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Party political broadcast for………..the General Election 2010. Talking about the Elephant in the room

May 3 2010

At dinner parties it is one of the subjects you should avoid. But this week, more than any other week it is the subject on everyone’s minds and lips. The General Election campaign has only two more days to run. So which party are you going to vote for? Oh sorry, you haven’t made up your mind yet? Oh, they are all the same these political parties when they get into power? Was it not Labour who said they would ensure the end of sleaze? Hmmm….

Well, time then that I offered you some help isn’t it? All the information is there on the internet. It is probably just that you haven’t had time to read it.

So if we contain our analysis to the matter of climate change, the environment and the green policies which our new government will adopt, that will help to establish the differences between the main parties won’t it?

OK, so here is what the main parties have to say about their green policies….these are only excerpts and are not meant to tell you absolutely everything they promise, since you can examine each manifesto for yourself on each party’s website if you are interested….(some of them are a bit wordy). But I hope to clear up what they are all saying so that you can clearly see the individual message of each party.

So first of all the Conservatives. What do they say?

We need to cut our carbon emissions to tackle the challenge of climate change. but the low carbon economy also provides exciting opportunities for British businesses. We will encourage private sector investment to put Britain at the forefront of the green technology revolution, creating jobs and new businesses across the country……we will create Britain’s first Green Investment Bank – which will draw together money currently divided across existing government initiatives, leveraging private sector capital to finance new green technology start-ups….

All fine stuff…..

We will increase the proportion of tax revenues accounted for by environmental taxes, ensuring that any additional revenues from new green taxes that are principally designed as an environmental measure to change behaviour are used to reduce the burden of taxation elsewhere.

What on earth does this paragraph mean? If this is meant to clearly state what the Tories will do then I am a little mystified…so let’s delve a little deeper….

….rising energy costs hit families hard, so we will create a ‘green Deal’, giving every home up to £6,500 worth of energy improvement measures – with more for hard-to-treat homes – paid for out of savings made on fuel bills over 25 years.

Oh great – that’s how we’ll pay for the new windows then. And they are going to create jobs. And another bank…..

Let’s turn to the Labour Party now……This is what they promise…..

• Achieve around 40 per cent low-carbon electricity by 2020 and create 400,000 new green jobs by 2015.
• Make greener living easier and fairer through ‘pay as you save’ home energy insulation, energy-bill discounts for pensioners and requiring landlords to properly insulate rented homes.

Everyone can play their part in reducing carbon emissions and protecting the environment. Through our requirement that energy companies provide subsidies for insulation, we will ensure that all household lofts and cavity walls are insulated, where practical, by 2015. By 2020 every home will have a smart meter to help control energy use and enable cheaper tariffs; and we will enable seven million homes to have a fuller ‘eco-upgrade’.

We will legislate to introduce ‘Pay As You Save’ financing schemes under which home- energy improvements can be paid for from the savings they generate on energy bills. Already with our new ‘feed- in tariffs’ and incentive for renewable heat, households fitting micro-generation technologies such as solar can earn financial rewards from the energy they generate themselves.

So that’s the new windows and some insulation as well now. All eco-upgraded. Lovely. But they are also talking about creating jobs aren’t they?

And the Lib Dems…..ooh I could get the manifesto Blackberry or Iphone app…..(actually I don’t need them as I only have a Nokia mobile phone….it makes and receives phone calls…)

So what do they say? They plan on:-

Beginning a ten-year programme of home insulation, offering a home energy improvement package of up to £10,000 per home, paid for by the savings from lower energy bills, and make sure every new home is fully energy-efficient by improving building regulations.

Set a target for 40 per cent of UK electricity to come from clean, non-carbon-emitting sources by 2020, rising to 100 per cent by 2050, underpinned by guaranteed price support; and ensure that at least three-quarters of this new renewable energy comes from marine and offshore sources.
Allowing individuals to save through our UK Infrastructure Bank, offering stable long-term returns.

