Playlist fun

As I am someone who often spends time travelling on trains as part of getting to and from work, I spend a lot of my journey time listening to music on my iPod and am always looking for inventive ways of selecting the music that I listen to.

I have found that one of the best ways is to play songs alphabetically from the song index, as it means that you get to listen to quite a diverse range of tracks encompassing different genres and eras in one sitting.

Below is a sample of the recent playlists I have listened to recently in this way. Please note that Playlist #9 was an extended playlist that I listened to while travelling to Manchester over the weekend.

PLAYLIST #1
David Bowie - Absolute Beginners
Dolores O'Riordan - Accept Things
Oasis - Acquiesce
Mumford & Sons - After The Storm
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement
Bill Withers - Ain't No Sunshine
The Hollies - The Air That I Breathe
Sleeper - Alice In Vain
Simple Minds - Alive & Kicking
Jimi Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower
U2 - All Because Of You
The Kinks - All Day And All Of The Night
Alanis Morissette - All I Really Want

PLAYLIST #2
Puressence - All I Want
The Hours - Ali In The Jungle
Echo & The Bunnymen - All My Colours
Small Faces - All Or Nothing
The Waterboys - All The Things She Gave Me
Simple Minds - All The Things She Said
Sharleen Spiteri - All The Times I Cried
The Killers - All These Things That I've Done
The Farm - All Together Now
Embrace - All You Good Good People
The Beatles - All You Need Is Love

PLAYLIST #3
Prince - Alphabet Street
Jamiroquai - Alright
The Stranglers - Always The Sun
Razorlight - America
RPA & The United Nations Of Sound - America
Simple Minds - The American
Green Day - American Idiot
Lenny Kravitz - American Woman
Talking Heads - And She Was
Garbage - Androgyny
The Killers - Andy, You're A Star
U2 - Angel Of Harlem
Rolling Stones - Angie
Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall
Squeeze - Another Nail In My Heart

PLAYLIST #4
Queen - Another One Bites The Dust
Ladyhawke - Another Runaway
Ryan Adams - Answering Bell
Fyfe Dangerfield - Any Direction
Rolling Stones - Anybody Seen My Baby
Sheryl Crow - Anything But Down
The Kinks - Apeman
Corinne Bailey Rae - Are You Here
RPA & The United Nations Of Sound - Are You Ready
Stevie Wonder - As
Embrace - Ashes
Travis - As You Are
David Bowie - Ashes To Ashes
Muse - Assassin

PLAYLIST #5
Blondie - Atomic
The Noisettes - Atticus
Elbow - An Audience With The Pope
Manic Street Preachers - Australia
The Kinks - Autumn Almanac
Mumford & Sons - Awake My Soul
Fyfe Dangerfield - Awake, Asleep
The Who - Baba O'Riley
Massive Attack - Babel
Teenage Fanclub - Baby Lee
Them - Baby Please Don't Go
AC/DC - Back In Black
The Beatles - Back In The USSR

PLAYLIST #6
Ladyhawke - Back Of The Van
The Pretenders - Back On The Chain Gang
Amy Winehouse - Back To Black
Razorlight - Back To The Start
Michael Jackson - Bad
U2 - Bad
Garbage - Bad Boyfriend
KT Tunstall - Bad Day
Madness - Baggy Trousers
Foo Fighters - Baker Street
Space & Cerys Matthews - The Ballad Of Tom Jones
The Beatles - The Ballad Of John & Yoko
Jack Johnson - Banana Pancakes

PLAYLIST #7
Green Day - Basket Case
Fyfe Dangerfield - Barricades
Charlotte Hatherley - Bastardo
Travis - Battleships
Michael Jackson - Beat It
RPA & The United Nations Of Sound - Beatitudes
The Noisettes - Beat of My Heart
U2 - Beautiful Day
Madonna - Beautiful Stranger
Echo & The Bunnymen - Bed Bugs and Ballyhoo
Bon Jovi - Bed Of Roses
Keane - Bedshaped
Razorlight - Before I Fall To Pieces
The Stone Roses - Begging You

