Tanya Joseph

One year on

2011-05-11T11:53:00.004+01:00

Acres of newsprint and hours of broadcast time have already been spent today reviewing the first year of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. I tried to resist the temptation to add my penny's worth but couldn’t, so here is my take on the coalition’s communications operation. In a word it has been shambolic.

I think that stung by the persistent accusations during the election campaign that he was insubstantial, Cameron took office desperate to demonstrate that he was a radical politician with a packed agenda for change. And so the call went out across Whitehall – bring out your white papers, your interventions, your consultations, even your blue sky thinking, prove to the public and more importantly to the commentariat that we aren’t light on policy. But Cameron also wanted to have a more relaxed centre so the command and control model of Number 10 established under Blair was dismantled and Departments were pretty much allowed to do what they wanted. No longer would they have to get every piece of policy signed off by Number 10, neither were they required to run all their communications plans by the Number 10 coms team. The result has been that week after week, departments have announced half-baked policies which more often that not have had to be “clarified”. Tuition fees, forests, health reforms, foundation schools, internships to name but a few. Even yesterday David Willets had to clarify himself on the issue of whether dumb people could get into university if their rich parents coughed up the full cost of tuition. Oh dear.

I can’t recall a single big announcement that has been “clean”. This has had the cumulative effect of making the coalition look incompetent. Of all his problems, this is one that is relatively easy to fix – re-establish a strong centre, check and double check the policy and the handling. This way you can avoid putting your name to the forward of a white paper which if you or one of your staff had read you would have realised was contrary to your views and breached the coalition agreement. Get a grip.

Greetings from Banjul

2011-05-10T19:48:00.001+01:00

Very unexpectedly I find myself in The Gambia for at least the next 24 hours after the plane I was taking from Monrovia developed a communications problem (not one I could resolve) and the flight was abandoned last night just an hour and a half into the journey. The upside is that we were put up in a pretty good hotel and I spent the day by the pool. The Gambia lived up to all expectations. I can completely see why birdwatchers flock here – there were vultures and eagles roosting in trees in the hotel grounds, egrets wandering around the pool area. Alas, there were a few old English birds there as well. Yes, the other expectation The Gambia lived up to was the preponderance of British women sex tourists. Feeling distinctly uncomfortable and yet very curious, I put a couple of women and their “dates” under surveillance (I would have so loved to have been a spy). I managed to do a good 15 minutes of quality eavesdropping while they were changing money. It was all pretty tawdry – bottle blonde grandmothers with chipped nail polish and too tight clothes, handing over wads of cash to young Gambian men who were laughing and joking about the good time they were all going to have. The most jarring thing was that the grannies had west country accents – it was as if Jolene and Clarrie from The Archers had stolen the takings from The Bull and ran off for a bit of the other in Africa. Very unsettling.

All that said, I would still like to come back to The Gambia – dry heat, beautiful beaches and amazing wildlife. But I shall probably not come solo.

Rainy season

2011-04-28T20:03:00.003+01:00

It is raining here in Monrovia. As those of you who have travelled with me know, I tend to be a bit of a talisman when it comes to rain. I have brought torrential downpours to the deserts of New Mexico and Dubai, to the South African high veldt I the dry season and to Provence in July. On one trip to Hong Kong it rained from the moment my plane touched down until I left six days later, only to resume for the 90 minutes I was in transit from The Philippines on the way back from a rain-soaked island break.

But in all my years, in all my travels, I have never experienced rain like the rain that is falling here. Not that I am claiming responsibility for this precipitation. On the contrary, this rain is on schedule. The rainy season officially started here on 15 April and will continue for the next six months, although there is normally a lull in the second half of August (hence my relatively dry visit last time around). This isn’t the kind of rainy season you get in some parts of the world when it rains for a couple of hours at around the same time every day and that’s that. Oh no. Here the skies empty at any time and the sheets of water pelt down for hours, sometimes days at a time. Very little can be heard above the it, it muffles all sound. To put it in perspective Liberia gets more rain in a single month than we do in an entire year in the UK. That they manage to get any kind of infrastructure work done in these conditions is simply amazing. But somehow they do. What has struck me since I was last here is how much better the roads are. There are also many more businesses open, more restaurants and supermarkets and more airlines flying here – Air France started flights from Paris last week. The country is poor, very poor but it is slowly but surely rebuilding itself after years of brutal civil war. And people are cheery in spite of the rain.

If ever you are in West Africa during the rains, it is worth knowing:

1. it is still hot - locals will tell you otherwise and shiver in jackets and sweaters but for those of us more used to northern Europe it is hot, hot, hot

2. there is no point wearing any make up as it melts off your face

3. don’t wear suede or fabric shoes

4. on the plus side you can go easy on the moisturiser

5. no matter how much you think you have dried your hair, you haven’t and don’t even get me started on managing the frizz

Monrovia bound

2011-04-26T10:26:00.007+01:00

So, here I am again, I am sitting in Brussels airport en route to Liberia. And once again I have just left another job. I realise the “I am going to do a stint in Liberia” fast risks becoming a euphemism for “unemployed” but rest assured it isn’t.

Anyway it is Easter Sunday, the airport is deserted and I have yet to break my Lenten fast – that is to say I haven’t eaten any chocolate yet. Despite the very early hour, I do want to but it turns out even though I am in the home of chocolate, the only product on offer in the transfer lounge is a giant Toberlone. I just don’t think even after 40 days of abstention I am ready for “triangular chocolate from triangular trees and triangular honey from triangular bees”.

I am very excited to be returning to Monrovia. I fell in love with the place last summer and am looking forward to catching up with all the remarkable people in the administration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf that I met last time. It is an amazing country which is making rapid strides after years of the most brutal civil war and I am proud to be playing a part, albeit a tiny one, in helping it recover and thrive.

A quick look at the BBC website weather page tells me that it is hot and wet there so the Joseph barnet will be in full ’fro mode. There will be no photos.

Happy Easter

(Once again Brussels airport's promise of free wifi was not fulfilled, so this is coming to you direct from Monrovia where there is wifi and it is hot and sticky - more soon)

AV - no thanks

2011-04-19T10:18:00.000+01:00

I have just completed my postal ballot for the referendum. I voted no. No hesitation, no um-ing or ah-ing. It isn't that I haven't thought about it. On the contrary I have been reflecting on increasing equity in democratic systems for years now. I just don't think AV delivers better democracy for a number of reasons:

1. It rewards mediocrity - it is perfectly possible for a candidate who was no one's first choice to win on second preferences. That can't be right.

2. It will encourage vanilla candidates standing on vanilla tickets - rather than seeking to differentiate themselves from their opponents, candidates will want to highlight (at least to voters who aren't going to give them their first preference vote) the things they have in common with them. There will be no incentive for serious candidates to have strong views or platforms.

3. It ends the notion of one person, one vote and even worse some people's votes will count more than others. People whose first preferences are for the least popular candidates get a "do over". Their vote for their favoured candidate is wasted but their second vote counts.

4. It will not see an end to tactical voting, just make it even more complicated.

5. I am afraid AV will not by stop political corruption or misdeeds. For a start it is worth remembering that most politicians are decent and do we really think the dodgy ones are going to modify their behaviour because of the means by which they are elected. Corruption is dealt with by eliminating the incentive (e.g. getting to grips with MP remuneration) and punishing transgressors effectively (while the banging up of David Chaytor and Eric Illsley sends out a message one does wonder why the others appear to have escape punishment).

5. AV will lead to more coalitions. I don't really need to say more but for those of you with any doubts just remember that coalitions are the ultimate get out of jail free cards - "we would love to stick to our election promise but for the good of the country (stability and confidence I think they called it) we are now in a coalition which won't allow us to." So all that careful calculation of who you want to win and how you use your preferences flies out the window because the parties in the governing coalition abandon their principles for the sweet taste of power. Tuition fees anyone?

6. Even "yes" campaigners don't like AV. They know it is a fudge but see it as a staging post to proportional representation.

7. It is too complicated. We have trouble enough getting people to vote in our current first past the post system I am just not convinced that AV will encourage more people to engage with the democratic process.

I could go on. The fact of the matter is that while I accept that there are weaknesses in the first past the post and if we were starting from scratch we probably won't start here but it works for us. We know where we stand - winner takes all - and we like that. I realise that what with my views on the reform of the House of Lords I am now appearing to be at least constitutionally conservative. Actually I am not ideologically opposed to constitutional reform indeed I would welcome changes which increase fairness in the democratic settlement. But in my view AV will increase the democratic deficit rather than decrease it. Vote No.

Who are you calling Great?

2011-02-24T14:12:00.005Z

At his Q&A session at the University of Qatar yesterday, David Cameron was asked how he was going to make Britain "Great" again. Cameron starting banging on about Britain's universities, its inventions, its language. It wasn't his best response of the day but since he no doubt had spent the morning preparing for questions on Libya, the Middle East and football, I am not going to criticise. I am more interested in the question rather than his answer since it rather supposes that Britain is no longer "Great" and that it is obvious that we should be working to make it Great again. Well Britain is great in many respects but I am pretty sure not in the way the questioner meant. I am certain she was talking about Britain's status in the world, our place on the international stage. Now I am not saying we are now insignificant but we are kidding ourselves if we think we are still Great. Britain likes to think of itself as Great and use our permanent seat on the UN Security Committee, our membership of the G8, our "special relationship" with the US (how many acres of newsprint will be spent on as a result of the Obama state visit) this as evidence of its greatness. But just a look at our shambolic efforts to evacuate British nationals from Libya will tell you otherwise. While the Polish president was sending his official jet to Tripoli, the Montenegrins a liner and the Turks trucks to get their citizens home, we were was still scrambling about trying to find a spare plane. FCO officials have reportedly been negotiating with a supplier for the lease of a plane - I am a bit confused why we weren't able to use RAF aircraft that we actually own. The truth is Britain is no more powerful politically than France or Germany but this is only bad if we don't accept it. Equally, Britain has immense cultural power globally beating France, Germany and so many others. Perhaps Cameron wasn't too much off the beat after all.

Creating a drama

2011-02-24T11:04:00.004Z

Last night I went to the theatre. Not that unusual, I probably go one or twice a month. But last night I saw the best thing I have ever seen on the stage (so far): Frankenstein at the National. It was directed by Danny Boyle whose film work I greatly admire but how, I and the rest of the audience wondered, would he manage in this very different medium? In a word: tremendously. Of course it helped that he had a great cast but he delivered a play which emphasised the humanity of the creature - a monster because we made him so. The opening sequence in which we see the Creature emerge from its artifical womb, bloody, naked, vulnerable, was won of the most mesmorising I have ever seen. Last night the Creature was played by Benedict Cumberbatch while Jonny Lee Miller was the misguided egotistical scientist (the schtick of the play if they need one is that Cumberbatch and Miller will switch roles every night). Both were extraordinary. I would also give a special mention to lighting and design teams on the production which were simple yet exceptionally powerful. Get a ticket if you can.

