Posted 3:06 PM by Paul
The Man from U.N.C.L.E Says No Way Dude


It's telling that I am not that surpised that the UK Government was bugging the offices of Kofi Annan and non-permanent members of the Security Council in the months before the Iraq war.

British politics is starting to resemble an episode from the 60s cult classic TV show The Man from U.N.C.L.E. It is all so unreal. Try pretending that it is the night before Labour's Landlside victory in May 1997. A stranger in a dark cloak approaches you at the bar.

" I have seen the future" he intones over a pint. "Don't vote for Blair. Or in six years he will have formed an alliance with an ultra right wing evangelical Christian US President, will have bugged the UN and joined in a war in the Middle East without any UN authority."

You would have called the police or had him committed to a lunatic asylum.

No one could have predicted the way that the Iraq War would develop. Now every person brought up in front of the courts for trying to vandalise a harrier jump jet will claim that they were doing so to prevent an illegal action. The defence council for 14 protesters charged with such an offence have made it clear that they are going to demand to see the Attorney General's advice to the Government when he came to the novel conclusion that the Iraq War was legal without a second UN Resolution. This was based on a creative reading of a resultion passed 14 years ago.

The response from the PM to this request ot see the inner workings of Government is NO WAY DUDE. This is understandable as the only people who seem to think that the war was legal are Blair's close personal friends and his family. Buhs has not sunch constraints. He made it clear that he could invade on the basis of his constitutional duty ot defend the US against potentail agressors. the whole Weapons of Mass Destruction issue was siply the icing on the cake. he was not signed up to the War Crimes convention. Balir has. This puts our armed forces in a very tricky situation. If I were a senior RAF officer I would avoid foreign holidays in places where they might arrest me for waging an illegal war. This might sound alarmist but I am sure that legal experts in France and other places are planning such tactics right now. So that's Disneyland Paris out for a start. Maybe one of our generals will get arrested in Chile.

The Government are in a pickle but I still don't think any of this would be an issue if the we weren't stuck in Iraq like a dinosaur in a tar pit. Blair and Bush were a little over optimistic thinking it would all be alright on the night. They crossed their fingers and jumped. Perhaps Kofu Annan discovered his phone was being bugged and slipped LSD into their coffee as a prank.

So Tony looked at George and said

" Hey man we can igore the last thousand years of Arab-Western Relations. Lets invade in March. Oh yeh and I can fly and play guitar better than Hendrix."

Posted 2:42 PM by Paul
Way to Go Emily

Emily bounced up to me at after school club when I came to pick her up.

" Daddy I have got a certiificate!"

Clutching the prize in her hand we left for home where I sat down and read it. Headed up WELL DONE, the brightly coloured certificate listed all the things she had done in school that day. Listened attentively, tried hard, taken part in class discussions. and so on. It ended WAY TO GO EMILY. It was a blatant American import into our education system and on behalf of Emily I thank the USA for showing us the way on this one.

Encouragement of this kind is a little alien to the British psyche. In the past the emphasis has always been on not letting kids get too over confident in case they start getting ideas of their own. Or even worse, ideas above their station. This kind of cold understatement is not particularly new and it is certainly not just the Englsih. I have found the Welsh and the Scots even more sceptical of enthusiastic praise. They assume an ulterior motive. In the 70s and 80s this tendency was accentuated by a misguided left wing trend that argued that praising one child would make the rest feel undervalued. Thus members of the Socialist Workers Party made common cultural cause with conservative house masters at leading private schools.


" Don't get big headed you have only scored 6 goals in 10 minutes but the game is not over yet."

The distrust of passion cuts across class and well as age barriers.

My cousin Walter who is neither upper class nor a socialist personified this kind of lingusitic restraint when describing his son's achievments.

" Aye the lad's not done too bad", her said to me over Sunday lunch in Sheffield

His son, a tall handsome young man with a beautiful wife and two children, has a PhD and works for a leading Bio-Technology company in Cambridge. Most of our family left school at 15 to do unskilled or semi-skilled factory jobs. But Walter obviously feels that a more expansive description of Justin's career would be showing off. Walt keeps his pride to himself. Enthusiasm is not the British way.

