Ertblog

Let's fire poor politicians as well as failing teachers

The British government wants to fire bad teachers. Most people would agree with the idea. A poor teacher can set back a child's life chances. But wait: why isn't David Cameron demanding that incompetent politicians are fired? 

We all know the reason. It's easy to demand action from other professions than your own. And many members of the Cabinet would be out of a job if his happened - not least George Osborne, the man who's taking money from pensioners to make millionaires even richer. And what about David Cameron, who prompted panic buying of fuel before a tanker drivers' strike had even been called?

The politicos will, no doubt, retort that they're subject to firing by the electorate every five years. But that's hardly true. In many constituencies, the MP effectively has a job for life because they enjoy safe seats. 

And the question of politicians' performance goes deeper. As many of them are regarded as professional politicians - because they've never held any other job - isn't it time for us to hold them to professional standards? Proper performance appraisals, for example? Coupled with compulsory training in professional ethics, so everyone is clear that you can't inflict a massive reorganisation on the NHS after promising the electorate you wouldn't.

And isn't it time for prime ministers to be trained in that most challenging jobs? And to be told firmly that it's unacceptable to appoint a new transport secretary (for example) every year? (We've had six in five years - shocking even allowing for the fact that one of these was prompted by the change of government in 2010.)

In short, politicians should never ask of others what they're not prepared to accept themselves. 

 

Osborne's budget: so wrong, so wrong

Yet another year's budget proves the pointlessness of this annual exercise in politics over prudence.

This year's edition cut the 50% top rate of income tax. but inevitably the Chancellor had to show that he wasn't rewarding the rich. So he took back the rich people's budget dividend with the other hand. Or dd he?

I was against Labour's imposition of the 50% rate. It seemed wrong to take half of anyone's income in tax. Far better to have a universal rate of income tax, and make it the main way of raising money for public services. (By contrast, regressive VAT is little short of evil, as it steals from the poor and benefits the rich.) 

But at a time when the coalition government is making the plight of the poor worse with its aggressive spending cuts it seems criminal to reward the rich. But what would you expect from a cabinet of millionaires?

The theatre of the annual budget is hugely overplayed. Back in 2007, Gordon Brown's cut in the basic tax won the plaudits. I couldn't understand how no one had noticed that the cut had been bought by axing Brown's own 10% tax rate, punishing the poor. I pointed this out in an Ertblog post - Gordon Brown's trick or treat budget. But the political storm only battered Brown a year later. 

We'll see how George Osborne fares in the months to come. 

Remembering Norman St John-Stevas

The news that Norman St John-Stevas had died took me back to my teenage years when the Tory politician was a household name. It evoked memories of the embattled early years of Margaret Thatcher's premiership when it seemed likely she'd not win a second term.

St John-Stevas was a flamboyant character - as all today's obituaries have highlighted - but he was fatally out of tune with his humourless leader. A subtler politician would not have irritated Thatcher with St John-Stevas's mocking references to the blessed Margaret and the Leaderene. Norman became just another clever political player who never fulfilled his potential.

Yet he left a far greater and more valuable legacy than hundreds of forgotten ministers. In 1979, St John-Stevas created the modern system of departmental select committees in the House of Commons. It was a striking blow in favour of parliamentary scrutiny of the executive. And a legacy that's even more vital today, given the growth in executive - and prime ministerial - power since 1979.

Is outrage driving out reasoned debate?

The Guardian's Julian Glover today raised an interesting question. Is outrage the common currency of political debate? He pointed out that commentators and columnist deal in absolute opinions. Yet real life is more uncertain. 

As Glover said, "Uncertainty comes over as weakness. Tribalism thrives. On these pages over the last few years I have sometimes expressed ideas in categorical terms about which I could never really be sure. The greater challenge for any writer is mounting a defence of compromise. It is, perversely, sometimes feeble to sound bold and bold to sound feeble."

He's right. It's ironic that the death of ideology in British politics has coincided with a far more aggressive approach to political debate. That's partly down to the 24 hours media - their short attention span and need for drama polarises modest differences. (In more ideological times, current affairs programmes like ITV's hour-long Weekend World tried to explain rather than create controversy.) The media demands instant answers, instant judgements. Reallife is not so simple. Yet a politician who says he or she doesn't have all the answers is seen as weak. (That said, wouldn't we respect an honest politician who admitted the truth more than a blustering one?)

