Monthly Archives: March 2010

Playground politicians: Woolas, Green and Huhne disgrace themselves on BBC 5 Live

Posted on by
Reply

If there's one thing guaranteed to turn voters off politicians (apart from an expenses scandal), it's a bad tempered and infantile argument. That's exactly what Phil Woolas, Damian Green and Chris Huhne engaged in on BBC Radio 5 Live's Drive show tonight. Presenter Peter Allen lost control as the immigration spokesmen of the main parties shouted each other down on live radio. He eventually gave up, protesting feebly at their behaviour and thanking them for coming in. They should have been given an ASBO, not a thank you. They should be ashamed of themselves.

What possessed them to behave so appallingly? They must know that this kind of behaviour leads people to decide there's no point in voting as all the parties are as bad each other. If turnout in May's general election hits a new low, Woolas, Green and Huhne must share some of the blame. 

Why the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones is wasted on digital election stories

Posted on by
Reply

I'm a huge fan of the BBC's technology business reporter Rory Cellan-Jones – or @ruskin147 as he's known on Twitter. I first appreciated his expertise and enthusiasm after reading his book about the dot com boom and bust, Dot Bomb. 

But my heart sank when I heard that Rory had been given a temporary role as the BBC's digital election correspondent. Not because I don't think social media will play a role in the imminent British general election. No, my concern is that the move appears to confirm the fears of the BBC critics who think the corporation is obsessed with Twitter and – to a lesser extent – Facebook. More significantly, it suggests a preoccupation with the medium rather than the message. 

Don't get me wrong. I love social media. I've been blogging since 2005, and have embraced Twitter and Facebook with a passion. But Rory's new (temporary) beat suggests the BBC is desperate to be seen as cool and in touch. His blogpost about the budget confirms my fear. As he says, the Facebook election page has just 1,000 fans active and 12 contributors. I sense that Rory is desperate to find a new digital angle to the election, rather than judge possible stories on their newsworthiness. That's a great shame for such a talented journalist.

The political social media enthusiasts constantly point to Barack Obama's 2008 campaign as the model for future engagement of voters through social media. But America is, as they say, another world. Obama was engaging in a great debate with Democratic party rivals, followed by the actual race for the White House. The idea of change was compelling after eight years of George W Bush. Britain is very different. British political parties seem to have transferred Punch and Judy politics to Twitter and Facebook. (The Tories' Cash Gordon stunt was pitiful.) We're hardly likely to be impressed. If they're going to succeed, they must remember that social media is about transparency and authenticity, not control and yah-boo insults. Individual MPs, such as Labour's Kerry McCarthy and Eric Joyce, often rise above this in their blogs, and provide a compelling insight into the role of the MP. (Though interestingly Kerry appears to talk more to the converted on Twitter. Does 140 characters lead politicians to be more partisan?)  

My view is that the televised leaders' debates will have more of an impact on the 2010 election than the political parties' social media efforts. The real impact of Twitter and Facebook will be from voters commenting on the debates and developments in the campaign, not the parties' own efforts on social media sites. But Kerry and Eric are great role models for other candidates.

The day my bank card appeared in ITV’s The Bill

Posted on by
Reply

PC Stamp The Bill Nationwide 1989

The news that ITV was scrapping The Bill, its long-running police drama, brought back happy memories of my encounters with one of British television's best loved shows. 

Back in April 1989, I arranged for Thames Television to film part of an episode at Nationwide Building Society's Shepherd's Bush branch in London. The scene featured PC Stamp, played by Graham Cole, who was trying to take money out of his account. The hapless Stamp had his cash card swallowed by the ATM as he'd forgotten his PIN. The card was mine – and I arranged for Nationwide's branch staff to fish it out of the back of the ATM at the end of each 'take'. 

Rob Skinner PS Stamp The Bill

I enjoyed working with the programme, and remember Thames changing the script after I explained the planned sequence wouldn't happen in real life. The following year, The Bill filmed at another Nationwide branch, but disguised it as the storyline wasn't one I wanted the society associated with. 

The Bill became famous for featuring the working lives of the characters rather than their lives outside the station, setting it apart from other British police dramas. It had a string of memorable characters, including PC Stamp, Sergeants June Ackland and Bob Cryer and DCI Burnside. In some cases life imitated art, and millions of viewers were shocked after the actor Kevin Lloyd, who played the troubled Tosh Lines, died tragically following a drinking binge just days after being fired from the series.

