Author: David Landon Cole

Neil William’s template Twitter strategy

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Neil Williams (blog, Twitter) has drafted a template strategy for Government departments wanting to use Twitter; find it on the Cabinet Office’s Digital Engagement Blog or on Neil’s website as a PDF. It’s a good document – you have to bear in mind that this is for civil servants – and could be a good starting point for anyone with a brand to manage. It’s worth reading and I do hope that various people in HMG take it on board, particularly how useful it is as a conversational tool – I’ve had questions answered by MoD over Twitter in a matter of a couple of minutes and replied to a few things from Paul Drayson, Tom Watson and others.

I really like a particular idea that Neil has – departments live twittering their own press conferences and so on. That would be a real ‘value-added’.

A little while ago, I put all the regional and departmental RSS feeds that the COI’s News Distribution Service provide onto Twitter. The full list is here; I’m really pleased that Neil has listed me as an unofficial aggregator of government content, and more than a little flattered.

xD.

OpenLeft: a response

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Over at the OpenLeft website, various worthies are asked the question “What is it about your political beliefs that put you on the Left rather than the Right?”. Various others have weighed in; I’d like to go through some of the comments people made and then have a go myself.

Polly Toynbee
Sunder Katwala
Jon Cruddas
James Purnell
Dave Cole
Continue reading “OpenLeft: a response” →

Peak capacity to be reduced on the 507

Posted on by David Landon Cole

TfL have released more information on the replacements to the 507. As of Saturday, 25th July (edited – had August originally!) 2009. The note, which is available here as a PDF, says:

  • Brand new two door single deck buses will replace the current bendy buses on route 507.
  • Passengers will still need a valid ticket before boarding through either door.
  • A more frequent service will run during Monday to Friday morning and evening peak hours. Buses will run about every three minutes.
  • New service on Saturdays and Sundays. Buses will run every 15 minutes during the early morning and every 12 minutes throughout the day.

My thoughts, in the same order as above:

New buses are indeed going to be replacing, at non-zero cost, the perfectly decent and relatively new bendies.

One of the objections to bendies was fare evasion. You only had to touch in if you were using pay-as-you-go Oyster; people with passes didn’t have to at touch in at all. Only 1% of journeys, according to this TfL FOI request, were made using paper tickets. Because not everyone had to pass the driver – you could board at any door – it was impossible to verify except when an inspector was on board. It will be possible to board through either set of doors on the 12m replacements; that problem (which didn’t really exist, largely as they were used by commuters who have Travelcards anyway) isn’t solved.

The service will be more frequent; every three minutes instead of every five during morning and evening peaks. Mercedes-Benz Citaros carry up to 149 passengers (source). Alexander Dennis Enviro200 Darts have a maximum capacity of 61. At three minute intervals, the smaller buses would need a capacity a fraction over 89 to match the bendies. That is a reduction in capacity on busy routes, meaning more people queuing on Mepham Street at Waterloo and, more problematically, on Terminus Place at Victoria.

The new service on Saturdays and Sundays is to be welcomed. As I have previously said, the bus is principally used by commuters but it passes three housing estates, a couple of schools and goes through residential areas.

This represents very bad value for money: relatively new buses are going to be replaced and capacity is going to be reduced. As many people, including Dave Hill, Christian Wolmar, Adam ‘Tory Troll’ Bienkov, MayorWatch and BorisWatch have said, scrapping the bendies is a bit of a daft thing to do and suggests that Mayor Johnson didn’t know much about the diverse London transport situation (not that I claim to in any great detail) before running for this office and has either not bothered to learn since or has realised he is trapped into silly, headline-grabbing populist policies.

xD.

The BNP Language and Concepts Discipline Manual goes down the memory hole

Posted on by David Landon Cole

I wrote here, in passing, about the BNP’s Language and Concepts Discipline Manual which included

Rule #15. BNP activists and writers should never refer to ‘black Britons’ or ‘Asian Britons’ etc, for the simple reason that such persons do not exist. These people are ‘black residents’ of the UK etc, and are no more British than an Englishman living in Hong Kong is Chinese. Collectively, foreign residents of other races should be referred to as ‘racial foreigners’, a non-pejorative term that makes clear the distinction needing to be drawn. The key in such matters is above all to maintain necessary distinctions while avoiding provocation and insult.

and

it is best to simply never speak or write of Jews at all [emphasis in original]

It would appear that this document was changed on or about April 27th 2009 to remove these and other sections. The new version is here and Wikileaks still has a copy of the original at http://www.wikileaks.com/leak/bnp-language-discipline-2005.pdf.

xD.

Me and my mobile phone

Posted on by David Landon Cole

I’ve been tagged in a slightly odd meme by the irrepressible Matt Wardman:

The assignment: Your phone, exactly 139 words explaining why it is your phone, and a hero.

Here goes…

This is my phone.