When leaking gets boring

2010-12-08T11:41:00.002Z

I am bored of Wikileaks. I am bored of Julian Assange (who, I have to admit, for a long time I thought was called Julian Le Singe inducing images of Monsieur Lavisse trying to coax a monkey from a tree in Cours Illustré de Francais livre 1). I really don’t know what the organisation’s current campaign is all about or what it is trying to achieve. None of the revelations are actually that revealing. Today’s release of cables relating to the release of the Lockerbie bomber tell us nothing new, although they do underline that the American administration didn’t understand devolution which isn’t so terrible, most of the UK media don’t get it either. No big cover ups have been uncovered, no allegations of torture have been made, no plots have been made public. All we have learnt over the past couple of weeks is that American diplomats send back frank reports on all manner of meetings to the State Department. Well, I should hope so – it is part of the job. They should absolutely be free to report as they wish. What we don’t want to encourage is a culture of secrecy in which nothing is committed to paper and entered into the formal record and people rely instead on conversations. This does not make for good government - a goal I believe I share with Wikileaks and Mr Assange.

Put me out of this Widdie nightmare . . .

2010-12-07T16:09:00.001Z

I breathed a sigh of relief on Sunday evening. Ann Widdecombe was finally knocked out of Strictly. She was truly dreadful – incapable of dancing, unable to keep the beat and not a ounce of humility, no recognition that better dancers than her (that is everyone else) were being eliminated. The woman can’t dance and I didn’t find her entertaining. But you know what I held my tongue. But, I can do so no longer. The first testing on my patience came on yesterday’s Today programme. It wasn’t Jim Naughtie’s spoonerism that offended me but his piece about 20 minutes later about Widdecombe leaving the show. We were “treated” to 1 min 32 of puffery, ending with the words “delightful”. When was it decided that Ann Widdecombe was a national treasure? I don’t remember being asked. I would have campaigned against. Apart from her disservce to the world of dance, let us not forget that she is a climate change denier, consistently voted against equal rights for homosexuals and when a minister order female prisoners to be shackled to their beds during labour. Stephen Fry she ain’t. Won’t someone please make her exit stage right?

Cameron's personal photographer - it was all in vain

2010-11-17T15:45:00.002Z

For those sitting in Downing Street yesterday there were a number of reasons to cheer the announcement of the Royal Engagement, with “gosh aren’t we delighted for the happy couple?” being just one. The blanket coverage (which quickly descended into ridiculousness with the rolling news programmes grabbing anyone vaguely posh looking or who be within six degrees of Wills and Kate to hear their views on the glad tidings) meant that the settlement of cases brought against the British government by Guantanamo detainees was barely mentioned. Also scarcely warranting remark was the news that Cameron has decided that the hiring of a personal photographer and a film maker on the public purse might be sending the wrong message during this time of austerity. Yes, less than a month after news of these two appointments first came out, the Prime Minister has had a change of heart. Why he even thought it was a good idea in the first place, goodness only knows. He is not the President of the United States or Katie Price, we do not need or indeed want every moment of his day however intimate to be captured for posterity. And we certainly don’t need for it to be paid for by taxpayers’ money. Thankfully, Dave has seen the error of his ways but one has to ask why on earth didn’t someone on his coms team stop the appointments in the first place?

The great British tradtion of protesting . . .

2010-11-10T14:47:00.005Z

I was talking to someone yesterday who had watched the building across the street from his office being picketed. He was quite bemused and asked me, very innocently, how much I thought they were paid for a day's demonstrating. I tried very hard to keep a straight face and explained that in general people protest because they feel strongly about something. He couldn't imagine feeling so strongly about something that he would take to the streets. I was stunned - I have been demonstrating since I was a babe in arms and continue to do so. Indeed this weekend I will be out in Finchley to kick the BNP out of N3. But of course, I realise that I am in a minority. There is no tradition of demonstrating your support of or opposition to something by marching, picketting or leafleting. Brits don't build barricades, they don't set light to effigies (apart from Guy Fawkes and the political significance of that particular conflagration has long been forgotten). Occasionally something will really upset folk here and hundreds of thousands of people will take to the streets - the ban on hunting, the Iraq war, G20. But most of the time most people not matter how provoked simply shrug, thinking "not much I can do about it". In France, of course, they will take to the streets at the drop of a chapeau. They have been engaged in practically hand-to-hand combat over the raising of the pension age by two years. Here the pension age is going up six years for women and the response - loud tutting. As if to prove me wrong, as I write this student protesters are storming Millbank Tower. A rare example of things kicking off here or evidence of a change in attitude?

Hampering higher education

2010-11-03T11:29:00.002Z

I have never been a fan of tuition fees. I argued against them when I worked in government and I remain unpersuaded. My opposition is hardly surprising I suppose. I come from a family of modest means, I have been raised to abhor debt and pay my way. The prospect of paying large tuition fees after I graduated would have certainly stopped my going to LSE at the age of 18. It would have made a difference. I probably wouldn’t have worked in the third and public sectors and probably would have stayed in banking (a dark period in my career).

I am realist and understand that no government now is going to abolish tuition fees. But the Con-Dems should think again about this latest foray into high education funding. Raising fees will make a difference. We already know that children from poorer backgrounds are less likely to take on high levels of debt – this is one of the reasons why youngsters in affluent areas are five times more likely to go to university than their counterparts in the poorest areas – it’s not just about the quality of education and aspiration. I don’t buy the “a degree increases your earning potential” argument. I am no economist (in spite of having a degree from LSE) but surely graduates can only command higher salaries when there are fewer of them? With more and more people graduating won’t their market value decline? Graduate unemployment is currently running at 8.9 per cent – the highest it has been for 17 years. What does that say something about earning potential? And should we be placing such a great emphasis on graduates getting high paid jobs? Don’t we need graduates to want to become teachers, health care professionals, tax inspectors and social workers and all those other occupations where the prospect of making vast amounts of readies is very low?

Yes, we need to increase access to higher education, but these measures aren’t going to encourage members of underrepresented groups to fill in a UCAS form.

RIP David Kelly

2010-10-25T13:32:00.002+01:00

Can I be the only one who thinks it distasteful and unnecessary for the government to have released the port-mortem report on David Kelly? His family and friends were not happy about it, Lord Hutton specifically ruled that it should remain confidential. So why was it released? It hasn't silenced the conspiracy theorists. Far from it, it gave them another opportunity to vent. They are not the sort of people to let evidence and the conclusive findings of the report that Kelly took his own life, get in the way of their view that the poor man was killed by the government. I have heard more than one accuse Alastair Campbell of actually committing the act himself. Enough already. It was a tragic death, but it was suicide. Can we stop raking over this unfortunate soul's bones and allow him to rest in peace?

George gets his axe out

2010-10-21T17:30:00.005+01:00

So Gorgeous George finally had his day. After months of anticipation, yesterday he revealed the size of his axe. And my, wasn’t it big? £81 billion worth of cuts, with many departments taking massive hits to protect spending of health, education and defence. The Departments of Communities and Local Government will have to cope with cuts of 68 per cent, god alone knows how it will survive.

If the Chancellor appeared unperturbed by the fact that the cuts will lead to 490,000 public sector job losses, he looked completely overjoyed to be slashing the welfare budget by £18 billion. For as well as blaming Labour for the financial mess in which we now find us, he also attributes responsibility to those who make a lifestyle choice to live off the state. I have yet to meet anyone who has chosen to survive on £65.45 per week (or £51.84 if you are lucky enough to be under 25) but I am sure that Mr Osborne knows loads of them. That is presumably why he has declared war on benefit scroungers and cheats and is taking tough action to tackle the cost of benefit fraud which he estimated at £5 billion (a number which is somewhat at odds with the DWP’s own figures something we will ignore for the time being but see Cathy Newman for an explanation if you are interested). He has been talking about it for weeks including several of the 61 minutes of yesterday’s speech and was banging on about it again on morning on the Today programme.

It is important for everyone to have an enemy and all those people living the life of Riley at taxpayers’ expense are his. But many of his Lib Dem colleagues are less comfortable with his choice of villain. They would rather that the government tackled tax cheats – and apparently it is. For during his speech Mr O did reveal (albeit sotto voce) that £900 million would be invested at the HMRC to tackle tax evasion and fraud which costs us, wait for it, a staggering £7 billion – yes, that is £2 billion more than benefit fraud. Now you will be forgiven for not being aware of this since it barely got a mention in the post-review briefings by Government ministers or in the media coverage. One does wonder why there is less interest in this war. . .

Conference Seasonal Affected Disorder

2010-10-08T12:09:00.004+01:00

Another year, another conference season done and dusted. This year was more gruelling than previous ones since the advent of the Con-Dem coalition meant that I had to endure two days in Liverpool at the Lib Dem Conference as well as two in Manchester with the comrades before the final round in Birmingham with Dave and the boys. On the positive front it was good to stay in big cities that can cope with thousands of conference goers without collapsing – the hotels are clean, they aren’t a rip off and you can get a decent meal. Anyone who has experienced a Blackpool or Bournemouth conference will understand just how important these things are.

But what of the conferences themselves? Well, a couple of observations. The first sartorial: a quick look around each of the conference halls revealed that Lib Dem delegates still favour the comedy tie and the novelty waistcoat, at Labour there were a plentiful supply of anoraks in anoraks and the ICC in Birmingham has distinguished by the large numbers of woman who wearing clothes run up from curtain material and men in chalk stripe, double-breasted suits. Oh, dear, oh dear (or Doe a dear for the Tory ladies).

On a more serious note, it was depressing just how few ethnic minority delegates attended the Lib Dem conference. Yes there were a few black faces in the crowd but once you eliminated consultants like me, others on commercial passes and journalists, I reckon you would have had just a handful of party delegates who weren’t white. The fact that the Conservatives have done better at recruiting ethnic minority activists should be a source of great shame to the party, hang your head Nick Clegg. Not that we should be getting too excited about the number of black people at the ICC, it was nothing like representative of the population but at least it felt that the party recognises it needs to take active steps to make it more so.

As for the atmosphere, there was a good deal of excitement and congratulation at the Lib Dem conference but it also felt like few, including minister or two, had grasped the reality that they were in government and were now responsible for things. The Labour conference felt flat and out of sorts. At first people were working out what the election of Miliband, E would mean for the party and when they worked out that it would mean the departure of Miliband, D a grey cloud descended over Manchester. I went to Birmingham expecting much celebrating – after all the party is back in power after 13 long years. And yes, people were delighted to be back in, to have beaten Labour. But they were also a bit subdued and that was before the child benefit debacle which got so many of their backs up.

Goodbye to all that

2010-09-29T16:52:00.002+01:00

Just a few days after Ed Miliband appears centre stage, his older brother exits stage right.

Let’s be honest the departure of David Miliband from frontline British politics was inevitable. At least it has been since Saturday when he lost the election for leadership of the Labour Party. Anyone observing the man who has carried the mantle of “future leader” of the party for over a decade as his defeat was made public will have seen grief behind the brave face. It was the face of a man who in that moment realised that not only had he lost the leadership but that it was going to be impossible for him to remain in the Shadow Cabinet. Not because of any policy differences he might have with his brother (which in truth are few in number) but because of the simple fact that he is better than is brother. He is a more experienced and polished politician – you just have to compare their performances on the conference platform on Monday (David) and Tuesday (Ed). He knows that as long as he is around, the predictable comparisons between the two siblings would not play in the favour of the new leader and having lived through the turbulent Blair/Brown relationship he understands just how distracting and destabilising that kind of tension can be. So this fine and clever man is bowing out. It is a great loss to the Labour Party and to British politics as a whole. On a human level, it is a tragedy.

