Coalition context

While many Liberal Democrat supporters are up in arms over the new-born coalition with the Conservatives, it's perhaps worth taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture.

Whilst the idea of the two parties working together is still slightly unbelievable and potentially alarming to the Lib Dem grass roots support, many of whom will have voted Lib Dem in order to keep the Tories out, some context is needed.

Firstly, it's worth remembering that this is the only way, given the currently flawed electoral system that we have in place in this country, that the Liberal Democrats were going to have any form of power in the forseeable future.

Secondly, such a coalition need not mean that the Liberal Democrats bow to the Tories on every issue. Providing they stand up and make their voices heard within the coalition, the effect could instead be that they are capable of muzzling the Tories on their more aggressive policy, whilst still offering the voters aspects of their own manifesto that they campaigned on.

So whilst having Cameron as the leader may not be pleasing to Liberal Democrat voters, in many ways they now have the lesser of two evils. It's the Conservatives in power yes, but tied to a party that will still involve Nick Clegg and Vince Cable, who won't let them run roughshod, and will have the ability to force them into fairly significant concessions.

Thirdly, from a neutral's perspective, this is politically exciting. We are truly entering a new era of politics following this deal, and we will only be able to evaluate the coalition, for better or worse, in the months and years ahead.

Election night BBC TV review

Election night is usually enjoyable television; as the night rolls on and the presenters become more tired, tetchy and unpredictable, it generally has the potential to create moments of unintentionally entertaining action.

The BBC coverage has been criticised in the days following the event, in some cases rightly, but some without justification.

Those who watched would largely agree that the idea of having a party boat on the Thames was very much misguided. Not only did the BBC manage to assemble a group of 'celebrities' and commentators who were very easy to detest (not to mention Andrew Neil) that by 2am most were hoping for a stray torpedo to latch onto the craft, but it added absolutely nothing of substance to the analysis.

Why would we want to hear from Joan Collins about David Cameron making the ideal next 'President' for our country, or a candidate for the most cringe-worthy moment of television for 2010 when Bruce Forsyth, drunk on a cocktail of his own ego and senility, quietened the guests behind him and attempted to engage them in his catch-phrase.

Back in a studio that featured the world's most unnecessarily large desk, David Dimbleby increasingly looked like an elderly man shrinking into the electronic scenery. In fairness however, he did a surprisingly good job in holding the presentation together for what seemed like an eternity, disappearing at 9am for what was presumably a short nap somewhere under that desk.

It boggles the mind that the BBC can somehow still manage to have communication systems with exceptional amounts of lag, so that when Dimbleby addressed presenters outside the realms of the main studio there was often a three or four second delay between question and answer.

This isn't helped when you have Dimbleby and the trigger-happy Jeremy Paxman, who frequently interrupted the silent delays to add additional questions, further complicating the resulting exchanges. Paxman finally exploded out of his patience zone when Lembit Opik lost his seat unexpectedly, leading to the first heated trading of words of the night.

Meanwhile Jeremy Vine's graphics were rendered largely redundant. The whole purpose of utilising graphics should surely be to simplify the results coming in and make the whole process more coherent. Instead, Vine had to explain every aspect of the confusing swirling mess unfolding behind him. It was as if Vine was stuck in some strange parallel universe comprised of terrifying white voids interspersed with flying coloured panels, and a House of Commons filled with computerised twitching MPs.

Back in the studio, Emily Maitlis and Peter Kellner perhaps did the best job of assessing the voting share and swing in each seat, providing some much needed brevity and clarity.

Whilst ITV were apparently quicker in both showing results and the swing in each seat, what I saw of Channel 4's alternative election night was disappointing. It felt as though the tone of the show was misjudged, not offering the expected Mitchell and Brooker led-satire as much as cheap jokes and average comedy shows. Mitchell in particular looked uncomfortable in the environment, short stand-up material broken up by a woman in the audience with a machine-gun laugh.

It would have been more productive to have had a full Channel 4 news produced show, with occasional breaks for Brooker to offer his more visceral take on the developing events.

When the media indulges in overkill

It was a fascinating week in British politics, because the media started to realise that they no longer had complete control over the electorate.

