Nowhere to hide

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nowhere-to-hide

According to ZD-Net the UK government has plans to monitor all social media traffic including the likes of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace & Bebo.

"Social-networking sites such as MySpace or Bebo are not covered by the directive," said Coaker, speaking at a meeting of the House of Commons Fourth Delegated Legislation Committee. "That is one reason why the government (is) looking at what we should do about the Intercept(ion) Modernisation Programme, because there are certain aspects of communications which are not covered by the directive."

The U.K. government has previously said communications interception is "vital" and has hinted that social-networking sites may be put under surveillance. And responding to a question from Liberal Democrat Parliament member Tom Brake, Coaker said all traffic data on social-networking sites and through instant-messaging services may be harvested and stored.

Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee is not terribly keen on this idea and thinks that people should not be snooped on. This is yet another worrying turn of Labour's survelliance government and one that we should probably not be terribly surprised to read about.

Free to sell, free to buy

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free-to-sell-free-to-buy

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is currently undertaking a consultation on Ticketing and Ticket Touting. On their webpage the Department states, "The Government... does not favour legislation to prevent secondary sales.  But new laws cannot be ruled out if voluntary measures do not succeed and conditions for consumers do not improve. The consultation urges ticketing companies to tighten up sales of tickets if they want to prevent them being resold. "

However, polling by ICM for eBay has revealed that 86% of people think that they should be allowed to resell their own tickets if they can no longer attend the event. 83% of the public also show an understanding of property rights, agreeing with the idea that the ticket is theirs to sell on. 80% of people also believe that reselling tickets should not be against the law if they can no longer use it. And further evidence shows that 85% agree that the organizer, not the government, should ensure that tickets don't end up with touts. Over two thirds of people can also tell the difference between an individual selling their ticket and a tout, unlike the government and some event organizers who lump everyone together.

It is clear from this data that there is little need for the government to act. The event organizers need to implement a system that controls ticket sales so that the so called 'touts' aren't the ones purchasing tickets directly so that they may resell them on after events have sold out. One problem area highlighted by the polling data was that of the 13% who attempted to get a refund when they had unused tickets, only 42% were successful. If organizers were more willing to refund tickets then this would cut into the potential profits that touts could make and also offering a more secure environment for purchasing tickets. The answers to the problem of professional touts are straightforward and event organizers shouldn't be relying on/pressuring government to implement legislation that criminalises all merely to ensure their own profits on what is currently a bad business model.

Fake Charities

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fake-charities

I think we all know about one type of fake charity? The ones where almost every penny raised goes on either paying for those who run the charity or into more fundraising to, err, pay those who run the charity? Allow me to introduce you to a new form of fake charity, one that has risen rather large in our political discourse in recent years.

My own eye opener came when I was pointed to the accounts of Friends of the Earth Europe. Some 50% of their money comes from the European Union. That in itself isn't too appalling, but FoE Europe's work is to lobby the European Union.  You can imagine how this might go then...the taxpayer gets gouged so that a lobby group can be seen to be urging a course of action upon those who have gouged the taxpayer in order to be lobbied. Lobbied to do something that they already wanted to do but need some public lobbying to provide the fig leaf perhaps.

This is not though an isolated incident. Via the excellent and very new fakecharities.org we find that many of those "charities" which appear in our national media are in fact little better than such State funded lobbying organisations. Taxes are taken from us so that the government can pay for the government to be lobbied, providing that fig leaf of a vocal campaign telling them (and us, more importantly) that what they've already decided to do is obviously a jolly good idea indeed.

You can see how the whole idea works here (although those of nervous dispositions might want to install that special anti-swearing filtering software). Perhaps the most egregious example uncovered as yet is Alcohol Concern. Out of an income in one year of just shy of £1 million, 57% came from the Department of Health...and yes, Alcohol Concern has been and is quite vociferous in its lobbying of the Department of Health on how access to alcohol can and should be restricted. Private donations were a tad shy of £5,000 (yes, that's five thousand, not five hundred thousand nor even fifty thousand) so their income from real people actually supporting their efforts was less than 0.5% of their total income. It's extremely difficult to see that this is a charity and even more difficult to see why theiy should been given any credence whatsoever in the media.

Might I suggest that in the spirit of this new citizen journalism, this new idea that we ourselves can and should investigate those who rule us, you pop over to fakecharities.org and give them a helping hand? Crack open a set of charitable accounts and see who is the sockpuppet and who is genuinely working independently? I seem to recall that someone proved that the Work Foundation was eating its capital, a thought which would make an interesting addition, anyone got other interesting such tidbits to add to the database?

