Dec 28 2009
The BBC Today programme guest editors
This morning the one item I heard sent me rushing for the off switch. Today’s guest editor wanted to give airtime to the case that choice is a bad thing. Apparently people find it confusing, it is wasteful and it allows some people to do better than others! Sell them all the same type of loaf and send them to the same type of school. Don’t give them much choice of flavours, types and sizes of jam.
Choice drives lower costs, higher quality, more opportunity, more jobs, higher living standards – that is surely what the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe proved.
I expect for the rest of this week we will have a parade of lefties coming forward to “edit” the programme, to reinforce tired soundbites and anti freedom views. What’s the betting there will be no guest editor who believes that freedom and choice in an enterprise economy is the best way to raise the welfare and justice of all? I am not expecting anyone to be allowed on with radical ideas for public sector reform and sensible public spending reduction.
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
I don’t think that you have any chance of becoming a guest editor but it would certainly be something to relish!
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Choice is a means to an end, not the end itself. It is not of itself necessarily desirable. “Wer hat die Wahl der hat die Qual”. But choice gives the impetus to providers to do better. That is the point. Suffer the “Qual” to get the quality. What is the optimum balance? In medical/health care the US has maybe too much “Qual” and quality while we have too little. As you say, one only needs to consider the ghastly communist experiment to where the argument of Today’s protagonists leads.
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Mike Stallard Reply:
December 28th, 2009 at 11:01 am
“Where the suffrage is, there lies the agony.”
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Geoff Wyatt Reply:
December 28th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Is this from an automated translator?
“(he) who has choice has pain”
It’s the agony of choice that makes Buridan’s ass starve.
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I felt the exactly same.
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I just hope that the Conservatives do something about the TV licence fee when they get a chance.
Personally, I feel that the BBC should be put on a commercial footing, and any licence money used to support the production of good quality impartial programmes by any UK TV company or independent producer.
They would all then be on an equal footing and the BBC would only be able to produce biased programmes like these if they put up their own money rather than using public money.
And incidentally, as the taxpayers fund the BBC TV World Service, why is it not made available on one of the digital channels? When abroad, I always find this service far more informative, and impartial, than the BBC News programmes available in the UK.
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John C Reply:
December 28th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
I used to be 100% supportive of the BBC and would not have a word said against it.
Recently I feel that I’ve seen the light.
I still believe in the licence fee and public service broadcasting.
I now believe the whole of the (reduced) licence fee should be open to any broadcaster on the understanding that the programs should be shown advert and sponsor free.
The BBC itself could then become a public / private hybrid.
Apparently, there were 37 BBC reporters at the recent Copenhagen rally. I bet Sky sent far fewer people.
The BBC are far too arrogant and need their wings clipped.
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I long ago gave up on the BBC and only ask I no longer be forced (on threat of forced cash seizure and imprisonment in the final instance) to pay for it.
I fear Mr Cameron lacks the courage to do this and thus face the choice of being legally extorted or being branded a criminal.
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APL Reply:
December 28th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Stuart Fairney: “I fear Mr Cameron lacks the courage ..”
Mr Cameron is an advertising executive, I bet he thinks that with a few silken words he could ‘turn’ the BBC NuBlu.
I think he will find he is mistaken and when the revelation dawns, it will be too late.
I believe it was your suggestion on this list some few months ago that I thought had much to recommend it.
First week of the Cameron administration:
A bill to reform of broadcasting finance.
The licence fee is abolished.
End
Let the BBC figure out how it should finance itself, voluntary subscription would be my suggestion.
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Of course the BBC are anti-choice !They are a Soviet style monopoly just like the NHS,LEA run schools and the utilities as well.
You could improve all those services with a major dosage of consumer choice so that these services become more responsive to those who use them.If you have a monopoly then there is no incentive for innovation or improvement or for value for money for the consumer.Customers would be taken for granted if they had no choice and that is hardly fair to them now is it.The more service providers you have the more Adam Smith’s invisible hand is allowec to get cracking and with the risk of losing money the state providers would have to raise their game or lose money.
