Yates Relates

Good News About Politics

2009-05-05T14:46:00.000-07:00

Politics doesn't get a great wrap these days. The daily deluge of credit crunching news features about the recession, MP's expenses, unauthorised porno, and displaced Gurkha's are depressing enough, and that is before we get on to the war in Afghanistan. Political doom and gloom is something we have become accustomed to, and perhaps even take pride in. Very rarely do you hear about the good work of a local politician or MP. Obviously the media plays a huge roll in this. Sunshine and fluffyness tends not to sell newspapers or increase advertising revenue.

Amongst all of the bad news and backstabbing that flies through the news agenda on an almost hourly basis, I have been wondering just how accurate and truthful the reports are. Are all politicians philandering self promoters just out for personal recognition and gain? I have always been proud to call myself a Labour voter, yet according to our media the party is loosing its way, and being involved in the political process is not the most alluring of prospects to the majority these days. Gordon Brown recently said in one of his jolly faced youtube vlogs that he very rarely meets young people who want to be an MP when they grow up. Yet he meets plenty who aspire to public service in other forms, so why not that of a member of parliament?

I made a decision a month ago that I would defy the media and see for myself whats really going on with the people who run our country. In the words of John Prescott, it was time to "Stop Complaining and Start Campaigning". If we have problems, tutting at the newspapers isnt going to get us anywhere. I thought it might be the time to contribute, to make a positive change and get involved. Im always going to be part of the political left, yet nobody can deny Labour has problems, but I don't want to abandon them when times are tough and just vote Lib Dem, why not try and help, let them know and maybe make a difference.

I have been to two events now, a local campaign meeting near my home in Rusholme, Manchester and a city centre campaign event to mark the anniversary of 12 years in power for the Labour Party. As a result, I have positive things to say about four politicians in particular.

Theresa Griffin - popped up on my facebook a few months ago and is currently running as a candidate for the European Parliament on behalf of the North West . After dozens of status updates and video links to campaign events, I had the good fortune to meet her last Saturday. The lady is tireless and her prolific nature exists out of the genuine desire to do good. She is concerned that she is currently running head to head against the candidate from the BNP, Nick Griffin (no relation).

Arlene McCarthy MEP - Our local MEP was out supporting John Prescott's battle bus campaign over the weekend. I spoke to her whilst we stood outside the town hall in Manchester following the event and asked her what her job involved on a daily basis. She has a warm Irish accent and I listened with great interest as she detailed her daily task of solving issues that involve real people both in the UK and abroad. I sensed that she played down just how much she did, perhaps because she thought my interest was unusual or potentially critical, but she told me enough for me to be impressed and for it to become obvious that she does her job because she cares.

Rabnawaz Akbar - The local Labour candidate for the Rusholme ward. Rabnawaz has lived in this part of Manchester for 15 years and has chosen this point in time (after Labour lost 3 highly muslim heritage wards because of the war in Iraq) to win back a place for Labour in South Manchester. He is a genuine family man who is another example of someone who just wants to try and make things right on a local level and I intend to support him however I can in achieving his goal of being elected councillor in 2010.

John Prescott - I can't help but admire John Prescott. I have met him twice now, once as he was bickering with Charles Clarke on the Politics Show at the Labour Party Conference and again on his Battle Bus tour of the North over the weekend. Some say that he no longer represents the working class man because of his lavish lifestyle. Yet he still lives in Hull and having a couple of old jags is hardly Roman Abramovich standard. His grittiness and determination even in these difficult days for his party is truly inspiring. To stand and watch him preach alongside Lord Kinnock outside Manchester Town Hall reaffirmed my positive perception of the Labour Party. He openly admits that some things have gone wrong, yet that he knows people want a Labour Government and that if we want to turn things round that we need to stop complaining and start campaigning. I genuinely feel that if 25% of our politicians in the UK had John Prescotts gutsy and charismatic approach, politics would be perceived in an entirely different way in the UK.

I think that trying to get involved with the party that runs our country is a worthwhile goal, and any element of reluctance that existed previously has faded. I am convinced that politicians are generally good people, despite what the press might say. I get the feeling that there is an issue not just with the Labour party, but how we as a society are determined to perceive them. It is a problem that any political party in power will endure, yet it is one they must consistently combat head on.