The papers and television tried in vain to make the public angry about the Prime Minister calling Gillian Duffy a bigot, but the reality was that we could see through their tactics.

The media's problem is that that they are too transparently hypocritical. On the one hand they ask us to be cynical about our politician's actions, and the next minute, as on Wednesday, they ask us to hold them to impossibly high standards.

So whilst the 24-hour news channels and Jeremy Paxman were frothing at the mouth over Gordon Brown's actions, the opinion polls revealed that the majority of people were largely apathetic, or could at least see the humorous side.

In this regard, programmes such as The Thick of It have helped. When we see the ministers desperately struggling to positively spin events in the face of a savage media and impressionable public, it helps humanise their plight. On Wednesday we simply couldn't help but feel some degree of empathy for the Prime Minister.

The fact that Gillian Duffy did indeed sound bigoted when talking about non-descript immigrants 'flooding in' did little to help her cause. When Newsnight went onto the streets of Rochdale (15.53 into the programme) in the aftermath, they found plenty of other people willing to spout similarly prejudicial views.

It would be nice to think that this could mark the point in election campaigns where the media stops deifying the general public, and that we can stop holding ourselves self-righteously as if we are all-knowing on all matters political.

It would also be nice to think that the media in this country might also try and reflect the real opinions of people on the street and not try to set the agenda themselves, as if operating in a vacuum.

Murdoch press
Slightly out of date piece now, but interesting none-the-less. I link it at the risk of looking as if I am covertly campaigning for the Labour party.

Gary Younge
Good article. Go and read.

Thom Yorke
And to keep things unnecessarily varied, a typically powerful song from Thom Yorke.

Election overload

Whilst the media constantly asks the question of how we can engage an apathetic electorate in the run up to an election, it would be nice if they could occasionally take a look at themselves as being where the blame may lie.

On Tuesday, the day that Gordon Brown announced the date of the election that we had already known for a year, the BBC saw fit to fill the entire one o'clock news bulletin with an election preview, despite there being absolutely nothing of interest happening.

This is on day one of an exhaustive month that lies ahead. There is such as thing as election overload, and even as someone who has an avid political interest, I found it tiresome after 10 minutes.

Messi-watch
This is the week that England may finally have fully awoken to Lionel Messi's true brilliance. Although this blog can not be accused of having been guilty of such ignorance, I find it frustrating and shameful that it has taken many of our pundits this long to appreciate his ability, as did Sid Lowe. In this age where it is so easy to access foreign football coverage with such ease, it seems strange that we have waited this long to crown him as the world's best.

After all, he ran rings around Chelsea in the same competition back in 2006. It's yet another example of Britain's short-sightedness when it comes to acknowledging foreign football. This was further in evidence last night following Manchester United's exit from the Champions League. Both Mike Ingham and Alan Green trotted out the usual lines about United having fallen to an inferior team.

However you judge their relative strengths, the facts are that Bayern won and United are out. Whether Bayern are inferior has nothing to do with it. It was another case of English pundits bristling with irritation that the Premier League had failed to produce a European Cup semi-finalist.

Richard Littlejohn

It's easy to criticise, and Richard Littlejohn gave a perfect example of this on Question Time, exhibiting the expected behaviour of the obligatory right-wing columnist (see Starkey, Mackenzie, Hitchens) on the show.

While the party representatives attempted to dissect and argue the issues, every time Littlejohn assumed that the audience were getting lost in debate going over their heads, he leapt in and targeted a populist response with the familiar 'they're all the same' and 'what the British people want' rhetoric.

At one point in the aftermath of his attack on the Liberal Democrats, Littlejohn rested his hand on Sarah Teather's in a slightly sickening manner, bringing to mind the image of a lecherous news editor drooling over his new intern. Teather, to her credit, waited the moment out, although did subsequently struggle to formulate her subsequent argument, as any human would given the same position.

The most absurd moment was when Littlejohn had to bully a questioner into silence when the plausible suggestion that he was the BNP's favourite columnist was raised.

The Guardian writer Victoria Coren was also a weak link on the show however, offering meaningless throw-away points and pathetic jokes on serious issues. This does raise the question of why we need anyone other than politicians on Question Time. Why can we not have representatives from the Greens and UKIP and debate real policy instead?