Free-market economics could decimate the QUANGO state !If you just withdrew funding from most of them and said that they would have to charge service users directly for that public bodies services then only the worthwhile QUANGO’s would still be around.All the pointless ones would cease to exist as if no one used them they would get no money and thus would fade away.
Consumer demand would leave us with fewer QUANGO’s and those that survived would only do so by cutting their budgets & supplying the services that people where prepared to pay their own money for.That would decimate the number of unproductive government jobs and save valuable funds for fiscal deficit reduction.To pay for using a QUANGO’s services the fee would need to be modest thus forcing QUANGO’s to cut their budgets to keep their fees low so that people would pay for services & thus keep that QUANGO going.
It is pretty simple to me ! I doubt those lefties at the BBC would be too keen !
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John C Reply:
December 28th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
“.If you have a monopoly then there is no incentive for innovation or improvement or for value for money for the consumer”
You are so right there. Three examples from sport.
1. The BBC used to always show cricket the same way. Channel 4 got the rights and improved the coverage considerably. I even put up with the adverts as the coverage was so good.
2. The BBC used to show F1. They used to begrudgingly go to the track about 5 minutes before the event, show the race then that was it. ITV got the coverage and increased the coverage considerably (and finally killed off the incompetent Murray Walker – thank God). When it returned to the BBC they had to radically up their game.
3. I feel that since Sky took over football coverage, the BBC has had to up its game in this area too.
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Matthew Reynolds Reply:
December 28th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
As a football fan I agree with that totally.Sky Sports has been brilliant today with Spurs beating the Hammers 2-0(I am a Spurs fan !).The football special covered a shed load of games across the leagues today which was captivating stuff with plenty of wisdom from some excellent pundits.We had the goal-less draw drama from St James Park as Derby County kept a clean sheet and got a vital point.Now we will see whether or not Man City can win away at Wolves.The football coverage on Sky-Sports has been excellent- thank goodness for the freedom to spend your own money on private services !
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Possibly this was on the BBC? The channel which you have a choice whether you listen to it or not, but no choice over whether you have to pay for it. No doubt this is the good side of no choice to them: guaranteed funding for endless sneering left-wing politics.
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Freedom and choice. How long ago it seems since that was available.
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The BBC needs to be destroyed – for its own good and for the taxpayer. It costs a fortune to produce and drive the agenda of a tiny minority of self appointed arvbiters of opinion and taste.
The licence fee does not need to be reformed, it needs to be removed. Then and only then will the necessary functions develop or die in an open market. The idea of publically funded broadcasting in the internet age is on a par with the use of flint tools.
Nothing the BBC does which needs to be done requires public finance. Nothing.
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Spent Copper Reply:
December 29th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Spot on Robert. It is no more reformable than a cancer and needs to be treated the same way.
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I missed the programme. Sounds like it was a nuLabour invitee softening us up for Communism aka Saving Waste in the Public Sector. One size fits all is so “economically efficient”, after all!
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On this morning’s Woman’s Hour ‘men special’, John O’Farrell laughed heartily at the suggestion that mothers may be better equipped (by Nature) than men for full-time parenting (‘Was that a right-wing comedy sketch heheheh?’). Benjamin Zephaniah thought the suggestion was ‘almost racist’. I don’t think he actually meant it as a parody, though.
(O how we all chortled in our house as the rent-a-lefty regulars performed their familiar party pieces. We just love those BBC repeats!)
Hope is not entirely dead, though. There was a clearly audible moment of consternation when the woman announcer suggested that many people would think it self-evidently true.
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This item got may particular attention, too. But my take is somewhat different.
As I understood it, the scientific hypothesis was that when confronted with too much choice human beings are not particular good at making decisions. For me this rings true. So, with the jam example, given too many options humans tend to give up and not buy anything. This is important for the jam sellers, as it indicates that to maximise sales some choice is a good thing but too much choice is counter productive.