But let us not forget that to a large extent David M is the author of his own demise. Over the past three and a half years, he had at least three opportunities to become leader and squandered them. And even if you give him credit for not challenging Brown (which some people do), then you have to question the campaign he ran over the summer. His team assumed he was going to win and acted accordingly. There were a few too many complaints from Shadow ministers and backbenchers about complacency, high-handedness and even arrogance. There is also a sense that just when Ed was going full steam ahead, David had taken his foot off the accelerator. He lost it. And so joins the ranks of the likes of Richard Crossman and Michael Heseltine who did not live up to their political potential. Indeed perhaps David is the Portillo of this generation.

Quelle connerie

2010-09-15T17:39:00.002+01:00

I love France. I love the countryside. I love Paris. I love the food, the wine, the literature. I occasionally love the music (who can resist having a little bop to Joe le Taxi?). But I have to admit that the French can be dodgy. Well I say the French, but of course I don’t mean the entire populate of La Belle France. I suppose I am directing my accusations at the French establishment.

Only in France could they claim that the expulsion of Roma people (which has by the way been going on for over a year – sometimes as many as 1000 a month being deported to Romania and Bulgaria) was to preserve public order. President Sarkozy and his chums would have us believe that Roma camps were seething with all manner of criminal activity from prostitution and drug trafficking to organised begging and street crime and that there was nothing wrong with rounding up hundreds of people at a time, bunging them each €300 (€100 for a child) and bungling them on to a plane to Eastern Europe. And for over a year, they got away with it. The protests of human rights organisations which accused the French of deliberately targeting Roma people and breaching European freedom of movement legislation in order to shore up Nicolas’ falling poll ratings went largely unheard.

But, finally, they have been busted. We now have the evidence of a leaked a memo from the Minister of the Interior effectively confirming that Roma camps should be the target of police activity. This has finally prompted one of the angriest responses from an EU Commissioner that I have ever seen. Yesterday, Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding gave France the full hairdryer treatment to France. Condemning the expulsions as a “disgrace ”, she declared that her “ This is a situation, I had thought Europe would not have to witness again after the second world war.” She is threatening the French with legal action which could result not just in very large fines but, especially for a country so enamored with the European project, the huge embarrassment that would go with it. Génial.

Burn baby burn

2010-09-10T17:33:00.004+01:00

What a strange world this has become. The behaviour of an eccentric pastor has prompted intervention from the President of the USA, the US Secretaries of State and Defence Secretary and the Commander of USA and allied forces in Afghanistan. Yes Terry Jones (presumably not a Python) whose Florida flock numbers around 50, has provoked a storm around the world with his promise to burn copies of the Koran tomorrow, the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in protest at plans to build an Islamic cultural centre near Ground Zero. I am far from clear whether Pastor Jones will carry out his stunt tomorrow – there appears to be a great deal of confusion. Earlier reports that he was cancelling because the plans to build the centre had apparently been shelved. However, it later emerged that the centre is still on, so he had put his protest on hold. It may well be that he has abandoned them again. Regardless of whether Korans are burnt or not, that fact that Obama, Clinton, Gates, and Petraeus have all become embroiled in Jones's nonsense illustrates perfectly the power of the 24-hour media in which we now live. Terry Jones’s medieval gesture has been given air-time and these leaders felt compelled to respond. Their audience was less citizens of the USA rather than the rest of the world, particularly the Muslim world; their message that the enemy is not Islam but bombers and terrorists. In the world before rolling news, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, communications advisers would have counselled against getting involved – “don’t give the crazies the oxygen of publicity,” they would say. And in those days they were right. But it would just take one of Terry’s zealots to upload footage of the conflagration from their video-phone to the internet, even responsible broadcasters feel obliged to cover it and suddenly people around the world are being persuaded to believe that the whole of the US was ablaze with burning Korans. So Obama, who has far better and more important things to be doing, is forced to get stuck in. Not a happy position to be in.

Tea is for drinking

2010-09-07T15:06:00.002+01:00

Like many others, I am growing increasingly concerned about the rise of the Tea Party Movement in the USA. Tea parties have been the focus for grass roots Republican activity and have been taking place across the US over the past 18 months or so. They are informal, local gatherings bringing together those who oppose President Obama’s health, economic, environmental, well all his policies. I am a believer in democracy so why am I alarmed by the movement? Normally I would be welcoming the fact that it is engaging tens of thousands of people in politics even if I don’t agree with its policy positions. But this feels different. Listen to the language, feel the mood. It feels to me that there more than the hint of bigotry amongst the tea party-goers in spite of a recent attempt to hijack the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. I am also really uncomfortable about political movements that invoke God which is what prominent tea party champion and Fox News broadcaster Glenn Beck did at a rally in Washington on the anniversary of Dr King’s “I have a dream” speech”. I am pretty sure that if God does exist s/he would not endorse one party over another.

New Year, new job

2010-09-03T15:06:00.003+01:00

So, here we are again in September and the start of a new year (well it is for anyone involved in education or politics). I always think it is a wonderful time of year, full of promise. Of course, it is sad to bid farewell to the long, heady days of summer but the thrill of the new year helps ease the pain. This year, I start the new term at a new company. On Monday I start at The Communication Group where I will be heading up the public affairs side of the business. It is a long established company with a great reputation and I am looking forward to joining the team. Naturally I am somewhat apprehensive - a whole new set of colleagues and clients to meet and know, new processes to get to grips with. And I know that I will really miss my old team and indeed my former clients but I am also incredibly excited at the prospect starting afresh. I just hope that the tea culture is not too different. Wouldn't it be terrible if they didn't enjoy a brew as much as I do?

Liberia - the end of the first chapter

2010-08-31T19:47:00.001+01:00

So here I sit, bleary-eyed, at Brussels Airport again. It is early morning, very early morning. I left Monrovia last night after an amazing stay in Liberia. I loved it. Yes, it has challenges, huge ones, but there is a really positive feel to the place which I just hadn’t anticipated. I was expecting it to be wrought with tension, the brutal civil war ended just a few years ago after all. But walking around the streets of the city, eating in cafes, going into shops, the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly. I am not naïve, I know that that doesn’t mean everything is fine and dandy. People are poor, unemployment levels are high, life is hard. Next year’s elections will be a real test of whether the peace can last but I have no reason to believe it won’t. People talk politics with a passion which, coming from the UK with our depressingly high levels of apathy, I think is fantastic. But I didn’t get any sense that their passion reflects or indeed is creating massive friction within communities. It really is amazing. You only have to look at Northern Ireland to appreciate just how amazing it is. Yes there has been a massive improvement in community relations in the 12 years since the Good Friday Agreement, but for many years the tension in many neighbourhoods was palpable, in a few it still is. So I am giving Liberians a gold star for looking forward and hope that they continue to do so. I hope I will get another chance before too long to see how they are doing.

Liberia - the story so far

2010-08-26T12:41:00.002+01:00

So I have been here a few days now, working with an NGO to help build communications capacity in the President's office. It has been interesting and challenging work. I have been talking to lots of people, drafting protocols, writing strategies and running workshops. I am loving it. What is always wonderful about working in a different country is discovering unexpected cultural differences. One of the team here (she is British) was talking to a Liberian colleague about prioritising issues. She started talking about instituting a traffic light system, with each issue given a red, amber or green flag dependent on their urgency. She started to grow slightly alarmed by the blank look on her colleague's face. How was this a difficult concept to grasp? She tried to explain again. More blank looks and then it dawned on her - they don't have traffic lights in Liberia. A concept that we use in the UK all the time makes absolutely no sense here. It does make you wonder how much else we take for granted when we speak. In a country where they don't play cricket, would they necessarily know what I mean when I talk about getting on the front foot? It reminds me of the look on by American friend's face when driving down a highway in the US, I commented on the trees that had been planted on the central reservation . . .

Flag Day in Monrovia

2010-08-25T17:30:00.004+01:00

So yesterday was Flag Day here in Liberia, a public holiday to honour the national pennant. The flag itself (The Lone Star) is from the family of flags based on the Stars and Stripes and Liberians are very proud of it. It was an excellent holiday. Lots of children parading in their uniforms, speeches and prizes. Moreover, it meant that I had a day to explore Monrovia, a vibrant, busy city. On the face of it, strangers could be forgiven for not immediately spotting that the country had been ravaged by a civil war that only really came to an end about six years ago. Shops and businesses are open, markets are bustling and ships are being unloaded at the port. But take a closer look and you will see burnt out buildings all around town. One of the most incredible is the old Hotel Africa, a vanity project of President Tolbert,built to host the 1979 Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Summit. The hotel complex had swimming pool in the shape of Africa and 51 beach villas, one for each African head of state. It cost US$ 36 million, a staggering amount especially then, especially given the economic plight of the country. Today it is a ruined shell, gutted by months of bombardment during the last years of the civil war and subsequently stripped of everything from the tiles on the walls to the copper pipes of the plumbing system. As for the beach villas, well most of them have fallen into the sea.

Liberia - the adventure begins

2010-08-23T16:27:00.003+01:00

So first impressions - hot, sticky, damp. I have arrived in the middle of the heaviest rainy season for years. It is a bit like being in a Somerset Maughan story.

The country is still recovering from years of a brutal civil war. The first President to be elected democratically and fairly, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, came into power in January 2003 and her government is desperately trying to rebuild the country. The challenges are huge to say the least. Roads, power and clean water are still in short supply, especially outside the capital. They need more medical workers, more teachers, more professionals across the board. The process of reconciliation and nation building is necessarily slow. People needs jobs. But based on my first hours in the country, it would appear that they have hope. And that has to be a good foundation.

Do you still get a UB40?

2010-08-23T12:49:00.005+01:00

Technically, I am unemployed. I left Grayling at the end of July and don’t start my new job (more about which later) until September. So August has been mine – five whole weeks to use as I choose. Free time is a luxury I haven’t enjoyed since 2003 when I left Downing Street and had a month or so before I joined Grayling. It is also a luxury I struggle to enjoy completely. I get bored easily. I spent the first two weeks of freedom on holiday in France (a week in the hills near St Emillion and another in Biarritz). It was wonderful – sunshine, good food, good wine, good company – in spite of the eye-watering exchange rate.

Last week was, however, very different. I spent the week on what you might describe as personal admin – I registered for a course, sorted out my ISA, renewed the buildings insurance on my flat, had a bit of a tidy of said flat. Dull, dull, dull. I did spend some time with my niece and nephew (Toy Story 3 is very good but don’t bother with the 3D version), which was very enjoyable but the rest of week was boring. If it hadn’t been for the hours of television I had saved on Sky+ I am not sure how I would have managed.

I have greater expectations for the coming week. I am writing this at Brussels Airport where I am waiting to catch a flight to Monrovia (via Accra). Yes, I am en route to Liberia where I am going to do some pro bono work with an NGO. It is all very exciting. All I can be sure of is that the high levels of humidity there (naturally it is the rainy season) mean that my hair will be huge. I will report on it and my other adventures over the coming days.

[Actually WiFi in Brussels airport did not allow me to upload this yesterday so I am doing so now from Monrovia overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and yes the barnet is big.]

