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The Test Your Morality experiment is designed to look at a new theory – based on something called ‘Human Superorganism Theory’ – that we hope will help us understand this diversity, and the sources of our morality.

There’s an awful lot of questions, so it takes awhile, but remember you’re taking part in an experiment, so it’s worth it!

I found my results pretty interesting, in brief:

So I recently bought a new DVD player, after my old one had become what can only be described as temperamental. I presume this is due to its old age, as it’s probably one of the first DVD players to have knocked around and came to us second hand and I find that tempera-mentality seems to accompany old age in general (just look at Louis Walsh on the X-Factor).

Since I fortuitously had a gift voucher for an electrical store I decided to invest in a new DVD player, rather than put up with the old one that would regularly accept the DVD then refuse to play or eject it until it was in the right mood. When my shiny, new, modern DVD arrived (kindly shopped for by my sister-in-law) I was told it didn’t come with a cable. This always bothers me slightly, when you buy something that doesn’t actually come with all the parts that it needs to work, but I naively assumed I could just use the SCART cable from my old DVD.

Sadly, no.

It turned out this new DVD wanted a HDMI cable, not a SCART. I ordered one from Amazon and then waited until today when I finally had both the time and correct cable to install the new player. After scrabbling around amidst the wires behind the TV cabinet for a while I tried to test out my new DVD, nothing happened. It was playing and I’d switched over to the right channel on my TV but still nothing was appearing. I rooted around in the box and found three more cables, crawled back behind the cabinet and inserted them into the colour coded slots in the back of the TV and DVD, which took a lot of jamming in and there was also some confusion as the yellow cable end actually matched up with the orange socket and not the yellow socket.

Now dusty, from all my time behind the cabinet in the corner, I set the DVD playing again, switched channel to HDMI 2 and found that it had finally worked, although I was slightly bemused that I had to switch the channel manually as it had kindly switched automatically to SCART whenever I’d turned the power on, on my old temperamental player.

So, modern technology has brought me a DVD player that requires 4 different cables (5 if you include the power cable) to work, rather than one SCART cable, and needs me to tell the TV it to change input for it. Sure, it’s sleeker, smaller and shinier and probably doesn’t have the mood swings of the old one but I’m not sure that this is progress…

I haven’t written anything on here for quite a while, that’s partly because I have much less free time than I used to and I had got into the habit of writing quite long-winded, detailed articles about political issues and found myself unintentionally pigeonholed as a ‘political blogger’, or ‘Labour blogger’. I enjoy writing about politics and will continue to do so when the mood takes me but I would rather return to the days when I wrote about a much broader range of topics (although I was rather honoured to be featured in the Top 100 Labour Bloggers in this year’s Total Politics awards, hence the proudly displayed badge to the right).

So, this blog will be fairly different from now on, not just all about politics and with more opinion and commentary posts. Hopefully this way I will update more regularly too.

So until that next update, farewell and take care.

Reassured, I am not. Cameron has been banging on about this supposed “Broken Britain” for quite some time now, I believe this shiny new catchphrase popped up around 2008 thanks to that respectable organ of the tabloid press, The Sun. In fact, here’s an article published by The Sun in 2008 entitled ‘Cam: I’ll mend Broken Britain’ , with Cameron pledging to introduce tough new stop and search powers and consult communities to get their views on policing. A couple of interesting quotes:

“We now plan to fully engage with the local communities to start that debate. We want their views. We have to change the way we police our streets and the way we bring up our children.”

Well, slashing 20% from the police budget will certainly change the way our streets are policed as up to 12,000 police officers and 16,000 support staff will have to be cut, not to mention around 2,000 who will be forced to take early retirement.

“If you want to take back control of the streets you have to have police who feel they can intervene, gather information and actively police the streets.”

Hmm, may be difficult to actively police the streets when there are no police to do so, but what do I know.

In January 2010 I was clearly annoyed enough by Cameron’s “Broken Britain” rhetoric to write this post, ‘Britain is not Broken, actually I think we’re pretty great’ and I stand by that sentiment. Interestingly, at the time, it was going to be marriage tax breaks that saved us all from “Broken Britain”, as single mothers are always to blame for this sort of thing, don’t-you-know?

