THE LONG LEGACY OF WORLD WAR ONE

100 years ago the first shots were being fired in the First World War. At the end of it the Ottoman Empire was split up into the states that are involved in the awful carnage that we are seeing every night on our TV screens.

 

The situation is serious and is already affecting us here. My colleague Michael Taylor has addressed the street tension in Manchester over the Gaza issue in his Downtown blog. 500 people from Britain have gone to the Syrian civil war. Some may return to try and practise jihad on our streets. On the business front the fragile recovery could be reversed by more general war in the Middle East and interruption of fuel supplies.

 

There have been many Middle East crises before. This one has two new characteristics. Firstly social media is centre stage in the propaganda and recruitment war. Everything is accelerated. Rumours and lies rub shoulders with the truth and people choose what to believe and what determines their action. Secondly the United States is largely absent. After the unwise involvement of George Bush we now have the isolationism of President Obama. The decision to pivot American foreign policy towards the Pacific might have had a certain logic to it when Obama took office. However as the only world super power you take your eyes off the Middle East and Russia at your peril.

 

There is undoubtedly a paradox in United States involvement in the Middle East. On the one hand it is the hated symbol of Western imperialism and ultimate defender of Israel. On the other hand it retains massive military power and the potential to bring people together (The Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978).

 

The situation is so bloody and complex that the likelihood is that the Middle East will remain a running sore for decades to come. There may be ceasefires and short term agreements but the heady mix of vast economic disparity among the people, religious fanaticism and unresolved issues of national identity may be too difficult to resolve.

 

In 1919 the world was a different place. One set of Empires: Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia and Ottoman Turkey were replaced by another set: Britain and France with the United States beginning to play a role.

 

Lloyd George, Clemenceau and President Wilson met in Paris without the chatter of social media and 24 hour news channels and carved up the Middle East and Africa. Although the superiority of the white man was beginning to be challenged, the western powers still called the shots and huge mistakes were made.

 

It was perhaps regrettable that T.E Lawrence’s idea for a Greater Arabia was not adopted. The secret of the Ottoman Empire was to govern lightly by collecting the taxes but letting local Sunni and Shia leaders run their areas.

 

The Kurds should have been given their own state and it goes without saying more thought should have been given to the implications for the Palestinians of the Balfour Declaration that set in train the creation of Israel.

 

The Palestinian issue is almost intractable but ultimately could a bargain be struck whereby Israel and its settlers withdraw to the pre-1967 borders in return for a demilitarised Palestinian state being set up in the West Bank and Gaza? Jerusalem should become an international city under the control of the United Nations with freedom of worship for all faiths.

 

It is easy to write such a proposal and it will offend many but the alternative seems to be continuing misery for the Palestinians and insecurity for the Israelis.

THE LAST POST

The decision to close the Liverpool Post is the latest milestone on a road that could leave us with no printed newspapers at all.

 

In embarking on this subject I have to be careful not to wallow in too much nostalgia about nestling in the armchair with the rustle of the paper and ink on the fingers. I need to acknowledge that the casual swipe of the hand across tablet and smart phone is equally exciting for a new generation informing itself about current events.

 

For it is the largely free access to news at the press of a button that has done for the papers. People liked the instant access provided by the internet revolution and the advertisers have followed them. The huge loss of advertising revenue and the drying up of sales at the newsagent is seeing papers fighting a losing battle to continue in printed form.

 

Alan Rushbridger, the editor of the Guardian, has said that in fifty years people will be amazed to be told that once huge printers rolled off millions of papers at midnight that were them transported by lorry through the nights to thousands of shops. The economics stacked up in the era before 24 hour radio and TV news but not now.

 

I can easily see the total demise of printed newspapers although attempts are being made to keep them going by making them free.

 

So why am I sad to see the Liverpool Post go? Isn’t it just the latest development in communications which began with cave painting and Egyptian hieroglyphics? The monks changed all that with their portable illuminated manuscripts. Caxton disrupted the medieval world with the printing press and Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web which so many people rely on now to get their news.

 

I regret the ending of the Liverpool Post for a number of reasons. The parochial one is that the city has lost a publication that was full of great content from its business pages to its investigative journalism headed up by Marc Waddington. Some of this will continue to appear in the Liverpool Echo but that paper has sold its soul to a diet of crime and sensation which gives a very distorted image of Merseyside. That’s the price you pay when you engage in a futile chase for readers. “If it bleeds, it leads” is one of the most odious sayings I have had to live with in my journalistic career.

 

But on a wider front I wonder if there is a danger we are all going to become niche consumers of news. With the tablet and smart phone you inevitably concentrate on the particular story you are interested in. Your eyes don’t stray across the pages and notice something else you might be interested in. You don’t get the whole deal that a newspaper provides between its covers: the news, comment, features, pictures, the crossword and sport.

 

Let’s hope that, behind pay walls, some great journalism survives in the e-newspapers of the future. But they will be competing with the blogs and websites of citizen journalism. What is the truth will become a very pertinent question

 

The people are speaking and newspapers will die. There is no licence fee to protect a high quality paper from market forces. There is such a fee to protect the BBC although some papers, in their death throes, are trying to remove it.

 

A world without newspapers is going to be bad enough. Protect us from the BBC with a quarter of an hour per hour of advertising.

IT’S A LONG GENERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN

COALITION SPLITTING

I thought the process of the Tories and Lib Dems going their separate ways ahead of the 2015 General Election would start about a year out. Now it looks as if the Coalition Government is going to grind to a halt much sooner as the Tories and Lib Dems bid for votes.