Glover's article prompted a stream of critical comments, not least because he's leaving the Guardian to become a speechwriter for David Cameron. It's hard to think of anything more likely to inflame the passions of the Guardian readers. 

That, in one sense, proves Glover's point. I'm no fan of David Cameron, and am horrified by many of his government's policies (that broken promise not to lay waste to the NHS by yet more destructive reorganisations is high on the list). But like most voters I don't see him as the devil. I'm capable of making my own judgements about his actions and policies. 

It's not just political debate that suffers from this mock outrage. Just look at any story about Apple on the BBC or Guardian technology web pages. Critics of Apple insist that anyone who buys an iPhone or iPad has more money than sense. Apple fans claim that rival products don't work. Needless to say, neither claim is right. We all make choices. That doesn't make other people idiots because they've chosen another type of phone or computer. 

Live and let live...

 

Obama in Britain: let's stop talking of special relationship

An essential relationship? Photo © Prime Minister's Office

President Barack Obama's visit to Britain has been a huge success. We like America's 44th president. We're touched by his place in history as the first black president. And we cheered his election, as I blogged at the time. So the fact Obama has stolen hearts is no surprise. 

But I was dreadling the visit, in a small way, as I knew it would prompt a wave of comments about whether Britain and America shared a 'special relationship'. This is an obsession of politicians and the media. Yet no one in the bars of London, Cardiff or Edinburgh would give it a moment's thought. If they did, they'd surely point out that the UK and US have lots of relationships with lots of countries. And then get back to talking about Ryan Giggs.

Yet The Times carried an Obama and Cameron article lauding the essential relationship. 

It's true that Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt forged a very close relationship during our darkest days, the second world war. But the war leaders weren't in total harmony: FDR was soon tormented by WSC's wilder ideas, and Churchill was rightly frustrated and frightened by FDR's complacency about Soviet designs on eastern Europe. 

And all this talk of a special relationship encourages the two countries' addiction to military adventures, as the Guardian's Simon Jenkins comments today. At a time when the BBC's World Service (not to mention all our public services) has had its spending slashed, David Cameron miraculously found £1 billion to burn on a war in Libya that has absolutely nothing to do with Britain. Yet a BBC reporter said in all seriousness that America thinks Britain should spend more on 'defence'. 

Britain admires America and its president. But neither country has any reason to spin an idea of a mythical special relationship.

 

A strange revolution: Ryan Giggs, the celebrity, Twitter and the law

It's a crying shame that Britain's clash over the respective rights of privacy and freedom of speech focuses on a footballer's affair. It's hard to imagine a cause less likely to justify a public interest case - as opposed to the interest of tabloid papers. As the Guardian's Michael White put it, it's not exactly Tahrir Square, the centre of Egypt's revolt against tyranny. 

Yet it was obvious days ago that Ryan Giggs' injunction preventing him from being named was a futile exercise. Twitter users knew what newspaper readers weren't allowed to. Yesterday, a Scottish newspaper became the first to name Giggs - and this afternoon Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming relied on the protection of parliamentary privilege to follow suit. Within minutes, Sky News and other major news outlets decided to ignore the legal order. Despite this, Tugendhat J this evening became the second judge today to reject News Group's attempt to lift the injunction. The legal establishment is understandably reluctant to abandon the rule of law to what has been described as Britain's biggest act of civil disobedience. Yet the longer this goes on, the less respect the law will enjoy.

The biggest lesson in this saga is that a cover up often ends up creating a bigger story. Anyone wanting to minimise bad headlines should think very seriously before going to law to try to stop it. Ryan Giggs isn't the first person to find that managing the story might have been a far better tactic. 

But we should also pause before accepting that a Twitter storm is somehow more legitimate than a reasoned legal judgment. Alastair Campbell made the point well in an interview on BBC Radio 5's Drive show.  The media, he suggested, were relying on a 'useful idiot' like John Hemming MP breaking cover so they could name Giggs. He added that something that interests the public isn't the same thing as the public interest. News Group itself struggled to claim a public interest in naming Giggs. 