Investing up to £400 million in refurbishing shipyards in the North of England and Scotland so that they can manufacture offshore wind turbines and other marine renewable energy equipment. As part of this scheme we will write off backdated business rates demands from before April 2008 for businesses in ports.

Launching an ‘Eco Cash-Back’ scheme, for one year only, which will give you £400 if you install double glazing, replace an old boiler, or install micro-generation. If you choose micro-generation, you will be able to sell the energy back to the National Grid at a profit, with a more attractive feed-in tariff than under current government plans.

Set aside extra money for schools to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings. They will pay back the loan over time from energy savings, creating a rolling fund to help insulate other public buildings.

Begin a national programme to insulate many more homes paid for by the savings from lower energy bills.

Great – £10K to upgrade the eco-ness of the flat. Fab. New windows, insulation and probably a new boiler now! And they too think that there will be jobs created at refurbished shipyards – in Scotland too! And another bank. Great, just great.

And just because I live in Scotland I get an extra party. (Oh, I do like parties.) Here’s the promise from the SNP (who already run The Scottish Government):-

…it would enable us to save a proportion of our growing energy wealth – from oil and gas today and renewable energy in the future – in an energy Fund. This fund would act like a national savings account – or as the Norwegians describe their fund, a national pension fund – and would deliver greater financial security and an income for Scotland well into the future.

Scotland has enormous green energy potential and the SNP is determined to make the most of this opportunity for our nation. We need to maximise investment in the research and infrastructure so we can turn potential today into tens of thousands of green jobs tomorrow.

Our aim is to increase low carbon employment in Scotland by 60,000 by 2020 as part of our low carbon strategy, with renewable energy supporting 26,000 jobs, emerging low carbon technologies a further 26,000 and environmental management 8,000 more.

At Westminster we will be demanding the release of the Fossil Fuel Levy money so it can be used to deliver £200 million new investment in renewables. This fund can only be used for investment in green energy projects yet the London Treasury still prevents that money from being put to good use to create employment in communities across Scotland.

And we will work to remove obstacles to further investment in wave, tidal and wind generation in Scotland by ending the discriminatory transmission charging regime – a system that sees Scottish generators paying far more to connect to the grid than companies elsewhere in the UK. A generator in Scotland can pay £20 per kilowatt hour while companies in the south of England receive a subsidy. The SNP has worked with the Scottish energy companies to produce an alternative to the current discredited system and remove what has been described by one as a ‘major barrier to investment’.

Taking forward the green economy is of course about more than renewables and that’s why Scotland must be part of the first phase of the proposed UK high speed rail network. This move will boost business and reduce carbon emissions by delivering an effective alternative to domestic flights. It will take 30 years for high speed rail to reach Scotland under Labour or Tory plans and this is not acceptable.

So not much to help us fix up the house, but again loads of new jobs in the renewable energy sector….

And, most importantly Scotland gets top billing. It’s mentioned in every paragraph. I wonder whether the Tories or Labour have actually heard of us here. Well there is some excuse for the Tories – they only have one MP here at the moment anyway, don’t they? Don’t know what Labour think about us Scots…….

That’s today’s political posting then. And I am sure you can clearly see the differences between all the parties now can’t you? Anything that’s unclear just let me know!

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Yes I have baggage!

March 30 2010

Madonna flew into Heathrow with a couple of bags today…..The Telegraph shows her 25 pieces of luggage being hauled by a porter across Terminal 3.

(c) Matrixphotos

So there are two conclusions from this article:-

One is that she was sensibly not flying with British Airways, otherwise she would have been in Terminal 5, and the other is that she was not using the services of one of the cheaper airlines. Notwithstanding my great love of Michael O’Leary I did fall foul of the cabin baggage allowance on a Ryanair flight the other day, meaning an add-on of 35 euros…..

Then I flew a week later with BMI baby from Cardiff to Edinburgh where I was again targeted as the person who would unhappily pay the extra cost of checking a bag, rather than carrying it and placing it into the overhead bin myself.

