The BBCPanorama program that's at the center of theFIFA World Cup bid controversy,Fifa's Dirty Secrets, is here, http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/default.stmwhere you can read about some of the accusations leveled against FIFA officials, but for copyright reasons, the program can'tofficially be seen in the U.S.. http://www.epltalk.com/how-you-can-watch-bbc-panorama-fifas-dirty-secrets-in-the-u-s-26989
Long story short:The alleged bribes to three officials are included in a confidential document listing 175 payments totalling about£64m. Here are two videos on YouTube that comprise theFIFA'S DIRTY SECRETSprogram, so watch it while you can before the BBC makes them take the videos down.
BBC Panorama: FIFA'S DIRTY SECRETS - Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjlZw9NGSlU
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BBC Panorama: FIFA'S DIRTY SECRETS - Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wQy4eT4M9I The Channel 4 website article that accompanies this video at the top is here: Tuesday 30 November 2010
Prince William, David Cameron and David Beckham fly to Zurich to try and boost England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup - but hopes have been dampened by the latest publication of bribery allegations.As delegates gathered to press the flesh at the headquarters of FIFA - football's governing body - ahead of Thursday's announcement of the winner, the English bid team have been frustrated by the timing of the BBC Panorama programme which accused three FIFA officials of taking bribes in the past.
Read the rest of it at: http://www.channel4.com/news/world-cup-2018-bid-team-fly-to-zurich
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I wrote about the bid process on my blog on Monday and just loved Australia's bid videos, esp. the one hosted by Nicole Kidman, which emphasized the sorts of things that real fans care about: fun, safety and ease-of-access and no hassles. http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/even-before-2018-2022-fifa-world-cup.html
As you know by now, the announcements about who'll be hosting the 2018 and 2022 FIFA spectacles are to be made on Thursday, or Friday Australian time.
Nicky Campbell talked on his BBCRadio 5 live show Tuesday morning with some very knowledgeable guests and well-informed listeners about Monday night's Panorama program and whether there'd be a backlash among the FIFA officials against England's bid to host in 2018, or whether the truth is more important than commerce.
The podcast for the informative program is here and well worth listening to: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/fivelive/5lnpi/5lnpi_20101130-1045a.mp3 Tony Livesey’s show onBBC Radio 5 liveon Thursday December 2nd will originate from the City of Manchester Stadium and "will gauge reaction to the FIFA World Cup vote which will have decided the host country for the 2018 World Cup."
"Win or lose, a panel of football pundits will discuss the result including former Hull Boss Phil Brown and 5 live football commentator Connor McNamara, and an audience of 5 live listeners."
It airs 10:30 p.m.-11:30 p.m. U.K. time, or 5:30 p.m. Eastern/2:30 p.m. Pacific in the U.S. and Canada. Catch it here at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_five_live
Two reasons why there'll always be a Great Britain: comedy & candor in equal measure
Smithy's Best Man speech - Gavin and Stacey - BBC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGljfvdGiy4
Wedding day - Gavin and Stacey - BBC, featuring the famous line,
"Where to she now?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T-100FEomg
Meanwhile, over at Seven Days on Channel 4, it's another beautiful morning in Notting Hill, and with Laura and Samantha, two rather obvious eaves-droppers at the diner end up getting some free candor with their coffee! Seven Days | A Model Breakfast | Channel 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQHXy93B-ow See also: http://www.youtube.com/user/BBCWorldwide http://sevendays.channel4.com/characters/samantha/thoughts/all http://sevendays.channel4.com/characters/laura-z/thoughts/all http://sevendays.channel4.com/
Brian Alexander spent a day behind the scenes at Eastlands, speaking to Roberto Manciniand also Brian Marwood, ManchesterCity's chief football operations officer, who gives an intriguing insight into life at the richest club in the world.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/5lfd
Manchester City v Liverpool extended highlights - Video - ManchesterCity FChttp://www.mcfc.co.uk/Video/Match-highlights/City-v-Liverpool-long-highlights This was a beautifully played game, the best Man City has looked in ages! And the triangle passes were like a training video, with Liverpool channeling the Washington Generals, the perpetual opponents of the Harlem Globestrotters. Official Manchester City FC website:http://www.mcfc.co.uk/ A lot more honest than the Dolphins website!
