Ertblog

Milliband's bloggers

Blogging is cheap.

Sign up with Blogger and you can blog for free. Choose Typepad, with its better features, and you could be sharing your thoughts for as little as £25 a year.

But if you're British government minister David Milliband, your blog could cost a staggering £40,000. According to a parliamentary answer, running Milliband's blog has been taken 40 per cent of the working day of two civil servants.

It's amazing. What stole so much of their time? You can create a blog in seconds using Blogger, Typepad or one of the other blogging services. I don't blame Milliband for not posting blog entries himself. But his blog is a tad thin. What on earth has taken so much of Milliband's mandarins' time? Are they just slow typists? Or are they still reading Blogging for Dummies?

See the Independent story about Milliband's blog at http://news.independent.co.uk/people/pandora/article1089241.ece

David Milliband's blog is at http://www.davidmiliband.defra.gov.uk/blogs/ministerial_blog/default.aspx

The day Wales nearly beat Brazil

As Australia prepare to face the might of Brazil in today's World Cup game, I came across a photo I took moments after Wales took the lead against the South Americans in a Cardiff friendly in 1983. 

It couldn't last - but a 1-1 draw was a great result against one of the game's superpowers.

Shame Wales didn't make it to the World Cup finals - again. It's 48 years since we appeared in the last stages, going out in the quarter finals to ... Brazil.

Should life mean life?

Justice and the media are uncomfortable bedfellows.

Justice requires dispassion, impartiality and reflection. By contrast, the media craves controversy. It demands simplicity - and seeks to shape popular opinion. The tabloids especially will risk civil unrest in the chase for sales. (Witness the News of the World's campaign against paedophiles in 2000 which led to vigilante action.)

So no-one could be surprised by the latest furore in the media over Craig Sweeney's sentence for assaulting a three year old girl. In his Guardian column this week, Marcel Berlins said it was nonsense to suggest that our judges are too lenient. He pointed out that many people misunderstand the way the system works. References to five and eight years are the minimum terms the prisoners will have to serve before even being allowed to ask the parole board to be released. In no way are the judges suggesting that they should be set free after that time.

Berlins makes a good point. And he's not the only one. The Times today showed how sentencing in Britain is getting tougher. 

But the system seems designed to confuse. You don't have to be a signed up member of the "hang 'em and flog 'em" brigade to think the criminal justice system is its own worst enemy. It mocks the common sense and the English language. Why should anyone who has been found guilty of a despicable crime - such as murder, rape or child abuse - have any right to expect any chance of release after five years? Let's make sentencing far more transparent and understandable. With life expectancy around 80, it's perverse to allow anyone sentenced to 'life' imprisonment to walk the streets after five years.

Read Marcel Berlins' column at http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1797003,00.html

Flying St George's flag

England has rediscovered its flag. World Cup fever has led to a boom in sales of the flag of St George.

Furry dice have been replaced as the definition of naff. Today, the benchmark is four St George's flags flying from a Ford.

But we Celts can't complain. Back in the Seventies we growled when English soccer fans waved union flags: didn't they know that England had its own emblem? That's been put right. Give it another 20 years and the English might just find their own national anthem!

See Wikipedia's entry on the English flag.

Anyone but England?

Scotland's First Minister Jack McConnell will be sick as a parrot tonight.

England v Trinidad and Tobago might have been a game of two halves. But Sven's men came out on top - dashing McConnell's hopes that the Auld Enemy would suffer a humiliating defeat.

The First Minister won few friends south of the border by declaring his support for the Caribbean country over his fellow Brits. But McConnell's stance is not unusual. We Celts are tempted to shout for 'anyone but England'. Call it churlishness, call it immaturity if you like. (If we're honest with ourselves, there's some truth in these accusations.)

McConnell's Welsh counterpart, Rhodri Morgan's comment was far more canny. Rhodri's spokesperson said, "The First Minister is a keen football fan and wants to see the best team win. He would be very happy if the best team is England."

Sport is tribal - and the English are as tribal as anyone when it comes to football. Think back just a month, when Arsenal faced Barcelona in the European Cup final. North London was divided, as Spurs fans cheered Spain over England. Perhaps McConnell's honesty reflects the reality of the game...

See Scotsman Magnus Linklater's thoughts at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1062-2224327,00.html

Mostar: triumph and tragedy

The small town of Mostar in Bosnia-Hercegovina was a symbol of the horror of the wars that marked the collapse of Yugoslavia. Like Sarajevo, Mostar had shown how different cultures and races could live together. But in the years after 1990, that tradition was cruelly destroyed. Thousands had their lives ruined - if not snuffed out - when Serbs, Croats and Muslims went to war.

Mostar was famous for its old bridge over the Neretva river, built by the Turks in the 16th century. In 1993, the bridge was shelled into oblivion by Croatian tanks but the structure has been rebuilt under Unesco's direction and reopened in 2004.

Elsewhere in the town, the scars of war are far more obvious than in Dubrovnik in neighbouring Croatia. Residential tower blocks stand ruined, while the shells of once elegant early 20th century buildings in the town centre are guarded by 'keep out - danger' signs. The local economy is not strong enough to allow a rapid recovery from the disasters of 1991-95 - another contrast with the Croatian coastal resorts.

On our brief visit, we got the impression that many people still prefer to avoid the painful truth of the war years. The Croatian guide who took us to Mostar described how the Muslims and Croats were allies in the fight against the Serbs in Bosnia-Hercegovina - completely ignoring the Croats' role in the destruction of Mostar. More innocently, the young Mostar lad who showed us round his town and described the old bridge with such pride failed to mention that it was not the original.

After the tragedy of the 199 0s, it's hardly surprising that the people of the former Yugoslavia find it difficult to confront reality.

Dubrovnik: flourishing after the siege

'The siege of Dubrovnik': it sounds like a page from a history of the middle ages. Yet this traumatic event ended just 14 years ago - an era when Europe was planning its single currency, John Major won a surprise election victory and Bill Clinton was elected US president.

Walking the streets of the old walled city today, there are very few reminders of the siege. But when you look more closely, you notice a few tell-tale scars: the vibrant coloured new roofs, the shrapnel holes and the patches on the town walls. Out of town lie the ruins of abandoned hotels shelled by the Serbs, which are being brought back to life.

Back in 1991, the world watched in horror as the Serbs attacked Dubrovnik. Many had spent holidays in the Dalmatian town and could not believe what they were seeing. For some, it must have evoked memories of 1940, when holiday towns on the French coast became a war zone and Dunkirk became a symbol of war rather than a holiday port. Happily, peace has returned to Croatia and the scars of the 1990s are fading. 

Back to sunny Britain

Blue sky holiday? We should have chosen sun-drenched Britain. Croatia proved wet. But we're glad we went. We learned a lot about the country and its recent agonies. We loved the people, who welcome tourists with open arms. And the scenery in and around Dubrovnik is stunning. We will return - but we'll pack a brolly and a fleece next time.