Now, I have no real problem with being told that I can only fly with restricted luggage. I have become expert at wearing most of my clothes, carrying no make-up, minimal extra gear, and I can usually get most of what I need for travelling into a rucksack. What I have a problem with is that the goalposts are constantly changing according to which airline you use.

My bag did not actually fit into the cabin baggage measuring device at Cardiff airport which BMI Baby provided, but it did fit into the device provided by a competing airline right next to it. It was minimally too big for Baby by only a few centimetres, but would definitely have fitted into the overhead bin. I know this for sure, as some other passengers who travelled on the flight and who had their bags on board, managed to fit their much larger bags into the bin.

The problem I really had with BMI Baby, apart from their rude staff, is that even though each airline issues passengers with dimensions and weight restrictions for on board baggage, these rules were not then pursued properly or fairly. Everyone who had two pieces of baggage should have been made to check one of those. They were not. I believe it is a sensible arrangement as it cuts down on the amount of time that it takes to load the plane, which is important when you are running a cheaper service. (Don’t let me start on the fuss and nonsense some people are guilty of when getting on and off planes ……) But if passengers had bags which were bigger than the allowance – either in weight or size – then the bag police should have dealt with them all fairly, which on this particular occasion they did not.

It may be useful to know what the airlines say…..

Aer Lingus 56cm by 45cm by 25cm and under 10kgs

Ryanair 55cm by 40cm by 20cm and under 10kg

BMI Baby 55cm by 40cm by 20cm and under 10kg

My little bag shown above measures 53cm by 33cm by 23cm and so it seems that it is marginally too big for either Ryanair or BMI Baby and will probably need to be retired or simply consigned to its own luxury in the hold, but you see I have flown on a Ryanair flight at least 80 times previously – with the same bag….

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What do you know?

March 14 2010

If you were suddenly rendered bookless, aimless and Googleless, then what information would you remember from the recesses of your mind? Of course it depends what, if anything, you have put in there in the first place.

Some Burns afficionado would be able to recite the whole of Tam O Shanter which runs for pages, and requires a modicum of acting skill to make it work. My father who is now an octogenarian is still able to tell you the names of the islands which comprise the Inner Hebrides: Rum, Mull, Coll, Tiree…..thanks to a patient teacher he had at primary school.

Most of my early learning (in fact some might also say some of my higher education!) was based on rote learning, and of course once you have put that amount of effort into memorising some facts, then it becomes easier to recall them.

1. i before e except after c. I have always been blessed with an ability to spell. I call it a blessing, and it has been very useful to me throughout my business life thus far, but now that there is something called Spellcheck is this really a necessity? Probably not.

2. The square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. This would be useful if I could remember what application this would have…..

3. Photosynthesis. This is a process by which plants take in carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen. I am sure it is a bit more complicated than that but that is the rudimentary explanation. In light of this it was always a mystery to me why nurses removed flowers and plants from hospital wards in the evenings….

4. Speed equals distance over time. This is particularly useful in estimating arrival time at your destination, working hard to keep yourself awake on long journeys and allows you to go at a different speed from 60 miles per hour simply to make it easy to calculate.

5. 99% of all rapists are themselves the victims of abuse. This I have always found fascinating, and a bit of an insight into why men might rape in the first place. Some date rape scenarios, whilst absolutely not forgivable may become easier to understand, at least by psychiatrists trained to do so, but the motivation for someone to randomly pick out a woman and rape her remains a crime of the highest order in most, if not all, criminal justice systems. If you know however that the perpetrator has themselves been the victim of some abuse, then it will not make it all right but it may allow for a very limited type of empathy in certain limited circumstances. There is no excuse, and it is a horrid crime deserving its status in Scotland as a crime requiring the highest custodial sentence, but my point is that this random fact is an eye-opener.

6. A football pitch is about an acre of land, so if you ever need to visualise an acre then think of a football pitch.

7. If you drive at 40 miles per hour then it will take you 40 feet to bring the car to a halt. Hard to think of many places you can now drive at 40 mph though.