Official Barclay's Premier League website: http://www.premierleague.com/page/Home/0,,12306,00.html 5 live Football Daily homepage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0070hx6
I came across this disturbing story on the BBC's website this afternoon after watching the Manchester United-Fulham match at Craven Cottage that resulted in a thrilling 2-2 tie.
I'd gone to the BBC's website to see if there was anything new on the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland, and there was, though nothing I can embed here yet as I'd hoped. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11050737
As of 2 p.m. today, there is not a single American media reference to this story on Google News, even though the BBC reported this on Thursday, and yes, I know thatGoogle owns YouTube.
Seriously, are there really that many newspaper editors and TV producers on vacationright now that this story could slip through without being ever being mentioned in this country? Of late, the American news media has needed no prompting to do a story on YouTuberegarding whatever the latest sensation is, the stupider the better so it seems, but this story that parents ought to know about is being smothered.
I never really thought of myself as old-fashioned, per se, but my sense of things is that now as in the past, nobody wants a watchdog that doesn't bark.
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BBC-TV
Pornographic videos flood YouTube
By Siobhan Courtney Interactive reporter, BBC News
Page last updated at 17:09 GMT, Thursday, 21 May 2009 18:09 UK
The BBC's Interactive reporter Siobhan Courtney talks about the investigation into the 'video attack'.
Video-sharing website YouTube has removed hundreds of pornographic videos which were uploaded in what is believed to be a planned attack.
The material was uploaded under names of famous teenage celebrities such as Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers.
Many started with footage of children's videos before groups of adults performing graphic sex acts appeared on screen.
YouTube owner Google said it was aware and addressing the problem.
Read the rest of the story and see news video here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8061979.stm?ls -------- The Daily Mail
I'm listening to The Monday Night Club with Marc Chapman on BBC Radio 5 live now, which is how I heard this surprising bit of news.
Aston Villaowner, American Randy Lerner is clearly clipping Martin O'Neill's wings and selling players rather than strengthening team, with January's apathy in acquiring a player to move up a leading reason for why season ticket sales are down 40%.
O'Neill doesn't want to settle for mediocrity after bring team back to some semblance of quality, a view shared by hardcore Villa fans who don't want to be seen as "feeder club" for Big Four. In listening closely, another thing that has clearly changed is that Lerner's no longer considered the 'Good American' owner by Villa fans -compared to the reviled Glazer family from Tampa at Man U- as his Greta Garbo-like mystery act has gotten old,esp. with local media whom he ignores but for one meeting a year.
Apparently, Lerner also refuses to speak to the Premier League's TV people, which is a nice bit of sabotage that you'd never see in the NFL, which does everything it can to appease the TV networks that pays the huge rights fees. I guess having billions gives you more chances to be spiteful or stupid in unusual ways.
Some commentators on the show say that O'Neill may succeed Sir Alex Fergusion at Manchester United in a few months, while others openly wonder if his hands-on style and thin-skinned personality can handle the different expectation of the Man U fans and owners, where actual championships, not simply improving, is the expectation.
FYI: My promised analysis post on England's horrific 4-1 World Cup loss to Germany in late June, and all the sharp finger-pointing that has resulted from its wake, is close to being finished now that I've digested manager Fabio Capello's press conference this morning, which revealed that, in my opinion, things are, in fact, as bad as English football fans feared. He even brought up the Frank Lampard goal that was dis-allowed. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hP_re4YSJVLLrrDXvDxWfIBqmnzw Really!
In my Friday post I referenced having gotten up very early Thursday in order to do something. That something was getting-up in time to listen to the BBC's5 live broadcast of the British Labour party leadership debate from Stevenage, north of London, inHertfordshire. The Wikipedia entry for Stevenage says among other things:
In 1861 Dickens commented "The village street was like most other village streets: wide for its height, silent for its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. The quietest little dwellings with the largest of window-shutters to shut up nothing as if it were the Mint or the Bank of England."
