Brexit Britain Has Plenty of Adolf von Kleists But No Hernando Cruz

In his short novel, Galápagos, Kurt Vonnegut looked back a million years from 1986 on the extinction of the human race as we know it, tracing the plight of the passengers and crew on an environmental tour to the famous islands, billed "The Nature Cruise of the Century". Half way through, Vonnegut describes the critical moment when the highly experienced Hernando Cruz, having supervised the delivery and outfitting of the doomed Bahía de Darwin, suddenly abandons the cruise to save his family, leaving the final voyage in the hands of the ignorant, incompetent buffoon, Adolf von Kleist:

"If 'the Nature Cruise of the Century' had come off as planned, the division of duties between the Captain and his first mate would have been typical of the management of so many organizations a million years ago, with the nominal leader specializing in sociable balderdash, and with the supposed second-in-command burdened with the responsibility of understanding how things really worked, and what was really going on.

The best-run nations commonly had such symbiotic pairings at the top. And when I think about the suicidal mistakes nations used to make in olden times, I see that those polities were trying to get along with just an Adolf von Kleist at the top, without an Hernando Curz. Too late, the surviving inhabitants of such a nation would crawl from the ruins of their own creation and realize that, throughout all their self-imposed agony, there had been absolutely nobody at the top who had understood how things really worked, what it as all about, what was really going on."

Sound familiar?

Where Will You Be On 30 March?

You might be hoping for an end to Brexidiocy, but unless you've been hiding under a rock, you'll be expecting that the UK will leave the EU without agreeing how to do so in an orderly fashion. 

That means EU trade terms will cease to apply in 8 months' time, as of 30 March.

The European Commission is more advanced in its preparations for Brexit, as the remaining 27 member states ('the EU27') will expect officials to enforce the UK's exclusion from the EU trade bloc and the European Economic Area (the EU, plus Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland). 

The EU says there are 7 possible steps everyone might need to take, regardless of where they live. The EU has also published its Brexit preparations, including certain "preparedness notices" as well as legislation and other activities, like risk management.

My own preparations involve adding a legal practising certificate for Ireland and signing up with an Irish law firm to keep advising my clients on their EU-facing operations and the EU aspects of cross-border data protection issues. That's step 3 on the EU's top tips for Brexit.

Given that the UK government is planning on the basis of shortages in food and medicine, I'm also inclined to recommend that the family takes advantage of my wife's dual citizenship to relocate for a month or two until things settle down, if indeed they ever really do.

But I think we'll end up toughing it out in London, where I hope the evidence of the UK's continuing decline will be gradual, rather like when the Romans left Britain 1600 years ago. Over the next 40 to 60 years money will cease to circulate widely and the bulk of the population will abandon stone and concrete buildings for wooden huts and tents before they largely succumb to famine and disease...

Inevitably, however, another batch of Europeans will eventually arrive, attracted to the underpopulated wasteland on their frontier. Perhaps they'll bring wine, pasta, hair pins and exotic perfumes, a method for conveying water over long distances and sponges for toiletry use...

Then the whole, sorry cycle will repeat itself, post nauseam.

If You Need Consent To Process My Personal Data, The Answer Is No

... there are plenty of reasons for businesses and public sector bodies to process the data they hold about you, without needing your consent. These are where the processing is necessary for:

• performing a contract with you, or to take steps at your request before agreeing a contract; 
• complying with their own legal obligation(s); 
• protecting yours or another person's vital interests (to save your life, basically);
• performing a task in the public interest or in the exercise of their official authority; 
• their 'legitimate interests' (or someone else's), except where those interests are overridden by your legitimate interests or your fundamental rights which require protection of personal data. 

The General Data Protection Regulation lists other non-consent grounds apply where your personal data is more sensitive: relating to criminal convictions and offences or related security measures; or where it reveals racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership; or it is genetic or biometric data for the purpose of identifying only you; or data concerning health or your sex life or sexual orientation. National parliaments can add other grounds in local laws.

These non-consent grounds for processing are all pretty reasonable - and fairly broad. So, if you don't have the right to process my personal data on one of those grounds, why would I want you doing so?

This would seem to herald a new era in which the Big Data behavioural profiling/targeting/advertising model begins to decline, in favour of personal Apps (or open data spiders) that act as your agent and go looking for items in retailers' systems as you need it, without giving away your personal data unless or until it is necessary to do so...

Brexit, Syria and The Political Opportunity Donut

There are many ways to draw the political spectrum, but most of the time we talk about "Left" and "Right" as an endless series of tiny but increasing differences stretching in both directions - a political continuum. 

And most of the time that works - especially for "Yes"/"No" issues - since voters' views will be similarly grouped. There's not much pressure on the tiny differences or cracks among the political views on each 'side'.

Then something very complex and uncertain comes along - like Brexit or the latest chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government on 'rebels' as well as its own citizens that highlights all the problems in the Middle East in one hit. 

Suddenly those on the "Far Left", like Jeremy Corbyn, find themselves sitting cheek by jowl with those on the "Far Right", like Jacob Rees-Mogg or Nick Griffin. 

The longer these situations last, the greater the pressure on the usually tiny cracks between politicians and voters on each side. 

And as the pressure increases, those tiny cracks widen to the point that politicians begin to worry about which way they might need to leap for their political survival...

Hardliners toughen their stance, looking for ever more extreme views to hold. This rams home to the more moderate politicians just how far from the centre they've drifted, and causes them to look for ways to move back that way.  So, for example, you have growing numbers of Brexit 'rebels' in both the Labour and Tory parties, with the Liberal Democrats offering to scuttle Brexit altogether...

Here's what a former master of centrist politics, Tony Blair, said today:

"If you leave that vast, uncultivated centre ground,

someone is going to come along and cultivate it."

In other words, don't ignore the other side of the donut.

Two Holy Grails For Cross-border Payments: Access and Interoperability

A new international banking report admits to continuing problems in making payments from one country to another, but points to improvements. The report is based on a detailed analysis of the market, a survey of about 100 service providers and workshops with stakeholders from the supply side and the demand side (end users). Efforts to widen access to online payment accounts and prepare the way for the interoperability of payment systems/networks, closed-loop systems and crypto-currencies would seem the most fertile ground for achieving quicker, cheaper and more transparent cross-border retail payments.

Findings include:

• Cross-border retail payments are generally slower, less transparent and more expensive than payments within the same country. 

• Even large corporate users making high-value and/or frequent payments experience a lack of transparency and uncertainty over settlement timing and exchange rates. 

• Smaller businesses and individuals who typically make smaller, less frequent payments are more concerned about access to services and high costs.

• Users' priorities depend on their particular circumstances and requirements, so choice of different options and features is critical.

• Most users have choice as to who provides their payment services but individuals without access to transaction accounts lack access to many initiatives that have improved convenience and speed for other users. So, progress towards providing universal access to (online) transaction accounts is likely to provide more options to those who currently rely on cash.

• Back-end service providers themselves have problems with messaging, clearing and settlement of cross-border retail payments. There is little choice among back-end clearing and settlement methods, with the only feasible option often being correspondent banking rather than, say, ensuring the linking or interoperability of payment systems/networks, closed-loop systems and peer-to-peer distributed ledger technologies (e.g. crypto-currencies). So, progress towards harmonised messaging standards and simultaneous trading and settlement of different currencies will help solve problems here and could result in quicker, cheaper and more transparent cross-border retail payments.