Sky rival launches sports news channel, but we miss the original
Setanta Sports launched its sports news channel in the UK yesterday. This was seen in its latest weapon in their battle against the ever-dominant Sky Sports.
It was launched on Virgin Media to replace the much-missed Sky Sports News, which was pulled from the cable company’s channel line-up because of a long-running carriage dispute with BSkyB. But wouldn’t it be better if we had SkySN back on VM so that cable viewers can be allowed to watch both?
Government caught in new donations row
It’s yet another tough week for our beleaguered Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The Labour Party is involved in yet another cash-for-access row. They had been found out by the press for failing to declare donations from a wealthy supporter.
David Abrahams had donated around £600,000 to Labour through third parties (in this case, asking several others to donate the money on his behalf) over a four-year period. It was this failure to reveal this which lead to the resignation of the party’s general secretary Peter Watt.
But the problem didn’t stop there. It was later revealed that Harriet Harman accepted around £5,000 of Abrahams’ cash at the height of her deputy leadership campaign. She claimed that in declaring the donation, which was from another third party, was perfectly legal… except that it wasn’t…
Brown was forced to admit that Labour broke the law and pledged to pay the money back, despite the fact that the party itself is around £20million in debt. He was mocked repeatedly in Parliament, not just from the Conservative opposition, but also from some of his own MPs. Indeed, it was left to the caretaker leader of the Liberal Democrats, Vincent Cable, to say that he “had turned from Stalin to Mr Bean in a matter of weeks”.
The issue here is about party funding. Political parties need money to fund their campaigns, but in recent years, membership of most of them have fallen like a lead stone, so they start to rely on wealthy people who are able to donate large sums of money, mainly to fight elections. This latest scandal means that reform of party funding has to be a major priority, but nothing has happened on this.
There has been speculation that the police will be called in to investigate this blatant abuse of the law. If there is enough evidence to prosecute, what are they waiting for?
Free speech must be allowed, even for racists
Historian David Irving, and leader of the British National Party Nick Griffin. Two extremely odious men whose right-whinge political views are often beyond the pale. Yet they must be allowed to speak their minds in public and should never be censored.
Both men are due to give a debate at the famous Oxford Union tonight. This has led to the usual outcry from the mainstream and hard left, demanding that the debate should be cancelled. But the debate- on free speech- is essential in any democracy (Britain, despite efforts by the government to turn the country into a one-party state, is still one, just about). We do need people who are prepared to go against the grain to air their views…. even if they are rubbish ones. If one doesn’t like their views, they can either ignore them, or argue their point in a public forum.
The real threat to the fragile social cohesion in Britain does not come from the likes of Irving and Griffin. It comes mainly from the very government who should be serving the people. In recent months, the very basic administrative functions are breaking down, and their determination to censor people and ideas they don’t like could lead to the threat of public disturbances not seen in the country since they reached their height in the 1980s.
More on the data loss scandal
I read this letter in the Guardian today:
“This is a potentially serious matter for millions of families. But to make it into a government scandal is way over the top. The revenue head did not need to resign; Gordon Brown did not need to make an abject apology. David Cameron and George Osborne used the foolish action of a local official to create an atmosphere of personal challeange to the government where the blame lies far down the line.”
What did you say?
For the record:
- The huge loss of personal data will leave its victims at the potential mercy of professional fraudsters.
- The revenue head did rightly resign, but the Chancellor Alistair Darling, a close colleague of Prime Minister Brown, should have gone too.
- Brown tried to do his usual trick in hiding away when stuff hit the fan… except that many of the problems leading to the scandal started with him.
- The opposition parties have every right to lay the personal blame of the scandal to the one person responsible… namely the Prime Minister. Every major spending decision of this government since 1997 has been made by him.
This is a governmental scandal of huge proportions… and unless Brown takes personal responsibility for this, he… and the Labour government, will continue to suffer more losses in moral support.
British football failure….again!
It had to happen. For the first time in nearly fifteen years, no national football side from the Home nations will be at a major tournament final. They will be absent from the Euro 2008 finals which take place next summer in Austria and Switzerland.
The fates of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were already sealed before last night’s match between England and Croatia at Wembley, which the home side lost 2-3. This saw the inevitable sacking of popularly unloved manager Steve McClaren.
Once again the British teams failed to rise up to the challenge on the international footballing stage. They were simply not good enough, particularly England last night. When the Football Association relived McClaren of his duties, there wasn’t a shortage of club managers who put themselves forward for the England manager post, despite the baggage and unrealistic expectations that come with it.
In the short term, at least we don’t have to worry about the TV commentators playing the xenophobic card every time any of our home teams play. There’s also the added bonus of the police having less of a hard time now that English fans will be forced to watch Euro 2008 at home.
In the long term, the home sides need to face up to the fact that they are not good enough to play at major tournaments…. and start to make an effort to rebuild themselves accordingly.
P.S. Did you see the front page of The Sun this morning? For those who didn’t see it, there was a picture of a deflated football on some wet pavement with the match result. No words. Just sums up who many English fans feel today.
UK shows triumph at the IEmmys- but problems remain…
Much maligned British broadcasters had some rare cheer at the 35th annual International Emmys, held in New York. Their programmes dominated the competition by winning in seven catagories. But these triumphs are being overshadowed by problems elsewhere.
The main attention broadcasters are focusing on is the industrial action by Hollywood scriptwriters, which has helped shut down production of top TV shows, many of which are seen by Brits in their millions.
British TV stations are heavily dependent on US product for their schedules. In the event of a prolonged strike, there would be gaping holes in the schedules which broadcasters would have to fill. All too often British TV fails to capture audiences in ways like their US counterparts can. However, this could be an ideal opportunity for them to try to change that perception if broadcasters and progamme makers invite US writing talent to help them how to create great storylines. It doesn’t need to be restricted to fictional content. More could be done to create decent reality or game shows, which the US have long excelled.
Allowing them in would help raise the profile of British TV worldwide…. but will a brave broadcaster do it?
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London
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