Esthursian News Home

The_Herald.png

International Development minister John Largan calls for "acceleration of UAS membership protocol"

Esthursia's government has decisively spoken in favour of admitting Tardine and Sorovia to the UAS

Several months ago, Tardine's then transitional military administration appeared before the UAS halls, where the free democracies of Auroria had gathered to safeguard democratic freedom and unity. A democratic, peaceable Auroria looked on a warring Tardine, fighting against tyranny.

Here we are, those months on. A democratic Tardine looks on a warring Auroria, fighting against tyranny.

The last several months have taught Esthursia something - quick action is necessary. Esthursia was quick to speak out and quick to assemble a taskforce to aid Scalvia, and soon after international aid in the tens of billions poured out of Esthur coffers.

And yet the wheels aren't turning in the Union buildings. The UAS still hasn't begun Tardine's accession plans, and Sorovia has since applied. Despite the fast-moving situation, the UAS acts sluggish to open to new members.

John Largan, the minister to the UAS and an international development minister himself, as well as former Forethane from 2011 to 2015, told the Herald:
The government of Esthursia has adapted with the ongoing situation around these Aurorians for months. One thing we've adapted to is this - we must act quickly, decisively and convincingly in order to prevent authoritarianism creeping.
Tardine has clearly met the criteria to enter the UAS, and has clearly honoured its agreements presented to our nations. It is our duty as free UAS nations to be folks of our words, and to honour our side of the agreement made - and we will do that by pushing for the UAS to accelerate its accession process.
We welcome both Tardine and Sorovia's application to this union of democratic solidarity and as long as it takes, we will cooperate resolutely and with principle and purpose, in order to achieve united ends. We look forward to working with their governments as this process hopefully triggers imminently, and remind the UAS that the integrity of our union depends on two things - decisiveness, and legitimacy; and we can have neither without unilateral cooperation and the moving forward of this process to further open Auroria's arms to welcome two more nations into the regional community.
There can no longer be reason for extending the time period this takes, and there must be no attempt to prolong this democratic process over admission of these two clearly free democratic societies. We will be holding the UAS accountable, through whatever means necessary, if we view it is not adequately progressing with this democratic process.
The soul of the UAS, still a fledgling body, depends on its ability to move forward. We will help on every step of the way, but ultimately we depend on the rest of the UAS acting decisively and independently in order to extend our community in times where that's desperately necessary.
Not only this, but this government will be seeking formal cooperation over key issues, and with hope, we will convene with respective governments to hammer out a working relationship with these regional partners.



Also in the news this week:
Oscar Connery wins reselection battle against hard-line socialist
Referendum on banning fossil fuels by 2024 among "absurd" list of ballot initiative to go to voters in December
UAS: Can the dormant union awaken from its slumber?
Graham Ingley calls ballot initiatives "dire sign of incompetence" as Osborne positioned to scrap them
Protests for greater Asthonic devolution to take place during winter, say Asthonic National Union
 
Last edited:
The_Herald.png

High Deemery rules "criminal record of acquitted crimes" contravenes Clauses V and XI of Overlaw, strikes down sections of Employment Relations Act 2007, in landmark case

National Constabulary v Redworth results in ban on employers demanding information of court hearings if acquitted

The High Deemery has voted 5-1 in a key vote over employment rights and freedoms, striking down a contentious issue - the ability of employers to demand information of court hearings through criminal records, indiscriminate of the outcome.

Daily Herald studies found that among 1720 participating applicants, those whose records contained one acquittal were 35-43% less likely to achieve a position when balanced according to ability. One man - James Redworth - decided enough was enough, after being rejected from a set of five jobs and being informed by two that "his criminal record caused considerable pause for thought", telling the Herald:
It was almost as if the idea that I'd even been to court alone was enough to prohibit my employment. I was being discriminated against for an assault case proven to be false, and I took a stand, to demand my right to fair treatment.

The judgment by the High Deemery this morning proved exactly what I'd known - these employers were arbitrarily discriminating me based on a false charge, and I was being denied my constitutional right to presumed innocence before guilt and to freedom from discrimination.

The law decided I was an innocent man - but now it's decided I'm a free man too. The system works.

Finally, I can be free to move forward with my life.

The clauses in question were:
V - All are presumed innocent until proven guilty
XI - All have the right to freedom from discrimination, and to access all of the above and below rights withstanding all others in effect, according to race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, colour, language, religion or lack thereof, sociopolitical belief, economic circumstance, birth, origin or other status. Due to this, no free person as defined in Clause V may be distinguished in their treatment and jurisdiction of and by the law from any other free person.

The High Deemery found that Section 5, Subsections 14-17 ran afoul of these clauses, as employers were using external data to exclude someone wrongfully based on their legal status, even despite a lack of successful prosecution.

Majority concordant statement by First Deemed Wilbur Albory stated:
It is the opinion of this High Deemery that the clauses aforementioned of the Employment Relations Act 2007 have retrospectively contravened, on multiple occasions, Clauses V (presumed innocence before guilt) and XI (freedom from discrimination), and that the threshold for this particular case is sound, thus allowing lawly precedent to be set on this regard.


Opposition to the precedent include High Deemer Alma Barlow, stating that the decision "failed to take into account the right for employers to determine the suitability and circumstance of each applicant freely", and furthermore "denied the freedom of information necessary to conduct meaningful scrutiny of applying workers", claiming that "the threshold to personal damage had clearly been subjective and at best marginal, if presumed to be tangible at all."

Forethane Harold Osborne welcomed the decision, stating that the "court in action had preserved the Overlaw once more".

Also in the news this week:
AUROREA: Esthursia moves towards wide-spanning military and aid deal to supply Volshan
Social Democrats snatch Liberal seat in marginal by-election to Thanage
High Minister Wescaster confirms he will cooperate with Forethane Osborne to "ensure a veto on unconstitutional referendum responses"
Strike averted in Helvellyn as independent pay body comes to compromise with nursing unions
High speed rail links across the South Downs opened by High Minister Wescaster
 
The_Herald.png

Osborne signs major bilateral deals with Tardine, Sorovia and Rayvostoka, as Volshan war supplies formalised

Three deals have been signed off, with Esthursia supplying the Volshan war effort and thawing relations with Rayvostoka

10 November, 2022. An odd day for Esthursia - Rosemary Manning praising the government's efforts.

I'd like to sincerely thank the Forethane for his decisive and forthright attention towards our developing foreign policy. It is vital that we foster positive and active relationships with our partners in times that both necessitate them, and that have lacked them considerably. We do sincerely hope that this isn't the last that we'll hear from him.
The first deal to reach the House of Thanes, and also to be signed off from Edward Wescaster's office, was the Volshan's military supplies deal. Under this contract, Esthursia is to supply the Volshan with drone kits and electronics; a set of participating contracted private entities have been included, including prominent co-operative Varland and private limited company Alreden Motors. Companies such as these have been contracted to contribute towards the two sets, each totalling ʃ590mn, of equipment to be sent off to supply the Volshan's efforts against the Aurorea - adding to the taskforce involved in the Scalvian side of the Aurorean conflict as existing Esthursian involvement in the Aurorean War.

Edward Wescaster himself took particular pride in this "global achievement", stating:
This supply package - it symbolises the UAS' strive for democracy, it symbolises the solidarity between the Volshans and the Esthurs, and it symbolises united fight against the creeping terror of the Aurorean regime that we are all involved in as a regional and global community. We look forward to continuing to push further with our partners in Volshan and in Scalvia to bring a resolved end to this conflict. During this dark chapter; there is light.
A second deal soon followed; that of Sorovia. Sorovia - a democratic republic across the Weskermere, halfway to the Esthursian Furtherlands - is a rising force in Ethian politics, having recently applied to join the Union of Aurorian States; a wide-ranging trade and co-operation deal - ranging from a reduction in energy prices in exchange for a greater deal of energy purchases, a wide swathe of cut back tariffs, the entrance of Sorovia into the "free" movement list with Esthursia and a long-term agreement for Esthursia to supply Sorovian healthcare as well as to sell discounted automotives; in exchange for subsidies by the Esthursian government into the Sorovian tourist industry. A deal on further education to begin a student exchange programme, Thekking (Þekking, from the Asthonic word þekkingu, meaning knowledge), between Esthursian and Sorovian universities has been agreed upon, as well as grants towards education facilities from the Esthursian government totalling into the tens of millions of the 2022-3 fiscal year.

A third was accompanied - the long-reported upon thawing of Rayvostokan relations. Rayvostoka, having recently begun in a set of liberalising reforms, became subject to talks with the Esthursian government in mid-October - the deal passed through the legislature and signed off by the High Minister introduces an embassy exchange and formalises relations, the most symbolic thawing of Rayvostokan-Esthursian relations. Alongside it were the following: a package of ʃ1.4bn in developmental aid, a bilateral agricultural-industrial deal to reduce tariffs on specific products amidst a wider relaxing of trade laws, and the opening of a limited visa programme between Rayvostoka and Esthursia.

Redethegn for the Elland, Alfred Frome - who attended the talks with Rayvostoka last month - introduced the two agreements to the House of Thanes:
Today, this government proudly presents to the House two deals of international import. One ensures the beginning of a lengthy process of thawing and openness between the Rayvostokans and ourselves, and - we hope - their eventual reconciliation with the international community; and the other cements a fruitful partnership with our friends in Sorovia, ensuring co-operation on key issues like energy, free movement and education.
The Esthursian government, as ever, remains committed to its programme of open relations and free trade, and will continue to sign off instrumental deals for the benefit of the Esthursian people, and for the global community of nations and their folks.
These deals have all been signed off by Edward Wescaster this morning, bringing them into effect.

The Lorestead of Sutton, a high-ranking university within northern Osynstry near the city of Brantley - and the institution Forethane Harold Osborne attended from 1982 to 1985 - has commented on the landmark deals:
We have long pushed for Esthursia to pursue a national policy of open trade and free movement with global partners, and also to pursue the beginning of a region-wide scheme of student exchange programmes - this has clearly entered a critical stage of development, at last, and we for one welcome the government's action on turning a page away from Esthursian self-imposed neutrality, however urge that this should be the first step on a journey, not the only step.

Also in the news this week:
National intelligence agencies "discounted and dismissed" from investigation into Marylebone death and plot
Internal Social Democratic elections continue shift away from the centre
EPP bill to privatise steelworks voted against by Conservatives; Ingley brands Manning's party "blue liberals"
House prices fall 0.4% into Q2 2022
Liberal Party Duncaster ward councillor apologises after "bizarre" comment on "impending apocalypse"

Approved by @Artwashere and @Greater Ale Permars
 
Last edited:
The_Examiner.png

What is Esþursian conservatism?

A volatile political situation hides a nuanced, traditionally grounded strand of politics that survived over two centuries.

What is Esþursian conservatism?

A complicated question. To an observer, it might appear disorganised, undefined, perhaps liberalism in a blue cloak. To a native Esþur, it might refer to the pragmatic paternalistic attitude that unites historic and modern conservatives within our country; an ideology that even perseveres within both splits of the Conservative Union.

The beginning of Bournite conservatism

To begin the journey of how we got to this stage, we must begin in the late 18th century. In 1793, the Conservative Party was founded, a merger of various industrialist and aristocratic groups - however, as with much of post-revolutionary Esþursia, these groups weren't looking for self-interest, they were looking for rehabilitation into the political system around them. They appointed none other than the Earl of Mereling, now known to people as Edward Bourne. Bourne's politics weren't easily defined, but began a rather distinct strand of paternalistic conservatism.

The key to Conservative success? They moved. The protests of the early 1800s aimed squarely towards dismantling the system - so Bourne invited the leader of their movement, one Theobald Banner, to hammer out a deal. The Bourne-Banner deal ensured the right to trade union membership, instituted the first industrial tribunals to settle worker-employer disputes, and began a period often referred to as the "Bournite peace" - the first few decades of the 19th century being defined by a steady march of progress and a pragmatic approach to crises. Esþursian conservatism was born progressive and born liberal in its attitude to society for two reasons - Esþursia is constitutionally and functionally liberal, with very little religious influence due to the persistent threat of the theocratic uprisings tempted in the 17th and 18th centuries and their tyranny in the 16th; but also figures like Edward Bourne, members of the landed classes who wanted to see society move forward and for Esþursia to prove a shining example of pragmatic democracy, made it possible. Esþursian conservatism spent the next hundred years contorting - a period of laissez-faire paternalism contorted the Conservative Union's values in the mid-19th century under Philip Bolton and Edward Trent, and furthermore its instability thereafter proved pivotal in the elections of Jacob Banbury, Esþursia's very own communist Forethane. However, Bourne's legacy continued, in fostering a polital climate whereby the people felt entitled to hold those in power to account as one of their own, to this very day - the public's dismissal of hardright Tharbjorn Einarsson, and then its lukewarm approval of his leftwing successor John Largan, reminded both that they had to earn, not seize, trust.

Edward Bourne lasted over twenty years as Forethane, from 1794 to 1821, making him the longest-serving Forethane in Esþursian history. Bournism, although undervalued within Esþursian conservative thinking, remains a key tenet of its distinct differences from the world. Lorestead of Ravenscroft professor Mildred Eldridge, who teaches 18th-19th century Esþursian politics to undergraduate students, had a concordant view: "The policies of Edward Bourne wouldn't be identifiable as conservative on their own, but the thinking behind them very much tied in with what other regimes may denote as noblesse oblige. However, this went a step further - Bourne and contemporary conservatives believed that they as nobles were also ordinary people, and the equals of their economically struggling compatriots, therefore included the people in a way that even reformist groups in many other nations would shy away from. Esþursian conservatism came from an acceptance of change, as long as it established itself off the lessons of the past, and certainly this major lesson was that the liberalising reforms following the postclassical Revolution were positive and that Esþursian democracy was something special in the world." She went further, stating that "Edward Bourne introduced many ideas that only spread elsewhere far later - the idea of collective bargaining and industrial relations, freedom of opportunity through inheritance taxes, and a culture of equal opportunity through public education, itself brought up under the Bourne era."

Modern history

Now, back to the question - what makes Esþursian conservatism? To answer this, we have to go back a century, to the rule of Conservative leader James Thorne. Often seen as the most controversial Forethane, Thorne pursued an agenda of laissez-faire economic policy, restrictive social policy and entered a costly war with Scalvia. This agenda proved unsuccessful at best - the economy went into shock, workers (having lost their Bournite right to negotiate) went to General Strike, and yet the Conservative Union stood by him. That proved fatal for one reason - it attempted to abandon the idea Bourne passed down for generations; you don't abandon consensus. The left seized the "consensus" mantle, and the rest was history - twenty-five years of leftist dominated politics, the permanent introduction of Asmontian politics such as the end of inherited power or the expansion of public welfare and ownership, followed by an explosive populist-right authoritarian experiment that our constitutional arrangement weathered.

Conservatism undoubtedly failed Esþursia, and its own conservatives, in this period. It left the economy in ruins, living standards tattered and a liberal social policy obliterated. George Asmont, darling of the left, rose to power for a two-decade period - his first term dedicated almost purely to undoing the damage that Thorne had wrought. But the question to modern conservatives is this; was that really Esþursian conservatism, or was that a failed thought experiment? Does this not more closely resemble the failed authoritarianism of Olafn Arbjern, long shunned by all who he once identified with, thanks to his disastrous legacy of brutal authoritarianism spotted with dismal failure, and whose dictatorial experiment sullies the names of conservative thinkers at the time for their misguided association with a man who transitioned from traditionalism into the reactionary section of politics.

Rosemary Manning is the perfect example of modern Esþursian conservatism in action. Coming to power within her party after the slow rehabilitation of the Conservative Union in the post-Einarsson years, Manning beat off a fierce challenge from the populist-right; a lifelong supporter of "civic conservatism", she not only saw the place for a mixed economy, but for a healthy Bournite mix of workers' rights and employer cooperation. Her differences with the left were fewer, but that's because she agreed with them on some issues, not because she compromised on many. The values of Manning's party, liberal-conservative and one-nation in nature, come from the notion that we live in times where free-market economics has failed its duty, and where the direction is to not embrace the past where it has failed. Her quote - "we must not hesitate to challenge the past, lest we forget that the future will challenge us" - stems from the idea that conservatism isn't about looking back, it's about making objective progress from traditional success and moving on from systems or ideologies that falter. It's this attitude that has denied Harold Osborne his prize, a majority of the legislature, and it's this attitude that has rehabilitated the Conservative Union back into the national conscience.

What makes Esþursian conservatism, therefore, isn't the policy. William Greenwood is clearly conservative, as a free-market socially centrist Conservative Forethane - but so is Anthony Moore, a socially liberal advocate of the mixed economy that outlasted George Asmont. Isaac Harding has far more to do with Rosemary Manning - herself a staunch advocate of a centrist strand of conservative thinking - than Tharbjorn Einarsson, despite sharing far more in common with Einarsson. No, Esþursian conservatism is the ability to forge ideology based on the situation around you, and to band together lessons of the past, with solutions from the future. It's that thinking that has kept Esþursian conservatism alive in a political climate that leans heavily left and if anything, it's one that fostered it.

Esþursian conservatism is a product of its own - and even if the world doesn't quite fit it within its mould, it works just fine for us. After all, that's all it's there to do, and it's mighty good at it.

- Professor Oscar Aston, Lorestead of Tynwald
 
The_Herald.png

Esthursia: Storm Dagny drags temperatures down up to 10 degrees below their norm in northern Esthursia

Storm Dagny has hit the north-west in particular, with temperatures as low as -35.3C measured on top of Lluchel, Helvellyn

Snowy-city-view-from-calton-hill_719x360.jpg
Forecast_13.12.2022.png

Heavy snow and wind over the borough of Thornlow, mid-east Osynstry (left); ENBC forecast for December 13, 2022 (right)
Unseasonable cold has hit the country of Esthursia, particularly its northernmost flanks - airports have shut, and usually resilient railway lines in the north have been shut for safety reasons. Schools are off, and local councils - as well as the Asthonic regional government - are calling for people to remain inside and heat their homes.

The city of Thornlow tends to get just 10 days of snow each year on average. This year, Storm Dagny has brought over half of them consecutively - plunging temperatures down to freezing as a high and as low as -11C at night. The effects of this have been widespread - it is estimated that over 90% of schools have been shut for an entire week, and even with the "whitestorm" - the Esthursian name for a storm bringing temperatures below 0C and snowfall - dissipating, temperatures are to remain depressed in the next week, making snow persistent.

"The gritters have been mobilised," Council Leader Jacob Ashworth (Social Democrat) tells us, "and business as usual will be resumed as soon as possible - this storm is unprecedented, and although we are doing whatever we can to resume normal process, the persistence and sheer amount of snowfall makes this a lengthier journey than we otherwise would have liked."

The Conservative opposition has criticised the perceived failure of Thornlow Borough Council to prepare for the storm. Conservative caucus leader, Andrea Morley, claims; "The council knew this was coming. It was forecast two weeks ago. It's been here for the best part of a week. There are serious questions that must be answered about why things ground to a halt with, only now, the council leaders seeming to get their act together. It's negligent, in my opinion, and actually quite damaging to the local economy - schools closed, roads clogged, the airport's shut, railways are only just opening; it's not like we're up north, and yet lots of their councils are getting themselves back on track quicker than us down here despite far worse conditions."

Local resident, Matthew Ettman, had this to say: "It's actually quite stunning. We don't often get snow this early, let alone snow that stays for the day. It's bloody cold, but it just gives you time to reflect. It feels like... things have calmed down. Although a lot of that is because I haven't been able to go to work since Tuesday."

Nationally, the storm has smashed its way through several records - the lowest temperature since 2009, the highest amount of daily snowfall in one place since 2011, to name a few.

The Weþerfrood, the Esthursian meteorological office, has commented on the unusual storm.
"It's actually rather serious - temperatures are as low as they have been in over a decade in some places of the north-west, and in most places the coldest day of the year, or even two or three years, has been set in the last week. Snowfall in some places has reached well over 10 or even 20 centimetres - disruption is widespread and we urge special caution for those of you who come from up in the North, for whom temperatures are often well below -5C or even -10C. Although not a generational nadir of temperatures, for instance that of 1989 or 1955, conditions are very dangerous, so we urge caution for all those in Level 2 and 3 areas."
 
Last edited:
The_Examiner.png

OPINION: Is the generational gap fuelling extremism?

The latest EsthursiaElects yearly poll has shown just how stark our age divides have become in politics. But can it threaten democracy itself?

Esthursia_Elects.png

EsthursiaElects poll for 25 Ereyule, showing the rise of the far-right in older groups and far-left in younger groups
Esthursian historical context
1950s Esthursia was a far more different place. The Workers' Union had just elected Rickard Warner, a far-left representative whose politics could best be described as "a step further" than the already rather left-wing rule of the Asmont-Whittaker era (1926-1950). Warner took pride of place, and immediately set about major party reforms - a party commitment to the "end of capitalism itself", a declaration denying that Esthursia was a full democracy "until it embraced socialism in all and every workplaces", and an official affiliation with the Anning of Annings.

Meanwhile, the Workers' Union's time in power had come to an end. Warner proved unelectable. However, the far-left - in jettisoning the already borderline-radical agenda of their predecessors - had just opened the door to a far-right politician. Olafn Arbjern, first the deputy partner in the Conservative-Nationalist coalition, ran rings around Walter Wentworth - a Conservative leader, year-long Forethane and a politician who, although seemingly good-natured, was docile and ineffective in campaigns. Arbjern took power in the 1951 snap election, in which he began six years of increasingly regressive and repressive rule.

When the 1960s rolled around, things had changed; the Workers' Union had disbanded and most had joined the centre-left Social Democrats, the Nationalist Party had more or less fallen into irrelevance, and the ruling Liberal Party Forethane Edith Newell proved syncretic, pragmatic and uniting in her decade-long rule. Social reforms - the right to abortion and anti-discrimination against women, minorities and the LGBTQ+ community - rolled around, and a speech by Anthony Moore, Conservative Forethane in the early 1970s, summarised exactly the mood of the nation at that time:
We have experienced extremism first-hand, but we have also fought it off. We remain lucky to have maintained our freedom, but it came at a cost. In the 1920s, we did the same. We should know that regardless of the thin veneer of purpose they come with, populists remain anti-democratic, and a nation infected with populism is just steps from autocracy. Populism spreads like a virus, grabs hold of our national institutions, and threatens democracy itself. Populism is conflict.
Extremism is far worse. The likes of Warner and Arbjern left us with ruined freedoms, ruined conventions, ruined livelihoods and in many cases, ruined lives. They used the instruments of our beloved democracy to crush democracy; the very same way that populists operate, but with a visceral hatred for democracy itself unveiled in their rule.
As Esthurs, a community of free-minded individuals, we should progress beyond populism, beyond extremism, and embrace our liberal democratic values grounded in both tradition, and aversion of failed dogmatic populism.

Fast forward 50 years, and the cracks have once again begun to show. The end of the 1980s saw struggles between a Conservative government and trade unions smeared with the legacy of long-standing dormant extremism to both the right and the left. The 2000s saw the rejection of centrism in both major parties - the Social Democrats moving left gradually under John Largan and then even more under Harold Osborne; and the Conservatives moving to the hard-right under Tharbjorn Einarsson. The consensus economics of the 20th century was dragged right gradually, until it reached its most conservative in 2010, when CEOs in Esthursia often earnt over one-hundred times that of their average worker. Einarsson himself was known, both before and after he became leader and Forethane, as a hard-right populist who tested the boundaries of Esthursian democratic principles and conventions - and then crossed them.

The 2010 General Strike saw upheaval once again. Anthony Moore's political descendents remembered back to "populism is conflict", as populist Einarsson stood over and participated actively in the conflict between employers and the government, against trade unions and more widely the people. Although mostly bloodless, people were injured, police harshness was occasionally noted, and abuses of state power were clear and unequivocal; but less well known is the extreme-left ideologies that these struggles entrenched, the far-left tendency to view the 2010 General Strike as a won battle against conservative autocratic views, and as proof for the exact same type of system that Warner had proposed 60 years earlier.

Modern political divides
It's been a well known fact for decades that the young, the more highly educated, and the urban North vote left of the nation. But it hasn't been so common that the far-left and far-right had age gaps. That was until the Socialist Front, led by the Tynwald Three primarily - a group of young Asthonic graduates from the Lorestead of Tynwald who led successively after one another - led the far-left to electoral gains in 2014; and again this Harvest (September). The young, who long had been the most liberal and centrist-focused group, became outraged at the perceived attacks on university students (with tuition fee demands in the 2000s), graduates (with the "graduate tax" attempted in Asthonhelm in autumn 2010, the spark of the university riots), and the public sector - with successive cutbacks to public services and pay freezes; and the 2010 crisis appeared to hit them hardest.

Fast forward 10 years, and you've got the left continuing to dominate the young. Unsurprising, really. But what has appeared as an increasing anomaly on both sides, is the rise of national conservatism and borderline far-right politics at older voters, and radical far-left socialism at younger votes. Several universities' student bodies are now represented by Banburian (Esthur communist) representatives, most elected this year. The concentration of young people around student areas has led to the election of several prominent far-left politicians from Socialist Front, despite relatively low movement in its national vote share. The far-left has not been this strong in living memory.

Meanwhile, to the right, attacks on "multiculturalism" within Esthursia - in short, the acceptance of Cumbric and Asthonic cultures and languages as Esthursian, and the continued co-operation between Osynstry and its exterior partners within the Union - have hit hardest for older groups. Similarly, the recent campaign against involvement in the Aurorean war has centred around the idea of "war tourism" - the use of public housing for refugees fleeing Scalvia in the recent conflict across the south-east particularly - and aimed at the perceived wastefulness of government programmes for diversity and anti-discrimination programmes; again, the only groups who have been moved by this are those brought up primarily before the 1960s education reforms that instituted anti-discrimination as a key tenet of Esthur education. Heritage, a party that is as close to far-right as any party in Esthursia to win local seats has been in close to two generations, has sprung up in south-eastern suburbs. It proposes the institution of Athersism as a state religion - in a country where more than 2 in 3 are irreligious; it proposes the total closure of external borders; and even the scrapping of our Overlaw. The prospect of this party gaining electoral representation at higher levels should worry us all.

The fact that close to a tenth of old Esthurs back the far-right National Democrats and Heritage - both descendents of Arbjern's aristocratic authoritarian regime - and a tenth of young Esthurs back Socialist Front - a descendent of Warnerist and Banburian thinking - should startle us. As those figures rise, the fringes of our political system threaten to destabilise and infiltrate the liberal democracy and social market economy constructed carefully over two centuries. The politics of elitism, of fear and of anger - either at the "elite", employers and landlords on the far-left, or at marginalised groups and diversity on the far-right - have sprung up once again; and their materialisation threatens Esthursia's global stance, compromising and attacking one of the few issues that its mainstream politicians can get together on, that of opposing states like the Aurorea. One could even make the argument that the thaw of relations with Rayvostoka is a pre-cursor to the influence of the far-left increasing its weight on mainstream left politics, outbursts by left-wing politicians - most of whom were sacked in the 2017 reshuffle as Osborne clocked onto the rising hard-left problem within his own party - signalling the beginning of a tumultuous period for Esthursia.

Or maybe we're worrying too much. Maybe fringe politics will remain on the fringes, and perhaps a tenth will never grow beyond. Perhaps the older generation will take extreme-right politics' weight with them, and younger far-left people will grow into the centre-left and centre as they integrate into the national economy and society at large. However, the risk of this not happening, and of extremism taking root, should be one that we take far more seriously than we do now.

- Henrick Welbury, 2006-2011 Independent councillor and political scientist
 
Last edited:
The_Herald.png

New Year's talk with Mark Willesden

The former Social Democratic Forethane, and long-term activist, shares his thoughts of the changing world after he left politics

Straw-web.jpg
Each year, the Daily Herald conducts an interview to gauge what they think of the times behind and ahead. This year, I'm honoured to have been able to speak with former Forethane Mark Willesden about Esthursia, and on politics in 2022 (and before) more widely.