Not unlike most of you, so many times in the past, I've gotten up early for things that have proved quite underwhelming and disappointing personally, and I wondered the night before if this was going to just be the latest such incident.
For instance, in my own case, in the mid-'80's, when I lived in Evanston and Wilmette, just north of Chicago, right off Lake Michigan, I once caught the first "El" train of the morning to meet a friend of mine at O'Hare who was on lay-over for a few hours for her flight to Europe, but she was so tired from her late-night flight from the West Coast that she was barely awake while we had the Tartan Tray restaurant at O'Hare pretty much to ourselves, almost like it was a VIP suite. (I used to know the layout of O'Hare like the back of my hand for it was easier to navigate than my own neighborhood, since once you knew the basic parameters, it was easy to get around, even logical, a far cry from MIA when I was using that so often in the '70's and '80's. I especially loved the Tartan Tray restaurant because they were always friendly, delicious and safe after midnight, with very reasonable prices for an airport vendor. Plus, the radio reception there was among the best in the entire airport, even if you weren't near a window.)
So getting back to Thursday morning, not surprisingly, given how closely I follow what's going on in Great Britain, I've been closely following all the press stories and leaks surrounding the five candidates vying to succeed Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour Party, even as they fight for a job where they don't know exactly when Prime Minister David Cameron might call for a new general election and they will have to show their mettle during a 4-6 week window of a campaign: Andy Burnham,former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, his brother Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Diane Abbott. Just as is often true in team sports, sometimes it's better to not be the guy who follows a certain head coach or manager but rather to be the one after that, where the legacy, good or bad, has dissipated enough so that you can be judged on your own relative merits. See Vince Lombardi, Earl Weaver and Ara Parseghian.
Gordon Brown was the person who had the unenviable task of succeeding someone who had fundamentally changed the public perception of the BritishLabour Party, Tony Blair without ever having been voted in as PM himself, and he suffered greatly for it, not unlike Gerald Ford's presidential campaignin 1976.
Since Cameron's election, something I openly hoped for on this blog, I've read with great interest the stories in the British press, especially in The Timesand The Telegraph, as well as those on BBCRadio 5 live and TV4 News, the various heartfelt and exasperating interviews with former Labour leadership personnel about how the longstanding personality clashes between the Blair and Brown wings of the party had caused continual friction and heartburn for many caught in-between in ways that had never been publicly known 'til recently.
There were always lots of rumors, but it turns out that where there was smoke there WAS, in fact, fire. And at this debate, you'll hear plenty of very specific criticisms for how that party cleavage affected morale and political decisions during the last campaign.
This cleavage between the two wings was particularly problematic when it came time to have an agenda (manifesto) that could win in non-Labour strongholds.
Like the most liberal Democrats here in the Northeast U.S. and on the Left Coast, many Labour MPs have very safe constituencies that allow them to travel around the country stumping on behalf of the party and other candidates, with very little concern that they'll lose their own election because of all the natural institutional advantages they have, which have little, if anything, to do with them personally. The best example of this in Florida is the dreaded Debbie Wasseman-Schultz for instance.
It's all very well and good for her to spout very liberal, reflexively pro-Obama nostrums since she doesn't run from an evenly remotely competitive district, but for those Dems who come from evenly divided congressional districts, or even Republican-leaning districts, like many of the DLC candidates I've mentioned here previously, it's not such an easy thing to simply vote with blinders on. What made listening to this debate -and watching it via streaming- so fantastic was that the host, Victoria Derbyshire, was like a combination of the best of Ted Koppell and Charlie Rose, plus those rare great old moments on NBC's"The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson," where politically astute pols of the late '60's and early '70's would eagerly answer questions from Johnny that were either personally revealing or sometimes fraught with political danger, especially if you bombed and came across poorly, knowing the whole nation was watching.
Just like all young comics appearing on Carson for the first time, you desperately wanted Johnny's approval!
JohnnyCarson, Rolling Stone 287, March 22, 1979, Photo by Annie Leibovitz
I only read this article about 50 times when it first came out!