No tea for racist Griffin

2010-07-22T16:02:00.004+01:00

The words "good on the Queen" are not ones I would normally utter. They rank alongside "I just can't get enough of the gym" and "I love it when it is cold". But today, I feel I can. Ok the chances are it wasn't QEII herself that issued the decree (but wouldn't have been brilliant if it was) but Buckingham Palace today told the racist Nick Griffin that he was no longer welcome at this afternoon's garden party. Why was he invited in the first place is a good question. The answer apparently is that he is an MEP representing the North East of England and as such gets an automatic invitation. However, Griffin was a bit too cocky about the invitation, he blogged about it, he boasted about it, he invited his racist supporters to suggest topics of conversation he could raise should he meet Her Majesty "over the cucumber sandwiches". This vulgar and unpleasant behaviour gave Palace officials all they needed to uninvite the man, on the grounds that he had abused the invitation, using it for overtly political purposes and thus increasing the security threat and discomfort for other guests. Griffin of course wasted no time in scuttling over to the nearest broadcast studios to attack the Palace and the liberal media for being undemocratic. Quite the reverse, for the first time in a long time I feel my views have been represented. Well done, Liz.

Burqa banning bonkerness

2010-07-20T11:09:00.003+01:00

So the French are moving towards banning the wearing of the burqa in public. last week the French National Assembly passed a bill prohibiting the wearing of full faced veils in public. The legislation will have to be approved by the Senate before becoming law - there is a vote scheduled in September. Apparently there is a large degree of public support for the ban in France where it is being positioned almost as feminist measure, empowering Muslim women to throw off the shackles of their oppressive male relatives. While I am sympathetic to that view, the ban in my view is bonkers. French law makers assume that this form of dress is being adopted as a result of coercion when the evidence would suggest that in France at least the few women who do wear full veils are choosing to do so on their own volition. It may be inexplicable to many of us, but that doesn't stop it being true. The fact is that lots of people wear lots of thigns which we find inexplicable. The pre-pubescent teens wearing micro-minis, the men who are old enough to know better trying to get away with low slung jeans, clogs - I don't get any of these but there is no justification for banning them. Just as there is none for banning the burqa.

Peer review

2010-06-03T16:51:00.005+01:00

Well, what a month! For political enthusiasts (ok, geeks) like me, the past few weeks have been tense and intense. Now that the dust is beginning to settle, we have time to think about some of the changes the new government wishes to make. Some of them good, some of them bad. Some will look more far reaching than they actually are. And some will completely transform our democracy. One such change is reform of the House of Lords. As a passionate democrat, you would think that I would be in favour of a wholly-elected Upper Chamber. And I am pretty sure I should be. But I am not. I believe that there is a role for appointed peers. I don't mean peers who get to wear ermine as a leaving present from the House of Commons but peers who are are appointed because of their experience and contribution to civic society. Peers like Joel Joffe, Robert Winston, Helen Hayman, David Ramsbotham, Mary Warnock and dozens like them. They bring real expertise and offer a completely different perspective which I fear would disappear in a wholly elected Chamber. So if asked, I will be saying yes let's review and reform the system but let's not throw any babies out with the bathwater.

Disappointing Dave

2010-05-07T20:08:00.003+01:00

So Dave is within a hair’s breadth of getting the keys to Number 10. He stands on the brink of being the first Conservative Prime Minister of the 21^st Century, Labour’s share of the vote has declined and Cleggstacy has failed to materialise. The boy’s done well – or has he? Far be it from me to be churlish or partisan but I can't help but wonder if his achievement is that great. Last year, I was huddled in various darkened rooms (ok pubs) with people from both Labour and Conservative who are paid to know about this sort of thing speculating about how many seats above 100 the Tories would get and how many terms (two or three) Labour would be out. My Labour chums were practically suicidal (though they wouldn't admit it now) and the Tories were trying desperately hard not to seem smug. Dave was the golden boy, Gordon Brown was a disaster and Clegg was a no mark. There was no way he could lose. And now? Ok he hasn't really lost but he hasn't really won either. So, you have to ask, has Dave thrown it away? I wouldn't like to say, but if I were a Tory donor I might be forgiven for wondering if I had got value for my money.

Ho hung

2010-05-07T17:03:00.000+01:00

So after what seems like an aeon of campaigning (it was really only three weeks) the people have spoken. The only problem is no-one can quite work out what they have said. With almost all the results in, the only thing that is clear is that no party has an overall majority. So now we have a hung parliament and the leaders of the three parties have spent the morning resisting the temptation to play party politics and instead have put the national interest first. They have had varying degrees of success.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, was to the first to set out his stall. A disappointed Clegg, who far from taking second place actually saw his party lose seats, reiterated his view that the Conservative Party had the right to form a government having won the most seats and the largest share of the popular vote while at the same time reminding Mr Cameron that constitutional reform (for which read proportional representation) was the price he would need to pay for Lib Dem support.

An hour or so later Gordon Brown read a statement in front of Number 10 which sought to reassure the country, especially the markets, that in spite of appearances the country is not in chaos. He is still the prime minister and key decisions will still be taken, so Alistair Darling will represent the UK in talks with other G7 Finance Ministers about the deteriorating situation in Greece and the euro zone. He then went on to say that he understood and respected Clegg’s position and invited Clegg and Cameron to make use of the mechanisms and facilities already in place to give them any civil service support that they might need. That said, he also indicated that he was willing to see any of the party leaders and that should the discussions between Cameron and Clegg come to nothing, and he reminded Clegg and the Liberal Democrats that he was more likely to deliver on the kind of constitutional reform they sought.

Finally, we heard from David Cameron. He too began with a very prime ministerial air. He held the hand of friendship and compromise out to Clegg reminding him of their shared views on a whole range of issues including the National Insurance rise, climate change and pupil premiums. But inevitably there was a ‘but’, on the subject of constitutional reform he was less open handed offering only "all party committee of inquiry on political and electoral reform".

This leaves Clegg with a real problem – does he go with Cameron and effectively sacrifice a core belief of his party or does he prop up Brown? I think the technical term is snookered.

Nick and Dave are speaking to each other this evening. No doubt there will be conversations throughout the weekend. If we are lucky we will know who won yesterday’s election on Monday. Sounds ridiculous? Think about the poor people of Belgium who frequently have to endure (or is that enjoy?) weeks if not months without a formal government in place.

Chocks away

2010-04-21T10:11:00.005+01:00

Hurrah, after almost a week of being grounded, we are free to fly. The Icelandic ash had very little impact on my life but was clearly a miserable time for stranded air passengers and the airlines. And the Government knew that which is why the idea that it sat on its hands deliberately trying to being unhelpful during the middle of an election campaign is ridiculous. In the face of huge pressure, Andrew Adonis, Transport Secretary extraordinaire, took the advice of Civil Aviation Authority and, abiding by the regulations set by aircraft manufacturers themselves, put passenger safety above the commercial well-being of the airlines. Isn't that what we want and expect our politicians to do? Isn't that what they failed to do in the run up to the banking crisis? So why are opposition politicians now criticising Adonis and demanding an immediate inquiry? Would they have seriously overruled the regulator? Their response is an excellent example of why coalition government won't work in Westminster - too many politicians are incapable of resisting the urge to play petty politics when they should be thinking about the public interest.

Ashes to ashes

2010-04-18T20:16:00.005+01:00

So day five and we are still in lock down. No flights in or out of the UK and indeed most of Europe. It is pretty amazing. A volcano in Iceland (a country with something of a record of exporting uncertainty) has created havoc. Travellers are stranded across the world including several world leaders who planned to attend the Polish President's funeral. The intrepid Dan Snow's attempt to recreate a Dunkirk like evacuation of British travellers from the French coast has been thwarted apparently by French border officials. If the ash continues to cloud the atmosphere, you can be sure that will be the media will been flamming up stories about supermarkets running out of green beans and roses flown in from Kenya and factories shutting down as they run out of spare parts. Perhaps the most interesting impact of the ash cloud has been to knock the election off the top of the news. Campaign managers and party leaders will be furious. So is this Mother Nature giving us a wake up call? I can just imagine her in something of a Pussy Galore outfit, waving my fist at the planet shouting 'that will teach you to ignore all the other signs I have sent about the dangers of global warning'. Maybe not. But it would do us no harm to use this time when the skies are still to reflect on what we can do to protect our planet from the damage we inflict on it.

X Factor - no thanks

2010-04-16T17:21:00.005+01:00

I am not going to write about the debate other than to say that if I worked for Clegg I would sew up his trouser pockets - the Man at C&A look was a bit unattractive from my perspective. No, today's rant is about Gary Barlow. What have I got against the mild-mannered pianist from Take That? Well, today Gary has joined the Conservative election trail to launch "School Stars" which Tory spin doctors described as "an X-Factor style competition to encourage young people to get involved in music". I have written in the past about about the dangers of using celebrities to front campaigns, but I don't think that is the problem with this. What I am upset about is the thinking that what our children need is to be encouraged to become pop stars. Don't we want, don't we need our children to aspire to more than being celebrities? Don't we want them to want to become civil engineers, plumbers, teachers or pharmacists? The idea that we should be reinforcing a Hello-style view that success equals fame regardless of your abilities makes me want to scream. Yes, I want children to enjoy music, to enjoy sport but we also need to make sure they understand that there is more to life than celebrity and that wanting to be a hairdresser, physicist, carpenter or web designer are worthy ambitions.

Watch out Manchester, the circus is in town!

2010-04-15T17:21:00.002+01:00

I am easily riled. it does not take much to get my gander up. So you can imagine my mood this morning when I awoke to find that the Today programme was being broadcast from Manchester. I was a little blurry (I always am in the morning) and it took me a moment to understand why. Was this part of the BBC's mission to reflect the diversity of this country's nations and regions? No. It was because 12 hours after the programme has been broadcast, the first television debate between the party leaders will take place in the Granada studios in the city - ie a television programme being broadcast by a rival company. And the Today programme is not alone. It would seem that every single political journalist in the whole of the land is up north. It is preposterous. The debates themselves have been taken over, the 76 rules which will be applied mean that the chances of there being a proper debate are pretty slim so the media has done what it does in these circumstances and turned the whole thing into a media event. So we have Alistair Stewart being interviewed on what it will be like to host the first ever tv debate, vox pop from the streets about what the good burghers of Manchester feel about it (very little it would seem), all manner of punditry on what it will mean. Give me strength. I am sure the debates will be interesting for people like me but I seriously doubt that millions of people will be glued to their sets tonight. It will be tomorrow's reporting that will have an impact as will the YouTube clips of any terrible faux pas committed by Compo, Foggy or Clegg and the acres of write-throughs in the Sundays - God help us all.

Trouble in Rome

2010-04-14T12:02:00.004+01:00

What is going on at the Vatican? The powers that be at the Powers That Be appear to have initiated a radical new business development strategy. How else could you possibly explain the half-hearted and poorly executed apology for the handling of child abuse by the church authorities which has battered the reputation of Papa Ratzi and the Vatican for the past few weeks? How else could you explain the latest development in this whole sorry episode - Cardinal Bertone, the Pope's second in command, claiming that there "is a relation between homosexuality and paedophilia"? Could it be that the Vatican is trying to attract customers in new markets? That it believes that this kind of prejudice and complacency will appeal to conservative Catholics particularly in Africa? Or could it be sheer incompetence - they are just really bad communicators with no control over the message and no idea how the story will play out? I am not sure which is worse.

