There’s nothing like a bit of bad whether to get the British quaking in their boots. The roads become gridlocked, people cower in their houses and absentee rates at work rocket. My experience on “Windy Thursday” was somewhat more irritating. I got a parking ticket. Why? Because I “had failed to display it properly”. The annoying this is that the traffic warden had a point because I had put it on the dashboard the wrong way up. Or that’s what he thought. Actually, I hadn’t, but when I closed the car door the wind had blown it around and the ticket had landed the wrong up. So I can blame the wind for the £50 fine. And I hadn’t even had a curry…
Isn’t it odd that it only took five minutes for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to issue a comment about the alleged racist bullying in the Big Brother House, yet it took them five days to comment on the hanging of Saddam Hussein. Doesn’t that tell you everything about the warped priorities of those who seek to govern us?
It was a slightly off feeling on Wednesday to be at the centre of a political and media storm. The previous night I had interviewed former Downing Street Spin Doctor Lance Price on my 18 Doughty Street internet TV channel. Price told me that it hadn’t been Alastair Campbell who had described Gordon Brown as psychologically flawed – it had in fact been Tony Blair all along. Scenting a bit of a scoop I sent the transcript out to the lobby journalists and the next thing I knew a Tory MP had asked Tony Blair about it in Prime Minister’s Questions and Gordon Brown was being asked about it on his trip to India. This incident demonstrated to me the power of the extended interview. Most of our interviews are an hour long and because of that you tend to get far more out of political figures than the normal three minute soundbite interview on the BBC.
This week, along with assorted luminaries from the world of journalism, academia and politics, I attended a St George’s House Consultation at Windsor Castle on restoring trust in the media and politics. It proved to be an insightful couple of days. You could split them into two groups – those who recognised the growing influence of the internet on journalism and politics, and those who were sticking their heads in the sand. The fact is that local politicians are increasingly ignoring the normal media outlets to speak to the electorate and engage in two way dialogue. Blogs, websites, email lists and podcasts allow politicians to send out their message in a way that is unfiltered by the media. In some ways this might have more of an effect on a local newspaper like the Eastern Daily Press than some of the nationals. I know of one East Anglian Conservative MP whose local paper refuses to give him much coverage at all, so he’s set up his own Internet TV Channel. West Suffolk MP Richard Spring has set up a blog, where he records his thoughts on a daily basis. He describes the experience as ‘liberating’. This is the future, and both the media and politicians had better get used to it.
At this time of year all the political parties are scratching around, desperately searching for people who are willing to stand at the May local council elections. I hope you’re sitting down when you read the next sentence… Have you ever considered standing? No, I thought not, but I’m urging you to do so now. If we’re to reinvigorate our local democracy we need more people willing to serve their local communities and we need a more diverse range of people who become councillors. Too often, especially in rural areas, our councils are dominated by those who have reached retirement age. This is not an attack on councillors over the age of sixty at all, but I would hope they would agree with me that it is not healthy when we can’t seem to attract public service workers, housewives or young people to stand for local elections. Being a local councillor can be a hugely rewarding experience and you don’t have to be steeped in party politics to enjoy it. We all have a responsibility to reinvigorate democracy both at a local and national level. So if you want to find out more about what being a councillor involves look at your local council’s website, visit their offices or contact the local office of whichever political party you feel closest to. Or if you can’t face doing that, just send me an email and I’ll point you in the right direction.
I’m not sure what Elsie Bertram would have made of the sale of her beloved Bertram Books to CD & DVD wholesalers Entertainment UK. Bertrams have been hugely successful in book wholesaling and have a very loyal customer base all round the country. But as bookshops chains merge and gobble up independent bookshops I am not sure I see a very bright future for book wholesalers. Sony have just launched a book equivalent of the iPod. If this ever takes off then I see a very bleak future indeed for high street bookshops. Online bookselling has already stripped away a huge segment of the retail market and its share will continue to grow at a fast rate. If I had shares in Waterstone’s I’d be selling them pretty quickly.