8. “I am just a poor boy though my story’s seldom told. I have squandered my resistance to a pocketful of mumbles such are promises, All lies and jest till a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest…” I could sing most of the verses of Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer. In fact there was a point where I was word perfect on most of the songs on The Bridge Over Troubled Water album, which was the first proper album I ever bought in my own right…..but when I used to sing in a band I could never remember the words of every song perfectly unless I had some prompts – bits of paper stuck in various places around the place! (and a helpful lead guitarist!) I am also word perfect on the scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts goes back to the shop with the snooty saleswoman…..”You work on commission right? Big mistake – Huge!” I love that film, another example of rote learning however. I must have watched it all the way through at least 15 times.

9. 12 old pence in a shilling, 20 shillings in the pound, 21 shillings made a guinea. Horses were bought in guineas, maybe they still are…. It made for fairly artistic arithmetic when everything did not neatly divide by ten, but one had to use some skill in calculating change from a pound when the item cost 15 shillings and 6 pence. And then there were fractions! Miles are made up of 1760 yards. It is possible to visualise a person who is 6 feet 4 – but someone who is 1.95 metres….. No idea!

10. The first name of the fictional and TV character Morse was Endeavour…… Who in their right mind would have christened some poor wee baby with this moniker? Well the late Colin Dexter of course!

All of these diverse facts are floating around in my brain, the relics of education and reading. You may be comforted to know that these are not the only facts, only a few examples of the kind of flotsam which is there ready and waiting in case of any great need to know.

So what do you know without recourse to books or Google? Do let me know!

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Trains and boats and planes

March 1 2010

In Scotland we have an ongoing transport problem. In some areas of the Highlands there is little or no public transport at all, since the demise of some Post Bus services, although the Post Bus carries about 50,000 passengers each year, according to The Post Office. A car is therefore a necessity in some areas.

In Central Scotland there is a line of cars each morning on the M8 and M9, all moving in the opposite direction each evening, adding to their occupiers’ already long working day, and adding to the country’s carbon emissions. We also have the ongoing issue of The Forth Replacement Crossing which is to cost £2bn and the controversy surrounding the building and the funding of that. There have been alternatives suggested but it seems too late for the tunnel option now.

In the Borders we are promised the new rail link from Newcraighall to Tweedbank but not until 2014, despite the fact that the Scottish Government passed the necessary legislation in 2006.

Sustrans suggests that about 21% of car journeys in urban areas could be replaced by public transport, if only that transport system was more regular and affordable.

Only today, Nicola Sturgeon has been introducing Andres Duany, an internationally acclaimed designer who is to help create a blueprint for the towns and cities of the future. She said:- “Scotland is leading the way on reducing our carbon footprint and introducing modern measures for modern times, to help meet our ambitious climate change targets.

Creating sustainable communities will help us become less reliant on fuel consumption and boost our standard of living.

This goes hand in hand with helping people to reduce household fuel bills, work locally and being able to walk to the shops and work without relying on a car.”

Yes, working locally (or indeed working from home at least some of the time) is one way of reducing commuting and the carbon emissions which flow from that. But there are those who have to work from an office. Your receptionist would be little use to you working from home for example!

Our bus industry is subsidised by The Scottish Government, and a renewal of that subsidy was announced last week. Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson said:- “The Scottish Government is committed to supporting our bus industry, and this agreement with CPT will deliver another three years of significant investment. This substantial outlay is intended to help the industry drive down fare costs, encourage more routes and enable more older and disabled people to use these important services.

Older and disabled people will continue to be able to travel for free throughout Scotland – at any time, on any bus routes, for any number of journeys.” This free travel system for some of our population is a great incentive to them to use public transport. I know of one lady in Edinburgh who uses her bus pass regularly to go out for a wee run on the bus! She would not be able to do that if the travel was not free. Not perhaps the original idea behind the concessionary travel pass but nonetheless a good result!