What the Today programme failed to do, because it is useless at tackling anything technical, was to go on to consider what strategies humans can adopt when confronted with “too much choice”. It would have been interesting to hear an expert speak on this. For instance, choosing could be simplified by ordering the options by price, and choosing the cheapest, or most expensive. Another approach would be to reduce the options to only those of a favoured brand. Or take advice from “Which? Jam” magazine. This could have been interesting and informative.
To extend the issue to other areas in the way that they just confused things. This is always true as, although they too could be of interest, there is never enough time. “I am afraid we are running short of time” must be the most use presenter phrase. They do not have to run short of time. That is an editorial decision. Why get knowledgeable people to speak intelligently on an interesting subject, and then cut the discussion short?
But no mater what the failings of some programmes there are many others that are excellent. The BBC should be improved, not abandoned.
John, the BBC itself is clearly a hot topic for many, so how about another thread?
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Pity you didn’t listen to the three-way discussion at 8.30pm.
Choice often means confusion for the consumer, so-called confusion marketing. Choice can be uneconomic as a means of production. And choice as a feel-good word in a poltician’s lexicon.
Of course, we’re all for choice. And progressive politics, change, hard-working families, affordable housing, difficult investment decisions, fixing the roof when the sun is shining and being in this all together.
Words and phrases like choice seem to perform all sorts of gymnastics to mean the diametric opposite of what was intended.
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The man on Radio 4’s Today programme that thinks people do not know what sort of jam they need is pretty ignorant. He must be getting a right earful from his mother by now.
The public sector does need reform but I suspect the only way from here is to sack the lot and rehire only those who know how to do what must be done and do it right – like they did in East Germany immediately after reunification. We must prepare for much screaming and ignore it all, as West Germany did.
A senior Health and Safety inspectorate man was on that radio prog before Christmas comnplaining that his people were being piloried on the stages of every pantomime in the country. That is what choice gets you – it works.
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The BBC is just Labour’s version of Pravda. I pay very little attention to news/current affairs/political comment it produces. Jeff Randall and Adam Boulton on Sky are so much better.
The Tories would do well to stop the licence fee if they form the next Government. The BBC worldwide programme should be directly funded by the Government and the rest of the Corporation’s remit changed so that it has to compete with other broadcasters in order to get funding for all its other output.
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John C Reply:
December 28th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Check out Andrew Neil on The Daily Politics and This Week.
In his own way, he seems to be fighting a rearguard action against the left wing dominance in the much of the BBC’s political coverage.
He’s the only mainstream presenter I’ve seen on the BBC who dares ask challenging questions of the ‘man-made’ global warming evangelists.
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I don’t think the BBC deliberately tries to be left wing. I’m quite certain that its administrators genuinely believe they are very neutral and balanced. The problem is that an overwhelmingly large proportion of journalists in general, and people who work at the BBC, personally subscribe to left-wing politics.
While they are aware of the necessity for political balance, their personal instinct is that many right-wing views which actually are taken seriously by Conservatives and Libertarians represent a loony neo-fascist fringe that is not worth air time.
The EU is a prize example. You and I both know that this is a topic of immense concern to a vast swath of the population, and that some degree of reform is almost universally supported by Conservative activists, with only a handful of gainsayers.
But how often do we see BBC presenters talking about Clarke, Heseltine et al as if they represent the majority opinion, and describe the Eurosceptics as the extreme loony fringe?
What I think we really need if we are to achieve true political balance is a relaxation of the rules on impartiality (which clearly don’t work, in any case), allowing news and topical productions to adopt a political orientation. BBC would be free to be all left-wing, if it wants to, while Sky News, for example, could follow the competitive strategy of its American sister channel, Fox News, in being savagely right-wing.
If you want to know what they’re like, go to YouTube and look up Glenn Beck or Neil Cavuto, and enjoy the roasting they deliver daily. It’s entertaining stuff! In this era of voter apathy, a British Glenn Beck could really liven things up.
