Rudinblog

One of the great ‘What Ifs’ in history

…Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and on 'being there' on another day when disaster struck Manhattan from the skies

 

One of my favourite radio programmes – sadly absent from the BBC's schedules for a while now – is called "What If…?". As you might imagine, the premise of the programme is to imagine how different events, the world, a nation or parts thereof, might have been if different decisions have been made, if there had been different outcomes from various sequences of events. They gather together a panel of experts – historians, participants, journalists, etc. It's a game that in my modest research I play myself – in my case it's on a small part of the history of media in the UK; not perhaps matters on which the fate of nations rest but still, it is fascinating to see how close we came to things working out very differently and to establish the sequence of events, the pressures, the power bases, indeed the politics, as well as pure chance and personalities that determined events.

On the wider scale, you could debate on different things might have been had Hitler proceeded with his atomic weapons research, rather than dismiss it largely because most of its leading proponents were Jewish. Or if Joe Kennedy Jr. had not been killed during the war and if he, not his younger brother Jack, had become president, or if in 1960 Joe Kennedy senior had not fixed the presidential election the help of his Mafia friends and Richard Nixon had squeaked home. How would Tricky Dickie have reacted to the Soviets installing nuclear rockets on Cuba? Or would Khrushchev not have done so, because Nixon was regarded as a strong Cold War warrior, whereas, after the Bay of Pigs disaster, he thought Kennedy was weak and could be intimidated?

What if Robert Kennedy had not been assassinated and had gone on to become President and had ended the war in Vietnam about five years earlier, let alone taken a very different approach to world affairs than did Nixon? In the UK, what if Labour had, as all the opinion polls had predicted, won the 1970 general election. This would not only have affected the media policy that I'm concerned with my research – and indeed, as many Labour people argued, it was the intervention of Radio Caroline in that election which did at least help turn the tide in the Tories' favour anyway - but most importantly it would have meant that Margaret Thatcher would not have gained a Cabinet seat at that time and therefore would not have been in a credible position to challenge Ted Heath for the leadership of the Conservative party. Or what if Labour – again, as expected – had narrowly won the 1992 election and, presuming the ERM debacle would still happened the following September, that Labour would have been blamed the economic incompetence, probably been out of office for another generation and Tony Blair never become prime minister? And so on and so on.

Most pertinently of all, what if those hanging chads in the voting booths in Florida had behaved themselves and that the brother of the Republican candidate was not in charge of ruling their validity? Would a President Gore have taken the same actions? According to Gore – who I heard speak at the Edinburgh International Television Festival a few years ago – emphatically 'no'. They would certainly have been no invasion of Iraq: the one action above all else which has destroyed America's and Britain's international reputation and, aside from the tens of thousands – quite possibly hundreds of thousands – of innocent lives lost, and bodies broken and minds traumatised, has, following the law of unintended consequences, succeeded in uniting the Shia tribes in both Iran and Iraq and so posing a potentially deadly threat to the West.

No doubt be many who regard this is the sort of academic masturbation; enjoyable if you like that sort of thing, but ultimately pointless and futile. And true, if the genocidal Saddam had continued in power it is quite possible that many thousands would have been killed by him and his psychotic sons and henchmen. But they might not have been the same people who were killed directly or indirectly as a result of the invasion – rather a crucial point if you or a member of your family are one of those who would not otherwise be dead.

In life we don't have a control group, so we can never be sure how things would have worked out. But still, on this tenth anniversary of the 9/11 atrocities, it might not be wasted time to imagine how different – and how much better – the world might have been if a different attitude and course of action had been taken by the United States. If, instead of behaving like a drunk on steroids in a bar, lashing out at anyone he thought might have humiliated him, and approached what was an undoubted, continued threat to its citizens, and a quite understandable desire for justice or even vengeance on behalf of those killed in such a callous and horrific way, calmly, rationally and with dignity. It's easy to forget now just how much support there was the USA in the days after the attacks – even Yasser Arafat gave blood for American citizens. For once, indeed for the first time since the attacks on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, America was the victim of unprovoked aggression. At that point it had tremendous moral capital and goodwill on its side.

Let's imagine President Bush' s televised address to the nation a couple of days after the attacks went something like this:

 

My fellow Americans.

 

On September 11 this country was subjected to a horrific, callous attack on its soil and on innocent citizens. The people who died were every major faith and of none, and from every continent of the world. Some of them had been in this country for generations, others had been in a matter of months. Aside from their humanity, the thing that united them was their common goal was to live in a country where they can practice their own faiths, speak their minds, have free association and live their lives anyway they wished, so long as it did not impinge on the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens. The mass murderers who carried out these attacks hate everything that this country stands for. They hate the fact that those of different creeds and ethnicities and work and play happily alongside each other, with mutual respect. They hate the fact that no matter what your gender, your class, racial background, you have equal opportunities for education, for employment and can associate with whom you wish. Theirs is a creed rooted in hatred, division and the denial of rights and liberties to those who challenge their authority and their dogma. They must not, and they will not, prevail.

To be an American citizen is the greatest desire for millions on this earth. Indeed, one of our greatest issues - the numbers of people who wish to come and live here – is a problem of our success. We are living testament to the ideas of freedom, liberty and the common rights of man. It's not a coincidence that the country which has these democratic rights and liberties at its heart has the biggest economy in the world. True, we have been blessed with great natural resources, but so have many other countries, who have failed fail to produce the fruits that can come from those resources, because they have failed to establish the well of freedom. It must choke our enemies that the very things they despise are those that clearly bring the most abundant material success and the greatest human happiness. Their only response is a cult of death and destruction.

As most of us learn in the school playground, bullies are cowards and full of self-loathing. What most of us also learn is that, although they might trouble and intimidate some for a while, if we stand together against them, they slink off to lick their wounds. Occasionally, they return: reformed and better people.

It would be easy – and no doubt popular – if I were to order an immediate attack on those suspected of masterminding these attacks. We have the biggest economy in the world and the biggest defence. We have enormous resources to deploy, we are the world's only superpower. We could do that - but we won't.

A former, great President, Theodore Roosevelt, thought the best policy was to 'speak softly, but carry a big stick'. And we have a very big stick indeed. Another great President, Ronald Reagan, realised that the Soviet Empire could be defeated - not by waging war, but by outwitting and out-smarting the regimes that imprisoned their own peoples. His legacy – the collapse of the Berlin wall and the substitution of a terrible, authoritarian system with democracies and freedoms, came to fruition under my father. Many said this would be impossible – but Ronald Reagan, with the resolve and commitment of our allies, achieved this historic victory over tyranny. We can do so again.

Do not misunderstand me. We will seek out those who organised his terrible acts ruthlessly and without mercy. We shall, if they surrender, bring them to justice, but if they refuse we shall, without compunction, destroy them and their operations. But we shall not, even with the justifiable wish for revenge, make a terrible situation worse by endangering the lives either of our own young people, or of other innocents in other nations.

We are a compassionate country with decent, generous people, and we will not allow our values and our moral leadership to be compromised and to destroy our own liberties. That is what our enemies wish. They wish us to turn in on ourselves and against our cherished decencies and values. They wish to provoke some sort of religious war, for only by destroying the very things that make this country great can they win. But although this was in attack in America, it was not just an attack on America. That is why we shall unite with the rest of the world in defeating the enemy of every decent, human instinct and desire. I have been greatly moved by the overwhelming messages of support from almost every other country in the world. Not just from our historic allies but from many who have often been hostile to the US in the past. They have recognised that this is a fight for all humanity. Together, we can assure there is no hiding place, no safe haven, for those who planned these attacks and who may well wish to perpetrate even more. We assert the right to take any measure necessary to defend ourselves but we shall, so far as is compatible with that defence, work with all countries who demonstrate their willingness to join in this great fight.

On September 11 we saw the best and worst of humanity. The worst who carried out these atrocious, sadistic acts; the best from our citizens, our fire-fighters and police, many of whom sacrificed their own lives in their attempt to save others. If we ever needed reassurance that right will prevail, that was it. Good can came out of these terrible events – those still living under tyranny can breathe free; those that promise salvation through death and destruction will be humiliated, vanquished, rejected and ejected. That is the best way to honour our dead and the most devastating response to our enemies.

Thank you for listening. God bless you and your families. And God Bless America.

The sad thing is that in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, that would seem to be pretty much the public response from Bush and his administration. I was also struck, when watching Fox News's replay of their coverage of the day, just how moderate was THEIR response to the horrific, obscene events as they unfolded. On the phone to Al Haig, they discussed the 'calm and measured' response that should be made by the US.

Of course, it takes more than fine words to produce the right actions, but let us assume that if such a speech should be made it was sincere and was followed through. We might now be looking at a very different world; one in which the first decade of the 21st century was to the Middle East what the last of the 20th century was to eastern Europe.

I am not the only one laying the 'What If' game. The idea – voiced by a representative of the US State Department on today's Andrew Marr show on BBC television - that the removal of Saddam directly or indirectly led to the Arab spring of 2011, is ludicrous and contemptible. The events in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Libya are more likely to have been postponed than hastened, with those opposed to reforms being able to argue that changes in regime, sponsored by the US, were in that country's interests and that you are a dupe and a patsy if you went along with it.

The right response, surely, was once you had attacked the strongholds and hideouts of Al Qaeda, to work, supply train and provide intelligence for those who are working to overthrow the numerous vicious regimes in the world. In doing so, there would be far fewer, if any grieving families and shattered lives of our own young men and women in the armed forces. Has it – and is it – sacrifice worth making? If a single member of our own Cabinet had one son or daughter in harm's way I might be prepared to believe they are sincere in their claims. But unless you, dear reader, would think that the loss of your own children would be 'a price worth paying' we have no right to state this.

My own philosophy in life and one that I think can be extended to a national policy is: "we seek to be on good terms with all other people, but don't f**k with us, or we'll have you! Or to put it more diplomatically, (and I write as one who is certainly not a pacifist and who is very hawkish on defence): we shall mind our own business and seek only to live our lives and run our own country in our own way. But be under no illusion of our power to destroy you and make no mistake: if we perceive a credible and immediate threat from you against us, we shall do so.

Re-watching the iconic, horrific images of the day (a feeling of sickness; rather shameful to watch the planes go in and the towers collapse, when you know you are watching the destruction of thousands of innocent lives; the thud-thud-of the bodies falling being the most distressing of all) makes me think about all kinds of personal associations with New York, America and views on politics, domestic and geo-political. I first visited New York in May 1977; a 19 year old starting what I regarded as Life's Great Adventure. I had travelled on my own and it was highly unusual then for anyone outside the very rich, top professional and 'meeja' classes to visit the USA. I was certainly the only person at the paper who had ever travelled to America (and three years before that I had crossed the Atlantic to stay with relatives in Newfoundland – almost unheard of then) and probably one of only a handful in the whole town. New York was then notorious for its violence, especially its murder rate – I think it was the highest in the world. A man was stabbed in the bus behind me on the drive from JFK Airport. The hotel I had booked – by post, of course – was $15 a night, on Seventh Avenue; the cheapest listed in the tourist guide I had sent for. It was essentially a brothel, which also had rooms you could rent by the day, as well as the hour. When I arrived, there were several transvestites in the foyer. As I was unpacking, I noticed that, across the little courtyard from my room, a 'sex worker' and her client were well away – there were no curtains in the window and the light was on (perhaps so the Pimp could keep an eye on things). I was not only living the dream, I was seeing a real-life 'video' of the song: a combination of The Boxer and Walk on the Wild Side! (Whether or not 'there were times when I took some comfort there' will have to wait for my autobiography!). And I loved it! When you hit the streets the energy was amazing.

At that time there were no real skyscrapers in the UK – no Canary Wharf, no 'Gherkin', and even though you have seen it so many times in the movies and on TV, nothing really prepares you for it. Included on my list of things to do was of course the World Trade Center – then only some four years old. In truth, I was keener to go up the Empire State Building, and climb up the rickety steps into the crown of the Statue of Liberty. The twin towers were a bit flash: dedicated to commerce, but still - the ride in the elevator was amazing, as was the view.

But, of course, it was the radio that entranced me. Prior to my trip I had heard a few snippets of the Top 40 giant WABC – the station was being played in the Yellow Cab my first day there. If there is ever a movie of my life (bit unlikely!) there will be a sequence when I am viewing Manhattan from the back of the cab and long-time morning show DJ 'Happy Harry Harrison would be on WABC, playing Stevie Wonder's Sir Duke. But the biggest revelation was the all-news station, 1010 WINS. I was immediately taken by their voice-over jingle ident:

New York wants to know. And we know it! This is WINS. You give US 22 minutes, we'll give YOU the world."

Several questions: why 22 minutes? Not 15, 20 or 25? And how about: "We'll give you the world!"?! The confidence, the chutzpah of it. You didn't get that on the BBC, or even on London's LBC - the commercial speech station in London, largely modelled on WINS.

And then the way the newscaster would introduce himself: "I am (Stan Z Burns) and here's what's happening". Note – not what HAS happened! But (present tense) what's happening NOW!

I had to visit the station. Obliging as they nearly always are, this was arranged. The Program Director couldn't see me until the end of the day…4 o'clock OK? Yessir!

I was fascinated and intrigued by so much of it – not least that the constant ticker-tape noise behind the newscasters was (of course!) a sound effect, on a continuous loop cartridge. We'd done most of the tour of the newsroom and studios, when something amazing happened – word broke through that a helicopter had crashed 'atop' the Pan Am Building. This was a service to take business types from JFK by Sikorski helicopter to and from downtown Manhattan. That afternoon, as its passengers were disembarking, it collapsed, even as the rotor blades were still whirring, slicing into bits four commuters; it then toppled over and bits fell into the street, killing a passer-by. Naturally, the newsroom went nuts; reporters were dispatched, phones were bashed. I wrote in my diary later: "THIS WAS THE MOST EXCITING DAY OF MY LIFE!" Well, I am sorry if that sounds callous, but if you don't as a journalist just live for – dream - of being in a newsroom moments like that, you have no right to be a journalist!

"You Limeys sure pick the right day to visit an all-nooz station" proclaimed the Director, mopping his brow.

So I took New York, its people, its media, its ATTITUDE to my heart. Before going to upstate New York to stay with family friends in leafy White Plains, I took the Greyhound to Washington DC, stopping off at Arlington Cemetery en route at the graves of John and Robert Kennedy, where I paid my respects – in tears, certainly. But the most inspiring thing, after the tour of the White House, and the National Air and Space Museum to see the Apollo craft (I was a space nut as well) was visiting the Congressional Library to view the original documents of the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of  Independence. Documents that are so straightforward, economic in their wording and yet so powerful. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The First Amendment to the Constitution (the FIRST!) guaranteeing press (and religious) freedom. That is the American dream and its gift to the world. Because I am an optimist and because my life experience is that, in the end, good does triumph and life gets better, and despite all the terrible mistakes made by the USA, I believe it IS mankind's last best hope: the only country with both the will and the means to defend and promote liberty, whatever the threat and the provocation, and that its spirit and that, specifically of New York, will prevail. What If? As New York Senator Robert Kennedy said:

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?

 

 

Now and Then – Part 2

    So, in the words of journalist and broadcaster Jonathan Freedland, "the summer when the news forgot to stop", is finally over. A truly extraordinary couple of months, which saw Rupert Murdoch biffed in a Parliamentary committee, parts of London and some other UK cities witnessing a complete breakdown of law and order for hours on end (with the capital's largest-ever police 'service' leaving families trapped in their apartments to their fate), the world's biggest economy losing its Triple A credit rating and teetering on political sclerosis, and one of the world's most vicious regimes (admittedly in a crowded field) toppled with a combination of the sheer guts of its citizens, backed by air support from NATO. In fact, 2011 as a whole is shaping up to rival other Years to Remember such as 1968, 1989-90 and 2001.

    The British political class has rivalled the police (who have reacted like hypersensitive teenagers to any criticism, however justified - in my opinion they've been let off lightly) in demonstrating hypocrisy, corruption and uselessness. So, we have the spectre of our Prime Minister – the most privileged leader of the most privileged Cabinet since the early '60s - belatedly returning home from his Tuscan villa complaining about an unjustified sense of entitlement, and who is, along with the Mayor of London, a former member of the notorious Bullingdon Club - which regularly trashed restaurants and terrified innocent people and was lucky not, like Boris, to have his collar felt - insisting that 'wrongdoers must be punished, there can be no excuses'. But, of course, if you're wealthy you can have your youthful mischief and get away with it, because you can always afford to pay off the aggrieved restaurateur, etc., and have a smart, family lawyer to get you out of clink if it goes wrong. Most of all, you can have your youthful indiscretions in private places, whereas your social housing estate kid has nowhere to go but public spaces. Then there's a Deputy Prime Minister (who also did a spot of vandalism in his youth) who doesn't seem to realise that the word 'Deputy' means, erm, that you deputise for the boss when he's away.

