We Need Local Papers

I have just finished a very enjoyable and interesting week with my local newspaper, the News Shopper. As this was my second time with them, this year I was given a bit more responsibility, in terms of going out and finding stories.

But this blog is not about my experiences at the News Shopper. This blog is about the importance of local journalism. One of the first things you are taught when you start studying journalism is that local journalism and local papers aren’t what they used to be. The money isn’t there for local papers to employ as many journalists as they used to and because of this local journalism has become less about actual reporting and more about recycling press releases. This isn’t because the new breed of local journalist doesn’t care about proper reporting. It’s just that when you are being told by the higher ups that you have to produce x amount of stories in a very short time then some things slip. That’s just economics. Twenty people trying to do the job of thirty are always going to have a harder time.

This is a shame, I think, because it deprives a community of one of its greatest assets. A proper local paper will know the area it covers back to front. It will know all the shortcuts, all the people worth talking to, and its reach and contacts will be limitless. For example the News Shopper’s patch also includes Woolwich. When Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered, they were among the first on the scene, and were able to cover the story in a way that has earned them congratulations from a lot of people. Other more famous news outlets were asking them for quotes, as they knew that they would know the details better than anyone else on the ground, bar the police.

Local newspapers can do more to inform a community about what’s going on in their local area than possibly any other form of communication. And bigger news groups can also find a use for them. Sometimes – as in the case of the guy who escaped from Southend Crown Court – the local press, by benefit of being on the scene, is able to break stories before the big boys get there. They can be an unending source of useful and interesting stories.

Of course they have their flaws as well. In an attempt to cover their costs, they can often come off looking like they contain more adverts than news. But that’s a minor disadvantage when compared to all of the major advantages that local papers have.

Lastly, by not buying local papers or reading them, or paying them any attention, we are depriving ourselves of not only a very useful source of information, but also a very, very, important part of our media heritage.

Local newspapers were where it all began, before the nationals arrived. Without them, we would not have the news as we know it today. And a world like that is unthinkable.

Pomp and Glory

Those of you who read my weekly musings regularly will know that I am no fan of the style of knee jerk, jingoistic, patriotism espoused by the likes of the BNP and the EDL. However that does not mean that I am not proud of my country, quite the opposite.

There are many things I love about being British. For example, I love our overall commitment to fair play and decency, the central role of tea in our daily lives, and the fact that we regularly take the mick out of ourselves (mostly so no one else can). But one of the things I love above all is our sense of tradition and ceremony.

I was reminded of this while I was watching the Trooping of the Colour this morning, part of the Queen’s Official Birthday celebrations. What other country in the world could pull off something as amazing as that? Not only does it look amazing, and almost perfectly choreographed, but it is insanely well rehearsed for months in advance. It is hard to picture any other country having the reason, or the time, to pull off something like this. And yet we pull it off again, time and time again, year after year.

We demonstrated it last year with the celebrations for the Jubilee as well. I dare those of you who watched it to say that the river pageant wasn’t inspiring, amazing and downright beautiful at times as well. The same was true of the Olympics’ Opening Ceremony. When we as a country want to show off, when we pull out all of the stops, then prepare to be amazed.

There are lots of things wrong with the country at the moment, not least the fact that we have a government beset with infighting, which seems to be making an extra special effort not to make people’s lives better, but to make them much, much worse. Our economy is still not great and not showing any signs of getting better, and it can seem at times as if we have lost everything that once made us a great nation. It is this feeling that groups like the BNP and UKIP feed upon and use to gain positions of influence and power.

The thing is they are wrong. All the things that used to make us a great country still do. The recession hasn’t dented them, nor has it destroyed them. The things that make us great were never physical things, like industrial prowess, or an empire. They were things I mentioned earlier, our shared sense of history, our shared culture and traditions. They still exist. They are not physical things, but things that exist in the very fabric of our island, that are bound into the very souls of the people who live here. They are eternal, unaffected by the stresses of daily life. All we have to do is look at the Trooping of the Colour, or the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, or take a walk up to a building older than some countries, to discover that we are still, and always shall be, great.

Survivor is Exactly the Right Word

I’m a cancer survivor.

I don’t talk about it very often, but I am. In December 2010, just a few weeks shy of Christmas, I was told that I had testicular cancer, and would be beginning a nine week course of chemotherapy early in the New Year. Those few weeks changed my life, both for the better and for the worse.

So reading that by 2020, a scant seven years from now, almost half of the people living in this country will suffer from cancer at some point in their lifetime unsettled and upset me. I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone, not even my worst enemy, and the fact that most of those people will survive isn’t much of a comfort.

But what really caught my eye about the article was the fact that it used the word “survive”. They won’t recover from cancer. They will survive it. I know that it was meant in the sense that they won’t die from it, but it struck me in a completely different way. From my perspective you don’t recover from cancer. You simply survive it if you are lucky.