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The assertion of lack of balance iby the BBC s hard to justify as tomorrow’s ‘guest editor’ is David Hockney — neither a lefty nor a supporter of regulation!
And the changes in education post-1989 in Russia and Eastern Europe are dubious examples of the benfits of ‘choice’.
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On Woman’s Hour this morning, the Delingpole said that paternity leave was not a good idea because the government had run out of money and also that fatherhood and motherhood made completely different demands. Well! He might as well have said that motherhood was disgusting and apple pie was poisonous.
I often wonder if we have the BBC that we deserve. We are becoming a nation of blamers and complainers who look to the “government” to provide for us and keep us safe.
The one consolation, for me anyway, is the sheer commonsense of the internet (I include the comments on Labour List).
New Year’s resolution: DIY!
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the today programme is a hot bed of trendy politically correct middle class centric nonsense, the same old same old small part of society are over represented big time, and they talk down to anyone with a working class accent while going overboard with other forms of their own definitions of equality
its gone down hill from the days when mrs T would phone the programme up and be put straight on air, would be interesting to see if they would put cameron on air if he rang in particularly upset by some crack pot story they ran
im with james whale shut down the bbc, stop taxing us with the licence fee, let the component parts make money in the real world or shut, just dont let murdoch own any more of our media
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Only the BBC. They really do need sorting out. They are now so blatent in their left wing stance.
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I complained to the BBC some months ago about what I perceived as a biased political interview, and posed some specific questions. What I got in return was a very generalised response, clearly a standard reply to a common criticism, that ignored the points I’d made. I wrote again several times, requesting a more-specific response, but was ignored every time in a way that I interpreted as a hope that I would just go away and stop being a pain.
Finally I wrote to my MP, and — lo and behold! — the BBC then couldn’t explain itself fast enough. The thing is, their long and detailed explanation was entirely satisfactory! It fully explained the situation and responded specifically to my points in a way that convinced me that I had, in fact, misunderstood the situation and that the BBC’s interview was fair and reasonable. Their reluctance to respond wasn’t that they didn’t have a proper explanation. They just couldn’t be bothered!
I don’t believe the BBC deserves all the criticism that’s being aimed at it here, but they do bring it on themselves with their arrogant attitude to criticism. It seems to regard the licence fee as a right, not a privilege. If it regarded its funders as citizens to be respected with legitimate concerns to be thoroughly and properly addressed, rather than a necessary but irritating evil to be endured and fobbed off, it might have an easier time arguing for its status.
Personally, my wife and I are watching the new series of Cranford, and very much enjoying it. I doubt anybody else would be interested in producing anything similar. I watch BBC considerably more than any other channels, and I’d be sorry to lose it.
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Choice also encourages people to gain knowledge on a subject.
If you have only one choice then you don’t need to know anything about the subject – for instance if there was only one type of bank account in the world then people wouldn’t bother trying to learn about interest rates, overdraft charges etc. These would all be things that happened.
Give people a choice of bank accounts and people learn about interest rates, how they’re calculated, effects of going overdrawn, many different ways of banking – because if they didn’t they wouldn’t know they were making the best choice.
Good to know some people are still completely backwards.
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Y Rhyfelwr Dewr Reply:
December 28th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
If there’s only one type of anything, why does the manufacturer need to incorporate quality? If your car is a heap of junk that’s always in the garage, what are you going to do about it if there’s no other car available?
This is why east European cars were so notoriously crap in the 1980’s; not to mention the reason East German manufacturing all but disappeared overnight after the reunification — lumbered with the obsolete, defective, poorly designed product ranges they’d been forcing on the East Germans for decades, and with no concept of western standards of quality, effective competition was out of the question.
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I think Conservatives need to be more active in monitoring the constant, pernicious drip of left-wing propaganda from the BBC. Nothing can be ‘done’ about it, at least until a change of Government, but the issue can at least be highlighted. The most dangerous thing is when an organisation like the BBC gets away with pursuing a biased political line without comment. Can I suggest, on behalf of your readers, that you monitor this project of guest editors for political bias? If, as we all expect, they turn out to be relentlessly left wing, all readers of this site who agree that this must be stopped should complain to the BBC. You might also think of making a public comment.
