I thought there was a good spread of ages at the Fabian conference. I think that there were Young Fabians in evidence enjoying the chance to hear from M.P.s and working economists and experts and there seemed to be about 20 percent of white-haired Fabians, some very old, who must have been going to these things for years and years. Amazing.
I enjoyed the plenary on "Does the Left now have the ideological momentum?" I was particularly taken with the straight -talking Wes Streeting M.P. for Ilford North - a spokesman for keeping the UK within the single market and the customs union. His point of view was very popular with the audience. He said a clearer Labour standpoint on Europe would influence policy (I agree) although the current very ambiguous stand on Europe is popular on "the doorstep" (whatever the voter says, the Labour politician agrees with them). Richard Burgon M.P. said that the country has been suffering from the failure to share the country's wealth equally. Of course, this is particularly evident in the North/South East divide. No country is so geographically economically divided as ours and this is simply not being addressed. Polly Toynbee pointed out some of the pernicious effects of austerity. Katy Balls said that young people are pro-Labour on the whole, but didn't like the Mayor's call on Uber - because Uber is part of the young person's lifestyle. It caused outrage! She made many more points but she didn't try to speak very clearly so the effort of understanding her mannered way of talking became too much for me. Polly Toynbee said that if 16-18 year olds got the vote politicians would have to campaign in 6th forms and young people would get a fairer share of the cake, and more of the things they need, and therefore this age group should get the vote. (A good point).
After this plenary I was tired and went to have lunch in the café, where there is also a bookshop. It was a bright café and bookshop but not very warm.
I then attended a session, organised by the Young Fabians on Global-ready Britain: Taking stock as we go it alone.
There was much discussion about the education in this country - a poor skills base, poor lifelong learning, training in work confined to health and safety and the induction. Nothing else, most of the time. Bad management skills. Our economic vulnerabilities are social vulnerabilities and vice versa. If your education system produces people who are badly skilled and can do little, this is socially a time bomb (dissatisfaction leading to identity politics - British and proud of it - nothing else to be proud of but this accident of birth) and it is also economically rock-bottom.
Vicky Pryce talked at this conference and I heard her twice, without rating her highly as a speaker - her thoughts seemed to be all jumbled together - and her points very unclear.
There was a good woman Shadow Treasury Minister - Anneliese Dodds - very good intelligent speaker. Michael Jacobs was very good, very well-informed.
Later there was a talk by Keir Starmer M.P. He was a revelation to me because I had no idea he was such a good speaker, so confident, so clear. When I got home I looked him up and discovered that he has had a very successful career as a barrister and used to be the Director of Public Prosecutions. In fact, he was responsible for deciding to prosecute Vicky Pryce and her then husband, Chris Hahn, and they were sent to prison. Have they met since, I wondered? Anyway, he has also been knighted and is Sir Keir Starmer. He is the Labour shadow minister for Brexit and I have to say he must be a lot more intelligent than the Tory team. Sadly I didn't take any notes, and I can't remember what was said, except the level of the Tory incompetence is very high, e.g. the story of the excruciatingly detailed economic impact assessments that don't exist. Bad, very bad, as D. Trump would say.
Labour would be far better for the country than the Tories. They are move positive thinkers and care about the people; those people who don't have money in shares, trusts and funds. That's most of us. When people vote, they think the Tories know more about the economy because they are rich, so they vote for them. This is ridiculous. The Tories want to screw down wages so that only share owners will benefit.
Showing posts with label Tories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tories. Show all posts
Sunday, 14 January 2018
Sunday, 15 May 2016
Watching the telly - The BBC and Gareth Malone's Invictus Choir
I was really pleased last Thursday because the big news was that the government has renewed the BBC Charter for another eleven years, enabling them to collect the licence fee. The BBC isn't funded by the government, and isn't a government organisation: it's independent. It is administered by a Trust and the trustees. However, the government allows it to collect the licence fee. This means that if you watch the TV you have to pay for a TV licence, unless you are over 70, in which case you are exempt. If you don't pay the licence fee, and you are detected by a detector van, watching the TV, then you will be prosecuted and you may have to go to prison. It's a crime.
So the BBC is really a nationalised industry, and the Tory government doesn't like these on principle - it likes profiteering. There was a great scare that the Tories would cut the BBC's funding in some way in order to encourage commercial sponsorship. Naturally there was a campaign to petition the government to keep the BBC as it is. So I filled in a form explaining that I particularly like Woman's Hour and Have I Got News for You, University Challenge and a number of cop dramas and how much I can't stand adverts - there are none on the BBC because of the way it's funded. We don't have nearly so many adverts on independent TV as, for example, the US, where it is really pointless to watch the TV at all.
