Category Archives: Politics

Privatize the pavements!

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David Cameron's picture on the 10 Downing Stre...

David Cameron's picture on the 10 Downing Street website (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Privatize the roads! promises our Coalition Prime Minister and Conservative Party Leader David Cameron.

In a speech to the nation, well to the Westminster Village hacks, crony-journalist’s finest, he went on.

Yes! Yes! Yes! But this is only the start ‘you ain’t seen nothing yet, no really, you really haven’t seen nothing yet.

This is our pledge to you – if we can find a way to privatize something, anything, we will. God Save The Queen, God Save Margaret Thatcher.

The natural progression I am sure you will agree to privatizing the roads is to privatize those – those bits on the sides, that losers sorry non-motorists – pedestrians? – use.

Privatize the pavements. End this era of free-loading strollers.

There will be many benefits of pavement privatization, most importantly, of course, that it will make huge amounts of money for the City hopefully including some of our corporate partners or donors – tomato, tomatho. Perhaps this will not improve our walkways but at least profits will be generated and a lot of them,  and don’t worry it wil be made by a few not the many which is always a good thing, none of that ‘we’re all in it together’ talk. Pure nonsense. Pure socialism!

And this brings us to one of those important and beautiful C words – no not Capitalism not even Conservatism (audience laughs) but of course I talk of Choice.

pedestrian sunday

pedestrian sunday (Photo credit: Commodore Gandalf Cunningham)

Some consider the quality of our sidewalks or their mere basic functional directional need to get us from A to B as being most paramount but they would be wrong. What exercizes the good people of this country, those who will vote for us anyway, is choice or rather the lack of it. We leave our homes to be confronted with one pavement only. I am sure you share my frustration at this. Well, no longer. With this privatisation a utopia of multiple pavement options awaits us.

Privatization will mean you will have a multitude of pavements passing by your home competing for your business (coughs) use – potato, potahto – it is what you have been dreaming of. I am sure. A future too where the escalator walkway will no longer be the preserve of airport arrivals and departures but will at last come outside and become a feature of our suburban streets and shopping centre cruise-bys. For an extra-levy, naturally.

This government is keen to encourage healthy life-styles and any mileage beyond the first fifty per day will be free.

Some of our critics have suggested that privatization of the pavements is backdoor privatization of walking itself. Nothing could be further from the truth. You can trust us.

Further the first fifty yards of walking sorry pavement use will be levy-free. This is nothing to do with us favouring the motorist by allowing those without a garage or driveway to get to their car – rather a concession to our coalition partners who love their thresholds and are determined that no-one using Britain’s pavements should have to pay for the first fifty yards per day. More details will follow in a speech I am to give three days from now. [Privately a leading conservative expressed regret at this concession as 'more crazy socialism from our Lib Dem partners' and 'as soon as we are free to govern alone we will make sure every UK citizen gets charged for every step they make, this is what business and their shareholders want, and as we all know, this is what really matters']

London pavement

A pavement! In London!

The Department for Transport when asked about costing advised it was still in talks with the Treasury but that it was up to the market and they predicted it would likely be something innocuous ’like a penny per step’.

Later in the week the Department for Transport also warned that it has seen websites appearing advocating other forms of bipedal movement to defray the pedestrian-duty (as it was now being called)  such as hopping, skipping and jumping but that this was not the British way and hopping in particular could be very dangerous. What if, for example, some one accidentally hopped off the pavement into oncoming traffic. Think of the poor motorist, not to say their insurer. Oh and the injured hopper. The Department also advised they would take a dim view regarding an explosion of space-hoppers on our pavements adding ‘no one wants to see that sort of thing on Britain’s streets’. And that the government were always minded that any use of the public pavement has to be considered in terms of revenue generation sorry public safety.

In his follow-up speech the PM stood behind his podium and self-importantly shuffled the papers he was reading from and then looked earnestly toward the TV camera’s in his this-is-my-serious-face (just don’t look into my laughing eyes) address-the-nation mode.

Currently there is a casual anarchy on our pavements with pedestrians dangerously navigating on both the left and ride side, and a constant stream of inconsiderate slow moving elderly and dawdling toddlers and other non-motorist los…loiterers without commercial intent I guess you might call them. And they unlike motorists can take to the sidewalks without any training or walking license. The privatization of our pavements will ensure that pedestrians are moving in an orderly fashion and that zig-zagging on a public walk-way will be a thing of the past.

He added they would be looking at introducing a speed limit on the public-walk-ways with penalties for anyone walking too slowly.

The Opposition parities were vehemently against these proposals with Labour describing it as ‘venal and crazy’ and, as they have said about all previous privatizations, a ‘privatization too far’ although they have not said they will reverse it should they get back into power. A spokesman added that they could not possibly make such promises at this time as by the time of the next election it could have established itself as a popular policy with the country. Or at least with the swing-voters in their marginal seats.

A Big Issue seller in High Street, Oxford, Eng...

A Big Issue seller in High Street, Oxford, England in 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, when pressed if he had ever used a pavement replied ‘that he was sure that he had done’. The Prime Minister was keen to add that he had most certainly done so remembering he had walked on one in London in he thinks 2004 though it might have been 2003 but you could not expect to remember details like that. But, he huffily assured us that he had, explaining that he remembers as he had been accosted, coughs, approached, by a young man selling a copy of the Big Issue, which in passing he added was a wonderful example of entrepreneurship and which had also given him the seeds for his idea of the Great Society now referred to as the Big Society and perhaps yet Big-Ish Society. He also recalled that he did not have any cash on him at the time so sadly he emphasized he could not buy the magazine but did pat the seller on his shoulder and exhorted him ‘to keep it up’ before quickly moving on.