As for Emily, her certificate has pride of place on the mantlepiece and she is feeling much better about life in general. School is hard work for her and she has great difficulty reading but this bit of public encouragement gave her a real lift. I have told her to her face how very proud I am of her but for the 4 people and a dog reading this blog I repeat

WAY TO GO EMILY!

Posted 2:01 PM by Paul
Gays Threaten the End of Civilisation As We Know It.

So the 2004 Presidential Election has officially started. Today Bush announced that he would be supporting a constitutional ammendment to ban gay marriages. What a relief. As a hetrosexual father of two I felt that the entire basis of my relationship with Heather was being fundamentally undermined because a few hundred gays and lesbians have got hitched in San Fransisco.


Amusingly George claimed in his speech that marriage between a man and a woman was the "basis of thousands of years of civilization" This would be news to those gorgeous pouting Greeks and also to the Emperor Trajan who went everywhere with his gay lover. His wife followed along with the baggage train.

Unable to fight on his record - massive deficits, a jobless economic recovery and the body bags piling up in Iraq (amazingly he has managed to miss all the funerals) George has decided to declare culture wars on the New England Liberals. It's a fight for the soul of America. Good 'ole Boy George against the friend of Jane Fonda in Boston. Senator of a state where they sanction mortal sin. Jerusalem versus Soddom and Gomora.

The historical irony of this is that George II is now fighting on the platform of Pat Buchanan, the man whose rants at the 1992 GOP Convention in San Diego sealed the fate of the Presidency of George I. Millions of voters looked at these nasties and went Uuuurrrgh!

But if Kerry has a heart attack or a recurrence of his prostate cancer Edwards will be the candidate. If that comes to pass then George Dubya is in deep deep doo doo.

P.S Good luck to our friends in San Fransisco. Happy shiney people who can now let their spouse inherit without massive legal bills. What's wrong with that?

Posted 10:41 AM by Paul
Retrospective Drug Tests Now!

Today the PM announced that he was actively considering giving headteachers the right to test pupils for drugs. The statement was made via the main organ of British democracy. No, not Parliament you idiot. The News of the World, a Murdoch owned Sunday tabloid usually dominated by articles about glamour models' breasts and the infidelities of Premiership footballers. The House of Commons and the Parliamentary Labour Party were not really in the loop on this one. They aren't on most things these days.

So - fair enough. Having students high on crack during double Maths in not in the best interest of anyone. Drug pushing in school is a real problem in some schools, and not just in the Inner City but alos in the suburbs and countryside.

All of this got me thinking about the historical context of the drug debate. Could we please go back in time and drug test the Cabinet? Now that these ex-radicals have rebranded themselves as political management consultants they claim never to have dabbled in the wacky backy or the Oakey Cokey. With the exception of Blair I just don't believe them. For us to sincerely belive that a group of 30 or so people attended university in the mid 70s without at least smoking a few dodgy spliffs is palpably absurd. The thow Minsters who did admit to some mild drug taking Clare Short and Mo Mowlam are long gone.

The new moralists conveniently forget their past indiscretions. They are the most dangerous animals in the modern political jungle. Desperate to compensate for a youth spent spouting inane Trotsyist theories they moved swiftly on to spouting inane right wing theories. Inevitably, the whole drug testing in schools programme orginated in the USA, Texas to be precise and dutifully star struck members of the Canibet sieze on it gleefully because if they do it in the States it must be a good idea. Problem is, the rules are so tightly written that a girl was recently expelled in Texas just before graduation because she had mild pain killers in her bag.

The prime mover behind many of the authoritarian policies being implemented in the UK, which often start life in the far right reaches of American think tanks is Home Secretary David Blunkett. This is interesting because during the 80s he was the left wing leader of Sheffield City Council, my home town. He did many great things and a few embarrassing ones. He brought in cheap bus fares and free travel for the elderly which cut car usage and pollution as well as giving the freedom of the city to many of the poorest members of society. It was this kind of common sense socialism that won him many admirers and an increasing share of the vote. We thought he was great. We were proud he was one of us. He was also blind and needed a guide dog to get about the place. I first voted in a General Election in 1974 and it was for a young David Blunkett that I cast my vote. He didn't get into parliament because he stood for Labour in the one Conservative constituency in Sheffield.