I use it to wake me up, email, text, Twitter, TwitPic, surf the internet, blog, read, write and even, to make telephone calls. Apparently, it works in Afghanistan, but only occasionally in Somerset as the signal there is rubbish.

I did most of my degree on the previous version.

The revolution may not be televised, but it will be covered on a range of social media.

It is powered by lots of tiny gnomes on tiny bikes who have to pedal really quickly if I want to call long distance. The gnomes used to be bigger, but they became smaller, and that’s why Nokia had to change the size of the power cord. Hey, it makes as much sense as any other explanation.

Large and a bit geeky – it is a good representation of me.

I tag the Political Penguin, James Higham and Laurie Penny.

xD.

46 years on

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was “civis Romanus sum”. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is “Ich bin ein Berliner”.

I appreciate my interpreter translating my German!

There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin.

There are some who say that Communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin.

And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin.

And there are even a few who say that it is true that Communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass’ sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.

Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us.

I want to say, on behalf of my countrymen, who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride that they have been able to share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years.

I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the determination of the city of West Berlin.

While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your mayor has said, an offence not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.

What is true of this city is true of Germany – real, lasting peace in Europe can never be assured as long as one German out of four is denied the elementary right of free men, and that is to make a free choice.

In 18 years of peace and good faith, this generation of Germans has earned the right to be free, including the right to unite their families and their nation in lasting peace, with good will to all people.

You live in a defended island of freedom, but your life is part of the main.

So let me ask you as I close, to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow, beyond the freedom merely of this city of Berlin, or your country of Germany, to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all mankind.

Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.

When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe.

When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner”.

The BNP aren’t the only ones to worry about

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Even if they are the main ones.

The English Democrats’ Peter Davies has won the Mayoralty of Doncaster. The previous incumbent, Martin Winter, was criticised over failings by Doncaster Council following the death of seven children on the at-risk register. Davies’ first actions were to say that he wanted to stop funding Doncaster Gay Pride and translation services in the borough.

Hardly what one would call progressive measures.

They are also uninformed policies; as comes out in this interview (transcript courtesy of Luke Akehurst) with Toby Foster of BBC Radio Sheffield, Davies doesn’t know how much Doncaster Gay Pride costs or earns and can’t scrap translation services under existing laws. Other flagship policies include reducing the number of councillors (he doesn’t have the authority) and doesn’t know which jobs are the ‘PC jobs’ he wants to cut. In fairness to him, he has accepted a reduced salary of ?30K.

Beyond that, there is a problem with the English Democrats: the nature of some of the people attracted by their ideology.

There seem to be two schools of thought that lead to an English parliament as the answer to the West Lothian question; one is that some conception of natural justice requires an even-handedness in passing legislation that the current form of assymmetric devolution cannot deliver.

The other is that a nation qua nation requires some form of political existence to achieve some sort of teleological objective. That, in and of itself, I don’t have a problem with, although I disagree with it.

The problem is some of the fellow-travellers that position attracts; crudely put, the soi-disant civic nationalism attracts ethnic nationalism.

By way of an example, Matt O’ Connor of Fathers 4 Justice was originally slated as the ED’s candidate for the Mayor of London. He withdrew, however, when it turned out that the EDs had entered into an electoral agreement not to contest seats that the racist England First Party were to contest.

As reported in the East London Advertiser, O’ Connor said

“I realised the English Democrats were working with ‘England First’ and had no choice other than to resign there and then.

The Little Man in a Toque has further background on certain parts of the EDs’ preparedness to work with racists.

My concern here is not specifically about Davies, but those who give him advice and support and the risks of an alternative centre of gravity for racists from the BNP. While some of this rag-bag set their policies around Britain, there are others who are very similar but prefer to set England alone as their leitmotif.

Continue reading “The BNP aren’t the only ones to worry about” →

The Iraq inquiry should be conducted in secret

Posted on by David Landon Cole

“The Iraq war was a disaster” is a familiar refrain. Unfortunately, that doesn’t tell us very much. Do we mean the concept, the planning, the implementation, the strategy, the tactics, what? Or do we want an official stick with which to beat the government?

Were the problems with the Iraq war just the basis on which we went to war, or inappropriate equipment necessitating lots of UORs ?

Do we just want to know that the whole enterprise was a bad idea, or do we want to see where and why things were done badly or well? Continue reading “The Iraq inquiry should be conducted in secret” →

Interview with Aled Dilwyn Fisher: the future of LSE Students’ Union

Posted on by David Landon Cole

The LSE SU is embarking on a fairly radical programme whereby it will share some staff with SUARTS, the SU for the University of the Arts, London. Details of the proposals can be found on the LSE SU website and a brief comment from me is at the end of this post.

LSE SU General Secretary Aled Dilwyn Fisher, who also contested the North-East constituency for the Green Party at last year’s GLA elections, kindly agreed to be interviewed. My questions are in bold.
Continue reading “Interview with Aled Dilwyn Fisher: the future of LSE Students’ Union” →