Politics for Novices

Two-year-old Reporters

2012-01-26T18:40:00.004Z

It takes some bravery to stand up in court and tell people that you cannot write a team sheet especially when you are a football manager. However Harry Redknapp said "I am completely and utterly disorganised. I write like a two-year-old and I can't spell." He is brave because he did not need to use this sort of argument in his defence on a charge of tax evasion because I seem to remember that ignorance is not a defence in a court of law. He could have just said that he forgot. Maybe he is hoping for a sympathetic jury but I don't think he will find sympathetic opposition fans on the terraces.

I believe he is brave for admitting his ignorance and his inability to take professional advice. He is also brave because his defence is admitting that he is foolish. This made me wonder how you get a job as a football manager without being able to write a team sheet and without any organisational skills. Mostly I wrote this blog because of the last sentence on the ITV report. Harry "had not been paid for a newspaper column that he wrote for 18 months" Is it any wonder? He writes like a two-year-old.

Change the world

Good idea boss

2012-01-25T22:08:00.002Z

Homer Simpson gives Bart three pieces of advice that will get him through life. "Cover for me, good idea boss and it was like that when I got here" and it is the good idea boss that inspires this blog. It applies to everyone in work. All employees need to be diplomatic around their employer and it is not unknown for employees to butter up their managers. However this is not always the case and there are many reasons why some employees can't do this. Not everyone gets on with their manager. Some people don't even take jobs because they disagree with the aims of the company.

Could you have worked for Gaddafi or for Saddam? Conscientious objectors may object to working in the armed services but I am sure there are many more examples that are much more common. A friend of mine once described his role of filling bottles of branded beer and then switching bottles to a cheaper brand. The beer was the same but if people want to pay more for the same beer then it is up to them. However there is an element of deception in selling anything. Today I heard that I could go to a car main dealership and order a part which then comes from another part of town where I could have bought it at a lower price - hey that's capitalism for you.

I don't want to pick on Carol Vorderman but she was the first celebrity I though of in today's news articles about debt consolidation. Those who charge for this service are not getting a good press and it is easy to see why. You are in debt and then told to increase that debt so you can see more easily how your money is disappearing. It just isn't logical, especially to a mathematician. Did Carol decide that her boss had a good idea and those in debt may benefit from an increased debt? Well there weren't many on the BBC regional news this evening who agreed with her.

Change the world

It's called interference

2012-01-20T16:49:00.005Z

There are still suggestions that Mustafa Ameen interfered with the scorecard when Amir Khan fought Lamont Peterson over a month ago. It may be the case that Mr Ameen was really helpful and corrected genuine errors in the scoring by WBA supervisor Michael Welsh during the fight. It may also be the case that something more sinister is going on.

I watched an interview at http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/boxing/16646592.stm and Mustafa feels that he should not have been described as a mystery man. Well he was to most people. At around one minute Mustafa categorically denies wrongdoing at any time in his life. On this basis alone I would not trust him. However I will give him the benefit of the doubt. He has done things wrong in his life but forgot about them during the interview. It is easy to pick holes in Mustafa's explanations but you can do that yourself.

The answer does not lie with Mustafa Ameen because he cannot tell us that he has authority to act in the way that he did. The answer does not lie with Amir Khan for the same reason. He simply does not know why Mustafa was assisting Michael Welsh. The answer does not lie with Michael Welsh either so it is no use interviewing him.

The WBA may be able to help but the answer lies with the International Boxing Federation. They should tell us why a man in a hat was assisting the supervisor. Who gave him the ringside seat? Who gave him the authority? If Mustafa's assistance is not authorised then it's called interference.

Change the world

Making The World A Better Place

2012-01-20T12:51:00.001Z

There are times when we question whether we would intervene in an action when something is going wrong. A couple of years ago Boris Johnson made headlines because he helped in a mugging (in a good way) and there was a debate as to whether members of the public should get involved in crime prevention. The answer will vary from person to person. Some may think it is better to cross the road and look the other way. Others may think that something should be done if there is a reasonable chance of success. There will be others who would try to stop a crime even if they have a slim chance of success. Do you remember last year when a woman attacked armed robbers with her handbag? Alright she did think that one of the gang was being attacked but she didn't hesitate to defend this person and she didn't stop when she realised her mistake.

Yesterday we heard about a man who celebrated after leaving course with a suspended sentence. He was found guilty of being part of a serious assault in Manchester. The victim felt that justice had not been done but it would not stop him acting as a good Samaritan in the future. I don't know if justice was done but it is quite possible that celebrations are relevant and the sentence appropriate.

I did start this blog with the opinion that the public, like the victim, should get involved if they see something going wrong. If we don't then anarchy will rule. However the more I read the more I saw prejudice. It seems that if you have tattoos or if you publicly celebrate a non-custodial sentence then you should be locked up. The authors of the comments that I read felt it was appropriate to call the celebrant a thug and as an unemployed member of the public this somehow related to evil acts. How do we allow this standard of journalism?

The man who celebrated may not be a pleasant person, I don't know, but the only thing he has been convicted of is assault, and he has been sentenced for that. If the sentence was inappropriate, that wasn't his fault. Punching the air afterwards may have been inappropriate, but I think it's understandable under the circumstances, and it isn't a crime. Neither is getting tattoos, or drinking, or wearing a costume at Halloween, or eating a burger, or any of the other things he's shown doing.

My intention was to write about how everyone can act to make the world a better place and we should get involved if something is going wrong, but journalists need to take a lead.

Change the world

Who supports whom?

2012-01-07T22:59:00.001Z

A few days ago I added a comment to the Bishop of Lancaster's new year pastoral letter. He was asking whether the Church should continue to fund schools that are Catholic in name only. That answer is easy - the sign should come down and funding should stop. He also puts the more difficult question as to whether Catholics should support schools in which the majority are not practising Catholics. I posted an answer which mentioned the numbers, and the enthusiasm and motivation of those who are Catholic.

The question of church school funding came up at the hustings meeting at the last general election. I had presumed that it was common knowledge that church schools supported the state financially with parishioners part-financing them, but there was a common view that the state supported church schools. So which view is right? Bishop Campbell highlighted the financial assistance given to those of all denominations and none who belong to Catholic schools. At least one candidate at the last general election and some in the audience felt that the state was supporting church schools.

I think the answer lies in the child's perspective. They are receiving a public education in a church school. It is not a private education in which the state has to step in if the parents aren't able to pay. Catholics are expected to contribute to the funding of theirs schools, over and above the amount they contribute in taxes, which they pay at the same rate as those whose children go to secular state schools. In effect they pay twice.

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Suarez needs to learn a lesson

2012-01-03T21:33:00.003Z

I know that I have already written twice about Suarez but whenever I hear nonsense then I am inspired to write a new blog. Liverpool will not appeal against Luis Suarez's eight-match ban (see blogs from the 20th and 22nd December). It is obvious to me that regardless of intent (which I have no way of knowing) Suarez used a word many times that was perceived as offensive. Liverpool maintain that he is innocent. If that is the case then they should appeal. That is what the appeal process is there for. However Liverpool will not appeal because they fully support moves "to stamp out racism in every form, inside and outside the sport".

Liverpool are confused. They either think he is innocent, in which case they should appeal, or they think he is guilty and should not appeal on the grounds that they wish to "stamp out racism..."

Even worse, Suarez will "carry out the suspension with the resignation of someone who hasn't done anything wrong". Those who do wrong have their sentence reduced if they show remorse. Well he can't appeal for a reduction in the sentence on these grounds. Could the sentence be reduced on the grounds that he did not use that offensive word? I've not heard Suarez say this. Does he still think that this word is inoffensive in this country?

Liverpool feel that "the FA panel has damaged the reputation of one the Premier League's best players", when in fact the FA has been insulted by an organisation that will not follow the proper channels and prefers to criticise from the sidelines.

Change the world

Postal Votes Count Less

2012-01-03T16:33:00.003Z

The thing that took my eye for the first blog of the year was an article in today's local paper about a by-election in Morecambe on Thursday 22nd December. The winner is quoted as saying how pleased she was that she "got 80% of the ballot box vote, although it was an extremely low turnout".

The results were 191:153:106 which means that the winner received less than 43%. I am not sure of the difference in value between the votes in the ballot box and those in the post but the winner attaches some importance to it. However she was right about the low turnout. I was at the count but I didn't hear the percentage turnout - 10.99%.

Here is the real figure. The winner received around 4.7% of the possible vote. 4.7% sounds a little different from 80% but it tells a much more important story. Does anyone know of a lower turnout?

Happy New Year

Samoa celebrates New Year

2011-12-31T16:44:00.004Z

Samoa has lost a day. Yesterday to be exact, but the good news is that they planned it and they have now already celebrated the new year. There were images of this island on television yesterday and it made me think why the Samoans would wish to change their clocks, never mind the date. The reason, of course, is that Samoa is not just made up of sandy beaches and people on holiday but there is international trade going on. It just so happens that Australia and New Zealand were always a day out. I know the world is getting smaller but it must have been inconvenient for many including those working from Monday to Friday to have to deal with their counterparts on a four-day week basis.

Compare this with Britain. Alright there is no difference of 24 hours with our nearest trading partners but our clocks are different and this will place a smaller but similar inconvenience on our international trade. There are strong arguments to change the clocks twice per year which I wrote about in one of my blogs a couple of years ago at http://politicsfornovices.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-do-we-change-clocks.html but I don't agree with them. Wouldn't it be nice not to go round the house and change all the clocks twice per year? Many businesses have seasonal opening times despite the clock changes. Parks open in daylight hours. Samoa has made a bold move because it made sense, not to get its new year celebrations in first. Can we learn from them?

Change the world

Happy Christmas

2011-12-25T13:58:00.002Z

I am reading Bill Bryson's 'At Home'. I have read most of his books and really enjoyed them so I am sure that I will enjoy this one too. In this book he is looking at the history of household life and is mostly taking into consideration the last 160 years, otherwise he would have too much to write about.

The first chapter tells me about The Great Exhimbition of 1851 "the dream of a civil servant, Henry Cole" and it also tell me that Mr Cole's other claim to fame is the invention of the Christmas card. Bill reliably informs me that the reason for the invention of the Christmas card was to encourage people to use the new penny post. I always thought that cards were a commercial venture but there it is in black and white.

And that's why I don't send cards. However I was touched to see that I had two messages on my Facebook wall wishing me a happy birthday. The trouble is that I don't know what a wall is (or Facebook for that matter) so I will have to wait for a tutorial from one of my children before I answer these birthday messages. In the meantime, if you didn't get a card from me, happy Christmas.

Change the world

And Suarez is wrong

2011-12-22T15:14:00.004Z

Today's news is that Suarez is set to appeal. Is he saying that he is guilty but the punishment is too harsh (I have heard some commentators take this view) or is he saying that he is innocent? Well his agent is "convinced" that the punishment would be reversed, so that should mean he is innocent. However the agent went on to say that "it seems to us absolutely out of proportion," which suggests that he is guilty but the punishment was too harsh.

The appeal will be brought by Liverpool's lawyers who won't let him walk alone and there are many who are convinced that Suarez is not a racist. This is not the issue. The point to be considered is whether Suarez acted in a racist manner and that means that the perception of his words is all important.

Did Evra make up hearing racial abuse? I don't think so. The obvious sentence is guilty with mitigating circumstances. The complexity arises in the size of the punishment not in the conviction that the sentence should be overturned.

Change the world

Liverpool FC is wrong

2011-12-20T22:17:00.002Z

It is only a few minutes since I published my last blog but I had to write about Liverpool's Luis Suarez. He has been found guilty of repeatedly insulting the Manchester United player Patrice Evra because of his race. The word used was a Spanish variation of the word negro and Suarez denied that it was an insult in South America. That's fine if they were in South America but they were in England. More importantly, it was perceived as an insult.

The reason I am writing about this decision is not because it is remarkable but Liverpool's reaction is worthy of comment. "We find it extraordinary that Luis can be found guilty on the word of Patrice Evra alone". They went on to say in their report that "no one else on the field of play...heard the alleged conversation between the two players". Now I have just heard a report that told me Suarez did not find a certain word racist. He needs to learn that racist comments are racist and Liverpool needs to learn that this is the main point.

It is one thing to prove whether a player racially verbally abused another in a certain match. It is much more significant to think you can get away with racist comments.

Change the world

A tactic of last resort

2011-12-20T19:57:00.005Z

In the news yesterday was an article about riots in Egypt. The ruling council described the pro-democracy campaigners as trying to bring down the state and said they were provoking soldiers into retaliation. This was not how the BBC reporter saw it when describing an attack on a female protestor who was fully veiled prior to the attack but she was kicked and beaten and her body exposed. The case for the protestors is also strengthened with the incontrovertible evidence of hundreds with injuries and twelve people who have died. The beating is one of the worst that I have seen in many months. Add to that the religious implications and it is easy to see that Egyptian problems are rising.

There was also footage of an Egyptian soldier firing his gun directly into the crowd. I am old enough to remember the Guardian advert in which you saw what you thought was a certain outcome and it turned out there was an alternative meaning to the images. Then we found out a third reason for what was happening. It really is hard to argue against the way the BBC reported the incident so let's take this story at face value. The forces of law and order had taken things far too far and a moving crowd was being shot at. The likely outcome was that one more protestor was going to be shot and perhaps became one of the twelve who died.

Compare that with today's news. It has been suggested that our police force could be issued with live firearms in order to deal with riots. Indeed the review from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary suggests that the police may be justified in shooting arsonists or protestors throwing missiles. Of course this would be a tactic of last resort but I wonder if that was the justification for the Egyptian soldier shooting into the crowd.

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The message from Feltham and Heston

2011-12-16T13:58:00.003Z

When by-elections occur there is a general expectancy for the party (or parties) in power to lose ground to their opponents. There is a general expectancy that the main opposition party will increase its vote and this tendency is strengthened if the by-election is in a constituency already held by that opposition party. So it was no surprise to see that Labour won the Feltham and Heston by-election yesterday with an increased majority. It was no surprise to see the number of votes go down for the Conservatives and for the Liberal Democrats.

It was not a verdict, as Ed Miliband put it, "on the government's failed economic plan". This presumes that the economic plan has failed when many would not agree. In fact constraints on public spending were inevitable after the note was passed from the former labour treasury minister that there is no money left.

According to the victor Ms Malhotra, it showed many things including "the verdict of young people in Feltham and Heston looking for a job." No it didn't. The election showed how many votes went to each candidate, nothing more nothing less. There was one definite statistic and that was the turnout of 28.8%, the lowest in a by-election for 11 years.If there is any clear message from this by-election it is that we are desperate to change our electoral system.