    It was all so different in the olden days of course, when the police were paragons of virtue, never accepted a bribe, when young people showed respect of their elders and burnt off their youthful energy with tea dances, and never, ever had sex until they were at least engaged. Apart from the scandals in the Met's Vice Squad in the 1960s and '70s, Teddy Boys in the '50s, the Mods and Rockers in the '60s, the skinheads in the '70s, the violence on the streets from rival football supporters…

    The reaction of the authorities in the '60s was spookily similar. The quotes about the Mods and Rockers for example could have been written today (or the other way round!). 'Bring back national service' (given the apparent easy availability of guns in our cities, is it really a good idea to ensure our young men are proficient with firearms?), 'bring back the birch' - the Isle of Man had that in the '70s and extended its application up to 21 years of age in the first 'moral panic' of the mid-1960s. Well, true enough that did work, in that a well-publicised case of some young Glaswegian men does seem to have prevented disturbances from reaching that island paradise. One of the great joys of being an academic is the access you get to newspaper archives and as it 'appens, part of my research covers the 'Mirror' from this period. Here's a sample from the edition of 25 July, 1965, accompanies by a picture of the miscreants in their swimming trunks, showing as much of the weals resulting from the punishment as is possible in a family newspaper:

They admitted causing bodily harm to a holidaymaker by setting upon him, hitting him with a bottle, and stamping on him after he asked them to stop swearing. The four were also fined a total of £80. Only two hours after sentence the birch -- three 3ft. twigs bound into a 14in. long handle at one end and weighing a maximum of 9oz. -- was produced. Brown-haired James McKell said: "I was led away to an upstairs room. Nine people were waiting.

Cried

"I was bent face downwards over the back of a chair. I cried with fear. My trousers were pulled down and my shirt pulled up. Two policemen held my arms and a third held my head down. A fourth, a sergeant, used the birch.

"The pain was terrible. I kept screaming for my parents. I was in pain for hours."

Stocky, pug-nosed William Connelly said: "I thought they were hitting me with red-hot wire.

"I just shouted until they had finished."

William Keenan said: "It was over quickly. But I'll never do anything that could get me the birch again."

Magistrate Radcliffe told me: "This island is a happy place. We want to keep it so that people are safe to walk the streets."

Mr Edward Bancroft, president of the Hotel Association, added: "We would rather have fewer holidaymakers than be flooded with Mods and Rockers like Clacton and Margate."

So, we COULD do that – well, actually we couldn't; the European Court of Human Rights wouldn't allow it. But plenty of countries do – Singapore, for example, held up by R Murdoch as a model country! My paternal grandfather - the son of a miner who chose the police service (then known as the Police FORCE) largely because the remuneration for senior officers included a house, and who rose to be a Chief Superintendent - had a choice solution for the containment of riots: "Shoot the first one". Or, as Phaedrus (15BC-50AD) put it: Aggression unchallenged is aggression unleashed.

And there can be no doubt as to the public appetite for harsh punishments, and many a bleeding heart liberal has had his/her world view challenged:

 

As the old saying goes, a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged, and the riots could prove a turning-point for liberalism. During the last major disturbances few members of the opinion-forming classes lived in Hackney, Brixton or central Manchester. They do now, and they will remember their fear on Monday and Tuesday nights. (Andrew Gilligan, UK riots: a festival of broken glass, Telegraph, 14 August, 2011.)

 

Being a Grammar School from solid, middle class home, loved and cherished, etc., did not prevent me and contemporaries from going a bit wild. A school trip to Alton Towers left the theme park reeling! I was culpable because I had supplied other kids with beer from home - which we got free due to my dad's job - and I don't think many of them had had alcohol before! Lecture from deputy head next day, swishing cane: never had complaints before, completely unacceptable, you've let down the school, but most of all (etc.). Made it clear that if he had his way all the boys would have been given 'six of the best' (I'd been 'slippered' before, but not caned, which was reserved for really bad behaviour, rather than cheekiness and mostly low-level classroom disruption which was my forte – see RudinBlogs passim for fuller account of the joys of being a schoolboy in the late '60s and early '70s) but he'd been over-ruled because some of the girls had behaved just as badly and they couldn't be caned! So it was detention for us all for a week. Then I could talk about me and my mates chasing other kids, running in and out of hotels and bars , causing aggro, being out into the early ours with my parents not knowing where I was or what I was up to; this is all in the period 14-16 years. It's all a matter of degree, circumstances and location.

God knows what I'd have been like if I hadn't had a stable family background. So I think a LITTLE humility and understanding and distinguishing between really bad, violent behaviour and the rest is required. What I do recognise is that young men crave for three things (and probably in this order): sex, status and excitement. And you tend to get more sex if you have a higher status, so if you cannot achieve that through conventional means – mostly through work – then you will find it elsewhere. Most of all, you need love and respect. I was struck by the comments – made quite unselfconsciously during a previous panic about gangs - from those in a notorious Liverpool outfit, a member of which was implicated in the tragic, accidental shooting of Rhys Jones, at a location I drive through most working days: "He has no dad, he has no family, we're his family and we love him."

Now, you might be thinking 'well, Richard, this is all very well, but if you'd been at the other end of the riots and looting, were in fear of your life, seen the business you'd worked hard day and night for a decade trashed in a matter of minutes, you wouldn't have such benign feelings about all this. In fact, it's just this sort of woolly, middle-class, moral relativisim, hand-wringing, guilt-ridden, self-loathing nonsense that's led to all this mayhem! I say get these little s*!%s off the street, and bang them up. It's time to put the fear back!'

And, up to a point, I do think adolescents and young men do need (and are happiest and most secure with) rules, boundaries, threats of punishment that are followed through when necessary and, above all, good, tough male role models. This used to be fathers and teachers, but the first are often absent now and the second are powerless to exert any meaningful punishment. But I fail to see how, say, a young man with no 'previous', who is full of contrition, is half way through a course almost certain to lead to a good job but who, in that state of euphoria after a night of passion at his girl-friend's flat (oh, blessed memory!) and somewhat hazy through drink, sees the tail-end of a bit of looting and decides – 'what a laugh this will be when I tell girl-friend and my mates tomorrow!' – to put his hand through a broken window and take a pack of water worth £3.50, is caught and imprisoned for six months and will almost certainly lose his place on the course, with ALL the implications of that, serves society or the individual.

There is another way – it's called Restorative Justice. And it's most certainly NOT a 'soft option'. And best of all, it empowers the VICTIM – because it can't happen unless the victim agrees. Time and time, victims of crime complain that they are cut off from the whole judicial process – sometimes never even told what has happened to the offender.

Offenders find the process demanding and tough. We require offenders to take an active role in repairing harm, acknowledging the impact of what they've done and facing up to the consequences. (Lord McNally, Restorative Justice Helps Prevent Harm, Restorative Solutions, 27 July 2011).

The classic mistaken assumption of conventional justice is to punish criminals as if they will never come back from prison to live among us. But with rare exceptions, they all come back. When they do, we depend on them not to cause more harm in the community. We are all interdependent in a shrinking world: criminals, victims, and the wider society. (Lawrence W Sherman and Heather Strang, 2007) Restorative Justice: the evidence, Smith Institute 2007)

 

And if you're thinking that I would think differently if it happened to me, well 'it' did. I won't go into the details – there's no reason legally why I shouldn't but it's not necessary to make the point. Briefly: a young man, who let's say I knew a little - attacked me, in the middle of the day, with witnesses and caught on CCTV. It was completely unexpected, had no 'lead up' that I was aware of and I had no reason to think he had a grudge against me. But he had got into his head that I had, some time previously punched him in the head and began a campaign (unknownst to me) to my superiors to have me sacked, calling me 'scum', etc. Landing the first blow from behind me and pushing me into a chair he launched a frenzied attack on my head, before being pulled off me. He departed with a threat to return to 'f*!"£$g finish this/me/you (it wasn't clear) off'. As he wasn't immediately apprehended I was offered the choice of proceeding with a charge of assault (possibly with occasioning GBH – one of the reasons I have been a far less frequent blogger of late is that the whiplash from my head being punched from side to side has exacerbated am existing neck/shoulder problem, making writing painful to do - rather than just to read – HA!), in which case he would have a criminal record and almost certainly lose his job. As I remarked "I didn't go into this (higher education) business to reduce young people's life chances".

And when the day came for us to meet, he being seated next to a police officer, and for him to apologise and I heard his tale – not to put too fine a point on it his life was a crock of s£!t and he looked so lost and troubled, his 'hoodie' pulled down over the fists that had punched me - I was SO glad I had done it. We all need someone in our corner and the sad thing is, I could have been that person. But of course, I can't be now.

Naturally, I received any amount of support from colleagues, friends, relatives. Old school chums offered to come up as a posse to sort him out and half-heartedly chiding me "Don't say you didn't get a crack back at him!" Best of all, was an e-mail I had from a colleague who works in another part of the university, which simply read: "You are a good man". Which is, above all, what I want to be. In fact, I would use that as a test to distinguish between the really violent, psychotic elements, who certainly have to be incarcerated, and those who are just lost, troubled and lacking in any self-worth or respect: "Would you rather be known as a hard man, or a good man?" If the latter, there is hope. We all have moments of madness. We can all go off the rails. And, after all, David Cameron, in justifying giving the job as his Head of Communications to the already tainted Andrew Coulson, did say that he believed in giving people a second chance.

 

NoW and Then

Paul McCartney has often said that if the walls of the abattoirs were made of glass everyone would become vegetarian overnight. I'm sure he is right, and as an omnivore but one who blanches at the thought of the slaughtering process and indeed tries not to think about it, I will concede right at the start of this blog that I'm a tad (cheerfully!) hypocritical about aspects of life and so if what follows appears to have a superior tone; that I am taking the moral high ground, let it be noted that I recognise that I'm just as capable of applying double standards or in being in denial about unpleasant and troubling facts as anyone else.

The words 'extraordinary, 'dramatic' and 'unprecedented' are often bandied around in the media to try and whip up interest in a story, not least when it is about the media – because nothing, or hardly anything, interests the media more than itself – but in the case of the News International phone hacking affair these words and more are well justified. Indeed, overused phrase such as "impossible to exaggerate the significance", "tipping point" and "game-changing" may even be apt. And of course it isn't just 'about' the media but our whole political system, culture and not least the integrity of guardians and enforcers of the laws of the country.

I've been meaning to write this blog since the whole saga began about 10 days ago but each day something new and amazing has happened and I thought: "wait and see what happens and then comment on that". But I think if I wait until the end of it I could be waiting a long time! But because it did grow like topsy and I couldn't resist adding a few comments on each new, dramatic development, as well as (inevitably!) the occasional anecdote and autobiographical element, I've split this into two.

Quick recap of the headlines: just over a week ago it was announced that the country's biggest selling newspaper was to close after 168 years; News Corporation has announced that it is abandoning for the moment at least its plans to take over the 61% of BskyB - perhaps the best and almost certainly the most profitable subscriber-based TV system in the world – that it doesn't already own; the Coalition Government decided to back a motion on the Labour opposition day and two enquiries have been announced under a judge. Perhaps most significantly of all, Rupert Murdoch - the most feared and courted media baron in UK history – has been humbled, and politicians who just over a week ago were courting him are now falling over themselves to condemn him. It now seems inconceivable that any politician, whether in or out of government, will fear him and, indeed, the endorsement of any of his papers at the next election may be seen as a poisoned chalice. The request – then summons – from the Select Committee of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, along with son James, and Rebekah Brooks - until this Friday, the Chief Executive of News International - demonstrated the power of Parliament even when the two Murdochs are foreign citizens. In fact, one of the many things I've learned from this saga is that Parliament had the power to demand people's attendance, even of foreigners, if they were the time in the UK. I would have loved to have seen the pictures of the Serjeant at Arms – even without her regulation tights – delivering the summons.

As I write this, the latest twist is that Brooks, who, un til yesterday, Murdoch insisted must stay, despite persistent calls for her to go from leading politicians and many of the journalists at the News of the World (a good joke being that the wrong red top had gone!) has finally resigned. This however it seems was not prompted by some mea culpa, but by the second largest shareholder of parent group News Corporation in New York, who demanded that she went. It is worth bearing in mind that, despite the Murdochs attempting to use them as a private fiefdom, these are public companies. It is also worth bearing in mind that many pension funds have money invested in BskyB, so we shouldn't be too delighted when their share price plummets. When it comes to the world of international finance and corporations we are all, to some extent in this together and it is inevitable that those with the most to lose, those on modest salaries and pensions, will be hit hardest if the Murdoch empire does indeed start to fall apart.

Finally, we have various allegations of police incompetence, collusion and corruption, going right to the top of the country's biggest force.

The only comparable such tale in recent times was the Hutton affair of 2004, when both the Director-General of the BBC and the Corporation's Chairman both resigned in the wake of the official report into the so-called 'sexed up Iraq dossier' saga on the then government's compilation of the case for going to war (see last paragraph!). That report got the Prime Minister of the day and his then the communications' chief off the hook, even then the ramifications were miniscule compared to the fast unfolding drama ran now witnessing. We are truly – another cliché coming up – in unchartered waters and every day is bringing even more astonishing revelations. Given its widespread ramifications in the political, cultural and economic life of the country 'the British Watergate' might not even be hyperbole and, indeed, Carl Bernstein, one of the journalists who revealed the Watergate scandal has used this term in relation to the current events the size of the pond. It is even possible that it could ultimately lead to the ousting of the Prime Minister and/or the ejection of the Murdochs as "fit and proper people" to be a part of British broadcasting.

So, going back to my point about meat eaters not wanting to think about how the processes which brought that nice steak bacon sandwich onto their plate, if we're going to start apportioning blame to this terrible affair let's do the "we are all to blame" bit. Because the fact is that if we didn't want to read stories about the sexual peccadilloes of footballers, TV stars and the rest, the News of the World and other papers would not print them and the police would not have been drawn in to supplying vital information to the journalists. In what is unquestioningly a ruthlessly competitive environment, compounded by the structural changes in the media industry with advertising revenues flowing to the Internet and reduced readership (the 2.6 million sales of News of the World seems impressive, but it was selling about twice as many a decade or so ago and in my lifetime it sold an astonishing 9 million copies), the papers have been increasingly driven to getting stories they know will increase sales.

Now this might be met with incredulity, but I really believe that even journalists on the News of the World would much rather use their undoubted talents and skills to reveal wrongdoing and corruption in government, amongst officials, or serious criminal activities and bring crooks to justice. And of course they did continue to do this. But the fact is that sales went up when they had a front-page splash of the 'away games' of footballers and TV stars and the more salacious were the kiss and tell stories, the more they sold. So we get the tabloid press we deserve.

And how do people think – did they think – they got these stories? And more pertinently, what effect did they think they had on the innocents involved: the wronged wives and partners, the tearful and bewildered children? I was struck by one of the comments from someone who was brave enough on a recent Newsnight to admit that she had read the paper. To her it was just a bit of fun; she would get together with her friends at the Sunday lunch and they would pour over all the dirt and gossip and have a good laugh. Back to my simile over meat-eating: you don't think about the pain and distress of the animals being slaughtered, you just enjoy the nice steak or chop on the plate.

Well, runs the defence, if 'they' don't want to appear in the papers with these embarrassing stories 'they' shouldn't do it. So, it seems the British public expect, for example, young men at the height of their sexual drive and perhaps have higher than normal levels of testosterone, who have fantastically high earnings and women literally throwing themselves at them and begging for sex, to behave like eunuchs at a brothel? And what in any case have 'they' done wrong to justify such public opporbrium? Take another famous example, that of the revelations of Max Mosley going to a 'sex dungeon' and being whipped by leather-clad women. The justification for this story – that there was a Nazi motif to these proceedings - was wrong and he won a privacy action against the paper. But the wider justification on, as it were, moral grounds, was that Mosley, as the then head of Formula One, and so was a public figure. The same has been used as justification for exposing and deposing the former England soccer team captain. So, our moral leaders are the head of the motorsport or a footballer? This is hilarious to me. I might take my moral leadership from the Archbishop of Canterbury and there would be perhaps public interest if he was having extramarital affairs but otherwise, in my opinion, what goes on between consenting adults which affects no one else is a matter for them and it is not the job of a newspaper to reveal these things to their wives and children, etc. (Gentle reader: my thoughts on how to limit this sort of coverage whilst retaining the press's ability to expose 'real' wrong-doing is in the second part of this Blog…bet you can't wait!).