In time, The Bill became a more sensationalist drama, and lost something special as a result, as former Met Police commissioner Ian Blair described in a valedictory Guardian article last week. I wasn't surprised to hear about a Facebook campaign to save the show, but can't help thinking the very idea of a preservation society for a TV drama is ludicrous. TV should be constantly refreshed – and The Bill has had its day after over a quarter of a century. As Ian Blair put it, quoting the original British TV policeman Dixon of Dock Green, "Goodnight, All!"

Why BBC Trust was wrong to delay BBC iPhone apps

Posted on by
Reply

BBC Trust chairman Michael Lyons is back on Rupert Murdoch's Christmas card list. The corporation's governing body today told the BBC to delay launching News and Sport iPhone applications while it investigates their possible impact.

Rival news organisations, including Murdoch's News Corporation, have long criticised the BBC's activities, arguing they distort the market. They think the corporation has the unfair advantage of guaranteed income through the licence fee. 

There's some truth in this. The BBC's acquisition of Lonely Planet was a crass move into commercial territory. But all the signs are that the Trust has lost its nerve. The BBC is arguably the world's best broadcaster, but it risks becoming mired in even more bureaucracy as its governing body tries to appease its deadly rivals. As a licence fee payer, I want BBC iPhone apps. I resent people like Michael Lyons denying them to me because he's scared of Rupert Murdoch and the Daily Mail. The BBC has done far more to pioneer online services than its rivals in the last ten years, but I fear that it will give up innovating if its own regulator imposes endless delay before new initiatives see the light of day. Britain needs a strong BBC. 

Buckinghamshire Advertiser: a failure of local journalism

Posted on by
2

Britain's regional newspapers are in crisis. Sales and advertising are falling, and titles closing. 

Perhaps inevitably, standards of journalism are falling. Nick Davies described some of the reasons for this in his book Flat Earth News. Journalists have little time to find, check and write stories. So I shouldn't be surprised by two serious errors in successive weeks on the front page of our local Buckinghamshire Advertiser. 

The most serious was a story in last week's paper suggesting that Beaconsfield was set to be the centre of a cake war between Gordon Ramsey's former pastry chef and and Raymond Blanc. Today's paper revealed that almost every detail in the story was wrong.

This week's howler appeared in the front page lead story about the proposed high speed rail line from London to Birmingham through the Chilterns. The story warned that … "many homes would have to be bulldozed to complete the track by 2017…"

The swiftest glance at the proposals would have shown that 2017 was the earliest work could start on the line, not the completion date. In reality, it could be even later – or never, if Labour loses the election. 

There's little point in having local papers if they're as incompetent as the Buckinghamshire Advertiser.


Why I won’t object to high speed rail line through Chalfont St Giles

Posted on by
Reply

Chiltern line being built 01

Above: the last mainline built through the Chilterns

The government announced plans yesterday for a new high speed rail line from London to Birmingham – via our village, Chalfont St Giles.

The news has, inevitably, led to an outcry. The Chilterns Conservation Board said it would cause irreversible damage. This highly prosperous area is sure to campaign fiercely against the new line.

I won’t be objecting. Partly because the line will pass Chalfont St Giles in a tunnel, which will minimise the impact on the village once construction is complete. But mainly because I feel strongly that it’s hypocritical to benefit from motorways, rail line and airports but object violently when someone plans one in your own area.

And I don’t accept the idea that rail lines – even high speed ones – blight the countryside. There’s something special about the sight of a train snaking its way through the countryside. The west coast main line didn’t ruin the Lune Gorge in the north of England; the later, parallel M6 did.

As the photo at the top of this post shows, railway lines already cross the Chilterns. This photo shows the Great Western and Great Central joint line being built at Loudwater near High Wycombe at the turn of the last century. The scars of construction are long gone; the railway is now part of the landscape. As the photo below of the same line near Ashendon shows, the railway merges into landscape.

century cows train nr Ashendon

As a boy, I loved lying in bed at night listening to coal trains making their way along the Rhymney valley line in Cardiff. It seemed the most natural thing in the world.

But will it happen?

It may not need a campaign to stop a high speed line through Chalfont St Giles. A Tory victory at the general election is likely to scupper the plans, and although the Tories say they’ll push a similar scheme, it will probably be for a different route. 