Derbyshire was masterful going from one candidate to another to elicit some intensely personal insight or political reflection to some often very difficult questions of a sort that you rarely if ever see on American TV, due to American pols reluctance to appear and 'let it all hang out' as it were.And she even got some of the candidates to personally call each other out in a way that you never see here publicly. If you consider yourself even slightly a political activist or Anglophile or both and watch this video -available for viewing until Wednesday night U.K. time- you will get a first-class education into how to conduct a proper political debate that is both informative and lively, and something we should very much like to see more of on this side of the Atlantic. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t7f6q
I listened to this lively discussion on 5 live Friday morning of a rural variation in the U.K. of Florida's upcoming Amendment 4,Florida Hometown Democracy, that gives a measure of direct democracy to residents and take it from the government and creates a scenario for more affordable housing if that's the will of the people.
The Right to Build initiative is a direct result of David Cameron's Big Society campaign promise to deal with some longstanding problems in rural villages and hamlets, including high-priced housing as a result of second-home owners and brain drain.
Taking power from the elites and parish council bureaucrats means that some people can finally move back to their hometowns and have the quality of life they want once their children have grown-up and moved away.
Under the Cameron government's initiative, townspeople will be able to actually vote on whether or not something gets built without the thumbs-up of planning bureaucrats, which means that both NIMBYISM and heavy-handed bureaucrats don't strangle rural areas and force people to have to work far away because elites like having a quaint little village with nothing to do but be inundated by tourists on weekends.
BBC live 5 host Shelagh Fogarty talks to listeners across the U.K. -Shropshire, Watford, et al- about the pros and cons of the innovative idea that clearly shows that Prime Minister David Cameron has every intention of doing exactly what he said about eliminating the stranglehold of government over people's lives and dreams, which is one of the reasons he won.Elections have consequences.
See also: The Telegraph People in rural villages to be allowed to build on green belt without planning permission People living in rural communities will be able to give themselves the right to build on local green belt land without planning permission, under plans to be unveiled today.
By Christopher Hope, Whitehall Editor Published: 7:00AM BST 23 Jul 2010
Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister, wants to breath life into remote villages by making it easier to win permission to build more homes and shops.
The Community Right to Build programme will allow people to build any type of property on Green Belt land, if enough locals are in favour.
Currently, planning permission to build on green belt is only granted in exceptional circumstances for affordable homes.
Local people will be able to grant themselves planning permission, avoid the need to ask the council for the green light, if a large majority vote in favour in a special local referendum. Read the rest of the article at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7905033/People-in-rural-villages-to-be-allowed-to-build-on-green-belt-without-planning-permission.html
As you can see here, I wasn't the only person listening to Grant Shapps, since some defenders of the old status quo, like The British Urban Regeneration Association, are already throwing spitballs and saying it favors "the rich." Right, because human nature and experience tells us that the "rich" and "affordable housing" usually go into the same sentence, and, somehow, suddenly, small British villages will want to do whatever helps the well-heeled. LOL! Oh, dear, I think this public policy wonk needs a dose of reality! Is Grant Shapps' "Right to Build" a step too far for localism? By Jackie Sadek on July 23, 2010 9:17 AM http://www.estatesgazette.com/blogs/jackie-sadek/2010/07/is-grant-shapps-right-to-build-a-step-too-far-for-localism.html As you can see on BURA's website, the word "people" and "residents" and "citizens" never appears on the main page:http://www.bura.org.uk/ Hmm-m-m...