Its a fair cop

2010-04-12T18:20:00.003+01:00

The decision by the Labour Party to portray David Cameron as the wonderfully unreconstructed 80s TV cop Gene Hunt was roundly condemned as a positioning error. If they had bothered to talk to anyone outside the party they would have quickly discovered that Gene is admired by exactly the kind of men they are trying to engage with and fancied by lots o women. (I have to confess I am in that category although he doesn't rank as in high on my list men I shouldn't but do secretly fancy as Stringer Bell). The poster has prompted lots of commentary and coverage but possible the best follow up was in yesterday's Mail on Sunday. As well as the regular questions such as "which party is best able to deal with the economic problems", it polled readers on which TV detective most reminded them of Gordon Brown and David Cameron. Gordon was regarded as most like dour (and indeed now dead) Taggart while Dave reminded 46% of those polled of posh detective Lord Peter Wimsey and only 10% of the marvellous Gene. Hilarious. Alas we are not told who which gumshoe Nick Clegg most reminds MoS readers of but the consensus amongst colleagues is Troy from Midsommer Murders.

Working the web Obama-style

2010-04-12T17:10:00.003+01:00

I was at a breakfast this morning hosted by NESTA entitled "Will it be the Web Wot Won It?" about the impact of digital communications on the election campaign. There was a consensus that while this time round the impact would be limited, by the time of the next general election (assuming there isn't another one later this year) things would be very different. Of course this is so, although there are legions of pundits telling us otherwise. They cite the success of Barack Obama in engaging millions of people in his election campaign and would have you believe that we are on the verge of a social revolution in this country too. It is utter nonsense. The context in which Obama pulled it off are completely different to the situation we find ourselves in the UK in 2010. The USA has no national print news media to speak of; it is difficult and time-consuming for candidates to make an impact. The absence of a national newspaper and the sheer size of the country means that a higher proportion of people use the web to get their news. Even if this was the case here, the reality is that the structures of the political parties here are too rigid at the moment to allow the kind of engagement that Obama encouraged. In this country if you want to get involved you have to join the party. You have to go to dull party meetings. You have to pay subscriptions. You can't just turn up to a coffee morning, see if you like it, make a few calls or give out a leaflets one Saturday morning. Oh no. But this is what the Obama campaign did so well. They got people to do a little, if they wanted to do more, they could. If they didn't that was fine too. The campaign was also brilliant at keeping people informed about the strategy, themes and activities going on in their area. As a result on the weekend before polling day, 4 million calls were made to voters in swing states by volunteers. It is hard to imagine local party leaders yielding control like that in this country during this campaign. If they want to take best advantage of the opportunities brought by the web, they are going to have to be a bit more relaxed.

Olympic dreams

2010-04-10T19:51:00.003+01:00

I spent yesterday afternoon at the Olympic Park for the topping out ceremony at the Olympic Stadium. It was brilliant. I was a topping out virgin but I am told that it was exceptionally good - bagpipes, bells, an evergreen branch, a plaque, noggins of ale and spanners. Fan-bloomin-tastic. The stadium is beautiful, it is breath-taking. It is a wonderful example of how creativity, engineering skill and hard work can produce something amazing.

There was so much cynicism about the whole Olympic project at the outset but the naysayers have so far been proved wrong. The project is on time and on budget. It is regenerating a part of the capital which was desperately in need of investment. Jobs are being created, skills are being improved and something marvellous is being created. And it will have a long lasting impact.

By the time the Games start we hopefully be well out of recession and ready to have a party. I for one can't wait.

Battle of the Chancellors

2010-03-30T10:08:00.007+01:00

So after months of phoney war, we finally had the first formal battle in the election campaign. Yes, the campaign has yet to start officially but last night's debate between Alistair Darling, George Osborne and Vince Cable was surely the first proper skirmish. Who won? Hard to say. All three came across as nervous but all three will be pleased that they didn't drop any major clangers. Vince Cable has to be pleased that he delivered a few memorable sound bites - "pinstrip Scargills holding the country to ransom" - and got a couple of laughs. Standing centre stage, Cable, while a bit doddery, did what he does best, position himself as the man of the people, the non-politician, avoiding any real scrutiny of his own policies. He and Darling tag teamed Osborne quite effectively on the Tory decision not to impose the planned increase in National Insurance (not quite a tax cut more not a tax increase) but Osborne held his ground. Darling looked relatively assured but not as confident or polished as when he delivered the budget last week. And that was one of the issues, in the House of Commons these three battle, parry and joust all the time. They do it naturally and with confidence, without worrying about cameras. Last night, they were perhaps too fixed on their "performance". The Party Leaders are more used to being on camera so in theory ought to be more relaxed about the medium when it comes to their debates. However, given the 76 rules that will apply to the debates, I fear we may will have to endure three rather dull programmes.

Getting it a Liddle wrong

2010-03-30T09:44:00.002+01:00

I see that the Press Complaints Commission has upheld a complaint about one of Rod Liddle's blog posts. In the offending piece Mr Liddle claimed that the "the overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community". What utter tosh. It was a claim questioned by many and roundly demolished by that wonderful Radio 4 programme on statistics, More or Less (yes I love it, I make no bones about it I am a Radio 4 junkie). I am pleased to see that the PCC has made what in my view is the right judgment. It was interesting that in seeking to defend the publication, the Spectator argued that it is in the very nature of blogs that they should be provocative. Now, I fully expect to be offended by Liddle, he has offended me on a regular basis but I do object to him parading his opinion a fact - an opinion I am pleased to say the PCC shares with me.

Budgeting for the future

2010-03-24T17:53:00.002Z

I do love budget day in the UK. Yes I am a geek. You can make an educated guess about what the Chancellor is going to say but you just don't know what rabbits will be pulled out of the hat. I am sure to those outside the UK it will seem a bit bonkers that with probably six weeks before a general election, Alistair Darling presented his economic and fiscal plans today and that parliament will spend the time between now and the Easter break debating them. It is one of the quirks of the British political system. We don’t have fixed term parliaments but we do need to have a budget at the end of the financial year.

It was exciting viewing. Clever politicians debating real issues that matter to real people. This is what politics should be all about. Unfortunately, for much of the past year, it hasn’t been and it is depressing. When children in the future study British political history of the early 21^st century, this period will be known for grubbiness and sleaze and this parliament will be known as the Rotten Parliament. A group of politicians, some greedy, some foolish, some both, have reduced the reputation of Parliament to the lowest levels for decades. This is a huge problem, especially with an election coming up. British politics is in dire need of a rebrand. I don’t mean parties softening their logos and coming towards the centre, but politics as a whole repositioning itself. For our democracy to work, people need to have a reason to stop being cynical, they need to want to vote and voters need to start trusting politicians again. That means politicians have to reconnect with voters. We have to believe that politicians understand the challenges of raising a family, running a business, holding down a job. Politicians need to engage with us on real issues, the ones that really matter. The economy, jobs, health, education, crime, transport. The politicians who get this, will be the ones who ought to get the votes.

Lobbyist and proud of it - part II

2010-03-21T14:52:00.005Z

I have just completed the Sport Relief three mile challenge - ok I know it isn't that challenging but while I love sport, I eschew physical activity. So walking three miles is something of an achievement for me, especially since I was walking with an over-excited eight-year old and a very stroppy teenager. But the purpose of this post is not to boast (although you are welcome sponsor me). No, I want to have a bit of a rant about lobbying (yes, again). What has this got to do with Sport Relief? Well Comic/Sport Relief is one of the most effective lobbying organisations. It does a brilliant job of engaging with organisations of all kinds (government, private sector and voluntary) to achieve its objectives. And it is, quite rightly, applauded for its efforts. Compare this with the increasingly hostile attitude political parties and the media are adopting when it comes to lobbying companies. We are being portrayed as, at best, unnecessary and, at worse, responsible for the ethical decline in politics. What utter nonsense. Yes of course organisations don't have to use political consultants, they could do it themselves, just as they could do their own legal work, accounts and advertising. But let's be honest, to do it effectively needs knowledge and experience which is why they call in the professionals. As for our corrupting the system, it has been politicians themselves who have done that. The greed and poor judgment of a significant minority have reduced the levels of trust and faith in the body politic so low. Today's Sunday Times/Dispatches story is about politicians selling access and favours not professional consultants. Don't confuse the two.

Its written in the stars

2010-03-09T14:44:00.002Z

I am smitten, I have fallen in love, I have even wondered if I can make a life change. And what is the object of my affection? Physics. Yes, I have become obsessed with this branch of science. I know it is hard to believe, anyone who was at Copthall School with me will testify to the fact that I was a very poor student with very low levels of commitment to Newton, Faraday and Boyle. But on Sunday night I had something of a Pauline conversion. Prof Brian Cox (very different to the actor of the same name) successfully wooed me with his wonderful documentary on the sun. It was truly amazing. I was rapt. Certainly if the good Professor had been my teacher back in the day I certainly would have been more inclined to study. He brought the subject to life. To be fair, Radio Four podcasts (In our time and Material World) have prepared the ground for Prof Cox. But without doubt, he is a brilliant communicator, engaging with his audience, infecting them with his enthusiasm, making them want to hear more. For my part I did wonder whether I might retrain as an astronomer or physicist before realising that interest - no matter how passionate - was no substitute for a good grounding in maths. Oh well there goes another chance for a Nobel prize.

Blind justice, not blind panic

2010-03-08T15:50:00.004Z

Oh my god, the handling of the Venables case is driving me to new depths of despair (or is that heights of fury?) The Ministry of Justice has let this story spill from news cycle to news cycle. It should from the outset of this media feeding frenzy made clear that if there was even the slightest chance that Venables might face new charges, it was not going to comment. Ministers, civil servants and even journalists know that the entire apparatus of the criminal justice system has an obligation to ensure that an ensuing trial is untainted. It is not a question of protecting Venables but of protecting the rights of any victims of any alleged crimes which Venables may have committed. The MoJ should from the start have stood up to the baying mob. It should have reminded everyone of the strict court injunctions in place which prevent the publication of material which might led to the identification of Venables (and Thompson) and pointed out that the chances of any future trial being deemed fair would be seriously reduced if the defendant had been identified as a convicted child killer. Instead, there was much panicking and wringing of hands. I hope it has now got its act together.

But don't get me started on the person (police officer? probation officer? social worker?) who sold the information about Venables to the media . . .

Political porn - no, thanks

2010-02-17T17:06:00.006Z

Ok, I am coming clean - I did watch Gordon's interview with Piers Morgan, well about 30 minutes of it. It was like watching political pornography. I felt dirty, sullied and guilty - indeed I still do. Yes, I completely understand why GB decided to do it and I am sure that Downing Street will have been delighted with the result - real people got a glimpse of the real Gordon and all is well. Except it is not, for me at least. I hate the Hello-isation of politics, too much focus on personality and celebrity, not enough on policy. And Gordon is not alone, this morning David Cameron featured on the front page of a free magazine distributed at London underground stations. The interview within is all about getting to know David Cameron the man, so we learn that he shops at M&S and Gap, favours Paul Smith for his suits, loves TV (Larkrise to Candleford and Silent Witness in particular) and darts. Where is the policy? It distresses me no end that politicians are wooing voters with their personal lives. I can't be the only one who wants to know what they are going do to about health, education and the energy gap. Ironically in his interview this morning when asked if there is something politics could learned from Simon Cowell, Cameron said "Politics isn't show business and shouldn't try to be". Exactly.

