agree as much as possible with the ‘other’ causes the internal admission to be fault-ridden. Or, in my simplistic binary thinking, to be untrue and therefore a lie. A lie because is is contrary to the true belief; far too often not just a little bit different but wholly opposite.  A near-truth may be a political omission, but a counter-truth is a lie indeed and in deed. I find that far too often what purports to be an opinion or a statement of belief is far, far less, more akin to an echo response. In marital terms, as “Yes, dear” can so often mean “Whatever you say” and by implication may reflect (inflect?) such possibilities as  “I don’t want to argue/ talk/ participate”, so that may reflect a refusal to engage. Fine, this is not stupidity (well, not as defined above). However, I find myself of the opinion that when one says things that one does not mean then the consequences must be borne when you are found out to have deceived. But this problem is exaggerated when the first level of deceit has been internal.

Personally I do not understand how this can occur. I understand that one can change one’s mind and, for me, that occurs when new information comes to light, when information is lit differently or when some apparently external event changes many otherwise unconnected opinions. Hence the labelled stupidities of falling in love.

I am a firm believer in the separation of church and state (“Where did that come from?” you think) in that I encourage you to hold whatever beliefs you enjoy as long as you do not inflict those upon me by trying to change my opinion. By all means explain the basis of your belief; by all means give me extra information, but let me form my own opinions and beliefs. Of course that opinion and belief is something I put out in an attempt to persuade others to agree, so I must at some level be betraying my own rule. What then do I find offensive about people proselytising? Perhaps it is the uninvited nature of the persuasion. If I welcome a conversation with someone who holds a different opinion, that, usually, is an enjoyable experience provided we can agree to disagree. It is those occasions where that, the acceptance of the existence of other opinions, is denied that we have the creation of unrest. Which one could characterise as a breach of tolerance. Most of the religious wars are formed over a lack of tolerance.4 (Historians please consider and send me the result)

The obvious current example would be the current state of opinions on in/out—Remain or  Leave—of UK in Europe). The dearth of believable fact (such as any number that both sides can agree upon) has created a situation where holding to any ‘fact’ is tantamount to having decided which camp you fall in. Which in turn has come to mean that what you believe must be in some pre-emptive way be determined by the ‘facts’ or numbers you choose to trust. Which, in turn again, means that no-one will ever hear an unbiased piece of information. This is mad, maddening and a recipe for disaster: or, at least, disastrous for voting based on things that should not be the bases5 for forming opinions. All the terms one learns in Critical Thinking about false arguments apply here.

DJS 20160401

I think the top picture shows someone using a laptop. In a manner that I suspect they think of as ‘secure’. My son tells me this image is likely to be of someone doing some audio input (e.g. as part of an online course) for later upload—and far cheaper than hiring a recording studio. That makes far more sense than anything else that comes to mind, enough to explain the evident purposed knitting.

1 to “get one’s goat”  from phrases.org.uk we have this not terribly helpful explanation, of which the substance is that one’s goat is also one’s temper when raised. Or roused.

The dictionary definition of goat is 'a ruminant quadruped of the genus Capra'. What's that got to do with being angry? Given the meaning of 'get your goat', we might expect to find goat as a slang term meaning anger or annoyance. That meaning is recorded in the US book Life in Sing Sing, 1904, which goat is given as a slang term for anger.

The phrase originated in the US and the first entry in print that I can find comes from a fanciful story about a burst water pipe that was printed in the US newspaper The Stevens Point Daily Journal, May 1909:

"Wouldn't that get your goat? We'd been transferring the same water all night from the tub to the bowl and back again."

The expression took a few years to cross the Atlantic. The first non-US citation isn't found until 1924 in the English author John Galsworthy's story White Monkey, and even there it is clearly seen as a recent innovation:

"That had got the chairman's goat! - Got his goat? What expressions they used nowadays!"

The following year, The Times printed a piece in memory of the then recently deceased Friedrich Baedeker. This included a side-swipe at American tourists and uses the phrase as a typical piece of Americana:

"... goggled Americans whispering aloud, 'Wa-al Sadie, these durned three star things get my goat'!"

A commonly repeated story which purports to explain the phrase's origin is that goats were placed with racehorses to keep them calm. When ne'er-do-wells who wanted the horse to race badly removed it, that is, they 'got someone's goat', the horse became unsettled and ran badly. That's just the sort of tale that gets the folk etymology juices running. Let's just say that there's no evidence to support that story.

2 1984, George Orwell. doublethink - Reality Control. The power to hold two completely contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accept both of them. An excellent example of doublethink in modern society is the war on drugs. Again, consider this and send result to me.

