Plans for £8bn of investment in Britain’s railways have been announced by the government. The government is buying about 2,000 new carriages to tackle overcrowding, electrifying some lines, and pressing ahead with the Thameslink programme.
Excellent news, but I fear this is money down the drain. You can’t choose to travel with a different operator if one is crap, so competition in the rail market is rendered purposeless, with government left to foot the bill for maintenance while operators reap the profits. Not an efficient system - a waste of government money most certainly, a concern to everyone nowadays. Not sure if full nationalisation is the answer, but the London model could be tried: operators bid to run routes at a fixed cost while government sets and receives all fares. Some competition while government ensures infrastructure investment is fully utilised.
(Source: BBC)
I’m not usually a football fan, but the world cup has drawn me in, and I’ve really enjoyed watching some of the games (although of course not England v Algeria - grr) - but what has really struck me is the quality of the BBC’s coverage of the tournament.
This evening’s ‘Match of the Day’ featured twenty minutes on ‘District 6’ - the Cape Town suburb whose 60 000 residents were forced out in the 1970s so that white South Africans could profit from the valuable land. This wasn’t the brain-dead documentary style of ‘The One Show’, but a truly thoughtful piece worthy of anyone’s time. This was followed by another piece on the place of song in African culture - thirty minutes of a football program dedicated to informative television making of the highest quality? I was impressed mightily. This surreptitious education of an unsuspecting audience is where the BBC goes right - reaching as wide an audience as possible doesn’t mean catering for the lowest common denominator, it means creating diverse programming that aims to introduce audiences to something new. It means attracting people through quality productions, not placebo presenters, pleasant shapes, plush sofas and pleasing colours.
The show closed with Lineker’s commentating colleague, Emmanuel Adebayor, telling of his experience with the Togolese football team at the African Cup Of Nations in 2010, when the team bus was attacked by armed fighters - subsequently causing his retirement from international football. Alan Shearer may have struggled to pass intelligent comment on the matter, but hearing about it first-hand made it far more powerful that the scrolling headlines of News 24 could ever manage. Football often serves as a close-focus of the troubles of the wider world, and this moving account stood bluntly next to the tabloid horrors British footballers have to face. May they be photographed through their Range Rover windows in shame.
Well done, Match of the Day.
That’s my two cents.
I was watching an interview this morning between a Sky News anchor and a Tory MP, whose names I did not catch, on the topic of David Laws’ expenses repayments in light of him coming out as gay and having been paying for his partners flat rent.
To me the issue seems not particularly serious. He is repaying the amount and although it shouldn’t be, it is understandable him wanting to hide is sexuality, but I can understand it angering some people. However Sky News’ coverage was way out of line. Rather than subscribe to good journalistic practice of any sense of impartiality or balance, Sky seemed, as per usual, to be more interested in causing ‘public scandal’. The Tory MP being interviewed was asked whether Laws’ position was ‘untenable’ in light of these expenses claims, and he replied plainly that it was a legitimate claim and was justified, but it is right to be repaid and the issue is over, referencing the repayments by Tory MP Liam Fox of £20 000. The Sky News anchor then persistently repeatedly this question of ‘untenability’, seemingly eager to portray to the public that his actions were heinous crimes.
This, to me, is unacceptable. This is either blatant Tory bias (especially considering that Liam Fox’s expenses claims were not treated as similarly scandalous) or hugely homophobic, which is completely intolerable in this day and age. Then again, should I expect better from Sky News?
