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Dynamical cluster disruption and its implications for multiple population models in the E-MOSAICS simulations
M. Reina-Campos1, J. M. D. Kruijssen1, J. Pfeffer2, N. Bastian2 and R. A. Crain2
1Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Mönchhofstraße 12-14, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
2Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, 146 Brownlow Hill, Liverpool L3 5RF, UK
Several models have been advanced to explain the multiple stellar populations observed in globular clusters (GCs). Most models necessitate a large initial population of unenriched stars that provide the pollution for an enriched population, and which are subsequently lost from the cluster. This scenario generally requires clusters to lose >90 per cent of their birth mass. We use a suite of 25 cosmological zoom-in simulations of present-day Milky Way-mass galaxies from the E-MOSAICS project to study whether dynamical disruption by evaporation and tidal shocking provides the necessary mass loss. We find that GCs with present-day masses M>105 M⊙ were only 2–4 times more massive at birth, in conflict with the requirements of the proposed models. This factor correlates weakly with metallicity, gas pressure at birth, or galactocentric radius, but increases towards lower GC masses. To reconcile our results with observational data, either an unphysically steep cluster mass-size relation must be assumed, or the initial enriched fractions must be similar to their present values. We provide the required relation between the initial enriched fraction and cluster mass. Dynamical cluster mass loss cannot reproduce the high observed enriched fractions nor their trend with cluster mass.
galaxies: star clusters: general — globular clusters: general — stars: formation — galaxies: evolution — galaxies: formation
††pagerange: Dynamical cluster disruption and its implications for multiple population models in the E-MOSAICS simulations–References††pubyear: 2018
Over the past decades, both photometric and spectroscopic studies have indicated chemical anomalies in the stellar populations of globular clusters (GCs). The presence of multiple main sequences in the optical colour magnitude diagrams of GCs (e.g. Bedin et al., 2004; Piotto et al., 2007; Milone et al., 2012; Piotto et al., 2015) suggest differences in helium content, whereas spectroscopic studies (e.g. Carretta et al., 2009; Gratton et al., 2012; Carretta et al., 2015) have revealed anti-correlations in the chemical abundances of light-element species (Al, Na, N, C, Mg). Most models aiming to explain the prevalence of multiple populations in GCs assume the formation of a first generation of stars, which rapidly pollute the clusters residual gas, from which a second generation of stars is born. The mechanism through which the medium is enriched is a question of ongoing debate and depends on the model considered. Some authors suggest AGB stars are the polluters (e.g. D'Ercole et al. 2008 ), whereas others consider stellar winds from fast rotating massive stars (FRMS, e.g. Krause et al. 2013 ), supermassive stars (SMSs, Denissenkov & Hartwick 2014 ) or massive binaries ( de Mink et al. 2009 ) to be the source of the medium enrichment. See Bastian & Lardo (2018) for a review.
These models encounter many observational challenges, but we will focus on two of them here. Firstly, the proposed polluting stars make up only a small fraction of a standard stellar population due to the stellar initial mass function (IMF). However, the median observed fraction of enriched stars is ∼64 per cent ( Milone et al. 2017 ). Hence, in order to work, the models require that GCs were originally much more massive than today, and have lost >90–95 per cent of their initial masses. This is known as the mass budget problem and we will refer to the affected models as mass budget-limited (MBL). Secondly, we expect the fraction of the GC mass lost to be strongly environmentally dependent. However, observed fractions of enriched stars only increase with the GC mass and show no or little correlation with other quantities (Carretta et al., 2010; Conroy, 2012; Kruijssen, 2015; Bastian & Lardo, 2015; Milone et al., 2017) .
In this paper, we study whether dynamical cluster disruption mechanisms provide the mass loss necessary to reproduce the observed enriched fractions and its variation with GC properties, and compare it to observational data. We also use our results to reverse-engineer what the initial enriched fraction must have been in order to reproduce the observed enriched fractions at the present day.
Figure 1: Initial-to-present cluster mass ratio as a function of present cluster mass (top left), present galactocentric radius (top right), cluster metallicity (bottom left) and gas pressure at birth (bottom right). All clusters with Milky Way-like metallicities ([Fe/H]∈[−2.5,0.5]) that survive to the present time in our 25 haloes are included in the top left panel, but only the most massive clusters (M>105 M⊙) are shown in the rest of panels. We emphasize the old (τ>6 Gyr) clusters born in high-pressure environments (Pk−1B>106Kcm−3) in all the panels with opaque data points, whereas the rest are transparent and only appear in the top left panel. The thick and thin solid lines in the top left panel correspond to the median and the 1σ dispersion of the opaque data, whereas the solid lines in the rest of panels represent the opaque data. The grey area indicates the mass loss required by MBL multiple population models for solving the mass budget problem.
2 Dependence of cluster mass loss on the galactic environment
We probe the dependence of cluster mass loss on the galactic environment using the 25 cosmological zoom-in simulations from the E-MOSAICS project which focuses on the evolution of present-day Milky Way-mass galaxies (defined by the halo mass range 11.86<log(M200/M⊙)<12.38, Pfeffer et al. 2018 , Kruijssen et al. 2018 ). The E-MOSAICS project couples MOSAICS (MOdelling Star cluster population Assembly In Cosmological Simulations, Kruijssen et al. 2011 ), a sub-grid model for stellar cluster formation and evolution, to the EAGLE (Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments, e.g. Schaye et al. 2015 , Crain et al. 2015 ) galaxy formation model. EAGLE is a suite of hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation in the ΛCDM cosmogony, evolved using a modified version of the N-body TreePM smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) code GADGET-3 ( Springel 2005 ). The suite of galaxies from the E-MOSAICS project are the first simulations to describe self-consistently the formation and evolution of stellar clusters in a cosmological context. In this project, stellar clusters are formed as a sub-grid component of the stellar particles following an environmentally-dependent cluster formation efficiency ( Kruijssen 2012 ) and initial cluster mass function ( Reina-Campos & Kruijssen 2017 ). The stellar clusters then lose mass due to stellar evolution ( Wiersma et al. 2009 ), tidal shocking and evaporation ( Kruijssen et al. 2011 ). In addition, we apply destruction of the most massive GCs by dynamical friction in post-processing (see Pfeffer et al. 2018 and Kruijssen et al. 2018 for further details of the simulations). The philosophy behind E-MOSAICS is to describe the formation and evolution of GCs using the physical constraints obtained from observations of star formation, young massive clusters (YMCs), and GCs from low to high redshift.
Observations, theory, and simulations together show that the amount of cluster mass loss is expected to depend on several factors (see Kruijssen 2015 for a detailed discussion). Firstly, we expect a strong dependence on the cluster mass, i.e. massive clusters lose less mass than low mass clusters. Secondly, three other factors have significant, but weaker effects. We expect a dependence on the gas pressure at birth, because higher-pressure environments imply larger gas density contrasts (e.g. Vazquez-Semadeni, 1994; Padoan et al., 2017) , so stronger tidal interactions are expected that will generally lead to more efficient mass loss due to tidal shocks. We also expect a dependence on galactocentric radius, because the tidal field strengths and gas pressure both decrease outwards. Finally, we expect a dependence on metallicity, because it traces the host galaxy mass (albeit with large scatter) and more massive galaxies are generally characterised by stronger tidal fields and higher gas pressures. The emergence of these dependences is modelled self-consistently in E-MOSAICS.
Figure 2: Fraction of enriched stars (Eq. 1) as a function of present cluster mass (left), present galactocentric radius (middle) and cluster metallicity (right). Data points and lines have the same meaning as in Fig. 1. The blue dash-dotted line and blue shaded area in the left panel correspond to a fiducial observed relation and the 1σ dispersion around the fit obtained from Milone et al. (2017) , fen=0.189log(M/M⊙)−0.367, whereas the blue dash-dotted line and blue shaded area in the middle and right panels correspond to the median enriched fraction and the 1σ dispersion around the median for the same cluster sample, respectively. The black dashed line corresponds to the initial enriched fraction finiten=5 per cent typically assumed by MBL multiple population models. The upper and lower dotted black line corresponds to a 99 and 90 per cent mass loss, respectively, in the form of unenriched stars.
The absence of an explicit model for the cold, dense phase of the interstellar medium in EAGLE, which is predicted to dominate the disruptive power of galaxies, implies an underestimation of cluster disruption in our simulations. Though this could present a major caveat for their use to estimate the true mass loss of star clusters, Pfeffer et al. (2018) show that we obtain a reasonable estimate of disruption in high-pressure environments (Pk−1B>106Kcm−3). Therefore, we focus our analysis on old (τ>6 Gyr) GCs born in these high gas pressure environments, for which disruption is expected to be strongest and E-MOSAICS provides a good approximation of the total amount of mass loss.
We determine the initial-to-present mass ratio of all stellar clusters with Milky Way-like metallicities ([Fe/H]∈[−2.5,0.5]) that survive to the present time in each of our 25 galaxies, and we show the results as a function of the present cluster mass in Fig. 1. At fixed cluster mass, we also determine the median mass ratio as a function of present galactocentric radius, cluster metallicity and gas pressure at birth to investigate secondary dependences. The hard cut at low masses in the top left panel results from the minimum initial cluster mass (Mcl≥5×103 M⊙) adopted in E-MOSAICS for explicitly modelling the evolution of individual clusters.
Fig. 1 shows a steeply decreasing trend of the initial-to-present mass ratio as a function of the cluster mass for clusters more massive than ≳104 M⊙, and weak trends in the expected direction with galactocentric radius, cluster metallicity and gas pressure at birth for intermediate mass (103–105 M⊙) clusters. For the massive clusters (M>105 M⊙), the lack of a trend between the median initial-to-present mass ratio and all cluster properties other than its mass arises because these clusters lose little mass, of the order of a factor 2–5, as the relative mass loss rate is inversely proportional to the cluster mass for a constant radius. As a result, most of the mass in high-mass clusters is lost due to stellar evolution. MBL multiple population models require a minimum initial-to-present mass ratio of Minitcl/Mpresentcl\ga10 to solve the mass budget problem. Given this constraint, only clusters with Mcl<105 M⊙ should exhibit the high observed enriched fractions (also see Kruijssen, 2015) , whereas observed enriched fractions increase with cluster mass (e.g. see fig. 2, left panel in Milone et al. 2017 ).