See my previous post on David Cameron: David is STILL a great name for a British Prime Minister. Make it a reality today. http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/david-is-still-great-name-for-british.html
Today for your education and amusement comes this very interesting insight into late 1960's advertising and fashion and New York City living, in the form of a short ten-minute industrial film called RFD Greenwich Village.
https://archive.org/details/0574_RFD_Greenwich_Village_08_01_00_24 advertising, Manhattan, late-1960's fashion, New York City, travel, social life, consumerism, home design, Bleeker Street, NYC architecture, O. Henry's, The Village Gate, Village Purple Onion, Ye Waverly Inn, Circle in the Square theater I first saw it on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) over the weekend as "filler" immediately following a showing of Ingmar Bergman's celebrated 1966 film, Persona. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060827/
It was produced by the industry group, Cotton Producers Institute, which the next year became Cotton Incorporated, which first made all those great feel-good TV ads in the 1970's for cotton clothing, emphasizing The Fabric of Our Lives. "The touch/The feel of cotton/The fabric of our lives." http://www.cottoninc.com/CottonGrowerArticles/
Here are their newest commercials from April for that famous advertising campaign featuring singersLeona Lewis and Colbie Caillat.
See also: Leona Lewis and Colbie Caillat talk FASHION http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xd0jmd_leona-lewis-and-colbie-caillat-talk_shortfilms See other commercials from the series at: http://www.youtube.com/user/CottonFabricOfMyLife Because I hadn't seen Persona in many years and it was coming on after midnight, I chose to record it while I listened via the Internet to the BBC's 5 live programming while trying to fall asleep, something which I have become addicted to doing since the beginning of the year. http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/#two
Because of the five-hour time difference between South Florida and London, when I flip it on after watching ESPN's Baseball Tonight, it's their Breakfast show with Nicky Campbell and Shelagh Fogarty, or if it's a bit later, Victoria Derbyshire. I'll actually be compiling and sharing my own personal "Best of" 5 live morning shows soon, along with links and podcast info to share some of the best programming I've heard in ages, and which makes listening to stolid NPR an even less-likely decision once you've gotten used to their style, verve and imagination -and honesty. And it's all LIVE. That's why I used the word addictive earlier, since I now find myself going to sleep with lots of traffic updates on what's what on the M6 and where the lorries have flipped over like they always did on cue on the DC Beltway and I-270 in Maryland at the worst possible times -morning rush.
I don't mind telling you that some of it nearly had me in tears, since I recognized the outline of so many of these stories and revelations from first-hand observations among my own family and circle of friends here in South Florida and while going to school at IU in Bloomington, where I sometimes went on weekend trips with friends back to their hometowns all across the Midwest.
(To the best of my knowledge, my alma mater, North Miami Beach High School, had no cheerleaders or high-achieving girls get pregnant by teachers while I was there from 1976-'79, but apparently, judging by what I heard on those weekend visits so many years ago, NMB's kind of normalcy was anything but the norm in some of the Midwestern towns I visited, which seemed more likeDavid Lynch film sets, with high school Driver's Education instructors actually leaving their wives for 17-year old girls. Turns out I was more right about NMB being very "square" than I ever knew when I lived there.)
Frankly, the consistent high-quality programming at 5 livemakes the prospect of ever returning to listening to a regularly-scheduled NPR program high unlikely, especially since I can always go to the Diane Rehm Show archives or podcasts on weekends if an author or topic I'm interested in is on her popular show, which I listened to regularly for 21 years. But no more.
After I finally sawRFD Greenwich Village on Monday, I must've watched it 2-3 more times to capture all the nostalgia, kitsch and sharp writing, and snapped a few screen-shots to share with you here in the future as well.
Tuesday, I decided to look for it elsewhere, and I struck gold via this video at the Internet Archive.
Best phrase of the film, at 01:47, "Suburban living on an urban landscape." At 05:55, tell me that doesn't look like a young Bill Clinton!Best line of the film at 09:56,
"Today, Greenwich Village is the postmark for many "countrified cosmopolitans," people who prefer small-town casualness to rigid metropolitan dress for men,and their suburban counterparts."
The parties depicted here, particularly the courtyard parties, reminded me of living in Bloomington and Chicago/Evanston in the '80's, and in the case of the latter, the fabulous parties my older friends in advertising or retail threw with relish and aplomb, as well as friends who were 20-something Junior League legacies on The North Shore, and who looked like they stepped straight out of the new 1986 J.G. Hook catalog or a 1985 issue of Town & Country magazine.