So the question that springs to mind, at least to my mind, is what has David Cameron actually done to fix “Broken Britain” since coming to power? Apart from ‘change the way we police our streets’ although not in the way he led readers of The Sun to believe. He’s had 15 months in power to mend “Broken Britain” as promised and yet, if anything, you could argue that his “Broken Britain” has broken further, what with rioting, arson and looting rife on the streets.

I’ll assume that “Broken Britain” simply slipped off Dave’s agenda for a while but I am sure we can all breathe a sigh of relief that it is now back at the top and the BBC reports:

The PM said he would review government policies and speed up plans to deal with “problem” families, improve parenting and education.

As part of plans to tackle what he called a “moral collapse”, he also pledged an “all out war” on gangs.

Good stuff, although what are the details of these plans to deal with “problem” families does an “all out war” on gangs actually mean. Are the government going to start strafing groups of youths at random? Whatever happened to “hugging a hoodie”? I thought he wanted to empathise with the young? Surely that wasn’t just a desperate gimmick?

Despite Cameron constantly repeating the phrase “Broken Britain” I am never quite sure what is meant by it, nor by “Broken Society” and I don’t particularly believe in either phrase. The nearest we got to a definition was when the Tories spent much of early 2010 telling us that it was caused by the breakdown of marriage and the “traditional” family unit.  The entire nation is not broken, there’s no huge fission running between John O’Groats and Lands End. As for the “Broken Society” how do you accurately judge that? It seems something of a disservice to all the people in Britain who go about their business without committing crimes to talk about “Britain’s Broken Society”. Also, it’s hardly a great advert to the rest of the world to hear our own Prime Minister talking about “Broken Britain”, doesn’t exactly look good in the tourist brochures… (not like, “Cool Brittania”, remember that?) Terrifying people is usually a good vote winner though.

There was a wonderful incident during the course of the riots where Cameron described parts of Britain as not just broken but “sick“. I doubt “Sick Britain” will catch on though, it’s just not a good catchphrase, no alliteration for a start. Not like “Broken Britain” or “Hug a Hoodie”, maybe “Sick Society” would do it? I can’t help but feel that this is what it all boils down to, a good hearty catchphrase that the press latch onto. Who needs a thought-provoking, in-depth analysis on what may have caused these riots when you can just blame “Broken Britain” and generate headline after headline, throwing in nice sound-bites like  ”moral collapse” and  ”major criminal disease that has infected streets and estates across our country”, with gives me fond thoughts of the plague, or typhoid. Perhaps he should take advice from former Conservative Prime Minister John Major who once remarked “a soundbite never buttered any parsnips”… yes quite John, I’m sure you get the point though. A plethora of catchy slogans and soundbites isn’t going to “mend” the “Broken Society” either, if they had that potential then Cameron would have had it under control by now.

 Ed Miliband has warned Cameron against “knee-jerk gimmicks”, another little sound-bite but a fairly sound, sound-bite, as it were… “Broken Britain” was and is just a gimmick, just like the “hug a hoodie” debacle. Blaming a supposed “Broken Society” is not an answer or an explanation, it’s just empty words.

I wasn’t particularly interested in getting involved in some of the virulent political point scoring that emerged as the riots began and continued over the weekend. I don’t believe that the arson and looting taking place is simply a result of the current government’s cuts, as many have claimed. In my opinion the causes of these continued riots, the ones that clearly no longer have anything to do with the shooting of Mark Duggan, lie in deep-rooted social issues, inequality and poverty of aspiration. Of course, this government making cuts in areas such as youth services and EMA is hardly going to help these issues but I think it is wrong to simply blame 14 months of Tory-led government policy for these riots, even if they haven’t helped matters, and doing so isn’t going to help find or attempt to solve the social problems that lie behind this unrest.

