Kiran Stacey

Cameron survives his first potential crisis on Europe

2009-11-05T09:18:00.000-08:00

For the next three months I shall (perhaps sporadically) be blogging on the FT's ft-dot-comment blog, analysing the British commentariat and its response to the day's news.

The blog can be found at www.ft.com/ftdotcomment, and my first post is on how Tory commentators have reacted to David Cameron's decision not to have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty.

To sum up the piece, it could have been a lot worse for the Tory leader. But of course I would much prefer you to read the full thing here.

What Obama could learn from Dick Cheney

2009-08-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

Dick Cheney is rearing his ugly head once more this morning in the US, making it known that he will be forthright in his criticism of George W Bush in his forthcoming memoirs. Reading Michael Tomasky's blog this morning reminded me of his response to being told two-thirds of the American public thought the Iraq war hadn't been worth fighting: "So?"

That response will make most of those who opposed the war shudder. But it is not necessarily a bad one. It is exactly the kind of response I would like to hear, for instance, from President Obama right now in response to the furious opposition being shown in various local "town hall" meetings across the US to his healthcare reforms.

It is always easy to lambast a politician for sticking resolutely behind a policy they believe in, even when the majority of the electorate disagrees, if you believe the policy is wrong. Many criticised Tony Blair in this way before, during and after the Iraq War. But what about if you believe the policy is right? It is suddenly tempting for moderates and liberals to wish Obama showed the kind of nerve Blair did; to will him to turn round to his red-faced opponents and say: "So?"

Democrats appear to know they cannot take this line of attack. They cannot simply disregard the will of a large and vocal section of the population, no matter how deranged their attacks. So instead they are taking a different line.

Associated Press reports: "In an e-mail to Obama supporters in New Hampshire, an aide invited supporters to counter the counter-protesters and called them organized by "Washington insiders, insurance companies and well-financed special interests who don't go a day without spreading lies and stirring up fear."

This is one of the main lines of attack for the Democrats at the moment: to pretend the anger isn't real; to blame it on organised, well-financed groups of the sort that "swift-boated" John Kerry and who are supposed to be manipulating the gullible Republican masses.

Perhaps the protests are being organised. But the anger is real. Many Americans are furious about the proposals, whether fairly or not.

Part of the problem is that the fury is being fed by misinformation. The lies told about the NHS, for example, culminated this week by an editorial in the Investors Business Daily (sadly, a prominent publication) that claimed Stephen Hawking would not have survived treatment on the NHS. The Democrats would be better off attacking those lies rather than the motive behind the protests.

But I can't help feeling that best of all would have been if President Obama, or perhaps more accurately Congress, had not opened the matter up to these public meetings at all. If, instead of allowing this farce of a debate to take place, he had shown real leadership; if he, when told that a growing majority was opposed to any kind of healthcare reform, knowing that he had the moral imperative to press on regardless, had replied: "So?"

Or is this the kind of talk that allows leaders to get away with illegal wars? Answers on a postcard (or in the comments section will be fine).

An apology

2009-07-14T08:39:00.000-07:00

To any New Yorkers upset by my previous post, I should say sorry. Not all of it was strictly accurate. Most of it was exaggerated for comic effect, in order to demonstrate an essential truth I have noticed but which many (but not all) of you have denied - that New York is more expensive than London.

To make amends, I will now attack London in a similarly exaggerated fashion.

Londoners - why are your restaurants so bad?

Much has been made of the renaissance (perhaps that should be naissance) in British cuisine, but just one trip to a city that takes its food seriously shows us how mistaken we are in our prandial self-congratulation.

I'm not talking about high end dining. There is plenty of it in both cities, and I have not been to anywhere near enough of those sorts of restaurant to make a fair comparison.

No, I mean your standard neighbourhood eatery. If I don't want to pay 50 pounds for a meal in London, all too often I am forced to head to my local Pizza Express. Yes, there are cheap and good neighbourhood eateries out there, whether it is Vietnamese on Kingsland Road or South Indian behind Euston. But if you wander down your local street on a Saturday night, you are unlikely to find much diversity or quality.

Not true in New York. Any given main street is likely to have all manner of cafes, bars and restaurants, some pricey, some not too bad, but all serving great food. All of them! What's more, very few of them are chains. Within spitting distance of my apartment, for example, is a fantastic Brazilian bar (sample dish: an enormous and delicious bowl of mussels), a terrific cheese deli with a few cosy tables at the back (try the fondue) and various Mexican places, all of which do free tortillas and home-made (that's the real difference here) salsa with every drink. Even the bars seem to give some kind of consideration to how good their fried chicken is (although it still leaves me with a hankering for a good beef and ale pie every now and then...).

All of this is unheard of in London, where to find a restaurant where they genuinely care about good food without charging the earth is still an unexpected joy. New Yorkers tell me the difference is they have higher standards - I'm inclined to agree, we British all too often suffer in silence rather than demand better.

