May 8, 2006
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Reshuffle
Superb reshuffle analysis from Tim Hames in The Times (neither a columnist nor a paper that I normally find myself in agreement with):
“This reckless reshuffle has thus imperilled the Prime Minister to an extent that five Conservative leaders and a few overseas dictators never managed. It steers me, at least, to ponder a personally painful question: ‘Has Mr Blair become a menace to Blairism?'”
Read the whole thing. Top notch.
May 8, 2006
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment
Same here. Luckily, The New York Review of Books has a handy overview:
“A close outcome was not only predictable but actually planned by Berlusconi during his government’s twilight as a way of lessening the impact of possible defeat. A few months before the election, Berlusconi studied polls that showed the center-left winning a substantial majority in parliament with the country’s winner-take-all electoral system. He decided to change the election system…” In a moment of candor, Berlusconi’s minister for reform, Roberto Calderoli admitted, ‘The election law? I wrote it, but it’s a porcata>,’ a vulgar term that roughly means ‘a piece of pig shit.’ Clearly it was intended to make the country ungovernable for Prodi and his leftist coalition.”
As the latest Italian elections (this time for president) get under way, though Berlusconi may have finally resigned (if not actually conceded), the only thing that seems certain is that we haven’t seen the last of him…
May 8, 2006
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment
The dilemma of the xenophobe (in this case, Roger Knapman, leader of UKIP): you don’t want foreigners in your country, you don’t want to allow their home country to join the EU, but your pathetic stereotyping means you’ll still happily hire them to perform manual tasks, because “they work so much harder”. Much akin to “I’m not racist – some of my best slaves are black…”
May 7, 2006
by Nosemonkey
4 Comments
The best political allegiance test I’ve ever taken – are you left-wing or right-wing?
May 7, 2006
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment
Every now and again for the last year or so, I’ve had random emails from people “studying blogging” – normally as part of some kind of journalism course. (Advice, guys: learn QuarkXpress and InDesign, pick up a bit of photoshop, learn how to proof and sub, perhaps learn shorthand – all the theoretical stuff they teach you on those things is an utter waste of time, just stick to the practical.) In case they’re of interest, here are my answers to the latest:
What are the factors that have driven you to blog?
Initially it was simply a convenient way to work out my opinions on a range of political issues, started to keep my brain ticking over during a period of fairly mind-numbing work. Since then it has become a handy outlet for developing / practising my writing, gaining feedback, and building a reputation in an area of journalism into which I had not previously ventured.
How much time do you spend blogging a day/week/month?
Depending on how busy I am with things that actually earn me money, it’s usually between 10 minutes and a couple of hours a day. I’ll also normally spend an hour or two reading blogs and news sites, which may sometimes feed into pieces of my own – but is mostly done thanks to being a news junkie.
To what extent, if at all, do you consider yourself to be a journalist? Why? Why not?
I am a journalist – my day job is as a writer and editor, and I do a fair amount of freelance writing. That’s pretty much all on other subjects than those I blog about, however. Blogging-wise, what I do is usually more comment than reportage – although occasional ventures into live-blogging (the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the 2005 UK General Election, the London bombs of 7th and 21st July 2005 and a few others) have become much more like proper reportage journalism, bringing together hundreds of different sources to try and provide a coherent overview of events.
What are your criteria for editorial process?
On Europhobia, practically none, other than being grammatically-correct – almost everything on there is a first draft, written without any real pre-planning. On The Sharpener, I’ll generally spend a bit more time on articles, and re-draft a couple of times to get them slightly closer to professional standard. But there are few things I’ve written for blogs that I’d consider as good (in terms of fact-checking, structure and coherence of writing style) as my professional work.
How would you differentiate blogs from traditional journalism?
Depends what you mean by traditional journalism. In terms of content, most political blogs are little different to the comment / opinion pages of any major newspaper. Of course, most (but by no means all) bloggers are less talented at writing and less knowledgable than their professional counterparts, plus have fewer incentives to make a serious effort. But blogging success relies on building and maintaining a good reputation – so more successful / serious bloggers will often have their online reputations to think about, which can be just as much of an incentive as a paycheque.
What particular sources do you rely on? Can you please list them? Any websites or web tools?
