The Downside of Social Media

I am taking a break from politics this week to take a look at something that popped into my head a few days ago, and before you ask, yes I am fine.

Now, I enjoy modern communications and social media, Facebook, Twitter, 24 hour news. They provide numerous advantages, including ease of communication and the rapid transmission of information, which is certainly useful when you’re trying to organise something, such as the clean-up effort after last summer’s riots, or trying to warn people about something.  But I do wonder whether such a speedy dissemination of information cannot sometimes be a bad thing.

Take the rumour this week that part of the Bakerloo line had collapsed. Someone tweeted it and – to borrow a line from Terry Pratchett – the rumour had got around the world, or at least Twitter, before the truth had got its boots on. Whatever Transport for London said about how it hadn’t happened and they were sending people to check etc, etc,  the rumour still held sway because more people had heard it than had heard the truth. It had split off and spread like some sort of virus.

There is also another bigger problem. Under normal circumstances TFL would have assessed the situation, sent in some inspectors to take a peek and figure out what was going on, then released a statement to the tune of “nothing happened. Just a misunderstanding.” But with the news already going around Twitter at the speed of gossip, they had to make a statement to quash the rumours without being in full possession of the facts. As it is, they were correct, but if they hadn’t been, if they had then had to release a contradictory story, they would have looked like a bunch of incompetent fools.

Another example would be the hostage situation in the Tottenham Court Road yesterday. The press were reporting a guy with a bomb and hostages. Now while there were hostages they were released fairly quickly and far from being some sort of IRA dissident tooled up with Semtex what you had was a guy with a couple of gas canisters and a love of tossing filing cabinets out of windows.  Dangerous in and of itself, but hardly the plot of a Die Hard sequel. But thanks to 24 hour news we got the first initial reports before the facts had actually emerged, leading in turn to panic.

This isn’t me saying that Twitter and breaking news aren’t useful. In times of crisis, when people need to know things immediately – so they can get themselves out of danger say – they are very useful indeed. But there are times when all they do is cause more chaos and upset. They are useful at times; I think we would all agree with that. But I do think people should be more careful about using them as their sole source of news, or taking what they say as the gospel truth. People do get things wrong sometimes!

What to do with the Railways

Once again, a long walk to uni for a lecture led me to thinking about ways to make the country better – seriously my brain is weird place. This time I found myself thinking about trains, trains and the railways.

There seems to be a split between those who want to nationalise the railways and those who wish to keep them privatised. There seem to be equally good arguments for both. If we nationalise the railways it might become a bit quicker, there might be fewer delays and tickets might not cost so much. On the other hand there would be no incentive to improve the system if it started failing. However if we keep it privatised, that incentive exists. Something goes wrong and we – that is the Government – can simply say, “Improve it or I’ll get someone else to run it.” But if we keep it privatised tickets will still cost an arm and a leg.

So I hear you ask, what’s the solution? Simple. We partly privatise, partly nationalise the rail network. Like this.

Stage One

Split the country up into sections. For the sake of this discussion we’ll go with sections that helpfully already exist. East of England, Yorkshire and the Humber, North West, North East, East Midlands, West Midlands, South West, South East and Greater London.

Stage Two

Set up a Government body – we’ll call it the National Rail Board or something – whose job it is to oversee the day to day running of the business. This organisation would set ticket prices, approve the construction of new train lines, write up employment rules, health and safety legislation and deal with all legal problems that might arise such as liaising with unions.

Stage Three

Devolve the managerial operations – such as employment tribunals, organising construction and maintenance and so on – out to local authorities in the regions mentioned above.

This is the nationalisation aspect that I mentioned. The overall running of the railways would be done by the government. Now on to the privatisation aspect.

Stage Four.

The Rail Board would at this point get together with representatives from the Regional Authorities and put the day to day operations out to tender to private companies. These companies would have the responsibility to maintain the tracks and railway stations, provide the trains and hire the drivers. They would be in charge of the actual running of the railway.

This system would allow for both the competition necessary to keep the railways running – as the regional authorities would be able to replace the companies if they felt they were not running things efficiently – while at the same time stopping them from becoming mere profit making machines, as the companies would be employed by the government and paid via government money.

So. What do you think guys?

Going on Strike is a Right

I read an article in the i yesterday that for the first time in a long time incensed me to the point that I wanted to start to throw things. It was the most right wing, elitist piece of bile, I have ever seen outside of the Daily Mail.