3 Observed fraction of enriched stars
From the cluster mass loss derived in the previous section, we can determine the fraction of enriched stars present in the cluster following two assumptions. Firstly, the initial amount of enriched material predicted by stellar evolution is considered to be in the range finiten≃5–10 per cent (see Bastian & Lardo 2018 ). The exact value depends on the type of polluters, the stellar IMF and the mass range considered. We assume it to be finiten=5 per cent, but augmenting the value does not produce major differences. In order to solve the mass budget problem, MBL multiple population models assume that all cluster mass loss is in the form of unenriched stars. With the aim of being conservative, we use the same assumption to determine the fraction of enriched stars in each of our surviving stellar clusters. To do that, we correct the initial-to-present mass ratio determined in the previous section for stellar evolutionary mass loss, as it affects both populations equally if they have the same IMF. We examine the dependence of the fraction of enriched stars on galactic environment and compare it to recent observations.
Assuming both populations have the same IMF, we determine the fraction of enriched stars as
fen=finiten(1−finiten)(f∗Minitcl/Mcl)−1+finiten, (1)
where Minitcl and Mcl are the initial and present cluster masses, f∗=M∗/Minit∗≈0.4 is a factor to correct for stellar evolutionary mass loss for our adopted Chabrier IMF using t=10 Gyr, and finiten=5 per cent is the assumed initial enriched fraction.
Figure 3: Left: Maximum enriched fraction of old clusters born in high-pressure environments as a function of the present cluster mass for simulations with different cluster sizes, assuming an initial enriched fraction of 5 per cent. As in Fig. 2 (a), the blue dash-dotted line and area are the fiducial relation and 1σ deviation from Milone et al. (2017) . Right: Half-mass radius versus present cluster mass. The black dash-dotted line is our derived mass-radius relation needed to reproduce the observed relation in the left panel through cluster mass loss, whereas the dashed blue line is the mass-radius relation found for YMCs in Larsen (2004) and the green crosses represent the same GCs as in the Milone et al. (2017) sample ( Harris 1996 , McLaughlin & van der Marel 2005 ). The red dotted line represents the analytical mass-radius relation derived in Gieles & Renaud (2016) for the Galactic disc. All proportionalities are indicated in the legend.
We present the obtained enriched fractions as a function of the cluster mass, and their medians at fixed cluster mass as a function of present galactocentric radius and metallicity in Fig. 2. In the left panel we include the observed relation from Milone et al. (2017) . The authors determine the fraction of unenriched stars for 43 clusters and show them against the photometric cluster masses from McLaughlin & van der Marel (2005) .111Using the photometric rather than the dynamical cluster masses underestimates masses below Mcl<104 M⊙ due to dynamical effects (e.g. Kruijssen 2008 ). Changing to the dynamical cluster masses produces no effect in the observed trend. The GC sample of Milone et al. (2017) shows no trends of the enriched fraction with galactocentric radius or metallicity (see also Kruijssen 2015 and Bastian & Lardo 2015 ). The enriched fractions under the influence of dynamical mass loss obtained from E-MOSAICS differ strongly from the observations, both in an absolute sense and in terms of its relation to the GC mass. The enriched fraction steeply declines with the present cluster mass and exhibits the expected trends with galactocentric radius and metallicity for intermediate mass (103–105 M⊙) clusters. Our derived enriched fractions rule out cluster mass loss as the driving mechanism behind the observed trend; we find typical enriched fractions of 5–30 per cent, whereas observations find 50–75 per cent. In addition, the decreasing enriched fraction with increasing cluster mass predicted by MBL models contradicts the observed positive trend. The largest disagreement occurs at masses Mcl\ga106 M⊙. These are observed to contain ∼80 per cent of enriched stars, which would require them having lost ∼99 per cent of their mass in the form of unenriched stars, but they lose less than a factor 2 in mass by dynamical disruption mechanisms.
4 Reconciling models and observations
The lack of agreement between the modelled and observed enriched fractions suggests changes to the current models for GC formation and evolution of the origin of multiple populations are needed to reconcile models and observations. First of all, we discuss whether the consideration of other cluster disruption mechanisms might provide the sufficient mass loss to reproduce the (or lack of) observational trends. Alternatively, looking at Eq. 1, there are two possible ways in which the modelled and observed fractions may be reconciled. Firstly, we consider whether the amount of mass lost in E-MOSAICS may not be correct. The main uncertainty in the mass loss predicted by the E-MOSAICS disruption model is posed by the assumption of a constant cluster radius. Because mass loss driven by tidal shocks depends on the cluster density, we can change the amount of mass loss experienced by modifying the assumed mass-radius relation. Secondly, the adopted initial enriched fraction from stellar nucleosynthesis might be incorrect. We can use our results to derive what the initial amount of enriched material should be to match to the observational data. We now explore these possibilities.
4.1 Other cluster disruption mechanisms
A large body of literature explores which mechanisms influence cluster evolution, and finds that the dominant driver of mass loss are tidal shocks with the substructure of the interstellar medium (e.g. Gieles et al., 2006; Kruijssen et al., 2011; Miholics et al., 2017; Pfeffer et al., 2018) . In addition, in weaker tidal fields clusters are mostly affected by two-body relaxation (Lamers et al., 2010) , so we consider these two mechanisms, along with stellar evolution and dynamical friction, as the sources of cluster mass loss in E-MOSAICS.
In addition to the above, other disruption mechanisms have been invoked to solve the mass budget problem, with stellar evolution-driven expansion being the preferred mechanism. D'Ercole et al. (2008) argue that only early mass loss due to the expansion associated with supernovae would lead to a strong preferential loss of the unenriched population in massive (M=107 M⊙) stellar clusters. However, the efficiency of this mechanism depends on the cluster structure, IMF and the initial degree of mass segregation. Tidally-filling stellar clusters are mostly affected by stellar evolution-driven expansion mass loss if they have a high degree of mass segregation, as stellar evolutionary mass loss then lead to an enhanced flow of stars over the tidal boundary (Vesperini et al., 2009) . The amount of mass lost is roughly inversely proportional to the galactocentric radius, with a steeper dependence for primordially mass segregated clusters (Haghi et al., 2014) , and presents a similar dependence as the one found for evaporation-driven mass loss (Baumgardt & Makino, 2003) . The lack of a self-consistent model for this mechanism in the literature prevents its implementation in E-MOSAICS, but we can compare the relation between the expected mass loss and galactocentric radius to our numerical results. Looking at the middle panel of Fig. 2, the addition of the mass lost due to stellar evolution-driven expansion would increase and steepen the enriched fractions, thus making the modelled fractions more incompatible with the constant observed fractions. Furthermore, in appendix D in Pfeffer et al. (2018) we test the amount of cluster disruption in our simulations and we find that compact (rh=2.2 pc) clusters with adiabatic expansion due to stellar evolution can double their sizes (rh=3–4 pc) in a short timescale. This implies that, under the disruption mechanisms included in E-MOSAICS, these expanded clusters undergo the same mass loss as clusters that are equally extended at birth, suggesting that adiabatic, stellar evolution-driven expansion is indistinguishable from the regular evolution of an already extended cluster. This indicates that stellar evolution-driven expansion is not the remaining mechanism that could help explain the required mass loss to match observations.
4.2 Mass-radius relation required by the observations
The fiducial model in E-MOSAICS considers all clusters to have a constant half-mass radius of rh=4 pc, which means that the cluster density is solely controlled by its mass. From the dynamical disruption mechanisms considered in our model (i.e. evaporation and tidal shocking), the latter is dominant (e.g. Miholics et al., 2017; Pfeffer et al., 2018) . Tidal shocks are inversely proportional to the cluster's density (Spitzer, 1958) , so, at fixed mass, extended clusters are expected to lose more mass than their compact counterparts.
From our sample of 25 present-day Milky Way-mass simulations, we run the halo MW05 with different cluster sizes that do not evolve with time (rh=2,4,8,16,32 and 64pc). We discard the simulations with radii of 32 and 64 pc, as disruption is so efficient that in total only 56 and 3 clusters are left, respectively. We show the maximum enriched fraction (which is analogous to the upper envelope in the left-hand panel of Fig. 2) of the old clusters born in a high-pressure environment as a function of the present cluster mass in Fig. 3 (left). Changing the cluster radii indeed affects the enriched fraction as expected; for a given cluster mass, extended clusters lose more mass, resulting in a higher enriched fraction.
Using the modelled enriched fractions for different radii and their intersection with the observed relation between the enriched fraction and the cluster mass in Fig. 3 (left), we derive the cluster mass-radius relation needed to reproduce the observed relation through cluster mass loss. We show this mass-size relation in Fig. 3 (right), along with the observed mass-size relations for YMCs from Larsen (2004) , for the GC sample in Milone et al. (2017) using the cluster sizes from Harris (1996) and the photometric cluster masses from McLaughlin & van der Marel (2005) , and the theoretical relation from Gieles & Renaud (2016) . The required mass-size relation has a much steeper slope than is supported by the observations. If we extrapolate this relation, a cluster of mass Mpresentcl=106 M⊙ should have a half-mass radius of rh∼96pc, which is not observed.
Vanzella et al. (2017) observe a candidate proto-GC of mass 2–4×106 M⊙ and effective radius ≃20 pc at z=6.145, but this radius is likely overestimated due to protoclusters forming in larger structures (e.g. Longmore et al. 2014 ), that may be unresolved. Its size is an order of magnitude smaller than the half-mass radius required for cluster mass loss to lead to the high observed enriched fractions, rh∼166−289 pc.
The disproportionate sizes of massive clusters required to match the observed enriched fractions indicate that changing the cluster radii does not enable us to reconcile our results with the observations. This implies that cluster mass loss is not responsible for the relation between enriched fraction and cluster mass.
4.3 Initial fraction of enriched stars