I am at the Embarcadero in San Francisco writing this post, watching hundreds of commuters plying backwards and forwards across the bay on ferries, then catching commuter buses up the few blocks to their offices. One commuter told me that with a travel card her crossing on the ferry costs under $5 each way. Considering that even a second class train ticket from Edinburgh to Glasgow is now £20 or thereabouts, our travel costs are extremely high. Of course some of this is down to cheap fuel which is still abundant here in the US. But even if one ignores the economic cost, there is still a lack of choice in our public transport, not only in the ways of getting from A to B but also in the timings and frequency. Of course if you live on the West Coast you have the alternative to take the seaplane from Glasgow to Oban which is very popular but still a little costly and weather dependent to use it every day!

We should have an abundance of ways to travel which mean that it is plain silly to take a car. Yes, there are people who have to use cars for their work if they need to be in several places in one day for example. But there are office-based workers who ought to be persuaded out of their cars and onto public transport. It requires a choice which is more convenient, more pleasant than driving in a car park, and more available. So for example, if someone living in Fife was able to take a ferry to Edinburgh from somewhere that they could either reach by bus or park a car easily, and if there were buses (or perhaps trams?) waiting in Edinburgh to take them to the centre of town then that would appear to be convenient. But if the ferry stops at 7pm it will not attract any office workers at all who regularly have to stay late to get things finished off. So Stagecoach’s plans to introduce a hovercraft service across the Forth are absolutely on track but they will have to consider the timetable very carefully principally for reasons of safety but also for convenience. Business 7 already reported in November 2009 that a joint venture has been set up between Stagecoach and the Bland Group to operate the hovercraft between Kirkcaldy and Portobello. Stagecoach is also trialling an amphibious bus on the River Clyde to see if that would work as a seamless form of road and river transport. They already operate such a service in Rotterdam. So there are some initiatives out there which seek to address the shortcomings in our modes of transport, and offer more choice.

Wifi would be a good way to attract passengers. If you could use your travel time to tidy up some emails or do some social networking then it would be a good use of your travelling time. So all buses and trains should now be equipped with a good wifi system. When travelling from Edinburgh to Glasgow consider the Citylink bus with its wifi. Some other services to Fife from Edinburgh also offer wifi.

Buses which offer free wifi

So that takes us back to the cost doesn’t it? And of course the best way for us to be made to get out of our cars is to make it an easy option with little cost differential, or at least an easy way to pay. The Oyster card in London is a most convenient way to use the public transport system there. One card for all modes of transport whether it is tube or bus. Such a simple idea. So even if our national government cannot completely address the problems and encourage less cars on the road and more people travelling on buses and trains then perhaps The City of Edinburgh Council could see the sense in having one travel card for residents and tourists alike, meaning that we would no longer see so many empty double decker buses running around our capital. Instead, we would have a commuter transport system that is easy to use. Our bus system in the city itself is actually fairly dependable and pretty regular. Our trams when they are in operation may prove even more reliable, but we will need to encourage people to use them. So a Saltire card (this is my suggestion for the name) might just be one way to persuade us onto public transport, but another important way is to make the public transport system a 24 hour affair. People’s working hours are more erratic than they were in the post-war days when office days started at 9 and finished at 5. There are other industries which demand shift workers. We have a large part of our economy which is based on tourism. These workers must be able to get to work using the most economic mode of transport they can access, and tourists must be able to get around the city after hours without difficulty and of course without fear.

Simple solutions to a very complex problem I know, but simplicity may be the key – and one of the answers.

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Beatrice Chalangat

February 25 2010

Yesterday I met an amazing young woman who is really trying very hard to change the world or at least a part of it.

Beatrice Chalangat is Director of the REACH programme in Uganda, where she works tirelessly to stop female genital cutting (FGC). This practice is something more than just the physical act, it is a way of trying to subordinate women in Ugandan society, where those who manage somehow to avoid FGC are ostracised. They are not allowed to collect water from the local spring for example, or carry out menial but important tasks such as going to the market for food.

The Americans for United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has supported Beatrice in her quest to improve the lives of many Ugandan women, by encouraging them to stay in education for longer or by providing them with healthcare, and yesterday she was honoured at a lunch in a very plush room on the 32nd floor of the Westin St Francis Hotel in downtown San Francisco. Ms Chalangat held the attention of the entire audience in complete silence for 15 minutes, and only when she had ended her account of life in Uganda did they appear to breathe again. A standing ovation seemed only too appropriate at the end of her talk, and yet a little insufficient too.