For the record, as anyone who knows me from that period of time can attest, I've always liked and been a sucker for that look, hence my particular fondness while atIUfor sorority girls at Delta Gammaand over at Kappa Kappa Gamma. Smart, sporty, practical and fun-loving personality to spare! Image-wise for the above parties, picture 27-year old clones of Sela Ward or Janine Turner, to name two of my favorite actresses. http://www.xyface.com/celeb-sela-ward http://www.janineturner.com/ @JanineTurner https://twitter.com/JanineTurner 'Nuff said!
Sela Ward
More, December 2005/January 2006; Sela Ward - "At 49, I've learned that beautiful word no."
I'll have a post pretty soon on Janine's very interesting and principled efforts of late to promote the lasting lessons from The Federalist Papersto young people, along with her daughter, Juliette. Obviously, I support that effort 100%.
advertising, Manhattan, late-1960's fashion, New York City, travel, social life, consumerism, home design, Bleeker Street, NYC architecture, O. Henry's, The Village Gate, Village Purple Onion, Ye Waverly Inn, Circle in the Square theater
Forty-six million eligible to vote today from 7 a.m. -10 p.m. with first results expected around Midnight. Until the polls close, British radio is only allowed to speak about the election in terms of turnout and what the weather is like in any particular constituency. No silly media voter polls outside the real polls, perhaps the single worst predictor of anything, as John Kerry supporters foolishly assumed they'd won in 2004 because they led in those polls.
Surprise, George W. Bush voters had no compelling interest in talking to pollsters on their way out of the building so those results were skewed while the real ones were not. As I write this, I'm listening to BBC Radio 1'sThe Chris Moyles Show and they're talking about what they're allowed to say and do on-air today and what they'll do after they leave the studio, with one of the crew saying that he's going to go home, wake up at 11 p.m., turn on the TV and eat a pizza that he ordered yesterday.
They seem genuinely surprised that you can pre-order a pizza and a fabulous reference was made to that great scene in Back to the Future where Marty McFly gets a FedEx delivery out in the middle of nowhere sent by Doc Brown years before.
C-SPAN's election "coverage will include a simulcast of the BBC Election Results starting at 4:55pm ET on C‑SPAN3, comprehensive analysis of the returns from key constituencies, and interviews with leading politicians." See more at: http://www.c-span.org/Series/Prime-Minister-Questions.aspx
Earlier, you at 7 p.m. you can watch the one-hour BBC World News America newscast on BBC America. ----------
A country is at its best when the bonds between people are strong and when the sense ofnational purpose is clear. Today the challenges facing Britain are immense. Our economy isoverwhelmed by debt, our social fabric is frayed and our political system has betrayed the people. But these problems can be overcome if we pull together and work together.
If we remember that we are all in this together.Some politicians say: ‘give us your vote and we will sort out all your problems’. We say:real change comes not from government alone. Real change comes when the people areinspired and mobilised, when millions of us are fired up to play a part in the nation’s future.
Yes this is ambitious. Yes it is optimistic. But in the end all the Acts of Parliament, all the new measures, all the new policy initiatives, are just politicians’ words without you and your involvement.
How will we deal with the debt crisis unless we understand that we are all in this together?How will we raise responsible children unless every adult plays their part? How will werevitalise communities unless people stop asking ‘who will fix this?’ and start asking ‘what canI do?’ Britain will change for the better when we all elect to take part, to take responsibility – if we all come together. Collective strength will overpower our problems.
Only together can we can get rid of this government and, eventually, its debt. Only togethercan we get the economy moving. Only together can we protect the NHS. Improve our schools.Mend our broken society. Together we can even make politics and politicians work better. Andif we can do that, we can do anything.
Yes, together we can do anything.So my invitation today is this: join us, to form a new kind of government for Britain.
David Cameron: The Big Society
Community Relations
Getting Britain working; strengthening families; reforming schools; controlling immigration; tackling racism and challenging extremism all will play a part in uniting our divided society.
A Conservative Government will end the politics of us and them and put integration at the heart of our policies.