Looking through the front-page splashes that the final edition of the News of the World proudly reproduced, there are undoubtedly some genuine, public interest revelations, but they seem to have become fewer and far between. Yes, the scandal of the then Minister of War sharing a mistress with a Soviet spy at the height of the Cold War was justified (that was back in '63!) and the more recent match-fixing probes certainly fitted that bill, but most of the recent ones had no public interest justification.

What about when they exposed genuine law-breaking by celebrities, most commonly illegal drug-taking? Well, I have a problem with this too, because I do not believe that the private consumption of drugs should be a criminal matter. I may be deficient in my moral universe, but the criminal law is there to protect the property and personal safety of me and other members of society and I fail to see how someone snorting a line of coke in private threatens this. This isn't the place to get into a detailed exposition of my libertarian views and of course I have to accept that such things are illegal until and if Parliament decides otherwise, but frankly these stories do not pass the "so what?" test in the classic definition of news: "dog bites man - no news; man bites dog – news".

Given the prevalence of class A and B, never mind class C, drugs in the television and entertainment worlds, I would be surprised to learn of celebrities and stars who haven't taken them. The relish that many people have over 'slebs' being caught out reminds me of those kids at school who used to gloat at other kids getting into trouble and being punished. A joy in seeing other people in pain and humiliated. What does that say about us as a country? As school, it degrades everyone and whilst that sort of gleeful schadenfreude might be expected and acceptable in children, I don't think it is in adults. And it is no good saying that people aren't doing anything wrong by reading about what others were doing; that is the defence often given by paedophiles who look at child porn on the Internet. True, they haven't carried out the abuse, but if people like them weren't willing to use their credit cards to see it, it wouldn't take place. Obviously, some children would still be abused, but the market would be reduced, so the incidences fewer. All the evidence, by the way, suggests that this is also true of drug-taking: far from an increase in use of drugs after they've been declassified or decriminalised, all the studies show there is less, and of course most of the crime and gangs associated with the drugs' trade (perhaps accounting for some 85% of all criminal activity) would disappear. This is not to condone, let alone advocate, drug-taking certainly of A class drugs, but it shows the stupidity and futility of criminalising drug takers.

Most fair-minded people accept that popular newspapers like the News of the World have done important things and they have certainly played an important part in our culture for many decades. I was first aware of the NoW as an eight or nine year old, back in the mid-1960s. On Sundays, most of my nearby friends went to church or Sunday school but, coming from an agnostic family – indeed I have never been baptised in any faith to this day: my parents thought it wrong to decide for an infant what their religion should be, so it appears I'm going to both the Catholic and Islamic hell (double bugger!) - this wasn't part of my routine. So I started trotting down to a less well-heeled part of town where one of my school friends lived, a lovely tall and rather confident girl called Helen. Her home was in a classic hard-working, respectable working-class community and on Sundays her granddad would give her the cash, plus some pocket money, to go to the newsagents to pick up his copy of the News of the World and (almost unbelievably, and I am sure this was illegal even then for children of our age) his weekly cigarettes' ration! Helen had obviously picked up from her grandfather the importance of the paper and when I made some comment – no doubt picked up from my parents, whose paper on that day was the Sunday Times – that it was a bit of rubbish, she rounded on me (and I remember this really clearly!) that it was a very important paper and uncovered and reported on things people were doing wrong and this in turn led to important changes. Respecting the views of someone who was such a kind and compassionate person, this had a big effect on me and I used to flick through it as we skipped back to granddad's. Although this sounds like a boast, I did have a very high reading age for someone my years, so I could understand all the stories, although not of course some of the coded prose and euphemisms for various salacious tales involving vicars and choirboys and the rest.

More than that though, in talking to granddad it was clear that his relationship with the paper was quite complex and even profound. An intelligent man who, like most of his generation I guess would have left school at around 14, he didn't just look on the newspaper as a weekly dose of scandal and titillation, but as (and this might seem fantastic to later generations) as a form of education. This attitude would probably have been instilled by his parents or even grandparents. It is striking when you look through the really old editions of the paper how much of it is geared towards expanding the knowledge of its readers; it began publishing just as mass literacy, as well as the mass dislocation of the population was taking place, at the height of the Industrial Revolution and towards the very end of the 'taxes on knowledge', which had been used by the powerful elites to make newspapers unaffordable to the common man, let alone woman. The very first edition contained an offer of encyclopaedias, and many other popular Sunday papers offer versions of these types of books, as well as literary works. Moreover, millions, like Helen's granddad, believed such papers were on their side; they dealt with the aspirations and the problems of the working classes, and their investigations and exposures were against those who exploited, humiliated and defrauded them. Such newspapers had a personality; they were welcomed into the home as a friend and champion. To them, journalism was a respected and noble calling. It was practised by 'educated people", with the knowledge and skills to help, rather than exploit them. This may have been a somewhat naive belief, and of course there was a widespread understanding of the papers often also being used for propaganda purposes by rich proprietors. Nevertheless, a free press - which had only been established after several centuries of conflict and debate - was appreciated, I think, in a way that is quite hard to understand today. Although I wouldn't appreciate all of this until much later as I began to study media history – which now I'm privileged enough to teach and research – these partly formed views and perceptions definitely lodged in the Rudin brain and made me think about the role of journalism and newspapers.

In our family holidays to my grandparents' little holiday place on the Lincolnshire coast, one of my tasks was to go to the newsagents every day. I used to love this, as when on holiday we bought a wider variety of papers that when we lived at home and I was fascinated by all the tabloids, not least their use of language, especially the puns often used in the headlines – in fact at one stage I thought there was some sort of law that you had to have puns in all the headlines of papers of that sort!

But there was something else about the News of the World in its heyday which is hardly ever commented on, and that is that until around the mid-1980s Sundays in Britain for most people living outside London or a handful of other big cities, was incredibly boring. It really was! There was hardly anything open, apart from the pub for a few hours and the cinema if you are lucky, and so the News of the World provided some important diversion and entertainment, and - let's not be prissy about this! - in the days before the Internet provided such stimulation at the click of a mouse, for many men it was a classic 'one-handed read'. It wasn't just the pictures of scantily clad young women but the salacious and neo-erotic tales it had of celebrities getting up to rather more than the 'once a week in the missionary position with the lights off', which was the total sum (if they were lucky!) of many adults' sexual lives.

As a paperboy in the early to mid-1970s I learned how eagerly the paper's arrival on the doormat was anticipated by many of my homes in that distinctly suburban, middle-class area and let it be forgotten that although it is associated mainly with the working class readership, sales were so large that it also had the highest number of socio-economic groups A and B of any paper's readership. I also was instructed by the manager at the newsagents that I was to tuck the paper inside the more respectable, serious newspapers, such as the Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times. There must be countless couples who used to snuggle up in bed and read together the more revealing parts of the paper as a bit of foreplay of a Sunday morning, or when the kids were at Sunday school!

Naturally, one of the most welcome aspects of my time in the 'newspaper distribution business' was being able to read all the papers every Sunday as I went from house to house and I always bought a couple myself and certainly this quite often, if there was a particularly salacious story, would indeed include the News of the World, which helped my feverish imagination of many a day and night through those difficult years!

In part two of this blog I am going to reveal my own tales of ethical dilemmas in journalism, including a full confession of an illegal practice. I am also going to discuss my thoughts about the Murdochs, press regulation and generally how I see this affecting the media landscape in Britain. But, after a period when the trade of journalism has been thoroughly trashed and the already low reputation of journalists has been dragged down still further, let's remind ourselves of a few facts and a few reasons why a free press – that is to say, publication without the need for a licence, without censorship and subject only to the general laws of the land and a self-regulating code - has been and is so important. Our Parliament, public bodies, and our 'Rolls-Royce' civil service did not protect us from going into an illegal war and the only people who've lost their jobs from the whole nightmare of Iraq have been the journalists, who, in admittedly sometimes flawed reporting, did at least expose the lies and distortions used by politicians and the military, and the widespread abuses and torture practised by the Allies.

It was journalists, sometimes in league with friendly parliamentarians, and their use of the cloak of Parliamentary privilege, who have covered many miscarriages of justice and led to the release of many prisoners, who had usually lost several rounds of appeals from our supposedly brilliant judiciary.

It is journalists and journalism that has brought to book innumerable crooks, conmen, and webs of corrupt officials and politicians, which the police had failed to unravel, and indeed brought to book many corrupt police officers.

Many medical malpractices, cover-ups of many kinds and all sorts of threats to public safety and well-being have been exposed by journalists. Laws have been changed as a result of some of these and even the legal age of sexual consent was brought down by one of the first journalistic 'stings' - by W.T. Stead, an undercover reporter back in 1885. It was journalism that exposed the lies and incompetence of the military in World War I – though not, tragically, before the slaughter of the Somme. Much more recently, it was journalism that exposed the abuse of Parliamentary expenses and allowances (and it should be remembered that this only came to light after the distinctly unethical practice of a BROADSHEET paper using a stolen series of documents).

The list goes on and on, but finally we should not remember that the only reason the abuses alleged to have been undertaken by News International and perhaps some other newspaper groups have come to light is because other journalists have doggedly exposed these practices and published them at great risk to their reputations and fortunes. It is print journalists– seemingly chaotic, flawed, and compromised they might be by pressures of time, commerce and megalomaniac proprietors (as one academic put it: "it works in practice but it would never work in theory"), who produce something approaching a daily miracle: one which, when you see the conditions and pressures under which it is created, is astonishing for not what it gets wrong, but for how much it gets right - and astonishingly cheaply for the 'end user'. An incalculably important part of our national life and our freedoms.

Sustaining the ‘unsustainable’

"If there ever is a revolution in Britain it will start here in Liverpool." (Tony Benn during dock workers' strike of the 1990s).

I hope that quotation is accurate – it was cited during the speeches after today's rally in Liverpool against the government's planned changes to terms and conditions for public sector workers – especially their pensions. Like Tony Benn – who started out as a 'moderate', technocratic MP and Minister, with a flair for public relations and media handling, but became progressively more radical - I find I am becoming more left-wing as I go into middle age. This is not supposed to happen! The financial shocks of 2007-08 proved that the financial institutions, corporations and the other real rulers of the world, were not only hopelessly incompetent but mendacious, grossly irresponsible and fantastically selfish with it. I realise I should have come to this conclusion before then, but…!

But if Tony Benn DID say the above, I know what he means. Liverpool – parts of which were ablaze thirty years ago this month in the worst, most sustained rioting in the British mainland in the 20^th century - has cajoles. It's one of the reasons I like working in there and why it is certainly a cracking place to teach – and practise – journalism.

Today I was a participant in the 'story', as one of thousands who took to the streets. The sun shone, the people were in good voice – astonishingly good voice, in fact – and the mood was good-humoured but very, very determined. One of the most effective points came from the ALT speaker and it was about teachers being forced to work until 68 before they could retire. Not all public sector workers are expected to work until 68 – the armed forces (are there no desk jobs?), the police (ditto?) - but teachers (who often have to deal with kids whom the police can't cope with!) are expected to struggle on until 68. As one of her members, a PE teacher, said: "I can't really see myself running round a playing field at 68!" Of course, it won't happen. People will be retired on sick leave, before they can take pensions. So then of course they will go on benefits! It is political and economic madness and morally contemptible, especially when compared with the public pensions paid to Parliamentarians (on top of their often considerable, personal wealth).

I started the day thinking a little bit – as I suppose you are bound to do – that it might be a futile exercise and could I really afford to lose 1/260^th of my annual salary by striking and maybe, you know, it was a bit unreasonable to take this action now and that I do feel I have a privileged job, I love my work and it is such that, mental and physical capacities remaining reasonable I would love to continue until some form at least until my 70s. Indeed, the thought of retiring terrifies me. What would I do? Take up sodding golf? Not have great colleagues to work with and have a laugh every day? Students to motivate and help and maybe even on occasion inspire? Nightmare! I don't live to work but it is a very big part of who I am, how I see myself and, I s'pose I must admit, my personal status. Although I might tell myself I was really striking to support low-paid workers…. I needed my resolve stiffening! Thank goodness it came, via the radio.

One of the key approaches I try to drum into my students is to make sure that not only do you research the subject of an interview and a story as thoroughly as possible but make sure that you have key quotes and sources to hand. Catching people out spouting a straightforward denial of them saying something when you know that they have said it – or, in the case of NHS reforms, that that they have done something that they specifically said they would NOT do - is a great moment for you and adds to you and your employer's credibility. That, rather than trying to 'trip people up' for the sake of it, or talking over them, demonstrates your professionalism and, indeed, when it is on a key issue of the moment affecting millions of people you are providing an invaluable public service.

Of course, you'd expect Radio 4 presenters/interviewers to be well briefed but it was still good on the morning of the big strikes in the public sector, mainly over proposed changes to pensions to hear Evan Davis skewer Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, who had claimed that the independent report into public sector pensions by former Labour minister John Hutton had said the current arrangements were "untenable" and "unsustainable". As Davis pointed – and you can do this yourself at home, dear reader! - Hutton said neither of those things. 'Untenable' or 'tenable' do not appear at all in the report, and 'sustainable' appears when Hutton says the changes he proposes would ensure that public sector pensions are sustainable. You might say that this is semantics; that the thrust of the Hutton report is pretty much as Maude claims, but it is very interesting that ministers keep quoting these same lines as the justification for their approach and they are just not there. And even when Maude had more or less been forced to concede that Hutton never uses 'untenable' he maintained at the end of the interview that "everyone" agrees the current system is untenable!! When that happens, you just know that he is spouting the official briefing and the 'lines to take'. And, as Goebbels said, if you're going to lie tell a big one, and keep repeating it and then most people will believe it is fact. Furthermore, graphs in the report and supported by the respected Institute of Fiscal Studies, show that the cost of pensions at the current rates would fall as a percentage of the nation's wealth. So, if we're talking about sustainability then it is a matter of priorities. Governments can always find money for the things they want or need to do. It's a question of politics. Which brings us back to today's strike, in which I was happy to participate.

The other main line from the ConDem government and the useless article who supposedly 'leads' the Labour Party (you know the party that was founded to advance and represent the interests of organised labour, and the leader who, thanks to the tax avoidance on houses he and his bro' have organised following the death their supposedly Communist father – what was that about 'all property is theft'?) is that is wrong to strike and inconvenience all those hard working mums and dads, etc. when negotiations are continuing. But this isn't like a normal industrial dispute between management and unions - this is a negotiation about how the wealth of the country will be divided in the future. It seems clear to me that if you wait to take industrial action until AFTER the negotiations have been concluded – and when the decisions on pensions are a fait accompli – then you will be wasting your time and money. NOW is absolutely the right time to show solidarity and determination. If the government really believes that the unions are serious and the members are resolute and that they are prepared to shut down schools and all kinds of public services come the autumn then that will surely affect their attitude. As was pointed out by the excellent Peter Kellner of YouGov later on the Today programme, the electorates in February 1974 and in 1979 voted against the respective governments not so much because they agreed with the unions but because they blamed the government for not keeping essential services going. And if the public thinks that a bit of give and take – and in the case of the teachers' unions by the way, pensions were 'reformed' some four years ago with agreement between government and unions – would have stopped the strikes, then they are at least as likely to turn out the current government as to think the unions are being unreasonable and greedy.

There is a fascinating battle going on for the hearts and minds of the people over this. The spectre of the UK becoming another Greece is being used to scare people into accepting massively reduced standards of living, including into their old age. But the unions, and excellent organisations such as UK Uncut, mainly through the social media, are pointing out all the tax avoidance rip-offs which are denying the exchequer some £123 billion a year. The tax and other financial arrangements of a Cabinet dominated by multi-millionaires has not gone unnoticed – including the Chancellor's £4 million trust fund. The 'ordinary Joes' who can't afford fancy lawyers and accountants pay their due taxes – the wealthy often manage to avoid paying any. At times like these that really rankles – and rightly so.