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We all think independently

2011-12-14T06:08:00.003Z

I like to keep political leaflets that come through my door and look back at how all political parties act on the promises that they made before an election. One party in Morecambe, the Independent Party, aka Morecambe Bay Independents and by all accounts aka lots of other things, have been in the news recently because of the number of names that they possess. One of their taglines in their leaflets asks you if you are sick of party politics with the presumption that you will vote for their party if you don't like other parties. Did you spot the flaw in this argument? Yes they are a party complete with party politics.

They are also the ones who make the headlines when it comes to making you sick. The problem for the people of Morecambe is that the Town Council is run by this party who have not published a constitution and whose one premise is to work for the town. That's sounds fine but is meaningless. Do they support saving money for the town or spending it? Do they support economic over environmental concerns? In fact what is their position on anything? And if they are independent shouldn't all their members have different views anyway? Now that would be a tagline - The Independent Party - we all think independently!

The trouble with having independent thought is that they are a united party, but some of them decided that they wanted to form a new party and they gave themselves the name Independence 4 Moreambe or I4M for short. Of course the original grouping did not like this and they "trademarked" the opposition group name. It seems this was the MBI's original name (among many others). Well I am willing to accept this argument even if nobody else has heard of it.

The trademark stopped I4M or whatever they are going to call themselves now from standing in a by-election on 22nd December. Sick of party politics?

Change the world

How do you trust Kelvin McKenzie?

2011-12-09T22:13:00.002Z

Kelvin McKenzie, the former editor of the Sun is often seen on television because of his forthright views. Today is no exception because of the way he argued the case for the Sun on yesterday's The Politics Show. He suggested that the scurrilous articles seen in the Sun actually came from reporters in Merseyside. He has apologised today and his defence was that Hillsborough was 21 years ago.

The trouble with this defence is that he has had 21 years to get things right. Firstly he shows no remorse for his decision to run stories that were scurrilous. Secondly he didn't get his facts right yesterday. Thirdly, and for me most importantly, this man can argue so vehemently and be so wrong.

"The Truth" was Kelvin's Hillsborough headline. He may say some things that are true. The trouble is that even if he labels them as true they may still be 'misremembered', and when he puts forward a compelling argument I will never know if he is just making it up.

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Britain's European League

2011-12-07T23:45:00.001Z

I have just been watching the leading item on the BBC’s ten o' clock news which is about David Cameron and how he would fight for the nation's interest on Thursday and Friday when the EU summit will be looking at changing the way the EU works. The challenge from Tory MPs was "do the nation proud...and show some bulldog spirit", and "seize the moment" (to see off the threat of further EU integration). The main issue should not be about the British role in Europe but how to resolve the problems in the Eurozone, as Nick Robinson put it, "we have to boost confidence in the Euro, in the Global economy and we have to do it now".

Confidence in the Euro did not seem to concern Tory MPs. On the other hand Ed Miliband was mostly concerned with David’s specific goals. The news item gave the impression that Ed was an EU supporter and he wanted those goals to put Britain at the centre of Europe as Ed did not want Britain to be left on the sidelines. I wonder why I was left with the impression that Ed just wanted David to be specific in order to give ammunition to the Tory euro sceptics.

Who can blame Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy if they wish to tighten up the rules within the Eurozone? How can David Cameron disagree? However if he does agree then he has to meet the wrath of a large section of his own party. The French and the Germans are going to the summit in the desperate search for agreement. The British are going to the summit concerned with their position in a league table. The trouble is they haven’t decided whether they want to be at the top of the Champions League or in the Blue Square Conference. If we are marginalised then I would not be surprised.

Change the world

What is the fuss about Jeremy Clarkson?

2011-12-01T22:41:00.003Z

I had to switch the computer on and write this blog because of the first question on Question Time. The question was "do the panel feel that Jeremy Clarkson should be prosecuted for his comments about strikers and if found guilty should he be taken outside and shot?" This joke was met by widespread approval, with applause and laughter.

The first to answer was Deborah Meaden who added to the humour by saying that we should forget about the prosecution bit and just take him outside and shoot him. She didn't like what he said, it was an awful thing to say and it wasn't funny. Yet she has just been laughing at exactly the same joke when it was directed at Clarkson, and she made a similar joke. She either thinks this joke is funny or she doesn't and for me her body language was stronger than the words that came out of her mouth.

The second to answer was Mary Bousted, a trade union leader who didn't want to be "po-faced about this" and then she was po-faced about this because she had been to a country where people had been shot for being members of a trade union. She obviously finds Jeremy's comments plausible rather than humorous and because of this his comments were unacceptable. As for me, I can't believe that people in this county can fail to see that Jeremy was trying to be funny - even people who have visited Colombia. She asked if you replaced the word strikers for another group of people then would you still see it as funny. Well the questioner did replace the word strikers with Clarkson and it was funny.

Even Ken Clarke felt it was a really bad taste joke but admitted that the question was funny and had been laughing when the question was put. He failed to see that it was the same joke but he was right when he said the indignation was mock.

The real point (which happened to be the second question) is about disagreeing or agreeing with the strikers. We should not shoot them, that was just a joke, but many agree with Jeremy and feel that the strikers were wrong. This really was a non-question. We should not be thinking about prosecuting Jeremy Clarkson and we shouldn't be thinking about shooting him - unless of course it is a joke.

Change the world

Do you have a better answer?

2011-11-30T23:06:00.000Z

Ed Milliband was in the House of Commons today discussing the impact of the strike action by public workers. He was not going to demonise the dinner lady, the cleaner or the nurse as these are people who earn in a week what the chancellor pays for his annual skiing holiday. He got loud cheers from the Labour benches but I did not understand what this meant. So I took a look at where the chancellor had gone on his skiing holiday.

I had thought that skiing holidays were expensive and according to Ed nurses must be on a good wage if one week's pay could take them on holiday, but I did not think that this was what Ed wanted to say. However if you take Ed at his word then I never expected nurses to be earning so much as it was easy to find headlines telling me that George Osborne had paid £11000 for a skiing holiday. So is Ed telling us that the strikers are earning a lot of money or did he simply make a mistake?

Let's take it that he made a simple mistake, after all we are all human, but if he did make a mistake then why did he get all the cheers from the Labour benches. Possible answers are that all Labour MPs are sycophants. I don't think this is right. Could it be that all Labour MPs think that nurses earn £11000 per week. I don't think this is right either. The probable answer is that they all made a simultaneous mistake (my tongue is firmly in my cheek). Do you have a better answer?

Change the world

Change the manager

2011-11-30T22:33:00.003Z

About a year ago Ian Holloway threatened to resign as the Blackpool manager if he was fined for fielding a weakened team for a cup match. It is possible that some managers would do this because fighting for promotion or avoiding relegation may be their priority over a good cup run. As it happens Blackpool were fined £25000 and Ian offered his resignation which was not accepted. There was a valid defence for Ian in that the players he selected were good players (he told us they were good) who played well and only just lost to a late goal.

You would hope that any team whether professional or amateur are actually trying to win. What's the point of playing sport otherwise? So it is only right that a sporting organisation should come down heavily against people who don't try to win. £25000 may be the right figure for Blackpool but if you take Ian at his word then they should not have been fined at all.

Compare that with yesterday's report that the Blackburn manager, Steve Kean had forfeited the game against Cardiff. If this were true then Blackburn's fine should be substantially higher than Blackpool's. Thankfully he was taken out of context and he clarified that “there is absolutely no way that we would ever consciously forfeit a game, quite the opposite".

I love the explanation that he gives. “What I was trying to say was that by not winning we had forfeited an opportunity to take another step towards a Wembley final". It is quite clear that he doesn't understand the word forfeit, surrendered as a punishment. I really don't think he means what he is saying even with the clarification. I think he is trying to say that Blackburn got knocked out of the cup.

Let's give Steve the benefit of the doubt. He doesn't know what forfeit means and what he actually said to the press was the opposite of what he meant to say. Yesterday his injured players could have played but this was the wrong thing to say and today we learn that they couldn't play. We should not fine Blackburn Rovers for fielding a weakened team but what do you do to a manager who can't communicate?

Change the manager.

Another cockling disaster?

2011-11-29T12:31:00.003Z

In 2004 we had one of the worst tragedies of recent times on our doorstep in Morecambe when the Chinese cocklers died. What has happened since then? Well we have had the beds closed to all cockling, then re-opened then closed again. Morecambe Bay was closed to cockling in 2009 and has not re-opened. Unfortunately the closures are not caused by the need for safety but because of depletion of stocks. so no fishing is allowed.

Cockling still went on near Lytham up to a couple of weeks ago when the beds there were closed. Again the closure was not for safety grounds but was caused by depleted stocks. This isn't to say that the issue of safety has gone away. Another tragedy is waiting to happen. How can this be? We don't allow fishing to go on without the correct equipment and without a permit, however it was in the news a few years ago that it was easier to get a permit to go cockling than it was to fish on the canal.

I am sure that there a lot of people with a lot of answers but we need an answer now to prevent another tragedy. For what it's worth, I believe we should change the idea of 'fishing' for cockles to thinking about farming them. Let farmers have land which is theirs to police. We would not have the problem of anyone drowning including gangmasters or Chinese or Russians or anyone else who does not know the water.

At least we won't have another disaster while the beds are shut, but they will re-open when the stocks are replenished.

Change the world

Morecambe Bay Bridge

2011-11-25T07:32:00.003Z

Yesterday I was looking across Morecambe Bay from Heysham towards Barrow and thinking about the debate over whether we should have a bridge. It is around 55 miles to get from Heysham to Barrow by road and if you take the direct route it is around 15 miles. If you drive across a bridge you could save at least 40 minutes by driving at national speed limits. If you know the area then savings could easily be an hour on each trip. It is easy to see the benefits to the transport system.

There are also benefits to the local economies. Businesses locate where it is efficient to locate and I am sure that if I had a business that relied on the transport system then I would be based near a motorway, not in the Morecambe peninsula. Another benefit, if you believe that renewable energy is the way forward, is that this bridge would be the place to build wind turbines.

There are usually many different views on any subject and the Morecambe Bay bridge is no exception. What would be the environmental impact? I have walked across the Bay and the wildlife that I saw was on the coast living next to man's environment. There may be an adverse effect but I am also aware that wildlife adapts. In fact there may be environmental benefits because of renewable energy. Less serious objections are that better transport systems aid criminals, and isolation is good (it is good if you do not wish to participate with the rest of society).

I remember from my physics A level that a system is only as good as its weakest link and that brings me to the main objection to building a bridge. There is a problem of getting from Heysham to the M6. If we can't have a bypass around Lancaster then a Morecambe Bay bridge would be a gateway to a bottleneck.

Change the world

Changing the traffic lights

2011-11-19T20:22:00.003Z

If you know the Morecambe and Lancaster area then you will know that we have significant traffic problems especially on the route between Morecambe and Lancaster. Rush hours are bad and it doesn't get much better between rush hours. However there are times in the late evening and at night when you can drive at the speed limit.

I was driving home this evening and had to pass some traffic lights which have been recently built because of a new supermarket. I had to brake quite strongly and then had plenty of time to see that no cars came out of the car park. There must be so many changes of lights when no cars go in or out of the supermarket car park as it isn't open 24 hours but the traffic lights don't know that.

I have noticed traffic lights changing when there is next to no traffic on the road on many occasions and thought about the way the French turn their lights to flashing amber. In this way drivers take responsibility for themselves. What it would mean is that drivers wouldn't have to break sharply or stop at all when there is no reason at all to do so.

It may even be the case that turning off traffic lights will improve the traffic during the day. In Portishead they found that doing this reduced travelling times by over 50%. Flashing amber trials have been carried out in Portsmouth and considered in other towns and cities, but change is not without its critics. What do you do if two cars come to a junction at the same time. Well the answer is easy if you have ever seen traffic lights out of action. The two car drivers work it out between themselves and the traffic moves so much better.

Change the world

Remembering the glory of war

2011-11-13T18:30:00.002Z

This blog will be contentious especially as it is written on Remembrance Sunday. What does the poppy signify? Well it is a memorial of war made famous by the poem In Flanders' Fields. The response to this poem was another poem called "We shall keep the faith". Ypres, and battles in general, are places for heroes where valour is shown and where the dead are honoured.

Unfortunately history is littered with dishonourable acts of war, some of them caused by disobeying orders, some by obeying them, and some accepted by authorities until they were discovered - and that just accounts for the stories of war that we know about.

It seems to me that an act of heroism may, in other circumstances, be seen as an act of recklessness. If you go over the top and get killed it may be that a posthumous medal is awarded but it may also be the result of a bad decision or a miscommunication. Lord Tennyson knew that the Charge of The Light Brigade was a foolish error but he highlights the valour of those soldiers. I would highlight the foolishness.

You may remember the heroics shown in the film Zulu. The characters played by Michael Caine and Stanley Baker both won VCs along with nine others, the highest number awarded in one battle. However do you remember the heroics of the Zulus or are they just the unsophisticated enemy that need to be killed? The film does show the bravery of the Zulus and it could be argued that they were much braver than the British forces, but I don't think that the Zulus are the first soldiers that are thought of today.

In the Boer War, those brave soldiers fighting guerrilla warfare were Boers. If the British didn't invent concentration camps in the same war then they certainly enhanced their popularity. More recently, if it were not for the widespread availablity of cameras then we may never have learnt about the torture going on in Abu Ghraib.

A few years ago I was speaking with some French people who had no idea about the meaning of the poppy. Would you know the French flower of remembrance? The answer is the bleuet or, as we know it, the cornflower. The blue flower was also the colour of their uniforms. When it comes to remembering all of the war dead then the forces from that particular country come first, and if that is the case then remembrance highlights division.

War is not honourable. According to Tony Benn it is a failure of diplomacy. I have absolutely no problem in supporting soldiers who work in extremely dangerous circumstances. My problem is that we forget the political failures and glorify war.

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Look for good in people

2011-11-09T22:12:00.001Z

"Politicians are only in it for themselves". I have heard that comment myself even though I am untainted by victory. The naive / cynical spectrum applied to Jerry Sadowitz's humour is equally applicable to how we see politicians. All politicians may just be in it for themselves or they may all be true philanthropists. How can you be a complete philanthropist without being a saint? After all, we all have to look after our own bills. We can't give all our money away. That tells you that I am not at the extreme end of the naive spectrum.

On the other hand you may criticise politicians for looking towards their own concerns. Their decisions don't relate to right and wrong but how to line their pockets and win more votes. You would then spend time finding contradiction in what they say and do (how do you know when a politician is lying? When their lips move). Even if there is a good result you would still feel the politician is acting in a way that would be approved by Alan B'stard from The New Statesman.