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It’s interesting to see that the Conservatives are quite specific about what they will do with the BBC when they are not very specific about anything else. Deals with Murdoch I suspect who as a political prostitute, just follows the money. As I have wrote before will all the BBC haters be happy with expensive and often dubious quality SKY programmes or dire programmes on the Hotbird and Astra satellites? Good choice there plus many other great satellites to choose from. Which unwatchable one do you want to watch? The BBC itself does have massive choice, but does not have a political bias of your choice. Much of this anti BBC is by middle aged middle class people who do not watch much TV anyway, but hate to see anything against their political beliefs. Whether TV is good or bad matters little to them. Usual selfish nonsense you would expect from them and their ilk.
Often choice is a smoke screen to higher prices. Mobile phone tariffs and utility prices are a prime example. Choice of Banks and banking? Don’t make me laugh. How do you want it? In the head or on the head?
Many other choices are restricted by how much money you have, you might be able to choose which brand and type of biscuit you buy or SKY/Virgin Media, but on the big things like education, healthcare and housing its Hobson’s choice. No choice at all. Maybe they just choose to be poor, a lifestyle choice no less, like smoking.
Choose carefully and carefully choose.
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Y Rhyfelwr Dewr Reply:
December 29th, 2009 at 9:33 am
That’s a very judgemental and presumptuous comment. Have you a shred of evidence that “much of this anti BBC is from middle age middle class people who do not watch much TV anyway”? I suspect not.
And so what if they’re middle aged and middle class, anyway? Are middle-aged and middle-class people not allowed opinions any more? The last time I looked, the middle-aged and middle-class constituted the majority of the population. What a snob you are!
For the record, these comments represent individuals’ private thoughts and concerns, not Conservative Party policy. Nobody’s objecting to the quality of BBC programming. Just its left-wing bias, which even you don’t deny. I don’t see why I should be legally required to fund government propaganda. Do you think you should be legally required to fund Tory propaganda?
The BBC’s bias is quite overt, if you’re looking out for it and you know what you’re talking about. Just last night, having been a die-hard fan of “Not the Nine O’Clock News” in the 1980’s, I settled down to watch “Not the Nine O’Clock News Again” on BBC 2. They talked about how Thatcher’s Britain was a period of civil strife, strikes and riots, and the series reflected the misery of those times. What a load of rubbish! I lived through the whole of Thatcher’s premiership, and it was a MARVELLOUS time! I wish we could have her back. Callaghan’s seventies, and the winter of discontent, with everybody form nurses to firemen to grave diggers on strike, and public parks buried ten feet deep in rubbish bags — THAT was misery!
Similarly, have you noticed how every BBC reference to the miners strike is always suffixed by “chaos,” as the BBC tries to convince us all it was practically a civil war? I remember the miners strike too, and how the nation was barely aware it was happening! The sole impact it had on my family was that my mother bought a packet of candles in case the electricity was cut. A year later, the miners went back to work, and the packet of candles was still unopened. That’s how much “chaos” the miners strike caused!
That’s not what you hear from your “unbiased” BBC, now, is it?
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Bazman Reply:
December 29th, 2009 at 10:26 am
You must live in a Wales that never was and never will be. To claim that Wales was untouched and is still not suffering today with the legacy of Thatcherism is laughable. It must have been Not the nine o’clock news with Pamla Anderson you where watching. Just because you have not experienced something does not make it not possible son. A Welsh Tory must be nearly as rare as a Scottish one.
Part of the BBC’s mission is to enlighten and educate. This would not happen under private system of broadcasting. Would you be happy if the BBC was like fox news? I suppose you would. As for evidence. Comments like yours provide enough evidence for me, and I only have to prove them to myself and not a court of law. Besides I know who all you middle aged, middle class Tories are, and how you think. How’s that for evidence!?