Too close to call? Gorkana speakers reject the social media election

Posted on by
Reply

Social media will have minimal impact on the imminent British general election, according to top journalists speaking at Gorkana PR's latest breakfast debate, Too close to call. 

The Wall Street Journal's Iain Martin wittily described the 2010 campaign as Britain's fourth 'first online election'. The Guardian's business editor Dan Roberts added that the televised leadership debates are likely to have more impact than political campaigning on Twitter or Facebook. 

Although the parties are keen to lear from Obama's supposed social media success, the reality is that people don't join Facebook to get bombarded by political messages. Politicians who try to gatecrash may find their efforts have the opposite effect. America, as always, is different. Obama's social media campaign was about fundraising, not changing opinion. The race to the White House took two years, not the five weeks of most British election campaigns. And presidential races involve scores of rival candidates from the same party, not just one already-selected party leader. 

Most of the Gorkana speakers thought the Tories would win the election, despite running a text book example of a disastrous campaign. Jeremy Warner contrasted Cameron's campaign with Labour's 1997 triumph. Labour was utterly focused in '97, trashing the Conservatives' economic record, but saying little about their economic plans. By contrast, Cameron's decision to say he'd slash public spending has backfired disastrously, leading to a swift u-turn. Iain Martin argued that Tory strategist Steve Hilton's 'detox' strategy to make voting Tory respectable should have given way to an all-out attack on Labour's economic record. Interestingly, he showed that Cameron has a late finisher: making up time to win his degree; coming from behind to win the 2005 leadership race. 'This is the biggest essay crisis of his life.'

Dan Roberts lamented the lack of ideas from the parties. We've seen the greatest crisis of capitalism for 70 years – yet the left have totally failed to capitalise. But the greatest criticism was reserved for the Tories. As Iain Martin said, where's their passion? They have an open goal, yet it's the Tory economic plans that are under the most scrutiny, thanks to the decision to announce the slash and burn spending approach.

Finally, George Pascoe-Watson revealed that the Sun almost proclaimed Nei Kinnock the winner of the 1992 election under the headline One foot in Downing Street. The paper then ran the notorious attack on Kinnock. Let's hope the paper has no impact on the outcome this time. Ironically, Labour was lucky to lose 18 years ago. Major's government never recovered from the shattering sterling crisis five months after that triumph, leaving Labour in power for 13 years.

The Gorkana debate was chaired by former Sky News business editor Michael Wilson. The speakers were George Pascoe-Watson from Portland PR; Daily Telegraph assistant editor Jeremy Warner; Guardian business editor Dan Roberts; and Wall Street Journal Europe's deputy editor Iain Martin.

In praise of Michael Foot, man of letters and principles

Posted on by
Reply

Michael Foot autograph

Michael Foot, who died today at the age of 96, is best known as the leader who led Labour to disastrous defeat to Margaret Thatcher in 1983. But he deserves a much better epitaph, as a cultured and principled man who fought for the underdog. 

Foot lived so long that it's extraordinary to reflect that he first stood for parliament in 1935, and was editor of the Evening Standard during the second world war. He also won fame as one of the authors of Guilty Men, a book published on the eve of the Battle of Britain that exposed the men who appeased Hitler.  

He was a renowned orator, possibly the last of his kind in British politics. But he found the transition from rebel to high office a tough one. As deputy to prime minister James Callaghan, he oversaw the loss of thousands of steel jobs in his own Ebbw Vale constituency. And when he finally became Labour leader, it became obvious that this figure from another political generation could not compete with the brutal challenge of Margaret Thatcher. 

I met Michael Foot once, at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature in 1996. As Cheltenham-based PR manager for Eagle Star, I was involved in the company's sponsorship of a discussion about the biographer's craft. (Foot was superb writer, chronicling the lives of Hazlitt and Aneurin Bevan amongst others.) After the debate, I got the chance to talk to Foot and the poet Stephen Spender. My boss, a lifetime Tory, offered Foot a bet: if Labour won the 1997 general election, he would give him a bottle of champagne. I suspect the former Labour leader never got the bubbly, despite Labour's triumph. 

PS: the image above shows Michael Foot's signature on a copy of the biography about him, Michael Foot by Mervyn Jones, presented to us at the 1996 Cheltenham event. 

Revealed: Virgin Media’s bandwidth crisis

Posted on by
Reply

We've had Virgin broadband for five years. We've been very happy with the service – until two weeks ago. Our broadband connection suddenly slowed to the extent the BBC iPlayer stopped working. 