There is a blogger, not a million miles from where I live who reminds me of Jerry Sadowitz at his worst. There is no humour so there is no defence that he is an entertainer. He is a cynical politician. The trouble with this is that his life in not enriched by cynicism. Taking a perceived negative viewpoint and magnifying it makes total cynicism a little more inevitable. Then you end up saying that you have seen it all and can't do anything about it, and then you stop trying.

If you gave me the choice of being totally cynical or totally naive I know which I would choose and my life would possibly be so much the better for it. As with most circumstances it is probably better to have a balanced view and if you can see good in people they maybe they will see good in you.

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Jerry Sadowitz II

2011-11-08T11:19:00.003Z

No there aren't two of him but I wanted to write more about Jerry Sadowitz and the naive / cynical spectrum of his humour. Jerry has been in trouble for making a joke about Canadians. He doesn't like them because half speak French and the other half let them. Well I think that's quite funny even though he has managed to insult the whole of Canada.The point is that he can't hate them that much because he allowed a young Canadian comedian called Bobby Mair to support him on Sunday. So you can take anything Jerry says with a few pinches of salt even though there are times when he is on an aggressive rant. Maybe he is a pussycat underneath all of his many layers.

In general I would favour the naive humour which is not so obviously attempting to hurt others. There was one vitriolic attack on a celebrity now deceased. I spent some time looking up the cause of this attack and my conclusion is that if you are on the naive end of the spectrum you would say that there is no reason for any attack and if you are cynical then there is no smoke without fire. The humour came from Jerry's ability to question society's naivety. He is saying things that others dare not speak.

Maybe it was a deliberate contrast but Bobby Mair's humour was totally different to Jerry's. I prefer the theatre to the cinema because I can be part of the performance. As a member of the audience I have some ability to influence that performance even if it just by clapping. We want a better performance so it was sad to hear one heckle when Bobby told us, as part of a joke, that he didn't want to die. Someone shouted "you just have". Was Jerry in the audience? Well the heckle wasn't funny so I don't think it was him.

You can be funny and tell a joke that hurts nobody. You can tell a joke about a whole nation but not mean to hurt anyone and still be funny. You can inadvertently hurt people with comedy but if the intention is to hurt rather than entertain then it isn't funny. Motivation is the key factor and Jerry is first and foremost an entertainer. I will continue to enjoy his humour but I do need quite a lot of salt.

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Jerry Sadowitz

2011-11-07T18:43:00.000Z

I saw Jerry Sadowitz in Lancaster yesterday. I don't mind if jokes are not politically correct as jokes are generally offensive to someone. My rule of thumb is don't tell offensive jokes to the person you are offending as they don't tend to get the joke. The audience was mostly male, white and in their fifties and this audience was spared from being the butt of any joke, unless they happened to come from Manchester or Doncaster or Grimsby or Ireland. Even if they did then all they had to do was keep quiet and nobody would know. Women were slightly less fortunate but his jokes could be seen as tongue-in-cheek.

It is also essential for good comedians to make jokes about themselves, and Jerry is certainly able to do this. He calls himself all sorts of things but in the end we were not entirely sure if he meant any of it. He tells us that his esteem was so low that he would rather be a second-rate Bernard Manning than a first-rate Jerry Sadowitz.

Jerry is not a "mock the week" comedian. If Liam Fox is in the news then it doesn't really matter to him as another politician is doing something similar this week. So Jerry directs his humour at other celebrities but is more at the "cutting edge" with his observations. As I see it, whatever these celebrities are alleged to have done, there will be more celebrities doing something similar this week. Jerry's objection to topical humour is not about it being topical but about the subject.

There is some merit in telling us that our sense of humour has been numbed by the media, by other comedians and by political correctness and we should all be prepared to be offended for the sake of making the world a happier place, but I am left wondering if Jerry has been too long at the cutting edge and this has now affected his self-esteem and his popularity. There were times when his rant sounded like an alternative comedian with Tourette's and Jerry spent some time telling us that most comedians are really bad. There are times when offensive language is part of the joke but there were many times last night when the language was just part of a rant.

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Gaddafi Photo

2011-10-20T22:03:00.005+01:00

Why have we seen photos of the body of Colonel Gaddafi? Surely there was no reason for them to be released? Graphic photos of someone who has been shot should not be floating around the internet or shown on television news. This could be an incitement to additional violence by those who support Gaddafi or be used by them as propaganda.

It may even be the case that given the graphic nature of the photos they could pose a national security risk. All we needed was the transitional authorities in Libya to tell us that Gaddafi was dead. They are the good guys whoever they are.

Did you see what I did there? I used the same arguments that were used to stop us seeing Osama bin Laden's body. But do those arguments actually have any validity? Could the photos really be an incitement to additional violence, or might they instead bring a sort of closure to the episode? Or there is a third possibility, in this age of Photoshop, might they resolve nothing because of nagging doubts that they are real? What do you think? Did you agree with seeing the body, or would you have preferred a censoring of the photos?

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When sorry isn't sorry

2011-10-19T22:08:00.005+01:00

If someone said to you that it had been found that I had stolen some money and for this I am sorry, would you think I was sorry for stealing or sorry that I have been found out? I think that the best answer is that I was sorry that I had been found out, otherwise I could have gone for the simpler statement "I am sorry for stealing some money".

Dr Fox went to the House of Commons and said "the ministerial code has been found to be breached and for this I am sorry". I could have been wrong and Dr Fox was actually sorry for his actions but no I was right as he continued by saying "I accept that it is not only substance but perception that matters and that is why I chose to resign". As far as I can see he really isn't sorry for his actions and we can't feel too sorry for him as he hasn't lost his livelihood. He is still an MP. It's Mr Werrity I feel sorry for. How can he make a living now if he is not advising on anything and everything?

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Warm words from David Cameron

2011-10-17T22:00:00.004+01:00

When Margaret Thatcher privatised electricity companies it was supposed to make the companies competitive. There would be improvements in efficiency and it was a win-win situation. I had my reservations then and I definitely have them now that David Cameron is telling us to shop around. Prices are going up because of world energy prices but David tells us that we have to find ways of keeping prices down. I wished that I understood the tariffs and which company was best for me but I can't say that I do.

The argument for energy costs is a bit like the argument for good education. We don't want choice, we just want good local education, or in the case of energy, we just want a cheap supply. We don't want children transported from one part of town to another while other children are being transported in the opposite direction. As for electricity, it all comes from the same place, it is just a matter of which company we have to pay.

If the companies are spending their money on advertising and getting a profit, and we are spending our time changing suppliers then it must be an inefficient system. Not only is it inefficient but I have to wonder if I am failing to get the best price. Am I getting a fair deal? I don't know as I am also told that there is a lack of transparency from these companies.

It is one thing to have a prime minister tell us to get the best deals from the privatised companies. It is another to get a prime minister to give us the most efficient system to get the best price. I can't help thinking that that system was pre-Margaret Thatcher.

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Seeing Red

2011-10-15T23:03:00.003+01:00

I can't help feeling that Wales should be in next week's final of the rugby world cup. I have previously written blogs to say that rugby is far superior to football for many reasons, one of which is the respect that is shown to referees and I will still show respect to this rugby referee even if he made a mistake but I have to say that this referee got it wrong and the wrong team is going to the final. Alain Rolland did have options but he took the one that ruined the game.

A spear tackle is when a player's feet are raised above his head and he is taken to the ground. Sam Warburton did spear tackle Vincent Clerc but he let go as soon as he knew what was happening. There was no malicious intent. I know intent does not matter and laws are laws but interpretation of the punishment should include intent as there should be no place in the game for evil players. Interpretation of the punishment should include the severity of the injury and referees do look at the injured player before giving out a card. That seems reasonable but in this case I didn't even see the card being issued as the cameras missed it, but Sam was on the bench immediately and then we saw the referee look at the injured player.

It could have just been a penalty. It could have been a yellow card. However the most severe punishment was given when things could have been so much worse. There could have been intent, M Clerc could have landed on his head and he could have been driven into the ground. He could have been seriously injured. You don't have to watch much contact sport to see how players act maliciously but this was not one of those times.

Will this red card reduce malice? Of course not because none was there in the first place.

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A Conscientious Objection

2011-10-09T21:43:00.003+01:00

I can understand that there is a social aspect to religion. We should be looking for a peaceful world and care for those who need support. It is even better if the support means that individuals can look after themselves. So a great example would be for the state to provide employment rather than unemployment benefits and it is not difficult to understand if an archbishop should make a public statement along these lines. However there is a problem if those jobs relate to weapons of destruction.

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu has called for the government to buy more Harrier jump jets following a visit to BAe at Samlesbury where more than 500 jobs are set to go. Now I don't know what your ideas of a peaceful world includes. It may be that fighter planes bearing missiles and bombs may be part of your idea of gaining world peace but at the very least the idea is contentious.

It would have been so much easier for the Archbishop to pick on other causes that could create employment or even to take the opposite view and say that we should not be involved on creating weapons of destruction. It makes you wonder where conscientious objectors get their ideas.

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It could happen to anyone

2011-10-07T22:52:00.001+01:00

What were the odds on Wayne Rooney being sent off tonight?

Beware the dreaded keyboards

2011-10-04T22:08:00.005+01:00

Can you picture the scene? It is a big budget musical and everyone is happy and a character in the mould of Tommy Steele is shaking everyone's hand. Now think of Howard Hughes who had an obsessive-compulsive disorder. He would use tissues to pick things up so that he wouldn't catch germs. Howard's actions don't sound too sensible but if you follow the adverts and want to kill 99% of household germs then maybe these germs are things to avoid (even if tissues aren't the best method of containing them). Maybe that star of the musical should avoid shaking those hands on stage.

Today's news was that research has shown that if you share a desk then you should use "clean wipes" because poor hygiene is making us ill. The advice is to clean the keyboard "every now and again" to make sure that the previous user hasn't left their nasty bacteria on it. The study didn't even look at viruses even though I thought a virus could only live inside a living cell. If things are really this bad then "every now and again" should mean "every time another person uses the keyboard - even if they only use it for a second".

Maybe Howard was right after all, but I know that I would prefer to be in the musical rather than helping Howard buy his tissues. Which are the best "clean wipes"? The ones that kill bacteria or viruses or the ones that kill the 1% left by the other wipes? We didn't even have wipes like this a few years ago and now they must be a really big business. My guess is that worry about hygiene is a bigger cause of sickness than bacteria passed on by poor hygiene on keyboards.

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Wasted NHS Money

2011-09-22T06:04:00.003+01:00

I have just heard two NHS related articles on the BBC news. The first was about the PFI initiatives to build hospitals. By 2049 more than £70 billion will have been spent on the construction and maintenance of buildings worth around £11 billion. The second article was about the probable scrapping of the national NHS computerised records system. By coincidence this project also cost £11 billion but there is now little confidence that the project could be delivered and trusts will use their own computer systems.

The PFI initiatives were set up to allow the private sector to help deliver public services. It sounds good but what it actually means is that public services have to pay for private support, and the private sector is not a benevolent society. Today's news is that up to sixty hospitals are on the brink of financial collapse because of these initiatives. It didn't surprise me that the private sector wanted significant reward. What did surprise me was how easily a Labour government continued with support for the private sector. It should be so simple. Government collects revenue. Trusts spend money. However it was decided that the NHS does not have the ability to follow this simple route and now we are paying the price.

As for the national computer system, I have heard that there could be a benefit if I walk into a hospital at the other end of the country and my records are available. I have never bought into this notion for many reasons. If I end up in hospital then there is a really good chance it will be my local hospital. If I do have to go to another hospital then the chances are that I will be able to speak with a doctor and tell then what is wrong with me. There are many more reasons why I was not keen on spending billions on a national computer system but I think you get the idea - decisions are being made recklessly which mean that our money is wasted and somebody should be accountable.

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I was misled

2011-09-08T23:13:00.002+01:00

It's only a few blog entries away, but on the 12th August I wrote that the words from the Police Complaints Commission that they "may have misled journalists" struck me as a cause for concern. the subject was the death of Mark Duggan.

Today on the news I hear that Mark's family has no trust in the IPCC's investigation but at least the IPCC admit that they misled journalists (not that they may have misled). Now the blame lies with the Police Complaints Commission and not with the journalists so it is no wonder the family can't trust this organisation.

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Why dislike the X Factor?

2011-09-05T16:05:00.000+01:00

I always thought that I was indifferent to the X Factor - well not completely indifferent. I like to see contestants sing badly and then listen to the comments of the judges. As for those who audition well, they have to follow a formula. Firstly they have to be able to sing and hit the notes, secondly, they have to sing in a popular style. Maybe their voice could be influenced by blues or jazz or a number of other influences but essentially they have to produce formulaic pop music.

What changed my opinion from indifference was watching the highlights of the Cropredy music festival. This festival is organised by Fairport Convention, a group I have seen on a handful of occasions and they have always been brilliant. Most importantly they have produced a following which is just as friendly as they are. However this group would not last a minute on the X Factor. They would be stopped because it takes minutes or hours to get into this type of music. Some would say years. I also went to see a folk group on Friday that had influences from many different directions. North America, France, Portugal and this country were all involved in creating their music and there were probably many other sources.

If you like to hear criticisms of people who fail, if you like all your music to sound the same, then the X Factor could be for you.

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How to get sent off

2011-09-04T16:05:00.000+01:00

I have been watching the Wigan versus Warrington match this afternoon. The match is almost finished but Gareth Hock for Wigan has decided that there is still plenty to play for. So much so that Gareth thought it was worthwhile putting his fingers in the eyes of Ben Harrison the Warrington prop. Then Gareth followed it up with a push/punch with his left arm and an attempted upper cut with his right. For this misdemeanor he is placed on report.

I don't know if all of this was seen by the referee, but I had two thoughts on this incident. Wouldn't it be nice to think that a player's eyesight was more important than whether a boot went onto a white line in the process of scoring a try. So bring in the technology to allow the referee to know exactly what has gone on. Secondly, if the referee did know what went on, and what I saw was correct (I only saw the replay three times) then the punishment should relate to the incident. What do you have to do to end up in the sin bin? What do you have to do to get sent off?

The good news is that the initial comment was that incident was shocking, and after the match we were told that there is no place for this type of action in the game of rugby league. So maybe my interpretation was correct.

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More Marmite required

2011-09-02T08:49:00.003+01:00

In 1983 I was 22 years old. I had been politically active since I was a teenager but one event of that year inspired me to more political activity and it inspires me still. You may remember the news programme called Nationwide and one particular interview with Margaret Thatcher. If you don't remember Nationwide you will remember Mrs Thatcher, the Marmite of politics as you either loved her or hated her.

