91Èȱ¬

We certainly live in interesting times. For nearly a decade the Tories lost election after election; by stubbornly positioning themselves on the right, leaving the centre ground to New Labour.

Then, a year ago, it was Gordon Brown who lost it. He did not actually move away from the centre. He just seemed to have no idea at all of any direction. This allowed David Cameron to claim the centre for himself, albeit by PR puffs without any need for real commitments. The polls, as might be expected, anointed him the new leader to be.

Then the next miracle occurred, when Gordon Brown found his message; and it was of the centre. Moreover it was the centre which was being embraced by leaders around the world. David Cameron, abandoning all his previous repositioning, moved back to the right of centre which had lost the Tories a decade of elections.

Surprise, surprise, the Tories are back to their losing mode and the polls show New Labour regaining their winning ways. How long has Cameron got?

MANAGEMENT FOR SUCCESS ELUDES BRITAIN.

"But which side has correctly judged the public mood?"

How well you frame the truth of Britain's REAL predicament Sarah. Party politics is about power: obtaining and defending. None of the posturing politicians KNOWS where we are on a map that has no fixed points. Hence they cannot KNOW what to do, for certain. So, as you have written, they JUDGE THE PUBLIC MOOD and then appear to meet that mood's needs. Put another way, they gamble on winning the bit - of the part - of the public vote that that gifts a win.

I gather Frank Field is floating the idea of a very different kind of governance. Poor fool.
I have posted: "SPOIL PARTY GAMES" till I am blue in the fingers. Westminster is self-perpetuating and full of those who 'up with its squalor, will put'; it is a citadel that will NEVER FALL TO REASON.

My brother and I held shares 50:50 in our business over 25 years. We set ourselves to MANAGE IT FOR SUCCESS, not to defeat each other as often as possible. We held very different views on life, but they were set aside in the interest of proper management.

SPOIL PARTY GAMES.

"How Russia keeps economic downturn quiet".

In much the same way that the Common Purpose controllers of the 91Èȱ¬ manipulate the 91Èȱ¬ news broadcasts I imagine.

irish meat could be labelled british and supermarkets are panicking as they try and work out where the food has really come from.

the govt has blocked every bill trying to provide transparency in food labelling. a common theme of the govt - to block anything that is of benefit to ordinary people just for political spite?

as it is any food labelled british could mean from anywhere in the eu.

# 2 well said

The closest thing to perpetual motion, Politicians and the eSTABlishment, That ol gravy train engine just keeps on running, with stupid peoples money.

CANCER - YOU ARE 'AVIN A LARF

Successive governments, for decades, have run a smoke-and-mirrors rearguard action for the tobacco companies (think Thatcher and Clarke) to maintain the revenue stream and some nice little (large) earnings.
I heard quoted today: 120,000 deaths per year (preceded by untold misery for the dying and others affected).

Knife crime? The roads? Railways? Cannabis? Hard drugs? Relative fuss and expenditure?

This is not civilised, nor yet humane, government by any measure. Tobacco combustion-products would not be permitted, even at a very low level, in the air of any workplace. The toxins are deadly (I do not exaggerate). If tobacco were supplied as a raw material in the chemical processing industry, the Health and Safety data would be pretty daunting, and any idea that it should be burned and its smoke freely inhaled - CRIMINAL. Yet government permits its ritual use to continue. FOLLOW THE MONEY.

Before debating whether to approach cancer from genetic or nutritional considerations, is it not RATIONAL to approach it from the angle of a barmy 'advanced society', 'gassing its own people' to a total far beyond that of Sadam, and with the COMPLACENT SMILE of a tax collector?

My Personal View -

#1

What kind of middle ground politics runs up such debts that you spend more money on servicing your debts than on your children's education ?

And that was before the Governments latest PBR.

Barrie

HERE HERE

It's so obvious, why does it have to be pointed out.

I've done rock concerts. I have to get hundreds of people to work together, who have never met to deliver the show.

When the audience turn up, 1000's united in a common cause. The audience have to become part of the team. A rioting audience is the quickest way to end a show.

Greenpeace in 1989 hadn't done a live music concert, so I advised them. They took over co-promotion of Glastonbury the next year.

