WHY A TELEVISED DEBATE WOULD BE POINTLESS

Steve Richards comments brilliantly on the prospects of a televised leaders’ debate in the General Election campaign here. His conclusion is that it would be froth and anti-climax and it would completely distort the election campaign.

My only criticism of this article is that he rather foolishly assumes that the next election campaign will be fought on policies, rather than photocalls, killer quotes and what Peter Mandelson is up to. A tad naïve there, Steve, but otherwise an excellent piece.

OXFORDSHIRE POINTS THE WAY FOR A TORY GOVERNMENT - AND IT'S NOT GOOD

Great news in my area where the Tory County Council has installed road warning signs on the A40 to advise motorists on issues up ahead. Good idea, you might assume. Unfortunately the facts do not quite meet the ambitions of the officer with a pot of my Council Tax money to spend…

Oxfordshire is rural, it has rural roads and very little potential for rat-running. The A40 is always busy and has the same bottlenecks every day. The sign is about 2 miles from the Cassington traffic lights and anyone using the A40 of a morning to get to Oxford will already be sitting in traffic arising from the famed lights when the sign helpfully flashes up the problem to them. A masterstroke.

If, by some strange alchemy, these lights are not causing hold-ups the next bottleneck is the Wolvercote roundabout at the top of Oxford. This is always busy as well so the helpful sign will be able to warn people that they are about 5 miles from another bottleneck that all but the biggest idiot will know about. Isn’t technology wonderful.

As to potential rat-runs, drivers could go right to cross a toll bridge where there are always long queues in the mornings and, once over, they have to drive on relatively small roads. Or they could go left to drive to a right turn on to an equally busy road running through another village.

Sometimes I wonder that the County Council, busy making cuts across the board and slashing staff to save coppers, might have just a bit too much of my money and a bit too little common sense. Hmm, I wonder if this might provide an illustration of what might happen under a Dave-led government: cuts to essential services but increases in spending in all those areas the voters see.

Call me cynical. Go on, I don’t mind.

NO, MEN (sic.) OF SCIENCE, ORGANIC FOOD IS BETTER

Scientists – that nebulous group stuck in a 1950s world expounding on our lives – tell us that organic food has no additional nutritional value compared to non-organic food. Well ‘whooooo’. Except the point of organic food is not that it is somehow more nutrititional, just that it is not chock full of all the crap farmers still feel the need to spray across the countryside to stop our apples having blemishes.

Well done scientists, once again.

ROBERT FISK HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD ON THE ARAB WORLD

Brilliant article from Robert Fisk in the Independent discussing why Arab countries have been so unsuccessful in recent decades. There are many good analyses and good suggestions but the best of them all seems to be the last one where he says that western governments simply need to get out of the Arab world and leave Arabs to sort their affairs out for themselves. He says that this will probably not lead to glorious western-style democracies but it will allow Arabs to do what they want for themselves.

It is very difficult to argue with that.

RANTING ABOUT RANTZEN

Hey ho, so Esther Rantzen is to stand for Luton South at the next election. Hooray, the Kabbalah apologist TV bore is going to try her hand at being an MP. Maybe the sainted Joanna Lovely (Nepalis received her like a goddess, apparently, according to the patronising British media. Little brown people worshipped the glorious white woman. Hurrah, the empire is back!) will also stand and together they can transform politics - into a pastiche of what it is, with vapid TV hosts wittering on about their chosen subjects of interest and getting lots of coverage from the tabloids while all the time constituents with more mundane problems, like losing their homes, not getting their school places, being denied medical treatment in the new private NHS or such mundane issues as student loans will find themselves sidelined while glory hunters like Rantzen prance about grandstanding about all and sundry.

I'd love to see the main parties challenge Esther (hmm, there's a jolly Saturday evening TV idea right there). It would be good to know what her policy on public transport is. What does she think about the NHS? Local schooling? What is her view on Afghanistan? Do British troops need more helicopters? How will they be paid for? What does she think about mental healthcare? The environment?