Current multiple population models assume an initial enriched fraction of 5–10 per cent (e.g. see Sect. 5.4 in Bastian & Lardo 2018 ). The exact fraction depends on the pollutor and the IMF, and assumes that all the polluted material is later on used to form enriched stars (i.e. 100 per cent efficiency in recycling the polluted material).
Figure 4: Required initial fraction of enriched stars as a function of the present cluster mass. Data points correspond to old (τ>6 Gyr) clusters born in high-pressure environments (Pk−1B>106Kcm−3), coloured by their gas pressure at birth. The grey area corresponds to the commonly assumed initial enriched fraction range of 5–10 per cent ( Bastian & Lardo 2018 ).
To explore whether we can reconcile the initial-to-present GC mass ratios from E-MOSAICS with the observed enriched fraction as a function of GC mass, we invert Eq. 1 to determine the required initial enriched fraction given the modelled mass loss as,
finiten=fenfen(1−f∗Minitcl/Mcl)+f∗Minitcl/Mcl, (2)
where fen is the fiducial fit to the observed enriched fraction obtained from in Milone et al. (2017) . Fig. 4 shows the required initial enriched fraction as a function of the present cluster mass. Given the cluster mass loss implied by E-MOSAICS, the commonly-adopted intial enriched fraction of 5–10 per cent is only consistent with the observed enriched fraction for clusters with masses in the range 103–104 M⊙. By contrast, the required initial enriched fraction for more massive clusters correlates with present cluster mass. This indicates that clusters with masses 105–106 M⊙ require initial enriched fractions of finiten=0.4–0.7 to reproduce the relation from Milone et al. (2017) after their subsequent dynamical mass loss. This range represents an order-of-magnitude departure from the commonly adopted initial enriched fractions in MBL models.
The disparity between the commonly used range and our results indicates that either different polluters have to be considered (i.e. that produce greater amounts of ejected material per unit cluster mass, e.g. SMSs, see Gieles et al. 2018 ) or some yet-to-be-understood physical processes in stellar evolution and/or star formation lead to the large (>0.4) enriched fractions.
We investigate whether dynamical mass loss from GCs under realistic conditions satisfies the requirements from current multiple population models for reproducing the observed fractions of enriched stars in GCs. To do so, we use all surviving clusters present in the 25 present-day Milky Way-mass galaxy simulations from the E-MOSAICS project (Pfeffer et al., 2018; Kruijssen et al., 2018) . We determine the initial-to-present cluster mass ratios and study their dependence on cluster properties in Fig. 1. We find a steep decrease of the amount of mass lost with present cluster mass. For intermediate-mass (103–105 M⊙) clusters, we also find significant trends of increasing mass loss towards smaller galactocentric radii, higher gas pressures at birth, and higher cluster metallicities. More massive clusters show no dependence between their median mass ratio and these quantities due to their small amount of mass lost.
Assuming all dynamical mass loss is in the form of unenriched stars, as posited by current multiple population models, we determine the enriched fraction of our stellar clusters. We study its dependence on cluster mass, metallicity, and galactocentric radius and compare it to observed enriched fractions from Milone et al. (2017) in Fig. 2. These mirror the dependences found for the amount of mass loss and fall below the observed fractions by a factor of 2–20, with an opposite dependence on GC mass. These severe discrepancies rule out cluster mass loss as the driving mechanism behind the high observed enriched fractions.
In order to reconcile our results with observations, we consider what can be changed in models to match the observed enriched fractions. The addition of stellar evolution-driven expansion mass loss, which is the preferred disruption mechanism suggested in the literature to solve the mass budget problem, predicts an even steeper trend between the numerical enriched fractions and galactocentric radius, in clear contrast with observations. These can only be reproduced if we consider an unphysically steep cluster mass-size relation, which indicates dynamical disruption mechanisms cannot account for the amount of mass loss required by current multiple population models. We determine the initial amount of polluted material required to match our results with the observations. The commonly adopted range of fen=5–10 per cent is only valid for clusters with masses Mpresentcl≲103–104 M⊙. At higher masses, initial enriched fractions of fen=10–80 per cent are required. We conclude that dynamical cluster disruption mechanisms are not capable of explaining the high enriched fractions observed in GCs nor their positive trend with cluster mass. Hence, the present-day enriched fractions likely reflect their initial values, fundamentally challenging most self-enrichment scenarios which are incapable of producing fractions above 10–20 per cent.
We thank the anonymous referee for their helpful comments and suggestions. MRC is supported by a PhD Fellowship from the IMPRS-HD. MRC and JMDK acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC-StG-714907, MUSTANG). JMDK acknowledges funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG - Emmy Noether Research Group KR4801/1-1). NB and JP gratefully acknowledge financial support from the European Research Council (ERC-CoG-646928, Multi-Pop). This work used the DiRAC Data Centric system at Durham University, operated by the Institute for Computational Cosmology on behalf of the STFC DiRAC HPC Facility. This equipment was funded by BIS National E-infrastructure capital grant ST/K00042X/1, STFC capital grants ST/H008519/1 and ST/K00087X/1, STFC DiRAC Operations grant ST/K003267/1 and Durham University. DiRAC is part of the National E-Infrastructure. The work also made use of high performance computing facilities at Liverpool John Moores University, partly funded by the Royal Society and LJMU's Faculty of Engineering and Technology.
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Chilcott: Seven Years Two and a Half Million Words Ten Million Pounds. Is There Anything We Did Not Know?
By James Maclaren, Aug 27 2016 06:27AM
Finally after a period of time exceeding the Second World War and a media and public build-up of biblical proportions, that quintessential example of the senior British mandarin Sir John Chilcott puts everyone out of their misery and publishes the Iraq Inquiry Report. The twelve volumes which analyse at the atomic level Britain's decision, participation and consequences of going to war have long been awaited, if only to bring closure to a political process and decision which has defined British Foreign Policy for this generation and the next. However, despite the scrutiny it is arguable whether after all this time, the reports, the investigations, the recriminations not to mention the memoirs, that the conclusions could include much not already uncovered.
To many, particularly the relatives of the British service personnel who lost their lives in the invasion and the aftermath, the report had a particular purpose. It would provide the damning verdict on Tony Blair's decision to follow unreservedly (some would say slavishly) US foreign policy and force not just the apology they got, but the retribution they think should be forthcoming
Why was the war necessary?
Certainly Saddam was on a collision course with the West and without doubt reigned over one of the most odious regimes of modern times. Yet the direction of US foreign policy framed by the national shock of 9/11 and the determination to crush Al Qaida could be suspected of a 'shoot first and ask questions later'. The unfinished business from the previous expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait almost certainly coloured the US appetite for a kinetic solution. Containment could have continued indefinitely, but the hawks in the US administration would have none of it and the barely disguised contempt for a diplomatic solution through the UN meant that military action against Saddam would always conform to a US timetable. Blair's strategic decision to align UK firmly alongside the US was based upon a presumption that such a relationship would provide a position of influence. It was too subtle a concept for the US who recognised the usefulness of their British ally but were not tempted to allow Blair to chart any alternative courses.
Opposition to a detestable regime was not a sufficient pretext to justify taking the UK to war, but the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction might be. Political necessity trumped the operational expediency of intelligence gathering, removing its objectivity and transforming it into political leverage. Inevitably under such circumstances the group think culture blurs what is truth and what is useful. The war was presented as necessary, but it was not
Where the military prepared?
When the Labour Government under Blair first came to power in 1997 one of their first acts was to commission a strategic defence review (SDR). At the core of the SDR was fulfilment of a government vision to retain global expeditionary capability. This level of ambition is retained by only a few nations and set the objective of being able to project power and conduct warfighting operations. Unfortunately with the Nation's finances firmly under the control of Gordon Brown there was little sympathy for defence and the lofty plans went on progressively underfunded.
With the timetable to conflict dictated by the US enthusiasm to engage with Saddam, the UK was forced to mobilise capability rapidly and at large scale breaking most of its planning assumptions and stepping outside of the mandated decision making process to trigger critical procurement, mobilisation and organisational actions. This could only be achieved by the senior command structure of the Armed Forces accepting the risks and consequences of a short notice deployment with limited thought as to the longer term operational consequences. The UK doctrine saw highly capable UK forces deploying rapidly, successfully warfighting at large scales of effort through equipment and personnel dominance and then withdrawing allowing other nations to manage subsequent stabilisation. However, such a doctrine demanded that other nations were willing to assume responsibility for post-conflict operations and they were not.
It was clear to British military planners embedded with US forces in the US Central Command Headquarters (HQ CENTCOM) in McDill Air Force base Florida that the US had no plans for the aftermath and believed that the invasion would be seen as a liberation with any residual concern for nation building the responsibility of the US Department of State. There is no doubt that this concern was bought directly to the attention of the senior military leadership in the UK and the steady stream of political and diplomatic leaders who visited the CENTCOM HQ. That such concerns were ignored reflected the political decision that the strategic relationship with the US was more important and a misplaced belief that the US view of events post-Saddam was correct.
Although military operations went as predicted, the peace did not. The labour Government had committed to the Iraq war at the same time as undertaking a major downsizing of UK armed forces. In particular the decision had been taken to reduce the number of infantry battalions in the UK order of battle. These units were exactly the type of organisation required to conduct internal security operations as the security situation in Basra deteriorated. The resources part of Whitehall led by the Chancellor continued with its plans to cut, while the commitments and foreign policy part struggled to cope with a security crisis spiralling out of control. The aftermath of the conflict was completely unfunded with equipment and manpower deficiencies. At the height of militia insurrection there were just two infantry battalions deployed in Basra. By comparison the lowest number ever to manage a much lower level of violence in Belfast was five.