This was one of a series of interviews which allowed members of the public ask their questions to famous people. They were in another studio and their faces were on a screen in the background. Mrs Thatcher was asked about the Belgrano and how it could have been "a danger to our shipping" when it was outside the exclusion zone and heading in the opposite direction. You know, the thing you do if you don't want to be shot at. All Margaret did was to repeat her "danger to our shipping" phrase but had no substance to back this up. We were too stupid as members of the public to understand where the danger was coming from.

I suppose the Belgrano could have turned round and become aggressive and so could have been a danger, but I don't know of any Hollywood film that lets the good guys act like this. There is room for agreement with Maggie as long as you want to be one of the bad guys and if you are the bad guys then it isn't worth winning the war.

At the time of the interview I remember raising my arms in exasperation at the television. Maybe we need more Marmite to get more people concerned about politics.

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Do not disturb

2011-08-29T00:05:00.000+01:00

I have just been listening to Stephen Nolan's "fierce and feisty topical phone-in debate" on Radio 5 Live. The topic was how some nurses were wearing red tabards bearing the words "Drug round in progress. Please do not disturb", and the debate was fierce and feisty. On the one hand we had commentators telling us about the importance of getting the medications right. Consequences of error could be highly significant. On the other hand, and Stephen himself was in this camp, patients were being told not to speak with nurses and this may be really significant in their care.

There are those who deny the benefits of medical intervention, including the use of drugs, but let's put those arguments to one side and say that getting the right medicine is really important. Nurses have to concentrate and should be allowed to do so. On the other hand the interruptions may be seen as a waste of the nurses time. Whether it really is a waste of time could be debated fiercely. It may be that chit-chat should be avoided but one person's banter is another person's absolute need for reassurance.

I am biased. I know of the importance of not disturbing a nurse giving out medications. However I was visiting a friend in hospital when she wanted to go to the toilet. She said she needed to go fairly urgently and the only nurse on the ward was giving out medication. The nurse asked me to find another nurse. I searched the whole ward and had to go back to her. She told me where the staff room was and I eventually found another nurse who was on a break.

The answer is really simple. If we don't want medication errors then we make sure that staffing levels are appropriate.

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Who Pays for CRB Checks?

2011-08-26T00:05:00.000+01:00

Isn't the internet wonderful! All I have to do to look at my previous blogs on any subject is to put in a few words into a search engine. I have written before about CRB checks and how the Soham murders were involved in the move towards greater checks, and how, ironically, they would not have prevented these murders. I have now reminded myself of what I have already written. For the record you can see blog entries on 13th October and the 16th December 2009 and 8th February 2011.

However I haven't commented on who should pay for these checks. Should it be the employer, the employee or the state? Well all of society will benefit if less crime is committed so let's go for the state. On the other hand why should I have to subsidise companies who have to ensure their workforce is compliant with the law? Let those companies pay. However I have been reading that east Lancashire NHS workers (I used to be one of them) have to pay for their own checks. What's wrong with that? Isn't it just like professional fees that have to be paid by the individual?

Well no. It is simply a cost-cutting measure by the NHS trust http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/8189974.East_Lancashire_NHS_workers_to_pay_for_own_CRB_checks/

If you have read my previous blogs you will know that I am not a great fan of these moves which try to protect the most vulnerable in society. If you are a criminal but don't get caught then the check is irrelevant. If you are a criminal but have slipped through the net then you will be identified and will face the consequences. If you have never been caught for anything then what have you to fear? The answer may be the CRB fee. You have to pay with the money you get from your employer after you have paid tax on it.

If you had to devise a complicated system to raise more revenue for the state then this could be the answer.

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I may have been misled

2011-08-12T22:18:00.003+01:00

It is easy to forget last week's trigger for the riots in London and elsewhere. Businesses have been closed some have been destroyed by fire. It is not just business that has been affected and one of the lasting memories will be the personal attack on the Malaysian victim. Even worse, people have died. Most of the violence has been criminal, or at least mindless rather than a calculated response to injustice. The trigger is almost a sideline but remains significant, especially to the family and friends of Mark Duggan, the man who was shot dead by the police.

The Police watchdog, The Independent Police Complaints Commission has admitted that it may have misled journalists into believing that Mark Duggan may have fired on the police. We were told initially that there was an exchange of shots but both were fired by the police.

What struck me was the phrase "may have misled journalists". What does this mean? This is spin at its best (I would say worst). Which journalists were not misled? Can you talk of misleading information and then expect some listeners not to believe it? The only journalists who would not have been misled are those who are cynical of any press release by the police.

"May have been misled" strikes me as signifying that I should not believe anything this commission tells me.

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After the riots

2011-08-11T12:47:00.002+01:00

I was interested at one comment from Nick Robinson in The Daily Politics show today. He did not intend to show cynicism but purely as an observation he told us that the people involved in the riots and the people I was talking about yesterday do not tend to vote. If this causes them to be ignored, and it does, then their agenda will never be the same as the politicians' agenda.

Labour has moved to the centre. New Labour is a shadow of Old Labour. As for the Tories, I don't think Lord Ashcroft's money was used to support possible rioters who tend to live in Labour strongholds.

Before the election we were told about "broken Britain" but we hadn't seen London burning. David Cameron admits that parts of Britain are not only broken but sick but I am sure that he will tell ust that responsibility remains with the previous government. Yesterday I concluded that it was time to call for peace but in the immediate aftermath of the riots it is also time to punish looters and rioters. There are already calls to limit cuts on the police, to stop closures of prisons and to reverse softer sentencing plans. However, maybe in the near future the politicians could look at our political system as part of the malaise in society. One small change to AV didn't go too well so I won't hold my breath.

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A time for peace

2011-08-10T23:00:00.000+01:00

If our youth are "seen as scum then they act like scum". This was one forthright explanation for the recent riots by a Salford mother. This was certainly one of the explanations for the misbehaviour of football fans in the 1970s and there may be something in it. This may not be a popular view and it is much more likely that you hear about criminals on the street. However the lady on the news was overheard by a gentleman who felt that just because the local youth have nothing, "it doesn't give them the right to smash things up". I am sure that there is a lot of support for this view but not from the lady who was being interviewed. He also felt that "young kids who are unemployed and have nothing to do so let's go and smash some shops up". The lady was angry and felt that it was this man's "ignorance that makes kids do what they do".

Another lady was even more angry at those who had blamed parents. She claimed there were 10,000 people in that area on the previous night and they were not kids. She was interrupted by a supporter of riots shouting "let's have a riot" It seems that he can't get a job because foreigners are coming in to do the jobs that he could do. I wonder if there are any other explanations. The reporter responded by saying that nobody would invest in areas where riots take place to which he replied "that's up to them isn't it".

There may have been a genuine cause for concern that started the riots. If there was then it has long been forgotten. It is obvious that we have people rioting because they are criminals. Less obvious is the motive of those who are rioting for other political reasons. This is not the time to question motives. This is not the time to interpret the role of parents or investigate whether portions of our society view themselves as "scum". It is certainly not the time to wonder if our collective ignorance (not that of one man in Salford) causes the riots. It is time to condemn the riots and to call for peace.

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An eccentric outburst

2011-06-15T22:36:00.003+01:00

An orthopaedic consultant at Guy's made the headlines yesterday by shouting at Nick Clegg, David Cameron and their entourage. Nick Robinson suggested that he was shouting at the group in the background and I have read that he was objecting to members of this group wearing ties or not rolling their sleeves up but I didn't hear those words. Maybe a gesticulation can contain all this meaning, it's just that I didn't see it.

Much more important to me is what I do the next time I visit someone in hospital. Am I to take my tie off? Do I take off my jacket and roll up my sleeves? By coincidence I visited someone in hospital today. I asked the nurse if I had to take my tie or my jacket off. She hadn't seen this news item but I had told her about this news item before I made this request. She had never asked anyone to remove their jacket or tie to visit any patient.

Did the consultant use his influence correctly? If ties or clothes on forearms can cause bacteria to spread in hospitals then there is a strong case to roll up our sleeves physically and metaphorically. However, on the basis that there is no concerted effort to change our sartorial habits I would suggest that this consultant is simply making an eccentric outburst.

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A fantasy tale

2011-05-17T00:05:00.003+01:00

I went to a constituency meeting of the Liberal Democrats yesterday and I managed to put fox hunting on the agenda. As you would expect, there was a balanced reasoned discussion. Some members of the committee were strongly against hunting but most were neither strongly for or against it. However, if we had a motion to vote on I do not feel anyone would support the hunt and the anti-hunt lobby would carry the day. I have only been a member of this committee for eight years so I also asked the older members if anyone had vociferously supported fox hunting in the past. The answer was no.

Now our constituency is called Morecambe and Lunesdale and covers places like Carnforth. So if you lived in this town you would have to say that local Liberal Democrats are probably anti-hunting. If you said that Liberal Democrats are "pro hunting in my current semi rural constituency where there is a popular local hunt" then what am I to conclude?

Let's be nice and say this person has spoken to a Liberal Democrat who was pro-hunting. The nicest I can possibly be is to say that the quote is unwise. If I were not so nice I could say this person had set out purely to insult Liberal Democrats (because of the sentences that followed). A malicious gossip may be one step up on the niceness scale. More likely I could use stronger words. I could call this sentence as an example of a terminological inexactitude, but I am far too nice to use a (what's the word I am looking for?). Let's settle for fantasy.

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Notes on a "loony"

2011-05-16T00:05:00.002+01:00

I said I would write one more blog but I have had second thoughts. I was saving the last blog for Tuesday but I'll write one now and whenever I want to. The reason for this blog is that a friend has been in touch to say that she has seen Gregg Beaman's blog and posted a comment. She didn't say what she had written but she did tell me that he had presumed it was from me or my brother and had reacted like a "loony".

My one and only dealings with Gregg were on his blog entry from the 7th May. I have looked since then but I can't say I am bothered about looking now. My life has returned to its usual niceness. There are times when you deal with insults with polite requests and all you get are more insults and laughter. The time has come to shake the dust from my sandals and move on.

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Time for a change

2011-05-14T08:25:00.003+01:00

I'm just going out for the day but I have glanced at Gregg Beaman's latest post. His first sentence is wrong, which is par for the course. Martin Gradwell, my brother does not live in Morecambe. I do. I only live a couple of RC parishes away from Gregg who has chosen to lie, insult, withdraw the metaphorical hand of friendship by banning me, and not answer any specific question.

This is my 788th political blog of almost entirely enjoyable writing. Maybe it is time to concentrate on my other blogs but I will write one more when I get chance.

Change the world

P.S I didn't get chance to post this blog this morning so here it is.

The Exposé continues

2011-05-14T00:05:00.004+01:00

I had the misfortune to look at Gregg Beaman's blog a few days ago. He is not a nice person. In fact he hates niceness with a vengeance. I tried to moderate his insults of the Liberal Democrats with my comments but I'm sorry to say it hasn't worked. I am particularly sorry because we share the same faith and I find this the hardest thing to deal with.

I mentioned and quoted the comment my brother sent to him in my last post. Gregg didn’t publish that comment, but he did continue to insult my brother and me on his blog and in a string of emails to my brother. There are also a couple more comments that I sent to him which were not published but which were referred to by Gregg on his blog - not in a nice way. That’s how he works, without allowing anyone to contradict his ramblings, he quotes just enough out of context to ridicule his critics and now he has set up a poll, asking readers if he should publish my brother’s emails. That’s right, he won’t publish actual comments that are intended for publication but he will, at the discretion of his readership, publish private emails, or at least he says he will.

I gave the URL for the offensive blog in my last post although the only reason to look at it is to see how Gregg is so forthright with his insults and lies. Perhaps it's better not to look at it so I’ll give you a flavour of the post along with my censored comments.

He begins by saying “I really did enjoy seeing the Liberal Democrats get a bloody nose yesterday” and goes on with more in the same vein. There’s a name for that, Schadenfreude, meaning taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. It’s not a particularly nice thing, but that’s OK. Maybe the Liberal Democrats did deserve a drubbing, and if you think so then it’s OK to say so.

However, he then tells us how bad it is to be nice. “What I've always detested about the Lib Dems is the way they portray themselves as the 'nice party'”, he says. OK, maybe he’s saying that they aren’t really nice, so it’s wrong for them to portray themselves as such. But he doesn't say that. He continues “we were always told off for using the word 'nice' at school, it is bland and meaningless”. It soon becomes apparent that he really is against niceness in all its forms.

He then goes on to give a couple of anti Lib-Dem anecdotes which are certainly made up, if I wasn't so nice perhaps I should have used the word lies. For instance he says Lib Dems are “pro hunting in my current semi rural constituency where there is a popular local hunt”. I am a member of the constituency party. Gregg has made up his own opinion about us.

Similarly he has a bogus story about dodgy practices by a Focus Team, which he claims to have seen with his own eyes. I have never heard about such stories and I have been active in three different constituencies but who knows, Liberal Democrats aren't perfect but there is no way of checking as it is just Gregg's anecdote.

He finishes by describing the Lib Dems as a juvenile, irresponsible unprincipled, gang.

And then there’s the comments.

I said “I too am a practising Roman Catholic and I will now have to wonder whether the person next to me at Mass is shaking my hand out of friendship or is really a hypocritic who hates me for my political views.”

Actually that needs some correction and clarification. I tend to think the best of those around me, not the worst, so I’m not really likely to worry too much about the views of those around me at Mass. And yet … if there can be one person like Gregg who is both Catholic and apparently filled with and motivated by hate, could there not be others? That is what I find disturbing. By having a “Catholic” yet hate-filled blog, Gregg creates entirely the wrong impression about our common religion.

Gregg took exception because I used the word “hate” while he had “detested”, not “hated”. He seemed to be under the impression that “detest” was a milder word than “hate”. So I commented that “If you are not happy with the word hatred then I will settle for detest”. He didn’t publish that comment but he did remark on it, saying “He's been on again Peter, downgarding from 'hatred' to 'detestation'. They do flip flop these Lib Dems.” As if detestation was something less than hatred. He was now in full “mock but don’t allow a voice” mode.

When I wrote “I'm sorry to have troubled you Gregg but it is hard for me to read your comments and associate them with a practising Roman Catholic. I don't expect publication as you have already banned me, but I would like you to give greater consideration to your blog entries.” Gregg didn’t publish that but he did respond in the blog with “He's turned to patronising now Peter. Another unpleasant trait of your typical Lib Dem. Asking me to take greater care when blogging. I suggest he just doesn't read it if he can't take criticism. They really are cry babies and mardy boys.”

And it went downhill from there. Gratuitous insults from Gregg, refusal to engage in actual discussion, and a pretence that it was others who were bringing the level of the discussion down and not Gregg.

