I'm not entirely sure what to make of this business of recording Lib Dem MPs speaking candidly to undercover reporters about the coalition, nor the revelations that have come out as a result.
First of all, I don't know if I really agree with doing it in the first place. It's always quite fun when politics takes on the guise of a soap opera, and this certainly has the hallmarks of a Christmas episode of Eastenders - I can just imagine the coalition sitting down to eat Christmas dinner together, when suddenly the Telegraph (who are also inexplicably invited) suddenly put a DVD in the player and reveal to the Tories exactly what their Lib Dem lovers really think about them. All that's missing is the drum beats at the end.
That's all well and good, and I'm sure the journalists will be patting themselves on the back for getting these scoops, but I can see where this will lead. It's already difficult enough to get politicians to be truthful, so it's nice to see that even ministers are prepared to speak candidly in front of constituents at their surgeries. That's going to stop now though, as MPs will go into their surgeries thinking "is this a reporter?" and make sure their every word is guarded. I'm not quite sure how this helps the cause for creating a more open atmosphere in politics, and to be honest, I think this is an abuse of trust by the journalists, as surgeries should be for constituents to get answers from their MPs, not for journalists to try and get a story on the sly.
Secondly, I'm not sure how the Lib Dems actually turn out after all this. Up until now, the general public's opinion of the Lib Dems seemed to be approaching an all-time low; people thought they had been dishonest in making pledges which they went back on, and were desperate for power, at any cost. Morals? Pfft, what morals? The backbenchers might have seemed like they had been pulled along slightly, but I for one was of the opinion that the Lib Dem ministers were positively revelling in the coalition and were fully-fledged Tories in all but name.
That evaluation doesn't necessarily hold so true now, though. Their actions may not have changed, but we can at least see that there truly has been some soul-searching going on, and many of them have been rightfully uneasy with the decisions they have ended up taking. I must confess that I thought they had taken these decisions lightly, so I feel I've perhaps been a bit unfair on them.
So the image that is being portrayed is of a coalition in crisis, with the Lib Dem partners deeply unhappy with how things are going and ready to splinter off at any moment. The reality is we're seeing that these Lib Dem MPs are perhaps not quite as bad as we thought - they've done what Michael Moore describes as "the worst crime a politician can commit", but not quite with the glee, gusto and wanton abandon that many/most of us perhaps assumed.
So, personally, I think the Lib Dems are looking a bit better from this. Still wouldn't vote for them, mind. Labour aren't doing themselves any favours either, with the way they've pounced on it. This could have worked in their favour, but they've just resorted to the usual petty politicking, which is particularly unacceptable in Vince Cable's case, since he now won't be able to block Rupert Murdoch's attempts to continue his mission to own the world's media. Idiots.
(Of course, Lib Dem MPs could just have been speaking rubbish, telling these "constituents" what they thought they wanted to hear...)
Wednesday, 22 December 2010
Thursday, 16 December 2010
It's educational (is it, though?)
Excellent blog by Joan McAlpine today (no surprise as she's one of the top Scottish bloggers), where she writes on the bizarre decision by BBC Scotland to cover the university funding proposals from the point of view of English students, rather than from Scottish students. It's yet another example of BBC Scotland coming at a story with the sole mission of finding an angle that allows it to continue its anti-SNP propaganda campaign, but it's an angle that does not stand up to even the smallest amount of scrutiny.
Riddle me this: if a media outlet ran with the story "Chinese students paying more to study in Scotland", would a single Scottish tax-payer give a toss? No, they wouldn't; they would say, "well, quite right too - why should I be paying to educate another country's students? That's their own government's responsibility, not mine." Regardless of whether or not we think Scotland and England are separate countries (I would assume - and hope - that anyone reading this blog would be of the same opinion as me, that I am no more English than I am German), the fact is that when it comes to devolved matters, England is every bit as foreign a country as China, Mozambique or New Caledonia. There is no anti-English sentiment in the proposal (and it is just a proposal) to make English students pay more tuition fees at Scottish universities, just as there is no anti-Chinese sentiment in making Chinese students pay for their tuition in Scotland.