- Foreword, from Thomas Western

T. Western: Good afternoon, sir.
M. Willesden: Good afternoon to you too. I'm glad we're able to speak today, after all.
T. Western: Certainly. So, to jump in at the deep end - what'd you think of the current government?
M. Willesden: Really jumping in there, aren't we? I mean... I'd say they're doing a good job. They've won five elections on the trot - that's five more than I ever managed! - and they've done a good job of fixing the mess that Tharbjorn (Einarsson) left behind for us.
T. Western: I sense a however coming along.
M. Willesden: Yes. You know me, I've always been a strong advocate for equal opportunity. The rhetoric's still there from this government, but I fear they've moved a bit far into the leftfield. Students getting oversized grants, public sector pay massively outpacing private sector pay, and even now - albeit far more moderate than the Wilson tax - expat and wealth taxes. I just feel it's wrong that as a country, we're not really enticing foreign investment anymore.
T. Western: I'll play devil's advocate here. Just for argument's sake.
M. Willesden: Go on.
T. Western: Wage growth is at an undeniably high rate across the board, even taking into account the inequalities you've rightly raised. People are on 30%, 40% more than they were a decade ago. Inequality has plummeted. I mean, we've never seen such radical economic redistribution in living memory. And more people are educated, to a higher standard, than ever before. Isn't this... good?
M. Willesden: Hey, no, I agree. Times for people are good. I think we've bounced back from the 2010 crash. But they're not remarkable and we could be doing a lot better. We're not really consolidating that growth. It's there... but just because people feel well off doesn't mean the economy's growing. GDP growth is just passing 2% per year, rather than the 3s, 4s and 5s that were recorded a few decades ago. We're not creating wealth, we're just... shifting it about. Which is great and all, but having such punitive rates and a workforce that used to be encouraged to be hostile to employers - one thing I'm very pleasantly surprised by Harold Osborne clamping down on - just isn't the way we grow. I think this culture that we've got from the 2010 crisis, where the markets are avoided and shunned at all costs, that's exactly what's wrong - it's finding that balance between government overreach as now and punitive austerity as in the 2000s that I think we need more of.
T. Western: But, when we found that medium, didn't the economy stagnate under these monetarist policies? Is Osborne not simply avoiding the policies enacted under your government that just... didn't work?
M. Willesden: laughs Knew you'd mention that. I think my policies... we did things too quickly. We saw a chance to outflank the Conservatives on free market economics, and I don't regret that. We made the right calls. It's just we didn't anticipate how settled the markets had become in the Granthamite economics that came before us. Whereas now, now that the hardline politics of Einarsson have been shown to fail, I feel Osborne's overcompensated and shifted that bit further left than is ideal for economic growth.
T. Western: Right, how about Osborne himself. He's been in power for eight years now, what's your thoughts on him?
M. Willesden: You might be surprised by this, but I actually quite like him. (John) Largan always seemed hopeful in him. I remember once, 2004 I think it was, John and I were talking about the new group of representatives. He told me, "I'm telling you, that new Sutton graduate, Harold Osborne, he's going far. He works hard and gets stuff done, and he's got ideas. And he knows how to speak to the North. That's where our seeds need to be sown these days." I'm sure I gave him a non-sequitur in response, but I agreed, honestly. Several years down the line, he's on picket lines, speaking directly to strikers. I think he's a big reason why we won in 2011, honestly.
T. Western: I hate to badger, but what about now? His more recent actions?
M. Willesden: Yeah, I mean, I've always made my politics clear. I'm a moderate, through and through. Osborne, he's not. There's some things we're never going to see eye to eye on. The new Social Democratic party has moved away from moderate politics, frankly, the days of a centrist Social Democrat winning are long gone. But at the same time... he's not one of the hardleft. Not only is he not, but he's actively blocked them from trying to pull the party out of the mainstream left, and took the hard decisions we needed when Wilson brought his budget in 2017. Good on him, I say, on that. He's also kept the torch burning, and won three elections - two in the last year - so he's clearly popular. The Conservatives have also seen how seemingly well things are going, and have moderated, so honestly I think it's not wrong to accredit Osborne with the end of hardright Conservative Union policy and the rise of the sensible, moderate and pragmatic branch of Rosemary Manning's civic conservatism.
T. Western: Winning three elections and moderating the Conservatives, that's high praise. Now, let's move on, I think.
M. Willesden: Happily.
T. Western: First, we've got to talk about the elephant in the room. Jeremy Wilson.
M. Willesden: I don't think I need say my opinions, honestly. He was out of touch, and he brought a budget that just didn't work. Osborne was right to sack him, his time had come. Lauren Bowen, his replacement, had to spend the first few months just putting back the fiscal foundations he'd destroyed. As for his comments toward Prydania, I think he's not gone far enough to fix the damage he's wrought. You don't just come out and throw mud across the water. I get he's trying to stand up for his morals, I get that, but they've just been through a civil war and a generation of tyranny. The last thing they need is a failed Chancellor telling them their law doesn't match his opinion.
T. Western: That's fair enough, Wilson's nature has always been one marred with controversy, although many might disagree! Now, speaking of foreign affairs, last year saw a very significant development. Well, a set of them actually, but one stood out, down in Scalvia.
M. Willesden: Yes, the war. Terrible business. I think this government, and to give credit Manning's opposition too, have done a fine job of showing that Esthursia is firmly against the Auroreans. As a free nation, it's the least we can do. High Minister Wescaster's done a fine job speaking on behalf of the Esthurs, and so's Osborne; as a global community, we've got to stand up to nations like Aurorea trying to compromise the independence of folks like the Scalvians or Volshan.
T. Western: The UAS is duty-bound to help. And yet, amid the speeches and statements you've pointed out from Wencaster and Osborne, the government's recent pleas for multilateral involvement, have they worked?
M. Willesden: Clearly not. I think the Forethane was very right to stand up and go "right, we've done our part, and we need our partners to help the Scalvians and Volshan too." I don't think we've seen that yet, but I remain hopeful. We're seeing two new partners - both in trade deals and in UAS applications - in Tardine and Sorovia. Above all else, the UAS is new. Auroria is going through some really tough times, and it takes time to adapt.
T. Western: Yes, it's definitely mightily important to consolidate our global frontier against authoritarian regimes like that of the Aurorea, and that this may take quite some time. Finally, back at home, what're your thoughts on the prospect of the rising radical right and left?
M. Willesden:  I mean, the whole reason I consider myself a moderate is because I know what sleepwalking into extremism can do to a country. Radical politics sound great to adherents but ultimately they're stepping stones to worse things. I think, sincerely, Esthursia is a tolerant, progressive and inclusive country. That's why the rhetoric the radical left use against those they see as the "elite" is concerning - and that used by the radical right against minorities, women, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, those in poverty and so forth, outright disgusting. It's this vile tendency to just throw mud and blame whoever they see fit on both extreme flanks that really riles me up. I think that's why I got into politics, back in the late 80s, because the trade unions' latent extremism was going unnoticed - and Greenwood then abused it to his own radical ends. We've moved past that, but that doesn't mean we can't fall back. I think we've made some real social progress that wasn't possible when I was in power - on transgender rights, gender identity, euthanasia - and the radical right's attempts to jeopardise them and a whole century of progress are hard to not find quite horrifying.
T. Western: I agree, honestly. On a lighter note: are you hopeful for the new year?
M. Willesden: Honestly, yes. Tardine's out of its civil war, we have every hope that the Aurorea will be defeated by the next New Year's fireworks are set off, and honestly I think the last year's had a lot of elections - two within five months - and a lot of political uncertainty that next year should just do without. This continent really needs a year to reflect, and to rebuild, and to stabilise things, and I think we're on the right track to do just that. May 2023 be a year to recover what we've lost and consolidate what we've gained. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm an old man now, so the importance of stability and peace is just that bit more apparent. I think Osborne and Manning are some of the most uniting leaders we've seen in a long time too, and Green-Left's Evelyn Banbury [the Afterthane] is openly cooperative unlike some within her ranks, so let's hope we see some serious multiparty agreements and action over the New Year.
T. Western: Let's hope so. I hope you've had a merry Yuletide, and a happy New Year to you, sir, this has been a real honour.
M. Willesden: And you too, Thomas. It's been a pleasure speaking with you.
 
Last edited:
The_Atlish_Times.png

OPINION: Chancellor Bowen has failed to end the war on wealth

A resort of the populist left has always been that of attacking the fortunate and successful; and merely watering it down has made it even more entrenched

- Frederick Parker; 11 Afteryule 2978 / 11 January 2023
Cast your mind back to 2017. A government in shame; a Chancellor whose job expired virtually at the instant he introduced his Autumn budget; an IFS despairingly stating Esthursia's economy had stagnated. The Social Democrats were polling well over 10 points behind the Conservative Union, and it looked like Stephen Alborough, after 7 years of steady reconstruction within and on behalf of his party, would finally bring the party of the centre-right back into power.

Except he didn't.

The reason? The government disassociated strongly. Wilson, a man often seen as extremely close to Forethane Osborne, lost his job overnight. His successor, Lauren Bowen, had already thrown together a more responsible budget by the start of the next month, and a raft of votes threw out the previous one. Income taxes were moderated, corporation tax increases were scrapped, and a widespread wealth tax was thrown out. Student grants were not expanded, and the government would no longer run the largest budget deficit since the 2010 crash. A backlash by Wilson's loyalists actually resulted in what has been dubbed the "purge", whereby a sudden reshuffle threw key hardliners down the pecking order, or out of it entirely. A return to the moderate pragmatism espoused by the John Largans and Mark Willesdens of the party seemed certain.

And that sort of happened. It happened convincingly enough for people to vote Social Democrat in 2018. In fact, it turned out so successfully that Rosemary Manning became too confident in her hand's power when trying to do the same to her party's rightmost fringes; resulting in years of paralysis and a new right-wing political force to remind the centre-right of its failures and compromises. It happened convincingly enough for the markets to rebuild, for the economy to start fixing the damage wrought by Wilson and his group. It seemed that at last, the mainstream left had sidelined its hardline instincts without a major backlash.

Fast forward to 2023, and that isn't really true anymore. Osborne has scraped through two elections, with a slim majority resulting in a snap election that only just confirmed it by expanding it marginally; and there's a wealth tax again. Income tax rates have crept up. Expatriation taxes have been introduced, and the government has drifted slowly into strengthening the unions' hands in negotiations, accompanied by increasingly vitriolic rhetoric by ministers once dubbed moderates and centrists. One quote resonates with me, by Conservative Shadow Chancellor Walter Glossop, "by sending us sleepwalking into a manufactured class conflict, this government is declaring war on the Esthursian public."

Sure, the left might say that these taxes are nothing like those of the 2010s. Honestly, that fact - on its own! - is more or less correct; the wealth tax of 2017 and that since 2021 are virtually incomparable. One sought the eradication of an entire rung of Esthursian society, one seeks a moderate reimbursement of growth from the fortunate to those less fortunate. And those of 2017 were clearly factors of "envy politics", a key feature of radical-left politics in modern Esthursia - whereas those since 2021 haven't been there to materially change the conditions of those at the top, realistically. That, on its own, is fine analysis; you'd have to be a dogmatic free-marketeer to not concede, regardless of the virtues and efficiency of these plans, that the two are not the same. However, it's when you've got the Forethane publicly calling for unionisation, it's when you've got the former Chancellor meddling in foreign domestic affairs and trying to compare trade union strength to democracy itself, it's when entire businesses are finding themselves "toppled" as the results of the highest union membership rates in 40 years push the agendas of workers who've clocked onto the fact that they no longer have to justify industrial action - that you notice that all of these are symptoms to a wider disease within our politics, sickening its politicians and electorate alike. This isn't always the case, but the fact it's notably sometimes the case signals that we've got a significant problem in our trade unions, and in how their actions are portrayed. We were here in the 1980s, and we're here again; and the government this time is nowhere to be seen.

The most vulgar happening is as follows; despite wages going up, sentiment against those at the top has been falling sharply. Polling has signalled that policies aimed increasingly aggressively at reducing the power, influence and wealth of those who've reached the top rungs of the income ladder - despite the government's insistence of social mobility and of equitable education to get there - are gaining momentum politically and popularly. We truly are sleepwalking into a class conflict - folks, in many ways, are being told half-truths about the true loss to society that Esthursia's shrinking inequality is causing, and these half-truths are aiming blame for lost potential, lost opportunity and what realistically is a persistent elitism problem in the institutions the left so proudly claims are equal - universities in particular - straight at the wealthy, rather than at the government that's supposed to solve them.

Not only that, but the government and trade unions alike have forged a culture within Esthursia that finds any criticism scandalous and harshly ideological. Putting forward that the solution to rising education costs is not just raising taxes, or that rising public social and healthcare costs can be weathered despite the rapidly aging population we face, or that the government should not - overtly or subtly - be partisan in industrial disputes (whether that means widely, or theoretically on a case-by-case basis, the latter a phenomenon we luckily have not seen quite yet), are simply the rantings and ravings of the EPP, or of the businessmen, or of the "right" in general, as some kind of scapegoat-cum-bogeyman. We are at risk of losing the public expression and democratic pluralism that has rewarded our democracy for so long with prosperity and unity through this culture of associating an entire raft of thinking disassociative to that of the status quo as negative or dogmatic - as such, we risk embedding a wider culture of polarisation and politicisation of issues that must be tackled multilaterally. The aging crisis - and it is a crisis - deserves better solutions than "more houses, more benefits, more students", and whether or not Osborne wanted to raise the pension age, his party would be set on fire by the people he convinced to oppose what they saw as slights against their rights, even when misled or misinterpreted. We risk entrenching issues for generations due to a simple political tactic by a government who pretend to be jack of all trades, masquerading as a socialist-sympathetic group of moderates, as if such a thing existed in the first place - our entire society risks being thrown into the past and prosperity robbed for our future generations thanks to a political culture that puts party before principle.

The war on wealth is back, and we should fight back, before we sleepwalk into a class conflict that we can't get out of; otherwise the future Osbornes may not be so concealed and sheepish in their desire to punish an increasing swathe of earners for the long-term economic issues our nation faces. An aging population, a bulging, cracking, straining welfare state, and regional divides - the problem isn't in those who hold wealth, it's fixing things for those who don't, before our economy, and the society around it, grinds to a shuddering halt.
 
Last edited:
The_Examiner.png

OPINION: Esthursian universities are finally waking up to their history of elitism

The latest EsthursiaElects yearly poll has shown just how stark our age divides have become in politics. But can it threaten democracy itself?

image.png

Figures are improving. But we're a long way off from "true equity", says Professor John Selby of the Lorestead of Thornlow.
The subject no politician in Esthursia had wanted to talk about for decades is finally on the agenda; the inequality in education. For decades, advocates of "fairness", "equality" and social mobility have all glossed over what is probably the largest cause - and actually, not the hardest to root out - of inequality in Esthursia today - education.

The numbers don't lie, even after 12 years of Social Democrat government. Just 100,000 private school pupils - 1 in 11 of the total yearly student population reaching each stage of education. And yet, by the time they've taken their Hayings, they hold 1 in 9 Colkrede passes - that's just at age 15. At age 18, they now make up 1 in 8 fathoms (passes) in the Furthers. Out of the Oversteps - the top pickings of the grades reached at age 18, private school pupils hold 1 in 7. This slow, but unmistakable and constant, gain on performance gives these private school pupils an extra 50% chance of gaining two or more Oversteps at the Furthers.

Things get worse. Out of those who go to a top Lorestead, 14% come from private schools. That is higher than the 13% that come from the lowest quintile of students - meaning that despite the fact that the poorest fifth of pupils outnumber private school pupils over two-to-one, private schoolers outnumber these pupils in elite universities.

Studies have shown that every single mark here, whether to a superficial or significant extent, has a statistically significant mark on a person's future earnings and place in society. It's undeniable that therefore, by 18, those born to poorer families, rather than those who can afford to send their kids to a private institution, are given a weaker hand - and that's undeniably wrong.

Now, what the government would say is this: "Things are improving." That, I must concede, is true - those figures of 14% and 13% look a lot more dire 10 years ago, when they were 22% and 9%. The end of the 2000s austerity programme, the reversal of worsening inequality trends since 2010, and the beginning of diversity and admissions programmes by loresteads has significantly improved the situation - but not all that is down to the government, and the problem hasn't gone away. The issue is simple - if private schools are better than state schools, private schooled students will outperform their state school counterparts at every landmark, progressively worsening the divide as time goes on.

A major reason for this remarkable shift in government opinion is as follows: the Forethane isn't privately educated. Sure, he went to an elite university - and a selective state school - but at the very least his distaste for educational inequalities is a mark up from the policies of Martha Grantham. Darling of the left - yet a privately-educated Forethane who made essentially zero reforms to counter the issues of private schools outperforming state schools. They remained tax-exempt, they remained pervasive in political society, and surprise surprise, the following Forethane after her was privately educated too!

The movements of the Largan-Osborne government have been increasingly promising, showing some glimmers of hope each time. Ending the tax exempt status of these schools, and the government's sudden realisation that the money taps had been on for decades straight to subsidise private schools led to Jeremy Wilson's decision to turn them off with great ceremony, preventing the 2016 subsidisation of private schools amounting to 300 million shillings. Recent discussions have even brought the notion of restricting the number of private school entrants into elite loresteads and the civil service - the endgame appears increasingly to be at least indifferent towards even the notion of private schools' existence.

The issue though, isn't over whether private schools exist. It's over whether those who pay for education should receive better education. For that, we revert to the same issue - for generations, the issue will continue to be that the previous generations of private school pupils will have qualified with advantageous records, passed through the system with extra kudos and come out the other end landing a better job than they probably would've done had they not had parents who afforded - whether through personal sacrifice or personal wealth - to send their children to these private schools.

The best analogy for how private schools are viewed by their opponents is as follows: the independent Oaklands School, is situated opposite Gordon College. Gordon College is part of the Lorestead of Thornlow. And, would you believe it, the Oaklands School has consistently ranked in the top rungs of Thornlow applications?

Of course, ironically, the student profile of these universities doesn't tend to lean right or prefer regressive policies. Students' unions are a key reason why the government's plans in 2010 to phase in tuition fees - and then quadruple them over ten years - flopped so badly that the entire government came down with it. Some elite universities - Tynwald, Sutton and Ravenscroft in particular - have a reputation of leading the anti-status quo left movement in recent decades, and indeed Ravenscroft much earlier than this.
 
Last edited:
The_Herald.png

Election 2018: What went so wrong for Alborough's "Better Plan" those five years ago?

Buoyed by the failings of Wilson's plan in 2017, he looked to be a shoe-in for April 2018. Yet things fell apart quickly - why?

better_plan_better_future.png

The "HeadStone", nicknamed for the near-universal mockery it received and its effect on Alborough's campaign, has become a symbol of the 2018 election

Five years ago today, Harold Osborne recorded his first positive opinion poll since October 2017. He'd managed to overtake the Conservative Union a few weeks prior, and Stephen Alborough's honeymoon period had been truly vanquished. Three months on, Osborne recorded his strongest electoral victory to date. Nobody, whether left or right, had expected such a resounding return to fortune for the left.

The Atlish Times, on November 2, 2017, had used the headline:
"Osborne scrabbles for time as Chancellor Wilson brings government down with him"
The Examiner, a week later, followed this up with:
"Forethane Harold Osborne's first election may be his last, after Wilson affair"
Even us, at the Daily Herald, had our doubts. An article on the Wilson budget and government crisis dated October 30, 2017, stated:
"Alborough, with his Conservative Union, looks set to end seven years of opposition next April - even though Harold Osborne remains fairly ambivalent with the public, he no longer maintains the sheen of new popularity or stability he once commanded, nor the sense of pragmatic, coherent leadership he once was associated with."
We remain in Harold Osborne's Esthursia, five and a half years after the Wilson affair. Stephen Alborough has more or less disappeared off the public stage, relegated to the league of "would be" Forethanes - the last of which was 1990s Conservative leader Hilda Marston. So something clearly went wrong.

The 2017 budget, and how it was handled
It would be completely wrong of journalists to note the 2018 general election victory without the whopping great asterisk of the 2017 budget. The Social Democrat party who limped into the 2018 election and surprisingly delivered a resounding landslide - something we'll get onto later in this article - were severely wounded, and nearly taken out, by the antics of the autumn of 2017.

October 2017 rolled around, and Jeremy Wilson came along to deliver his fiscal statement. Loyalists were pressing slightly harder than usual, with unusually left-wing ministers particularly enthusiastic. A media leak a week before the statement, confirming that Wilson was looking to introduce a "welfare tax like no other", proved the first gaffe - and the Osborne redery spent the next week on damage limitation.

If the defensive structure was penetrated in this week, perhaps Wilson would've stayed in his job - albeit without his prized 2017 budget passed - and perhaps Osborne could've found some sure footing to campaign on. After all, the economy had gone from "just about recovered" from the 2010 crash to stable growth, with living standards rising year on year. Nothing remarkable, but there was equally nothing to argue about. This image of stability was utterly, completely shattered when Jeremy Wilson made his Budget speech - the concern of the markets became rage tinged with a scent of despair, as a slight uptick in the stocks at 17:03 suddenly materialised into a 3.8% crash in the space of an hour. The Atlish arian shilling had fallen from 1.591 IBU to 1.527, and only recovered to close to 1.545 by the end of the speech. Backbench members began to jeer, Osborne himself - and a few key ministers with him - left halfway through, and a note passed to Wilson as he finished confirmed his position had vanished.

The following week was hellish for the left and heavenly for its opponents. Harold Osborne quickly appointed a new Chancellor, Lauren Bowen, who immediately set about driving a wrecking ball through the fiscal agenda of her predecessor. Bowen quickly established herself as a mid-left economist - a strand of Esthursian politics somewhere between the hard-left socialist agenda of Wilson's democratic socialists, and the centre-left social democrat agenda of John Largan's era - and her crowning move was to openly and publicly criticise the Wilson budget on public radio on October 24:
It was wrong for Jeremy Wilson to do what he did. The markets deserve better, honestly. The Forethane and I realised that the economic agenda of the previous Chancellor had moved outside the realm of possibility, sensibility and common sense; and into Theoryland, so to speak. The Esthursian people can rely on this new Chancellery to deliver a budget in the coming weeks that answers the questions about the economy that have been raised so crudely by recent affairs, in a way that should satisfy the nation's demands.
The backlash was palpable and sudden. On October 25, five Redethanes announced they'd sent in no confidence letters. Wilson himself dubbed Bowen a "backstabber" and "opportunistic", and refuted strongly the claims that he had lost his senses. Government and politics in Esthursia crumbled overnight, with open mudslinging between different factions for all to see. The Conservative Union, meanwhile, had stated it intended on sending a no confidence vote to the House of Ministers, the beginning of a process it hoped would convince left-coalition members sickened by the antics of the Social Democrats' partisan groups to trigger an election.

In the morning, eleven Ministers and seven Redethanes had learnt that they no longer had a job. The hard-left, for the most part, had been thrown out of power in one swift blow. A number of deselection battles had also begun in their home constituencies and regions, leaving five of seven Redethanes and five of eleven Ministers without a parliamentary seat to battle for come April, leaving their political careers bluntly ended. Jeremy Wilson survived his own deselection battle, which raged for a month and distracted him from his open criticism at the government. Osborne, on October 26, had made a massive political gamble - throw an entire faction out of favour in order to save the rest from being taken down with it.

The period up to the 2018 election
In the last weeks of October, and first days of November, it seemed like Esthursian politics had completely fallen apart. Ministers and thanes openly attacking one another, the press unanimously finding their electoral chances slim to zero, and the impending round of constituency selections breaking out into open warfare. The Conservative Union, by contrast, had seemed to have got its act together, after seven years of rebuilding. Yet, things obviously didn't turn out in the way that most thought back in October.

The first sign that things were no longer quite so peachy for Stephen Alborough came on November 3, when his no confidence vote reached the Ministers. Alborough, a thane himself, had come down to the lower house to make a speech urging rebel government ministers to vote alongside it:
"It is the fault of this irresponsible, chaotic government, removed from reality itself, that we have plunged Esthursia into a state of international laughter. For those who have been sacked so quickly, I ask you this; why do you owe Harold Osborne the courtesy of supporting you if he is willing to use you as scapegoats for his own survival?"
The votes came in - and it turned out Alborough had completely failed. Just two government members, and not a single Social Democrat, had abstained. Not one had voted alongside it. Some Conservatives, concerned that they were voting alongside a motion that in essence criticised Osborne's action against the hard-left, abstained with a variety of improbable reasons - one recording in the parliamentary absence book that they had to "feed their geese". The first chance for Alborough to prove two factors had arrived...
  1. That he'd got his party under control (which didn't happen!)
  2. That the Social Democrats were now unruly (which, weirdly, the vote prevented from being true)
Alborough had proven that he had thoroughly misjudged whether the hard-left were willing to fire shots straight at their own government. In fact, he'd given the party a unified victory against him, a political blunder only overshadowed by the one made just weeks following this.

Then came the infamous HeadStone. Unveiled in Gloucester - Alborough's target city, in the dead centre of the country with a liberal-leaning young populace - the HeadStone was unveiled to much laughter. Conservative media officers and press officers had reportedly stated CUHQ had "declared a code red and entered a meltdown", following the extremely poorly received attempt by Alborough to encapsulate a failure of the Wilson budget to offer a meaningful plan. "That boulder" became a white elephant of the Conservative Union, brought up every time Alborough appeared at debates, and oftentimes at Conservative ministers and campaigners. An Atlish Times journalist in February 2018 quipped:
"This has to be the greatest political own-goal in our history - turning the government's October budget mess into such a catastrophic cock-up that, by some miracle for Osborne, somehow brought them into the scandal for absolutely no reason whatsoever"
The 2018 election itself was a confusing one. The Social Democrats had slowly begun to calm down, with left-wing members' departure to Green-Left and Socialist Front stemmed by the gains from centre-left or mid-left members joining, and with factions brought back into line - and Osborne consistently outperformed Alborough in debates. Alborough's attempts to avoid the second-to-last debate left Channel 3 to place a mock HeadStone in his place, damaging his credibility even further and reigniting the ridicule that had slowly ebbed away in the final weeks of the campaign. The Conservative Union's manifesto, although promising and with many popular points - particularly their plan to reform trade schools and reduce the highest tax rates moderately, while scrapping previous pledges to privatise water and the railways in one term - was seen as long-winded and extremely vague, adding to a perception that Alborough had approached the election far too safely, despite no longer having a lead over Osborne by the New Year a few months before.

April 2018 rolled around, and Osborne came out with 46% of the vote. The House of Ministers was unexpectedly red, and many senior ministers were thrown out by their electorates - Conservative thanes fared little better. An ENBC pundit noted:
The Conservatives had reached a low point in 2011. But they still had first-past-the-post on their side, and their losses were stemmed by gains in Agrarian constituencies. This time, they had no fallback. Even though 2018 was still "better" than 2011 for them, many senior right-leaning politicians woke up to find they no longer had a parliamentary seat to their name.
The aftermath
Stephen Alborough woke up to find that his safe bet had given Harold Osborne a safe majority. Alborough himself kept his seat - avoiding a fate that Tharbjorn Einarsson, his predecessor, had met for the second time after having lost his new seat too - but resigned swiftly. Osborne had resoundingly defeated the hard-left, who for months had depended on his impending resignation to regain party control; whereas the loss of moderate-right Alborough plunged the Conservative Union back into factional warfare, with centrist Rosemary Manning forging a new "civic conservative" path for the party.

The aftermath's most profound effect was to suddenly shift perceptions of instability. Before April 2018, the Conservative Union had regained its identity as the stable hand, the level-headed party of compromise and moderation. Suddenly, when Alborough had resigned, the Union was reminded how much it depended on a leader who was a strong negotiator and mediator - Manning reaching the leadership sent the hard-right into outright riots, and eventually they split off from the party entirely, giving birth to the EPP, which remains to this day a notable political force. Five years on, Manning has wrestled back some control, and the EPP has neither been extinguished nor flourished into a new political heavyweight, leaving the right in limbo.

Osborne, meanwhile, suddenly found his job a lot easier. A lot of his hard-left rebels had lost their seats from deselections, and his majority contained less of both the centre and the hard-left, giving his party a much more grounded midground in the mid-left that markedly improved his ability to govern. They had regained a majority in the House of Ministers, and in the House of Thanes had regained a plurality. Osborne himself, who for three years had governed without an electoral victory to fall back on, suddenly had the second landslide in the same decade to accredit himself with - now he could turn to the centre and say he could be depended on to deliver stability and quash the hard-left, while turning to the hard-left and remaining their only choice to avoid the Conservative Union reaching power - albeit with a lot of spillover to the hard-left, which has accelerated under recent years. For his leadership, he has gained essentially five years of leadership, and a reputation for party discipline - and a major policy programme in his wake - to his name; all for his handling, and the failure of the right to attack the handling, of the 2017 budget crisis.

It turned out the Social Democrats, after the Conservatives' claims that they had a "better plan", were trusted to deliver on their original plan after all. But, with Osborne approaching 60 and speculation over whether this could be his final term, can the party weather the loss of an undeniable political heavyweight and maintain its long-term stability, or will it meet the same fate as the Conservatives when Alborough bowed out?
 
Last edited:
The_Atlish_Times.png

Right-wing EPP leader Graham Ingley's comments reignite trans issue controversies amid Conservative backlash

Ingley's comments ignite controversy following an internal Conservative Union vote on self-ID

- Cerys Efwryn, 3 Hreþen 2978 / 2 February 2023
The birth of the EPP was spurred, if not sparked, by the divisions created on transgender rights. The self-ID law, passed by the leftist Social Democrat-Green Left coalition government in 2019, brought on the explosion of internal party tensions within the country's rightwing major party that had not been seen since the 1950s. Though Manning's economic shift had alienated much of her party's right flank, it was being whipped to vote with the self-ID laws that pushed the button.

The moment of reckoning was when the EPP was formed; immediately before the final vote on self-ID. Conservatives to the right of Rosemary Manning left the party caucus to sit together, and furthermore resigned from the Shadow Redery, in July 2019. Ingley was hastily crowned as party leader, and the Esthur People's Party was born.

Whether Rosemary Manning's leadership has been bolstered or weakened by the loss of rightwing members, and continuation of the EPP even after two elections, is a subjective matter. It is fair to say that the EPP may have robbed Manning a chance at government, but these tensions are wider - it is equally fair to say her ability to govern a party that divided would likely have been compromised, while now her party's centre-facing shift has been validated and consolidated by the haemorrhaging of rightist members.

The legitimate concerns of the right essentially floundered at first mention. The left, still euphoric from their surprise electoral victory, had forced through a plethora of idealistic hardline policies, and this month's would be no different - to make Esthursia one of the first nations to streamline transgender legal registration and institute a third "non-gender". Manning, whether out of sympathy, compromise or fear, backed the winning horse, leaving conservative politics in her wake. The entire party exploded, and four years on here we are, self-ID law intact, Manning intact, but her party still split.

The EPP lives on. Just as the Progressives were a thorn in the left's side for nearly two decades, it appears a new thorn on the right now exists. Although it has since adopted wide ranging policy programmes, from a referendum on withdrawal from the UAS in July 2022 to curbs on immigration, and neoliberal economics - a strand of economics increasingly abandoned by Manning's Conservatives - transgender issues have remained a key issue behind EPP politics - after all, it is one of the things that keeps the party together and fighting.

The issue itself has been reignited after an internal vote on self-ID within the Conservative Union. Moving to silence the last contingent of skeptics in her party, an internal representatives' vote of 86% in favour to 14% against has affirmed the Conservative Union's stance in favour of the self-ID laws passed by Osborne's leftist government. The vote was more skewed than expected - with even some right-wing commentators expecting a close-run poll in backlash to Manning's failed election bid - and is expected to heavily support Rosemary Manning in months to come.

And yet, Ingley had a different analysis.
For decades, I was proud to call myself Conservative. I campaigned for the party, I stood beside its leaders, and I stood by what it stood for, because I could trust that its values were worth fighting for.​
Rosemary Manning's so-called Civic Conservatism is exactly what's wrong with modern Esthursia. We have jettisoned biology, and common sense, in favour of a societal expectation that every woman who wishes to identify as male, or vice versa, is entitled to complete lack of scrutiny, and actually no biological basis behind legal changes too. We live in a country where men can just register themselves as women with the government, effectively, or even as no gender at all. What if we get predators changing their legal gender in order to get into their preferred prison? What so-called legitimate society allows that to happen for dogmatic values?​
Manning is but a symptom of the sickness our country's politics is going through. We live in an educated society and yet the very idea that biological sex is real just perplexes politicians on the right too. We have sleepwalked into this, and it's the EPP's job to remind the political class that no matter how progressive it pretends this is, the people want the common sense, biological approach to this issue. Self-ID laws must be repealed.​

Backlash was swift, but unsurprisingly, stemmed from the usual critics. Manning herself dubbed the comments "from another century", while the government's Redethane for Civil Rights stated that "Ingley's attitudes must not be condoned within a truly tolerant society, and comments like this must be addressed as the threats to individual freedoms that they are."

The EPP's efforts to bring transgender rights to the forefront of Esthursian politics has likely alienated as many as it's consolidated - if it's helped at all. Polls have shown that even though opinions on self-ID are only marginally positive, the proportion of apathetic sentiment is almost in the majority.

The plan is simple for the EPP: make a new battleground. With freemarket economics discredited with targeted voters, and a shift in UAS membership opinions from overbearing to if anything too absent, the hard-right party has clearly calculated that its best bet would be on transgender issues - but the issue is, as it was in 2018, that these "culture war" issues have never ranked highly in voters' minds. Ingley and his party are ready to fight, but the field of battle is completely empty.

Maybe the party views backing down as defeat. Perhaps it relies on the wedge issue to keep the party from splintering further. Or maybe the party has made a serious gamble that the issue is the golden ticket to power - even if it risks alienating and polarising voters. It hasn't worked in the last two elections - but there's still time for a third. With the EPP at its highest level of representation ever, this is their chance to set up a new right on the Esthursian political spectrum; and it increasingly appears that this fight over transgender issues is becoming a wider fight for the survival of socially conservative politics in Esthursia, and possibly neoliberal economics with it.

Perhaps it says something to the merit of Harold Osborne and John Largan that their governments have presided over the weathering down of rightwing politics in Esthursia over the last decade. The nation has crept to the left socially and economically fairly gradually but very substantially, and now it seems it has left the politics once considered mainstream behind - the very notion of a Harding-era austerity programme brings on memories of the General Strike, and the idea that a Forethane would be rightofcentre on transgender rights seems an age away. It has reached such a stage where figures such as former Chancellor Jeremy Wilson - making international hiccups to the expense of Esthursia as a nation - are viewed as more mainstream than Graham Ingley, a man whose politics are viewed internationally as barely right of the mainstream conservative democratic right, if at all.

The future of conservatism as we know it, or as we knew it, lies on this issue. Whether Manning, Osborne and Ingley are all able to navigate their way through remains to be seen.
 
Last edited:
The_Atlish_Times.png

Conservative Union to support EPP referendum on UAS membership

"I believe we've reached a point where the Esthursian people should choose whether the UAS has upheld its duties to the continent" - Rosemary Manning

- Cerys Efwryn, 7 Hreþen 2978 / 6 February 2023
In a surprise move, Rosemary Manning has decisively placed her party in favour of an EPP-sponsored referendum on UAS membership. This comes after months of standstill between the UAS, and Tardine and Sorovia's accession, as well as increasing frustration over a perception of inaction and inertia over the Aurorean War. The Conservative Union made a statement last night, on the legislation going through the Ministers:
"The UAS has been around for over a year now. Article 55 quite clearly states that UAS members are obliged to support each other in their darkest hour. The test for the UAS came - and out of nations not directly affected, only Esthursia has honoured it. Now we have two friendly nations, despite even our own Government finally urging the UAS out of slumber, stuck in the queue for membership. Tardine's ambassadors came in urgency nine months ago; and we haven't even started their accession.
The time has surely come for the Esthursian people to decide whether the UAS is really functioning, or whether it's just not pulling its weight."