The BBC and Guardian are often the main ones, simply because with those, you know that any links you make will remain current for years to come. Most other online news sources allow old articles to go offline after a few weeks. But I’ll hunt around hundreds of others during the course of the average month – Google News and NewsNow.co.uk are handy for hunting down specific stories, TheGovernmentSays.com is superb for official newsfeeds, plus all the ones listed in the “Resources” section of Europhobia’s first sidebar. Other blogs can be handy at pointing the way to new sources – be these blogs I’m already aware of, or ones found via the likes of Technorati (which is now rather rubbish, but still probably the best blog search engine I’ve found). I haven’t yet worked out how to use RSS readers…
I treat source-hunting for blogging the same way as I used to treat writing a history essay while at university – follow the footnotes (links) to find more info – and try to credit everything all the time to back up the authority and allow me to trace my train of thought and research at later dates. Having an historical background (up to postgrad level) is ideal training for blogging.
What are your thoughts on citizen journalism? Do you think that bloggers could be considered as some kind of citizen journalist?
As with much of the terminology of blogging, “citizen journalism” a stupid phrase, thought up by professional journalists who assume that everyone thinks that journalism is glamourous, and that anyone who writes must want to be a journalist. It doesn’t actually MEAN anything. It’s a nonsense.
In the sense it’s normally meant, most bloggers couldn’t be considered citizen journalists, because they don’t go out and hunt down stories by themselves – they generally rely on online sources, unless an event is happening right outside their window (as some of the Ukrainian bloggers found during the Orange Revolution).
But if you’re going to dismiss bloggers purely for relying on secondary sources (as normally seems to be the case), you could likewise dismiss all those journalists who spend all day sitting in their newsroom watching the BBC, Sky, and reading the wires from Reuters, the Associated Press and Bloomberg. By the same criteria bloggers are disregarded as journalists for their lack of primary investigation, those journalists aren’t journalists. Which is obviously stupid. As I say, it’s largely journalistic self-satisfaction that has given rise to the term in the first place.
Is there a special technological requirement for doing blogging? Who can afford it?
A computer and internet access. That’s it. There are any number of free blogging packages available now, from Blogger and WordPress to a bunch of new ones I can’t remember the names of. If you’ve got a computer and can get online, it’s completely free.
I’ve been blogging on and off for about five years now, and blogging seriously for a year and a half. In that time I must have published well over 500,000 words online on various blogs. So far it hasn’t cost me a penny. – although I am fully aware that if I’d written similar amounts professionally I’d have earned about �50,000 – instead, I’ve got little more than a few free drinks and about �250 directly from my blogging to date. A bit of extra freelance work, perhaps, but it’s hard to tell.
May 6, 2006
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments
(By the by, reading the otherwise perfectly decent New York Times coverage of the reshuffle, something struck me. When referring to that infamous WWII incident, I spell it Pearl Harbor, without a “u”, because it’s an American territory and that’s how Americans mistakenly spell it. So why is it that the New York Times, which prides itself on being accurate and all that, insists on spelling the Labour party’s name without a “u”? It just looks stupid, as well as simply being wrong. I don’t go around calling the Republicans the Repubicans, do I?)
May 5, 2006
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment
More buried news (an ideal day this – keep an eye out, people): BBC – No charges follow Menezes ‘leak’
“No one is to face charges over the alleged leaking of confidential papers from the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting inquiry, it has emerged.
(Hat tip to Cedalion) Keep an eye on The Government Says and delightfully Orwellian-sounding Government News Network…
Update: Here we go – the Insolvency Service has published the figures for the last quarter: up 7.6% on the last quarter, and 17% on the same period last year. That’s 1,428 compulsory liquidations, 2,011 voluntary liquidations, and 23,351 individual insolvencies. So much for Labour’s safe pair of hands on the economic tiller, eh? (Update 2: Maybe I read that wrong – the BBC says this is a 73% rise…
May 5, 2006
by Nosemonkey
10 Comments
(This post will be continuously updated as details emerge)
Only announcement of an appoiintment so far makes no sense. The Blair government’s relations with the EU have been an abject disaster over the last few years. They titted up the UK EU presidency, failing to get any substantive agreements through. Blair’s close personal relationship with Silvio Berlusconi means he’s screwed our relations with Italy under the new Prodi government. He failed to get close enough to Angela Merkel, meaning that the UK hasn’t been able to capitalise on the potential shift in the France/Germany EU axis. For the last six months, the UK’s done effectively bugger all in Brussels.
To revitalise our relationship with our EU cousins across the water, there needs to be a serious overhaul and rethink. A change of Europe minister could make sense (although Douglas Alexander has hardly been given much of a chance to make an impact since taking over from Dennis MacShane after the General Election last year.
What is needed for the Europe brief is someone charismatic, intelligent, and capable of thinking quickly on their feet in the volatile and still-shifting world of intra-EU politics.
