Posts tagged with 'uk'

Before he gave his feted keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention, few outside Chicago or Illinois politics knew who Barack Obama was. Just over four years later he was resoundingly elected President. I do not feel that our political system is conducive to producing our own version of Barack Obama. By this I do not mean having a Prime Minister of colour, but rather having a Prime Minister, or for that matter a leader of a major party, who has effectively come from no where. Would a Member of Parliament elected at the last general election have a good chance of being Prime Minister at the next election? They would have almost no chance. Not only that, it is extremely unlikely that a major party would elect as its leader someone who was unknown to party leadership four years prior.

We have become accustomed in this country to cookie cutter politicians. If you look at the leaders of the three main parties, they all are of a similar age, come from a similar background, and followed similar paths up the party ladder. Such a path involves going to a prestigious university, usually Oxford or Cambridge, immediately obtaining a job with a think tank, within the party or for a senior member of the party, and work your way up until pretty soon you are being placed in to a safe seat, which is usually no where near to where you are actually from or reside, the reason being you are guaranteed to become an MP. Why has this practice become so prevalent? Are the major parties unable to find sufficient political talent from local areas that they then have to ship candidates in? If those that are being placed in safe seats are in fact so politically blessed, surely they should be able to compete in any seat? Also, if potential future leaders have never had to compete in a tough election themselves, how does this bode for them being able to connect with a diverse electorate and build a broad coalition? And the way the parties choose leaders doesn’t help either, as their processes inevitably favour establishment candidates.

Of course, for every Barack Obama there is a Sarah Palin. Palin also came from nowhere and became a national phenomenon thanks to her shock pick as John McCain’s running mate n 2008. However she appeared to be far out of her depth at the time, and since the election she has shot for media attention and a pay packet, as opposed to building a political platform for future elections.

This is not to say that the American system is better than ours, both have major flaws. But ours still appears, in my opinion to convey the impression that it is somewhat of a closed shop, with the path to the top open only for the elite few. Having a completely unelected upper house, The House of Lords, as opposed to an elected chamber like the US Senate does not help this impression, nor does the fact that so much power rests in the hands of the government and its ministers. As a backbencher in the Houses of Parliament, how much power do you actually have over national policy? In contrast, a single member out of the 535 serving in Congress in Washington could author a piece of legislation that may change a nation. Not only that, this also allows for more politicians to gain media and public attention, which can of course come in handy if they have higher ambitions.

The example of Obama is I admit an extreme one. He was a unique candidate and electrified a nation at a time when they were calling out for change. Many may point to the likes of John Kerry, George W Bush and Al Gore as evidence that more often than not the establishment gets their guy in America as well. I would argue that the primary system that both parties in the US have for choosing their leaders at least presents the possibility of an outsider becoming their leader. The use of the Internet, both as a messaging tool and a fundraising one, far outweighs how we use new media in this country. Howard Dean showed how far this could take you, when in 2004 he came extremely close to capturing the Democratic Presidential nomination.

I’m not sure what could be done to remedy this part of our political system. Or perhaps my impression is just that, and in reality my concerns are unfounded. I am of course merely an outside observer. Be that as it may, I think that moving towards an elected upper chamber, somehow ending the practice of placing rising stars in safe seats, and increasing the power of backbenchers would not only change the impression many have about our political system, but in fact lead to positive substantive changes in the way our government functions. 

This past week, Apple announced a few new products. Every one of them got the fanboys into a highly excitable state, and rightly so. Apple's products are gorgeous, well built and most importantly, despite annual refreshes, they last.

One thing that reared it's ugly head again, as it has done at almost every one of Apple's Keynotes over the years was Apple Tax.

Apple Tax is what I like to call the undeniable difference in price between US and UK products. I'm sure all countries suffer from the same problem, but it doesn't make it any less fair. On a low cost product, like an iPod Shuffle, the AT doesn't matter so much. $49 equating to £39 isn't a bad reflection on the current exchange rate, but then you have to allow for the addition of VAT (I've used 20% as the VAT figure in this article, rather than the current 17.5%) in the UK. In fact, £39 is bang on what you'd expect to pay for an iPod Shuffle. This is all on the reasonable assumption that Apple's profit is surely built into the original $49.

AT becomes a bit of a nuisance when Apple’s pricing is applied to a device like the Apple TV. $99 is an amazing price for a decent set-top box that combines the luxuries of the vast iTunes catalogue along with an easy to use remote and small physical footprint.

