Other arts on TV

In a debate about the cultural effect of Channel 4 launching 25 years ago on Thinking aloud an interesting tangent appeared. One of the guests right at the end of the segment said that public service arts broadcasting (in his context, Channel 4 and BBC 2)had lost us years of important culture by not having televised and therefore recorded enough live theatre over the last few decades.
I'm unsure about this, I find televised theatre quite flat compared with live or even theatre in a studio for television, and are things better with more channels covering arts, anyway this is to ask your opinions.

Reporting the reports

The Science and Technology Committee has released a report on scientific developments relevant to debate relating to abortion. Nadine Dorries disagrees with the report and has released a minority report claiming many things, including that there was shenanigans over the debunking of the evidence of Professor Wyatt, a key plank in the arguments of those wanting to reduce the time limit on abortions.
Ben Goldacre explains the dodgy spy techniques he used, perhaps we should ask why Nadine didn't know that all of this information was public available.

Judging someone’s morals

From the Ministry of Justice website, the magistrates have an oath: 'If you are appointed, you will be required to swear that you "will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors, according to law" and that you "will well and truly serve our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth the Second in the office of Justice of the Peace, and will do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm without fear or favour, affection or ill will".' The problem that Andrew McClintock has is that he doesn't think that same-sex couples count under the all in all manner of people. Bystander in his Magistrate's Blog points out that he believes that as a JP Mr McClintock's boss is Her Majesty, I unfortunately can't find an official report online to confirm whether the action was taken against the crown, although it technically may have been anyway even if the tribunal considered the government department to be the employer.

I did at the time of reading about this wonder what the Church of England position was on the whole thing, given that the established church and the judiciary all report to the same MD, in a manner of speaking. I found out listening to PM last night; of the two people brought on from each side of the debate, the Bishop for Urban Life and Faith, Rt Rev Stephen Lowe was on the side arguing that what was best for the children was paramount and that was a loving family, no matter how that family was composed. I was impressed, now if only they had that compassion towards gay clergy.

News, in papers

Reading through the Sunday paper over a couple of slowly savoured pints of beer^[1] and relishing my freedom from rehearsals, I was making notes for stories to follow up in this blog. When I got to the end of these notes I looked back over them and suffered from a moment of introspection. Why was I reading this particular newspaper, it annoys me. Well, I concluded, while it indeed annoys me, it does so less than all the others. I am not a big newspaper reader, I sit in front of a computer day in day out for a living, a popular internet search engine provides me with a list of the top stories in the world to look at, while the UK's favourite aunty gives me its news. When google highlights a story it gives me the choice of which source to read it from, I can decide based on topic, which one is least likely to cause apoplexy; for example avoiding any coverage of science and technology stories in the liberal arts media. So in general a newspaper is full of out of date stories. On occasion this changes, from tomorrow I'll be on holiday for a week in a town with few public internet connections and poor GSM reception let alone 3G signal. I will get up and "nip to the newsagents" most mornings. Now it would be foolish and wasteful to try and replicate my normal news reading habits, I would have to buy all of the broadsheets and when I got to one that I knew would be covered with a bias that would annoy me in paper A, I would need to leaf through paper B until I found it and so on. So you have to pick the paper that in most cases will not cause you to spit your morning drink all over the cottage carpet to often. This is even more of an issue on a Sunday; Sunday papers being far more comment, review and opinion, as they analyse the week, than their daily brethren.

^[1] Two pint's of Wentworth Black Zac and slightly more Sharp's Eden.

Call the UK a third world country once more if you want to be punched

One of the current buzz phrases being used a lot by the right wing in the "modern" online community is that Gordon Brown is a "third rate manager for a third world country" or the topological equivalent.^[1]
I am not a violent man but the next time I see or hear this and I know where the person concerned is I am going to have to lamp them. We have the sixth biggest economy in the world (GDP using PPP), we have 3% of the worlds wealth but only 0.91% of the world population, our life expectancy is twelve years more than the world average and almost forty years better than Swaziland at the bottom of the pile. We are in the top thirty in quality of life indexes such as those used by UN and the Economist Intelligence Unit. I just don't read that as the description of a third world country.
My objection to this label isn't based on patriotism, but the fact that it is one of the most pathetically degrading and patronising things anyone living in the relatively luxury of the UK can say. Anyone caught using this phrase should receive an immediate "mile in their shoes" sentence and be sent to a real third world country for a year. They would be made to work in a sweatshop factory producing consumer goods for sale in Britain, live in a shanty town over-run by gangs of gun toting children and have to rely on aid workers for any health care.
I know that life in this country can be hard for people relying on state benefits as their sole income, but the shear existence of such a welfare state is one of the things that sets us apart from the parts of the world that these tossers seam to think that we are living in just because the price of petrol has gone up.
^[1]No I don't know enough about linguistic theory to know what the appropriate term for this is, "paraphrased" doesn't seem quite right; go on pedant pals, correct me.