The Scottish Government is elected by Scottish voters, voters who elect MSPs to represent their interests, not the interests of people whose own government has failed them. It's THAT simple, it really is.
On the subject of universities though, I have to say I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with them. I have a BSc Computing Science from the University of Aberdeen, and a BEng Electronic & Telecommunications Engineering from the Robert Gordon University (or at least I would do if I had paid the graduate endowment fee in 2005, which I refused to do). For a start, since it was my second degree, I had to pay for the BEng every year anyway, but even if I did formally graduate, my degree would barely be worth wiping my arse with - it was a rubbish course, and the very fact I managed to pass it despite having absolutely no interest in it whatsoever speaks volumes for how difficult it was (unless I'm just a complete genius). If you can get a degree with minimal effort and no interest in the subject matter, then what does having a degree actually say about the competence (or otherwise) of the graduate?
I have, of course, used my original computing degree more in my career thus far. Even then though, I strongly believe I gained a significant proportion of the working knowledge I have in Java programming from my first job, especially as that involved having to essentially re-learn Java as I hadn't used it for over two years; and most of what I would use in a software development position now is knowledge I have gleamed from the jobs I have had, and not what I learnt in university. The job I currently have is completely unrelated to either degree however, which had me thinking about other people I know and where their degrees have taken them.
I would say most of the people I know went to university, but I'm not sure most of the people I know are in jobs that required a university education (except perhaps in situations where employers have artificially stipulated a degree as a requirement, even though the job itself clearly does not require one), and even less of them are in jobs directly related to their degree. I know people who did law, accountancy, chemistry, computing, engineering, medicine, architecture, biology, geology, land management, sport science, business management, nursing, politics, corporate communications, and a whole host of other subjects. However, the number of lawyers, accountants, chemists, engineers, doctors, architects, biologists, geologists, land managers, sport scientists, business managers, nurses, politicians and corporate communicators I know can probably be counted on one hand, or certainly on two (a bit unfair to count computing scientists in there, since that would include former colleagues, who are obviously going to be computing scientists). I do, however, know plenty of people who are in a job that their degree didn't help them to get - the restaurant manager who started off as a waiter, for instance, but who studied politics and international relations; or the recruitment consultants who studied business management and sports science.
What's my point? Well, the UK government's spiel is that their tuition fees are not going to be a barrier for people from deprived backgrounds going to university, because the fees won't be up front, and they'll only pay them off after they reach a certain pay threshold. That's lovely and all that, but it still means people leaving university with tens of thousands of pounds of debt, for a degree which, if my anecdotal evidence is even close to being typical across the UK, will prove useless to the majority of these people in their future careers. If I had £27,000 - £36,000 of debt just now, I would feel pretty negative in regards to the future, and I would be looking back on my decision to go to university with a great deal of regret at having wasted so much money.
You see, as soon as you put a price on something, you have to justify its worth. It has to give value for that money. Do degrees offer value for money? I would say a resounding "NO", certainly on the whole, anyway. Stuff like law and medicine are obviously things you really need to have spent some years studying in order to follow your chosen career path, but for me, there are a great many degrees which do not offer anything like value for money - and I'm not just talking about the infamous "Mickey Mouse" degrees that people love to deride. People are going to say that Scottish universities will suffer without the proper funding in place, but I would question why people should be expected to pay out tens of thousands of pounds for a degree which has a very good chance of proving to be effectively worthless.
Tuition fees and university funding in general should be a part of a much wider debate about what the role of further education actually is, who should and should not be partaking in it, and who the real beneficiaries of a university educated populace/workforce really are. For that last part, I would say "society" and "businesses, especially those who require prospective employees to have a degree so they don't have to bother training people themselves".