The Esthursian government also faces increasing headwinds against bids to stop the referendum. An increasing number of Ministers have stated privately that they intend to abstain, or even rebel, should the party attempt to whip to block the bill. A representative told our reporters:
"Things have got ridiculous. We came to the people in September promising to hold the UAS to account, John [Largan] promised them publicly in November that we'd do just that - and yet, our pleas fall on deaf ears. I can't think of one benefit from this standstill. It's not even that I don't personally find UAS membership beneficial, it's that there is absolutely no basis to vote against this referendum. We're trying to defend something that just isn't defensible anymore."

The government has stayed very quiet on the issue, with internal sources speculating that an increasing number of Redery ministers and thanes are lobbying the Forethane to back the bill, or at the very least abstain, thus allowing its passage. Green-Left is similarly silent on the issue at present, with the government coalition in intense talks over the direction to take on the legislation.

Political analyst Edith Gordon had the following to say on the issue.
"The UAS hasn't even entered the conscience of voters, and is an increasing source of confusion for Esthur voters. They remember being promised, though the proxy of a hopeful Harold Osborne and his government, that the UAS would essentially unite Auroria under a liberal democratic front.
And yet, all that's happened is Esthursian foreign policy shifted. The UAS has done, in the view of the general public, absolutely nothing to note. Furthermore, the accession of Tardine and Sorovia, both close partners of the nation, have found themselves behind the roadblock of the grinding gears of UAS administration. The internal situation is even more hopeless - the government doesn't know what's going on, and has publicly called for this to be sped up months ago.
Truth be told, even the new globally outlooking government is likely to be reaching the end of its tether. Whether Esthursian, and Aurorian, politicians and diplomats can fix the issue before it comes to a head remains an increasingly imminent problem faced."

This is, ironically, not the first bill put to the Esthursian legislature by Ingley's EPP on the matter. In July, Ingley feared the UAS would drag us into the war, but the bill fell on deaf ears; yet, seven months on, the EPP has manoeuvred in such a way to propose the same referendum for the opposite reason. Graham Ingley publicly called the UAS "completely ineffectual" while presenting the bill, with a round of applause by EPP and Conservative members.

The bill itself faces Ministry votes this week, Thanage votes next week should it pass, and is dated for 14 Gramerk (15 March). The possibility of the government withdrawing its public support for the UAS hangs in the balance.
 
Last edited:
The_Herald.png

Osborne and Bowen repeal and replace Trade Union Act

Advised by Martha Grantham and with strong input from the hardleft, the controversial Collective Arbitration Act (CAA) has passed the Ministry

Years have passed since the first iteration off the Collective Arbitration Act was introduced to the Houses of Berworth. John Largan, with the long-retired Rosa Goldstone as his Chancellor of the Landsfere, introduced a much smaller replacement to the 1980s legislation in 2012, seeking to compensate the striking workers' backing of his party with a repeal of the longstanding thorn in trade union movements.
"It would be truly wrong of me if I were to neglect to remove the restrictions rightlessly hoisted onto the backs of trade unions for a generation. Our Overlaw affords each and every citizen of this nation the constitutional right to organise peacefully in their place of work, and anything less than the enshrined and protected freedom to do so will no longer be stood for.​

The 2011 iteration was fairly simple - throw the 1983 Trade Union Act out, with it ending bans on secondary action, picketing numbers, and loosening the amount of time necessary to inform employers from two weeks to one. The 2011 bill itself enshrined these, and furthermore ended the 50% turnout restriction, although keeping the 35% approval law.

In 2014, John Largan had increasingly become seen as moderate within his own party, and had lost much of his dynamism. The return of trade unionism in Esthursia was an awful lot down to him; but arguably it was more down to the man who replaced him, his old Working Rights minister, Harold Osborne. When the election - despite unexpectedly delivering the left a path to power - was seen as a personal failure on Largan's part to capitalise on the landslide a few years before, his time was over as leader, and with him, moderate leftism left the government.

Harold Osborne arrived with his hardleft protégé, Jeremy Wilson. Throughout the last years, Osborne, Wilson and new Chancellor Bowen have all been known to contribute to the bill extensively. Despite this, the lack of a coherent replacement that could unite the hardleft and centre of the party left a thorn in Osborne's side - the possibility of leaving office with the Greenwood-era Trade Union Act still in place.

In April 2022, Osborne found that he no longer depended on the centre, even despite a reduction in the share of his own party, thanks to a resurgence on the left of him. This continued into September, which delivered him a narrow but working majority in the lower chamber. Plans to fast track the bill were shelved in favour of devolution agreements with counties, regions and the ridings, but the Act has now reached the lower house.

The Act itself is quite comprehensive compared to its 12 year old failed counterpart. It too repeals the Trade Union Act, and too brings the same features aforementioned; but it also guarantees police officers' right to strike, loosens the ability for trade unions to fund political parties, and allows for case-by-case legalisation of closed shops. Trade unions now can collectively fund a party or movement, with a system based around opt-outs over opt-ins; ballots may now also take place at the workplace, although online and "e-voting" remains banned. Unions not only do not have to comply with two-week notification limits, but can notify those involved the night before at midnight at the latest.

The bill, as radical as it looks compared to its previous counterparts, remains piecemeal in the eyes of the hardleft. Former Social Democrat Chancellor (2015-17) and current New Left faction leader Jeremy Wilson told the Thanage ahead of its presentation:
"I truly welcome the reform proposed by the Government that is presented to us today, I do. However, it comes with the implicit desire to close the debate, to draw the line in the sand where we are when this bill is passed. This, in my opinion, if true, must be avoided.

The right-wing media spent weeks, months even, speculating the dreaded arrival of union shops; as if they were comparable to forced labour. The government has not only compromised on the issue, but shelved it entirely. It is essential that we legalise union shops so that every single person within an enterprise, sector or firm is uniformly and equitably represented. I speak on behalf of many when I say I will fight for this right to be legislated for.

This was also an opportunity that could be wasted to consolidate our labour law. We could shift the focus of public pay boards, to involve worker representation. We could widen our profession assemblies' involvement in sectoral administration. Esthursia has a burgeoning voluntary democracy - and this is our chance to stand up and finally set up some real opportunities for it to take root.

We've come a long way with this bill, and finally removing the existing authoritarian law that only the most ardent free-marketeers would ever defend, and yet has been allowed to sully our law for 40 years, and that is a major, undeniable victory for socialism in Esthursia; but we cannot lose the opportunity before we wait 40 years for more change."​

The bill reaches the Thanage today, and will receive three readings, after which it will move to committees and receive Crown Assent, should it pass. Opposition from the Conservatives has been strong - with Manning branding attempts by the Act to allow police to strike "irresponsible":
"I cannot fathom why the Government believes this the right course of action. This blind crusade for righteousness is justified but pointless, and has serious consequences; the real effect of allowing industrial action to affect justice and crime so directly, to prevent our frontline workers from being expected to carry out their lawful duties of upholding law and order, strikes me as irresponsible. It is Harold Osborne who has been sourced from the legal department - so it confounds me that a lawyer is so unaware of the implications of risking the loss of law and order during times of serious instability, and what that could mean for risk limitation and community management, let alone the services and welfare provided by our police on a day to day basis that would be again at risk."​
 
Last edited:
The_Examiner.png

Helmark: The rise of a nation undeterred by the rise of Harold Osborne's left

Asthonhelm grew tired of the two-party system decades ago; and not even the most successful left-wing politician in thirty years has been able to outmanoeuvre the new nationalists

Few areas of this nation have evaded the two-party system. Independence wins in Cordane; but the Social Democrats run there all the same, and their control is broadly two-party. Sure, the West Riding has had various incarnations of a third party or set of parties, but most have been fleeting and sporadic.

A thorn in the left's side, however, has been Helmark - or, as it's known to those of a unionist disposition, Asthonhelm. The Helmark National Union (or HNU for short) has fostered its own one-party system out of the wreckage of the 2000s. What went so horribly wrong for the main two parties?

To begin, we've got to remember the situation of the new millennium period. We had Mark Willesden in his honeymoon period, a self-professed liberal centrist in charge of the Social Democrats - globally, his philosophy has become part of what's more widely dubbed "Third Way" politics. The Conservatives had recently changed leaders, and Isaac Harding of the mainstream right of the time had taken charge from Ralph Gorton. Both major parties were distinctly economically freemarket - a phenomenon that seems distant to a modern reader who may not even remember such a situation.

The people of Asthonhelm had been short-changed by neoliberal economics. Their economy dependent heavily on heavy manufacturing and textiles, as well as mining and construction, more or less stagflated for a generation as local governments were given the unenviable task of rebuilding a nation. Bipartisanship was oddly functional for a nation where both parties were so opposed to one another; third parties aided as a leverage to both major contingents. Issue was; nobody was really offering the solutions that the nationalist left wanted.

Nationalist Helmark - rather than unionist Asthonic politics - had little say on politics of the day. That changed abruptly - the 2002 local elections, coinciding with conservative Isaac Harding's sweep across Esthursia in the general election, sent the Northern riding into a wave of turquoise - the Helmark National Union had planted its sapling, and it was taking root quickly.

Come 2003, and Mark Willesden had gone from honeymoon leader to embattled opposition foreman. Isaac Harding was the nation's new Forethane - but not by Asthonhelm, who were quite considerably against him in polls. The HNU sweeps the North Riding even further - bringing Katrín Agnrok into power at the Þjóðhús. Agnrok was deceiving - a formidable politician adept at switching between personas of friendly and amicable to fierce and persistent. One day, she'd be sat in what became affectionately known as "Helmark's sitting room", as the 1950s culture seeped from the walls through the people's screens on Yuletide eves, the next she'd have hung, drawn and quartered her unionist opponent on a debate. The late Agnrok, who sadly passed away in 2014, was honoured for her service at her funeral by Forethane John Largan: "Katrín was a
stateswoman who captured the hearts of the nation, and who continues to light the fire for the Asthonic people, even in her absence."

In some ways, one could call the victory of the HNU in 2003 more of an alignment than a sign of things to come. Many did. In 2006, when Willesden had crashed out fairly painlessly, and his soft-left successor (being John Largan) had taken the helm, the Social Democrats regained control - just about! - of the legislature. The new Astjórn - the Asthonic first minister - was Svenn Fjöllr; a Larganite like his party leader, he became very symbolic of what Largan represented nationally as a party movement. As the 2000s roared on, Helmish nationalism was overwhelmed by the prevailing economic wind, headed by austerity, the balance of "growth" and "inequality", and eventually the leadership of Tharbjorn Einarsson.

Einarsson, who took charge in 2009, was not well received by his fellow Asthon. A hard-line "free marketeer", he set to work, wielding an axe at what he perceived as government overspending. His effect on national polling was as sudden as it was on the Conservative Union's chance in Asthonhelm - once again, they'd fallen behind the HNU, this time both denied power by the reviving Social Democrats. Two years of crisis ensued shortly after, and the result? The Social Democrats smelt blood, especially thanks to their victory at the January 2011 elections, following the disintegration of the incumbent rightwing government.

Around came March 2011, and a rare snap election of the Asthonic legislature since its formation in 1957. The result? Social Democrats went backwards, after the HNU surged in popularity following the resurgence of trade unionism. The Social Democrats had created something - a popular movement of trade unionism and collectivist economics - but their still fairly mainstream left focal point had broadly conceded all the gains to the HNU, who struck a chord that bit closer to the sympathies of the region's people.

In 2013, John Largan was informed that his Astjórn in Asthonhelm had changed. Hjorten Svarren, the new leader of the Helmark National Union, had won the election decisively - albeit with a minority dependent on the Progressives (led by Jeremy Wilson, soon-to-be Chancellor). This legislative headache outlived Largan's tenure, and possibly may have been a key factor in the perception of his popular movement outliving himself.

Come 2015, and the Social Democrats had a shiny new frontman and team. Harold Osborne, a prominent trade unionist-cum-lawyer, had a Redery of leftist-socialist ministers galore. A merger with the Progressives under Jeremy Wilson, with Wilson now in charge of the nation's wallets, fostered Svarren's national coalition. Svarren, however, resigned in 2016, after having led the party for ten years; the new leader, Iðunn Þorsenn, was a fresh face for the new look movement. At just 32 years of age, she was just one year older than Chancellor Wilson, and very much crafted from the same clay - a stateswoman of the New Left, Þorsenn rather quickly begin campaigning on a slate of libertarian-left policies. A consensus came up between Wilson and the HNU - but that was shattered when Osborne began opposing them both from the right.

It's worth remembering that while the HNU were nominally centre-left, they have certainly not acted it for decades. Harold Osborne, a statesman rarely described as moderate and possibly Esthursia's most left-wing progressive leader since the 1970s or even the 1940s, has persistently opposed Iðunn Þorsenn's HNU from the right. Decriminalisation of recreation quantity drugs, rent caps, restrictions to private schools, tax reforms galore, nationalised childcare, significant criminal justice reform, selfpolicing initiatives, Universal Basic Income and even opposition to any monarchy or significant inheritance to speak of - the HNU embodies a New Left contingent that houses a vocal group within the national government, but maybe not Harold Osborne himself.

The influence of the HNU however has brought these issues into the forefront. Pressure from Green-Left has helped push Osborne into tentative "post-Arthur" republicanism, while initiatives around safe drug use centres and religious schools' restrictions are all cleft from this same policy programme already enacted up North. Iðunn Þorsenn having such a public position for six years, with a tangible policy programme, has given her the ability to influence national policy, even if her own push for Helmark's freedom has fallen on deaf ears.

That's the issue with the HNU. It's never really captivated the Asthonic people - just 35% of those polled last month said they would vote Yes in an independence referendum, a figure that has stayed relatively static for a year or two. Above all else, the HNU survives because of stable leadership - Iðunn Þorsenn, despite not yet being 40, remains one of the longest serving major party leader today - but fails to captivate thanks to a lack of animosity towards the central government. Even though the Union had cultivated a persona, an image separate from that of the Social Democrats, it still is unconvincing when it demands freedom if its people are broadly happy with the current consensus. The last time Asthonhelm polled in favour of becoming an independent Helmark, after all - December 2017, just weeks after the Osborne-Wilson government fell into ideological quagmires.

The rise of Harold Osborne appears to have done little to abate the continued support of the HNU. 2016, 2019 and 2022 were after all HNU victories of some scale, with 2022 giving back their majority lost in 2019. Osborne's left depends on a void to its left - and the HNU already occupied it. The HNU has potential to flourish, should the comfortable situation that Osborne's centre-left enjoys begin to fragment or should he resign; but for the foreseeable future, they remain very much on the longest trial period of history, with people still waiting to see what full independence would be like.
 
The_Atlish_Times.png

The return of Jeremy Wilson has confirmed our worst fears

Jeremy Wilson's sacking should've marked the end of a hardliner's career. Instead, he now commands a cult of personality and loyalists alike.

- Cerys Efwryn, 14 Gramerk 2978 / 13 March 2023

The Social Democrats have long put themselves forward as the party of the centre-left, the sensible, if slightly radical, choice for Esthursian voters. For the most part, in our lifetimes, they've embodied that - jettisoning the crude trade union rhetoric for a more left-of-centre broadchurch approach.

The first warning signs were really to come in the 2010 general strike. A failing Conservative Forethane brought about what felt like a revival in Esthursian socialism, and Largan's tenure saw notable leftists rise the ranks; one of those is now our Forethane, another is Jeremy Wilson.

We need not go into detail about Wilson's disastrous crash landing out of his position of power just over five years ago to be surprised he remains a figure of influence in our political scene.

One day, he's up in Asthonhelm - or perhaps Helmark he'd like to call it - trying to strike ideological agreements with the left-wing radical HNU government. Another, he's at a think tank. Another, he's at a factional meeting of the hardleft's foremost figures. All this while his legacy of leftist economics lives on in spirit in the Bowen treasury leadership, even if not as explicitly as he'd hoped.

Wilson is young - he's not yet 40. He's mobilised an entire section of the left with him in that short time; the New Left, his progressive socialist faction, has adopted strongly Wilsonian policies unreminiscent of the traditional Esthursian socialist-left.
Among them is a hawkish reaction to conflict, such as internally criticising Osborne for his lack of military action, sources say; another being a more open relationship with trade unionism and alternative forms of economics, such as council communism, even if Wilson himself may not believe in them. That our nation's Social Democrat party has been infiltrated so deeply by figures of the communist left should worry even the more social justice concerned of us.

One key reason for Wilson's continued power is one he's fully aware of; he has become the factional leader to replace Harold Osborne. As ridiculous as that notion may sound to many of us, the New Left has expanded voraciously and membership has exploded as Wilson's power grows further within the party. The bets remain off, and Osborne's likely going to lead his party for the full term, but Wilson is very much viewed as the best positioned to shoot for his spot should he resign.

Come next election, Harold Osborne will be 55. That's not old for a politician, but he's long talked about retiring before he gets his pension - at age 66. Should Osborne step back, the leftward creep of his party may turn very much more active, sudden and extreme if Jeremy Wilson secures the top spot. Maybe, in five years from now, we'll be seeing Jeremy Wilson on escapades all over the world leading our nation as its socialist ringleader.

Let's hope not, though.
 
Last edited:
The_Examiner.png

Harold Osborne and Rosemary Manning face off in the Askings

Clashes on the economy and society shape this week's iteration

Speaker (Þórólfur Hjaltan, SD): I call to stand, the Forethane and First Thane for Sutton.
Forethane (Harold Osborne, SD): Thank you, Lord Speaker. Firstly, I must begin by paying my respects for the late Forethane Alfred Thwaite, and his loved ones. A long-serving dedicated fighter for liberal democracy at home and abroad, a true statesman, and a true friend, Alfred will always be remembered by me and my party fondly.
Speaker: The Leader of the Againsthood.
Leader of the Againsthood (Rosemary Manning, M): I must stand with my arworthy friend across the House in expressing my deepest condolences over our nation's loss of Alfred Thwaite. A man of dignity, of respect and of acclaim, I must reach out to his loved ones in this dark time for their family and for the nation.
Speaker: Now begins the Askings; for the first five questions, the Leader of the Againsthood may stand, with the Forethane giving response each time.
Leader of the Againsthood: Thank you, Lord Speaker. Let me start by addressing an issue that's been here since this socialist government entered power; devolution. The members opposite have failed to address the issue with the severity it deserves, leaving a precarious situation up North and out West; will the Forethane, finally, get a grip and fix what he's left to fester, Lord Speaker?
Forethane: I must protest. The members opposite would have left the folks of the North and West were it not for the united opposition of the members on this side, and for the good people of Asthonhelm and the West Riding. Lord Speaker, it is the successes of the government that have solidified the devolution settlement in these regions, and that have proven to those opposite that simply shutting down democracy is not the way forward; and the Leader of the Againsthood's screeching U-turn cannot be silenced and covered with rhetoric or finger-pointing. We have rebuilt the Union, and we welcome the help of those opposite, but they must not forget what they did, Lord Speaker.
Leader of the Againsthood: Lord Speaker, does this government consider constant protests, mass dissatisfaction, polarisations and the virtual takeover of the North Riding by a nationalist pro-independence radical-left party successes?
Forethane: I must remind the Leader of the Againsthood that, Lord Speaker, the right to protest, the right to vote, and the right to self-determination remain key to our progress. The people of the North Riding are in a social contract with us, which we must uphold; the last time the party opposite, Lord Speaker, tried to clamp down on protests, they fell out of government!
Leader of the Againsthood: Let me continue; the situation in the Aurorea has been critical for getting on a year now. The Imperium faces civil war and tyranny, Tardine has only recently left its own civil war and extremism is rife across these continents. How much responsibility, Lord Speaker, is the Forethane willing to take for failing to act on these issues over his entire premiership?
Forethane: Lord Speaker, we have acted decisively and with clear intent on geopolitical affairs, as much as the Leader of the Againsthood would rather insinuate otherwise. This government remains proud of leading Esthursia's steadfast opposition to tyranny overseas in the Ellands, and will continue to act decisively to promote democracy, freedom and the rule of fair law across the world.
Leader of the Againsthood: I would love for that rhetoric to be backed up by fact, Lord Speaker, but it's just not. Our friends overseas certainly don't agree with the Forethane's self-assessment; Volshan's Kave Calla had the following to say on his leadership; and I quote; operating with such a deficit of backbone and common sense that neither advantage will ever find a use beyond the prim and proper halls of Atlish high society. Does this witheringly bleak reminder of the Forethane's action - or rather lack thereof! - finally persuade him, Lord Speaker, to accept responsibility for his actions?!
Forethane: I remain confident in Esthursia's ability to steer the course in favour of democracy, Lord Speaker, and remain confident that we did all we could in the face of tyranny. The Aurorean regime is on the brink of finally being taken down, and our military aid is both critical and central to this, Lord Speaker; those opposite might look back with hindsight and cherry-pick, but where were their words, sentiments and ideas when it really mattered?
Speaker: The Arworthy First Thane for Sutton is reminded that the Leader of the Againsthood is not here to answer his questions, but to ask them to him. The Leader of the Againsthood.

Leader of the Againsthood: Thank you, Lord Speaker. On the subject of answering questions, this socialist government sought to reduce educational inequalities in this Union. And yet, twelve years into Social Democratic so-called leadership, these inequalities have barely changed. Out of every 16 year old taking their exams, twice as many of those who go to a private school will go to a research university than those from the lowest fifth of income earners. Not only is that unacceptable, but it exposes how quickly inequalities can spring up, and how starkly inadequate the government's purported attempts at fixing this institutional problem have become. Will the Forethane please provide us with some substance to his rhetoric, and finally tell us how he hopes to reduce these?
Forethane: The Leader of the Againsthood has not taken into account that this was once a three and a half-to-one divide before we entered office, Lord Speaker, I presume deliberately. It was the Conservatives, or the Moderates as they now call themselves - as if to shun their own unshakeable legacy of inequality and elitism - who opposed our private school reforms, our university grants, our student support, and the plethora of social welfare reforms we have passed in order to take down the largest cause of educational inequality; poverty. This government has reduced poverty to world benchmark levels because it is one of the many, not a party of the few like those opposites; I ask the Lord Speaker to contrast how the Einarsson-led Conservatives led a heavily inequal, heavily unfair, and increasingly suppressive Esthursia, and how we lead a modernised, meritocratic one that not only understands the full depth of righteousnessless and injustice faced by the millions of disadvantaged, but that has taken tangible, clear and radical steps to close that gap that was opened up so carelessly and complicitly by those opposite; it's why they're there, and we're here.
Speaker: Now we take three questions from members of the Thanage. Firstly, the Second Thane for Tynwald.
Johanne Jónsdottír (SD): Can the Forethane confirm that the people of Tynwald will receive their regeneration fund of 4.4 billion shillings this April, Lord Speaker?
Speaker: The Forethane to answer.
Forethane: I thank the Second Thane for Tynwald for her question; and yes, I can happily and gladly confirm that the Stjórn of Tynwald will receive the central funding this coming Budgettide on behalf of the Chancellor.
Speaker: The Second Thane for Mellington.
Benjamin Peterson (EPP): Lord Speaker, the people of Mellington have been crying out for generations that our city and our region has been direly let down. Wages in Mellington are barely two-thirds of those in the Capital just a few hours away; and the government's top-quality solution these days is to expand big government infrastructure and carve a high-speed ironway track straight through the region. Not only will this devastate the region's industry, but it will drive thousands out of our region, precipitating a brain drain and further fuelling hardship. Will the government stop fostering hardship, and start fostering a new start with a new plan for Mellington?
Speaker: The Forethane once again to answer.
Forethane: I cannot disagree more, Lord Speaker. The Yeashire High Speed Ironway project, or YHSI as he may know it, is revolutionary to connect up the cities and urban areas of the south-east. I sympathise with the Second Thane for Mellington, but I cannot see how helping to intertwine the communities of that region together can deteriorate its situation, when we have already made steadfast progress in restoring and revitalising the region.
Speaker: The First Thane for Atlington.
Ernest Marling (G-L): Lord Speaker, the government's current policy of recreational criminalisation only penalises victimless crimes, while letting those who abuse the addictions worsen these addictions and gain a stranglehold. Will the Forethane kindly expand his commendable programme of safe use centres by formally decriminalising possession-level quantities of recreational drugs?

Speaker: The Forethane to answer a final time.
Forethane: Although I empathise with those afflicted by addiction, I cannot sympathise with the position of full decriminalisation; not only does this fail to take into account the social cost of using, it also fails to differentiate between each drug. I believe in a mixed programme of retribution and rehabilitation, and although I fully agree with the First Thane for Atlington that the previous policy was far too far on the retributive side, I cannot use this as a reason to imbalance it the other way and thus not penalise the societal cost of recreational drug use for harmful substances.
Speaker: That ends the Askings.
 
Last edited:
The_Herald.png

Government heavily restricts payday loans, after Ombudsman bans QuickBond from trading indefinitely

"1100% APR" figures symbolise a broken quick-credit industry left unscathed by wider financial rules tightening

It took twelve years to happen. The 2011 promise to ban payday loans has, effectively, been enacted.

The government have passed the Payday Loans Act of 2023, setting an APR cap, a maximum loan limit of 1000 shillings, a limit on the number of loans per household earner, and giving the Ombudsman greater powers to scrutinise whether lenders have clients who are "reasonably able to pay back loans without unwarranted financial harm", and to act accordingly. The law passed to allow the Ombudsman to throw QuickBond, a notable example of payday lenders, out of the market as its punishment for sustained improper practice. Finally, it seemed, 1,000% interest rates and ballooning thousands in unpayable debt would be history.

The 2009-12 recession was brought about for two reasons. Firstly, gradual deregulation in the 1980s, insufficient progress in the 1990s on reregulation, and a subsequent second period of fiscally laissez-faire policies in the 2000s had gradually perpetuated an increasingly self-governing finance industry; the 2004 law to legalise subprime mortgages, and the 2009 "flash crash" following Einarsson's famed "red-tape bonfire" which is said to have triggered the recession both set up significant causes, but no single cause - apart from the wider deregulation - really exists convincingly enough to persuade most economists that it was the defining one.

Regardless, it - and government policy aimed at reducing welfare at a time where it was demanded most - impoverished millions, and the policies that followed under the Largan and then Osborne governments would serve to acknowledge one uniting fact: market deregulation had been a grievous mistake. Renationalisation of the railways, utilities and healthcare suppliers followed, especially under the early Osborne (2015-2020) period, as Social Democratic governments sought to reverse decades of rightwing economics.

And yet, payday loans stood alone. Entire industries had thirty years of policies torn down and rebuilt, and yet lenders seemed to be invincible. QuickBond whistleblower Marit Rönning told the legislative finance committee:
"It was a scare seeing so many other financial industries, particularly the big investment banks and mortgage lenders, get their comeuppance for their irresponsibility in the 2000s and prior. Yet, we seemed to just keep going, and some in the company started seeing Osborne as a close friend thanks to his sheer ignorance towards our actions in spite of popular and party support. We were impoverishing hundreds of thousands, putting millions into debt they obviously would never get out of, and generation-old regulation weakly threw slight inconveniences our way in return. It was easy money.​

Osborne himself had even been a confused economist himself. Appointing Jeremy Wilson in 2015 as a unity candidate from the left as his Chancellor, he remained quite considerably to Wilson's right, and yet was considerably to the left of the previous Largan ministry. Yet, by 2017, Osborne was approving enough of socialist economists to reappoint another, albeit quieter and more moderate, socialist to fill Wilson's soiled shoes. The 1980-2010 deregulation era remained a major target of his, thanks to his history of trade union action and origin from a region heavily hurt by its Brough of Weskerby-focused efforts; and the rise of civic banking, as well as heavy restrictions on "executive privileges" in banking such as bonuses, are key areas of departure from Largan's more moderate tenure.

Payday loans were therefore on the agenda, just not high enough. The question, though, remains; what took so long?

The first three years of Harold Osborne's government weren't secure; and in hindsight, it is odd as an observer to wonder why a uniting move like punishing payday lenders wasn't taken, considering how many other actions taken in this period were far more risky in a divided, weakened government. The next four gave Osborne free rein to throw whatever laws he wanted out; payday loans didn't come up. He's since had an extra election and coming up to a year on top of that, and it's only just happened. For those who have been victims of payday lenders and loansharks, this is too little, far too late.

The simplest reason for Osborne and Bowen to make this action now? The backlash had already manifested. Dissatisfaction with inaction had given Jeremy Wilson free publicity, on the media for weeks recently pressing for government action.

Good things do result from this action, however late. Top loanshark lenders face prison sentences or fines for a variety of fiscal discipline breaches, and vulnerable citizens no longer face exposure; advertising has been banned, and lenders now have much more stringent rules on informing their loan takers on their rights.

Where do we go from here? Now that QuickBond has finally been shut down, and other payday lenders face heavy cutbacks or similar punishments, Harold Osborne may be satisfied that a black hole had been closed in the 2020s financial sector - yet, maybe it was too late to stop Jeremy Wilson stoking the fire of dissent.
 
Last edited:
The_Examiner.png

Infant baptisms: how an ancient Athersist practice became a key political wedge issue

Left-wing Redethane for Civic Rights Brynel Haearn has called for the practice to be banned, sparking outrage from religious leaders and the political right

In many countries, social issues can dominate the news sporadically or consistently - the most contentious of them tending to come from a clash between progressives and conservatives, particularly over moral arguments stemming originally from religions. However, often the progressives have been the ones arguing for liberalisation; in Esthursia, the latest wedge issue has been very much one where the conservatives have been calling for liberalisation.

Athersism is the most prevalent religion in Esthursia, with approximately one in four Esthurs adhering to one of its three branches (Hvannic, Southern and Liberal). Probably the most common way of "initiation" into the religion is a practice known elsewhere as a baptism; and the most common age for baptisms is at 4 months old. A consistent cultural phenomena has persisted here too; where religious families baptise their children, and irreligious or non-practising ones don't.

Something, however, has changed. Polling and the decline of Athersism in younger generations has all pointed towards a decline in baptisms performed on infants of religious families, while the irreligious majority increasingly views the practice as outdated, or even outright morally wrong, depending on who you ask. No longer is even the question of "are you getting your baby baptised" a norm except among the most conservative; and a sparingly low amount of the younger generation have been, after all. Adult baptisms, meanwhile, have stayed fairly stagnant. This has suggested two things - a decline in religiosity, but a rise in people not baptised at birth choosing to do so when they reach of age.

The question that might occur to you is very reasonable; why is there need for a law if society is already adapting to the new way of baptism? The possible answer came from Haearn himself.
"I myself was baptised. It's very commonplace up in Helvellyn, one of the few places where the irreligious are only just reaching a majority in recent years; and I remain, in the eyes of the Athersist Church of Helvellyn, religious. But I'm not. And many millions more are simply expected to be who just aren't.
The issue I find with it is that it strips a person's right to form their beliefs independently and with impartial information from day one. The average baptism takes place at the age of 4 months [sic]; is it really fair to say a 4 month-old baby has the right to refuse, or the ability to decide? We hear arguments often from those on the right that one doesn't have the capacity, that they're not cerebral enough to vote until they're well into their late teens at the least. And yet they find the idea of a newborn child being a practising member of a religion normal? Do they understand the idea of a God? Do they know what a God would mean to them? Do they have an ability to participate, or to refuse to do so, in the Church?
This baptism is then used as an argument to "bring up the child Athersist". How can this ever be right, or fair? I very much welcome anyone who wants to reconcile with the faith they found around them in their childhood later on in life, however the idea that a child surrounded by, influenced by, encouraged into and informed by members of a certain religion is not predisposed to therefore join that religion and adhere to its principles is just plainly and frankly ridiculous. It is for that reason that I view we must set an age of consent to enter a religion, or to receive any form of initiation ceremony into a religion, until a person is able to understand exactly what that entails, and to be old enough to understand exactly what they're believing in in order to find concordance with a religion.
Religion is a wonderful thing - it brings communities together, and encourages giving, and offers solace in times of need - but it can also be constricting, and can be very easily misused and abused, especially when the power dynamic - even between parent and child - is imbalanced."
For a generation of Esthurs who may know at least one acquaintance who was baptised, maybe even a close friend, but who themselves - and even whose friend - is predisposed to be atheist or otherwise irreligious, this is likely to strike a chord. Progressives have made their argument clear; a baby is, in their view, not old enough or developed enough to understand what a religion is, let alone what being a part of one would mean for them and their beliefs - and that the effect of this on the young person is wrongfully influential. Yet, conservatives tend to say three things in response - the child can always leave when they choose, it's their parents' choice at a young age, and ending baptisms is unlikely to solve what progressives may see as an overbearing parental influence on upbringing, but rather imbalance it away from religion.