Sayeeda Warsi, Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action
The Conservative Manifesto 2010: http://media.conservatives.s3.amazonaws.com/manifesto/cpmanifesto2010_lowres.pdf
---------- Times of London
May 1, 2010
Vote of Confidence
The Conservatives offer an optimistic vision for the renewal of Britain. The electorate has made a call for change and they deserve the chance to answer it
The Times has not endorsed the Conservative Party at a general election for 18 years. For far too much of that time, the Conservative Party turned inward and vacated the ground on which British electoral victory is won — a commitment to the prosperity and liberty fostered in a free-market economy and a sense of justice in an open and tolerant society. Tony Blair’s Labour Party took up the promise of modernity, through its commitment to enterprise and the courage to stand tall in the world. Sadly, over the past 13 years that promise has faded. We all know that Britain can do better: it is surely time to regain our optimism.
This election offers a fundamental choice about the future of this country. It offers a moment to put old-fashioned tribal loyalties, class prejudices and social habits aside. We must choose. Either we are to be a country that has lost confidence in the ingenuity and potential of its people, and concludes that the State must continue to grow to protect us from ourselves. Or we can be a country that cares for the needy but reins in the ever-growing appetite of government and frees up people to grow their businesses, nurture their families and pursue their own hopes and happiness.
At an acutely difficult moment in our history, The Times puts its faith in the people rather than the government. It chooses a strong society, more enterprise and a smaller State. It chooses real, radical change. It chooses renewal.
Perhaps the best advertisement of the Labour years can be glimpsed in a scene outside Belfast City Hall on a clear day in December 2005. There, to the backdrop of cheers and pleasure rather than the sound of guns, in a city whose industrial decline had been replaced by the prosperity that has come with modern technology, the first civil partnership was signed. Not everything that was promised and hoped in the roseate glow of 1997 came to pass but one would have to be hard of heart to say that Belfast — like Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds — is not a better place today than it was 13 years ago. Under Tony Blair, Britain also had a formidable presence on the world stage under a Prime Minister who backed the EU’s embrace of countries from the former Soviet bloc while also recognising the importance of the transatlantic alliance. In Kosovo, in Sierra Leone and in Afghanistan, Britain’s military capacity was mobilised in defence of a noble principle. The same applies to the Government’s decision to go to war in Iraq in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. And the Government also merits praise for its handling of the banking crisis, which, for an alarming moment in 2007, looked like it might threaten capitalism itself. Those who supported Labour — including this newspaper — can look back with some satisfaction.
But the costs have been too high. A Chancellor who had proclaimed an end to boom and bust embarked on a spending spree of remarkable improvidence. Public sector staff now earn £2,000 a year more on average than their private sector counterparts. Spending rose, over the Labour years, by an extraordinary 54 per cent. Productivity lagged behind. Gordon Brown savaged the private pensions industry and sold off the bulk of Britain’s gold reserves much too cheaply. In short, Labour squandered the boom. Even excluding the cost of the bank bailout, which was necessitated by the global credit crunch, Britain is now borrowing £163 billion a year. Mr Brown’s pitch at this election is that voters should not risk the recovery by backing the Conservatives. He does not seem to realise that the greatest threat is more of the same. Yes, the economy is in peril. Mr Brown is the danger.
Britain has also paid a high price in terms of trust in politics. What began as a professional spin operation in Downing Street became a machinery of deceit. Anonymous briefings by figures such as Damian McBride and Tom Watson, part of the cabal around Gordon Brown, dripped poison about opponents both inside the Labour Party and outside. The public stopped believing in official statistics as the Budget became plagued with double-counting, and the real cost of new schools and hospitals was kept off balance sheet. The 10p starting rate of tax was abolished purely to score a political point. The nadir of this style of politics was Mr Brown’s refusal to fund the mission in Afghanistan properly and his repeated denials that he had done so, culminating in a false claim before the Chilcot inquiry that defence spending had risen every year. After ten years in which he was found wanting in the top job, for the past three he has just been found wanting.
This campaign has been electrified by the rise of Nick Clegg. He seized the first television debate and became the overnight sensation of British politics. It was always likely that the electorate’s anger over greedy MPs and their sense of expenses entitlement would affect this election. But what a gloriously British revolution it turned out to be. Anger and dismay go on the march, and the Liberal Democrats do a bit better.