So while we can crow about St John's or Gordon Ramsay as long as we like, until a Londoner can pop out to their local restaurant and be guaranteed high class food cooked fresh in that kitchen, we will always be behind this true foody city.

New York is more expensive than London, it's official

2009-07-07T09:55:00.000-07:00

Dear New Yorkers,

Firstly, thank you very much for letting me come and live in your amazing city for the last four months. I want you to know, before I start on this extended moan, that I really do like you and your city. There really isn't a more intense and spectacular on earth. At least not that I've been to.

But I'm afraid I must correct you on one thing. No, despite what you tell me, London is not more expensive than New York, and I don't need this recent survey to prove that. Your city is cripplingly, hideously dear and no bleating about the price of a London taxi is going to change the fact that it makes London look like Rotherham in comparison.

First up, rents. Yes, space is at a premium, and yes, half the world wants to live in Manhattan, but still, nearly $4,000 a month for one bedroom and a cupboard-kitchen? For that price I could get this place in South Kensington. I can only be grateful I'm not paying my rent here.

Secondly - $8? For a beer? In a standard bar? And it's not even a pint? Are you mad? You may pity the Brits for drinking warm beer, but frankly for those prices I would want my beer personally chilled by Barack Obama himself. I'll take the warmest 3 pound pint of Pride over even an icy Sam Adams on a baking hot day if I have to pay that much for it.

Thirdly, I would like to pay less than $10 for a main meal next time I go out please. I'm not asking for much. Just a simple plate of bar food will do fine. In fairness, your standard mid-market restaurant is at least three times as good as its equivalent in London, and for only twice the price, perhaps that makes good value, in a way. But for those of us whose budgets can't stretch much further than a decent cheap meal out every so often, please stop hurting our wallets. They've not harmed you in any way.

OK, so maybe I should cut back on the number of meals I have out. I'll just pop off to the supermarket. Yes yes, Whole Foods is very nice thanks, but I'm not a banker, so where is your budget option? What's that? Whole Foods IS your budget option? Just a lettuce for me then please.

And back to the cabs. Yes, well done, your cabs are much cheaper than those in London. But here's the scoop. We don't take cabs. Those are for rich people and tourists. We have something called a public transport system, which involves subway trains that go more than once every 20 minutes, and, get this, regular buses! Shocking but true.

Anyway, apologies for the rant. I really do love your city. And thanks to the not-paying-rent thing (see above), I've been able to enjoy it in a far less parsimonious fashion than I may have led you to believe. But please don't complain about London being expensive, I promise you it's nothing on what you guys put up with here.

Where would you rather live?

2009-05-12T11:37:00.001-07:00

This graph was on the front of the FT this morning. It is a composite made by the OECD of various leading economic indicators, with the 100 level being that country's long-term average. Only question is, which economy is in the best health? Americans might be surprised to find their economy may not be the one to lead the world out of recession.

A nugget of sense amid a lot of hot air on MPs' expenses

2009-05-12T05:53:00.000-07:00

Anyone up late enough last night to listen to 5 Live's Up All Night might have heard one MP finally being honest and talking some sense about expenses. If you didn't the link is here.

Lib Dem MP Nick Harvey, who sits on the Commons committee which looks at expenses, told the programme's new "Front Bench" slot MPs have a right to feel aggrieved about the whistleblower who sold the expenses information, but not at the Telegraph for publishing the stories. "If I was the Telegraph's editor," he said, "I would have done the same."

As a journalist I am normally the first to come to the defence of whistleblowers, but there is something that seems off about the sale of information for such a high price (probably £100,00) here. Having said that, I don't feel the money paid has had any effect on the quality or the public interest nature of the material, and I think the country is a better place for the revelations.

Meanwhile other MPs, as so often, have decided their best form of defence is to attack journalists. Personally, I don't feel BBC newscasters should be as large a sum as Carrie Gracie admits in that conversation. But exorbitant salaries are the fault of the employer, not the employee. Being crafty with your expense forms is another matter entirely.

I don't wish to repeat here a debate that has been pretty thoroughly covered by others. But I would like to point people in the direction of Roy Greenslade, who showed an unexpected bout of generosity towards his journalistic peers earlier this week.

PS - And have I ever fiddled my expenses? No. In an industry that is desperately trying to survive, that kind of culture is quickly dying out. MPs should take note. They are not bankers or lawyers, or even comedians, who only have to answer to their organisations. They are public servants. Sermon over.

Rupert agrees with me

2009-05-07T05:55:00.000-07:00

When I wrote a few days ago that newspapers that charge for online content are ahead of the game, I'm not sure how many agreed with me. But Rupert Murdoch evidently read the post, and did, telling a conference call he was looking at charging users of his British newspapers' websites. Tip of the hat to Phil Craven for the link.

Well, perhaps this is simply the latest twist in the long-running saga of Rupert-figuring-out-how-this-internet-thingy-actually-works, but I like to think I played a small part somewhere.