This is a major part of 91Èȱ¬ scheduling now, but they never make any attempt to show how the organisation of such event an evolving, assimilating framework can be used in other sectors.

Similarly with construction. Even though I can lay a patio, build a road or put you drains in I have also been General Foreman on Europe's largest construction project.

It never got any media coverage because it ran as smooth as silk and was weeks ahead of schedule and vastly within budget.

Outside of politics lots of 'projects' are managed successfully. Aircraft carriers, cruise ships, space missions etc.

Why do we persist with 'spanner in the works' party politics, trying to defeat each other and lurching from side to side trying to give what they think the country wants, rather than knowing what it needs.

Celtic Lion

OPINING

JAMES PURNEL CO-OPTS BAGPUSS IN 'GET TOUGH' CAMPAIGN.

Do you think somebody might sidle up to the beleaguered Speaker Martin and suggest he financially penalises the 'less-than-industrious MPs? And let's see how much they earn moonlighting and adjust their 'state benefit' accordingly. This would show an example to the work-shy, backsliding proletariat.

No goose steppers on Sark?

My God don't they understand the profound rantings of Jaded_Jean and barriesingleton?

I thought there was an invasion force planned for Sark and now the dastardly Barclay brothers want to introduce democracy and national socialism to replace feudalism.

Oh well nobody would have bought the race(ist) "realist" agenda anyway.

Myself I am glad for the democracy - hoorah!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

#12

It is fair to add, Osborne was no better. No one expected that, did they?

Not only Alistair Darling asked 'where the cuts would fall' usual Labour tosh followed by accusations of conservatives killing babies. This line was also followed by impartial paxman, probably meeting whelan and campbell in the ivy after the show.

What is parliament for? The queens speech contained none of todays 'announcements', or tomorrows. So as soon as labour were able to bully out any enquiry into the green affair the 91Èȱ¬ slaves were hit by an onslaught of 'announcements' to dominate the channel news.

Should we just call newsnight the Ally and Charlie show? With Mandy as the producer?

Jeremy could host a quiz, in the interests of impartiality - 'Scrapaquango' - how many babies can we SAVE by firing this lot?

I think some serious editorial frightners have been put on the 91Èȱ¬ by this lot, and they are all in job protection mode.

Please publish this so Joe Public can be told that I do not go for walks in woods with sharp knives.

NO JACK-BOOTS, WE'RE BRITISH

BARRIE (#6) "This is not civilised, nor yet humane, government by any measure."

But we live in a Liberal-Democracy, not a jack-boot driven 'nanny-state'. In the UK, people are equal and free. People can make up their own minds. People have Human Rights.

Here in the UK we have light-touch regulation and so even lighter touch government.

Surely you don't want to restrict people's freedom of choice?.......

CLEAR ENGLISH AWARD - WAS THAT RIGHT?

Had Paxo gone all Bagpuss in the head? He did have a soppy look on his face. How can one, in the same breath, talk of clear English and Kirsty?

Of the three subjects i suppose i'm most interested in the Olympic story, why?

1. George Osborne, simply barks out little soundbites and scuttles behind camerons shirt tail, before he is challenged. And Alistair Darling and Brown simply bark at him and Cameron. like dogs in the park.
THEY BORE ME!!!

2. CANCER - Until the government Bans Tobacco of any kind from sale in the UK, then it doesn't matter what people eat, because as i'm sure most people are aware, passive smoking kills also. And if you add pollution to the mix....

3. The Olympics, because i can't believe the Government, and opposition failed to see that such an event would turn into a bottomless pit. I think most people would have recognised that the Chinese government would have used the Event as a showpiece, and as such would have been prepared to spend their military budget on it . And any nation that attempted to follow with the next olympics would have to try at least to put on a decent show, which in the UK means paying through the nose for it.

And now the government and opposition wish to forget it as though it will never happen. And they like to say they are fiscally responsible. fiscally responsible my
a..........

Dear Mr Paxman,

You are truly a sophisticated rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of your own verbosity!

Keep up the good work.

( With apoogies to Disraeli )

Just caught the second half of tonight's Newsnight programme and was facinated by the feature on genetic screening and the developments around personalised treatments.