We watched the British Academy TV awards and all the winners made speeches about how important it is to keep the BBC independent of the government, because another threat to the BBC is that every government decides it's an enemy and tries to influence it: (for example, Tony Blair's PR man, Alastair Campbell, told Andrew Marr, the political correspondent at the time TB was Prime Minister that he would get him sacked for asking probing questions) and the BBC tries to present a balanced view. This is very funny on the News Quiz, where all the comedians take the piss out of those who want to leave Europe, and the audience point out that this isn't balanced, and then they can't find any comedians in favour of coming out of Europe, and then they make jokes on this theme....
In fact, there are many funny consequences of the BBC's independence. For example, they used to not be able to mention any product by its brand name. Then this caused such linguistic constructs as "sticky-back plastic" (Fablon) and "multi-coloured chocolate sweets" (Smarties) and some awkwardness in conversation, and it was decided that brands could be mentioned on the BBC if the presenters then said "and other brands are available".
Then they have a duty to reflect our whole, diverse population. They were slow about this for many years and had mainly presenters with received pronunciation or "Oxford English". Then there came a demand for regional accents and these came in slowly. We had more Scottish and Welsh to start with, and then, slowly, northerners. Now I think they have quotas! So, as on radio 4 many of the presenters like Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey and Libby Purves have the standard accent, all the characters on the afternoon play have to be either northern or Asian or otherwise foreign. So if you've written a play that's set in Weybridge, and they like it, they'll just decide to set it in Rotherham and produce it that way.
The report that came out on Thursday merely stipulated that the BBC's output must be "distinctive" and what this means nobody knows. But I think Gareth Malone's work for the BBC is quite distinctive. GM is a choir master. He looks boyish and tweedy. His mission is to spread the joy of singing in choirs. This sounds boring and worthy, but his work for the BBC is not boring. He was given the project of bringing a choir of injured servicemen together for the Invictus games, giving them something to sing, rehearsing them and taking them to Florida to sing at the opening ceremony.
Every serviceman or woman who came into the choir had their own story to tell, and it came out in front of the camera in an unforced way. One imagines there are hours of footage which are not used. Gareth went to the homes of many of the singers to talk to them personally. He collated their memories and their poetry and their stories to make a song. The excitement they shared at going to Florida was palpable. Their bonding was obvious. Some of these people had been quite isolated and having a group task and a group identity meant a huge amount to them. This is what Gareth does: he stays outside and tries to enable the group to make bonds together, but he doesn't mind showing sympathy when necessary. He always seems like a cold fish but in one programme he cried his eyes out - can't remember what that one was. He stayed dry-eyed this time. I didn't expect to watch this programme the whole way through but it was put together in such a way that I never got bored with it or felt it was superficial. I thought it was an excellent programme.
Available for only 27 days, watch here!
Prince Harry came into this programme - the servicemen love him and personally I think he'd make a very good king. He just sort of fits in with our lives.
So the BBC is really a nationalised industry, and the Tory government doesn't like these on principle - it likes profiteering. There was a great scare that the Tories would cut the BBC's funding in some way in order to encourage commercial sponsorship. Naturally there was a campaign to petition the government to keep the BBC as it is. So I filled in a form explaining that I particularly like Woman's Hour and Have I Got News for You, University Challenge and a number of cop dramas and how much I can't stand adverts - there are none on the BBC because of the way it's funded. We don't have nearly so many adverts on independent TV as, for example, the US, where it is really pointless to watch the TV at all.
We watched the British Academy TV awards and all the winners made speeches about how important it is to keep the BBC independent of the government, because another threat to the BBC is that every government decides it's an enemy and tries to influence it: (for example, Tony Blair's PR man, Alastair Campbell, told Andrew Marr, the political correspondent at the time TB was Prime Minister that he would get him sacked for asking probing questions) and the BBC tries to present a balanced view. This is very funny on the News Quiz, where all the comedians take the piss out of those who want to leave Europe, and the audience point out that this isn't balanced, and then they can't find any comedians in favour of coming out of Europe, and then they make jokes on this theme....
