You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ category.
It has emerged today that both Home Office staff and drivers on East Midlands Trains plan to go on strike this summer, despite and indeed most likely because of, the likely disruption to the Olympic Games transport infrastructure, although of course long border queues and delayed trains are hardly something us Brits only associate with strike days!
I must admit my views are split right down the middle on this one, well, I say they are, if I had to put it into one simple statement I’d say; “they shouldn’t go on strike”. However my motivations for that are not informed particularly by the fact that any disruption will make London/The UK look bad. The reality is that we no longer live in the pre-Thatcherite world in which strikes were generally supported by the nation, ours is a tumultuous time in which Thatcher and those who’ve followed her on both sides of the political spectrum have succeeded in shifting the sense of ‘Us vs Them’ away from ‘Government vs The workers’ towards ‘Public Sector Vs Private Sector’.
Essentially most people now seem to take the view that if they have been lumped with terrible pension pots and low job security then those in the public sector have no right to complain when their remuneration packages are brought in line with ‘the rest of us’. This is fundamentally wrong, we shouldn’t be calling for universal poor treatment but collectivly sitting up and asking just why it is that having a secure future both in work and once we’re out of it is such a terrible thing to strive for as a society. I might add that the reason we are forced to suffer such terrible conditions is because of the power of big business and its’ insatiable appetite for profit, however in the increasingly right wing world in which we live to speak in these terms now leads people to deem others as cluelessly idealistic and out of touch as a result. It seems we have convinced ourselves the fall of the berlin wall was nothing short of a definitive answer to the question of “socialism or capitalism, which is better?”. Indeed it now seems that the idea of capitalism with a friendly face, something of a contradiction in terms you might say, has been entirely done away with beyond superficial policies which do little to help those in need.
Now, despite all of this stands one uncomfortable truth which leads me to argue that ultimately these strikes should not take place. If the public and the media don’t support it, it is doomed to failure before it has even begun. As a result of the reasons stated above, i.e, the change in the nature of ‘Us vs Them’ I would say it is fairly likely a strike of this nature will only gain negative publicity, for a strike to be effective the support of the public or rather, the media, is what is needed. Making us look like fools to the rest of the world is not how to achieve this aim. I must stress however that this is not a status quo with which I agree, the exact opposite is true. The cuts to government funding, although not entirely unwarranted, have been handled in a shambolic fashion which has left thousands of people both out of work and in need where previously they were citizens who could take a sense of pride from their contribution to the economic and social welfare of our nation. Those at the Home Office in particular have reason to be angry as staff numbers were first cut back and then hastily replenished as the Olympics approached. Sadly I fear this fact is unlikely to be well publisised if border staff go on strike and leave thousands of passengers angry a day before the Olympics, the news will simply be full of clips of tired tourists demanding to know why exactly they should be the ones to be inconvenienced. The Unions should wake up to this fact, and fast.
What do you think? Post a comment bellow.
A great series of radio documentaries presented by Clare Balding has been airing on Radio Four for a while now. This episode was of particular interest to me; this week Clare has been examining the role of sport in politics and politics in sport.
From far reaching acts involving millions of pounds of funding to Thatcher authorising the selling off of the playing fields of the nation, it seems sport and politics have a diverse history.
Politics And Sport - A Good Combination?
Claudia (fellow Social Media Journalist) and I had a quick chat about the latest logo disaster, Madrid 2020 have launched a rather colourful if not odd logo.
Here’s a video of the interview; filmed on an ipod touch. It really is that easy nowadays.
A happy new year to you all!
Right that’s the happy part out the way as lets face it; it’s cold and wet; the sun is stuck down low in the sky shining only the faintest of it’s rays down upon our embattled isle and nobody seems to have any money.
But of course this is the Olympic year, the year in which we must celebrate our island, our culture and our sporting prowess! (The last part isn’t all sarcasm, we’re actually pretty good at cycling, sailing and rowing) So we mustn’t be all doom and gloom.
To start of the year here is a video created by the Guardian that takes a look at some Olympic statistics. It’s more interesting than you think.
As you may have noticed there has been a distinct lack of posting over the last few weeks. In one sense I’m happy because I have quite a good excuse for not getting anything done for once ,however I’m not sure that the nasty scars on my face as a result of a rather unfriendly encounter between my face and Upper Clapton Road are worth it. I should probably mention here that I fell off my bike on the way to a blogging session and wasn’t in any sort of fight as it seems most people who’ve seen me have thought. Anyway, a broken nose and six stitches later I am back and have plans to enter a worst injury of the month competition in my Dad’s cycling magazine. Here’s hoping for a ‘victory’ of sorts, I will of course keep you posted on the matter!
I am sure that I have your implicit trust when it comes to the factual accuracy of my writing but if you do find yourselves questioning the truth in my story here is a rather lovely picture taken by Charlie when he very kindly came to make sure I was alright:
At the core of the Olympics, alongside the values of friendship, respect, courage, excellence, determination, inspiration and equality, lies education. This fact is clear both in the Switzerland, at the Olympic Museum, and closer to home, through the efforts of LOCOG (London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games).
During our visit we were lucky enough to meet Andy Martin and Emily Tuffin who work for LOCOG on the ‘Get Set Network’, which aims to use “the London 2012 Games to inspire learners of all ages and abilities to get involved in Values-based projects and activities.” An impressive set of aims, made more impressive by the fact that London seems to be the first Olympics with a real commitment to engaging it’s youth in a more meaningful way than a few cute faces in the opening and closing ceremonies.