I feel that the Labour party is doing so much firefighting right now that they not only risk losing sight of the fundamental messages they need to communicate to the electorate about politics -what the party stands for and the good work that does take place - but how to convey them. Labour needs the opportunity to take a breather, regroup and get their messaging and communications strategy placed consistently throughout the party. I am confident they can do this. Whether they do it before or after the next election will determine how much longer they stay in power.

Fascinating and Infuriating - What would you do?

2009-04-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

I just watched a fascinating documentary on Channel 4 On Demand. Would you save a stranger? An hour long documentary recounting the stories of people who have been victim to violence, and those who have watched others being subject to violence and their consequent response.

In a week that has seen a local man randomly stabbed to death just round the corner from my home here in Manchester this documentary raises realistic and timely questions about the way in which we both as individuals and a society address violence when exposed to it in this often shocking and brutal way.

Very often we read in the media about somebody taking a beating or even being killed. Yet we can distance oursleves from it and, very often we cannot envisage or may not even consider what our own reaction would be in that situation.

For most of us, the violence that we encounter comes through a televsion screen. A re-enactment, actors working through a sequence, jerky black and white CCTV images. By now we are used to seeing this kind of content on a regular basis. However, for those unfortunate enough to encounter this king of violence in real life, our reaction is often exactly the same as the one we provide from the couch when watching TV. We sit still and we gawp.

When I lived in North East London, I read an article in the Guardian written by a woman who had been on a bus in Islington when another passenger was stabbed on his way home from work. On a bus full of people, she was the only one who went to his aid. As he died in her arms, she asked another passenger for his coat so she could wrap it around the victim because he was shivvering. He said no because he didnt want to get blood on it. No one offered any support even after the attack was over and the attacker was long gone.

As far as I can tell there are two reasons why someone would not go to the aid of someone in immediate distress:

1. They have a serious concern for their own safety
2. They believe someone else will - or is already - dealing with the problem

I think it is entirely reasonable that a lone female should not try to tackle ten men beating someone up. She should certainly try and get someone's attention and call the police. However, for a bus full of grown men to sit and watch a 13 year old girl get her head stamped on is pitiful, and to watch this documentary was at times totally infuriating.

Similarly, there were two men featured on the programme who had gone to the aid of an attack victim. One died of a stab wound to the heart and another was stabbed five times but survived. The beauty of this documentary was that it was objective. It didnt judge those who did or did not intervene, and it highlighted the contradictory elements of the "Should I?, Shouldn't I?" question.

I once taught a man in prison who had stamped on someones head until they were dead. I asked him why he kept going, why he didn't stop. He said if only someone had pulled him away he knows he would have left the man alone. He infact blamed the lack of action of others for the mans death.

Would I help a stranger? Yes, I think I would, because I would look to others for help if I found myself in a situation where I could no longer defend myself.

Stating the Obvious for "Staters" - The Facebook Faux Pas

2009-01-25T06:13:00.000-08:00

Cigarettes, alcohol, a variety of Class A drugs, endless partying, blatant philandering! All things that a lot of people are addicted to. The continued and unrelenting consumption of the aforemtioned has been proven to send many participants on the destructive downward spiral which will undoubtedly commit them eternally to hell for being so naughty and rebellious in the first place.

Traditionally, the way to get over an addiction is simply to stop, go "cold turkey" or painfully ween yourself away from your vices. Yet the arrival of the digital age has unwittingly thrust us into the realms of "social networking" and an addiction from which we cannot escape. Facebook has accomplished world domination in a way that is truly astonishing. My 76 year old grandmother even has a profile and uses it to keep in touch with us from across the Atlantic. I came across a picture on her profile of her looking shocked whilst holding a plastic trick flask which had ejected a rather large penis as she opened it, something I am sure she has not seen yet. Social Networking has its pro's and con's. Facebook alone has been responsible for facilitating countless parties, romances, one night stands, marriages, breakups, crimes, business successes and failures, just to name a few. Yet the one phenomenon that has managed to cement itself well and truly as a form of modern day media is the "Status update".