The other main argument for making those in the public sector pay more in, work longer and get less at the end (what a winning combination!) is that, whilst years ago final salary pensions were common in the private sector, they have all but disappeared there now, whereas they are still common in the public sector and it is unreasonable for taxpayers who don't have such schemes to paying for those who have. But this is an argument for the race to the bottom. If, as is proposed, the final salary idea is replaced by a career average, then there will never be an incentive for private employers to offer this again. But if they are competing at some levels with the public sector for good employees then they may be forced to re-think this over time. ('Equality of misery' is not a slogan that appeals to me).

Then there is the fact that, according to s speaker at today's rally in Liverpool, the teachers' pension fund ran a surplus for 56 years. Where did that money go? Back into the Exchequer of course. And this, like National Insurance, is where it has all gone wrong. Today's pensions contributions are going to pay today's pensions, not our own at the requisite time. I believe money that we are putting into the pensions' and NI pot should surely go towards our own benefits and pensions. At the moment both are, in effect, just another form of general taxation.

We do certainly live in interesting times. Of course I may be proved to be wrong, but I've a feeling that, if the unions and their supporters play it cannily, after all the set-backs, retreats and defeats for organised labour, we could be in the verge of a stunning climb-down by government.

Why, after decades of arguing for voting reform, I THINK I’ll be voting ‘No’ to AV

The city is Berlin – the date: 9 June, 1983. It was a good evening, as I'd been with some friends from the civilian mess, where I was staying during my last full month of bachelorhood, to an open-air Van Morrison gig in the city. It was also a general election night back in the UK and, as it happens, the only general election since I was 18 in which I've been unable to vote; disenfranchised, you see, due to the changing status of employees of British Forces Broadcasting Service that April from MOD civilians to a new arrangement, which meant we were not liable to tax in the UK and therefore could not vote (no representation without taxation).

But that didn't mean I wasn't keenly interested in the outcome. Over two years before I had signed up to the new Social Democratic Party – SDP - (the first UK political party to accept membership subscriptions by credit card, which does make it seem a long time ago!), which had been largely formed by breakaway group from the Labour Party, appalled at its lurch to the Left and its policies, including withdrawal from the then European Economic Community without a referendum, unilateral nuclear disarmament (at a time of great tension, and potential threat from the Soviet Union, not least just a couple of miles from where I was then living), nationalisation of the top 200 companies and a more or less siege economy, etc. etc. It was on this manifesto – which a then Labour MP, Gerald Kaufman, dubbed "the longest suicide note in history" - that of course Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were first elected. Anyhow, I greatly liked at least two of the 'Gang of Four', Shirley Williams and David Owen; the latter I regard as the best Prime Minister we've never had since the Second World War, combining just the right mix of high intelligence, confidence, toughness, compassion and communication skills, developed no doubt in his time as a practising GP, as his father had been.

In the early, heady days of the SDP, before it went into a formal alliance with the Liberal Party, and at a time when the then new Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher was deeply unpopular and Labour was incredible as a government to most of the electorate, it had reached stratospheric levels in the opinion polls - at one point credited with more voting intentions than Labour and Conservative combined. The Falklands War in '82 and signs that the harsh Tory economic and industrial medicine may be about to bring fruits for at least some changed the game, but it was still expected that the party would do very well indeed against the two so-called mainstream parties, who were then at the extreme of their respective ideologies.

As we piled in to the mess bar to watch the TV coverage from the UK – the 'live link' with London till something of a novelty then – I watched with increasing dismay as the results came in and the SDP and Liberal parties (in an electoral pact not to stand against each other) came second after second, which meant that, although they jointly received nearly a quarter of the national share of the vote, their combined seat tally came to just 23. Labour, on the other hand, which gained only a few per cent more of the popular vote, had well over 200 seats, even though this was then the worst performance of any second-placed party since the War. It seemed an outrage, and my conviction that there needed to be changes to the electoral system - which had formed at least a decade before when in my mid-teens - took on a new passion.

I was certainly not alone. I remember John Cleese, one of the prominent celebrity supporters of the SDP, doing an excellent party broadcast in which he derided those who claimed that a more proportional system would bring chaos to our political system, and poor governance. "Poor old Germany! He cried. "How badly they are doing with their proportional voting; how unstable they are!" The case seemed unanswerable. Voters in all but marginal seats were effectively disenfranchised at elections, as the contest was decided by relatively small switches in voting in a relatively small numbers of seats, which then produced a wholly disproportionate impact on the parties' representation at Westminster. Because each seat was a separate contest, producing only one winner who simply had to have one more vote than any other candidate, it was no good if a party came second in every seat; they could win over 40% of the national and local vote and end up with nothing. And most MPs were elected with only a minority of the vote; a position that had radically changed from the 1950s, when the vast majority voted for one of the 'big two' parties. This had to be wrong.

Moreover, depending on where the concentrations of votes landed, you could have – as happened twice since the Second World War -the party which came second in the overall share of the vote forming the government, ruling alone. And the so-called First Past The Post (FPTP) system does not even necessarily reduce the strong majorities and stable government that it is often credited with. On at least six occasions, of the 18 general elections since the War, the overall majority was either non-existent or so small that the government of the day was vulnerable to defections, deaths and by-election defeats and on at least two or three periods the country was in a constant state of 'general election alert', causing great uncertainty in the financial markets and other aspect of national life.

For more than a quarter of a century after that night in '83, hopes that one or more parties in a position to effect change would back electoral reform. Especially as, since 1997, other systems were used in the various devolution settlements and the sky had not apparently fallen in.

(Quick bluffer's guide: At the moment there there are four other systems in the UK, in addition to FPTP which is for Westminster seats and local councils in England and Wales. The others are: Additional Member System (Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament and London Assembly); Supplementary Vote (executive mayors in London and some other cities); Single Transferable Vote (all elections in Northern Ireland except for Westminster MPs, and for Scottish councils) and the proportional, Closed Party List (elections for MEPs, apart from in Northern Ireland). All of these have flaws, especially in regard to the 'single member constituency link' of FPTP, and either in their proportionality or accountability. The closed list system for the European Parliament is beautifully proportional but leaves the voters with no choice as to their preference for individual MEPs – they're elected in the order decided by the party hacks).

Twice, in elections which they won, the Labour Party had promised in their manifesto to put reform for elections to the House of Commons to a referendum and, twice, as with tuition fees, they broke that promise. The Jenkins commission, established under one of those other members of the SDP's 'Gang of Four', Roy Jenkins, was set up by Blair fairly soon after he came to power, but the recommendations that there should be a system called 'AV Plus' for Westminster elections, was ditched. When the Jenkins Commission considered the Alternative Vote it found it to be worse than poor and pronounced that its effect was "disturbingly unpredictable". Whilst it continued to deliver a single representative for a constituency – which seems important in the UK's political culture – and it did allow voters to rank the candidates in order of preference, it neither possessed the virtues of proportionality, nor overcame the defects of FPTP. Other studies have shown that AV could have produced even more distorting results and in 1997, even though the Conservatives clearly came second in the national vote, they would have been third in the number of seats, reduced to well under 100, whereas Labour's majority would have been so overwhelming so as to produce a one-party state.

Then came the frantic hours and days after the inconclusive 2010 general election, and the backroom deals – the very thing that FPTP is supposed to prevent! – meant that, what Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg called "the miserable little compromise", was settled on as the only other system that the leading Conservative group was prepared even to put to a referendum.

The campaign for this referendum – only the second nationwide referendum we've ever had in the UK - must be the most desultory, disingenuous, bad-tempered and tedious in the history of British election campaigns. To say that it has failed to inspire or fire up the voters would be generous. Both sides have made ludicrous and often quite disturbingly inaccurate claims. The 'No' side, of the cost, complication and effects of such a system; whilst the 'Yes' camp that AV would make MPs work harder, reduce corruption in the political class, and - in a statement so cretinous that it could only have come from Nick Clegg: "if you are completely happy with the current political system then vote no, otherwise vote yes." That's rather like a diner in a restaurant, who has eaten there many times before, but doesn't much care for the décor, deciding during the first course to leave the restaurant and go to another one down the road which he's never tried and has no idea what it will be like.

You, patient reader, after enduring a mini history lesson and briefing, along with a slice of autobiography, will be relieved to know that I'm not intending to give you another lecture. But let me spell out as concise as possible while I think AV is worse than even the current system's acknowledged unfairness and iniquities.

It is clearly a sound idea – and one that is practised in most other elections are engage with, e.g. those for union positions – to place candidates in order of preference, so that that even if your preferred one does not win, your vote can still count towards your second choice. It saves the agony of those who support candidates who are unlikely to win in having to put a peg over their nose and vote for the least worst on offer, to stop the one they really don't want to win getting in. Fair enough. The problem with counting everybody's second placed (etc.) votes is that many voters will fear that putting a particular candidate in second place will, as it were, help override their first choice. So, most systems only count the second preferences of those voting for lower placed candidates from the first round.

But the problem with AV is that only some voters will have their second choices counted and these will be for the candidates who have the least first preferences (as Churchill said: "the most worthless votes for the most worthless candidates"). In most cases, this will be for the fringe parties, say the BNP, or the 'pro-life' lot. Some cases, true, it will be for The Greens, which I suspect many readers of this Blog may find less objectionable than the first two, but in a tight race, say, between Conservative and Labour, second preferences for the extreme candidates may be the only ones which will be added to the original tally.

Now, the curious fact is that one of the arguments against AV has been that it will tend to produce blandness and the candidate the fewest dislike, rather than the one most like. But what doesn't seem to have been argued is the reverse: that in, say, an area of high immigration, where the BNP candidate receives a significant vote, but who is never going to win (and where the ultimate winner will be either Conservative or Labour), it will make the latter candidates make the strongest possible pitch to BNP supporters for their second preferences. This will no doubt also be reflected in the national campaign - so it will tilt the whole flavour of the election, regardless of the eventual winners, to the extreme. FPTP does at least ensure that the candidate who more people want than any other wins and also means that the leading parties and candidates can ignore extremist views because those candidates aren't going to have a significant impact on the final result. Proponents of AV cannot have it both ways: they constantly claim that it will force candidates to reach out for a broader swathe of political opinion than is currently the case: yes it will, but not in a way I think most of them desire. So, be careful what you wish for.

Okay, so now I'm going to get a bit nerdy and explained as briefly as possible what I think the election system should be and it is none of those currently being practised in the UK (deep breath: here comes the science bit, etc.). The ideal system seems to me is one that combines both preferences and weighting. Clearly, if you put a candidate in third place you do not rate them as highly as one in the second place and definitely not as much as in the first place. So why not weight the votes accordingly, so that candidates given second preferences will have to have twice as many of those preferences to count as much as for a first preference? There would have to be three third preference votes to count the same as a first, and so on. That could be done for however many candidates there are. Okay, it sounds complicated, but trust me I've 'done the math'; I can show my 'workings out' if there is a public demand for me to do so (!). It can mean that second preferences, if all are counted, do make a difference, and even in a tight race, especially in 'three way marginals', whether you rate candidates third or fourth. And it does result in the candidate who most people rate the most, winning.

So, there you have it, Rudin's Preferential, Weighted Election System. Where everybody's preferences count, equally. Can I rely on your vote??

Of course, it is more complicated to count and to calculate but it needn't be more complicated to actually vote. It would either be done in the old-fashioned paper way, by having a separate ballot paper containing all the candidates for your first, second, third preferences, etc., and these then to be put into respective piles and counted and calculated according to the simple formula outlined above, or we could – shock, horror! – institute voting machines. You know: just as they have managed to use in the US for decades and, more recently South Africa and in many countries where numeracy and literacy rates are lower than in the UK. I don't think that, within reason, the cost of extra time in counting the votes should be the deciding factor. Surely, what we most want is a system that best reflects the wishes of the electorate. As we've seen, even the current system does not necessarily produce strong majorities and anyway, I don't think that should be the overriding factor. Certainly, it does do the democratic heart good to see one government kicked out and another installed – usually in the UK this is within hours of the last vote being cast ("throw the rascals out"). There is also the accountability of just one party ruling and so being held to account for their policies come the next election, with little 'wriggle-room', in contrast to a coalition, where, as now, one party can blame the other for broken promises. But is it a good thing that a relatively small change in voting preferences should result in a total change in government? And is it such a good thing that, say, someone of the talents of David Owen, if he decides he cannot join either of the two parties most likely to form a government, should spend the rest of his life in the political wilderness?

I know what many will now say: yes, very good Richard – well done, mate, for putting the Rudin brain cell to use and coming up with your wonderful system – but we're not being given the chance to vote on that or any of the systems other than AV. So, it's either stick with what we've got, in which case we'll probably never get another chance in our lifetimes and we'll have one-party governments, doing outrageous things against the wishes of most of the electorate, etc., or go for AV: something that is, yes, imperfect, not what we wanted, etc., but is a small step and maybe opens the door to better things. Bugger! I thought I'd made my mind up…now I am not so sure….

It’s only fantasy and illusion that keeps us sane – and connected

'Since no two people ever have exactly the same neuroanatomy or experience, no two people ever interpret anything in exactly the same way.' (Dorothy Rowe, Rowe, emeritus associate of the Royal College of Psychiatrists).

Yesterday, the most preposterous, ridiculous, anachronistic, reactionary and absurd spectacle absorbed (according to some estimates – almost certainly itself a fantasy figure) around 30% of the world's population. In a curiously touching ceremony it created a rare moment of national unity (give or take a few hundred thousand determined 'refuseniks') and unquestionably enhanced Britain's image and reputation. Two young(ish) people got married, pledging themselves to care for each other til death they do part. That's generally regarded as a GOOD THING. The bride wore a much-discussed dress of white – supposed to signify virginity. Yet, as almost all watching knew, she was far from that and most would also have remarked "thank goodness!" The groom's mother, who almost certainly WAS a virgin (and partly selected for the job because of that) and had met HER husband, the heir apparent to the throne of England, just 13 times before the marriage. Now THAT really was a ghastly charade. I watched it in the reception area of BFBS Koln (Cologne).It was just a few weeks after my dad died. He had been greatly looking forward (in a very English, cynical fashion) to the event, and loved what he called the Vulcan grip of Charles around his fiancée Diana in their official engagement photograph. "Don't do it, Di!" cried out the feminists. It was, we were endlessly told, a 'fairy-tale romance'. It was nothing of the kind off course. It was a cynical exploitation by the self-styled 'Firm' of a naive and emotionally vulnerable woman, who was of the 'right stock' and had no (sexual) history. Her sole job was to produce the next line of the Monarchy, which she duly did 11 months later – and it was a boy! No problems then with primogeniture for at least another generation. Meanwhile, of course, hubby continued the in the finest tradition of the aristocracy by having a mistress. You married to continue the line in a way approved of by that other pillar of the state - the Church – but your sexual life continued with the one you really fancied.

I could see, in '81 that this was all wrong. But yesterday I could see that we were watching two young people (one 'old money', the other more arriviste) who met together at an ancient university, lived together (at first platonically, with others) then more erm, romantically, split up, got back together, etc. In other words, if William had not been a future King they would in all likelihood still be getting married. Add to that the undoubtedly impressive ceremony, the combination of the military, the sacred, the historical and the celeb' worlds (Victoria Beckham and 'queen' Elton looking grumpy, David B…and London, looking gorgeous…) it was all (bar the marriage bit itself) completely ridiculous and yet so right. Of course, I had announced I would not watch it. Well, alright, I might LISTEN to it. But only so that I could say so to my grandkids (if so blessed). But in the meantime…well,, we got up late, it was time for it….may as well…better than doing the nagging piles of marking….hope nothing bad happens, but if it did I'd be watching, so could justify on journalistic tutoring grounds…oh, alright, I saw the whole bloody thing and hugely enjoyed it and, eyes, my heart swelled with pride when I saw how well it was all choreographed, how well Britain showed itself to the world, and I could think 'well, yes, I am of that nation, I am a part of something bigger, I felt connected – the opposite of the feeling, as described in previous Blog(s) after Diana was killed , when I felt totally alienated and baffled at the public response) and I thought of all the people I'd talked to in the US just a couple of weeks before who would be watching.