PLAYLIST #8
The Coral - Being Somebody Else
Keane - Bend And Break
Bruce Springsteen - Better Days
Ladyhawke - Better Than Sunday
Jack Johnson - Better Together
Then Jerico - Big Area
Natalie Imbruglia - Big Mistake
The Thrills - Big Sur
The Coral - Bill McCai
Michael Jackson - Billie Jean
Basement Jaxx - Bingo Bango
They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse In Your Soul
Doves - Birds Flew Backwards
Meredith Brooks - Bitch

PLAYLIST #9
The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle
Doves - Black And White Town
Texas - Black Eyed Boy
KT Tunstall - Black Horse And The Cherry Tree
The White Stripes - Black Math
Michael Jackson - Black Or White
The Last Shadow Puppets - Black Plant
Athlete - Black Swan Song
Muse - Blackout
Garbage - Bleed Like Me
The Killers - Bling (Confession of a King)
Razorlight - Blood For Wild Blood
Regina Spektor - Blue Lips
New Order - Blue Monday
Puddle Of Mudd - Blurry
Kings Of Convenience - Boat Behind
The Dandy Warhols - Bohemian Like You
Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
The Killers - Bones
RPA & The United Nations Of Sound - Born Again
James - Born Of Frustration
Oasis - Born On A Different Cloud
Kaiser Chiefs - Born To Be A Dancer
Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
Green Day - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
The Cure - Boys Don't Cry
Oasis - Boy With The Blues
The Pretenders - Brass In Pocket

PLAYLIST #10
Elbow - The Bones Of You
The Doors - Break On Through
Richard Ashcroft - Break The Night With Colour
Supertramp - Breakfast In America
Queen - Breakthru
U2 - Breathe
Corinne Bailey Rae - Breathless
Texas - Breathless
Bruce Springsteen - Brilliant Disguise
Furniture - Brilliant Mind
Cornershop - Brimful Of Asha
Echo & The Bunnymen - Bring On The Dancing Horses
The Adventures - Broken Land
Paul Weller - Broken Stones
Rolling Stones - Brown Sugar

World Cup dream squad

Well, we are now at the stage where there are just 4 teams left in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. All of the teams that have made it that far have got there through playing some good, attractive football along the way, as well as showing tenacity and commitment at key times and of course, each of have had some lucky breaks. None more so than Uruguay, whose place in the last 4 owed everything to Luis Suarez's spectacular goal-line save in the final minute of extra time against Ghana. Suarez, of course, is a centre forward rather than a goalkeeper and so his instinctive act resulted in him having first use of the showers, but his self-sacrifice also had the desired effect as Uruguay would go on to win a penalty shoot out after Asamoah Gyan's final minute penalty had hit the top of the crossbar.

I was almost tempted to name Suarez as one of the 3 goalkeepers in my ultimate World Cup squad, such has been the generally poor standard of goalkeeping in the World Cup this year. In the end I decided against it. Here for your delectation, however, is my 23 man squad of the best players that have graced the world stage this summer. Please note that I have picked this 23 solely on how they have performed in the World Cup and not on past reputations, performances for their club in the past season or any other criteria. Hence, there are a number of big name absentees from the squad, as well as the complete absence of any Englishmen. Here goes:

GOALKEEPERS
Eduardo (Portugal)
Stelekenburg (Holland)
Kawashima (Japan)

DEFENDERS
Ramos (Spain)
Lahm (Germany)
Lucio (Brazil)
Friedrich (Germany)
Lugano (Uruguay)
Salcido (Mexico)
Coentrao (Portugal)

MIDFIELDERS
Iniesta (Spain)
Schweinsteiger (Germany)
Sneijder (Holland)
Khedira (Germany)
Ozil (Germany)
Boateng (Ghana)
Beausejour (Chile)

FORWARDS
Villa (Spain)
Mueller (Germany)
Higuain (Argentina)
Forlan (Uruguay)
Honda (Japan)
Robinho (Brazil)