In fact, there are many funny consequences of the BBC's independence. For example, they used to not be able to mention any product by its brand name. Then this caused such linguistic constructs as "sticky-back plastic" (Fablon) and "multi-coloured chocolate sweets" (Smarties) and some awkwardness in conversation, and it was decided that brands could be mentioned on the BBC if the presenters then said "and other brands are available".
Then they have a duty to reflect our whole, diverse population. They were slow about this for many years and had mainly presenters with received pronunciation or "Oxford English". Then there came a demand for regional accents and these came in slowly. We had more Scottish and Welsh to start with, and then, slowly, northerners. Now I think they have quotas! So, as on radio 4 many of the presenters like Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey and Libby Purves have the standard accent, all the characters on the afternoon play have to be either northern or Asian or otherwise foreign. So if you've written a play that's set in Weybridge, and they like it, they'll just decide to set it in Rotherham and produce it that way.
The report that came out on Thursday merely stipulated that the BBC's output must be "distinctive" and what this means nobody knows. But I think Gareth Malone's work for the BBC is quite distinctive. GM is a choir master. He looks boyish and tweedy. His mission is to spread the joy of singing in choirs. This sounds boring and worthy, but his work for the BBC is not boring. He was given the project of bringing a choir of injured servicemen together for the Invictus games, giving them something to sing, rehearsing them and taking them to Florida to sing at the opening ceremony.
Every serviceman or woman who came into the choir had their own story to tell, and it came out in front of the camera in an unforced way. One imagines there are hours of footage which are not used. Gareth went to the homes of many of the singers to talk to them personally. He collated their memories and their poetry and their stories to make a song. The excitement they shared at going to Florida was palpable. Their bonding was obvious. Some of these people had been quite isolated and having a group task and a group identity meant a huge amount to them. This is what Gareth does: he stays outside and tries to enable the group to make bonds together, but he doesn't mind showing sympathy when necessary. He always seems like a cold fish but in one programme he cried his eyes out - can't remember what that one was. He stayed dry-eyed this time. I didn't expect to watch this programme the whole way through but it was put together in such a way that I never got bored with it or felt it was superficial. I thought it was an excellent programme.
Available for only 27 days, watch here!
Prince Harry came into this programme - the servicemen love him and personally I think he'd make a very good king. He just sort of fits in with our lives.
Sunday, 3 May 2015
With the Green Party in Brighton
I can't exactly remember why I joined the Green Party. Maybe the change was caused by weeks of listening to "Costing the Earth" on Radio 4 when I drove home from yoga. Maybe it was a terror at the threatening loss of bees. Maybe it was because I miss the sparrows that were 2 a penny when I was a kid. And now if you see one it's something special. Maybe it's because I often watch Russell Brand and his True News (Trews) on Youtube and I felt that I too, wanted to be engaged with politics. I can't remember a specific moment when I felt pushed to do it, but I became part of the Green Surge earlier this year, (when the membership of the Greens suddenly rose) and I'm glad I did.
This weekend is a 3-day weekend so I thought I would spend one day campaigning for Caroline Lucas, our one and only Green M.P., who is standing for re-election down on the South coast.
The Greens email you with notifications about meetings and involvement and as soon as you say you will go they send you instructions. It was quite a cold morning when I arrived at Brighton station rather later than the specified 10 a.m. and I found the "Eco-centre" (a run-down-looking shop with an intercom door) opposite the station after looking for it all round the block, because it doesn't look like anything much. But the girl inside was really friendly, took my details, said I would need some training and then she would put me in a team and send me to a ward.
I was lucky because I was given a lift with 3 other people to Sue Shanks' house out in the Preston Park area of Brighton (this is actually 1 station back from the town centre on the train line). Mike was a very handsome young man from Dulwich, his friend Minnie from Queen's Park, and John, a Maths teacher, was a very experienced canvasser from Brighton. I asked to team up with John as he know what he was doing and was keen to get on with it, and we were given a canvasser's pack and off we went to find the streets. So I didn't get any training, but I had John. John knew the way.
At this stage in the campaign all the streets have already been canvassed. Our role was to knock on houses whose residents had been out last time canvassers called, and try to find out which way they would vote. The role of a canvasser is to gain information and only partly to engage people in conversation about why they will/won't be supporting your candidate. So where we encountered people who said they would support Caroline we took their email address and checked their phone number, in case they don't vote on the day and we can persuade them at the last minute to go to the polling station and cast their Green Vote.
