Month: November 2012

           The BBC Trust appointed Mr Entwistle as Editor in Chief and Director General, only to accept his resignation shortly afterwards.  Mr Entwistle had not resolved the first Newsnight crisis, and allowed the second one. Both problems were the same issue – very poor journalism.

          If the BBC is to continue to recruit mainly pro EU global warming hawks to its main news programmes, doesn’t the Trust have a duty to represent all the licence payers who do not agree with these viewpoints? Shouldn’t it be the voice for balance?

              The Newsnight child abuse disasters  look as if they sought to protect the BBC from accusations about child abuse in the Savile scandal, and to wrongly incriminate a leading Conservative of the Thatcher era instead for the North Wales problems, whilst playing down the role of Clwyd County Council who were responsbile for  the children’s home and social service department which were involved.

          Isn’t it time for the Trust to demand proper journalist standards? It could ask why the BBC has spent a lot of money blocking FOI requests seeking to find out how balanced the BBC is in its approach to energy policy and global warming.

Shouldn’t the BBC news and current affairs side seek to represent the spectrum of views on big topics that characterise our democratic debate, without fear or favour?

          Today I will attend the Remembrance Day Parade in Burghfield in the morning, and in Wokingham in the afternoon. I will lay wreaths in memory of the fallen in the two world wars and more recent conflicts on behalf of my constituents.

          There has been a lot written about this. Reporters tell us some close to the government have briefed that Mr Obama’s victory is a good omen for Conservatives, because he too is an incumbent presiding over difficult economic times. His victory shows a Conservative victory is possible in 2015.

          I am all for a Conservative victory in 2015. If the government does the right things from here such a victory is possible.  However,  we cannot  deduce it from Mr Obama’s win. US and UK politics are very different. The US does not have the overarching problem of the EU and the erosion of its powers of self government, nor does it have our proximity to the Euro and control from Burssels over many important aspects of our economic life. UK Conservatives are not heavily influenced by Christian movements. US attitudes to self help and working are tougher than UK attitudes. If the Conservatives do and say the right things about the EU, about  how they will go about getting a new relationship,they can pick up support. If the recovery gathers pace in the last couple of years of this Parliament the economic position could also be better for the Conservatives.They can get support for good immigration and welfare policies which get more people back to work or in work for the first time.

            The political arithmetic is also, however,  very different between the UK and the US. Mr Obama scored a good victory in 2008. He  attracted 52.9% of the popular vote. This election he merely  needed to hold on to most of that to win. He lost 2.4% of the popular vote which still left him in the lead. Mr Cameron only attracted 36% of the popular vote in 2010, not enough to win. He needs to attract 4-6% more of the popular vote in 2015 to win, so he needs to make himself and his party more popular. He does not have Mr Obama’s luxury of losing votes.

            If the UK is to emulate the US relative success with economic recovery, the government does have to make more progress in mending the banks, and in delivering cheaper energy. The US economy has outperformed ours so far this decade, thanks primarily to going for cheap gas and getting on with sorting out the banks and property values.

             I have felt sorry for “the senior Conservative of the Thatcher era” ever since the Newsnight programme alleged that he  had committed  paedophile crimes, inviting people to trawl the internet to find out more. His friends could not protest his innocence, for fear of naming him when they knew he was innocent.

             The Savile case and the “senior Conservative of the Thatcher era ” case have one thing in common – very poor journalism. If you are going to intervene  in the exposure and apprehension of serious criminals, you need to get your facts right, you need to have evidence with witnesses, and you need to put the accusations to the accused to see what the defence is going to be. Apparently in the Macalpine case the BBC failed to check that the person accused by their one witness was the correct person, failed to find any supporting evidence for the accusations, and failed to ask the accused what he thought of it. Meanwhile, with the Savile case, there was a failure to unearth all the evidence from a multitude of witnesses, and to produce a programme which delivered the weight of evidence now thought to be out there.

             Some  Conservatives feel particularly unhappy about the way this has been treated. Of course the treatment of the wrongly accused is the worst feature, but they are not happy that in a fairly unsuccessful attempt to disguise his name the Conservative party was accused of harbouring a paedophile in the Thatcher era. Some Conservatives will ask why the unnamed person had to be described in this way. Would the BBC have said a senior figure of the Callaghan or Wilson era, if the dates had been different, or were they as often seems the case, out to attack Margaret Thatcher?  Would they have constantly repeated the word Labour, if the senior figure had been from that party, or sufficed themselves with a general word like politician? Why, in the North Wales abuse cases, did the BBC not constantly refer also to Clwyd Council, the  Council responsible for the childrens’   homes? Clwyd was certainly not a Conservative Council. Why did  they not add the Labour party label to a very nasty set of incidents if they thought the fact that it was a national Conservative government mattered? Why didn’t the unpublished Clwyd report into the abuse crisis become a matter of interest, as well as the wide  ranging enquiry ordered and published by Conservative Ministers?

           I like to think that Ministers and senior Councillors of any colour would wish to let the police and prosecuting authorities get to the bottom of any hateful crime, without fear or favour.All decent Conservative and Labour people condemn child abuse as one of the worst crimes. The BBC should be careful about trying to give a party gloss on crime, especially when it gets the accusations wrong.

          It’s time to ask you what you think about the PCC elections so far.  We have a few more days to go before polling day.

            Police Commissioners will soon replace the little known Police Committees of co-opted Councillors. They have a duty to agree budgets, set policing priorities and handle complaints for their local police force. So far it has been a fairly quiet election. More recently the BBC has allowed more election debate on the topics that matter in the world of policing.