But that really is enough.

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Exposing a "Libertarian Catholic"

2011-05-13T18:08:00.004+01:00

I've recently mentioned a Libertarian who is quite liberal with his insults. I haven’t mentioned that his blog is called a brief encounter and his name is Gregg Beaman , but I now think I need to publish both sides of the story, unlike this Libertarian who has his expurgated version.

I told one of my brothers about the abuse I was receiving and on his own initiative he chose to write a response. You can see the comments that the Libertarian chose to publish at http://abriefencounter.blogspot.com/2011/05/so-farewell-then-liberal-democrats-and.html but don't look for my brother's reply there because you won't find it. Here it is...

So, 'nice' is bland and meaningless. Does that mean that in order to transcend blandness and meaninglessness we have to be nasty? It would seem so. Very well, I will try to oblige. But first:

Were the people who were anti-hunting in your old constituency the same people who were pro-hunting in your current one? Do they stalk you from constituency to constituency? I doubt it, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. So who, precisely, has tried to be "all things to all men"? (That was a trick question, by the way. The right answer is "Saint Paul").

More importantly, who are these Lib Dems who you yourself have personally seen checking out the council work schedule and then claiming credit for work that was going to be done anyway? My brother may be far too nice to name names, but you should have no problem whatsoever. Inquiring minds want to know. Inquiring minds NEED to know. You see, that's a pretty nasty accusation you make there (congratulations!). I'd hate to think that it was just an "urban legend", something that you got from a friend of a cousin of somebody who knows someone who works at Tory central office. Especially when you gave us such a convincing assurance that you saw it happen yourself.

So, you say you don't hate political opponents, and anyone who suggests otherwise is being snide. You do however think that the Lib Dems (what, all of them?) are "a juvenile, irresponsible and unprincipled gang". Oh, and you think they're lying because their opinion of the effects of AV differs from yours, or maybe because some of them have the temerity to think that they might be "winning here" when you know for a fact that they're losing everywhere. And most of all you detest their "niceness".

Here's the bad news: Most people are nice. Really nice. And some of these nice people gravitate into politics. Why? Because they think it's too important to be left to the vicious scumbags. So they battle on, for decade after decade, despite the lack of reward, despite the insults and the innuendo. And these are real people, mind, not ciphers. When you belittle their "niceness" and make scurrilous accusations, it is real people that you are talking about, even if there never was a real person who committed the specific action you mention in your accusatory anecdote.

Martin Gradwell

Of course this was not published. When my brother sent Gregg an email asking whether it would ever be published, amazingly, the Libertarian fired off a reply to my brother worded as follows.

Please grow up and stop behaving like a five year old. You are now starting to sound seriously obsessed and I have no intention of corresponding any further with somebody like you, who brings a nasty personal element into a general political blog post.

The fact that you go and bring your brother into your attempt at causing a fight says it all about your juvenile outlook. What next, you'll go and get your dad to sort out my dad?

Get a life.

I wouldn't normally publish emails, but this appears to be about me even though it was sent to my brother. I would say that by writing such an accusatory email about me and then sending it to someone who is not me, Greg has already effectively published it.

I have no idea why Gregg would reply to the only comment that my brother has sent to his blog with the words "You are now starting to sound seriously obsessed and I have no intention of corresponding any further with somebody like you". Maybe he thought that I was Martin, but I can assure him that we are different people. In any case, it is fortunate that things have a way of turning up on the web, no matter how much people like Mr. Beaman try to stop them. It is unfortunate that this results in the exposure of a "Libertarian Catholic" who is easily confused between names like Michael and Martin, who seems to be blocking all dissenting opinion, whose stock response to any difficult question is insult and lies, and who can't see the irony in his accusation that Lib Dems "don't take criticism very well poor delicate flowers" when he can't take any at all.

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Muscular Liberal Democrats

2011-05-11T22:39:00.000+01:00

It is hard to see how David Cameron can be right in saying that Liberal Democrats do not moderate government policy, otherwise what is the purpose of coalition government? Nick Clegg said that the Liberal Democrats are "clearly influencing" government policy. He asked "do you think the reforms we are going to introduce in banking would have happened without Lib Dems in government?"and went on to ask a few more rhetorical questions. I think they were rhetorical and not answered because of his responsibilties as a member of the cabinet but rhetorical or not they were still questions and we weren't hearing about distinct differences between Liberal Democrats and Tories.

At a local level I think we should get muscular too and let the electorate know who they were voting for. In my local ward we had a candidate from one party who didn't want to stand and didn't want to win but just missed out. He looked like the most worried man at the count. Another young man from another party did well but told me he lived away - he couldn't have won too. There were at least two paper candidates that I never saw so I never spoke with them. However I have it on good authority that they did not wish to win. The good news is that I think that those who won actually wanted to win.

What this means is that our electoral system really is on its knees. In some places it is obvious and there were no elections. In some places it is disguised because of paper candidates and candidates who put out leaflets but didn't want to win.

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Why ruin a blog for the sake of the facts

2011-05-11T00:05:00.003+01:00

I have been giving a lot of thought to yesterday's Libertarian ban. I also let one of my brothers know about my comments and the fairly aggressive replies from a fellow Roman Catholic. The main difference between me and the Libertarian, apart from the aggression, is that I don't wear my religion on my sleeve alongside my politics.

My brother sent a fairly extensive reply to the string of comments. I won't share it all with you as it is around twice the length of my usual blogs, but I will repeat one paragraph which was a reference to Liberal Democrats' supposed chameleon-like policies.

Were the people who were anti-hunting in your old constituency the same people who were pro-hunting in your current one? Do they stalk you from constituency to constituency? I doubt it, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. So who, precisely, has tried to be "all things to all men"? (That was a trick question, by the way. The right answer is "Saint Paul").

So Liberal Democrats had been criticised by a religious blogger who did not understand the religious sentiment of his criticism. As for the hunting comment, he lives in Carnforth which is my constituency and as we don't have a Carnforth branch he must be referring to constituency opinion. How dare he make up our constituency opinion! It is no surprise to read that if there is a vote on the repeal of the hunting ban then it would go to a free vote. The Libertarian has no evidence for saying we, in Morecambe and Lunesdale are pro-hunting because there is none, but why ruin a good blog for the sake of the facts.

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Libertarian Ban

2011-05-10T00:05:00.001+01:00

I hope the irony did not pass the author by but I made four or five comments on a Libertarian blog yesterday and managed to get banned! There were insults directed towards the Liberal Democrats but I wasn't too bothered about this as I know we are not flavour of the month. My main concern was that the insults were gratuitous and, more importantly, coming from someone who shares my faith. I found this hard to reconcile and asked him to show more consideration in his writing.

It was quite amusing to see an anonymous comment asking me to name names when my aim was to protect the author of the blog. There was a lot of anger in his blog and one sentence tells us he detests the image of the Liberal Democrats as the nice party. He didn't understand that detest may be interpreted as hatred and hatred really is a destructive, non-Christian characteristic. At least he inspired me to write a new French for Novices blog which is very nice and may be found at http://www.frenchfornovices.blogspot.com/

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Thanks to the MBIs

2011-05-09T00:05:00.002+01:00

Among all the lowlights of the last few days there were a couple of highlights. One was a great speech from the former (Liberal Democrat) leader of Lancaster Council. He reminded the Tories how he stepped in because they could not get parties to work together. The Tories gave up on Lancaster and the Chief Executive was given next to no notice. The Tory boo boys (one was female) were vociferously put down by the MBIs - thanks must go to them for that.

Another thank you goes to the MBIs as one of their councillors told me that she read this blog. My Google Analytics does not give me enough detail to know where the visitors come from but I do know I get an average of 30 or 40 visitors per day. Strange that this councillor knew about my stats. I thought the only publicly viewable statistic on my blog was the total number of views of my profile page. At least she told me she knew so now I can check my security. It's a good job I'm not shy.

I then asked another MBI member if he had read my blog and he said no but he keeps getting emails sent to him with the question "what are we going to do about this?" And his reply is "nothing". I suppose they may act when they find soemthing they can contest. From my point of view, I have nothing against most of the MBIs. It's just their leaflet writer they need to change.

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Enough is enough

2011-05-08T00:05:00.000+01:00

The Liberal Democrat vote fell apart and it did so because the electorate see us as collaborators not moderators. They don't mind the Tories making cuts as that's what they do but it just doesn't fit well with the Liberal Democrats. Nick Clegg knows this and has written "I think it is clear that we need to do more to show people in the party and beyond what we are doing in Government and, perhaps more importantly, why. Because we are achieving a great deal. The BBC estimates that we are implementing 75% of the policies of in our manifesto, compared to just 60% of the Conservative manifesto".

The trouble is that the electorate don't appreciate it. I thought that ministers had responsibility to toe the government line. So the arguments we heard in Cabinet this week just sound like Liberal Democrats are losing their discipline, but if ministers can't say what we are doing then who is telling the voters that we are moderators? Nick isn't telling us what we want to hear, he is telling us that the BBC are telling us what we want to hear. He may as well have given us the link.

If it is the rank and file who must instruct the electorate then that rank and file became a lot smaller this week. In my ward we put out a monthly leaflet which became weekly in the last three weeks before the election. On election eve I was knocking on a door with a mini-survey and I was given the advice to put out the leaflets before the postal vote. Well there was a pre-postal vote leaflet but our message obviously didn't get home.

We can't rely on rank and file, even if they work really hard. We can't rely on ministers as they are collaborators whether they like it or not. There are two options. Continue on the same path and lose more and more councillors, or say enough is enough.

Change the world

More on the Man of Mystery

2011-05-07T00:05:00.001+01:00

The bin Laden situation is still in flux but it looks like a lot of the things we were first told are untrue. The senators who said they had seen multiple photos of the dead bin Laden now admit that they only saw one of the faked photos.

There was never any live video being watched by the President. There was a staged photo session in which the President and Secretary of State and others sat around laptops with blank screens,
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/05/02/bin.laden.video/index.html (plus hundreds of other sites and newspaper front pages) is directly contradicted by
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/8493391/Osama-bin-Laden-dead-Blackout-during-raid-on-bin-Laden-compound.html

So, wouldn't it have been nice to learn what bin Laden had to say about who actually was behind 9/11? Wouldn't that have been a good reason to avoid shooting to kill an unarmed suspect?

Change the world

Man of Mystery No More

2011-05-06T00:05:00.002+01:00

Last Sunday the Gospel reading at church was from St John. It was about St Thomas who did not believe that Jesus had come back to life. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Jesus did supply the evidence but Thomas was stuck with the title "doubting" and now a doubting Thomas is a term used for anyone who does not believe without seeing the evidence.

And then we had the death of Osama bin Laden. The only evidence that I have ever seen of him supposedly claiming responsibility was a video, supposedly found in a house in Jalalabad in late 2001, where the man said to be bin Laden had a very broad nose and to me looked more like Cassius Clay - see http://911blimp.net/vid_fakeOsamaVideo.shtml. Most "videos" that came out after that were actually voice-overs attached to a still image of a young bin Laden. The FBI wanted him, not for attacks on the WTC, but for attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/usama-bin-laden

Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI, apparently said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Ladens Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”Since then we haven't seen so much of him and I was particularly interested in what he looked like after almost ten years. There is no picture. Well there was but it was a fake. How did a fake photo get on the internet so quickly?

That stalwart of international justice, Libya was the first country to issue an arrest warrant. On the other hand we had George Bush telling the world that Osama was wanted dead or alive. Was it not vital that he was captured alive as he was the leader of al-Qaeda and may have had some important information for us?

I have been waiting for the doubting Thomases to come forward. There must be so many more reasons why he should have been taken alive - trial perhaps? There must be so many reasons why we should have evidence shown to the world. Why shouldn't we see photos? On the other hand what we got was the President telling us he was dead so he was dead.

I have searched quite a bit on the internet. I have heard nothing on mainstream media about the authenticity of the death. There are a few of Osama's neighbours who could not believe he was living near them, however one Morecambe blogger Robyn Durdy did question the death on Tuesday. By the time you read this there may be more questions being asked but I am surprised that the mystery man when alive has suddenly become so definite when dead.

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Not a political conversation

2011-05-05T10:25:00.003+01:00

I have been saying hello and getting into some non-political conversations outside polling stations this morning. I seem to remember that political discussion was not allowed in this vicinity because it may influence voters. However this doesn't stop individuals saying what they want to say and I have had a dozen people (there haven't been many going out to vote) wishing me good luck.

On the other hand, it didn't stop one person venting his frustration at his pension being affected by national government and he told me he wasn't voting for the Liberal Democrats. Generally I have been on my own or with other Liberal Democrats but at this moment there was a candidate for one of the Independent parties stood next to me. I said that I was sorry but I wasn't allowed to talk politics outside the polling station but the Independenst said "why not?" I told him jokingly that we might end up fighting (although the man with the pension was fairly aggressive).

I could have mentioned the government's financial restraints, which most people seem to understand. I could have told him that there was no money left after Labour left office. I could have mentioned that Liberal Democrats were restraining the worst excesses of a free market Tory government, but no I just said I was only there to say hello. It's a pity the Independent (who probably got his vote) didn't understand that.

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Knocking on doors

2011-05-05T00:05:00.000+01:00

I was going to write about the death of Osama today, well it was a few days ago. However I will delay that blog entry for one more day because we are holding local elections today and I am a candidate. We have been delivering leaflets and knocking on doors conducting a survey. This survey did form part of the content for our leaflets but more importantly, it gave local people the opportunity to speak with their candidates. After breaking the ice many people felt they could speak with us. It wasn't all great news. This is really the first election that I remember getting abuse. Don't worry, I can take it and I'll share one encounter with you.

Two days ago I was delivering leaflets and one man came out folded it and passed it back to me. He wanted nothing to do with my leaflet. I apologised for the inconvenience and was about to go on my way when he told me that the Liberal Democrats should not have gone into coalition with the Tories. I told him we had no option. It wasn't a particularly pleasant conversation but I could end on agreement that we both wanted to say yes to AV.

I wrote a letter to him because we had reached an impasse and I wanted to explain my point of view. I received a reply yesterday evening and it turns out that he is a Labour Party member but it was a really nice reply. So it is really worth discussing politics even with opposition party members. It is also worth comparing this blog with my "priceless" entry on Sunday.

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Say no to the no campaign

2011-05-04T00:05:00.000+01:00

It is quite obvious that the BNP are against AV - as common sense suggests they ought to be. AV is not proportional representation. AV ensures that nobody gets elected without having the support of 50% or more of the voters in a constituency, something the BNP are extremely unlikely ever to have, so it would effectively consign them to political oblivion.

