Month: May 2005

EPIC

By 2014 newspaper journalism is in decline and The New York Times has gone offline. A strange new force called EPIC rules the mediascape… click here to find out more.

Comments:

Exciting…

…if a little worrying. Will the future be full of massive corporations filtering what news we receive on a daily basis and showing the consumer what they want? Or is this just a sensationalist view of a future which has little basis in fact?

Dave Nash. Friday, May 27, 2005 2:01 AM

Yeah, looks like google will take over the world. Sure is sensationalist. You could imagine a similar thing 10 years ago about Microsoft software dominating everything. Bit scary really. I guess we always worry about sinister forces taking over the future. Terrible corporations feeding us on the media equivalent of junk food. Orwell gave us his grim prediction of a totalitarian future in 1984. We do have a tendency to see the future as bleak and full of demons, rather than a bright, technical age of opportunity, sustainable wealth and equality.

Wonder what google makes of the EPIC thing, strokes a few egos there I suppose. Traditional media will certainly have to rethink their business in the coming years. It’s been on the cards for a while. I remember debates in the late 90s about how print media would be wiped out by the online juggernaut. Fanciful stuff on tailored newspapers being printed in the home. Rather than buying a paper on the way to work, you would pick up your customised news sheet from the PC’s printer on the way out. Seems strangely optimistic now !

Today, magazine publishing is booming, despite the doomsayers of the digital revolution. Broadsheets and tabloids are in real circulation decline though. They’re gonna have to rethink what they do. Which is what the EPIC thing is all about I guess. One to watch.

If you know any print journalists, forward on the link…..hehehehe

David. Friday, May 27, 2005 4:01 PM

Foxes

foxes1.jpgThose naughty foxes are back. Cheeky little devils are out and about again, living it up in next door’s garden. The place has been empty recently, giving them a free run. I saw them the other day, idly stretching and scratching in the sun as if they owned the place. They played and scrapped in the long grass before slinking off into the undergrowth. They’ve been busy, digging holes under the fences on either side. Noisy little bastards. I often hear them at night scampering about, shrieking and yowling.

I’ve had a crack at taking some more pics, some have turned out OK. Strange, but I feel like they’re neigbours now. It’s kinda nice to have them around, even though they’re noisy little critters and make a hell of a mess.

Cubs will be coming soon, so one to watch. Hope the new neighbours don’t get the council in to remove them. Will be nice to watch them grow up.

While I’m on the subject of local wildlife…the swallows and swifts are fantastic. They’ve arrived in the last month or so and, being on the top floor, I get a fantastic view of them swooping and diving over the roof tops. Summer’s here, at last…

Awesome, awesome, awesome job has

Awesome, awesome, awesome job has just come up. My God, it’s perfect. Have been working on the CV and polishing the application. It’s film, documentary, mobile, TV and web all rolled into one…. a perfect match with what I want.

I have to get this. I would be soooooo over the moon if it came through. Imagine it… a 100% match with what I want. Secure, progressive, huge prospects and a seriously sexy place to work.

*I even spent time on the TFL journey planner today, plotting my future commute. It’s a sinch… train, then bus virtually to the door* Jumping the gun ? Moi ? ;o)

Fingers crossed.

Angela

A quick thank you to KSBR jazz radio out of Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California. They’ve just played Angela, the theme tune from Taxi, for me. Much appreciated. Thanks.

Favicon

Favicon

I’ve been wondering for a while how you get that neat little icon by your URL in the address bar. I’ve seen it on some sites and thought that looks cool. Want one.

Well, as it turns out, it’s remarkably simple. Follow these instructions and you’re well on your way to customised address bar heaven !!

Free software is good. I

Free software is good. I like free software. Especially, when it’s exactly what you’ve been looking for. Amazing what great freeware is floating around out there. Legal, well designed and ready to use.

For ages I’ve been looking for a photo album package to organise my chaotic digital pictures. I want to be able to sort, search, catalogue, caption, burn and store my pics in an easy to use way. Then along came the awesome Picasa 2 from Google. Been playing with it for a bit now and it looks fab. Nice.