Labour Leader Ed Milliband was quick to take to the pavements and more importantly to ensure a camera-crew was in pursuit and dismissing the whole policy in he hoped a sound-bite that would taste good ‘This is the Government’s doomed Chasing Pavements strategy’. Sky News TV naturally did not hesitate to film Ed on his media-circus walkabout to the strains of Adele. Whilst the Guardian newspaper made a similar jibe about David Cameron’s pavement privatization policy in a barely read column in their Transport section

Pavement

Another pavement! Not in London!

The Prime Minister  went on to say that he was very excited about the commercial opportunities for privatizing the walkways (adding perambulation is a privilege not a right) and though they had not got into the detail (at all in fact) options would include pavement tolls, GPS tracking, Pram Cams – whichever was the most efficient to implement, or rather cost-efficient to implement, oh damn it you know what I mean ‘the one that generates the most profit for the private companies running them that I have some hopefully concealed commercial relationship with’.

Related to this a senior member of The Minister of Transport said that his Executive Position and newly acquired shareholding in a number of companies touted as most likely to be awarded the contracts for the running of these projects was of course quite coincidental and had no influence on the government’s commissioning process or desire  to move forward quickly with it.

The PM alluded to the 1966 song ‘Taxman’ saying he sympathized with the Beatles in respect of ‘if you take a walk we will tax your feet’ saying no one wants to have their feet taxed. Having their feet charged an extortionate fee by a private company on the other hand would not have vexed George Harrison at all. Private is good, public is bad and thus a private fleecing is always to be preferred.

The PM beginning to wrap up his speech crowbarred in the new  (he hoped) meme for the pavement privatization – ‘Walk fare is walk fair’.

The slogan for the campaign would be ‘Walking proudly into the future with the Conservatives – change jingling in your pockets…’

They were determined he added to get this signed off in parliament in the first half of the session to allow for the privatization of the air-supply in the second half. He then denounced the human-rights-lobby adding that breathing is not a right but a privilege and always more appreciated if hard-earned.

Ends to the Police ‘Every breath you take, every step you make, we’ll be charging you’…

Today’s PMQ’s on Twitter – damp squibs and other striking rhetoric

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PMQ’s – sound-bites and fury signifying nothing?

I previously posted about the Leveson Inquiry and how it was being reported on by one of the subjects of its inquiry – namely the media. And not by the old media and usual commentariat suspects but by new media and specifically on Twitter – I am not aware the demographics of Twitter but it does seem they are a more representative voice of democracy then those in the employ of our Newspaper and TV media. It is also not just the voice of the people of any one country but of many countries – though not exactly ‘We Are The World’ either rather those of us fortunate enough to have the economic wherewithal to be able to access the world wide web. And in my case it is the English speaking world too as I speak no other language – well leaving aside my less than fluent attempts at French and Spanish!

Cameron at Dispatch BoxThis time I thought I would see how Twitter reports on an an entirely British Event – Prime Minister Question’s or PMQ’s – when the Prime Minister of the day faces questions from members of his own party and the opposition parties – well these days it is Opposition Party and that party being Labour as the other hitherto eternal party of opposition, the Liberal Democrats, is now a member of government, if a coalition one. The Leveson Inquiry is I accept a British Event too but one which has a wider global interest as it also has ramifications beyond our shores such is the global nature of media, whether of the old or new kind.

I would compare its response to how the old media reported it. Usually they condense its thirty minutes of political theatre down to a minute or two, such is the level of interest in it.

I would also have an official record of PMQ’s provided by Parliament itself in the form of Hansard.

This weeks record can be read here and I am not going to repeat it save the opening tribute to a soldier who gave his life in Afghanistan from the Coalition Prime Minister, David Cameron.

“I am sure the whole House will wish to join me in paying tribute to Rifleman Sheldon Steel from 5th Battalion The Rifles. He was a highly respected soldier who had achieved a great deal and shown much potential during his time with the Army. At this very sad time, our thoughts should be with his family, his friends and his colleagues. His courage and his dedication will never be forgotten by our nation.”

Unison Strike ImageMost questions were around the day’s public sector strike over pensions (also with its own hash-tag #N30), and the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s Autumn Statement from yesterday (along with the current state of the public finances and economy in general) as well as a few questions relating to other matters.

Regarding the public sector strike, Labour Leader, Ed Milliband, practised the high-wire act of criticising the PM for the government’s funding and handling of public sector pension reform whilst not himself supporting the strike (which was noted by Conservative MP Mark Spencer).

He began by referring to the Head Teacher who was on public record of opposing the strike back in June and of which the PM praised for so doing but which today had closed her school. He asked a number of questions about pension reforms and relating to the Chancellor’s Autumn statement of yesterday.

The issue of union funding was raised by Conservative MP Laurence Robertson in respect of the taxpayer contribution. Another Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg asked if the striking air-traffic controllers could be sacked!

On the economy Labour MP Lillian Greenwood asked about the cost of unemployment not just in benefits but in lost tax revenue. Labour MP Kate Green asked why government is freezing working tax credit. Labour and Co-Op MP Mark Hendrick asked the PM if he came into politics to sack three quarter million public service workers. Conservative MP Fiona Bruce asked about pension provision and protection for those in her constituency working in the private sector.  Labour MP Owen Smith raised a question regarding the tax contribution of banks as oppose to public sector asking if the distribution was fair. There were a number of other questions relating to the economy.

Movember Photo Gallery

Movember

There were too a few foreign affairs questions including Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson asking about the progress of women’s rights in Afghanistan and Conservative MP Chris Kelly asking the PM to condemn the attack on the British Embassy in Iran.

Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell asked perhaps the most off-the-wall question of the day namely whether the sixteen remaining countries that fly the British flag ‘proudly’ will be defended by the UK!