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Y Rhyfelwr Dewr Reply:
December 29th, 2009 at 11:14 am
More than that, I live in Senghennydd, near Caerphilly. Senghennydd was one of the collieries involved in the strike, and that shut down shortly after. Yes, a Welsh Tory is a rarity — the Labour MP here defends a majority of 13,000. But the village shop does stock the Telegraph, and sometimes, it’s sold out before I get it, so clearly, I’m not the one.
But tell me, how in the world did you read into my comment a statement that Wales is untouched by the miners’ strike? I said nothing of the sort and having re-read my post, I cannot for the life of me comprehend how you possibly could have read that into it! Wales was hugely affected by the miners’ strike! It just wasn’t the undeclared civil war that the BBC tries to portray it as.
As for your final sentence, I repeat, judgemental, presumptuous, snob. And you wonder why I want nothing to do with Labour, it’s supporters, and its stupid class war.
You had the choice to turn it off and I guess you took it. You didn’t have the choice of another topical news programme as no commercial broadcaster seems capable of producing intelligent radio. Thank God the BBC gives us a choice. Go to America and see what a fully commercialised radio is like – shockingly bland and crass. Imagine Capital having a news programme let alone allowing guest editors on to it.
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“Choice drives lower costs…”
Not always.
The energy, rail and telecom are three sectors which show that, by making the choice of products they offer so complex, many people are paying too much for their services.
It’s OK for people like me who are prepared to spend the time and effort to look into how to get the best deals.
However, a lot of people (e.g. the elderly) either cannot or will not spend the time to do research. (Some people might say they are fools.)
A decent regulator could sort this out in a few weeks but the regulators in this country seem to do very little for their hefty pay packets.
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Y Rhyfelwr Dewr Reply:
December 29th, 2009 at 10:59 am
The railways reflect a situation where true competition doesn’t exist, and the multitude of prices is more about PR. When criticised for their high prices, the train operators can respond by saying, “If you book in advance, you can get tickets as cheap as £1 to travel from London to Glasgow,” or similar. The reality is that they might offer one such ticket a week, and everybody else has to pay through the nose — but it allows them to react to the criticism.
The basic problem there is that John Major’s privatisation is as yet incomplete, having never been followed up by Bliar and Clown. Following the initial establishment of government franchises, Major’s plan was to further open up the railways to new train operators, so you would have a multiplicity of routes and train operators, all competing with one another for business.
Unfortunately, Labour took power before this second phase could be set in motion, and we were left with only a tiny handful of routes being operated by more that one train company. For example, travelling from London Victoria to Gatwick Airport, you can take either the Gatwick Express, which is pricey but fast, or you can take South-Central Trains, which is slower but (relatively) cheap. This, of course, has no impact whatever on the services operated between, say, Cardiff and Birmingham, which is as much a monopoly today as it ever was under British Rail — it’s just so savagely expensive, it beats me why anybody uses it at all!
The thing is that Gord Almighty quickly realised that train monopolies represented a licence to print money, meaning that he could charge the earth for franchises. And that’s why we have such high rail fares — the train operators have to make back what they pay the government for the right to run their monopoly!
Now people complain that its considerably cheaper to drive than to take the train. Perhaps predictably, SuperGord’s response is to raise the cost of driving! It’s logic, captain, but not as we know it.
Regarding the costs of energy and telecoms, I don’t think your criticism is warranted. While their products may be complex in some cases, you’ll find that similar products from competitors are similarly priced, and that they’re all trying to reduce their prices and improve their services further.
Where we do have a problem is in the competition between Sky and Virgin Media. If you want more than just the terrestrial channels, you have no choice but to go with one of those two (and in parts of the country that are still uncabled, not even that). What we have is a duopoloy, where both companies know that a client who terminates his contract with one will probably sign a new one with the other. On the principle that each will probably gain as many new customers as they lose, they have little incentive to provide a decent dervice.
I do agree with you about the regulators, however. If Cameron is looking for quangos to shut down, the regulators might want to get their act together in the next six months and start displaying some genuine regulation. The railways would be a greta place to start.