Riddle me this: if a media outlet ran with the story "Chinese students paying more to study in Scotland", would a single Scottish tax-payer give a toss? No, they wouldn't; they would say, "well, quite right too - why should I be paying to educate another country's students? That's their own government's responsibility, not mine." Regardless of whether or not we think Scotland and England are separate countries (I would assume - and hope - that anyone reading this blog would be of the same opinion as me, that I am no more English than I am German), the fact is that when it comes to devolved matters, England is every bit as foreign a country as China, Mozambique or New Caledonia. There is no anti-English sentiment in the proposal (and it is just a proposal) to make English students pay more tuition fees at Scottish universities, just as there is no anti-Chinese sentiment in making Chinese students pay for their tuition in Scotland.
The Scottish Government is elected by Scottish voters, voters who elect MSPs to represent their interests, not the interests of people whose own government has failed them. It's THAT simple, it really is.
On the subject of universities though, I have to say I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with them. I have a BSc Computing Science from the University of Aberdeen, and a BEng Electronic & Telecommunications Engineering from the Robert Gordon University (or at least I would do if I had paid the graduate endowment fee in 2005, which I refused to do). For a start, since it was my second degree, I had to pay for the BEng every year anyway, but even if I did formally graduate, my degree would barely be worth wiping my arse with - it was a rubbish course, and the very fact I managed to pass it despite having absolutely no interest in it whatsoever speaks volumes for how difficult it was (unless I'm just a complete genius). If you can get a degree with minimal effort and no interest in the subject matter, then what does having a degree actually say about the competence (or otherwise) of the graduate?
I have, of course, used my original computing degree more in my career thus far. Even then though, I strongly believe I gained a significant proportion of the working knowledge I have in Java programming from my first job, especially as that involved having to essentially re-learn Java as I hadn't used it for over two years; and most of what I would use in a software development position now is knowledge I have gleamed from the jobs I have had, and not what I learnt in university. The job I currently have is completely unrelated to either degree however, which had me thinking about other people I know and where their degrees have taken them.
I would say most of the people I know went to university, but I'm not sure most of the people I know are in jobs that required a university education (except perhaps in situations where employers have artificially stipulated a degree as a requirement, even though the job itself clearly does not require one), and even less of them are in jobs directly related to their degree. I know people who did law, accountancy, chemistry, computing, engineering, medicine, architecture, biology, geology, land management, sport science, business management, nursing, politics, corporate communications, and a whole host of other subjects. However, the number of lawyers, accountants, chemists, engineers, doctors, architects, biologists, geologists, land managers, sport scientists, business managers, nurses, politicians and corporate communicators I know can probably be counted on one hand, or certainly on two (a bit unfair to count computing scientists in there, since that would include former colleagues, who are obviously going to be computing scientists). I do, however, know plenty of people who are in a job that their degree didn't help them to get - the restaurant manager who started off as a waiter, for instance, but who studied politics and international relations; or the recruitment consultants who studied business management and sports science.
What's my point? Well, the UK government's spiel is that their tuition fees are not going to be a barrier for people from deprived backgrounds going to university, because the fees won't be up front, and they'll only pay them off after they reach a certain pay threshold. That's lovely and all that, but it still means people leaving university with tens of thousands of pounds of debt, for a degree which, if my anecdotal evidence is even close to being typical across the UK, will prove useless to the majority of these people in their future careers. If I had £27,000 - £36,000 of debt just now, I would feel pretty negative in regards to the future, and I would be looking back on my decision to go to university with a great deal of regret at having wasted so much money.
You see, as soon as you put a price on something, you have to justify its worth. It has to give value for that money. Do degrees offer value for money? I would say a resounding "NO", certainly on the whole, anyway. Stuff like law and medicine are obviously things you really need to have spent some years studying in order to follow your chosen career path, but for me, there are a great many degrees which do not offer anything like value for money - and I'm not just talking about the infamous "Mickey Mouse" degrees that people love to deride. People are going to say that Scottish universities will suffer without the proper funding in place, but I would question why people should be expected to pay out tens of thousands of pounds for a degree which has a very good chance of proving to be effectively worthless.