At the outset the PM had commented on a number of MP’s who had grown moustaches in November as part of the Movember campaign (an annual November fundraiser towards funding and promoting  awareness of Men’s prostate cancer), Liberal Democrat MP Roger Williams was clearly one of those MP’s identified as the PM praised him ‘for the magnificent specimen lurking underneath his nose’!

So then these were the questions. And what did the old media run with? Only that the Prime Minister had described the day’s strike ‘has a damp squib’. Why make substantive points when a throw-away phrase like this will get the old media’s short-span attention?

How though had Twitter reported it? It should be noted that despite my comment about the more diverse participation of the public on Twitter as against that on our old-time media many of that old-time media inhabit the new-time Twitterverse too – whether has news organisations or hacks in their own right.

Tim Montgomerie Twitter AccountThe question of a tax on banks drew opposing tweets. Tim Montgomerie, Editor of Conservative Home, tweeted ‘Cameron ridicules Miliband for proposing a bank tax and then spending it in EIGHT different ways: The Bank Tax That Likes To Say Yes’ whereas Alex Belardinelli with a Red Rose Labour Badge on his Gravatar commented ‘Nonsense Prime Minister – this is what the bank bonus tax would pay’ for with a link to the Labour Party website and a piece by its leader on how this money would be spent on 110,000 new jobs.

This tweet from Michael Moran echoing what many think about the adversarial theatrical nature of PMQ’s ” The ridiculous pantomime of #PMQs is a sharp reminder that if you want to lay off un-needed public sector workers there’s 650 @ Westminster” – and the ‘plague on all their houses’ attitude towards all mainstream political parties that pervades currently.

Channel 4 News Channel 4 News tweeted what was perhaps one of the best lines of the day by Ed Milliband – “Some strikers earn less than what the chancellor spends on his annual skiing holiday” – reminding us all of the huge income disparities between those on the Conservative Front Bench and the millions of teachers, nurses and other hard-working pubic sector workers striking that day. Though one tweeting questioning the arithmetic ‘Does George Osborne buy his skiing gear from Poundland, or did Ed Miliband make a bit of a gaffe earlier?’!

Left Foot Forward on the other hand questioned the arithmetic from the other side of the equation – Osborne actually 52 times more privileged than Miliband claimed: http://bit.ly/u7X2TU writes @alexhern #PMQs #n30.

Mehdi Hassan TwitterIn respect of the thread of party funding and the relationships between the unions and Labour, Mehdi Hasan, the Senior Editor of the New Statesmen, tweeted “”His entire party is paid for by the unions,” says a party leader whose party is 50% funded by the City of London”. Resonating with a recent Sunday Observer column by comedian David Mitchell ‘Better we fund our political parties then let lobbyists run the roost‘.

Michael White of the Guardian tweeted’ Strikes are wrong, Labour is in unions’ pocket is Cam’s message, pure 1980s Daily Mail stuff in very different times’

This tweet from Red Fabian acknowledged that the PM did at least have one of the best lines of the day – if scripted – but then they all are aren’t they?- “They’re all shouting in Unison. Or should that be on behalf of Unison?” Unison being the trade union for public sector workers.

The right-wing PM accused the left-wing Labour leader of being, well, left-wing! This leading to a number of Tweets asking if being called ‘left-wing’ is an insult! I guess that depends on whether you consider yourself as left-wing or right-wing! And is this sort of remark more suited to the playground than the chambers of parliament?

Helen Lewis-Hasteley TwitterHelen Lewis-Hasteley of the New Statement tweeted “that’s good of him RT @JamieWood_Sky: Michael Gove tells Sky News it’s not wrong to be left wing or right wing – notable as Michael Gove is the Conservative Secretary of State for Education!

Following PMQ’s there is, amongst political pundits at least, a kind of informal polling of which of the party leaders got the better of the exchanges – of late it has see-sawed back and forth between Cameron and Milliband.

This week the Guardian thought that Ed had the better of it – “Miliband bombarded Cameron pretty effectively with embarrassing statistics. @AndrewSparrow‘s snap #PMQs verdict” while an opposing thought from Peter Mannion MP – “Might it have been better if Ed Miliband hadn’t turned up for work today? #PMQs #PMQ #N30 – clearly not a Labour MP!

It was clear though that despite a variety of other PMQ’s the questions that exercised the Twittersphere most were the ones that exercised the old media hacks the most too – namely the public sector strike action and related government economic policy. But it also has to be acknowledged that much the best tweets were from the old media hacks themselves – if perhaps benefiting from being unshackled from their respective Editors and Proprietors.

There was also a notable number of tweets to the announcement that public funding of union salaries in workplace would be ended – “Petty vindictiveness from Cameron to end public funding for union salaries in workplace http://bit.ly/vKYL56 #PMQs #N30 via @GdnPolitics was but one tweet and a view much echoed by most Tweeters.

Is Twitter – gasp! – left-wing leaning then?! And should it be insulted by this, or just proud?!

Benetton’s Unhate Campaign – leaders of the world, kiss and make-up

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Benetton Unhate Campaign China USA

Jintao and Obama

If you cannot love your neighbours then at least unhate them!

It’s been a while but United Colours of Benetton are back with another campaign – should we call it an advertising campaign or are they political campaigns – or is there no distinction? Both as they are being acts of persuasion in the art of selling, whether goods and services or ideas?

Benetton’s campaigns usually make it off the advertising pages and on to the news pages. Their latest the Unhate Campaign is no exception. And as advertising goes 24 hour news coverage is hard to beat – it costing them not a penny in airtime – and in advertising being noticed is everything, better still to be loved as well but if you cannot be adored then better to be hated then ignored.

The campaign came to my attention via this blog post on the My Modern Net site and the posted manipulated images of various world leaders in intimate kissing.