They say that you can learn a lot about a person from the way they dress, or perhaps their body language. Yet the Facebook status update has become a voluntary and rolling commentary on our lives, an insight into personality traits and tendancies. The most noticeable thing is that people use their status updates for a variety of reasons, and often one person will remain within a singular genre of status update because thats what they are good at, much like Steven Saegal who has made the same movie at least 15 times.

By far my favourite status updaters, or "Staters" are the ones who can integrate charm and wit into their updates. Nothing overly personal, but enough to tell us about who they are and making us smile or even giggle at the same time, for example one of my cyber friends just posted this update (Im going to change the name for, erm, privacy) "Paul Smith now understands why women like a particular type of alcohol, because they can relate to it... WINE WINE WINE".

Yes, it's sexist, but it's allowed because it's meant as a joke, it's funny, and it shows us that "Paul Smith" can have a laugh. Im sure that many of my cyber friends strive to come up with updates that are as comedic and topical as possible. This is good because it's entertaining and not overly personal, but it reflects my cyber friends in a positive way because it shows that they are fun and not overly self concerned.

Yet status updates can also place us on that destructive downward spiral that ends only with certain untimely demise. Many people use and abuse their status updates and by doing so inflict upon their unwitting cyber friends a barrage of boredom induced tosh, self obsessed jiber jabber, vomworthy romance related utterings and generally mindless drivel. It is important to remember that a status upate says a lot about who we are, and this is something to bear in mind before we start telling everyone about just how much our polycystic ovaries are "destroying my life", or about how much we"really wish he would just listen or Ill kill myself" (apparently he knows who he is). The point being that many people take status updates too far and use them as a tool to win an emotional overshare. However, the real point is that this only makes people feel that the person who has written it might just need to get a grip, instead of conveying their deep and meaningfuls to every cyber stalker on the web.

I have a couple of friends who recently got engaged, they will probably recognise themselves if they read this, but it serves them right. I am certain that they think nobody else exists on Facebook, and they break the status update etiquette several times a day by informing us of just how much they cant wait to see each that night . Sometimes they make updates like this at about 9:05am, undoubtedly just after they have arrived at work, having seen each other about 45 minutes before hand after spending the entire night together. The thing is, they push the boat even further and actually have conversations via status update , "Paul Smith is eating his sandwiches, I miss you baby waby, cant wait to see you tonight", to which his fiance will punctually reply something along the lines of "Sarah is so happy that her hubby is enjoying the sandwiches she made him, love you too baby cakes". I'm sorry, but I want to throw up, now.

Staters need to twig on that they have their own brand, their own personality, and people will behave towards this brand according to the messages that are conveyed to them. Much like a business, if you don't like what it stands for, you are likely to invest your money and time elsewhere. Every business has its issues and problems, but they dont send out a press release for evey little hiccup, because frankly we don't need to know and its generally a bit boring, infact they strive to tell us only about the good things, and only tell us about the bad things if they really have to. I think this is a model that could work for Staters.

Personal PR is a hugely important element of social networking, and its relatively recent arrival means that a large number of people are still not completely switched on to it. Personal PR for Staters is not about getting attention or trying to make ourselves look better than all our friends, it is more to do with maintaining an image which isnt going to make everyone throw up every time they log in, or heaven forbid, take us off their friends list.

Potty Protests, Pink Parrots and Zip Lines

2009-01-19T14:19:00.000-08:00

Every now and again I tune into a web based alternative news portal called LiveLeak.com. It is a viral collection of videos from around the world. usually captured on handheld cameras and mobile phones, they are typically the things that dont make it onto the mainstream news, or are an alternative viewpoint of the issues that do.

The thing about LiveLeak is that its raw and often unedited. Feeds are often placed on the site directly from personal cameras and are not subject to censure. You can be right in the action with British troops in Afghanistan or in the crowd at a Barack Obama pep rally.