We had a code for how keen/not keen each voter was on voting Green. We also had a code for people who were rude, etc. Where people were out we put a card through the door with the voter's name on. where our information about the household was wrong we updated it. It was clearly a busy Saturday in Brighton and many people were out doing things with their children and riding bikes and all the usual things people do on a Saturday, but we had enough conversations for me to get to know some of the issues in Brighton.
With some people the Green Party is very unpopular because of its stance on cars. Parking spaces are at a premium and therefore parking is expensive. Some people even have to pay £100 a year to park on the street outside their houses. In some places traffic speed has been limited to 20 miles an hour - this is actually where the residents voted for the change, (according to the leaflet) - but some voters have really hated these changes and are also angry because of spending on cycle lanes.
Another cause of rage and frustration is industrial action by the bin men. The Green Party had to implement a law on equality of pay for men and women and have done this in such a way as to enrage those who drive the refuse lorries. They haven't been on strike for a while but they sometimes work to rule in such a way as to leave certain streets out of the collection.
Any problem that people have is amplified by the local press, which is virulently anti-Green. So complaints make headlines: "Greens are ruining our City" type of thing.
All local councils have had to implement cuts because of funding slashes from central government which is on an austerity mission, and in Brighton these cuts are blamed on the Greens even though Tory-run councils are just the same. In fact, the Greens have done well to protect children's services such as Sure Start centres, which in some areas of the country (probably the most needy) have been closed down.
The Green supporter is usually better-off and able to see the bigger picture, and likes its stance on Trident (scrap it), the railways (re-nationalise), fracking (leave it in the ground), social care (improve it) and the NHS (no privatization whatsoever).
In the afternoon John, whose company I had enjoyed and with whom I had much in common, had to go and do something else, so we said goodbye back at Sue's house and I stayed there to eat. Sue (a Councillor in Brighton and fantastically energetic and brisk, also has a lovely house) and her assistant Carly(?) had provided loaves of bread, butter, cheese, salad, and biscuits. So we sat around the big dining table in the front room and ate, and the young people (they were all in their 20s) all discussed actions they had been on. They were very friendly and intelligent, I enjoyed meeting them all.
Then I had a coffee (I was pretty tired) and then walked with a young man to the Park for a rally. I had never been to a rally. There was a green bus, from which Caroline Lucas made a speech, and another speaker Mark Thomas, made another speech, and I squeezed into a group photo. Afterwards we milled around and chatted. I took a leaflet for another action for Keep it in the Ground and had a good chat with that young man. Caroline Lucas was there and I asked her for a photo. (She is very nice and obliging).
Then I walked back to the house, got another partner and another couple of roads to canvas and off we went again, but this time we were in a Tory area! You can tell Tory areas by their tidy gardens (mostly paved) which give pride of place to the driveway and car - always a newish, shiny, look-at-my-status sort of car, sometimes a 4 x 4. There is almost no point in talking to the owners of Gas Guzzlers about voting Green. They are almost hilariously short-sighted about all issues, ending and beginning with their own standard of living. They vote by post as they don't like to mix with other people down at the polling station. They are essentially private people, very reluctant to tell you which way they'll vote. We also talked to some very old ladies who told us they would vote Tory because their fathers had. Apparently there is no likelihood of a Tory M.P. down there in Brighton, but Labour may well swing things around. So I wore myself out on this ghastly Toryland but I enjoyed getting to know my new partner Hywel. And then we got lifts back to town, (Hywel was staying in a Green member's spare room in Brighton) and I eventually got home but I HAD NEVER BEEN SO TIRED!
Meanwhile, I was pleased to hear of the founding of the Women's Equality Party until I realised that it will, one day, split the Green Vote, and but they have no policies, apart from thinking that women must have a louder voice in politics. What exactly do they want to do? all very vague.
This weekend is a 3-day weekend so I thought I would spend one day campaigning for Caroline Lucas, our one and only Green M.P., who is standing for re-election down on the South coast.
The Greens email you with notifications about meetings and involvement and as soon as you say you will go they send you instructions. It was quite a cold morning when I arrived at Brighton station rather later than the specified 10 a.m. and I found the "Eco-centre" (a run-down-looking shop with an intercom door) opposite the station after looking for it all round the block, because it doesn't look like anything much. But the girl inside was really friendly, took my details, said I would need some training and then she would put me in a team and send me to a ward.
I was lucky because I was given a lift with 3 other people to Sue Shanks' house out in the Preston Park area of Brighton (this is actually 1 station back from the town centre on the train line). Mike was a very handsome young man from Dulwich, his friend Minnie from Queen's Park, and John, a Maths teacher, was a very experienced canvasser from Brighton. I asked to team up with John as he know what he was doing and was keen to get on with it, and we were given a canvasser's pack and off we went to find the streets. So I didn't get any training, but I had John. John knew the way.