The first thing you notice about the squad is the distinct lack of players in the squad I have named that ply their trade in England. In fact, only one player in my squad was still playing their football in the English Premier League last season, Kevin Prince Boateng of Ghana, and he featured in the Portsmouth team that was relegated from the division. Whether this is an indictment on the standard of the Premier League is open to debate, but it is certainly true that a number of the Premier League's star names have failed to light up the tournament. This has not only been true of English marquee names such as Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard, but also of household names representing other countries. Fernando Torres and Robin Van Persie have noticeably looked desperately short of match sharpness, while Cesc Fabregas has featured mainly as a substitute for Spain. A second member of my squad, Brazil's Robinho, did feature for Manchester City last season but had been farmed out on loan back to his native Brazil during the second half of the season. The Brazilian sunshine appeared to enable him to rediscover his best form, on the evidence of the World Cup.

By contrast, Spain's La Liga is well represented in the squad that I named with five of the squad playing their club football in that league. All six Germans that I named in the squad currently play their football in their native Bundesliga, while only two of the squad play in Italy's Serie A, both for European champions Inter Milan. This would again seem to highlight the decline of a league that was once, by common consent, the strongest league in Europe. This status has diminished since the match fixing scandals damaged the purchasing power of the leading lights in the country. The rest of the squad is made up of two players that play in the Netherlands, two that play in Portugal and one each from the national leagues of Turkey, Japan, Russia and Mexico.

Choosing three goalkeepers for this squad was a difficult decision for the simple reason that the standard of goalkeeping in the tournament has been poor. Maybe the erratic movement in the air of the Jhabulani football has affected goalkeepers' confidence, but the fact remains that very few keepers have stood out in the tournament and people will remember some horrific goalkeeping howlers from the 2010 World Cup far more than they will recall the good saves. Even the goalkeepers with the best reputations have suffered. Iker Casillas has looked decidedly shaky for Spain, while Julio Cesar had enjoyed a quiet tournament until he was finally called upon against Holland, where he was completely at fault for the first goal Holland scored in their comeback win.

I feel that the 3 keepers I have selected have largely had the most error free tournaments and have made some important saves too. It is true that one of my keepers, Stelekenburg of Holland, gave away a penalty against Slovakia, but it made no difference to the result and the Dutch custodian had earlier made a couple of vital saves that swung the balance of the match the way of the men in orange. My first choice keeper though is Eduardo of Portugal, who had an excellent match against Spain, ultimately in a losing cause. Had Portugal been calling upon the services of a lesser keeper though, surely Spain would have won by a wider margin. My third keeper is Kawashima whose assured presence between the posts gave the defence in front of him greater confidence and helped Japan advance to the last 16 of the World Cup, conceding only 2 goals during their participation in the tournament.

The defensive positions were trickier to fill given that there have been several right backs that have impressed in the tournament, while have been fewer centre backs and left backs to choose from. In fact, in the end, I have had to leave out probably the best right back in world football, Maicon of Brazil and Inter Milan, despite him scoring one of the goals of the tournament against North Korea. I have chosen Sergio Ramos and Philip Lahm ahead of him because they simply could not be left out, Lahm has been outstanding in his marauding role for the Germans. Ramos' versatility means he can also play at centre back if need be, while Lahm is equally adept playing at left back.

With Ramos included, I have chosen only three specialist centre backs. Arne Friedrich of Germany has been the standout player in that position during the tournament and will surely be a target for major European clubs after the World Cup finishes, especially given that his club side Hertha Berlin were relegated to the German second division at the end of the season. Alongside Friedrich, I have chosen Lucio, who lived up to his reputation as the world's best centre back throughout the competition by being both accomplished in the tackle as well as displaying the usual Brazilian trait of being comfortable in bringing the ball out of defence. In reserve, I have chosen Uruguay's captain Lugano, whose injury early on in Uruguay's quarter-final win against Ghana put them under more pressure than they usually would have expected to face.

In the left back position, some of the marquee names did not live up to their pre-tournament billing with Patrice Evra heading home in disgrace with his French colleagues while life was not much better for Ashley Cole. Only two left backs really impressed me during the tournament and both were players that showed both sides of the modern full back's game, solid defensive tracking and positioning, as well as great athleticism in getting forward to support the attack. Carlos Salcido shone like a beacon in an adventurous but somewhat toothless Mexican side and found himself at the heart of many of his team's finest moments in the World Cup. Meanwhile, young Sporting Lisbon left back Coentrao was one of very few Portuguese players to emerge with any credit from their insipid displays in the World Cup.

