Idle thoughts on Europe, its outlying islands, and more besides
Ten things we’ve learnt from the World Cup so far
Jun 14th
1. It’s the dullest start to a World Cup in living memory: even Italia ‘90 wasn’t this bad. Stale football, with little flair, too many mistakes, and too much fear. Come on guys, this is the WORLD CUP.
2. The standard of refereeing has been excellent (with minor exceptions). And take note Jamie Redknapp – those from smaller or less well-known countries (in footballing terms) have been among the best.
3. The only drone more annoying than the vuvuzelas is people moaning about the noise they make: they may be cheap and made in China, but their origins are authentically South African. Also, Europeans going to Africa and telling Africans how to do things has not generally worked out well in the past. Get over it.
Plus, Mick McCarthy, the only pundit on UK TV who tells it as he sees it, has said the vuvuzelas make for a great atmosphere. They are therefore a good thing.
4. If there is a calamity that can happen, ITV will find it: only 1.5m people out of 20m were affected by the high definition outage that coincided with England’s goal against the United States, but that’s still 1.5m. After Tic-Tac-gate, it’s incredible, and only serves to remove any remaining credibility ITV has as a football broadcaster. And while we’re at it…
5. Peter Drury has to be the worst, most patronising, pompous, scripted and generally annoying commentator out there. He makes Jonathan Pearce appear listenable.
6. England can’t win this: they one-dimensional and toothless, with Rooney out of sorts. It looks like we’ll come unstuck sooner rather than later. (By the way, this is not a post-draw-with-the-US thought – unlike the British media, I expected England to draw with a strong American team.)
7. Spain and Brazil have had the best start to the World Cup: only Germany look threatening. It’s up for grabs for the favourites.
8. The ball’s not to blame, but the altitude might be: this ball has been used in various tournaments for months now – could the thin air be responsible for the plethora of over-hit passes and crosses?
9. The BBC seems to be deliberately provoking the Daily Mail: the purpose-built set and elevator were supplemented by a revolving plateau and a battle-bus. You could imagine Paul Dacre’s blood pressure rising with every degree that the plateau turned.
10. The Italian players need singing lessons: where’s a vuvuzela when you really need it?
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...Game over?
May 11th
So it looks like the game’s up – the Liberals’ wooing of Labour, and the subsequent resignation of Gordon Brown, was to no avail… and may well have been simply a canny negotiating tactic to get more out of the Tories.
The election was the Tories’ to lose – and they almost managed it. David Cameron cannot be happy with his result. The Tory right certainly aren’t – and giving away the family silver to the LibDems will not please them much either. They did not ‘win’ as such – 36% of the vote and 47% of the seats is not too impressive given the fair wind from the media, the unpopularity of Gordon Brown, and the Ashcroft money. Despite the rantings of Boulton, Robinson, and others in the media, Gordon Brown was right to hang in there as prime minister, and there was value to exploring a rainbow coalition.
Yet it would have been shaky, and would have severely annoyed voters in England (SNP, Plaid and Northern Irish votes do not come for free). And while I don’t buy the idea of ‘going into opposition to renew’, staying in power could have made us more unpopular. Labour in 2010 is not hated like the Tories in ‘97. But another four or five years could lead to a heavier defeat (a point made by Andy Burnham – who is my dark horse for the Labour leadership).
Overall, the Tories do seem to have a greater moral right to have a swing at this next parliamentary term. It will be tough. I’ve always thought that this would be a good election to lose. I’ll take no pleasure in seeing David Cameron entering Downing Street – but it seems the natural conclusion to things. Hopefully LibDem involvement will knock off some rough edges – a more proportional voting system should be a good thing, there may be a fairer tax system rather than IHT cuts for the rich, and a coalition would hopefully see a not-entirely-hostile approach to the EU.
It remains to be seen – but finally, for the sake of us all, not least the haggered news men – let’s get this thing over and done with.
PS – It seems that Downing Street is being packed up… new PM tonight?
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...The end of the party
Apr 28th
This time yesterday, Gillian Duffy was an ordinary pensioner from Wigan. By mid-afternoon, the prime minister was in her house, begging for his political future. Her ordinary, white front door was broadcast live on TV across Britain and the world, via the internet, for 45 minutes or more.
Her world changed when Gordon Brown referred to her as a ‘bigoted woman’ in a private conversation in his car, seconds after a seemingly friendly, if sometimes spirited, exchange in the street. Her ‘offence’ was to question the level of immigration in the UK, especially from countries in central and eastern Europe.