Sure politicians can be a pretty poor lot, as the abject failure to do anything in the wake of the Great Expenses Teacup Storm of 2009 demonstrated, but Rantzen might usefully reflect on the fact that it is still a serious, grown up job, a full-time one (William Hague excepted, of course) which will require commitment and donkey work, not just a glad-handing campaign and lots of free media coverage.

Sheesh, I seem to have swallowed a 'taxi driver' pill this morning.

PUFFING ACROSS THE CHANNEL

I have recently been to France and I travelled across the Channel on a fast ferry, a glorious thing which whizzed along majestically through delightfully choppy seas, throwing up fabulous spumes of water in its wake in which a rainbow danced the whole way across. It was really great and me and my son stayed outside for the whole trip to enjoy the noise and the sights.

Sadly we couldn't enjoy the smells of the sea since every smoker on the south coast appeared to have got on the ferry and spent the whole voyage puffing away, ruining everyone else's pleasure. Most of them naturally dropped their fag ends on the floor since they aren't rubbish, are they?

As a Liberal I am of course for freedom but if I stood next to someone on a station platform, a bus stop or even a ferry to France and broke wind furiously throughout our enforced closeness, do you think they would object? Similarly, if I blew my nose constantly and dropped my used tissues at their feet - remembering to cursorily rub them into the ground - do you think that would be considered acceptable?

It gets my goat, it does, good and proper.

LDs IN IMPROVED MEDIA PROFILE SHOCK

Costigan Quist makes a useful point today about how there is no substitute for hard work in winning campaigns. I agree but I also see this as one aspect of our overall plan of action. In particular I am sure we all agree that a good national profile is essential to support local work. And this is where I would like to take issue.

I worry that we are too quick to comment on everything and thus our message is spread too thinly. The national party puts out a comment on most stories which hit the press and there are many good people working furiously to make sure this is done. I am not diminishing their efforts but I wonder if this is the best use of their time.

Nickers has done much to improve his profile - I love it when he does 'angry' - and that of the front bench team and all of them provide good copy to the media. The question is whether this scattergun effort is the best means to an increased media profile.

let's look at the Mighty Vince. He actually seems to say very little but when he does it's like an Exocet. He is 'the' voice on the economy - everybody think of George Osborne here and sniff derisorily - and he has done wonders for the party as a result.

Why not elaborate a number of key policies, such as the excellent Green Road to Recovery, and bang on about them until people are sick of them. We might, in the last year before a General Election, consider forgetting about inland waterways, bees and - sorry Joanna - Gurkhas to focus on what matters to people.

My wishlist would include:

1. Afghanistan and Iraq: Tories voted for Iraq and it makes then squirm. We support troops and better kit. This is a good, clear policy which recognises that we also, uniquely for a main party, don't want to send our troops just anywhere without a damned good reason.

2. Green road to recovery. An almost perfect policy, currently being aped by the government and avoided by the Tories. LDs plan to invest while Tories plan to cut.

3. Improving railways, because even people who never get on a train get agitated about this one.

4. Constitutional reform. Good god in heaven above, the time may have come for the most boring LD policy of them all: PR. Let's make some hay while we can on this most tedious of all subjects.

I could go on but this 'off the top of my head' wishlist illustrates that we have the ammunition but we might not be pointing it in the right direction, i.e. Smith Square. So its full marks to everyone at the centre for your media efforts but only a B for the content.

VINCE DOES IT AGAIN

This from a readers' questions column in today's Independent:

FATIMA AHMED, LONDON, asked: 'Is your basic view of George Osborne that he's a nice guy who doesn't know very much about economics? Do you think someone with his limited experience and a degree in History has the knowledge to lead us out of recession?'

Vince replied: 'Not sure about the "nice guy" bit.'

Crash! Zowie! Kapow!

DAVE WRITES WELL ON WHAT HE KNOWS BUT IS THIS ENOUGH?

There's a very interesting article on the Independent website from David Cameron writing about his experiences of looking after his son and what this has taught him about future plans for support for families with disabled children.

It is fascinating to read as it demonstrates what a thoroughly decent person he is. In this piece he writes in earnest and that comes across loud and clear. There is no doubt his experiences with his son affected his life fundamentally and his thoughts and proposals are eloquently put and well thought through.

