Senedd elections 2026

I could vote again! There were elections all around the UK. Local elections in England, and senate (and equivalent) elections in Scotland and Wales. And I can vote in the Welsh one. 

The electoral system has changed since the last time I did. My constituency is a lot bigger now; Anglesey, Conwy, Bangor. And we had six seats to divide. It was widely reported to be a two horse race between Plaid Cymru and Reform. Labour was expected to be obliterated.

In my constituency, polls suggested that of these 6 seats, 3 would go to Plaid, 2 to Reform, and it would be a battle between Tory and Lib Dem for the 6th.

Normally, I vote first thing in the morning (if I get to vote, that is). Then whatever ever happens in the rest of the day, that is done! But with all the stress of the dissertation module, this year I ended up voting in the evening. I got home, I started dinner, put it in the oven, and while it was looking after itself, I popped to the polling station. 

I had been struggling to make up my mind what to vote. My natural colour is Green, and they were indeed standing in my constituency. So that would make sense. But wouldn't Plaid be in a better position to keep Reform out? That's very important too. Or should it be Lib Dem, in an attempt to keep the Tories out of the last seat? I had to make up my mind on the very day.

With polling card

Polling station in old school

In England, the counting started a lot earlier than in Scotland and Wales, so that's where I had my attention first. It was scary! Reform was making such big gains. Hopefully, they will screw up a lot of local politics, and people will not be so keen on voting for them in the next general election. I'm still nervous about that! But I'm afraid that national elections might not be that heavily influenced by what's going on at the constituency level. 

Then, through the day, Welsh and Scottish results were also coming in. Plaid was, as expected, in the lead. And my constituency was the first northern one that declared. It had been true about the three seats for Plaid and two for Reform. The last one had gone to the Conservatives. The Lib Dems even got fewer votes than Labour. Only about a third of what Labour got! Predictions don’t always come true.

When the results were still coming in

 

Later on Friday the full results were in. There were 43 seats for Plaid, when they need 49 for a majority. What will they do now? My hunch is, a minority government rather than a coalition, but we'll see.

One thing that might change a bit is that with Plaid the biggest party, and the party leader being from Anglesey, there may be a bit more attention for the north in Cardiff from now on. As a northern resident, or a Gog, I think that's a good thing!

Voting again

When the Dutch government fell, it was clear new elections would be held. And I received my paperwork. The actual election isn’t until the end of the month, but as a voter resident overseas I need to schedule in some time for the postal services to do their thing. So I got it sorted! 

I printed out the ballot paper, and put it on the table in the bedroom. Storm Amy blew it off the table onto the floor. And there the cat got it! But the damage is not substantial. I think my vote still counts.

In recent years, elections have not yielded anything I liked. But there is always hope! The second party on the list is the fairly new, but also quite veteran, party which is a combination of Dutch Labour, and a green party founded in the early 90s. I really hope they end up the biggest, and they can go and form a government. It's not excessively likely! But one can dream…

Nervousness about Reform

I had a meeting with two colleagues about making changes to our climate modules. This was all within the framework of improving our curriculum on the physical side of the school. And as it so happened, one of them was Swedish and the other one Singaporese. And we strayed a bit from the purpose of the meeting. And we discussed the speech Nigel Farage had held at the Reform conference.

He wanted to change the whole system of indefinite leave to remain (ILR). I think all three of us have that. At least the Swede and I do. The lady from Singapore is a Commonwealth citizen; that might be different. But we all figured our future in the country were uncertain were Reform to do well in the next elections.

I know that his speech, while it did cover people who already have the ILR, excluded EU citizens from this measure. I suppose even Farage realises that if you take away the rights of EU citizens in the UK, what will inevitably happen is that UK citizens in the EU will lose their rights as well. That might not be electorally very productive. But we don't trust the situation.

Another argument against booting foreigners out is that if you were to do that, you basically decapitate the NHS. There are so many foreign citizens in there! And academia would also be severely affected. Maybe that is something Reform voters don't care about, but I'm sure they do care if the NHS collapses in a heap. So a mass deportation of usefully employed foreigners is not likely. But still.

The Swede is quite eligible to apply for UK citizenship, and he doesn't even have to give up his Swedish citizenship for that. But he's not done it; not only because it's very expensive, but also because he said that the UK claims the right to withdraw citizenship from people who are eligible for a citizenship of a different country. And he obviously would be. So he says there is no point in getting it, if someone can take it away as well anyway.

And that is the other thing. If your citizenship can be taken away, surely your ILR can be taken away as well. As much as pissing off all UK citizens living abroad might not be a clever thing to do for a politician, it's not as if UK politicians never do things that are not very clever! None of us feel at ease. Let's just hope that in the next elections, Reform actually does pretty badly. I always hope that, but this is making that hope even stronger!