"Oh, I love your accent!...Will you be going back in time for the wedding?" I am checking into the hotel in Las Vegas. "Er well, thanks and yes, I hope so!" I reply. This is already turning out to be a good trip. On the plane I was sat next to a family of three who were primarily visiting 'Vegas for a boxing match. I settled down to watch The King's Speech and loved it. I reckon it deserved all the Oscars and more. I won't plot-spoil it for you but the bit where George V1 finally (sort of) overcomes his stammer for a key speech on 'the wireless' is very moving. This is shortly after h has become, against all expectation, King and breaks down and weeps at the thought. He feels completely inadequate. He's one step (maybe not even a whole step) from a breakdown. And he has a stammer, no doubt caused through being intimidated by his father, a brutal school, deprived of maternal love, and so on. You know, just the regular aristo screw-up. Who would want that? Who would wish not to have control over your life? Really, the bourgeoisie have the best of it: if you're at either end of the social scale you have no choice; if you're in the middle you can mix easily up and down and you can even become an aristo by marrying a prince! A week or so before I'd been in the pub managed by one of my school contemporaries. I got talking to a guy whom I'd never met before but, who , touchingly, my other school-mates seem to have told something about me, as he knew what I did.

"What percentage of people do you reckon enjoy their work?"

(ME) "Erm, I dunno…"

"Probably no more than ten per cent! I f*****g hate my job!" He declared. He didn't say it in a bitter or even an aggressive way, even if it was with some vehemence.

He's probably right. Which is very sad. And most are unable – or unwilling to risk – expressing themselves in their work. Being able to be who they are. But who are we? When you meet someone like that you are forced to see yourself in a new light, or at least form a different angle. Which takes an effort, psychologically. Suddenly I feel tired. You see, what I love about these get-togethers is I don't feel I have to - or can – 'put on an act'. When you've grown up with people and they remember you through all those *interesting* years of adolescence; the good and the bad, the humiliations and the embarrassments (not to mention open showers three times a week for at least five years!), as well as the good moments, when you backed each other up and looked out for each other – then you can't really have any pretensions. So, I feel calm and at ease when I am with them. Yet, of course, it is an illusion to think that THEY think the same way, We might have had many of the same experiences but our psychological responses and interpretations might have been – almost certainly were – very different. At a time when there were so many fewer outlets for TV, radio and music, we experienced the same (bloody fantastic!) music, but the emotional responses, and the way it related to our lives, is bound to be different.

Yet we are always trying to make the connections – to seek out the bonds that can unite us. To experience something en masse. It's a hugely powerful human desire to feel that we are not alone. Nowadays we have social networks like Facebook which I love and for the same reasons – better still, it connects people from very different stages in your life and quite often (certainly in my case) very different political and other views in the same 'thread'. It's addictive. And even though we know we are fooling ourselves that we are feeling the same way it is CRUCIAL that we try and make those connections.

But back to 'Vegas. A place that now styles itself as 'the entertainment capital of the world'. Note that 'entertainment' – self-evidently built on fantasy and willing suspense of disbelief…and gambling. Which is here the money is made. 'Vegas is a place I should hate, because to goes against what I flatter myself are my key, fundamental moral beliefs. It is a place where everything and everyone is judged by their material wealth and money will bar you anything, including other human beings for your sexual gratification, by the hour or night – a concept I find abhorrent. The recession has hit Nevada hardest of all the States. Unemployment and repossessions are soaring, for the first time this year I saw beggars and official collections for the homeless. And yet…and yet (as leader writers used today) it is the fact that it is all so, erm, upfront, that I like. The sex workers are openly out and about, and cards with names, numbers and offers ($34 for 'a special') are flicked at you on the side-walk, the discarded ones often becoming an impromptu skating rink for children. And yet, in sharp contrast to UK towns and cities, are three things I have never seen on 'The Strip', even on a Friday or Saturday night:

1. Anyone vomiting, urinating or having sex, oral or otherwise, in the street or alleyway.
2. Anyone fighting in a bar or in the street, or even a feeling that something might 'kick off'
3. Anyone screaming, or being tearful and bawling obscenities

So, let's not feel too smug, eh?

What I DO see and hear is lots of young, middle aged and older people enjoying themselves, drinking (except for those under 21, who are seen to enjoy fruit juices and are also subject a curfew unless accompanied by an over 21). The atmosphere is certainly lively, even raucous; strippers are plying their trade in the bars, but it is not violent or threatening.

In addition, going from the UK to the USA means you are going from the most cynical to the least cynical countries on earth. Why does America love the Royal business? Because they are an optimistic, they are ready to suspend disbelief, they are ready to take you at face value, they look to the positives and they really, genuinely, love it when people are successful and happy.

It's one of the reasons why I love going to the BEA and mixing with US colleagues, some of whom I've got to know well over the last seven years – astonishing how today you can know more about the lives, children, etc. Of people who live thousands of miles away than you do about your own near neighbours. Another point of connection, which I treasure. They are so generous in their comments and support and always seem delighted to see you. It's a good feeling. And in turn I love the work that they do. They have grown up in a very different culture from mine (though obviously far more similar than, say, a tribesman from Somalia) but we share so many interests it is almost intoxicating.

But there are parts of US society and political culture I can't fathom and I am not just talking about the obvious things like gun laws and attitudes to abortion; the latter inextricably linked to political views, allied to religion, almost unthinkable in the UK in the mainstream discourse ("we don't do God" except at Royal weddings).

While I am there, the local news/talk station has an interview with a local 'Tea Party' representative. I imagined, naively, that it would be a standard sort of interview – you know putting opposing views forward, testing beliefs. Not a bit of it! The host is clearly and totally on board. It is sheer propaganda. Later in the week the station broadcasts from a Tea Party rally. They are furious with the Republicans (never mind the Democrats) for the approach on the Federal budget. They want more cuts to health and public services, lower taxes for the rich. And this is parental being supported by regular blue-collar workers. You feel like shaking them and saying: "Can't you see they are screwing you over again and again – they're using an ideology to brainwash you into believing that what is good for them is in your interests. WAKE UP!" A perfect cause of false consciousness. But a different experience; different reality, you see.

I really love talking to the students, too. Some of them, especially the radio students, remind me of myself at their age (another connection!). The guys are nearly all a bit geeky, poorly dressed; slightly of the wall. If they are up for an award (and in the USA, all must have prizes!) they put on an ill-fitting suit, often accompanied by Mom. I was really glad that I went to one session. It was a bum slot at the end of the afternoon. And it turned out I was THE audience. They were really great kids- most of them Hispanic in original and I would guess the first generation to go to college. They had their presentation – in which they all participated – perfectly rehearsed and polished. Their tutors were so proud of them and they seemed to earnest and hopeful my heart went out to them.

So, even though I have agreed to represent the International District (as distinct from the Division, of which I am Chair at this point in the proceedings) for a FIVE HOUR meeting on the Saturday after I arrive, on behalf of a New Zealand colleague, who is only just able to get back to his earthquake-damaged building in Christchurch, it is a very enjoyable event, because everyone is so positive and collegiate. The cult of the individual and individual success and personal liberty runs very deep in America. It also means that they often to spot the absurd. At the opening reception for the Broadcast Education Convention (BEA), sponsored by Sony (fabulous hot buffet, of prime beef, etc. and an open bar) we sit through a presentation about Sony cameras and lenses. A quick sales pitch is fine. We know there's no such thing as a free lunch – or hot buffet. Soon, pPeople are drifting away back to the bar. But this guy goes on and ON. Me and my companions stat giggling and dare each other to ask questions about the latest Sony EC4WF lenses (or whatever). "I know I am losing you!" says our salesman. Yes, you are, so shit up! But he doesn't. But the best bit is he looks like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the CarIBbean (must get the correct empHAsis).

A few days later I am having dinner with - well, I'd better not mention who in case it causes embarrassment – but anyway they start by talking seriously about the reception and how interesting the presentation was. "Oh, you mean Johnny Depp?" I say. They look at me in puzzlement for a moment and then start falling about, literally one almost fell off his seat. "I mean, DIDN'T he go on!" I exclaim. I then go into a full riff, imagining the increasingly desperate attempts by the hotel staff and the audience to shut him up. My companions are an excellent audience. At this point you can see that their whole memory and interpretation of the event had changed.

This time, most of my formal work is 'front loaded' , so I am nicely winding down and relaxing by mid week. Once the event is formally over it is time for a little exploration ( I must point out that no public – or indeed anyone else's private) money was used for this trip, so I don't feel guilty about a little R and R. Post-convention my great friends from Lincoln have booked into another hotel in a resort, about half an hour from the bright lights of 'Vegas but you could be a thousand miles away. From there they very kindly come back to Vegas to pick me up and deposit me at a couple of great trips into the Nevada desert and to Lake Mead in their hired converted Ford Mustang. It is beautiful, serene, and surprisingly varied in colours and texture. I am almost giddy with excitement and happiness.

In between, more fantasy. More different experiences. Like many middle class types, who have live largely safe lives never been directly involved with criminals, I have a fascination with gangsterism (all hose great '30s movies) and especially with the Mafia, so I visit the new Mob Experience museum, where I am promised an interactive experience. Sure enough, I am given a pseudonym – Bumpy – for the experience, although it is clear they radio through my details. At the first stage a Hologram of a supposed Mafia boss, who outlines the task for me and that, if I do well, I might be taken on by The Mob. If I screw up, and especially if I squeal to the cops….I am then directed to a new 'set' where I am given my instructions and an envelope of cash…to another room, which is deserted, but then an old-fashioned, '30s-style 'phone rings. I pick up the speaky-part and receive my instructions to take the envelope to a café, where I am to hand it over to 'Big Louie'. I must tell no one else…etc. So through a corridor to the cafe and there indeed is my contact (in the flesh this time – no Hologram). "Are you Big Louise?" "Well, I don't see anyone else here?" More instructions and invocations not, at all accounts, to talk to the cops. We then move on to a another 'set' (I am really loving this by now) and it's the cop station. An unsmiling, Irish-accented cop, swinging his nightstick and looking me up and down in rather menacing fashion asks me about how I 've been meeting. "Bumpy- or to use your real name, Richard…you're new in town, aren't you?" After I refuse to reveal any info, he suggests that -whilst beating his club into the palm of his hand - "I might like to go round the back to 'discuss' it?

And so it goes on. Some great exhibitions follow of real gangster artefacts, reconstructions of rooms, lots of interactive timelines and stories. At the end…well, I am judged not to have followed the rules and I am 'taken out' in a blaze of machine gun fire (complete with sound effects, lights and the air pinging around me). The it's on to the souvenir shop (naturally) to choose the pix taken at the at of me against a green screen, supposedly in jail. Of course, the real 'story of the Mob is sordid, sadistic, frightening, bad. We know all that but we can simultaneously enjoy the fantasy. It's how we humans exist, always hopping in and out of what we know – or think – to be true and our make-believe worlds.

"Ooh, you look really good – we could use you on the team!" says a (female) member of staff. I bet they say that to all the boys.

After I return – ahead of them – they go onto California – I receive a text. I hope they won't mind me quoting it:

"We had a Rudin moment – a fab dinner where, after ordering pie, the kind Southern waitress offered to 'toss it off' in the microwave for us…we both wondered how you would have coped…"

I am sure the waitress would have had no idea why they would have found this funny or texted back to the UK about it. The same experience, but different. It's not just a question of being divided by a common language, it's a different sensibility. But I bet that waitress enjoyed the Royal wedding.

(A couple of podcasts from the BEA are on my podcast site.

How TV and radio are SO different!

Well, 2011 is certainly shaping up to be a year to remember, personally and on a global scale (for sure) – and we're only in mid-March! So much has been going on I've been neglecting my blogs and podcasts. As I've been inundated by comment about this (!) I'll update on a few interesting encounters, most of which will one day and, inevitably, a few autobiographical notes that seem pertinent.

I recently spent a day at the BBC's northern HQ in Manchester. In some 18 months the big move to Media City begins in earnest, so the current Oxford Road centre is beginning to have a rundown and neglected feel to it. I was told that non-essential things that stop working are not going to be fixed because it is not economic to do so. Still, there's plenty going on there and plenty of interest, both professionally and let's say on an 'anorak front.

As always, I'm a little early for my appointment as such with the Radio 4 producer who is a regular fixture for sessions with me at the university and who will be 'hosting' me for the day, and I amuse myself by looking at the collection of broadcasting equipment that they have in the reception – great old classic BBC microphones and mixing desks! I'm greeted in typically effusive style by the producer, who takes me up to the second floor to the office used by Radio 4 and also Radio 2 and 6 Music's Manchester output. We are just walk along the corridor when the grand fromage of BBC factual programmes in the North greets me and immediately comments very positively on a recent student of mine who had been on a wok placement– that sounds very proprietorial but she's one of the small group who have chosen to specialise in radio journalism in the third year and already I have had very positive feedback on her – as well as other recent 'interns', including one who is now doing paid shifts there, and I was so chuffed that by the time we got into the office itself was already feeling 10 feet tall! We lecturers take such precarious pleasures in the success of our students. Another, quite tough reporter who works there and who is from Merseyside, made very positive comment about another of our students who contacted her as she happens to be the mother of a child who was a very young flyer. She said our student had just the right approach – persistent without harassment!

This day was a call-in programme for the consumer magazine You and Yours and just after 11am, an hour before transmission, phone lines are open and producers, reporters and their assistants are answering the calls and trying to work out who they call back to go on air. To respect the confidentiality of the BBC processes and not to abuse the access they gave me, I can't go into too much detail about how the calls are filtered and assessed but it was quite interesting! I'm introduced to the programme's presenter, Julian Worricker, who was polite, pleasant and as easy to get on with as the producer had previously told me. Naturally, having spent the bulk of my pre-academic career in radio I am biased but I do think that radio people rarely 'starry; or, to use a psychological term, "up themselves" Julian certainly is none of those things. I follow him down to the studio about ten minutes or so before transmission. I've met several of the sound engineers/Studio Managers on previous occasions and this being Radio 4 everything is prepared and checked . Aside from the calls from the listeners, there are two MPs from different parties on the line from the Millbank Studios at Westminster to discuss the topic of the day – transport, as well as another line set up for what is known as a 'two-way' – effectively a prepared and, indeed, post- Gilligan affair, tightly scripted, conversation/interview between the programme presenter and a correspondent. But of course, although the callers talked to at some length before being put on air, you never quite know what they will say: this is the excitement and unpredictability of such programme!

Again, I have to be careful about this here, but I was impressed by the way the Julian firmly, deftly and politely dealt with callers who were perhaps being a little repetitive and boring and brought the best in all of them - not least a bus driver who was just about to set out on his shift and was extremely well-informed about transport policy and, as it happens, works in the town my parents were born and brought up in. There is a slight panic towards the end of the programme as Julian realises he hasn't got the closing script, but he beautifully 'busks' it and finishes at exactly the right time to hand back to radio for continuity in London stop you? Everybody seems happy with the programme, so it's off to lunch with another one of the producers and, inevitably, finds that we know a number of the same journalists, so there is a fair bit of gossip and reminiscences, not least on the days of tape and the arcane arts of editing in the analogue age!

After this my producer friend hoped that I would be to sit in on a production meeting of Woman's Hour but in fact this is cancelled due to the schedule being slightly topsy-turvy the following week because of Comic Relief, but she is able to confirm that I can sit in the newsroom of the regional television news show North West Tonight before I go to the other network radio shows I've kindly been given permission to observe.

Although, as I say, radio is my preferred medium I have to admit that there is a great buzz in a TV newsroom when there's just a couple of hours to go before transmission. The producer is the dedicated, tough but kindly type I like, He sits me down opposite him so I can get a feel of what is going on in the programme and, after watching his movements and body language for a few minutes, I work out good moment to reintroduce myself to programme's star presenter, Gordon Burns. Now, Gordon and I go back a long way to the time when he was with Granada and presenting the ITV networked programme The Krypton Factor, when it came to Berlin during the period I was in forces' broadcasting there. He had a few slightly salty stories to tell of his experiences with Her Majesty's finest!