Mrs Duffy is a typical, white working-class voter. People like her are the bedrock of Labour support – despite the middle-class liberal views of Gordon Brown and others at the top of the Labour Party (as well as many ordinary members, such as myself). Her concerns matter – even if they are sometimes based on a false perception, or years of right-wing newspaper headlines.
The truth is that Labour has done far too little to address these concerns, or to communicate the benefits of immigration, for fear of the press. And Labour will be electorally punished for it.
The comment was bad (as well as the attempts to blame an aide for the encounter. However, it could happen to anyone – hence the muted reaction of the other parties. (In fact, which one of us in our own lives can say we haven’t been nice to someone in public and bad-mouthed them once their back is turned?)
Yet for me, the management of the comment was worse. Gordon Brown doesn’t apologise well – it’s always ‘if I said that’, ‘if I caused offence’. When the clip was played to him on Radio 2 (see video), his reaction spoke volumes – blaming the media for broadcasting a private conversation (Sky controlled the radio mic for a pool of broadcasters – notably, it is said that Tony Blair always had his radio mic controlled by a Labour official on these occasions); claiming that he was under pressure to leave, and couldn’t answer the question. Neither excuse was credible – but typical of Brown’s disconnection from his own actions.
Then he returned to apologise in person (something Mrs Duffy said she was not bothered about). This public self-flagellation merely perpetuated the story. It was poorly conceived, and also poorly executed. He claimed he had misunderstood her point – but as others have said, how? It was another flimsy excuse, to cover up another gaffe.
Three years ago, I opposed a ‘coronation’ for Gordon Brown. He is a very good political thinker – but not a good 21st-century politician. He is uneasy with people. He is uneasy with the media. He struggles to communicate in human terms, instead talking in statistics. Could you imagine, for example, Alan Johnson getting into such difficulties?
There are still seven days to go to polling day. But it’s going to be hellishly difficult for Gordon Brown to lead Labour to a win from here – or even to stop a Tory win.
Labour members that I’ve spoke to are annoyed and angry. We work hard, only to have our slim chances of victory dramatically reduced by an amateur hour mistake.
If our own members aren’t motivated, and our own natural constituency doesn’t believe that we’re on their side, that we can deal with their concerns, then the game is up.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Whatever it is, I agree with Nick
Apr 16th
So, that was it. The debate was a novelty, but once the sheen had worn off a little, it was a slightly dull affair. The debate’s being analysed to death, with Nick Clegg grabbing the plaudits in what you would have thought was an Obama-esque display of oratory, judging by the media reaction.
Clegg’s a decent guy, and a decent speaker. (I had the opportunity to meet him when he was an MEP, and I was working for another MEP on the same parliamentary committee – and it was clear that he was a rising star.) Like a new kid at school, he’s going to get a lot of attention. It’s looking like his performances, and the additional exposure, will get his party more votes – perhaps enough to swing a few constituencies from each of the main parties. However, he’s not going to be PM. And expectations will rise for him in the next two debates – it will be interesting if, in two weeks’ time, he has maintained his distinctiveness and freshness.
As I’d predicted, it wasn’t a game-changer, but we did learn some interesting things:
David Cameron can appear very uneasy: I thought Cameron was out-of-sorts. Clegg ‘out-charisma-ed’ him, and he didn’t seem to have much purpose either, instead focusing on stories about where he’d been and who he’d met. He made some gaffes (about meeting a 40 year-old black man who had been in the navy for 30 years, and more seriously, listing China (along with Iran) as a threat to the UK and a reason for maintaining a nuclear deterrent). True, Cameron had it all to lose, and therefore had reason to be nervous; but he spoke in generalities, and was not very concrete. Perhaps he pitched it well – as a political junkie, I look for these things whereas an ‘ordinary’ person might look for the vision and the soundbites – but to me, he was a little vacuous.
Gordon Brown exceeded floor-level expectations: the prime minister did fairly well – he was humorous at times, brought detail to the debate and had the stature of a statesman (something the other two distinctly lacked). However, his tendency to talk in lists, to reel off figures, is not engaging. People remember stories, not statistics (although Cameron went too far in the other direction). Brown and Labour have some convincing arguments – but Brown needs to work these into one-line pay-offs to close his arguments – before he loses his audience in a trough of stats.
At times it was less ‘The First Election Debate’ and more ‘Blind Date’: both Cameron and Brown (especially the latter) were falling over themselves to agree with Clegg – embarrassingly so at times. Arguments are being rehearsed for a post-hung parliament scenario.
ITV is rusty on current affairs: ITV don’t do politics – and it showed. The opening of the programme, and the set, was more ‘early 1990s quiz show’ than serious debate. Alistair Stewart did well to keep to the rules, and was slightly frightening when barking out the leaders’ names, but lacked the gravitas of a Dimbleby, Paxman, Edwards or Boulton. The format did not help either; everything was a little stilted.