To pull out an exhausted military metaphor, having cancer is like fighting a war. It takes all your energy, all your time, all your focus. It takes everything you have and offers nothing in return. It wounds you and leaves you with scars, some physical and obvious, some not so much. And if you are lucky, if you are very, very lucky, sometimes you get to walk away at the end and say that you have survived it. You come through the other side, but you are not, and never will be, the same person you were before. And cancer will never leave you, it will always be there in the background, haunting everything you are and everything you do.

I know it has affected me. I still dread my regular outpatients appointments, even though I know I have nothing to fear now, and I still wince every time I hear mention of someone else getting cancer, both because I know how it feels and because I know that but for the grace of God it could be me again. Cancer is something that, once you have it, stays with you, silent but always present.

To borrow a quote from the TV show Firefly, “No one leaves Serenity Valley. They just learn to live there.” Similarly you only ever recover from cancer physically. But the other than that, you just have to learn to live with it. You don’t just wake up the day after you final chemo and think “I am now done with cancer.” You wake up the day after you final chemo session and think “This is day one PC. Post cancer.” It changes your life forever, and the best you can do is not let it overwhelm you or take over your life.

My name is William Davie. And I am a cancer survivor.

 

 

MPs Are Not For Hire.

There is nothing wrong with people asking MPs for help or asking MPs if they can bring up in Parliament issues dear to their hearts. That’s why we are a representative democracy. As much as politicians quite often do a bad job of representing their constituents – or the views of anyone other than themselves – that is what their job is about. Representing people’s views.

The problem comes when MPs are not representing the views of their constituents – Mrs Bloggs and her twenty seven dogs – but the views of a huge interest group or a multinational corporation like British Airways, and are not doing it out of a sense of duty, or because it is a job that they have been elected to, but in exchange for a substantial fee. When this happens, it appears as if our representatives are in fact up for hire.

I suspect many in Westminster had hoped that the scandal of lobbying and special interests had ended, and that they would be able to move on. Having promised to tighten the regulations regarding lobbying, they could quietly shelve the legislation when no-one was looking. But with the revelation that backbench Conservative MP Stephen Mercer has been taking money from the dictatorial government of Fiji in exchange for lobbying on their behalf, the whole sorry mess is back in the spotlight

It is easy to understand why lobbying takes place. After all, corporations – while not people – have needs as well and if it looks like government legislation is going to have an impact on their business it is only logical that they will want to express their opinion. And while a public service, or perhaps because of it, being an MP is hardly the most lucrative business in the world, you don’t go into it if you want to make money. Under those circumstances it is understandable that they might be tempted by the offer of a little extra money on the side, for doing no more than ask a question.

The problem is that while it is understandable, this practice undermines everything that government should be about; in fact it undermines our entire democracy. The point of the British system of government, and the reason that it has been adopted around the world, is that it is the people, serving the people. It is supposed to be, and should be, about helping and serving the people on the ground, who just want to make a living and raise a family. But if their needs are being bumped to the bottom of the pile, if their questions aren’t being asked, because someone else has paid for the privilege then the whole system simply falls apart.

If MPs are just mouthpieces for hire, available to whoever has the biggest chequebook then our entire system of government, all the work that has been done down the centuries, by thousands of people, to reach a system which is open and fair to all, is for naught. Don’t worry about voting next time around. The whole system has already been bought and paid for.

 

The UK is no place for Fascists

Hands up if you are one hundred per cent pure blood English. If your ancestors came over from anywhere, be it on the Windrush, with the Norman invasion in 1066, or in a Viking longboat, please proceed to Dover and leave immediately. That’s the mind-set of Tommy Robinson and Nick Griffin, leaders of the English Defence League and the British National Party respectively, and never mind that that would leave the UK with a population of about six people.

The events in Woolwich on Wednesday were horrible and have rightly been condemned by everyone from David Cameron to the head of the Muslim Council of Britain. However, I find it disturbing that any Muslim body has to distance themselves from lunatic extremists due to people not being able to tell the difference (you don’t see the Archbishop of Canterbury having to apologise every time the Westboro Baptist Church does something offensive) and what I find even more disturbing is that what happened in Woolwich has returned Britain’s far right groups to prominence. Despite the BNP being bankrupt and down to one MEP, Nick Griffin was on the front page of the Independent today. This incident has given Britain’s neo-fascist organisations, previously collapsing in on themselves, a foothold back into the national psyche.

The fact that these groups still exist is disappointing enough. But the fact that they would use the murder of a solider, a man who served and represented this country to the best of his ability, as an excuse to go “See. We told you we were right. You should have listened to us,” is not only disgusting, but goes against everything they claim to represent.

The United Kingdom has never been about one culture, or one race, or one group of people. We are an island nation, made up of all of those who down the centuries have come here, settled, and called it home, sometimes conquering, sometimes simply emigrating, and who have in time added to what makes Britain, Britain. If you try to take that away, by blaming immigrants for all the problems, or by trying to assert that Britain is only a place for white people, then you are taking away the very thing that makes us who we are, our diversity and our acceptance of diversity. That is why far right fascism has never caught on, and why the rise of UKIP is so terrifying.