The 32nd floor at the Westin St Francis

Ms Chalangat lives in Uganda under the constant protection of bodyguards, as she herself has been threatened by her opponents. Her life is in danger yet she continues to speak openly and to fight for the human rights of Ugandan women.

It seems that American women have over recent years taken Hillary Clinton completely to their bosoms, as she was widely quoted in other speeches. By way of reminder here are her words from the famous speech she made in Beijing in 1995 :-

“The voices of this conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loud and clear: It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.

It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution.

It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.

It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.

It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes.

It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.

It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women’s rights – and women’s rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely – and the right to be heard.

Women must enjoy the right to participate fully in the social and political lives of their countries if we want freedom and democracy to thrive and endure.”

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Hacked off!

February 23 2010

I have developed a loathing of hackers. It has just started today when I found out that my website (not this one but a local newspaper which I have just started) has been compromised by persons unknown.

I am very angry indeed but of course this does no real good. It is of no use whatsoever to rail against something which is completely unreasonable and without point. Also, it would be too easy to think that perhaps there was something personal in it, and that for some reason the hackers had targeted me or my site in an effort to sabotage it….

It will take an amount of unravelling to sort it out which I (and those who might be kind enough to help me with this task) could really do without – today or indeed any day.

Hackers go home!

(Well at least that’s got that off my chest…..!)

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Service with a smile – too much to ask for?

February 22 2010

So now that we have stopped being consumers in such a big way we really need every retail moment to count. Gone are the days when you might stroll around the Duty Free in Heathrow buying on a whim here and there. Of necessity purchases have become much more meaningful and far less frequent.

Having made the conscious decision therefore to take myself to the Jo Malone shop, I had hoped for a far nicer experience than the one I eventually endured.

I live within a short walk from the Jo Malone shop in Edinburgh’s George Street, where unfailingly nice assistants await my occasional visits and greet me with real warmth. This includes the day when I was on my way to a girls’ lunch and had forgotten to perfume before leaving home. When I explained this to the assistant, she reacted swiftly and I became a walking advert for their signature Lime Basil perfume. How lovely to be treated in such a spectacular fashion!

How awful then to arrive at Heathrow, perhaps even hoping for a quick hand massage as a little thank you for my custom. At least it would have been something nice to take with me on my long-haul flight to San Francisco. No such luck. It became very clear that I was simply an interruption to the two assistants whose sole task in life was bringing each other up to date with their latest experiences in the land of singledom and the dating game.

It was probably just as well then that I already knew that I wanted the lovely Pomegranate Noir fragrance and shower gel, a not inconsiderable purchase, and that I knew I did not want these wrapped beautifully as that would only increase my hand baggage to a point where my rucksack would fail to cope.

Just as well that I took a very little of their time….and allowed their conversation to continue practically without my interrupting them at all. Of course it may be that someone in the management of Jo Malone might have a different view of this? Maybe they would prefer that their customers have a very nice experience no matter which of their stores we visit?

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FOI unearths photos from 9/11

February 12 2010

ABC news reports on the new photos which are available of 9/11. These were taken from a police helicopter which was apparently one of the very few, if not the only, aircraft allowed to remain in the airspace above New York that day. The photos give a different perspective of the devastation.

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FOI….again

January 28 2010

The University of East Anglia broke the law but nothing can be done as the complaint was made outwith the six month limit. According to The Times today ‘The ICO is now seeking to change the law to allow prosecutions if a complaint is made more than six months after a breach.’

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The Edinburgh Reporter

January 24 2010

In Edinburgh we have wonderful buildings and monuments. The city is a World Heritage Site due to the high quality of architecture and the detailed planning used in developing the New Town area. One of the ways that the city retains this status is the rigorous planning process. This is a function of the City Council and one of the ways you can keep tabs on what is happening in your area is to visit the City Council planning portal. Of course your days may not allow you sufficient free time to indulge in such frivolous time wasting and that is where us journalists should fill the gaps. The illustration is a copy of two planning applications made this week which are for two pubs applying for permission to renovate their interiors and exteriors. In total there were 17 applications during the week ending 18th January 2010 for proposed changes to buildings in the City Centre area.