Graham Ingley, a right-leaning rabblerouser-cum-politician and leader of the right-wing Esthur People's Party, is one of many vocal opponents to the legislation aimed at restricting infant baptisms. Ingley - and other members of the EPP - have signalled they intend to vote against the legislation at every stage. Members of the right-leaning wing of the Moderates, who may have used to be EPP-sympathetic Conservatives before Manning's reforms, have been equally sympathetic to this block on the legislation - with Manning herself softly critical, but not quite as obstructionist, seeking instead "a wider discussion and inquiry." Their comments differed quite considerably; Manning having stated:
"This legislation is quite clearly misguided, however it raises the debate over whether infant baptisms are moral or constitutional. I personally believe, and so do my party, that this law should be replaced by a more open debate over exactly what steps we need to take from here, and an official inquiry into exactly the effect of baptisms on religiosity later in life independent from social factors, to weigh up exactly how influential - and exactly how wrong, in that case - the practice is."
Ingley was abhorred not only by the law, but by the perception that the mainstream centre to centre-right Moderates had "failed" to oppose it.
"The law proposed by the socialist left is unquestionably a democratic backsliding maneouvre. This will not only strip away a family's right to practise their own religion, but also be a major curb on religious rights in Esthursia. I fear the complicity of the Moderates on this matter, giving in to the weight of the left in the parliament in order to gain some meagre ground on the law itself, will give way to a greater acceptance of this draconian measure to reduce the rights of religious communities in this nation. This law would make us one of few, if any others exist, who restricts religion at a young age so strictly, and whose states use irreligiosity as an excuse to unfoundedly unroot the positive effect of centuries of religion on our societies, as well as to directly attack the religious population.
We risk international condemnation, standalone status and a global reputation as 'that country that hates religious people' - for what? A moral argument? A thought experiment on upbringing, that conveniently we'll all be retired by the time it's disproven?"
The Forethane himself is less enthusiastic (at least, in the open) about the law, however has signalled support for it as a party and government measure, especially to win over support from the Green-Left; the Social Democrats' staunch state secularism has been one of the few social issues they have seen eye to eye with the socially progressive Green-Left. Defeats from the centre-left party inflicted on the left-wing Green-Left's social agenda include a U-turn on deregulating consumption-quantities of recreational drugs, consistent and consecutive increases to the nuclear arsenal and budget, and an open refusal to decriminalise "victimless crimes" more widely; therefore the compromise from the Social Democrats on social issues - where movement from the centre has been far more sluggish than on economics - has been remarkably welcomed, even despite Osborne's own quiet approach to the issue. Evelyn Banbury, leader of Green-Left, branded the EPP "aristocratic stand-up acts from a bygone era", as well as "embracing a world-first [sic] realisation of this measure's barbaric nature", stating that adult baptisms are "unconstitutional, immoral and downright reactionary whose defence has become a last resort by the religious right".

The measure follows a similar measure in Asthonhelm, which has already pegged baptism age limits to the age of "scientific consent"; usually sixteen years of age. Asthonic law states that "scientific consent", included in a measure known as "informed consent" inclusive of sexual consent in Osynstric law, is achieved when either the person referred to is at or above sixteen years of age, or they have demonstrated a "capable, applicable and relevant awareness of the procedure or practice they are being involved in or upon". The HNU, or Helmark National Union - with Helmark being the nationalist movement's neologism and name for Asthonhelm, thanks to Asthonhelm's common etymology with Esthursia - introduced the law in 2020, with the current Astjórn (Iðunn Þorsenn) introducing the legislation as necessary to adhere to national and regional constitutions as well as "basic moral decency to young people". The HNU has long seen eye-to-eye with Green-Left, with G-L often serving in coalition with it during periods of minority government; explaining a possible hypothesis of where the law itself came from. With "informed consent" in Osynstry being at age fifteen, alongside the voting age, a debate within the centre-left to left-wing governing coalition even exists over whether to copy Asthonhelm's sixteen, or to use informed consent's fifteen.

Opposition to the law also exists on the left. Mark Willesden, a prominent former Social Democratic Forethane and moderate centrist advocate for pro-market reforms in the early 2000s up until the 2006 defeat, has spoken out against the legislation; and suggested Osborne is not fully behind the measures:
"A logical fallacy exists with this law. The left of the party has long spoken of the failure to answer major questions, yet has not realised these questions already have answers. But what if parents indoctrinate their children? They'll do that anyway, I say, and our education system should be resilient enough to prevent misinformation embedding in the rare cases that it happens. If it's not, baptisms won't stop that! But what if people want to leave the Church? They'll do that anyway too. But what if people are raised under the religion anyway? That's a problem that exists with the law anyway. I understand the vervour to clamp down on the breach of civil rights when it comes to informing children about theism and atheism alike, but we don't fix a missing arm with a plaster; this won't cut it, and is an unnecessary restriction on religious freedoms in order to solve the problem that it doesn't solve. The issue itself, completely understandable; but the implications it has for our reputation internationally, and the atmosphere it continues to influence against religious folks, is at the very least a major risk.
Harold Osborne has been rather silent on the issue. Lukewarm, perhaps. Political expediency is more expensive a price to a politician than true values, and I have a feeling deep down, Osborne sees more merit in my position than in the position he is legislating towards."
Whether or not the debate roars on after the law is expected to pass, the debate between social rights and religious rights will continue in Esthursia as it does in nearly every other democratic country in the world - and the battlegrounds are likely to be just as different as they are now. However, with the law expected to expand from Asthonhelm to the wider Esthursian nation, the international standalone footing it puts us on, and the implications it has for precedent on religious rights against civil rights, are more widespread than many of the advocates or opponents to this measure may realise.
 
Last edited:
MourningHerald.png

Former Forethane Martha Grantham dies, aged 94

Pioneering socialist Forethane in the 1990s, and lifelong trade union leader, has died peacefully at home last night


betty-boothroyd.jpg
The younger ones amongst us may not remember the tenure of Martha Grantham; but her career, even for us, did not end at her resignation address in 1999, but carried well on into the new Millennium.

The effect of her life, her work and her leadership, however, remains stronger than it ever has been, even if she is no longer with us. Whether it be in our robust working rights record, the civil rights we continue to uphold by consensus, or the determined fervour of the Esthursian people, Grantham played a critical role in all of it.

She was born in February of 1929, back in the early days of neoteric long-serving Forethane George Asmont. Growing up in the urban north-west of Osynstry, she was the daughter of a working-class family, who had become public sector workers in the years prior to her birth. Moving into social housing at a very young age during the resettlement programmes and 1800s housing clearances, she was always known as a "bright spark" - as her foreschool teacher remarked of her in an interview in the 1980s - and after passing her Standards (now known as Fathoms) and Furthers with flying colours, she went off to the Lorestead of Ravenscroft.

Ravenscroft was scarcely a place for a working-class Cambury woman; perhaps it was this, coupled with her upbringing, that spurred her into joining the local Workers' Union party branch in 1947. Taking a politics degree, she became heavily affiliated with trade union movements in the Ravenscroft region; in her third year, she became the first female Union of Unions elected chairperson, and remained in that position until 1958, continuing to be a major figure for trade unionism thereafter in the UoU. Grantham served as a diplomat in the 1950s and 1960s - known internationally for her remarkably calm yet warm demeanour - before being elected as a Thane in 1967 for her home city of Cambury. Towards the back end of reactionary autocrat Olafn Arbjern's rule in the mid to late 1950s, Grantham became well renowned for her steerwomanship of the trade union movement, with trade unions being key to the resistance against Arbjern's rule; union rights were cemented in the Constitution by the following liberal government as a result of her, and the unions she represented, while Arbjern fell into relative insignificance; Grantham's retirement as chairwoman of the Union of Unions was reportedly because she felt "her job had been finished". Grantham had led the Union of Unions through a three-year intermittent General Strike, with the longest stretch effectively lasting over a year, and turned the public attention onto Arbjern's misrule.

TELEMMGLPICT000327033988_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqvXOgGkxM8BlXhrxmmX1aas3xSZGkJOSiOVxgivhHl-Y.jpeg

Grantham speaking at the Social Democrat conference, 1970 (left)

From day one, David Holmfirth - the then-leader of the Social Democrats and soon to be Forethane - found her presence in the Elland Redery (Foreign Office) "reassuring". Holmfirth, himself now retired and living in suburban Hanbury, north Hereshire, told us about her fondly:
The Arbjern-era trade union chairwoman, mind you. Every time we met, she had this aura of warm professionalism that few ministers really quite had - many either were cold and calculating, or a little bit of a loose cannon. She was a real safe pair of hands. She came to every meeting with the same grit, and everything she did took this personal kind of dedicated thought and purpose... I'd not seen it before, the way she just worked relentlessly for the end goal of helping as many people as possible, no matter what the issue was. That fire clearly never went out, now, did it? Her government was cleft from the same type of determination, quite clearly.
The progress she helped us make in the 1970s - which, I won't let you forget, is the progress she helped win in the 1950s - made it absolutely no surprise whatsoever when I'd learnt she'd been elected to replace my successor in... 1985 was it? 1986? And almost as soon as she came, Greenwood decided that was the perfect time to reignite the trade union dispute all over again - and once again, only Martha Grantham had the ability to not only stop him and once again roll back the reactionary politics that the anti-union movement so often has attempted to roll the carpet out for, but each time solidify and consolidate our institutions and democracy in doing so.
I'd like to say Esthursia has always been as politically resilient as it is now. Tharbjorn Einarsson's misrule reminded me quite starkly of Greenwood's last years, but things ended a lot quicker because of the resilience of protest movements here. That wouldn't have come if Martha Grantham hadn't have led the union movement so capably, hadn't have set the example of what good leadership looks like, and hadn't have filled in the cracks left by previous leaders swinging about their hammers and wrecking things. It's no surprise young people these days look up to Martha Grantham in a not dissimilar way to how we looked up to George Asmont; I looked up to her - no, I look up to her - and I'm knocking on ninety years old myself in a few years.
Following the trade union disputes of the 1980s, in which Grantham led a resilient and sustained campaign against anti-assembly politics, amid a wider backdrop of neoliberal economics, she was elected to replace Greenwood in 1990, having decimated his majority within just weeks of being elected leader in 1986. Her governments, which lasted the longest of any Social Democratic Forethane in history - a record four-term Harold Osborne is yet to break for over six months - brought about some of the most sweeping social and economic reforms of Esthursian history. From near-total effective anti-homelessness programmes to accommodate the homeless, to rehabilitation programmes, to social rights such as same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ education, as well as one of the largest tightenings of economic inequality amid a sustained period of economic growth after 1991 to 1999, on top of large construction projects for housing and infrastructure and the consolidated rise of increasingly self-sufficient healthcare provision; Grantham's legacy remains robust and overwhelmingly intact, with her economic policies remaining a key source of Harold Osborne's government policies thirty years on. Her, and King Arthur, remain long-standing figures associated with the 1990s, an era of social progress and economic prosperity steered by a stable, popular government, in a way that has not since been replicated.

Her victory of the 1998 election, the third in a row, resulted in her feeling her time had come to an end for fear of creating a political vacuum; the Social Democrats would not win another election until thirteen years after this one. Resigning in 1999, Grantham spoke of her pride to have served Esthursia, a resignation speech that has only been topped in viewership by Arbjern's in 1957 following his resounding election defeat. Now entering her 70s, Martha Grantham remained heavily politically active; becoming one of the longest-serving Thanes by her departure in 2002, and remaining an outspoken critic of Einarsson's government even as she entered her late 80s, routinely meeting with the trade union movement and leading speeches as well as appearing regularly on TV for both personal and political interviews and appearances; her face had become a recognisable face of what made Esthursian politics and government likeable and functional at the same time, her voice remaining a personable Cambury accent despite her living in the Capital for half her life.

0_Peoples-Vote-rally-and-speeches-At-Church-House-Westminster-London-Great-Britain-9th-April-20.jpg

Grantham, speaking at the Social Democrat conference, 2020 (right)

Harold Osborne, speaking about her life and his own positive working relationship and personal admiration for the former Forethane, stated this during an interview on ENBC over her passing:
I personally will miss Martha Grantham quite deeply, and remember her very, very fondly. Even into her later years, she had a sharp mind and a heart of fire. Her critics didn't know whether to feel threatened or in awe of her expediency; she was very rarely wrong. She changed this country permanently and positively from the bottom-up, whether it be fighting for civil rights at a time when it mattered most during the Arbjern years, whether it be leading the struggle for working rights in the 1980s, or whether it be her transformative leadership that cemented Esthursia as a beacon of aspiration for a generation of young Esthurs like me, and for the generation that followed who grew up benefitting from her steadfast and consistent commitment to making peoples' lives better and fairer. There just aren't many politicians like her, honestly.
I have also spoke with His Highness, and he has confirmed that a state funeral will be held for the late Martha Grantham; it's only fitting that we should, as a nation, pay our respects to her, after her lifetime of diligent and uncompromising service to this country and its people. As a nation, Esthursia mourns today. Today is a truly sad day for every single Esthur, who have lost a national treasure; and I personally pay respect to her loved ones, as well as the nation she led so capably, forged so comprehensively, and served so unfallibly.

Martha Grantham, in spite of her advancing age, would serve as a key adviser to both John Largan and Harold Osborne; she is often accredited with the work behind Osborne's trade union legislation replacements, and for inspiring - if not pioneering - his New Towns projects. Retiring from public life entirely in 2021, she suffered from a stroke following surgery in January 2022; this did not stop her making a best-selling book over the course of the year, which she had started the previous summer. Her family have announced, through the ENBC, that she passed away last night peacefully, at the age of 94 - two weeks after her birthday - peacefully and with her two surviving daughters at her side. The legacy she leaves behind is one that defines Esthursia's spirit of free-minded determination, one that defines its political resilience to authoritarianism, and one personally carved by a capable politician admired across the political spectrum.
 
Last edited:
The_Atlish_Times.png

REFERENDUM: Osborne's government has finally pulled the plug on UAS life support

The Social Democrats had long obstructed referendum bills, but its abstention now has allowed one to pass

- Ernest Bridges, 14 Astorn, 2978 / 14 April, 2023

Cast your minds back to November 2022. It had been six months since the nation of Tardine had met with the UAS and with John Largan, Esthursia's UAS Ambassador, and Danfeh had been arrested four months prior, bringing its dictatorship that was holding UAS members back on its application to an end. Now the International Development minister, John Largan had finally tired of the UAS' cogs grinding to a halt, and had promised to take action:
There can no longer be reason for extending the time period this takes, and there must be no attempt to prolong this democratic process over admission of these two clearly free democratic societies. We will be holding the UAS accountable, through whatever means necessary, if we view it is not adequately progressing with this democratic process.
Yet, still, no news was heard. The Republic of Sorovia, a democratic nation to the south-east, had applied just days before this comment was made; five months on, the UAS still has not considered, or acknowledged, its application. In two weeks, we will have reached the anniversary of Tardine's application - and while it has transformed into a democratic beacon of hope, the best of what a state can achieve in such a short period of time from overthrowing its dictatorship and re-embracing the values of freedom and choice, the UAS has not moved an inch.

By February, the situation back home was getting unruly over the issue. Esthursia has been through three UAS Ambassadors, and is on its fourth; though John Largan's resignation was to take up a Redery position, the other two resigned over a perceived failure to make progress on UAS matters. The fourth has signalled they are soon to follow, telling ENBC News last week:
The situation is beyond reproach. Esthursia has made its position clear on Tardine and Sorovia's applications, as it did in May last year, but nothing has come through.
February 6 marked the start of the legislative war against UAS membership on the right. The EPP proposed its second referendum bill; and was shocked when Rosemary Manning spoke out heavily in favour of it, and against UAS membership. Mind you, it'd been a year since we had joined, and the actions it had taken could be counted on one finger. The Moderates' statement was as scathing as it was a screeching U-turn from its position in July when it blocked the EPP's vote:
The UAS has been around for over a year now. Article 55 quite clearly states that UAS members are obliged to support each other in their darkest hour. The test for the UAS came - and out of nations not directly affected, only Esthursia has honoured it. Now we have two friendly nations, despite even our own Government finally urging the UAS out of slumber, stuck in the queue for membership. Tardine's ambassadors came in urgency nine months ago; and we haven't even started their accession.
The time has surely come for the Esthursian people to decide whether the UAS is really functioning, or whether it's just not pulling its weight.
Even within the governing party, Social Democrats were getting restless.
Things have got ridiculous. We came to the people in September promising to hold the UAS to account, John [Largan] promised them publicly in November that we'd do just that - and yet, our pleas fall on deaf ears. I can't think of one benefit from this standstill. It's not even that I don't personally find UAS membership beneficial, it's that there is absolutely no basis to vote against this referendum. We're trying to defend something that just isn't defensible anymore.
Harold Osborne, meanwhile - whether out of an admirable sense of dwindling hope, or a less admirable ignorance to the UAS' inefficiencies - had obstructed referendum bill after referendum bill, drawing the ire of representatives and the opposition alike.

PollsUAS.png
The polls have, however, changed his mind. While pro-UAS sentiment was near-universal in the days of the start of the Aurorean War, where the Auroreans were aggressive towards both Esthursia and its UAS allies; those days have seemed to erode. The left has viewed that the rest of the UAS has failed to pull its weight, while the right has viewed Esthursia as a major part of that inaction. The "Tardine clock", the website set up to time how long it has been between Tardine submitting its application and when it will be accepted, is nearing a year; and anger around UAS bureaucracy has caught significant steam.

Ironically, the start of this might go back to one person - Jeremy Wilson. The spike in Leavers seen in the summer of last year has a clear cause; a loss of trust in Esthursia's foreign policy. Let us not forget that it was in late June - almost right before the rally begins - that Wilson made his faux pas on the international stage.

And yet, Jeremy Wilson appears to have rode that wave of dissent and come out smelling of roses; as he too has now spoken in favour of Leaving. Last week, he spoke on an interview to Channel 2 News.
The failures of the Union of Aurorian States to conduct diplomacy - whether it be on admissions or on conflict - are now irreversibly damaging its, and its members, standing globally. The failure of the UAS to support Scalvia and Volshan unequivocally, and now to even admit new members - to me, a basic process - alongside the resulting bureaucratic mess for trading between Esthursia and her allies, means that leaving is in my opinion the best option in front of us. I will be pressing the Forethane, and my colleagues, as well as working with my friends in other parties, to push for this departure to go ahead, whether it be by popular vote or by government decision - but I personally believe that popular vote would be a better way of going about it, to ensure that the decision to leave has the public backing, which polling appears to show it will do. I think I speak on behalf of Esthurs everywhere when I express my confusion at exactly why we have seen such failings, and such lack of fruition of benefits, by the UAS.

Nevertheless, Esthursian sentiment on the UAS has soured significantly, even since February. The most alarming thing for those advocating for UAS support - and perhaps the factor that finally pushed Osborne's government over the edge - is the softening of the Remain vote. Before February, Remainers were recording some very strong approval figures; now, it appears more of a "long-term strategy", or a begrudging acceptance of "better case scenarios", than a real admission that the UAS is a genuine benefactor on its own. Leavers, even if their numbers have moved scarcely since February, have hardened; the reasons for wanting to leave have expanded, as discontent around historic allies being effectively refused entry into the UAS has festered.

The referendum itself is set to be held on April 27, after passing last night; the question posed:
Should the Union of Great Esthursia remain a member of the Union of Aurorian States, or withdraw from the Union of Aurorian States?
Some parties are already pushing heavily for certain outcomes. Harold Osborne's Social Democrats have been mixed; Osborne himself is believed to still be softly pro-Remain, while some of his party has been posturing for leaving without consequence; meaning that Harold Osborne has softened enough on UAS support to allow diversity of public opinion. A prominent pro-Leave advocate is none other than Jeremy Wilson. Rosemary Manning's Moderates are mainly backing the Leave campaign, though some - particularly on the old Liberal flank - are among the strongest pro-Remain crowd. The HNU, Helmark's alliance of left-nationalists, has backed Remain but issued few statements on the issue. Green-Left has spoken heavily in favour of leaving, and instead seeking a "left-wing international alliance", while the EPP is quite clearly the strongest pro-Leave party in Esthursia today.
Graham Ingley has taken great joy in his third and final bill passing. Speaking to a crowd in Mellington, a core anti-globalist EPP-voting city, he stated:
The Osborne government has finally ceded that the UAS is an ineffective, tangled bureaucracy in hibernation, and that membership in it not only compromises our position on the international stage, but blocks us from maintaining stronger relations with some allies who continue to be locked and blocked out of the UAS. Tardine was promised membership; it didn't receive it. Scalvia and Volshan were promised support; they didn't receive it. We were promised unity; and we haven't received it. The UAS serves as nothing less than a roadblock on diplomatic and economic progress for Auroria, and therefore I, my party, and I hope other parties alongside me, will be campaigning whole-heartedly for this great Union to do away with the Union of Aurorian States; the only Union we need is the Union of Esthursia.
The date of the referendum is April 27; were it two days later, it would be held exactly one year after Tardine applied to join the UAS. Perhaps, we can push to ratify our departure on that date, if all things go to plan; as testament not only to our historic alliance with Tardine, but our dissatisfaction with the institutional and irredeemable failure of the UAS to carry out its duties effectively or to any meaningful extent.

Voters have signaled a mixture of unease about Esthursia's diplomatic future, and at the same time a lack of awareness over exactly what the role of the UAS is. The top reasons for Leavers were failings over the Aurorean War, a feeling of lost sovereignty - particularly on the right, a lack of achievements and relevance, disapproval of foreign aid, and bureaucratic delays; while those for Remainers included free movement, economic stability, a want to change from within and a fear of geopolitical "soft power" damage. The EPP has long campaigned that the UAS restricts Esthursia's sovereign abilities to conduct its own trade and relations, while the Social Democrats under Osborne have warned that leaving the UAS could damage both the UAS and particularly Esthursia's international reputation.

Forethane Osborne made a far more neutral speech on the issue when announcing the bill had indeed passed through the King's office and been given Kingly Assent. Osborne's statement contrasts heavily with the sentiments he maintained throughout last year and even the block on the referendum he staged two months ago;
I sincerely believe that the Esthursian people should have a choice in whether they remain within the Union of Aurorian States. I personally maintain that membership remains the key way of pushing for change and for overturning the delays posed to the admission of Tardine and Sorovia, alongside the learning of lessons from the undeniable failures during the last year over the Aurorean war; however, I will seek above all else to ensure the Esthursian people are best informed to make this critical decision for the future of Esthursia and Auroria at large, and truly trust that the people of this nation will come to the right choice, therefore call upon this House to support whatever decision it makes absolutely.
 
Last edited:
The_Herald.png

Referendum: INS warn of economic damage of leaving UAS, as Manning receives backlash of Moderate donors

Campaign to remain in the UAS is increasingly contingent on the possibility of economic hardship or destabilisation

Cast your minds back to October 2017; a lesson was learnt, supposedly, from the financial destabilisation when the markets very nearly crashed. Chancellor Bowen told the nation proudly that "Esthursia's top priority is staying the course".

Just over five years on, and you've got to ask yourself - is it? Although the governing party appears more resolute than expected in pro-Remain sentiment, and Green-Left's schisms with Banbury now declaring partisan neutrality on the issue, the idea that the Esthursian political system is guaranteeing a steady course is fanciful even to those with selective focus.

A prime example: Rosemary Manning. By all accounts, Manning is clearly the most moderate leader of the centreright, so much so that the whole party is now the Moderates, and united with (most) Liberals. However, the Liberal parliamentary group has emerged as leftleaning members leave over discontent with Manning's position, and her UAS standpoints have even alienated donors; the new Liberals' social media proudly proclaims that they've won over several key donors over fear of Manning's position. Whether this proves harmful to Manning's political future is not exactly a high risk, with the vast bulk of Liberals gritting their teeth - for now - but Manning's moderate, levelheaded persona appears to be weathering a storm of her own creation.

Harold Osborne, meanwhile, is trying to court his own cultivated problems. After a leadership dependent on culling the centre and nurturing the left, the furthest extremities have turned on him in force and in numbers on the UAS, albeit with more mainstream hard-left figures like Albert Frome remaining pro-UAS, against expectation. Jeremy Wilson has spotted a route to influence - wedging an ideological doorstop to keep open the floodgates between left and centreleft, while making his presence felt on both sides. Seeing both sides campaigned for by government ministers is damaging for Osborne's persona; yet the underwhelming scale of rebellion, and the almost sigh of expectation given to those who are involved for their notability in previous rebellions, has stolen Wilson's thunder.

The INS, in its final stages of projecting January 2023 GDP growth expected to be released shortly before the referendum, has shown a short statement implying leaving the UAS could have widespread economic impact.
Markets don't appear to be taking too kindly to this one, and haven't for quite some time - the arian shilling has been falling for near to a month back to October 2022 levels at $1.576, although the loss of momentum experienced by the Leave campaign has stabilised the issue for now.

There is undeniable fear that leaving the UAS, even withstanding its inefficiencies, could damage Esthursian trade and thus economic output. Even before that long-term effect - mostly an opportunity cost more than lost growth due to the UAS' fairly recent formation, but very significant as a cost - sunk in, the effect on stocks, bonds, business confidence, even potentially some effect on prices and a certain drag on the arian shilling all are very easy to predict. Leaving the UAS would potentially not only undermine Esthursian business confidence but pull the rug out from under firms adjusting to Osborne's new globalist frontage and trade links to a growing number of nations.

Esthursia's economy has slowly spent its time catching up on the productivity gap caused by the 2009-11 recession. Assuming a trend of 2-2.5% would have persisted from 2007, when the economy began to stagnate, it lost about 15% relative output by 2011 at its nadir - our studies are showing close to two thirds of this has been potentially recuperated thanks to a strong recovery, an avoidance of a crisis in 2017, and strong consumption and government spending growth in particular as lower and middle incomes continue to rise sharply. It may never catch up, but our forecasts have shown the productivity gap with pre-2007 trends could increase by 30% over the course of 10 years in a worse case scenario relative to remaining. It must be noted, however, how difficult this is to predict; the difference in some least-worst case scenarios was not statistically significant, signalling an uncertainty of exactly how Esthursia's economy would respond. The size of the Esthursian market and its newfound integration with neighbours, and the fragility of Aurorian markets due to continental turmoil and conflict alike, have relatively affected Esthursia fairly shallowly - but that could easily deepen and root itself should Esthursia lose its reputation as a levelheaded nation that can be relied on to maintain good links, which leaving the UAS could be a catalyst for losing. Although hard to predict, this could have wide effects elsewhere, such as on interest rates, inflation - an issue already becoming potentially problematic at the moment - and consumer confidence.

Unsurprisingly, the most metropolitan and finance-dependent regions, and often those most interconnected - such as the Gloucester belt between Brantley and Weskerby - have recorded the most pro-Remain voters. Some districts of Weskerby have recorded polls of up to 75% pro-Remain projections, while younger and Social Democratic voters seem more likely to vote to Remain.

One oddity; the HNU's U-turn on membership has followed a wave of anti-UAS sentiment. A feeling that Berworth - the name of the central Osynstric legislature at Weskerby - has dragged the riding of Helmark, or Asthonhelm, into the Union, has been followed by one that few politicians represent the left's desire to leave. Left-populism, more radical politics, and more disillusionment with UAS bureaucracy have all contributed to the North Rising being the only region still recording anti-UAS leanings consistently, after Osynstry and the West Riding both begin to become more competitive, if not lean Remain.

Another region recording high anti-UAS sentiment is the deprived mid-south-east. While metropolitan Yeaburn has been split, Mellington and the county it heads are heavy Leaver supporters, while Graham Ingley's frequenting of the region to drum up turnout has only bolstered their sentiment against UAS membership. It remains heavily unsurprising that areas with GDP per capita often 20% or 30% below the national average remain skeptical to a political front favoured by its finance-heavy - both in economic sector and wealth - Capital and now the North. All this, while Manning's gamble is expected to do little for her prospects in the region, as EPP delegates and representatives enjoy strong popularity.

To complicate matters further, the centrist globalist think-tank Outward has released a statement warning that remaining in the UAS would smear and weaken Esthursia's hand at human rights protection, even in spite of its work to house refugees and contribute to aid programmes, thanks to a near-global perception of UAS failure to act against the Aurorea united or in resolution. Outward's CEO, Edmund Wellington, stated in a letter to the Forethane that "failing to leave would endanger democratic protection due to UAS roadblocks on soft and hard power alike", and "the economic cost of leaving is both dubiously vague and excludes the benefits of entertaining new deals both outside Auroria and outside the UAS".

Whatever Esthursia votes next Thursday, it looks as if the political system is divided - even if people have more or less remained fairly impartial, at least outside pockets of hardline Remainism or Leaver sentiment. Osborne's gamble may pay off; but the bets remain off.
 
Last edited:
The_Examiner.png

Every Forethane has their own personal target in their terms. Osborne's - criminal justice reform.

John Largan was a constitutional reformer, while Isaac Harding prioritised finance; Osborne has targeted justice reform as his niche.

It doesn't take long to spot the changes in the last eight years, but it certainly takes hindsight to realise how much there's been. John Largan's effect on criminal law could probably be summed up on one hand, with the odd tinkering - and some key removals of Einarsson's laws - taking place. Harold Osborne, although he's certainly had more time to do it, has made fundamental changes not really seen so quickly at any point in Esthursian legislative history.

To start, we've got to begin at his derivation from the legal profession. Graduating from Sutton at the cusp of the 80s with the Atlish equivalent of an LLB, Osborne took to the bar the year after, and in the 1990s was not best known for his politics; but for his legal roles. A key proponent of adversarialism, Osborne joined many in the backlash at what was seen as initial temptations of the Grantham government - a government Osborne has since seemed to mostly follow in other areas - to switch to a more inquisitorial system as seen in many other legal systems. In 1995, well into Grantham's tenure, Osborne commented:
The desire of the Grantham government to interlink into a fictitious network of inquisitorial legal systems is short-sighted, and also exposes it to quite obvious flaws. The police are the same police who have been known for their historic failings; with a central prosecution service still overrun from the 1980s, handing them the great new boulder of shouldering casework for the defence too seems outright wrong. However, this is not the main issue - Osynstric law, and Asthonic law - as well as Cordanian law - next to it, have all put the assessment of presumed innocence before proven guilt as their keystone. Constabularies, who chase figures and "progress" - which is just a byword for "more guilty verdicts, and earlier guilty verdicts, and longer sentences" - and whose job it is to construct a prosecution service watertight enough to stand trial, would now be expected to suddenly conduct themselves impartially when it reached the courts.
It is the job of the defence barrister to expose the omissions of the prosecution, and to inform the jury of the defendant's side. Failing to do this not only risks miscarriages of justice, but actually endangers key aspects of Osynstric law. The question that must be asked by an innocent defendant who faces assessment by those who compiled the case to his presumed guilt - if abiding the law is not enough to safeguard me from its consequences, why should I continue to do so?
An unusual friendship between Isaac Harding and Harold Osborne came along over criminal law, with Harding a strong opponent of Grantham's early-stage legal reforms. Osborne, unusually, supported the near-total scrapping of those reforms.