Checked online for companies involved in these treatments and came across Medical Solutions & its parent group seems to be Source Bioscience. Anyone know much about them ? Looking for breast cancer treatments for a friend of mine.

HAS THE BLOGDOG EATEN THE BLOGMEISTER'S MOUSE?

Last post 10.33 now 00.10

Outstanding interview by Jeremy with George Osbourne - definitly a classic. As usual, answers were dodged by politicians!

Sad to hear about Oliver Postgate :o( - but a beautiful obituary!

CREDIT WHERE ITS DUE

I am not above the odd swipe at Ray Ling, your cameraperson. But tonight, even a set of the blackest, shiniest, in close proximity, while filming Susan Watts, were resisted, and not 'shot through' (with meaning).

THEN! Joy of joys, Seb Coe, lookng every yard an Olympian, but with the Millennium Doom mocking his every word, over his sinister shoulder. Now that IS camerawork.

I'll get me tripod.

If anyone can get a copy of Edward B Foote's "Plain 91Èȱ¬ Talk" First printed in the 1860's and reprinted/revised into the early 1900's [and now on demand] it is clear that the poisonous nature of the tar in tobacco was known. Experiments on cats and other animals given extracts, which soon led to their deaths is proof that the knowledge was out there for the middle classes to read and to whom the costly tomes were aimed at. I think Edward refers to tobacco as an evil addictive weed. [Alas I cannot fond my copy at the moment to quote from]

In recent legal cases I'm surprised the 'legal briefs' didn't use this as clear evidence of the industries awareness of the issue.

As a clear statement it was as unequivocal as it was welcome...

"The era of the 'something for nothing culture is over' " said the Pensions Minister James Purnell on 91Èȱ¬ Breakfast News this morning.

What might have been developed further was what had/has pervaded before until this point, say, for over the last 10 years. And why.

I was also intrigued by his claim that in previous recessions the true numbers were 'hidden'. By whom, again why, or whether indeed this statement was true was something this viewer was not made privy to.

Maybe we could have a bit of investigative reporting from Kerry Katona and guest editing by the cast of SCD on Newsnight to help nation towards better understanding?

SEALING WAX AND STRING

SEALING WAX AND STRING

(I'll try that again)

On smoking.

It appears to me that an outright ban simply would not work. Prohibition was a miserable failure and I see only 'Smoke Easys' popping up all over the place. Rather continue to alter the image of smoking with (dare I say it?) education. Whatever is the current ploy, it seems to be working. Not so very long ago it was estimated that 50% of the population of the British Isles smoked - now we are told it is down to 25%. There is also a degree of the Darwin Awards involved, smoking not being a survival trait. So it seems to be a case of "Steady as ye go!"

Journalism (JJ #9)

Good link. I was saying to someone only the other day that a pretty 'news presenter' opining from her comfy sofa wasn't what I wanted. Rather a decent journo to go out into the field and thoroughly investigate a subject and then to present the facts of the matter.

Go1 #11

Oh dear. You might find it interesting to spend some time investigating the backgrounds of those who caused the 'democratisation' of Sark. Then ask the usual question - "Who gains?" Or maybe you are just a little prejudiced?

#21

"Outstanding interview by Jeremy with George Osbourne - definitly a classic. As usual, answers were dodged by politicians!"

I think you are being serious, not ironic. Did we watch the same interview?

My earlier comment (#12) was blocked; nothing obscene, no expletives, just an appropriate level of outrage at the waste of licence payers funds that was that interview.

One more thing if I may...

Oliver Postgate.

For anyone who hasn't seen it, the home makes a good (enlightened) read.

INTENSIONAL TALK: CLOSED AND OPAQUE

Junkmale (#24) "I was also intrigued by his claim that in previous recessions the true numbers were 'hidden'. By whom, again why, or whether indeed this statement was true was something this viewer was not made privy to."

In #15 I wrote: "Here in the UK we have light-touch regulation and so even lighter touch government."

I should of course have written:

"Here in the UK we have light-touch regulation and so even lighter touch government, which is 'open and transparent'."

So, please stop embarassing our politicians by asking them direct questions about anything which really matters (e.g. Paxman of Osborne) as this just brings out their Dell Olioisms (no disrespect to , I more or less understood what she was saying in her inimitable way, more so than Osborne anyway).