Click to enlarge the image

In the field of journalism we are often told that it is local news which is failing most quickly, and it seems that there is little place in the few remaining local newspapers for news as mundane as this. During part of my recent journalism qualification, one of the nuggets of wisdom passed down which remains with me is that news is something which makes someone stop and say ‘WOW!’ But what makes you stop in your tracks might well be something which is happening in your neighbourhood rather than the declarations of a national politician for example.

In England the government have decided that planning applications still have to be advertised in the local and regional press, which The Guardian estimate will protect about £15m of advertising for local newspapers, in itself good news. But in Scotland the planning legislation is slightly different. The Town & Country Planning Scotland Act 1997 allows for either an advertising notice to be placed in the newspaper or on the land which is affected by the planning application.

Notwithstanding the lack of any publicity in the local press, in Edinburgh at least, the council manage to publish the list of applications on their website which allows any interested party to keep up with the planning news, if they check it regularly. If you are a neighbouring proprietor you should receive neighbour notification of a planning application, but there is a real danger of missing an important development only a few doors away from your house or office unless the local news of ancient newspapers is revived in some way.

If it is no longer viable to print local newspapers on a weekly basis then perhaps this might be another useful job for the Internet?

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Heartening news of improved FOI in Illinois

January 24 2010

The US State of Illinois has just beefed up its Freedom of Information legislation. Since January 1st 2010 the government and a variety of other public bodies is subject to improved regulations all aimed at increasing the transparency in government, including the way public funds are spent.

The Plainfield News tested out the response by sending many dozens of requests to local administrations asking a wide variety of FOIA questions. One of the very best responses they got was from the town of Joliet which answered by email a short 16 minutes after the request had been sent. Part of the revisal to the existing law allows both requests and answers by email.

Encouraging news indeed to those who advocate improvements to FOI regimes worldwide.

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Testing Times in Dundalk

January 21 2010

I have just realised that I am sitting outside the Driving Test Centre in Dundalk. I didn’t mean to. I am here because of other reasons entirely. I can drive. In fact I drove here today. But, upon finding that they have free wifi in the hotel (yes I am in a hotel) I sat down in the corridor on this lovely leather sofa and have spent the last couple of hours polishing that article that I can’t get quotes for, checking my new techhie ‘thing’, Tweetdeck, (if you haven’t got it get it – it is fabulous!) every ten minutes or so, surfing the net, sending emails, and thinking about the articles I have in my head and which are bursting out to get themselves on paper.

Then I realised that I had seen that lady going along the corridor with the burly grey haired man about half an hour or more ago, and there she is coming back again. They disappear into an office. Then she comes back out of the office with a slowly developing smile on her face. The same thing with the dark-haired young man who could not really keep his joy to himself. He had obviously passed. I felt the same way when I passed my test (upon sitting it for the second time admittedly)

I knew they had pubs at the back of grocers’ shops here in Ireland. I have seen the shops which rather curiously sell fish on one side and beef on the other. But now, I have been in a hotel which masquerades as a driving test centre. Only in Ireland……

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How to add filmstar to my CV

January 21 2010

With all the technology that is around us it is easy to forget that when I started at school aged five we did still use little black slates for some of the work, we did have coloured sticks to help us learn to count and I have more than glanced in the direction of an abacus. Nowadays all you have to do is scan and send your recent graduation photo to your 22 year old son and suddenly you are starring in a short feature film on the internet…..Watch this!

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Counting on public accountability

January 18 2010

Sir Fred Goodwin, erstwhile head of Royal Bank of Scotland and now public enemy number 1, has got a new job, The Scotsman reports today. The trouble is, that since he already has a sizeable pension fund from his days with RBS, there are those who think he should not really do anything except go and hide in a distant, far-off land. So, it should be no surprise to learn that there are some politicians (glass houses, pots and kettles come to mind) who believe that RMJM, the architectural firm which is now employing Sir Fred, should no longer be considered for public contracts.