Some will say Murdoch's strategy is a step backwards, the actions of a man who simply can't let go of the glorious past he enjoyed in newspapers and embrace the future. They may say his $5bn purchase of Dow Jones, which includes the Wall Street Journal is an example of that. But I disagree for the reasons previously pointed out.

Meanwhile over at Guardian Towers, where they pride themselves on having a multi-award winning website, they simply cannot make it pay. Carolyn McCall, Guardian Media Group's chief executive, recently told attendees of a magazine congress in London, ""We have a great audience in America. We need to make some money out of that."

Yes they do. Although GMG is run by a trust, the fact that it is considering selling a further stake in Trader Media, one of its cash cows, suggests the group needs to start making money out of its major titles soon.

Here's an idea to make money Carolyn. Why not make people pay for the hard work done by your journalists? Just a thought.

The Evening Standard's breathtaking volte-face

2009-05-04T06:26:00.000-07:00

I can't think of a bolder ad campaign than this, certainly not in the newspaper industry.

The Standard can be pretty hateful at times, and it certainly seems that it has lost touch with London as a liberal, open, multicultural city. But the paper also produces a lot of quality journalism, often breaking stories that leave the nationals in its wake.

So how will this complete capitulation of former editorial policy affect the quality of journalism on what is one of the few local papers that continues to punch above its weight? And what must this do to morale among the staff who worked so hard to produce that output?

We can only hope this isn't a cover for yet another erosion of proper journalism in the face of falling sales.

My question may soon be answered...

2009-05-01T11:41:00.001-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/01/gordon-brown-expenses-u-turn

Which Labour rat will jump ship first?

2009-05-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

The last death throes of any government or at least dominant era in political thinking are almost always marked by a defection or two. From 1995 to 1999, no fewer than six Tories left the fold, with two joining the Lib Dems and three going to Labour. In 1981, two years after being voted out of office, Labour was hit by the quadruple defection of the Gang of Four. But the writing was on the wall long before that, as a recession hit Labour struggled to keep the confidence of the electorate and its own party (sound familiar?), and five MPs left the party between 1974 and 1977.

Here in the US, Arlen Specter is the latest example of the phenomenon, moving to the Democrats to give them a filibuster-proof 60-seat Senate majority. (Although with Mr Specter saying his voting patterns won't change, it remains to be seen how much this is simply a symbolic move.)

It seems inevitable that it will start to happen in the UK soon. But who will go and where?

To deal with the second question first, it might seem intuitive that the Lib Dems would be the main gainers from any defections. The Labour party remains more tribal than the Tories, and it is still highly unusual for a Labour MP to make the move all the way from left to right.

But this time may be different. David Cameron has successfully positioned himself as the "heir to Blair", and Nick Clegg has struggled to define himself and the party as any real alternative. Labour is still riven with Blair-Brown divisions, and my guess is that it is only a matter of time before a Blairite chooses to climb aboard the Tory bandwagon.

My initial though was that Stephen Byers would soon cross the floor. He has recently sounded more conservative than the Conservatives, first calling for an end to inheritance tax, when the Tories only wanted to see it lowered, then opposing the 50p tax rate, something the Tories have struggled to sound decisive on. He is the kind of disaffected ex-Blairite who would be ripe for a move. The problem is, the thought of a Tory MP for North Tyneside is simply too unlikely to be a possibility. It may be of course that Byers simply waits for the next election before jumping, and lets Cameron put him up somewhere far more blue-friendly.

But I'm opening this one up for discussion. Who will be the first off the sinking ship and where will they go?

Gordon Brown makes a very political apology

2009-04-16T06:04:00.000-07:00

For some reason I have been following the Damian McBride scandal from across the pond. There are obviously much more important things to worry about in New York, but nobody knows how to eek the most out of a good political scandal like the British, and this one has run and run.

What caught my eye this morning was Gordon Brown's apology. The problem for Labour amid all of the recent scandals it has faced is that its politicians have looked bewildered that anybody should be shocked at such behaviour. This is probably the price of being in power so long - you forget what the rules of the game are outside Westminster. This is also why Brown felt compelled to apologise, despite there being no evidence that he had anything personally to do with these particular emails.

What he should have said was "Sorry. Sorry for allowing such a culture where this was acceptable to foster in Number 10. Sorry not to have realised this is what my aides were doing, and sorry that people thought it would be acceptable." Then he should have explained how he is planning to clear up the Number 10 operation. He almost got it. He did realise: "The most important thing is to reassure people that everything is being done to clean up politics in this country."

But he was clearly still bemused at having to make the apology. When asked if he took responsibility for the incident (which he clearly should not have done), he answered: "I take full responsibility for what happens, and that's why the person who was responsible went immediately."

Huh? Either Gordon Brown has just resigned or that is the most confusing admission of responsibility ever.

It would not have been hard for him to say "I take responsibility for failing to tackle this culture, which by the way is endemic in politics as a whole (which it undoubtedly is), but obviously I had nothing to do with the emails. Here is what I am doing to try and change the Number 10 operation..."