Being a disorganised bastard, I thought a neat little digital diary/to do list would be good. I soon hunted out Rainlendar, a cool calendar orgainser thing. It’s lean and skinable too.

So, more free software please. Anyone know anything else that’s good ?

whoa

Here’s a bunch of clips of air crashes, helicopter accidents, spectacular crash tests and aviation stunts. Strangely voyeristic with a very high ‘whoa…‘ factor. Enjoy !

And the results are in….

What a night. Managed to hang in there until 3.30ish to see the election results roll in.

Once Putney had fallen to the Conservatives it looked like Labour was going to lose a lot of metropolitan seats, especially in London.

As the night progressed it seemed the Tories were doing well, capturing seats from New Labour. Iraq seemed to be the major issue. With many voters actively protesting against the war.

George Galloway took Bethnal Green & Bow and Stephen Twigg lost Enfield Southgate, a seat he spectacularly took from Michael Portillio in 1997.

Barbara Roche lost in Hornsey and Wood Green and Oliver Letwin managed to hang on in Dorset West.

The final results are Labour 355, Conservative 197, Liberal Democrat 62 with 642 of the 646 seats declared.

Tony Blair has delivered an historic third term for New Labour.

20 years ago this would have been inconceivable and is a tremendous achievement.

However, Blair has seen his majority cut from 167 in 2001 to 66. This will result in a different, more conciliatory style of government. He will have to govern by consensus, rather than dictat. Those backbench rebels suddenly have a lot more power. In reality, this result can only hasten his plans to step aside for Gordon Brown.

The big Tory news is their revival started in 2005. They gained seats and will take heart from the results. Michael Howard, citing his age, has decided to step down and the search for a new Conservative leader is on… again !

The Liberal Democrats had a great election and gained seats at Labour’s expense. They have reason to celebrate the largest number of Liberal seats since the 1920s.

As expected UKIP and Veritas bombed and it’s unlikely we’ll hear from them again.

So, all change. Blair has had his wings clipped and is likely to step aside sooner rather than later. The winners are Gordon Brown and the Liberal Democrats. The Tories can only hope that they have turned the corner.

Election Day….

Well, it’s election day. Today the politicians fall silent and the people decide. I love elections. I like the fact that politicians, cabinet ministers, campaigners and lobbyists now have to wait. There’s nothing they can do. There are no strings left to pull, promises to make, arms to twist or deals to do. This time the big decision, and their future, is in the people’s hands. The powerful are rendered powerless for a day. I like that.

It’s been a strangely dull campaign. Perhaps because many feel it’s not a proper contest, and Labour will get in again. It’s not like the recent knife-edge US election. I followed it closely and the future direction of America seemed to be at stake. In contrast, I haven’t really been that caught up in the UK election. Probably, because I’ve always known who I support. I’m a Labour man, through and through. Even though I’ve had to vote Lib Dem on the last two occasions. Where I live it’s a straight race between the Tories and Liberal Democrats. So, I’ve voted Lib-Dem as a tactical choice to keep the Tory out.

Looking back at the campaigns, the Conservatives have run a very negative operation. They scored some points at the start, but I’m surprised they chose that route. They’ve hammered on about immigration, asylum, MRSA and have even called Tony Blair a liar over Iraq. Their message has been about dangers and threats, risks and fears. They’ve used scare tactics, and it doesn’t seem to have worked. We know what they’re against, but are still unsure what they’re really for.

Michael Howard has been the face of the Tory campaign. The rest of the cabinet haven’t really featured. Howard has never been a popular politician. His term as Home Secretary seemed to characterise all the negative aspects of the last Tory government. The infamous Paxman interview, where he failed to answer a question put to him 17 times, and Anne Widdecombe’s famous phrase that Howard ‘had something of the night’ about him, has stuck.

The Tory spending plans always looked a bit shaky. They claimed they could cut billions worth of ‘waste’ from the public sector while magically delivering tax cuts. The old Tory argument of cutting the public sector to fund tax cuts no longer washes. Cuts never deliver the savings promised, and whoever gains power will have to raise taxes anyway. There was always the sense that the Tory figures didn’t quite work. On paper they looked promising, in power they wouldn’t add up.