It’s still all to play for: this debate won’t move the needle too much – but as we move closer to polling day, the debates may get more interesting, and have higher stakes. Labour has done well to get the economic debate as the last debate – it’s the issue on which Brown and Labour have the strongest arguments and the most experience. However, I can’t see it having a dramatic impact.
In the end, the debate began as novel and exciting – but slowly became a bit dull and pedestrian. No surprise: Britain is catching up with a 20th-century mass media format used for decades in the United States and the Europe, and one which parties and politicians can generally manage into neutrality.
For all the bluster, it’s going to be what happens between the debates, on the streets, that really counts.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Don’t expect fireworks
Apr 15th
You can’t move for Lloyd Bentsen these days (there’s eight words that I never thought I’d write). The former US vice-presidential candidate’s put-down of Senator Dan Quayle in the 1988 VP debate has been played and re-played on radio and TV in the UK this week as Britain gears up for the first live, television debates between the men who would be prime minister (and Nick Clegg).
The expectation behind the repeat use of the Bentsen clip is that the three debates, on home affairs, international affairs, and domestic policy, will be game-changers. However, I think people will be disappointed.
Barring a major gaffe, the ‘debates’ are likely to be staid events – one-minute responses to pre-approved questions; leaders trotting our their manifesto lines; every one of them playing it safe. The three-way debate will reduce the cut-and-thrust that might have been present had it been a Brown-Cameron tussle.
I hope I’m proved wrong – otherwise it’s going to be a dull 90 minutes. Perhaps by the third debate (on the BBC, and therefore likely to be most watched), poll numbers will persuade leaders to be more daring – especially on the main dividing line issue of the economy (Brown’s ‘we’re in this together’ versus Cameron’s Thatcher-lite ‘you’re on your own’).
However, I just can’t see the thrill of the US debates translating over to the UK. We have a different political system and culture (despite the presence of American debate-preppers and US-style downplaying of your own man’s abilities).
Local issues and ‘kitchen-table’ economic considerations also play a big factor in an election whose result rests ultimately on the number of MPs in the House, not solely on the personality of the leader, important as it may be to some.
So I’ll watch with interest rather than expectation tonight… there’s a long way to go in this election – and it’s as likely to be won as much on the doorstep, by word of mouth and on the web as in the TV studio.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Don’t mention the war. Please.
Mar 16th
What is it with UKIP and Belgium? After the Farage-van Rompuy kerfuffle, we now have William Dartmouth having a pop (scroll to 1:45):
Quite what the Second World War has to do with easing red tape for micro-enterprises, well… your guess is as good as mine. Thank goodness that Labour’s reforms of the House of Lords, timid as they were, managed to rid the UK Parliament of this man, who was sitting there due to a mere accident of birth. His bluster in the European Parliament will thankfully remain nothing more than a pitiful sideshow.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...6Music is just the tip of the iceberg – it’s public service broadcasting that needs our support
Mar 2nd
The BBC is a far-from-perfect organisation: it has over-stretched a little in recent years, its quality (particularly in its news broadcasts) has been diluted by trying to fill a 24-hour news channel; it has become too interested in the sensational, and ratings-grabbing formats; and it is funded by a regressive tax.
However, it still shines by comparison – even if it does, at times, follow the agenda set by News International and the Daily Mail, it is much more measured, and largely free from bias. The regressive nature of the licence fee is diminished by free licences for the elderly, and at around 40p per day, the BBC represents tremendous value.
Living in Brussels, and being exposed to a range of European broadcasters, I still regard it as the world’s leading broadcaster. However, the Rupert (and James) Murdoch-led crusade against state-funded broadcasting (abetted by other broadcasters, and dead-tree media who fear the corporation’s continued march into internet-based services) seems to be starting to bear fruit.
Stripped of self-confidence by its Iraq reporting errors, criticism from the commercial sector, and fairly useless management, the axe is to be wielded.
Yet it will fall in some odd places, according to the announcement made today by the Director-General, Mark Thompson (who rakes in £800,000 a year). While the BBC faces some criticism for being too commercial, it plans to cut some of the very services that are not widely available in the commercial sector – 6Music, a diverse radio station that has helped drive growth in the DAB sector, and the Asian Network, another digital station.
Changes will also be made to BBC Four, one of the few (only?) intellectually-stimulating TV channels in the UK . The BBC’s web output will be slashed (justifiably in places). No changes will be made to BBC Three – a youth-oriented station that replicates a lot of the dross available elsewhere on digital TV; the same for Radio 1 and 1Xtra, which offer similar fare to commercial radio.