Instead, Brown, like Jacqui Smith before him when defending her second home allowance, sounded confused and mealy-mouthed. Which just adds to the impression the government has become out of touch.

Newspapers that charge for content online are ahead of the game

2009-04-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

I was asked last week by someone how the FT's web and print editions work together, as they wanted to use this as a model for a (much smaller and entirely different) publication. My answer went on longer than my questioner probably expected, for a simple reason. The FT, like every other newspaper, is still honing its answer to that question.

Something has gone wrong somewhere with the business model at most mainstream papers. The internet is a great informing tool and yet most newspapers, which should be the companies with the best information resources at their fingertips, continue to lose money through their web operations. The debate as to why this is rages on, with Rupert Murdoch apparently changing his mind on whether to charge for online content. Perhaps unsurprisingly, as American papers fall around him, he appears to have reversed his initial position that online content should be free.

Echoing his master's voice, Robert Thomson has now blamed search engines such as Google, for being "parasites" by feeding off content provided by other organisations at no cost to themselves. Associated Press took things further on Monday when it threatened to sue aggregator sites that do not properly license news content. Eric Schmidt of Google unsurprisingly hit back, saying newspapers need to innovate more. The debate sparked this piece in today's New York Times.

As I said, the FT, like every other news organisation, is constantly reviewing and reforming its policy towards the web, but one thing that has not changed, thank goodness, is the basic policy that readers should pay for quality material, even on the web. The FT's online subscription model remains in place, and in the current environment, with advertising less able to support revenues at all media outlets, the paper looks to have been ahead of the game, rather than behind it, the entire time.

A broad church

2009-03-31T09:47:00.000-07:00

I like to think the FT is able to appeal to people on all sides of the political spectrum - and not just pro-capitalists. Which is why this photo of G20 protestors is so heartening. It negates some of the strange and badly-written criticism of the FT at the now well-publicised spoof FT, which was otherwise terrifically produced.

Censorship is still alive thanks to our perverse libel laws

2009-03-26T10:52:00.000-07:00

I want to echo what Jo Glanville says here. A point that badly needs addressing. And the questionable legal practices that go on when muzzling the press are well described by Sir Christopher Meyer, the outgoing chairman of the PCC here. If you want to get a sense of how much of a scumbag Peter Carter-Ruck himself was, read this. (Today's post kindly sponsored by Media Guardian.)

Will British papers go the way of the US industry?

2009-03-24T07:37:00.001-07:00

I was ranting to a group of unimpressed Americans last night about their newspapers, saying that the style and presentation of US papers badly lets down the superlative reporting that is often contained within.

Those who do not work in the media may not have noticed that the American newspaper industry is dying spectacularly quickly. British papers are not faring that much better, especially not when it comes to regional news - see here and here.Things have got so bad for UK regionals that some are now calling for government bailouts.

But although major British national papers are struggling, they are not quite undergoing death throes in the same way that the big American papers are. My theory, when I am in an optimistic mood, is that because American papers essentially operate as localised monopolies, they get away with producing great journalism, but terrible products. They are never forced to up their game by a bit of old-fashioned competition (which may also explain why local papers are in greater decline than national papers in the UK).

Let's look at an example. Here is a story from the New York Times and a similar one from its London namesake. Both are essentially stories based on comments from senior officials about the economy, but which one would you rather read based on the first sentence?

Here's the one from the NY Times:

"The Obama administration is renewing calls for Congress to provide new authority to take over financial institutions in distress, expanding its existing powers to include insurance companies and other less-regulated market players, officials said on Tuesday."

And from The Times:

"The Governor of the Bank of England today fired a warning shot at the Government over taking any further tax and spending measures to try to jump-start the economy."

In case that seems like an unfair example, have a look at the websites for the New York Times and the Washington Post, and see how many of their headlines make you want to read the story to which they are attached.

And there is a difference in the rates of circulation decline in newspapers between the two countries:

There top set of bars is UK nationals, the middle set is major US metropolitans and the bottom three are the averages. The very top bar is the apparently terminal Indy, which distorts the UK picture somewhat. The averages are therefore split into US (top), UK (middle) and UK excluding the Indy (bottom). The figures are slightly skewed by the fact that the circulation figures do not cover quite the same period of time, but they are more or less comparable.

Of course, there are other more pressing issues for the newspaper industry than the quality of reporters' introductions, not least how to make profits when most content is given away for free on the internet. But I wonder if it the fact that the declines seen in US papers are noticeably worse than those for UK papers might have something to do with poorer execution from editors and designers? It seems to me that the first thing we have to do if we want to save newspapers is produce them well.

UPDATE:

I've now moved the discussion that came from this to the comments section.