But the Liberal Democrat prospectus for power still reads like that of a party that has no expectation of victory. There is still something soft-headed about its pitch. Mr Clegg’s approach to the euro has in the past been misguided, but these days it is just muddled: he was for entering; now he is against entry; and he wants to leave open the possibility of entry in the future. He is prone to bouts of rank anti-business populism. Was it really necessary to weigh into the Kraft-Cadbury bid — to play the Whole Nut card — in the TV debate on the economy? Surely he cannot think all bankers are greedy? Worse, Mr Clegg’s approach to the biggest economic problem of the day, the deficit, is to duck it: he wants to hold a meeting. Abandoning the Trident nuclear missile system would be a mistake, parading fanciful figures for the cost savings is an error. Breaking up the banks would be counter-productive: the investment banks would become far more dangerous. If Mr Clegg understands this he is not admitting it. Mr Clegg has built a platform that might allow him to go back to his constituency and prepare to be the Opposition. He has yet, however, to build a serious platform to prepare for government.
That is something that David Cameron has been able to do. Today’s Conservative Party is a very different party to that which went to the country in 2005. Mr Cameron has led that change. It is now clear that the modern Conservative Party believes in the importance of reducing the burden on enterprise and entrepreneurship. Its priorities on education, social policy and the environment are those of a modern, innovative force in politics. Its young leadership has the energy, intelligence and integrity to govern.
More modernisation still would be welcome. The party’s desire to maintain the aid budget is a victory for political branding over good sense. Its policies on the National Health Service put a tactical desire to neutralise Labour attacks before the need for radical reform. The Conservatives also retain a worrying streak of pessimism about foreign policy. Mr Cameron’s decision to remove Conservative MEPs from an alliance with mainstream centre-right parties in the EU may have seemed principled to him, but it was also short-sighted. Britain must not shelter behind foreign policy realism to retreat to a Little Englander role in the world.
In 2005 the Conservatives put an illiberal approach to immigration at the centre of their campaign. In 2010 the voters have demanded that immigration be central and the Conservative response has been measured and intelligent. Mr Cameron has made his party think again about the condition of the nation. His bold vision of a “Big Society” — that there is such a thing as society, but it is not necessarily the State — is powerful. The idea that competition will raise standards in public services, using the State as a catalyst, is the right idea for the 21st century. It is the point where new Labour left off. Mr Cameron’s social liberalism has brought a more diverse set of candidates into his party. He has acted ruthlessly against racism and against MPs who abused their expenses.
None of this has been easy. It has been bought at the cost of some unpopularity with his backbenchers. All the more reason that Mr Cameron, and his chief lieutenants George Osborne, William Hague and Michael Gove, should be commended for their decisiveness and determination. These are qualities that this country now needs.
The central question of this general election is the economic future of the nation. The Conservative Party has shown the most consistent willingness to deal with the atrocious State of the public finances that this Government will bequeath. Under fire from Mr Brown, they have held to this unpopular line. Amid the sound and fury, a fundamental philosophical difference has emerged: the Conservatives want to reduce excessive public expenditure, the Labour Party wants to keep on ratcheting up benefits, tax credits and other forms of state spending. One party recognises the benefits of individual independence. The other keeps fostering a state of benefit dependency. In the race for growth with India, China and other rising countries, the Conservatives know that Britain’s entrepreneurial spirit needs to be unleashed.
The economy is broken and so is politics. It is time for a change, in both the philosophy and the style of government. It is time for us to believe in the power of the individual, the strength of society and the unique promise of this country. Labour is tired, defensive and ruinously reliant on higher government spending. David Cameron has shown the fortitude, judgment and character to lead this country back to a healthier, stronger future. It is time, once again, to vote Conservative.
Times 2010 election homepage:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/
Also, see this great story on CitizensUK:
The Citizens and the Candidateshttp://sites.google.com/site/mkdeanery/area-dean-2/area-dean-1/thecitizensandthecandidates