No job at the Soaraway sun

It would seem that had I published the Nick Clegg to launch his campaign in Sheffield story without waiting for any confirmation I would have had a world exclusive. I have obviously watched All the President's Men too often and that influenced my decision to try and get confirmation first.
In the end I still think that this blog and the Sheffield Star shared the honour of breaking the news before the London political news massive.

Not quite in the Nick Clegg of time

Well after having spent a chunk of my lunch hour (yes at 3 o'clock) playing with the format of my interview with Joe, I get back to my email to find he has been able to confirm that Nick Clegg's press conference to launch his leadership bid will be in Sheffield tomorrow morning.
I don't have confirmation of the location, but I am firmly of the belief it will be in the CIQ, near to Sheffield Hallam university where Nick worked. Probably in the Showroom Cinema. I've been told it isn't the Showroom, so will instead bet on it being the Workstation.

Interview with Joe Otten

I have long wanted to do some interviews for this blog, one of the people always on my list to talk to was fellow blogger Joe Otten. I have known him since university and was originally interested in asking him about his change from being a local activist for the Greens to The Lib Dems. The recent developments in their leadership with a Sheffield MP throwing his hat into the ring seamed like an ideal opportunity to move forward although with a different slant to the piece. The interview was conducted over email yesterday and today (this is most obvious in the question about the leadership election. My questions are in bold, with the follow questions nested beneath the original. I could have gone on with the questions for ages, but decided that I should just get on and publish it. I expect that my tip off that Joe honourably refuses to confirm or deny about the location of Nick Clegg's campaign launch press conference tomorrow is now old news with the "real media" but the BBC news website is still just saying "Mr Clegg is expected officially to launch his campaign on Friday" but without confirmation, I don't feel confident in publishing.

