If you want political power, don’t run for office. Run a newspaper.
The favourite cry of the newspapers at the moment is how ‘new media’ is killing their business. Yet, despite polls showing huge swells in support for Nick Clegg following the televised debates, and polls of social networking sites such as Facebook suggesting majority support for the Lib Dems, yesterday’s election was decided by people who did exactly what they were told to do by the front page of their newspaper: they voted Conservative.
Yesterday’s newstands were a damning indictment of impartiality in the British press. Most of the tabloids, and one or two broadsheets, were openly commanding their readers to vote for David Cameron. Let’s not pretend that they devoted their front pages to the Conservatives because their staff are convinced it’s what’s best for the country. They did so because the owners of the newspapers are Conservative voters. Despite all their claims of lost revenue due to swathes of people reading news online, the printed newspapers still command the power to sway enormous amounts of public opinion. The real power to swing public support doesn’t lie with politicians at all, but with the people running the presses.
So let me get this straight…
BBC News, I need some clarification from you here.
What you’re saying is that you have no problem at all manipulating photos by professional PA photographers to make them seem like they were sent in by readers, but when lifting photos of hospitalised crime victims from Bebo, you won’t even edit out the poor woman’s red-eye? Seriously?
Also, just because the Bebo logo is entirely in lowercase doesn’t mean you write the citation in lowercase. The company name is quite clear on their about page. Learn to read. Or at least, learn to copy & paste.
Our flat was built by idiots
Our bathroom has a skylight, right above the bath. Above this pane is a light well that leads to a window in the roof. It doesn’t let that much light in, but it’s better than nothing.
The pane itself had collected a number of dead bugs above it, so today I took it down to clean it. When I did, I discovered the reason both for the low light, and the bugs.
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Democracy in action?
The Digital Economy Bill was rushed through Parliament yesterday, through a somewhat unsavoury procedure called “wash-up“, designed to allow uncontroversial bills to be finalised in time for the end of a parliamentary session. The current parliament is due to be dissolved on Monday, with a general election now called for 6th May.
The problem here is firstly that the bill is far from uncontroversial – a 20,000 strong email campaign opposing it took place only this week, while industry bodies on both sides took out adverts in the national press to press their points. The BBC story about the “stitch-up” that allowed it to pass is currently the third most popular story in their Election 2010 section; no mean feat given that all eyes are now on the freshly-launched election campaigns.
Most damning however, is the lack of attendance in the Commons on the debate itself. As you can see from the BBC coverage, the House was hardly what one would call ‘bustling’. On a local note, here’s how MPs in my area performed:
- Rob Wilson (Conservative, Reading East): No show.
- John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham): No show.
- Martin Salter (Labour, Reading West): Did actually attend, so some credit there, but voted in favour along party lines.
John Redwood did express his opposition to the Bill on his blog today, but it wasn’t until later in the comments that he explained he was in fact absent for both divisions of the debate, having given up any further opposition as a lost cause. He was present (and quite vocal) for the immediately preceding debate on the Finance Bill.
All of which reminds me of another Internet-related bill passed with very little fanfare almost a decade ago: The Regulation of Investigatory Powers bill, which passed with a mere 30 MPs present. Of course, the resulting law certainly hasn’t made headlines at all… has it?
What I learned about Glee… without watching it
I haven’t watched Glee. Elizabeth has, and while I have no idea what point she is at in the narrative, I’ve half-heard enough of it to form a completely ill-informed opinion. My conclusion?
Glee is a show that hates women.
Almost every principal female character is a scheming, manipulative, deceptive bitch. The male characters, however, are almost the polar opposite: decent, upstanding men, valiantly overcoming the problems besetting them; problems created largely by the bitchy women in their lives. There are exceptions, but they are thin on the ground. The only half-bitchy guy in the show is Gay Cliché, while the token non-bitchy woman is OCD Redhead, who appears to have been rewarded for her niceness by a lack of screen time.
What’s more, the writers seemed to only be able to create a single male lead character – so they made two of him. Both the teacher and his protégé have significant others who are deceiving them about their child, have other women on the side that they want to get into the panties of, and boast unwanted admirers willing to do patently ridiculous things in pursuit of them.
Lastly, the show hates musicians. As I said, I’ve only heard bits of the show via Elizabeth’s mid-range computer speakers, but I can tell even from across the room that every performance is Autotuned to within an inch of its life. I’m not even a musician and it sounds offensive.
And that’s what you missed by Not Watching Glee!