Tonight, I phoned Virgin for the third time to find out what was going on. The company told me they had seriously underestimated the popularity of the BBC iPlayer and online services such as gaming through the Xbox. As a result, Virgin customers who connect through a local BT exchange are getting just 500 kilobits per second rather than the billed 8 megabits per second advertised. 

They reassured me that things would improve over the next couple of weeks. 

Shame they didn't tell me that when I called on Saturday and last night, resulting in a wasted couple of hours going through a checklist they emailed me to identify possible faults. 

Why Britain needs a strong BBC

Posted on by
Reply

The BBC confirmed the worst kept secret in British broadcasting: it plans to close its 6 Music and Asian Network radio stations and halve the size of its website, www.bbc.co.uk. The BBC's strategic review is aimed at appeasing Conservative critics and commercial rivals. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has long waged a deeply self interested campaign to emasculate the BBC.

The BBC is always an easy target. But in tough times, the compulsory licence fee gives it a huge advantage over commercial rivals, who are struggling with the long term decline in newspaper sales as well as the collapse in advertising revenues during the recession. And the corporation has scored a series of spectacular own goals in recent years, from the mismanaged redevelopment of Broadcasting House to the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand scandal. Not to mention all those highly paid middle and senior managers.

But the BBC remains the world's biggest, and most respected, broadcaster. It was right to expand into digital broadcasting and online news in the 1990s, displaying far greater foresight than many of its commercial rivals. And in the words of its 1980s John Cleese advert, it's still the biggest bargain in Britain: a host of national and regional television and radio stations, plus one of the world's best websites, for £142 a year. 

We can dismiss the deeply self serving Murdoch campaign against the BBC. Murdoch would love to see the corporation dismantled, to leave a rump public service broadcasting operation funded by subscription. That would leave him far greater freedom to expand Sky's market share and charge for his online content. His son James Murdoch led the call for the BBC to be cut back in last year's MacTaggart lecture, describing the BBC's expansion as chilling and mocking its 'state sponsored journalism'. Yet all the surveys show the public trust and respect the corporation, even as they rail against repeats and over-paid bosses. It's significant that Margaret Thatcher was rebuffed when she wanted to replace the licence fee with advertising – turning her attentions to ITV instead.

But it's far from clear that the proposals to reduce the BBC's costs unveiled today are the right response to criticism. Director general Mark Thompson was characteristically incoherent in explaining why axing 6 Music, the Asian Network and half the website was the right approach. 6 Music was distinctive but didn't have enough listeners, he argued. (Whose fault is that?) But if it had more listeners it would threaten commercial rivals. (Unlike the mass market Radio 1 and Radio 2?) And he made matters worse by descending into gobbledegook:

"The BBC is part of public space because the public themselves have put it there… Public space is an open … environment. There are no paywalls in public space."

How can the leader of Britain's leading broadcaster talk such nonsense? But we shouldn't be surprised. Thompson is notoriously unable to explain what he means. The author PD James famously left him tongue-tied in a Today interview last December. And a more regular interviewer, John Humphrys, ran rings round him in an interview about the BBC's controversial decision not to broadcast DEC's Gaza appeal last year. If BBC bosses must enjoy extravagant salaries, they should prove they're capable of making their case on air. 

It seems particularly perverse in an online age to promise to axe half the BBC's website. This seems a totally arbitrary sacrifice. Why half? No doubt there are sections that don't fit the BBC's allegedly more serious approach. But the 25% cut in spending online is highly questionable. 

And the plan to close 6 Music is similarly misconceived. The station costs the BBC £9m a year – just £3m more than Jonathan Ross's salary. By common consent, it's highly regarded by its (small) audience. And the Beeb has done little to promote it on other stations – despite its interminable adverts within stations. (Radio 5 Live's constant adverts are intensely annoying.) A vigorous Facebook campaign is now underway to save 6 Music. No doubt supported by Tory culture spokesman Ed Vaizey's shameless attempt to curry popular favour by claiming he's now a fan, just days after saying he'd never heard of the station. 

I suspect 6 Music will survive. Instead, Thompson should take an axe to the BBC's bloated management and its related expenses. And he should learn to make a positive case for the BBC's role in the life of the nation. We'd all suffer hugely if the BBC disappeared.