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Posts Tagged ‘The Web’

Rupert Murdock has been “banging on” about copyright stuff and wants to introduce some kind of charge for reading his newspapers over the web, indeed one of his US titles already does charge for on-line subscriptions and content access. Also James Murdoch giving the the MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival in August complained that organisations like the BBC made it “difficult” for other media organisations by which I think he meant to charge customers money for content. I have written on this before: http://baldysblog.co.uk/2009/08/29/a-murdoch-moan/

I am not opposed to Murdoch or any other publisher or writer getting paid for their efforts, I believe that they should however, the main failing in my opinion lies in these various media organisations not evolving a new business model and in effect, wanting to live in the past which is just not going to happen, clearly either they lack imagination and good management or are just plain stupid.

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As this boring “MPs Expenses” saga goes through its death rattle, every idiot and their Mother is trotting out their pet ideas which are motivated by either personal interest or just plain ignorance, in the latter case the National Tooth Fairy would do them just as well, Boogie Woogie have a sixpence Click Clack !

If you are Nick Clegg and a Libdem, the fact that the Liberals lost their “Radical Party Crown” to the Labour Party a hundred years ago and haven’t managed to reclaim it back from them because of the Liberals own lack of imagination and drive, clearly needs Proportional Representation to make up for their past failures under our “first past the post system” – “Change the system to suit us and our total lack of competence is their cry…” Enchanting and I think not !

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Whilst in any organisation there are those that will fiddle the system in one way or another, the reality is that the public out cry and high moral indignation about all of this is massively overblown and may well have less to do with the expenses issue and more to do with the economic one.

In today’s Times is an excellent article by Matthew Parris, written from Beirut in which he seeks to put the whole thing into some perspective, the “indignant” feedbacks are hilarious Torrid of Tunbridge Wells in full flow, worth a look if all rather pathetic.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article6296826.ece

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I suppose I should subtitle this: “Gordon Falls into his own Elephant Trap”. The story of a Government defeat in the Commons yesterday over the status of former pre-1997 Gurkha soldier’s rights to settle in the UK is an interesting lesson to all politicians. In a way I suppose it is similar to the old saying of actors about never working with animals and children, they will always upstage you !

It was though a total and utter disaster for Gordon Brown and just incredible that he didn’t see it coming and was even stupid enough to get in a slanging match with Nick Clegg that he lost at Prime Minister’s Questions, only Brown could make Clegg look so good !

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The main problem with all this lies in the type of justification given for it, “To prevent terrorist outrages” which could as equally apply to sanctioning the use of torture. I do not think that the Government, Police or Security Services are “evil” but they are all clearly incompetent as the Bob Quick incident at the time he was in charge of the Anti-terror Unit demonstrated.

There is a complete lack of basic “awareness” which is frightening as for example Heather Blears doing exactly the same thing as Quick, a week later. To be fair to the Midlands Dwarf, she did at least show some humility over it and in her case it wasn’t a security issue but as a Member of the Cabinet – she still did it !

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In the scandal of “Red Rag” and made up political slurs directed at the Tories, of McBride, Draper, the Labour Party and Gordon Brown, the biggest losers are the last two and one might say that perhaps that is a well deserved poetic justice.

Whether Brown knew or not is in some ways, rather academic, he certainly won’t own up to it let alone issue a personal apology. The reality to quote a phrase from an article in today’s Independent “his secretive, sectarian and cabal-ridden style of government”, puts Downing Street and Gordon Brown himself, at the epicentre on this one.

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I read an amusing article in the Independent today which centred around Tony Blair pushing his candidacy for the post of the first full time EU President which is based upon the Lisbon Treaty finally being ratified by Ireland voting Yes on the second or third time of asking, the EU will not accept NO under any circumstances. It must really frustrate the “High & Mighty” of Brussels that anything as unimportant as democracy should thwart their evil plans.

What was particularly amusing was the assertion that however begrudgingly, Gordon Brown endorsed Blair, Sarkozy had finally agreed and Merkel, sort of except…If she loses the next German Election and is therefore out of a job, she would want the EU Presidency for herself…

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As I watch on TV the highly varied “protester groups” demonstrating on the streets of London, I am reminded that today indeed is April Fools Day for the whole thing has the air of a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. What do Anarchists, Green Movement, Peaceniks, Old People who have lost their savings, people who have lost their jobs, people who blame the Bankers…have in common ?

What remedies would suit them all ? Is there a universal panacea ? The answer of course is no because most are just wanting to go back to how things were 18 months ago and the “usual protesters” are hacked off because the economic downturn has made them irrelevant. For them, its a bit like Hunt Saboteurs suddenly finding out that everyone has given up hunting with hounds – it’s bloody tough having both your job and raison d’etre taken away from you…

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There was much talk during the American Presidential Campaign as to how Barak Obama and his team had “harnessed the web” to help him secure his victory. He had not just used it to project his message but also as an effective means of fund raising. The question being posed in the UK was whether a British politician or Party, could do the same.

For a whole number of reasons, I was already looking into various aspects of this for my own reasons and if of interest, in the following I will share my thoughts:

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