Boat Trip - another bloody analogy.

Imagine this.

There are 65 of us, going on a boat trip in choppy waters.  The waters are choppy, no matter what happens, or which boat we choose, because that's how the sea is, these days.

We are stood on the beach, and we have the choice of two boats.

One of them is a boat which we've been sailing about in for forty years.  We have to pay for tickets, though, and some of us don't like that.  Some of us are not keen on the places it stops or the canteen on board, or the fact that we can't get a job behind the bar because one of those jobs is being done by a Polish person, and that's obviously the particular job we want.  The Polish person needs somewhere to sleep and our Mandy's renting a cabin out to them which is paying her Todd's school fees but if we were doing their job as well it would be better.  It's also a big boat and it's got loads of other people on it - we don't all know each other, but there are different languages and cultures, and we can all share stuff.

On the whole, although there are things we don't like about the boat, we're pretty sure it's sea-worthy.  It's been looked over by the coastguard and some shipbuilders, and various other experts, and they say it's the sounder of the two available boats.

There is a second boat.  Nobody's put it to sea for forty years, but that could make it quite exciting - we are all agreed on that.  There are a few considerations, though.

The coastguard, some shipbuilders and various other experts have looked it over and warn that they're pretty sure it's really not safe, although if we all bail out furiously for the first ten years or so, it may well improve.  There are no guarantees about this, but we're all pretty strong, probably, maybe, and financially robust enough across the board, obviously, to be able to afford the ten years worth of buckets we're going to need to bail with.  Actually, I bet someone would just give us some buckets.  We've been given buckets before on the old boat, after all.  Anyway!  There are some pretty exciting things about the new boat.

What are they, we cry?!  The company who own the new boat tell us some stuff.

One is that we are going to spend all the money we save on tickets for the old boat doing up the new boat - hurrah!  That sounds great!  Although, actually, we're not sure that we are paying as much for the old boat as we are being told we are.  But they wouldn't lie about that, surely?!

Another is that the old boat was run by a faceless and unelected crew, and we weren't able to have anything to do with where it went, whereas the new boat will be steered and owned by us, so we will have more control over the new boat - hurrah!

Hey, we forgot to tell you - this boat is going to be all for us!  Don't worry!  We'll still be able to buy stuff in the on board tax free shops, and everything!  Everyone wants to sell us stuff because we're really important and we buy loads of stuff.

Oh, and we really love this one - it's going to have a big shiny Union Jack painted on the side, and we won't let other people on because even one or two might sink the ship - so no Poles working in the bar!

Of the 65 of us, only 44 have a vote, because the rest are kids.

For one reason or another, only 33 of us 44 actually vote.  Some of the others were away unexpectedly, some were away but didn't get to vote for technical reasons - like their bit of paper which they asked for didn't arrive, some were away but had been told we would be staying on the old boat anyway so didn't get 'round to arranging for the crew to send them a bit of paper to vote on, some didn't realise we were really being asked if we wanted to leave the ship and that we were going to do so and some genuinely didn't know which ship was better, but trusted other people to make the right decision.  Anyway - who cares why?  They didn't vote, so they don't count.

Whatever happens, the 21 children have to go on the ship we vote for, and so do the other 11 who didn't vote.  No, we can't go on the boat we vote for, we've all got to go on the same boat.  No, if we don't vote, we can't just stay on the boat we were already on - we have to vote to stay on it.  Were you not listening?  I know we didn't say it very loud, and it wasn't printed on anything or, well, talked about at all, really.  Anyway!  Never mind!  It's happened, now!  Let's count the votes.

Of the 33 people who vote, 17 vote for the new ship and 16 vote for the old ship.

At this point - seconds after the votes are counted - one of the guys who told us about the new ship admits that we're not going to spend any money doing it up, because there wasn't really any to spend, let alone the large figure he told us about.  Oh dear!  There are some rumblings from the shore.

What's this?  It's emerging that we had plenty of say in where the old boat went after all.  Oh dear.  Apparently, it was our crew sailing it all along!  But what about the faceless guys?  Well, yes, they're there - that's who we've been buying our tickets off, after all!  But all along, any one of us had the right to tell the faceless crew where we wanted to go.

Okay, so because there were a lot more people on the boat, a lot more people would have had to have agreed to have gone there, but if everyone wanted to, we could have.  Now only a handful of people have the right to tell the crew where to go and remember!  It's the SAME crew!  They were always in charge!

But these faceless guys - they ARE faceless, right?  Nope!  They're printed up in the ship's log book, which you had access to all along, and guess what!  You could have voted for them all along, too!  Maybe you did?  Some people did, but a lot of those sadly thought it was funny to vote the guys who were planning to jump ship in to help crew the old ship.  There's a pretty good chance that in the last 17 years, he might have been doing his best to undermine the old boat, but not to worry!

