Sammy Wilson an Insidious Propaganda Machine

Back in the summer of 1987 I had a temporary Economics teacherat Regent House. At the time he was a Belfast City Councillor and press officer for the DUP. We would occasionally have our classed broken my his phone and early mobile going off in the the storeroom where it was inevitably on charge.

We had a propaganda machine in our classroom. That early mobile would feed one sides argument to the BBC, UTV or the printed press.

That propaganda machine's user is now the Northern Irish Environment Minister Sammy Wilson MP, MLA. Not everyone, certainly not the majorities, ideal choice of environment minister as he is a climate change denier. He hasn't got of to a good start with many of his pronouncements thus far.

Well he has truly but his foot in it this time. The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change was to run a advertisement campaign in all parts of the UK except Scotland. Scotland were excused because the Scottish executive was planning its own campaign on the same lines. Sammy has said NO! to showing the ad in Northern Ireland. He called it an "insidious propaganda machine".

Now the ad it right out there how it can be working or spreading any message harmfully in a subtle or stealthy manner to make it insidious is beyond me. Maybe one of the lads he taught that summer in 1987, who went on to take Economics at University and took two specialist courses in environmental and energy economics could give his old teacher a lesson on the subject of his brief. That is something I may get around to later today.

In the meantime there are obviously calls for the resignation of a Minister who doesn't have the best insterests of the electorate for his brief to the forefront of his actions.

A Now a BAFTA Completely Different

They've finally put the Phyton's into an institution.

Well all right then only one.

Yeah, yeah the one who did all the artwork.

Last night Terry Gilliam was awarded the Fellowhip of the Academy at the BAFTA awards.

He did the customary thanks to his family in a typically different way

"I'm amazed to be humbled by a piece of metal. I'm worried that Bafta will take it away when they realise I'm not who they think I am. Maggie, Holly, Amy and Harry, thank you for letting me make your life a living hell when I'm working. And even worse when I'm not."

Gilliam paid tribute to the the late Heath Ledger who'd won best supporting actor, whom he directed in his last film just before his death, in his acceptance speech

"It would have been nice if Heath had won more awards when he was alive. Heath was a genius, I think there was nothing he could not do.

"We hadn't seen anything from him yet."

And he ended by saying too often the little people are overlooked before extracting a long list of paper from his jacket. But fortunately he only rattled off the name of the Time Bandit's actors from the film of the same name, and thank them for making him feel big.

And now for something completely different.

Wow has Draper Passed the Baton to Dale

This could be a case of deflective therapy over the attacks of Derek Draper. Or it may be the pressure of the Red Devils heading to Upton Park the afternoon*. But Iain Dale Tory Version 1.0 seems to have a bee in bonnet about the Lib Dem Blogosphere this morning.

First he took exception that LDV hadn't published Nick Clegg's 25 Random Things About Me, then when LDV posted a teaser which has since been updated in full following permission being granted, he took it on himself to publish the list in full in an update. Now Iain you can't accuse Draper of unreasonable bloggishness then go ahead an do the same yourself, despite Tweets and correspondence telling you this is what was going on.

Then he decides to also post about Lembit Opik's views on the Presidential election. His headline would make you imagine that "nasty LibDem bloggers" had a part in Lembit failure to become president. Now if Iain honestly saying that the Lib Dem Blogosphere which did have a debate on the issue of the candidates had that big an impact in the 70%+ success of Ros Scott he must be greatly overdilussional about the power of the Internet on internal party elections. Either that or we really do need to get our hive mentality fully in check and with the Lib Dem Blogosphere as leading the charge log on and prepare for Government.

You know it Iain, you too will be assimilated.

Resistance is futile.

*This Liverpool fan will be forever blowing bubbles if that result goes the right way.

Eddie Izzard MP?

I love Eddie Izzard. His DVD collection MMVI of his first six live DVDs* takes a proud position in my DVD collection. Having seen a number of comedians live** he does strike me as having one of the must brilliant minds as you always feel like you have come away with some education amongst the laughs at his shows.

So it was with interest that I read a piece about him in the Sunday Times entitled 'Eddie Izzard: Hollywood to the House of Commons' in which he mentions political ambitions.