SO I HAD ANOTHER THINK . . . (JJ #15)

And it dawned on me that there is no coherence in governance - it is chaotic (like those 'awful' families) sometimes heavy handed 'do as I say' and sometimes laissez faire: "So people are increasingly going barmy; that's their choice".

Small wonder 'the unexamined life' is now commonplace. If Socrates were alive today, he would re-phrase: 'The unlived live is worth examining'.

POWER TO THE UNCONCEIVED!

:o) Jeremy is THE top journalist - and it's not just my opinion or the Royal Television Society's opinion or his countless fans either! The Media Society's Annual Award 2009 is going to Jeremy!!!!!

Paxman to be decorated with Media Society Annual Award 2009
Posted: 09/12/08 By: Alexander de Vivie
email this story | post a comment
Jeremy Paxman will receive the Media Society's Annual Award in April to honour his career in broadcasting and journalism.

Paxman began working for the 91Èȱ¬ in 1977, where he started as a correspondent in Northern Ireland, followed by postings on the Six O'Clock News and Start The Week on Radio Four.

He has also been presenter of University Challenge and Newsnight.

In a press release, Geraldine Sharpe Newton, president of the Media Society, described Paxman as 'a true journalist's journalist' representing 'the very highest quality and standards which we [the Media Society] are committed to upholding'.

Previous recipients of the award include: Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow and Sir David Frost.

Source:

Does anyone know how to unsubscribe from the Newsnight email?

The problem is that Purnell's 'eugenic' measures will take a very long time to work through, and New Labour know very well that they will alienate their core electorate with such measures, even they might (if complemented with reversal/mitigation of naive, and dysgenic, sex-equality measures, go some way to arresting this insidiously driven Liberal-Democratic 'downturn'.

To see how requires more than adolescent short-termist 'thought', something we appear to becoming more prone to through breeding more of such 'thinkers', and less of the others, alas.

Erratum (#33) "even IF they might (if complemented with reversal/mitigation of naive, and dysgenic, sex-equality measures),...

#28 New Fazer

Really good link, will go back and read other posts there. All so very relevant.

We had had still born twins and I had been invited to a conference to set up the next generation of UK climate models in 2002. At this point climate change was a background phenomenon. I thought it strange we were guarded by machine gun toting anti-terror police.

I didn't want anymore children to die or parents to grieve because of the bright idea to drop bombs on children. So I wrote in a UN report climate change was a greater threat than terrorism.

This was to stop the madness of a war. But the law of unintended consequences came into play.

By viral means my assessment spread through government, then the media, environmental organisations, then Al Gore used it, then other world leaders.

No No No what had I done. I intended to say the environment is more important than dropping bombs on children, climate change is an example. They still dropped bombs on children, and forgot the ecology of the planet. Most believing they will live forever if they turn their TV off stand by.

But the law of unintended consequences. The climate change industry was created. Not content with crashing the economy by creating illusionary jobs and imaginary money they now want to 'create jobs in climate change'.

Instead of expanding the debate and vision for a better future, the law of unintended consequences has now reduced the future security of the planet to low wattage light bulbs. If only.

We are indeed on our way to hell in a handcart.

Brilliant link I post it again.



I always knew talking animals and soupdragons made more sense than politics.

Celtic Lion

CLAIMANTS SHOULD BE 'WORK READY'

That sounds awfully like 'oven ready' doesn't it! The Turkeys are voting for 'battery hen Christmas'.

I'll get me stuffing.

CREDIT ASSIGNMENT AND AGENCY

KingCelticLion (#35) "By viral means my assessment spread through government, then the media, environmental organisations, then Al Gore used it, then other world leaders."

A word to one who could behave more wisely: Sometimes your posts are a little too grandiose. The 'credit assignment problem' is extremely thorny, paradoxically so for animals. Look up 'superstition ' in this operant context, and if you can find it, Skinner's talk/paper entitled 'On Having A Poem'.

32. At 11:42am on 10 Dec 2008, nortongriffiths
Does anyone know how to unsubscribe from the Newsnight email?

Hotel California: 'You can check out any time you like; but you may never leave'.