The Tories may actually do worse this time than in the last election. Why they went negative, why they focussed so much on Michael Howard and why they failed to put forward convincing financial plans will be the talk of the party as they face another lengthy term in opposition.

In contrast, the Liberal Democrats have run a positive campaign with Charles Kennedy appearing honest and likeable. They have also been consistent in their opposition to the Iraq war, which has proved popular on the doorstep. Charles Kennedy may have slipped up on a tax question at their policy briefing, but this was probably down to sleep deprivation after the birth of his new baby son !

Interestingly, Liberal Democrat policies have not been seriously scrutinised. Their treasury plans involve significant tax rises and their idea of a local income tax to replace the hated council tax seems poorly thought through. Their promise to scrap tuition fees, no doubt popular with students, doesn’t come with a convincing alternative for funding higher education. But somehow this doesn’t seem to matter. I guess, most people think the Lib Dems won’t get into power so their policy arguments aren’t subject to the same level of scrutiny. For some, the Liberal Democrats aren’t the Tories or Labour and that’s a good enough reason to vote for them.

It’ll be interesting to see how successful their so called ‘decapitation strategy’ will be. The Lib Dems are challenging a number of senior Tories in marginal seats and some, like Oliver Letwin, may be toppled. Under Lord Rennard, the formidable Liberal Democrat strategist, the party has developed an efficient local election machine which they have used to great effect. I think they will achieve significant gains this evening. Maybe reaching as many as 60-70 seats.

Labour have run a good energetic campaign. Emphasising their record of economic management and public service investment. Significantly, their effort has been fronted by both Blair and Brown. Their double act has characterised the Labour drive for a third term. They look like a party of government and put forward detailed policy arguments. I was particularly impressed by their joint press conference on the Tory tax plans. They were both in command of the detail and put forward a withering critique of Oliver Letwin’s election budget.

Their problem, however, has been twofold. The first is the unpopularity of the Iraq invasion and the feeling that Blair misled the country to go to war alongside George Bush. The second is a burden all two-term incumbents experience: the accusation that public services are not improving and the governing party are not delivering on their promises.

On Iraq, Blair faced an incredibly difficult call. He was caught between a Bush administration running a timetable for war and key European allies who condemned the invasion and refused to take part. Blair frequently aspired to be the bridge between Europe and America. On Iraq the two camps were too far apart to be bridged. Reconciliation proved impossible and Blair had to decide whether to side with America or Europe.

Once the prospect of a second UN resolution was lost, there was no middle ground left and Blair sided with Bush. In doing so he chose an unpopular, risky war as America’s junior partner. He must have agonised over that and known it would cost him support. The unanswered question is whether he privately promised Bush that he would back the invasion no matter what. The public perception is that he did.

The problem with the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war is it relies on advanced warning of a threat. You need good intelligence to warn of enemies and their intentions. We now know that American and British intelligence on Iraq was shockingly poor in quality and detail. CIA Director George Tenet’s childish claim that it was a “slam-dunk” that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction was a fiction. We now know all the intelligence claims on Iraqi WMD were wrong. Their information was poor and their conclusions incorrect. He had no Weapons of Mass Destruction.

However, at the time, the politicians were being told that Saddam had stocks of deadly weapons. Here’s the question Blair had to ask himself: if terrorists could get WMD, would they use them ? Looking at 9/11, the answer must be yes. Once you have reached that conclusion, and believe that Saddam had WMD and might supply them to terrorists, the only answer must be to disarm him. Not to do so would be irresponsible. Blair didn’t know what we know now about WMD in Iraq. He read the reports and intelligence assessments and decided it was in Britain’s interest to invade.

Did Blair ‘sex up’ the intelligence ? That’s a big question which goes to the heart of his trustworthiness in the election campaign. Did he embellish the intelligence reports to ensure Britain went to war alongside America ? Did he make the threat from Saddam look more conclusive and dangerous (the 45 minute claim) that it really was ? The enquiries say he didn’t, but the public think he did.