I love the psychology of bandwagons and, this past few weeks has seen almost every former hippy, powerliberal, and bandwagoner get on the Gaza Strip boat. Please don't assume that I condone Israel and its actions, a lot of people have died and some of the scenes have been truly shocking. I am not talking about Israel and the Gaza Strip today. I am talking about ineffective protesters.

I tuned into LiveLeak.com this week and came across a video that was taken from within a pro-Arab protest in London. It essentially involved a gang of young British asian men leading a "protest". By protest I mean they were marching on the police with such force that they could not be contained, they were goading the Police to fight with them, shouting racist insults, throwing traffic cones, bricks, bottles, anything they could get their hands on. For the several minutes that the video lasted, I couldn't help but wonder what they were aiming to achieve. Normally you would expect that a protest would strive to get a message across, to get people on board, to win some exposure. Yet by being so aggressive, hurling bricks and generally acting yobbish, whilst at the same time yelling "Allahu Akbar", I can only assume that their cause wasn't inundated with new recruits.

I wear a Palestine scarf, I'm no political activist, Im just fashionable. I also wear some geek chic glasses and a flat cap, but it doesn't mean I'm a chimney sweep, even though I do talk a bit like the legend that was Fred Dibnah. My selection of scarf however, has made me the target of pro gaza campaigners. They think I'm all on board, one dreadlocked student even tried to recruit me to stand behind his desk on Market Street in Manchester. He was called "Snoops" and he couldn't tell me anything about the history of the Arab/Israeli conflict. His awkwardness and the "you're a numpty" look on my face was enough to cement my release.

Similarly on the protest front, the "highly criticised" third runway at Heathrow airport seems to be getting nothing but bad press. A whole village will be destroyed and Joe Bloggs was even on the radio complaining about having to move house after 30 years. He didnt mention how much compensation he will get though, and if h has been there 30 years he could probably do with a change. We are in a recession and we seem distraught by a new runway despite the fact that it will create 65,000 new jobs, not to mention the money spending visitors it will facilitate and aircraft carbon emmissions are a third less than they were ten years ago, and they are still going down.

The point I am trying to make is that there are plenty of ineffective protesters about these days. If you stand in the street shouting "Free Gaza" what are you actually going to achieve? I often wonder if protesters actually think that the powers that be will notice and say "oh look, we've annoyed those people outside the BBC in Manchester, do you think we should tame it down a bit and just let Hamas fire rockets at us and hope for the best?". In this age of modern technology, surely there is no need to stand out in the cold and wave banners. Surely things have moved on and well placed emails and letters to MP's, MEP's and Newspapers are going to have more effect. Some of the Heathrow Airport protesters were pretty clever this week and actually bought a piece of land that the new runway will cover, and they are outright refusing to sell it. Good for them, it wil truly throw a spanner in the works. That's how you do it.

In other news, in 16 hours America will inaugrate its first black President. A rather cool pilot became the first in history to ditch a fully loaded aircraft in water and have everyone survive. The Royal Bank of Scotland reported a 90% drop in profits and I couldnt help but think "it serves you right for charging me £38 for exceeding my overdraft, you fatcat muppets". There are 3 bright red Australian parrots vacationing on Whalley Range in Manchester. The other night (and armed with a very large pepper grinder) I chased a robber out of my back garden at 1:30am, and yesterday a 12 year old zip lined into my front garden with the use of some dodgy old rope and the tree across the street. I can't help but think that they are using our house as a training ground for some high profile Oceans Eleven style robbery.

The Mighty Fallen

2008-11-15T16:49:00.000-08:00

There were a number of things I planned to blog about this evening:-

1. My sister and her limitless talent as an urban artist has once again caused some controversy following a newspaper article about her role teaching young people from sheffield how to "do graffiti". I think controversy is good when it comes to publicity, but I really do wish she would make more use of her free of charge PR guy brother before she jumps in with these wet behind the ears, out for a scoop journo's working the local rags (learn to take a hint sis).

2. The rugby team I play for each Saturday conceding its ninth consecutive defeat was also high on my list. The Didsbury 3rd team seem to be having less luck than a final destinaton movie, and I have sore shins.