He also did some silly things, like refusing to allow the Armed Forces to take part in the annual Sheffield Show because "they promote militarism". I don't think he would have brought that one up with George Bush when they met at Buckingham Palace last year.

But there is also a more serious point about drug taking and the march of the new puritans. Any fool could tell you that we have to try to stop kids getting high on crack and ruining their lives. But we also have to give them a way back if they make a mistake. Because the difference between a ruinous criminal record and a glittering career is not always restraint, wisdom and a well timed urine test but dumb luck and birth. If your dad is a politican the authorities are likely to be lenient. If he is unemployed you are likely to get expels. One kid gets caught. Another gets way with it. The latter straightens out out and becomes the CEO of a major charity. The former slips into the abyss and committs suicide aged 24.

Like millions of people out there, I don't need a lecture from the Government about drugs. I have seen the damage up close. One old mate died of an overdose when he was 23. A really lovely bloke who had a lot to offer. Another weakened his heart to such an extent that he died of a heart attack aged 41. It was not directly related, but the drugs could not have helped. We still miss both of them. It would have been so much fun to still have them around. Others still alive have grown tired and cynical before their time and lost their sense of humour. Most of this was not done in backstreets but in the limelight. It is was, and is as much about West End members clubs as it is about East End council states.

So what am I saying to the new puritans who run the UK?

Don't judge young people by where we old fogeys are today. Give them a break. And if they slip give the Zero Tolerance rhetoric a rest. Provide young drug offenders a way back to sanity, a decent meal another chance and a future. You are probably sitting next to someone in Westmister who does the odd line to keep up with the demands of the political life.

That's a thought. It might even be fun to bring in randon drug testing for sitting MPs. After all it's a responsible job and if you are not paying attention you might accidently declare war on a country that posed no threat to anyone.

Posted 1:15 PM by Paul
Disney UK

A bold new Chief Excecutive takes over a well loved family brand name with an illustrious history that has fallen on hard times. He brings in a dedicated and talented young team, and in the early years it looks as though they have turned the ailing giant around. There are some big successes and huge box office. The numbers look very good. Audiences and investors are happy.

But the CEO starts to believe that everything he says is right. He is on a mission and anyone who disagrees is just not getting it . The dissentors have to get with the programme or get the hell out. This includes many of the young men and women who helpeld him turf out the old management and make such an impression in the glory days. The charming young CEO starts to develop a temper. What's more he doesn't even look young any more. He is part of yesterday, not tomorrow.

Now the CEO is embattled and there is talk of takeovers and corporate regicide planned by his ex-acolytes and one or two people who have hung on in there on the Board - ready with the knife. But the CEO is tough, and there may be just one last chapter to the story. It could be a cliffhanger. Perhaps Disney should by the rights to both Eisner and Blair's life stories.

Posted 1:02 PM by Paul
Evolutionary Justice


" On the count of racially aggravated assault causing actual bodily harm. How do you find the defendant? Guilt of Not Guilty ?

Paul Bower - jury foreman was on his feet and completely speechless. My fellow jurors were muttering, "That's not guilty…" The problem was that the Clerk of the Court had read out entirely the wrong charge. Half way through the trial, the Defence and Prosecution counsels had agreed to split the charges allowing us to find the defendant guilty of Assault but with no element of racial harassment if we so chose.

I kept my mouth shut - unusual for me - knowing that any mistake could blow the entire trial. Another jury would have to start again. I just stared helplessly at both prosecution and defence counsels, begging them wordlessly for help. Thankfully, counsel for the defence cleared up the confusion. The prosecution just looked blank. The aging Clerk of the Court apologised. Apparently no one had bothered to tell him that the charges had been split. A trial costing maybe £100,000 lasting 5 days was nearly blown for lack of a 2 minute conversation and a bit of photocopying.

He then read out the new charges. It was good news and bad news for the defendant, an athletic black Londoner of Nigerian parentage. He was a thug. But not a racially motivated thug.