Tuition fees and university funding in general should be a part of a much wider debate about what the role of further education actually is, who should and should not be partaking in it, and who the real beneficiaries of a university educated populace/workforce really are. For that last part, I would say "society" and "businesses, especially those who require prospective employees to have a degree so they don't have to bother training people themselves".
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
BBC Scotland's "unique" take on the Megrahi WikiLeaks
Interesting details arise from the cables on WikiLeaks regarding Megrahi's release from prison. There's a lot to go with if you're a journalist looking for a story to write. Do you go with the fact that Labour's public position of being against the release was completely at odds with their private position of practically begging for it, in order to keep Libya (the country containing the largest amount of known oil resources in Africa) sweet? Or do you go with Libya trying (and failing) to bribe the Scottish Government with "treats"? Maybe you go for the fact that the disgraceful, blatant implications made by US senators a few months back that Megrahi's release was somehow related to BP's business interests in the region were clearly miles wide of the mark?
Well, if you're a BBC Scotland "journalist", you obviously don't go with any of these. No, BBC Scotland "journalists" apparently approach any story with one thought in mind: "how can I turn this into an anti-SNP story?" These have been the paranoid thoughts of SNP bloggers and commentators for years now, but I really don't see any other explanation for their bizarre decision to run with the story that "oooh, Alex Salmond said HE would have the final decision on the matter, so that means when Kenny MacAskill said it was his decision alone, he was... LYING!!!!"
I thought I'd seen it all yesterday with BBC Scotland trying to blame Stewart Stevenson for the weather, but this really takes the fucking biscuit. Oh my god, you mean to tell me that the Scottish Government doesn't go announcing big decisions before running them past the First Minister first? WHAT KIND OF FUCKING LUNATICS ARE RUNNING OUR COUNTRY???? How the FUCK are we meant to blame Alex Salmond for big decisions the Scottish Government make if they aren't all being run past him first? What kind of fucking leader is he? SOMEONE MUST BE SACKED FOR THIS!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GIVE ME STRENGTH, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously, BBC? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?????
This reminds me of one of the biggest injustices in my academic life, where I had a stunning essay marked down purely because I didn't use 1.5 line spacing in the essay. I thought that was anal retentiveness of the highest order, but this - THIS - is just ridiculous.
How can we possibly take BBC Scotland seriously any more? I know people should not have been taking them seriously for many years, but this goes beyond biased reporting - this angle on the story was about as relevant as their stupid end story, which was essentially "oooh, what do you wear out in the snow? Do you wear a sensible hat, or a silly one? Let's cross the River Clyde from Pacific Quay and ask some people, so that we don't have to bother finding proper news outside the Central Belt." There is only one word that adequately describes the BBC's angle on this story: propaganda.
The BBC should be protected - because it's far better than the commercial alternatives - but the Scottish news and politics section needs a complete overhaul, especially if we're serious about getting a "Scottish 6" news programme. The mind boggles when you try to think how Jackie Bird and her vehemently anti-SNP/Independence comrades would fill that extra half hour. They make Sky News's Kay Burley and Adam Boulton look like reasonable people...
The SNP have the full force of the Scottish mainstream media against them in their battle to win the next election. Even coming away as the biggest party again is going to take a massive amount of effort. Let's hope they somehow pull it off, because I don't trust any of the other numpties to run Scotland properly.
(Note: the essay in question was given rave reviews by everyone else who read it, but everyone's essay was being marked by three other random classmates, meaning your result was the average of the three marks... Except in my case, since I only had mine marked by two people, and the lecturer's response to my indignation at being marked down because of this idiot was "is the score really so important?", which was in keeping with the points he was trying to get across in the lectures, as a maximum score wouldn't have had a bearing on my overall mark for the course. Fuckwit. I suppose I should have just said "because my sense of self-worth is based entirely on my academic achievements", but I didn't.)