Choosing the midfielders for the squad was generally a straightforward task. The team that has had the best midfield in the tournament has been Germany and so the decision to include all three of their regular midfielders, Bastien Schweinsteiger, Mesut Ozil and Sami Khedira, was a no-brainer. Schweinsteiger's determination and drive make him a certain starter while Ozil's ability to get between the lines of midfield and attack and create space for others to drop into mean he too should get a starting berth. My third starter is Wesley Sneijder of Holland, who has shown that a long season in club football need not write off your performance in the World Cup. Sneijder has scored four goals for the Dutch in their run to the semi-finals (albeit one should have been classified as an own goal) but he has had a knack of delivering when it has mattered in the tournament and retained possession well.

In reserve, my midfield options include the aforementioned Khedira, who has not attracted the plaudits that his colleagues Ozil and Schweinsteiger have, but who has been very tidy and efficient in the German midfield and rarely misplaced a pass. I also include Spain's Andres Iniesta, who has brought his club form for Barcelona to the World Cup more than his esteemed team-mate Xavi, who in my opinion has had a slightly disappointing World Cup. Iniesta has shown plenty of energy and played some trademark passes during the tournament, as well as scoring a vital goal against Chile that ensured his country's progress into the knockout stage. I also selected Kevin-Prince Boateng who I felt was the heartbeat of the impressive Ghanaian side and who scored a goal against the United States in the second round. Ghana were missing their best player Michael Essien due to injury and yet it is testament to how Boateng performed that Essien's dynamic qualities were not significantly missed.

The final midfield place was a tricky choice between two wide players, Landon Donovan and Jean Beausejour of Chile. Donovan's three goals for an ordinary USA side were almost reason alone to include him, but I was impressed by Beausejour who I had not previously heard of and his energetic, hard working performances summed up the work ethic of the Chilean team and Beausejour capped a good tournament with the winner against Honduras. So this previously unheralded player is perhaps my wild card pick in the squad, but I think he deserves his chance. As well as Donovan, other midfielders that just missed the cut were Park-Ji-Sung and Park-Chu-Young of South Korea, who both typified the industrious and energetic displays of their country. Had Arjen Robben started all of the matches in the tournament, he may well have been a contender for a place too.

So this leaves us then with the forwards. I have chosen six forwards, mainly because I have decided that my starting XI will play a 4-3-3 formation. Even so, whittling this squad down to just six forwards is tough because several forwards have made their mark during the tournament. In fact, four absentees from my squad, Miroslav Klose, Luis Suarez, Marek Vittek and Luis Fabiano have scored 14 goals between them during the tournament to this point, with Klose still having the potential to add to his tally. Leaving a player of Klose's goalscoring pedigree out of my final squad was not a decision I took lightly, but it says much about the players that did make it.

Let's start with the easy choices. Thomas Mueller at just 20 years of age has been a revelation in this World Cup. The young Bayern Munich starlet had not scored an international goal prior to the World Cup, but he has notched 4 goals in the tournament so far, mainly stationed on the right hand side of an attacking trio for Germany. He will play there too in my notional XI. Stationed on the left of a front three will be David Villa of Spain. While Torres has painfully laboured and looked a mere impostor compared to the player Liverpool supporters see week in, week out during the regular season, Villa has been Spain's talisman and has almost single handedly dragged his country to the semi-finals, showing exactly why Barcelona paid £34 million to acquire his services for next season. One suspects he will mainly operate on the left of a front three for Barcelona next season and he will occupy that self-same position in this team. Through the middle, I have chosen Real Madrid's Argentine striker Gonzalo Higuain who is what I call a "Johnny on the spot" forward, great at anticipating where the ball is going to land in the six yard box and scoring proper goalpoachers' goals. He best demonstrated this in his hat-trick against South Korea, the only hat-trick of this World Cup so far.