I know what you are thinking. We did not have the guts to charge a black man for a racial attack on a white man. But that would be wrong. The victim was a small black bus driver from Ghana who had been given a nasty beating for not letting the bigger man on in between stops. The assailant had lain in wait for him in the upstairs deck of the bus and then attacked him when all other passengers had left at the bus garage.

It was news to me that a black man could be charged with a racial attack on another black man. However, when you think about it makes sense. You cannot easily legally define ethnic background in a world where millions of people are a mixture of various races. The bloodiest racial war of the last 50 years was fought between the Hutu and the Tutsi in Rwanda. Back in Europe in the 90s white Croats and Serbs were killing their old school pals. Racial hatred is not just about colour. The reason we did not find him guilty of a racially aggravated assault was that there was not enough evidence and no witnesses to the alleged racial insults.

It is commonplace for people to complain that British trial by jury is now a farce. Half of the jury, we are told, spends their time filing their nails or reading the tabloids. Some even claim, that more trails should be decided by the judge alone. In our case that would have been tricky as it became pretty clear that our judge had only rarely been on a bus in her life. Fare zones were pretty much beyond her, although I am sure she could have given a precis of the importance of The Crown versus McKellen 1867 case on British jurisprudence.

I served on two juries and found the opposite to be true. Most of us took reams of notes and paid close attention to what was going on. In the second trial we even compared notes on where the judge had made an error of fact. People were keen to see a fair trail for the defendant, but always kept the victim at the forefront of their considerations. On the first trial we send a young man down for a minimum of four years for a knife attack which put a young Australian tourist in hospital. On the second, the beating up of the bus driver, the young man will probably get 6 months plus community service, because it was his first offence.

Where Justice was at times farcical was in the basic administration of the court rather than the composition and intelligence of the jury. Not enough photocopies of statements. How could they possibly predict that there might be 12 of us? Court staff complaining that we had taken away too many pencils. No food left in the canteen, broken vending machines and pitiful compensation for people who had lost earnings to serve on a jury. I was fine because the company I work for paid my wages in full.
In the first case the police had even managed to destroy one of the weapons used to attack the Aussie student. Luckily, DNA evidence and eyewitness accounts made it possible to convict. Barristers can earn around £300,000 a year. Court staff are often paid around £10,000.

The victims suffered different fates.

The Ghanaian bus driver is back at work and after a few weeks rest seemed no worse for his ordeal. The Aussie had to undergo two operations on his bowel (one in London and one in Sydney) and seemed nervous and gaunt. Very unlike the happy young man with a beautiful girlfriend who has made the mistake of walking the wrong way trough the East End on a summer night in 2001. But at least they saw justice done when they were brought back to the UK by the Crown Prosecution Service.

The young man who joined in the vicious knife attack is now serving a minimum of 4 years in jail and won't be holding his new born son for some time. His mate was sent down a couple of years earlier and a third assailant has got of Scott free. If you were asked to think of a stereotypical white skinhead thug with blank staring eyes you would have a pretty accurate picture of the man in the dock. His family was in court, but were not the East End firm of soap operas and crime shows. They were well turned out but not brash. During part of the trial and old man, probably the defendants grandfather spend hours in the public gallery with his head in his hands. "Where did we go wrong?" He seemed to be saying. There was no gasp or cry when the judge pronounced sentence. Just resignation.

The defendant spent time at a residential school for kids with special needs. Apparently his parents splitting up had hit him hard. But that is no excuse for sticking a knife in someone's guts and slashing their face. Drugs and shoplifting maybe. But not that. He also skipped bail for two years and then resisted arrest cleaning to be someone else when the police found him at his mothers place in Kent. He didn't do himself any favours and to put it plainly he was very very thick and could have got away with it had he disposed of the knife down a drain and gone straight to his girlfriends

The older smarter (in both senses) black man who had beaten up the bus driver will hopefully be out sooner and have leant to control his temper. He had finished schools with good passes in Science but dropped out of University. He didn't seem too concerned when the verdict came in.

Both offences were about male violence. In the first a group of better-dressed, better educated Aussies had made the mistake of straying on to the territory of a group of young East End males. It was all about territory; "They're on our manor.. Who the fuck do they think they are?" They picked off the weakest looking straggler at the back of a long line of revelers trying to find a night bus. The Aussie could easily have died that night in the gutter just off the Mile End Road far from home.