No plastic treaty

There are a few countries whose economy relies a bit too much on plastic production, and therefore the whole world will have to live with more plastic pollution than necessary. This is the sort of thing that makes me despair sometimes. It is so obviously a universally good thing to tackle plastic pollution. Plastic is a pain. It has infested the whole world including our bodies, it disfigures our landscapes, it poisons people who feel the need to burn it, and it piles up in enormous quantities that are difficult to tackle with any of the ways we have of dealing with it. We need a plastics treaty. We don't have a plastic treaty. We don't even have a road towards further negotiations towards a plastics treaty. 

We would also be a lot closer to reducing greenhouse emissions if it wasn't for a few nations who benefit financially from just keeping burning with abandon. We will be closer to a global minimum of all sorts of tax if it wasn't for a few tax havens who don't like that, and some companies who don't either. There is so much power in money, so if money is made from something destructive, it's so hard to get rid of that destructive force.

I think we'll be going to hell in a handcart all the way until we are there. I'll see how close we get in my lifetime! I am very likely to see some really freaky climate events before I pop my clogs. And a lot, an awful lot of plastic pollution…

New parties, old parties

 It looks like the UK is getting a new political party. And I can see why people came up with that. In the olden days, you would have Labour and the Tories and there would be a clear difference between them. Since Labour has been elected into power for the first time in many years, we have had to conclude that the difference is now small.

I expected Labour to make changes. Get rid of the two child benefit cap, get rid of the laws that make almost any protest illegal, that sort of things. But what they did was leave these things in place, and instead push through reductions in benefits for disabled people. What is that about? Since when is Labour the party of wringing out the poor and kowtowing to the rich? 

It is not, of course, as if Labour and the Tories are the only parties in town. There still are the Lib Dems and the Greens. But I could imagine that someone like Zarah Sultana thinks the Lib Dems are not left-wing enough, and maybe she thinks the Greens think too much about the planet and not enough about humans (even though they, of course, depend entirely on the planet). I don't know! Speculating here.

I do think that Labour has sort of lost it credibility now. But I don't think that credibility is necessarily lost forever. Parties are not static. And I don't know what the effect would be of a new party. In a way it could split the left vote, but what leftie is going to vote Labour these days? Still; few new parties get out of the starting blocks properly, and even fewer manage to last for years.  But I can only wish this new party the best.

I thought it was striking that this happened in the week in which I found out that Dutch Labour as I knew it doesn't exist anymore. In the last election, they formed a so-called list combination with a Green party (‘GreenLeft’). And when early in the week I was having dinner with Jaco and Marjan I asked them if they knew if they would do the same thing for the upcoming elections. And they told me they had actually decided to merge! So in a way, neither of these parties still exists. I was a bit ashamed that I had missed that, but it turned out that it had happened really recently.

Logo of the combined parties

 

I really wish this new party all the best as well! And I think their future looks a lot more rosy than that of the new British party. After all, they are just a combination of two dyed-in-the-wool parties for whom the autumn elections are most certainly not going to be their first rodeo.

Time will tell how this all pans out. What will the situation be by the end of the year? How will the newly merged party have done in the elections? Will Starmer still be Prime Minister? Will the new British party be gaining momentum, or will it already have fizzled out? Will the Labour back benches have managed to bring the front benches back into line? It is anybody's guess!

A Climate of Truth

I should now know how to thrive in the Anthropocene. Last year, there was a public lecture with that title, by Mike Berners-Lee. I was a bit unsatisfied at the end of it, but his lecture had partially been a plug for a book that was about to come out. He said that if people wanted to know more, they could just read the book. You can put a lot more information in one of those than you can in a one hour lecture. So I ordered the book.

I've read it now. Does that mean I know how to thrive in the Anthropocene? Well, not really! He does provide an easy checklist at the end of the book, after he's explained in detail what he thinks is wrong with the world in what could be done about about it, and you can just start there, I suppose.

This checklist is six pages long. I can't repeat all of this! But he starts with politics. And I've been trying to vote in people who are kind to the planet since I was 18. So far it hasn't really worked. And I think most people I know vote along these lines as well. I don't think I live in a diverse world!

Next is media. He says you have to be very careful about which media you trust and fund, but my choices tend to get his OK. 

Then he gets to work. Here he turns a bit Rutger Bregman: he figures you should use your talents and energy for the good of the world. So don't get sucked into finance or corporate law or that sort of destructive jobs. I suppose that working at the university and telling young people about climate counts as the sort of job that at least tries to make a difference.

Next is activism, volunteering and giving. I try to do all that as well! I support a number of charities that I think actively try to make the world a better place, and I am active in the local sustainability movement. It hasn't quite had Greta Thunberg levels of effect, but well, most people are not Greta Thunberg.

The second last one is sustainable personal lifestyle. I actually sometimes get some shit for that! But I do my best. I take the train to get to the Netherlands, and I bike to work. I am a bit infamous for my cold house. 

He ends with: look after yourself. He says "enjoy and appreciate life where you can, because there is no point saving a role that's no fun to live in."