So they’ve opted for Geoff Hoon, one of the least competent Defence Secretaries this country’s had the misfortune to see. An intellectual nonentity. Someone guaranteed to fail dismally at forging the kinds of close partnerships the UK desperately needs to ensure a decent EU budget deal in the face of ongoing French stubborness.
Depending on who the new Foreign Secretary is, this looks almost like Blair’s decided he simply couldn’t care less about our interational relations any more. What the hell is he playing at?
Update 1: Guido is reporting Margaret Beckett to be Foreign Secretary. The woman who’s titted up the distribution of EU Common Agricultural Policy subsidies to UK farmers, thus massively increasing resentment of the Brussels system amongst rural communities. Hardly someone to build bridges on the continent.
There’s also the fact that, since her brief stint as leader of the Labour party after John Smith’s death, she’s hardly had much of a presence on the international stage. She’s a past-it nonentity, who’s shown little ability even to run a minor department over the last few years, let alone a brief as vital and wide-ranging as the Foreign Office. Has Blair finally lost ALL his political sense?
Guido also reports rumours of John Reid to be Home Secretary. The one member of the cabinet likely to be even more of an authoritarian bastard than Clarke. Hurrah.
Update 2: ePolitix seems to be updating with the latest announcements fairly coherently.
Beckett and Reid’s promotions are confirmed (both potentially disastrous – for our international relations and internal liberties respectively).
Hazel Blears has replaced Ian McCartney as party chairman – so where’s he off to? Duchy of Lancaster? The appointments are making no sense whatsoever at the moment (especially Jack Straw’s demotion), so God alone knows…
Des Browne gets Defence – with his background in Child Law, he’s obviously ideal to handle the logistics of maintaining troops in two incredibly hostile foreign warzones…
Prescott, meanwhile, retains his title but loses all his responsibilities.
Update 3: A Labour member (and reluctant Labour voter) writes:
This isn’t a reshuffle, it’s a death rattle.
Prescott DPM, but with no portfolio? Disastrous. An absolute mess that will appear to make no sense whatsoever, and keeps the story going.
Sacking Clarke? Right thing to do, everyone expecting it. Apart from, it seems, Clarke. He should keep his mouth shut about supporting Blair for the full parliamentary term. He’s clearly angling to be the anti-Brown, but hasn’t realised exactly how unpopular he really is in the party and the country.
Beckett as Foreign Secretary? Disastrous. Looks like there’s no new talent to be promoted. Only superficially seems a safe pair of hands because no-one (honourable mention for the Private Eye) has bothered reporting the disaster that is DEFRA.
Straw demoted? Silly. Repeating the Robin Cook mistake. He’s one of the few actually competent ministers left in the front ranks of the Labour Party. He’ll be quite good, in that he’s efficient, but he won’t have time to do anything important.
Reid at Home Office? A fire-fighter, who can be relied on to make the best of a terrible situation. Might not be so easily cowed by his senior civil servants, although that’s probably wishful-thinking on my part. Let’s face it, we’re not going to get a liberal in the Home Office while Blair’s First Lord of the Treasury.
Hoon as SoS for Europe? Meh, the most important thing is it’s cabinet rank. Hang on though – is this a new department of state, separate from the FCO, like DFID? Does this mean Beckett’s only got half a job? What’s going on?
Where the hell is the new blood?
Update 4: Ignore what I said earlier, ePolitix is rubbish. The Guardian’s roundup is much better.
Charlie “flatmate” Falconer’s gone to Leader of the Lords, helping to advance the abolition of the post of Lord Chancellor. There still remain a lot of question-marks, however – in particular how well thought-out the new Foreign Office situation is, what’s happened to Douglas Alexander, and what did Jack Straw do to piss Tony off?
Update 5: More good stuff (as always) from the BBC – though still not comprehensive.
Douglas Alexander apparently going to Transport. I’m not at all convinced that Alan Johnson is the right person for the Education brief. Ruth Kelly’s had a new local government position created for her, taking over Prezza’s old responsibilities. Don’t like her at all… Alistair Darling looks like a shifty low-rent lounge singer from a tacky imitation of a Vegas bar, but gets Trade.
Miliband gets to take over Margaret Beckett’s mess at DEFRA. Meaning another �6,000 will have to be spent moving his blog over to the new department only a few weeks after he started it…
Inexplicably, Patty Hewitt and Tessa Jowell have both retained their jobs, despite all the scandals and screw-ups of recent weeks. Perhaps Tony simply ran out of people loyal enough to promote?