1. What drew you to the Liberal Democrats?
   First, I was driven away from the Green Party by their dogmatism. They are hostile to science, when it is science that enables us to understand environmental problems. They are hostile to business and trade when these are vital to improving the human condition. Their attitudes to trade in particular fly in the face of all the evidence. The party seemed capable of turning people who joined it out of a concern for the survival of humanity into people who thought that the extinction of humanity would be a good thing.
   So I was looking for a less dogmatic and more rational party. One with its values in the right place: supporting freedom and opportunity for all, caring for the environment without the irrationality and thinly-veiled misanthropy that sometimes brings.
   The conservatives were never an option - they are too attractive to a different kind of misanthrope. While it wasn't very clear what Labour stood for any more, it clearly knew its leader thought his self-delusions cause enough for war, and wasn't going to do anything about it. Labour, it seems to me is crippled by its own dogmatic baggage. It knows socialism didn't work, but is trying to work out how to hang on to the values, whilst supping with the devil. But this is a mistake on both counts: socialism had the wrong values, and the private sector is not the devil. Historically, liberalism was the movement which fought for the liberation of the masses against the unaccountable power and unearned privilege of the elites - but not by opposing business and trade which can themselves bring opportunities to many. Socialism did little but put the cause back 100 years.
   And with liberalism under attack from all sides - the greens, the Home Office, would-be theocrats around the world, it seemed to me that the Liberal Democrats is the best place to stand and fight.
   1. So as much as you are positively attracted to the Lib Dems you are put off by the Conservatives as they have the Wrong people and the Labour Party as it has the wrong policies, is that a fair assessment?
      Not really. I see the Conservatives as fighting the same class war as "Old Labour", but on the other side. I grew up in inner city Manchester, and the contempt for people in my situation from the Tories was palpable. The Tory party is attractive to the wrong people because it has the wrong values and policies.
      While Labour has, rightly, abandoned this class war, (much of it at least), it has not abandoned the mentality of seeking scapegoats for society's ills, and fighting them. Thus teachers, doctors etc are not trusted to make professional judgments and are subject to a box ticking target culture. Every problem seems to demand more exercise of power by the state, and less by individuals who clearly cannot be trusted to be on the right side. A government like this will never recognise that it is the biggest problem.
      Many Labour people have the best of intentions, but so do many Tories. Lenin might have had good intentions, but killed millions. Labour perhaps has a different kind of wrong person - one who is insufficiently realist about the dangers of the power of the state, and so too eager to use the state, as Lenin did, in pursuit of what they believe are good outcomes.
2. Why are you supporting Nick Clegg for the leadership of the party?
   Nick is a great communicator, clearly passionate about liberalism. He commands the respect and enthusiasm of the party. He is not afraid to cut through the comfort blanket of waffle and fudge and present issues with a hard edge.
   There is no question that Nick frightens the other parties the most, and for good reasons. Tory Iain Dale, for example, is desperately trying to talk up a Kennedy comeback.
   I would say that I expect Chris Huhne and Steve Webb both to stand, and probably another. Chris and Steve are also both excellent candidates. But for me Chris is not so presentable or engaging as Nick, and is too inclined to play it safe with policy. Steve seems to tend to the left on economic policy and the right on social policy, which is the wrong way round.
   1. So with Steve Webb having ruled himself out, you see Chris Huhne as the other big contender, or have any of the other names now in the hat fill Steve Webb's slot as the "third viable candidate"
      It is unlikely now, I'd guess. Steve was the obvious "left" candidate. Chesterfield MP Paul Holmes has been mentioned, but I think this is unlikely. I don't see the differences between Nick and Chris as left/right, which may disappoint some who see things in those terms. But perhaps left/right differences will emerge during the campaign.
   2. Do you see any possibility of Champaign Charlie standing?
      Nope. There is no sign I am aware of that his problems have been solved. I think Tory blogger Iain Dale was talking this up in desperate hope that we would choose an ineffective leader.
   3. Who is the more important kingmaker, Charles Kennedy, Vince Cable or Simon Hughes?
      I don't think any of those three are important as kingmakers. Of the three Simon, as the previous "left" candidate may have more influence on that wing. But then Steve Webb has already declared for Nick Clegg, which may be more significant.
   4. Is the rumour that Nick's leadership bid will be launched in Sheffield true and will you be going to the press conference if it is.
      Sorry, I can't confirm or deny anything.
3. What are your top issues, for local and national politics to address?
   Locally, transport is probably the top issue. Sheffield is being strangled by congestion. If you can't get around by either car or bus, it is time to stop trying to promote one mode at the expense of the other, and start making it easier to get around by any means.
   Also there are problems with Sheffield's approach to planning and inward investment. This should be easier to tackle than many issues, because the city isn't actually saving any money by its attitude.
   1. What are the Lib Dem's policy initatives in this area for Sheffield?
      I'm not an official spokesperson here, but as I understand it, the key points are to review the road network, for possible improvements, and to look into different kinds of relationship with the bus companies, that might give a better return for the subsidy that is spent.
      The junction between Hangingwater Rd and Nether Green Rd near me was redesigned recently, cutting its capacity and causing longer tailbacks up Hangingwater Rd. Often this sort of thing is driven by regulations, and might not be the council's fault, but it is madness to be cutting capacity like this.
      On planning and inward investment, there seems to be an attitude that some kinds of business are not welcome here, "posh frock shops" was one, which prompted a series of letters to the Telegraph. But it is not for the council to be deciding what sort of work, leisure or shopping people ought or ought not want. It should get out of the way and let people decide with their feet.
   Nationally, the top issue is global warming: our willingness to take steps rather than just set targets, and our support for technologies that will help convince the rest of the world that it will not be too painful to tackle global warming.
   We want a fairer and greener tax system - the proportion of tax revenue from green taxes has actually gone down since 1997. We would should have more green taxes balanced by tax cuts at the standard rate, and with a goal of increasing allowances to take minimum wage earners out of income tax altogether. It is a scandal that the other parties are only talking about tax cuts for the richest.
   1. How do you strike the ballance between green taxes and a fair tax burden for the poorest, who will be running any old car regardless of efficency and unable to afford to insulate thier homes and by triple A rated fridges for example?
      This is a fair point, that green taxes will hit the poor disproportionately. At the same time, we have people working full time for the minimum wage, and paying income tax on their earnings. This is wrong - the minimum wage is supposed to be supporting working people not the exchequer. So to balance the effect of green taxes, we should cut income taxes particularly for the low paid.
   And a new approach to public services that gets away from the tick box micromanagement culture and instead respects the commitment of professionals to their vocation. Rather than the Maoist constant revolution from Whitehall, we need more local accountability. It is madness that the first elected person you can complain to and have the leverage of being able to vote out, is a cabinet minister.
4. If there was a hung parliament and you were a Lib Dem MP, what kind of coalition(s) would you support?
   I think it is very important not to rule anything in or out in advance because this limits your negotiating leverage. I think the other two parties have more in common with each other than they do with us, and that probably ought to be the coalition, like in Germany. However the tribal nature of politics means that they would find this very difficult.
   We would be expected - almost as if it were our purpose in politics - to prop up whichever party had the most seats, irrespective of our manifesto and theirs. (When Lib Dems in Scotland and Wales declined to do this, there was outrage in some quarters.) But if we do this, the image is reinforced.
   A coalition would have to be compatible with our values and deliver enough of our manifesto to make the traps and pitfalls of coalition worth risking. It is unlikely that any coalition with either party would be able to deliver this much. But of course, the civil war in the Tory party is still unresolved, and Brown hasn't made the change of direction he promised. So I hope you will forgive me for not knowing what either of the other parties will be standing for come the next election.
5. Which bloggers do you rate as a "must read"?
   