Public art is public waste

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Having wasted £1.4m on the complete failure that is B of the Bang, Manchester City Council has decided that no more public money will be spent on the project. It is a little late for that. Whenever the words ‘public’ and ‘art’ are heard falling from the lips of those in charge of spending our cash, you know disaster is just around the corner. B of the Bang is just one of many. Of late we have seen much brass been burnt at the altar of art.

Firstsite is supposed to be Colchester’s first ‘Visual Arts Facility' – every town should have one. Originally it was going to be built for a paltry £16.5 million and open in 2007. Instead, following mammoth delays, it will end up costing in excess of £25 million, with Essex County Council needing to strip its taxpayers of a further £2 million just to keep it going. It is however free to enter, unless of course you're a taxpayer in Essex, in which case you have already paid for it (and some).

The Wigan Pier Quarter Interpretation Project is a £36,000 plan to erect four life-size statues at Wigan Pier. Guess who is putting in a wheelbarrow or two of cash for this? Wigan taxpayers along with the good taxpayers of Europe through the European Regional Development Fund. What about the poor people of the small Welsh town of Cardigan? They certainly don’t want the Big Art Project on their shores. I doubt Welsh taxpayers want to plough in £50,000 either, and i'm quite sure the rest of us don’t want the state subsidized Channel 4 to spend money making them angry.

Even Antony Gormley, who has received taxpayers money, does not like the way the success of his Angel of the North has been as a precedent to encourage people and local authorities looking for European funding or investment.

It need not be this way. The Giant White Horse in the south of England will be built by private money. Whether or not you think it's a good idea to build a giant white horse in a field, at least you won't be footing the bill for it.

The fourth plinth waiting game

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Will Trafalgar Square ever see a permanent resident to it’s vacant fourth plinth? I say vacant, it’s currently supporting a model that the pigeons have adopted as a dance club! Later in 2009, Anthony Gormley will be asking 2,400 people to stand on the plinth, 100 per hour (you can apply here). Following him will be “Victory in a Bottle" by Yinka Shonibare, which is exactly what it says on the tin. But perhaps the time has come to move away from the concept of placing modern art on there, it’s become somewhat staid. Modern art is supposed to push the envelope and it’s proven that.

However, the plinth is there for a statue to be placed on it, completing the square if you will, and recently there have been two very good proposals. The first, which is currently in the planning application stages would see RAF hero, Sir Keith Park overlooking the square. It would be in keeping with the military theme and would bring the area up-to-date by rightly immortalizing a Second World War flyer. The second is nothing more than a rumour that circulated in the press late last year, but one that is in fact a very noble idea: a statue of the Queen on horseback. The one drawback is that it would be unveiled after her passing (which could be a long way hence). Perhaps we shouldn’t wait. Why not set the goal of having it erected by 2012, 60 years after her ascension to the throne and also in the Olympic year?

What needs to be undertaken is a drive to erect something permanent there to stop us from enduring the rather public death of modern art. Modern art need not be constricted to one site in the corner of a square, it should be interspersed throughout the city so that it becomes a daily interaction that enlivens us. Rather than a drab reminder of where pigeons go to party.

Another fine mess

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another-fine-mess

In an interview with Friday's Independent, John Armitage, the Chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), said it was "possible that no private sector money would be found for the £1bn Olympic village" and that "the authority has already given up hope of securing funding for the £355m international media centre, which will now be paid for entirely by the Exchequer."

Wonderful. More taxpayers' money down the toilet. Let's not forget that the original budget for the games (with which London won the bid) was £2.4bn. It subsequently spiralled to more than £9bn when ministers realized they had forgotten about security and VAT, among other things. Now, officials are said to be working to a £12bn target. And yet it could still get much worse: when the developer Sir Stuart Lipton was offered the chairmanship of the ODA, he turned it down, saying the plans could not be delivered for less than £15bn. And that, of course, was before all the private sponsorship dried up.

I say they should stop throwing good money after bad. London already has more than enough sports facilities to handle the Olympics, without filling the East End with monuments to the government's vanity. As Simon Jenkins has written:

Athletics should go to the (itself vastly expensive) new Wembley stadium, designed by Foster and Partners to be adapted to the Olympics in an emergency... Football and hockey can go to existing London stadiums, of which there are at least 25. Riding can go to Hickstead, and save the trees at Greenwich. Shooting can go to Bisley (rather than spend £11m at Woolwich) and gymnastics, boxing and the rest to the Wembley Arena. The Dome and Excel are standing by...

The media can look after themselves, and the athletes can stay in hotels. Better still, the whole thing could go to Paris and save Londoners a lot of hassle – or is that too much to ask for?

Hat-tip to Spectator CoffeeHouse

The archaeological pirates

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the-archaeological-pirates

It’s cold, it’s wet and it’s muddy and you are wandering around a field with a pair of earphones on, waving a metal wand in your hand waiting for that special beeping noise that indicates that you may have struck gold...well metal anyway. This is the life of a metal detectorist, searching for the “holy grail", though not literally, of course. On Monday night a Time Team programme on Channel 4 shone some light on the trials and tribulations that the metal detectorists face.