The issue is that in this country we have a big problem with failing to hold our media accountable. David Dimbleby bumbles through in the manner of a Boris Johnson without the pseudo-charm, interrupting and cutting off the politicians, but consistently fails to cross-question the newspaper journalists on the points they make. When, at the end he turned on Littlejohn over the Daily Mail's reporting of Joanna Lumley, Dimbleby for a moment realised he had the columnist on the ropes, and immediately retreated.

Lionel Messi

Superb article from Sid Lowe as per usual on the utter brilliance that is Lionel Messi in his current form. As the article makes clear, whilst pundits often go overboard in their praise of players, Messi's skill, pace and awareness are something truly amazing to behold. If you can, get hold of a copy of Barcelona's game at home to Valencia last weekend, and away to Zaragoza's yesterday to witness it for yourself.

Despite the fact that his best play has been almost exclusively with Barcelona and not Argentina, football fans should be praying that Messi makes it to the World Cup this summer without injury.

Channel 4 election coverage

On the political front, another interesting article from today's Independent about Channel 4's plans for general election coverage this year, the only one of the main British news broadcasters (and arguably the best) not to be hosting one of the debates.

Islam4UK

An odd decision, was my initial reaction to Home Secretary Alan Johnson's confirmation that the government were making the extremist group Islam4UK illegal.

Whilst some of the group's actions, such as the planned march in Wootton Bassett were certainly questionable on grounds of taste, there seemed to me a great deal of hypocrisy in the manner in which they have been treated by the British media.

High profile cases such as the British National Party appearing on BBC's Question Time have caused arguments in the media for balancing countering extremism against allowing for free speech, but the Islam4UK case has been afforded none of this depth of analysis.

The fact that Islam4UK have been made illegal under anti-terrorism legislation is also puzzling. It is difficult to find evidence of any terrorist activity to which they can directly be linked, and I have struggled to find any mention of this in the news reports that have been written about the issue today.

Their views are admittedly extreme, but within in a political and social sphere, and crucially, to westernised ears. Their protest planned for the Wootton Bassett march for example, was based on emphasising that there were casualties on both sides in a military conflict, and whilst the argument could have been made in a more tasteful and constructive manner, it remains a valid point.

The real issue to examine here, is that the current government has treated similar extremist organisations with little apparent equality. They have not taken action against other groups that could easily be categorised along similar lines, such as the British National Party and the English Defence League, quite possibly because they know that tackling such groups head on would be more politically dangerous, especially in an election year.

It is also worth noting that the public have been whipped up into somewhat of an outrage regarding the Wootton Bassett march plans, in part lead by The Sun newspaper's morale crusade, and a politically cynical observer might suggest that clamping down hard on the group causing the upset was not ever going to be harmful to poll ratings.

'We can't go on like this'

The new Tory campaign poster manages to achieve the impressive double of featuring what looks from certain angles like a half-melted attempt at moulding a wax statue of Jeff from Peep Show, alongside one of the most depressing election slogans of recent memory.

As the Newsnight political panel correctly pointed out, 'We can't go on like this' is hardly the bright optimistic approach that 'Things can only get better' and 'Britain deserves better' at least attempted to inspire. Instead we are left with the plea of someone who sounds as if they are in the dying throes of a failing marriage.

The fact that the poster conveys the message so confidently as if the public are all in a desperate state of near-suicidal thought ends up missing its primary purpose of tapping into the feelings of the electorate.

Still, Cameron's choice of pursuing 'We need change' is, as we know, the fail safe political approach to an election. Everyone wants at least some degree of change all the time, as sadly very few people's lives are perfect.

Cunningly, this 'change' can remain unspecific in policy and direction, as the party can then leave it loosely in the mind of the voters come election day, hoping that they'll turn up to the polls after a miserable day in a job they hate, recall the slogan, and place a cross in the appropriate box.

On a more serious note, the general election of 2010 looks to be an exciting prospect, with there being every chance that we may have a hung parliament come May. Whilst this would certainly slow the progress of any 'change', it could possibly lead to a more focused and considered political arena for thorough debate, where issues would have to be thrashed out on an individual level, rather than relying on the comfortable tide of party politics.