To add insult to injury already military planning was turning back towards Afghanistan, a theatre left to fester while attention was on Iraq. Al Qaida had reorganised removing all the gains achieved by the 2001 campaign. Iraq was becoming too difficult, too messy and the political call was for action in Afghanistan – a call many were ready despite the lack of resolution to Iraq. One bad situation involving a despotic dictator was replaced by a violent soup of chaos and mayhem which makes a mockery of saying Saddam's removal was right and justified.
In the context of Chilcott's report this narrative was already known and these words could have been written in 2006. It does beg the question did we need seven years to expose it.
Chilcott has already been criticised for being wise in hindsight. Many are rushing to defend political and military decision making which they say was made in good faith. But was it? In truth there was plenty of experienced and popular voice raised against the war at the time. Blair chose not to listen and for that he should bear the weight of responsibility. But he is not alone, the ambitious generals anxious to prove their worth and rebut expenditure cuts promised more than they could deliver and failed to organise their resources with the care and diligence they were charged with. Diplomats and intelligence chiefs also used the theatre of international crisis to advance their own goals tethering their analysis to the government's political aims and allegiances, apparently abandoning the objectivity which they had a duty to produce. Their short termism in decision making and failure to predict and act upon the consequences of military action generates a level of culpability which must never be allowed to be repeated.
Keep Calm and For Heavens Sake Carry On
By James Maclaren, Jun 28 2016 09:19AM
So the people had their say and despite institutional arrogance which predicted otherwise, the Brexit vote to leave will take the United Kingdom and probably the rest of the EU into uncharted waters. Assuming the democractic process is respected and some institutional compromise (fudge) is not found. Certainly, the decision is a seismic one which will shape the nation for the next two generations, but it is doubtful that the decision is as cataclysmic as EU enthusiasts predicted before the vote, or die-hard commentators doggedly maintain even after the Nation has spoken. The United Kingdom, (or most parts of it), will join that global club of sovereign, economically successful countries such as Japan, Canada, Australia, South Korea to name a few who thrive effectively without membership of a supranational political organisation.
Why did the Referendum have to happen?
The relationship between Britain and Europe has never been a marriage made in heaven, more a partnership of convenience. The fractious, often emotional, but always deepening links, have been ground out with reluctance and truculence in equal measure. The European project always meant something different to the British people. A disingenuous campaign by Edward Heath took Britain into what was billed as an economic trade area and then with typical British aloofness to all matters foreign, successive governments largely ignored the relentless political integration project, which rolled remorselessly on. Only occasional flare-ups disturbed the European enthusiasm for the clawing of powers from national governments and Britain seemed powerless to halt the march of integration, its diplomatic and political feet failing to gain traction as the bureaucratic bulldozer carolled them into line.
The passive relentless production of centrally produced directives and regulations created little opposition from a number of states whose populations have been conditioned over years to the suspension of democratic processes and government by unaccountable edicts from central bureaucracies. The 2004 enlargement of the EU bought into the fold those former countries of the Soviet Union. These newly independent nations saw the EU as symbolising democracy, a view that was at odds with the British vision based upon an undisturbed millennium of parliamentary authority. The British had never bought into the political integration and in 1974, the referendum did not address the political and federal premise that underpinned the deepening union. After forty years, it was right that the British people had the opportunity to resolve a question they had never been asked.
Why did the UK Leave?
Immigration, immigration, immigration. Despite Remain politicians attempts to divert the referendum agenda back to the economy and the dire implications of departure, it was the unending tranches of cheap unskilled labour displacing working class voters from employment and then competing with them for dwindling health, education and housing resources that filled the Brexit fuel tank with votes. That this was largely unappreciated by the Westminster political classes says a great deal of the remoteness of politicians in today's Britain. As one senior Labour politician put it, '…less socialism, more Labour', may have given a clue to voting intentions in the deep heartlands of working class Britain. It is difficult to argue that freedom of movement is not a good thing – it just means different things to different people. One celebrated UK political journalist was lamenting the loss of opportunity of the young to, 'live, work, study and love anywhere in Europe'. Such romantic tosh means nothing when you are a twenty year old fork lift driver in a manufacturing company in Sunderland, married to a similarly aged shop assistant. In those circumstances, freedom of movement means competition for your job from eastern European migrants happy to work for two thirds of their pay. The idea they have to travel across Europe to find work does not sell – why should they? In truth majority of UK migrants to EU countries were high skill, financially independent professionals. Lawyers to Brussels and bankers to Frankfurt was not the equalisation of labour that Remain politicians tried to suggest it was.
Many also found it deeply offensive that Australians, Canadians, South Africans, with whom we share long and dramatic history, often with professional skills we need and are denied access behind Romanians, Bulgarians and Hungarians with low skills we don't. The fact is that the UK was just too dam attractive to EU migrants who perfectly reasonably wanted to improve their own life chances. The ingress was too great, showed no signs of ending and could not be controlled. It was not a fair playing field and a reprisal by the British voter was inevitable.
To many the constant drip of sovereignty away from parliament was more than could be tolerated. When a country has had a democracy for a thousand years, fought to keep it, fought to return it to others who have lost it and then finds its sovereignty continually eroded by a bureaucracy that lurches from crisis to crisis, is founded on grandiose political ideals without root in fact and rational design becomes just too difficult to swallow. Having transported legal, political and administrative systems around the world, the British do not find the vanity project of European political integration appealing. You can only take so much of flag waving and Beethoven's ninth 'Ode to Joy'.
The list is long and the EU itself must take its share. Before the 2015 General Election when it judged the chances of a Conservative government were low, it was dismissive of David Cameron's calls for a renegotiation of Britain's role. Even when the Conservatives formed a government it was reluctant to be drawn into providing anything meaningful by the way of reform– an approach the voters from the second largest net contributor to the EU budget found aloof and patronising.
Cameron's decision, based upon domestic politics, to offer the referendum must have seemed a good idea at the time. It would simultaneously dislocate UKIP from the voters, remove a cancer from his own party and land a telling right-hook on a weakened and disorganised Labour party. Only the last of these objectives (perhaps not helpfully), has been achieved. He may have been levered to the decision by a clever political screwdriver from UKIP – but the strategy and timing was Cameron's alone. It would be odd if he does not now ruefully reflect on the poor wisdom of that decision.
The disconnect between the millions of working class voters and all of the political parties was starkly illustrated by a leave vote. The surprise on the faces of Labour politicians as they realised the vote they had been encouraged to turn out was voting against their wishes was telling. It spoke of a sanctimonious misjudgement of the population towards the EU and a self-indulgent approach to the value of their own view.
Less than people think. Following initial hysteria currency and markets will settle. In the short term the media will milk the journalist drama and those politicians and institutions on the losing side will continue to predict doom and maybe even attempt to frustrate or subvert the decision. There will be attention (too much) on political personalities. Getting past all of that, the UK is a large and robust economy. Europe can no more afford a poor political and trading relationship with the UK, than the UK can alienate itself completely from the EU. They need each other and it is unlikely that the UK can be bullied in the same way as Greece. Arguably, the political consequences for Europe are greater. There are a number of countries within the Union containing powerful political elements who eye the British decision with envy. They are likely to seek to replicate the process. Certainly pressure within the Union for internal reform will increase as powerful political entities coalesce around the British decision. Many in the EU may have cause to thank the British as Commission driven plans for further integration take a backseat and the EU centre of gravity (at least for a while) shifts to the Council. Political leadership led by Germany, will be forced to take control from the Commission's bureaucracy and undertake some serious thinking on the direction of the EU project. Having lost its second largest economy, most capable military, a highly proficient diplomatic service, never mind internal administrative expertise from within its institutions, the EU now has a great deal to think about.
For the United Kingdom, the immediate challenge is for government to take charge of the agenda. The early frustration and accusations of no apparent planning does not take account of the quiet contingency planning that has been taking place, whether the government cares to admit it or not. The political face of this with new leadership will follow in due course. The hysterical critics demanding a costed, resourced blueprint immediately will have to wait until the many institutions have absorbed the decision and organised accordingly. There will be no immediate invoking of Article 50 – a decision that will frustrate many. It is right that this critical enactment takes place under a new leadership, able to bring vigour and belief to the negotiations.