We also talk about the state of journalism, particularly at ITV and especially Granada, which most observers and academics reckon was the best of all the ITV companies and the only one of the original regional franchises to survive to this day. I went for two jobs there in the '80s – one was for an on-screen reporter at their Liverpool base at the Albert Dock in Liverpool. I think I lost out because they wanted somebody who was obviously a Scouser and more street-smart, which was fair enough. The other job I went for was the only one I've ever applied for in that kind of field, and that was as their head of publicity or some such title. I was just so in love with the company, its history and ethos that I reckoned I could enthuse about it to journalists and others! I got through to the second and final round of interviews for that, with some very big names on the board. Considering I had absolutely no experience of any kind of PR and my television experience was limited, I was pretty chuffed to have got that far, but as it turned out I would have been appointed during the final glory days of the company at the end of the '80s and no doubt would have become very disillusioned as it, with the rest of the ITV companies, moved into the new 'light touch' regulation days, and licenses were offered on the basis of a sealed bid in a 'blind' auction, rather than their programme promises.

Talking of which: Granada's own news programme gets away half an hour before the BBC's, so naturally much attention is paid to their lead story, which is one of those human interest sick–child–needs–funds– to–go–on–dream–holiday–to–America stories of the sort I loathe; a view evidently held by most of the news team at the BBC, as they deride it (they also had it a couple of days before, but not as a lead!).

The producer suggests I have a chat with the guy who runs their social network stuff and this proved to be a really fascinating conversation and there's definitely something there for me to follow up and no doubt write a paper on, at least, in the near future! The key question is: how can the BBC or other such well-established news organisations with a reputation to uphold and defend, blend with the 'Wild West' unmoderated, social media comments and feedback?

But it is soon time to go across and up to the gallery for the programme itself. It's over 30 years since I first saw a BBC news programme go out and that was the networked early evening news from London: my god, that was an adrenaline-boosting experience - and I was only observing! It was in the last period before Electronic News Gathering (ENG) - which we were already using by then in forces' television in Germany - was adopted by the BBC, and so most of the reports were on 16mm film, which needed to be laced up for a 10 second countdown on the telecine machines. The 'autocue' process – although much more sophisticated than the original setup, which consisted of a woman (always a woman) manually typing the script on special paper to run below the camera lens on a roll, which the presenter would operate with his foot – was also a lot less sophisticated than today. Alarmingly, during my visit, several key reports were not ready by the time the programme went on air and the newsreader had 'open talkback' in his earpiece, which meant he heard all the panics and all the "number six still not ready" type info', as well as all the countdowns into the film, stills, etc.

It wasn't my first experience of seeing live television in the UK – that honour belongs to me going along with my mum to the foyer of the BBC studios in Birmingham, which any member of the public could do and be in the audience for the lunchtime anodyne but very popular magazine programme Pebble Mill At One. I was fascinated by many aspects – not least the very glamorous, blonde floor manager, who gave the presenters all the hand signals, showing how much time they had got left, to keep talking, etc., and the cameras deftly weaving in and out. Nowadays, everybody knows how radio and TV programmes are made and there are endless programmes about out-takes and 'live' blunders, not to mention WebCams and all the rest of it, but in the early 1970s, for most people, broadcasting was a mystery. But even before I went into the first TV gallery in the UK I was familiar with all the jargon and techniques, because one of those who worked at the hospital radio station in Portsmouth which I broadcast on at the week-ends during my year's training to be a newspaper journalist, worked as a sound engineer at Television Centre and used to bring the back scripts from the previous week's news bulletins.

Anyhow, whilst directing and presenting a live news show is certainly less stressful than it was, there is still undoubtedly that thrill when the director gives the countdown to the start of the programme, and the 'on air' monitor shows what is going on in the studio floor and you know that every decision now will be seen a split-second later on the screens of hundreds of thousands of homes. The trickiest part of any such programme though is the headlines' sequence at the start, and these are rehearsed about ten minutes before transmission. At this point I'm in animated conversation with another guest that day; a journalist from Zimbabwe who fled to the UK after being persecuted and tortured and is up for an award for his journalism next month. He's going into gruesome details about his torture – like the other Zimbabwean when interviewed for a podcast last year - this included electrodes attached to the genitals, which is apparently a 'common' response to anyone seen as a challenge to the regime. The authorities use this of a course to intimidate the opposition but also to ensure they don't have any children. Fortunately, in this case he Is assured that he is OK for that, despite, as he tells me, his testicles having swollen up like balloons by the time he arrived in Britain. So anyway, we are quite properly "shushed" by one of the team in the gallery as they rehearse the opening headlines, and in this case they go without a hitch – they also have two live headline inserts into the network news just after 6 PM and at the midway junction of that programme (which is simply referred to in BBC circles as 'the six').

Furthermore, there is an extra frisson in this show because, highly unusually, the coroner at an inquest has decided to run through into the evening to receive the verdict from the jury, rather than return the next morning, and there is a live report from outside the inquest near the top of the programme. The verdict is indeed reached about ten minutes into the programme, so we go back live with a second report, which includes an interview with a solicitor. I am very curious to see what they will then drop because, of course, the programme again must finish exactly to the second and hand back to the BBC1 network in London, which definitely won't wait for them!

There is also another live segment from reporter in Blackpool, who looks absolutely frozen and is running on the spot and hugging herself when not on air! Back on the studio floor, Gordon's co-presenter is having trouble with her ear-piece lead, which is in shot and she is desperately trying to cover it up. At one point she looks a bit panicky and you realise that, no matter how many times you do it, live tele' still has its stresses!

Afterwards, I go back up to the newsroom for the post-mortem and everyone seems very pleased with the programme, and I then head to the other side of the building for the network radio studios. I get there about 20 minutes into the Mark Riley programme and there is a live guest, Laura J Martin, who does two sets and is excellent – as I tell her afterwards and she blushes with pleasure (not something I manage to achieve with young ladies much these days – ho ho!) and also exceedingly young! Just before the second set, Mark Radcliffe – who formed the famous partnership with Marc Riley on Radio One, and subsequently – wanders in and spots an acoustic guitar at the back of the control room, nonchalantly picks it up and starts playing it! After all the tension and rush of the live television show I think myself "this is why love radio!"

During the eight o'clock news I literally pop next door to the adjoining studio for Radio 2's Radcliffe and Maconie show, which I asked to see because I love the programme and the two presenters – it's really nothing to do with my work, to be honest! It is their last couple of weeks on that network before moving to a five times a week afternoon show on 6 Music. This move has produced much debate and some quite harsh criticism from listeners. It is an independent production and the executive producer is perched on the back of the control room and invites me to sit next to him, behind the producer, Broadcast Assistant and Studio manager (sound engineer). It is something of a classic show, there is nothing in the way of live guests all music – unlike the previous evening when they had Elbow performing in what they call the 'Philharmonic' or 'large music studio'. So, aside from a pre-recorded short phone interview by Stuart, it is just a pair of them, the music and, crucially the response by the listeners via e-mail and text. The exec' producer shows me the script/running order. "Not very detailed is it?" he says, laughing. Next to North-West Tonight's scripts, no, that's for sure!

I've often wondered just how set up some of the apparent spontaneous banter and 'riffs' are but I can assure you, dear reader, this being radio, things are what they appear to be. The main thing that develops quite spontaneously is of listeners who have served rather unexpected items to star names. At one point during a call, Stuart is nearly on the floor he is laughing so much and there is great chemistry between them on air, although surprisingly little communication when the mic's aren't live. The competition 'The Chain' is also unpredictable, requiring listeners to suggest songs that link one from another (hence the title!). Several of these tracks are not available in Manchester and are downloaded from the BBC's main library in London and then burnt onto a CD, which is then played from the control room. I didn't know they did that! There are several technical glitches with the jingles and 'drop-ins', as one of the computers in the studio seems to be playing up. Mark Radcliffe is 'driving' the desk and their the output goes via the sound engineer in the control room using what must be the oldest BBC network mixing desk in the country! Without getting too anoraky or nerdy about it, unlike next-door with 6 Music, even this isn't the actual transmission desk; the programme is in effect an outside source for Radio 2 in London, which is responsible for sending this and the network news bulletin from London to the transmitters.

On the production side, the Executive Producer is very pleased at the announcement made a day or two before that many more Radio 2 programmes will be produced by independent companies such as his! I commented about how much I had enjoyed the first part of the George Formby Story which had been on the previous evening, presented by Stuart Maconie. Well, I said the right thing there, as he had not only produced it but done all the interviews!

I manage to make a tiny contribution to the programme – they were talking about what would happen if the programme went 'down' and the emergency tapes that would be played in. Stuart Maconie claims to have been ushered into a secret location in London at one point when he started working with the Corporation to hear the tapes! Then they started talking about the announcements that would have been made before a nuclear attack and couldn't remember the name of the actor who made them, used to sinister effect by Frankie Goes To Hollywood on their Two Tribes hit – "mine could be the last voice you'll ever here". I piped up with the name – Patrick Allen and this was relayed to them over the talk-back.

Everyone seemed justifiably pleased about the show and I was very enthusiastic to both the 'stars' – 'though I tried not to gush too much!

Anyhow, a great day and hopefully many more of them – well I do have to keep 'up to speed' with what's going on, don't I??

Conference call and more

So, I've finally got round to updating my blog to take in my final week in New Zealand, including the radio conference at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT).

If you read my last post you will realise that I arrived back in the city on a 'high'. Although I am very sorry to leave my friends, old new and renewed, further south. Although I might have appeared to be in a highly emotional state, curiously in fact I am both excited about my experiences and have great anticipation of the coming week, but am also very calm. A good feeling.

It is also quite nice, I must admit, after a hugely enjoyable and stimulating time but with a large group of people – larger than I'm used to on holiday – to be in a room on my own. Although I love my mates and enjoyed meeting the wider family and talking to them, I'm also quite happy with my own company, at least for short periods, especially when I'm in a new place. I like to get out and explore new places on my own. Also, my brain needs time to 'process' these new experiences and all the people I've talked to and the conversations. Bursts of high stimulation and new experiences need to be followed in my case by periods of quiet reflection or I quite literally become physically disorientated. I find I am like this by the end of the conference week in Las Vegas. Vegas is of course a highly over-stimulating environment, and so full of glare, noise and activity that I can become quite exhausted and even confused by the end of it.

My accommodation is in an apartment hotel, very central to the city - in fact virtually opposite the town hall. I am, indeed, living within the sound of its bells, but fortunately, as I discovered, the hourly chimes cease overnight and don't resume until seven on weekday mornings and eight weekends! My room does overlook a side-street which contains several of the coolest and most popular bars and clubs, so around 2-3 a.m. it tended to get a bit lively out there. However, it is the height of summer, school's out and young people must have their fun and I'm such a good mood and feeling indulgent, so I don't even resent the shouting, screeching, cursing and, erm, banging. It seems to cease as quickly as it begins. I've always though an apartment hotel has the best of all worlds. There is a microwave and a toaster, so after a quick trip out to the local Chinese supermarket (this isn't being racist, this is how it is described to me at the hotel desk!) I'm equipped to provide myself with a quick snack whenever I want one, although I do use room service for breakfasts on 'conference days'. I should also point out that no public funds were spent in this trip – as will be gathered from the press, universities don't have any money at the moment and so I'm funding myself This also gives me a feeling of freedom: because I'm paying for it myself I don't feel obliged to attend the whole conference if I don't want to. But if I do want to, I am there for all the right reasons and I don't even have, as I when I go to to Las Vegas, any obligations or official function.

As it happens, the conference papers and delegates are so great that I'm there for practically every session – indeed, my only regret is that some of the sessions run concurrently, so inevitably I miss some of the presentations.

The conference kicks off just after nine o'clock the following morning and is confined to a couple of seminar rooms on one floor of one of several buildings belonging to the University. From the word 'go' it is just great. It is I think the smallest of these international conferences, with around 60 attendees and from a good range of countries, although naturally dominated by those from Australasia. The largest UK delegation is from Birmingham City University and considering I have just spent the last week or so with my mates from school-days from that area, it does seem like a small world. But then, as I mentioned in my last blog, New Zealand is like that: so far away and in many ways so different but in other ways similar.

I like the people very much. They have, as the saying goes, 'something about them'; good-humoured, quite tough and yet without the abrasiveness or chippiness that perhaps is unfairly attributed to Australians. But even one of the delegates from Australia who has and English father and Australian mother says he did get some 'Pommie bashing' in Oz. I certainly didn't encounter this in New Zealand. They have a sort of quiet dignity which I think we used to have in Britain but has largely disappeared. I like the young people a lot. I like the way they relate to each other they don't have that horrible arrogant attitude of entitlement that many young Brits do, especially the females. But otherwise they have a British sensibility. This is not surprising, as the stat's show that some 90% of the population are of British or Irish descent and it seems nearly every young Kiwi goes on a European trip and often frequent UK throughout their lives. So when meeting them in shops, restaurants, etc., it is common for people to say: "oh yes, Liverpool/Manchester - I was there just a year or two ago!" The sports' news on the radio nearly always incorporates some items of UK sport, especially football, and they don't precede it by saying: "and in the UK, Blackburn Rovers…" Or whatever. They just assume that you know that Blackburn Rovers are in the UK, in what they call the EPL – English Premier League.

Plus, the background of those who came to New Zealand was as free people, often as whole families. Many, indeed most, were certainly seeking a better life but, unlike Australia, they were not compelled to go there. There has to be a big difference in the kind of folk memory and in attitudes between those who emigrate because they want to, rather than because they need to, let alone because they had to - arriving in chains and having their liberty taken from them. This is not to denigrate Australians - that really would be adding insult to injury – as of course many were deported following very minor offences, sometimes trumped up because they'd upset a member of the establishment, or because they tried to start trade unions, or in desperation stole some food to feed their family. Nevertheless, it is good that in New Zealand people's backgrounds are similar and I think this makes them a much more relaxed society than, for example in the US, with a section of the population with an understandable and abiding sense of injustice and grievance. Another important factor, and also unlike the USA and Australia, is that there are no indigenous people. Even the Maoris have been there only 1000 or so years and again they are people who voluntarily, seeked out new and fertile land. Auckland has the largest Polynesian population in the world. Okay, I guess we are all immigrants to a greater or lesser extent, barring those first homo sapiens in Kenya but I think, say, that if your ethnic group has been there for some 10,000 years you have a right to call yourself native or 'first peoples' in that country.

So what were the highlights of the conference? It is very difficult and invidious of course to pick out certain individuals or sessions and I hope I won't cause offence by omission. I certainly especially enjoyed the history sessions and found out a lot about New Zealand radio. I really enjoyed one that dealt with the way radio personalities engage with audiences and another on an extraordinary visit to New Zealand by David Bowie during his 'Serious Moonlight' tour in 1983 (which, as it happens, I saw in Berlin), in which he returned the 'compliment' of the Maoris in their welcoming song. This incident was turned into not one but two documentaries by Sam Coley of Birmingham City University. But I suppose the one that makes the most lasting impression was by Siobhan McHugh of the University of Wollongong. This presentation was all about the power of oral history, and radio telling the stories of 'ordinary people'. This presentation stopped in their tracks and there wasn't a dry eye in the room. Siobhan kindly copied her audio to my memory stick and I've included this in an interview with her on a podcast. She is passionate and fiery. I like feisty, independent women. Some though – no doubt often for good reasons – seem to dislike and resent men, but Siobhan is just the right side of being a ball-breaker!

One of the keynote speakers was Tony Stoller, former Chief Executive of the Radio Authority (pictured left with me and fellow panellist Matthew Linfoot of the University of Westminster, UK) and a leading light in many other commercial, financial and philanthropic organisations. Despite my relaxed approach to this conference I was in fact quite nervous about being on the same panel as him for one session and the fact that, in another paper, I would be covering the same ground as he had in his excellent talk. However, he was most generous in his comments as were other people. Of course, people are polite on the whole but this conference was more than usually supportive and friendly. It's a great feeling when people are so clearly really interested in what you are saying and appreciative of your research. I also, for the first time, got applause during one of my papers, after I read out a particularly pompous passage from a newspaper editorial back in the '50s in my best plummy upper-middle-class voice. That speech and drama training I did in my childhood/youth pays off again! But, genuinely, I was touched, indeed a bit overwhelmed by the response to both presentations (one of which as it happened was the last of the whole conference) and it really means an awful lot for someone who still feels they are a relative 'newbie' to the life of an international scholar!

