I’ve never understood what getting a bunch of over paid, egotistical, hedonistic rock stars together, to sing about love and sex will do to help the world. Did it really help with Africa? Will it really help climate change? If anything having concerts around the world is likely to be worse for the environment.
In a ruling yesterday a judge found the government’s energy review “misleading”, “seriously flawed” and “procedurally unfair”. The challenge to the consultation was made by Greenpeace. I raised my own concerns about the government’s conduct of the review last July.
In response to the ruling Greenpeace called for the government to “go back to the drawing board”. Tony Blair said the judge’s findings would have no effect on policy.
Given the strong language of the ruling it seems likely that the government will have to, at least, make a token effort at a second consultation but I doubt this will change anything. Energy policy has already been decided at the highest levels of government and given the top-down nature of the current administration it’s hard to imagine and amount of consultation leading to a change of course.
Time is running out to replace our aging and unsecure power supplies and nuclear energy, for all its faults, has the advantage of being ready to go immediately. What’s really needed, instead of crowing by Greenpeace and the opposition parties, is for someone to present a coherent, accurately costed alternative to the nuclear route as soon as possible.
Millions of voters think Labour are more sleazy than the Major government according to today’s poll in the Sun. I love the spin on this. Out of a poll of 968 (just under the Sun’s millions) only 24% think Labour are more sleazy. The majority (50%) think both governments are as bad as each other- this demonstrates the lack of trust in Government as a whole rather than Labour being any worse.
If you look at the trends, you can see that more people think Labour are more sleazy than 6 years ago. Not surprising when you consider all the fuss over the Loans scandal.
The Sun then tells us that only 15% think Cameron will do any better. True, but they forget to mention that 17% think Brown would be better. The majority (54%) think they will be no difference.
It looks like the Sun is trying to make more out of this than they need to.
Sad news! Ian Richardson has passed away today.
Oh dear what a banana! David Miliband made a great slip up on Question Time tonight. Miliband’s not going to be getting a job with Brown now- assuming that he ever was.
I challenge Miliband to find me anyone in 6 months time who’s saying it would be great to have Blair back- that’s assuming he’s left by then.
Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, has written a piece outlining his thoughts on the current state of online music delivery and digital rights management. In the piece Jobs suggests that it is time for an end to DRM:
The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.
So far Apple have been unsuccessful in pursuading the music labels from whom they license music to agree to DRM free downloads but there are signs that change may be coming. EMI have said that they will no longer use DRM on CDs perhaps after seeing the damage Sony suffered after their use of rootkits to secure CDs came to light. The sooner the big four record labels see sense on this we can get back to a far more sensible world where digital files work as they should.
There may be some strangeness for the next hour or so while I upgrade the site to version 2.1.
Today is Safer Internet Day - a good time to contemplate how all those holes in Windows XP makes you vulnerable to attack from the internet and how soon Vista will succumb to the same problems. Perhaps you should upgrade to Linux.
If you want to test your online knowledge, the BBC has an amusing Weakest Link Internet type challenge here.
I’ve been following the French election campaign for some time; over the last year we’ve seen the excitement of Chirac’s protege de Villepin destroying his chances of standing for President over the CPE fiasco, Chirac’s false hopes of standing again (he came 17th in a recent poll as who should be the next President), and Royal’s controversial nomination campaign. But this is the first time i’ve got round to writing about it. Why? Well this is when it begins to get exciting, even though campaigning doesn’t officially start until April.
My money has always been on the “poisoned drawf” Sarkozy winning the election. Not because he would make a better President but because he is more ambitious and more determined. Don’t forget he’s wanted to be president since he was a teenager. But also because I think Royal’s “post-modern listening experiment” will eventually fall on deaf ears.
Royal’s campaign strategy sounds great in theory but they will not work in a political environment consumed by distrust, presentations and sound bites. Royal wants a deliberative campaign where she listens to everyone’s concerns, makes notes and then comes up with some great policies. Great in theory- some of the best political campaigners have pretended to be been listeners. Remember Bobby Kennedy or Bill Clinton! But you can’t using these processes to formulate policy, it will ultimately upset those who’s ideas were not used and those who feel the new policies don’t go far enough.
Such a process is making her appear weak in comparison to Sarkozy, who has effectively seized the initiative and is currently setting the agenda of the political campaign. Royal’s listening phase of the campaign has been overshadowed by gaffes, the revelations by aides and her lack of concrete policies. She’s got alot of convincing to do in the second talking phase of her campaign if she hopes to win.
I think the first thing to say would clearly be that there are three unpleasant, ignorant, culturally myopic young English girls in the Big Brother House who have made comments that are unacceptable and quite deplorable in any normal social setting. No one is trying to justify or excuse them. But equally is it right that they are so easily and quickly labelled as racist? Given the potential explosiveness of this charge, it is important to analyse this claim. Channel 4 has suggested instead that the dispute and comments made reflect cultural differences and ignorance. I think one needs to distinguish between the cause of the dispute and its ensuing salvoes. This allows the question of racism to be addressed. A second question is whether any of this ugly episode should have been broadcast at all.
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