It wasn’t until Monday, with rioting spreading, that I got involved with the political commentary. After three days of watching people’s homes and businesses burning and masked individuals smashing in shop fronts to loot whatever they could I was wondering where the political leadership was. Surely the situation called for the Mayor of London to be in his burning city and for the leader of the country to come home and, well, lead. Myself and many others on twitter were asking why David Cameron was still in Italy, presumably too busy sipping cappuccino and staging tipping related press opportunities, and not back at home, where the capitol city of the country he leads was in a state of advanced disorder, and calling a meeting of COBRA, as this was clearly a state of crisis that needed a governmental response.

Eventually, on Monday night as scenes of fire filled the news channels, Boris Johnson announced that he would be returning followed (I’d presume reluctantly) by David Cameron, at least two days later than I would have hoped or expected that either of them would return.

Now, after a meeting of COBRA has finally taken place, David Cameron has recalled Parliament. Why? Why does every MP have to return from their holiday and to the Commons? In Rob Marchant’s words:

The right people should be brought back from holiday, not any old people. Is there any possible reason to recall our politicians for a debate which, we can confidently predict, will earnestly condemn, loudly froth and will achieve precisely nothing?

I know that many people seem to believe that MPs should be on demand 24/7, 365 days of the year but these are real people who, hopefully in most cases, work hard, long hours at a very demanding job. They need a break to spend time with their family and friends just like everybody else. Forcing MPs to return to Parliament isn’t likely to achieve anything other than pissing several MPs off who have no reason to be there and can do nothing of use anyway. I really think the PM needs to try a little harder…

Rupert Murdoch: Megalomanic

I feel inclined to climb out of my blog quarry to comment on the issues surrounding the phone hacking scandal. Many questions havearisen in the fallout of the scandal concerning the relationship between the press and politicians and these are questions that have had an interest in for several years. Many are asking why Murdoch holds such power and influence over British politics and why has this been allowed to happen. In an attempt to try and explain some of this situation myself I have written the below, which hopefully at least a few people will find vaguely interesting and informative.

The relationship between press and politicians and political parties in Britain is fascinating, with a long fascinating history. I could write several books on the subject, many people have indeed written books on the subject, however I will try and keep this outpouring as succinct as possible, although there are many more questions, issues and factors that can be considered.

It really was the ‘Sun wot won it’

The issue of Murdoch’s influence over British politics and politicians has become a hot topic over the last few days. People are demanding to know why politicians are seemingly scared of offending this man and his corporation, News International. Ed Miliband was the first to come out defiantly against the Murdoch machine, stating that Rebekah Brooks should consider her position and has since said.

“For too long, the political class have been too concerned about what people in the press would think and too fearful of speaking out. We must all bear responsibility for that, my party has not been immune from it, nor has the current government.”

The problem is they were probably right to be fearful, for years the backing of the Murdoch Empire could guarantee an election win. Even before Murdoch burst onto the scene it was unlikely that you were looking at an election win without The Sun/Daily Herald or The Times, or more importantly, both, on your side. Labour came to power in 1945 with backing of both. In the 50’s the two publications, who were then still owned by different organisations, were split in their backing, with The Times backing the Conservatives, who won, and The Daily Herald backing Labour. In 1964 Labour came back to power with the support of both, the only anomalies to the rule occur in the mid – late 1970’s, where Labour win without full backing, and from 1981 onwards you only win an election with the backing of both. Incidentally, it was 1981 when Murdoch tied together his empire with The Times, having already owned The Sun since 1969.

On a basic level it is easy to understand why any political party would want to have Murdoch on their side, even if you don’t like it. Anybody who has to deal regularly with the press even on a small scale, as an individual or small business or organization, will be aiming to build up a relationship with their particular publication and the journalists who work there to ensure that they get good coverage for whatever it is they are trying to promote. On the small scale it isn’t much of an issue, people want a friendly relationship to ensure fair, accurate and positive coverage and having the right relationship with the local press is probably likely to produce fair, accurate and positive coverage when warranted.

The problem is when you reach the high end of the scale, the top tiers of British politics and the world of the national press, everything now becomes wildly exaggerated and distorted. ‘Spin’ and ‘bias’ enter the murky mix and fairness and accuracy are sparse.

Clement’s conundrum.