The people who own the new boat (including that guy ^) just told us that the crew had no control over the big boat, for a bit of a laugh.  They actually did, and it turns out we had our own speedboat on the time for daytrips and things we wanted to do which the other people didn't want to do - we had that all the time!  And our own money to spend, too.

Oh yes, the shops.  Well, we can still buy stuff in them - yay!  Lots of the stuff might have to be made on board for a bit, or bought in from the big ship and other ships at a bit of a higher cost, because we haven't got contracts with any of the people who sell the stuff, at the moment.  I'm sure the people who do will really want to sell to our little boat, though, so they'll get around to working out the highest price they can get away with charging us that we are prepared to pay as quickly as they can.  And they are really going to want to buy our stuff, too - after all, it's handmade by local craftsmen.  It's not cheap, but we think it's totally worth it!

Actually, we're not sure if we can stop people getting on, after all.  The owners didn't really think we could, and they didn't really mean it when they said it.  Oopsie.  Sorry!

BUT!  You'll like this!  It's STILL GOT A UNION JACK ON THE SIDE!  YAY!

The guys who own the new ship suddenly start resigning from the board, but it's okay, because they've got lifeboats, life rafts and private islands, so don't worry about them!  They will be just fine.

The 16 people who didn't want to go on the new ship in the first place are royally fucked off.  Hang on, they say.  We never believed the new ship was going to have any money spent on it and we didn't want other people kept off it, anyway.  We like being able to buy good wine cheap in the tax free shop and we think the ticket price is fair.  We wanted our kids to be able to grow up with all the other people on the big boat, learn languages and feel they were part of the big boat.  We're really committed to this and we're pissed off our passports aren't going to let us or our kids stay on shore where the boat docks.  Now they're just going to be able to pop in for a quick run home then back on the new boat, without really getting a proper taste of the places.

We're REALLY pissed off about this.  We REALLY want to stay on the old boat.  We REALLY want to check whether you guys are still sure about the new boat - can we just check?  Just see?

The 17 people - well, they're not all quiiiiite as sure as they were, what with the lying about the seaworthiness of the new boat and the resigning of everyone who has anything to do with it, but quite a few of them keep shouting at the other 16 that they need to get over it now - we had a vote, people!  That's what the captain told us we should do and now we need to stand by it, no matter what!  That's how our system works!

A couple of the 17 mutter, erm, but, we're not sure.

The 16 people are still ROYALLY FUCKED OFF.

"No", they plead.  "We have never had a vote like this before - it is actually not how our system works!  Our system works in such a way that we pick the crew and the crew pick a captain, and we trust them to sail our ship.  As it happens, we also picked a bigger crew who make sure our crew don't all empty the bilges into the sea and do let the scullery maids have half an hour off to visit their mums once in a while, but our crew is still our crew, and we wan't to know why they're not steering the ship like we pay them to."

Oh great, now the captain's jumped overboard and the purser is just standing around looking awkward.

"Tough tits!" cry the 17 people.  "17 of us voted for the new boat, and we're all going on it because 17 of us said so!"

"Yes, but 16 of us said not, so we're all going - all 65 of us - because of ONE person!  Even the kids are going, and enough of them wanted to stay on the old boat to have made the vote go the other way."

"Yes but the kids can't vote."

"Well, don't you think they should be able to?  They are going to have to live on the boat for a lot longer than the rest of us."

"No but 17 of us said we wanted the new boat!"

"Well, two have said that they don't, so that will make it 18/15 in favour of the old boat, and we think a fair few of the people who didn't vote last time will make fucking sure they get to the polling station this time, so we think that even more of us want the old boat."

"No but 17 of us said we wanted the new boat!"

"But some of you have changed your minds."

"No but that doesn't matter - 17 of us said we wanted the new boat!"

"But some of you made your decision based on some things which have now been absolutely shown to be lies."

"No but 17 of us said we wanted the new boat!"

"But some of you have said that you just did that as a protest, to make the crew listen to you - but now you've stuck yourself with just this crew and no recourse to a second crew."

"Tough TIIIIITS!  You've HAD your democratic vote - that's your lot!"

"Really?  But it really matters - it's forever."

"Just get on with it.  Don't you like village fetes and cream teas and pubs?  What's wrong with you?  Why are you so miserable - you're getting everyone down!"

"I love village fetes and cream teas and pubs, but I also love fiestas and bratwurst and drinking coffee on the pavement outside a café in Paris!  Yes, I am fucking miserable, because I can't do all of that any more because you don't want to, and I don't think that's fair."

"Life isn't fair.  Cheer up.  We won.  You lost.  There was one more of us than there was of you, and even though that person at least has changed their mind, it's tough, because on that day two weeks ago, that was what they thought, and you, or rather we - all 65 of us - are just going to have to live with that forever."