Brexit negotiation

For the UK's new relationship with the EU I have been puzzled by calls for Her Majesty's Government to lay out their negotiation position in advance. Even if there were a substantial game tree in mind the negotiation is such a fundamentally interactive process, with testing of ideas for reactions and not all concessions preordained, that the dynamism and uncertainty can be useful tools, certainly not be thrown away out of worry. This seems evident to me but perhaps I am wrong. It is not as if the various issues are sufficiently independent that we can simply itemize costs on each side and try to minimize the parties' totals and the matter is necessarily far too politically charged to be framed separately as a rational debate being conducted in good faith. It is indeed not a game of poker: the stakes are far higher.

Thinking that discretion could be a profitable strategy I surmise that this effort to force sharing details of the plan may simply be an attempt to force the government to concede that Brexit may well turn out to be hard which would probably make plenty of news while not being at all surprising.

Caroling

This morning I sang my first Christmas carols of the season at an informal jolly affair in a large indoor area of the research complex in which I work. There was a flutist and mince pies and the coworker I found myself standing beside sang strikingly well indeed. It made for a pleasant break from usual routine. We were joined by small children from the University nursery: they sat in a group and looked quite bemused.