The World’s New Superhero…?

Perhaps the post should have been entitled “Can the Internet Save the World?”. But the above sounds better. Anyway, it’s an interesting question, which perhaps should be expanded to include ‘technology’.

I ask this bearing in mind Gordon Brown’s recent comments about Rwanda. It is an entirely debatable issue of course, but it is an interesting starting point. Would the Rwandan atrocities have happened had Twitter, YouTube, Facebook et al been in their pomp at the time? I think they probably would have, except that the world would have been much more aware of what was happening at the time. Fergal Keane’s writing about the subject was, for me, a brief glimpse into the events of the massacres. It’s well worth hunting down his book “Season of Blood” and giving it a read. It’s pretty harrowing in parts, but worth it. However, they have largely escaped media attention, and indeed, analysis. Perhaps, given how far the internet reaches into the lives of millions of people, if not billions, a crude youtube video of some of the events would have brought home the atrocity of the Hutu actions.

But what would the reaction have been? Perhaps the same as that towards the video of Neda Agha-Soltan that is now doing the rounds. I am not going to provide a link simply because it is there to be found, if you can bring yourself to watch the last thirty seconds of an innocent womans life. It’s not a comfortable watch. I find it is made worse because it is obviously in a foreign language. For me it increases the sense of helplessness I feel just watching it. Anyway, the point was that it has, despite some comments, been largely ignored. The Independent had a small article on the story on page 18, a page after it had declared that Silvio Berlusconi was like Teflon, with nothing sticking to him. Ok, so a story about Italian elections is important, but more attention should have been paid to the face of a cause that Neda has now become, at least in my opinion.

I’m not sure why there has not been more coverage than this, but I suspect there is something to do with uncomfortability floating around somewhere. By which I mean, it is not easy viewing for the public, despite it’s presence on the internet. The version of the video I saw had had 131,123 viewings in little over three days. Yet people will not know about Neda, who she was, or what she has come to stand for, despite this internet presence.

So I return to the original point, does Brown have a point when he says that the internet has made foreign policy very different now? Again, I’m not convinced. Yes, things such as this will be put online. But that’s just a by-product of the events. People in Iran know about the power of the internet, yet there are still disturbing scenes pouring out of the country on a daily basis. It has done nothing to stop the problems, it simply has made it more accessible to the rest of the world. The internet will not stop violence, it will not stop murders, or indeed, genocide. All it can do is to make them more internationally condemnable.

Turmoil and Rationality…

Apparently, following the departures of four members of the Government in the past four days, Gordon Brown’s time as British premier are numbered. It is apparent that the Labour Party are in turmoil, they are suffering in the local elections (I am writing this before the results are all in, but the early results do not seem good for Labour), they are suffering in the media, and, depending on what you read, they are suffering thanks to their backbenchers. The overall problem is that they are suffering. And, according to some sensationalist parts of the media, and a growing number of public voices, the only solution left is for Brown to walk away from the post he coveted for years.

This is irrational, illogical, and as far as I can see, will not happen. These may prove to be famous-last-words, but Brown will only leave No.10 when the results of a general election have seen him off. And, seeing as how he has the choice of when to call an election, I simply do not expect this to be any time soon. To my mind it makes no sense for him to call an election from his point of view. He wanted this job for years, and now he’s got it, he won’t give it up without a fight (which, according to Simon Carr in Thursday’s Independent, he has “got the hang of” now). Why call an election when he is suffering badly?

From a party point of view it makes little sense either, why call an election when you are guarenteed to be hammered pretty much everywhere, thus making the (presumably) Conservative majority even stronger? Would it not make sense to wait until 2010, ride out this storm, recover some ground somewhere, and really give the election fight a good go, thereby making some dents in the Conservative majority?

The other point is that there really does not seem to be anyone to take up the post. Alan Johnson has made a good job of distancing himself from the position, despite rumours persisting that he would be the most likely to succeed should Brown make way. Other names, such as Cuddas, the Milibands or Balls, hold only bit-part support. There is not much in the way of other options for the Labour party.

The public may want an election now, but this is the result of two things. The first is the media, who have been driving this frenzy pretty much since the Telegraph broke the first expenses story. The second is public naivity. They want to have a say in who is actually running the country, rather than watch someone, who was, in their mind, unelected, blunder his way from problem to problem. They do not seem to understand that a party was elected to govern, rather than an individual.

To dam the cascading torrent of problems with a cabinet reshuffle seems to be akin to stopping up the Niagara Falls with a rotten branch. However, today Brown has brought forward the resuffle to divert some of the attention away from the local election results. The one key thing which stood out for me was that Alistair Darling remained as Chancellor. To my mind this makes sense from Brown’s viewpoint. It is obvious that the economy is in dire straits, by keeping the same guy in the position of Chancellor, this can dissipate the blame away from Brown. If he had appointed someone else, the blame-game consequences would have seen him take on more, rather than less, responsibility for the state of British finances. By keeping Darling, at least he can be consistant in sharing the load for the predicament.