3 There are several of the discovered posts with which I disagree. I will call these offered saying posts here:

        Smart listens to the head, stupid listens to the heart     

This post is saying that all emotion (the label I use for what comes from the ‘heart’) is necessarily stupid. I disagree: emotion is an expression of unrecognised factors such as predicted happiness with a result, It may be spoiled by false wishes for the future. Recognising that the heart has an input can modify decisions helpfully. Post rejected. This is for me too close to accepting that people can be stupid in love but then inverting that whole by deciding that the only way one can be that sort of stupid is through emotion. Rejected.

        Stupid isn’t afraid to fail

Well smart, the implied opposite of stupid, can quite easily choose to accept a failure as a learning process. Entrepreneurs will tell you that a success rate of 2% is not bad but 10% is wonderful. If we learn from our mistakes then the corollary smart is afraid to fail says to me that smart is afraid to learn. Not smart at all. Post rejected.

        Smart may have the brains but stupid has the balls

Much the same as the previous post and rejected. However, if having the balls means doing something because testosterone is the driving force, in which case this is a chemically-based decision, post accepted. Stupid is as stupid does. Just possibly, ‘having the balls’ to do something is more about the subsequent bragging rights that the sense of the proposed action. In which case situation understood and, possibly very stupid.

4 One of my favourite religious stories is the description of a guided tour of heaven, usually given as part of a far longer story, in which there is a walled-off region in heaven with lots of boisterous enjoyment audible. “What’s in there?” asks the new incumbent. “Oh, that’s the Catholics—they think they’re the only ones here”.

5 the plural of basis is bases. Really. Isn’t English confusing? or is this bit Greek?

We claim, in both the US and the UK that free speech is an essential, even defining, attribute of our society. Yet I don’t think we have it and I’m not at all sure we really want it.

Free speech is the right to express opinion without restraint. As such it is likely to cause off­ence; that offence is the subsequent controller of the freedom to speak your mind. Freedom of expression (wkipedia tells me) is the related issue of expressing ideas in other media than speech, which itself apparently includes other direct forms of communication such as writing.

Free speech was established in the UK following the Magna Carta, though the document is quite silent upon the topic. Magna Carta as a brand of sorts (see) is a different story1. The post-war Declaration of Human Rights [1948] gives us a more clear statement, followed by the [1953] European equivalent2. Article 10 of the (UK) Human Rights Act 1998 explains the term freedom of expression:

1  Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2  The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

Notice that the second clause allows for limited to be imposed, so freedom of expression (speech included there) was always curbed. We wouldn’t, I think, want to support slander or libel and in Britain we have a long history of law that defines what those are (or have become).

Americans have a simpler situation, stemming from the 1st Amendment [1791] to the consti­tution [1787]:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

There are several (many) acts clarifying this, but wikipedia helpfully includes this, from Thurgood Marshall in 1972:

Above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content. To permit the continued building of our politics and culture, and to assure self-fulfilment for each individual, our people are guaranteed the right to express any thought, free from government censorship. The essence of this forbidden censorship is content control. Any restriction on expressive activity because of its content would completely undercut the 'profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.'

That article goes on to list types of speech [core political, commercial, expressive conduct] and types of speech restriction [on content; on time, place & manner; incidental burdens; prior restraint] and specific exclusions [quite a list3].

We have a long list of curbs upon free speech in the UK and a similar list curbing behaviour. Can you still lose your job for being gay? for wearing a jihab? any ‘wrong’ clothing? Can you garner public censure for being any sort of ‘extremist’? for causing some other body to express distaste / unease / resentment / dislike at your remarks? is the Press the guardian of free speech or is it a self-proclaimed judge of what we are allowed to say?

Wikipedia has a page covering just this topic, listing restrictions by country. Looking specifically at Britain, so often celebrated as a source of free speech, we can see how very untrue such a belief is. At heart in Britain there is an assumption freedom of expression not enshrined or limited by laws—there is no Bill of Rights; this is now ruled by European law, but it remains true that British law takes precedence (except when it doesn’t, apparently) and domestic law is presumed to supply effective remedy [Three Pillars of Liberty, Klug, Starmer & Weir, 1996]. Indeed,

the rights of ordinary people in the UK are for the most part ‘negative’—that is, rights to be protected from interference by others rather than positive rights, say, to publish a controversial article or to join a protest march.

This idea of negative rights is quite a valuable one, for it means that the list of what is restricted should be relatively easy to discover. Moreover, establishing some principles for what it is that one could expect to be restricted should be fairly straightforward.

Speaking for myself I understand the social convention to be that we don’t usually discuss religion or politics in public; that we strive not to give offence, but at the same time make clear that some things are expressed and personal opinions (and opinions are, of course, open to being changed); we have a convention of striving to agree (to be agreeable) and confrontation is very un-British, which is why confrontational behaviour is so shocking in Britain; rudeness itself is frowned upon—and the cost of that is, usually, honesty.

