The ever-sharp Mark Wallace (yes, he of Tax-Payers' Alliance fame) seems to have sussed out the real reaction to the government's changes to child benefit eligibility, and believes they will turn out to be vote-winning.
Yes, there were slip-ups in the rush to get everything ready in time for party conference - and I have a strong feeling that was the real cause, especially after hearing David Cameron's rapid-fire list of the coalition's achievements during the last five months - but the public-at-large are hugely in support of the idea, even if the policy needs some tweaking in places.
As "Crash Bang" Wallace reveals, part of the disproportionate media attacks on the government probably stem from their own writers' incomes placing them into the affected bracket, which he found at Guido's site. Oh yes, a lot of those names we see in newspapers and in other parts of the media are paid very well indeed. It isn't just the Guardian's Polly Toynbee and her now-(in)famous villa in Tuscany, and the Mirror's chauffeur-driven Kevin Maguire living in London's Mayfair: it is widespread.
Five out of six ordinary people polled by YouGov recently are in favour of this benefits change idea, and there are sixty million of us. There is even some pressure for full means-testing of child benefit, but that would be expensive to administer so it would be better if it could be avoided via a set of clear and sensible rules/thresholds. Dizzy has his own take on this, incorporating some of the above (in his inimitable style, of course) and adding his own thoughts as well.
I don't think the views of a hundred or so self-interested media hacks count for much in the real-world context, and they ought to be treated accordingly. Money saved on those not needing it (if they were to be honest with themselves and us) will end up back with us all, in one form or another (hopefully reduced taxation), once the country's financial crisis is behind us.
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Visualising Quangos
Well done to The Guardian for publishing this graphic illustration of the UK's multitudinous quangos! Use the buttons at the foot of this Scribd (Flash-based) widget to zoom in or out, scroll with the mouse, and see for yourself.
Note that this contains only those quangos ("Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations", to give them their full and correct title: the Guardian's writer missed a bit) that receive £25 million a year or more in direct funding from government, and excludes non UK-wide quangos that are solely concerned with Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
UK Quangos Visualization - InformationIsBeautiful.net
Note that this contains only those quangos ("Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations", to give them their full and correct title: the Guardian's writer missed a bit) that receive £25 million a year or more in direct funding from government, and excludes non UK-wide quangos that are solely concerned with Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
UK Quangos Visualization - InformationIsBeautiful.net
Blog roll
No, not "bog roll" - do pay attention at the back!
Many (most? all?) blogs I visit have a list of other blogs as a kind of recommended reading list or something similar, so I've cautiously started to do the same. It's in the right sidebar (as it's called) and currently has just four entries.
No doubt it will grow over time, but I'll try to keep it manageable. I don't want to end up with a "can't see the wood for the trees" situation, though it will be difficult to keep under really tight control as there are so many good blogs out there. What a dilemma!
Many (most? all?) blogs I visit have a list of other blogs as a kind of recommended reading list or something similar, so I've cautiously started to do the same. It's in the right sidebar (as it's called) and currently has just four entries.
No doubt it will grow over time, but I'll try to keep it manageable. I don't want to end up with a "can't see the wood for the trees" situation, though it will be difficult to keep under really tight control as there are so many good blogs out there. What a dilemma!
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Cameron's speech
Below is a video of David Cameron's 53-minute speech to the Conservative conference this afternoon. It did the job on the whole, and seemed appropriate to the circumstances: not a full-blown barnstormer, but with enough meat for the public & media and enough Labour-bashing party politics for the party faithful in the hall.
Benedict Brogan in the Telegraph appears to have the nest assessment of what is really going and what lies in store for us, the government, and David Cameron personally. For example, did you know that he is privately resigned to being a single-term Prime Minister? I didn't.
Here is a collection of reactions to the speech. I don't think there's anything useful to be gained from taking much notice of the Labour people's contributions: they are predictably negative, but are perhaps useful to have included for the sake of breadth of opinion.
Also, here is their latest party political broadcast.