Lobbyist and proud of it

2010-02-12T17:46:00.003Z

It has been an interest week, with David Cameron turning his attention to my industry, when he warned about the dangers of political lobbying and the "far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money". Interesting indeed. Now, I know what I am about to say will be tinged with a touch of "well, she would say that, wouldn't she?" but that doesn't make it less true. So here goes - there is nothing wrong with lobbying per se. Lobbying plays an important and fundamental part in the workings of our democracy. We lobby when we sign a petition, write a letter to our MP, go on a demonstration, or give a local councillor a hard time about rubbish collection times. In my experience the most effective lobbyists are in the voluntary sector. Macmillan Cancer Care, Royal British Legion and Oxfam - all brilliant at it, all know who to speak to and want to say to make their point, getting their funding, change the policy. And no-one objects to it - and nor should they. They are just doing their job. It is the work I do that some would have you believe is inherently wicked. Somehow, helping organisations understand how policy is made and how best to influence it, is being positioned as a bad thing. I don't agree. With so few politicians having experience of the world beyond politics, I see it as essential that organisations, be they PLCs or NGOs, help them understand the implications of their policy thinking. That is why disgraced MPs quitting the Commons following the expenses scandal like Andrew MacKay (a member of Cameron's inner circle) are being employed by political consultancies. Yes, I know there have been one or two cases of bad behaviour in the past - cash for questions being the obvious example - but in the vast majority of cases the work that lobbyists like me do is ethical, open and for the good.

AVS - What's it all about?

2010-02-02T14:52:00.003Z

Can someone please explain to me why the Alternative Voting System is such a good idea? I am honestly interested. Ok I understand the politics of it - Gordon Brown is trying to woo Lib Dem voters. I have never really understood the appeal of AVS or proportional representation. As far as I can tell AVS will have no real impact in constituencies with large majorities and I fear that in marginal seats it will encourage candidates to be as vanilla as possible in the hope they can pick up second preference votes. Doesn't an AVS system result in the triumph of the least worst candidate, rather than the best or indeed most popular candidate? As someone recently pointed out to me, it was the system by which Harriet Harman became Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.

And while I am at it, I would love to know why we are thinking giving the vote to 16 and 17-year olds. With fewer and fewer under 24s are bothering to vote, it seems slightly odd that we would wish to the extend an invitation for apathy to school children.

Instead of trying to tinker with the voting system, shouldn't the political parties be seeking to engage effectively with voters to restore confidence in politics and the political institutions?

The truth about MMR

2010-01-28T17:24:00.004Z

Once again, Dr Andrew Wakefield, the author of the report which sought to link the MMR jab with autism, has been discredited. The General Medical Council has today found that he acted "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in doing his research. It will now decide on his penalty. In coming to their decision, I hope the Council Members take into consideration the huge damage his flawed findings have done. Take up rates of the vaccine plummeted, herd protection dropped and cases of measles soared. In 2008 for the first time in 14 years, measles was declared endemic in the UK. But if Wakefield was dishonest and irresponsible, so were many within the media. Wakefield's opinion was persistently presented as having equal validity as that of the Chief Medical Officer and the World Health Organisation. It wasn't. Repeated research by respected health professionals around the world found absolutely no link. Nevertheless, media scaremongering was rife. After all why present the truth when you can exploit a fear? Let's see how the case is covered in tomorrow's papers.

Remember Toussaint Louverture

2010-01-22T16:58:00.003Z

As the representatives of the Friends of Haiti gather in Montreal to establish "a clear and common vision for the early recover and long-term reconstruction" of the country, the Haitian authorities have estimated that the final death toll on the earthquake is likely to be in excess of 150,000. It truly is a blighted place. On the day of the earthquake I described it as god forsaken, but i quickly decided that was entirely the wrong adjective. Its plight is not in the hands of god. Yes earthquakes and hurricanes are natural phenomena but the ability of a country to withstand the ravages of such disasters and the speed at which they recover is entirely up to people. Brutal and corrupt regimes which were tolerated (some might even say encouraged) by the West have taken their own toll on Haiti and the governments that have followed have not been strong enough to change matters. Over the last week or so I have been thinking about Toussaint Louverture, the black revolutionary leader who liberated Haiti from French colonial power. A former slave. this brilliant strategist, gifted politician and immensely charismatic leader effectively brought about the birth of the Haitian nation in 1804. Those meeting in Montreal would do well to reflect upon Toussaint Louverture and focus on what needs to be done to restore his legacy.

A less taxing experience than you would imagine

2010-01-19T09:37:00.004Z

I spent last night completing my tax return. Yes I know I have left it very late. Every year I promise myself that I will do it earlier to avoid having the terrible dark cloud hanging over me in early January, when let's face it life is grim enough. But at the risk of sounding like Moira Stewart, once I waded through the darkness and got going, it really wasn't too bad. Alright I did have to turn two drawers to find my "i must keep this safe because it contains information i will need for my tax return folder" and another hour to find my P60 (because it wasn't in the folder) but once I had gathered together all the necessary bits and pieces it took less than an hour. Clearly this in part reflects that fact that my finances are not what you could call complex. But it was also easy because the online system is genuinely really good. At a time when politicians and the media are queuing up to criticise government IT projects, can I commend this one? Easy, accessible and delivering an excellent service to the citizen.

Battling in the middle

2010-01-18T14:54:00.004Z

It was at Saturday's Fabian Conference (did I mention I got up at the crack of sparrow to attend this?) that the Dear Leader set out to woo the middle classes. Not necessarily a bad strategy and certainly one that Peter Mandelson is determined the party should follow. What was slightly odd about Gordon Brown's speech was how crude the woo-ing was. I had expected him to talk about so-called middle class values and how Labour would meet middle classs aspirations. What I hadn't anticipated is that GB would actually talk about "middle class jobs", "middle class families" and the "threat to middle class Britain". It felt forced and inappropriate, not least because many of those the party is trying to court don't necessarily regard themselves as middle class. His pledge to protect the "squeezed mainstream middle" literallybrought water to my eyes. My plea to camp GB - more subtle messaging, please.

Fabians on a Saturday

2010-01-17T17:36:00.004Z

Spent yesterday (yes a Saturday) at the Fabian Society New Year Conference. It was an all day affair, requiring me to get up at the same time as a do for work. Those of you who know me that this is not something i do lightly. My standard Saturday regime definitely involves rising late and in a leisurely fashion. I dislike running about on a Saturday morning desperately drying my hair and praying that it won't frizz (to be honest i hate it every day but a girl has got to work). But the Fabians had secured an impressive array of speakers from both left and right and I was keen to hear the views of the likes of Peter Mandelson and Douglas Carswell on how to win the next election. By far the most interesting session was on the economy (although a smug young man from the Fabians tried to prevent me getting in, a misjudgement James, a misjudgement).Will Hutton was as always marvellous(could he be Prime Minister?) and his whose views on progressive entepreneurism were very compelling. Hutton was on a platform with Phillip Blond, Red Tory extraordinaire, and the level of consensus between these two thinkers was striking. Equally striking was that much of their thinking seems to be informed by NESTA, the innovation incubator which I think has over the last few month produced some of the most interesting, intellectually demanding and thought-provoking solutions to this country's social and economic challenges.

Two footnotes on the day's events. First, yes I was mistaken for the good Baroness Vadera at least twice!!

Second Nadine Dorries was by far the least impressive of the speakers I heard, indeed I thought she was truly awful but I did think she bears a remarkable resemblance to Heather Mills, indeed you never see them in the same place.

Alastair at the Inquiry, again

2010-01-12T17:09:00.006Z

So once again Alastair Campbell has been in front of an inquiry into the Iraq War. And surprise, surprise, there were no surprises. No clangers were dropped, no faux pas made. And of course none could really have been expected. But that did not stop today's media feeding frenzy. There was a veritable scrum of photographers waiting for him when he arrived to give evidence, News 24 and Sky broadcast the lengthy session live, we will have Andrew Gilligan and all manner of talking heads commenting on his performance on every news programme, paper and website for the next 24 hours and don't even get me started on the write-throughs. Alastair is one of those people that no matter how much journalists criticise, they can't get enough of him. Back in the days when he was the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (1997-2001), his twice-daily briefings to the Lobby (Westminster-based political correspondents) were something to behold. They would sit there desperate to get his attention, hanging on every word like love-struck teenagers. Of course they would claim afterwards that they had "grilled him" during the briefings, but take it from one who was there, there was an awful lot of simpering in the mix. And it got worse when, after the 2001 election, he became the No 10 Director of Communications and Strategy and stopped giving briefings. The response of the hacks was almost comical - they became rejected love-sick teenagers, furious at being spurned, this time desperate to get revenge. Seems like old times.

New year resolutions

2010-01-11T17:02:00.002Z

I have been thinking about new year resolutions. Apart from my rollovers (losing weight, getting fit and doing something new and/or scary at least once a month), my personal goals for 2010 are (in no particular order) 1. do everything in my power to stop Nick Griffin winning Barking (www.hopenotehate.org.uk) 2. perfect the New York Cheesecake 3. post blogs more frequently 4. shine a spotlight on the hypocrisy of those in power be it political or economic. Talking of which, can I add my two-pen'th in on Iris Robinson? I know acres of news space has been spent on Mrs Robinson, but the sheer hypocrisy of the woman does bear repeating: there she was condemning homosexuality as an abomination when she was having an adulteress affair with a teenager to whom she was allegedly channelling public money. Shameful.

Thank god for the Generals

2009-10-20T18:11:00.007+01:00

On the day that the Generals have taken on the BNP, I find myself wondering where all the politicians are. They were queuing up last week to comment on Sir Thomas Legg's intervention on their expenses but I have heard not a peep from a senior Labour, Conservative or Lib Dem MP, or even a not so senior one. They appear to be adhering to the view that it is best not to engage in debate with, or indeed on, the BNP. And they are wrong. Very wrong. This is why the BNP has been able to gain ground. They have been allowed to get away with spreading vicious lies by politicians not prepared to tackle them for fear of getting into difficult territory. So we are left with Lord Guthrie and Generals Cordingley, Jackson and Dannatt to make stand against racism and extremism. And never have I been so pleased to see men in uniform getting stuck in - those of you who know me will know how uncharacteristic this is, believe me I would be the first on the streets in the event of a military coup - good on them. And let me add special mention of and indeed thanks to Simon Weston who has been on the airwaves all day filling the vacuum left by the mainstream politicians and calling Nick Griffin and his hateful party what they are - racist liars.

Shrit - not again!

2009-10-12T20:15:00.004+01:00

So the conference season is finally over. Thank god. I returned to London exhausted by the hours of standing at stands, fringe meetings and bars. My liver and digestive system have suffered untold damage, my spleen took a bit of a battering as well. I was asked yesterday for my conference highs. Clearly the questioner had never experienced "conference" for he would not otherwise have asked. How can the massing of politicians, political journalists and grassroots activists possibly result in any highs? Well, I say that but a funny thing happened, indeed it happened twice. At the Labour Conference, as we waited for the Dear Leader to give his speech, I was approached by a young man from Dow Jones online and asked to give my thoughts on the occasion. Not that funny you might think, this is not the first time I have been asked to give an interview and I am sure it would be the last. But this time, the wording of the request "Ms Vadera, Would you like to talk to Dow Jones about Mr Brown's speech?" I should of course have proceeded to opine away. Alas I laughed and when my colleague declared himself Neil Kinnock the game was up. The hapless reporter skulked away, very embrassed. But he needn't have been for a far more experienced journalist made the same mistake the following week. Yes, Mr Jon Snow, for it was he, strode up to me in the lobby of the Palace Hotel in Manchester, kissed me on both cheeks and said "How lovely to see you in your new guise". It was evident he had mistaken me for the good baroness but what he thought she was doing at the Tory Conference I do not know. What I do know is that both Shriti and I are of Asian descent but as far as I am concerned that is the limit of our similarity. What do you think?