I have copied the entire wiki entry Freedom_of_speech_by_country#United_Kingdom below4 and used that for this patch in blue;

United Kingdom citizens have a negative right to freedom of expression under common law. In 1998, the United Kingdom incorporated the European Convention into its domestic law under the Human Rights Act. However, there is a broad sweep of exceptions including

1. • threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour intending or likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress or cause a breach of the peace (which has been used to prohibit racist speech targeted at individuals),
   
2. •sending any article which is indecent or grossly offensive with an intent to cause distress or anxiety (which has been used to prohibit speech of a racist or anti-religious nature),
   
3. • incitement, incitement to racial hatred, incitement to religious hatred, incitement to • terrorism including encouragement of terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications, glorifying terrorism, collection or possession of a document or record containing information likely to be of use to a terrorist,
   
4. • treason including advocating for the abolition of the monarchy (which cannot be successfully prosecuted) or compassing or imagining the death of the monarch,
   
5. •obscenity, indecency including corruption of public morals and outraging public decency,
   
6. • defamation, prior restraint, restrictions on court reporting including names of victims and evidence and prejudicing or interfering with court proceedings, prohibition of post-trial interviews with jurors, scandalising the court by criticising or murmuring judges, time, manner, and place restrictions, harassment, privileged communications, trade secrets, classified material, copyright, patents, military conduct, and limitations on commercial speech such as advertising. [much as the equivalent US list].
   

UK laws on defamation are among the strictest in the western world, imposing a high burden of proof on the defendant. However, the Education Act (1986) guarantees freedom of speech (within tertiary schools) as long as it is within the law. UK defamation law may have recently experienced a considerable liberalising effect as a result of a ruling in 2006. This revived the so-called Reynolds Defence, in which journalism undertaken in the public interest shall enjoy a complete defence against a libel suit. Conditions for the defence include the right of reply for potential claimants, and that the balance of the piece was fair in view of what the writer knew at the time.

So do we have free speech? The principle to apply in Britain is that you strive not to offend the people with whom you are talking. On the face of things that is to avoid disagreement, argument and an unseemly display of emotion. There are acceptable social situations where opinion is allowed and even encouraged, such as public debate, where one might take a stance irrespective of belief so as to make the strongest possible argument. Much of what we call comedy in Britain takes a situation and exaggerates it to point out sillinesses’ indeed, comedy is a great way to affect public opinion, to point out ways in which our behaviour, while acceptable, is based on flawed thinking and so it is an effective vehicle for change, perhaps even more so than politics. [Why? Because politics is ‘serious’, threatening and so obviously biased by the standpoint of the speaker: comedy is played for laughs and political comedy is ‘against’ everyone, indiscriminately. We tend to disbelieve a politician but the space in which a comedian works is entirely based upon assumption that the bulk of the subject is common knowledge.] We have different  social rules when in private, which is why so much damage is done with hidden recordings (a sort of theft, I think) that are then subject to public scrutiny when never meant as such. I feel eavesdroppers usually get what they deserve and thus I detest it when such people quote and publish. These are not leaks, these are breaches of privacy. My opinion, which of course you are welcome to try to change.

if you want to test whether you have free speech, try gently pushing the boundaries by talking about it. I suggest that testing it by saying radical things will cause you to find out by losing friends; talking about what sort of phrase might offend, this providing a context in which the boundaries are being tested co-operatively, seems to me slightly safer, unless overheard.

DJS 20160101

I’m trying to use black for general content, brown for quotes, blue for modified quotes and red for opinion. Which causes me to wonder what opinion is and what it is that turns black into red. Is the red is the bit that might cause offence?

Sites visited (I really mean recorded, don’t I?):

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4649909.ece Matthew Parris on form. He knows about this topic, having worked for various bodies that worry about the freedom of speech.

http://findlaw.co.uk/law/government/constitutional_law/fundamental_rights/500150.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

http://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/magna-carta-in-the-modern-age

http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2015/10/faith-and-free-speech-britain

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8LqIAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA37&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false

1 I was aware that King John signed the Magna Carta under duress; all film I’ve seen suggests that he was not a nice guy and that the barons were right. I read here that the Pope annulled the document (Apparently he could do that). Yet Britain, famously with no codified constitution, uses ‘Magna Carta’, the label, as if it signifies the creation of freedom of speech. Edward 1 confirmed the 1225 version of the charter in about 1297, though virtually none of that remains as law.

2    the long title is European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms See more at: http://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/magna-carta-in-the-modern-age#sthash.3gY8UAWj.dpuf

3   Here is that list, shortened to little more than titles

Inciting imminent lawless action Such speech was originally banned under the weaker clear and present danger test but this test has since been replaced by the imminent lawless action test The canonical example is falsely yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. This is an example of immediate harm.