Much of the disentanglement from the EU is just simply bureaucratic 'work' – the dry administration of repeal and drafting. It will take substantial time, certainly years. But that is what the Civil Service 'does' and it should not concern us greatly. Strategically a key requirement is to establish the UK-EU partnering and trade relationship (as well as trade relationships elsewhere). There will be challenges, compromises and costs to this and we can expect a relationship somewhere between Norway and Canada, depending upon the political and negotiating appetite on both sides. There is no shortcut to this process: it is a matter of negotiation that will take its course until both sides are content.
The long term outlook is bright, Europe will continue to trade with the UK whatever anyone says. Too many Mercedes, BMWs, Audis and VWs head to these shores, airbus still needs its wings and ultimately trade will always trump politics. Liberated from the EU framework the global future for the UK looks strong. A trading nation, with a common law system and mastery of the English language there is no reason to fear the challenge of creating a global economy, including Europe, just not part of the EU.
Whatever, it looks like and costs, the UK will be sovereign once more. Protected from political integration and interference and from entanglement in the Eurozone mess. This is a price the current political chaos is worth paying. When it is over, we can turn our attention to the more complex problem of solving the crisis that is English football.
A Referendum – More Big Brother than History of Britain.
By James Maclaren, May 29 2016 05:49PM
It is hardly surprising that given the stakes the EU debate and Britain's future role or otherwise in it, the opposing sides to the question have rapidly transcended to the farce level of debate. We should not be surprised I suppose, taking the question to the country was an enormous gamble for Cameron. Now as we enter the last month with the opinion polls locked and a failure by the government to land winning blows via the economy and security, he is probably sweating slightly at the wisdom of his decision. It must have seemed like quite a clever idea to lance the boil and expunge those militant mutterings around the corridors of Parliament. Now increasingly frantic and dark predictions of what economic future awaits the country free of the EU political choke seem desperate and smack of a leader whose primary tactic is fear rather than rational analysis. It is worth considering what this says of Cameron's judgement. After all what leader who understands the consequences with such certainty allows a population to make a momentous error of judgement. Leadership is about making the right not the popular decision.
Cameron may just get away with it. Heap enough fear onto people and they will retreat into the safety of the familiar. Most have already forgotten his much trumpeted 'renegotiation', even the Prime Minister must have realised it represented pretty meagre stuff as he barely mentions it amongst the apocalyptic predictions of economic meltdown. It is difficult for the average person to argue with the huge weight of economic opinion which confidently predicts the economic disaster awaiting an exit. The reasonable person who must use judgement alone to form an opinion on the capability of this country to thrive independent of the EU, its single market and the federalised bureaucracy we must succumb to in order to be a member, understandably feels nervous. But wait, is it any surprise these organisations collectively make the case for a UK 'remain'? Of course not the relationship between institutional elites is both wide and deep. Radical thinking and transformation of an exciting type are not in their DNA. But however illustrious, prestigious and learned these organisation may be portrayed, they have over time failed to predict the consequences of ERM withdrawal, the global economic recession, collapse of the Eurozone economy, management of the Greek economic crisis and so on and so on. It can only be assumed that the brazen confident predictions they bring forward now are done so with fingers crossed behind their back and a patronisingly low regard for the public's ability to remember their past prediction failures.
BBC's Question Time is always a good barometer of where politics and the public stand with each other. Last night 28th May was no exception. The politicans inevitably acting like reality contestants thans persons of gravity and seriousness. Caroline Lucas irritating interruptions of other panellists with over-zealous EU enthusiasm demonstrated what it means to be in a political elite. Clearly operating in a parallel la-la land to the rest of us she scorned David Davis' attempts to explain how market economics and the weight of UK bargaining power will offset the withdrawal of the UK from the single market. She would have us believe that having been an MEP she knows all about Europe. Those of us that have lived in in Brussels recognise that the Euro Quarter which the political and institutional elites inhabit has nothing to do with the rest of Brussels let alone Europe. Her strident view that it is the Council and the Parliament, not the Commission which is the driving force behind the EU project only showed she has drunk deep of the koolaid, swallowing the blue starred propaganda. Her blank retort to a pensioner repatriated from the Spanish health system only accentuated her ignorance to the reality of EU freedom of movement. The truth is we swop highly educated UK professionals for low skill, low wage migrants, disenfranchising our own economically challenged in the process. How many British plumbers are there in Poland? To go further how many unemployed British plumbers are there in Poland drawing benefits!
Ed Milliband clearly making an attempt on a political comeback expressed patronising support for the Union. He appeared to like the idea of Europe so much it would be easy to suspect that his intended routed from political failure is to follow Neil Kinnock into the sunny up lit gravyland of the EU Commission. Perhaps most amusing was his prolonged appeal to young people, who in his view clearly saw the benefits of travel around the Union. Well perhaps in Islington where with students from Red Brick universities and affluent families regularly heft back packs onto Ryanair in order that cappuccino can be enjoyed while appreciating the architecture of Prague or Milan. However, to most young people in the UK, thoughts of travel are distant behind the ordeal of coping with bad housing, poor education, street violence and competing with eastern Europeans for too few jobs offering depressed wages as a result of eastern European workers competition. Milliband's idea that they can take advantage of interesting exotic education at European universities is an illusion he seems to share with Caroline Lucas.
Interestingly it was Steve Hilton who showed the most informative political insights, readily admitting to the political elitism of which he was part, which makes its case by reducing complex economic, legal and sovereignty arguments to sound-bites and generalised economics. He nailed it, but I wonder how many recognised the strength of his analysis. It is about believing in the gifts this country has, recognising the failure of Europe to progress economically or act coherently and realising that future growth and prosperity lies in the wide world beyond, not within the insular timid and static boundaries of Europe. Ed Milliband thought he was winning the argument when no one could name a country which the UK would emulate in it is trade relationship with Europe.
And that's the point, stupid. The UK will not emulate anyone. And if Germany want to continue selling million BMWs, Audis, Mercedes and VWs to us we won't have to! It's for the EU to erect trade barriers, which the remain side keep referring to. When it comes down to it, the bargaining power of the UK based upon technology, education, science and finance will provide us with a solution to future EU relationships, as well as wider opportunity beyond the EU in the global market.
The EU - Does it really make us safer?
In politics as in war the first casualty is truth – well if not in absolute terms a political version of it. Avoiding direct questions, casting scorn on an opponent's ideas and floating opaque ideas with confidence they won't be analysed in detail, or if they are the agenda and public attention will have moved on.
One such example of this is the Prime Minister's passionate exhortation on how vital (note use of the world vital, a term usually reserved for matters of a life threatening nature), the EU is to the United Kingdom's national security. Immediately upon return from his Brussel's summit and the unveiling of the new terms (potentially) of Britain's membership of the EU, top of the list of benefits for which we should be thankful is the safety and security that membership brings with it.
Mr Cameron's narrative goes that within the framework of the EU we are protected through our ability to share information on potential threats and undertake coordinated timely responses. This is where the disingenuous language begins. In reality no such security framework exists – or at least exists in a way that Mr Cameron would wish us to believe. The comforting idea that all of Europe's terrorist and criminal data bases are accessible across all the member states is simply not true - no such supranational capability exists. Apart from the fact there is no infrastructure to share such information, worse there is a lack of willingness for partners to share intelligence with their EU partners. In fact most countries do not share information between their own national agencies let alone across borders.
The UK is particularly efficient and much admired for its policing, intelligence gathering and military capabilities. No other European country comes close to this spectrum of capability. The organisations are lean, well-organised and resourced and have excellent protocols for inter-agency cooperation. It's what we do. If only such a model could be replicated across the EU then Mr Cameron's words could be taken more seriously.
It is true that border information with the EU as an example of low level data exchange does take place – but so what. The UK exchanges high volumes of similar data (and high level intelligence) with the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Africa and it does so more effectively with those intelligence partners than with its European partners. In Europe ridiculous rivalry, jealousy and desire to avoid exposure of inefficiency trump trans-national cooperation. Where the UK does make progress in policing and intelligence cooperation it does so on the basis of bi-lateral understanding and protocols built up through the building of enduring relationships. There is no reason why a withdrawal from the EU would threaten these arrangements.
But what of the important European security and policing institutions we hear so much about, Europol and Eurojust. In truth they contribute little and act as merely as facilitators, conducting analysis and the encouragement of cooperation. It is difficult to imagine these or any of the EU agencies declining to cooperate with a non-aligned United Kingdom, which almost certainly contributes more intelligence led information to European security than it receives. It's a further example of a Europe that needs the UK than the UK needs Europe.
Fog in the Channel, Europe Isolated
By James Maclaren, Feb 3 2016 10:58PM
