

Taking England back to the Dark Ages - chestnut-tree
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27731725

======
DoubleMalt
I don't like borders. Maybe it is because I come from a small country (of
almost exactly the blessed size mentioned in the article) and perceived
borders mostly as an impediment to exploring the world.

In my opinion the one great thing the European Union brought to us is to tear
down these pesky border stations where people insist on checking your passport
and exact medieval tolls on goods that are transported a few miles just
because the few miles cross a mostly imagined line.

However borders can be removed by implosion, too. If you assign more and more
rights to smaller and smaller units borders will get less and less important.

The Seven Kingdoms of Anglia will probably join the Schengen treaty as they
don't have a common big external border to protect.

That way we get all benefits: Decisions are made closer at the people and the
number of borders that impede our movements will be reduced.

~~~
maaarghk
^ that's basically why I'm voting Yes to Scottish independence, in fact. I'm
worried by the trend in Westminster that "foreigner blaming" has become
normalised and there is already talk of holding an in-out referendum on EU
membership.

I want to live in a smaller country, with decisions made closer to home; but
with open, welcoming borders. Actually there is evidence that we __need
__immigration in Scotland. We have an ageing (for want of a better word)
"indigenous" population - but we can mitigate the problems this poses if we
can build a great job market and promote our world-class universities; we can
attract talented young people from across the world to our universities and
give them jobs here. Build a truly multi-national country. That's the
intention of the SNP and the Greens, anyway, and its one I support very much,
and I will vote any way I can to get us closer to that dream.

~~~
arethuza
Very similar to my own reasons for voting "Yes" \- my other being getting rid
of Trident.

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restless
"Because size does matter. It seems to me that progressive, reasonable,
pacific and prosperous states - like the Nordic countries, or Switzerland or
New Zealand - tend to be less than 10 million people." That is what I often
thought regarding the EU. A EU of regions instead of nations. United under a
banner for economy, foreign affairs, standards and military and let the
regions handle social insurance, police, taxes. Im actually a big fan of the
EU but right now it seems to go in some wrong directions and politicans of
national governments always using Bruessel as an excuse, while the EU itself
is not speaking with one voice in conflicts like in Ukraine.

~~~
tormeh
Yeah, the EU as a concept is phenomenal. Its execution is more questionable
and its PR is flat out disastrous, with national politicians blaming it for
all kinds of ills.

Also, banana curvature. Really, how was the EU not able to squash that myth? I
get that the EU fundamentally answers to national governments and not voters
directly, but the tiniest bit of PR effort towards voters might help in the
long run, don't you think?

~~~
pjc50
\- It wasn't entirely false, just misleading (there is a standard defining
what a banana is for the purposes of trade categorisation, tax and subsidy)

\- the EU does not believe it's dependent on the goodwill of voters; the
elected part of the EU itself is the weakest

\- the UK media is _very_ anti-EU and the EU has no real UK media operation

\- it's "tone accurate": the EU does produce an awful lot of fiddly little
rules. The proposal to ban unsealed olive oil from restaurant tables got quite
far recently before the public heard about it and it was laughed out of
feasibility.

~~~
tormeh
If the EU does not believe it's dependent on the goodwill of voters, then why
did it care about the unsealed olive oil ban being laughed at? The Brussels
bureaucracy is a mess, but it's not ridiculous. The proposal would never have
passed, regardless of public attention.

Okay, that's just my belief, but it would be fairly depressing if I'm wrong.

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derekp7
This is one of those stories where I wish the title conveyed more information.
At first I thought it was going to be about light pollution and how we can't
see most of the stars anymore.

~~~
avmich
Could be an article about the state of education in the country :) .

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NAFV_P
Regarding the Heptarchy, please look at [0] .. [3]. [0] && [2] refer to
members of the original Heptarchy, the other two are regions of our current
era. My hood, Gloucester, is mentioned in all four articles.

    
    
      Doctor Foster went to Gloucester
      In a puddle of rain
      He stepped in a puddle
      Right up to his middle
      And never went there again
    

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercia)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midlands](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midlands)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wessex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wessex)

[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_West_England](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_West_England)

------
vixin
Well, as long as we make border crossing more convenient for travellers, we
will I am sure, be happy to spend £55 millon per day (UK) for the privilege of
belonging to an anti-democratic superstate in the making which ignores
referenda from citizens who don't vote the right way in elections.

~~~
M2Ys4U
Ugh, can we (collectively) stop repeating that lie about how much we pay to
the EU please?

As for anti-democratic, just look at who is trying to prevent the nominated
candidate from the largest party in the Parliament from being chosen as the
President: The UK government. It's the executives of the _member states_ that
provide the biggest anti-democratic element of the EU by trying to cling on to
their power (under the guide of "sovereignty").

------
jacques_chester
Sample size affects variability. Small countries appear at both the top and
the bottom of any given league table because more populous nations begin to
approach the mean.

It's the same reason that the best and worst schools are small schools; the
best and worst health outcomes are in rural areas and so on.

~~~
tormeh
Nah. Small northern European countries outperform the mean consistently. Even
the baltics are doing better than Poland. Not everything is random variation.
Big countries (Pakistan: 186m, Congo: 70-something) can be pretty fucked up
too. Your assumption is that the underlying natural value is independent of
country size, mine is that it isn't.

~~~
jacques_chester
> _Not everything is random variation._

But it must be acknowledged and accounted for. Smaller samples a regularly
more variable; conclusions drawn about them are weaker.

------
martiuk
Very Crusader Kings 2.

I would love to be a citizen of the Kingdom of Mercia[1], the devolution of
power to bring national issues closer to the people that live there, are great
reasons.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercia)