This depth and honesty does not come across in other pronouncements he makes on different topics when his words revert to sounding like they were written for him. Consequently the impression comes across that he doesn't fully subscribe to them. I find this distinction rather telling.

I have met Cameron and he is an extremely pleasant, hard working local MP, universally liked - even grudgingly by those of us who count ourselves as his adversaries! I have no doubt that he is 100% committed to his constituency but I retain a real concern about whether he is up to the role of Leader of the Opposition and the potential future role of Prime Minister.

NICK, NIKOLAI, NIKLAUS?

Here's a thought. Given the BNP's rabid and ludicrous claims to want a pure country of whites only, wouldn't the simplest way to destroy their argument be to invite their leader, Mad Eye Moody, to take a DNA test? Given that none of us is pure bred anything it would be fascinating to see what dark little secrets his family of brown shorts holds.

Perhaps the way to do this would be to pander to his sense of self importance by inviting all the grown up party leaders to do this as well. Nick Clegg has a well-known history which encompasses most of European history for the last 200 years. I wonder what Brown and Dave's backgrounds would reveal.

APOLOGIES

To Dr Zep, whose comment got caught up in my deletion of someone else's. Sometimes comments are just a little too far beyond reality to be published.

A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

I have always been 100% pro-European, while always viewing it as a largely disastrous organisation which needs root and branch reform as it remains hidebound by the original idea which came from that bastion of efficiency and democracy, France. Nevertheless the idea that 27 countries (is it 28 now? I have lost track) can and do work together more or less amicably, despite centuries of nose thumbing, war and the odd atrocity or two, remains remarkable and something to stick in the proverbial pipes of all those imbecilic Tory and UKIP sceptics and invite them to smoke. Europe remains a wonderful idea and deserves support for this reason alone.

However, all this could change. Today I find myself set against the Lisbon Treaty and the resulting changes which could – important word, this – improve the way the Union works. For Tony Blair is being hotly tipped as the first President of the beefed-up EU. Such a decision, to prefer the man who took us to an illegal war which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives for little benefit to anyone and who, let us not forget, in 1997 was given the opportunity to transform our country but who fudged and fiddled simply to ensure he won the next election, would be disastrous for Europe. What we would get would be a grandstanding President who would seek to ape the magnificent Barack Obama by flying round the world to pronounce on all sorts of matters while no doubt neglecting the important stuff of running the Union and trying to make the shoddy system which exists work better. The fatal difference is that Obama is as yet untarnished by deceit and failure.

Plus we would of course get First Lady Cherie. I shall leave that thought hanging…Nothing more needs to be said, except perhaps to simply contrast in all our minds the Islington Letterbox and the sensational Michelle Obama.

That’s the rock. The hard place is that there is no doubt on earth that the ‘Stop Blair’ candidate will be French, since the plucky frog-torturers across the Channel have always seen it as their inalienable right to have first dibs on any new important Euro-job.

So the choice will be between a liar and a Frenchman. Could it possibly be worse?

TODAY, TOMORROW, FOREVER?

Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, was on the Today programme and John Humphrys actually asked the right question - initially. Lansley came on to escoriate the government over its failings but Humphrys asked him what the Tories would do.

Lansley tried to continue with his line of attack but, astoundingly, Humphreys brought him back a few times. Sadly it didn't last long as they got into the silly politician vs. interviewer spat which the Today programme is famed for but it was still a remarkable departure. It was actually informative and relevant.

Now all we need is for Ramblign Jim Naughtie to take a 'brevity' injection [please let it be a huge needle into his buttock!] and learn the hard lesson that people tune in not to listen to his amazing sub-clause dance but to the people he ins interviewing providing information to us all.

I'M SORRY IS BACK!

Just listening to the new I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and the excellent Rob Brydon has completely nailed it. He's got just the right tone and he sounds like the lines written for him were, er, written for him.

Credit to Stephen Fry and Jack Dee but this gig is Rob's.