Twenty years on, that Harold Osborne was elected to be the new Forethane. A timeline of his changes is required to do justice to the sheer amount he has passed.

2015
- Scrapped the means-tested legal aid system for defendants found innocent, and replaced it with total reimbursement
- Reducing magistrates' ability to keep defendants in remand from 12 to 6 months
- Bolstered the Solicitors Watchdog (SW) to be able to hand fines to firms proven to have "been derelict in their duty"
- Chancellor Wilson passes an expat tax to prevent capital flight being used as a reason for reducing tax levels


2016
- Subsidised the OCB and OCS (bar and solicitors' courses respectively) for first-time applicants under the age of 30 by a means-tested system
- Raised the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 13
- Instituted community service sentences for those found guilty of hate crimes, and included gender identity in the definition of a protected characteristic


2017
- Set up a separate rape and sexual abuse (RSAU) unit within each Constabulary
- Triggered a criminal inquiry into the financial watchdogs, banks and credit institutions over the prelude to the 2009-2011 financial crisis
- Scrapped evidence-in-chief in courts for a statement produced at legal consultation, possibly weeks or months prior


2018
- "Bonfire of Criminal Law" - hundreds of statutes repealed and replaced in the Criminal Sentencing Act, standardising sentences - "self-victimising" crimes receive more rehabilitative sentencing
- Parole trigger - standard sentences now expire halfway through into de facto suspended sentences, whereby prisoners are released from prison under set conditions and the precondition that failing to act within the law risks a return to prison to serve the other half
- Scrapped additional sentencing for escaping from prison under "human instinct" law, as with possessing "for-consumption" prescription drugs
- Included home arrests or other additional sentencing under custodial sentencing, e.g. 5 years now may constitute 2.5 years suspended of the second half, and the first half 2 years' incarceration and 6 months' on bail with strict curfew


2019
- Minimum sentencing guidelines mostly scrapped
- Juries now give structured reasons for their verdicts
- "New Start" projects begin for repeat youth violent crime offenders rather than prison sentences
- Public inquiry into state of prisons; 32% found inadequate on at least two counts


2020
- Citizenship classes now include a small curriculum on Osynstric (or Asthonic/Cordanian) criminal law
- Sentencing Act pulled into a Code of Atlish Law that encompasses an estimated 70-80% of convictions as of 2023
- Legalises cannabis possession and sales under regulatory acts passed between January and March
- Informative/scientific consent - under-18s who can reasonably prove their responsibility and awareness of the procedure they are undertaking which would otherwise be closed to their age group can provide consent
- Landlords who rent out housing deemed "unsuitable for reasonable habitation" now pay high fines to both their tenants and the state


2021
- Antisocial Retributive Orders (AROs) scrapped
- Hate speech laws refined - criticism and insult now separated in law from harassment and discrimination
- Secret courts' rulings unilaterally now unrecognised in law

- Extradition laws restrict valid extradition
- Whole life sentences unilaterally scrapped, with reviews of existing ones ongoing


2022
- Employers who willingly avoid or ignore working rights laws face Ombudsman sentencing and fines
- Instituted a "backstop" - known as the Existing Sentencing Review Body (ESRB) - for convicted criminals out of paths for appeal to reach out to
- Right to repair legislated for
- Mitigation guidelines extended
- Retribution for constabularies and the OCPS (prosecution service) by the Court of Appeal should there be a failure to disclose "key evidence"
- Right to be tried in a second-tier court, with a judge rather than a magistrate, extended; while District Judges begin extending their role in local courts


2023
- Industrial democracy and citizens' democracy reforms begin entering law
- Constitutional courts can now hear cases based on "reasonable fictitious people" under the Constitutional Reform Act 2023
- Right to overtime enters the Overlaw
- Education reforms targeted through legislation


 
The_Herald.png

INS economic release shows Esthursian economy on track to close post-2009 output gap

The damage of the 2010 flash crash was widespread; and new projections have put back Esthursia's catchup from 2026 to 2027

EsthursiaGDP.png

Image: Esthursia's GDP data release (GDP = green, 2.3% pre-2009 trend = red, GDP +% = black, GDP +% projected = grey); in real IBU
Esthursia was hit badly by the 2010 crash, so badly that playing catch-up is going to take 17 years in total, INS data suggests. With Aurorian instability deepening, and the prospect of leaving the UAS, the INS has stated that Esthursia has narrowly missed having 2022 as its second-fastest growth year, instead placing it third at a rate of 3.61%. This is below initial projections of between 3.78% and 4.29%, as expected at the start of last year; pushing Esthursia's output gap closure date back a year. Even with strong growth this year, and a period of respectable development since the crash, Osborne's hopes of a postcard year after joining the UAS seem to have come up fruitless. The INS statement accompanied the figure released this morning:
Esthursia's economy is growing fairly strongly; consumption and public spending appear to be driving this post-2017 growth - but it appears more of a spurt than a long-term trend, with projections of a return back to the trend rate by 2027 more-or-less. Having joined the UAS, and interlinking greater with other Aurorian nations in particular, has allowed its financial markets in particular to bounce back from initially more subtle growth; however it remains to be seen how much this growth, centred in certain industries, expands elsewhere. Redistribution has allowed consumption, fuelled by increasing wages and disposable income, to experience a modest but protracted period of serious growth returning each year.
This growth also comes with a familiar friend - inflation. Inflation was at 3.1% in 2022, failing to return below the 3% benchmark after reaching 3% in 2021. This comes after consumption continues to be at a benchmark rate of growth, as wage growth is stable and high, and employment recovers to pre-2009 levels. Government spending increased marginally in 2022.
This growth is also quite uneven. The deprived Mellington area saw negligible growth of 0.4%, while Yeaburn saw 1.5%, far below expectations. Growth was concentrated in regions targeted by infrastructure and development projects, and in regions benefitting from a boom in middle-class graduates - Brantley, Weskerby, and the corridor between them, are benefitting the most. An outlier in our findings was Fjarmagn, which has grown far beyond expectations for several years running - we believe this is due to slowly rising prices in the two largest cities making Fjarmagn a good alternative.
Our growth projections for 2023 assume Esthursia remains in the UAS. If it leaves, we can probably expect it no longer to be attaining 4% growth, but instead - at a 90% confidence range - between 0.5% and 4.2%; the extent to which we are unclear about the UAS' effect on immediate growth should be highlighted here too. However, even towards the upper range of this, consistent losses of economic growth would put Esthursia off course to close its output gap by 2030, let alone 2027.
This growth puts Esthursia's total economic output, or GDP, at 6,637,931,619,974 IBU; or at ʃ4.274trn based on April 27 exchange rates ($1.553=ʃ1.00). Had Esthursia not suffered the economic crisis of 2009-11, and thus continued to grow at a trend rate of 2.3% - the average growth rate between 1984 and 2008 - it would be at just shy of 7 trillion IBU - thus the output gap is estimated to be 5% of GDP. Having reached a nadir of 14.3%, this means Esthursia has closed approximately 65% of its output gap; not quite the two-thirds that the government was briefing to tout as a headline-grabbing figure, but continuing to close down on the lost income each year. The fears sown by the Conservative Union under Alborough that this output gap would be permanent, and potentially diverging, in 2018 appear to have been proven to be false.

Included in the economic profile were the unemployment figures - estimated at 3.9%, equivalent to that at the end of 2021, and nowhere near the 3.5% initially predicted at the start of 2022 as the mark we'd be reaching. External factors have been blamed for this, however skepticism about Esthursia's place in the UAS has crept into the labour market, as have faster than expected rising wages. This has further dampened a year of growth that Osborne's government were hoping would be a benchmark year, such as the Harding boom (centred in 2003-2006) and Grantham years (reaching above 4% in 1994); however, this is not only due to immediate economic factors.

Esthursia's population is no longer the dynamic, fast-growing population it once was. Improving education and training, redistribution, infrastructure spending and healthcare, have all staved off the feared post-2010 productivity slump; yet things still aren't quite right under the bonnet. Esthursia is estimated to have recorded 0.11% increases in population in 2022, equivalent to that of 2020 and just below that of 2021 (0.13%). This put its population at an estimated 131,718,405; 20% of whom are now at retirement age. Esthursia's median age is also creeping upwards, now reaching 42.2 years as of the end of last year - this is expected to reach 45 by 2040, and 51 by 2100. Although estimates are volatile and confidence intervals put the maximum point between 2031 and 2058, it is now a certainty Esthursia's population will reach its peak during our lifetimes.

This puts Esthursia in a worrying position. As demographics shift, the working-age population will decline relatively, while retired people will grow as a proportion of Esthurs. Even recent pushes and deals to entice students and skilled workers won't cut it - this is a nationwide steady push towards aging, as the effects of rising incomes, effective contraception and parents choosing to have less children later all root deeper.

Governments will soon realise that redistribution and infrastructure spending, unlike currently, will no longer be enough to hold up Esthursia's growth; and that the reality is even the best growth periods will fall, and stagflation is a real risk for years to come. A sign of this aging? Our prominent people; Manning is in her 70s, the King is in his 90s, even the Forethane is now well over 50, having been born in 1970 - though, apart from the second one, none of this is particularly abnormal. Perhaps the failure of Osborne's government to replicate the Harding boom, even in a period of economic recovery and transformation, is the first sign of this; and it certainly won't be the last. Therefore, cutting the output gap not only proves critical for Esthursia's governments now, but growth now matters more to a future who cannot replicate today's economic successes; and many countries around the world are displaying the same symptoms that Esthursia is realising it too will begin exhibiting before long.

With Esthursia's referendum today, perhaps this reality, and the more direct projection of uncertain hits to Esthursia's short-term and long-term economic prospects - and therefore hits to the money in people's pockets - will weigh on peoples' minds when they vote today. Maybe, with exit polls suggesting Remain is in for a slim victory, they already have.
 
Last edited:
The_Examiner.png

Esthursia narrowly votes to remain in UAS, as landmark Vieremä Group founded

Osborne has welcomed the result during his visit to the Sorovian city alongside Sorovian, Tardineanni representatives to sign treaty

Harold Osborne has had a productive week. The economic forecast released by the INS has vindicated Osborne's long-term economic strategy - albeit not quite as resoundingly as he was hoping - and then his position of "reforming from within" seems to have pipped the Leave campaign, stealing Wilson and Ingley's thunder; and he now celebrates that result from the city where he is meeting with regional leaders to found a new sociopolitical alliance of historic allies.

The referendum itself received a turnout of 79% - one of the highest turnouts any democratic process in Esthursia has seen for quite some time. With 81,173,904 turning out last night either in person or by post, 43,431,618 (53.5%) voted to remain, leaving 37,742,286 (46.5%) leave voters disappointed. With polls suggesting - until the final days, at least - that Leave was perhaps in with a chance, and initially that opinions were slightly sided towards Leave, undecided voters opting for Osborne's stay-and-reform position seem to have swung the referendum, added to prospects of economic turmoil.

Markets have welcomed the news, and further welcomed the notion of the Vieremä Group tightening Esthursia's ties with neighbours; the opposite of fears that it would decouple from its neighbours in order to couple to others. The arian shilling rallied to 1.591 IBU, while stock markets opened 2.6% up from last night, more than doubling the fall they suffered amid uncertainty about the result late yesterday afternoon.

Even despite this, 53.5% along with the caveat of Osborne pushing for internal reform is no resounding success for pro-UAS advocates. The knowledge that public opinion has shifted so resoundingly and quickly from near-unity in support of the institution has proven how much its perception of indecisive bureaucracy - even in a nation internationally renowned for its own bureaucratic cogs whirring away slowly - damaged its support. Jeremy Wilson seized on this, in his statement on the issue.
Esthursia has voted to remain, on the narrowest, least convincing and most blurred of margins. Effectively, accepting the UAS is "just off" beyond repair, and demanding overhaul, has only won the Remain campaign a 7% margin. That's a lot closer than most general elections, where the choices are a whole lot more divided.
I sincerely hope that Harold Osborne sticks to his words and that Esthursia will either push for radical reform successfully, or accept that enough is enough.

Graham Ingley, the right-wing anti-UAS EPP's leader and long-term rabblerouser, has also commented on the issue, stating that the result was the "least assured, most pyrrhic of so-called victories", and that "to win, Remain had to give up on its own arguments", but that he nonetheless respects it.

Osborne himself appears to be pleased with his own calculations; earlier this evening, Osborne posted on social media the following.
The Esthursian nation has decided, by 53.5% to 46.5%, to remain in the Union of Aurorian States; the nation's verdict will be respected, honoured and enacted. This result is as historic as it is clear in Esthursia's desire to remain in the UAS, but only on the condition to push for reform from within.

My immediate priority, therefore, will be set on renegotiation with our partners across these continents; I came to the Esthursian public promising to hold the UAS to account regardless of the outcome of that result, and I will carry out that duty. We remain in contact with our friends in Šuotjärvi and Kardenccia, and I believe serious progress will be made in the very near future.

What people appear to have been drawn to were its cryptic hints of "serious progress", with Šuotjärvi and Kardenccia referring to the capitals of governance of Sorovia and Tardine respectively. Esthursia's government has long held both nations in high regard as close allies, and the UAS' allegedly sluggish admission provoked a gradually more blunt response from its ministers, with its Redethane for Foreign Affairs - or the Ellands as in its Atlish form - Albert Frome referring to the two cases in his own response to the referendum result during an interview on Brantley local radio remotely.

I'm personally glad that the Forethane has openly and blatantly spoken out against the UAS on this. Tomorrow marks one year since Tardine applied, and despite acknowledging its application and meeting with its representatives back in the end of its conflict last May, absolutely no signs of the UAS budging have resulted. Sorovia applied back when John [Largan, Int. Dev. Redethane and UAS Ambassador] was complaining about this grindingly slow accession; not even an acknowledgement has gone their way. Largan, Osborne, and now me - we've all been pushing for this for nigh on half a year now, and we set out the conditions back in May, so there's absolutely no excuse at this point. I'm fully behind the Forethane on reforming from within rather than leaving too - we can only progress as a continent out of this undeniable dark period if we unite, but that will only happen when the Union of Aurorian States begins to show signs of internal functioning once again. Without that, it's just a name for a collective of nations with absolutely zero substance, which is dangerous to project on the international stage in such conflicted times. For that reason, I do believe the Esthursian public - as ever - were right in their decision, and we'll be honouring that decision.
Frome, Osborne and Largan are all now in Vieremä; today is not only a day of significant domestic politics, but of international, as Esthursia looks set to deepen its ties with its historic allies Tardine and Sorovia through this group. The Vieremä Group appears to be a cultural and political alliance of sorts, between the three countries, who have pre-existing ties - consolidated by last November's trade deals; its aims will be along the lines of economic and political co-operation, as well as more co-ordinated defence, working together on the sectors of energy and infrastructure, and potentially on both the issues of cultural heritage and mutual programmes such as education and customs; existing trade deals also look to be founding structures for the V3, a short-hand name based on the number of nations it contains. Osborne has also suggested when pressed by media that the V3 would be aimed towards "a co-ordinated strategy on Vieremä Group nations' progress on UAS integration", while the alliance is also likely to influence further the deepening of cultural and political links between the three nations.

The Moderates appear to be very broadly supportive of the V3's foundation - Rosemary Manning commented on the idea as "essential" and "constructive", while remaining relatively quiet on the referendum itself, noting that it was "to be respected as the democratic mandate". Manning campaigned vociferously to leave, and was wrongfooted by Osborne's strategy of reforming from within, as well as her campaign's later failure to land a victory; internal divisions within the new centre to centre-right bloc have been exposed likewise, with Liberals refusing to dissolve their internal group in a move likely caused by its support for Remaining, and a perception that the Moderates are still dominated by a conservative school of thinking, even despite Manning's moderate politics elsewhere.



Approved by @Artwashere and @Tardine
 
Last edited:
The_Examiner.png

OPINION: Osborne's government is taking modernisation seriously; but has it gone out of their control?

A lifetime's worth of "stabilisation" morphed into managed decline under John Largan; the Osborne government's juncture has put it on a new path

Esthursia was in a very dark place ten years ago, though we might not remember. It's easy to look back at the "large" growth that took place in Largan's tenure - even though it had more or less evaporated by the end, and most of it was a sudden but slowing recovery to the Einarsson-era financial crisis - but hard to remember just how poor a path forecasts were putting us on.

It's easy to remember the major areas of difference between the Newell, Holmfirth, Moore, Greenwood and Grantham governments, yet when Mark Willesden came into power in 2002, those differences didn't seem so stark. Willesden was a figure of the self-imposed centre - possibly the epitome of Esthursia in the late 20th century. An elderly gentleman, from a long line of increasingly highly-educated, service sector professionals - his father being in the same financial sector he entered in young age - who just happened to crash into politics as a middle-age venture, and never left it. Realistically, Mark Willesden could have served in any of the above governments - except perhaps David Holmfirth's, whose technocratic and left-wing reforms would have been far too much for him to stomach - quite happily. The main reason for that proved to be that all of them, again except Holmfirth's to an extent, were completely unwilling to alter the foundations of Esthursia's economy and society.

The reason for this? It seemed to work. One of the unsung heroes of financial growth was the Salisbury government, whose reforms between 1911 and 1916 gave birth to the Brough, and whose latter six years gave it enough guard rails to prevent it crashing off the cliff created by Salisbury's successor, warmongering James Thorne between 1922 and 1926. Even George Asmont's decision that these relatively new but now hefty and endangered financial institutions were too important and hopeful to leave down on the priority list rather than address quickly in his tenure was a sign of this culture already starting - yet his reforms would take near to a century to water down. By the time the Newell government came around, it had a lot more problems to deal with - what with 7 years of dictatorial wrecking-ball politics having just ended - and decided the existing guard rails, by this point over 40 years old in many places, were sturdy enough. Martha Grantham was born significantly after these guard rails were installed, yet by her tenure was already an elderly woman.

The 2000s therefore brought an uneasy consensus between the "left" and right. There is good reason to be skeptical about how influential the left truly was in this period - the Social Democrats' splinter in 2002 locked it out of power for a decade, and realistically Mark Willesden was centre to centre-right. Mark Willesden and Isaac Harding had a lot in common, but the key tenet of those was that the financial sector must be seen to grow a lot quicker than everything else. The civil service had little to no reforms between the 1940s and 2000s to restrict it, while falling pay and "market reforms" bleeding into it from the 1980s which had been more or less ignored by the 1990s Social Democrat governments had left educated elites more or less ignoring the public sector roles. Harding, by 2005, had however noticed that the warning signs had been flashing for quite some time - trade schools, investment programmes, and eventually a gradually tightening belt of austerity were the increasingly desperate actions of a government more and more constrained by its own goal not to enter managed decline. By 2009, the attempts to avoid this were already bringing it towards managed decline anyway; cue Tharbjorn Einarsson.

For all intents and purposes, Tharbjorn Einarsson was a poor Forethane. Yet he cannot be solely, or even primarily, blamed for the crisis that unfolded - because it was a long time coming. By 2009, when he took power, the economy was more or less already in technical recession. Not only that, but the government had been conducting austerity measures for three years, inflation was nearing the red zone, and interest rates had been creeping up. Behind the scenes, the financial sector's self-regulatory measures of the past decade or so, stalled by Granthamite reforms and released again in the 2000s, left the economy's stability - let alone growth, which had been lost already - dependent on credit, which itself was dependent on the indebted, many of whom could never pay back. Credit rating agencies were similarly either blind or deliberately ignorant - one is likely to think the second - towards this; staving off the inevitable had become a catch-22, since abandoning it would be an admission of corruption while also plunging the economy then and there, while maintaining it would be increasingly suspicious while also eroding their reputation. In the end, everything happened.

Of course, Einarsson's refusal to conduct managed decline in the same way Harding had was replaced with what could best be described as "setting fire to everything". His government set about making sure the economic damage was as deep as possible, pissing off workers so quickly that a General Strike had been pronounced within 12 months of his appointment, while simultaneously deregulating financial institutions beyond the point of no return. Now, housebuyers who couldn't afford their subprime loans were borrowing off of payday lenders, and then found themselves unable to pay a much larger bill in turn. Dancing money, jovial music and jaunty mascots on TV screens attempted to hide the astronomical yearly interest rate that entering contracts with them began.

It's easy to just leave this to this period - but this had become a clear trend. The early 1980s saw unsustainable growth followed by a sudden collapse. The 1990s saw unsustainable growth followed by stagnation. The 2000s saw unsustainable growth followed by a sudden collapse. Esthursia's economy had given way to the boom and bust cycle, and with two of those periods renowned for their rises in inequality, only the latter part of the cycle actually affected the average person. Not only did this leave many governments in a state of false security, luring them into believing they were far more revolutionary than they ever were before plunging their system off a financial cliff - either by political origin, such as Greenwood's inciting of a national strike and inflation crisis, or by economic, such as the pre-Einarsson austerity period - but it also repeatedly delayed reform. Either things were "going too well" to necessitate reform, or too badly to allow it.

When John Largan came to power in 2011, he found the nation bankrupt and although leaving the worst of its recession, forecasts were poor. Largan has reputed to have said the following weeks after entering office upon the INS' budget report:
Where's all the money gone?
The issue with John Largan became clear relatively quickly. Although he proved effective at emergency measures, and initial moves to (re-)regulate the financial sector while also keeping it from completely sinking under the weight of its own failures were critically important to stop the damage becoming permanent, he quickly became a leader of the late 20th century. The economy around him was changing, though; the importance of the Brough had been heavily dented by the Crash, with Brantley, Execester, Esthampton, Gloucester, Hereporth, Cambury, Rennezh, Strantglade, Tynwald and Fjarmagn all boasting new financial sectors with exponential growth mostly from the Brough's lost reputation and rising prices. The changes were so fundamental that it remains likely that Brantley will overtake Weskerby as the nation's most populous city within the next decades, and soon after the largest city economy.

It became clear by 2014 that Largan was more set on getting "back on track" than wondering why the train had derailed in the first place. People, this time, noticed; the initial promises and high sentiments were replaced with the same-old feelings that wages, living standards, productivity, capacity, and everything inbetween all seemed to be stagnant and non-moving. It became inevitable, when the Largan government unexpectedly survived - albeit with wounds it couldn't then outlive - the election, that the Social Democrats would finally appoint a new leader. Fears of a lost decade between 2012 and 2022 were sown, with forecasts in 2014 putting average economic growth below 2% for that period's predictions, denting Largan's reputation even further.

This new leader proved to be Harold Osborne. John Largan's shift to the centre-left away from Mark Willesden had earnt the ire of many centrists and returned many leftists to the party with the hope of appointing a leftist - Osborne, although at this point not as overtly socialist as many in this faction would want, became their best chance of this process continuing. This proved more successful than any of them may have hoped. He also proved willing to conduct constitutional change from day one, and equally willing to tackle what was fuelling economic stagnation of this severity.

Even with a majority of near-zero, Osborne's government set about undoing the legacy of a generation of politicians. A few clear oddities stood out - appointing Jeremy Wilson, and a lot of other Progressive hardliners, to top offices. Wilson, although as a personality divisive and increasingly populist - culminating in his own downfall - was potentially the first high-ranking politician to grasp just how pointlessly stagnant the results of Esthursia's long-term policies had been. The economic priorities shifted from preserving finance and property ownership, to redefining it; though realistically, the top two priorities of the Osborne government have been redistribution and labour productivity - the latter dependent on working rights, but now increasingly not just that.

Possibly, even without Wilson in a high position, Harold Osborne has warmed to this new policy programme. Although it's easy to notice Osborne's public shift between refusing to call himself a socialist, and openly embracing it, as well as his appointment of a socialist to replace Wilson rather than a moderate or soft-leftist - maybe the most clear juncture was the Code of Atlish Law, per chance. Bear with me; but the main reason for this was that it finally recognised that in this case, it wasn't the regulation itself that was holding Esthursia back, but the fact it was so outdated, unviable, inconsistent and scattered that it wasn't functioning. It had taken a hundred years for a government to finally look back to the Salisbury government, maybe even more so than the Asmont-era government on this regard, and do anything but maintain and preserve the institutions it created, rather than reform them.

The Osborne government's record has been quietly accomplished - Esthursia's soft power has steadily grown, while its economic trajectory has more or less changed course from the perma-stagnation mused about in the depths of 2014. The civil service's tendency to outsource - with one think tank paid to work out how to reduce the amount of think tanks involved in government symbolising exactly how deep-rooted this culture of faux-technocracy has become - and its failure to entice the thinkers of the day have all slowly held Esthursia's policy programmes back, yet new democracy measures and reforms to the service are bringing them back, going on a positive trajectory for the first time in maybe a century and a half. The indices that were pointing towards managed decline for Harding and Largan - productivity, capacity, inequality, wage growth - all were now in the green, albeit more subtly than Osborne had hoped - because even Osborne has not fully grasped just how deep-rooted the issues lie.

The absurdity of all this becomes clear in hindsight - many of the economists seen as consensus-building were long, long dead by the time Osborne came to power and did away with much of their thinking. Gordon Hewitt, possibly the most prominent economist associated with the Salisbury-era reforms, died in 1927. John Marston-Smythe, an economist Salisbury drew on, was often cited by the Harding government; he died in 1859, and his teachings were often seen as old hat even by the mid-19th century Liberal governments. The idea that their worldviews, and their prospective ideas - for they were ideas, not institutions, at the points they were conceived - are congruent to a world one-hundred, two-hundred years after they lived - that's exactly the fallacy that kept Esthursia on the path it was on.

The issue with all this? It promotes anger, populism, even now, because few politicians recognise the problem properly. Osborne is on the fringes of mainstream social democracy, increasingly leaning over the ledge - and Wilson, a man increasingly seen to be the party's future thanks to his iron grip on the growing left fringe, is well away from that ledge. The failure of mainstream politics to address long-term fundamental issues with Esthursian economics and politics, from its centralised elitist education which still remains self-governing even under the Osborne government, to its dependence on finance to keep going, and until recently its failure to address wage stagnation despite economic growth, have all fuelled decades of polarisation. Greenwood's trade union clampdowns, Einarsson's tenure, Osborne and Wilson rising in their ranks, all easily attributable - the period in the 1970s, by contrast, proved critical to boost Greenwood's economic record by fuelling capital investment that only really kicked into gear when Holmfirth left power; and further prevented the need for him to lurch any further right. Maybe even the miasma of stagnation and lack of new ideas or innovation in the Workers' Union in the late 1940s left a certain path to power for Olafn Arbjern in 1950; and with Wilson's convincing speeches decrying exactly this institutional stigma to reforming key issues that left Esthursia on a path of unsustainable growth, then managed decline, repeatedly, it seems clear that his path to power is just as apparent.

Wilson's rise to his current position already seems to be ominous. He controls major cabinet positions - and is significantly more moderate than many of those he appointed to those positions - and the party's membership is increasingly sympathetic to his New Left ideology, merging together a refusal to endorse pacifism with economically socialist, perhaps verging on collectivist, policies. As Osborne tends left, and the party caucus follows suit each electoral cycle, his ability to lead a government appears less and less far-fetched than many initially thought when he fell from his position in 2017. Osborne's grip on his party may not be slipping yet, but the party is now as left-wing as he is for the first time ever, and maybe even be accelerating away from him; it's hard to tell where it might be in three years, but his musings around retirement - despite only being 53 this year, and 55 at the 2026 election - are suggestive that he's had enough... and equally suggestive are Wilson's manoeuvres. There remain other successors - Lauren Bowen, his successor, seems most obvious - but it is easy to speculate that Bowen would be just as populist as Wilson, but less economically radical.

Osborne's sacrifices of centrism may have also sacrificed anti-populism; despite his own politics. He remains a technocratic yet down-to-earth leader in his political style - a man from a family of urban industry, as opposed to generations of mostly (except Grantham, Moore and Holmfirth) finance-derived or otherwise elitist leaders - yet he appears to have viewed the sacrifice of moderates' public persona as "level-headed" (knowing that this is synonymous with refusal to adhere to his increasingly diverging reforms) over leftists' populist nature, especially with the in-party New Left refusing to align with Green-Left pacifism against his own hawkish policy on military and foreign relations (if not outdoing him entirely), and gambled his government on it. This may have been a success for his current leadership, effectively guaranteeing the passage of his reforms, but its result proved to be securing Wilson's deputy position, allowing him to continue to appoint Redethanes, all while the party membership and administration eschews its old moderate stances. The party, by the time the next decade starts, is likely to be more democratic socialist than social democratic - a clear overshoot from Largan's initial juncture from Third Way centre-right politics.

The main dividend of this gamble appears to be the staving off of managed decline - this remains a reality, though, as Esthursian demographics shift towards an aging, and eventually declining population. Yet, this may fuel the desire for radical politicians like Wilson further, who are willing to make even larger gambles as well as to eschew the consensus even more blatantly in an attempt to both claim the rewards of the first government to recognise the importance of constitutional reform in the economy in many ways, and at the same time therefore earn the trust of the population.

Let's hope he doesn't go down the same path, should he reach power - or we might be in for another century of this. The Osborne government may have tackled many key fundamental issues, taken Esthursia off the path of excessive boom and bust somewhat, and certainly off the path of managed decline, but it may be too little, too late to stop the rise of a left-populist just yet. Perhaps, there remains time for the old style of politics just yet, if Manning fosters unity in the Moderates enough, or if Osborne resigns and a successor - Wilson, Bowen or otherwise - proves an ineffective campaigner. Or maybe, just maybe, they were in time to prevent any of these questions needing to be asked.
 
Last edited:
The_Atlish_Times.png

Green-Left's rising hard-line influence puts Esthursia out of step with the world

Co-leaders Edelard Burnside KC and Chloe Atkinson are just part of the wider culture dragging Esthursia into state socialism

- Winifred Barton-John, 18 Thremel, 2978 / 18 May, 2023

The idealistic co-leadership of the burgeoning far-left party sums up exactly what's wrong with Esthursia's now-institutionalised radical ecosocialist wing of politics.

Edelard Burnside, named a Law Society HRD (Human Rights Defender) in 1995, is just one of the seemingly endless plethora of washed up lawyers in 2020s governance; well into his 70s, Burnside is representative of a now-aging contingent of the radical left that campaigned fiercely for the 1990s energy rejigging. Burnside is even older than Moderate leader Rosemary Manning, having been born in the Workers' Union government (albeit only just, in 1949). Although he and Atkinson are co-leaders, his closeness to Osborne and Wilson's relegation to in-party meddling has made him de facto second-in-command. Historically politically apolitical, Burnside joined Green-Left in 2019, citing what he saw as a failure of (yet another) human rights lawyer Harold Osborne to "trailblaze". Yet here he is, in government with the very same man.

green-finance-spokeswoman-chloe-swarbrick.jpg

Atkinson announcing her stand for co-leader, May 2022 (left)

Chloe Atkinson is representative of the other Green-Left contingent. Far more fiercely ideological, Atkinson is firmly on the left of her already hard-line party, identifying as an "anti-capitalist", "alter-globalist" and "ecosocialist'. If Burnside is the embodiment of the socialist intelligentsia, Atkinson is that of its grassroots. She is 45 years younger than Burnside at 28, and rose quickly through the ranks as an activist and public speaker; in reality, the grassroots found a placeholder, a figurehead, who would convey their misgivings and dogmatic anger towards the government at heart. Significantly to Burnside's left, she has since forged a persona as Esthursia's "highest-ranking anti-capitalist" by the Daily Herald, and her appeal to the radical youth vote has furthered the party's successes at elections, cutting into Socialist Front and New Left (Social Democratic faction) vote shares.