This of course doesn't stop the 'no' campaign from pretending that the BNP would benefit from AV and that they support it. http://votenotoav.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/the-bnp-and-the-alternative-vote/ is a typical evidence-free post on that theme. "I have scoured the BNP website to find any mention of the Alternative Vote", the author asserts. He didn't find it, so obviously it doesn't exist. The article also makes much of the fact that the BNP would prefer proportional representation to FPTP, which is neither here nor there given that the referendum is about AV.

Yesterday at 4.07p.m. I posted the following reply:

"I took a look at the BNP website. It was fairly easy to see they were voting no.

http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/please-support-our-brave-candidates-says-nick-griffin"

Last time I checked, my reply was still awaiting moderation. I wonder why?

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No confusion, no difference

2011-05-03T20:37:00.005+01:00

I was confused about the difference between the two independent parties in Morecambe but with this week's leaflets I have found one difference in their claims. Independence 4 Morecambe say, and I quote, "WE GAVE YOU 2 YEARS OF FESTIVALS THE MBI PARTY TRIED TO STOP THEM". Meanwhile Morecambe Bay Independents say "Morecambe Town Council Achievements - £2500 for the kite festival, £39,500 for festivals in 2010".

So there you have it - there is no difference after all. Meanwhile the people who actually put effort into organising and staging the festivals as opposed to merely funding them don't deserve any credit, it seems.

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It's Not April The First

2011-05-03T11:45:00.004+01:00

I happen to like the idea of independence. I think that we should all aspire to free-thinking but we have an Independent Party in Morecambe in which all its members think in the same way on every issue. It doesn't matter what the issue is. It could be the price of any commodity. Then take the choice between that and a better quality alternative but it costs more. As with almost every aspect of the social sciences, you weigh up the evidence and make your choice.

The problem I have with the Independent Party is that they all tend to vote the same way, or at least that is what their leaflet suggests. They all want a kite festival, park benches... you get the idea. The problem they have is that this unified thought does not fit with the notion that they are truly Independent. In fact they are truly tied to a party line.

And then they split.

I was uncertain about the difference between the second Independent Party with its unified policies and the first group however with two days to go before the election I have read about some differences. It isn't the first of April but the leaflet may have been written then. It seems that the second group are "INDEPENDENT people" (shades of The Life of Brian - "we're all individuals").

I love the next line. "Most of us have been working hard on the Town Council for the last 2 years in the face of fierce opposition from the MBI Political Party". I think they mean some of their candidates are not members of the Town Council but I prefer the alternative view in which some of them have not been working hard. Has the "fierce opposition" been targeted at this other party to try to stop them working hard? Please bear in mind that the members of the new party were elected to the Town Council as members of the MBI Political Party.

The next line is quite good too. "We know the difference between the TOWN COUNCIL and the CITY COUNCIL". Now it doesn't take much to know the difference between the two councils so this really is quite an insult but at least I know the difference between the two Independent philosophies. One likes the City council and the other doesn't. Well not quite, because the leader of this breakaway group wants to remain on the City Council so it can't be a fundamental principle that has led to an acrimonious split. Maybe there is a significant difference in beliefs but I suspect the division was just based on character. They fell out.

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Plumbing new depths with the no campaign

2011-05-03T00:05:00.001+01:00

Our existing voting system is often referred to as "first-past-the-post", but is that a fair description? A candidate can win with just 26% of the votes cast, if there are three other candidates who each get 24 or 25 percent. Should 26% be referred to as the "finishing post"? Wouldn't "the first hurdle" be a better description? In contests where there happen to be just two candidates, the "finishing post" is, quite rightly, set at just over 50% of the votes. Why should it be any less in other cases? If we could have a voting system which ensured that any winner must have the backing of at least 50% of the voters, meaning that they can legitimately claim to represent a majority, shouldn't we go for that system?

For those who say that everyone should only have one vote, AV is actually exactly equivalent to a series of runoff elections. If no candidate receives more than 50 per cent of the votes in the first count, the one with the least votes is eliminated and, effectively, the remainder participate in a seond election. Your second preference expresses how you will vote in this second election, should your first preference have been eliminated in the first one. Your third preference expresses how you will vote in the third election, and so on. It's as simple as that. There's no incomprehensible mysticism or overwhelming complication behind it, as the 'no' campaign would have you believe. It is, in fact, exactly equivalent to the procedure by which David Cameron was promoted as party leader by his fellow Conservative MPs.

"Conservative research" has now come up with the truly incredible notion that candidates who came third in 137 seats at last year’s election could have ended up becoming MPs – overtaking those who came first and second – under the ‘confusing’ AV system (see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1382554/AV-referendum-David-Cameron-struggles-calm-Lib-Dem-fury-lies.html). This despite the fact that Australia has had AV since 1918, and such an outcome has never happened there, not even once. They go on to outdo themselves with the utterly ludicrous idea that an eighth-place candidate - an independent called Richard Turner-Thomas in Torfaen in Wales -could have won under AV. Words cannot even begin to describe how silly this is, and yet it isn't even the worst of the nonsense that the 'no' campaign is coming up with. But you have the chance to say what you think of all these lies and distortions.

On Thursday..

Change the voting system.

"Make it so"

2011-05-02T00:05:00.002+01:00

Someone said to me recently that they would support any party that could get the buses to stop near their house. It would be nice if local politicians could be helpful, but can it be done? One problem is that now, thanks to Margaret Thatcher’s deregulation, bus services are supplied by a variety of private companies. The county council has a transport policy, and it can influence these companies in various ways, such as with subsidies, but the days when the council could be like Captain Jean-Luc Picard, saying “make it so” are gone. Another problem is that we might be able to do more with more county councillors, so it’s unfortunate that there are no county council elections this year.

Most bus services are commercial, operated by the private companies to make a profit. The local authority does however have the power to provide local bus services, in order to fill any significant gaps. This will normally be done by entering into a contract and paying a commercial operator to provide the service. We will bring requests to the attention of the county council, and use any means of persuasion that we can, but especially in the current economic climate we won’t always succeed. This is one of those cases where all we can promise is that we’ll do our best.

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This is priceless

2011-05-01T00:05:00.001+01:00

I was going to write about public transport today but you will have to wait until tomorrow. I have to tell you this story. One of our helpers was delivering leaflets in Morecambe and he happened to come across one of the Conservative candidates. He didn't know who it was but there was a conversation, and he offered the leaflet. The answer was "I'd better not take it as I am a Conservative candidate". This is priceless! He told her that she could take it to a Conservative meeting to see what they thought about it, and the Conservatives cannot vote for themselves for Morecambe Town Council as they are not standing.

When I am giving leaflets out I occasionally meet supporters of other parties who do not wish to read my leaflet. I try to persuade them, very often successfully, by saying that they cannot give their support to their particular party without knowing what the opposition are saying. Now we have candidates saying the same thing and we are aware that this particular candidate not only is unaware of opposition views but would feel in some way tainted by this knowledge.

Change the world

Beauty surrounds

2011-04-30T00:05:00.000+01:00

On the 21st June 2009 I wrote about the armorial bearings (the coat of arms) for Morecambe. This coat of arms was created in 1928 for the town of Morecambe and was used by the football club until about a year ago when Morecambe FC felt obliged to change it because they didn't have copyright. I have read reports that they felt permission lay with the town council. I wonder if they asked for permission.

Now it is election time and the Morecambe Bay Independent Party also uses the same logo.
Well to be more exact, they changed the original motto which was “beauty surrounds, health abounds” (which is just about as far as you can get away from party politics) to "people before politics" without a hint of irony. You see, this particular party gain votes by pretending that they are not a party. They have a tagline "sick of party politics" which they also use without a hint of irony.

This party knows that they need permission to use Morecambe's coat of arms, but I have never seen anything that says they have been granted this permission. If permission lies with the council then it would smack of corruption if they used it. If it doesn't (and it didn't in 2009) then they should celebrate being given permission to use it. However my guess is that they just decided to use it and not ask permission. A logo which belongs to the whole town should not be appropriated by one particular party.

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No link with Labour and Lenin

2011-04-29T00:05:00.000+01:00

As it is less than a week to our local elections I thought I would choose a political theme for the photography blog and this is one of those occasions when I use the same blog entry for both of my blogs.

It is well over twenty years since a Labour councillor showed me the similarity between the Labour Rose and the silhouette of Lenin. I have always thought that there was a strong resemblance but now that I have worked on the photo of a leaflet I am not convinced. Maybe the Labour Rose has changed over the years but I think I will settle on the notion that there is no connection.

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Vote yes for a fairer system

2011-04-28T00:05:00.001+01:00

It is at least a year ago when I was speaking with someone from Ireland. I asked about the voting system and how they managed with STV. Isn't it difficult to cope with a numbered system rather than a cross for one candidate? The answer he gave me, of course, was that it was easy to place numbers against the candidates.

Yesterday I was again talking with someone from Ireland. She was telling me how it was important to get fair proportions of elected representatives to the votes that were cast. Religious bigotry was evident and reflected in the religious backgrounds of elected representatives. She told me about ratepayer suffrage in which you didn't get a vote if you lived in a council house. It just so happened that most people in council houses belonged to one particular religion.

She also told me that company directors had more than one vote and that there were block votes going to big businesses until the late 60s. If you thought rotten boroughs were a thing of the past then you don't have to go back too far before you find systems that are obviously wrong. A change to make the system fairer was really important. Now universal adult suffrage sounds good but Ireland needed a fair system as well - not first-past-the-post.

AV is not difficult to understand and nobody complains about one person's vote being transferred from one candidate to another. That's what happens in a system that gives fairer representation and that's the best reason to vote for AV in the referendum, because it is a fairer system.

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Political Conversations

2011-04-27T00:05:00.001+01:00

It is good to knock on doors. I have never asked anyone if they will vote for me as I have never thought this question would influence anyone. I get asked if I have been out canvassing so the answer must always be no. For this election we are conducting a survey and we are telling the person who comes to the door that there are simply three yes or no answers. We also tell them that there are no right and wrong answers and this way we manage to speak to a lot of people.

We also get a lot of information, not just from three answers, but we get people talking to us. One of the questions is about the Independent Party in Morecambe which is split this time. We don't know the difference between the two parties but we know that this is also the view of the electorate. How are they supposed to choose between two parties if they are both saying the same thing?

I met someone yesterday who had decided to spoil her vote for the Morecambe Town Council. There is nothing wrong with that (apart from the better choice of the Liberal Democrats) as she has exercised her democratic right by sending in her spoilt vote. She still wants to use her vote even if the candidates are not good enough for her. Initially this person was reluctant to talk with us but after those magical three questions we did have a conversation. The real story is that she is a Tory and there are no Tory candidates for the town council.

It is good to knock on doors and chat. The chances are that I am speaking with someone who doesn't vote and who knows, they may decide to turn up at the polling station anyway and a conversation with a candidate may just influence their vote.

Change the world

Safety Measures?

2011-04-26T00:05:00.000+01:00

On Sunday I wrote about the traffic calming measures on the road between Lancaster and Morecambe. I don't know what all the roadworks are going to do but a small part of them revealed a traffic island to me on Saturday. Yesterday I noticed that there is a bus stop marked in this small section of the road with the island.

I have seen traffic measures taken like this all over Lancashire and I am sure you can relate to this wherever you are, but when did the trend reverse from building bus stops so the bus moved off the road and kept traffic flowing to building bus stops to deliberately stop all traffic? This particular traffic island looks like it has been built by someone who has had too much to drink. It creates a narrow lane in a very wide road. On the opposite side is enough room for two and a half lanes but paint makes this into one lane. No doubt further changes and further expense is planned.

Over the years I have seen signs that have been hit which have been asking for drivers to drive carefully. I have seen bollards that narrow roads which have been knocked over. I actually saw an accident as a car drove into a bollard about six months after they were put in place to narrow the road and create a parking bay. Maybe these measures are identified as traffic calming. I wonder if they are seen as safety measures too. The worst aspect for me is that this road is notorious as the slowest in the area if not the whole country.

Change the world

The BNP say no

2011-04-25T00:05:00.000+01:00

William Hague was on the Andrew Marr show yesterday and was speaking about AV. Both the yes and the no sides are using the BNP to claim that the other system gives more votes to this party. Baroness Warsi for the no group reckons that she doesn't want the BNP to get more votes but this is what AV would do for them. William Hague supported her when he asked "Will the candidates in marginal seats have to think about how they're going to get the second, third and fourth preferences of people who have voted for the BNP?"

Well the answer is let's hope so. What makes voters turn to the BNP? Is it possible that these voters feel marginalised? Do they feel like the main parties aren't listening to them? With AV we could get politicians who listen and seek support from voters who are not their natural allies so AV would be a move to the centre for British politics. William answers his own question. He feels that the answer is debatable but I get the feeling that he does not see any importance in looking to gain votes which are second preferences. To him they are not significant. Well if political groups choose to ignore the possible benefits of second preferences it will be their loss.

Just for the record, the BNP are on Baroness Warsi's side and will be voting no.

Change the world

Calming the congestion

2011-04-24T15:30:00.000+01:00

We know that we have to make savings but nobody likes the savings when they are affected by them. I was driving between Lancaster and Morecambe today and I discovered why we were undergoing major roadworks. The care in front of me veered towards the kerb and I followed suit. We were avoiding traffic calming measures. Not only do we have major roadworks on a road which must be the worst in the country for congestion, we also have traffic calming measures! We don't need any.

There are very few times in the day when traffic is moving freely. Admittedly it wasn't bad today - well it is Easter Sunday but we are normally talking 5 or 10mph. We have so much paint on our roads. We have so many instructions. Traffic just seems to flow better on the continentand they hardly spend anything on paint. We have double-yellow lines everywhere and then we have traffic calming measures on the same part of the road. Here's an easy answer. Let the cars park and you get instant traffic calming at no cost.

Change the world

Any opposition is infinitely better than none

2011-04-23T00:05:00.001+01:00

I received my Labour leaflet on Thursday evening. We have no Labour candidates for the Morecambe Town Council but we do have one labour candidate for the three seats for the Lancaster City council. On the positve side, I don't think Labour are trying too hard which is very nice of them. Their candidate is a university student whom I presume must be studying away from home as his university is not mentioned.

On the negative side they call the coalition the Con/Dem coalition. Do they think this is funny? It just comes across as an insult and panders to one of the Independent Parties in Morecambe which is oblivious to the fact that they are a party but has a theme of insulting those who take part in party politics. "Sick of party politics? Vote for our party" Those may not be the exact words on their posters but that's what they should say.