This desire for engagement is clearly shared by the IOC, our visit coincided with a week long set of activities for local school children that gave them a chance to be involved in some sports workshops. One of these was the archery course which we were lucky enough to try out (I was very good obviously!) The great thing about all of this was the fact that the sport was not the end of the story in fact it was just the beginning, the real focus of the program was imbuing the participants with an understanding of the Olympic values I mentioned earlier. In this way the Olympics can gain a far more universal appeal, certainly they are about competition, they’d be nothing without it, but for those whom competition is not the biggest draw activities such as the ones we saw in Lausanne and the ones that the Get Set Network run and encourage are key and can only be seen as a good thing despite any reservations people may have about the effect or methods of engagement. The sheer number of children who attend schools who are a part of the network is a guarantee that a significant number of kids are going to be engaged by the Olympics coming to the UK, and not just through seeing it on the television.
As the dust begins to settle a week and half after the violent disorder seen across the UK which started in Tottenham following a peaceful protest over the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan by Met police officers before spreading first across London and then onto Bristol, Birmingham, Leicster ,Nottingham, Manchester and Liverpool. I feel it’s time for a reaction from someone who counts themselves amongst the young community of London.
The scenes of that week were undeniably horrific, embarrassing and hurtful to all of us, and that includes ‘us young people’ too. One posting on facebook “If any of you decide to get involved in the riots and brag about it on here, I will actually give the police your name and any other information I have on you.”
But all of this local sadness makes little difference to the fact that the international image of London and the UK as a whole as been undeniably damaged less than a year before we host an event which involves public order policing on an all together larger scale if different in nature: The London Olympics.
And this is not just an issue of PR, it is one of politics too and as the nations ears rang with flawed Tory rhetoric extolling the virtues of a harsh criminal justice system in which rioters, many of whom live in areas charecterised by social deprivation and suspicious attitudes towards both the police and the state, and their entire families were punished through the removal of benefits and social housing. Many failed to recognise the important points left unspoken as a false moral high ground was set out with no room for debate. These riots took place against a backdrop of deep seated public anger; at Government spending cuts ; nearly a million 16-24 year olds unemployed; trebling of tuition fees and crucially the removal of Education Maintenance Allowance for many. None of these issues excuse the violence and it may not have been at the forefront of the minds of those nicking themselves a cheeky pair of trainers but they go along way to explaining why violence spread so quickly.
Yet despite this the cuts to youth services are certain to go ahead, I only wish that in time the public will see this Governments many erorrs of judgement for what they really are, before it’s too late.
As the Olympic ticketing process starts coming to an end, the final round of sales finishes on the 17th of this month, I feel it is time to vent a little frustration at reaction of the British public towards what has in reality been a fantastically successful campaign.
The whole issue has, in a rather British fashion, been described variously as a ‘debacle’, a ‘shambles’ and ‘crazy’ by both journalists and the baying hordes of the British public.
But has the whole thing been blown out of proportion? To my mind yes, it has, a rather simple bit of maths and an understanding of the ways in which people deal with ‘losing’ at anything tells us pretty that pretty quickly. In the first round alone 1.8 million people in the U.K applied for a total of 20 million tickets between them, no real surprise then that a few people are a bit miffed, there were only 6.6 million on sale in the first place.
So that’s the maths out the way, now an even simpler part, human nature. Humans hate losing, obviously, this combined with the nature of the British media and its desire to find the ordinary man on the streets’ view on pretty much every news topic regardless of expertise has led to an inflation of the story and also a very lazy bit of journalism. Whack a camera or microphone on and head out on to the street, select the first twenty people you see, plonk them infront of your selected recording device and next thing you know you’ve got yourself a story! “Yeah I got all the tickets I applied for” is frankly a pretty mundane sound byte. Angry people on the other hand makes for a news story which appeals to the public because frankly they didn’t get any tickets either and that’s what the assembled editors behind the desks at pretty much every news outlet have decided will make the cut.
Of course a large percentage of the tickets have gone towards corporate sponsors and of course that doesn’t sit particularly well with me either but, LOCOG aren’t the people who you should be getting angry at. In fact you shouldn’t be getting angry at anyone apart from whoever it was that created modern western capitalist society and I hear he or she is relatively difficult to pin down nowadays, since the financial crisis anyway.
Yes that’s right, until we have a communist Olympics, entirely funded by government with taxes drawn from some sort of big imaginary pot of money which none of us have payed into and therefore can’t get angry about the use of, until every games is held in international waters and has a capacity for the entire worlds population to attend free of charge, until there are no longer any nations competing, just a bunch on identical athletes and until it is ‘just the taking part that counts’ someone is going to be unhappy with some aspect of the Olympics. So you know what, stop complaining and embrace the beautiful diversity; the hodge podge of different cultures, ideas and sports; successes and failures, because that is what the Olympics is all about it is an event which represents the human race at its best and worst all at the same time. That sinking feeling you felt when you didn’t get any tickets and the anger you feel at all those corporate sponsers giving their employees tickets for free is in fact a gift from LOCOG to you because they’re just the feelings that those athletes you’re going to be watching on the other side of the television screen will be experiencing.The ticketing process was the first real event of the London Olympics and you didn’t just get a seat, you were a competitor.
A worrying article this, no matter which Club you want to win the bid for the use of the Olympic stadium after 2012. Would seem some serious issues over the impartiality of Newham council have been raised.
Perhaps this leads to a broader question;
Do you believe that the Olympics are an event led by impartiality and a transparent system of command and control of funds etc ? Or are the Olympics a paradise of easily siphoned money and ‘legitimate’ bribery and corruption not strictly illegal but morally questionable and certainly not entirely transparent.
Feel free to comment your views.
The Jake Report 