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Choices can make life so difficult for the victims of the comprehensive education system. Just imagine turning on your plasma and having to decide out of fifty or so channels to watch. How much simpler life would be if it were just BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, CBBC and CBeebies? The North Koreans seem to manage okay without the uneccessary plethora of channels we are faced with.
And http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/ should be taken down asap before it confuses us even more with it’s allegations of a leftist political agenda within the BBC. How ridiculous!
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the other thing that really cheeses me off about the today programme is the attitude to anything remotely scientific or technical, the presenters do not even have basic infant school level understanding of science and get away with this even thinking its a strength, we really shouldnt put up with it. if a senior scientist was exposed on their show as knowing as little about the arts as they do about science they would be ridiculed.
only in this country can a programme like this get away with it. and it reflects in the way they are able to analyse many issues.
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I remember the Major government offering choice – education, health, transport …
well actually all we wanted was excellence. You failed to deliver this.
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I remember the Major government offering ‘choice’ in education, health, transport …
well all we actually wanted was excellence. You failed to deliver this. Because ‘choice’ was a cop out by Tories who didn’t have the guts to enforce excellence.
THAT’S why you got kicked out of office. The people can handle sleaze so long as the goods are being delivered.
(please disregard the previous version of this comment.)
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Y Rhyfelwr Dewr Reply:
December 29th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Twelve years later, you’re STILL going on about it? It would be a relevant comment, if Labour had done any better since then. Major may have been ineffective, but at least the economy was booming when he left office, the treasury was awash with cash, tax was down, government borrowing was down, and our pension provisions were so much the envy of Europe, we were constantly resisting attempts by the EU to make us underwrite France and Italy’s also.
Tony and Clown’s record of failing to deliver excellence has been somewhat different, now, hasn’t it?
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Kevin Peat Reply:
December 29th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
An ex Tory voter here, in case you weren’t aware.
We were asking at the time – when are they going to deal with immigration ? When are they going to deal with crime ? When are they going to clamp down on political correctness or welfare …
I could see that they weren’t going to deal with them – in some cases (immigration) they were actually the cause. So I’ve sat out the past three general elections.
Sleaze and elitism was blamed, but believe me: if a country is working well enough these are overlooked.
That wasn’t the cause of the Tory’s demise – it was disaffection among core voters who really thought things could only get better. How wrong could they be ??
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John
Always so negative, here this will cheer you up:-
http://johngaltfla.com/blog3/category/the-day-the-dollar-died-series/
Mike
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SNCF is an example of state excellence. I expect the French delight in their lack of choice here.
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Y Rhyfelwr Dewr Reply:
December 29th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Except they’re always on strike, and even the French moan endlessly about it.
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Kevin Peat Reply:
December 29th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
And ours is always broken. Which do you prefer ?
European railways put ours to shame.
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Stuart Fairney Reply:
December 29th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Even mass transit railways (which de facto have high net revenues) over any significant distance always make a loss and always require subsidy. I prefer none.
Y Rhyfelwr Dewr Reply:
December 29th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Now that I cannot disagree with!
It’s worth not paying the licence fee for Radio 4 alone.
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I didn’t hear the item on the Today programme, but I’m guessing it was picking up recent research on whether a person having extensive choices in front of them leads to that person to always making the most efficient choices. If so, I think your summary of the item (and conclusion you’ve drawn) is a bit misleading. A shame as you can usually be relied upon to play with a straight bat! Here’s a recent article I read on this issue which I found useful in explaining the topic.
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/is-the-paradox-of-choice-not-so-paradoxical-after-all/
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From 3 March, Sky News Radio has become the sole supplier of national news to all of the UK’s commercial radio stations, more than 300 stations, reaching about 31 million listeners.
Hows that for choice? That will stop any state propaganda. The sooner Murdoch gets TV under the same yoke the same the better. We will all get the truth then. All them advertisements must be true.
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I have to commend the creator of this website – nice job….