16.05.11
People often think that the most powerful people in the country are politicians.
They make the laws that rule us all. Despite their power, they are elected by us, the people and we can throw them out of office every five years. There are more than 60 million of us in this country. If most of us want something, a politician hoping to be elected will probably promise it. If the government oversteps the line, there are potentially 60 million people to scare the living bejeezus out of them by violently smashing through their police lines and then queuing politely for their turn to sit around peacefully in Fortnum and Masons.
So, perhaps it is us, the people, who are most powerful. But how would people have protested against the Iraq War if they didn't know it was happening? In the most part, we got that information from the news industry. If they hadn't reported it, or if they'd reported only the pro-war arguments and none of the anti-war arguments, then how many would have turned up to that protest?
This is the bluntest of tools the news industry has at its disposal. They have other, more subtly sharp ones, all the more effective for being less noticeable.
It would have been difficult for the media to suppress the flaws in the stated arguments for the Iraq war, because they were quite obvious and so a lot of people would have noticed them and passed them on by word of mouth or the internet.
But not all flaws in arguments are so obvious, and some things do go unreported.
Recently, the press ran several days of coverage on the
issues surrounding
equality - equal pay, equal opportunities,
and so on. Between their news pieces, editorials and comments they covered almost every aspect of the issues.
Except, in all the excitement, they somehow neglected to mention that the government was running a public consultation on exceptions to the age discrimination laws (or if they did, it wasn't very prominent - I didn't see it and I was actively looking for it). This
consultation was published on the government's
Central Office of Information website, which I'm guessing journalists must check regularly for government press releases. Or perhaps they rely on press releases via email, I don't know. There are now less than 10 days left on this consultation.
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18.04.11
Poor Nick Clegg.
Before the election he was perhaps the most popular man in politics - even other politicians were clambering over each other to agree with him. Or so the press would have us believe, anyway. Actually, while some newspapers were singing his praises, others were mocking him. Arguably the latter sections of the press were those that might be seen as part of the establishment, and their mockery acted as reverse-psychology support for his anti-establishment positioning. I may be over-thinking that, but probably not.
I'd guess Clegg's support came from two main groups. Firstly, political tacticians who probably wanted to see Labour removed from power, but didn't trust the Conservatives to rule by themselves and thus wanted a coalition government. The second group of supporters were probably a little less politically astute and supported him because of the policies he said he wanted to bring in.
Many of Clegg's policies were extremely populist, but perhaps rather unrealistic. The biggest clue was probably his opposition to Trident. On the face of it, it might sound like a brilliant idea - the US are our allies and they have plenty of nukes, let them take up any slack while we save money. Or, you could take the compelling view that nuclear weapons are just downright evil and wrong, and we should set a good example to the world by reducing our ability to project death across the globe in the hope that others will see the light and be nice to us.
It would be nice if the latter argument was true. If the world's dictators were sane, kind and reasonable, and democratic states were made up of voters who were well-informed and logical, then it might just work. The evidence of history and current affairs suggests this is not the case. Even if I'm wrong about this, there are probably deep-rooted political reasons why it doesn't matter one way or the other.
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08.04.11
Robert Peston muses on the latest developments in the Murdoch phone hacking scandal.
The interesting thing about this scandal is that it very much looks like a case of the stupid being caught and the more deviously clever getting away, as is so often the case.
From what I've read, it appears that (most of?) the phone 'hacks' have consisted of celebs having their mobile phone voice mail accessed by the press because they didn't bother to change the default PIN on their voice mail service.
Mobile phone providers generally provide a service whereby if you ring a mobile number and get put through to voice mail (for example by not answering the phone), then you can not only leave a message but also listen to recorded messages if you know the PIN. Not changing the default PIN is rather like leaving your front door unlocked. Yes, the mobile phone companies should do more to make customers change the default number. Yes, it's unethical and perhaps downright criminal for anyone to take advantage of someone who doesn't know what they're doing. Yes, it's foolish to not read the manual and secure your voice mail.