The Labour leaflet contains a great deal of criticism about the government cuts. Maybe the electorate will be influenced by national politics but there is no apology for the state of the economy left by the previous Labour government. At least Ed Balls had a go at blaming the economy on a global recession even though Vince Cable was highlighting Labour financial irresponsibilities as they were being carried out. Still, at least we have a Labour candidate for the City Council and this is infinitely better than the no-contests that have happened for the Morecambe Town Council.

Change the world

More on AV

2011-04-22T00:05:00.001+01:00

The AV referendum hinges on whether we have a good system now or not. My answer is simple, not. General elections are decided by a few thousand voters in marginal constituencies and this means that the vast majority of votes don't affect the result. For the vast majority of MPs their biggest hurdle to re-election will be to get the party nomination, not the votes of the electorate. If that is the case then the MP only has to be concerned with the wishes of the party members.

Compare that to AV. Not only does an MP have to persuade party members that they are worthy of becoming their MP, but they also have to persuade voters who prefer other parties. AV is centrist. It limits extremism. The image of a 100m race being won by the person in last place is just not right. If this were the case then the BNP would support it but AV is not about to make huge changes to results but it would make everyone think twice about their more extreme views.

AV is far better than the present system.

Change the world (or at least the electoral system by voting yes)

Vote no to insults

2011-04-21T00:05:00.001+01:00

I am standing in the elections for Morecambe Town Council and for Lancaster City Council so I have been out knocking on doors and delivering leaflets. Yesterday morning I was placing one of our leaflets with a small photo of Nick Clegg on top of some No to AV leaflets with a big photo of Nick Clegg which is basically just an insult. A few hours later I mentioned this to someone and they replied "so Nick Clegg doesn't want AV?" I did explain how important I (and Nick) thought it was to vote yes to AV but it made me think that it isn't fair to base arguments on insulting the opposition.

The words on the leaflet make matters worse (one has been delivered to my house). It claims that AV leads to broken promises because Nick Clegg has broken promises. This argument is wrong on so many levels. Firstly if you think Nick has broken promises then he has done so under the first-past-the-post electoral system. Secondly the leaflet shows clearly that the author does not understand the nature of coalition government. Ministers are obliged to follow the Government line which will not be the same as the party manifesto. It isn't a broken promise, it is a coalition agreement. Thirdly, and this is the elephant in the room, regardless of whether you think AV would lead to broken promises or not, AV would not turn the world upside down. However there is no correlation between AV and broken promises.

I will quote from my blog on 17th February..."On the other hand prior to the last election AV would not have changed the result of the previous six elections. It is not going to turn the world upside down. In fact the only recent change would have been that Labour could have formed a government with the Liberal Democrats".

Wouln't it be nice to discuss the merits of AV rather than insults?

Change the world

The People's Princess

2011-04-20T00:05:00.000+01:00

On Sunday 31st August 1997 I was woken at around 6.30am with the news that Princess Diana had died in a car crash. Later that morning I passed on the request that if any other members of the royal family were to die I would wait for the news without being woken. I know she was very popular and some readers may wish to be woken but I prefer the person who died a week later as a role model for me. Mother Teresa.

Yesterday I was speaking with someone who had attended Diana's funeral. He had done so as a guest of an MP. I am sure this was an important moment for him but I wondered why a backbench MP had been invited along with a guest. I didn't think that Westminster Abbey could hold that many mourners and with 659 MPs I didn't think there would be any space left if they all took a guest. I was surprised when I did an Internet search to discover that it had seated about 8,200 for Queen Elizabeth's coronation in 1953. Still, though, I can't help wondering about the criteria that were applied to decide who should attend. How many of the mourners actually had a close connection to Diana?

I suppose MPs should have some representation at times of public mourning and maybe that doesn't make them any less genuine than Diana's nearest and dearest. However I am also reminded of Tony Blair's speech, with its famous reference to the "People's Princess". It was certainly a well crafted speech, and it didn't do Tony Blair's reputation any harm, but I remember wondering at the time if he ever thought of her as the "People's Princess" before she died.

Change the world.

The message in the leaflet

2011-04-19T00:05:00.001+01:00

I have completed three sides of A4 of what will hopefully be our last leaflet before the election. It is all good positive stuff saying what dependable hard-working people we are in the Liberal Democrats. The last page is yet to be written but we had a meeting yesterday evening and we discussed the major points to go on that page. We will mention that Focus leaflets go out regularly, not just at election times. We will mention that we are hard-working. It may well be that candidates from other parties work just as hard but the evidence in terms of regular leaflets is just not there.

Then there is going to be a small negative section. The Independent Party isn't going to mention the acrimonious split which has been costly to Morecambe in both political and financial terms, so we have to. Maybe the other Independent Party will mention it but this is unlikely as they will have to say that they are like the other Party only better. The first independent group often ask in their leaflets if the electorate is sick of party politics (conveniently forgetting that they are a party), well the question should be asked if the electorate are fed up with Independent in-fighting.

Change the world

What would Forrest Gump say?

2011-04-18T00:05:00.000+01:00

It is easy to write political blogs because politics is all around us. It is even easier to write political blogs at election time as there are political conversations, leaflets put through letterboxes and patent electoral stories make the headlines as they do throughout the year.

One of my pet hates (I am a grumpy old man) with political views is that some politicians feel they are completely right and others are completely wrong when it is almost certainly the balance of the argument that led them to their belief in the first place. A few days ago I mentioned Margaret Thatcher and the Belgrano but I could be talking about any decision made at any political level.

The Morecambe Bay Independents have taken the credit for dealing with an "ousted" councillor. Regular readers will know that it wasn't one councillor but an acrimonious split and it was expensive to the people of Morecambe in political and financial terms. Forrest Gump said something along the lines that things like this happen, but then for this party to take credit is really beyond belief.

Change the world

Which independence do I go for?

2011-04-17T00:05:00.004+01:00

I received not one but two leaflets from the Independent Party a couple of days ago. Three if you count the additional leaflet that one of my sons received sealed in an envelope. There is an emphasis on explaining that they are the genuine Independent Party and the reason for this is that there has been a split and we now have two independent parties.

The first party found success on the back of putting Morecambe first. This is not a great basis if you want to expand but that's what they did. I am sure that the second party will put forward the same objective. The trouble for both parties is that all elected representatives from any party or even those who are truly independent, act on behalf of those they represent. Those who wish to be elected have to convince the voter that other parties don't act for their electorate. They may be able to do this because of our broken system. For example, I have never lived in a constituency with a Liberal Democrat as the MP and I have never felt that my views have been adequately represented by the MP.

More importantly for the Independent parties, they have to convince the electorate that their view of independence is more significant than the view of the other independent party. I do not envy their spin doctors.

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The Referendum

2011-04-16T00:05:00.002+01:00

You often hear that a vote for some parties may be a wasted vote. However the only votes that are not wasted are those that elect the winner, so the vast majority are wasted. If the number of elected representatives does not reflect the feelings of the electorate then it is not a good democracy. Our system is definitely broken and we have fewer and fewer people bothering to vote. If you want an example of how bad our system can be then take the byelection in Morecambe last October. We had a 12% turnout. If this isn't a broken system then I don't know what is.

In the next few weeks you will hear many different arguments about which way you should vote in the referendum. You will hear things like the cost of the referendum should be spent on other things. Whatever you feel about the value of spending money on a voting system compared to spending it on, say orphans, please ignore these arguments. The money has been spent. Most of all don't be fooled by the first-past-the-post serving us well - it hasn't.

Change the world

Discussions with voters

2011-04-15T00:05:00.000+01:00

I was speaking with a voter yesterday and she thought the Liberal Democrats may not do well. My answer went along the lines that we were the only party working the ward, the Labour Party weren't fighting the election and the Independents were split. I think we will do well.

The previous day I was putting out leaflets near to a proposed link road and a gentleman introduced himself to me. He was an objector to the proposed road and he asked my opinion. My first thoughts were that this is not an election for the county council which decides on such matters. He wasn't happy with this as the views of the locally elected councillors may hold some authority.

My second line was that Liberal Democrats carried out a survey and the huge majority supported the road. These protests have been going on for some years and there are some posters advertising a survey which came to the opposite conclusion. For me the discrepency was simply down to the question that was asked. Our survey said if this were the only option would you want it. I guess their's said would you like a link road somewhere else.

He agreed that survey results related to survey questions but he siad that he looked into it and was not objecting as a nimby but on economic grounds. You have council projections of a good improvement in the economy. You have protestors saying there are few benefits. My feelings have been well documented but I think that Morecambe will die without the road.

Change the world

A strong constitution

2011-04-14T00:05:00.003+01:00

Following on from yesterday's blog, we have an election for Morecambe Town council and in Torrisholme I am a candidate along with four other Liberal Democrats contesting the five seats that are available. Now the Morecambe Bay Independents only have four candidates which is fine for us if they have an ardent fan then this voter may choose to give us their fifth vote. They may not but hey that's politics. On the other hand if an ardent Liberal Democrat goes to vote then there is no spare vote. That's the easy bit.

It seems that there has been a significant split in the ranks of the Morecambe Bay Independents and some of them are now calling themselves Independence 4 Morecambe. What do they stand for? The Morecambe Bay Independents used to say that they put Morecambe first, whatever that means. Now they have the additional problem of distinguishing themselves from the Independence 4 Morecambe Party. Are you still with me?

Most elected politician will say they represent their constituents. How they do this depends on their constitution, or more importantly, the party's constitution. The Independent parties don't have one as far as I know. So if I can't distinguish between the two independent parties then what chance has the voter who doesn't take a close interest in politics?

Change the world

A sad day for democracy

2011-04-13T00:05:00.002+01:00

The local elections are confusing. Well they are fairly easy to understand if anyone explains, but in Morecambe we have elections for the Town Council when you can vote for up to five candidates, and the Lancaster City Council when you have up to three votes. On top of that we have the AV referendum and despite all the good efforts of those involved in the campaigns, many will not know what it all means. Fortunately the Liberal Democrats have put out a leaflet to explain the voting system.

The lists of candidates has now been published and can be found at http://www.lancaster.gov.uk/news/2011/apr/nominations-published-city-council-parish-council-elections/ but we still need an explanation of how many votes we have in each election.

In Torrisholme there are five Liberal Democrats for the Town Council and three Liberal Democrats for the City Council. This matches the number of possible councillors but take a look at Bare (that's an area of Morecambe). There are no candidates other than those from a party called the Morecambe Bay Independents. I have only glanced at the lists and there may be other wards like this, but just the Bare list, and it is a bare list, makes this a sad day for democracy.

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How policy is made

2011-04-12T00:05:00.000+01:00

According to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13028624 "One of Nick Clegg's closest advisers has threatened to quit unless ministers make changes to a proposed overhaul of the NHS." The advisor in question, Norman Lamb, was the Lib Dem health spokesman before the election, and Nick Clegg does rely heavily on his advice. When added to the opposition expressed by the Lib Dem rank and file at the spring conference, this puts a lot of pressure on the Coalition to think about and maybe rein in the implementation of the policy.

Which is exactly how it should be.

Both Conservatives and Liberal Dempcrats want to see reform of the health service, but they have different priorities regarding the form that reform should take. As I said on the 5th, Liberal Democrats want elected health boards while Conservatives for the most part want to give control of the NHS budget to GP consortiums. This is a difference that has to be worked out, through persuasion and through the application of appropriate pressure. This will likely involve some give and take, which makes it especially important to speak up about what the most important sticking points are. For instance, Liberal Democrats support a minimum price for alcohol, which the Tories oppose. There might be some concession on this point, in return for guarantees on something which is more important, the future of the NHS.

But shadow health spokesman John Healey said Mr Lamb's comments "added to the confusion throughout the Conservative-led government over its handling of the health service" and showed the plans were "flawed", which makes me think, yet again, that Labour may not understand dissent or even discussion. Most plans are "flawed". We live in a "flawed" world, which is why we seek to change it to the best of our ability, and when we see that one approach isn't working then maybe we try another. Unless we are Labour, perhaps.

Change the world.

Politics by consensus

2011-04-11T00:05:00.000+01:00

I don't mind who comes up with a good idea. I don't mind if it comes from those in power or those in opposition. When Any Questions came from Morecambe Lembit Opik told the Labour MP for Barrow, John Hutton that not only did the Liberal Democrats have policies on benefit fraud but the minister could take any he wanted to use. Just prior to this comment John Hutton had decided to throw a cheap insult about Liberal Democrats not having a policy on this subject. Strangely, when I checked the main manifestos, the Liberal Democrats were the only party to mention it.

However the subject of this blog is about where good ideas come from and how even good ideas may be amended in order to improve them. I don't mind politicians admitting that they are not perfect. I really don't like politicians saying they are perfect. Take Margaret Thatcher telling us that the Belgrano was a danger to our shipping. I just thought she was mad. Those who felt she was a strong leader because of her unwavering claims of danger need to consider how a ship outside an exclusion zone heading in the wrong direction could be a danger.

I want politics by consensus. I don't like adversarial politics but constructive criticism is fine. Too often we are left with political point scoring rather that aiming for higher goals.

Change the world

Invitations for debts

2011-04-10T00:05:00.000+01:00

On the 27th March I wrote about Ed Ball's response to the budget and he gave an apology somewhere for something. My interpretation was that he was apologising for the economy failing in the whole of the world. I knew Labour's handling of the economy was bad but I hadn't thought it was that bad. Yesterday I met an old friend who told me that he had always been a Labour supporter. However he couldn't forgive them for two things and he mentioned one. It was their handling of the economy.

He remembered the time when every other letter through the letterbox seemed to be an invitation to own a credit card. They were being given out to people who had no hope of ever repaying their debt. Now we hardly recognise the concept of debt. Debt is now an integral part of life. At least one thing has improved, the requests to get into more debt are less frequent.

Change the world

Good Communication

2011-04-09T00:05:00.000+01:00

There are so many cutbacks it makes you wonder how we can improve matters without cost. One such way is by talking. Communication isn't expensive and can save a lot of money. I don't usually see any breakfast television but on Thursday morning I saw an article on a school in Darwen where the teachers had gone on strike. The spokesperson for the NUT, Avis Gilmore is a former physiotherapist and I used to work with her. I know she is a dedicated worker who would try her best to resolve conflict. So how did she get to comment on the first teacher walkout for 15 years?

The staff on strike reckon the senior management did not do enough to clampdown on unruly behaviour. The headteacher reckons the vast majority of pupils behave well and is disappointed that there has been a strike. Let's hope the majority of pupils do behave well but it doesn't mean that the staff are not supported when they have to deal with the minority.

The most telling statement for me was that unions were meeting with management but only after the strike action was called. I have no reason to believe that Avis wasn't telling the truth which means that good communication could have saved a strike. I don't know if the staff are wimps or the pupils are barbarians. However bad the situation good communication would have helped.

