The part nationalisation of the banking system has come because banks the world over lent irresponsibly to people who couldn’t repay them. Bankers gambled that rising profits would cancel out rising bad debts and that if it all went pear shaped government would step in. They got that latter gamble right, with only the most extreme ideologues prepared to let the system collapse on a point of principle. Given the coverage, you might be forgiven for thinking the government was simply giving taxpayers’ money away. In fact, it’s looking to invest £9bn in the merged Lloyds TSB HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland, at twelve per cent a year, which looks like a good investment. It was hard to have any sympathy for the small Lloyds TSB shareholder complaining on the news that his watered down...

All the smart money is on a cut in VAT next week as the government’s challenged to inject cash into the economy. In the US tax rebates have been predictably disappointing with less than half spent. Predictably, because if the president says ‘This sucker could go down!’ and that sucker includes your job, putting a little aside may be more of a priority than creating work for others. Over in Taiwan the government’s handing out shopping vouchers, but that’s a little gimmicky. VAT is an obvious target because it can be cut with very little notice and immediately reduces prices in the shops, people have to spend rather than save to benefit and as it’s a regressive form of taxation that’s harder for poorer people to afford, cutting VAT is a social good. But if we really need to...

The Kingston Guardian website has an article that refers to Ian and me, so I guess it will appear in the Surrey Comet as well this week. Kingston councillor perks made public. Perks given to Kingston councillors have been made public in the latest register of gifts and hospitality. Leader of the council Councillor Derek Osbourne was entertained by the...

‘… an enthusiastic Tory backbencher like me can hardly wait to switch on the Today programme every morning in order to listen to all the bad news.’ – David Cameron (January 2002) In January 2002 David Cameron was a naive backbencher hoping for a really big crisis to bring the government down. By now he should have learnt to be careful about what he wishes for, but the election strategy he’s drawn up with bezzy mate George Osborne remains dependent on Labour slipping up and losing, rather the Tories stepping up and winning. At first sight it is perverse that as we brace ourselves for recession it’s shadow chancellor George Osborne who is facing calls to quit. Events seem so unfair to some Tories that they’re calling foul: ‘Labour want to destroy Osborne to cheer Gordon...

It’s all very well rambling through a 20-minute interview in a podcast but what if you want to condense that chat into a five-minute clip? The editing process can be a pretty daunting prospect and it’s easy to get confused. Today we have five tips on chopping audio content, concentrating on general advice rather than the specifics of GarageBand, Audacity, et al. 1. Get an overview of the audio You’re looking for a good five minutes of content. Obviously there’s a little leeway either way (depending on the quality of the interview) but you really want to be as ruthless as you can. Listen for the interesting or funny bits. Listen for the dull sections you can do without. Assume the listener gets bored reeeeally easily. 2. Tell the story Once you’ve...

After much hacking (and swearing) I now have a blog full of posts and comments. The odd post seems to have gone walkabout, although I’m not sure why. I’ll have to look into that. Maybe they’ll turn up in the admin? After some reflection, I’ve removed the News section and shall stick with the blog for all posts including news. I think it was likely to get too complicated as I have plans to eventually add a new links section. Ok, so now I’m off to start wading through all these posts checking tags...

Following Cllr Read's hijacking of a UEA Conservatives event for his own self promotion, along comes another example of his LibDem leanings showing through his Green colours.According to Cllr Read, "Green Councillors in Norwich successfully won backing for a city wide 20mph zone that is to be trialled in three zones of the city from early 2009."If anybody would like to point out the problem with that statement, I'll be sure to publish it! And here's a clue ... the motion for 20mph zones wasn't proposed by a Green . ....

I’m sure I’m not the only one feeling a bit conned by last night’s Antiques Roadshow. Much hyped as the first £1m find in the programme’s history. Along with 10 million other mugs Katharine and I sat through several teases, the painting used in the publicity shots, a 400 year old chest, some Francis Bacon and more. And when it turned out to be a model of the Angel of the North, we thought it must be another ruse. After all the model wasn’t discovered by the TV show at all, but has always belonged to Gateshead Council, having been used to persuade councillors to commission the project. ‘Councillor John McElroy, the cabinet member for culture and art, was speechless as Philip Mould, a fine art expert, made the shock announcement,’ reports the Telegraph. Well we missed that;...

Testing 1 2...

It's that time of the year again - the Christmas lights have been duly switched on by the Mayor in Malden Rushett and Chessington North Parade (as in picture). Tolworth lights will be switched on, with some ceremony and fun family activities, next Wednesday from 5pm onwards....