Benetton Unhate Campaign Pope and Imam

The Pope and the Imam

However as noted this Benetton campaign has quickly migrated to the news pages. I had first heard about it just hours earlier on the radio in respect of the withdrawal of the image of the current Pope Benedict XVI kissing a senior Egyptian Iman Ahmed el Tayyeb.

The only question for me on hearing this was which of them would be the first to express outrage. On this occasion it was the Vatican unhappy it seems with the commercial intentions of the image as whether it was blasphemous or not.

An ironic outcome for Benetton bringing Catholics and Muslims together in mutual antipathy!

Benetton say their Unhate Campaign was established to ‘invite the leaders and the citizens of the world to combat the ‘culture of hatred’.

I wonder why the word Unhate was chosen rather than the word Love? Perhaps they are suggesting that the hate-filled parties must first learn not to hate before they can love?

Executive Deputy Chairman Alessandro Benetton goes on to say “At this moment in history, so full of major upheavals and equally large hopes, we have decided, through this campaign, to give widespread visibility to an ideal notion of tolerance and invite the citizens of every country to reflect on how hatred arises particularly from fear of ‘the other’ and of what is unfamiliar to us,”.

Benetton Unhate Campaign Obama and Chavez

Obama and Chavez

Perhaps unsurprisingly Barack Obama as leader of the world’s most powerful country is featured twice, the first kiss with Chinese Premier Hu Jintao and the second kiss with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. These are kisses then not so much of love but ‘of kiss and make up’?

The one image I find the most puzzling though is the one between French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel – I had thought from my British perspective their diplomatic relationship already quite friendly, even cosy – indeed in the press their names are often unflatteringly conflated together as ‘Merkozy’ suggesting that they are of one mind, one heart – or something like that!

I would have thought a more appropriate kissing partner for the German Chancellor would have been our very own British Prime Minister, David Cameron, seeing as their current political friendship seems far more frosty.

Likewise for Sarkozy the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might have been a better world leader to exchange spittle with after his recent off-mic remark to Obama that ‘he cannot stand him. He’s a Liar’ (!) – though likely that remark occurred after Benetton had made their leader selections.

Benetton Unhate Campaign Merkel & Sarkozy

Merkel and Sarkozy

Netanyahu in any case is pictured kissing Mahmoud Abbas President of Palestine.

The final image is of Kim Jong-il the Supreme Leader of North Korea  bridging the divide as it were with a peck on the lips with Lee Myung-Bak the President of South Korea.

And indeed why should such images be controversial? World leaders should make more of an effort to get along – to engage each other diplomatically rather than militarily. And perhaps UNHATE is a better term than love which itself is not necessarily a desirable thing in world politics. It is like the so called implied Love In of Governments of National Unity. Sounds nice and reasonable but it lacks plurality – as a democrat I want the market-place of ideas not a cosy cartel of them where all the political parties have merged into one effectively leaving us the electorate disenfranchised.

In the UK we already have a coalition government of Conservative and Liberal Democrat, and the leaders of each, Cameron and Nick Clegg, already holding hands with each other, I don’t want to see the leader of the opposition Labour party Ed Milliband with his tongue in either of their mouths as part of a Unhate Triangle!

Benetton Unhate Campaign North & South Korea

Jong-Il & Myung-Bak

Is this campaign displaying a confusion between Love and Unhate? Is it being implied as the same thing if we see world leaders represented kissing each other? Not hating someone and wanting to kiss them on their lips is quite an emotional jump?

The Unhate campaign is challenging world leaders to put aside their ideological differences of politics and religion but in picturing leaders of the same gender kissing they are challenging yet another emotive issue?

The campaign has homophobia in its sights too?

There is only one image of a female world leader kissing a male world leader but then that is as much due to yet another issue of gender discrimination and the dominance of men in politics and the global power-play.

Though the campaign included just six images – and now five! – with a world in which alas there are so many global, regional and local conflicts clearly there are many more images of leaders kissing their ostensible enemies that could yet be mocked up.

I am expecting a fair share of spoofs on this campaign too. And as is well-established all publicity is good publicity, then well done Benetton for that.

I am still left wondering if this campaign is a cynical commercially self-interested one though. By withdrawing one image so soon there is already a question about the strength of their convictions as surely they must have anticipated the nature of some of the responses they would get. And the fact that there is an outcry about it and I am blogging about it…job well done. I’ve been played?!

I do hope there is more to the Unhate campaign than that.

Benetton Unhate Campaign Palestine Israel

Abbas & Netanyahu

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Education, education, education and the Hillsborough Disaster

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HansardMonday October 17th in the House of Commons was Education, Education, Education before the finale of the Hillsborough Disaster and whether there should be full disclosure of government documents relating to it.

The education debates were certainly varied and detailed – Maths GCSE Results were debated as were the GCSE results of the new Academies. Additionally the new English Baccalaureate and University Technical Colleges were tabled along with Faith Schools, Music, British Sign Language and Sure Start.

Strood Academy

Strood Academy, Kent

Academies are a current favourite of the Conservatives, primarily it seems because they can perform beyond the control of their Local Authority – a politically motivated and ideologically driven change does not inspire me with confidence in them. The Conservative Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton explaining ‘that all the evidence from around the world…’, a statement itself so ludicrously sweeping as to confirm that there is no such universal evidence, ‘…is that three factors give rise to improved performance – autonomy, high-quality teaching and external accountabilities’.

I am not going to spend much time on external accountability – who could argue with it? – other than to merely note that it is not clear how a school outside the control of a Local Authority is any more accountable than what that is not?

Autonomy though concerns me as it suggests that schools are better off running themselves without any over-riding national body or external audit, indeed to borrow that ugly phrase, without any external accountabilities.