Change the world

The Rooney Defence

2011-04-08T00:05:00.000+01:00

Wayne Rooney has been banned for two matches for swearing directly in front of a television camera. He apologised fairly quickly and now feels his punishment has been harsh because "I am not the first player to have sworn on TV and I won't be the last". He goes on to say "whatever, I have to accept that what's happened has happened and move on from here. That is what I intend to do." Well that's not quite the case. He has complained about the punishment and many Manchester United fans and others will also say the punishment has been harsh.

Rangers were also in the news yesterday because they too had been victimised because of allegations of sectarian chanting. They will defend these allegations "vigorously". I am not sure how they could defend themselves as I would guess there is plenty of evidence. There may even be thousands of witnesses. I suppose they could use the Rooney defence that fans from every team sing songs of hatred.

It's not good enough is it? If everyone follows the Rooney defence nobody would be punished for anything. "It's only dropping litter M'Lud" will be heard in court. Why don't we investigate the real criminals? That's why we have our litter problem. It could even be the main cause for most of society's problems. If we aren't bothered about the small things then it gives leeway to commit bigger and bigger crimes with the excuse that there is always something worse going on.

Change the world

Around two years ago...

2011-04-07T00:05:00.003+01:00

Around two years ago we had protests at the G20 conference - see yesterday's blog. At roughly the same time we had the BNP standing in front of a Polish spitfire thinking it was British. We were also discovering that some MPs were milking the system and Michael Martin was struggling in his role of speaker. How do I know? Well I have just looked back at my blog entries and we were having elections for the first time ever for a Morecambe Town Council. So roughly two years ago the Morecambe Bay Independents were asking about the use of the armorial bearings (the coat of arms) of the former Morecambe and Heysham Borough Council but there was no mention of this party using it with or without permission.

One of the great recent advances in technology has been our ability to communicate. Who would have thought even in 2001 that the 2011 census could be filled in by using the internet? The opportunities to improve our democracy are tremendous. Even on a local level anyone could email their councillor or MP. Now the downside. My MP has decided not to answer my email. I did get an automated response to say that it would be dealt with and that was that. Then there are websites. Take a look at http://www.morecambe.gov.uk/flite.php and you will see that there is no community forum for the local council. Still, they have only been trying for two years.

Change the world

A Police Apology

2011-04-06T00:05:00.002+01:00

Almost two years ago I wrote about the G20 protests. In particular I wrote about the investigation into the death of Ian Tomlinson shortly after he was pushed over by a police officer. I felt that the balaclava and the lack of an obvious number on the uniform was not helpful to the investigation and I felt it was a cause for concern if police officers could remain anonymous. Well PC Simon Harwood is not an anonymous officer and he apologised yesterday "if it is the case that in any way I have caused Mr Tomlinson's death".

I am pleased that this apology has been made. I think the police have a hard job and the push was not particularly excessive but I was waiting for the result of the inquiry. Results were published and now an apology has been made. The inquest continues but I remain concerned about the possibility of police anonymity when dealing with protests.

Change the world

Shedding light on NHS policy

2011-04-05T00:05:00.001+01:00

When the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference voted overwhelmingly against Tory-led plans for NHS reform, it seemed to many that this would introduce friction into the workings of the coalition. Now, however, David Cameron has been forced to rein back the ambitious plans following criticism from all sides. When Norman Tebbit and Shirley Williams are both strongly critical of the same policy, and for the same reasons, you know that there's something wrong with it.

Both coalition parties agree on the need for NHS reform, but the Liberal Democrats approach is that patients come first. This means having elected health boards. The Conservative plans involve giving control of 80 percent of the NHS budget to GP consortiums. Now, GPs certainly ought to have a say in how the NHS operates, because they see it at close hand and can be expected to have a good idea of what patients want and need. However, taking doctors who are skilled in the treatment of patients and making them into administrators is perhaps not the best use of resources.

The other thing is that Liberal Democrats say it is alright for the government to pay for private treatment if for any reason the NHS is unable to provide it on time. We should obviously work to close the gap, so that the same situation doesn't arise again later on, but when lives and health are at stake that's no time to go all ideological. The Conservative-led proposals though would have patients referred for private treatment even if the NHS was fully capable of providing it. It would have had NHS and private contractors competing on a supposedly equal footing - except the NHS doesn't have a vast marketing department dedicated to persuading GPs to use its services.

So, how did we get to this point? These plans weren't in the coalition agreement hammered out after the last general election. They weren't in any manifesto. They probably surprised David Cameron as much as anybody - he is on record as having said repeatedly that the NHS would be safe in his hands, and that there would be "no more pointless and disruptive reorganisations".

The whole thing seems to be the brainchild of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley. And while it seems likely that similar plans would have sped through unopposed in a purely Conservative government, the Liberal Democrats have shed just enough light on them to ensure that even the Conservatives can see the problem with them. That has to be a good thing.

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Grants more important than pronunciation

2011-04-04T00:05:00.005+01:00

Heysham is a village next to Morecambe. If you have not heard of it then you may have a problem with the pronunciation. The locals say the first syllable like the pronoun he, not the dried grass hay. One of the groups to feel the recent cuts from the Arts Council (see yesterday's blog) was the dance company The Cholmondeleys and Featherstonehaughs (usually pronounced The Chumleys and Fanshaws). There are a few rules of pronunciation in English but the first rule must be that there you have to bow to local knowledge when it comes to proper nouns. In the North West we have three Claughtons all pronounced differently - just go with the locals.

I spent the first year of my course in physiotherapy learning how to pronounce anatomical and physiological words. I spent the rest of my life learning that everyone pronounces them differently. Pronunciation may not be the most important aspect in any political thinking but mispronunciations will not win votes. However it is much more important to do the right thing than to pronounce it correctly. Let's hope the big society work of the Chumleys and Fanshaws and the Lancaster Ludus Dance may continue.

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A smaller big society

2011-04-03T00:05:00.000+01:00

A few days ago I was telling you how Mike Harding's audience viewed the big society. This week the Arts Council announced cuts in funding to many organisations including Ludus Dance based in Lancaster. The cuts are significant and it is difficult to see how this group could survive but they do have a year or so before the cuts really begin to be felt. This was the main headline in our local paper on Friday 1st April but it was no joke. However there was good news for "More Music in Morecambe". I have attended their guitar classes and although this is only one small aspect of their work in the community, I think they do a very good job in a deprived area of Lancashire.

So there are some winners but with overall cuts of 30% it is not difficult to work out that most beneficiaries will be losers. If we are to have a big society we must have the means to organise groups to work together and uphold the notion of society and see people work together not because they are employed but because they wish to participate in a better community. The arts must play a part in that big society but it just got a little smaller this week.

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Peace-loving protestors?

2011-04-02T00:05:00.002+01:00

Later today the English Defence League are holding a protest in Blackburn which, according to them, will be peaceful. I am not sure how they can be so sure as they also tell us that they manage to attract "wrong-uns". How could such a peace-loving organisation attract those with a violent nature? Come to that, why are they demonstrating in Blackburn? It isn't the Blackburn branch (if there is one) that has organised the event. On the other hand Blackburn and Darwen Unite Against Racism (BADUAR) has organised a counter-protest. I am taking a wild guess here but the organisers may come from Blackburn and Darwen.

I used to work in Blackburn and I have also worked in Oldham. I found no overt racism in these areas but I have been much more likely to come across opposition to Muslim extremists in towns where there is no significant ethnic minority. Why have this group picked on a town with a significant ethnic population? It sounds antagonistic to me. It is the sort of planning that may attract "wrong-uns". Why are these people so concerned with extremists who are Muslim? Could we not condemn all extremists including Dr Terry Jones who is in the news because he burned the Koran?

Taxi drivers in Blackburn have decided to go on strike for 24 hours from 6am. They are doing this because they are concerned for their own safety. I hope there is no violence in Blackburn today but even if everything runs smoothly I am not sure it is anything to do with planning from the EDL.

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It sounds a bit fishy

2011-04-01T00:05:00.000+01:00

When the Rainbow Warrior was sunk by the French secret service there was a backlash against the French and their nuclear testing. It turned out that the French had to pay Greenpeace over $8 million and it caused testing to be halted. Sometimes subterfuge doesn't pay. Prior to the sinking New Zealand wasn't too bothered about French testing. After the sinking it sent a flotilla of yachts to Moruroa in order to protest.

On Wednesday I saw footage of cruelty against an elephant and protests were taking place in Knutsford against the Bobby Roberts Super Circus who owned the elephant. It struck me that if this was a genuine beating then the man was sick. The circus owners said that he would have been sacked if he had not disappeared. Let's presume he was not sick. What other motivation could the man have? Well I can think of one easy answer. If I wanted to ban animals from the circus I would like footage of a man beating an elephant, so I would set up a camera and release the footage. The only thing that I would have to learn from the French in New Zealand would be to make sure that the culprit did not get caught, for example I could make him disappear.

I happen to think that a circus could offer a stable environment for an animal as opposed to say the wild. Protest may be legitimate but it can't be based on a mad keeper who disappears after acting in what looks like an evil manner in front of a camera. This action, like the sinking of a former trawler sounds a bit fishy to me.

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Frontline Police Officers

2011-03-31T00:05:00.000+01:00

David Cameron tell us that there is no reason why there has to be fewer frontline police officers. He defends this by saying that the Labour Party would have made cuts too. Not the strongest defence to a statement telling the police that they don't have to make cuts. David did go on to say that cuts would mean freezing police pay, reform allowances (I think that means cuts) and cut down on paperwork. It isn't that long ago that I heard of police cuts affecting frontline officers but let's take their word now that 12% cuts could be absorbed.

The claim that no frontline officers should be lost begs the question can we lose non-frontline staff? Let's agree with David and say these staff are unnecessary. Let's agree and say the police force should have their pay frozen. This means they are effectively worth less because of inflation. Let's say they should receive less in allowances and their paperwork isn't important. It strikes me that even if all these factors were present we would not have a good staff morale among officers and if morale falls so does effectiveness and efficiency.

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A legal minefield

2011-03-30T00:05:00.001+01:00

There is a definite big society. Mike Harding was talking about voluntary groups who look after theatres, and individuals who help people with broken down cars or fall over. Yesterday Baroness Newlove, whose husband Garry was murdered by a gang of teenagers in 2007, said that "crime should not be seen as someone else's problem". I agree. If we turn away when something is going wrong then more will go wrong. Policing is only possible with consent. If we all became thieves or if we all started rioting then the police force could not cope. I hope that most of us would attempt to stop crime even if we put ourselves at some risk because failure to do so would lead to a crime spree.

One of Baroness Newlove's suggestions was to allow local people to combat anti-social behaviour. Give out speed guns and enforce speed limits. Go one further and allow locals to set the speed limit. It all sounds very good but it is slightly more difficult in practice. I am quite capable of working a speed gun but would I pick on the right people? How would I know if I was doing a good job or antagonising people I don't like. What would stop me being a vigilante? You may think vigilante is a good word but it means you are acting illegally. It means that you become judge and jury. You may even end up like Charles Bronson. I hear some cheers but it isn't good. Think of a remake of Death Wish but this time make it a horror.

It is a really good idea to encourage individuals to support law and order, to even give assistance to those in authority, but to give over authority to amateurs is a legal minefield.

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Straight talking politicians

2011-03-29T00:05:00.001+01:00

I have been gadding about recently. I was watching Mike Harding on Sunday and last week I saw The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. There was a quote in the programme from the author Douglas Adams who said 'A learning experience is one of those things that say "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that"'.

Do you call a spade a spade? It sounds like a good idea because you often hear politicians answer a question which has not been asked. They make up their own answers if they don't like the question. No spades there, however there are plenty of examples when it is better to keep quiet. The trouble for politicians is that they are often asked their opinion and an honest answer may be confrontational.

There is another quote from the show by a character called Zaphod Beeblebrox. "I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer." Now wouldn't that be nice to hear from a politician? I won't hold my breath.

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Lancaster's Big Society

2011-03-28T00:05:00.001+01:00

I was watching Mike Harding at the Lancaster Grand Theatre a few hours ago. He is still hearing waves of laughter after all these years. I was speaking to the people sat next to me and they saw him in 1983. I saw him in 1978 at the Manchester Palace. Doesn't time fly! The reason why I am mentioning him is because he spoke about the big society. Some things get him mad and this is one of them. He told the audience that we have always had a big society. If someone's car breaks down then people go and move it. If an old lady falls over people go and help.

The point is the audience were right with him. They don't know what the big society means and neither do I. If we are relying on volunteers then we already have them. If anyone has a desire to help anywhere then it may take a bit of effort but they can do it. I haven't heard of anything that makes it easier to volunteer.

At the end of the show Mike gave a special thanks to the volunteers who run the Grand Theatre. There is the big society.

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Bridging the gap between rich and poor

2011-03-27T00:05:00.000Z

I returned from a visit to Glasgow yesterday. You may know that I have a keen interest in art and photography and I did visit the art galleries as well as look at Glasgow's many items of street art. I noticed no signs to stop flash photography which would damage the paint on canvas. It wouldn't do any harm to statues but there are often restrictions stopping any form of flash photography anwhere in galleries and museums. I didn't see any signs and I didn't see any flashes. I took some photos without flash and I'll show you some of them in the next week or so if you look at my photography blog.

The point I would make in this blog is that someone has to pay for street art. Everyone who walks in the street can appreciate it. You don't have to pay an entrance fee for the galleries but you do have to be motivated enough to see what is inside so mostly the options are there for rich and poor alike. Whilst in Glasgow l heard Ed Balls response to the budget. I heard him apologise for not listening to Vince Cable. I think that's what he said but it may just have been an apology for the rest of the world causing Britain's economy to fail. Then he said something about Labour not managing to decrease the gap between the rich and the poor. I didn't hear an apology for this but if Labour couldn't do anything to bridge this gap in thirteen years then I think it is fair to say that they would never bridge the gap. At least Glasgow and its council is doing something for equality of opportunity with its street art and its galleries and museums.

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Photography and Politics

2011-03-26T00:05:00.000Z

Today I will join my two blogs as I am showing you amendments to a photograph which then became a political leaflet.

On the left is the photo you saw yesterday in the photography blog. It has already been cropped significantly and you will also notice that Lancaster Cathedral has been removed. Increasing the brightness and decreasing the contrast makes it the background in the election leaflet on the right. As for the politics, this is an amendment to the leaflet which was seen on Thursday which showed Morecambe Town Hall in the background. It is a simple explanation of how voting will take place on May 5th and readers of the political blog will know that a full explanation of our present system takes longer than an explanation of the Alternative Vote.

Happy snapping