Fighting words;       True threats;       Child pornography;

Obscenity is speech to which all the following apply: appeals to the prurient interest, depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Torts  [Defamation, Invasion of privacy, Intentional infliction of emotional distress]

Commercial speech If this test is satisfied, the law will be upheld:

The speech regulated is fraudulent, misleading, or proposes an illegal transaction; or

All of the following elements are present:

The government's interest in regulating the speech is substantial;

The restriction directly advances the government interest; and

The restriction is no more extensive than necessary to advance the government interest.

This is why the government can ban advertisements for cigarettes and false information on corporate prospectuses (which try to sell stock in a company).

Political spending;    Government speech;    Public employee speech;    Student speech;   

National security;    Military secrets Inventions ;    Nuclear information;     Weapons

...and to this we can add (I say) a growing list of curbs across the internet, where people have apparently assumed that no restrictions apply. Obviously there is a conflict between the forces arguing for restriction more than that above, which is mostly those recognising that the young have largely open access (and failing in parenting to curb that) and those who continue to feel that here is a space where the lowest international standard must be applied, hopefully none whatsoever. That would recognise the huge market on the ‘net for porn in its many forms and in turn decrees there is no limit upon that. Except as imposed by market forces, perhaps.

4 This is the wikipedia entry: shorn of links and citations: if you want them, go read it through the link given:

United Kingdom citizens have a negative right to freedom of expression under common law.In 1998, the United Kingdom incorporated the European Convention, and the guarantee of freedom of expression it contains in Article 10, into its domestic law under the Human Rights Act. However, there is a broad sweep of exceptions including threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour intending or likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress or cause a breach of the peace (which has been used to prohibit racist speech targeted at individuals), sending any article which is indecent or grossly offensive with an intent to cause distress or anxiety (which has been used to prohibit speech of a racist or anti-religious nature),incitement, incitement to racial hatred, incitement to religious hatred, incitement to terrorism including encouragement of terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications, glorifying terrorism, collection or possession of a document or record containing information likely to be of use to a terrorist, treason including advocating for the abolition of the monarchy (which cannot be successfully prosecuted) or compassing or imagining the death of the monarch, sedition (no longer illegal, sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010)), obscenity, indecency including corruption of public morals and outraging public decency, defamation, prior restraint, restrictions on court reporting including names of victims and evidence and prejudicing or interfering with court proceedings, prohibition of post-trial interviews with jurors, scandalising the court by criticising or murmuring judges, time, manner, and place restrictions, harassment, privileged communications, trade secrets, classified material, copyright, patents, military conduct, and limitations on commercial speech such as advertising.

UK laws on defamation are among the strictest in the western world, imposing a high burden of proof on the defendant. However, the Education (No. 2) Act 1986 guarantees freedom of speech (within institutions of further education and institutions of higher education) as long as it is within the law (see section 43 of the Education (No. 2) Act 1986). UK defamation law may have recently experienced a considerable liberalising effect as a result of the ruling in Jameel v Wall Street Journal in October 2006. A ruling of the House of Lords—the then highest court of appeal—revived the so-called Reynolds Defence, in which journalism undertaken in the public interest shall enjoy a complete defence against a libel suit. Conditions for the defence include the right of reply for potential claimants, and that the balance of the piece was fair in view of what the writer knew at the time. The ruling removed the awkward—and hitherto binding—conditions of being able to describe the publisher as being under a duty to publish the material and the public as having a definite interest in receiving it. The original House of Lords judgment in Reynolds was unclear and held 3–2; whereas Jameel was unanimous and resounding. Lord Hoffman's words, in particular, for how the judge at first instance had applied Reynolds so narrowly, were very harsh. Hoffman LJ made seven references to Eady J, none of them favourable. He twice described his thinking as unrealistic and compared his language to "the jargon of the old Soviet Union."

The Video Recordings Act 2010 requires most video recordings and some video games offered for sale in the United Kingdom to display a classification supplied by the BBFC. There are no set regulations as to what cannot be depicted in order to gain a classification as each scene is considered in the context of the wider intentions of the work; however images that could aid, encourage, or are a result of the committing of a crime, along with sustained and graphic images of torture or sexual abuse are the most likely to be refused. The objectionable material may be cut by the distributor in order to receive a classification, but with some works it may be deemed that no amount of cuts would be able to make the work suitable for classification, effectively banning that title from sale in the country. Cinemas by convention use BBFC classifications, but recordings refused a classification by the BBFC may still be shown in cinemas providing the local authority, from which a cinema must have a licence to operate, will permit them.