   • http://www.theliberati.net/quaequamblog/
   • http://www.ministryoftruth.org.uk/
   • http://www.pickledpolitics.com/
   • http://xkcd.com/
   • http://baconbutty.blogspot.com/
   • http://www.badscience.net/
   • Also I post things I think worth reading to a shared bookmark whatsit here: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/user/09189738041828541459/state/com.google/broadcast
6. What do you think about electronic voting and counting?
   Ah well I have a slight conflict of interest here, having contributed software to an electronic counting system.
   Anyway, transparency matters. A system may be secure and working correctly, but if we have no way of knowing that, then how can an electoral administrator choose that system over one that routinely steals elections?Remote e-voting is a stolen election waiting to happen. E-voting in the polling station is less dangerous if there is a paper-audit trail that is used to verify disputed results and a few randomly-selected non-disputed results.
   Electronic counting of paper ballots is less problematic still, as there will be a paper audit trail. What is missing is provision in law for the paper ballots to be examined in the event of a close election. However there is still a cost to transparency which means that we are making it easier for fraudulent systems to slip under the radar. While we should be duly concerned by this, it is of a lesser order of magnitude to such problems as remote e-voting, paperless e-voting, and all-postal ballots.
   If you havn't already, will you read the Open Rights Group report on the use of electronic voting and counting in the last election?
   1. If you havn't already, will you read the Open Rights Group report on the use of electronic voting and counting in the last election?
      Read it, wrote about it here: http://www.liberalreview.com/content/2007/06/e-vote-threat-to-uk-democracy And I went to the open rights group fringe meeting at Lib Dem conference in Brighton.

Well chaps this is it, time to go over the top!

The cast and crew of Journey's End stormed through the dress rehearsal last night. The opening nerves haven't kicked in for opening night yet, but by about 4pm I will be really quite fretful, oh well it is what fuels me to go out there and perform. The whole thing is looking good and while it is of course nothing like the real trenches, the cast have bonded putting together a really emotional play (I am trying to avoid saying anything that would land me in "luvvies" were I famous). So, now we just have to make sure that the audience get the full benefit of our hard work and enjoy the light-hearted bits without loosing the atmosphere of the serious bits.

You can get a full account of the rigours of play week from the archive.

The end of personal responsability

According to a new report obesity is not the fault of individuals.
Bollocks!
I am overweight, is this due to the governments inaction? No it is because I really like pies and beer and find exercise boring. I'm not even in general that unhealthy an eater, I try and have salads for lunch most work days but on occasions I just want a big juicy burger. When I am cooking at home I again try and have balanced meals, with health ingredients, but there are times when the phrase "pan fried in butter" is impossible to resist. Given that I already read the ingredients, count the calories, lookout for saturates, what do people expect the government to do? Ban butter? I am fat almost because I want to be, I might not like being tubby, but I am the only one who can do anything to change it.
If the government has a role it is in educating parents and putting more money into nutritious school food to help kids get a good start, but they can leave my pies alone.

Quickie

Firstly I need to apologise to all those that got RSS spammed by me editing a number of posts to include little link preview graphics on the actual blog web page.

Secondly a new election website has been started votewise.co.uk has been designed to make it easier for people to find out about the candidates and issues in elections happening for them. Obviously at the moment it only has a few by-elections for council seats on it. I do hope that this will be a success, especially as it is already focusing on issues.