Watch live streaming video from conservatives at livestream.com
Benedict Brogan in the Telegraph appears to have the nest assessment of what is really going and what lies in store for us, the government, and David Cameron personally. For example, did you know that he is privately resigned to being a single-term Prime Minister? I didn't.
Here is a collection of reactions to the speech. I don't think there's anything useful to be gained from taking much notice of the Labour people's contributions: they are predictably negative, but are perhaps useful to have included for the sake of breadth of opinion.
Also, here is their latest party political broadcast.
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Politics Home
Although it can be a useful enough resource, if used cautiously, there is a strong leftward emphasis at Politics Home. This manifests itself in the way a lot of their articles are presented (one might almost say slanted), the sometimes rather odd nature of their own polling, and the now hand-picked "Phi wire" links running across the top.
I was alerted to all this by what I have read on a few other blogs during the past year or so, and the last of the above features is perhaps the most interesting. When the feed was from the "top 100 blogs" there was no further control over what was being linked to. Now there is that editorial control, and someone there can opt to allow a link or not. This leads to distinctly lop-sided results. For one simple example: only occasionally does any of top political blogger Iain Dale's posts get linked. Most do not. Why?
Only the five latest five thus selected links appear on the public "Phi Wire" nowadays, and this, funnily enough, makes it easier to see the site editor's intentions in the way they select posts. One can look for the political direction of each linked post, in some of which instances is obvious from the edge colour shown there, though not all (e.g. the media links) are thus colour-coded. We all know which papers have what slant, though, don't we?
By watching throughout the day, one can easily see a pattern. Of the five latest selection, there will almost always be a majority that are from the political left: 3 to 2, 4 to 1, occasionally all five will be from the left. The most-covered newspaper is the Guardian, by a long way. There is rarely, if ever, anything from the Mail ot the Sun, but plenty from the Mirror. The other papers (and bloggers) are still putting out as much, equally good, material as ever, as is easy to spot-check at those media websites at any time. I have done so myself on a number of occasions.
During the Labour conference last week, the pattern was the same, and during this week's Conservative conference, it's still that way round, more often than not critical of the Tories' policies being announced there. It was just the same before the election, by the way, so that isn't anything to do with it either (i.e. which party is/was in government).
Thus the only consistency is in the "Phi Wire" editor/selector's bias, and it becomes very obvious if one watches the feed. I might spend a day logging every single link and listing them here, with times, all colour-coded, after the conference season has ended. I think that would be an illuminating exercise!
I was alerted to all this by what I have read on a few other blogs during the past year or so, and the last of the above features is perhaps the most interesting. When the feed was from the "top 100 blogs" there was no further control over what was being linked to. Now there is that editorial control, and someone there can opt to allow a link or not. This leads to distinctly lop-sided results. For one simple example: only occasionally does any of top political blogger Iain Dale's posts get linked. Most do not. Why?
Only the five latest five thus selected links appear on the public "Phi Wire" nowadays, and this, funnily enough, makes it easier to see the site editor's intentions in the way they select posts. One can look for the political direction of each linked post, in some of which instances is obvious from the edge colour shown there, though not all (e.g. the media links) are thus colour-coded. We all know which papers have what slant, though, don't we?
By watching throughout the day, one can easily see a pattern. Of the five latest selection, there will almost always be a majority that are from the political left: 3 to 2, 4 to 1, occasionally all five will be from the left. The most-covered newspaper is the Guardian, by a long way. There is rarely, if ever, anything from the Mail ot the Sun, but plenty from the Mirror. The other papers (and bloggers) are still putting out as much, equally good, material as ever, as is easy to spot-check at those media websites at any time. I have done so myself on a number of occasions.
During the Labour conference last week, the pattern was the same, and during this week's Conservative conference, it's still that way round, more often than not critical of the Tories' policies being announced there. It was just the same before the election, by the way, so that isn't anything to do with it either (i.e. which party is/was in government).
Thus the only consistency is in the "Phi Wire" editor/selector's bias, and it becomes very obvious if one watches the feed. I might spend a day logging every single link and listing them here, with times, all colour-coded, after the conference season has ended. I think that would be an illuminating exercise!
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