So I have chosen three of my forwards, but I still need another three forwards in reserve. Diego Forlan of Uruguay is my first pick. The player who was a figure of fun during his not entirely happy spell at Manchester United has shown that like a good claret, he has got better with age and has been the central figure in getting Uruguay to the World Cup semi-finals for the first time since 1970. When Uruguay have needed inspiration, Forlan has provided it, demonstrating this most when scoring a spectacular free kick against Ghana in the quarter-finals. Forlan's reputation as a proven goalscorer has been re-established at Atletico Madrid, but this World Cup has also shown that he can play in the hole between midfield and attack too and he has been his country's talisman in every sense.

My next pick may be slightly from leftfield given some of the star names I have left out, but Japan's Khisumi Honda just had to be in the squad. He stood out in a Japanese side that played with plenty of adventure and creativity during the World Cup and Honda had a fantastic match against Denmark that assured his country of a last 16 place. He scored a free kick to set Japan on their way (a free kick which at the time was the first that had been scored in the tournament) and then sealed victory by laying the ball on the plate for his strike partner to score the all-important third goal. Honda has made a mark with some good performances in the Champions League for CSKA Moscow and his showings in the 2010 World Cup may make him a target for clubs in the Premier League.

The final pick for my forwards is someone who has already played in the Premier League and was not a roaring success. But despite this, Robinho was arguably Brazil's star performer during the World Cup, scoring twice and also being involved in setting up other goals during the tournament. Robinho is not the type of player that is going to be involved for all 90 minutes of a match and he has a tendency to drift out of games. But he showed enough in the World Cup to show that his return to Brazil has done his game some good and that there is more to him than just being the stereotypical "luxury player". For that reason, he provides cover in the wide forward positions.

So there you have it, there is my 2010 World Cup select squad. There were plenty of possibilities, plenty of maybes and not-quites. But in the end, that was the squad I settled upon. It is always a subject of conjecture and so I would be interested to hear some alternative suggestions. From the 23 man squad I named though, here is my first choice starting XI. Note to Fabio, I found a way of picking this team without playing 4-4-2:

Eduardo

Lahm
Lucio
Friedrich
Salcido

Ozil
Sneijder
Schweinsteiger

Mueller
Higuain
Villa

SUBSTITUTES: Stelekenburg, Kawashima, Ramos, Lugano, Coentrao, Khedira, Boateng, Beausejour, Iniesta, Forlan, Honda, Robinho

The big E

Greetings, blog readers. Well, it looks as though spring is here at last with the smell of cut grass, the tulips in full bloom and ah yes, that funny light in the sky. Nothing like a few rays of sunshine to see the beautiful people of this fair isle home into view and discard a layer of clothing. Then again, it is probably that fatalistic British attitude of making hay while, you know the rest, in the knowledge that when summer is here it will be accompanied by the typical seasonal weather of torrential rain.

So what's been going on in the world? Well, we've had Easter when I trust you all remembered the true meaning of the occasion. That is to indulge a little on ovular shaped confectionery and forget about work for a few days! Apart from the aforementioned E word, it was another E word that dominated the week's media coverage and this will be the focus of this latest blog.

I am of course referring to the calling of the General Election, as approved by the Queen earlier this week. Over the coming weeks, all three party leaders will be travelling the length of the country kissing babies, reading to small children and watching other children draw pictures of them, seemingly oblivious to the fact that their friends for the day are in no position to influence the election as they have yet to reach the age of majority. And if that doesn't work, the leaders can always wheel out their secret weapons, namely their wives (so not that secret then) to vouch for their good character, faults and all.

None of these photo opportunities, however, will really tell the wider electorate much about what they really need to know, which is what leader stands for, what their party's priorities will be and what solutions they have to the current doom and gloom enveloping the nation, courtesy of the usual media scare mongering. Politicians are famously evasive when it comes to being open about their policies and principles, but at a time when there is so much apathy and distrust of their profession, this surely should be the determining factor in who wins the election rather than who wears the smartest suit, has the highest IQ or is covered in the least sweat after their morning run.