I strongly question the idea that parents should decide a school curriculum – what do most of us know about most secondary school subjects? How well educated are most of us that we could better decide syllabus than Education Professionals with University Degrees?

And why stop at the parents, why not let the pupils decide? If that idea was proposed the conservative commentariat would cry ‘Lord of the Flies’ and pooh-pooh the woolly-headed liberalism of it all – but parents deciding is not much of a further fetch from that?

I want my teachers to educate not manage school budgets. The same as I want my GP to treat not  manage health budgets.

As for the phrase ‘high-quality teaching’ that is a facile circular remark – like saying high-quality care leads to the best outcomes – you don’t say! Such a statement completely absents itself of how an academy education provides high-quality teaching in a way that other private and public education does not.

University Technical Colleges

University Technical Colleges

Also discussed were the new University Technical Colleges – Comprehensive Schools with a greater vocational emphasis and sponsored by business such as Rolls Royce, Blackberry makers, Research in Motion, and Boeing. This is an England wide initiative and one that I believe has promise. The last Labour government rightly focused on increasing participation in education but I thought over-focused on academic skills at the expense of vocational ones. There is also I think good reason to re-introduce Apprentices which surely ally to these University Technical Colleges.

They also provide another source of education funding from the private sector – but one that will need to be monitored – no strings attached as it were. The Member of Surrey Heath also used perhaps the most purplest prose of the day in answer to a question about government bureaucracy not hampering their implementation “…the officials in my Department are allies. They are terrible, swift swords cutting through the bureaucracy that has so far held this country back” – recent examples have suggested this swiftness can often come at the expense of cool consideration and I do not buy this idea of unpatriotic public servants bent on stalling all private-led initiatives.

I love the language politicians employ – a balancing act between masters of spin and masters of the meaningless! Are our primary schools to be next renamed as University Technical Schools, and Kindergarten as University Technical Pre-Schools?!

English Baccalaureate

Already abbreviated to EBacc - because it cannot otherwise be reliably spelled correctly!?

Michael Gove Secretary for Education

Ed Sec

The new English Baccalaureate was later debated, introduced by the Conservative Member for Surrey Heath, I will refer to it hereafter as that member does by the short-hand ‘E-bac’. The Conservative Member for Banbury expressed concern on the negative effect of the ‘E-bac’ on Religious Education. The Member for Surrey Heath first thanked him for ‘being an effective spokesman for the place of faith in the nation’s life’ but then countered that the number of pupils studying RE was on the increase. One wonders whether there is any place for faith in education, that faith by its nature is anti-education? And was saddened too that the teaching of RE (or RI – you work it out!) is on the increase and that the Education Secretary thought this was something to be applauded. With apologies to Pink Floyd but ‘we don’t need no Faith education’.

Next up for debate was the reduction of funding to the Labour initiative Sure Start. It does appear this excellent program of theirs is only being cut due to party-political spite from the Conservatives and it is a notable shame that the Lib Dems led by their Member for Brent Central have not broken coalition rank on a social democratic issue such as this. The Labour Member for Washington and Sunderland West successfully summarised that the Brent Central Member did not have very much of a clue, beyond the usually woolly rhetoric, of the actual impact on the ground of their revised measures.

British Sign Language was raised by the Liberal Democrat member for Wells in respect of its possible pilot as a GCSE Foreign Language.

Hillsboroguh Stadium by Jam Sandwich

Theatre of Dreams, as the fans have it!

The final item of the day was the Hillsborough Disaster recorded as ‘Backbench business’ and a debate commenced by the Labour Member for Liverpool, Walton in respect that the “House calls for the full disclosure of all Government-related documents, including Cabinet minutes, relating to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster; requires that such documentation be uncensored and without redaction; and further calls for the families of the 96 and the Hillsborough Independent Panel to have unrestricted access to that information.”

He then proceeded with a very long speech in favour of such actions.

The Home Secretary then gave a long speech in response. Reading the minutes of Hansard may give a dry feel to this debate but which, as reported on Twitter and other media outlets, was a very emotionally cathartic process difficult to convey by the written word alone. Better instead to watch the televised recordings of the debate.

Many further contributions were made of similarly substantial length by members from both sides of the House with notable contributions from those members of the constituencies most effected in Liverpool, Sheffield and other neighbouring areas of the North West of England.

The debate commenced at 5.42pm and went on to 10pm and I could not possibly do it justice by commenting on it, save but to urge you that rather than reading about it in the particular prism of a party-political media outlet, you should consider reading the minutes of it verbatim here on Hansard.

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A batty Thursday in the House of Commons…

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Oliver Letwin

Carry On, Minister!

Foremost political news story in the British media last week was regarding the increasingly incredulous revelations about the foreign and security affairs of the Conservative Member for North Somerset and the cherry on the ice-bun the Conservative Member for West Dorset with his disposing of Government papers in the bins of his local park. Both were members of the Coalition Cabinet at the time – the Doctored one no longer is, the unDoctored one still remains – for now?

While these scenes, that would be barely plausible in a Spooks episode, continued to struggle to resolve themselves, in the House of Commons on Thursday October 13 more prosaic affairs were being debated.

The affairs of the House of Commons (and Lords) are ever available for scrutiny even before cameras were allowed into the Houses thanks to Hansard and now more current and accessible thanks to their online publication.

The days affairs are started rather like a school day and its assembly with prayers. And rather like a school I wonder whether this is the secular place for such a practice? Certainly I have never been at a workplace where we all first gathered to say a prayer.

Much of Thursday’s business was broadly regarding matters of faith too.