Notes from New York pt 1

2009-03-22T14:21:00.000-07:00

Anti-American. It (along with its sister "un-American") is the commonest and stupidest criticism launched at anything someone in America doesn't like, as if "American" was a coherent philosophy rather than the space within a set of natural and man-made borders. This weekend it was being used about plans by Congress to tax high earners at bailed out banks 90 per cent of their bonuses.

The proposed law is not a particularly good one. It was aimed at soothing the ongoing public anger over the news that senior executives at AIG are going to get $165m in bonuses despite destroying the company to such an extent that the American taxpayer had to bail it out to the tune of $170bn. As Christopher Caldwell points out, the bill is "scarcely longer than a spray-painted slogan and about as well thought out". Only after it was passed by the House did anyone seem to realise that it would affect every company that owes more than $5bn after taking money from the government-sponsored troubled asset relief program (Tarp) - otherwise known as every major bank in America.

Bankers at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley especially point out that they were encouraged strongly by the government to take the money in the first place, and say they would not have taken it if they knew this bill was coming down the road. More importantly, as the banks scramble to pay back the money and avoid their staff leaving for companies that can still accommodate their greed, the economy faces another bout of credit tightening. Faced with the option of lending out money or getting their companies into a position where they can pay themselves the grossly inflated salaries to which they have become accustomed, it is not difficult to figure out which way executives will lean.

These and other criticisms of the bill are better explained here by John Gapper.

But the incident is intriguing. The anonymous banker who called it "anti-American" had a point in a way - this is not the usual way business is done here. As an outsider who has just moved to New York, I've been surprised by quite how much America lives up to some of its stereotypes, particularly when it comes to commercialism and consumption.

From the policy of supermarkets to "double bag" their goods with a paper bag inside a plastic one, to the constant interruptions to sporting events to make way for commercially-sponsored crap like giant games of noughts and crosses, so much in this country is focused on keeping business profitable by whatever means necessary. I think this will change. As the unemployment rate heads towards ten per cent and the environment continues to suffer, Americans will be forced to reign in some of that excess. The only question is how much and how quickly.

This seemed implausible just a year ago, as did popular support for a 90 per cent tax rate, but this crisis continues to throw up world-changing events and behaviour on a weekly basis. As Tony Blair said about something else entirely (and he in turn was quoting Teddy Roosevelt), "The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux."

The biggest piece will soon be China. Although American attention is still very much focused on domestic politics and economics, China is the only country left that can really save the global economy. Just watch what happens to asset prices when a couple of Chinese politicians hint there might be a fresh stimulus package on its way. And China's spending power has political consequences too. When the Federal Reserve announced it would introduce quantitative easing, the main criticism was that it might anger the Chinese, who own a huge amount of US government debt. (Yes, yes, linking to my own piece is shamelessly self-promoting...)

As John Authers points out, it is ironic that the saviour of capitalism might be communism. What an un-American solution to an American problem.

When will criticism of Obama start?

2008-11-10T06:22:00.000-08:00

I am as pleased and amazed by Obama's victory as anyone. But it is now time the press started to deal with him a little more critically, especially on the issue of campaign finances. Which is why Peter Wilby's article in this morning's Guardian was so welcome.

NB - Before you all start, saying this does not equate me with these guys.

Justice Eady - an enemy of the press?

2008-11-10T02:49:00.000-08:00

Naomi Campbell, Catherine Zeta Jones, Princess Caroline of Monaco and now Max Mosley. Each of these celebs has changed UK privacy law far more than any elected government. But according to Paul Dacre, the real culprit in curbing press freedoms to make space for personal privacy is Justice David Eady, a High Court judge whom the editor of the Daily Mail accuses of bringing in a privacy law by the back door.

Charlie Falconer, former Lord Chancellor, denies this, saying Eady is simply interpreting the law as it stands. So who is right?

In his scattergun attack Dacre rails against the "wretched" Human Rights Act, which enacted the European Convention on Human Rights in UK Law. (Incidentally, he can't have it both ways. Either Eady is following this "wretched" act, and so is not to blame, or he is not and so the act is not to blame.) Under Article 8 of the ECHR, "Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence." But this sits badly with Article 10, which says, "Everyone has the right to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers." Every dispute on privacy since 2000, when the HRA came into force, has hinged on the clash between these two articles.

How to resolve such a clash? The wording of Article 10 gives us a clue when it says freedom of expression can be limited by the rights and freedoms of others. So does Article 8 trump Article 10? Not quite. These limitations apply only when they are "necessary in a democratic society", which has been interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights as answering a "pressing social need".

It remains difficult to interpet what this might mean, but Lord Justice Sedley gave some guidance in 2000 when he said judges should weigh such clashes on "proportionality". Judges should therefore look at the consequences of breaching these rights and see if the benefits outweight the potential harms.

And this is why judges find themselves in the line of fire. They are essentially being asked to make a personal judgement on which right to uphold in any given case, which leaves them open to attack from either side of the debate.