The only went and did it

It has been threatened for a long time, but when I got home last night after a wearing technical rehearsal I sat down and found that it had indeed happened.
No I am not talking about the LibDems pushing Ming onto his own sword, to be honest they never should have elected him leader in the first place. But I am talking about UKTV G2 being re-branded as "Dave" which I object to on three grounds.
The first is taste, this is an exercise in the purest puerility, the press release text^[1] is a textbook example of facile rubbish and will probably end up on the syllabus of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
The second is financial, I am willing to be proved wrong on this and I am not a professional media analyst but this does seam to be great expense for little gain,I can't see the target audience change dramatically, the programme mix hasn't, so I can't see the revenue increasing. The channel is available now on freeview, so providing an extra section of the market to advertisers, but that could have been done without the expense of re-branding. Don't forget that UKTV is part owned by BBC Worldwide which has a remit to maximise revenue from the BBC's IP will this investment be shown to provide returns?
The last is political, I know it is fashionable to "appropriate" from the Conservative party at the moment, but while Labour are just stealing policies, this is a wholesale lifting of the marketing strategy for the Tory leader, they might as well have called it Cameron TV. I suppose it is just as well that they didn't spend a lot of money calling it Ming.

^[1]presented from the google cache as that page has changed now on the live web site

Campaign for fixed term Parliaments

I wrote what I think about fixed term Parliaments
10 days ago. Since Gordon Brown trifled with the affections of returning officers up and down the country a lot more people, from all tints and shades of the political spectrum, have said similar things. There is now an organised Campaign for Fixed Term Parliaments with an associated Facebook group, if you agree with the aims, go and join up.
There is also a new Bill before Parliament I am not as happy with this as I am with the campaign group being set up as it doesn't seam to have any provisions to deal with lame duck governments or other issues of confidence. It also seems to be technically unconstitutional as it has no provision for the monarch's right to dissolve parliament at their will which the current arrangements (the Septennial Act 1715 as amended by the Parliament Act 1911) support.

Brunch

320g Arboro rice
1 litre mushroom/chicken/vegetable stock
1 medium onion, finely chopped
125g chestnut mushrooms, chopped
12-15g dried porcini/oyster/shitaki/wild mushrooms
a generous splash/small glass of extra dry vermouth
a large handful of freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano cheese
butter
three quality sausages per person (I used pork with chilli this time)
Slices of plump tomato (optional)

Set a griddle pan on a gentle heat, put the sausages and if desired the tomato slices on to slowly cook.
Soak the dried mushrooms in a little of the warm stock for 30 minutes. Melt a little butter in a large saucepan and gently sautee the chestnut mushrooms and when they are browned add the soaked chestnut mushrooms for the last few minutes. remove from the pan and put to one side. Melt another small knob of butter in the pan, and sweat the onion, turn up the heat then add the rice and cook until the rice is very hot and the grains are starting to turn translucent. Pour in the vermouth and stir until absorbed, then add the stock 1 ladle full at a time, stirring continuously, only adding another when the previous one is absorbed. When you have used about three quarters of the stock start watching carefully the speed at which it is absorbed, as it slows add less stock each time. When the rice has absorbed all the stock it will or you have, add the mushrooms and let it slowly simmer for 10 minutes then add the cheese. After a further couple of minutes on the heat, dish out the risotto, and arrange the sausages and tomatoes on top.
A note on portions The risotto recipe is supposedly enough for four people, and here I with the three sausages it is probably filling enough, for three people everyone gets a bit more risotto; if only serving two you could reduce the amount of risotto or just have some left over for your lunch box or to make something like arancini or suppli.

Survey Monkey

40 people responded and the results are as follows:

1. If a UK general election was called tomorrow which party would you vote for?
Labour	2.5%
Conservative	5.0%
Liberal Democrat	45.0%
Green	7.5%
Monster Raving Loony	5.0%
A local issues candidate	5.0%
Don't know	17.5%
Not telling	5.0%
Won't vote	2.5%
Can't vote	5.0%

2. If a UK general election was called tomorrow, what do you think the outcome would be?
Labour victory with more seats	7.5%
Labour victory with less seats	62.5%
Conservative victory	2.5%
Hung Parliament with Labour as the largest party	25.0%
Don't Know	2.5%

3. Who would you vote for if you had a vote in the 2008 London Mayoral election?
Ken Livingstone (Labour)	20.0%
Boris Johnson (Conservative)	15.0%
Siân Berry (Green)	12.5%
Garry Bushell (English Democrats)	2.5%
None of these	7.5%
Not Telling	7.5%
Don't Know	35.0%

4. If you had a vote in a Democrat primary for the 2008 US presidential election, who would it go to?
Hillary Clinton	30.0%
John Edwards	2.5%
Dennis Kucinich	5.0%
Barack Obama	20.0%
None of these	2.5%
Not Telling	7.5%
Don't Know	32.5%

5. If you had a vote in a Republican primary for the 2008 US presidential election, who would it go to?
Rudy Giuliani	7.5%
John McCain	10.0%
Ron Paul	10.0%
None of these	12.5%
Not Telling	5.0%
Don't Know	55.0%

For the last 5, the question was "Should X be part of the laws or fabric of society for the country" where 'the country' is your choice out of the country you are a citizen of, or the country you are resident in.