I like David Cameron. I am sure as with all men he has his faults. But he does a highly demanding job and I believe he does it about as honestly as any political and government system allows anyone to do. I don't sneer at his modestly privileged upbringing nor feel the need of the Islington Trotskyist to create a snarky narrative on how his background reflects his politics. Anyone can create wealth distribution policies, few people can create the systems upon which they depend.. I am not going to say I told you so, or that he should have asked for more (or less for that matter), or ask mischievously what happened to the manifesto pledges, never mind the table thumping speeches of a couple of years ago. And the poor man has not finished yet. Having put up with the tedium of trying to bend the institutional zealotry of the EU he now has to endure a political dogfight in his own backyard, while lesser men carp and snigger without alternative voice from the opposite benches. So when I say how sorry I am that Cameron's mission to reform Europe has failed I genuinely mean it. In fact all things considered I have some admiration for his efforts, in a few short months he has actually made some progress.
The problem is it that it is not enough.
Europe is just beyond redemption. How many times do you hear mundane politicians say that they want to be part of a 'strong reformed Europe' without ever coming close to articulating what that would actually look like, never mind how to get there. The EU means different things to different people. To the big countries such as Germany and France who still have a global role it's a way of harnessing markets for their economies and ensuring a security framework exists which prevents historical past mistakes. Federalism is ok provided they are still at the top of the pile. To the middle sized and useful countries like Spain and Italy it provides a set of ways and means to enhanced global standing where we can admire past glory. To the small countries such as the Baltic States it provides a status that they could never otherwise aspire to. It is like a grown-up version of Eurovision where they wave newly woven flags and talk about freedom and democracy, despite for the most part being less than a generation into it.
Europe is important to these countries, it took a few years to gain accession into it and now they are there they are going to exert their influence with all the might that one member state one vote allows them to do. It is like being upgraded unexpectedly and without the right clothes and means into business class; no champagne will be left on the trolley and I will have as many canapes as I can demand. OK that's a bit ungenerous and there is nothing wrong with some social mobility, the problem is that the construct of the EU does not unify the way the way the EU project should work.
You cannot practise communism and capitalism at the same time. Yet that is what Brussels tries to do. A central unelected bureaucracy interpreting its mandate with independent action while national governments struggle to rationalise the direction of travel with their own set of (usually competing) interests. Certainly Europe has created a wonderful polished bureaucracy capable of turning the thousand mile screwdriver onto most aspects of our lives, but just like the former Soviet Union has proved incapable of turning to meet the major strategic challenges with which we wish it could successfully engage, witness mass migration or Greece and the Euro.
So where does this leave Britain? We just see Europe so differently from our neighbours across the Channel and beyond and they know it. Politically, culturally, historically for the most part we pre-date the European way of organising life. Our legal system is common law and struggles to integrate the civil thinking of Europe, our economic, diplomatic and military systems have a thousand years of global thinking and experience. We can see our language, literature and business practise operating across the globe. Our adversarial political system is actually effective in steering a country while by comparison our civil service is responsive and efficient at managing the detail of the nation's affairs. It is doubtful whether this outlook is ever going to exist harmoniously with the enthusiastic federalists who through no wider understanding take the centralised control of events and lives for granted. In the same way as the majority of the member states see membership as an enhancement to their national status, Britain is faintly embarrassed by it. Given the diplomatic, military, economic and cultural instruments of power which the United Kingdom can deploy, Europe needs Britain more than Britain needs Europe.
And the Referendum? It will be close. It is regrettable that so much debate focusses on the economic consequences of a departure. Probably, by a whisker it would economically be better to remain, if only for the reason that the administration and reorganisation necessary to leave would be enormous. In fairness the country was asked and answered the question of economic union in 1975. However the idea that Britain could not prosper outside the EU is absurd. Trade with Europe will not stop and comparisons with non-EU countries such as Norway, Iceland and Switzerland are ridiculous and scurrilous. They are small nations and economies and the bargaining power of the fifth largest economy in the world is too great for Europe to ignore and Germany does not want to wave goodbye to Mercedes and BMWs second largest external market. Do Japan, Australia, Canada and South Korea need to belong to large trade blocks to determine their economic interest? Of course not.
Sovereignty is a different question and one we were never asked. Recent accessions to the EU knew what they entering and were happy to do so. No one consulted us and this historical constitutional wrong should be put right. Asking Canadians and Australians for visas while handing out child benefit to Romanian and Bulgarian families in Bucharest and Sofia should at least be a decision of the UK Parliament. Attempting to organise collective European foreign policy always seems more PR than substance. Europe has failed to demonstrate a lead on any of the big strategic challenges which have been laid before it. Its nation's leaders look the other way or wriggle and pronounce without noticeable effect. The danger of fragmentation always looms close; consider Syria and Ukraine. While British foreign policy is not without its critics, by European standards it looks positively sure-footed.
So Mr Cameron, thank you for your effort. But it amounts to organising the deckchairs on the Titanic. The EU is probably beyond reform even if the majority of member states would agree to it. If the vote goes 'yes' and the United Kingdom remains in the EU it is likely to be due to fear of change than relief at timely reform.
The author has lived in various areas of Europe including Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and the Baltic States. He regularly travels to eastern Europe and has travelled to and reported on the crisis in Ukraine and the migration into southern Europe.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Washington State mystery author Elena Hartwell is today's guest writer.
Fiction writers have to juggle many elements, the plot, the characters, the narrator's point of view, the characters' motivation. And sometimes, just as important, where the story takes place. In real estate it's called location, location, location.
One of the nicest compliments I ever got in a rejection letter read, "…the location is described so well it functions like another character." It may seem strange that I'd remember—and love—a line from a rejection letter, but it was an incredibly important moment for me as a writer.
My writing life began as a playwright. I described atmosphere in my scripts, but not specific details, which was something I left up to set and lighting designers. Turning my hand to fiction, I had to learn the art of bringing a specific location alive on the page.
One Dead, Two to Go is about a private eye named Eddie Shoes. She lives in Bellingham, Washington, and I loved bringing our little corner of the country into the spotlight. As far as I know, there aren't any other mystery series located in Bellingham. It's a college town of 80,000 people not far from the Canadian border. Though I don't live there, I'm not far away.
I live in North Bend—made famous by Twin Peaks, filmed in town and the surrounding area. My lovely little hamlet has a population of 6,000 people. We had a double murder/suicide about four years ago and another one eight years ago (which makes for a scary cycle), but homicides are relatively rare and it didn't feel right to start killing off my neighbors in such a small community. I didn't want anyone to label me the "JB Fletcher of Snoqualmie Valley." Cabot Cove might have been a hotbed of murder and mayhem for Murder She Wrote, but it wasn't the right choice for me.
I also didn't want to set my series in Seattle, as that didn't interest me as much as somewhere more unique to fiction. Washington State is filled with marvelous towns, from La Conner to Walla Walla and Omak to Yakima. I spent a lot of time thinking about where to place my private eye. First, I wanted a town less than a two-hour drive from home. Preferably not east of the Cascade Range, in case I needed to do "homework" there in the wintertime, when snow can close the pass. I didn't want to "commit murder" in our capital city, so Olympia was out, and the towns on the Olympic Peninsula, though stunningly beautiful, involved a ferry ride and a similar problem population-wise to North Bend.
Bellingham felt perfect. I wanted to have a little bit of a small town feel, which it does, with enough population that everyone doesn't know everyone else, which they don't.
Research is one of my favorite things. And location visits are one of my favorite aspects of research. I love to visit places to learn about the architecture, the scenery, the people, and the nightlife. I sprinkle real places such as Pure Bliss, a fabulous and very real dessert shop, with locations inspired by real places, throughout the books. When a crime takes place, I fabricate the setting. In those instances, I take characteristics of multiple places I've visited and mash them together into an unrecognizable, but still representative, locale from Bellingham.
The first book, One Dead, Two to Go, takes place in December. The second book, Two Dead Are Better Than One, is set in March, and while it starts in Bellingham, it concludes in Spokane, Washington. That gave me roughly one homicide a year. Book three takes place with Eddie Shoes on vacation.
She deserves it. She worked hard in books one and two. But trouble follows her wherever she goes, and a simple vacation turns deadly.
I can't wait to do my site visits for Three Dead, You're Out; travel for work is one of the great perks of a writer's life.
We might find book four located in a tropical paradise.
Elena Hartwell was born in Bogota, Colombia, while her parents were in the Peace Corps. Her first word was "cuidado." At the age of nine months, she told two men carrying a heavy table to be careful—in their native tongue. She's been telling people what to do ever since. After almost twenty years in the theater, Elena turned her playwriting skills to novels. The result is her first book, One Dead, Two to Go. The Eddie Shoes Mystery Series debuted last month, to be followed by Two Dead Are Better Than One and Three Dead, You're Out. Visit Hartwell at elenahartwell.com.
Enjoyed the post – found Elena's perspective refreshing and insightful!
Elena: I love your book titles and your concepts. This is a very interesting article. Since you're a playwright, have you ever thought you might turn one of your books into a play or script for a TV series?