So, my friends, I have found salvation in the form of a section on the BBC Election 2010 website which outlines what each party's policies and approaches are on the core matters that will influence voters' decision making on polling day. I have copied and pasted the main points below, along with my own take on which party seems to be most on the money in each case. So let's get down to business.

Crime
Conservative policy: Replace police authorities with a directly-elected police commissioner; strengthen stop and search powers to tackle knife crime; give police the power to publicly identify offenders; change the law so that anyone acting "reasonably" to stop a crime or apprehend a criminal is not arrested or prosecuted; allow the police to use instant sanctions to deal with anti-social behaviour; reduce the burden of stop and search procedures; increase prison capacity above Labour’s plans, in order to scrap the early release scheme; allow courts to specify minimum and maximum sentences for certain offenders.

Labour: Highlight 40% drop in overall crime since 1997; mandatory assessment of every parent of every child aged 10-15 who is under consideration for an Asbo; automatic parenting orders on those whose teenage children breach an Asbo; tougher sentences for knife crime; portable weapon scanners for the police; highlight 15,000 increase in police numbers since 1997; pledge to protect frontline police from budget cuts in 2011-2013; highlight schemes to reduce police bureaucracy; oppose elected police authorities or commissioners; add 15,000 prison places by 2014 through the UK–s largest ever prison-building programme.

Liberal Democrats: Increase police numbers by 3,000 over five years; scrap identity card scheme; make police authorities directly elected, with increased powers; annual fitness tests for police officers; replace form-filling with new technology; create a National Crime Reduction Agency to spread best practice through the force; review police officers’ terms and conditions; seek advice from Law Commission and Plain English Campaign to make paperwork more simple.

My opinion: The Conservative approach is very much remaining true to its core values of being tough on crime and on the causes of crime. At a time when the media reports that Britain is engulfed by serious social meltdown and where victims' rights are often overlooked, the Tories' realise that the promise of stricter enforcement where laws have been transgressed is an obvious vote winner. There are certain elements of their policy that sounds good in theory and I would not object to courts being granted permission to specify minimum and maximum sentences for certain "category A" offences. An increase in prison capacity would also aid the Conservative hard line approach on offending, although the question of how it would fund this increase is not immediately apparent. Law and order is invariably one of the Tories' stronger areas and for those that favour the Draconian approach to punishing offenders rather than trying to rehabilitate them, you can see that this manifesto will tick a few boxes for them.

The Labour policy by comparison seems quite a weak and tired blueprint and I would be concerned by their staunch highlighting of the overall crime rate being greatly reduced. Mark Twain was infamously distrusting of statistics and there is much evidence to suggest that crime statistics in this country are not a true reflection of the reality. There are plenty of examples of unreported crime, particularly where the crime was of a violent nature, due to the fear of retribution. There are also examples of petty crime that the police are seemingly powerless to prevent from turning into more serious incidents of crime, particularly where anti-social behavioural episodes are concerned. The parental measures concerning children with ASBOs is worthy of respect up to a point, but there is an element of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted to their implementation.

Of the three parties, I find myself most aligned to the Liberal Democrat model. They have been clear in their opposition to the flawed national identity card scheme, which offers little prevention to terrorism but which is an intrusion into people's civil liberties. The rest of their policies may on the surface appear slightly wishy-washy, but the proposed change in governance so far as police authorities are concerned would hopefully see an understanding that with greater powers comes greater responsibility. The public feel more assured if police are able to patrol the streets rather than be sitting in an office and so the measures that the Lib Dems mention which are designed to save time filling in forms should enable that to happen.
VERDICT: The Lib Dems appear to offer the best package.

Crime
Conservative policy: Increase health spending in real terms over a parliament; replace ’process’ targets, such as maximum time before seeing a cancer specialist, with ’outcome’ targets, such as number of people dying from cancer; more management freedom for NHS providers; put performance data online; allow patients to choose any healthcare provider that meets NHS standards; implement a ’payment for results’ system throughout NHS; link GPs’ pay to results; cut the cost of NHS administration by a third; create an independent NHS board; end mixed-sex wards; increase the number of single rooms in hospitals; allow retirees to protect their homes from being sold to fund residential care costs by paying a one-off premium of £8,000 at retirement.