6. The death penalty:
Yes	15.4%
No	71.8%
Don't Know	12.8%

7. Abortion on demand:
Yes	79.5%
No	15.4%
Don't Know	5.1%

8. Substantial privacy laws to protect people from unwated media intrusion:
Yes	69.2%
No	10.3%
Don't Know	20.5%

9. Full Sunday trading:
Yes	64.1%
No	23.1%
Don't Know	12.8%

10. All health care, except elective enhancements paid for out of general taxation:
Yes	87.2%
No	5.1%
Don't Know	7.7%

Rss feeds

I have noticed some problems with Feedburner being slow on occasions to update their copy of the rss feed for this blog so I have switched to doing something with the feed myself.
Please switch your subscription to:
 http://www.pint.org.uk/blog_pint_org_uk.rss
There is also now a syndication on Live Journal for those that asked:
tony_at_pint

Off with a bang

Whenever one of those polls come along that asks what you would like enshrined in law (the Today programme now even lines up someone who has won a slot the Private Members Bill ballot to put the winner forward) there are three subjects that I have to choose between. One, reversing the burden of responsibility on the public to opt-out of organ donation rather than having to opt-in came up recently. The second is public funding of the RNLI and rest assured that will come up in this blog eventually. The last is fireworks, in the last ten years the injury rate has varied, but not by much. It has stayed between just over 900 to almost 1250 people receiving medical attention each year in a four week period, mid October to mid November and of these people about 100 have been hurt badly enough to require an overnight stay in hospital or a coffin.

I was going to put forward the thesis that England, Wales and Scotland should follow Northern Ireland's model of formal licensing of all firework displays whether in a public park or a domestic back garden. I was sure that this, combined with it being a requirement that someone produce said permit when buying fireworks, would have reduced the body count. I was a little shocked to find out that with almost 70 reported fireworks injuries for 2006 NI has about a two and a half times bigger problem than the rest of the United Kingdom (when corrected for relative population size). I'm quite glad I did some research before I started spouting off on the internet about it. So that leaves me having to harden my position, on this subject, so I would like now that the rules are:

1. No fireworks should be sold to anyone who hasn't done a formal training course in handling them.
2. There should also be mandatory record keeping of all firework sales.
3. Research in to forensic science methods of tracing fireworks back to the suppliers when they cause injury should be undertaken.

Perhaps this will stop kids in the street throwing lit fireworks at people and drunk blokes blowing up their mates.

Bigger than any election

There is a political division that has existed in this country for far longer than any of our current political parties and can even be said to have been part of the reasons that party politics in this country started when the Whigs and Tories coalesced from loose interest groups. So for centuries, before we developed anything you would call a multicultural society, there was a tremendous and on occasions violent battle for the Hearts, Minds and Souls of everyone between the Church of England and the Church in Rome. These days everything is a lot more civilised and all of the major faiths and their component denominations are happy mostly to avoid anything more vicious than a heated debate as they attempt to recruit and retain congregation. But your soul is still a bigger deal than any election to a temporal authority, even if you could use how long Tony Blair dragging out his last days in power as an analogue for eternal torment. As I get older, I get more cynical and add more and more layers of scepticism onto the "this is another form of politics" thesis I latched onto when studying comparative religion when I was younger. This means that while I welcome news that the Church of England is promoting organ donation as a dutiful act (in a response to the House of Lords’ EU Social Policy and Consumer Affairs sub-committee) I wonder why they are being irresolute on the subject of opt-in verses opt-out systems. Where is the angle, what is being spun, why have they chosen this particular set of words, what is their aim? The specific quote that got me thinking along theses lines is:

Whether organ donation should be arranged through an "opt-in" or an "opt out" system is not a question on which Christians hold a single set of views, the response explains. The opt-in system, where people sign up to be donors if they die, reflects Christian concern ‘to celebrate and support gracious gifts, freely given’. An opt-out approach, where people state that they do not wish to donate organs, ‘could stress the Christian concern for human solidarity and living sacrificially for others’. — Rt Revd Tom Butler, Bishop of Southwark

If it is Christian duty to donate and the Church of England wishes to maintain the position that this is a Christian country then surely it is their "duty" to promote an opt-out system. It isn’t as if anyone will be forced to donate, all the proposals I have seen include opportunities for the next of kin to argue that the deceased didn’t really want it and other safeguards.

