“Andy Burnham, Culture secretary, is calling for an overhaul of English football finances to break the domination of the ‘Big Four’ clubs", The Times has reported. Why would the Government get involved in such a matter? Have they no more important issues to be worrying about? It is no surprise that the Culture Secretary is an Everton fan.
Undoubtedly, the top four teams have been hugely dominant for over a decade. Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool have been at the forefront of English football and because of this end up becoming richer every season. New and better players have consistently chosen these football havens as a place to learn their trade, ultimately leaving the ‘smaller clubs’.
It is understandable that this has become an issue as a mini league has now been created between these teams and the lesser teams fight for fifth place downwards. However, Burnham is demanding the top four redistribute their earnings from the Champions League. This ridiculous stipulation is both embarrassing and disgraceful. The Champions League is a competition where the best four teams from our country fantastically represent the Premier League and of course acquire extra revenue. Why should the teams who do not even play in this competition gain extra money for doing absolutely nothing? If Everton were part of the ‘Big Four’ would Mr Burnham be making such a fuss?
Once again people who seem to know very little of football and the beauty of the game are involving themselves in how it is run. Burnham also raised the issue of quotas for English players to help make the Premiership English. Nevertheless, there is a simple reason why there are so many foreigners in our League. We want to have the best League in the world; therefore, we attract the best players in the world. And alas, the best players in the world are too rarely English.
A couple of weeks ago I had a holiday in Los Angeles. I'd been there before in 2004, but it was only on this second visit that I realized what a fantastic city it is. To some that might seem a controversial statement: a lot of people are quite negative about LA, its sprawl, its smog, and its supposed superficiality. But I loved it.
The reason is that LA strikes me as one of the world's only truly modern cities, designed around the kind of lives we have today, and not the ones we led hundreds of years ago. Ayn Rand once wrote that, "civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy", and that's how Los Angeles feels: private. You can drive everywhere. You're not forced to live on top of one another. You have all the benefits of suburbia, combined with all the amenities and attractions of a major urban area.
That's a product of the way LA sprawls, of course, but why shouldn't a city expand? It's not like there isn't room for it to do so. Besides, whatever the government planners try to tell us, people don't want to live in the sort of high-density developments they're so fond of – people want detached houses and space to themselves.
Another thing that struck me was how much better at suburbia the Americans are than us. Whereas British suburbs too often contain an endless monotony of virtually identical houses (another product of our wonderful planning system), in LA it looked like everyone has designed their own houses. Some, naturally, were testaments to bad taste. But the overall effect was to create a much more attractive environment.
One last point: anyone who thinks that the state needs to subsidize and support 'culture' should visit LA's Getty Center (pictured). It's free to enter and contains a magnificent art collection, housed in a series of buildings that showcase modern architecture at its best. And the whole thing is privately financed.
I haven't yet heard anyone yet say that Swine Flu means we must abandon the acquisitive society and all learn to live more simply, but I have no doubt at all that I will. I anticipate this because the mantra is used every time anything of significance happens, and even when insignificant things do. There are always people who yearn for a simpler life when people were nicer neighbours and the Hovis boy pushed his bike up that sepia cobbled hill. Things were under control more in those days.
Now they wail that everything has gone manic with people pushing and shoving and trying to improve themselves. The spread and speed of our interaction with others has led to a world which cannot be controlled and which occasionally seems to run wild.There are just so many interactions that no directing brain can hope to slow it down and make it behave as some idealists would like it to.
In despair over these developments, and over their failure to persuade the world to behave differently, they clutch at each new development as a sign of the imminent collapse of the modern world, and the emergence of a quieter one in which people have more limited ambitions and know their place. They rather parallel the environmentalists who hail any weather that happens as evidence of coming catastrophe.
It is true that the world faces a series of challenges and shocks; it always has. It is also true that modern speed and interconnectivity can highlight and intensify some of those challenges. But there is another side to that coin: it is that the speed of scientific and technical advance, and the rapid transmission of information, mean that humans can respond more quickly and more effectively. Our ability to deal with crises has increased, too.
It is unlikely that Swine Flu will overwhelm us. Humankind will rise to its challenge and emerge from its threat, just as it does from the others. And no, it will not abandon its quest for self-improvement, or the speed and range of its reach. But its success will not prevent some people hailing the next crisis as the one to curtail our unlimited ambitions.
Writing in the Yorkshire Post, David Cameron loosely sets out his vision of the next government. He appears confident that the Conservatives will be able to turn things around. Writing on the recent revelations of MPs expenses and the McPoison affair, Cameron states:
This can't go on. Politicians have a lot of work to do to rebuild trust in them, in politics, and in our capacity to change things for the better.
One way or another the media has a huge influence on political outcomes. In much the same way that a reality-TV nonentity is built up only to be crushed under the weight of the revelations of every tawdry detail of their lives, the British people were caught in a bubble of New Labour spin, with a complicit media willing to act as distributors of propaganda. That bubble has now been rightly popped.