Unfortunately, this mixture seems to have worked bloody well for them, although whether that remains the case for the remainder of Harold Osborne's term remind unknown. Dissatisfied with Osborne's insufficiently ardent socialism - yes, that's a genuine reason nowadays for many young people - Green-Left dominates student politics and the Social Democrat vote under 25 is increasingly soft. You'd be hard pressed to find a university campus whose streets aren't adorned with the familiar green and red paraphernalia, posters, events, the lot. Gaining a chunk of the elderly non-urban middleclass vote, nicknamed the "green-fingered grandpa" vote, in local elections has also given them a foothold in unlikely areas; Execestershire is the first county district to fall completely to the left, thanks to its perfect storm of students, young liberal-left voters, socialist cities and ecologically minded rural areas.

Together, the two of them - and their party - have gradually taken the party into a new ideology, where they have near-total control; not as marginalised as Socialist Front, and not as mainstream as the Social Democrats. Politicians like these often dub the rightwing EPP radical and dangerous - but should we be looking left first before we look right again?

The main issue with Green-Left

81596b8ed2b3641bd33cc3aab22192ae2854a733.jpg

Burnside speaking at the Law Society annual meeting, December 2022 (right)

To put it simply; Green-Left breeds on a society that thinks Esthursia must be a "beacon of green socialism", a slogan coined by Edelard Burnside himself.

Burnside's vision is a smokescreen for a possibly more malicious intention - for Esthursia to succeed in their eyes, it must not only become institutionally socialist, but it must project socialism elsewhere. With the alarming rise of collectivist regimes worldwide, it cannot be anything less than directly concerning that we have our own contingent of radicals attempting to make Esthursia join their growing league; especially when their company is hardly a democratic lovefest. The fact that the Government partially comprises of these radicals, mixed in with the ever-growing presence of Wilson's New Left faction, is terrifying to even the moderate conservatives here.

The increasing human rights activism championed by Burnside and Atkinson is equally important to consider - a very clever tactic, credit must be given, to campaign for their legislation to get codified in a way such that repealing it is arduous and almost entirely removed from elections, but a dangerous one nonetheless that compromises our Overlaw and waters it down.

Some of Green-Left's proposals also remain downright absurd. The checklist of Chloe Atkinson's championed policies include free broadband, no income tax under 21, an "opt-out" national trade union, total nuclear disarmament and non-belligerence (note, a point of contention with Burnside), a Universal Basic Income, near-total decriminalisation of recreational drug use, a 100% income tax rate above 500,000 shillings a year, hikes to the wealth tax and a tax on second homes. Ironically, Burnside and Atkinson differed on UAS membership, with Burnside backing Remain and Atkinson Leave, but both being relatively tentative and undedicated to their respective causes.

Osborne having won back a narrow lower-house majority last September may have staved off some of their legislative influence, but their votes remain critical and necessary for any laws to pass. One can only imagine what list of demands Llywellyn House received last September to continue the coalition, let alone what Osborne - begrudgingly or otherwise - ticked off; or even if Osborne and Burnside greeted each other positively.


A note to end

Julian-Burnside.jpg

Edelard Burnside addressing Somberbridge Hall last month on "fair law"

Esthursia has seen quite a significant shift in its politics and society over the last decade. Once a bastion of social market economics in the turn of the millennium, Osborne's tenure has seen increasing encroachment by the state into the economy, and an accumulation of employee-over-employer sided laws. Recently, religion has become a major wedge issue, with "cosmetic" or "cultural" circumcisions below 15 banned and the ban on religious education last September all coming from Green-Left originally. The facts are there: the party have been key players in moving Esthursia's laws away from generational norms, conventions and traditions, in favour of ideological choice pandering to socialists and anti-capitalists - and with Esthursia cosying up to Rayvostoka and other socialist nations, its formerly diplomatic level-headed nature is being compromised swiftly.

We can but hope that the influence of Green-Left - or at the very least, Atkinson's grassroots extremists - is marginalised as much as possible, and that the saving grace of Harold Osborne's leftwing Government is that it refuses to bow down to state socialism as espoused by the entire junior coalition partner. Maybe the most worrying thing is that it appears the Government is warming to their radicalism - and compromising decades of geopolitical manoeuvres, alliances and political conventions in doing so; especially with the half-dozen Reeves they get to appoint to Government.
 
Last edited:
The_Herald.png
"Baffling" Reclaim conference held by far-right Heritage party

Topics discussed included a return to "imperial values", an outcry against "socialist tyranny", rant about Theobald's rule, rampant transphobia and a demand for its leader to be crowned

3_TORY.jpg

Prince Robert speaking at the Mellington Reclaim conference

Note: content in this article are wholly unrepresentative of my views, and portray hate speech, so caution is advised.



Odd would be a good way to describe the inaugural event of the far-right Heritage party. Prince Robert, its virtually self-coronated leader, held the event in Mellington - long seen as the populist right's sounding ground.

Far removed from the EPP's radical but professional politics, the conference quickly descended into lunacy. Prince Robert's speech on "imperial values" proved too much for some observers:
Since the 17th century, Esthursia has seen the scourge of liberal socialism deep-rooting (sic) itself in our very institutions, even in our monarchy. Even when Olafn Arbjern, our nation's greatest leader for a generation, tried to take on the socialist establishment at the Houses of Berworth, even the King sided with the leftists.
It's about time we said the unsaid: we need to return to the imperial values of natural hierarchy, religion, biology and common sense that we had before the various revolutions that eroded our society away.

Heritage, a political party nominally, is better described as a tool. Prince Robert is well-known to followers of the monarchy as the King's slightly outlandish nephew, whose claim that the dissolution of the monarchy was "illegitimate" led to a second claim that Arthur's whole lineage was defunct, thus handing the crown to him upon Arthur's death or abdication. However, his association with the far-right has only been recent, though royal sources seem to suggest he was a sympathist since at least the National Democrats' brief rise in the 2000s.

Amongst some of the other claims were:
  • Esthursia was becoming a "socialist tyranny led by Osborne's people's front"
  • Transgender people "had mental illnesses" and "required urgent treatment"
  • Scalvian refugees were "displacing natives"
  • The UAS was a "globalist conspiracy to suppress families, rights and social obligations"
    Olafn Arbjern's labour camps were propaganda by the Liberals in the 1950s
  • Esthursia's declining birth rate was a result of "societal communism" and "late stage feminism"
  • Industrial action "is unpatriotic and should be unlawful in all cases"
The Reclaim conference also hit on a sore point for many on the right in general - recent legislation over religion and consent, including the ban on infant cosmetic circumcisions, religious schools and child baptisms. Prince Robert claimed they were "state atheist conspiracies against religious freedoms", and stated a Heritage government would abolish the laws on day 1.

The conference also featured major far-right rabble-rousers, and some radical members of the EPP, as well as the remnants of the National Democrats. A conspicuous absence was Nick Nottingley, the right-wing to far-right leader of the declining party, whose absence was seen as either a snub or a concern that the event would appear too radical or extreme.

Forethane Osborne took to social media to deplore the far-right conference, stating:
Esthursia is a beacon of freedom, civility, equality and social justice. The hateful views espoused by the far-right Prince Robert are not shared by, nor represent, this nation; we will not stand for the discrimination, conspiracies and hatred spewed by so-called Heritage, and I deplore it in the strongest possible terms.


Rosemary Manning, centreright Leader of the Opposition and Moderates leader, stated Prince Robert was an "ultranationalist troubled soul", whose "views were better left in the cesspit they came from", and joined Osborne in condemning them. Green-Left Afterthane Chloe Atkinson said they represented "nothing less than fascism", while fellow Afterthane Edelard Burnside stated they were "exactly why I got into law in the Arbjern years, to push back against". Possibly the most surprising critic was Graham Ingley, who told ENBC News that Prince Robert's speeches were "inciteful, hateful and wrong".

Heritage is set to contest local and general elections, and has been backed by the son of Gareth Marylebone, the late billionaire found dead in his apartment allegedly having plotted to kill the Forethane.
 
Last edited:
ENBC.png

Aurorian War brought to an end, as Barth regime disintegrates

The last year has seen fighting across South Ethia, including in eastern Scalvia around Dogaži and Aurorea proper, but can Auroria repair itself?

A punctuated denouement ends nearly a year of war, as the conflict, which began in July last year, reaches its resolution. The Aurorea, an autocratic regime unrecognised by many Aurorian states - including Esthursia - since close to the start of the war, and increasingly an international pariah state, no longer controls any meaningful territory de facto, while its leadership (including Barth himself) were found dead last Saturday by Volshan forces on arrival. Aurorea surrendered on Sunday, bringing to an end Auroria's most brutal conflict in living memory.

The conflict
Aurorea has a long history of antagonism and imperialism. Two Boreal Wars, a historic failed invasion of Scalvia and historic tensions with Sorovia post-independence - while its regime maintained, if not worsened, its extravagant hierarchical dictatorship - mark key points in the path to the end of its regime. The Aurorea maintained a belief that it was the sole rightful state of Auroria, a policy that directly put it into confrontation with every other of its neighbours.

Throughout early summer 2022, the Aurorea went into drought and water crisis. Alarmed and wrong-footed by the potential crisis, the Aurorean regime blamed Scalvia for "tempering with their water supply", and soon violated its airspace thereafter. Relations between Aurorian democracies and Aurorea worsened, with the Esthursian government raising its alertness level and condemning the Aurorean regime publicly on June 20th, while Volshan militarised its borders with the Aurorea. The Scalvian President, Voldemaras Novickis, held an ominous and urgent address the day before the war officially began.
The situation is grim. The Aurorea, long a power intent on the complete destruction of our [Scalvian] Federation, and its enslavement as servants to their "superior race," has finally gone the extra mile. As I'm sure you all know by now, today the Scalvian Air Force was forced to shoot down an Aurorean combat aircraft that was armed with air to ground weaponry, as it flew close to a major settlement. We were left with no other option. As I speak, the Aurorean Army is massing close to our borders. I have asked the Presidents of each Republic to mobilise the Militias, which they have complied with. I am in constant communication with our partners in Volshan and Esthursia, and we are discussing various measures. This is a grim time for peace on our continent, but our actions show that we remain committed to defending our liberty.

Scalvian President Novickis during his national address, July 7, 2022


The eighth of July saw the escalation finalise; skirmishes on the Scalvo-Aurorean border, and "live-fire exercises" held by the Aurorean military just a few kilometres - and within earshot - of the Volshan border, saw the first casualties and the effective start to the war proper. Scalvia soon scrambled a comprehensive defensive and refuge operation; the Esthursian Redethane for Foreign Affairs, Alfred Frome, soon authorised the programme of welcoming refugees into state-provided housing, as Dogaži came under heavy fire and damage.

Martial law was declared in Scalvia three days later, with a suspected nuclear attack even being warned about, though in the end missiles were the true weapon used to bombard on 11 July. Aurorian nations, by this point, had united against the Barth regime's brutality and imperialism; Alveris, Rayvostoka, Tardine's military junta (soon to become its national transition government against the Danfeh regime) and Belska had all condemned the attacks, while news had even reached Arcanstotska, whose President Sidorov Kobilin "condemned [the attack] in the strongest possible terms".

(left) Scalvian President Novickis holding a national address; July 7, 2022

The war received global attention by the turn of the year; arms poured in from Andrenne and Goyanes to fund and fuel the firepower of the Scalvian and Volshan armed forces, after Goyanes' Vice Chancellor visited Kariste in late July, while the Esthursian government began commissioning drone kits in particular for Volshan, as well as an air taskforce, while Sorovia closed its borders to fleeing refugees and condemned the war erstwhile.

By the start of this year, the frontiers had pushed substantially into Aurorea. Lais and Roheen had both been occupied by democratic forces by February, and the Aurorean regime was in open disarray. Al-Zahra, the Aurorean capital, was a matter of kilometres from the Volshan armed forces by the end of March. The spring saw the final bursts of organised resistance by the crumbling Aurorean regime, before it finally lost coherent control and the capital found itself under foreign occupation for the first time since time immemorial. By the start of May, the Barthist founder's statue had been toppled.

The Barth regime had ended as inauspiciously as it had ran the war; a great room of leaders and Barth loyalists, as well as Barth and his own family, found dead by suicide by the armed forces of Volshan on Saturday. The war continues to run on as the last pockets of Barthist forces fight for however long they can last, but with the government all but decapitated and supplies limited, these pockets appear to be running on borrowed time. The death of Barth brought with it the unconditional surrender of Aurorea the following day.

The future of Aurorea and the continent around it
The question of how to repair a nation so damaged by not only a brutal war, but an entire region torn apart by the ravages of conflict and a nation whose people had spent lives upon lives under the boot of dictators whose extravagant rule came at the increasing cost of their subjects, is obviously the next step for parties involved in the War. Aurorea was a developing and struggling nation before the conflict; now its people live in harsh conditions and in the midst of the largest conflict to hit the continent in living memory.

Rumour seems to suggest that Aurorea is set to be split into occupation zones of some sort between the two belligerent nations, Scalvia and Volshan. The South Ethian nations have a high bar to get over - not only do they have the potential task of rebuilding an entire society, but also of reconstructing themselves after their own damage. The city of Dogaži is set to receive substantial regeneration funds, after the east coast Scalvian city - possibly the most affected outside Aurorea - attempts to recover from the damage of war.

The Esthursian government, meanwhile, has both been criticised for its perceived "inadequate" involvement, while also criticising the UAS for the exact same thing. The UAS has received the ire of many over views that it effectively did not respond to the War, added to outside tensions over waits for Tardineanni and Sorovian applications. The Social Democrats, meanwhile, maintains that the Government had "adequately and with full intention supplied, funded and involved itself in the war effort", and that it remained committed to "providing a wide range of financial aid, investment and regeneration loans to kickstart the post-war Aurorean, Scalvian and Volshan economies", as well as pointing to its record-high foreign aid budget; however the Moderates, the main opposition party, have called for greater involvement and its leader, Rosemary Manning, criticised the Forethane for failing to "stand up to the Barth regime with full force".

Whatever happens, now that the gunfire has ended, and the last pockets of a fallen dictatorship finally surrendered, it is unlikely that life will simply be able to move on both in and around the Aurorea. The effects of Barth's imperialism, dictatorship, and his demise thereafter, are as self-inflicted as they are damaging for the entire geopolitical region; but hopes remain high that the continent and region can bounce back.
 
Last edited:
ENBC.png

Esthursian think-tanks call for global end to fossil fuel use "due to direct death toll alone"

Futuresight, a forecaster and think-tank linked to the centrist-liberal Examiner, conducted a study into global deaths by energy source

panorama_of_genesee_power_plant_by_sybaristail-d6agr49.jpg

Using global statistics on fossil fuel, hydroelectric, renewable and nuclear energy production-related deaths, Futuresight has claimed that fossil fuels - particularly coal - have "extreme death tolls". Up to one-fifth of all global deaths are attributable to air pollution or exposure to harmful particulate emissions.

Inventing a fictional developed country of 50 million people called "Lessland" - less being Atlish for "fiction" - it extrapolated "pessimistic, optimistic and realistic models" to work out exactly how high the average toll would be.

FossilFuels1.png

(left) Estimated realistic-pessimistic deaths for a relatively developed country, per TWh

The figures make for grim reading, if they're to be taken at face value especially; a large country where coal or oil is the primary source of energy can expect a minimum of thousands of deaths each year, not even including the damage done to other lives or health. Futuresight projected that a country of 50 million reliant on oil and coal, like the fictional Lessland, would see in excess of 10,000 to 15,000 deaths per year; even stressing that studies have shown this could be as high as 50,000 with indirect fossil fuel use - cars in particular - endangering the lives of people in urban peripheries. In its most pessimistic model, where indirect deaths and the 80% highest model were used, one in nine deaths were attributed to air pollution. The main causes of this are small particulates - as small as 2.5 micrometres - such as nitrogen dioxide.

Futuresight's statement accompanying the study was clear in its convictions.
Our data quite clearly shows a link between fossil fuel dependence and mortality; the rates seen in some of our models are actually quite shocking even to us. The idea that one's choice of energy can cause over one-tenth of deaths in a country should ring alarm bells; the societal cost of this in a country the size of Esthursia would likely run close to 5 to 10 billion shillings, and the suffering of absolute millions as a result. Global life expectancy is likely curbed by a statistically significant amount, potentially 1 to 2 years, as a direct result of air pollution, while the impact on lost healthy lifespan and lost working hours is - although probably uncountable - likely to be a heavy societal burden.
What perplexes us above all else is that oil and coal are by far not the least expensive sources of energy for the vast majority of nations in the modern age. Solar energy, after installation costs, is virtually free to operate; the same goes for wind to a lesser extent, while nuclear energy is well-renowned and when safely regulated, provides a stable source of relatively clean energy. There remain promising global signs, but the longer many nations continue to expedite for oil and coal, the worse this is going to get; and even gas and biomass - the latter likely having a high rate of death caused by its release of plastic-derived pollution, with "green waste" likely seeing notable but far lower tolls - having quite shockingly high death tolls for a nation to burden.
The Government and Opposition both jointly welcomed the study as "groundbreaking", while the right-wing EPP noted that it "had clear signs that gas is much safer than other fossil fuel products", encouraging less developed nations to transition to gas "first". A Government source responded to the ENBC's request for a statement on the study.
The findings are concrete, and although it's very important to take a step back, it remains as startling as ever how damaging persistent and dependent fossil fuel usage can be to a society's health.

R.fb38b4b6c5bb9a76651c60d3018d618e
Critics of the study have dubbed it "counting the stars", with an Atlish Gas spokesperson telling the ENBC that the study was "proving nothing but that it's very hard to calculate mortality from energy sources, that fossil fuels aren't as universally horrific as many might have us believe, and that it's very easy to fudge the numbers to satisfy confirmation bias."

Inníanní geothermal power plant, the Vales of Helmark; Esthursia has almost fully renewably-sourced energy, with geothermal power constituting half of Esthursia's energy grid (right)


Fact check
What has to be asked here is; how trustworthy, and reputable, and reliable is this study?

The answer is likely somewhere between very and not very. The data is concrete; based on the rate of deaths. However it's very easy to distort, even with the adjustments made by Futuresight to accommodate for a developed nation - this can be seen with the uncertainty between its models. This is further exacerbated when you get to the task of actually linking death to pollution; again, the discrepancies come directly from the fact that it's extremely hard to pinpoint exactly where the death toll lies, possibly even over an entire order of magnitude, so it's important to take the results with a very big pinch of salt. The monetary societal cost is also quite high; but often not when you compare it with that of transforming an entire energy network, which likely pales even the life-long extrapolation of these costs into insignificance - but when you compare it with rising and volatile fossil fuel prices, compared to falling and improving renewable technologies, perhaps this is yet another nail in the fossil fuel coffin.

It is however noteworthy that it agrees with the general consensus; fossil fuel reliance leads to air pollution, and air pollution kills thousands. A study by the INS projected that the life expectancy loss of a typical crowded urban city operating a high level of fossil-fuel powered private transport by 18 months to 4 years; the global toll to life expectancy is likely somewhere around 12 months.

What might also surprise readers is that biomass incurs higher natural gas death tolls than natural gas. Although on the surface true, biomass deaths are almost entirely reliant on regulations; most of which are poorer compared to more established forms of energy, particularly nuclear energy in comparison, and which vary depending on the source of biomass material. Esthursia still sources just over one-twentieth of its energy from fossil fuels - over eighty percent of this is from natural gas, with the remnants of the 1980s "Rush for Gas" being explained quite heavily by the discrepancy between oil and coal, and gas. By contrast, coal has been completely phased out, and oil's phasing out remains imminent as a result of successive Conservative and Social Democratic government moves away from it and towards a gradual but sustained transition from as early as the 1970s, but more concretely since the 1990s.

Above all else, though, the message remains regardless of whether the number is 5,000, 15,000 or 50,000; fossil fuels have a direct link to mortality, suffering and economic damage in all kinds of ways. As the world begins questioning the efficacy of green energy sources, green energy costs begin to fall and fossil fuels begin to incur a reputation as "dirty" sources of energy, it remains to be seen whether a movement away from them will come in the next few years, and whether a material benefit will come to the global community as a result.

FossilFuels2.png
 
Last edited:
ENBC.png

Government reshuffle: Green-Left leader Edelard Burnside promoted to Chancellor of the Landsfere amid moderate outcry

Lauren Bowen was the country's longest serving Chancellor for a generation; will Osborne's new Chancellor stand up to her legacy?

List-G_JB-QC_5152.JPG
In what has been seen to be a marked move to appease the socialist left, far-left Green-Left leader Edelard Burnside has been appointed to the Chancellery, as the largest change of a wide-spanning reshuffle.

Moderate Social Democrats, led by Oscar Connery and his "Reclaim Social Democracy" (RSD) initiative, have called the reshuffle "a vindication of fears from 2015", stating to the ENBC:
"It seems pretty clear now that the Government is openly adopting far-left politics into its inner sphere. The appointment of a far-left party leader, regardless of coalition mechanisms, is a clear sign that the party is moving in a dangerous direction."

(left) Edelard Burnside KC, barrister, Green-Left co-leader and the new Chancellor of the Landsfere

The reshuffle itself
Some key changes took place; much of the Redery stayed in place, particularly Alfred Frome - the Redethane for Foreign Affairs - an unexpected maintenance of a foreign minister whose personal politics have been marred by accusations of "communist" views colouring his judgment for diplomacy. Osborne's decision to maintain Frome in his position appears to be a nod towards the judgment that Esthursia's thaw with Rayvostoka and possibly even other communist nations will continue for some time. The government have been notably silent on the issue of Callise, but time will tell as to how relations develop with the far-left government there.

A few movements saw a few senior Redethanes step back, though a name reputed to be stepping back - the moderate and ex-Forethane John Largan - stayed in his position as Redethane for International Development. Canute Beorning, the Redethane for Human Rights, was replaced by Jeremy Wilson, the party's deputy leader; the move appears to have been to appease Wilson, while still maintaining serious distance from his politics in general. Elisabeth Dale, a formerly New Left caucus member who left last month after stating she was "disillusioned" with Wilson's populism, has been appointed to the position of Redethane for Health and Care; a second snub to Wilson in favour of a rising star in Esthursian politics.

Wilson's reappointment to a low Redery position is likely to have been to curtail his influence, rather than increase it, reports our editor Rickard Dunn.
Jeremy Wilson has been a serious thorn in the side of Osborne's leadership for quite some time, and now threatens to undermine his leadership quite openly by encouraging a more militantly hard-left membership to participate in every single process imagineable - the left has always been more vociferous than the centre within the party on this kind of issue, but never quite as energised nor numerous as it is now. Wilson being appointed - but to a much lower position than a few of his colleagues in the New Left caucus - seems to be a clear snub; he's still Deputy Leader, but Osborne's having him as far away from mainstream government as possible. This seems to have been confirmed by the fact that a former New Left member who left has appeared to been promoted as a reward for leaving New Left.
The Chancellor; what do they do, and what does the change mean?
The Chancellor of the Landsfere is often seen as nominally the left-hand man of the Forethane. Previously Lauren Bowen from October 2017 to now, and Jeremy Wilson from January 2015 until then, the Chancellor is in charge of the Chancellery; the economics ministry. They decide budgets, allocates funding and writes up economic papers - essentially the Finance Minister, or Treasury Minister, as they might be called elsewhere.

Lauren Bowen was no moderate for sure, but she appeased moderates fairly routinely. Her first months were spent essentially putting her predecessor, Jeremy Wilson's 2017 budget through the nearest shredder; but her decision to maintain the wealth tax in some form kept socialists appeased with her Chancellorship. Lasting another six years, she since re-raised income tax rates on the wealthiest after scrapping the 99% tax rate Wilson brought in, and conducted Universal Basic Income trials in Weskerby and Brantley, while also refusing to increase corporation tax beyond its pre-2017 levels at 25%; an expatriation tax, as well as a currency transaction tax, were however passed, as were major trade union and employment reforms.

The appointment of Edelard Burnside however rounds off her career quite abruptly; but rumours have been spreading that Osborne has been disillusioned with the more centre-left Bowen's steermanship for quite some time, and that tensions over foreign relations as well as industrial democracy laws were the final straw. Additionally to this, Burnside has long been associated with Osborne; Osborne and Burnside are both human rights barristers by trade, with Burnside still actively practising.

The change, however, marks yet another notch in the shift away from old style centre-left politics - though this may be the most abrupt since Wilson's appointment as Chancellor of the Landsfere. Rickard Dunn noted that the change solidifed seven years of in-party fighting, and changed Osborne's allegiances quite finally.
In January 2015, Osborne passed to the last round espousing views that basically said he'd be the sensible messenger between the centre-left and left-wing factions, describing himself as a "Social Democrat through-and-through" and refusing to identify as socialist. That's not the case anymore; Osborne quite openly backs trade unionism to a scale not seen since the 1990s, nationalisation has picked up quite significantly again, as have the talks of using tax to redistribute wealth. Most alarming for the party's moderates is that not only has he appointed someone outside his own party to effectively be his second-hand man, but that Green-Left's co-leader leads an effectively far-left party, though he himself is one of the less vociferous ones.
We should probably expect to see some quite significant legislation passed on employment law and the size of the state will likely grow, with reforms to tax and work not considered since the Wilson chancellery re-emerging from the woodwork. Markets fell this morning - but by 0.8%, much lower than was the case when Wilson was appointed, signalling both a trust in him and continued caution.
The Progressives, who served in government between September and November 2022 before leaving, stated the move was "pandering to the extremes", while the opposition Moderates called it "shadow communism", attributing the comment to Burnside's 1989 comment that he was "fundamentally collectivist and drew influence from Jacob Banbury (a 19th century communist Forethane)". Green-Left, of whom Burnside is a leader, welcomed the move as "decisive for reshaping Esthursia".

Lauren Bowen, however, thanked the Forethane for "giving her the privilege of serving her country", while Harold Osborne gave a statement thanking her for her work.
Bowen has been a steady hand, and steadfast adviser and minister, for most of this Government; her Chancellery has seen the economy grow strongly, but above all else, reliably, and in a way that people can feel in real terms. I thank her personally and sincerely for the work she's done over the past six years, and hope that we can continue to work together on key legislation as the ministerial term rolls on.
What does Edelard Burnside want?
maxresdefault.jpg


Edelard Burnside speaking at a Collective Interest conference last week (right)

It's actually surprisingly clear for a new Chancellor to say what Burnside advocates for; because he's the junior governing party's co-leader. Burnside chairs the Collective Interest (CI) caucus, a left-wing to far-left group of the "establishment" Green-Left members; this is as opposed to her co-leader Chloe Atkinson's more radical roots as a grassroots advocate.

Collective Interest have supported extensive wealth and land value taxes in the past, advocated for "victimless crimes" to be abolished, and pushed for an "opt-out" national trade union. Burnside himself has advocated for the latter, advocating for a "highly-unionised economy".

A key unique aspect of Burnside's economic policy is that he is unconducive to Green-Left policy on raising corporation tax, instead aiming to implement "reinvestment watchdogs" and "pay control" - for instance, raising corporation tax for those with higher CEO-worker pay ratios. Green-Left abandoned its policy to raise corporation tax to 35% after Burnside publicly avowed against the measure.
I don't think a solution is this blanket increase; that doesn't work fundamentally as it's just arbitrary. What we need is an economy where, as free-market capitalists might put it, innovation is central - so we reward equalisation, we reward innovation, we reward investment, and we add a concrete cost for either causing detriment to society, rightless inequality or detriment to innovation. I'm not afraid, unlike those at economic forums and towards the centre, to say - if you don't hold up basic rights, if you don't buy into the contract that operating in the market gives you, if you exploit the market for personal gain at the cost of everyone in it, and if you hoard wealth with no end, we will come knocking and we will give it to those who deserve it. Excessive inequality and wealth hoarding, alongside stagnation and brain drains, are probably the worst signs for an economy's future - so we're here to eradicate it.
Centrists initially welcomed Burnside's announcement that he refused to back a corporation tax, with Liberal leader George Balder calling him a "bulwark against communism", however his increasing openness to trade unionism - and historic reputation of representing them in courts - as well as industrial democracy all alienated those in the centre initially warming to his leadership of Green-Left, along with his cordial relationship with far-left Chloe Atkinson, his co-leader. Moderate Shadow Chancellor Wilfred Statham stated that he would oppose and obstruct as much socialist policy as possible.
The so-called Social Democratic government has all but abandoned social democracy with its latest reshuffle. Not only has Jeremy Wilson reared up his head again into Redery, falling upwards for the second time, but now a radical-leftist has been appointed to the second-highest position in Esthursian politics, besides Osborne's himself. Whether this is down to personal allegiance, or a genuine ideological shift, we should be very worried about the future if we keep allowing this creep towards communism to emerge.
Burnside's first landmark policy has already been announced; universal and free broadband. Atcom, which provides state-funded broadband that is subsidised but still paid for by consumers, is likely to be transitioned to a fully tax-funded service.
 
Last edited:
The_Atlish_Times.png

The key to the right's returned success? Look east, to Cordane

Cordane's regional government has been dominated by the right-of-centre Alliance for decades; what can we learn?

- Winifred Barton-John, 10 Fallow, 2978 / 9 June, 2023

JGVfqnrDmy3FHRXdBB5hUoYAx2iSaWYa8iFMr7IIPdk.jpg
19VLM_539-1000x667.jpg

The city of Anberry, and First Minister Edvard Vander (A, 2015-) of Cordane
The rise of the left in mainland Esthursia is unmistakeable and undeniable. The dominance of the Conservative Union in the 2000s came to a swift end when Tharbjorn Einarsson's premiership ended in crisis and scandal, and the critical failure of the Alborough-led party in 2014 to land the critical blow on declining Forethane John Largan has seen the Social Democrats enjoy their longest stint in power to date.

Over the Weskermere in Cordane, however, things have not been so rosy for their local left. Solidarity, a more radical and explicitly socialist incarnation of the Esthursian left with a complex mess of links to the Social Democrats - who maintain no official links but who increasingly offer similar policy programmes - have seen their electoral prospects somewhere between mixed and poor. They entered government in 2011, at the onset of the national crisis, but in 2015 Alliance came back into power strongly, seeing a narrower but still strong performance 4 years on. They face election this November, and look set to sweep into a third term. The contrast between the Cordanian and Esthursian right is quite stark indeed.

2014 and 2015 saw very different fates for the mainland and for Cordane; so what went so wrong here that we can learn from them?

Firstly, we've got to bring up the taboo - Tharbjorn Einarsson. It's pretty safe to say that the Conservatives here would not have suffered such a catastrophe had Isaac Harding elected not to resign in 2009, or if a Manningite liberal-conservative had won the contest over Einarsson. That's pretty apparent in Cordane; though Alliance were clearly punished for the crisis just as the Conservatives were here, they sure weren't blamed. Vander's 2010s counterparts were a little more right-wing than him, but a lot less right-wing than Einarsson, and they showed those differences - whether they be on privatising the rails, or on deregulation of finance, the latter of which proved critical in both the crisis and differentiating the two - as loudly as possible.

Yet, Rosemary Manning is probably more moderate than Edvard Vander. So why isn't Esthursia today backing her if Cordane has returned to safe Alliance governance?

The difference between Cordane and Esthursia is not just in its topical politics, that's why.

Cordane's trade union membership is approximately a third lower. It enjoys lower tax rates for corporations and the rich in many circumstances, though still not particularly low on a global scale. It has a separate health service, which has performed competitively alongside the UHCS, and not undergone the same expansions that Esthursia's has in the past decade; though childcare and mental health programmes have expanded, and moderate, more manageable social care reforms have taken place to ease the burden on people. While Esthursia still retains strong class identities and a reputation for protestation and anger; Cordane has never really seen the same. The General Strike of 1957 remains the most recent.

Possibly the reason would be that Olafn Arbjern, our autocrat, never got the same scale of power in Cordane. So while Esthursia suffered and protested under Arbjern, and the backlash would kill off the right for a decade, as well as entrenching the socialist policies of the 1930s and 40s, Cordane recovered more quickly emotionally and economically. The same goes for George Asmont - though his reforms were followed through by Solidarity regularly and almost universally, Solidarity fell out of government in 1945, five years before the Workers' Union lost power nationally - and also had a stint out of government between 1933 and 1937.