It is entirely possible that my position on this is affected by the fact that I am a little grumpy at Lambeth Palace at the moment over their treatment of the American Episcopal Church. I don't think Rowan Williams should be bowing to the ultra conservative African churches on this one, especially as it is known that he personally believes that homophobia has no place in the church. On the flip side I have no great investment the latitudinarian unity of the Anglican Communion. I am C of E, not due to any burning sense of buy in to global group of Anglicans, but precisely because it is a broad church pun intended. I had kind of hoped that the Episcopal Church would decide they want to stand by their position. I know that would have lead to them being asked to leave, or the homophobic churches storm off in a huff. Either of which would probably bring about the end of the global Anglican Communion but I won't see that as a loss. I am watching to see what comes out of the moves by the Scottish and Mexican branches of the Anglican Communion, if they do manage to bring this to a head and create a breakaway Communion I would probably become a Scottish Episcopalian.

As a footnote, while researching this post, I realised that of the five primates in the home nations, three are Welsh, one is English and the other Ugandan.

No choice for children

Did you enjoy watching television when you were a child? Did you expect programmes specifically for your age group? Did you have favourites and agonise over the TV listings about what to watch when two of them clashed? It was rare as a child I really, really wanted to watch something on ITV, but when there was you could guarantee it clashed with something on the BBC. Well this isn't a problem for a lot of children in this day and age. For one sector the only limit is what restrictions their parents place on how much television they can watch, with multi-channel digital TV and PVR technology a world of viewing belongs to them. But at the other end of the spectrum there is a large chunk of children that have no choice most of the week. If you are in the 22% of households that have yet to get any sort of Digital TV on a weekday evening your choice is BBC1, BBC1 or BBC1, iTV1 now no longer has a children's television strand after school. If you have freeview or one of the generally similar basic packages from the cable and satellite companies you get the choice of the programming on BBC1, CBBC channel, Citv channel or Cbeebies, but if you are over the age of 12 that still gives you no choice whatsoever, the three digital only channels mentioned there don't cater for anyone over that age; even for those precocious teens that are happy watching programmes with more general appeal, they probably won't find anything worth watching. This is especially true if they are in the non-digital camp as the general programming at that time is still in daytime mode with a selection of mind numbing quizzes, talk shows and pro-am cookery.

Many of you will see all of this as a good thing, after all the youth of today should be doing their homework at that time, but I for one relished the break between school and homework that a spot of children's television gave me, before settling down to work while the bad sci-fi movie was on BBC 2, before the excitement of Tomorrow's World at 7:30. All has happened after last years decision by OFCOM to tell ITV that they weren't allowed to drop this strand, so it would be interesting to see what would happen if parents complained.

Rule 22.8

Lots of commentators on the game of Rugby Union have started calling for the points value of a drop goal to be reduced. I have a better idea, they should suggest altering rule 22.8 which current reads:

22.8 BALL KICKED DEAD IN IN-GOAL

If a team kicks the ball through their opponents’ in-goal, into touch-in-goal or on or over the dead ball line, except by an unsuccessful kick at goal or attempted dropped goal, the defending team has two choices:
To have a drop out,
or
To have a scrum at the place where the ball was kicked and they throw in.

Now I am assuming that successful drop goals are not mentioned as the ball is dead as soon as the points are scored, so if we remove the reference to the "attempted dropped goal" then any drop goal attempt that fails will trap this law. So anyone considering if they should take a punt at the sticks will have to think very hard about how likely they are to slot it, especially from distance.
On the other hand, most of the people calling for this are from Tri-Nation sides that traditionally don't take drop kicks, so maybe we don't need to change this at all.

Survey

I have been having a play with Survey Monkey. Please can you take the time to answer 10 questions in my Quick survey about your voting preferences and issues. As John Snow might say "Its just a bit of fun."

Tactical voting

Amidst the general noise about whether there will be an election at all, come the news being reported by Guido about a concerted single issue tactical voting campaign. NO2ID is "the UK-wide, non-partisan campaign opposing the government's planned ID card and National Identity Register" and is apparently looking into producing a list of ID card supporting MPs and indications of which opposing candidates have the best chance of defeating them.