Jacqui Janes

I am already feeling numbed towards Jacqui Janes, which is a terrible thing to say about someone who has lost a son in Afghanistan. However I just can't help but feel sympathy in the current situation towards the Prime Minister, who has after all, at least written his letters by hand to relatives of those lost, rather than impersonally typing them. Spelling mistakes are regrettable, but that is all they are, mistakes, not any evidence of intended insult or lack of caring.

There is something unbearably awkward about her attacks on the PM, especially the recorded phone call this last Sunday which Janes escalated into an argument with Brown. This is surely not the right approach to having a reasoned debate over equipment issues for soldiers, but it must also be appreciated that reason must be hard to summon in times of such personal grief.

You know something is wrong however, when even on The Sun's website comments are offering sympathy for Brown. I am sure that if someone close to me died in similar circumstances the last thing I would want to do is drag his or her name through the media for what appears to be, or could be mistaken for, an orchestrated attack on the Prime Minister.

Moirgate

It seems I may have to review my position on blogging. The last two weeks have seen a number of significant news stories that have revolved around people eagerly expressing their viewpoint in the virtual sphere, both with equally important consequences.

The attempted injunction placed on The Guardian newspaper, barring them from reporting a question asked in Parliament by an MP relating to the Trafigura dumping scandal was rendered worthless when speculation from both old and new forms of media ran wild.

This seems to have been a perhaps unintentionally positive usage of the multitude of options for people wishing to speak their mind on anything and everything they can lay their hands on. The injunction was subsequently lifted and valid questions were raised as to how any lawyers could have the temerity to attempt to silence parliamentary privilege.

The Jan Moir affair is, I feel, slightly different, but has had equally satisfying results in this case at least. In case you are not aware of the circumstances of this story, Moir, who writes for the Mail and should therefore have set some alarm bells off in this context, wrote a particularly venomous piece about the late Stephen Gately.

I won't analyse the article here, as I feel I cannot do any better than the brilliant columnist Charlie Brooker did on the Guardian website, which you can and should read, here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/16/stephen-gately-jan-moir

There are several interesting/pleasing things about people rightly reacting to this nasty piece of so-called journalism. I will make it clear that I do indeed detest this style of writing anyway, right wing hacks on large salaries for producing the most repugnant and outspoken pieces they can on a regular basis. Most of them are possibly shits in real life too, which makes it reasonable to hate them.

This case also has flashbacks to the Brand/Ross saga of 2008, which was of course largely driven with glee by the Daily Mail, which reserved a hatred for Brand, who stood for the things that readers of the paper couldn't stomach, essentially someone who had once drunk and taken drugs to excess and then gone on to make a success of themselves.

The Mail clamoured for the sacking of both, although noticeably focused on Brand. Whatever the outcome, the paper was engaging in one of its favourite pastimes, terrorising the BBC, which it did so effectively on that occasion.

The important thing to notice was that the number of complaints about the show, which were little more than a dribble to start with, inflated massively once the news media got hold of the story, and so people who would not even have been anywhere near their radio sets during the time of the broadcast were suddenly leaping on the nearest bandwagon, destination Press Complaints Commission.

Therefore it is at least partially satisfying that this time the shit has landed, via the PCC, at the offices of the Mail, but less so in that one would have to assume the same band wagon jumpers happily guided this one down the same route.

It is representative of that 'quick, have a defined opinion to order' culture we seem to embrace so readily in this country, and whilst in this case it was certainly justified, that is not reason to celebrate it unreservedly.

And I noticed that the BBC stayed a significant distance away from widely reporting the storm of complaints the Mail had generated.

Question Time

Following on from the topic of an old post I've decided to keep a 'Stupid Voter Alert' watch running within this blog from now until the election. If possible I'll get clips of the cretins and post them up here for your (my) own enjoyment.

The faux political opinions that I spilt my bile on before also apply when watching what should otherwise be a fantastic programme, Question Time (BBC1, Thursdays). What would, I'm sure, in years past have been a unique opportunity for citizens to hold accountable ministers and public servants has, in recent years become an embarrassing pantomime event. What typically happens goes as follows:

Member of public: You're a lying bastard. Where's the child porn?