Apologies if you tried to reach this blog in the last 24 hours or so and got redirected to UK2.net. I have now transferred the maryreid.org.uk domain to Office Network Systems (thanks, Rob), so it should be OK from now...

Huge relief all round at the news that the Government is cancelling the tender process for the Post Office Card Account, and will instead draw up a contract directly with Post Office Ltd. If the contract had been awarded to Pay Point - which seemed quite likely - then we would have pretty well seen the end of local post offices. So what was Mandelson up to yesterday? At...

You’ve seven days to listen again to From Manchester to the Mississippi in which CP Lee, himself a Manchester institution, explains the pivotal role a unique concert at Chorlton-cum Hardy train station played in introducing music of black origin to Britain. Strangely they keep referring to Chorltonville, the nearby former garden city, but no matter. Here we have further evidence that Chorlton has always been Manchester’s trendiest suburb. Advertisement: Amazon Jersey: tax free shopping Copyright © Stephen Newton. This feed is offered for personal use via a feed reader only. No liability is accepted for the consequences of reproduction, which is prohibited....

…after last night. The ‘Pool manager said ‘Arry should be so after the last time Spurs beat his side, maybe Benitez would have only been embarrassed if his team had got anything out of the League Cup game last night, which would have been undeserved, even if it was a penalty. Oh this was the reserve side, with ten changes from the usual league side who we’ve beaten anyway, compared to Spurs seven changes, but was still full of internationals and players the manager had specifically gone out and bought and in some cases spent a decent amount of cash on, no director of football to blame for these duds. Though it’s not like they were allowed to play well by an improving Spurs side, funny that with Jenas missing, that capitalised on a shaky ‘Pool back four...

Ged Carroll memed me to find out where I get my inspiration from for my blog and thoughts? Plenty of places but here are a few ideas… - Suggested links from blogging, Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed friends - Delicious, Digg and other social bookmarking tools - Traditional media reading such as The Times, The Guardian, The Economist, BBC, NY Times - An endless array of podcast subscriptions - ViralVideoChart.com - Top political blogs and PoliticsHome.com - Job experiences - Film, music and sport - When I’m on a run - And most importantly pub chatter i.e. people I meet Next up for the meme? Well, my esteemed Weber Shandwick digital colleagues…James Warren, Robert Anderson and Simon Collister.       ...

In keeping with my habit of blogging about things well past their relevance, here’s a post about Halloween. boo and I went down to Forbidden Planet and met Dave McKean at an in-store appearance he was making to promote his latest work with Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book. Unfortunately due to a long queue, a small window of opportunity and some people deciding to get everything they ever owned signed by him (including multiple copies of the same book - hi eBay!), there wasn’t much time to actually speak to him. I really wanted to ask about his workflow, as I’ve loved his work since being introduced to it via Machinehead, Fear Factory and later Skinny Puppy and Frontline Assembly etc. and I’ve not read too many interviews with him where he goes into technical...

WowI I've just had a look at how I predicted things in response to Malc's challenge regarding Obama's chances in the electoral college. Malc thought when I posted that I may regret painting "Colorado, Michigan, Ohio... maybe even Penn!" Blue so early in the prediction game. Boy! Back then were we both too conservative! I didn't dream of Florida, Indiana or Nevada thinking they may just stay...

There ... that's something I never dreamt I would write! As Business Secretary he has at last suggested that the Government should look on post offices as social necessities, and should use them to provide more government services not fewer. Key to this has to be the Post Office Card Account - the account used by many people who do not have bank accounts. This contract...

Thanks for making your way over to my new blog everyone. I’m really glad you’re here. Despite abundant assistance and kind helpfulness, there were too many technical problems for my little brain and so I’ve decided not to move my previous posts here, so will just pick up from where I left off. I hope there won’t be many hiccups whilst I unpack, tidy and tweak to get things tikitty-boo. I hope you’ll be updating the links on your blogrolls. Posted in Blogging, Splodges, Technology   Tagged: blog, brain, friends, splodge, technical, tikitty-boo, welcome   ...