So now to Eady himself. Is he bringing in a law of privacy through the back door which otherwsie would not have existed? Let's examine his record:

In 2005, Eady ruled that Neima Ash, a former friend of Canadian folk singer Loreena McKennitt did not have the right to sell her autobiography, which contained personal details about the death of McKennitt's husband, her sexual past and details about a financial dispute between them. Not only did Eady rule that Ash was not allowed to disclose details of a dispute in which she was a major player, but even, unbelievably, ruled that Ash could not give such anodyne details as the decor of McKennitt's house.

In 2006, Eady ruled that a betrayed (or as Dacre puts it, "cuckolded" - he really is old) husband could not name the famous sports star who had run off with his wife in the press, so as to protect the privacy of that celebrity. The celebrity's privacy, in effect, should come before the husband's right to tell his story.

This year he ruled for Max Mosley against the News of the World. I won't go over the case details here, but suffice it to say that Eady ruled that behaviour, which if not quite in contravention of the law, at least sails very close to it, and which is in monumental bad taste should go unexposed because of the perpetrator's right to privacy.

I don't agree with Dacre's comments that Mosley deserved to be outed as a pervert - I hold no such truck with 1950s style sexual moralising. But I do think that he deserved to be outed as a user of prostitutes, someone who participates in a trade which is not only illegal but also a horrible sign of the low esteem in which women are still held in our society.

It is clear that Eady is acting in a clear and coherent way to enforce a privacy law on which no elected representative has ever voted or even debate. He is not simply interpreting the clash between Articles 8 and 10 in a comon sense way based on outcomes. After all, what could possibly have been the negative outcome of revealing the interior decor of Loreena McKennitt's home? Would these really have outweighed the fact that such a judgement would bring in serious curbs on freedom of expression?

Whether you agree with me or not, it is surely time this was at least put before Parliament and faced some sort of public scrutiny.

PS - Eady's judgement that the Wall St Journal should not have revealed that the US Government had frozen the accounts of a Saudi businessman for fear he might give money to terrorists seems to me a sure sign that he is no friend of a free press.

In defence of the Pestowire

2008-10-21T02:29:00.000-07:00

With bankers, politicians and regulators all grumbling about Robert Peston and his extraordinary scoops, I'm glad to see my own paper get it exactly right: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/919fde1c-9ed3-11dd-98bd-000077b07658.html. Now more than ever, accurate and timely journalism should be celebrated.

Oh Mandy

2008-10-16T04:19:00.000-07:00

"Why do you think they call him Mandy?" asked my housemate. "Do you think it's because he's gay?" I dismissed the comment at first. No, I explained, it's far more likely that it is a handy shorthand that takes up less space in headlines than the rather more cumbersome "Peter Mandelson" and gives some light relief in otherwise heavy political coverage.

Now I'm not so sure.

Let's have a look at one paper's coverage at random and re-assess whether papers have been homophobic about the politician everyone loves to hate. Let's say... The Daily Mail. Ok, so it's not a random pick, but deliberately designed to show the worst excesses of the British press. It is still the second highest selling daily in the country, though, and so not to be sniffed at.

Yesterday, the Mail described the scene in the House of Lords as Mandelson took his peerage: "Even as he minces around in his new ermine get-up..." Stephen Glover wrote. Quentin Letts had a similar take on the scene: "He must have had his bottom almost completely clenched to have moved so seamlessly." He continued: "Everyone watched the smooth figure standing in the centre of the Chamber... Not an inchlet did he stir as he stood, poised, wreathed by a cologne cloud of delight." Next we turn to the features pages where on October 11 a "whimsical" column speculated on what peerage Mandelson would be given. "Lord Mandelson of Shifty Nighties? Lord Mandelson of Nivea Night Cream 11-1; Lord Mandy Panky 18-1," the piece speculated. (I can't find this piece online. Perhaps finally something was deemed of having gone too far.)

This general homophobic current running through the paper's coverage shed new light on apparently innocuous headlines over small news stories: "Mandy's date at the Lords" said one, while a trip to hospital was announced as "Mandy laid low".

So the Daily Mail is homophobic, shock horror, you might think. But it does shock me that in 2008 a mainstream paper finds it acceptable to continue reporting like this. Remember that Jonathan Oliver, a reporter on The Mail on Sunday, won an award from gay rights campaign group Stonewall for journalist of the year just two years ago. It was heralded at the time as the fall of the the last bastion of bigotry. Obviously not.

More shocking still was Quentin Letts' defence of the paper's general bullying of Mandelson (I've not given the half of it - search for "Mandelson" on the Mail's website for the worst of the bile). "I'm a sketch wirter," Letts told this morning's Today programme. "Not a professor of ethics at journalism training college." What on earth can he mean? No one was saying he was a professor of ethics at a journalism training college - what a bizarre accusation that would be. No, what he actually means is, "I don't have any ethics, and what's more I don't feel I need to. I'm a journalist."

Let me assure you he does not speak for the rest of the profession when he makes such horrendous comments. Most of us are at least a little self-aware and occasionally even question our own prejudices.