Clement Attlee: All-round hero

This is the dilemma that dear Clement Attlee found himself in back in 1945 when it was realized that political communication to the public was important, 87% of people were now reading the daily press, were politicised by the Second World War and almost all the adult population now had the right to vote. Good old Attlee presumed that government communications would be a simple technical task of passing facts to the press to reach a receptive public. A fair assumption, but a false one.

Problems with this simple method of communication were soon evident. The government had problems internally with the newly formed Central Office of Information becoming overwhelmed by information from all Ministerial quarters, not knowing how best to prioritise and popularise information and getting lambasted by the press, opposition and even by Labour supporters for failing to function correctly. A fine chap called Herbert Morrison, Lord President in the 1945 Labour government and head of information policy, stepped in to sort things out but the COI was seemingly unable to function without his expertise, which led to a government PR disaster in 1947 when Britain faced one of the worst winters on record and coal and fuel supplies were running out. The public felt the government had misled them in some way, or hidden information, and that the crisis could have been averted.

What became clear during this crisis was that the average citizen simply did not always understand the facts that the government was trying to communicate. A conscious separation of policy and presentation began and use of the press became more selective, information was tailored more to suit the public and ministers were briefed on the best way to present speeches and arguments. Arguably this was the beginnings of what we would today consider “spin doctoring” (by the way, for those who think spin doctoring and New Labour are coterminous there is a wealth of evidence to show Thatcher and Major embracing and practicing forms of spin during the 1970’s, 1980’s and early 1990’s) but the intentions of politicians in the 1940’s were generally noble. They were just aiming to present policy and information in an accessible format.

The press themselves were another huge problem for Attlee’s government. As mentioned above much of the presses were supportive ofLabour in 1945 but this soon began to break down. Vitriolic reporting against the government led Herbert Morrison to revive an old idea – for the influences, practices and responsibility of the press to be investigated by a Royal Commission.

This will sound horribly familiar today – the problem was that many, especially on the left, believed that the press was neither free nor fair and that the control of the presses by a minority of powerful individuals was a threat to democracy.

Skipping ahead, the Royal Commission confirmed the government’s suspicions that the press could not be relied upon to supply the public with the basis for sound political judgment and was not keeping the nation properly informed. On the downside the Commission found that there were no obvious means really available for regulating the press. This put politicians in a difficult position as the press still had a significant amount of influence over public opinion, therefore the only solution readily available for the government was to find ways of influencing and gaining control over the press and the two became intertwined.

Breaking up is hard to do.

Fast forward to present day and it still seems more like it is the press who are holding the balance of power in the relationship. A particular Party can influence the press but only if the press are willing to be influenced by that Party and give them positive coverage. The politicians hold power too though; only the favoured presses are going to get the best exclusive stories from them. They rely on each other.

Nothing really has changed. The situation that perturbed Clement Attlee and Herbert Morrison still exists, politicians do not trust the press to report fairly, and therefore they seek to court them to avoid unfair and inaccurate coverage. Over the years this has gotten widely out of hand and we are in a situation where political parties have felt the need to court the most influential presses, specifically Murdoch owned, but this hasn’t resulted in fair and accurate coverage at all. The coverage is always ridiculously biased in favour of the Party that the Murdoch Empire chooses to support at the time.

Again the same situation exists now as it did back in the 1940’s. The concern is that the press is neither free nor fair and that the control of the presses by a minority of powerful individuals is a threat to democracy and the public are not happy about that, nor should they be. People are contacting their MPs and asking them to “be brave”, oppose the BskyB deal, demand an inquiry, ask Ofcom to investigate Murdoch and above all stop being “scared” of one man and his influence.

In the past it would be too easy to be scared but perhaps the press is not the grand force it used to be. I said earlier that every Party that had won the backing of The Sun and The Times since 1981 had won the general election, this isn’t entirely true. In 2010 the Conservatives had the backing of both and Murdoch’s divine blessing but they didn’t actually win the election, the just lost not as badly as the others did really. This could suggest that Murdoch and his little print empire is not as influential as it used to be, as the public turn more to new media and social networking for their information. However it would be wholly inaccurate to say that the press doesn’t matter and doesn’t hold a substantial amount of influence and whilst that situation still exists it is likely that politicians will always feel forced to seek friendly relationships with them.