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text:
Thi Bui (née en 1975) est une auteure de bandes dessinées et une illustratrice américaine née au Vietnam. Elle est surtout connue pour sa BD autobiographique  The Best We could do (parue en français sous le titre Nous avons fait de notre mieux : Une biographie illustrée).

Biographie
Thi Bui est née dans ce qui était alors Saigon, au Vietnam, trois mois avant la chute de Saigon pendant la guerre du Vietnam. Elle fait partie d'une fratrie de six enfants; deux de ses frères et sœurs plus âgés sont décédés avant sa naissance. Sa famille, qui faisait partie des " Boat-people" d'Asie du Sud-Est, est arrivée dans un camp de réfugiés en Malaisie. Ils ont finalement obtenu l'asile aux États-Unis et y ont migré en 1978. Elle réside actuellement à Bay Area avec son mari et ses deux fils.

Carrière
Bui a travaillé comme professeure dans des écoles de New York et d'Oakland. Elle a été l'une des fondatrices de l'Oakland International High School à Oakland, en Californie, la première école secondaire publique en Californie pour les immigrants récents qui apprennent l'anglais. Là, elle a travaillé comme professeure d'art et de médias numériques. Depuis 2015, elle est membre du corps professoral du programme MFA in Comics du California College of the Arts.

Bui aborde souvent des questions politiques et sociales. En 2017, elle a publié son premier roman graphique The Best We Can Do, qui retrace la vie de ses parents, frères et sœurs réfugiés, leur vie au Vietnam avant leur évasion après la guerre du Vietnam et leur arrivée aux États-Unis. Le livre explore les thèmes de l'immigration, de la guerre et des traumatismes intergénérationnels. Elle a travaillé sur cette œuvre pendant plus d'une décennie. Le livre a reçu de nombreux éloges et distinctions, dont le National Book Critics Circle, l'American Book Award et a également été finaliste pour la catégorie Eisner Award for Reality-based Comics, entre autres. En 2017, il figure dans la liste des cinq meilleurs livres de Bill Gates.