Well, if you're a BBC Scotland "journalist", you obviously don't go with any of these. No, BBC Scotland "journalists" apparently approach any story with one thought in mind: "how can I turn this into an anti-SNP story?" These have been the paranoid thoughts of SNP bloggers and commentators for years now, but I really don't see any other explanation for their bizarre decision to run with the story that "oooh, Alex Salmond said HE would have the final decision on the matter, so that means when Kenny MacAskill said it was his decision alone, he was... LYING!!!!"
I thought I'd seen it all yesterday with BBC Scotland trying to blame Stewart Stevenson for the weather, but this really takes the fucking biscuit. Oh my god, you mean to tell me that the Scottish Government doesn't go announcing big decisions before running them past the First Minister first? WHAT KIND OF FUCKING LUNATICS ARE RUNNING OUR COUNTRY???? How the FUCK are we meant to blame Alex Salmond for big decisions the Scottish Government make if they aren't all being run past him first? What kind of fucking leader is he? SOMEONE MUST BE SACKED FOR THIS!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GIVE ME STRENGTH, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously, BBC? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?????
This reminds me of one of the biggest injustices in my academic life, where I had a stunning essay marked down purely because I didn't use 1.5 line spacing in the essay. I thought that was anal retentiveness of the highest order, but this - THIS - is just ridiculous.
How can we possibly take BBC Scotland seriously any more? I know people should not have been taking them seriously for many years, but this goes beyond biased reporting - this angle on the story was about as relevant as their stupid end story, which was essentially "oooh, what do you wear out in the snow? Do you wear a sensible hat, or a silly one? Let's cross the River Clyde from Pacific Quay and ask some people, so that we don't have to bother finding proper news outside the Central Belt." There is only one word that adequately describes the BBC's angle on this story: propaganda.
The BBC should be protected - because it's far better than the commercial alternatives - but the Scottish news and politics section needs a complete overhaul, especially if we're serious about getting a "Scottish 6" news programme. The mind boggles when you try to think how Jackie Bird and her vehemently anti-SNP/Independence comrades would fill that extra half hour. They make Sky News's Kay Burley and Adam Boulton look like reasonable people...
The SNP have the full force of the Scottish mainstream media against them in their battle to win the next election. Even coming away as the biggest party again is going to take a massive amount of effort. Let's hope they somehow pull it off, because I don't trust any of the other numpties to run Scotland properly.
(Note: the essay in question was given rave reviews by everyone else who read it, but everyone's essay was being marked by three other random classmates, meaning your result was the average of the three marks... Except in my case, since I only had mine marked by two people, and the lecturer's response to my indignation at being marked down because of this idiot was "is the score really so important?", which was in keeping with the points he was trying to get across in the lectures, as a maximum score wouldn't have had a bearing on my overall mark for the course. Fuckwit. I suppose I should have just said "because my sense of self-worth is based entirely on my academic achievements", but I didn't.)
Monday, 6 December 2010
Not the Sound of the Underground
A rare non-politics blog post today, as it's the time of year for one of my main petty bugbears. No, not Christmas - it's the BBC's Sound of 2011 list.
I was in a band from July 2005 to April 2009 (well, technically we've never officially split up, but there's no chance of a reunion any time soon), and we were pretty damned good, even if I do say so myself. However, we never really came anywhere close to "making it", despite the fact (or perhaps because of it) that we put a lot of effort into making our songs as varied and meaningful as possible. We probably only had ourselves to blame (there's a little in-joke there that a grand total of three people in the whole world would stand any chance of getting, on the off-chance that they came across this blog) as none of us were particularly great at self-promotion, and looking back, there were a lot of things we should have done differently. However, that doesn't stop me feeling like a bitter, twisted old man when I see new bands appearing that are nowhere near as good as we were, but have infinitely trendier haircuts.
It's not just sour grapes that make me hate the annual "Sound of..." list, though (although I dare say it's a part of it). The list purports itself to be an attempt to guess who the big breakthrough acts of the next year are going to be, and that the BBC (and those involved in compiling the list) are out there, scouring the country for new music and exciting new bands. The reality is, it's nothing of the sort. If the list were truthfully named, it would be called "The list of bands that will be shoved in your face over the next 12 months", or "The list of acts that record companies have decided will be big next year".