Given that one of RMJM’s most recent contracts was to oversee the building of The Scottish Parliament, it is rather difficult to see that this would pose any problem, even before Fred the Shred’s appointment. The eventual spend on Holyrood was around £450million – about 10 times the initial estimate.

Of course, having set that precedent, other public contracts such as The Edinburgh Tram Project and the staging of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014 are already over-budget, something that it seems we now rather take for granted in Scotland. Unless of course questions are asked of those responsible for these budgets? Perhaps it is time to make councils and governments accountable for every last penny of taxpayers’ money, before it is too late and there is none left. After all, the taxpayer has already bailed out the Royal Bank, but who will bail out the taxpayer when the public coffers are empty?

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FOI in Scotland

January 17 2010

Once again Scotland leads the way in Freedom of Information spheres. The Information Commissioner has reduced the period of closure for government papers from 30 to 15 years. Some of the documents were released on International Right to Know Day in September 2009 and more have now been released. The National Archives of Scotland have announced today that another 4,000 files are now available for public scrutiny.

The final files to 1994 will be released later this year.

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Women’s Views on News

January 16 2010

One of the other outlets which I contribute to is Women’s Views on News. Here is the press release which we put out recently. Add the site to your favourites or sign up for an email update.

Fed up with the bias towards men in the news? So are we. Which is why we (a group of freelance women journalists) have just set up a not-for-profit online news service providing stories about women, by women – www.womensviewsonnews.org. We want to change the way the world sees women in the news.

The site will source up to date news on all the major national and international stories of the day in much the same way as any newspaper or online news service, but from the perspective of women. It will also include feature articles and opinion pieces, but the focus will always be news.

So why women? Well, there are dozens of women’s magazines covering a broad range of interests, but none of them provide news and current affairs from a woman’s perspective in any meaningful way. There are, therefore, thousands of stories that should be told, but just aren’t.

Indeed, according to a recent survey, four out of every five people featured in news stories worldwide were men, and just ten percent of all news stories focused specifically on women.

There are a number of reasons for that, but one of them is the dominance of men on news desks. As news editors, they are the ones with the power to decide which stories are newsworthy and, crucially, which are not.

Whatever the reason, the end result is that the views of women are ignored. That sends out a message to women – that their opinions are just not as important as those of men. Or that they do not have the same validity. This site will redress that imbalance.

We are now looking for women who are interested in writing for the blog (although we can’t afford to pay – sorry), so if you have any news stories for publication, just go to www.womensviewsonnews.org to get in touch.

We are also looking for people to support our blog by reading it as often as possible and by telling as many other potential readers and writers about it as well.

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The World’s Media Hasten to Haiti

January 15 2010

Following the devastation caused by the earthquake earlier this week in Haiti, the world’s media are hitching lifts on aid planes to reach the island. Once there they are using whatever means they can to get the story out to the world. The New York Times has an article on this and in particular highlights the way that even the professionals have been using all manner of social media including Twitter to tell the story. It also has some wonderful photos from GeoEye showing the devastation of some of the buildings there.

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Sleepy?

January 14 2010

The goddess of the online world in the US, Arianna Huffington, famously described as the most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus, has gone to sleep. Actually she is trying out an experiment to sleep for a minimum of 8 hours each night – and she has just ‘fallen off the wagon’ as she describes in her latest article on The Huffington Post.

How much sleep do you get? Do you need more? What about the power naps, the disco naps, the catnaps? Do they make you feel better or worse?

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Notes on a conference….

January 14 2010

I have just noticed a Tweet from Kevin Marsh that he put his conference notes up on his blog. Here is the link!

And he is just sitting across the room there……

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Blogging and the BBC

January 14 2010

See today’s Press Gazette for a report on what Kevin Marsh, editor of the Today programme at the time of Gilligan said this morning at the news:rewired conference.

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