The second crime was about trying to instill respect through violence. The driver had not let him on the bus. He was not going to be bettered by authority and decided to teach the driver a lesson. He was on the way to the Gym and wasn't going to be pushed around by a bus driver. Maybe he was on steroids.

It's a deep and intransigent question as to why men act this. I don't have any easy answers. But I do know that you should be able to drive a bus or walk home at 3.00 a.m. without fear of your life.

Posted 7:55 AM by Paul
Fear Itself

Was it JFK or FDR? I can't remember. "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." A beautiful sentiment from the optimistic country. Fear is corrosive and debilitating. It stops you moving forward and doing the things that need to be done.

February 2004 in the UK and the media is shrieking fear and indignation. The source of this incitement to be fearful is the impending succession of many Eastern European countries to the EU. The Mail and the Express warn of floods of millions of Eastern Europeans into the UK. We didn't get this so much when the Greeks and the Spanish suddenly had the right to work and claim benefits in the UK during the 80s and 90s. But they were Western rather than Eastern, and both countries only had small gypsy populations.

Both the Mail and the Express play on the fear of swarthy gypos infecting Albion. The Nazis were nearly as keen on exterminating Gypsies as they were Jews. Whilst I don't want to compare 2004 with 1934 when Himmler was starting up mobile gas chambers, it is still worrying. Echoes of a terrible past. Ant--gypsy racism aside, we are being encouraged to be afraid that our way of life will be threatened by a flood of Poles. That's right Poles. The people we declared war on Germany to protect on 4th September 1939 and then sold out to Stalin at Yalta in 1945. About 250,000 of them stayed in the UK after the Second World War and we hardly noticed. They worked hard, opened social clubs, built churches and helped make Britain prosperous.

It all seems a long way from 1989 when the Wall came down and Polish and East German troops refused to fire on demonstrators. The same people who cheered loudest when Communism fell, are now spreading fear and distrust of the populations who suffered most under the oppression, bureaucracy and the pitiful inefficiencies of a bankrupt ideology and a corrupt political elite. All this when the UK is richer than at any time in history, and our borders more secure. A whole section of the media is dedicated to spreading fear and envy. The same newspapers that ask us to hate asylum seekers also call on us to snigger when a TV presenter falls from grace or an actress puts on weight following a traumatic divorce.

The Government's response to all of this atmosphere of hate is to play to the gallery. They are bringing in half- assed regulations to control the anticipated "flood" of migrants and pretend that Islamic terrorism is a bigger threat in 2004 than Nazis was in 1939 . They try and placate the forces of Anglo Saxon small mindedness rather than appeal to our better nature.

Posted 9:02 AM by Paul
Death of an Angel

Heather is gutted. The news has come through that her favourite TV Show - Angel -, a spin off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer will close at the end of this season. Angel is by turns darker and wittier than the show that gave birth to it. It has a brilliant plot device that involves The Devil (referred to as the Senior Partner) being represented on Earth by a firm of lawyers called Wolfram and Hart. My favourite character is Lorne, a camp empathetic demon from the parallel world of Pielia, a place that bears an uncanny resemblance to Idaho. Lorne runs a nightclub and loves the music of Aretha Franklin.

Apparently the show is being pulled not so much because of falling ratings but because it is not "hitting the right demographic" I think this is code for "only the over 25s are watching it in any great numbers". Short of Heather and assorted Angelheads picketing 20th Century Fox and promising to watch the adverts and buy youth oriented brands - Angel will be joining Cheers (getting better and better) and Sex in the City (getting poignant as the end approaches) as a footnote in cultural history.

These are shows where the most sympathetic characters are homosexual, promiscuous or a mixture of all three. When they are gone, who will help us wage the culture wars against the forces of the Christian Right?

Posted 1:31 PM by Paul
Year Zero...Again

You just cannot get away from Iraq. The last 48 hours have seen two appalling suicide car bomb attacks which have killed around 100 people. Nearly all of them Iraqis standing in line to sign up for jobs with the new security forces. Your blood runs cold just thinking about it. Impoverished men doing the best for their families to try and get work to feed and clothe the kids. They are doing what my dad would have done. What I would have done. Ideology versus family. No contest.

