Has the Independent had its day?

It would appear that the Independent’s future may be more perilous than was previously thought. It has been widely acknowledged for some time that the paper has had financial problems, with losses reputed to be in the region of £10 million a year, leading to workforce reductions and the Independent’s remaining staff being forced to rent office space in the Daily Mail’s headquarters of all places.

A source who prefers not to be named has told me that the paper is now being invoiced on a daily basis for its distribution, after its circulation has continued to drop, now below 200,000 copies per day, posing ever deeper questions about its financial viability. The paper’s ownership deserve much credit for keeping the Independent running for as long as they have, in the face of the losses they have incurred over recent years; the renascence it enjoyed after becoming the first ‘compact’ broadsheet seems so long ago now.

Should the Independent go, the political balance of the British press will become even weaker than it already is. Of the major titles the Mirror is alone in representing the left, and with the Guardian, the Independent representing a centrist viewpoint. All of the rest firmly support a right-wing view of the world, spreading pessimism and pandering to irrational fear. Clearly the circulation figures suggest the British public prefer their news to represent this view and the dominance of the tabloid format hints at unwillingness to read a story expanded beyond the bare facts.

I hope the Independent can survive, it seems sad to me that virtually all newspaper sales are focused on such a narrow point of view. We need papers that challenge the prevailing opinion; opposing the Iraq war, promoting environmental issues, supporting civil liberties and campaigning for electoral reform to fix Britain’s crooked politics.  What other paper would run a blank front page with simply "WHITEWASH?" printed to display their contempt at an establishment cover up?

Leave the Tent and Bunker: bring politics back into the open.

This week has been an interesting one for those of a political bent. It started with an Ipsos MORI poll showing that the Tories' lead has been reduced to 6 points, producing Conservative fear, Labour hope and a combination of both for those of us in the Lib-Dems. In the event of a hung parliament we have a difficult choice; to prop up an unpopular Labour Government, to form a coalition with the Tories who would refuse to offer constitutional reform - a fundamental Lib-Dem condition, or to do neither and allow a minority government. The latter would be my preference, which would mean the Lib-Dems wouldn’t be sullied by Red/Blue policies and leave us as power brokers in parliament; whoever was in government would have to tailor legislation to get liberal support.



We could have moved from Blair’s ‘Big Tent’, via Brown’s ‘Bunker’ into a brief period of compromise and government by consent.


Then we had an unusually exciting Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, with David Cameron attacking Labour over giving public money to an alleged extremist organisation, namely Hizb ut-Tahrir, via a ‘front’ organisation running two schools in the South-East. If true then this is an extraordinary revelation; £113,000 pounds of tax payers money, possibly from the Pathfinder fund set up to combat extremism, being given over to an organisation who are reported to have stated that: “Jews should be killed wherever you find them” and their constitution states of non-Muslims that: “their blood is lawful, as is their property.” The Government have denied that the money came from its Pathfinder scheme; however this misses the point, why an organisation like this is running schools in the first place? Most would accept that any public money handed over to them is outrageous, though until the full details emerge we should perhaps reserve judgement.

After this we had Nick Clegg strike a direct hit on Gordon Brown over the Chilcot Enquiry into the contentious Iraq War. Clegg first asked the PM to confirm the enquiry was to be open and transparent, save on matters of national security. The PM stated: “I have set out a remit and brought it to the House of Commons. Sir John Chilcot has been given the freedom to conduct his inquiry as he wants. He has chosen to invite people to give evidence, and he will choose how to bring his final report to the public. That is a matter for the inquiry.” Clegg responded: “As I think the Prime Minister must know, the matter is not just for the inquiry, because his Government have just issued a protocol - I have it here - to members of the inquiry, governing the publication of material in the final report. If he reads it, he will see that it includes nine separate reasons why information can be suppressed, most of which have nothing to do with national security. Outrageously, it gives Whitehall Departments individual rights of veto over the information in the final report. Why did the Prime Minister not tell us about that before? How on earth will we, and the whole country, hear the full truth of the decisions leading up to the invasion of Iraq if the inquiry is suffocated on day one by his Government’s shameful culture of secrecy?”

Not quite as open as we had been led to believe then – we shouldn’t forget the PM wanted this enquiry to be held behind closed doors, I can only assume because it severely embarrasses many of those still in government, himself included, which exposes how they knowingly and willingly led this country into war on the basis of lies and spin.


For those who want to know the full truth of this sorry episode of British foreign policy, I fear we shall have to wait for the 30 year rule to be implemented.

Horizon – Money for old rope?