So why the choice of victims? In part, due to lower ratings. But this strikes me as paradoxical: surely public services, at a very minimum, should cover areas where the market cannot provide. Strictly Come Dancing and EastEnders are popular, but hardly distinctive. Yet the BBC has, it seems, chosen retained those services where competition is more fierce (and, dare it be said, quality lower).
#save6music is now a rallying call on Twitter. Good – and the station won’t go down without a fight. But there is a formidable constituency intent on doing down the BBC and other publicly-funded services (aided by the insidious and ubiquitous Tory front group, The TaxPayers’ Alliance - thank goodness for the sane voice of The Other TaxPayers’ Alliance).
Murdoch wants the BBC cut, seeing his TV (and newspaper and web) offerings threatened by the Corporation on one side and “new” media – YouTube and torrent sites (as well as webcasting of English football from Asia) – on the other.
David Cameron is happy to provide – he will end the BBC Trust, the Corporation’s governing body, but has (as usual) no stated plans about what happens next. All that matters is keeping Murdoch as his influential newspapers onside.
In the end, public service broadcasting is like other public utilities – providing access where the market cannot provide, at a relatively low cost, for the general benefit of the population at large. It is vital to our politics, democracy and culture. It’s worth defending.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Belgium strikes back!
Feb 26th
No comment necessary…
Much credit to idontwanttoberude.com
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Much ado about nothing?
Feb 23rd
So it seems that ‘Bullygate’ is not having much impact, based on the latest polls – ICM (Guardian) has the Tory lead down to seven points (in polling completed on Sunday evening):
Meanwhile YouGov’s daily poll (for the Sun) has the lead at six: Con 39%, Lab 33%, LibDem 17%, others 12%. Of course, the Sun doesn’t focus on this, but on it’s ‘bullying’ poll and a photograph of Mandy with his hand planted on his forehead (of course, he was doing nothing more than sweeping back his hair). Fair enough: the Sun operates in a certain way; it’s chosen its side, and won’t stop the mud-slinging now.
But as for the Guardian – they still seem to picture things as rosy in David Cameron’s garden. However, the trends are not going well for the Tories. Surely they should be doing better than this?
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Let’s not be beastly
Feb 22nd
Politics is a blood sport – but I fear that some nasty and base elements, outside the established limits of the game – are entering a British general election campaign in a way rarely seen before.
Yesterday, the Observer relaunched with big fanfare – and a big accusation. The prime minister was a bully, claimed its star columnist Andrew Rawnsley, whose new book ‘The End of the Party’ was being serialised in the newspaper. The “evidence” came from “Downing Street sources” – and apparently credible ones. This is not the first time that Gordon Brown’s temperament has been called into question: others have claimed previously that mobile phones and printers get chucked around No 10; he admits himself that he ‘gets angry’ in his pursuit to get things done. But he and his closest advisors, including the ubiquitous Peter Mandelson, denied the “bullying” charge.
Later on Sunday came a new twist: the head of the National Bullying Helpline claimed that Downing Street staff had called her service to complain about the prime minister’s behaviour. Additional credibility? Maybe – but check the source and the motivation. The National Bullying Helpline was set up just a few years ago – it is a charity, but not an long-established one. Its patrons include a Tory MP (Ann Widdecombe) and a Tory councillor. The front page of its website features a quote from David Cameron. Secondly, the essence of a charity helpline would seem to be confidentiality – as pointed out by rival (and longer-established) charity Bullying UK.
There may be no smoke without fire – but the smoke has a distinctly partisan smell. And should the media – especially the BBC – be leading with this type of story (especially the Observer claims item, which essentially amount to a puff-piece for the newspaper)? Other political stories, such as the Tories’ poll numbers dropping below 40%, were nowhere to be seen.
However, a more worrying portent of a vitriolic campaign ahead came via Iain Dale’s Diary, on which the serial Tory selection process failure posted some ‘artwork’ that depicted Gordon Brown as Hitler (as Danny Finkelstein said on his Twitter feed, the demonisation of Gordon Brown is not so worrying as the trivialisation of Hitler). The parallels with recent hyperbolic debate in the United States are obvious, and worrying for the level of debate in this country in an election where there are real differences between the parties on issues of taxation, economics and the welfare state, probably for the first time in about fifteen or twenty years.
So why not have a serious debate about the best way to reach recovery, how we pay for public services, how we run state assets, what our foreign policy should be, how we should produce our energy? With all these challenges, we need ideas, not innuendo.
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