I suppose it was to be expected that me reading this book would be him preaching to the converted. Is there anything new in there? I suppose the most novel thing he does is bring out social pressure and calling people out. That is so un-British! He wants us all to give people who don't do what this book advises you to do a lot of stick for that. I'm not quite sure if that would help. Will they not just dig their heels in? And quite a lot of people live in social bubbles. I suppose I have "lefty" written on my forehead, so I am not likely to have friends who read the daily mirror, watch GB news and vote Tory or worse. So there won't be many people I could call out. But I will keep his words in mind next time I do hear a rightwing voice.

Even though I am not British, I am a bit hesitant about the calling out thing. I suppose you need to know when and how! I vividly remember calling out the misogyny in the underground community. That didn't work at all. I suspect it made things worse. You don't want that to happen if what is at stake is the planet. But I suppose someone needs to do it. Someone needs to start. Societal change does happen! The example I always use was that when I moved to Amsterdam, it was decidedly uncool to have light on your bike. When I left Amsterdam, it had become decidedly uncool to NOT have light on your bike. Did people call each other out? How did this change happen? I actually don't remember! But this is the sort of thing that we need to see when it comes to the planet. Flying for frivolous reasons is still socially accepted. Buying loads of stuff you don't need is still socially accepted. Having a regular bath is still socially accepted. Voting against the planet’s interest is still accepted. So many things are still socially accepted. And it takes us to hell in  a handcart.

Anyway. The next thing I should do is lend this book to someone on whom it might have a positive effect. I will keep an eye out for opportunities! It is a good word, so let it spread. Maybe it is not too late...

WWIII

I remember the end of history. What a good time that was! Things were generally fine, and they would only get better. Maybe not very spectacular, but very comfortable.

I don't know if you've noticed, but history didn't actually stop in the 90s. It inconsiderately trundled on! We then had Bush and Yeltsin and Rabin and it wasn't perfect, but nobody thought any of them would start a third world war, and after all, everything would only get better. Fast forward to now, and we have Trump and Putin and Netanyahu. Israel is engaged in a hot war with both the Palestinians and Iran, and the USA sees absolutely nothing wrong with that. Putin with his army is marching into Europe. There's war in Yemen and Sudan and Ethiopia and Myanmar. The US have been threatening Canada and Greenland. 

It is not difficult to imagine that these conflicts might spread even further or ignite in new places, and it doesn't have to get an awful lot worse before it meets the criteria for a world war. Is it unthinkable that the US decides that when Israel is already bombing Iran anyway, they might as well join in? Is it unthinkable that at some point the Chinese decide to pick a side in one of the conflicts and throw the Red Army at it? Or maybe they just figure that armed conflict is totally in fashion and invade Taiwan. With whatever consequences that will have. 

It is weird realising that a world war might not be far. And it feels a bit powerless. What are you going to do when a whole host of nations with nuclear arms are battling it out? I don't know! I'm just continuing with my life. Everyone around me is doing the same. But these are worrying times. I wonder how I will look back on them in five or 10 years’ time. Would the world still be recognisable by then? Only time will tell!

Government fallen over

When the current Dutch government came into being, I don't think very many people thought they would sit out their term. I surely didn't. It didn't look particularly stable. The biggest party was Geert Wlders’ PVV, and that is one of those typical opposition parties that likes shouting from the sidelines, but doesn't appear particularly ready for government. Another participating party, the NSC, was so new it still had the price tag on. Would they be ready for this? And then there was the farmers’ party, the BBB, who only had existed for a few years, and had never been in power. So three out of four coalition partners were rather untested. The best bet seemed to be Rutte’s VVD, and that says something. 

When I was in the Netherlands I did chat with some people about politics. Wilders had been shouting things again. He wanted something related to immigration, and if he wouldn’t get it he would leave the coalition in July. But he seems to have shouted things like that before, without following it through. 

Then I got back. I arrived in the early evening. I snuggled the cat, went for a run (I was dying for exercise after 12 hours in a train), unpacked my bag, and went to bed. 

The next morning I got ready to go to work, and I noticed there was news. The government had toppled over! Wilders had pulled the plug early. What? I was only early June. What was that? Suddenly our cabinet was demissionary. (No, I don’t know if there is such a word, but there should be.) I saw that the leader of the VVD had said she figured that by pulling out right now, Wilders had handed government back to the left on a silver plate. I do hope she’s right! I’ll be flexing my voting muscles again. They’ll be needed quite soon! 

Another BU IWD event - this time with Ukrainians

The week before, there had been an International Women's Day event at the university about women in sports. But there was another one, about resilience in wartime. I read the program. It was a bit of a hotchpotch! There would be a delegation from a Ukrainian university we seem to have some sort of connection with, and one of the guys in natural sciences would talk of having spent a week in Ukraine taking soil samples. And then things would turn Welsh, and there would be several speakers talking about a lady who had instigated a big petition for peace in Wales in the 1920s, and whose portrait would be revealed. And there would be Ukrainian refreshments.