Labour: Protect frontline NHS from spending cuts; ensure all people who suspect they have cancer get test results within one week; guarantee cancer patients will see a specialist within two weeks of diagnosis; offer everyone between 40 and 74 free, five-yearly NHS health check; guarantee NHS patients the right to wait no longer than 18 weeks from the moment of GP referral to hospital treatment; establish a "National Care Service" for elderly and vulnerable people, with funding arrangements decided by a Commission; provide free personal care indefinitely for those in highest need; meet elderly people's care costs after they have spent two years in residential care.

Liberal Democrats: Replace Strategic Health Authorities with democratically elected local health boards with power to prevent hospital closures; reduce number of health targets; introduce "patient contracts" specifying what patients can expect from NHS; make it easier to switch GP; allow patients to register at more than one practice; reform NHS dental contracts to encourage dentists back into the NHS; extend access to end-of-life services and hospices; more cost-effective purchasing of drugs, including greater use of generic drugs; payments for over-65s who require personal care such as help with dressing based on need, not ability to pay.

My opinion: While I think that it is right that Conservatives' should move away from the process targets that are mentioned, I'm not sure that their favoured 'outcome' is necessarily going to be a helpful exercise, or that it will provide an accurate indication of competency. Obviously, the mortality rate is the only way of showing how effective the health service is in carrying out its work, but not all deaths are as a result of the role of the health service. Admittedly if a correct diagnosis is not made at an early stage, or if a response is not fast enough, then these are examples of standards falling short. But there are certain uncontrollables too. If a patient themself does not seek out medical advice at an early stage, then there are occasions when a condition may be caught too late in the day. The Tories' manifesto seems obsessed by results and while I can understand this to a certain degree, I feel uneasy about people's livelihoods being affected by "results" that could be beyond their control. The Tories do win some points for identifying administration costs as a saving, although the drawback to this will mean that less admin staff will mean that frontline staff will have to spend more time on admin duties when they could be supporting patients.

There are some elements of Labour's policy that make sense and I certainly applaud their proposals concerning cancer care. Pretty much everyone in this country has been affected by this wretched disease at some point during their life and if any steps can be taken, albeit small, to minimise death and suffering from this scourge then this action should be commended. Their policies in supporting the most vulnerable people in society is also something that I admire. I feel that marginalised groups, particularly those with mental health related problems come low down on the Tories' list of priorities and yet many of the people that use health services in this country fall into that category. I'd rather the health service is driven by people instead of targets, and although the health service has not been without blemish under Labour's watch, their commitment to improving it is evident.

The Lib Dems have a few interesting ideas without really hitting anyone with a killer policy on health. I do certainly support their attitude in reducing health targets, which appears to be the polar opposite to the Conservative attitude on the matter. It is also good to see that the party would take a stand in supporting elderly people from poor backgrounds in making sure they could access appropriate personal care. There are certainly numerous examples of people that cannot access their family network for such care and who often die in squalor. The idea of a "patient contract" sounds like it has been borrowed from other industries and while it sounds good in theory, in reality what a patient should expect from the NHS is quite simple. Receive top quality care in order to aid their recovery as swiftly as possible. That doesn't really require a piece of paper for the message to be conveyed, does it?
VERDICT: The Conservatives target driven attitude could potentially do more harm to the NHS, rather than make it more accountable for its performance. Despite its problems under the Labour administration, the present governing party appear to understand its failings and realise that using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut is not necessary.

Education
Conservative: Allow charities, parent and teacher groups, and co-operatives to establish Academies – schools which are state funded but independent of local authority control; allow every existing school – including primaries – to seek Academy status; create a "Pupil Premium", giving more money to schools that teach the poorest children; raise teacher training entry requirements; allow state schools to offer the same international exams as private schools; make it easier for teachers to use "reasonable force" to deal with violence; give head teachers power to pay "good" teachers more; scrap exclusions’ appeals process; create 10,000 extra university places in 2010 and 100,000 additional apprenticeships and training places a year; give bonuses for early repayment of student loans.