Bats in the Belfry by Bennie B Off

From Flickr, by Bennie B Off

And to paraphrase the Conservative Member for Maidenhead ‘…I am not making this up’ one of the first items up for debate was Bats in Churches – these purblind creatures cause damage to Churches internal fabrics through their urination and defecation – but this item was not the day’s final item on churches or indeed bats.

Later debated were Church Commissioners then The Theft of Metal in Churches and then again Bats this time sans Churches! Then time was given to the inhabitants of those buildings practised beliefs, first on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s visit to Africa then the fate of Coptic Christians in Egypt. Fiona Bruce – no not the Scots newsreader and current presenter of The Queens Palaces – but the Conservative Member for Congleton – wanting to know what support the Church Commissioners were giving to them. Pardon me but this feels very much like the business of a village hall and raffle raising for those deemed less fortunate and deserving of charity. Whilst accepting there is a very serious and difficult issue about respecting the sovereignty of a country whilst having concerns of the (often deadly) treatment by governments of those sovereign nations towards groups of peoples it is supposed to be representing (and protecting) – if that is they have any sort of democracy in the first place.

Threading through the odd-couple chiroptological and Southern Kirks affairs were a number of constitutional issues.

United Kingdom Elections were considered toward increasing their participation – notable with voter turnout at historic lows – since 2001 less than two-thirds has become the new-norm. Though also notable in the context of other plans by The Electoral Commission to move toward Individual Voter Registration from the current system of Household Voter Registration which if not implemented carefully could lead to voter-registration falling not rising – some estimates such as from Unlock Democracy – by over one million.

MP Edinburgh North and Leith

Member for Edinburgh North and Leith

In passing the Labour Co-op Member for Edinburgh North and Leith challenged the very integrity of our UK elections due to a section (of about one-and-a-half-million) who can work, join the armed-services, give their sexual consent (and there are further anomalous examples) yet are legally disenfranchised – namely those 16/17 – no taxation without representation! An organisation Vote at 16 are currently campaigning this issue. The Member raising the issue noted that in Scotland the SNP as part of their proposed Scottish Referendum to separate Scotland from the rest of the UK are now considering adding another motion to it, that the voting age should begin aged sixteen.

Vote at 16 LogoFurther constitutional business concerned the proposed election of Police Commissioners. The Labour Member for York Central was more concerned about the cost of such elections making an obvious political if not unfair cost comparison to the cutting of police numbers and budgets as part of the Coalition Government’s ideological – sorry necessary – shrinking of Big Bad Government. And if Small Government is Good Government then presumably the apotheosis of Good Government is No Government – Anarchy for the UK – is that the Conservative Member for Whitney’s real unsaid agenda?! A Big Society, just not one that involves very much governance or regulation.

Next up was Local Referendums, specifically proposals to give powers to communities to hold local ones. This issue was raised by the Conservative Member for Harlow. Though it was not quite clear how a community was being defined here – I presume at the very least an electoral ward. I support referenda and do feel our democracy would benefit from greater use of them – whether at national or local level – though can see a danger too that if used too liberally they will decrease rather than increase electoral participation. And rather like online petitioning which I also approve the sheer number of them is making them unmanageable and thus unworkable?

On the other hand we already have a worrying Democratic Deficit where the two main political parties (leaving aside the SNP in Scotland) Conservative and Labour struggle now to get a third of the voters behind them – a feeling of Crony Capitalism and Government by the Few for the Few?

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Sally Bercow – new columnist for the Daily Star Sunday

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Sally and John Bercow

With husband John

Sally Bercow now has a column with the Daily Star Sunday.

The Daily Star Sunday online is a mackerel to hold down – as there is little distinction between it and the Daily Star online – indeed its banner is the ‘Daily Star Sunday – The Daily Star Simply The Best Seven Days A Week’ – so not Daily Star Sunday then! You can’t have a Sunday on a Wednesday – you just can’t!

The Daily Star is owned by Richard Desmond, and among his many other media outlets are The Daily Express and Channel 5 – politically he is to the right if not quite as far as Paul Dacre and Rupert Murdoch.

Sally Bercow is the wife of the Conservative Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow but she is openly a Labour supporter. A very modern marriage if an attitude that seems to irk the ever dull and curmudgeon Daily Mail. So is this lying down with the Daily Star Sunday just Sally Bercow sleeping with her political foes?

I am assuming that Sally Bercow must have been head-hunted by the Daily Star Sunday rather than she submitting her CV to it!? She was you may know one of the housemates in Channel 5′s Celebrity Big Brother and alas the first housemate to be evicted – your mealy-mouthed words mean nothing Kerry Katona! It would seem if not Richard Desmond himself then someone in the Daily Star has developed a soft-spot for Sally.

And I assumed and later confirmed that the Daily Star has not seen the Damascus Light and shifted left-wards – the bearded boozy face of Garry Bushell was the first image to greet me when I visited their website earlier today.

The Daily Star Sunday

The Daily Star Sunday – or any day of the week…

I welcome the Daily Star having someone of a different political persuasion writing a column for them. Do any of you know whether a conservative pundit writes for example for The Mirror or The Guardian?

A charge often leveled at online media is that it is a bubble world – like attracting like, like minded souls with like minded beliefs and prejudices – but usually this is a charge from newspaper journalists – who don’t seem to realize the irony! At least with the online equivalents of The Guardian and The Sun those of a different political view are able to visit the sites and post comments of a contrary nature – and do they! Taking delight in posting comments designed to wind up the traditional readership – ethical trolling?! Whereas it is far less likely that a Labour supporter would buy The Sun newspaper so as to write critical letters to it and then that such critical letters would get favourably edited let alone published – and likewise a Tory hoping for the same outcome with The Daily Mirror newspaper. Indeed with the online equivalents of The Sun, The Mirror et al this closed-world bubble is bursting.