I decided to go. I sat down in a room that wasn't very busy. After a while I saw a lady from the school of Computer Science and Engineering come in. I beckoned her and she sat with me. We know each other from lots of online meetings. I think this was the first time we spoke in person!

Then it started. Again, Morag opened the proceedings. And the first speaker was the VC of Khmelnytskyi University. He spoke in Ukrainian! And his colleague was translating. If he didn't speak English then I suppose this whole event must have been very dull for him. He just gave some facts about the university. The next speaker was the translating lady, who spoke about all sorts of things: what the state of the gender gap in higher education in Ukraine was like, what sort of EDI policies the government had issued, what the extent was of the damage to particular universities in the country, how various female VCs had dealt with this, and more. It was a whole lot! And it was very interesting. 

The VC of the Ukrainian university doing his thing

The next speaker was local: Christian Dunn, the bloke of the soil samples. He knows how to tell a story. And I was glad to hear that his preliminary conclusion was that the amount of pollution all the bombardments had caused was not so much you couldn't do agriculture there anymore. But he stressed he needs to do more work before he has robust findings.

Then we made the switch to Charlotte Price White. She was a leading suffragist, a local counsellor, and one of the members of the Women's Institute from the very beginning. And she was one of the people who organised the big peace petition by the women of Wales. They gathered almost 400,000 signatures, in 1923! The population wasn't even that much smaller back then, but it was a lot of work to get the signatures. The women gathering them generally would just walk from door to door.

The pro-VC spoke of his initiative to try to get more diversity in the university portraits, and there were several recent additions on display. And then Charlotte Price White was revealed. She looked good!

The new painting being revealed by the painter herself, watched by the pro-VC

There was also a short lecture in Welsh from a lady from the National archive in Aberystwyth about this peace petition. And then the event was over. There was 25 minutes to spare.

The peace petition talk

The next things should have been Welsh and Ukrainian refreshments, but these had been booked for the official end of the event, so we weren't there yet. I decided to leave. It had been a bit of a confusing event with 2.5 hours of talking without a break, and with wildly differing topics, although war was in all of them. So a bit weird, but well worth it!

Women in sport

This year, the University’s International Women’s Day events were split in two. Maybe because of the actual day falling in the weekend. The first one was about women in sport, focussing on leadership. It would be a panel discussion, chaired by former Welsh football international Laura McAllister. The panellists were Kate Hannon (Cymru Women’s Sport Board), Hannah Powell (weightlifting), Tricia Sterling (gymnastics, netball, etc), and Sophie Harrison (sports science). I went.

When I walked in I spotted Ross and Geoff from Sports Science, who also run the Thursday Night Hills. I joined them. They were mainly there for their colleague Sophie. I was glad to see attendance was better than it had been the year before.

After pro-VC Morag had opened the event, Laura McAllister started it off. She gave some statistics about how many sports government bodies have no women at all in their boards. And she said it was detrimental if all decisions about a sport are made by men only. Very true! But she also emphasised that the grass roots of sport are also important. She wanted more women doing sport in a mediocre way. Because that’s important too! 

Then there were some central questions for the panel, such as what their greatest frustrations were. And these indeed ranged from grass roots to international level. From a lady with no love for netball, but with a daughter who wanted to play it, who then took on a coaching role as nobody else seemed to want to do it. Netball is seen as a girls’ sport, so not very glamorous. And a 4’8” (1.42) tall weightlifter who tended to have to represent her country in kit of which the size was a man’s S, which she obviously drowned in. And the sports scientist said that as an undergraduate, you'll have to memorise the average stats of male athletes. Not of females, of course!

Obviously, menstruation also came up. It was only when I started weighing myself in the lockdown period that I realised I have a 3 kg weight cycle associated with my menstrual cycle. If I didn't know that until I was in my 40s, I'm sure many men also don't know about it. And for me it doesn't matter much, but if you are competing in a sport with weight categories, it matters an awful lot!

For the last half hour they gave the floor to the audience. I asked about how women's sport is often equated to weight loss. Did they think that got in the way of women having a healthy relationship with sport, and did they see this change in the future? 

When the last question was answered there was an opportunity for networking in the foyer, but I wanted to go home. I still had a fair bike ride to do. And I would be home relatively late the day after, and the day after that, as well. So I left the networking to others.

The week after, there will be another event, this time about resilient women in a time of war, in association with a Ukrainian university. Stay tuned!

 

To hell in a handcart

It’s not as if I was optimistic about a second Trump presidency. The man is a nightmare! But I never thought he would plumb the depths he is pursuing. Sure, he withdrew from the Paris Agreement, and the WHO. I expected the ‘drill, baby, drill’. But threatening to take Greenland by force? I didn’t see that coming. NATO invading NATO is the end of NATO. And shamelessly claiming Gaza for the USA because it’s a nice real estate opportunity? And negotiating an end to the Ukraine war without involving Ukraine, and blaming Ukraine for the war in the first place? I knew it would be bad news for Ukraine, but I hadn’t anticipated it would be this catastrophic in my glummest moods.