LET'S HAVE A GO AT TOUCHCLOTH

Why is Torchwood such pants? Dr Who is absurd and overblown but somehow you can suspend disbelief and just enjoy it - most of the time. Daleks towing planets around the universe just didn’t cut it for me. Daleks in general are just daft – always have been and always will be.

Torchwood by contrast is more rooted in normality being based in Cardiff but it somehow never manages to traverse the credibility gap which the best sci-fi does to make it plausible. The things they have at their disposal all work – and brilliantly. Why doesn’t the super computer need rebooting every episode? How could this government department have survived the general government cuts of the past three decades? Where is the man from ‘ofTorch’ who should be in every week to check on their performance standards and advising them of another 5% cut to the budget for 2010?

Admittedly I could watch Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper) undulating around deliciously for most of the hour unencumbered by any storyline but that’s not quite enough for a good programme. The problem for me is John ‘two expressions’ Barrowman, the man who makes Roger Moore look deep. He’s either jolly, flirty and ready for sex or he’s broody, serious and hiding some terrible secret from his past. What an actor! And his ‘relationship’ with Ianto just doesn’t work at all. I always struggle with any smoochy stuff because it tends to be unnecessary but the amount of kissing they indulge in smacks of someone in the production team’s personal fantasy rather than any serious attempt at depth. The first series was punctuated by as much gratuitous foreplay between the good looking cast as they could shoehorn in but you would have hoped things would have improved. I am an old fuddy duddy when it comes to such matters as it seldom helps any sensible plot to see the characters sharing fluids.

I’ll certainly be tuning in this evening to see how things pan out (will the guys save the world with just a hint of darkness underlying the victory? Will the evil Prime Minister get his comeuppance? Will the gorgeous PA, Lois, be the key to the problem? Will we end on Captain Jack looking meaningful even as they celebrate?) but I’ll probably be surfing the web throughout or sorting out my ornamental shell collection at the same time, whereas I’d be glued to David Tennant’s more complex ‘simplistic hero for our time’ as he simply puts it across better. Whether the New Romantic new boy manages the same feat in the TARDIS remains to be seen.

Hey ho, maybe I’m just growing up but it would have been nice if a little less time had been spent on the bells and whistles in Torchwood and a little more time devoted to characters and plots.

A PAEAN TO INTEGRATED TRANSPORT

I got the train to work today. I went out of my house in a medium-sized Cotswold village, walked 200 yards and got on a bus to the station. At the station I bought a coffee from the politest man I have met all year – essentially Jean-Luc Picard without the underlying grumpiness – then two minutes later the train arrived. I got a seat and spent ten minutes sitting next to a pleasant man from Wales (one of those exquisite accents which sounds like waves crashing on the shore) while we both read our respective newsprint. I got off at Oxford and crossed the road to my office. In this I accept I am lucky, although the downside is that I open my window at my peril since every bus in Oxford seems to pass underneath. I am unhurried, not at all stressed and generally happy with the world.

Now there are many aspects of this journey to ‘unpack’, to paraphrase a previous colleague of mine. Firstly, I accept that this journey is not the norm for commuters. I am bl**dy lucky to have such connections available. Second I also accept that having the bus in my village is a positive boon and all thanks to the Council Tax payers of Oxfordshire who are annually asked to subsidise a series of buses to link up rural communities. Without these buses many villages would wither, although it must be said that the service is not brilliantly used. Thirdly, it is an expensive option. Putting aside the usual wear and tear argument for my car, it costs me around £4 to drive to Oxford, park and cycle. The journey today – excluding coffee – cost me £9, although it would be reduced if I was a regular commuter.

So there are serious limitations with the whole ‘public transport good-private cars bad’ argument. However, what my experience demonstrates to me is the principle that a well-managed (!) public transport system could do a huge amount to reduce traffic, reduce pollution, cut stress and generally improve our social and climatic environment.