I know how you feel, but like mining for gold one just keeps popping back for another little excavation, just in case there may yet be something of value to be discovered.

As to your question, I would be amazed if there is not a massive section on this topic, somewhere, to show just how right on compliant they are. But I suspect what you are looking for lurks just down a bit, under 'E-mail services'.

it is sad aboutr Oliver Postgate but what about his legacy. He had so much charisma and all his stuff was full of appeal for ALL ages. The millions spent on todays childrens output especially the American market pales into insignificance when compared with Oliver's back shed and masking tape yet he produced so many memorable childrens programmes. In America they call it 'commercial content' here they call it talent. He will be missed.

#37 JJ

Sorry JJ. There is something like seeding the crystal. The latent potential is there, but it just needs one piece to tie it all together.

I was not writing in a Newsnight blog that never really influences anything, but in a contribution to a United Nations commissioned by the UK Government Report which I had been asked to contribute to, after other work of mine had been assessed and published on related issues.

The Government's chief scientist gave the work global publicity. But he was never the original author. I was. I believe he may have been part of the committee compiling the report.

An editor from 91Èȱ¬ News planning, spoke to me about it in 2004. The 91Èȱ¬ acknowledge I was the original author. My work has Crown Copyright 19 Dec 2002 on it. The Chief Scientist Jan 2004.

The 91Èȱ¬ view was that I was not a media celebrity and news is about ratings. I will have the date logged somewhere.

The problem is not with me, but with ego taking over from scientific etiquette. Then Chinese whispers being played. Then a media playing ratings chasing, over accurate news reporting.

It is not me being grandiose, it is me being accurate. Unfortunately an obsession and mass psychosis has developed over climate change.

The law of unintended consequences came into play. Instead of the debate widening out to the entire global ecological imperative. The political/media machine has narrowed and dumbed it down for easy mass public consumption.

Unfortunately it will probably result in us going to hell in a hand cart. While the message that if we use low energy bulbs and turn of TVs we will be OK is being presented as the answer to a beautiful future. The collapse of the ecological life support systems of the planet is being ignored.

So will you and everyone else be happy in 4 years time when the PM makes an announcement that 6 billion plus people will die. Be happy and accept it because, they can add the collective 'we'. "I know I speak on behalf of the world that none of us saw it coming".

Well you read it here 4 years before it happened. (If nothing is done to stop it).

I would me much happier if Brown, Cameron et al just stepped aside and let me, with a team, work for a couple of years to stop the ultimate catastrophe happening. Then I could go back to cleaning windows, messing with old cars, looking after animals or whatever.

Somebody had to write it and that was me. In a UN report on the future of UK sustainable development strategy, not a 91Èȱ¬ blog.

So how do I get the politicians and media to realise they are sending 6 billion to their deaths, by some narrow, by 2050, obsession with the convenient soundbite 'climate change'.

Now where's that purple dress




Celtic Lion

This was my first time on Newsnight and
I really ebjoyed the experience - Thank you.

My particular field of expertise related to how lifestyle interacts with cancer development but above all its rate of progression, how it influences tolerance to treatments and how it can improve the chace of it not returning.

The evidence for this already exists and my research team and I have summarised it in a book (lifestyle after cancer). This has been sent free to cancer information units throughout the UK but is also avialbale on our lifestyle website cancernet.co.uk.

As regrads genetics - it is true that there no soild evidence that lifestyle will affect your outcome if you have a barn door genetic mutation but for less obvious variations in the genes I am convinced that lifestyle will make a big difference. Certainly our future research is to see how certain lifestyle factors affect certain individuals

I would be interested to hear the views of others

Profesor Robert Thomas

JUST A VIEW (#41)

Good to see the line of enquiry you are following. When you say 'lifestyle' I presume you mean food, exercise etc?

However, if such variables are tested on samples of a populace now broadly stressed by a violently 'unnatural' environment, might any results be skewed?

In crude terms, pregnancy is either very early in bodies suffering multiple toxic intakes or very late (sad eggs) in psychologically stressed, slimming vegetarians.

I wonder' perhaps, you shouldn't start from here? But good luck.