These are testing times for Brown and the party as a whole. The Telegraph revelations have now written their way into the history books. The results of these revelations are still being written.

Idiocy…

So Jeremy Clarkson has got into trouble again. This time for insulting the PM, the blind, and the Scottish, all in one sweeping statement. Only one of which he did. As a voting member of British society, is Clarkson not allowed to express an opinion? Of course he isn’t because he is part of the BBC (the organisation with charred fingers following a series of high profile gaffes).

The reaction to what he said was grossly over the top. It was interpreted, deliberately, in the wrong way. And he was later made to issue an apology to the various groups he had apparently offended. He insulted the PM. He is not the first, nor will he be the last to say such things about our esteemed leader. It is, apparently, fine for cartoonists to point out Brown’s visual deficiency, or indeed his Scottish heritage, and it not to be interpreted as some form of slur on either the blind or the Scots. As soon as these observations are put into words, suddenly there is uproar. It is, quite frankly, pathetic.

It is symptomatic of our society, in which deliberate misinterpretations of any given statement frequently land the person making such a statement in hot water. It is almost sickening. At some point we will not be allowed to say anything derogatory at all, ever. We will, of course, be deliberately offending some part of society. Which, of course, we won’t be doing. Not that that will matter.

Both the blind, and the Scots need to get off their high horses about this. Clarkson was not insulting them. He was insulting the PM, and I, for one, think he should be allowed to express his view with all the freedom of free speech that our democratic society has given him.

The Greatest…?

An image on the BBC Homepage caught my eye as I was performing my usual review of frequented websites this morning. The caption beneath the image read “Who’s our Greatest Post-War PM?”.

Certain names immediately present themselves. Thatcher, Blair, Churchill (although his post-war legacy is somewhat sketchy), Attlee. All have a certain iconic status to them. All contributed to shaping Britain, however much you may disagree with what they did and how they did it.

The article asks you to list in order of preference, who you consider to be “the greatest”. It’s a simple task really, which PM do you like the most?

The trouble is, it is not a simple task for a plethora of reasons. I will list but three:

1. Few people who will vote will remember all the candidates (there are comments to be made here about the average age of internet users, and the age of people who will be able to remember all the candidates). Therefore the judgements they make will be based upon books/ recordings/ papers etc, ie, all second hand material (I will return to this point later).

2. It very much reflects the political views of those who vote, that is, if more Conservative voters take part in the poll, there will be inevitable skew (almost certainly in favour of the Iron Lady).

3. A good leader and success rarely go hand in hand (Churchill was, I believe, a good leader, but his overall record, as mentioned above, was sketchy). Leaders will get judged more on their failings than their successes (perhaps this is the right way to do it?), and for example Blair’s reputation will be forever tarnished with the gloomy spectre of the Iraq war, despite some notable success (Ireland for example).

So, it is with difficulty that one can choose who is “the greatest”, which, in itself is something of a misnomer as it encourages people to compare like with like (obviously impossible as the Britain of Macmillan, for example, is hugely different to that of Brown.)

Returning therefore to my first point of contention, the use of second hand material to judge people. The whole issue of source material is one which, as a history scholar, I have become very aware of during my academic life.  Warnings from teachers to not take the source at face value seem a long time ago, but still are (and forever will be) hugely relevant. When reading a newspaper, or watching the television, I seem to be thinking more about the angles things are portrayed at now than ever previously. I think you have to be very careful about so nonchalantly critique-ing people based on the value of a brief synopsis of their career written by a hard line left-winger, for example.

I therefore have refrained from voting in such a poll simply because it is a simple piece of time-wasting which companies such as the BBC can leap upon and claim that “Thatcher is the Greatest Post-War PM” (replacing ‘Thatcher’ with any such suitable candidate – for the record, I do think Thatcher will win such a poll, with Chuchill and Blair completing the top three). Obviously the poll is entirely inconclusive, and reflective of little more than the people who vote (shock horror, for example, that a poll in which 59% were Conservative voters, Thatcher won).

If, unlike me you do wish to vote in this poll, the link is here. Perhaps you are confident of making an informed, unbiased decision on who was the greatest post-war PM. I can’t, and I’m reasonably certain most people couldn’t either.

This Was the Week That Was…

In a busy week for news, I am going to offer my brief thoughts on various issues which deserve to be looked at more thoroughly than I am prepared to do at this point.

First up is the increasing dissent within the Labour party ranks. Whilst those at BULS remain unwilling to discuss this growing concern, and those at the Labour party conference batting it away like an annoying mosquito, I firmly believe that there can be no doubt that all is not well within the party. We are bombarded with different stories of various backbench MP’s calling for Brown’s head. The arguement for keeping Brown is simple, there is no-one better. This is not an endorsement of his abilities (which he has himself defended today), more an observation about the potential of the other options. What, therefore, this boils down to is, he is the best of a bad bunch.

