News

July 25 2008
Me, a TV pundit in the making?

 

You may have seen me on television last night - my Andy Warhol 15 minutes of fame.

Then again, you may have missed my two 15-seconds-or-so slots in ITV West’s The West Tonight documentary, entitled Public Service, Private Gain.

Certainly, quite a few people who know me locally have commented on it, and I received my first call as result of the programme just 45 minutes after it had been broadcast.

Unfortunately, I didn’t actually see it myself at the time because I was at a special council meeting in Taunton.

With another hat on, I am a Conservative borough councillor representing a lot of people who live on the Blackdown Hills.

The ITV programme looked at a deal which my council – Taunton Deane – and Somerset County Council and the Avon and Somerset Constabulary have done with the multi-national computer and IT giant IBM.

It highlighted the secrecy which surrounded the deal – no elected councillor outside the County Hall elite has apparently even seen the full business case for the partnership.

It also discussed reservations and scepticism about the partnership which a handful of people hold.

The bottom line is that we are paying IBM something like £400 million of your money - yes, ratepayers’ and taxpayers’ money - to deliver a lot of our services cheaper but better than we can do it.

How it works is that IBM take on the employment of hundreds of local government staff who are doing this work currently, and they pay them the same wages and uphold the same terms of employment and save us millions of pounds as they do it cheaper and better… eh? Surely some mistake here!

In simple terms, suppose I pay you £10 to give me £10 worth of goods, but you give me the £10 goods for only £7 and I keep £3 even though it’s cost you £10 to give them to me …. with me so far?

No? Nor am I.

Which is why I featured in the ITV documentary which also couldn’t figure out where the sleight of hand comes in to save multi-millions £s.

When the programme producer looked around for somebody from Taunton Deane Council to speak against the partnership, she found there was only one councillor who actually stood up to be counted and voted against it – yes, me.

I was in good company though, as the Bridgwater and West Somerset MP, Ian Liddell-Grainger, a long-standing friend of mine, has for a long time been ferociously campaigning against this partnership and the way Somerset County Council drove it through.

I use the word ‘ferociously’ on purpose – just have a look at his website and you’ll see what I mean.

He has made highly libellous statements on the subject in Parliament, and, of course, the county council and my own council have said if only he had the guts to make those statements without Parliamentary privilege protecting him, then they would surely sue him for defamation and every penny he has got.

So, when Ian did make the statements outside of Parliament and without its privilege, I pointed this out to my chief executive and council leader and asked them to sue the arse off him.

The result? Some shuffling of paper, some coughs and splutters, a few ‘ahems’, and a weak “I’m sure it will be looked into by somebody, somewhere, some time” response.

Meanwhile, there is a growing lobby of people who are now beginning to look at this highly suspect deal the same way as I and Mr Liddell-Grainger do. Trouble is, we’re now locked in for 10 years, so King William may well be on the throne before we can undo it.

Our photo is a screenshot from the documentary, which was the last in the current series.
END

June 9 2008
When a gay is not gay enough for TV

 

M2S Media attracted huge media coverage for the plymouth prideevent 2008 which was held at the weekend.

Now in its second year, it obviously proved harder to hook news editors and programme directors than when this Gay Pride event was a ‘first’ for Devon and Cornwall last year.

But a combination of a brilliant entertainment line-up and some extremely interesting exhibitors and speakers meant there was enough to make some useful headlines, which all helped to attract about 2,500 visitors on the day.

During the event, which took place in Plymouth Guildhall and was opened by the city’s Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, we had both BBC and ITV news crews turn up to do some filming for their weekend news bulletins.

We were not surprised, given the amount of interest generated in the city from a widespread marketing campaign run by the volunteer committee which organises the event.

What did surprise us, though, was when the BBC decided that none of the organisers ‘looked gay enough’ to be interviewed on camera.

As one said to the cameraman: “This is what gays look like – normal.”

In the end, a heavily pregnant Julia did the to camera piece. We don’t know if they thought she was gay, or if they wondered about how come she was five months’ pregnant.

Another interesting insight into the mind of the media came when the local evening paper, The Herald, turned up, having given it only sparse pre-event coverage this year.

The organisers were delighted to see them, until, that is, they realised the paper had only come looking for a fight – not with us, of course, but they were expecting a rival gay group to come along and cause trouble.

I won’t go into the detail, but the other mob, who wanted to do their own thing and had been quite rude about prideevent, were supposed to be marching militantly through the streets from the Guildhall to the Hoe.

The Herald, of course, arrived just at the time the march was due to start, but nobody from the other group came, so, seemingly a bit reluctantly, the reporter decided instead decided to have a look around the event, and the result was a surprisingly nice page write-up in Monday’s paper.

Our photo shows Julia outside Plymouth Guildhall giving the Beeb their interview.

May 30 2008
Sunrise Celebration festival is a washout

I was hugely disappointed when the phone rang at about 6.45 pm yesterday evening to tell me not to bother turning up for this brilliant festival.

The festival site, just off the A303 near Yeovil, was completely under water and it was still raining heavily at the end of the first of the festival’s four days with more rain forecast.

I was just serving up dinner for the family when the call came in with a request to notify as many media as possible.

Having just missed most of the early evening news bulletins, we could see bigger problems ahead if thousands more festival goers continued arriving just as the evacuation procedure kicked in.

However, thanks to the co-operation of newsdesks, we were able to get the message out via mid-evening and late evening television news and radio broadcasts telling people not to bother going – including a mentions on the BBC 10 o’clock news and BBC News 24.

We were indebted to the BBC’s Clinton Rogers - an old friend of mine - who, despite being on holiday with his family and tucking into a Chinese meal, rang back on his mobile and then put the wheels in motion within the Corporation.

My disappointment was not that I had to eat my dinner cold and alone 45 minutes later, but that I was looking forward to being on site the following morning.

Sunrise is one of those festivals which ageing hippies like me absolutely love, and this year for the first time I was actually going to get a day where I could roam the festival on my own and enjoy it rather than constantly taking calls on the mobile from the journalists who were taking advantage of free tickets for the media – amazing how journalists work on those under-staffed newspapers and radio stations when there’s a festival freebie on offer!

We first became involved with Sunrise early in 2006 when it was still just a plan in somebody’s head and on a computer screen.

Without taking all the credit, we were pleased to be able to lobby the local authorities and local MPs and liaise with the local communities to ensure the festival was granted a licence – which, when I first came on board looked decidedly uncertain.

So successful was the campaign that it became the first festival under the new licensing laws to be given a 24-hour music licence, ushering in a new ear of ethical and sustainable festivals which many have since tried to emulate.

Sunrise is a client where work also becomes brilliant fun, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed our association with it and the crew behind it, despite the difficulties which have been encountered along the way.

We sincerely hope it survives this year’s downpour and can bounce back stronger than ever in 2009.

Our photo is from 2007 and shows the enigmatically-named festival head Sun Bird giving a television news interview on site.