I normally spend a lot of time worrying about climate change. I have drastically cut that back now! I’m way too busy worrying about the world descending into violent lawlessness. Some say a change is as good as a rest. In this case, I don’t agree…

Thriving in the Anthropocene

I spotted a public lecture that sounded interesting, so I registered. As the title of this post suggests, it was about thriving in the Anthropocene, and would be delivered by Mike Berners-Lee (yes, a relation; the brother of the more famous Tim). 

When I walked in I noticed it was very well attended. That surely isn't always the case! But this man filled almost all the seats. And I even spotted Tom and Siobhan, and joined them. 

He is clearly a very engaging speaker! And he started out with explaining what the problem was. And that made sense, but I know that bit quite well. I wanted to get to the ‘thriving’ bit. 

At the end of the ‘what is the problem’ section he asked the audience to raise their hands, if they thought he was either more or less correct in his evaluation of the severity of the situation; whether he was grossly overestimating it, or grossly underestimating it. The vast majority thought he had got it about right, but there were at least 10 people who thought the situation was worse than how he presented it. And there was only one person raising his hand to indicate he thought the man was exaggerating. That was a brave standpoint!

Then he got to the bit where he explains how he thinks we can improve the situation. He said that there is toxic interplay between media, business and politics, and we should not put up with that. He gave the example of BBC presenters who have been found groping people or things of that nature, whose career is then over. And he said that even the people of whom it is clear that they knew about this and stayed silent see their career end. He said that that should happen as well in politics. He said that if politicians are caught lying, they should never be forgiven for that, unless they somehow redeemed themselves. I don't think there will be many left! But I also do know that a mentality change is possible. There was a time when no one wore a seatbelt. Now practically everybody does.

It seemed a bit simple; hold your politicians to account. You only get an election every five years. And what about business and the media? He did tell us to vote with our wallets. Don't support media that encourage us to stay on this collision course with fate. (Go to Bluesky!) And he used the example of the one bloke who raised his hand to say he had been exaggerating. It is difficult to do that if everybody else doesn't agree with you, but it can be done. So we can be the people who raise our hands to say that society needs to fundamentally change. And we can be the change. And other people can see it. And then maybe be inspired. And if we have critical mass, people might start to feel embarrassed if they are not on the woke bandwagon with us.

He only had an hour, and it flew by. I wish he had had more time! I suppose I might have to read his book. He's got a new one out. In there he will have enough space to go into a bit more detail.

There was time for a few questions, which generally focused on politics. And then the lecture was closed, and we all streamed out of the lecture room. 

Some discussion afterwards indicated that Tom and Siobhan weren't impressed. Tom summed up his argument as "the world would be fine if everybody stopped lying". And I see his point, but I also think it is a bit fatalistic to dismiss it. We are clutching at straws here! And what this man offers might not be more than a straw, but it's all we have. I say kudos to him. Keep speeching. And I will do my flawed best to make a small difference. Keep going to the Netherlands by train or boat, even though it is a lot more expensive and time-consuming than flying. (but still flying to Finland for my sister's birthday.) And supporting Bluesky (but still being on Facebook because I can't let go of my racing habit). Doing my frequent baking vegan, but still eating cheese. Et cetera!

Moving to Bluesky

You must have been hiding under a rock to not have noticed that the situation regarding social media has deteriorated in recent years. Musk bought Twitter and ran in into the ground. Facebook was iffy years ago already, but the getting rid of fact checkers moved things to a higher level of iffiness. I had had a nagging feeling I shouldn’t be on these platforms for years. But it’s one of those things that never makes it to the top of the to do list. 

Recently i decided I should just go and make myself a Bluesky account. So I did! However, that’s only the beginning. Social media works for reasons of connections. Now I needed to find people there! And other entities! And that wasn’t working too well. Most people and entities are not (yet) on there. 

My first contact was the local community chaplain Sara. I spoke with her at a community event. And the second was Dean. 

I quickly found out that the entities I follow on Facebook in order to find out about interesting events, like races and archaeological events, just aren’t on Bluesky. Bummer! So I should extend my Bluesky presence; it needs the people and the activity to make it a viable alternative to the other social media. But I would struggle to leave the others. Quite many races don’t seem to have a website; only a Facebook page, and these would be the charming non-commercial ones. The ThursdayNight Hill sessions also only have a Facebook presence. So I might be in an awkward box split for a while…

Again, depressing election news from the US

I had been feeling scared about the American elections for months. I was hoping it would turn out ok! But I feared it wouldn’t.

I remembered the 2016 elections, when I had more hope. I woke up, as usual, with Radio 4, so as soon as I awoke I heard the news. And my heart sank. 

This time I had less hope. So when I again woke up to the news, and heard it looked like Trump was winning, I was still sad but less shocked. 

What will this mean for America? And for Ukraine? And Gaza? And the rest of the world? We will have to see. I fear a lot of people will die directly because of Trump’s decisions. But he was fairly and squarely elected. 