The prime minister weighed in again today, arguing that Britain's privacy rules were unsustainable. But he repeated his concern about judge-made law, rather than legislation passed by parliament. This is facile. Much of our law is case law - an act of parliament is never the final word. It's the job of judges to interpret the law and - in the higher courts - establish precedent. If parliament doesn't like the results it can legislate to change them, but parliament has a far from unblemished record - as anyone who remembers the Dangerous Dogs Act of the 1980s will recognise. That was a classic example of the adage that hard cases make bad law. 

The greatest irony is that Britain had no general right to privacy until the 1998 Human Rights Act incorporated the European Convention of Human Rights into UK law.  How curious that this new right should almost immediately be eroded by the explosive growth of social media and the new power of the crowd.  

 

 

Coalition blues - why the Liberal Democrats need an assertiveness course

The Guardian backed the Liberal Democrats in last year's general election, along with the party's subsequent decision to enter a coalition with the Conservatives. That government has hardly proved a triumph for its parties or the people. So it was hardly surprising to see the paper in a leader today urging the Lib Dems to fight for what they believe rather than staring at their feet whenever the government does something unpopular or unjust. 

Cynics have, unsurprisingly, condemned the Guardian's assertion that the Lib Dems have no choice but to stick with the coalition. 

I too backed the Liberal Democrats at last year's election. I too saw little option but the current coalition, given Labour's rejection of an alternative partnership - and the fact a so called progressive alliance would need every other party in Commons to support it. (Oh, and Labour's crushing electoral defeat.) But Nick Clegg and his party have played their hand disastrously badly since May 2010. They've allowed the Tories to break an election pledge not to reorganise the NHS. (A stupid move not included in the coalition agreement.) They've cheered on the biggest public spending cuts since before Hitler's war. And their most respected leader, Vince Cable, is hugely diminished after falling for a crude trick and losing the chance to decide the outcome of Rupert Murdoch's bid to create an even more dominant force in British broadcasting by taking over the whole of BSkyB. 

Above all, the Lib Dem leaders seem far too comfortable in their ministerial limos and offices, and far too little concerned about the catastrophic rush to slash and burn public services. Small wonder we hate and distrust politicians when all three main UK parties rushed to reassure us during the election that services wouldn't be axed right left and centre. Now, we face the mad axemen and the usual pointless, expensive reorganisations. We see a government in disarray, acting as arms seller to Middle East dictators while trying to talk up democracy in the region; trying to flog off England's forests to the highest bidder while pretending to be green; and generally getting many other things so badly wrong. 

It's not too late for the Lib Dems. The next few years will be tough but if they start asserting themselves, they stand a chance of avoiding oblivion in 2015. And Britain would be a slightly better place to live as a result. 

 

Tony Blair, A Journey, SEO - and me

My blogpost, Tony Blair: A Journey for the showman prime minister, on Wednesday night about Blair's autobiography, A Journey, has proved a hit on Google. if you Google 'a journey tony blair ipad', my post comes first out of a staggering 211 million search results, beating huge media organisations. And it ranks highly on searches about Blair's book on iBooks and Kindle. (I'm on page two of results for a straight search for 'Tony Blair A Journey.) 

I only discovered this when I looked at what had brought a flood of visitors to the Ertblog post. 

My blog is purely for fun, so I've never set out to optimise it for search engine results. But every now and again it scores very highly on Google. My post on why I love my iPad scored third out of 47 million under the search term 'I love my iPad'. And my 25th anniversary account of the Falklands war in 2007 did very well. 

This latest, unexpected success prompted me to think seriously about the dark arts of search engine optimisation, or SEO. What prompted Google to rank my post so highly against the torrent of other articles and blogposts about Blair's book? What gave me the edge over all-powerful media groups? 

I am no expert on SEO, but I suspect the reason is that I wrote about a specific aspect of the publication of A Journey: its absence from Apple's iBooks store, which has puzzled many iPad owners. They've Googled the subject - and hit upon my blog.  (Surprisingly, I'm still as high as the second page of results for a straight search for 'Tony Blair A Journey.) The title of my post was also highly descriptive (including Tony Blair and the name of his book), while I also included a number of hyperlinks, which may have helped. 

As a PR professional, I need to know more about SEO, and this experience has prompted me to learn. In the meantime, I'd welcome any comments from SEO experts about what I did right - and wrong!