La même année, A Different Pond, un livre d'images pour enfants, est publié. Elle a travaillé sur le livre en tant qu'illustratrice et elle a collaboré avec l'artiste et écrivain de créations orales Bao Phi pour le projet. Le livre a gagné le Caldecott Honor pour ses illustrations.

En 2019, elle s'est associée au célèbre romancier Viet Thanh Nguyen pour un  livre d'images intitulé Chicken of the Sea. Nguyen et Bui ont collaboré avec leurs fils pour créer l'histoire, Nguyen et son fils Ellison en tant qu'écrivains et Bui et son fils Hien en tant qu'illustrateurs .

Depuis ses débuts, Bui a écrit et illustré des bandes dessinées courtes sur de nombreuses questions de politique intérieure au sein de la communauté d'Asie du Sud-Est en Amérique. Son prochain livre, Nowhereland, portera sur le sujet de l'incarcération et de la déportation de ressortissants d'Asie du Sud-Est aux États-Unis. Elle travaille également sur une histoire de science-fiction sur le changement climatique au Vietnam et dans les pays pauvres.

Œuvre

 2012: We Are Oakland International (Immigration Stories from Oakland International High School, Volume 4) (en tant qu'éditrice)
 2017: The Best We Could Do, New York: Abrams ComicArts  (Traduction française par Laure Picard-Philippon, Nous avons fait de notre mieux : Une biographie illustrée (2018) )
 2017: A Different Pond (scenario de Bao Phi), North Makato, Minnesota: Capstone
 2018: Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives, Abrams Books  (auteure du chapitre "Perspective and What Gets Lost")
 2018: Refugee to Detainee: How the U.S. is Deporting Those Seeking a Safe Haven (short comic)
 2019: Chicken of the Sea, San Francisco, McSweeney's Publishing

Récompenses

 The Best We Could Do
 2017: UCLA's Common Book
 2017: National Book Critics Circle finalist
 2018: American Book Award
 2018: Eisner Award finalist (Reality-based Comics)
 A Different Pond
 2017: Caldecott Honor for illustration

Références

Liens externes

Femme de lettres américaine
Naissance en 1975

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Biografia
Viene ricordato come vincitore di una medaglia d'argento nella sua disciplina, vittoria avvenuta ai campionati mondiali del 1981 (edizione tenutasi a Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italia) insieme ai connazionali Kurt Poletti, Hans Hiltebrand e Franz Isenegger

Nell'edizione l'oro andò alla Germania, il bronzo all'altra nazionale svizzera.

Note


More summer classes make kids smarter?
Nowadays, kids no longer enjoy long and relaxing summer breaks. Various summer classes await, and behind the euphoria of parents signing their kids up is their fear of their children losing out in the academic race. The Centre's weekly analysis points out that parents' worries can be justified as summer vacation may hinder children's learning. However, to counter that doesn't require fancy and expensive summer classes.


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I've been a musician playing in bands off and on for 25 years or so. Luckily I haven't been arrested for sticking my finger out of my pants' zipper like Jim Morrison of The Doors, overdosed on drugs like at least a couple dozen other musicians, or shot to death while playing on stage like Dimebag Darrel of Pantera and Damage Plan. It has been quite a ride though. I will say that.
My first actual band was a rock band in 1988. I played bass. We practiced in the warehouse of the guitarist's father. It was a learning experience, both in playing with other musicians and in dealing with the politics of the boys in the band. I did well at the former lesson, but the latter was what I failed at. Those were good times though.
My latest endeavor which was an 80s metal retro band, had a good start then sort of fizzled out. The energy dwindled, and for me interest suddenly lost. As we get older, it becomes harder and harder to maintain the enthusiasm, and find the time to play like I used to. Band members' priorities change. The music takes a back seat to work, kids, skiing, the Denver Broncos games etc.... So now I find myself wanting to do more, go at it again. For at least this moment, I'm a one man band.
I saw a metal band called Machinery Cell. There were two guys on stage. They prerecorded the drums, and bass. One of the guys sang and another played guitar. I had a "Eureka" moment. If they can do it with two guys, I can do it with one. How about that? So I set about the recording process. I never did get around to setting this up live. I found just recording and putting the songs on the internet was quite rewarding, if not monetarily, then with personal satisfaction.
Making a living at music just doesn't happen to everyone, and certainly not me most of the time. I did put on a solo tour from Arizona to Florida one year though. It was profitable. Let's see, I won a guitar contest in Arizona, played from there through Texas, wound up hitting New Orleans, took a slight detour through Memphis (highly recommended by the way,) played a "rainy night in Georgia" (litterally- it was raining hard that night,) and woke up in Central Florida one morning. I decided touring was too rough for me. Florida was going to be home for a bit.
The cool thing is that in modern times with the ease of recording through software on computers, it's fairly easy to do. I simply overdub the tracks of various instruments (which is done in most modern studios anyway,) For pieces I need some percussion on, I can use programmed drums. See my hub entitled Create Beats With Hydrogen Drum Machine. Put it on Reverb Nation or some other site that hosts live streams of the music and there you go. Promote them on FaceBook and other social networking sites. You're a one man (or woman) band band too.
What's the name of the band?
I enjoyed your fine story. I played in rock bands from 1966 to 1991. I still play once every other year at my old group's reunion concert.
Thank you for publishing this interesting Hub.


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