Another argument to keep him runs along the lines of: “We are in a difficult economic period. He has the experience to deal with such problems.” Whilst this is obviously true, there are a couple of issues I have with this naturally defensive statement. Firstly, that it should not be read as a pro-Brown stance, instead it should be read more as a “need-for-stability” stance (the two are subtlely different). Secondly, I don’t buy it anyway because, whilst he does have the experience, perhaps the need for fresh thinking is upon us. This one man has run the rule over Britain’s economy for the best part of a decade, some new thoughts and a new approach may be worth the punt.

Anyway, that’s enough about the Labour party’s problems. My next issue is with football.

Obviously I have already written about Manchester City and the huge investment they have received. My issue is with people who therefore make them ‘favourites’ to break into the so-called ‘big four’.  not this season I’m afraid. Yes, they have money. Yes, they have signed Robinho. No, this doesn’t mean they will claim anything above fifth for me. Robinho will make a difference, but he cannot, by himself, drag City into the upper echelons of the league. Essentially they have the same squad of players they had before the money came in, and will do so until at least the new year. By which time, they will be out of the running for the title, and be struggling to stick with whichever team is in fourth. Ryan Giggs is one of the few people I have heard talk sensibly about this, when he maintained the same thing to Sky Sports.

Next, as we know the season is but a month old, and the FA’s ‘Respect’ Campaign has received wide publicity, for all the right reasons. There seemed to be more respect to officials from players and staff and vice versa. However the cracks were there, as David Moyes was sent to the stands for explaining to the fourth official why his team should have been given a penalty as Leon Cort handled the ball in the box. He was right, the officials were wrong, yet they dismissed him anyway, and now he faces an FA charge. However, the death of the campaign came today as Manchester United travelled to Stamford Bridge to play Chelsea. It was not the final score (a thrilling 1-1 draw by all accounts) but the nature of Man Utd’s play which was the final straw to break the proverbial camel’s back. They picked up seven yellow cards. The club automatically receives a fine for six yellows, so there was something amiss at the Bridge. The cards, for a variety of things, ultimately, I beleive, shows that the Respect Campaign is failing just weeks into the season, as the Champions cannot, and have not, given the campaign itself the respect it deserves.

Finally, I would just like to point out that the mighty Wolves are top of the Championship pile, and now three points clear of Birmingham City. The team are scoring goals for fun, and are really looking good. Obviously there is a long way to go, and injuries and suspensions will play a big part in the campaign, but the initial signs are encouraging. They are one of only two teams in the league who haven’t lost yet (the other being Cardiff), and have many fans dreaming of next May already.

Sticking His Oar In…

Twice in the past week I have turned on Sky Sports News to see the, by now, frankly distrubing grin of Gordon Brown inanely peering back at me. This annoys me.

I am not suggesting that Brown, or indeed politicians in general, should not be involved with sport, far from it. The 2012 games will see to it that as many politicians as possible jump on the sporting band-wagon in an attempt to improve their popularity with the voters. That is, I think, a given.

What annoys me though is that Brown wasn’t talking about either 2012 or the 2008 Olympics. Far from it. On Monday he was endorsing the chances of Andy Murray at the US Open final (which he subsequently lost in straight sets to Roger Federer). Today he was praising Theo Walcott for the impact he made in last nights win over Croatia. He also went on to praise the other home nations for their results.

To me this is political opportunism of the worst kind. I wouldn’t like to speculate how much of a tennis or football fan Brown is, but it was my understanding that, as a Scot, he much preferred Rugby. So on Monday was he simply backing his Scottish counterpart? Maybe. Instead it came across as almost embarassing that here was our PM talking about something he obviously knew little about (he suggested Murray was favourite for the final, something that no bookmaker backed, and, in the course of time, this proved to be an utterly incomprehensible view as Murray was beaten well by the better player.)

Today he was praising the football teams for the manner that they played in last nights matches. The matches involving the home nations resulted in two wins (for England and Scotland), two draws (for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland) and a defeat (for Wales). These are hardly results to write home about, despite the impressive nature of the performances, especially of England and Wales. Again he sounded almost comical, like a parent trying to be ‘down with the kids’. And failing.

Why does he need to say these things? Is it in a vain attempt at winning back the voters, “hey everyone, look at me, I like football, I’m normal, you guys can trust me, fancy a pint?“. Probably. Is it symptomatic of how far national football has declined in recent times, so much so that a victory against Croatia is worth talking about in one of his public addresses? Certainly. Is it necessary, or needed? Nope, but that doesn’t mean he won’t stop trying. Good old Gordon, at one with the English people again.