Tony Blair, A Journey, SEO - and me

My blogpost, Tony Blair: A Journey for the showman prime minister, on Wednesday night about Tony Blair's autobiography, A journey, has proved a hit on Google. if you Google 'a journey tony blair ipad', my post comes first out of a staggering 211 million search results, beating huge media organisations. And it ranks highly on searches about Blair's book on iBooks and Kindle. (I'm on page two of results for a straight search for 'Tony Blair A Journey.) 

I only discovered this when I looked at what had brought a flood of visitors to the Ertblog post. 

My blog is purely for fun, so I've never set out to optimise it for search engine results. But every now and again it scores very highly on Google. My post on why I love my iPad scored third out of 47 million under the search term 'I love my iPad'. And my 25th anniversary account of the Falklands war in 2007 did almost as well. 

This latest, unexpected success prompted me to think seriously about the dark arts of search engine optimisation, or SEO. What prompted Google to rank my post so highly against the torrent of other articles and blogposts about Blair's book? What gave me the edge over all-powerful media groups? 

I am no expert on SEO, but I suspect the reason is that I wrote about a specific aspect of the publication of A Journey: its absence from Apple's iBooks store, which has puzzled many iPad owners. They've Googled the subject - and hit upon my blog.  (Surprisingly, I'm still as high as the second page of results for a straight search for 'Tony Blair A Journey.) The title of my post was also highly descriptive (including Tony Blair and the name of his book), while I also included a number of hyperlinks, which may have helped. 

As a PR professional, I need to know more about SEO, and this experience has prompted me to learn. In the meantime, I'd welcome any comments from SEO experts about what I did right - and wrong!

Tony Blair: A Journey for the showman prime minister

 Tony Blair was Britain's finest showman prime minister since Macmillan, as I blogged after his last Labour conference speech in 2006. So it was little surprise that today's launch of Blair's autobiography, A Journey, was a theatrical event, dominating news bulletins. 

But Labour's longest serving prime minister's attempt to restore his tarnished reputation seems doomed. Blair now admits he thought Gordon Brown was an impossible, deeply flawed character. Yet he made no attempt to move Brown from the Treasury, and lied to the British people about his chancellor's suitability for office when Brown took over in 2007. 

Nick Robinson, the BBC's political editor, today apologised to readers of his blog for not telling the full story about the Blair-Brown feud. Yet we all knew of this poisonous schism - I read The Rivals, James Naughtie's book about the TB-GB storms, in 2003 with a growing sense of anger at this pathetic, juvenile relationship, and despairing of the lost hope of May 1997. 

Yet despite this, and my contempt for the way Blair trashed Britain's reputation by involving us in the invasion of Iraq, I still half admire this extraordinary politician. (In the same way that some still worship Margaret Thatcher.) He won three elections in a row for Labour. He played a huge role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland, building on earlier efforts by John Major, Bill Clinton, Bertie Ahern, John Hume and Gerry Adams. He delivered devolution to Wales and Scotland - despite not sharing predecessor John Smith's commitment to home rule. His government saw renewed investment in public services, even though many questioned how effectively the money had been used. Blair himself must wonder how high his reputation would stand if it hadn't been for Iraq, although we'd still be facing a ruinous deficit thanks to Labour's lax regulation of the banks' casino activities. 

Blair claims that Labour could have won a fourth term had it not abandoned new Labour. That strikes me as a crazy claim. Gordon Brown didn't lose in 2010 because he became old Labour. He lost because the British people disliked him, because he and Blair created the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s - and because of their love of spin and sleaze. Ironically, Labour's late move to create a 50% tax rate was popular, belying the idea that old Labour tactics couldn't succeed. (A law to tax 100% of disgraced banker Fred Goodwin's income would have been acclaimed.) 

I'll quote just one passage from Tony Blair's book, as it is sobering:

"On 2 May 1997, I walked into Downing Street as prime minister for the first time. I had never held office, not even as the most junor of junior ministers. it was my first and only job in government."

I've bought my copy of Blair's book from Amazon on the Kindle, to read on my iPad. It's an interesting insight into book publishing in 2010. The full price of A Journey is £25. Waterstone's is selling the hardback for £12.50, as is Amazon. Apple's iBooks store isn't selling it yet, but is likely to offer it for £12.99 if its offer for Peter Mandelson's The Third Man is a guide. Kindle is the best offer: A Journey is just £6.99. I prefer iBooks to the Kindle app on the iPad, but as I recently blogged about iBooks, it will never take off until it offers far more titles at far lower prices.