The Government has claimed that ID cards will prevent

• illegal immigration
  
• unlawful employment
  
• benefit fraud
  
• abuse of public services
  

and be valuable against terrorism. NO2ID has been formed by the people that think that this is the biggest load of guff in modern politics; that even if the criminal element don't find a way to get around the checks and balances designed to stop fraud in the system, and lets face it they will, the costs both in terms of actual cash and loss of personal liberties will be far greater than the possible benefits could ever be.

Will the plan work? It all depends on whether people believe enough in this single issue to override their normal voting preferences. Of course as pointed out in Guido's reporting of the matter it could work if the government believe that this might be a credible possibility and therefore decide to drop ID cards to stop it, a big win for NO2ID and all of us who don't want a very large amount of money spent on a scheme that won't do the job it is supposed to and infringes on our basic freedoms.

Writer's Un-block

I have been trying to work through a (hopefully temporary) hatred of writing prose so I am thinking through different ways to break the deadlock. Firstly I have dug out an old pad of paper and I am making notes on my daily tram journeys to and from work. There are problems with this, one my longhand is virtually unreadable even by me, secondly I find it quite difficult to write a lot of the sort of things I tend to write about without the delights of the internet as a research tool; even when all the electronic jiggery pokery I currently own for trying to make me feel in touch with the world at all times is in full working order it is difficult to juggle it all on my lap with the pad while on a tram.
First up is trying to put together a comprehensive definition of my political outlook on life. Having been put in a pigeon hole I am not 100% I exactly fit in I am now trying to work out the exact shape of the box where I do belong. Or maybe I'll try and concrete my current thoughts on opinion polling.
It is also nice to see that Simon Hughes agrees with me that elections shouldn't be called on a whim.

That end of term feeling

Give me five reasons why we shouldn't have fixed term parliaments. I can only think of one reason why, no prime minister ever really wants to give away any of their electoral power; it is the same reason why virtually all of the other reforms to our electoral practice have never been given a serious outing on the legislative timetable. The current situation where we don't know if Gordon will or won't call a general election means that great swathes of the most important people in the country are too busy worrying about winning and loosing seats rather than doing their jobs. Every expert commentator seems to agree on one thing, that even Gordon doesn't know 100% for certain what he is going to do, and therefore all the other ministers of the crown are in the dark. While I know that jobs based on patronage aren't renowned for stability or piece of mind, but in this case there is no way that any of 30 people who attend cabinet are at this point concentrating more on their jobs than on the prospect of being out of a job before Christmas. Of course in opposition things are different, the 1992 Labour Party manifesto said:

This general election was called only after months of on-again, off-again dithering which damaged our economy and weakened our democracy. No government with a majority should be allowed to put the interests of party above government, as the Conservatives have done. Although an early election will sometimes be necessary, we will introduce as a general rule a fixed parliamentary term.

A counter example is the circus that is the electoral cycle for the President of the United States. I do feel however that this is more to do with the shear amount of money floating around and term limits than fixed terms themselves. The only way to be sure on this is through experimentation, we leave the current system running as a baseline reference and then set up several parallel supreme heads of the executive branch of the US government. We could then alter all the appropriate variables, one of the systems would have strict funding caps, one would have no fixed terms, one would have no term limits and so on. This would give us the opportunity to appraise my thesis and inform the UK government as to the likely effects.

None of this is new; in 2001 Tony Wright (Lab, Cannock Chase) introduced as a Private Members Bill the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill which in less than 800 words would have solved all these problems. Instead everyone in political life is at the equivalent of the end of term at school, fidgeting, distracted, playing games and wondering what is going to happen in the summer holidays, in fact anything other than working.

Sauce for the gander could be sauce for the goose.

It could be just the way the Thunderer is reporting it especially as it is based on a sneak preview of the recommendations of a report we can't see yet, but there seems to be something missing from this.
I could cite an imperial shed-load of research on how treating people's drug addiction reduces both crime and re-offending rates, but I would end up linking to pretty much half of the crime and victims section of homeoffice.gov.uk so I won't. So given that the home office has all this research as to how effective all this is why are the leaks of Lord Carter's review of prisons suggesting that women will be getting treatment programmes and less time behind bars rather than all prisoners?
The other thing I noticed as I leafed through Uncle Bulgaria's favourite read during some dead time yesterday was this article about The Kingdom. I read it and half of me wanted to join in the praise being heaped on the film makers for having a sympathetic Arab character played by an Arab. But while it is a step down the right route, the fact that the actor is a Christian Israeli suggests to me that there is a good long way before Hollywood actually gets to a truly inclusive place. I shall go back to hiding the fact that I occasionally still read the Times in that special place for dark secrets, before I reveal an unhealthy attachment to *cough* the writings of Caitlin Moran