What lessons can Esthursia's right learn from the victories of Edvard Vander? Firstly, it seems that Vander has been just as lucky as he has been effective; but moreover, his reputation as a level-headed moderate-right statesman above all else, a technocrat of sorts, has brought him into power and kept him there. Maybe Rosemary Manning has already learnt this lesson, and maybe when the time comes, Esthursia will not choose the left path, but the right one. Until then, we can but look east and see what we can expect from a Manning government by what Cordane's Alliance continues to do.
 
The_Herald.png

41°C heatwave blasts Esthursia's southern regions, as heat warnings released across South

First heatwave of the year smashes through previous hottest 2023 day of 32.2°C three weeks ago as ministers and Weþerfrood urge caution

Heatwave.png
123246b11a2f8804b637b7804d372142

Heat warning areas (left), Execester enjoys unseasonable warmth (right)
The year's first heatwave has struck the southern half of the country, as temperatures as high as 41.4°C have hit the south-west Ezhonyth village of Dyrgh, as the Ezhoneg coast basks in unusual warmth, setting records for Esthursia's hottest day of the year; they may reach 43 by next week. Even the Lancestershire coast, near the Helmo-Osynstric border, has received a yellow warning - meaning temperatures of over 25 degrees Celsius.

Yellow warnings stretch far up the coasts, thanks to a particularly warm Perran's Channel and currents bringing hot and mostly dry weather from the subtropics. Rennezh and Yeaburn lay in areas of red warnings - meaning "thringened", 35°C+ - and look set to smash through their records for hottest day possibly in the 2020s, while Execester barely escapes an orange ("stour", 30°C+) warning despite its usually temperate conditions; Execester and the capital, Weskerby, both lay in yellow ("mild") warning regions. Esthampton and Strantglade, two cities accustomed quite significantly to hot conditions, face the hottest blasts - the "utmost" warning, of darkened red colour, to signify 40°C+ temperatures being likely. People in thringened or utmost warning areas are advised not to go out in the hottest hours, to avoid long spells of unblocked continuous exposure to sunlight - due to high UV - and to stay hydrated.

The heatwave arrived two days ago, driving temperatures up as much as 10 to 15 degrees Celsius above the seasonal norm, and bringing the first "utmost" warning (dark red) in three years to Esthursia's southern extremities. The tourism industry has rejoiced over the arrival of unseasonable warmth as the Midsummer holidays arrive, however it and the Weþerfrood - as well as ENBC - have urged caution as temperatures rise. A Government statement about the upcoming height of the heatwave has also been released.
It might sound great to hear that the summer is coming back to Esthursian shorelines - and really, the south more generally this year, with even the Capital getting 27 or 28 degrees Celsius next week - but it remains important as ever that everyone takes caution. Don't swim in reservoirs, don't stay out too long - particularly in the hottest hours, 11h and 15h - and wear sunscreen. It's also vitally important to also keep hydrated, and to keep your homes cool, so stay safe and stay hydrated as the mercury rises.
This comes as the North and Helmark, along with Helvellyn and the north coast of Merthing, all experience average - and in some places, a little below average - temperatures for Fallow (June), with the city of Brantley expecting 14°C today and 17°C tomorrow; even despite Weskerby seeing nearly 30°C in the upcoming days. This has been attributed to the two currents being unusually strong, bringing the north cool-temperate weather and the south hot subtropical conditions. With the north staying cool and wet, locals took to social media to complain that "the South got sun while we just got more wet instead", as one user claimed.

The "trivial nature" of media broadcasts "should not take away from the imperative danger unseasonable heat brings with it", says a Government Minister for Health.
It's really easy to see all the glaring headlines with the red diagrams and capital letters "SUMMER IS BACK!" and not heed why the red diagrams are, well, glaring red. There's always a danger to heatwaves, they always cause excess deaths and they always endanger those of us who are vulnerable, such as the elderly, but also groups who suffer from respiratory or circulatory problems, or the very young too. Don't take your health for granted, just be responsible. I'm not here to rain on your parade, that's for sure, but just be mindful that heatwaves can be dangerous as well as enjoyable. Don't forget to enjoy the summer, though.
The heatwave, which stretches as far north as Execester in the west, and the capital of Weskerby (and satellite city of Oaksbeck) in the east, is to last well into this month; Atlish Water states that a "wet spring" has allowed reservoirs to "fairly easily accommodate the lower rainfall coming this Fallow", though warns that the "risk of water controlling measures may be heightened for late summer depending on the reduction in rainfall this month across much of the country". The capital's reservoirs are estimated to be at about 70 to 80% capacity. It is expected to dissipate and ease by Arralithe (July), bringing fresher and cooler winds from out west and with the temperate current strengthening, temperatures will likely progressively decrease further and further south back to - and probably significantly below - seasonal norms.

Wildfires are anticipated in some south-western regions in particular - though none have yet broken out in the south-west, one fire in the south-east overnight ended fairly swiftly, but is expected to be the "tip of the proverbial iceberg" with much larger and longer ones to come. Greystones has received an "eerie yellow-grey mirk" as a result of air pollution drifting inland from the forest fire, but is expected to clear by tomorrow morning.
 
Last edited:
ENBC.png

Rosemary Manning narrowly survives confidence vote after poor local elections and UAS referendum defeat

"It's time to get back on deck and do my job," says Manning, but are her party so sure she's still capable?

image.jpg
12345.png

Rosemary Manning speaks at Moderates' inaugural conference last Sunday (left), Local Elections 2023 councils by largest party (right)
Background
The career of Rosemary Manning as leader of the Esthursian centre-right movement has come fraught with problems from day one. As a moderate ringleader against the neoconservative Einarsson government, her election to the Conservative Union's leadership - narrowly defeating right-wing candidate Graham Ingley, now leader of the right-wing Esthur People's Party (EPP) - was controversial from the get-go.

Manning's first months came after a shock landslide for Harold Osborne, who had spent much of 2017 struggling to deal with the economic and political fallout from government instability, a dwindling majority and then the Wilson crisis; a wrongfooted campaign, Osborne's personal popularity, economic prosperity - under new, less populist Chancellor of the Landsfere, Lauren Bowen - and infighting within the Conservative Union all culminated in a resounding defeat for Stephen Alborough. While Osborne was given his first electoral mandate - and a large one, at that - Alborough was dealt a critical blow, having survived the fallout from the 2014 election (where, similarly, the Conservatives' internal troubles and failure to damage the Government led to their electoral defeat). Resigning brought about the smallest parliamentary party since before the 2014 election, while right-wing factions split very quickly into the Esthur People's Party in response to Manning's socially liberal and economically one-nation centrist views. Rosemary Manning herself was quite famously upbeat about this, stating that the "best had stayed, and the roadblocks had removed themselves out of our way".

In spite of this, the Conservative Union failed to recover. The Esthur People's Party ate into their right-wing vote and softened turnout, while the Social Democrats rode on a wave of popularity due to confidence in their economic policies and ongoing uncertainty about the prospect of a returned Conservative government. April 2022 brought about Rosemary Manning's first election; despite once again not returning into government, Manning's popularity and the splintering of the left was accredited with heavily reducing Osborne's mandate.

The April-September term was critical for shaping Manning's centre-right politics. A very poor showing in the May 2022 local elections ripped apart the positive mandate Manning had won from the party in April; surviving initial wobbles about her leadership, she united the Liberals and Conservative Union under a new party - the Moderates. Fighting the September 2022 election, she campaigned for EPP and Liberal voters to vote Moderate to deny Osborne a majority; it failed, and Harold Osborne was returned with a slim but working majority in the lower house, but the Moderates held most of their seats.

philip-hammond.jpg
The run-up to the vote


(left) New Shadow Chancellor Henrick Elwood, the centrist replacement to long-serving ex-Conservative Shadow Chancellor Wilfred Statham, speaking at the Moderate conference last night

The first real hurdle of the post-September 2022 session came with the issue of the UAS. Seeing a potential chink in Harold Osborne's, a fairly pro-UAS leader, armour, Rosemary Manning powered up the engines for a full-brunt anti-UAS campaign. Joined quite openly by the right-wing EPP, and often by opponents within the Social Democrats - particularly Jeremy Wilson, the left-wing ex-Chancellor - the momentum was gathering. Osborne's pro-UAS stance became quieter, while the Social Democrats refused to oppose a bill for a referendum. A political victory seemed guaranteed, particularly as antipathy to the Union ramped up as a result of perceived failures of the rest of the Union to involve themselves in the Aurorean War, and "unacceptable" delays to the accession of Tardine and Sorovia. Sorovia has since rescinded its application as a result of this.

davey-libs.jpg
Newly elected Liberal leader George Balder (right)


Despite the initial momentum, the economic damage that leaving the UAS could cause and the Osborne government's successful campaign on unity tipped the balance, delivering a fairly slim but secure Remain verdict. Centre-left former Liberals, who publicly opposed leaving the UAS, broke off from the Moderates to reform the Liberal Party - another dent in Manning's political hopes, whose aim to totally control the centre was undermined heavily by the Liberal-Progressive pact signed by new Liberal leader George Balder. Instead of controlling it, Manning had simply shifted where the centre was.

Public disinterest in the Moderates had increased further - the local elections held last month amplified this, with the Moderates losing control of their last North Osynstry council, failing to win back any Helmark council and even losing Norvysia (south-west Helvellyn) and Asgarshire (central Osynstry) to the left-wing Social Democrats. Hopes that the union with the Liberals would squash any repeat of the 2022 defeats was short-lived - Charenbost, the northernmost Osynstric council, voted with the new Liberal Party over the Moderates.

The vote itself

Anger towards the electoral failures and shortcomings of the Moderates have sparked opponents from all sides to jump out from the woodwork. A former Conservative FÞ (Foreþane) Isaac Harding made public statements against the leadership of Rosemary Manning on ENBC News last Tuesday, to kick off the public issues.
It's not that Rosemary's ineffective - she's, in my opinion, brought the centre-right back in great strides from its duldrums in the middle of last decade - it's that the issues she was elected to tackle have been solved. We're no longer in a situation facing Jeremy Wilson as Chancellor, nor where the party is in open civil war, nor where the economic reputation of our party needs fixing; yet Manning's Moderates are still in total war mode, defending and not going on the offensive. I think, yeah, there are serious questions to be posed over exactly why the right's electoral prospects aren't exactly rosy, but I really don't see the need for a change yet.
Former Liberal deputy leader, Hilda Lewes, who had since joined the Moderates, joined the opposition to her leadership.
We were promised a move to the centreground, a more technocratic, liberal and centrist approach. Instead, we seem to have just been ignored - whether it's the move to unilaterally back a policy that not only violated liberal policies of globalism and unity that even Harold Osborne understood better than this party's leadership, but that also proved unpopular; or whether it's the move to only now replace the Conservative Chancellor with someone with all our party's opinions in mind now that she's in a dangerous position, I think the time's come that we really need to ask whether having a leader who represents all corners of the Moderates is the next step.
On the 6th of Fallow (5 June), when the conference began, an abrupt announcement curtailed the proceedings; the margin necessary to trigger the confidence vote had been reached. An initial conference set up to celebrate the union of the centre and right had evaporated into one to play out the ever-lasting pantomime of post-Einarsson instability and civil war. A week of open conflict between pro and anti-leadership figures was blasted aside by the reshuffle, which was lambasted by opponents as either too far to the centre, or not far enough, while lauded by supporters as a move to finally unite the party.

The vote itself happened over the week preceding the 13th of Fallow (12 June), and the announcement on the 14th (13 June) came; Manning was still leader, but 44% of the party who voted had voted against her. Still leader, but not so securely. Her statement following the announcement at 9h50 this morning after the late night confirmation of her leadership was tinged with this uncertainty.
I'm glad that the party decided to confirm their confidence in my leadership; after this uncertain chapter in the party's formation, it's perfectly normal that such a broadchurch party will have its troubles and wobbles. I think, however, the time has come to get back on deck and do my job, rather than fighting and squabbling; the Esthursian public deserve better.
The future of Manning's leadership

The verdict was, although final, not so clear. Tharbjorn Einarsson survived a confidence vote during his premiership, winning 54% of the party vote, two months before the coalition disintegrated; and he resigned three months after that vote. It's quite possible that the real determinant of the future of a leader isn't in the verdict of a confidence vote, but in the fact that one was held in the first place - but the two situations are very different, and Manning remains relatively popular with the public, despite internal struggles.

The main issue, however, is that the issue is self-perpetuating. Conservatives, and now Moderates, have struggled to cope with internal conflict for the entire period of opposition, and it's very much a big part of why they've been so unable to climb out of it. The union of the centre and right, aimed at plastering over the cracks, seems to have exposed them more widely instead; so even if Rosemary Manning survives this battle, maybe it'll expend so much energy that losing the war to Osborne - or whoever succeeds him - is inevitable.
 
ENBC.png

Esthursian government to institute "first wave" of sanctions amid immediate open threat of "second wave"

Harold Osborne has reduced possible scope of sanctions from initial plans amid "hope for greater dialogue"

Sorovia and Iolanta have had a long period of antagonism, spanning essentially since the latter's independence. The conflict appears to be thawing into a tepid conflict from a frozen one, as government agencies openly attack the other and as Sorovo-Iolanti refugees pose a great problem, and an even more controversial Sorovian resolution, to the balance of peace across Ethia.

Esthursia's government has responded by unveiling two waves of potential sanctions - one of which has been legislated for, voted through and enacted at 11s (11:00 AST) today, and the other hangs over Iolanti as a mere threat of things to come should the first set's warning not be heeded, in the view of the government. The approach by the Esthursian government is far more combative and antagonistic than any other government's to date, contrasting heavily and directly with Scalvia's attempts to broker a hasty peace - the perceived failure of which seeming to bolster the Esthursian government's decision.

The continent should be united against the prospect of yet another war, after the Imperium, Tardine and the Aurorea's respective conflicts in each pocket of the Aurorias. Yet, it seems to be this very notion that is received differently by each government and its ministers.

Background
11402921_919881534701903_4323585590037370730_o-jpg.png

The decision by Esthursia to launch a "first wave" of sanctions following an unopposed (with abstentions) vote for their implementation has been received with mixed feelings in the Social Democratic party. The sanctions and asset freezes themselves are primarily targeted at Iolanti government officials, however also at "friends, accomplices and enablers of the institutionalised oppression of Iolanti Sorovians" - corporations, local governments and officials, friends of the government, wealthy individuals and senior "state officials" have all been chosen, though the sanctions are not as universal or nationwide as many in the ENBC were anticipating. Reasons behind this appeared to be an atmosphere that progress through dialogue in Iolanti was more conducive than expected, and that hopes remained for negotiation and diplomatic pathways, and thus that a total sanction raft would not be beneficial to ending the crisis.

Some within the party, particularly on its powerful New Left far-left socialist flank, had called for the sanctions to come earlier. New Left spokeswoman Alberta Henry called the delays to the move "undeniably compromising", and stated that New Left had "personally and consistently advocated for the government to press ahead regardless of the Scalvian proposal's introduction, which if I were a cynical woman, is being used as a scapegoat for months of refusals and blocks within the government on the most basic of retaliatory responses for decades of institutional racism." A Government spokesman responded by stating the measures were "hard-hitting, forceful and immediate," and stated Henry was "mistaken" in her accusations; sentiments agreed with by Green-Left, the junior government party, who welcomed the measures as "groundbreaking, and the first real response to punish the injustices inflicted by the Iolanti government on ethnic Sorovians."

The government positions
The Scalvian proposal - the name given by most Esthursian media to the proposal sent by Scalvia as an attempt to resolve the Sorovo-Iolanti border conflict - is alleged to have put the brakes on ambitions for sanctions, Osborne having publicly refused to deny this being the case. The proposal was swiftly, and almost unanimously, thrown out by Sorovia's legislature, with every of its five parties opposing it; the speed and unity with which the proposal was rejected further sped up the process by which Esthursia instituted its sanctions. Redethane for the Ellands Alfred Frome told Channel 2 News that this was "certainly the case."
"I think, really, you have to just look to Sorovia's complete rejection of the settlement to display how much doubt our democratic partners in Korvola have in the reliability of a regime that has shown open disregard for the basic, fundamental rights of a significant proportion of its population, with equal disregard for the condemnations of the international community. Of course I believe, and this government too, that the decision was right, and frankly Weskerby shares those fears that the solution to this cannot be to treat the Iolanti regime as if it were a democratic, friendly and tolerant regime with at the very least a basic culture of human rights. We welcome the decision by Scalvia to seek a peaceful and equitable resolution to this crisis, but we support the decision by Sorovia to choose not to enact it."

"It is clear that we must negotiate and come to a peaceable solution, but not in a way that recognises both as equally at fault or trustworthy - because the fact of the matter is that Iolanti is oppressing Sorovians, that Iolanti is manufacturing a border crisis, that the responsibility for this conflict and crisis lies squarely in the court of the Iolanti government, and that there must be serious progress for anything meaningful to occur diplomatically - for that reason, among many others, the Esthursian government unequivocally stands with Sorovia and its people in condemning not only the manufactured humanitarian crisis the Iolanti regime is causing, but the near-universal and brutal oppression it is inflicting on minorities including Sorovians in Iolanti. It is equally clear that Esthursia is more than willing to expand the scope, scale and severity of these sanctions should the Iolanti government and its enablers continue to enact its institutionally racist rule of law against the principles of fundamental human rights for all residents in its nation."

The Redbridge faction has, to many surprised observers, actually supported Osborne's measures. John Largan, International Development Redethane, has called the first wave "necessary, proportionate and worthwhile", while Redbridge as an organisation welcomed the "rejection of calls from populists to enact more universal measures that would only hit the public, not the government, of Iolanti". Similarly, the Moderates have stated that any future sanctions "within reason" would be backed by them, and the EPP supported them "with the note that the delays to these are irresponsible and undermined their effectiveness." Graham Ingley's comments, supporting Sorovia's "sensible refuge policies", chastised what he viewed as a "liberal-left consensus on pandering to blind, deaf and opaque sentiments on simply allowing hundreds of thousands of Iolantans with Sorovian heritage to enter Sorovia, with no regard for the demographic problems, divided loyalties or culture shock this could trigger, nor the expense and ability for a country like Sorovia to maintain such a large proportion in such a way - this is the very reason why Iolanta has manufactured this crisis, and it's a shame Esthursia's mainstream politicians haven't caught onto why."


Moving forward
40563102143_9667fb5f18.jpg

Liberal leader George Balder (left) and EPP leader Graham Ingley, with opposing views on Sorovia's refuge policy

Harold Osborne offered more than just government policy when introducing the sanctions, which will be enacted today at 11s (11:00 AST, UTC+7); he also called for the UAS to "use this crisis as an opportunity to show leadership." Esthursia's government is hoping for a greater push for retributive measures to be taken against Iolanta, and more generally for a greater scope of condemnation against the Iolantan government for what it perceives as injustices against ethnic Sorovians in Iolanta. In a speech to the Social Democratic conference, held in Esthampton, he expanded on this further.
"I believe these measures should offer a second way for the Union [of Aurorian States, UAS] to conduct its diplomatic response to the crisis in Sorovia and Iolanti, and I call on the Union to consider the importance of a united condemnation on the actions of Iolanti, in whatever way that manifests and in whatever way the independent, sovereign governments of this Union deem responsible, proportionate and right."
Figures within the Liberal Party were, however, less sure of the Government's position, drawing attention to Sorovia's "wrongful" attitude to refugees. George Balder, Liberal leader and centre-left spokesman, told ENBC News in a statement that he viewed Sorovia partially responsible in its "treatment of refugees in the crisis".
"I completely get that the government wants to maintain its diplomatic ties to Korvola, and us Liberals, we unequivocally back Forethane Osborne's condemnation of the Iolanti government. The sanctions are a good decision, in my opinion.

However, some of the statements by government ministers have suggested that all blame for the crisis lie in Iolanta. That is simplistic, generalised and in my opinion, not wholly true. We've got to look at the human suffering caused by this, and while this is certainly a crisis where human suffering is being created, exploited and manipulated by the Iolanti government, it's exacerbated by the Sorovian government's closed borders, closed arms and closed eyes approach to refuge. Esthursia, as with - in my opinion, and in my hope - most of democratic, free Auroria, is open and welcomes refugees of all nationalities or lack thereof; and the refusal by Sorovia, for whatever reason it deemed such an approach necessary, has both indirectly and directly caused human suffering on a large scale... for that reason, I really can't hold Sorovia not at all responsible for any of this crisis."

Questions remain; how long a second wave of sanctions would take, how widespread they would be, and whether they would be supported as unanimously as they have been by the parties of Esthursia - and whether Esthursia's relatively pro-immigration, "open arms" populace and political culture will find discomfort in what increasingly seems to be a less welcoming Sorovia than many would hope back home.
 
Last edited:
ENBC.png

ENBC documentary Our Æroþe (Our Eras) becomes most-watched Esthursian programme of the 2020s to date

Presented by ENBC presenter and physicist Jack Barnes, the documentary's highly-acclaimed first instalment had 28 million viewers

Our_Arothe.png
R.png

Atlish-language promotional poster from the ENBC for the programme Our Æroþe (left), ENBC presenter and physicist Jack Barnes (right)
The first instalment of Our Æroþe, titled "Impossible Life", followed the oryx on the deserts of war-torn Aurorea in an arid landscape newly marred by war, a section in the Frederick's Trench - Esthursia's name for the lowest point of the Consence Ocean, at over 6,000 metres below sea level - and wildlife on the Ereway island of Helmsfell a year after its volcanic eruption.

The programme has become renowned not only for presenter Jack Barnes' narration, but also for its advocacy against pollution and environmental damage - even at the Frederick's Trench, over fifty percent of one of its most prevalent species was found to have plastic fibres or particles within its digestive systems - as well as for conservation. Kingswood Trust Chairman Helga Gunþúrsdóttar praised the ENBC for its "sobering and dramatic presentation of the universal crises that our planet's wildlife face as a result of human co-habitation", while Green-Left leader Chloe Atkinson stated Our Æroþe "was proof enough that not only is the cause for environmentalism important, but immediate".

With viewership reaching 28.1 million for the long-awaited first episode, Our Æroþe has instantly become the most-watched Esthursian programme of the 2020s, while Esthursian popular culture and the sphere of politics all seem to have been absorbed into "documentary fever". The Atlish Times dubbed it the "opening to a possible generation-defining documentary", while the Examiner called it "poignant and moving"; though criticism from some still was evident, with Workers' Daily editor Alberta Hill accused it of "leaving out the potential of climate change, and the impact of the fossil fuel industry, essentially completely.", in turn accusing it of "falling short of its potential reach."

Our Æroþe is also Barnes' first landmark documentary, having previously co-presented large projects - such as the Wild Esthursia documentary in 2011, along with the late ENBC veteran Thelma Parker - and primarily having a history of university lectures, as well as being the host of primetime quiz show 3-by-3 since 2016. Barnes was praised near-universally for his delivery and presentation of the programme, while he himself went to Twitcher to thank the ENBC for the "opportunity of a lifetime". Forethane Harold Osborne has since met with Jack Barnes and reportedly watched the episode with him, with Osborne taking to social media to "thank [Barnes] not only for the meeting or Our Æroþe itself, but also his promise to get me the box set for Yuletide." Rosemary Manning, Moderate Leader of the Opposition, stated that she'd also met with Barnes, while even Armston House have reportedly banned single-use plastics across all Crown estates (with approximately 60% already having instituted this), as a direct response to the documentary in the view of many, with King Arthur himself being a well-known environmental campaigner.

For the ENBC, the documentary's positive start marks a possible vindication of new Director-General Hilda Yngfield, and her ambition to "set the consensus actively"; the right-wing Esthur People's Party had previously criticised her sentiments as "tantamount to politicisation of our state broadcasting", however have broadly too welcomed the documentary.

Esthursia's history with environmentalism links heavily in with the broadcaster and its documentary. The Kingswood Trust, split from the Crown nominally in 1909, is well-known as the figure of a historic preservation of Esthursia's wild forests and promotion of new ones - leaving the nation one of the world's most wooded developed countries - while both the King and his predecessor, Edward V ("the Pear King", no less) are both associated closely and consistently with environmental causes. In the late 1930s and 1940s, the Crown committed over 20% of its wealth to promoting orchards, primarily pears, as well as wildlife conservation efforts - these have led to not only the nation's love of its wildlife (such as the Consence and Weskermere puffin, Whitefell fox, and the Esthursian hart) but also the increasing commonality of pears and pear cider in modern culture, food and drink. Forethane Osborne referenced Esthursia's national identity's "close-knit kinship with Yekynd*" in his statement praising Our Æroþe, while its high viewership is likely linked to this phenomenon.

The next instalment of Our Æroþe is to be released on Gemesdæg, 23 Woding (Monday, 21 August), on the topic of forests and forest life; there are set to be five instalments altogether, dating into the late autumn to early winter. Barnes has confirmed he will narrate each of them.

*Yekynd - derived from the Atlish term "gekynd", meaning nature
 
Last edited:
ENBC.png

Foreign Redethane Alfred Thane condemns Predician "escalation" of Sorovo-Iolantan crisis amid sudden cross-party unity

"Predice should respect the sovereignty, integrity and intentions of the parties involved", says Foreign Redethane Alfred Frome

The arrival of Predice to the humanitarian crisis on the Sorovo-Iolantan border has had unexpected consequences; not only has the Esthursian government dealt a scathing criticism to Predice, but the Esthursian political spectrum has united against the involvement of the Meterran nation in the "deeply localised issue".

Background

Esthursia's historical ties with Sorovia go back essentially to the independence of the latter in the 1900s, when the then-King Edward V's brother, Frederick, was offered a place as Sorovia's sovereign; this continued into the Fascist Wars, where Sorovian troops fought to maintain Esthursian presence along a strip of southern Cordane against the fascist Tardineanni government of the era.

In 1968, Esthursia's liberal Forethane Edith Newell met with her Sorovian counterparts to sign the Treaty of Mutual Defence and Security (or MDS) between the two nations, formally affirming both nations' common defence against aggressors in the event of a war on one. The two nations have remained close partners since, as evidenced by Esthursia's strong support for Sorovian UAS membership to be addressed, and the formation of the V3 between Esthursia, Sorovia and Tardine.

The response
OIP.SrwuKihmnA4UnhL7GXylUwHaEo


Redethane for the Ellands, Alfred Frome (right), has been the main spokesman conveying Esthursia's anger at the Predician intervention in the Sorovo-Iolantan border crisis

The imminent arrival of Predice's naval taskforce has triggered a significant backlash in Esthursia. Redethane for the Ellands, Alfred Frome, spoke once again on Channel 2 to update the nation on the situation on behalf of the Goverment and its Redery.

The intervention of Predice into an Aurorian diplomatic discussion is a prime example of wrongful, unhelpful diplomatic pressure. The parties involved - Sorovia and Iolanta - must both agree to the settlement that results. I must apologise, but I will never gather the argument that sending a national flagship and military taskforce halfway across the world does wonders for such a settlement. In fact, it does the opposite - it antagonises the entire continent, it interferes with sovereign, independent nations' judgements and decisions, and it does nothing but inflame tensions. We strongly believe that this is a misstep - a deeply damaging one at that, attempting to jeopardise Ethian security and self-determination.
We do not need an external nation's flagship or naval detachment to remind us of the immediacy of the Aurorean War, and for that reason, I also refuse the premise that this action is justified as a stopgap from a potential war.
We sincerely hope and trust that Predice's involvement is intended, in whatever way deemed, for peace preservation, but for the avoidance of doubt in such fast-moving times and after such an unanticipated and provocative action, I think it safe, right and necessary to clarify the following - Esthursia will not compromise on its Treaty of Mutual Defence and Security with Sorovia, and that is final.
The Social Democrats, Moderates, Green-Left, Liberals, Progressive Party and Esthur People's Party have all issued statements on the matter disagreeing with Predice's involvement, while the Moderates and Social Democrats displayed a rare moment of unity by issuing a joint statement on the development.
Our two parties must put our differences aside to address the intervention of a foreign power in Aurorian politics. We vehemently condemn the influence of external military force in this dispute, and moreover, do not accept its intentions. The matter remains, as it always has, with the two sovereign governments of Sorovia and Iolanta, and the military of any external party will not solve or aid this Aurorian issue, whether or not it has the purported purpose of promoting peace; instead, it represents a drastic, sudden and unwarranted incursion into Ethian politics, and an equally drastic aggravation of the sovereignty, security, stability and peace of the region.
This intervention by Predice is wrongful, and has resulted in nothing but a sorry - and completely needless - escalation in the humanitarian crisis and its political fallout across the region.
NINTCHDBPICT000437736025.png

(left) HKHS Rickard IX, the newest of Esthursia's three aircraft carriers, now said to be travelling from the west coast to Cordane

The reception of the involvement of Predice's navy has been so poorly and immediately received in Weskerby that among other detachments being transferred between regions imminently, one of Esthursia's three aircraft carriers, HKHS Rickard IX, is reported to be transferring from Execester to Garston, the latter being the former capital and main port in the strategic location of Cordane, an Esthursian exclave surrounded by Sorovia to its west and just kilometres north of Iolanta. Additionally to this, Esthursian naval vessels have been entering and leaving Sorovian waters around Cordane, maintaining a consistent presence in the region's waters. The movement, although quiet and subtle, punctuates the alarm felt by the Esthursian military and government over the situation.

Graham Ingley, by contrast to the government's response in some ways, has called for the government to go "further" in condemning and responding to Predice.
I believe wholeheartedly that the government, and that my fellow politicians, are right to be united in condemning the blatantly aggravating involvement of Predice and her military in this local crisis. Not only does it act as a bolster to a regime who have shown their clear, lasting disregard for human rights and democratic participation not only historically but also in this manufactured crisis - forcibly driving their own residents deprived of citizenship out of the country, creating a refugee crisis and mass suffering in doing so - but also therefore as an incendiary to further escalation internationally.
It's right that Esthursia's navy has been in Sorovian waters and focusing on Cordane, but we need to go further - the message from us must be that not only is Predician interference unwelcome, but that it will not be condoned, and that any attempt to threaten or pressure Sorovia into any settlement or through any military force will be met and dealt with swiftly to full effect. We must seek an end to this dispute, and this development propels us back massively for absolutely no reason.
Green-Left called for the "colonial" Predice to "enter the twenty-first century and withdraw its undue military pressure before its results are irreversible", while Harold Osborne - confirming Esthursia's navy was "in the midst of responsive redistributing" - has also fully backed his Redethane for the Ellands' condemnation of Predice and her involvement, while urging for the end to the crisis and calling on the UAS to intervene and condemn "the aggressing party". Previously, Osborne had been less prominent on Esthursia's place in the dispute - as he has more widely on Aurorian foreign policy - however the urgency of the situation and its negative reception in Weskerby has likely propelled him back into the forefront of the issue. Osborne also stated that he "not only supported Sorovia fully, but also its decision to reject the settlement proposed, its outrage at the developing situation cynically manufactured by an institutionally racist government, and its right to assured peace".

A government spokesperson responded to our request for direct comment by stating "this Government condemns to full effect the wrongful decision by Predice to intervene in Aurorian politics, and regrets the escalation of the dispute that has resulted on its behalf, however remains hopeful that a peaceful settlement will be achieved, hopefully without the military intervention or threat thereof of a foreign power; just as our Government remains fully in support of Sorovia against the racist, cynical and prejudiced actions of the Iolanti government in creating a humanitarian crisis."