Those who argue for cars over everything else have a point. Cars are brilliant, liberating and an unequivocal boon for the economy and social mobility, allowing people to live in decent housing and still work long distances away. The green movement must address this fundamental freedom to ‘move’ in its prescriptions for our future [Green Party policy on this used to be hilarious, effectively introducing Soviet-style internal passports]. Do we have a class of people who can afford to pay increased taxes and costs for motor vehicles, leaving everyone else to rediscover the joys of shovelling horseshit? The current impetus to develop greener cars and cars which use different fuels is very welcome and demonstrates to me that the whole environmental thing doesn’t have to be about sackcloth and ashes but innovation, new industries and economic development, which is where our future King got it so utterly wrong yesterday. Development is not bad: it has freed billions from poverty and given people unimaginable opportunities.

Whatever the future holds, there must be investment in a better transport system, which is seen not as the enemy of cars or their successors but as a complement to them. My journey today may not have been typical of that endured by many commuters but it does not always have to be that way.

I shall stop now as I might burst into inspirational, sub-Gospel song about the benefits of public transport…but the final thought must be for the man who sold me the coffee at Charlbury Station, who is a credit to his trade and puts every wannabe actor working in Starbucks to shame for his service, pleasant demeanour and – crucially – for the fact that his coffee actually tasted nice.

GREENWASH, WHAT A ROYAL MESS

So Prince Charles tells us we have just 96 months to save the world from environmental disaster. What utter, unashamed tosh.

Seriously, how dare a man with a staff of dozens who drives around in huge cars - with several following him - who jets around the globe constantly and who does all of this on expenses paid by you and me lecture us about the environment.

He also said that economic success comes at an environmental cost which cannot continue. Nonsense.

This is the crux of the Tory vs. Liberal debate which has raged for decades. We can either fear for the future and retrench to a few mud huts - no doubt with Georgian gob-ons to avoid any modernism at all, or we can face up to the issue of environmental change, address it and in the process keep our economy humming along quite nicely. The people fitting solar panels, building wind turbines, designing new cars and better houses don't fear for the future, they're probably planning how to spend the profits from their businesses and in the process they will encourage others to jump onto the bandwagon and their money will start washing around the economy, providing more stimulus for growth and the development of the 'green' economy.

Here's a thought: why not send all the environmental whingers to Alaska now to start planning, while the rest of us get on with what people have been doing for thousands of years - dealing with stuff which comes along and making the best of it.

I'm all for environmental improvements and I try to live a green life but people aren't going to be scared into changing. They must be encouraged to see that it is in their interests and can improve their lives.

CRICKET? OR COBBLERS...?

This from the BBC website covering the Ashes match:

'Short from Siddle and Strauss is onto it in a flash, swinging the bustling Tasmanian away for four. One more for Strauss, who moves to 23 with a nibble off his pads. You could have poured that shot into a little black dress and it wouldn't have looked out of place on the catwalks of Milan. What a doozy of a day up in Cardiff, it really is pretty as a picture.'

This is unintelligible nonsense. What on earth is this person on about and are they really commentating on the cricket or simply indulging in a frenzy of euphemism for their own selfish pleasure.

It's gonna be a long, hot summer...

UPDATE: someone else has had a moan and it has been posted on the BBC site so it seems our cricket blogger is annoying everyone.

NO FEES FOR UNIVERSITY PLEASE

Hmm, here’s a worthy LD press release but it gives me cause for reflection:

‘No fee degrees’ put money before student choice - Williams
'Commenting on Government proposals for ‘no fee degrees’, Liberal Democrat Shadow Universities Secretary, Stephen Williams said:

'“This is just a money saving measure for the Government dressed up as a proposal to help students. By abolishing fees for people who are able to stay at home ministers are letting what people can afford affect what they study. People should be able to study the subject they want where they want regardless of how well off they are. If the Government truly wanted to make sure it is not just the wealthy who are able to get the education they want, it would scrap tuition fees altogether.”'

I went away to university and had a fab time. I spent three years drinking too much, studying too little and generally being a drain on society. However, I think I came away a better person, although my subsequent career has not exactly hit the high spots I had envisaged. I have nevertheless enjoyed myself and I can recognise numerous benefits of my time freezing in the delightful city of Stoke-on-Trent. (Oh yes, I went to a top university!)