3. The fact that I have become completely and utterly obsessed with this years X Factor, mostly because of our home girl from Blackburn Diana Vickers, but also because I simply love to watch the way they run things. The PR stunts, the media scandals, the emotive editing. They must be making a bloody fortune.

4. The entire staffteam of numpties who work at the Vodafone store on Market Street in Manchester. It seems a maximum IQ of 49 and a fancy hairdo are the only pre-requisites to employment there.

But then I watched The Fallen, a feature length docufilm that provides a candid and often brutal insight into the lives of the families who have been left behind following the deaths of their loved ones in Afghanistan and Iraq. I could not help but feel a pang of dissapointment in myself for being so self concerned and ignorant, shouting insults at the X factor whilst kicking back and enjoying a few cheapo Asda beers and feeling sorry for my lightly bruised rugby shins whilst wondering whether my housemate Greg will notice that I nicked one of his Rocky Robins.

I know a lot of lads who are completely Army Barmy. They know that when they go into the theatre of conflict they are at risk of injury or death. Some enjoy the thrill, some just want to survive and come home. Yet there is an amount of the "it wont happen to me" ideology that exists amongst them. It was truly heart wrenching to delve into the lives of the surviving families and to see how they handle the flood of emotion that wells up within them when they talk of their fallen sons and daughters. This was a film that truly needed to be made. When we see the news of another soldier dead in Afghanistan, there is little we can do to relate or associate oursleves with their life. We often fail to realise or understand the enourmosity of their death. A name, a rank and regiment, their age, perhaps the name of their hometown. Then we close the page and go back to our spreadsheet or overpriced coffee.

What we dont see is the shot that enters through the side of the flack jacket, into the kidneys and up through the spine and into a lung. We dont see the desperate attempts of close friends to fashion a stretcher from combat jackets and branches. We dont see the team of medics battling on the Chinook elbow deep in blood to save a 19 year old life that they watch ebb away. We dont think about the mental trauma that being part of this brings to his fellow infantrymen. We dont think about how the family accept the news. We dont think about the empty bedroom their son wont come back to or how a widow comes to terms with sleeping alone in a double bed.

I am guilty of turning the page and moving on. Almost a year ago to the day I was in the front rank of the Duke of Lancasters Infantry Regiment parade on Rememberance Day. As we marched off the square following the service the hundreds of people in attendance began to applaud and cheer. It was at that point I realised that we turn the page not because we dont care, but because we simply struggle to relate and because we are pretty powerless to do much else.

So The Fallen was a very appropriate film, because it allows us to relate to the realities of what happens to the soldiers of the British Army and their families. The next time I see a story of another soldier dead in Afghanistan or Iraq I will certainly take a moment to reflect on just how lucky I am before going back to my spreadsheet.

The Mountain of Martin

2008-11-05T08:01:00.001-08:00

At 4am this morning Barack Obama reached the summit of the proverbial mountain that represents the struggle that has befallen the black people of the United States throughout that countrys history.

This afternoon I crossed the road to visit the Urbis museum in Manchester to find a group of school children winding their way through an exhibition that tells the complex and violent story of the Black Panther movement of the years gone by. The lives of Malcom X, Martin Luther King, John and Edward Kennedy -all advocates of black rights in the United States - which were taken so violently and tragically can now be remembered as the true and real foundations for what has happened in the United States within the last 24 hours. In 1963 Martin Luther King conveyed his dream that his four little children would one day live in a world where they would be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. Today his only surviving daughter Bernice sat and wept as she saw elected the first black president of the United States.

It's not only the fact that Barack Obama is black that is important - that issue sits to serve as a contrast between the social constructs of modern america and the america of decades gone by - but it is the fact that he bears such inspiration, vigour, youthfulness, appeal and grit that matters the most. I will certainly be watching his progress with great interest. Well done the Democrats.

In other news, a 50 foot high effigy of Jonothan Ross and Russel Brand will be burned this weekend in response to their recent faux pas on BBC Radio 2, and here I am talking about civil rights and humanity in modern times.