At this stage in the campaign all the streets have already been canvassed. Our role was to knock on houses whose residents had been out last time canvassers called, and try to find out which way they would vote. The role of a canvasser is to gain information and only partly to engage people in conversation about why they will/won't be supporting your candidate. So where we encountered people who said they would support Caroline we took their email address and checked their phone number, in case they don't vote on the day and we can persuade them at the last minute to go to the polling station and cast their Green Vote.
We had a code for how keen/not keen each voter was on voting Green. We also had a code for people who were rude, etc. Where people were out we put a card through the door with the voter's name on. where our information about the household was wrong we updated it. It was clearly a busy Saturday in Brighton and many people were out doing things with their children and riding bikes and all the usual things people do on a Saturday, but we had enough conversations for me to get to know some of the issues in Brighton.
With some people the Green Party is very unpopular because of its stance on cars. Parking spaces are at a premium and therefore parking is expensive. Some people even have to pay £100 a year to park on the street outside their houses. In some places traffic speed has been limited to 20 miles an hour - this is actually where the residents voted for the change, (according to the leaflet) - but some voters have really hated these changes and are also angry because of spending on cycle lanes.
Another cause of rage and frustration is industrial action by the bin men. The Green Party had to implement a law on equality of pay for men and women and have done this in such a way as to enrage those who drive the refuse lorries. They haven't been on strike for a while but they sometimes work to rule in such a way as to leave certain streets out of the collection.
Any problem that people have is amplified by the local press, which is virulently anti-Green. So complaints make headlines: "Greens are ruining our City" type of thing.
All local councils have had to implement cuts because of funding slashes from central government which is on an austerity mission, and in Brighton these cuts are blamed on the Greens even though Tory-run councils are just the same. In fact, the Greens have done well to protect children's services such as Sure Start centres, which in some areas of the country (probably the most needy) have been closed down.
The Green supporter is usually better-off and able to see the bigger picture, and likes its stance on Trident (scrap it), the railways (re-nationalise), fracking (leave it in the ground), social care (improve it) and the NHS (no privatization whatsoever).
In the afternoon John, whose company I had enjoyed and with whom I had much in common, had to go and do something else, so we said goodbye back at Sue's house and I stayed there to eat. Sue (a Councillor in Brighton and fantastically energetic and brisk, also has a lovely house) and her assistant Carly(?) had provided loaves of bread, butter, cheese, salad, and biscuits. So we sat around the big dining table in the front room and ate, and the young people (they were all in their 20s) all discussed actions they had been on. They were very friendly and intelligent, I enjoyed meeting them all.
Then I had a coffee (I was pretty tired) and then walked with a young man to the Park for a rally. I had never been to a rally. There was a green bus, from which Caroline Lucas made a speech, and another speaker Mark Thomas, made another speech, and I squeezed into a group photo. Afterwards we milled around and chatted. I took a leaflet for another action for Keep it in the Ground and had a good chat with that young man. Caroline Lucas was there and I asked her for a photo. (She is very nice and obliging).
Then I walked back to the house, got another partner and another couple of roads to canvas and off we went again, but this time we were in a Tory area! You can tell Tory areas by their tidy gardens (mostly paved) which give pride of place to the driveway and car - always a newish, shiny, look-at-my-status sort of car, sometimes a 4 x 4. There is almost no point in talking to the owners of Gas Guzzlers about voting Green. They are almost hilariously short-sighted about all issues, ending and beginning with their own standard of living. They vote by post as they don't like to mix with other people down at the polling station. They are essentially private people, very reluctant to tell you which way they'll vote. We also talked to some very old ladies who told us they would vote Tory because their fathers had. Apparently there is no likelihood of a Tory M.P. down there in Brighton, but Labour may well swing things around. So I wore myself out on this ghastly Toryland but I enjoyed getting to know my new partner Hywel. And then we got lifts back to town, (Hywel was staying in a Green member's spare room in Brighton) and I eventually got home but I HAD NEVER BEEN SO TIRED!
Meanwhile, I was pleased to hear of the founding of the Women's Equality Party until I realised that it will, one day, split the Green Vote, and but they have no policies, apart from thinking that women must have a louder voice in politics. What exactly do they want to do? all very vague.
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