May 4, 2006
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on My precious, precious vote (etc.)
Well, after much soul-searching, reading of election materials and manifestoes, and – basically – a process of elimination based on a combination of local issues and the cut of the candidates’ various jibs, I’ve just voted (missing the deadline by only half an hour).
Because I was voting for candidates’ personal track records (as I always do) I’ve opted for the representatives of three different parties out of the four on offer. Two of which, it must be said, I had to deliberate long and hard over, as on a national level I disagree with a number of their respective parties’ central policies. But such is politics.
(Guesses as to the three lucky parties, if anyone cares, in the comments… the Conservatives, Greens, Labour and Lib Dems were the ones I had a choice between, to help you out, but bear in mind that national issues affected my vote not a jot. I’m an arse like that.)
May 4, 2006
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on More bad news
More bad news buried on election day. Following the NHS’s “best year ever” claims, today it has been announced that 200 jobs are to go at St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester, West Sussex; 95 jobs are to go at Birmingham Women’s Hospital; every family planning centre could be forced to close in Lincolnshire; and there is an £8 million budget gap at Torbay hospital in Devon.Crisis? What crisis?
May 4, 2006
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments
Today’s elections mean it’s a good time to bury stories, and as such, details of the government’s amendments to the Legislative and Regultory Reform (Abolition of Parliament) Bill have trickled out of the Cabinet Office. The full text of the amendments can be found here (.pdf) – they are most likely worthy of close examination…
May 4, 2006
by Nosemonkey
7 Comments
Today, the day of the local elections, the Metro newspaper – a freebie given out to commuters every weekday morning in around 15 major cities, including London, Manchester and Birmingham – handed the Tories between £11,000 and £16,000 worth of free advertising (ratecard .pdf) with what was effectively a half-page advertorial.
Although it’s no major surprise that right-leaning Associated Newspapers, who own the Metro along with the Daily Mail and Evening Standard, should have a bit of a pro-Tory agenda, to suddently turn over the “60 second interview” feature – normally the preserve of D-list celebs desperately plugging their latest product – to a softball Q&A with the leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition (also D-list, but still) is, on the day of an election and with no equivalent space given to the leaders of the other parties, surely a tad off?
In a seemingly pre-arranged series of at first glance semi-tough questions (“Your strategy of saying nothing while waiting for New Labour to implode appears to be working” being the first – the inclusion of “New” before “Labour” pointing out to people that the red party is no longer the same as it once was), Cameron is effectively given half a page to pitch his party exactly as he pleases.
Generalised questions about the difference between Tory and Labour Councils – a nonsense, as on a local level there is effectively no overriding ethos for any party – are followed by gifts along the lines of “are you getting some panniers for your bike?”, allowing Cameron to diffuse the mini-scandal of his chauffer following him to work from last week.
But the real clincher? The final question – smacking of the old days of the utterly deferential royal interview of “Is there anything else you’d like to say, Ma’am?” – “What message do you have for Metro readers?”
A half page’s advertising (wth colour photo and handy blue branding) in the Metro would have cost any other party £11,328.80 for London alone, £15,589 for all 15 cities. I wonder if this gift is going to be declared to the appropriate authorities?
(The interview may appear here at some point.)
May 3, 2006
by Nosemonkey
2 Comments
It’s a real shame that Australia’s no longer simply a prison colony – it’d solve so many problems. Perhaps they could convert part of the Outer Hebrides instead? (I wouldn’t put it past them, actually…)
As it is, we’re now apparently planning on deporting people to pretty much anywhere that’ll take them, whether the deportation is deserved or not, and whether they have any connection to the country to which they are going to be deported or not.
But hey – as long as the Daily Mail’s happy, who cares, right?
In other news, at PMQs today,
“Mr Blair accused Mr Cameron of using a ‘prearranged soundbite’.”
For Christ’s sake – grow up, you pathetic bunch of morons.
Not a single party deserves either your vote or mine. I’ve read dozens of election pamphlets over the last few weeks – the only difference has been the colour-scheme. It looks like I’ll either be spoiling my ballot paper or not voting in an election for which I’m eligible for the first time since I hit 18.
May 2, 2006
by Nosemonkey
2 Comments
It is, however, now back – so pop over and give us some encouragement / praise for finally getting our arses in gear and reviving the bloody thing. Expect more posts throughout the week of a rather better quality than that relaunch one by yours truly…
Update: In other long-overdue news, Berlusconi’s FINALLY resigned! Hurrah!