You can tell I’m felling numb and fatalistic. But this too shall pass. We will need to hope for better things happening in four years’ time! 

Election results

I didn't want to count my chickens before they were hatched. All the polls suggested a big Labour win, but the polls aren't always right. I decided I would only get cheerful, or otherwise, when the results were in.

I woke up on the day after the elections at about 6 am. The cat was running through the bedroom, meowing. Maybe she was excited about the elections as well. I decided I might as well decide the day had started, and I switched on the radio. And the massive Labour win had indeed materialised! And no Tory seats at all in all of Wales! What a lovely way to wake up. 

From the BBC website 

I also checked the results for my own constituency. It was a new constituency; we had been Arfon, with a Plaid Cymru MP, but now we were Bangor Aberconwy, which includes places like Conwy and Llandudno, so was much more wealthy and English. When the constituency lines were redrawn by the Tories, they had probably figured that that would be enough to swing that entire constituency to Tory. But were they right? 

You couldn't expect the radio to give the results for every constituency, so I checked that online. We were Labour! I was a bit surprised; I had only seen placards for Plaid Cymru, and not really bothered with checking the predictions. Where I had seen my placards are not the most densely populated parts of the constituency. So it hadn't been representative. But I am happy with a Labour MP. Let's hope she does well!

My constituency indicated by the arrow

It was quite satisfying to follow the news that day. Lots of big names in the Conservative Party had lost their seats. The liberal democrats had bounced back. And the Greens had more MPs than ever before! And Reform had fortunately not done all too well.

It was a good way to wake up! And a good way to end the week. And I hope the next five years will be quite satisfying. Labour has been deeply disappointing during the campaign (although you could ask: what campaign?) but the proof of the pudding is, obviously, in the eating. So we'll see! At least I couldn't have hoped for better election results!

Watching The Hague developments

After the last general election in the Netherlands, I was curious to see what would happen. It wasn't easy to see how with the votes going the way they had gone, you could build a coalition. And it turned out that indeed, it wasn't easy. I suppose I follow it a bit from the side! I regularly check the NOS website, so I am more or less up-to-date, but I am sure it is a lot more immersive if you actually live in the country.

I wasn't particularly surprised when in the end, there was a sort of agreementthere was a sort of agreement. But then what? Whether it was part of the agreement or something independent of it I'm not sure, but one thing the parties that had come together (PVV, VVD, BBB and NSC; for British readers; compare them to the Reform Party, watered-down Tories, a party for angry farmers, and some brand-new party that still had to prove itself, respectively) had agreed on, was that their party leaders wouldn't be part of government. They would stay in parliament. But who would end up in government then? It would be called an extra-parliamentary cabinet, but that leaves it wide open what that will mean in practice.

I think this is an unprecedented situation. I have never heard of a situation where several parties agree on a coalition, and they just appoint people as ministers who might not have any party affiliation whatsoever. It's weird! And we'll see how it works. Probably not quite how I want it to; anyone appointed into this cabinet would be willing to execute the agreement that is already lying on the table. That is not an agreement I personally like. So it would attract candidate ministers I don't like either. But we'll see!

I was surprise to hear that the first person who was named as a potential Prime Minister was Ronald PlasterkRonald Plasterk. He is Labour! And they weren't in the coalition. I was happy to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he withdrew when some situation with a lucrative patent reared its ugly head. I had been talking to all sorts of people that it was completely unclear what would happen next. And then suddenly there was news again!

We had a new candidate Prime Minister: This time it was Dick SchoofDick Schoof, whom I had never heard of. He turned out to be a very big cheese in intelligence and justice. A lifelong civil servant, but as far as I could tell, indeed with no party affiliation. A blank slate, in that respect.

From the NOS website 

It's a few days later now, and nothing seems to have changed, so I think he still heading for the Prime Minister job. I hope he does a decent job! And then we'll see how long a coalition like that can last… I haven't heard many people who think it is going to manage a full term. I don't think it myself. But time will tell! Let's see how this unprecedented situation pans out. At least it's interesting!

Part-time working and promotions

When I had a meeting with the Athena Swan committee one day, we talked about things that had come out of the data I had been gathering so far. One thing was that very few people work part-time in our School, but that that doesn't mean people don't want to. I would like to work part-time but don't believe it can reasonably be done. My friend Suzie had tried it and basically quit, rather than muddle on. One colleague had just gone back to full-time because part-time didn't work. 

One of the problems is that as full-timers, we have a more than a full-time workload. That is annoying enough as it is, but if you try to work part-time, you end up working part of that more than hundred percent. And the risk is that you just end up working five days and getting paid for three. And nobody enjoys that.

Another issue was that I calculated that women apply for promotion at about half the rate of the men. That needed to be addressed as well! And the Head of School had said that these issues could do with a school-wide meeting, and we had decided to tack that along to the away day we would do anyway.

I had made a presentation about both, and hoped to inspire some discussion with that. And I had created Padlets so people could comment anonymously.