When I read the synopsis for this week’s offering of Horizon (BBC2) I let out an audible sigh, and set my expectations to disappointment. Alan Davies, sometime comedian, panellist and mediocre actor was ‘on a quest’ to find the length of a piece of string, leading him 'on a journey’ into the field of quantum mechanics. Hilarity all round then, we start off with a cliché, Alan can look comically befuddled and add some bons-mots on the not so funny world that is the incredibly small.

It is only fair to set my stall out early; I am a huge fan of the Horizon format. Over the years they have made some brilliant, ground breaking and informative documentaries; a task that fulfilled the BBC’s role as a public service broadcaster.

It was not however a huge ratings winner, and in the modern world of the Beeb this can mean only one thing – fuck about with the format. The popular tool to ‘fix’ the documentary format these days is either the docudrama, usually reserved for historical subject matter and when done well can be good; however when done badly resembles a metaphorical car crash between a Jane Austin novel and a 1972 Open University broadcast.

The other tool in tele-land is the modern favourite that if in doubt; slap a celebrity on it, the great panacea of our age. This is especially galling when done to the documentary format, even more so when it’s done badly and inexcusable when done to Horizon.

This week’s subject matter of Quantum Mechanics is an incredibly complex branch of physics. Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize for physics said: “if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics”, so I was eager to see what light Alan Davies would shine on a science which Einstein himself was troubled by and unsurprisingly the answer was very little.

It gave the impression that after Alan had got his piece of string, measured it and chatted to a couple of kooky scientists that the producers had managed to fill 30 minutes of the hour long show. Rather than expanding on the science they chose to fill the remaining time with some baffling sequences of Alan mumbling with slow motion shots of him wandering down the road; brow furrowed, clutching his piece of string. There were also lots of echoed replays of segments of Alan’s discourse, maybe too strong a term, with the physicists; brow furrowed, clutching his piece of string.

Horizon used to be the only vehicle on TV where those of us interested in science, expanding our minds and maybe challenging our understanding could go. The public service aspect of the Beeb has been gnawed away by executives who believe the only validation of a program is large ratings. It seems that the idea TV can be good; with a loyal if not huge audience is an antediluvian concept these days. I would like to grab those who have diluted Horizon to this travesty of a show by the ears and suggest if they want to make vacuous, celeb obsessed nonsense then they should piss off and work on Strictly Come Dancing, or some other cranially challenging format.

Next week’s Horizon: Flogging a Dead Horse – Les Dennis examines Keynesian Economics using a dead horse to illustrate the free market, followed by this week’s guest Question Time host – Jordan aka Katie Price. God help us all!

Power sharing: Is Britain equitable?

I've just handed a politics essay in, part of which was to analyse how democratic Britain is, and to select two criteria which I felt a good democracy should possess. 

The first criterion was a little technocratic; that the legislature should have sufficient power to scrutinise and be able to hold the executive to account.  This is important stuff, though I freely admit a bit boring unless you happen to be a political geek like myself.

The second criterion that I chose was more topical; that minority ethnic groups should not be excluded from the decision making process and therefore should be fully represented in all institutions of power.  To quote George Orwell's "All animals are equal ..." is a lazy cliche, but there we go; is our democratic system equitable, or is latent inequality the status quo?


When examining minority ethnic participation within positions of power and responsibility, we first need to define the proportion of the British population defined as being from minority ethnic groups. If we take the 2001 census as the most recent accurate source, then minority ethnic groups form 9.1% of the English, 2.1% of Welsh and 2% of the Scottish populations; and 7.9% of the United Kingdom as a whole. We should expect there to be a correlation between these figures when we examine minority ethnic participation within government and public life, if the second of my criteria is to be met.

I looked at a Parliamentary report from 2008 by Ben Smith titled Ethnic Minorities in Politics, Government and Public Life which examined this question, from which I have highlighted some examples.

The Executive:

Within the executive there are currently no cabinet ministers from a minority ethnic group, however there have been in the past; former Labour MP Paul Boateng (right) being the first in 2002.  At the time the report was published there were 122 ministerial positions; of which 7 were held by members of minority ethnic backgrounds, which represents 5.7% of the total.

The Civil Service:

The civil service as a whole employed 7.6% of its staff from minority ethnic groups in 2002, rising to 8.3% in 2008, higher than the 2001 census figures; however when we examine senior positions it is 2.9% rising to 4% respectively, and is therefore under represented by minority ethnic groups.