So, then, calling him Mandy? Just a drop in a homophobic ocean.

The future of journalism?

2008-09-11T15:46:00.000-07:00

Embarrassingly, I haven't posted on this blog in over a month. Even more embarrassingly, I'm not even going to put a full post on now. Instead, I'm going to direct you to this link on the Guardian's website, and ask you whether you think this is the future of journalism.

In keeping with the Jay Rayner style, I'll ask you guys to let me know what you think, then come up with my opinion. And that's not because I'm lazy, honest.

The end of Gordon Brown... Why I was wrong

2008-07-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

In my post on the day after the Glasgow East by-election, I commented that it would take senior Labour party members making noises about Gordon Brown's future before his position could be thought to be in any real peril. Backbenchers and former spin doctors, I argued, simply weren't enough to get past that famous Brown stubbornness and force his resignation. Today saw the next step towards Brown's downfall, and also reminded me why what I said in my earlier blog was wrong. In nuance, rather than essence, but wrong nonetheless.

First of all for the news. David Miliand, the foreign secretary, widely seen as the next Labour leader, wrote a piece in the Guardian today about the future direction of the Labour party. It was noticed not so much for what he wrote about, but what he didn't write about, namely Gordon Brown.

This, plus his cryptic comments in a press conference today, including a refusal to rule himself our of a potential leadership bid, has sent political commentators into a frenzy, the Times being the boldest when it declared 'David Miliband positions himself for leadership'.

All this furore reminded me why I was wrong about the circumstances under which Brown would be made to stand down. As the experience of Michael Heseltine shows, he or she who wields the knife is rarely then crowned leader. Which is why Miliband knows he has to tread a fine line. He has to suggest he would be willing to stand should a leadership election be called, but cannot be seen to be calling for one himself. Apart from anything else, the electorate does not like disloyalty. This is also why Harriet Harman has expressed such outrage at the suggestion she told an aide "This is my time" after the Glasgow East result.

So what will happen? Gordon Brown's maneouvring might prove a valuable precedent. A couple of summers ago, Tom Watson, a junior defence minister, resigned in a very public way over Tony Blair's failure to step down. His resignation was followed by those of six parliamentary private secretaries, and under that pressure Blair was forced to concede that he would step down within the next year. And why do I say this was Brown's maneouvring? Because just a few days before he resigned, Watson had visited the then Chancellor at his home in Scotland. It didn't take a conspiracy theorist to see a connection between those events, although of course, Brown denied there was one.

So Miliband, Straw, Harman et al, know that they have to get loyalists within the party to do their dirty work for them if they are to stand a chance of gaining the leadership. Perhaps we shouldn't ignore the statements of apparent underlings after all.

New lows from The Sunday Times

2008-07-25T06:24:00.000-07:00

The exploitation of student journalists by national titles appears to have reached new lows. During their recent redesign, The Sunday Times sent this email to a friend of mine, a fellow budding journalist. I've blanked out the names to protect the innocent as well as the not-so-innocent.

"Hi xxx,

Hope you're well. I just wanted to drop you a line to see if you'd be up for coming in to do some more work experience? Are you around from the week beginning July 28? Or at any time during August? We've relaunched the paper and there's masses of writing work for people on work experience now! Let me know if you're free or if you want to come back at any time."

Pleasant enough, you might think, and a good chance for the student in question to gain some valuable work experience at a national newspaper. Except it's not at all. The person in question has already done plenty of work experience at national papers, the ST included. On the last occasion they went there, the staff told them they were so impressed they were considering this person for a permanent job on one of their sections. They later turned round to say the job was no longer going. They claimed it was filled internally, but I can't help thinking they decided it could be filled for free by the continuous line of work experiencers who file in and out of the office.

So, having told this person they could not have a job on the paper, they then come back and ask whether this person would be willing to come in and do some more work experience. In essence, the ST were asking for them to come in and do for free what they had originally offered as a paid position.

This is the first time I've ever seen this. The implied contract formed by work experiencers and the papers they go to runs something like this: the work experiencer asks the paper to let them come in, see how things run and help out a bit. In return the paper gets some untrained free labour. Never have I seen a newspaper decide a job needs doing, so, instead of paying someone to do it, go out and ask a vulnerable student, desperate to boost their CV and make good contacts, not to mention desperate not to piss anyone in the industry off, to do it for free. It makes a mockery of the idea that papers don't need work experiencers, but are willing to have them in to help the student in question.

In case you don't think this matters, this piece by Peter Wilby a few months ago shows exactly why newspapers' practice of insisting on reams of work experience before offering any jobs means the industry is likely to be dominated by the southern middle classes for a long time to come.

Shame on you ST. If you need a job doing, pay someone to do it.

The end of Gordon Brown?