However, part of the Iraqi population sees these events in an entirely different light. For them, the men standing in line were collaborating with an occupying power and deserved their fate. The man or woman who drove the car was not a crazed zealot but a hero or heroine of national liberation.

The response from Government mouthpieces in the UK has been predictable. I heard a Scottish MP rehearsing the same old well worn themes on the BBC today. The needle is stuck.

This is the work of outsiders and Islamisists. No Iraqi would do this to their own people. How can we state this with any conviction? It's a strange response as it forgets that until very recently Iraqis were doing all sorts of awful things to each other, including dropping nerve gas on the neighbours.

No one could have foreseen the suicide bombings. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Israel and the West bank. It was not only predictable and predicted but actually happening a few hundred miles to the West. It was prime time news not speculation.

This shows the World what we are up against and justifies our intervention. But there were no suicide bombings before the invasion. This will have not escaped the notice of ordinary Iraqis. Things were terrible. Then they got worse

Saddam was madman and it was worth it to see him go. But so is Mugabe. Why don't we depose him too? Is it because their is no oil in Zimbabwe?

None of this should surprise anyone. Before the invasion, statesmen and women were lining up for the TV cameras to warn of the dangers of precipitous action against Iraq. They feared it would bring a Civil War rather than peace and democracy. One of them was Denis Healey, the former Foreign Secretary and the best leader the Labour Party never had. In our youths we denounced him as a tool of US policy makers and a right wing lackey. He would now probably be expelled for dangerous left wing tendencies. His message last year was simple. If we are were not careful, this would all explode into a civil war as age old tensions between Kurd and Arab, Shia and Sunni exploded to the surface. They would not need any help from any external agitators.

But what did Denis know anyway? Old fool. I mean he had only been Foreign Secretary during the Cold War and a beachmaster in the Anzio landings. What did he know about war? Denis was part of the Old Order and thus ignored. Tomorrow belonged to a new braver, more dynamic generation

The world started afresh on that May morning in 1997 when Tony walked into Downing Street. As Tony said in his speech to both houses of congress, " History has little to teach us in this new situation."

Year Zero. But no so much Pol Pot as Robespierre.

Posted 3:14 PM by Paul
Same Old Song

Today Tony Blair announced the formation of a national investigation police force along the lines of the FBI. Good idea and long overdue. His speech went something like this.

" I tell you in all honesty that we cannot go on policing this country as we did 15 or 20 years ago. [pause] We must change in order to take account of new cirumstances. The nature of crime has changed. "

He does the same speech every fortnight. Insert whatever you like. Schools, policing, health service. It's the same speech. He lectures us like a bunch of dimwits in a tone that suggests he is the only person to grasp the true nature of the Modern World. Thank goodness he is there to take the tough choices on our behalf. The heroic CEO with a plan for radical change going forward.

I am half expecting him to announce next week.

"I tell you in all honesty that we cannot go on imbibing in this country the way we have done for the last 15-20 years. We must change in order to take into account the radical nature of the soft drinks market. Water is a remnant of the old ways [ pause ]the bad ways. From now on things will go better in UK plc with Coca Cola."

Posted 12:01 PM by Paul
$3.6 Billion Question

Was it one? Or was it two? At federal hearings over the coming weeks jurors will be asked to decide whether the terrorist attacks of September 11th constituted one attack or two. This is a major issue for the developers of the site. If the court rules that it was one attack the insurers will have to pay £3.6 billion. If they rule that it was two attacks, they will have to pay out $7.2billion. Problem is, all of the development programme is predicated on a $7billion investment. This case may run and run with appeal following appeal. Daniel Leibskinds insprirational entwined towers with sky gardens may never make it off the drawing board.

Poor old New York. America of our hopes and dreams. 3,000 people are murdered one morning and the city's faltering economy is gutted. The powers that be are bickering over the details. $3.6 billion is small change for the richest country on Earth. A handful of stealth bombers. The US Government should pay. Either that, or the developers will have to find the money from abroad... probably a Saudi bank.