MP: I'm sorry, but I find your question impossible to answer in the way in which you phrased-

Generic Dimbleby 3: Answer the question you kiddy fiddler!

Members of audience: howl for blood, boo MP when he speaks, cheer other members of the audience's offerings.

Unbearable.

Nick Griffin is on this Thursday's episode, which has divided opposition about the rights to free speech. Generally I am of the opinion that you have the right to speak your mind with the exception of saying anything that may be considered seriously offensive to others.

I am completely morally opposed to and repulsed by the views of the BNP, but there is a valid argument that says you should allow them to air their views in the manner of any other political party, so at least they cannot play the often recycled 'we are being repressed by the Government' line that ultimately works in their favour.

How objective is our television news?

I've just watched a piece by political editor Nick Robinson on the 6 o'clock BBC evening news about Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour Conference, and one of Robinson's concluding sentences stuck out:

'Do you want five more years of him as PM?'

Does that strike you as particularly impartial? Surely a simple: 'Now the public must decide whether Brown will stay at the helm' would suffice.

The Robinson example is in fact extremely common when you make an effort to listen carefully to the phrasing of sentences or intonation in voices in news programmes or even the otherwise brilliant Newsnight.

The latter is perhaps a stronger example, as when Jeremy Paxman, to quote The Thick Of It, 'pulls that horse face of mock incredulity' the audience surely can't help but be swayed one way or the other about what they are witnessing.

This ties in with my last post about the media's power to sway opinion so easily. Watch out for any stories regarding the Labour party at the moment for example. Not because I am a paranoid Labour supporter you understand, but because in the current climate anything remotely Labour party related is treated by the media as if it is diseased.

Another side to this that may be interesting to note is that Robinson and omnipresent political commentator Andrew Neil have pasts that may have a bearing on their outlook. Robinson was national chairman of the Young Conservatives for a year, following a period during his university days where he was Chairman of the Oxford University Conservative Association, facts he chooses to omit from his blog biography on the BBC website.

Neil was editor of the Sunday Times newspaper for 11 years, and has in his career worked closely with Sky, The Spectator and The Daily Mail. A balanced political slate there? I'll let you be the judge.

'You can't trust any of them, can you?'

The repeated appearance of Channel 4's trailer for the Dispatches programme focusing on MP's expenses now immediately has me reaching for the remote.

There is something painfully self congratulatory about the whole issue of expenses when the topic arises amongst the general population, a bubbling self righteous anger that I have come to find pretty repulsive.

As Stephen Fry said at the time the Daily Telegraph was gleefully spreading its findings over weeks worth of newsprint, there are very few of us out there who can truly say we have never tried to get the most out of our situation in regards to bonuses, benefits or bursaries.

The reality is that the general public love it because it creates a simple black and white narrative. We can label all politicians as crooks, purely in it for the expense accounts and living lavishly, whereas we are all good and pure hard-working souls.

We seem to forget that the life of a politician is not only presumably emotionally exhausting, but makes a mockery of the notion of a 9-5 job, instead spreading meetings, sittings, votes and constituent surgeries across mammoth days that would be largely unthinkable to the vast majority of us.

And what do they get for this tireless endeavour? Certainly rarely any praise. The best an MP can typically hope for is not to feature in a newspaper in any form, as the coverage will almost certainly be negative.

I appreciate that there are some politicians out there who have taken advantage of the system's faults, but we must retain a far more balanced viewpoint when it comes to addressing our representatives in parliament.

I fear that the expenses scandal is one way of showing the huge power that the media carry in forming opinion. It sickens me to hear interviews with people on the street in the build up to elections where tabloid clichés and rhetoric are incoherently regurgitated as an excuse for a real opinion and a valid reason to vote.

Perhaps there should be some form of short test before one enters the polling booth. Forget the sanctity of the secret vote, tell us 5 valid reasons for voting the way you are. If you can't give us the reasons you truly wish to vote this way, I'm afraid we will have to turn you away.

At least I wouldn't hear any more of the 'well they're all liars anyway' lines again.