In the election campaign, Blair has been accused of lying over Iraq and his trustworthiness has become a real election issue. His credibility and personal standing have suffered as a result. During the campaign, the Attorney-General’s full advice on the legality of war has emerged and another British soldier has just been killed in Iraq. Blair’s political standing has taken a real knock. Iraq will always hang over him and, despite Labour’s focus on economic and domestic issues, it will cost the Labour party votes and seats.

As the party in power, Labour have been blamed for a lack of public service improvement and for not delivering on key promises. In this, Labour have fallen victim to their own key public service pledges. They said they would plough more money and resources into the NHS, schools, police and other services. Many still feel this promise has been broken and public services have not significantly improved.

It is amazing how accusatory, even rude, some of the public questioning of Tony Blair has been. Sometimes he seems more like a besieged customer service manager facing angry shoppers. Exasperated consumers of government services take it out on a beleaguered Prime Minister. ‘Why hasn’t my son got a place at school ?’; ‘Why has my hip operation taken so long…?’; ‘Why am I scared to go out at night ?’; ‘Why can’t I get a doctor’s appointment…?’. The subtext being, ‘you promised, you promised, you promised…’.

Blair faces them, trying to explain that he can’t really comment on specific cases without the facts. He assures them that more money has been spent on public services and they are improving. Strangely, he simply isn’t believed and has been booed and heckled. I suppose Blair has to face up to the reality of sceptical individual opinions which have been distorted by endless negative tabloid stories. It’s not easy to cut through it all and explain your points objectively.

Labour will win, despite opposition to the war and scepticism over public service improvements. They will lose seats, but the only question is by what majority will they govern. It is an historic achievement for a Labour government to win a third term. That cannot be forgotten. Will their majority be below 100 ? That’s the only question in town.

As for the other parties, UKIP and Kilroy’s barmy Veritas, they haven’t even registered on the radar. They form the lunatic fringe of Euro sceptic fantasy. It’s unlikely they’ll win a seat. Their moment was the last European election. They will fade and eventually die out as a political force. George Galloway with his anti-war Respect party has taken on Oona King in Bethnal Green and Bow. He may win.

The nationalist parties in Wales and Scotland focus on local issues and regional power bases. They may gain a seat here or lose a constituency there. They are local and will remain so.

The one interesting area is Northern Ireland. Firstly, the mainland parties don’t figure in Ulster. The people of Northern Ireland have their own political traditions and fight elections along tribal and sectarian lines. The ones to watch are Sinn Fein and how they fare after the impact of the McCartney sisters and IRA disarmament as part of the peace process. Also, the DUP and UUP contest for unionist leadership will shape the future of the Northen Ireland peace process. It looks like Paisley will remain the principal negotiator for unionism.

There is one other election participant that needs to be considered. The BBC. Of all the media coverage, the BBC’s has been the most comprehensive and universal. Over the course of the campaign they have given all the parties equal air time, travelled the country with election buses, staged leaders question times and helicoptered reporters to every corner of the nation. Paxman has done his best to interrogate the party leaders and Michael Crick has dug around for the scandal and gossip.

The BBC coverage has been awesome. Their online election services include seat by seat breakdowns, all the poll information you could want and daily analysis and commentary, complete with blogs and election swingometers. It’s been truly brilliant.

On TV, Andrew Marr has been great. His campaign summaries and election analysis have been succinct and informative. Having just read his excellent new book, I may be a bit biased ! But, I thought his contribution and that of the BBC newsrooms, journalists and commentators were excellent. Just what public service broadcasting should be.

As their cartoon advert for the BBC election coverage claims, they covered every angle and all of the issues. The BBC are so huge and omnipresent that they inevitably become a crucial intermediary in the election process. Basically, they are an election player, whether they like it or not.

So, to conclude, my feeling is that Labour will win, albeit with a reduced majority. The Liberal Democrats will gain seats and the Conservatives will broadly stand still.

I’ll stay up as long as I can to see the results come in. I love election night and always watch the coverage. The great thing is, no one really knows what will happen…