"I’m going to stand for something in about 10 years' time," he says when we meet before the gig. He is dressed down today, in trainers and a tracksuit — clearly in full "boy mode". "I'm just going to get more and more political. I have no mandate, but I have a platform, because I export British comedy around the world. Hopefully, I can come up with a commonsense attitude, being a transvestite with a career. I don't know whether it'll be a Schwarzenegger place, where you actually hold power, or a Bob Geldof place, where you protest and organise."

He considers for a minute. "I might be able to do more by staying outside, because you get locked into a constituency and you really want to help your constituency as much as possible. And will I have to dump all the work I've done to date — my creative work? I might be able to keep stand-up, but it’s taken me almost three decades to get here. . . "

"I don’t know. But I’m just going to get more and more active, and more and more up to speed on the intense detail that there is in any argument. I have emotional or commonsense arguments, I can think about things from a logical point of view, but when you get right down to policy, there’s so much more information you need to take into your brain to understand it and argue it."

So interesting insights there into the mind of the man. He's mulling it over whether to be an outsider with name recognition or seek elected office, Westminster or a Mayoral role perhaps, but for the later he clearly admits there is a lot more work involved. The nuance of policy in a wide range of areas being the nob of it.

But of course Izzard is not a lazy comedian. Being dyslexic the fact that his stage show comes across as one who is well read in a diversity of areas shows that his brain is active. Coming up with questions that need to be answered and often finding out something there than can be used for comedic effect. It is highly possible that the same sort of approach having a question and looking for a answer could easily adapt well to Izzard making a great politico mind. Whether that is a philanthropic role or active in the day to day grind of constituency work is a question that clearly as he says he will be looking in over the next 10 years.

He sees his natural home as being with Labour, which as a Liberal Democrat of course I'm sad to learn, so there is another role open to him. Like Tony Robinson he may seek a place of the parties National Executive Committee (NEC) where he's be able to have a role in shaping policy if he so desires and sees that as his role. But why wait 10 years?

It is clear he has opinions and views now. Doing an interview to promote his Stripped tour and bringing this up is not the normal way for a comedian to behave. But then as I've already alluded Eddie is not a normal comedian. So maybe this is start of moving in a particular direction, one in which he is not yet fully sure himself. However, he has the sort of mind that if he does take things logically and come up with commonsense ideas may actually find himself in a straight jacket within the modern Labour Party, which is one article of clothing I don't feel Eddie would should.

Indeed the one concern that many in the chamber may have if he were elected to the House of Commons could well be for the State Opening of Parliament. That Eddie Izzard MP could well be dressed in such as way to outshine black rod, the speaker and all the other costumed members of the Palaces.

*Unrepeatable (1994), Definite Article (1996), Glorious (1997), Dress to Kill (1998), Circle (2000) and Sexie (2003)

** One of the glorious advantages of living near Edinburgh being that all the big names either start and/or come back/keep coming to town in August for the Fringe. Of course Eddie is now just too big out fills out the SECC in Glasgow whenever he comes.

Statporn an Upward Trend

Surely I've crossed the line too far to say "This site doesn't do statporn but if it did..." however was quite impressed earlier that the first week of February is only really outstriped by 4 of the last 12 months and almost on a power with Sep and Nov. Not a bad seven days, and we all know that's a long time in politics.

If Will Shakespeare were a Blogger

Extract from 'As You Blog It' a Vlog reply to Derek Draper by WillyShakespeare1564

All the blogosphere's a stage,
And all the Twits and Bloggers merely players:
They have their rants and their excentricities;
And one Blog in its time plays many parts,
Its acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Uncertain and reeling in the writers's mind.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining cheeky face, creeping with malice
Unwillingly to the game. And then the lover,
Commenting with earnest, with a mutual blogroll
Made of his friendships built. Then a soldier,
Full of strange thoughts and bearded like the pard,
Defended with honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking a mutual respect of ideas
Even cross the political divide. And then the justice,
In fair round readers list and passing trolls,
With eyes mischeivious and Blog of history long,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the fat and northern former buffoon,
Who not long ago didn't get the t'internet,
His youthful rebirth, well recevieved, a world web wide
For his elderstatesman grin; and his manly blog voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans readers, sans friends, sans reputation, sans everything.