My first reading of the government’s announcement that students would not pay fees if they agreed not to claim other costs or take out loans led me to conclude that this was a good idea. Fees are an abomination and the thought of leaving university with upwards of £20,000 of debt brings me out in a cold sweat. Quite frankly, if this had been the situation when I were a lad (whistle Dvorak here) I would not have gone away to college. There is therefore much merit in giving people the opportunity to study for free if they agree to carry all the other costs (if their parents agree to support them).

Now, we are the party of choice and good on us for being so. We are also a party which looks to students for a lot of our support so we must be aware of the concerns of this constituency but we must surely also recognise that it costs a lot to send people away to university every year, it saddles those students with ludicrous debts and the country is also in a bit of a bind financially. There may be merit in people staying local, studying locally and working locally, which might perhaps encourage them to remain where they live and invest in their local economy once they have graduated. The principle of living, studying and working locally is also common to many European countries and while I remain fiercely ‘English’ in my outlook I am also one of those sensible people who recognises that if we don’t learn from our neighbours and friends we are quite simply ignorant.

For these and various other reasons I think the government has actually got a good idea here and we might reflect on that. I applaud the principles behind the approach taken by Stephen Williams on our behalf but I wonder if it is the right comment long term.

And finally an anecdote: My brother studied in London and lived at home. He worked throughout his time at college and he left (I think) with no debts. He now earns a very tidy sum doing what he always wanted to. I went away to university, supported by my wonderful and long-suffering parents to a considerable extent. Regardless of their sacrifice I still left university with debts and I haven’t quite found my niche in life to this day. It’s hideously subjective but it informs my judgement on this issue.

BROWN 'DOES SOMETHING POPULAR' SHOCK

While in Leeds on a BBC Radio show Gordon Brown got phoned up by someone bemoaning the lack of government help for small family businesses. Gordon said someone would get in touch and then decided to visit the fish stall himself.

This is clever stuff and it demonstrates to me that the Prime Minister is going to be no pushover at the next election. As usual it wil be for the government to lose the next election, not for the opposition to win, and Gordon Brown is no fool.

I think the next election is going to be a humdinger!

BLIMEY, I'VE BECOME A PROPER FOOTBALL FAN

I got my first ever season ticket today for Oxford United. I went in with my jar of 5p coins and coppers to the receptionist, a snooty bitch who sent me outside to the ticket booths. These were all closed so I had to go back in and get said snooty bitch to raise herself from her seat and waddle off to 'find someone'. I was then sent back out.

After that it was much nicer. I filled my forms in and I was taken out to be shown a selection of seats in the family area. I've got a cracking pair of seats for me and my son - great views of the pitch and near the stairs for the inevitable trips to the loo halfway through the second half. I also got a mini guided tour which I unfortunately had to cut short due to the nuisance of the day job.

Still, it was all very nice and jolly and I am more enthused than ever about this. Plus I have had the implant inserted into my brain which tells me that Oxford will definitely win promotion this season and have a sensational cup run, narrowly losing out to one of the top four teams in the quarter finals.

Hmm, misplaced optimism, regular disappointment, the lemming-like desire to do it all over again time after time. There's a lot of common ground between football and politics.

PRIVATE TRAIN GO AWAY, DON'T COME BACK ANOTHER DAY

Fabulous news about National Express losing the contract for the East Coast Main Line. I don't have a personal beef with National Express - they are as bad as the rest - but as happened when Network South East was briefly brought into public ownership some years ago the managers of this line have a chance to demonstrate that public ownership of our railways quite simply makes sense.

You cannot have competition where one company runs one service on one line. That's a monopoly.

Where trains do compete on lines the tickets are often not transferable, people using the service cannot get the best information on pricing and they need to book train tickets now for their new born children to ensure the best value fares. The whole system is a shambles. And who dreamt it up? That's right, the increasingly shambolic and desperate last Tory government. Go to the top of the class.

So fingers crossed that we can see a bit of magic out east over the next year and that someone, somewhere recognises that this experiment in devastating our public transport has failed miserably.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we got a transport minister who could think outside this particular box and see that we need an integrated transport policy if we are to solve congestion, environmental damage, pollution affecting people's health and deliver economic benefits as people can actually get where they are going when they want to conveniently and cheaply.