God bless public transport

2008-10-27T02:13:00.000-07:00

Manchester will soon have a referendum on whether to introduce a congestion charge for traffic coming into our fair city. I just spent 1 hour and 15 minutes on an early morning bus which brought me 6.8 miles into work on a road which seemed totally bare of cars. I would like to write more but I cant, because I'm late. God bless public transport.

The Bravery of Tom Buckley

2008-10-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

3 years ago I had a phone call from my tearful and nervous mother, my little sister Sarah had been diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, aged 18. After a fourth demand, a local GP had finally agreed to give my sister a blood test to try and explain her lethargy. A day later she was admitted to the Christie Hospital Young Oncology Unit as an inpatient, she would end up staying there for six months. This aggressive cancer of the blood had ridden my sister of her immune system and loomed ominously over her life. Having lost our Grandfather to Cancer just months before we were nervous about the prognosis. My sister, it seems, is a fighter (she obviously learned a lot from her brother) and she responded very well to her treatment with an attitude that would make Lance Armstrong proud. Today she is well on the road to recovery has become such an infamous street artist that she competes with Banksy. My sisters story however, is not the one I intend to tell today.

During that time at the Young Oncology Unit at the Christie Hospital in Manchester, we became involved with the people there. We ran fundraising campaigns and became friends with the nurses who cared so well for my sister. My sister established lasting friendships with the other young people on the ward, all members of families undergoing the turmoil that comes with addressing the mortality of a loved one, particularly at a young age. One such individual was a young man by the name of Tom Buckley. After four years of treatment, countless operations and a great deal of hope, he has this month been told that he has less than a year to live. So with one false knee and a declining level of health he has decided to complete the most difficult task he could think of and will walk from one coast of the UK to the other next month. All proceeds going to the Young Oncology Unit that has cared for him.

If you want to support Tom Buckley in achieveing his goal, go to:- http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.justgiving.com%2Fthebuckers&h=17fd8244b725e74945b655e27cc6b291

A humble homecoming!

2008-10-08T01:47:00.000-07:00

About a month ago I had a meeting with the Events and PR manager for Manchester City Council. I had heard on the grapevine that the council were planning an Olympic homecoming celebration for the North West members of Team GB who performed so well this summer in Beijing. Having watched the Olympics with a great deal of pride for our athletes, I wanted to get involved in making this event a success. So, I offered to run a month long direct email campaign that would target 10,000 employees in the Manchester City Centre area. Since the event was to be at 6pm, they would make an ideal audience for the celebration, people being able join the festivities directly after work. This would normally cost several thousand pounds, but I convinced the company I work for that it was a public service and that we should do it for free.

My contact at the council loved the idea and could not thank us enough. She felt that she needed all the support she could get due to her limited budget and resources. We struck the deal and went to work. Two days later, whilst our programmers and designers were working on the first part of the campaign, I received a regretful call saying that unfortunately Manchester City Council would not be taking advantage of our services. It seems that the beurocratic machine of the public sector had once again ploughed progress to a stop. Our plan needed to be agreed by "the partners" of the event and it seemed someone thought they could handle it on their own.

I don't like to say "I told you so", but last night I wondered down to Albert Square in Manchester to watch the event and was quietly satisfied to see the area that easily held 9000 Glasgow Rangers fans earlier this year playing host to no more than 150 attendees of the Olympic Homecoming Ceremony, most of which were the families and friends of the athletes themselves.

Our athletes in Beijing did a fantastic job and their success deserves to be celebrated. This event could have been a huge success, yet the council chose to assume that people would turn out merely through word of mouth. The dissapointment on the faces of the athletes was obvious to see when they realised just how few had turned out and I felt like telling them that it is not apathy of the people of the North West that caused this but red tape, bad organisation and most importantly, a real lack of effective communication on behalf of Manchester City Council.