Possible how recent event would have been covered on WillsShakeySpear.blogspot.com

Blogiquette 101: FAO Derek Draper

A couple of days ago I was irritated at Derek Draper's misuse of Web 2.0 in all it's various forms, particularly in the way he was treating Iain Dale. So much so that I tweeted this:

Over the years, and yes Mr Draper many of us Mr Dale and myself included have been at this for years have come up with a way to co-exist. We follow some simple rules that newbie Draper in his rush for the top spot seems adamant to barge straight over. This is a lesson in some of the ways of the Blogosphere to help him with his blogiquette.

Now I don't brown nose Mr Dale as our recent spat over his use of language shows but I'd like to think there is a certain respect that goes on there despite of ideological differences. In fact even during that little spat I was conversing in private with Mr Dale and was having a good laugh, but it was our ideological clash that was in the public domain and created a little bit of a debate.

Yes it started as comment on his blog. I then felt the need to blog about it. That is fine that is debate that is what the blogosphere is good at. You can respond almost instantaneously to the posting of another. You use your blog, your social networking, your YouTube or whatever means you want in the plethora of Web 2.0 options to get your reply across. You engage in debate.

That is something that Draper has singularly failed to do over the past three weeks. He thinks he can walk into the room and not so much engage in the debate but set it.

Lesson point 1: you cannot control the debate the Interwebby is too big a vehicle for that.

Now there are two arguments that were going on regarding Carol Thatcher's remarks one was the use of language, the other was the whole issue of privacy and indeed double standards from the BBC. The privacy issue was one thing that Will Young did some up on Question Time last night, but yes it was also a grey area. The green room of a television studio is technically still in a workplace, and it also the equivalent of a staff rest room (with the added issue that alcohol may be present).

So therefore that in this complex issue the fact that Draper published private correspondence received as well as merely what was sent as Dale did. Now every blogger will from time to time publicise their outgoing correspondence. That's natural it is the Web 2.0 version of the open letter to the press. But that does not give you the right to publicise the whole correspondence from both sides to score cheap political points. Heaven forbid if all my correspondence in confidence to other bloggers over the years ever became public. It is often the behind the scenes stuff that does the firefighting, especially if others are getting overly worked up about something which starts to distract from the main point.

Lesson point 2: What comes in private stays in private. What you write back you can publicise.

Mr Draper it may surprise you to learn that by in large the political blogosphere is a pretty amiable group. I mean every day we sit at our keyboards putting out our opinions for the world to see, and those of us who accept by in large all comments know that we are going to be slated, but we raise to the challenge of debate.

Now I don't feature that often on the Lib Dem Voice weekly Golden Dozen possibly for a number of reasons firstly I'm not one of the Westminster/London centric based blogs but also more importantly I think because the majority of my referrals come from the opposition blogs rather than the Lib Dem Blogs aggregator (which accounts for the top seven positions).

Lesson point 3: Engagement in debate with others will get others to read you far better that a soliloquy stage left.

Now it depends very much what Derek Draper's raison d'etre is for LabourList. If it is to stir up the Labour activist core into action then he is going the right way about it, because I read very few of the rest of the party's bloggers (or for that matter some of the moderate Labour ones) that pay much lip service to LabourList. If it is to get his message and point across to the other streams of ideology and those of now he has to be more than an attack blog.

I still love the quote that Nich Starling lifted off my blog for the Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging 2008-9.

Maybe Mr Draper concentrate a bit on the balance of that statement. He's clearly found something in what Iain Dale's stance could be perceived to be attack worth, whereas Iain was attacking a different angle from the one Draper has been running with.

Now as Caron says time to grow up boys.

Update 8 February: Derek Draper has actually been here and left a comment below. It refers to a posting on his website however you cannot post without registering. But of course to register there as well as asking for my email details it asks for my name, postcode and whether I am a Labour party member. The only reason that these three details could be required to allow me (or anyone else) to pass comment on Mr Draper's baby would be for the purposes of electioneering, therefore I refuse to comply. On that issue I posted the following response.

The fact that LabourList requires postcode details before allowing them to post shows the overzealous nature of control of people's personal data. So while I am fully aware that the Local Labour party know full well where I live (indeed both the MP and MSP are aware that I live close to their office) I will not be submitting it to your site to have the priviledge of commenting there.

Doing so is another lack of understanding of the inclusiveness of the blogopshere.

Lesson point 4: Either you are a party site and campaign tool or a blog. Don't expect bloggers as individual units to divulge personal data for your dark purposes to have the priviledge to comment. They will do it elsewhere without this hassle which does make it harder for you to actually keep track on what they think.