David Cameron has risked this happening with the launch of his idea to scrap housing benefit for under 25s. He made no secret of this being a true Tory policy free from the coalition agreement that so irritates his right wing backbenchers. Its effect is to begin a process that can only weaken the forward movement of the government.

Apart from the fact that most of the key legislation was rammed into the first two years of the parliament, Tory and Lib Dem MPs will now be focused on shaping up for the next election rather than making the concept of coalition government work.

It is true that Cameron has been true to his word to introduce a bill for Lords reform this week. But few Tories have any commitment to it, most are indifferent or are actively plotting to defeat it. They don’t want the measure and they don’t want to put any feathers in the cap of the Lib Dems. So the next election is underway.

TIDE TURNING ON THE OLD?

By and large the old vote and youngsters don’t. Therefore politicians meddle with elderly people’s allowances with the greatest care. Tuition fees of £9000 a year fine but free TV licences and winter fuel allowances for the grey brigade….untouchable, until now.

Although the government is committed to the concessions in this parliament, there are indications that after 2015 the better off elderly are going to start feeing the pain of the younger generation.

And so we should! I was born under the National Health Service in 1948. I did not do national service or fight in a war. University education was free. There were plenty of jobs afterwards and, for some, good pensions to retire on.

Compare that to the stressed generation of youngsters now. Big debts, no jobs and the prospect of paying for our profligate public spending throughout their lives.

The Chancellor made the first move when he chopped the age related tax relief I was expecting next year, but this could only be the start of a seismic move by politicians to be more even handed between the generations.

It will be fascinating to see how the electorate reacts. Will young people start to vote in large numbers to influence politicians or will the 1940s baby boomers mobilise to insist that the good times must continue to roll for them?

NATION OR PREMIER LEAGUE?

There won’t be a long inquest into our latest failure to land the European Nations Cup. (I prefer the old titles, League Cup, European Cup, and Division 1).

We have made our choice. We are happy to pay Sky high subscriptions to watch the world’s best footballers in the First Division (ok, Premier League).

Even more foreign stars will be attracted to our shores with the latest extraordinary hike in television rights. Even fewer talented English players will get a chance to perform at the highest club level, so there will be even fewer able to pass and hold the ball in international tournaments.

The new FA youth centre will help a bit, but as my late father said to me as we watched England winning in 1966, “It could be a long time before you see this happen again.”

HILLSBOROUGH AND MEDIA MATTERS

HILLSBOROUGH

A brief word on the latest revelations around Hillsborough, and then I’ll move on to my main topic.

It appears a senior police officer in the Merseyside force helped to fuel the slander against Liverpool fans while rank and file bobbies were expressing their disgust at the accusations in The Sun.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the force was led by Chief Constable Ken Oxford who, it appears, was troubled with Anfield being turned into a shrine for the victims. With someone like that at the head of the police force, perhaps the revelation is not such a surprise.

Policing has moved on and the Merseyside force is now hopefully more sensitive to the community they serve.

Anyway it is not the papers relating to the Merseyside force we want to see but South Yorkshire. Why haven’t they leaked? Why are we now told it could be late this year before we get the full release of documents? I hope it is only personal details that are being redacted. The suffering has gone on long enough. Let Bishop James’ Commission report without further delay.

 

MEDIA MATTERS

Peter Salmon should be the next Director General of the BBC. I’ve spent the last few days with people involved in one of the most important job creators in the North West…. the media.

The Nations and Regions TV conference was held in Salford this week and there was the suggestion that our very own Peter Salmon should leap into the top job at the Beeb.

Salmon’s career has equipped him for the post. He went from Granada to a range of top jobs in the BBC and ITV culminating in him masterminding the corporation’s move to Salford in the face of fierce, prejudiced hostility from the southern based national press.

Incidentally on that subject did you spot the howler in the Telegraph the other day? While running one of their anti-BBC in Salford stories, they said Media City was in the MIDLANDS!

Now that error was written by a journalist and passed by a sub editor in one of our main quality papers. The North is a land of which they know little and the error is a powerful argument for redressing the media bias with a critical mass of production up here.

 

LOCAL TV

Do you want local TV? Jeremy Hunt does and has identified Preston, Manchesterand Liverpool among the first places for its roll out.

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has a poor opinion of regional television. He told the Salford conference that we only had it because it was based on where the transmission masts were in 1955 when ITV got underway. He says major cities in the USA have 6 local TV services providing much more local content.

The problem with this idea has always been making it pay. Channel One in Liverpool and more recently Channel M in Manchester failed the viability test.

Hunt believes he’s cracked the problem by getting the BBC to stump up £30m for the 44 stations which the Secretary of State believes can operate on a half million pound budget a year.

 

RED CARD FOR THE LOWER DIVISIONS ON THE BEEB?

If you support clubs like Morecambe, Preston and Oldham you will be concerned about rumours that the BBC may be dropping its coverage of non-Premier League football.

The Football League Show and Late Kick Off give vital coverage to the lower leagues at a time when much of the media is obsessed with the Premiership.

At the conference I had a chance to question the BBC’s Head of Sport Barbara Slater who said “discussions were ongoing”.

I understand the Football League are desperate to keep the BBC on board and are only asking for a modest amount for their coverage.

For the BBC to claim they can’t afford to continue covering the lower leagues would be a desertion of their public service duty.