Posted 3:17 AM by Paul
The $3.6 billion Question

Was it one? Or was it two? At federal hearings over the coming weeks jurors will be asked to decide whether the terrorist attacks of September 11th constituted one attack or two. This is a major issue for the developers of the site. If the court rules that it was one attack the insurers will have to pay £3.6 billion. If they rule that it was two attacks, they will have to pay out $7.2billion. Problem is, all of the development programme is predicated on a $7billion investment. This case may run and run with appeal following appeal. Daniel Leibskinds insprirational entwined towers with sky gardens may never make it off the drawing board.

Poor old New York. America of our hopes and dreams. 3,000 people are murdered one morning and the city's faltering economy is gutted. The powers that be are bickering over the details. $3.6 billion is small change for the richest country on Earth. A handful of stealth bombers. The US Government should pay. Either that, or the developers will have to find the money from abroad... probably a Saudi bank.

Posted 3:06 AM by Paul
War President

Bush gave his first every network interview yesterday. He was dreadful. Thinned lipped grimacing smile, evasive and gaffe prone. The Kerry camp must be cock a hoop. The most telling comment was when he described himself as a "War President", adding
" I make decisions in the Oval Office with war on my mind". Condemned out of his own mouth. A warmonger not able to win the peace.

Posted 7:31 AM by Paul
Tips for Kerry

Tom Turley, a friend from the US sent me an e-mail link from the New York Post slamming Kerry. It was but a foretaste of what is to come. Tom appealed forlornly "Is there any hope out there?" So, I got to thinking. How would I advise Kerry if I were part of his inner cabinet. Here are a few suggestions

- Arrange for a North Vietnamese diplomat to complain that you were a ruthless killing machine whislt on your tour of duty and under no circumstances should be allowed to be President of the USA.

- Hire a man in a chicken suit to dog George Bush's every campaign stop.

- Choose a Southerner with a drawl as your running mate and set him up in an office in Houston. Have him pictured in front of a photo of LBJ gving his Great Society speech. Sole task, highlight Bush's record in the South.

- Do a deal with Oprah to make her US Ambassador to the UN if she agrees to endorse the campaign two weeks before polling day

- Go missing for two weeks in summer and then have it divulged that you were on a men's retreat and bear hunting expedition in Montana.

- Be pictured with a hunting rifle in your hand as frequently as possible.

- Don't deny that you had a priviledged upbringing. Make self deprecating jokes about it. Point out that your father was a wealthy man with influence but he was never head of the CIA or President of the USA.

- Announce free generic prescription drugs for the over 65s

Posted 7:15 AM by Paul
Mind Your Language

Yesterday I took the train north to Loughborough to spend a day at the office where the company I work for is based. It's an early start but the journey is a comfortable one and a half hour trip which I spent fast asleep. I got in around 9.30 a.m. My boss Julian, a very straightforward man knows his stuff, was having a meeting with a women about how to encourage more construction companies to take on young people and give them work experience, or "work based learning opportunities" as the contemporary jargon would have it. Within 30 seconds the woman had used the expressions " it's a win-win situation" and " it's not rocket science". This kind of drivel would be admissible in a 20 year old but the woman was 55 if she was a day.

My mind drifted back to Orwell's 1984 and the section in the glossary describing the development of Newspeak. The parallels are striking. Gradually language is being used less to communicate ideas and more to share warm expressions of orthodoxy and belonging. To show that you are part of the tribe. Thankfully, I work for someone who hates management mumbo jumbo and likes to do things. Having said that both of us tend to drift off into the new language of public sector management occasionally. I even caught myself saying, "the process we are undergoing adds value". In fact I was making up as I went along and forming my ideas out of thin air.

Nine hours later I was on the packed train heading back south to London. Across the aisle was a hip young man working in the music industry who chatting away loudly into his mobile phone. Within a few minutes I had discovered that he was:

a) hoping to change record companies from Universal to Sony
b) planning to cut Tim out of a production deal worth around £100,000.