Lord Timothy of Belmont has been blogging about his recent conversion to Freesat, allowing him to abandon his old Freesat-from-Sky satellite package.Also throws in a useful recommendation for Adrian from Ultrabeam Aerials.The PVR (hard drive recording) Freesat set top boxes didn’t arrive over the summer as originally announced when Freessat launched. But Humax have now confirmed that their High Definition PVR box - FOXSAT-HDR - will be on sale in November to hit thre Christmas market.Lord Belmont went for the mammoth (22.5kg) integrated Panasonic LCD television (TX-37LZD81) that comes with Freeview and Freesat tuners built in. No need for a separate set top box, unless you want to add a hard drive recorder ... or when Freeview switches from DVB-T1 and MPEG2 to DVB-T2 and MPEG4 as it...

posted by Cptn The people have spoken, kinda, via the populist democratic tool of social networking this is, in this case, Facebook. The ‘I F**king hate Nick Bye. Mayor of Torbay‘ Facebook group has 452 members, whereas ‘Nick Bye- Mayor of Torbay appreciation society‘ has just 60, and most of these seem pretty ironic. Last week’s political theatrics had the Tory mayor of the Torbay complaining that certain councillors were more intent on claiming their expenses than attending meetings. But as Bay blog Progressive Politics says: “Only in Torbay could the much derided Conservative Executive mayor Nick Bye, he of the rhetorical flourishes and 60K per annum ‘allowance’, publicly question whether councillors on £8,000 a year are justifying...

I was shocked to hear today that the Home Office is withdrawing funding to the Met's Human Trafficking Team. Apparently it had received £2.3 million for the vital work of detecting and preventing the most prevalent modern forms of slavery - luring or abducting people into the sex industry, or as illegal workers in this country. Now it seems the Home Office is saying...

I laid the wreath on behalf of the Mayor at this morning's Remembrance Day service in Chessington. This event is organised every year by the local British Legion. The two minute's silence is observed around the memorial on the wall of the British Legion Club in Church Lane in the presence of ex-servicemen, current serving members of the armed forces, police and uniformed...

When I was in Brighton a few weeks back with boo we stumbled across a surreal scene in the town centre. In a small square two security guards kept watch over 4 massive letters spelling out “love”. It was obvious something was taking place but noone in the small crowd seemed to know exactly what. Suddenly a lone little girl walked up to the one of the letters and started drawing on it. As a small group started pressing chalk and paintbrushes into the hands of children in the crowd, it became clear that this is what was intended. The letters were soon swarmed by children, parents and passers-by wanting to make their mark using images or text. As the low-lying canvas within arms’ reach of most of the artists was quickly used up, some started climbing up the letters or each...

My favourite Green Rupert Read used, apparently, to be a LibDem (no, stop laughing at the back). Sometimes that is hard to believe and other times less so.Because it seems that Read has been stealing the clothes of others. Read this press release put on his blog and especially the line "Cllr. Read will also be speaking in favour of Fair Trade at a debate this Friday 7th November at the UEA in Norwich."You might be thinking, at this point, that he is on the panel maybe, or Chairing the debate? Neither - former MP Teddy Taylor and Stephen Roberson were the two speakers. So what was Read's contribution?It boiled down to a question asked from the floor, which by all accounts got a lot of students either totally confused or very angry (or, maybe, both). Now I know that if you re-read it,...

It’s hard to fathom, but she does: In her speech, Ms Blears also complained about a “spreading corrosive cynicism” in political discussion. She turned her fire on political “bloggers” - accusing them of fuelling disengagement by focusing on “unearthing scandals, conspiracies and perceived hypocrisy” and of being written by “people with disdain for the political system and politicians”. Err I realise I may be playing into her hands by saying this, but free speech much? No wonder she has a problem with blogging - New Labour’s authoritarian agenda is increasingly predicated on stifling free speech. It’s practically impossible for them to inhibit blogging though - a principle means of uncovering the abuses of her party and...

1. Netimperative - 14m Brits visited a blog in August That’s 41% of the internet audience 2. Netimperative - Top UK sites- September 2008 Facebook now has 18 million unique users in the UK, more than the BBC 3. BBC News - Google abandons deal with Yahoo 4. The Guardian - Blears blames cynical blogs and career politicians for voters’ apathy 5. PR 2.0 - Reinventing Crisis Communications for the Social Web       ...

‘The “dangerous class”, lumpenproletariat, the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.’ – Karl Marx & Fredrick Engels Images of lynching – white men, women and children celebrating in their thousands as if at a fun fair; all come to see the ‘dead nigger’ – make the visitor to Emory Douglas & the Art of Revolution wonder why the Black Panther Party for Self Defence didn’t come along sooner… and makes it easy to understand why white America would be so fearful of black people exercising their second amendment rights and...

Esteemed and relatively new colleague of mine in the digital practice at Weber Shandwick, Robert Anderson has just started blogging. Take it from me…he’s a bright cookie and also a top bloke, so I suggest you subscribe to his blog pronto.       ...

South of the Borough Neighbourhood Committee on Wednesday spent most of its time considering planning applications. This is what was decided: Paradise Park, Green Lane We permitted conversion of the ground floor of a grain store into a flat. 44-60 Leatherhead Road This is the site where the Committee had granted outline planning permission to build...