A PLAGUE ON ALL YOUR HOUSES

 

THE RISE OF THE MAVERICKS.

Donald Trump will be the Republican’s Presidential nominee. Bernie Sanders is giving Hilary Clinton a real fright in the race for the Democrat’s nomination. Jeremy Corbyn astonished the commentators with his victory last year in the Labour leadership contest. The Austrians have just chosen a radical green candidate for President over a far right alternative. The middle of the road Austrian parties were nowhere to be seen.

All this tells us that there is deep disillusionment with conventional politicians. People don’t believe they have the answers. Why is this? I think the underlying economic reason is that Europe and North America are mature economies now. The post war boom when we dominated the world is long gone. Children will no longer be richer than their parents because the easy economic gains are no longer available. The global economy means that developing countries are, rightly, taking a bigger share of the cake. They are building the ships, finishing textiles, producing the raw materials. We have to focus on sophisticated added value goods at the high end of technology and intellectual property.

Economies are subject to global forces. No individual politician can promise to resist. Their power is diminished but they keep on promising and disillusionment has set in. At the moment the party system in Britain remains intact but it is not fit for purpose. We need a four party system in England, not two. Conservative right, Conservative left, hard left and a centre left could end the frustration people feel at the moment.

More immediately the American political system is under strain. Donald Trump should really be running as an independent, the Republican Party may not survive his candidature. Sanders styles himself as a socialist. Perhaps America needs a Corbyn type party to offer a radical alternative to what many young American Democrats regard as the uninspiring position of Hilary Clinton.

Finally we must acknowledge that a contributor to the disillusionment is the internet and social media. It is right and welcome that there is a much wider discussion and scrutiny of politicians. It is also true that the commentary can be ill informed and destructive based on a belief that anyone in public office is on the make or self interested.

The current EU debate with its increasingly aggressive tone and overblown claims won’t be helping our increasingly fragile politicians.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BOMBING SYRIA?

Do you remember the huge debate over whether we should bomb Syria? The Prime Minister got his way. Reporters were dispatched to Cyprus to see the first planes fly out, then silence. Are we still bombing? How frequently and to what effect? The media caravan does move swiftly on.

DOMESTIC SEASON NOT “DONE AND DUSTED”.

The coverage of the Premier League really is disproportionate in our media. Division 1 and 2 is particularly badly covered. BBC Radio Five Live have been running a promo this weekend saying the domestic season is done and dusted. Well not for the Green Army it ain’t.

I support Plymouth Argyle who are off to Wembley on Monday for the Fourth (let’s call it what it is) Division Play Off Final. 40,000 members of the Green Army may be there with a sizeable contingent from AFC Wimbledon. How much coverage will we get in the national papers and on Radio Five Live?

Not much if the coverage of our semi final duel with Portsmouth is anything to go by. Over thirty thousand people watched the two legs between these old dockyard rivals, yet barely a mention on national radio and TV.

The nation will want The Wombles to continue their fairytale rise to play Milton Keynes (let’s call them what they are) in Div 3 (let’s call it what it is) next year, but I’m hoping for victory for the Green Army.

 

IS GOVERNMENT BACKING OFF BBC?

 

 

SPEAK UP FOR AUNTIE.

You currently have a chance to give your views on the future of the BBC. I hope you will take the opportunity to say that it is one of this country’s best assets and, free from those endless advertising breaks, offers great value for money compared to the expensive Sky and BT packages which line the pockets of Premier League footballers.

I am not a naïve fan of the BBC. I worked for them for thirteen years under managers of varying quality. It was over managed and paid its top staff too much. Most of the pooh-bahs have gone now, apart from Creative Director Alan Yentob. He should be on his way soon after his handling of the Kid’s Company affair. In 2010 the BBC were wrong to fight plans for Ofcom or a new OfBBC to replace the discredited governors system. The BBC Trust that was set up has failed to provide an independent overview of the executive.

So the Corporation isn’t without its faults but in the run up to Charter renewal in 2017, it has been subjected to continuous vilification in many newspapers. More worryingly the government have trampled all over the proper procedures regarding its future funding for the second time, the new Culture Secretary has hinted the BBC should compete less in popular programming and Tory backbenchers have maintained their tired campaign against the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation.