We deserve journalists that are prepared to dig around in the dirt of politics, criticise the establishment and argue against the current trend of popular opinion. We can only hope that the lost faith in the Labour Party is not transferred to Cameron’s Conservative Party if they come to power. We should be cynical about the political process as it stands: after all, these people put themselves forward to determine how free we are to lead the lives we want.
Politics by its very nature a slimy and dirty business. Until the powers of politicians to control and compel are severely curtailed we require a watchful fourth estate; whether this is paper or internet based is irrelevant. The more questioning the press and people of this country are about politics and the politicians that rule them, the less likely we will be to trust them with the important decisions of our lives. Perhaps one day we will wake up to the fact that we are better off contracting with others freely, instead of letting the governement do the bidding on our their behalf.
In case your ears have glazed over since he came to power, Gordon Brown has been talking about Britishness quite a lot.
On Britishness, Brown has said: "being British is, in a sense, about subscribing to these values that have endured." His government compels; we do not subscribe. The latest move to be framed in the verbal diatrbe of British values is his adoption of a policy the ‘nudging’ Conservatives were mulling over in 2007. It amounts to signing our youth up to part-time slavery.
The rulers of countries have had an impact on national values. Almost always this has been to the severe detriment of the people. On the rare occasions when the state has had a positive contribution in this area, it has been through breaking down the ties that bind the people’s liberty to the state.
Unlike Blair, Brown has built his political philosophy on the works of thinkers on the left. As such, he is unable to think outside of a world in which the ruler distributes private property for the ‘public good’. With the triangulation that came with the creation of New Labour, Brown is left with little of substance on which to stand. As such, his digression into the world of British values is unsurprising if faintly ridiculous. Blair and Obama can somehow be forgiven by the public at large for speaking with vigour on meaningless platitudes, from Brown it just doesn't work.
Brown’s premiership will be noted for its lack: its lack of leadership, direction and policies. Despite his exhaustive efforts, he will never pin down the values of Britishness; this is because such talk is was best discussed over a couple of pints, a pack of cigarettes and a couple of packets of crisps in your local pub. The Heresiarch over at Heresy Corner hits the nail squarely on the head:
All that the state should require of its citizens is that they pay their taxes and obey the law. Beyond that we are in the realms of propaganda and indoctrination, neither of which strikes me as being particularly "British".
Except the stars of “showbiz" and spectator sports to whom all is forgiven, fat cats do not have a good press. Even those who have done great things, built and run vast and vastly productive organisations employing thousands of men and women who are all at least a little better off as a result, - even captains of industry are widely blamed for their income and wealth that is regarded as ranging from the provocative to the obscene. When, by a combination of gross collective misjudgment, ill luck, mass hysteria fostered by the perverse incentives governing the panic-mongering media and equally perverse solvency and accounting rules the fat cats of finance got themselves in deep trouble, the jubilant public all but cheered. Admittedly, as the music stopped, many bankers displayed singularly bad taste, but even perfect discretion would not have saved them from the detestation owed to fat cats.
At the other extremity of society, the underdog enjoys general sympathy. There is a presumption that he must be in the right and the top dog (or should it be overdog?) is in the wrong. This is so not because of what either may have done, but because one is now beneath the other. The top dog may be blameless, but sympathy goes to the underdog and sympathy is easily mistaken for an imperative of justice.
All these sentiments and attitudes spring from deep-seated emotions that cloud cooler judgment. One such may be the shock and fear at the sight of gross inequalities of any kind that hurt what Isaiah Berlin called the “love of symmetry". Another may be the emotive appeal that playing Robin Hood holds for most of us (and hang the Sheriff of Nottingham). Half emotion and half calculation inspire the gut feeling that rich-to-poor redistribution enhances the common good (the “aggregate utility" of superannuated textbooks ) while incidentally also raising the income of the person advocating it. Finally, pure emotion excites good old-fashioned envy; do down the fat cats, chop off the tall poppies even if the person feeling that way expects to reap no profit from it.
So, we have finally received the findings of the Ofcom investigation into the whole BBC ‘Sachsgate’ affair. Unsurprisingly, the results are notably underwhelming.
The BBC has been fined £150,000 in total. £70,000 was for broadcasting offensive materials and £80,000 for invading the privacy of members of the public. This fine of £150,000 may sound adequate, but bare in mind that whilst Ross was publicly embarrassing us, he was earning £6m per year.
The Ofcom report into the debacle reveals a little of the extent of public waste at the BBC. For example, after a previous incident, Russell Brand’s broadcasting had already been classified as ‘high risk’ by senior management, yet he was still given a prime-time show on Radio 2.