On the social side, highlights included a trip to a comedy club – the idea one of my UK colleagues – just over the road from the hotel. It featured nine new acts and one pro' as the finale. The warm-up/compere guy was very good and he established where the audience members were from, and of course these included quite a few from the UK, including several 'Scousers'! There were several gags at the expense of the English, including ones on our violent inner cities, with one comedian amazed that the server at a pie shop in Leeds had to be behind a security grill! However, just to show their familiarity with Britain isn't always as it might be, one of the acts did a routine about the people in different parts of the country and seemed to think that Yorkshire and Somerset were not only geographically adjacent but had the same accent. The age range of the acts and the subject matter for their material varied quite a lot. The youngest was the guy who said he'd arrived in the country from England about for five years before but was still only 18. He gained the sympathy of the audience – especially the males, I think – when he described how desperate he was to lose his virginity. The oldest act came towards the end and again the audience sympathised with him when he forgot the words of the song intended as his pièce de résistance. The funniest and filthiest though was from a guy who did a great mime in a routine about that the old 'cunard-llngus', but I guess you had to be there to appreciate that!

The official conference dinner was at the Sky Tower – an approximately 1000 ft high building in the centre of the city. The view from the restaurant, where we had a buffet, was excellent and there was another observation deck, from which many photos were taken! After that, we decided to head for a bar, just as the heavens opened and we got soaked – we ran like hell for the establishment that are local host said would be okay. On such a filthy night it was pretty well otherwise deserted and I had the most revolting beer there which I thought was a bitter but in fact was a sickly-sweet concoction which, I was told later, is usually only ordered by females – a sort of beery alcopop. Yuck! That was the only low point. Other restaurants, bars – especially one whichbecame a kind of post-conference day meeting place – were excellent..

On the Saturday some of us went to Waiheki Island, the nearest one in the Hauraki Gulf, about a 45 minute ferry ride from Auckland. This was an absolutely gorgeous, wonderful day: just the right temperature. The countryside is lush (some of it is vineyards), the sea warm and it has fabulous, sandy beaches. I started by taking a guided bus tour, which included the guide pointing out some of the fabulous holiday homes of the rich and famous. Bill Clinton had recently been there, as had Bill Gates, for his Microsoft conference. Lenny Henry and Dawn French have a place and spend Christmas there every year - and you can see why. The bus tour ticket then allows you to use any bus to go round and stop off at any point, and then back to the ferry. In the event, some people didn't have a pre-paid tickets for the bus I caught on the way back and although the driver said he shouldn't take them, he good-naturedly relented and everyone piled on. A lovely and highly typical incident in my experiences on this trip.

On the Sunday we went to the big museum centre, which is in beautifully landscaped grounds on a Hill and incorporates three main areas: a floor dealing with the country's history, especially the Maori story and culture; one that dealt with the geology and natural history plays, including a mocked-up house where a TV bulletin is playing, supposedly just before a massive volcanic eruption. Of course, a few minutes later the earthquake strikes and the whole living room shakes violently (rather like the museum in Rotorua, mentioned in my previous Blog), with suitable visual and audio accompaniment! The presentation ends with the audience being encouraged to make sure they are prepared for what they regard as case of: not if but when 'The Big One' happens, and there are leaflets to pick up on the way out. Oh yes, they take this earthquake/volcano eruption business very seriously.

The top floor hosts the war museum. And this is where you really do get a feeling of the strongest possible links between New Zealand and the UK, because of course they sent their sons to the other side of the world to fight on our side – the second time were purely volunteers – and all the memorabilia, diaries and experiences are just the same as if you had gone into a war museum in Britain. They have a Spitfire there and there is a film show and accounts of the London Blitz. There is even a replica of the London Cenotaph in pride of place outside the museum. (Pictured right in front of the Cenotaph and Museum are Bruce Berryman, of RMIT University, Melbourne Australia – featured in another podcast), Susan Angel of the University of Wollongong, Australia and Siobhan Mullen of Birmingham City University, UK).

Highlights of my final day - thanks to the arrangements of Matt Mollgaard, conference organiser, and other staff at the AUT - were to both Radio New Zealand (RNZ), and The Radio Network: one of the two main commercial radio organisations. This one houses no fewer than eight stations and the newsroom serves 60 across both islands.

It is quite strange that Auckland, which contains approximately a third of the entire country's population, and by far the largest city, should not be the capital (it was for a while in the 19^th century) - that being Wellingtonin the south of the North Island. So the main studio output from RNZ is from there, but they do have a fair amount of output, including the summer mid-morning show, which I arrived in time to see the end of from the control-room and have my picture taken there (left)! They, like every service organisation it seems, are under financial pressure and having to make quite a few cutbacks, but they still provide a rare oasis of service broadcasting in what is the world's only completely deregulated radio system. However, I also really enjoyed my time at commercial radio centre, sitting in for an hour or so in the studio of the morning show, hosted by Kerre Woodham on the Newstalk ZB station (right). New Zealand also had a pirate radio history in the 1960s with Radio Hauraki, but, having a less repressive political culture and government than the UK, instead of the law effectively banning them from the airwaves, the government gave them a licence to broadcast on land. This was not before quite a struggle though and the sort of protests and demonstrations we had in the UK and other parts of Europe. They are very aware of, and pay tribute to, the history and heritage of the station. I love the fact the main studio and the workspace outside had pictures and blown up reproductions of newspaper articles from this period. Pictured left is Hauraki DJ Nik Brown. I really like this guy – he reminded me a lot of my radio friends in the UK. He took time out from the studio to chat – he is very well informed about radio in UK as well (I think his family emigrated to the UK when he was 10). We could have talked all day!

All too soon it was time to pack up, check out and head for the airport. I was still in such a relaxed mood that, unusually for me, I arrived only just over an hour before the last check-in time! For the return flight I had a premium economy seat which was wonderful and you get to have the business class food standard of service of Air New Zealand. Thoroughly recommended! This time I was going the other way round the globe, with stopover, refuelling etc., in Los Angeles. Unlike in Hong Kong, we were held there at a very small departure gate. Given that total flight is about 24 hours I did start to feel a bit like a caged animal by the end of it. I had two good travelling companions; the one for the leg to Los Angeles was a Kiwi who was studying for a Ph.D. in Edinburgh. Very polite and personable; in fact he was so polite I thought he must be an American because he said "excuse me, sir", and I've only ever had that kind of polite formality in non-service environment in the US. From LA my companion was a British woman who has a son in New Zealand. She visits three times a year, saving up her holiday entitlement by working extraordinary hours as a manager of an intensive care unit at a London hospital. She has another son in the services and had some interesting info' about the conditions in, and supplies to, our troops in Afghanistan.

Well, everything about this trip just went about perfectly, including the final, return leg from London Heathrow to the north-west of England. Of course, I missed the family but I have to say it was all hugely enjoyable and I arrived home still buzzing with it all - but also, as I say, curiously relaxed. New Zealand had certainly captivated me; the whole and varied experiences, including swimming in two seas and the continent's largest lake, the wonderful company at all stages and such a stimulating conference. Truly unforgettable. My deepest and sincere thanks to all those who encouraged me to go, who enjoyed it and planned it, and experienced it, with me.

South Pacific dreaming on such a winter’s day

That peerless political historian Peter Hennessy has detailed the processes when a new prime minister first enters office. Whatever the nature of the pressing crises that he or she has to deal with once receiving the Queen's commission – and a change of Prime Minister is usually the result of some great crises or other, often of an economic nature - one of the first tasks he or she has is to sit down and write personal letters to the captains of the four Trident submarines which constitute Britain's supposedly independent nuclear deterrent, on what to do if there has been what has been known in Whitehall since the 1950s as a 'bolt from the blue'. That is, that the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, the military commanders, etc. have all been wiped out by an unexpected and totally devastating pre-emptive nuclear strike on the country. Hennessy revealed some years ago that – and you couldn't make this up – if the sub's, somewhere in the North Atlantic, are unable to establish any communications with the UK, they are to try to tune in to Radio 4's longwave service and if that if they pick up nothing but static they are to assume the worst. The letters are private and unique. Imagine being the new PM and thinking about your responsibility of deciding how Britain would wreak revenge from beyond not only your grave but that of millions of your fellow citizens (the survivors, crazed with radiation sickness and stumbling around in a blasted, burnt and irradiated country in which, as was so often said of the Cold War, the living would envy the dead). The responsibility was so enormous that apparently both John Major and Tony Blair went ashen at the thought of it.

Although we cannot know for sure, Hennessy reckons that one of the perhaps for options given to the commanders is to sail for New Zealand. And this strategy reveals a great deal about the major of this extraordinary country which I have the enormous pleasure of visiting this month: astonishingly strong links with the United Kingdom, generations having shed blood on the other side of the world to defend the country and its Empire/Commonwealth, under the same head of state, same legal system, speaking the same language, having much the same culture and even driving on the left, and yet being so different in its location. Not only on the opposite side of the world and the most isolated country on earth – the eastern seaboard of Australia being over 1000 miles from the nearest point to the two islands and essentially just thousands of miles of the Pacific the other way, with the next major landfall being South America – but its bonkers geology, which is liable to result in devastating volcanic eruptions and earthquakes at any time. The combined size of the two islands is about the same as the UK – but with roughly one fifteenth of the population.

A combination of factors – both personal and professional – have led to me travelling with my old school friend N (I'll use initials throughout, because even though there is certainly nothing derogatory I should respect their privacy; people who know them will recognise them) on New Year's Eve of all times – the cheapest available flight time – to Kiwi land. I have two papers to present at the biennial Radio Studies conference in Auckland on the second week of the month. N's elder daughter is engaged to an Australian guy and they moved to Sydney back in September. Most of all we have another former school friend, S, who has lived in New Zealand for some 25 years and who I haven't see (apart from on Skype!) for more than 10 years before that, as I left the area in the mid-70s and there were no texts, e-mails, social networking sites or even, in many cases, phones, so until the last few years, if you were not physically in the same region at least it was very easy to lose touch. Apparently one of the girls on our class who lived near S used to ask him "whatever happened to Dickie Rudin?", and he would weave an increasingly improbable tale of my life story since!

Anyway, it was fantastic to be greeted by a beaming S in the arrivals at Auckland airport. After a cup of coffee, bear-hugs and backslaps we're on the road to his home in Rotorua – as it happens one of the prime tourist destinations in the northern island, (seen on map above – about centre of the island and about a 3 and half hour drive south and east of Aukland) due to its thermal springs and spas. It is also notorious for sulphuric stench. His home is well away from this but although I am not saying I would like to live close by hot springs I did not find their smell particularly unpleasant: more of a musky odour rather than bad eggs smell expected. Before then we have travelled through what seems for some time to be the best sort of lush, rolling countryside you'd find in Britain; miles and miles of farmland, rivers and forests - but then, in the distance, you see something quite unlike in Britain: the ridge of a volcano.

After a short stop at a cafe in a small town - at which I was amused to see that the proprietor was quite happy for me to wander around the back of the cash-till – we arrived on the outskirts of Rotorua. S gave us a little tour of part of river area to stretch our legs and take in the beautiful, fresh air (not trace of sulphur!), then it is home to meet the family. S's family is great: wife L is fun and relaxed, and the kids – boy and girl twins of 16 years and girl of 13 – are a delight, especially as it can't have been the most enticing or exciting prospect, for what is their summer holiday, for dad to have two schoolmates staying with them! Going straight into this happy family setting, rather than a hotel, villa or straight to a conference, meant that, despite the 13 hour time difference, a flight of 25 hours (stopover in Hong Kong in a kind of sterile if comfortable holding bay, soothed by Christmas carol muzak) with barely any sleep, meant that I experienced hardly any jetlag and went to bed just a little earlier than normal that night – admittedly struggling to keep my eyes open over dinner.

My only concerns about this trip were whether S would be over-anxious about is having a good time – and he certainly had no reason to fear on that score - and that as both S and N are super-fit for guys of our age (they both go on 30 miles bike rides, etc.) I would be enticed to take on the more physical activity, especially running or biking, than I'm used to or would be good for me. But I voiced these fears to S beforehand and of course he understood and promised to treat me gently! The other thing I warned them about was that I am very emotional, and the combination of seeing – and ultimately of course parting from – friends and what I correctly expected to be the awesome nature of the scenery, might bring on the waterworks. In the event, I only had two occasions when I needed the man-sized tissues. One when I was talking to L over the washing up about how great it was to meet up and get to know as adults my former school-mates and everything that had happened since we had the school reunion back in July 08, and the other at the tiny airport a week or so later when I had to say goodbye to them as I took a prop-jet back to Auckland for the conference.

But before that there were some fabulous experiences that I know will stay with me for the rest of my days. The first few days we were there was the long new year's holiday week-end and so there are big family gatherings taking place. L's family gathered at Lake Taupo – the largest freshwater lake in Australasia, which S drove us to via the magnificent Huka Falls (pictured left, though it is hard to do justice to these in one picture). This party was a very happy occasion – indeed riotous at one stage, as a manic water fight takes place, led by L's septuagenarian mum. As L is a part Maori descent there is also interesting ethnic mix in there. I stop by a montage of family photographs in the hallway, showing three or four generations of the family. As with every family I suppose there is some tragedy behind the smiles in those great snaps of off-guard moments and formal poses. I love hearing people's family histories and this one is more interesting than most. But it is time to get myself in some warm water, so we head off to the lake itself and although the water temperature is best described as 'nice when you're in' it is glorious to kick back and float, thinking that I'm in fact lying on an active volcano; the lake itself formed by the biggest volcanic explosion on Earth over the last 70,000 years!

In Rotorua for another couple of days and after some enjoyable but gentle walks I'm let loose on the town whilst the others go to a big supermarket shop for our trip to the coast. I am excused because, unlike N who – lucky man! – is on an extended stay, I will not be returning to Rotorua once we leave – at least not this time. The museum in the town tells the fascinating history of how the thermal springs and geysers attracted the well-to-do back from many parts of the world in the Edwardian age, kicking off the whole tourism industry in New Zealand. Some of the original baths are there and their settings and implements are reproduced. On the roof of the building are great views of the town, the rivers and beyond. My attempts to capture the full effect of the bubbling, steaming pools were not very satisfactory – steam is very good on a stills camera – although I had a little more success in capturing the wildfowl sanctuary which, surprisingly, thrives on the salty, sulphurous banks of the river. A film show provides the Maori and European settlers' history as well as a dramatised reconstruction of the devastating volcanic eruption in 1886. The innocent looking bench-like seats begin to shake and rock at the appropriate points of the narrative!

The road trip the next day to Whanarua Bay, along the Pacific (eastern) coast much of the time was glorious. We started off under less than promising weather conditions. We stopped off on an otherwise deserted beach and the sea was warm. The weather improved as we got closer to our destination on the Bay of Plenty. The 'bach' (pronounced 'batch') is owned by S's sister's family and there will be 13 visit all staying there, varying in years from 2 to (I think) 76. S's parents, who still live in Sutton Coldfield, are there, along with S's (much younger) sister, her husband J and their three young children; M the boy of S's twins, and the younger girl. It is quite normal in New Zealand to have this kind of extended family-with-friends type of gathering and it's all beautifully relaxed and casual – mattresses thrown on bedroom floors (six of us in one room) and everyone just mucks in, which is what I love. Having neither a sister nor a daughter I did feel just the slightest bit awkward at first at the prospect of sharing a room with a girl in her early teens but it was all fine. I should emphasise that this 'bach' is right on the beach. They've gutted the place and built the second story on it – a photo album charts the whole project – which I find deeply impressive, given that putting up a pair of shelves straight counts as a major DIY achievement for me! The floor-to-ceiling windows in our bedroom have spectacular views day and night and it is wonderful to go to sleep and be woken by the sound of the waves lapping on the shore just a few yards away. The night sky is jaw-droppingly impressive and one of my few regrets about the whole trip was that I haven't mugged up on the astronomy of the southern sky before I left home. It seemed there was far more light and darkness and have certainly never seen so many stars.