          Whether you wanted these new posts or not, they are coming and it makes sense to engage with the candidates and tell them what you want from your police force. The Commissioners will have to decide their own budgets – you may want them to keep that bit of the spending down. They need to work well with the Chief Constable, and of course avoid any interference with police independence when it comes to handling cases, collecting evidence and bringing prosecutions. They can make a difference in ensuring that the police service reflects people’s perceptions and worries about crime, by telling people what is happening in countering it, and ensuring resoruces are deployed where it matters. If you want particular types of crime targetted, or if you want a different style of policing, now is the time to say so.

          I was intrigued to hear the UKIP spokesman say as his number one wish  they wanted more women to be in these top jobs, only to  admit UKIP  has just two women candidates. Do you agree with them about more women in these roles?  I see that UKIP is  fighting 24 out of 41, and as so often leaving some of the most federalist areas of the country like South Wales, Gwent and Cleveland without any UKIP offering.   It would be good to have an update from UKIP supporters who are vocal on this site and regularly use it to urge people to vote UKIP in a way supporters of other parties do not do.  How do  they see their party’s fortunes going from here? Who should a UKIP supporter vote for where there is no UKIP candidate?  Do they expect a “break through” in the PCC elections where they do have candidates?

I will be appearing on Any Questions, Radio 4 at 8pm. Rachel Reeves for Labour and David Steel for the Lib Dems will also be on the panel.

              The west is currently attracted to developing more smart bombs and drones. The west wishes to influence overseas countries that might harbour terrorists, and wishes to root out or kill terrorists that could be a threat to the west.

             The drone has a long history. Germany towards the end of the Second World War unleashed V1 and V2 flying bombs on southern England.  Counter measures included seeking to destroy their launch sites, and trying to shoot them down in mid air. The Germans improved their technology to speed them up and to move to mobile or better hidden launchers.

             More recently digital technology has allowed precision use of these fearsome weapons. Western systems allow operators to programme the flying bomb, guided by satellite navigation, to a specific street address many miles away. The method avoids risk to allied western forces, as the bomb can be delivered with no western manpower needed anywhere near the target, either in a plane or on the ground. It can be fairly specific with the target, though its sucess depends on good intelligence, and on the just the right people being  at the location bombed at the moment of impact.

           The technique has its military disadvantages. There is no-one near the target to see the latest conditions on the ground and to authorise the firing from a suitable position. The enemy can claim the bomb did more damage that it actually did. No-one can be sure who, if anyone, was killed by a flying bomb strike on a building. If you are trying to win over hearts and minds, it is not a friendly way to assist. If you need to influence and assist a country into peace loving and democratic ways, you may need troops  on the ground to train and assist local people in establishing law and order. If you are successful at killing terrorists, you may also be successful at helping them recruit more people to their cause. Successful remote bombardment can help the terrorists win over a local  population against the outsider.

             I have no objections to the west developing smarter bombs and drones. They may be needed. I do think the west needs to reflect carefully on where and how often they should be used.  They may be politically counter productive. They can be morally wrong. The west has to recognise there are limits to how far we should go in enforcing our  counter terrorist policy by authorised murder rather than through inter governmental and legal process.  Our best protection against terrorist attack at home is good intelligence allied to proper control of our borders. Anyone authorising or triggering a smart bomb would be wise to ask for legal cover in our jurisdiction against possible future legal  charges, and will need to remember that the country receiving the bomb may take a different view of its legalities. It is, of course, simpler where a state of war exists. There the issue of authorising the death of people is governed by the rules of engagement.  In some case now smart bombs are sent into countries where no war has been declared.

                   There is a lot to be said for encouraging and supporting high professional standards. They are the complement to demanding high quality from industrial and service companies.  In both cases there are market pressures to lift standards and quality. Competitive forces will tend to raise standards where they matter to customers. It happens naturally in industries and services where it is obvious if quality and standards are not high enough.

                     It is such market forces which have delivered cars which are better made, last longer, have a much wider range of comforts and conveniences, and are more reliable. Modern car makers have to install strong  quality systems, instil  the message of quality in their workorce, and seek to designing poor quality out of their factories. A 2012 car is so much better, with so much better performance and specification, than a 1972 car.

                   In professional services there is now a stronger emphasis on continuous education for those wishing to maintain their practising certificate within their profession. Some see this as a benign process, seeking to emulate the obvious succcess of quality management in business. Others question the value of some of the work done given the cause of maintaining and enhancing professional standards. At its best the programmes of professional improvement are genuinely programmes to raise standards. At worst they can degenerate into box ticking exercises where people have to reproduce the agreed consensus for the sake of the gapfill exam, or into ways of perpetrating a collective error in approach and limiting competitive forces.

                 I would be interested in your experiences and  thoughts on this topic. It goes to heart of how much regulation of the professions and services should be statutory, how much should be undertaken by professional bodies, and how much should be left to consumer choice and the differences of the market?  We also need to consider why the public sector does not have the same robust approach to quality management and improvement of standards as much of the private sector.

          When Mr Cameron sits down this evening with say more than “No” to higher EU spending.  He needs to explain that the UK needs a new relationship with the EU. They may not wish to control their debts and deficits by less EU spending but we do. We do not wish to contribute to a flawed and expensive regional policy, nor to a wasteful and unfriendly agricultural poloicy. We could these for ourselves more cheaply and efficiently.

           Euroland may well need to spend more and transfer more money from rich to poor. The UK has no wish to be part of this, and needs a new relationship. If they ignore this the UK will simply have to veto and veto again.