Month: August 2018

We Need To Talk About: GERS (2017-18 Edition)

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 10 Comments

“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.” – Mark Twain

There’s no day that’s guaranteed to set the heather alight amongst Scottish political social media sects like the release day of the annual Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland report – also known as GERS.

GERS

I want to make one thing clear up front. No serious commentator now suggests that GERS can be used as is as a projection of the finances of an independent Scotland. My 2016 paper “Beyond GERS” shows some of the changes that would need to be made for this to be the case. But as a set of accounts for Scotland, the region of the UK, I’m content to use GERS as it is. Maybe improvements can and should still be made, but this is true for all statistical publications and the team behind the report do the best they can within their remit.

So what does this year’s publication tell us about Scotland, the region? Continue reading →

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like GERSmas

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 6 Comments

A photo of the Scottish countryside. The sky is split between the moon and the night on the left and the sunset on the right.

It’s beginning to look a lot like GERSmas
It’s on the news, you know.
The size of the deficit, is all that matters to it
No deeper in shall the headlines go.

It’s beginning to look a lot like GERSmas
What will the numbers have in store?
To the rest of the UK, we compare ourselves today
It becomes a chore.

If a tax here is tweaked and everyone is freaked
imagine if they tried something more.
To reform all the land, make sure fracking stays banned
tax the rich till they’re sore.
But till we can then GERS we have and here it comes again.

It’s beginning to look a lot like GERSmas
Here, again, we go.
The fight about all the stats, the guesstimates and the facts
Where we stand I doubt we’ll ever know.

It’s beginning to look a lot like GERSmas
For calm, I shall now say.
Why don’t we have a truce, and not let Twitter run a loose
This GERSmas day….

Just this GERS-mas day.

Merry GERSmas everybody.

The Common Green logo comprising the words "The Common Green" above the Common Weal "balance" icon

How To Break A Democracy

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 2 Comments

“Elections remind us not only of the rights but the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy.” – Robert Kennedy

There’s a tweet being shared around Scottish political Twitter advertising an event on October 23rd. Australian company Clearpoll going to be holding an opinion poll on Scottish independence but are doing so in an intriguing way. They are offering a blockchain-based mobile phone app that, they claim, could be the first step in a revolution in how we approach voting. Instead of having to go to a ballot booth, one could simply press a button on your smartphone, secure in the knowledge that your vote will be transfered and counted without the vulnerabilities to hacking and spoofing that occur in other forms of electronic voting.

An advert by Clearpoll for a "blockchain powered mobile vote on Scottish independence" on October 23rd.

First of all. I’m not going to tell people to not take part in this poll. If that’s your thing, go for it. If you want to help test an upcoming piece of technology, by all means.

But I do want to voice my concern about this kind of technology making its way into our democracies. They are vulnerable enough without adding something that, if done badly, could break our voting system entirely.

Continue reading →