Preparing the presentations made me dive into the data. The part-time issue is very local; it’s just our School. And I didn’t search for literature. How the world in general deals with this issue might not help us. So on that topic, I just focussed on what we might be able to do. 

I had also asked a lady from our sister School of Environmental and Natural Sciences to come and contribute. In that School, it seems that many more people are successfully part-time. Honesty demands I add that that School is a lot bigger, so they would have more of practically everything. But she might be able to explain how people make it work there. Unfortunately, she ended up not coming. We had to think of stuff ourselves. 

When it comes to promotions, it was clear that few men know what the criteria are, and very very few women do. Furthermore, the majority of people don't think that all tasks within the school are equally valued. And women feel a lot less supported by management than men. All these things are probably relevant! 

I also had a dive in the literature on the promotion topic. There is a lot of work done on it! And it not only told me about gender differences in applying for, and getting, promotion, but also about how different countries deal with the academic promotion process. I read very interesting articles about the French and Italian systems. 

Both Italy and France have a centralised system, and its workings are public. So you can see who applies and who is successful. And you know things like their age, and how long they have been at the Institute they are at, and that sort of thing. So that is very useful for data gathering! So people have been throwing a lot of stats at the systems in these countries. 

There are also big differences; it seems that in France. When you get awarded a promotion, you then have to find an institute where a position of that rank is available, and it probably isn't your own. So becoming a professor, for instance, generally means having to move. But if you apply and you are not successful, you can just apply again the next year. And the next. 

It also seems that if you are a university academic, you have to put a lot of effort in, including preparing a lecture in a topic that is not your own, but if you work at a research Institute you basically just send in your CV. So these groups can also be compared. Does this difference come with a gender difference? 

The French system does shift the balance towards people whose career is the most important one in their family, and who find their career more important than things such as stability for any kids. 

In Italy it seems to be different; you don't have to move when you get a promotion, but if you have applied unsuccessfully, then cannot apply for the following two years. This means that applying for a promotion is not very disruptive, but you had better be sure when you do it, because if you fail, you are out for two years. This seems to shift the bias towards confident people and/or risk takers.

And the noteworthy findings? In France, success rate is pretty much equal between the sexes, but being deemed eligible to apply in the first place is not. The authors of the article suggested that in choosing who is eligible, people let prejudice run free, but as soon as they are in the official process, they know everyone's eyes are on them, and they make sure not to discriminate on the basis of gender. I don't remember the difference between Universities and research institute employees.

In the Italian system, it seemed that the gender difference was a lot smaller, but women were applying a lot less in areas where women had traditionally been less successful, and where the promotion criteria aren’t very clear. The latter seemed to be the case in areas like social sciences. In natural science, you just wave around your publications and your grant money, and it's all very clear. In social sciences that seems to be less the case.

So what do we have in ocean sciences? We have a situation where women are traditionally not very successful in achieving high ranks. I noticed from the HR data that when I was hired, we only had two women in a rank higher than lecturer. Two! And we all agreed the criteria aren’t very clear. And women may either be deeming themselves, or being deemed by management, to be less eligible. I sure am one of those; I remember being told in my PDR that it would be a long long time before I would be eligible for promotion, with no other reason given than that time had to pass. At the same time, a man who had only been lecturer for a short time did get promoted. I smelled a rat.

One thing we might end up doing is to make a repository of successful applications, that new applicants can take inspiration from. I had been very kindly offered the application of a colleague, but she was on a completely different contract, so that was of limited use. Maybe we can build up a bit more networking. Our female aspiring professors seemed to have teamed up together to support each other; one who had raked in a good grant basically just grabbed all the other people of whom she knew they were in the same position, and teamed up with them. I had no such network. And I didn't apply.

I think we can improve the situation! Our gender age gap is still huge, and our pipeline is still very leaky (although we haven't lost a female (or a male, for that matter) in several years now), but I think there are some tangible things we can do. If we make sure that everybody has a clear idea of what is expected of them, and have someone to talk to if they have questions, then maybe more people will actually apply. And I hope that especially the women will increase their efforts. We will see! These things will go straight into our Athena Swan application. Watch this space!

Me at the Away Day; someone took a pic and posted it on the Padlet

Politics and the university

Anything to keep foreigners out. Rich, white, Christian or atheist foreigners are fine, of course. I suppose they also should be cisgender, straight, and able-bodied. Come to think of it; if they are rich enough, they don't have to be white, Christian, or anything like that. If you are some Saudi oil billionaire you can just come in. People who actually contribute to society should stay out. They have the duty of being the scapegoat for everything that's wrong with Britain.

The Tories are desperately trying to hang on to power by being unpleasant to foreigners. Now they have decided on a whole range of measures to keep legal immigrants out. The most striking measures are that you can't have a foreign family member join you unless you earn at least £38.700 (it used to be £26,200), and that care workers (who have absolutely no chance in hell to earn that amount of money) can't bring dependants with them at all. 