Quangos (Quasi autonomous non-governmental organisations):

Quangos are undemocratic institutions relying on patronage; however they do hold real power within the British system. In 1992 only 2% of participants were selected from minority ethnic groups, this had risen by 2007 to 9.2% in England, 4% in Wales and 3% in Scotland. This means that Quangos are now well represented when referenced to the 2001 census figures; however there is no mention to what proportion of senior roles come from minority ethnic groups.

The Legislature:

In The House of Commons there have periodically been MPs from minority ethnic groups, the first being David Sombre in 1841. The first woman from a minority ethnic group was Diane Abbott (left), who with Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant and Keith Vaz became the first MPs since the Second World War to come from these groups. There are currently fifteen MPs from minority ethnic groups; this represents a distinct lack of representation, there should be fifty-one to equate to the 2001 census proportion. The House of Lords currently does not provide figures on the ethnic identity of its membership; however it is fair to assume that it is under represented as most Lords are drawn from The House of Commons.


Local Government:

When examining local councillors elected in 2006 he found 4.1% were from minority ethnic groups, therefore well below the census figures and Smith tells us that minority ethnic women are “severely under represented” at this level of government.

The Judiciary:

According to statistics on The Judiciary of England and Wales website; there are no minority ethnic judges above the level of High Court Judge, and at this level 3.5% are represented. When looking at the judiciary as a whole, 4.5% are represented by minority ethnic groups, with women being well represented as reported by The Judiciary of England and Wales (2009). This is the only example of minority ethnic women being well represented in a position of power; why the lower levels of the judiciary is the platform that this occurs is not explained.

So then what are we to make of all these statistics? It is clear that minority ethnic groups are under represented in government, and we could expand this criticism to include women in general, the disabled, gay groups as well as people from working class backgrounds.  It isn't all bad news though, the statistics do show that the lower echelons of government are becoming more representative, however this has yet to translate to senior roles.  I will return to this subject in the New Year; I have yet to write part two of my essay and I wouldn't want to be accused of plagiarising myself!

I will say however that we should be concerned that British democracy isn't representative of society, it raises the anecdotal question of how deeply entrenched; latent racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia and disabled discrimination are within large segments of British society.  It is also concerning that the vast majority of those in power come from an extremely narrow background, namely; upper-middle class, white, Ox-bridge educated men.  It seems improbable to me that they will represent all of society, when they have similar vested interests to protect.

I think the more Diane Abbotts, Paul Boatengs, Simon Hugheses (below) and David Blunketts there are in British politics then the better we will be as a society, and the less disenfranchised we will be as a whole.

Means testing is mean:

I went to see the dentist for his six monthly poke about in my mouth last week.
It was unsettling this time for a couple of reasons, primarily because of the untimely death of my dentist of eight years earlier this summer. John Bue was a lovely man, who always seemed pleased to see me and despite his incredibly busy schedule always found time for a chat; he was a Liverpool and I a Newcastle fan, as such we would bemoan the failings of our respective teams at length. For someone I barely knew, his passing away deeply saddened me and he shall be greatly missed.

The other unsettling thing was a little more unexpected, for you see I am now a full time student, so I was looking forward to receiving my dental care for free! It isn't a case of free loading; I have a very tight budget, and £20 is a lot of money to me now. I booked my next appointment and when the receptionist asked for payment, I meekly informed her that I was a student and didn't have to pay. Somewhat to my surprise, she told me I had to fill out an application form, and if successful, I would be able to get a refund; no problem I thought!

When I got home and pulled the strangely weighty tome from its brown envelope. I thought I had picked the wrong form up, but no, you have to fill out a twenty page booklet asking a stream of hugely irrelevant and intrusive questions about every aspect of your financial income and personal details. One question was about how many breakfasts you receive as part of any rent! If you have a partner you must also inform the NHS police of their details too.

Fair enough, I hear you say. It probably stops benefit fraud, you've nothing to hide. Whats the problem?

Well, apart from being a irksome waste of my time, students have to provide term dates, even though it acknowledges on the form universities operate on a semester basis, requiring a pointless trip to admin to generate some official meaningless dates. Apart from free dental care being my right when Labour created the NHS. Apart from the inevitable tower of waste and bureaucracy that administering this over the top new system must cost, will surely out weigh any counter fraud savings.

It sums the current government up, a minority of people were wrongly claiming for free dental care and prescriptions. So what do you do to solve this problem? Most people would suggest maybe punishment of those who steal health care, not New Labour. Their solution is the creation of an expensive bureaucracy, an intrusive waste of time for those who have an entitlement to free care, and yet another means test. It seems that Labour have forgotten the principles of the NHS which it founded sixty-five years ago, and it could be argued they have done very little of merit since.