This same device costs £99 in the UK. With the current exchange rate, that’s just £66. Add 20% VAT and $99 still doesn't translates into £99. When you've done the maths, you actually get £79.20. Almost £20 less than they're currently charging. Again, surely the profit is built in the dollar price? Maybe the price allows for the adjustment of the USD vs the GBP?

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After the mini psychodrama that was the Labour leadership election, the slightly surprising choice of Ed over Dave left many thinking if Labour was already doomed, four and a half years before the next General Election.

The younger brother is however not the ‘Red Ed’ some in the press and other parties say he is.

My personal preference would have been for David Miliband. I like Ed. I like his ability to communicate and his call for change. However it is clear that he was elected leader only because of the support of the unions. For this group to regain significant influence within the Labour party would be a near disaster.

His election has also spelled the end of David Miliband in front line Labour politics, at least for now. This is a major disappointment. Clearly a return to the factionalism that gripped the Blair – Brown years and so often crippled the government needed to be avoided. And there would have been constant scrutiny on the brothers’ relationship and an attempt to attach every statement from a Labour politician to one camp or the other. However these are brothers, and it is unlikely that their relationship would have descended into the freak show that the Blair-Brown relationship was. But the media spotlight would have been on the brothers, causing difficulty for the party as a whole, and Ed Miliband as leader. Despite this, Labour has lost arguably their biggest political talent. There is a possibility that he would be bought in to the shadow cabinet before the next election (for some reason Labour has this bizarre rule that the shadow cabinet must be elected by the members, not chosen by the leader) but this seems unlikely at this stage. A good move for David would be in to the international arena, perhaps as head of the IMF if Dominique Strauss-Kahn steps down, as expected, to run against Nicolas Sarkozy for the French Presidency in 2012.

The decisions for the shadow cabinet posts are also interesting, most notably overlooking both Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper for shadow Chancellor. Both are educated in and have significant knowledge of economics, indeed Cooper would have been my preference over her husband, Balls. Cooper is one of, if not the best public speaker in the upper echelons of the Party, however she has bizarrely been given the post of shadow Foreign Secretary, which has a small public profile and in which she has previous little experience. The choice of Alan Johnston as shadow chancellor could be proven a shrewd one; the former postman is a humble and down to earth politician, who is also a good communicator with vast ministerial experience, and could prove a good foil for the elitist George Osborne.

Most of the Labour shadow cabinet has ministerial experience, that is, they are not ‘new’. But that’s how they must now behave. The must become a credible alternative to the coalition. The government’s one-line fits all excuse of ‘we inherited a fiscal crisis’ will soon wear off. Yes of course they did. But they will have to live with the consequences of their austerity measures, which have the potential to be disastrous. Labour need to come up with big ideas, which for some reasons our political leaders have forgotten how to do. In the last general election, the big issues were a measly one percent rise in national insurance and that Gordon Brown called an elderly woman a bigot. This was depressing. The Conservatives ideas on welfare reform is the biggest idea they have; their idea of a ‘Big Society’ is nothing revolutionary, it is in fact a simple re-hashing of the age old conservative cry for a smaller government and to shift more responsibilities on to the private sector and the general public.

Right now is the perfect time for a debate on real big ideas, revolutionary ones, like the ones that Barack Obama ran on in 2008. We need political reform - electoral reform and a scrapping of the appointed House of Lords in favour of an elected body. We need campaign finance reform. We need energy reform, so we get our fuels from natural gas, nuclear energy, algae, wind, biomass and other non-oil and coal based methods. There needs to be education reform, and reform of local governments, to simply make them better. We need massive investment in infrastructure – particularly rail. We need tax reform, and we need to continue to push for efficiencies in bloated areas of government – including the NHS.

Labour needs to be the party of big ideas. They need to hit the coalition when needed and support them when required. The government will become unpopular, but Labour can’t simply waltz back in to power by default. They need to be a real alternative, with big ideas, and ready to make big positive changes. 

A few months ago I was one of more than 6,000 people to sign a petition that asked the UK Government to encourage departments to upgrade from IE6 to better browsers.

Unfortunately, the response was as expected. Unlike other EU countries that have discouraged the use of IE6, the Government felt it necessary to fall in line with the infinite number of lazy IT departments around the company that feel that the time spending upgrading IE6 to be expensive and unnecessary.

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