Ertblog

Credit crunch: estate agents feel the pinch

Estate agents are having a tough time as the house sales dry up. So we shouldn't have been surprised to see a sign telling us that the landlord had repossessed Colman & Green estate agency office in Chalfont St Giles:

Needless to say, many are reacting with glee to the news that estate agents are facing tough times. This week's BBC' Radio 4 News Quiz repeated the old joke: "Why don't estate agents look out of the window in the morning? So they've got something to do in the afternoon!" But I've not shared this glee. We enjoyed excellent service from the estate agents in St Giles when we were moving to the village six years ago. One agent even called us to tell us that a property we liked the look of was coming onto the market - through one of his rivals. If Colman & Green has gone under, I feel very sorry for the people who have lost their jobs.

UPDATE: 24 November

It's official. There's now a further notice on the door stating that an insolvency hearing was taking place on Friday 21 November.

Technorati Tags: Colman & Green

President Obama: America gives the world new hope

I hardly dared turn the radio on this morning. But the news was as good as we hoped: Barack Obama will be America's next president. I had a lump in my throat as I told Karen that America had elected its first black president.

After the rancour and revulsion of the Bush years, the United States has shown it still has the spirit to inspire the rest of the world. I was born the year Martin Luther King told the world that he had a dream of everyone being equal, regardless of colour. Today, King's tomb was marked by the simple words: dream realised.

Our baby son is four months old today. It's thrilling that Obama's win means that he will grow up thinking it entirely natural for a black person to be America's president.

In California two weeks ago, I talked to American colleagues about the imminent election. They were confident about Obama's prospects, and contemptuous of George W Bush. But they wanted reassurance that worldwide hostility towards Bush did not represent a deeper hatred of America and its people. I told them that most people were capable of distinguishing between a government and its people. The joy that Obama's victory has prompted around the world shows that we retain an affection and a hope for America's future. Tellingly, Obama spoke of America's influence being based not on its arsenal but the opportunities it offers people of all backgrounds. 

At this extraordinary time, I can't help thinking back to May 1979, when Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first woman prime minister. The defeated Labour prime minister, James Callaghan, was as graceful in conceding as John McCain was today. He declared it a tremendous moment in the country's history. Thatcher went on to become a very divisive leader. I suspect that President Obama will heal rather than divide his great nation. 

Zimbabwe - when the Daily Mail thought Mugabe 'meek and mild'

The grim saga of Zimbabwe's so-called election drags on, with Robert Mugabe's grip on power proving as effective as his ability to reduce a once-prosperous country to ashes.

Mugabe has long been a comic book villain, the epitome of a corrupt African dictator. Yet when he won the 'freedom' election in 1980, even London's right-wing Daily Mail described Mugabe as 'so meek and mild', even speculating that arch enemy Ian Smith - who declared white-majority independence from Britain in 1965 - might join the new government. This did not happen. "Maybe Zimbabwe's future will prove less sombre than many have forecast," commented the Daily Mail's leader writer. Alas, the pessimists were proved overwhelmingly right.

In defence of the Daily Mail, I should add that the paper's George Gordon penned a far more pessimistic article headlined 'Power of a black dictator within his grasp'. Gordon argued that the repressive state created by Ian Smith gave Mugabe the apparatus of dictatorship. Few could argue that Gordon has been vindicated by Mugabe's actions since he took power in 1980.

No-one could be surprised that Mugabe has stolen the election. Two weeks ago, a Mugabe crony said 'Who else could it be but our own dear old man, Robert Gabriel Mugabe'. The chilling message was clear: no other result was possible, despite Mugabe's suicide of a country. The despot and his gang would not contemplate surrender.

On a lighter note, the surrender of rebel Rhodesia to Britain was marked with ceremony and farce. Lord Soames, Winston Churchill's son-in-law, arrived in Salisbury (now Harare) to the sound of God Save the Queen, as the British South African Police formed the salute. But the rebel flag of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia flew rather than the union jack, an airport official exclaiming: "We can fly whatever bloody flag we like." So ended 14 years of rebellion. Almost 30 years later, the people of Zimbabwe are no nearer controlling their own destiny.

The day we thought we'd never see: the British Army ends operations in Northern Ireland

The momentous news that the British Army has ended operations in Northern Ireland came as a reminder of the grim days when the evening news was scarred by the latest atrocity in the province.

I still remember where I was when I heard about the 1979 murders of Lord Mountbatten and 18 British soldiers at Warrenpoint. Those twin outrages shocked a nation that had become weary of the Troubles. The idea that one day the army would pull out seemed an impossible dream.

The photos are stills from a cine film shot by my father Bob Skinner on an official visit by the Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Hugh Ferguson-Jones, to the Royal Welch Fusiliers in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s.

Oddly, in decades of the Troubles I don't remember once hearing the Army's role in the province referred to as Operation Banner.      

Cash for honours: free press 1-0 Attorney General

Little did I suspect when I wrote about the cash for peerages injunction on Saturday that the Attorney General would cave in just days later. Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor, put it well in his article today.

Nick Robinson: no blog comments please, lawyers on the loose

Nick Robinson's BBC politics blog last night underlined the complications bloggers face when commenting on a police investigation or court case. He was writing just after the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, obtained an injunction stopping the BBC broadcasting an item about the cash for peerages investigation - see BBC news story.