On at least four occasions he stated conspiratorially, "Between me and you mate." Between him and about 40 other people in the carriage would have been more accurate. I kept hoping that the soon to be ousted Tim would appear from three seats down and scream " You wanker. I knew you were planning something! " To add to the absurdity, the young man kept assuring his colleague on the other end of the phone " Yeh..I mean… I love Tim dearly but…" Which as we all know means Tim's a loser and I am going to walk all over him.

It wasn't the first time this has happened on a train. I have seen older men and women divulging the most sensitive business and personal information in a loud voice on their mobile. I even heard a barrister discussing a case.

Meanwhile back in London, the Government has decided to extract all accepted meaning from words in defence of their Iraq policy. Blair and co. have inadvertently formed common cause with the Jacques Derrida and the Post Structuralists. Language it appears means what they say it means and differs in meaning according to the context in which it was said at the time.

Posted 6:18 AM by Paul
Outside the Tent

Greg Dyke's resignation reminded me of the comment, I think it was President Truman, that it it is better to have someone inside the tent urinating out than outside urinating in. Well now that Greg Dyke has been squeezed out by a fearful BBC board of directors he has been emptying his bladder like a teenager after 12 pints of cold lager.

He has just relased a letter he sent to Tony Blair during the early stages of the Iraq War countering the Government's accusation that they had an anti-war agenda. If Dyke had still been in post, the letter would have remained private. Rather than the characature of an organisation run by crypto-pinkos it shows a group of senior managers going to extraordinary lengths to give the Government a fair crack of the whip. It also gives a snapshot of Britain during a period when it seemed that just about everybody was against the Iraq War and felt that no good would come of it. This sense of foreboding united 18 year old anarchists dressed in fairy wings carrying Blair is Sauron - Free the Shire placards with elderly men from the Shires in sensible cords and Barbours.

Below is Dyke's witty and reasoned riposte to Blair's accusations of bias. Pass it on


Dear Tony

Thank you for your letter of 19 March. I note that a similar letter was sent to Gavyn Davies, the chairman of the BBC, and a longer version was sent to our director of news, Richard Sambrook. They will also be replying.

Firstly, and I do not mean to be rude, but having faced the biggest ever public demonstration in this country and the biggest ever backbench rebellion against a sitting government by its own supporters, would you not agree that your communications advisers are not best placed to advise whether or not the BBC has got its balance right between support and dissent?

Given these circumstances they are hardly in a position to make a reasoned judgement about the BBC's impartiality.

You have been engaged in a difficult battle fighting for your particular view of the world to be accepted and quite understandably, you want that to be reported.

We, however have a different role in society. Our role in these circumstances is to try to give a balanced picture.

It is perfectly legitimate for you or your advisers to complain about particular stories - journalism is an imperfect profession - and if we make mistakes, as we inevitably do, under my leadership we will always say we were wrong and apologise.

However, for you to question the whole of the BBC's output across a wide range of radio, television and online services because you are concerned about particular which stories which don't favour your view is unfair.

I believe we have made major efforts to ensure that the issues and events surrounding Iraq have been properly reported. Let me explain how we have done that.

Some weeks ago I set up a committee which ....decided to prevent any senior editorial figures at the BBC from going on the anti-war march; it was that committee which insisted that we had to find a balanced audience for programmes like Question Time at a time when it was very hard to find supporters of the war willing to come on.

And it was that same committee when faced with a massive bias against the war among phone-in callers, decided to increase the number of phone lines so that pro-war listeners had a better chance of getting through and getting onto the programmes.

All this was done in an attempt to ensure our coverage was balanced.

That same committee has discussed on a number of occasions whether our reports from Baghdad needed to be qualified.

Until yesterday we have been of the opinion that our journalism has not been restricted in a way which required qualification as a matter of course and even yesterday, after the war started, our reporters did not have Iraqi "minders" and were free to move around the city.

At no point has their copy been checked before broadcast.

My point is that we have discussed these sorts of issues at length and made the best judgements we could. That our conclusions didn't always please Alastair is unfortunate but not our primary concern...

I can only assure you that under my leadership I will do everything in my power to defend the BBC's fairness, independence and impartiality.

My committee is now meeting on a daily basis and we discuss the reporting of the Iraq issue every morning...

I appreciate the fact that your letter was private. I, too, have no intention of making this reply public.

Best wishes

Greg Dyke