The Blurb: April 2010

Tackling the really important issues

Saturday 24 April 2010  10.10 pm

I love how the TV debates have really brought the election campaign to life.  I love also how they've also made people finally believe in the credibility of the Liberal Democrats.  And ITV did a really good job of staging the first one.  I'm sure the BBC will live up to its reputation as well.

But Sky, what was that debate all about?  I tuned in looking forward to hearing what the leaders had to say about global issues.  Was that not what I should have expected from a debate whose theme was "foreign affairs"?

Apparently not.

The first question, unashamed of its right-wing bias, was concerned only with how we could stop Europe "interfering" with us.  The question could have been phrased impartially, but it was not.

Next up, a great question about whether Britain would engage with future multi-national operations against terrorists abroad.  Brilliant, and got some good responses.

Third, what was each leader doing themselves about climate change?  Not a bad question, but still a little bit inward looking and not really about the global issue.

And in those three questions, it seems, we'd covered everything that mattered in the world.  With barely a word uttered on Third World poverty, trade, aid, disaster response, transatlantic relations, the Euro, Israel or any of the other vital subjects our prospective leaders would be engaging in almost every day as Prime Minister, Sky thought we'd had enough of looking beyond our borders.  The remainder of the debate concerned the Pope, pensions, reforming Parliament and immigration, and with that, the rest of the globe was conveniently forgotten.

Don't get me started on how the cameras broke the agreed rules and kept drifting from the speakers to the audience.

Not impartial.  Not comprehensive.  Not even trying to be either.  Not impressed, Sky.  Not in the slightest.

That said, the set was quite good.  And was it my imagination, or did Gordon Brown look younger?  Maybe make-up was on form too!
 
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Tweeting birds and clear skies ... in London

Saturday 17 April 2010  11.38 am

Airspace is closed - not a single plane is in the sky.  There isn't even much cloud.  The volcanic ash that's grounded all air traffic is invisible.  All we can see is baffled Londoners gazing heavenward, at a vista that's clear blue from horizon to horizon, not a vapour trail or queue of landing aircraft in sight.  And listening, befuddled, to this strange sound of ... birds tweeting.  (That's right - it's not just humans that tweet.)

Naturally Iceland is to blame for this - revenge, we suspect, for when we pulled all our money out of their failing banks.

All sorts of commotion is going on.  Flowers from Kenya are going to waste.  School groups and teachers can't get home.  World leaders can't attend the Polish president's funeral.  And worst of all, no one can quite work out how to pronounce the name of the volcano that's causing all this trouble.

[Exclusive: Two more cartoons: "Unpronounceable Volcano" and "Welcome to Europe" - only for readers at www.timble.me.uk...]

But here's the silver lining.  While the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano (go on, you have a go at saying it) is emitting 7,500 tonnes of CO2 per day, the aircraft sitting on the tarmac would have belched out more than 200,000.

The Earth is taking a breath.
 
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Sitting on a picket fence is a bad idea

Saturday 10 April 2010  5.02 pm

Allow me to make a couple of incredibly simplistic sweeping generalisations about some very complex issues, to make a point.

We have a majority Conservative council in Wandsworth, and we have the lowest council tax in the country.  This is no coincidence – it’s right-wing policy at its purest.  The idea is that the government should be small and efficient, leaving each citizen with more money to spend on the services they require and the charity they want to give, rather than being forced to pay for those services and benefits that the government chooses for everyone.  This philosophy gives individuals more power, and with it more responsibility.  It works fantastically well when the citizens involved are educated, motivated, charitable people.

On the other hand, advocates of the left-wing philosophy will tell you that it’s better to charge more in tax and use the extra money to provide a complete and centralised service that benefits everyone, whether they can afford it or not.  This philosophy takes the power (and responsibility) from the individual and gives it to the government.  It works superbly when the government in question is in touch, humble and responsible, and when the system is used well.

So which is better?  Should we trust people to be good individuals, as the right-wingers would have it, or go with the left-wing, trusting the government instead to lead us to be a good nation as a whole?

The thing is, we’re all human beings.  Give us all the individual responsibility in the world, and you’ll find the wealthy get richer and the poor get poorer.  Give us a complete corporate responsibility and you’ll find people wring the system for all the benefits they can get.  In a perfect world, either wing would work perfectly.  In our fallen world, neither wing does.

The line to tread surely has to be somewhere in between both ideologies – a compromise between trusting people’s good nature, and seeing the big picture.  It means admitting that none of us is always right.

But it’s not about sitting on the fence and giving in.  (Especially when the fence in question is a picket fence - that's not kind on the behind, trust me.) No, the best way to walk seems to be the hardest path of all – wrestling with tough questions, stretching our humility to breaking point, and coming to a hard-fought middle ground.

I don’t believe in sitting on the fence.  But I do believe in walking along it.
 
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