Keen teenagers, gruff passion and a personal appeal

2008-09-25T14:24:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I was fortunate enough to be in the live audience for the Politics Show debate at the Labour Party Conference. John Prescott and Charles Clarke were the heavyweight (no pun intended) politicians on the panel, accompanied by Polly Toynbee from the Guardian, who - being a liberal - sat well and truly on the fence throughout the debate and did a good job of plugging her new book. Having spoken at length with the shows producer earlier in the week, he obviously saw fit to plonk this born and bred labourite in the back row in case I was in any danger of spouting left wing propoganda from the front row. I didn't get to heckle Charles Clarke for sounding like a Tory, but I was fortunate to be sat next to a proud dad who had driven his 16 year old daughter to Manchester from Northampton that morning to support her in her love of politics. After spending the last 3 years working with a mixture of dissassociated youths and angry-at-the-system prisoners it was hugely refreshing to speak to this passionate young woman who undoubtedly has a bright future ahead of her. It was also refreshing to watch John Prescott bare down on a Daily Mail journo in the front row (complete with flimsy flop haircut and rah rah rah accent) for mentioning the current employment situation. A quick rebuttal from good old John on 3 million unemployed under the tories seemed to do the trick. It's good to see a politician with some gruff passion, others might call it aggressive and uncouth, I call it ballsy and true. Maybe its just the way we do things in the North.

In other news, I must congratulate my friend Greg Holt. After three years of hard slog he has at last signed the lease on his first office/studio and will be tackling the TV industry head on as a camera operator/editor in the months and years to come under the banner of Bridgewater Media (if he hasnt changed his mind on the name yet). On a similar vane, I am hereby appealing for a new drinking buddy, applications on a postcard please.

Justice at its best?

2008-09-16T15:52:00.000-07:00

As a young man in Blackburn I used to knock around with a lad called Anthony Rigby. As teenagers we rode our bikes to Darwen Tower. We went swimming together at the Disco night in the baths in Blackburn. Anthony helped me get my first ever kiss from a girl who bore the radiant smell of cigarettes and Lemon Hooch at the West End Community Centre.

On the morning of January 7 2002, aged 18, Anthony was shot in the back of the head in his own apartment. Four days later he died in hospital. Mark Harrington was the man responsible for the crime. He too was someone I was familiar with. I had asked him to join the college rugby team because we needed the players. Little did I know he had a long standing history of paranoid schizophrenia and the tendancy to be violent. Soon after my encounter with him he was expelled from college for intimidating fellow students. He was sectioned, then released, then he wrote a "death list" which featured several of my friends. Anthony was at the top. Luckily the police caught up with him before he could do any more damage.

Harrington was found guilty of manslaughter through diminished responsibility and was taken into custody indefinately. 6 years on, an old school friend informs me that Harrington will soon be back on our streets and I am struggling to understand the logic behind the decision to let this man walk free.

A man serving time for murder once told me that prison is "a university where you can get a degree in crime. Rehabilitation is a figment of the politicians' imagination". It worries me that such a short period of time may not be enough for someone who never showed any remorse for his actions. When teaching in the prison system I met two former soldiers who had both served three tours of Afghanistan before coming home and stealing a cab drivers car keys and putting them down a drain because of a discrepancy with the fare. They were both sentenced to two years in jail and were dishonorably discharged from the armed forces. I remember that they were frustrated at the length of their sentence in comparison to a sex offender who was sentenced to six months for indecently assaulting a child, and I agreed with them.

I have recieved comments on my previous blogs about making prison a more severe place to be. Im not sure whether I agree with that, but one thing is for sure, and its that a real and practical review needs to be made of the sentencing and parole policies in our justice system. I will be in the audience of the politics show this weekend in Manchester, maybe its one of the issues I will throw at the politicians while I am there.

Dr. Campbells Dead: Infrastructure breakdown, not financial neglect!

2008-08-28T14:15:00.000-07:00

Dr. Derrick Campbell has taken a real slating in the press this week. The holder of a Phd in Theology and ordained minister suggested that the young black men of London are "being left to die" as a result of neglect on behalf of the government, namely through a lack of funding. Many have been quick to criticise government advisor Campbell, citing a cultural trend as opposed to a financial black hole as the main reason for the huge increase in knife and gun crime in our capital.