Top of the class

2009-09-08T17:10:00.003+01:00

Can I be the only one perturbed by the story running in the UK media today that revealed (yes it was obvious PR stunt) that teachers expect children called Callum, Kyle, Chelsea or Chardonnay to be naughty and Alexanders, Alices and Sophies to be good? It has been a long time since I saw something so riddled with class prejudices. Those living outside of the UK may not at first glance appreciate that the "naughty" names are all associated with working class families while the "good" children have nice middle class names. No wonder we find failing schools in poor neighbourhoods - it would seem children are being written off on the first day of school with just a glance at the register. The wonderfully named Faye Mingo who commissioned the research says "It's only natural for teachers to make judgements . . . but I'm sure there are happy to be proved wrong. After all, there is always an exception to every rule." Well I am sure that is a great comfort to all the Daniels and Jessicas who start school this week. Our children deserve better whether they are named Jack, Charlie or Elizabeth.

Griffin on QT

2009-09-07T14:18:00.007+01:00

So the BBC is considering inviting Nick Griffin on to Question Time - cue much handwringing and angsting about whether it is appropriate to give the leader of the ugly BNP a platform. Well, I say bring it on. As I have said before, the "not giving them the oxygen of publicity" strategy has never worked. Right thinking people should be prepared to tackle BNP lies everywhere and anywhere. I personally can't wait to see what contribution the unpleasant Mr Griffin makes to thoughtful political debate. However polished he starts out, he will soon reveal his and his party's true colours. The veneer of respectability is very thin and he willl soon start ranting about the need to keep England English, railing against the BBC for including black characters in Robin Hood or other such nonsense. He can't help himself, the hate just pours out of him. My only plea to the QT production team is that it ensures that the other panellists won't be cowed in the presence of a racist, are prepared to have the debate and aren't handwringers themselves. May I suggest a few potential candidates? Archbishop John Sentamu, Stephen Fry, Val Amos, William Hague, Gary Younge, Tony Benn, Malorie Blackman. As for me, I would love to be in the audience, watching his thinking being taken apart piece by piece.

New year, new beginnings

2009-09-04T20:41:00.004+01:00

January take your place behind September - for me this is the start of the new year. Years spent in formal education and then working in politics provoke a Pavlovian response in my to the days after the August Bank Holiday. I want to make resolutions, get my uniform ready, buy a new satchel (these days its a handbag). This year is no exception. Indeed this year the feeling is more acute for my company (Grayling) has in the last few days merged with two sister companies (Trimedia and Mmd). So we start the new year as a new company - a much bigger company, many more people in many more places. It is very exciting and, if I am honest, a bit daunting. New colleagues to meet, new opportunities seize. I feel as I did when I moved from junior (Dollis) to secondary (Copthall) school . Excited and looking forward to the challenge ahead but ever so slightly anxious about the change. The good thing this time is that we are all new girls and boys starting big school at the same time, all hoping to impress the teachers, make new friends and come out of it having had a good experience and with a string of A*s to our names.

Happy New Year!

Où est La Place Jane Austen?

2009-09-01T13:50:00.007+01:00

Just back from France (Provence, wine, the air heady with the scent of lavender and thyme - very Jean de Florette) where I was once again struck by the French penchant for naming streets after individuals. In most French towns you will find places, cours, boulevards, rues and avenues named after Jean Jaures, Victor Hugo and Balzac. And in spite of their reputation, the French warmly embrace foreigners with Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Churchill all finding their way into French A to Zs. This desire to commemorate the lives and work of great politicians, poets and polyglots has even led to the renaming of metro stations hence stops in memory of Simon Bolivar, Raymond Queneau and Pierre & Marie Curie. The French are not alone in this, in South Africa there has been a huge amount of renaming in honour of the heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle (although if I were Albertina Sisulu I might be a tad annoyed that my contribution to the freedom of my nation was marked by the naming a highway after me). In Britain on the other hand we tend to shy away from this kind of adulation. Yes there may be a few Churchill Avenues and Mandela Places scattered about the country but in general we don't like naming things after people (except monarchs) and certainly would avoid renaming somewhere after someone however great. We don't go in for hero worship. So sadly we won't be seeing Oxford Street renamed Darwin Street (although anyone familiar with that thoroughfare knows it is an excellent spot to witness the survival of the fittest first hand), Jane Austen will not be immortalised as a square nor Charles Dickens as a train station - but check out Simon Patterson's the Great Bear to see how the tube map might look if we were prepared to be a bit more imaginative in how we acknowledge the accomplishments of the great and the good.

Milk, no sugar please

2009-08-16T15:44:00.003+01:00

I am in Sweden staying with friends - house with the forest on one side and a lake on the other, lots of talking and eating around a big wooden table. If it wasn't for the X-box in the corner I could be in a Carl Larsson painting. Lovely. Well it is now. Days one and two were completely clouded by the absence of tea. I mean real tea, not peppermint, chamomile, green or Earl Grey but proper builder's tea, known in better circles English Breakfast blend. It was pretty horrific. Those of you who know me well have witnessed the rapid descent into grumpiness that is prompted by my not having regular doses of tannin pumped into me. I am an addict I make no bones about it. You would think therefore that I would lap up the Earl Grey purchased for me by my thoughtful coffee-drinking friends. But I can't. Its too fragrant. Its just not a proper cuppa. And yet it is ubiquitous. At cafes and restaurants here the response to an order for tea is to bring a cup of hot water and an Earl Grey teabag on the side (I know, as in America and France, the general populous in Sweden remains oblivious to the correct method of making a brew). And waiters and hosts alike are perplexed by my lack of enthusiasm for the delicate blend. They have fallen for the Earl Grey spin that it is the blend of choice amongst the great British tea-drinking public! As if. On day two, with anxiety levels rising I ventured to a supermarket where I purchased an horrifically-priced-even-for-Sweden packet of breakfast teabags. I shall not be taking any risks next week when I go to the south of France with an ample supply of the good stuff in my bag.

Respecting the dead

2009-08-09T18:06:00.005+01:00

And so Harry Patch was lied to rest almost 100 years after so many of his comrades. The last Tommy, he survived a terrible war and spent much of his life after his days in the trenches speaking out for peace, calling for disputes to be resolved through reconciliation. It is important that we remember him and the sacrifices made by the Lost Generation and by the men and women who have died in subsequent conflicts across the world. But I don't believe I can be the only person who was disturbed by the number of people who turned out to watch his funeral. I have real doubts that the people who crowded outside Wells Cathedral did so out of respect or in remembrance of fallen heroes. I have a terrible suspicion that they, or at least many of them, were funeral tourists. It is a phenomenon which I have been observing for some time. The first obvious incidence was the funeral of Princess Diana, but more recently we saw it at the death of Jade Goody. And in the last few weeks, this mawkish behaviour has been infecting the streets of Wootten Bassett where the simple gesture of respect to service personnel killed abroad made by locals has been tarnished by tourists who come to gawp at the corteges. I know I shouldn't be surprised, I am disturbed by it and wish, like so many things, it would stop. Let's respect the dead, not send picture messages from outside funeral.

What do we want . . .

2009-08-05T19:02:00.004+01:00

I am in rant mode. I have been since the weekend and have had to wait until I calmed down a bit. So what or rather who has got my gander up? Arise Mr Phil Woolas, Immigration Minister, who has effectively declared that demonstrating is anti-social behaviour, and any applicant for British citizenship who has the temerity to protest should have points docked from their points-based application. As someone who has spent a large part of her life on marches, pickets and handing out leaflets and who came to this country as an asylum seeker I am, to say the least, upset. I definitely wouldn't have passed the Woolas test - I protested against apartheid and BNP and for peace. Under his criteria I am an undesirable. But he is wrong. The right to demonstrate peacefully, to express your views, to protest it is a mark of a free and democratic society. We commend the people of Iran and Zimbabwe for demonstrating against stolen elections. We hold up as an example of bravery and vision the March on Washington at which Dr Martin Luther King Jr delivered his "I have a dream speech". The lone protestor standing before a tank in Tiananmen Square is one of the defining images of our time. Democracies should encourage active citizenship - the freedom to express a view, to communicate an opinion is one important way we can be active and engaged members of society.

2009-07-28T11:58:00.005+01:00

The Wookey Hole Witch has got my knickers in a twist. I have spent much of my professional life trying to sell good stories in to the media. Stories which impact on the lives of real people - stories about improvements in the NHS, changing adoption laws, campaigns to get children fit or to fight for the rights of disabled people to name but a few. It is always hard to get a cynical, celebrity-obsessed media interested, particularly in stories where there is not obvious point of conflict - good news isn't news. I know and accept this. So today's Witch coverage has left me in the dither. I have to applaud the PR person who nicked the Tourism Queensland "best job in the world" wheeze and brought it to Somerset. Genius. Even if an cackler is employed at the going rate of £50k a year (which I seriously doubt - the hopefuls all had a drama school air about them if you ask me), it will be money well spent. The coverage has been phenomenal. But I have to ask how has the media been so taken in - the BBC has been broadcasting live down there all day, it is running on Sky and the story has made the print and on-line media. I know we are in the silly season but really?

Where are the white coats when you need them?

2009-07-20T15:42:00.003+01:00

I cannot be the only person confused and sightly irritated by the conflicting advice on swine flu. Andy Burnham's interview on the Today programme this morning prompted much shouting at the radio. With various sources producing conflicting, and in at least one case bonkers, advice over the weekend, what we needed this morning was a clear message on what people, including pregnant women, should do to protect themselves. Instead we got a minister telling us that it was up to us to decide what to do, how to behave. Surely this can't be right? I am not a health care professional, I have never been to medical school and come from the "unless a bit of me has actually fallen off I will come into work" school of work ethics. I need doctors, people in white coats, people who do this kind of thing for a living giving me clear and sensible advice. I know that public health messages are notoriously difficult to communicate but those in charge of managing the message have our attention, so their task is a much easier. Now we just need some simple and practical guidance. And for the media to report it calmly.

The Force was with us

2009-07-03T18:58:00.006+01:00

Glad tidings of great joy. The campaigning paid off and last night my boss, Vivien Hepworth, was recognised by the public affairs world for her outstanding contribution to the industry. It was wonderful. Was there really any doubt? There always is (except if you stand in Iran perhaps). Even in these circumstances where we had a great candidate, a reasonable and non-taxing ask and lots of potential voters we could not be certain of victory. Getting people to vote is not easy even when they agree with you. They have be persuaded that it is worth making the effort. That is why among all the policy talk, political parties try to play on people's emotions. Mainly they try to scare us (24 hours to save the NHS, tax whammies). Occasionally they manage to inspire us (Yes, we can). Last night I relied on the old "create an enemy" ploy. So I positioned the campaign for Vivien in Star Wars terms - good against evil, Obi-Wan against Darth Vader. And last night was without doubt the Return of the Jedi.