The aftermath of the statement

Forethane Osborne spoke on ENBC News about Predice's recent government statement, backing up its decision to militarily "defend" Iolanta with a naval force, "unequivocally refusing its principles and assertions":

The recent statement by Predice's government confirmed our fears; this is a foreign intervention, committed based on the inclinations of its government, to intimidate Sorovia and support the Iolantan regime which has manufactured the crisis the nations are in today. I, my government, and Esthursia as a nation, condemn and reject the assertions placed against Sorovia, and the inflammatory actions of the Predician government. Resorting to military force is the sign of a regime at their last resort, and Auroria will not bow, regardless of how empty and veiled the threats presented be.
We implore the Predician government to rethink its uncondoned interference in Aurorian affairs. This is a humanitarian crisis, and - without backing or valid reason - the interference of Predice's military in a so-called attempt to prevent the Sorovian nation from addressing the crisis orchestrated by the Iolantan government is risible, unthinkable. It threatens peace, it threatens bilateral relations, and it has already massively escalated the situation, therefore we deem the action to deploy military threat irresponsible, to the degree that it severely threatens the safety, security and sovereignty of Aurorian governments and their people. By resorting to military force, we forget that there are people involved in this crisis - people who have been forced to the border from the nation who refused to recognise them as citizens, no less, and are now being used as pawns in a geopolitical game of chess. There will be no winners, but we can reduce the amount of suffering by refraining from such irresponsible and indefensible actions, and by returning to helpful and united discourse to reach a satisfactory solution that both prevents escalation and ensures peace. Iolanta can end this dispute every day by not evicting its own citizens, whom it refuses to recognise.
We remain confident that, despite the interference of a nation materially irrelevant to this dispute, the two nations can reach a diplomatic solution that satisfies the conflict, and will aid in whatever capacity we can to enable such a settlement amid such drastic change, and we once again reiterate our unwavering support for the Sorovian nation and government. I, as ever, will diligently do my duty in keeping the nation updated and aware on the ongoings of this rapidly developing situation, and yet again I urge the Predician government to rethink its misstep and to withdraw from Auroria entirely, to allow the two parties a discussion without duress.

Moving forward

Esthursia's responses mark a departure from the initially mediated response after the development of Predice's military detachment - not only does the Esthursian government feel the "incursion" (even the use of terminology by government ministers conveying just how urgent and insulting the decision has been received as) of Predice's navy and flagship into the dispute has been, but also how damaging it is proving to Predician relations with it, with the government openly and in full force criticising it.

Whether Esthursia's government realises it or not, the "escalation" it decries is likely at least partly as a result of its own response to the development - and we will not have to wait long for this escalation to materialise - while the relatively quiet but sudden movement of Esthursia's navy eastward conveys just how serious it views the threat to have become. The Government "remains hopeful" that a settlement will materialise, but whether that premise just took a hit from the intervention of outside powers - whether or not one includes Esthursia and her government in that - is yet to be known. The potential involvement of the Union of Aurorian States, whose nations are visibly divided over the issue - and whose President is currently Esthursian, Valter Belgræv, a former civil servant from Cordane - remains a major question mark for the issue, moreover.
 
Last edited:
ENBC.png

Budget 2023: Raft of socialist legislation passed amid Government push for "end to managerial capitalism"

Osborne has outlined his policies for the new term, including "effectively demarketising the housing system" and "dismantling shareholder economics"

P23637537D4280764G.png
r0_253_5184_3456_w1200_h678_fmax.png

Forethane Harold Osborne (left) with Afterthane and Chancellor Edelard Burnside (right), the two most senior figures in the government

Esthursia's House of Thanes has passed a package of wide-ranging laws in the last few weeks - from three brand-new powerful watchdogs overseeing corporate behaviour - including Burnside's flagship "reinvestment watchdog" - legal separations of audit and non-audit businesses, and an independent corporate auditor, a statutory ban on zero-hour contracts after years of tightening, as well as worker minimum quotas for executive boards and a mandatory 10% of shares to be apportioned for employees of large companies, plus a ban on buy-to-let practices by landlords - to accompany the Government's upcoming Budget this Friday.

Following the end of the 2018-22 parliamentary term, the Government announced a set of socialist principles, which have today been focused on heavily. Harold Osborne has insisted that these are in the vein of "aspirational socialism", and unveiled the programme of "ownership capitalism over shareholder capitalism", however many in the business sector and on the political right have concerns that it may tip the balance too far to unions and away from enterprises, while moderates in the Government (such as in Oscar Connery's "Reclaim Social Democracy" faction) continue to fear an economy led by a far-left party's leader.

The spree of legislation

The laws - mostly passed by the entire Social Democratic caucus, with notable but very sporadic abstentions, buoyed by Green-Left and Socialist Front members plus occasionally the Liberals and Progressives - all have been enacted after receiving Kingly Assent last night in bulk. One of the more significant pieces of legislation - the three new corporate watchdogs - received Moderate approval after the Government approved an amendment by Shadow Chancellor Henrick Elwood to give the parliamentary select committees greater powers to co-operate with such watchdogs, in particular to "call in" interviewees by law. Elwood made a speech adjacent to the laws during their third reading.
I not only welcome the Government, and the members opposite, for their decision to - finally - build on from the more piecemeal and disjointed reforms of their last decade, and to eventually learn from the mistakes of the 2010 financial crisis, but also for listening to members on this side of the box in doing so... this bill will bring about an accountability culture, and both legal and financial consequences, for those in the sectors affected and relevant to the issues involved where it is rightfully deemed necessary.
Not all, or even a majority, of the laws passed by the Government recently received cross-party support in the same way. The statutory ban on zero-hour contracts came after years of compromise and gradual restriction, and the final decision to scrap them altogether was intended to "give workers back more power over their contracts", the "most centrist" Thane of the Social Democrats, Oscar Connery, has spoken out against the measure and refused to vote on it.
I supported the eight years of gradual compromise by this Forethane, I endorsed its moderate, technocratic outlook against the dogmatic approaches of universal bans - to measure its excesses, to ensure balance in our arbitrative economy - and the decision in recent weeks and months towards wholesale scrapping of zero-hour contracts breaches all of that compromise, puts the Esthursian labour market's flexibility at risk and hurts our distinction between our aspirational socialism, and dogmatic socialist regimes.
400347_1.png
Moderate Shadow Chancellor Henrick Elwood (right) supports the corporate watchdogs and independent auditor amidst spree of financial laws passed

What this means for the upcoming Budget

The Budget's accompanying legislation comes as new Chancellor of the Landsfere, the incumbent Green-Left co-leader Edelard Burnside, prepares to use his first year in office to radically reshape the role and size of government in Esthursia. Burnside leads a party of the eco-socialist hard-left, compared to his predecessor Lauren Bowen's origins from the mid-left of the Social Democrats; while the latter came about to steady the ship, Burnside appears to be an appointment to rock it once again.

ENBC journalist Yngvild Hárskoger spoke on the new Chancellor's new outlook, specifically on comparisons between him and far-left former Chancellor Jeremy Wilson.
It might be easy to point to a return to the far-left, or an attempt to realign the Government with Wilson's economic and political record with a new face, however Burnside seems far different in approach - while Wilson's open wish to "end capitalism" divided government ministers, Burnside's vision is one to radically reshape it. The Chancellor's speech on the "ownership economy", taking on the market system of housing and "dismantling shareholder economics" all points towards redistribution being the key priority of the government, as well as transitioning the models of businesses towards co-operativism and collectivism, however maintaining commitments to a market economy of sorts in doing so. The significance of this is re-doubled by the difference between Wilson and Burnside as people - Wilson was the youngest Chancellor since the 1960s, and continues to be carving an image as a politician on the fringes, while Burnside's long-serving public record and more moderate position in Green-Left points to a more reliable record as a reformer who, the Government proffer, can be trusted with the growing economy. Whether people buy that, or whether the end of the more moderate-left Lauren Bowen's chancellery brings about a renewed disconnect between voters and Government rather than removing it, will be seen in coming days.
Some of the Chancellor's policies that are expected to feature in Friday's budget are already well-known. Fully subsidised water, and a levy of corporation tax on corporations with higher CEO-worker pay ratios, and a rise to the wealth tax introduced by the Wilson chancellery and reduced by the Bowen chancellery that followed are all expected. Also expected is the Green-Left highly-touted measure to formally bring Esthursia towards "net-zero emissions", such as subsidies for companies with zero emissions in targeted sectors, and a carbon credits scheme to limit, penalise and marketise carbon use. Burnside's more radical co-leader, Chloe Atkinson, has called for Esthursia to be the "world leader in renewable technology, and carbon negative enterprise"; all hints towards the possible priorities of the Burnside budget.

buy-to-let-guide-thinkstockphotos-118967929.jpg

Another priority of the Osborne government has been maintaining spending growth; however, despite last year's foreign aid commitment cutting into hoped increases to government spending domestically amidst the ſ22 billion (35 billion IBU) standalone commitment to Aurorian "struggling people and economies" such as Tardine and Scalvia, and this year's commitment falling closer to the 2010s norm, the situation in the Imperium will likely make this year's commitment still above-average, pushing once again what Osborne had hoped would be a flagship year for Esthursian social spending. In spite of this, robust economic growth into the 2020s - with around 4% growth expected for this year following a confirmed 3.61% growth last year, and tax revenue continuing to rise a bit faster due to tax changes in recent years - puts hopes high for Osborne's continued "post-recovery decade" and his promise for "year-on-year real rises to spending and public wages where possible in the public sector", even if 2023 is not likely to be the Osborne government's full reformation of initial desires. The slightly below-expected tax receipts, amid a slight below-expected economic expansion last year, are likely to confirm that 2023 will not be the year of the standalone major budget.

A hint at a measure that may feature this year or next alike is the consistent promise to "demarketise housing" - a promise likely to aim towards rapidly increasing the share of social housing - and also a new target of the ban on the practice of "buy-to-let" in Esthursia, whereby homeowners who do not live in the house they buy use private rent to subsidise the mortgage on said property. Ruled out, however, was the "multiple home tax" - proffered by Afterthane Atkinson on homeowners of three or more houses - by Forethane Osborne personally, who commented on the matter.
We do share the same priorities of a redistributive, fair and productively efficient Esthursia, however penalising the free and personal decisions of people to use their income or wealth to buy homes each year can do nothing but incentivise resentment. This measure would contravene with our vision of aspirational socialism, where every single person has the right to achieve, and I will continue to ensure measures such as these will not be considered by this government. We already have a wealth tax, and we will use existing taxes and already proposed taxes on this matter to ensure wealth hoarding is disincentivised.

The budget coming up in just two days poses a major question mark for the Chancellor - whether the markets are shocked or not by him, having already shaved off some of their recent expansions over the past weeks marginally, and whether the veto by Osborne on more radical and left-field measures may cause tensions in government - however the Esthursian economy continuing to grow and the popularity of the government in recent years all stack up in Burnside's favour.
 
Last edited:
ENBC.png

Reduced limit on individual donations attracts condemnation for "playing politics of spite"

Forethane insists laws have "society's backing" as Manning's Moderates rail against "democratic backsliding" amid laws dealing blow to their finances

Guillaume_Garot.jpg
Background

Esthursia's two main parties - the Moderates (and before them, the Conservative Union, both on the right) and the Social Democrats on the left - have almost always existed with two very different fiscal models. The Social Democrats' dependence on trade unions was a major issue throughout the Greenwood years, a right-wing and relatively anti-union politician, whose Working and Trade Unions Act 1984 instituted a set of financial restrictions - such as an opt-out for trade union members from their union's party donations, and a total limit as a portion of union income for political donations - and attracted controversy for simultaneously lifting the limit for individual donations (which were alleged to benefit his own party disproportionately) from 20,000 shillings per year to nothing so long as it was registered. The Act was scrapped in the 1990s, returned in the 2000s, and has been watered down since the 2011 change of government. Spending remains restricted in Esthursian elections, such that major parties received a total of 74 million shillings in 2022.

The issue of donations has once again, however, returned to the forefront of politics as Osborne launches a push for "equal participation". The High Deemery ruling in 2021 brought against the state by Robert Varley, a wealthy entrepreneur and Conservative backer, over a limit on donations (Varley vs HRH Government) found that the Government's limit was legal as it promoted "freedom of expression" in a "positively equitable fashion, or predistributively", and thus the individual limit was upheld; this ruling has since bolstered the left's view that government restrictions can be used to reduce the influence of individuals in finance in politics. The 20,000 shilling limit was reinstated, with Liberals voting alongside the government, in June 2021 as a result.

(left) Harold Osborne, Forethane and Social Democratic leader, is a consistent supporter of his party's legislation against individual donations

The law

As the Political Gifts and Receipts Act 2023 passed the House of Ministers, Moderate politicians alleged "democratic backsliding" and "unconstitutional restriction of expression" as the law - with its key promise, to limit individual donations to ʃ5,000 ($7,700) per year, being the key target of opposition by the right-wing opposition - was passed successfully thanks to backing by the majority Social Democrats; the law now needs a significant degree of unity amongst the plurality of Social Democratic thanes, added to either the hard-left or the centre backing it - with the hard-left in support of it heavily, it looks likely to reach the statute books.

Rosemary Manning has spoken out against the law herself, and claimed that the Social Democrats were "jeopardising the marketplace of ideas" in Esthursia.
There's a reason so few nations have copied the Esthursian funding model when it comes to putting a roadblock between individuals and parties - because it fundamentally denies them the right to express their political views and inclinations. This law is nothing more than a partisan attack by the trade-union dependent Government and its adjacent hardline socialist junior partners by their side, seeking to turn Esthursia's political funding model into one dominated by unions, and turning the varied network of funding into one where parties clamour for members to cough up.
This resembles a failing party's brutal attempt to suffocate opposition, and we are seeing such draconian measures in a country where it really ought not to be allowed. When we reach Edmund House, we will scrap the limit on day 1.
Despite opposition on the right by the EPP and Moderates, the left has been relatively united in opposition to the practice of "individual high-stakes donating", or "millionaire's gifts". Chancellor Edelard Burnside spoke out in favour of the legislation last night in the House of Thanes, stating that it would ensure grassroots movements would not be drowned out by corporate and individual interests.
This legislation is another milestone in our political system's movement away from wealth-first, health-last - the Esthursian people deserve control over their own politics, and deserve freedom from the money-slinging of the richest and most powerful. To put it bluntly - they've already got enough power, control and income without undue influence over the parties, including especially the members opposite - but we must stress this is a blanket measure and we will, of course - both my party and the Social Democrats - be complying to the utmost standard.
The question we've got to ask is thus; if the Moderates are so ardently opposed to this law, are the people they're fighting for - those who can afford to throw in excess of ten, fifteen thousand shillings each and every year at their party - really representative of the general public they claim to fight for? Where was this energy when the Einarsson government was brutally slashing away at the economy, public spending and people's wages, Speaker? We have fought to move on from the days where CEOs and aristocrats' grandchildren were able to sling absolute millions at political parties - back in those days, entire parties could simply ride off the back of an individual donation of a particularly wealthy, superfluous backseat donor - and we will continue to draw the line in the sand over this matter, regardless of how much money talks in the Moderates.
Each and every freedom is an illusion if it is not enshrined as an equal, equitable, fair right for all, not one that can be bought and exploited by very few against the interests of the many. Democracy is not truly democracy if it does not hand power to the people, not the one person with the largest wallet to burn.
According to INS forecasts, the Social Democrats stand to lose a few percent of their yearly income - easily made up for by post-2010 membership booms since the trade union strikes (and rise of union membership, leading to greater union donations) and return of Progressive Group members to the party - while the Moderates, who depend heavily on individual donations, may lose as much as a third of their income, becoming even more dependent on falling back on Opposition Income (given to the second-largest and third-largest parties to subsidise basic political services, e.g. constituency offices).
 
Last edited:
ENBC.png

Osborne confirms UAS departure plan amid resignation of UAS President Valter Belgræv

"The Treaty of Kariste is evidently no longer enforced, and the place for the Union in Auroria has not been honoured", stated Osborne

Background
900.png

UAS President Valter Belgræv (right) resigned after months of criticism of internal "roadblocks" and failings last night

Esthursia joined the UAS soon after its formation at the very start of last year, and the Union was quickly tested when the Aurorean War broke out in south Ethia, whereby Aurorea attacked a member state (Scalvia) based on a conspiracy theory propagated by its dictatorial government. The UAS' reputation was quickly damaged by perceptions that it failed to act, further compounded by the matters of membership of Tardine - whose membership ambitions were stalled in mid-2022, to the anger of Weskerby - and Sorovia - whose membership was never acknowledged by anyone except the Cordanian President of the UAS in August of this year.

Esthursian government opposition to the UAS' problems became more publicised towards the tail end of last year, and by the start of 2023, mutterings of internal Auroskepticism and a referendum were pervasive; Osborne, however, was to campaign in the eventual referendum held on April 27th, in which Remain narrowly won by a 55-45 verdict, in spite of Leave leading at the beginning of the campaign. This, however, was largely conditional; Osborne promised to hold the UAS to account, and that in the event that he was unable to do so, membership would no longer be guaranteed.

The cooling of Esthursian relations with the Union, however, has been complicated by the Iolanta crisis. Over the previous few months, the Iolantan government - deemed by most to be institutionally racist, particularly towards ethnic Sorovians, and a segregationist state - has manufactured a border crisis in which thousands of ethnic Sorovians have been forced to the Sorovian border. The issue became contentious, particularly between the Predician and Esthursian governments, and the Scalvian proposal aimed at brokering a compromise was poorly received in Sorovia, despite being openly welcomed by the Iolantan government. Furthermore, the Iolantan government has since invoked martial law amid unrest over the matter, and its defence ministry has been deemed "rogue" by many, amid open government infighting. Relations between Scalvia and Sorovia have frostened since the matter, while the conflict and crisis continues to roll on, putting thousands of people's lives in jeopardy and leaving them in limbo as Sorovia remains unreceptive to accepting large amounts of "forced refugees". Two major detriments to Esthursian relations with the UAS have been the continued stall on Tardine's membership application - and subsequent withdrawal of Sorovia's - much to the ire of its former President, Valter Belgræv, who called the situation "dire and inexcusably poor" and resigned over it; additionally to this, the other major detriment being the proposed Volshan customs zone, in which Iolanta has been invited, amid announcements of a nuclear programme, which has been viewed as a provocation and inappropriate threat over amid a humanitarian crisis by the Esthursian and Sorovian governments. Condemnations of the Iolantan government's actions have come from many, but not from the participants of the Volshan customs zone proposal, further cooling relations.

Speech
Osborne has made an address to the House of Thanes at Berworth at 19h00 last night, during which he confirmed media rumours - mainly circulated by the Auroskeptic Atlish Times - of a "government U-turn" on the matter of UAS membership.
It is with regret that I announce this Government has made the executive decision to determine that the Treaty of Kariste is evidently no longer enforced, and the place for the Union [of Aurorian States] has not been honoured. I have been in consultation with government ministers, the Opposition, the civil service and the outgoing Union President Valter Belgræv, the latter of whom has taken the decision to depart as President of the Union three weeks early, a decision that I must personally support. The position of the Union of Aurorian States on the geopolitical stage has become untenable. The referendum held earlier this year was purely conditional on meaningful improvement and addressal of key institutionalised problems within the Union, and in fact in the time since, these issues have broadly worsened and entrenched, to the point that we can no longer ignore or excuse.
1246192-guillaume-garot.png
The general public have a right to know of the talks that are occurring on the matter of post-membership relations with our fellow nations of the Union, and we can confirm that we have made significant headway in ongoing negotiations with our counterparts in Aubervijr on maintaining - and potentially building further upon - the freedoms and connections, socially and economically, enjoyed between our two nations at present, to safeguard the meaningful and lasting progress made on the matter. The issue of trade and economic security is, Lord Speaker, secure and largely unaffected - if not potentially improved - by the prospect of departing the Union.
Further to this, and equally significantly, the drawn-out failure to admit Tardine to the Union has gone to show just how inadequate the internal processes of the Union have been throughout its existence, and how little progress - if any at all has been made in the forward direction - has been reached on the matter. We cannot, and will not, ignore that failing, and it is for that reason that I fully support the reluctant decision by the outgoing President of the Union, Lord Speaker, to resign from his position. The Union has failed internally, and it has failed externally, therefore it serves essentially no meaningful purpose.
I have come to this decision following recent developments over the Iolanta crisis, and - with dedicated and objective advice - that the UAS has potentially failed to uphold its purposes as in Article 2, specifically 2.1 through 2.3, 2.6, 2.7, 2.10 and 2.13, especially in that it has accommodated and legitimised the actions of an institutionally racist state, which in turn legitimises the abuse of basic human rights and equalities in the aforementioned state. Furthermore, it is towards contravening and contradicting its principles as per Article 3, specifically 3.3 and 3.4. The obligation of member states to the Union's principles and purposes is enforced thereby through Article 4.3, which is similarly infringed upon. Article 36 has also been violated as a result of previous breaches therewith. The flagrant abuse of Union principles, purposes and guidelines is undeniable, and irreparable on the basis of the Union's reputation, which has already been severely damaged by inaction and perceptions of inability to arbitrate successfully nor intervene meaningfully in peacekeeping, which means that it no longer serves a positive, meaningful and united purpose on Aurorian geopolitics.
I came to the Esthursian people at the start of this year promising to hold the Union to account; I have done so to the best of my ability, and in my opinion, the only way we have remaining to hold this Union to account is to realise that it no longer aids in democratic values, the protection of human rights or the united front against infringements on basic fundamental dignities, and furthermore that its internal processes have all but faltered since at least the middle of last year; for that reason, the President will be replaced with an Acting President of the UAS until either Esthursia leaves or its time in presidency expires, and I am hereby triggering Article 11 of the Aurorian Union Act 2022, beginning the process of leaving the Union. Esthursia will enter a transition period on 1 October, which will last until 1 November should Esthursia establish its links with the Union, or potentially be extended slightly beyond this should that not be achieved in such time. Upon this date or otherwise, Esthursia will fully leave the Union.
This is a decision aimed at facing the world, and plainly showing that Esthursia no longer sees its place in the Union of Aurorian States as a positive one, or a meaningful one, and that the benefits enjoyed by Esthursia in the Union will be preserved upon leaving, thus ensuring a smooth transition out of the Union and towards other geopolitical commitments. We wish the best of luck to the Union in its coming months, and its member states likewise, but we no longer see a significantly positive place for it in Aurorian foreign policy, and its internal processes have degraded beyond the point of no return, thus we can no longer remain within its bounds.
The aftermath
The political action has been widespread. Jeremy Wilson has twitched that "the inevitable has not been avoided after all", amid months of campaigning to leave the UAS since before the initial campaign, while Rosemary Manning has thanked the Forethane for "finally seeing sense and calling the Union out for its complete inadequacy in the face of any obligations, internal or external", but criticised him and his Government for "stalling this for months, in turn legitimising the failures of the Union for months". Graham Ingley, EPP leader, has held a "victory speech" on the matter.
What we said was going to happen from day one, has finally been realised. Even the most pro-Aurorian advocate cannot look at the blatant failures and dereliction of duty to protect basic human rights in Iolanta of the Scalvian government - naming of whom continues to be elusive as the government seems to execute some form of damage control, rather than criticising the wrongdoers openly - and state that its obligations to the UAS have been upheld, and frankly the foreign aid - of which there were over 40 billion shillings in 2022 alone - given in goodwill to Volshan and Scalvia has been neglected. Our goodwill, and our co-operation in their direst hour, has been returned with a very Aurorian-style dereliction of duty when it comes to their governments to uphold basic rights and peace in the face of a manufactured humanitarian crisis, playing bystander when a racist government persecutes its citizens and puts the burden on its neighbour.
We welcome the decision by the government, eventually, to leave; but it's too slow, too late, and too soft. I hate to say it, but when I and Lord Wilson agree on a matter, it becomes pretty clear that something is really rather wrong!

Valter Belgræv has returned to Anberry, and plans on entering the Cordanian Assembly in November as he stands for the Alliance in his home city; an interview since his resignation has decried the "culture of dereliction plaguing the Union from day one, and infecting everything it touched within a few months", and that he "wished he had resigned a month before he had". Channel 2 news anchor Roberta Tethering announced the peculiarity of, temporarily, having an Acting President of the UAS be the second consecutive anti-UAS President.

The future of Esthursia with the UAS
Osborne has started the process relatively quickly, and signalled very openly that talks with Aubervijr - however elusive the details - are bearing fruit, potentially safeguarding the progress made between the two nations in recent years enabled by the Union. The presence of Aubervijr in the UAS seems to have partially muted the criticisms of UAS members, and relations with Scalvia remain relatively positive, even if fraught by this particular matter, as signalled to by the refusal by the Government to name Scalvia specifically as the party deemed to have "flagrantly" breached UAS articles. Despite this, it is undeniable that Esthursia has instead begun looking elsewhere, towards in particular the V3 and Hexastalia, as well as Aubervijr if the rumours sent out by the government and media bear resemblance to the truth.

image.png
This process has been rather drawn out, and ministers within the government have been pushing the Forethane to get Esthursia out for nearly a year; the fact that only now has the eject button been pressed, hours after the UAS President's unprecedented resignation forced his hand, actually suggests that Osborne remained conflicted over the matter until the very end, holding out hope. The declining reputation of the Union, however, reached crisis point in recent months, and the stalling of the Tardineanni application added to foreign policy divisions and perceived breaches of UAS principles have all pushed the formerly pro-UAS government over the edge.

Whether or not Esthursia fosters a positive relationship with the remnants of the Union, whatever becomes of its institution, the Government's attention appears increasingly to be focussed elsewhere, despite initial optimism this time last year over the very Union that he today is "regrettably" bringing the country out of.
 
Last edited:
ENBC.png

Government to move forward with controversial plans to abolish private schools and end tax exemption for most private hospitals

"Every child deserves an equal start to life, and private schools bypass this equal start," stated Osborne during the bill's first reading

800px-St_Catherine%27s_Hill_and_Winchester_College_-_geograph.org.uk_-_2685606.jpg
file-20190212-174867-10vmu9v.jpg

Wimburgh House and Hestonby Hall, two of Esthursia's most prestigious private schools, have already felt the squeeze by Government policy
The Reeve for Education, Eldgyna Athling (Green-Left), has introduced the move as "transformative and necessary" for Esthursia's education system, as fears grow of other redistributive measures being undercut by the presence of "pay-to-pass schools"; the Forethane has called private schools "diversionary, elitist and inherently irreconcilable with equal opportunity", however has attracted criticism from the right, with Leader of the Opposition Rosemary Manning calling the policy "populist and anti-choice".

The law

The Public Services Act 2023, among other tweaks, strips private hospitals of their charitable status without verification from the Ombudsman of "pro-bono practices and/or significant prolonged community service" - making most liable to tax - and begins a plan to transition all private schools to public ownership "by 2028"; however some view that this date may be prolonged by legal action, which has been promised by some private schools including Wimburgh House, who pledged to "take the illiberal law to the highest court if absolutely necessary to protect our right to choose our education."

Harold Osborne spoke on the law last Thursday as it passed through the Ministry on behalf of the Social Democratic majority.
It is inconceivable that in a nation that proclaims its equality of opportunity as robust, that a system of class-segregated education is allowed to exist. Private schools are diversionary, elitist and inherently irreconcilable with equal opportunity; they isolate a small cohort of students from the wider world and then launch them into overrepresented positions in the highest echelons of the modern workplace and society, and in doing so, splinter teaching and educational resources by the means of funds acquired often through generational wealth; this perpetuates inequality, this divides us from the age of four, and this cannot be allowed to continue. Furthermore, private schools have far fewer regulations as a result of their lack of public oversight; this allows private schools to enforce political or religious pretext to education unwillingly, it fails to standardise educational practices such as curriculums and assessments, and it isolates tens of thousands from the wider society around them. To put it bluntly - to have a school where its entire student body is comprised of those whose parents are willing to throw more than an average yearly salary at a school each year is likely not to be diverse in terms of demographics, such as class and race, but also to perpetuate discrimination and remove the ability to share experiences.
There also remains a culture between private schools and so-called "connexions to higher society" - even if a student is, despite the behest of tens of thousands of shillings per pupil per year behind them, underperforming compared to a state-educated peer, they are more likely to receive a placement or an opportunity because their school may be donated to or related with a "connexion". This is nepotism on a wide scale, and cannot be condoned, and more widely private schools - with a larger density of resources cordoned off as a result of higher spending power - end up overrepresenting their students at loresteads and ovingsteads, as well as in the world of work; this is an unfair advantage that punishes over ninety-percent of students for simply not being born into wealth.
Private schools have also been shown not only to have no positive effect on a district or region's educational performance, but actually to detrimentally affect the district's state schools; the diversion of funding and attention to private schools is a real and damaging phenomenon, and furthermore, it is impossible to ensure that the national community backs robust state education if a significant moneyed cohort has not got it in their interests to do so also.
A nation is nothing if it fails to provide a fair, equal and fully-resourced playing field for its students, and bringing private schools into the public arm will end the division and segregation of students, resources, teachers and educational practices once and for all, as well as cutting off a major source of elitism and corruption at the root.
The law is expected to be contested in the High Court when it reaches Kingly Assent following passage from the Coalition-majority-held Thanage, by the Independent Education Body (IEB) of private schools; this process could take months, however the Government has stated that it "is maintaining, not contravening, a constitutional right to free and fair education in transitioning private schools to public oversight" and that reimbursement "would be negative had it included the effect on the lives of millions hurt by institutionalised inequality and nepotism". The Moderates have backed the IEB's opposition to the bill, while the Liberals unexpectedly abstained after previously being expected to vote against it, following pressure from Young Liberals to support or allow passage to the policy. An EPP wrecking amendment to postpone the date indefinitely was voted down.

Graham Ingley, leader of the populist-right Esthur People's Party, has spoken in harsh terms about the policy and its ramifications for Esthursian education.
Esthursia is supposed to be a beacon for hope and democracy, and yet refuses to let parents choose schools for their own children.
A government source replied to the EPP comment, stating that "parents still would be able to choose the exact same schools, just not on a fee-paying basis".

denham.jpg

(left) John Largan (Social Democratic Forethane, 2011-15, and current Reeve for International Development) leads the Redbridge faction, who have publicly called the law's principles and "efficacy" into question

The law similarly strips private hospitals of charitable tax-exempt status if they fail to pass criteria - which has had mixed reception amongst private hospitals, with Children's Hospital Asgarslow calling the move "common sense", and Willow Healthcare (a private healthcare company) calling the policy "financially inconceivable". A Moderate spokesman called the policy itself "cynical and playing ideology with health choices", however backed the general idea for a "means-tested charitable status for private healthcare".

New Left, the hard-left grassroots Social Democrat group led by ex-Chancellor Jeremy Wilson who had campaigned for the transition since 2015, stated that the decision was "eight years too late, but correct nonetheless, finally calling into question the righteousness of a buy-in booster for children of wealthy families, undercutting state-educated students and depriving thousands of opportunities due to the old school tie." On the other hand, the moderate-left Redbridge faction led by former Forethane John Largan cast doubt over the move's "efficacy and justification".

Aftermath

Should the law escape the grasp of the likely legal battles it will be subject to, Esthursia will be one of few countries to abolish private education; however the policy is not as unpopular as one may initially think, with 39% backing the ban and 41% opposing it; within the margin for error. The balance between parental choice and equality of opportunity has also bled into the issue of religion - religious schools were previously banned by Harold Osborne for being "non-consensual and contravening impartiality of under-18 education", however with many transitioning to secular private schools, the new law is a second wound to their existence.

Esthursia, however, has had a long-lasting elitism problem with its private schooling, with a large proportion of rederies from both parties coming from private schools - despite just 5% attending them - and private schooled students being vastly overrepresented in lorestead education in particular, as well as resourcing being unbalanced by as much as 5:2; Osborne's fix may take decades to see change, however it may bring more resources into the public sector, it may change the experiences of tens of thousands of students. Additionally, it has already been a part of a sea change in government attitudes to state education and its breadth of the student body in Esthursia.

The Government has been notably quiet on the matter of grammar schools; the Forethane went to one himself, and selective schools have similarly been accused of elitism and underrepresentation of disadvantaged groups, with the quietness being put to higher unpopularity amongst the public and fears of public division in Government.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top