I'm sure this policy will work. Fewer perfidious foreigners will come in. But wtf do they think they will achieve with this? Will foreigner-bullying give them an election victory? Very unlikely. And even if it does; how much damage will they do before that? How much misery will they cause to people who, in this international age, have started a relationship with someone of a different nationality and residency? How many children will be separated from a parent because the parent cannot afford to be with them?

Additionally, the radio was full of people who run care homes, who said that they would have to close when this measure would come into force. The government says they should recruit within the country, but they said they had tried, and it doesn't work. They also admitted that if they just offer a higher salary, they would, but there is no state support for doing that. And I am sure there are a few rarefied care homes for rich people who do offer that kind of salary, and I am sure they would be able to recruit, but that would mean social care would be only available for the rich. Which would be exactly what a Tory government would want to happen, but it is also deeply awful. And if the state isn't supporting you, and your clients are not filthily rich, you just can't offer the sort of salary that would be needed. So you'll have to close. And where will the residence then go?

Another issue is that, largely again for reasons of government decisions, British universities heavily depend on income generated by overseas Master students. UK students already pay a fortune for their education, but international students pay almost twice as much. Universities are practically bludgeoning each other's heads in in order to secure the highest number of international students. And now the government has just decided to actively discourage anyone to show up. Great.

That was another meeting by the University Senate; my second. A lot of things were discussed, of course; student recruitment, the financial situation, student satisfaction, the whole lot. But also, of course, the new policies, and what it would mean for us. Given that they had only been announced two days before, the university hasn't had much time to contemplate things. The person who spoke about the situation did sound confident. But we'll see how this pans out! This could be really big. But I also think that the government will realise that toppling over universities might not be a very good election strategy. I really hope they reconsider. And I also really hope it backfires, and our next government will be Labour. Who, hopefully, would have the wisdom to bin these policies as fast as you can say "xenophobia"…

A random job ad for a lecturer from the University job vacancy page. Someone who gets this job on the lowest space scale might be full-time permanent academic staff, but still not earn enough to have a spouse come over!

Dutch elections

I approached the Dutch elections with hope. We had had a government fronted by the rather rightwing VVD since forever! Would this be the moment that would change? We already knew we were going to get a new prime minister, as Rutte he said he would step down. But who would be next?

I seem to remember that when I went to bed on election day, the VVD was still expected to win, although the Green/Labour combination was going strong as well. When I woke up the next morning it was clear things had worked out differently. And I'm not one to regret an election defeat by the VVD, but they had been beaten by a party that was considerably more rightwing than they are. It was Wilders’ PVV with by far the most votes. That was depressing.

I must say, I'm not sure what happens next. Quite a lot of parties have historically been not very keen on joining a coalition with the PVV. But maybe that's easy when they're not a very big party. Maybe everything changes when they are the ones to create a coalition. 

The VVD has said they don't want to join the PVV, but that might just be their opening shot. We are probably looking at many months of coalition negotiations; anything could still happen! The person who has been tasked with creating a coalition (a former Labour politician, of all people) seems to have got the job because he had written a column about a possible coalition of PVV, VVD, NSC (a brand new party, founded by a bloke who left the Christian Democrats) and BBB (colloquially known as the angry farmers party). They would have a comfortable majority! And even without the angry farmers they would have a majority. But do they want to work together?

I think a coalition like that is more plausible than that coalition negotiations fail completely, and that all the left-leaning parties can then try to sort something out. You need about 10 parties, not all of them particularly likely, if you want to make a lefty government. I don't really see that happen.

Altogether it is quite possible will end up with a coalition that involves the party that has been in power since forever, and has seen its coalition collapse twice because its treatment of minorities was just too abominable; a party that is aggressively anti-immigration and anti-Muslim; a party that largely owes its existence to resistance to climate measures; and a party that didn't even exist until last August. Things are not looking well! One can but hope that the resulting mess will remain within reason…

The enormous ballot paper that was used for people voting in person; pic by Vera de Kok

Voted

Mark Rutte is the longest setting prime minister in Dutch history. I never voted for him! I never expect to vote for his party in my life. If I ever do, I hope someone drags me to hospital for a brain scan. But there are elections coming up, and he is not leading his party through them. This automatically means he will not be our next prime minister. And I sincerely hope whoever will be, will be from a different party. Preferably a lot further to the left!

There was something unusual about this election; the leftist greens and labour had joined forces. You don't get several parties under one list very often! I hope their strategy works out. We really need a strong left-wing party as a counterweight to all the right-wing malarkey going on.

There also was a whole slew of parties that didn't exist yet when I still lived in the country. I had to do a bit of homework before I could send off my vote. That tends to be the case! In the Netherlands, there is a lot more choice than there is in Britain.

As part of the diaspora I get to vote before most. I have sent my ballot paper off. I really hope we end up with a government that aligns a bit more with my values than the previous one. But I have done what I can; from now on I will just have to wait and see!

The ballot paper