Also to the credit of the Daily Star Sunday I came upon this article about possible strike action by British Trade Unions starting November 30. It presented the case for it from the Trade Union Congress General Secretary, Brendan Barber, and the case against it from the Conservative Party Co-Chair, Baroness Warsi, without any editorial comment and/or interference of its own. Though I would have liked the article to have been open to comments from its readers.

Sallly Bercow Celebrity Big Brother

Evicted from Celebrity Big Brother

How many readers of the Daily Star Sally Bercow will bring around to her own world-view may prove to be negligible but I admire them both for getting in bed together.

I was though not able to find her column on their site – I came upon this article on there about her and fellow Celebrity Big Brother Housemate and eventual winner Paddy Doherty and it refers to her as ‘housemate’ not as Daily Star Sunday Columnist!

Hiding her light beneath a (Garry) Bushell – sorry! Not got around to updating their website yet? Only available to read in print?

Does that mean I will have to buy a copy of the Daily Star Sunday and worse be seen buying a copy of the Daily Star Sunday?! Thank Darwin for the Tesco Self-Service Checkout! I can surreptitiously swipe it through with my other Sunday Morning comestibles!

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Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency

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Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency

Presenter Lucy Worsley

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency is a new three part series of hour long episodes, began August 29 on BBC 4, written and narrated by historian Dr Lucy Worsley.

This series is to mark the 200th anniversary of this brief but revolutionary and creative period. At its helm the Prince Regent himself, the great patronizer of art and design.

On the BBC 4 website she asks us when was Britain at its most elegant and most decadent, its most stylish and most radical. Her answer as you might expect is that it was the regency and she goes on to explain why she thinks that. Also detailed on this page is what we can expect from this series. It looks at the man the era was named after, the Prince Regent, along with other Royals and Aristocrats as well as its working people and how they all experienced this decade, 1811 to 1820. Also covered are the celebrities of its age – the likes of Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Joseph Turner and John Constable.

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency The Prince of Whales

The Prince of Whales

In the first episode Warts and all – Portrait of a Prince she looks at how the Prince Regent, George IV, was obsessed with outdoing Napoleon – “not on the battlefield but in terms of opulence, bling and monumental architecture’. The BBC iPlayer page provides further details of this episode.

She finished her opening introduction advising us that there was a lot more to the regency than Mr Darcy!

Her team at Kew Palace on discussing what the public know about The Prince Regent, reported on a visiting little girl who said he was ‘Sad Mad Bad and Fat’!

George was the United Kingdom’s ruler but a regent not its king owing to the temporary absence of his father George III due to his incapacitating mental condition, yet despite this he was the subject of much virulent irreverent satire by commentators and cartoonists. It is hard to imagine any of our present royal family being pictured as a whale which in ‘The Prince of Whales’! he was. Nearly two hundred years on our satirists seem very tame if not obsequious to our current heads of state – whether Royals, Lords or Commons.

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency Rembrandt’s The Shipbuilder and His Wife

Rembrandt’s The Shipbuilder and His Wife

The program looks at George’s art collection – he bought prodigiously – including the most expensive in his collection Rembrandt’s The Shipbuilder and His Wife.

Alongside his collection the program looks at the extensive collection bequeathed to Dulwich College by Peter Francis Bourgeois, landscape artist and court painter to George III which unlike the Prince’s private collection was open to the public. His collection could have been left to the British Museum but he considered it was ran by snobs and too closely associated with the Regency Inner Circle. He was of the father’s royal court not the son’s. Hence his bequest to the Dulwich College. The Architect John Soane built an art gallery within the college grounds to house them, also out of money left by Bourgeois. It was the first gallery open to the public.

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency The Prince

The Prince Regent

The Prince Regent also liked his clothes – his budget for fashion as extravagant as that for his art-works. The most fashionable man in London at this time was Beau Brummel – whose influence also extended to the Prince. The program uses ‘Dandy’ by The Kinks to showcase their outfits – Brummel himself is credited with inventing the suit. Though when saying his budget it is notable that he bought his extensive wardrobe on credit – he ran up huge debts, many remaining unpaid.

At this time Britain was the reigning European superpower having just beaten the French and Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo  – but the Prince Regent had little to do with it not being a soldier let alone on the fields of battle. But he was clearly vain-glorious and self-delusional and had become the subject of many paintings with him as the conquering war hero – Wellington a mere shadow of him. Appearance trumping reality reminding that spin is nothing new just the methods of its commission.

The royal portrait painter was Thomas Lawrence, president of the Royal Academy, and referred by Lucy Worsley as the ‘Chief Flatterer’ and very definitely counter-weight to the cruel cartoon caricaturists. Lawrence was the Photoshop of his time, routinely taking pounds and years off the monarch.

To most of his subjects these paintings would be all they would have seen of him. Appearance clearly was more important than reality.

I look forward the next episode Developing the Regency Brand which will explore its architecture as part of the rebuilding of Britain during this period.

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency Dulwich College

Dulwich College Art Gallery

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Wallis Simpson: The Secret Letters – history unspun…

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Wallis Simpson: The Secret Letters

Wallis Simpson: The Secret Letters Edward and Wallis

Wallis and Edward

This Channel 4 program based on fifteen hitherto unrevealed letters between Wallis Simpson and her second husband Ernest Simpson overturns what we the British public have come to understand about the whole WE (Wallis, Edward) affair.

Wallis Simpson: The Secret Letters narrated by Samuel West and written and produced by Simon Berthon tells a very new story.

Edward VIII gave up his throne for Wallis – a grand romantic gesture – we never considered what she gave up for him.

The secret letters of the program’s title were discovered by Wallis Simpson’s latest biographer Anne Sebba for her book ‘That Woman’. They show that the love between the abdicated King and Mrs Simpson was unrequited – he desperately in love with her but she still in love with her second husband Ernest. He had passion for her, she only affection for him.