The show was advertised as a, “report on a secret archaeological investigation into the site of a possible Viking boat burial in Yorkshire following a major discovery of coins, silver and swords." The discovery was made by a pair of humble detectorists, who, it transpired, had been detecting on the site for a number of years but had only reported a small proportion of their finds. They wished for the site to remain a secret so as to protect their “hunting grounds" and also any undiscovered artefacts. It became evident as the programme progressed as to why many detectorists act as they do towards the authorities.

There are guidelines to a code of conduct on the National Council for Metal Detecting that explain that all “unusual historical" finds are to be reported to the landowner, and the authorities. But as was witnessed last night there is little incentive to do so when the DCMS undervalues finds that come under the Treasure Act of 1996 to the tune of 800%.

Once a landowner has given permission to others to search his land, then those involved in the contract should be able to sell any finds on the open market. Whilst there should be some duty (self-regulated) to pass information to archaeologists to allow them access as well, so as to increase historical knowledge. There should be no room for the government, unless the find occurs on common land. All parties involved need to disconnect with the archaeological pirate that is otherwise known as government, and free up the market so that it runs more efficiently.

Clean up the BBC: episode 2

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Vaizey’s proposals on the BBC (for greater transparency) highlight an even greater issue. Why should the BBC have special privileges at all? The BBC charter states that the organisation’s mission is “to inform, educate and entertain". However, whilst there is a case for, free access public service TV, for the education and the transfer of vital information, there is none for entertainment; especially in a multi-channel-stream world. The BBC has no exclusive power to entertain, and whilst I enjoy many of their programmes, they need not be made by the BBC, or forced on others. In addition and most importantly, if they are enjoyable then people will voluntarily pay for them through the market, just as they do with other goods.

Also, if one were to support a free access public TV services for vital information and/or education, there is no technical reason to use only one institution; inhibiting efficiency and innovation. The best method would be to offer the contracts on a competitive basis (and if the BBC were the best, then they of course they would get the contract).

Instead, the BBC could survive commercially like other channels through a mix of advertising, subscription services and other commercial mechanisms rather than forcing itself on the public. Let all the viewers decide what they want to watch, how, when and where.
 

Clean up the BBC: episode 1

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The recent calls by the Shadow Culture Minister, Ed Vaizey, for BBC salaries to be revealed should be welcomed with open arms. In fact, it is dismaying that, “fully audited accounts … [and] details of the salaries of all its top talent" are not already available. Transparency is badly needed in the opaque world of bureaucratic, state supported, quasi-autonomous statutory corporations.

The latest BBC scandal, with Ross and Brand, and wide ranging criticisms accusing the BBC of everything from London-centrism to political bias only adds weight to the case.

Far more “funny" than tasteless comedians is the very nature of the organization itself. The BBC is an exceptional entity because the cost of its product is set by government, enforced by criminal law, and imposed involuntarily. If I wish to watch only the many alternative channels, I would still have to pay £139.50 for the BBC. Therefore, it is patently clear that if such an organization continues to exist at all, it must be accountable to the public. Vaizey has a clear-cut case.

Where does this lead us? Find out tomorrow in episode 2. To be continued...

Sitting on the dock of the bay

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According to the BBC, people in the UK lack community and are thus lonely. You might well ask how the BBC, in conjunction with the University of Sheffield, arrived at these conclusions; well here it is:

The study ranks places using a formula based on the proportion of people in an area who are single, those who live alone, the numbers in private rented accommodation and those who have lived there for less than a year.

BBC Home Editor, Mark Easton, has this to say about the statistics:

My reading is that communities are less well-rooted than they were. And without a strong foundation of people and families who are committed to their neighbourhood, community life suffers.

It is of course quite possible that communities have suffered from the increase in single people living alone for short periods in rented accommodation, but this research does not show this. Instead it just shows that there has been an increase in single people living alone for short periods in rented accommodation. Going on, as the BBC does, to discuss the nature and value of communities actually leads to more questions than answers. After all, what is the value of a community of married, cohabiting homeowners, if they living in the midst of high crime and violence?

The BBC and the University of Sheffield have stretched the statistics beyond even the analysis community, suggesting that what is being measured is loneliness. To present community and loneliness as antonyms is profoundly wrong. Even if these statistics suggested that communities were being eroded (which they clearly don’t), to suggest that without community we are lonely needs more than supposition. Also, loneliness is not in fact being measured, only the status of someone living alone. These are of course very different things. Many take pleasure in the regular withdrawal from the oppression of the group, while others might invite their friends and family over for a beer.