Too many lords a leaping?

2009-06-22T20:54:00.006+01:00

At breakfast the other day with a member of the Shadow Cabinet, another guest complained bitterly about the number of Lords in the Government. (It has to be said the Shadow Minister didn't seem that fussed indeed I think he is grateful to Brown - it makes it easier for a future Tory government to do the same.) So does it really matter if Ministers are not elected? I am not convinced it does. Ok, they are not called to account in the Commons. So? When was the last time a minister was so crushed by the questioning of MPs on the floor of the House that s/he changed the policy or even resigned? Ministers are accountable in many other different ways. John Humphrys, Paxman, Select Committees - they regularly have to appear before these inquisitors. And if we are going to have a House of Lords, shouldn't our noble friends be able to scrutinise ministers effectively? Another point worth bearing in mind is that the current system pretty much means that if you want to be a minister you have to become an MP. Your motivation is not to become a great legislator but to get into the executive as soon as possible - what impact does this have on the legislature. Finally, being able to bring in talented people into government who are not career politicians but draw on wider experience has to be a good thing. The point surely is not where in the Houses of Parliament the minister sits but whether they are up to the job.

157 - Bercow's lucky number

2009-06-22T20:37:00.007+01:00

So we have a new Speaker. Stand up John Bercow, Speaker number 157, Finchley Boy and an alumnus of Westminster Strategy (the founding name of Grayling's public affairs operation). The man has made "a personal journey", that is to say he has moved from the right of the Conservative Party to the left and in so doing has upset many in his party. I am sure there will be many on the Tory front bench who will be congratulating him through gritted teeth. But the real question is not how well he is liked by the Conservatives but how well and how quickly he can restore the reputation of Parliament. The last weeks have been unbelievably damaging to our political system. The lack of judgement, greed and contempt for the public on the part of too many MPs revealed by the expenses scandal has disenchanted and alienated voters. Our democracy is dependent on our trust and faith in our elected representatives. Parliament and the political parties will have to work hard to repair the damage and Mr Bercow will need to lead them. Let's hope he is not overwhelmed by the weight of the responsibility.

Say no to hate

2009-06-08T10:19:00.006+01:00

I am depressed and I am angry. The BNP has won two seats in the European Parliament. I am furious that this vile, racist party will represent the people of Britain. But of course it does not purport to represent the people of Britain. In this, at least, it is honest. It represents "the indigenous British" whoever they are - I doubt there one family in the whole of the UK whose blood has not mingled over the generations with that of Angles, Vikings, Normans, Huegenouts, Irish, Caribbean or any of the successive waves of immigrants who have come to this country in search of the better life. The party's whole rationale is based on a lie. So how did it manage to win two seats? Well, like other parties of hate, it has exploited fear and ignorance to win votes. It has also taken great advantage out of the expenses scandal and of the turmoil in the Labour Party. Finally the three main parties failed to respond effectively enough to the threat posed by the BNP. They have persistently adopted the "let's not give them the oxygen of publicity" (or "ignore them and they will go away") approach which plainly hasn't worked. They should be out there, rebutting the lies, condemning the policies and shining a light on the truth of this ugly party - we all should.

Vote for Vivien

2009-05-22T11:25:00.005+01:00

I am hustling for votes. Not for the polls on June 4 but for my boss Vivien Hepworth who has been shortlisted in the PA News Awards "Outstanding Contribution" category. It is not quite the same as being on the road during the 2005 general election with blogging genius Hopi Sen, but I love campaigning so am having fun.

Vivien is hugely knowledgeable, clever and respected. In a world of grey, she brings colour and life and so I am trying to get the vote out. It is a complex voting system - less OMOV, more one organisation seven votes - which makes the task even more interesting. Lots of talking to people, making small and realistic asks, using all the tools of the digital age to garner support - except Facebook, even now I won't go there. Even the voting itself is electronic. (And here is the ask:) it only takes 15 seconds to put tick in the box for Vivien, go on you know it makes sense: http://www.publicaffairsnews.com/panawards/voting

It's just an illusion

2009-05-19T12:08:00.005+01:00

So Speaker Martin is resigning. It is hardly surprising. He has never been a popular Speaker, indeed some parliamentarians have been seeking his departure practically since the moment he took the chair. Certainly he has not covered himself in glory. His handling of the expenses debacle - the oversight of the system itself, the failed attempt to halt the publication, the grumpiness in the wake of the press reports - has been truly terrible. Error has been heaped upon error. But those who have called so vociferously for his scalp in the last few days have themselves made an error if they think that his dismissal will somehow transform the reputation of this Parliament. It won't. Speaker Martin can't be blamed for the greed, lack of judgement and contempt for the public on the part of a great many MPs that the dodgy expenses claims reveal. None of this will be forgotten. It will be seen how much can be forgiven.

Martin's unseating has been an exercise in distraction of which Derren Brown would be proud. But unlike Mr Brown's illusions, there can be no applause at the end of the show.

No more heroes any more

2009-05-18T18:11:00.004+01:00

Utterly disappointed by our elected representatives, I have been reflecting on the subject of political heroes. What defines a hero and is it possible to be one once you have political power? I ask because I honestly can't think of a single living person in the politics who I would assign hero status (apart of course from Nelson Mandela and even his presidency had some shortcomings). Obama has to be a contender, but with less that 150 days under his belt it is, if truth be told, too early to judge. The compromises he will have to make may be too many and go too far. So who else is there? I am looking for someone with integrity whose political views I share, who is honest, true to his/her own beliefs but willing to yield in the face of a compelling alternative. Someone who understands the importance of justice, equality and liberty at home and abroad. Who is prepared to be do the right thing even if it is unpopular, to be bold and brave.

The only person I can think of who fits the bill is Jed Bartlett. And that can't be right. Surely there must be someone real out there. . .

The Purdy Connection

2009-05-13T19:57:00.005+01:00

"Why," a friend has just asked, "is it ok for Joanna Lumley to front the Gurkha campaign?" I presume he asked because he has so often heard me rant about the ridiculousness of celebrity-led campaigning. Reports of Sharon Stone declaring that she would kiss anyone to bring peace to the Middle East or Mia Farrow going on hunger strike for the people of Darfur throw me into a rage. But Lumley works for a number of reasons. First, she has a real link to the cause for which she fights (her father served with the Gurkhas). Second she is no "pop in if poss" campaigner, she has been working on this campaign for years. Third, she connects. That is what campaign communications is all about. She connects with her audience - politicians, judges and generals who are going to make the decisions as well as the public. To the likes of Gordon Brown, the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee and indeed male readers of the Daily Telegraph, she will always be Purdy, gorgeous, sexy Purdy who was always on the right side. (Perhaps a clue as to why GB met her alone.). But that doesn't put off women, we like her because she took the mickey out of herself, her glamour and her beauty in Ab Fab. Fourth, she is clever and canny. Her doorstep after the meeting with Steed, I mean Brown, was pure genius - "I trust him . . . I know he will do what is right".

In the midst of all these unpalatable revealations about moat cleaning, trouser presses and flipping, maybe those calling for her to be PM aren't so mad.

Its all in the presentation

2009-05-08T20:15:00.005+01:00

Far be it of me to add my voice to the chorus criticising the politics of Gordon Brown but can I just say that he is in desperate need of a proper communications advice. As he walked into No 10 Gordon effectively denounced the previous occupant (and my old boss) for his focus on presentation and declared the days of spin were over (a piece of spin if ever I saw one). He was wrong. Wrong to criticise Blair for understanding the power of the media and the importance of trying to use the media to get your message over effectively. Wrong to pretend he wasn't going to try to do the same. Alas over the last few weeks we have seen how badly he and his inner circle are doing on the presentation front. YouTube in itself is not a bad idea, but not necessarily as a channel to raise the issue of MPs expenses and why didn't anyone look at the tape before it was uploaded? I have nothing to add on the Swastika debacle other than to say I don't recall seeing any photos of a smiling TB with Nazi symbols coming out of the side of his head. As for the lovely Ms Lumley - why on earth was no one else in the room when they met? And why didn't they agree what line she could take when she stood in front of the cameras? Madness.

Storm in an E cup

2009-05-08T09:09:00.003+01:00

So the bra war is over. M&S has seen the errors of its ways and capitulated. Busts 4 Justice has won the day. It is a victory for common sense, consumers and those of us who are a bit larger in the bosom department than others. It also demostrates how effective campaigning can force the surrender of Goliaths like Marks & Sparks. Busts 4 Justice had a very clear message (charging more for larger cups is wrong), a clear ask (stop it) and used the media and social networking sites like Facebook to make the case to as many people as possible. And it didn't hurt their cause that other high street retailers were able to make hay out of the fact that they apply an across the cup pricing policy. Of course Goliath didn't initially recognise the strength of the David it was facing and stood firm, indeed even tried to justify its position with statements which didn't bear serious scrutiny (more material and engineering? Please). But finally it has come to its senses, not only was the damage to its reputation was too great, it was alienating the a large section of its target shoppers. Women who wear need a more generous balcony or plunge outnumber those who don’t and big girls don't just buy bras, there are tops and jumpers, dresses and jackets (which are priced not according to size but to style) to be purchased, not to mention the clothes for the children and men in their lives. With the likes of Primark and Asda snapping at Markie's heels this was too much. But all credit to M&S, surrender has been gracious – an absolute apology, acknowledgement of the error and a gesture of appeasement. Nice one.

Pigs and porn

2009-04-24T11:20:00.004+01:00

Much like bankers’ bonuses, any talk of MPs’ salaries tends to elicit Pavlovian outrage. Any revelations about second homes, foreign jaunts, bath plugs and indeed soft porn fuel public prejudices about greedy MPs with snouts in troughs. And of course it they are manna from heaven for journalists (who are of course beyond reproach when it comes to expenses). It is all perfectly understandable - we should expect those who represent us to behave honestly and with integrity. But we also need to recognise that it is utter madness to expect MPs to fund the geniune costs of serving their constitutents (like running a second residence) from their own pocket. Being an MP should not be the preserve of the rich. So let's pay MPs enough so that those with the talent and determination can afford to serve the people. What depresses me most about the situation is that MPs themselves appear to lack the will, guts or indeed imagination to come up with a system which does just that. Perhaps it is time for them to stop having a say in what they are paid and pass it to someone else, dare I say a civil servant?

2009-04-22T10:31:00.003+01:00

Watching Nelson Mandela cast his vote in today's South African election reminds me of one of the happiest days of my life - going with my parents and sisters 15 years ago to South Africa House in London to vote in the country's first democratic election. After years of protesting outside the South African embassy -hitherto a symbol of hate and intolerance - the poetic justice of entering the building for the first time to cast our ballots in that historic poll was not lost. We queued for hours but the waiting was joyous, filled with the singing of freedom songs and laughter. Seeing my parents finally participate in the democratic process for which they sacrificed made me proud beyond measure.

Two things arise from this memory. It reminds me of why I get angry with people who have the vote and can't be bothered to use it. It also reminds me that South Africa is still a very new country. Of course more progress needs to be made to ensure that people have access to electricity, clean water, better health and education services and to tackle the scourge of violent crime but let's remember that it was only 15 years ago that the aparthied finally died.