Wallis Simpson: The Secret Letters Anne Sebba

Biographer Anne Sebba

She had conspired to aspire in British Society and, well, who better, than the future king to achieve this. But she was to succeed in capturing more than the king’s manifest material comforts and honours, instead the King’s very heart and soul

Two stories have endured, one that she, Wallis, a Scarlet woman, double-divorcee (scandalous in the 1930′s if unremarkable now) and whisper it she was an American – undermining genteel English society – or exposing its hypocricy – as you like it.

The second story is a more romantic one – what the King gave up for her – against all the odds and the might of the English establishment – and their ultimate exile – not just physical but emotional, social and political.

Wallis Simpson: The Secret Letters - Ernest Simpson

Ernest Simpson

These letters tell a new tale – as in the first story Wallis was certainly a cool and calculating schemer and as in the second story the King did give up his kingdom for her – but the exile for Wallis was a very different one. The king had given up his throne for love, she had given up love for the king.

The letters establish not just that Wallis was still in love with Ernest – a very different WE – but that the divorce itself was an illegal exercise in collusion – a fabrication of infedility.

She writes to him of the King ‘what can I say when I am standing beside the grave of everything that was us’ – this line alone lays waste everything we had ever thought about the love between Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.

That ultimately Wallis Simpson was the hunted not the hunter. And she had wanted out. She had wanted to exit the affair waiting for his royal coronation and duty to inevitably put her out of the regal picture – she did not know that he planned to abdicate. Their affair then became public and they then went into French exile. When discovering his plans to secede to his brother George VI she had pleaded with him not to – he did not want to listen. A further letter to him explaining she and Ernest were meant for each other and that she and Edward could never make each other happy resulted in Edward threatening to slit his throat!

Wallis Simpson: The Secret Letters - Wallis

Wallis Simpson

The pending marriage between Edward and Wallis was referred to between Ernest and Wallis as ‘the final catastrophe’ and of which Ernest considered Wallis entirely blameless. When on June 3 1937 they finally married it is well documented not one member of the Royal family attended.

As well as these tangled web of relationships between Wallis, Edward and Ernest the program explores the early life of Wallis – her parents and her upbringing and her first marriage to Earl Winfield Spencer Jr.

The program reminds that like Diane Spencer and Kate Middleton the press have always had an obsession with Royalty and long before these two princesses were subject to intrusive press and paparazzi attention Wallis Simpson was similar prey to their prurient camera eye.

This program turns upside down what we had thought we knew about Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.

A soon to be released film directed by Madonna of the couple titled ‘W.E.‘ as English actress Andrea Riseborough as Wallis and James D’Arcy as Edward VIII – Ernest Simpson is played by David Barbour. I wonder how incidental his part will be in the proceedings of this film knowing as we now do his far more central role. As Princess Diana was to state so memorably about her ultimately doomed marriage to Prince Charles ‘there were three of us in this marriage so it was a bit crowded’. The third there was Camilla Parker-Bowles, a very present factor, whereas Ernest a very absent factor, but no less significant because of that.

I understand that the film is now completed and ready for a December 2011 release in the USA – I wonder how much of this Channel 4 show or the Anne Sebba biography, writers Madonna and Alex Keshishian, would have been aware of?

If not aware then ‘W.E’ perhaps will have to content itself in being the last of that particular 20th Century English Royal myth.

And now another film – about ‘WEE’ not ‘WE’ – is waiting to be shot. I wonder what director will best tell it?

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Just Another Shocking News International Revelation – Time for Rupert Murdoch to close The Sun and The Sunday Times?

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News International TitlesAnother second passes another appalling News International scandal. Just how many more hacking allegations are there to come? And what else has been hacked – Email and other Computer related accounts? And what other scandalous practices are there out there in Tabloid Land that remain yet to be uncovered?

Last week Rupert Murdoch did the right thing in winding up The News of the World – first there was the phone hacking of murdered Milly Dowler’s mobile phone then the phones of the bereaved relatives of the 7/7 victims then those of the widows and other bereaved relatives of British soldiers. Surely there were no lower depths to plumb?

And then the violations of the ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown by The Sun and The Sunday Times of among other confidential details his bank and son’s medical records. Again Rupert Murdoch should do the right thing and wind up these newspapers.

This would leave us with just one National Murdoch owned title, The Times. They would have to learn the lessons – that is if they themselves are not already tainted.

All mainstream parties are now remarkably and impressively supporting a House of Commons Motion presented by Labour Leader Ed Milliband for Rupert Murdoch not to proceed with the bid for BSkyB as not ‘in the public interest’ – that is quite a turnaround for Murdoch – in that context from hero to zero.

This so far has been a partisan post unavoidably as notably no politician victim of this hacking has been a Conservative – and because all three titles are of the right. However I am quite sure from what I understand that these practices are quite widespread in other publishing homes and not just the conservative ones such as Express Newspapers (Northern and Shell) and Daily Mail and General Trust but also Trinity Mirror plc.

The whole industry could collapse under the weight of its own depravity.

We could end up with a situation where only the Financial Times and The Morning Star are left in circulation!

This would be no loss – most readers would migrate online if they are not online readers already. Online media is much more plural – not just the online presence of the printed-titles themselves, but many flavours of political magazines, the radio and television media, the blogosphere and yet other sources of news and opinion. And not just confined to the UK too but a world wide perspective.

Daily printed newspapers are increasingly ever more irrelevant and it is an irrelevance of their own making. The invidious presence of monopolistic press barons and unashamed partisanship and the damaging effect this has on UK Parliament and the general body UK politic could finally be laid to rest.

Lay this body down.

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