Leveson needs implementing - letter to MP

From	Nic Vine <leveson@nicvine.com> Greenwich London SE10
To	Nick Raynsford MP
Subject	Please implement the Leveson report in full as promised
Message	I am appalled at the Prime Minister's apparent betrayal of our trust. It looks as though he is being bent by the winds of the press, when what he should do is have the courage to lead a cross-party consensus. Before Lord Justice Leveson’s report into press behaviour was published the leaders of all three main political parties said publicly and privately  to victims of press abuse that his recommendations should be taken forward on a cross party basis. They also said that they would implement them as long as they were proportionate and workable. Lord Justice Leveson has recommended self-regulation of the press, with its effectiveness and independence (from industry and politcians) guaranteed by law. This is NOT the same as regulation by law. If self-regulation has no legally-backed guarantee, it will lack the independence and teeth that are the hallmark of the current failed system of self-regulation and those for the past 70 years. As your constituent I urge you to write to the Prime Minister asking him to back Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations in full as he said he would, and to have the courage to lead a cross-party consensus to achieve a lasting legacy of sustainable press regulation. Let's find a way to do it, rather than find reasons to not do it. Yours sincerely, Nic Vine Greenwich London SE10 (You can find Hacked Off on Facebook and on twitter, @hackinginquiry) (You can sign the petition at  http://hackinginquiry.org/)

Gap again - poor show

So here we are with a 7 month gap ... it's not that I have nothing worthwhile to say - far from it - so why the silence?  

I suppose I was working flat out, and my wife and I were sailing our new (old) yacht, and there are so many jobs to do, people to see, books to read, even TV to watch - all good excuses and poor reasons.  Oh and I'm attempting to write a book - my work on that sits ju-ust above writing blogs down in the dim, dark recesses of my prioritised list of lists.  

I shall re-prioritise ... I shall put something into this blog every week - a blathering on whatever is tweaking what's left of my grey cells at the time.

twitterati assessment

Twitter is a many-to-many aggregated newsfeed

• if you add up all time and intellectual effort expended on tweeting, and writing about tweeting … it’s probably bigger than the Greek economy
• so it all goes faster and faster with less and less thought
• social media does not feed and house us
• it’s the hugest solution looking for a problem to solve
• meanwhile we continue to use it because we can, because most of are driven to express ourselves, and because we need to be found/seen
• and it has a car-crash fascination despite our best intentions, and very occasionally something interesting
• aaaagh

Why remain an Interim?

A recruitment consultant called me, having found me online - asked if I would consider a permanent role.  I said no thanks, but tell me your problem and I may have some suggestions. She was surprised and asked why, in these difficult times, so many interims were determined not to go back to perm?


My response was that in a nutshell,  after working as an employee for 20 years I am now a career interim because I'm not good at climbing the corporate ladder and working the politics and competitions - what turns me on is getting my arms & head around a new company, a new industry even, and solving problems and delivering benefits. Furthermore at my relatively mature years I like the flexibility.


She then said she understood, and realised that what she wanted too - so, another convert.  (I strongly suspect that I was not the first person she had called today, and that she was having a tough time.  No doubt agencies with too few requirements to fulfill are investing their time in improving their candidate list ready for the upturn ... because they have to believe there's going to be one.  Me, I'm not so sure.)

Cause & Effect: American politics

Everywhere you look, people confuse cause and effect.  Here's an example from the illustrious Guardian (UK newspaper also known as the Grauniad for it's predilection towards typos) in Nov 2011:


"There is plenty of evidence that the thing that really turns off voters is a divided party. Since the war, no sitting US president who has faced an internal primary challenge has gone on to re-election; every one who faced no primary challenger has been re-elected.  So unless Hillary stirs, write off Obama at your peril."


No, no, NO.  The party wants to stay in power - if there's a primary challenge, it means the party thinks the sitting president is doing such a terrible job that s/he is un-electable. It's not the presence of the primary challenger that effects the outcome, it's the reason for there being a primary challenger.  Get it?

Rebalancing the CBI

Have you read the CBI report "Rebalancing the Economy" published 30 Dec 2011? Anyone concerned about UK Ltd should, and that should mean everyone.  Get it here

Comments on The Executive Summary:

1.  it blithely uses the phrase 'sustainable growth' as though just by stating it such a nirvana is achievable - there is no explanation as to what this means and how to actually achieve it - the body of the document only talks about how unsustainable everything has been recently

2.  there's a typo in the second heading - does not instill confidence in the quality of the document, does it

3.  it seems to contradict itself on the amount of new investment required from the private sector over the next 5 years - says £170bn one place and £115bn another place

4.  three of the five trends identified to be advantageous require new exporting to developing & emerging economies - easy to say, the holy grail even, yet the Report does not lay out how to go about this

5.  the other holy grail identified is Investment in the UK - now I may be naive, but any investment will expect a profitable payback, and where does that payback come from if not (eventually) government and households - the very areas that the Report says we should not rely upon, for obvious reasons

There appears to be other typographical errors, eg Exhibit 7 title should say £40bn not £42bn.

On the whole, and frustratingly, the Report is long on numerical analysis and statements of the blindingly obvious, and exceedingly short on concrete proposals and examples to achieve the aims

My comments on the exporting of what I do - interim management - are the top entry (no. 15747) in a Russams-GMS initiative here - and, no, I don't have any money to invest, I need what little I have to pay for my old age

The View got hazy

Where did those 6 months go?  How did I replicate the failure of so many blogs & sites to maintain the energy after the first flush of excitement?  Will this be another blip generated by the false dawn of a new year starting?  Does anyone care, or even notice?  When will I stop asking rhetorical questions (ooh, self-referencing there).


You'd better keep reading to find out!