KingCelticLion (#40) My point was, (at least in part), that there are thousands of specialist Civil Servants (and elsewhere, scientists, research assistants etc) who make important, (sometimes critical), contributions as members a team, whilst the peole who get the credit often have very little (instrumentally) to do with the work. Very few people in the public appreciate the scale of this (injustice).

In government, this is more often the rule than exception. It's quite obvious when one considers policy generation (as clearly it is rarely the MP who heads a department, and centainly not the PM who does the work), or when it comes to speeches (a point barrie keeps making with good reason).

This is why so many eager to take credit appear to be so excellently personally equipped to be actors/celebrities. Look to any recent government report and ask how much the high profile dignitary credited as the author of the report or review really contributed. They tend to be 'parachuted in'.

Politics is largely theatrics. To be a player, one has to be a performer, and the price of that is that many (most?) players are malignantly narcissistic , prone to grandiosity.

Are you really cut out for a life like that? In my experience they tend to be appalling human beings with little interest in others except to the extent that the latter afford them narcissistic supply.

It's the facts which matter. Not who airs them. Which is why I have consistenly said to leave the 1st person bit out.

My Personal views -

But which side has correctly judged the public mood - the high spending Government or the fiscally conservative Tories?

Maybe the question should have been -

"But which side has correctly judged the Markets mood - the High Borrowing Government or the fiscally conservative Tories?"

I wonder why ?

Where has he been ?

But well done Mr Paxman for asking Mr Osborne the really difficult question about the staffing levels at the Conservatives offices.
Maybe Mr Paxman could have also asked how many photocopiers the Conservatives offices have and what is their carbon footprints.

Very surreal !

PHOTO-COPIER CARBON FOOTPRINT (#44)

Very droll Steve (and to the point re prize-winner Paxo) I like your tone(er).

JJ That's one of the hardest things for me. When I entered the competition for the Dome, it was to fulfill a practical need. The effective management of the planetary environment.

I had a very stiff interview. Paxman is a kitten compared, because it was not for public understanding. I was shortlisted, financially I was backed as part of the process.

One of the hardest things for me was the fish bowl of media attention that would come with putting together a £50 billion per year project. Not the practical job of delivering the project.

To follow your analogy. I was asked and recommended by the civil service to write a number of scripts. They liked them and were passed on to the actors to perform.

What happened was when the actors were interviewed they pretended they wrote the scripts. What has happened is now they have decided to write their own scripts. Chaos.

Billions of peoples of lives are in danger because the ego of the actors. The media seems to prefer the ego of the oily rags rather than the practical sound knowledge and experience of the engineers.

When FMD broke out in 2001 I modelled the outbreak from the 2nd case. When the Government's model diverged from mine. I sent my scenario to Tony Blair. He sent his thanks by return of post.

Notes



The Assessment



When you get to the conclusion, even though it is from 2001 you can see I am introducing some of the points related to what you write.

With the increasing influence of scientific factors on development, environment etc. The non scientific politicians are finding it more difficult to respond effectively.

I used the Newsnight special as my reference as I considered PM Blair would have watched it. So I wrote it addressing the 'informed layperson'. As though I was one of the expert guests in the studio.

What is important, was I was correct. The Government could just use it as a script. Though the FMD seemed complex to many people, you must remember I was working on the business plan for the Dome at the same time, so relative it was just something to 'knock out' in a couple of hours.

I was disappointed that having got FMD correct for the Government, they didn't allow me to run the Dome. What does one have to do?

Please let me know what you think.


Celtic Lion

It seems the Telegraph is more open than the 91Èȱ¬. Please read the posting about George Osborne. The essence is not much different from what I had blocked on this site after the Paxman/Osborne interview. The only difference was I did not praise Osborne in any way.

Barrie Singleton( post 6),
If tobacco smoke is so deadly as you call it ,how come I have been breathing in concentrated amounts of the stuff for 45 years ?and as far as second hand smoke being dangerous the health and safety executive don,t think so and neither do the occupational health and safety agency !,stating that it was 25.000 times safer than their regulations allow for indoor air quality standards ? I call something deadly like sars virus or mustard gas ! or even car exaust fumes which can kill in minutes in an enclosed space ! get real man ,don,t believe all the propaganda spouted about that was used to bring in a smoking ban !,being more prone to Cancer due to your genes is a lot more credible .