Dr. Campbells comment, arguably sensationalised and appropriately angled specifically to grab the attention of the right people, might just have gone a bit awry. Many have accused Cambell of reverse racism, arguing that their white middle class daughter who attends non government funded cross stitching classes chooses not to go out and stab her peers to death. Others have said that as a career academic, Campbell has only his knowledge of ancient theology to label himself an expert, and ancient theology has nothing to do with knife crime and turf wars. Having worked both in an academic environment as an educator, and as a youth worker in a social enterprise, I can readily see how Campbells claims can be disjointed with reality. However, I am willing to place some faith in what Campbell has to say.

The critics are right when they say that the issue of knife and gun crime in London is a social problem. However, without the right kind of financial investment and infrastructure to support it nothing is going to change. A problem exists, it needs to be solved. That is what Dr. Campbell was trying to say, and we cannot deny that it is the young black men of London who are dying in gang related turf wars in London.

The outcry that Dr. Campbell has instigated originates in the collective opinion of our society that everyone should have access to a good level of provision for their young people, not just the trouble makers in London.

Within the last ten years the rural county of Cumbria has seen over 90% of its government funded non-formal education budget dissappear. Only a very small number of struggling, independently funded projects exist, and they are not enough to cater for the needs of that community. As a result of this, the majority of young people strive to leave the county for employment and education when they turn sixteen. This in turn affects the productivity and success of local business. Cumbria was the first county in the UK to go into economic recession this century.

The kind of funding that is required to tackle the social problems that exist in London, Cumbria and in all of our towns and cities is increasingly hard to come by. Winning grant or bursary approved money either from the government or other public funds often requires the commerical approach that a company would take to win a new business contract. You have to compete. This means that the large charities and NGO's are utilising money that the smaller and highly valuable projects do not have the professional ability to compete for. Instead, they rely on freelance, profit making fundraising professionals who will often take up to 30% of the money they bring in, which for a local group in need of £10,000 for a summer recreation project is a hugely substantial amount. There is a similar issue with private sector investors who offer support to the third sector as part of their corporate responsibility initiatives. Very often they will only support highly recognised, highly exposed charities, again leaving the smaller organisations making their applications in vein. Some of our own research last year showed us that up to 80% of the finance that goes through a large charity is spent on administration and human resources, meaning that the cold hard cash the community based initiatives see is actually just a fraction of the beneficiary charity's turnover. There are new formats of NGO that can kerb this trend, the arrival of social enterprises and Community Interest Companies for example. However, the use of these business formats is not yet rife enough to make any real sociological difference.

Dr. Campbell has a point, the black men of London are being left to die. However, so are countless NGO's, and third sector projects around the UK. There is a vast amount of money available to these causes, yet we have still to find a way to administer that money in a fashion which is sustainable and progressive.

More Wiff Waff from the Flimsy Flop

2008-08-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

Wiff Waff is coming home as Boris Johnson so gracefully puts it. Isn't it fantastic that he mocks the Olympic sport of Table Tennis with such haste. Hoorah for Boris, he's made a funny again. We have come to expect this ridiculousness from the wiffle haired flimsy flop. Yet what was more dissapointing to see at the Olympic handover press conference on Monday was our stern faced Prime Minister and Sebastien Coe standing by his side while they scoffed and laughed uncontrollably at every one of his ignoramus remarks.

Seriously, after all the work Seb Coe has put into bringing the Olympics to London in 2012, you would think he would expect a bit more seriousness from the newly elected Mayor of London. I don't consider myself to be a drama queen or an antagonist, but surely I cannot be the only one who was dissapointed and embarrassed to be represented by Boris Johnson when he walked out in front of a global audience at the Birds Nest in Beijing for the closing ceremony on Sunday looking as if he had just been in a bout with one of the Khazak wrestling team. He was slumped, his jacket was open, his suit hung like a tent, he walked with a dithering and hesitant gait that screamed "Nincompoop" to the world. Frankly, stood next to his fellow respresentatives from the IOC and China he looked pretty darned unfortunate.

We all like to laugh at Boris Johnson and his canny approach to politics, because we expect it from him and we can try to understand it. The rest of the world however must have raised a very big eyebrow when it encountered him this weekend, much to our detriment. Gordon Brown should have been the man to wave that flag in the Birds Nest, at least we could have trusted him to look smart.