Despite my determination to take things easy I am enticed into what are, for me, fairly untypical outdoor-sy kind of activities. Generally, I am a sunbather, swimmer, gentle walker and a moocher on holiday – I do mooching rather well, actually – but the other middle aged adult males are all action types as I mentioned and in any event the idea is essentially that we eat what we catch. It is not called the Bay of Plenty for nothing – so I go out on the boat with J, and S's lad, M. As I discover when we walk the dog over to the next day on the first day, he is very knowledgeable about all aspects of fish and fishing. The first stop are the crayfish pots – not a bad catch and, back at the bach these are rather alarmingly kept, alive, in a fridge for up to two weeks! We then plough through the waves for the main fishing – it's rough enough to throw you out of the seat and possibly out of the boat, but I love it. Actually – I'm rarely happier when I'm in, on, or over water. I think J may be trying to find out if this soft handed, posh sounding Pommy's got any balls! (He later conceded that it was "fairly rough out there today"). But I'm okay, we're wearing life jackets and I reckon if the worst happens as long as I'm not knocked unconscious I'd be OK and able to rescue either of the others. The motor doesn't seem too complicated to operate – neutral, forward and reverse - and although I was a little anxious at one point when J is leaning far over the 'blunt end' of the boat to untangle a fishing line, the only discomfort I had was in the bobbing up and down when we're 'anchored'. This made me a little queasy after a while, which annoys me as I pride myself on being a pretty good sailor. But before this sets in we have a pretty good late afternoon's fishing. And I catch the first one! I'm so excited when I feel the line pulling and I haul up a Trevally or 'Trevi' of about 4kg (rather than pounds which I boasted of innocently but - having checked various websites - incorrectly on my podcast!). Fishing is carefully regulated by both number of the different species and size (the inspectors lie onshore and are liable to inspect at any time and there are serious penalties for breaking the limits) and J has various measuring devices to make sure that all the ones we throw into the bucket for supper are comfortably over the minimum. This one certainly is and with a bit of help - actuallky, a LOT of help! - from M it is off the hook and giving me its glassy stare. Fish are strange creatures alright. We throw quite a few back that day even though a number of these – especially the Snappers – are probably well within the limit. It amazes me that they can be hauled up on a hook, thrash around on deck, be measured and then, if allowed to see another day, have the hook taken out of their mouth, a finger shoved down their throat to reactivate their gills and thrown back into the ocean to swim off again, evidently quite happily in their fishy, cold-blooded way. One of the fish reprieved is a Gurnard, which makes a grunting noise like a pig when caught – its cry in contrast to its beautiful, tropical-looking, fine fins.

I feel triumphant and excited on our return (all very atavistic and hunter-gatherer type feelings). J expertly fillets and cooks our catch. He is a pretty awesome bloke; an engineering graduate, skilled in all sorts of stuff; the sort you'd want around if you are only trouble and definitely if you were shipwrecked on a desert island. It is certainly satisfying to eat fish that you've caught only a couple of hours before but of course the full, satisfying meal wouldn't have been possible without the talents and hard work of the 'crew' back at base!

Kayaking is another untypical activity for me – something I'm not done since I was a boy – and this time it is S's turn to educate me into the required skills. He was a lovely, amiable lad and he is a patient and encouraging adult teacher. I experience one of what I call my 'Life On Mars' moments and WHOOSH! we're back at school and S is encouraging me in my efforts on the sports field and in the gym (he was a natural and talented sportsmen, and had the height and I, erm, wasn't and hadn't; he must really have dreaded me being in his team but never complained about my poor efforts or took the proverbial) . Anyway, it feels great to go into caves and power yourself around the Bay. Earlier, we had a hike to see some local waterfalls, which turned out to be a rather more hazardous than I'd anticipated. As J was wearing flip-flops and we had pretty much the full age range of our party with us I reckoned that this will not be too arduous a journey. However, it involved a fair bit of crossing the river and scrambling up banks with somewhat indeterminate tracks. J opines "it'll be alright unless we get a flash flood". Thanks for that, J! When we finally reached the Falls I'm tempted to plunge into them but I'm also very conscious of my ruptured cruciate ligament and know that a sudden sideways jolt on this is likely to result in severe pain, so (note from home time!) I rather reluctantly sat this one out – or rather stood it out, up to my fetlocks in the river.

At other times I was very happy to be walking round the boy and trying to spot and identify the varied an exotic birds, swimming in the Pacific, splashing about with the kids, especially the six-year-old boy who is just coming into that great age, out of infancy, and when everything is still new and exciting. I'm touched that mum – S' sister - is happy to leave him in my sole care in potentially hazardous situations for an hour or two. There is a great lagoon just off the beach which is big enough for the kids to take their kayaks in and to swim around but of course not as hazardous as the sea itself. He's enjoying sliding down the bank into the lagoon and I get a bit anxious that he might cut himself and I don't want to go back with an injured son, so I distract him by pretending that some seaweed sticking out of the lagoon is in fact a dangerous man-eating plant and must be destroyed. There is that magical moment in his eyes when he 'gets it' and is immediately is into our mission to destroy it, mainly by hurtling stones at it from the bank.

At night time after the dishes are cleared we play a hilarious and increasingly drunken game of J's, called 'Up and down the River'. The rules for this are astonishingly complicated and seemingly perverse and apparently I manage to achieve the lowest ever score. As I said, if you're going to fail at anything, do it heroically! On another night, after all the outdoor activity, I go to bed before anyone else and don't even hear them coming in. I'm sleeping that great sleep when you are physically tired and mentally relaxed. Beautiful. On the last night though N, J and myself are talking and drinking until about 2 AM. I keep trying to hush the other two voices – both have amazingly resonant tones - and apparently no one else was sleeping! Very generously, they don't tell us to shut-the-you-know-what up! It is that kind of atmosphere. Too soon it is time to leave, clean and pack up, as the whole party decides to leave on the day that I must depart for the conference. The others meet up with us at the airport further west along the coast at Whakatane but I am thankful that they ask if I mind them leaving before my plane's departure. I won't see S and his family again on this trip and who knows when the next time will be. I get choked as I hug S and say "Don't let's leave it another 37 years!", but manage to compose myself before the flight. Fortunately, I am also excited about this as I love flying, especially in small aircraft. A braided, grey-haired middle-aged man appears with all the indications and manner of a pilot, but he in fact checks the boarding passes and it turns out he is the co-pilot. The pilot is a woman of about 30. Of course, there are no security checks for the flight, the door to the flight deck remains open and although there is some cloud, there are pretty good ground views all the way into Auckland.

There are just 18 seats in the cabin – a single row either side and I am so happy and have had such a good time and feel so relaxed and loved just being with and talking to everyone – that I get choked up again. Never mind. I'll have the evening to compose myself, get back into city mode, have some more new sights and experiences and looking forward to four days talking about radio: frankly, this itinerary is just about perfect for R Rudin!

Still to come….The conference and the rest of my trip.

No one comes out of this university fees’ debate looking good

To the surprise of some I've not blogged about the university tuition fees issue before, even though I have many and varied thoughts about it, principally because it can look like special pleading for public funding for two groups of privileged people - students and academics – at a time when thousands face losing their jobs and tens of thousands, perhaps millions, are having their benefits slashed. But I can resist it no more! So, after last night's vote in the House of Commons we now know for sure that huge tranches of university disciplines and courses are effectively being privatised. The withdrawal of 80% of the teaching grant overall and 100% in the social sciences, arts and humanities, means that the student will be liable for the full cost of their tuition, subject to them achieving the prescribed level of income.

As the coalition government is so keen to point out, no- one, including part-time students (which is a genuine and very welcome improvement) will pay anything upfront and the starting point of paying back the loan is now up to about the mean average income. Which sounds all very fair, except when you realise that you can only withstand so much debt, and if you have that hanging around your neck you're much less likely to be granted a loan for other things in life, such as a roof over your head. And, of course, those from the better off backgrounds will have their loans paid off by inheritance, trust fund, or other means. The rest, being already in debt, will have to pay higher rates of interest on any loans or mortgages that they are granted. So at every stage, despite all the proclamations and reassurances, inequality will become further and further embedded in our society.

And if anyone swallows the line that this will improve higher education then they really are deluded. The rhetoric is that this will secure university funding, whereas it will do quite the opposite. As a professor and departmental head told last night's Channel 4 News, because the funding is now totally dependent on student numbers – which are unknown - there is widespread insecurity in all those areas where the teaching grant has been abolished and that means the world-class lecturers and researchers will leave for institutions that have better university funding: which is anywhere in all but one country in the OECD membership. At fees of £6000, funding for courses will have to be slashed– and that inevitably means staff; only between £7-8000 do you have a standstill; you need to go to the full, new permitted amount to have a chance of improvement. So, in short, students will be paying up to three times more for a worse education.

The politics of it all are quite scandalous and will surely further serve to disengage young people from the political process. Those who have had much to do with the Liberal Democrats – and I write this as a former Young Liberal, party member of its part-parentage the SDP and long-time supporter of the third-party - will not be entirely surprised. But even by their extraordinarily low standards of consistency and reliability, this one stands out in a class of its own. It is no good saying that, as they didn't win the election – surely even these poor deluded souls didn't really think they would form a government on their own? – they had to make compromises. We all understand that in a coalition you do have to ditch some of your policies, adopt others from the other coalition partner(s) and compromise on some others. But, this wasn't, as Andrew Neil said last night on This Week, a commitment buried away deep in their manifesto. They chose this issue above all else to stake their ground in the last general election. They didn't just commit themselves to abolishing – abolishing mind, not just a standstill in – tuition fees. Their candidates, including the leader and other senior members, signed solemn pledges on huge placards and paraded these in front of the press and public. They did not say they would only vote for scrapping tuition fees if they were in government, or if they're in coalition, or if they got so many seats. There was no barrier or threshold which mitigated this pledge. It was straightforward, bold, uncomplicated and seemingly sincere. And they shamelessly broke it. In fact, they didn't just break it, they smashed it to bits and then shut the pieces down our throats. It is an utter disgrace and the party and in particular its leaders are surely doomed and deservedly so. Nor can they claim that the economic situation that they discovered when in office was far worse than they had previously thought. All such claims are complete rubbish. The figures were all there and nothing major has happened since the election to alter the basic facts of the structural debt. Morally, intellectually, financially or politically they haven't got a leg or even a teeny tiny toenail to stand on. I think 'beneath contempt' just about summarises my views on this excuse for a party.

The Labour Party though is hugely compromised and totally lacks credibility in at least this area, given that they twice broke solemn election pledges on tuition fees, commissioned the Browne report which gave the cover for these increases and were clearly planning to do much the same anyway. Plus, their record on school education and our plummeting international schools' position, after enormous increases in funding, means they are also stuffed in the public estimation. It was of course Labour who also watched and indeed encouraged the burgeoning pay and numbers of public sector executives, not least in higher education: a new, self-perpetuating and self-satisfied elite of ludicrously overpaid and pensioned managers with grandiose titles. A magic circle or Freemasony in universities, local government, QUANGOs and the BBC. Claims that they are being paid the market rate are hilariously disingenuous. As most of them have absolutely no commercial experience or acumen, that market is of course the market they have themselves created in their little club.

Even more catastrophic than the potential near trebling of tuition fees is the scrapping of the Education Maintenance Allowance – along with the minimum wage, SureStart and Aim Higher one of the few good policies of the previous 13 years of Labour government. My contacts in the sector and social commentators are clear that relatively small amounts of money have transformed lives by enabling those from deprived or even just modest backgrounds to stay on in education; to learn a trade, skill, a craft, or indeed better prepare themselves for a university application. Many are being cared for by those who are not their parents and who live in somewhat fluid households and that money made the difference between being just about OK financially and being sucked into the world of Loan Sharks and general financial mess. The new arrangement, it is claimed, will better target the resources. What it means is that those in the heroic Further Education sector – okay I have to declare an interest here to as it was in FE that I had my first full-time teaching posts – will have to make terrible decisions about who will get the very limited funds and who will not. The consequences of this in terms of young people being left high and dry, with no training opportunities and no prospects, are incalculable and are bound to prove far more costly in the long run.

But above all these questions and arguments about finance and funding, what is being really depressing is the seeming complete acceptance that a university degree is merely a means to an end; that end being a better paid job, so the degree is an investment - not an investment in time or intellectual or personal development, but a kind of down payment against the likelihood of future higher earnings. What a travesty! And now that the students really are ultimately paying for the full cost of their courses, what are the chances of preserving academic integrity? How many 2:2s let alone third-class degrees do you think are now likely to be awarded? If they are indeed customers – and already my university, along with many others, describes them in this way – then of course the customer must get what they pay for, which is a 2:1 or a First. If they don't, they will demand retribution and this will be a feast for lawyers. In fact, at the moment I'm thinking that the best way to beat this system is to form a consultancy, because this is going to be litigation a-go-go. Faced with this, universities will cave in, and as one commentator said, we will have the Weimar Republic in grade inflation, which of course means that the degrees will have less and less credibility and so will end up being pretty well worthless. This is what happens when you have a culture and a government which understands the price of everything and the value of nothing. This pernicious approach has been embedded of course in schools where everything comes down to grades and league tables. The only thing that matters is the assessment; everything is driven towards getting the grades, the league tables' position and ticking the boxes. The typical undergraduate student comes with the attitude that 'if it's not being assessed, why should I bother?' The idea of being led on an intellectual journey is completely risible to many. I know that's harsh and it's not their fault if they have, throughout their educational life, been put under pressure to deliver grades and being taught to pass tests, rather than being given an education. 'Put students in charge?' Dear God, if that is the mantra then we really are doomed. No, and I'm sorry that this sounds elitist or patronising, but students do not know what is in their best interests, educationally or otherwise.

But in any case, public support for the students was today melting away quicker than the blanket of snow which has submerged most of the country for the last three weeks. Smashing windows in the Supreme Court which had survived the Blitz, daubing obscene graffiti on Churchill's statue and attacking the sitting targets of a couple in their 60s on their way to a charity event, is unlikely to endear the cause to the British public. Nor are persistent claims that higher education is a right – if it is a right it is someone else's responsibility and, after about 14 years of expensive state education, just whose responsibility should that be? Again, I have to declare an interest as someone who didn't go to university and studied for two degrees by distance learning, paying fees out of what was already taxed income. I'm not complaining about this. I did have the A-level grades to get to university but I was impatient to begin my career and it wasn't until about 10 years later I started with the Open University. In the meantime though, not only did I not have any debts as a young man, but from the age of 21 was saving £50 a month in a building society – probably worth around £250 in today's money, which we put towards our first house deposit. One thing that really bugs me is this claim that my generation were the lucky ones, because we 'all' had our university fees paid for as. Well, yes the relatively few did, but most of us didn't. The majority of those with whom I went to Grammar School did not go to university and have been working since their mid to late teens, paying for others to have that privilege, and it is a privilege to either study or teach at that level. And I think it is often wasted on the young, in fact I think 27 or 28 is about the right age to start a university education for most people but of course financially and in other ways it is far more difficult to do it at that age. But I welcome the prospect of many more mature students – I mean older ones, more maturity in general would be welcome!

In my darker, more paranoid moments, I think that the class of Clegg and Cameron realised that what I call the 'NCO' class just before and after the war - people like my Dad who were bright, from modest backgrounds, who were given the chance of an excellent school education on the state, a scholarship to university and then showed that they were far more capable than the in-bred, complacent upper classes, and forged ahead in all areas of life - were a threat that had to be extinguished. So they abolished the good schools and teaching which stretched the intellect – in consort with the Left, who bleated about elitism and insisted on mixed ability teaching – whilst the upper end either went to private schools, or, ostentatiously, went to one of the few good comprehensives, but of course topped this up with private tuition. One former Labour minister when tackled about this in respect of her own children said: "Of course they have extra tuition!" The unspoken comment being 'Good God, do you think I am going to entrust my children's education and future to that place?' Then many new universities were created, numbers of places rocketed, so the new elite (in league with the old one) could say 'now everyone has the chance of a university education!' Only of course it was a con, because the elites still went to the same few top universities, and, through their contacts, networking and general social skills, ensured they got into the best jobs and careers.

My solution? 'Embed' communication skills, interviewing skills, and all the other 'tricks' employed by the successful classes into our schools and colleges, supported by mentors. Above all, instil a love of education, a curiosity and the joy of learning, and for as long as possible forget formal, state tests and league tables. Give everyone an educational and training fund at 16, which they can use on any recognised course at any stage of their lives. That might make a lot of people think about what they want and when they want to do it – in particular when to go into higher education.

One thing that an academic training should give you is the ability to look at problems from first principles. We need to think about what a university is for, what is its role in society? And what is the benefit of a university education to the individual and the country as a whole? I don't just mean in financial terms. Only when those questions been properly answered should we be thinking about what courses to run, how to fund the courses, what criteria should be used for selecting students and what should be – if any – their financial contribution.

In the mean-time, those of us in HE are preparing for a massive increase in applications for 2011. What happens after 2012 is anyone's guess.