My reason for highlighting the stupidity of the celebs for not changing their PINs is not to ridicule them (who hasn't made a mistake of this sort, at some point?) but to point out that the simplicity of this so-called-hack means it is easy to do, and also easy to track down and catch. The unsaid reverse of this, is that there are probably much more sophisticated hacks currently undetected and unreported.
On a 'social engineering' level, it would be somewhat surprising if there wasn't some bribery or blackmail going on within the low-paid workers of major communications companies, such as Virgin or BT. As communication hubs for telephone and internet, they'd be obvious and valuable targets, and the people who work there who have access to the recordings, logs and traffic probably aren't paid enough for all of them to resist bribery, nor sufficiently vetted to resist blackmail. If that sounds far-fetched, then perhaps you didn't read the news stories quite recently about phone banking call centre staff giving up information about their clients for money in their lunch breaks, as reported in the press. I'll add a link if I can find it again.
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29.01.11
Tony Blair's been in the news a lot recently thanks to his second appearance at the Chilcot Inquiry into the handling of the Iraq War.
There's been various news stories suggesting (again) that Blair had made up his mind to go to war long before the government 'officially' decided to go to war. He also stands accused (again) of running an almost presidential style of government, and not properly consulting his cabinet.
I've recently been reading
The Blair Years - Extracts from The Alastair Campbell Diaries, published in 2007.
What does Mr Blair's long-time spin doctor and loyal supporter have to say about it all?
Strangely, his book pretty much confirms it all, though admittedly it's somewhat open to interpretation - he certainly never explicitly says Blair made up his mind about Iraq beforehand (it would be strange if he did, all things considered), though he's fairly clear that Blair called the shots and cabinet consultation was very limited.
On the latter point, Campbell tends to look at everything through a prism of what is "professional", and presents a very black-and-white view of either working for the good of the party, staying "on-message" and toeing the line, or working against it. Cabinet members who spoke out, or spoke their mind, are regularly described in very derogatory terms, and Blair is said to have spoken in much the same way. Many of the female cabinet members in particular are derided for their lack of what Blair and Campbell see as 'professionalism', and even the popular Redcar MP Mo Mowlam is blasted, and her importance in the Northern Ireland negotiations is talked down compared to her own, more detailed description of events in her book,
Momentum.
Campbell's description of the final cabinet meeting to discuss Iraq essentially describes the cabinet being railroaded into agreeing what had already been decided.
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11.10.10
Mr Marr's quote, above, is referring to bloggers. Presumably he's not counting his esteemed colleagues
Robert Peston,
Stephanie Flanders,
Gavin Hewitt,
Rory Cellan-Jones,
etc. amongst their numbers.
Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, he went on to say, "a lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother's basements and ranting. They are very angry people."
I suspect this may often be true. I myself am single, balding, live with my parents and at times I'm somewhat annoyed about the chain of events that led to this situation, (
partially described here and
here).
I feel Mr Marr's comment underlines the problems with mainstream journalism on the internet today. It more-or-less accurately describes the immediate truth of the matter*, but it fails to address or explain the underlying causes or events that led to the situation. There's no attempt at analysis, or to inform and explain to the reader the more important underlying truth behind the present situation. Instead, Mr Marr's comments are reminiscent of the style of certain "Comment Is Free" journalists, in that he has chosen to say something that, while arguably true, is a generalisation specifically designed to grab attention and encourage comment and controversy, rather than to deliver something that truly educates and informs the readership with informed analysis, commentary and debate - the latter being the hallmarks and noble goals of true journalists, in my humble opinion.
It is no exaggeration to say that if it wasn't for the woefully poor national coverage of the effects of the Single Status Agreement on local government throughout 2007 to the present day, then this blog would not exist. The inadequate online coverage the issue has received from mainstream journalism makes me almost angry, though of course I'm not going to rant about it.
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29.06.10
In an attempt to tackle a reported deficit of £2Bn, the BBC has
announced "the first major changes by a publicly-funded organisation" to their pension scheme.
The BBC say their proposals include closing the final-salary scheme to new members and restricting pension payouts to 1% per year. They also include an option whereby existing members of the scheme can continue with the revised final salary plan, or switch to a defined contribution scheme.
The proposals are subject to a consultation period, concluding in the autumn.
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