The EDL claim that they are “defending” the English. But what does being English, or being British, mean? If you ask me, it is about more than just nationality, it is a state of mind, a state of being. If you believe that you are English, if you think of yourself as British, then as far as I’m concerned that’s all you need. Regardless of where you came from originally, if you think of England as your home, then you are more than welcome within the boundaries of what Shakespeare called “this scepted isle.”

                                                                                                                                                            

Bad Atmosphere

I didn’t think there was a more stupid government appointment made by the Coalition than making Richard Benyon, the Undersecretary of State for Natural Environment, Water and Rural Affairs. Put the richest MP, who also happens to be a massive land owner and a passionate hunter in charge of animals and the countryside? Great idea!  Until, that is, Mr Cameron appointed George Eustace as his new advisor on energy and climate change.  George “I hate Wind farms” Eustace.

Number Ten has suffered a bit of a climate change exodus recently with several of Cameron’s advisers chucking in the towel. It’s not surprising really. Despite Cameron attempting to make the Tories more green friendly– including changing the party logo to that ridiculous tree –, just like the other two major parties, the Conservatives attitude to the problem of climate change can best be summed up as “We’re not pulling out of the Kyoto Protocols. What more do you want?”

The answer is a lot more. Climate change is a major problem, and one that if not tackled will hamstring the planet within the next few generations. According to Greenpeace, if you scale down the age of the earth to forty six years, humans have only existed for the last hour and in the last minute we have destroyed or used up more of the earth’s resources than we can hope to replace. We are doing a bad job of safeguarding the planet for future generations and the government should be doing everything possible to ensure that in fifty years’ time we aren’t all walking around wearing smog masks like they do in downtown Tokyo.

But it probably won’t. It will take a lot to convince the government to get off its backside and do something because, at the end of the day, there is no profit in renewable energy research. In fact ,  it takes more money to set up then it would initially save, thereby costing people money. On the other hand, there is a lot of money in oil and other more proven energy sources. The government has to balance a need to save money with a need to save the planet and at the end of the day it’s clear which way that particular dice will fall.  When it comes to a choice between people and profit, profit always wins in the end.

One day, and maybe one day soon, we are going to have to face up to the mistakes we have made when it comes to the climate. I’m not saying we are facing a ‘Day after Tomorrow’ style extinction event, but whatever happens it’s not going to be good. Then we will realise what we should have been doing all along. Of course by then it will be too late. The time to do something is now, while we still have a chance to change things. But until something does happen, a bad atmosphere will still hang over Westminster. An atmosphere of inactivity and unbelief that will probably never go away.

 

The Green's Need Better PR

Okay. Pop quiz time.

First question. Can you name the leaders of UKIP and the Green Party of England and Wales? I imagine you can name Nigel Farage fairly easily, but I doubt Natalie Bennett is the first name that springs to your mind. Now second question. Which of those two parties actually has an MP? The answer to that would be the Greens, who have held Brighton Pavilion since the 2010 election.

This raises a serious question. Considering that the best UKIP can claim is a some local councillors and a smattering of MEPs, while the Greens have councillors, two London Assembly Members, some MEPs and a Member of Parliament, how come Farage gets so much more coverage? You can barely turn on the TV nowadays without seeing Farage’s face on your screen, while we’re lucky to see Caroline Lucas (the Green Party’s MP) once in a blue moon.

For starters this puts an end to any claims that the media – and especially the BBC – has any sort of liberal bias. If that was the case, then we would be seeing a lot more of the Greens (who are a left wing party after all) and a lot less of the party consisting of what Ken Clarke called “fruitcakes and clowns”. However, it can also be seen as a scathing indictment of the Greens’ PR strategy, or rather lack of one.

For all their faults – and they have many – UKIP do a very good job of getting their message across and tapping into their core constituency of dissatisfied middle Englanders. And while they may once have been seen as a single issue party, they have recently done a very good job of developing and presenting a wider manifesto. The Greens, by contrast, haven’t done and are still seen as the party of hippy liberal tree huggers, who put the environment before everything else and think homeopathy should be available on the NHS. It also doesn’t help that recently all the major parties, have started to address environmental concerns in their manifestos, thereby competing with the Greens on the one point where they have the most expertise. It also doesn’t help that while UKIP have benefited from a split in the right wing of the UK political spectrum, whatever their differences, the left has done a solid job of rallying around Labour, denying the Greens an opening.

One may be coming though. Come the election in 2015, there may be some left wing voters who, while desperate to remove the Tories, still don’t trust Miliband with the keys to the kingdom. While previously these voters may have voted for the Lib Dems, their behaviour over the last three years in government has more or less ruled them out as a potential protest vote. This is where the Greens have a chance. If they can improve their PR and widen their message, then they may have a chance to pick up dissatisfied left wing voters who are unhappy with the parties on offer, in the same way that UKIP have been able to pick up dissatisfied right wingers.

The Greens have two years to get themselves noticed and to get their voice heard. They’d better get a move on.