The list is not a prediction, because predictions require an element of chance, as you might predict wrongly. That won't happen here. The list is a statement of intent - these are the acts you will be listening to next year on the radio and on the TV. These are the acts whose songs will get stuck in your head, and you will end up downloading them. These are the acts that the music press will cover endlessly, and attempt to indoctrinate their readers into liking them. This is how it works. The acts in this list are not unknown gems waiting to be discovered - they're acts that are primed and ready to be launched into the public subconscious. The very fact that the article refers to "tastemakers" just highlights the point - the public's musical taste is manufactured, because unless you're willing to delve into the recesses of the musical underground, to scour internet sites or to go down to local gigs and find out what sort of bands are out there for yourself, then these are the bands you have to choose from. In a way, it's an X Factor for people who go on about liking "real" music, even though the styles, haircuts and music of these bands are every bit as disingenuous as Cowell's protégés.
Maybe it would be unrealistic to expect things to happen any other way, but it doesn't stop failed musicians like myself feeling like these people are having everything handed to them on a plate, rather than having to struggle to even get noticed, especially when you know there is better music out there which is (and will remain) undiscovered; and it doesn't stop me feeling irked when the BBC tries to claim some sort of victory when mentioning acts that have been in the top 5 of the list in previous years, and have gone on to become famous, even though this is precisely the reason for the existence of the list.
Rant over.
I was in a band from July 2005 to April 2009 (well, technically we've never officially split up, but there's no chance of a reunion any time soon), and we were pretty damned good, even if I do say so myself. However, we never really came anywhere close to "making it", despite the fact (or perhaps because of it) that we put a lot of effort into making our songs as varied and meaningful as possible. We probably only had ourselves to blame (there's a little in-joke there that a grand total of three people in the whole world would stand any chance of getting, on the off-chance that they came across this blog) as none of us were particularly great at self-promotion, and looking back, there were a lot of things we should have done differently. However, that doesn't stop me feeling like a bitter, twisted old man when I see new bands appearing that are nowhere near as good as we were, but have infinitely trendier haircuts.
It's not just sour grapes that make me hate the annual "Sound of..." list, though (although I dare say it's a part of it). The list purports itself to be an attempt to guess who the big breakthrough acts of the next year are going to be, and that the BBC (and those involved in compiling the list) are out there, scouring the country for new music and exciting new bands. The reality is, it's nothing of the sort. If the list were truthfully named, it would be called "The list of bands that will be shoved in your face over the next 12 months", or "The list of acts that record companies have decided will be big next year".
The list is not a prediction, because predictions require an element of chance, as you might predict wrongly. That won't happen here. The list is a statement of intent - these are the acts you will be listening to next year on the radio and on the TV. These are the acts whose songs will get stuck in your head, and you will end up downloading them. These are the acts that the music press will cover endlessly, and attempt to indoctrinate their readers into liking them. This is how it works. The acts in this list are not unknown gems waiting to be discovered - they're acts that are primed and ready to be launched into the public subconscious. The very fact that the article refers to "tastemakers" just highlights the point - the public's musical taste is manufactured, because unless you're willing to delve into the recesses of the musical underground, to scour internet sites or to go down to local gigs and find out what sort of bands are out there for yourself, then these are the bands you have to choose from. In a way, it's an X Factor for people who go on about liking "real" music, even though the styles, haircuts and music of these bands are every bit as disingenuous as Cowell's protégés.
Maybe it would be unrealistic to expect things to happen any other way, but it doesn't stop failed musicians like myself feeling like these people are having everything handed to them on a plate, rather than having to struggle to even get noticed, especially when you know there is better music out there which is (and will remain) undiscovered; and it doesn't stop me feeling irked when the BBC tries to claim some sort of victory when mentioning acts that have been in the top 5 of the list in previous years, and have gone on to become famous, even though this is precisely the reason for the existence of the list.
Rant over.
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