‘i writer’ – that is temporary columnist – Sarah Malm, a journalism student at the University of Kent, decided to use her column in the i as an opportunity to vent her distaste of Unions, accusing them of being selfish and holding the rest of the country to ransom. She finished up urging them to “grow a pair” rather than continue to inconvenience the rest of us.

 I don’t know exactly what the unions have done to tick off Miss Malm – I can only assume that she missed a train at one point or something – but she has clearly missed the point of why unions choose to go on strike. It is not simply because they are “pulling a sickie” or anything like that. They are exercising their democratic right to make their voice and opinions heard in the face of unsuitable working conditions.

Let us pretend, for the moment, that you are a teacher in a large inner city school. You are told that from now on you are going to have to work an extra six hours a week at no extra pay. At the same time your sick pay is being either cut or scrapped altogether. What would you do under that circumstance, assuming that negotiations have failed? Miss Malm would seem to suggest that you should simply live with it. Shrug and move on.

I don’t think that’s a solution that’s going to fly with most people.

What Miss Malm also seems to have missed is that – thanks to Mrs Thatcher – unions can no longer simply strike at the drop of a hat. They can however strike at the drop of a vote. If the majority of teachers/nurses/fuel tanker drivers/llama herders have decided that their working conditions are unacceptable and voted on it, then and only then will they stop teaching/nursing/driving tankers/ herding llamas. It is one of the only ways that attention can be drawn and a solution to their problem forced.

Miss Malm seems to believe that the unions are still controlled by the likes of Arthur Scargill. They are not. And by and large those who go on strike are hardworking people, who simply want a better deal in the workplace. They are not the selfish tantrum throwing five year olds that the media rank and file like to make them out to be. A rank and file to which we can now add one more member.

Perhaps one day Miss Malm will find herself in a situation where she is being paid a pittance for the work she does. Then she may feel a little more sympathetic. But right now, I would suggest she go out and talk to those who have gone on strike in the past, and get their side of the story.

Decent journalism is all about balance after all.

Not the Best Idea Ever

First of all, I’m back. Despite the weather’s best efforts I didn’t fly away and end up somewhere outside of Rhyl. It was a bit of a close thing at times though.

Now to business. As I’m sure most of you are aware by now, this year’s Oxford/Cambridge boat race was disrupted by a protestor attempting to swim in front of the boats. This led to a restart, Oxford losing an oar, Cambridge winning and the Oxford bow rower collapsing. All because one man was stupid enough to take a disruptive dip in the Thames.

I mean how idiotic can you get?

According to his blog – the visitor count of which must have shot up since Saturday – the protester now identified as LSE graduate Trenton Oldfield believes that “elitism leads to tyranny.” Let me repeat that for those of you in the back. A graduate of the London School of Economics believes that elitism leads to tyranny.

On his blog, Trenton claimed that his swim was an “act of civil disobedience” as well as a “peaceful,” protest. He argues that history shows that elitism – a belief of being more than somebody else – has always led to tragedy and quite possibly he may be right. But I have to disagree with his tactics.

Now I’m not saying I disagree with protesting. If you think I’m saying that than you clearly haven’t read this blog very carefully. If a government is behaving in an unacceptable way, then the people of course have the right to call them out on it. But there are a myriad ways of doing this. You can join a union, sign an e-petition, write to your MP or go to a legitimately organised protest.  If you have a legitimate grievance then there are hundreds of ways that you can go about voicing it.

Tossing yourself into the way of the University Boat Race? That’s unacceptable.

Mr Oldfield calls for the use of guerrilla tactics as a way to fight against elitism. Stuff like deliberately losing documents at work or serving people you consider to be propping up the system cold food – or the wrong food – if you work in a restaurant. He suggests if you are a taxi driver then you take people by the longest and most expensive route.

Now come on. What exactly is that going to achieve? Will it actually change the system? Probably not. Will it result in people quite possibly losing their jobs and their livelihoods? Quite probably. Protesting is a good thing; I would go so far to say that it is a right. But the types of strategies being suggested by Mr Oldfield are not only moronic but down right irresponsible.

I would say to him – if on some off chance he finds this blog – that if he is really interested in changing the system then hurry up, get elected to Parliament, and change things from the inside.

But don’t you dare ever interrupt the Boat Race again.