Regulation acts as a cost to industries at the best of times - but there is something askew when a government regulator fines a public body. Essentially, the government has admitted it has failed in this instance, so has decided to fine itself at nobody’s cost but the taxpayer. We wouldn’t let a criminal decide their own sentence in court. The broadcasting regulatory system here smacks of double standards. The regulatory rules state that a private broadcasting company can be fined 5% of its revenue for breaches of the rules on any occasion. By contrast, the BBC can only be fined £250,000 for an identical failing. Why should the BBC be allowed so much more leniency and freedom than other private companies? If anything, as a national public institution they should be held under much greater scrutiny.
There is an ironic parody here – just like Ms Baillie, the taxpayer has been shafted by the BBC, and both of us have received comical apologies.
We had two of the country’s top political bloggers discussing Politcs and the Blog on the 1st April. Guido Fawkes spoke first, discussing the right’s hegemony over the left. He argued that two factors are key to this, namely Labour’s top-down attempts to create a comparable site to ConservativeHome and the fact that the predominantly left BBC has such a strangling dominance over the media at large. Rightly proud of the tabloid style of his blog, Guido also spoke with relish on the mounting political scalps that he has amassed.
John Redwood MP was up next and spoke extensively of the failure of the media to offer a thorough and critical analysis of government policy. Acknowledging his purposefully technical and demanding subject matter, Redwood spoke of how he is stirred to write after reading the documents of government; analysis of which he is required to do, in place of the failure of the mainstream media. His analysis of the financial crisis has certainly outstripped that of professional journalists by a country mile.
The audience included a litany of other top bloggers and as such the questions were excellent. We had many questions that focssed on the BBC. The room was thick with plots on how to bring down this behemoth. This would certainly be a welcome move: something for the politicians in the room to think about perhaps. As Guido rightly pointed out, the i-player is all very well, but without the BBC’s monopoly we could create the next Google.
There is a generally held truth that the days of newspapers are numbered as people increasingly turn to the internet for their news. There is clearly some truth in this and a number of papers will go to the wall accordingly. But instead of trying to turn papers digital, owners would be better advised to look to the past to find a model for the future.
Whatever your political predilection, the standard of your paper in this country is invariably poor. A search of articles in newspaper archives shows a cavernous gap in the quality of journalism between past and present. Much of our current papers are full of vacuous opinions that would fail to challenge the intelligence and opinions of a twelve-year-old child.
Clearly in the age of instant information newspapers will no longer be the place people turn to in order learn about what is going on in the world. However, this need not be the end of newspapers. They have a place for investigative reporting and considered analysis of the news. The model for this is not to try to copy what independent blogs do so well, but to look to the past where journalism was of a higher standard and less inclined to unthinking reactions to current events.
With the declining sales of newspapers it is probably not the time to consider the viabiliity for starting a new paper. However, as there always exists opportunity in adversity, perhaps it is worth some consideration. No paper at present caters for believers in both economic and social freedoms. There might just be room for one on the UK market...
In a move that'll shock no one, but will further antogonise Britain's successful and profitable game industry. The Advertising Standards Authority has rejected objections to the "play video games and die early" advert.
The MCV reports that the ASA responded with this terse statement:
Whilst the ASA Council understood the concerns of Tiga and those complainants who worked in the video games industry, it noted that the ad did not claim that playing computer or console games alone would lead to illness or premature death.
Funny that anyone seeing the advertisement in the article might come to a rather different conclusion. If you want to see the ASA make excuses for its decision the article has their complete response.
“Andy Burnham, Culture secretary, is calling for an overhaul of English football finances to break the domination of the ‘Big Four’ clubs", The Times has 
A couple of weeks ago I had a holiday in Los Angeles. I'd been there before in 2004, but it was only on this second visit that I realized what a fantastic city it is. To some that might seem a controversial statement: a lot of people are quite negative about LA, its sprawl, its smog, and its supposed superficiality. But I loved it.
Writing in the Yorkshire Post, David Cameron loosely 
In case your ears have glazed over since he came to power, Gordon Brown has been talking about Britishness quite a lot.
Except the stars of “showbiz" and spectator sports to whom all is forgiven, fat cats do not have a good press. Even those who have done great things, built and run vast and vastly productive organisations employing thousands of men and women who are all at least a little better off as a result, - even captains of industry are widely blamed for their income and wealth that is regarded as ranging from the provocative to the obscene. When, by a combination of gross collective misjudgment, ill luck, mass hysteria fostered by the perverse incentives governing the panic-mongering media and equally perverse solvency and accounting rules the fat cats of finance got themselves in deep trouble, the jubilant public all but cheered. Admittedly, as the music stopped, many bankers displayed singularly bad taste, but even perfect discretion would not have saved them from the detestation owed to fat cats.
So, we have finally received the .jpg)
We had two of the country’s top political bloggers discussing Politcs and the Blog on the 1st April. .jpg)
There is a generally held truth that the days of newspapers are numbered as people increasingly turn to the internet for their news. There is clearly some truth in this and a number of papers will go to the wall accordingly. But instead of trying to turn papers digital, owners would be better advised to look to the past to find a model for the future.