The press attacks on the BBC are motivated by falling newspaper sales, a loss of advertising revenue to the internet and a jealousy about the Corporation’s excellent news coverage. They should get their house in order. Shrinking the BBC is not the answer. We know what that leads too. Some years ago local papers managed to get BBC plans to improve their regional web pages scrapped claiming unfair competition. It did nothing to halt circulation slides and impoverished a part of the BBC’s service to the public.

Some parts of the Tory Party have always had a problem with the BBC, thinking it is biased against it.

In my thirteen years as a BBC journalist nobody remotely indicated I should favour the left. No such editorial policy has ever existed and it is essential that the publicly funded BBC should remain free of government pressure. That independence has been sorely tested with the recent overnight imposition on the BBC of funding free TV licences for the elderly.

THE LICENCE FEE.

Finally we come to the £145.50 compulsory licence fee. In an age when there are so many ways to access BBC services, why does the BBC have to be funded by TV licences? My answer is that at 40p a day it is very good value compared to Sky packages which are often £70 a month. People kid themselves if they say they never use BBC services as an article in next week’s Radio Times shows. Finally what is the alternative? Please not advertising which is making commercial channels unwatchable. The BBC should make much more of this. Would people really want subscription with the BBC begging on air for money to fund its programmes as happens with public broadcasting in America? A state levy like they have in Germany seems the only possible alternative.

GOVERNMENT BACKDOWN.

After a summer where the government and BBC got in their trenches, a more conciliatory mood broke out at this week’s TV festival in Edinburgh. Perhaps the Culture Secretary, John Whittingdale, has already picked up the public’s bewilderment that with all the problems we’ve got, that time should be wasted fixing a problem that does not exist.

 

“A CLUB WILL GO BUST”

 

“A CLUB WILL GO BUST”

How many times have you heard that forecast as the football season gets underway? We all know that the financing of football is crazy. We all know that the forthcoming season will produce stories of clubs tottering on the brink of oblivion. But it never happens does it?

I say never. Maidstone United seems to be dead and buried but Accrington Stanley and Aldershot have risen from the grave and Portsmouth stagger on. Fan loyalty comes to the rescue when all the red financial lights are on.

But could Portsmouth or even Blackburn Rovers go out of business for ever? A recent Downtown seminar on football heard the forecast repeated that this season one or more of our clubs will bite the dust.

That wasn’t the only startling forecast by Alan Switzer; Director in Deloitte’s Manchester based Sports Business Group as he presented the company’s annual review of football finances.

He also believes UEFA are serious about enforcing their financial fair play rules. The burning question here is would UEFA devalue the Champions League by telling Manchester City, for instance, that they can’t play in the 2014/15 competition if they are not breaking even?

Alan believes there might be some leniency if the direction of travel is right and developments around youth academies will be exempt. However he is in no doubt that UEFA are determined to bring an end to the precarious arms race that is afflicting so many clubs.

Deloitte’s figures are staggering. Premier League average salaries are over a million a year whilst in Division Two it is£47,000. Soon the Championship play off match will be for £150m; even Sky won’t need to hype that! The Premier League wages to turnover ratio is 70%. Most significantly profit levels are flat.

Why the alarm with the new Sky/BT deal coming along worth £3 billion? It may be an opportunity for clubs to put their finances in order, but that would be a triumph of hope over experience. It seems more likely that the poor old fans will see their viewing subscriptions soar up in order to put even more money in players’ wallets.

Alan Switzer produced a graph showing that success was linked to the money clubs spent. There are exceptions like Blackpool’s glorious adventure but generally you get what you pay for.

Is there a tipping point where Sky won’t be able to milk the fans anymore? The seminar heard that increasingly pubs are struggling to pay to show the matches.

The big kick off will soon be with us, but first it’s wall to wall Olympic Games.
North West companies have benefited from Olympic orders. Watson Steel of Bolton, Ainscough cranes from Wigan and Glasdon recycling based in Blackpool being among them. But let’s not kid ourselves it’s London and the South East, the region that least needs it that is benefiting most.

However let’s hope it all goes well and reflect on the fact that without the success of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester ten years ago, none of this would be happening.