This is a sensitive area. The law sets limits on what can be said about criminal investigations and proceedings in order to ensure anyone prosecuted has a fair trial. In the past, the laws of contempt of court represented a gag on free speech. Injunctions could be granted even when no legal proceedings - criminal charges or trials - were under way. In the 1970s, the Sunday Times took Britain to the European Court of Human Rights after it was found in contempt for publishing articles exposing the scandal of Thalidomide, the drug that caused deformities in babies whose mothers had taken the drug while pregnant. The case forced Britain to change its contempt laws to protect freedom of speech, while still defending the integrity of justice.

The cash for questions investigation has been controversial. It's hardly surprising: the shadow of alleged corruption hangs over the Prime Minister. Those involved have protested against dawn raids and arrests. It's absolutely right that reporting complies with the contempt laws. But the rise of the blogosphere has clouded matters. Nick Robinson has come under fire for closing his blog to comments about the injunction - and even Conservative blogger Iain Dale is moderating comments on the subject. yet you can bet that thousands of other bloggers are showing no such restraint. The internet has made it harder than ever for governments to use the contempt laws to restrict comment. But we cannot assume this is always a good thing. The principle of the law of contempt is a good one: the right to a fair trial is a crucial one, to be defended as vigorously as the right of free speech. The question is how to balance the two.

The saga raises once again Britain's failure to separate the executive (government) and the judiciary. The Attorney General is a politician, a member of the government. But he also has a judicial role and is supposed to act in the public interest. The cash for peerages case shows yet again that he cannot fulfil both roles. It's time to set the attorney general free.

Sorry is the hardest - and easiest - word

Tony Blair is sorry. Not for the Iraq war. Not for the disastrous part privatisation of the London Underground. Or cash for honours. No, he's dreadfully sorry about slavery.

This is gesture politics of the worst kind. It confirms what we all suspect: that politicians don't understand the meaning and significance of the word 'sorry'. Properly meant, it reveals something of our true character. We feel better about someone who says "Sorry, I got that wrong." But modern politicians fear ridicule in admitting an error and so presume infallibility. So Blair will never admit that his government falsely stated the case for invading Iraq and then mismanaged the aftermath. But he offers a meaningless apology for events 200 years ago.

The prime minister could spend his remaining months in office doing nothing but saying sorry for the sins of the past. What about a grovelling apology for the way the English tried to wipe out the Welsh language? A tear-stained expression of regret for the concentration camps the British set up during the Boer war?

That's not to deny that slavery was an affront to humanity. But I'd rather world leaders devoted their efforts to tackle modern day evils rather than indulge in pointless posturing about events in the distant past. 

Gavin Henson: no need for speed

Welsh rugby star Gavin Henson has been banned for driving for a month for driving at  110mph on the M4 in Wiltshire, according to the BBC.

Henson's solicitor asked magistrates to take into account the rugby player's charity commitments. He said the rugby star could cope with disqualification but added, "The children would miss out through his charitable work".

Henson should have thought of this before driving at such a reckless speed: 40mph above the speed limit. The Wiltshire section of the M4 is an accident blackspot, partly thanks to idiots like Henson.   

Northern Ireland: the past is another country

Another round of talks started this week, aimed at restoring home rule to Northern Ireland. After so many failed starts, the doomsayers will be in full swing.

But to those of us who remember the carnage of the Seventies and Eighties, the present peace is little short of miraculous. Those atrocities are etched on our memories. I remember where I was when I heard Airey Neave had been murdered (in a car driving past Heath High Level station in Cardiff, since you ask). I've similar memories of Lord Mountbatten's assasination, and the Harrods and Hyde Park bombing. Thirty years ago, it took a particularly awful crime to break through British indifference to the insanity of Northern Ireland terrorism.

That time has passed. Ulster is overcoming its past, slowly but surely. Ireland and Britain are very different countries now: more diverse, more prosperous. We can celebrate the relationships within these islands. When Ian Paisley sits down with a Catholic bishop you know the past is another country.

Should marketers use July 7 images?

Is it ever right to make marketing mileage out of a tragedy?

That was the question that sprang to mind today when the BBC reported criticism of an advert for the charity CALM (left), which contrasts the universal awareness of the London July 7 suicide bombers with the lack of awareness of hundreds of young men who kill themselves every year.

I imagine - hope - that CALM debated at length whether it was right to base a suicide awareness campaign on the carnage of July 7. I think they've got it badly wrong. There are times when it's right to be hard-hitting and provocative: the Government's drink drive campaign has used far more graphic images in recent years. But these ads are designed to prevent a repeat of the scenes portrayed - very different from CALM's campaign.

CALM's ad encourages us to treat with sensitivity people under huge pressure, and to help them before they consider suicide. Yet it ignores the upset seeing the image of the bombed bus will have on those traumatised by the events of that terrible day.

One of the July 7 survivors rightly told the BBC the London bombers didn't kill themselves because they were under pressure. They did so to kill and main as many innocent people as possible.

CALM's cause is important and valuable. But on this occasion they've blundered.