Even if the traditional print newspaper went into decline entirely the same problem would exist with other forms of media. The only way to stop it would be if all politicians from all parties said “right, none of us will have a relationship with the media and we’ll see if they report the facts fairly and leave it up to the public to make a decision based on those facts who to vote for”. It isn’t going to happen though. In practical terms it would be impossible for politicians and political parties not to have any sort of relationship with the media and even without it you would be relying on the media to report fair and accurately, with no bias, which is also an unlikely scenario. However, having the press report political matters more responsibly and without the unhealthy dose of bias thrown in would be a step towards solving the problem. I wouldn’t expect the press to ever be completely fair and unbiased, everyone has bias (I am biased in writing this blog) but there are certainly improvements that could be made to this unhealthy press-political relationship.

Now, the three main Party leaders are calling for a new watchdog to replace the Press Complaints Commission, in light of the seriousness of phone hacking practices. Perhaps a new watchdog could work towards fixing the unhealthy press-politician relationship but I think it would be one heck of a difficult job.

© English Heritage.NMR. Reference Number: DP056248

Government cuts to local council budgets strike again as Leeds City Council are forced to cut leisure services across the city. Unfortunately leisure centres generally incur a loss for every person that visits. One casualty is the historic Bramley Baths, opened in 1904 and one of the few surviving Victorian baths still open to the public in the country. The current plans are to reduce the opening hours to 4-8pm meaning those who generally use the baths through the day will be unable to do so and the local primary schools in the area will no longer be able to take children there for lessons.

Rachel Reeves MP and local Bramley Councillors, including Ted Hanley, have publicly backed the campaign, collecting petition signatures and meeting with the Executive Board member for Leisure at Leeds City Council with representatives from local schools and Bramley and Rodley Community Action to discuss alternate options which would allow the schools to still use the baths during the day. The campaign will continue to ensure that Bramley Baths will remain open to the public despite the impact of government cuts.

Bramley Baths is one of the very few places in the area that offers leisure services and somewhere where children and young people can go for recreation. Many people who use the baths, especially youngsters and elderly people, will not be able to travel elsewhere and local schools will face financial difficulties if they have to travel further afield to take children for swimming lessons. Local teachers are worried that if the children do not learn to swim through school then many will not go swimming outside of school and will simply never learn. In an area where there is and a canal and a river just down the road this seems frankly dangerous. I’m not sure what the government have against people swimming. After all, one of their first acts was to cancel free swimming for children and pensioners. With all the hysteria about hefty children you’d think ensuring that there was money for local councils to keep leisure centres open would be a priority – especially if you consider the financial impact a generation of unhealthy children growing up could have on the NHS in a few years.

© Leeds Library & Information Services

There’s not only the swimming facilities to continue. Bramley Baths also provides a gym, with junior gym sessions, fitness classes and children’s parties. It also has a Russian Banya, unless I’m mistaken the only leisure centre in Leeds to do so.

If you’re a history geek, like myself, there is also the beauty of the baths to appreciate, an amazing example of Victorian architecture. Public baths, swimming pools and wash houses were built during the late 1800s and early 1900s to improve the sanitation of the city, due to outbreaks of infectious diseases like Cholera in the 1800s. It is a huge symbol of local history and civic pride and one of the few historical buildings that remain in Bramley after the unsympathetic redevelopment of Bramley Town Street during the 1960s and 1970s. It would be a shame if this building fell into disuse and disrepair, as many baths built during the same area have done across the country, as they are nearly impossible to redevelop.

Now they are managing to skillfully avoid the blame for cuts to many local services because the burden has fallen on the local authorities to implement these cuts, but this is all due to the government gouging chunks out of funding for local governments.

In my hometown of Leeds. Council jobs are under threat and libraries, leisure services and health & social care services are all facing immediate closure threats.