2008-07-25T04:52:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, oh dear. I'm sure I don't need to provide a link to tell you that Labour lost the Glasgow East by-election this morning. By only 365 votes, but that's not the figure that sticks in the mind. Rather, we are more likely to remember these numbers: 22 - the swing which won it for the SNP; 3 - the number safest seat in Scotland Glasgow East represented for Labour; 2 - the number of cabinet ministers who would keep their seats should this swing be replicated across the UK in a general election.

So what will happen next? If the journalists writing before the election are to be believed, Gordon Brown will lose the leadership before the end of the year. Reports such as this one by Benedict Brogan in The Mail have been common in the last few days. "Labour figures predicted last night that Mr Brown would be forced to quit if he lost a contest in his own backyard," he wrote. "Former Labour spin doctor Lorraine Davidson said: 'I think it's as simple as this: if Labour loses the Glasgow East by-election I think Gordon Brown is finished.'"

It's an obvious piece to write - find a Labour MP or expert, get them to say Brown is finished, and bingo, there's a story. It's a trick not missed by the Telegraph either. "Graham Stringer, a former minister and Labour MP for Manchester Blackley, told the Telegraph that the loss of Glasgow East would mean it was unlikely Mr Brown could survive," wrote Simon Johnson and Andrew Porter earlier this month. Stringer was then quoted as saying: "The mood has really hardened against Gordon. Labour MPs before the Crewe by-election were saying they didn't want to win because it would prolong the agony and they are now saying the same about Glasgow East. The truth is that winning Glasgow won't save Gordon Brown and losing it will probably mean the end is even sooner."

So are they right? Doubtless we will see plenty of similar pieces in the next few days with previously unheard-of Labour MPs, former spin doctors and various experts predicting Brown's end. It all makes great copy. But until those voices are coming from senior Labour MPs, Brown is unlikely to budge even an inch. Angus Macleod, The Times' Scottish political editor thinks that could soon begin to happen. "[Backbench MPs] must now ask themselves if they can possibly win a general election under Mr Brown and the Prime Minister’s Cabinet colleagues will no doubt be asking the same question," he writes.

More sober analysis, as so often, comes from Michael White in The Guardian, who talks of Brown's stubbornness: "He still hopes - as John Major stubbornly did in hard times before 1992 - that he can win that choice [between himself and Cameron]."

Surprisingly, these sentiments were echoed by victorious Scots Nats leader Alex Salmond, who said: "I don't think we will see an immediate exit for Gordon Brown from Downing Street. I think it is more likely he will change policy rather than change himself."

Whether there is a change of policy or not, I simply can't see anyone willing to challenge Brown at the moment. The "young turks" - Ed Balls, the Millibands, James Purnell et al - will surely think this is not their time, and that they don't want to lead the party into what looks like a guaranteed general election loss.

But watch this space. Should the names of any of Labour's big guns or rising stars begin to replace those of unknown backbenchers or former spin doctors in the inevitable "Brown must go, says ... " pieces, the PM's days are numbered.

Trinity Mirror's cost cutting - short-termism at its worst

2008-07-04T06:33:00.000-07:00

Trinity Mirror's slump is reaching new lows. After their profits warning earlier this week, the company's share price fell by 12 to 14 per cent. Cue swift action from CEO Sly Bailey, who announced first that the graduate trainee scheme was to be halted and then that the subs' desks were to be streamlined, with 11 subeditors losing their jobs. I'll let Roy Greenslade's excellent points on the latter issue speak for my own view, but on the former course of action, more needs to be said.

Bailey's decision is idiotic at best. The Mirror grad scheme is one of the most highly thought of in the business, having overseen the development of Alastair Campbell and Tom Newton-Dunn (The Sun's award-winning defence correspondent) among others. It has ensured that the Mirror titles have been provided with a steady flow of talented writers and subs even during the steady rise of The Sun to take top slot as the nation's most read daily paper.

I was talking to a recent Mirror graduate a few months ago about his affiliation to the paper. "I could never leave The Mirror," he said. "It invested in me for two years' worth of training, and has treated me well since then." The Sun had actually come calling, he told me, but he had refused the increased pay offer on the table to stay with the paper he clearly felt such loyalty towards.

If The Mirror are reluctant to train up the next generation of talent, there is no doubt as to where those people will end up. Mirror staff are already fed up with The Sun's ability to cream off the best talent from their paper with their promise of more money and more readers, and unless TM reinstates their scheme soon, that talent won't even be coming near the paper in the first place.

TM's shares picked up quickly after this announcement. But don't let that fool you. Though the City might see the potential for increased dividends resulting from Bailey's cost cutting, the paper will be left much weaker in the long-run. Anybody who witnessed The Daily Mail's aggressive recruitment of Express staff during the former's meteoric rise under the watch of David English will see that employing talent and a serious commitment to quality in both writing and subediting pays off in the end. (Please note, this does not mean I am in sympathy with any of the Daily Mail's views, simply that I can spot quality writing and subbing when I see it, in whichever paper it appears.)

So while Bailey's move might delight City analysts, anyone with any understanding of journalism will realise that this is short-termism at its worst.