One current contentious issue is the closure of the Leeds Crises Centre in Headingley, a counselling service providing help to vulnerable individuals. The media have taken up the story enthusiastically and the public have joined in – even some celebrities, like Stephen Fry and Coronation Street’s Steve Huison, have joined the campaign. This is all good of course but many people involved in campaigning to keep the centre open seem to be apportioning blame to the wrong people. I think it is great that people are campaigning to save mental health facilities but let’s keep in mind who is at the real heart of these cuts.

Councillor Lucinda Yeadon, who has the unfortunate task of having to oversee the closure of such facilities, is facing a huge amount of attack, abuse and targeted internet ‘hate’ campaigning. This is wrong. Councillor Yeadon is not closing down the Crisis Centre with a huge cheerful smile for the sake of it. She has made it clear in several interviews that this is not something that she wants to do, this is not what she is in politics for, and she should not be subjected to some of the horrible abuse that she is getting. The closures are inevitable due to the £90million black hole in the council’s budget.

If people want to blame somebody then the real people to blame are David Cameron, George Osborne and Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary who has implemented the biggest cuts to council budgets in recent times. These closures are not something the local Councillors in Leeds want to be doing.

Greg Mulholland MP seems to have conveniently forgotten that it is his government that are behind these cuts as he enthusiastically gets behind the campaign and tables an EDM. Let’s face it, that’s a good piece of political opportunism. He knows that it is his government that are causing these cuts, the coalition which his Party are a willing participant in.

If people want to set up abusive web pages, send hate mail or write into the local press about this issue they should be attacking the unneccessary Tory-led government cuts to local governments. Not the individual Councillors who find themselves as the public face of cuts that are not their fault.

Yet again it is the poorest and most vulnerable in society who are bearing the brunt of the governments cuts agenda, whilst those who are most responsible for the financial crises, the banks, are not made to take on their share of the burden and the government are passing the buck on to local council’s and are getting away with it because many are mistakenly blaming those who are not behind these cuts. We ned to be telling the government that this is unacceptable. They have caused this.

Update: just spotted this. Obviously many Liberal Democrats at local level are also unhappy with the scale of the governments cuts to local governments. 

Update 2: Lib Dem councillors have no faith in the Tory-Led government – Caroline Flint MP

“It’s a good institution and part of having stable families, but there are also people in unmarried relationships with stable families. I don’t think politicians should order people to get married.”

He insisted he would eventually wed Ms Thornton, but added: “The more people challenge me on it from a political standpoint, the more resistant I will become.”

“We’ll get married because we want to get married and love each other very much, no other reason.”

Which is fair enough, good on him. Granted in the 1950′s this would probably have provided a rather juicy social scandal, but it’s 2011 and why should the press, commentators and certain sections of society try to dictate when a couple should get married. They’re a family whether they are married or not and obviously 19,637 voters in Doncaster North have no qualms about it.

Onto drink and drugs. Not really surprising that Ed wasn’t the type to get chalked up and when he says he didn’t it’s very believable (unlike some in the government who will go unmentioned). In his own words he was just “too square” and clearly happy to admit it. There’s nothing wrong with a good geek, although he apparently did take a few hits at school for it (then again school is like that). Personally, as an aside, I don’t really care what politicians were drinking or taking at university as long as they’re not knocking back bennies in the House of Commons and it annoys me slightly when they obviously lie about what they’ve taken in the past (again, some in the government who will go unmentioned).

Possibly the best quote of the interview comes when Morgan asked what Ed would do if he was a contestant on Britain’s Got Talent,

the 41-year-old hesitated before saying: “I used to be good at the Rubik’s Cube.”

I’d watch that. Judging what I’ve seen of Britain’s Got Talent he’d probably get put through to the next round too.

Piers Morgan, true to form, also decided it was appropriate to ask about Ed’s sex life, following Nick Clegg’s interview when he decided to say that he had slept with “no more than 30 women” (bit slutty and really?!)

“That’s the Cleggover question,” Mr Miliband said. “I’m certainly not getting into that. I’m not going to boast about my sexual prowess, I think that would be a big mistake.”

Nice and discreet, although good use of the word prowess.