Labour: Protect schools budget from spending cuts; continue roll-out of Academies independent of local authority control; introduce "Local Pupil Premium", forcing local authorities to pass on extra funding to schools teaching the poorest pupils; encourage universities to set Academies up as well as private organisations; guarantee extra maths and English tuition for all 7 to 11 year olds who fall behind; encourage comprehensive schools to pool budgets in school "chains", allowing stronger schools to raise standards in weaker schools; introduce school "report cards", which would rate schools on a wide range of data, including exam performance, behaviour and parents' and children's views of a school; consider ways to widen access to universities, while retaining tuition fees; create 20,000 extra undergraduate university places in 2010-11 and 400,000 apprenticeships by 2020; introduce a renewable "licence to teach" for teachers; guarantee a place in education or training for all 16 and 17 year olds.

Lib Dems: Replace Academies with "Sponsor Managed Schools", to be run by educational charities and private providers, but under local authority control, not Whitehall; provide £2.5bn for a "Pupil Premium" for schools teaching the poorest pupils; replace National Curriculum with a Minimum Curriculum Entitlement to allow teachers more flexibility; create a General Diploma made up of GCSEs, A-Levels and vocational qualifications; create an Education Standards Authority to monitor school standards independent of government; increase the apprenticeship numbers, and places on university and vocational higher education courses; scrap university tuition fees over six years.

My opinion: There are a few gimmicks in the Conservative education policy, which generally seem as though they will widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots in the education system. The "Academy" idea seems like a way of challenging authority but for no discernible reason. The "Pupil Premium" proposal would seem to go somewhat against the grain so far as the general Tory education policy is concerned, but on the surface, it would seem like a welcome move. Schools with the least affluent pupils will not improve without suitable investment and so this seems like a sensible way of supporting this. There are 1 or 2 good ideas in amongst a sea of impractical drivel. On the plus side, the extra 100,000 apprenticeships and allowing teachers to use reasonable force where it is necessary. Not every child that leaves school can go to university, or indeed wants to and so apprenticeships offer a meaningful and rewarding alternative. Likewise, no-one would dispute that teachers should be allowed to defend themselves when they are in physical danger from a teenager that is bigger and stronger than them.

There are definite flaws in the Conservative education manifesto though. Raising teaching entry qualifications at a time when attracting people to the profession is on the downturn does not seem like a necessary move. Teachers are usually not incompetent because of their qualifications but because of their inward looking attitude. A more sensible idea would be for teachers to go on a "refresher" after being in the job for a certain period of time. Giving teachers power to pay "good" teachers more could surely create a divisive dynamic in the staff room and it's also questionable how this could work in legislation. If 2 teachers are teaching the same subject and with the same duties, with neither being head of their department, then surely by law they have to be paid the same salary? Scrapping an exclusions appeal process sounds like dangerous ground to be covering as that sends out the message that authority is always right even when it's wrong. I also feel that the Tories, in keeping with other parties, should be focusing less on increasing university intake when the clearance system in universities is already too relaxed, resulting in courses being oversubscribed and also impacting on the drop-out rate.

Labour's commitment to apprenticeships is encouraging, and they look like they are setting a realistic figure of 400,000 more apprenticeships by 2020. As with the Tories, they support the Local Pupil Premium scheme, which no doubt means there will be squabbles as to who thought up the idea first and who copied the other. Of the rest of their ideas, there are not too many striking, stand-out policies other than the pledge for all 16 and 17 year olds to be guaranteed a place in education or training. I've heard previously that Labour wish for all children to compulsorily remain in education until 18 and I don't think this is a good idea as there are some pupils better served in finding their way in the world at 16 rather than remaining in school and disrupting the more adult dynamic that is common in sixth form. Overall, the Labour education manifesto appears rather dull and anaemic in its content.

Perhaps because they realise that they have only a minimal chance of bringing their plans into fruition, the Liberal Democrats have come up with some refreshing and innovative proposals in their manifesto. I think it is sensible for their proposed "Sponsor Managed Schools" to be managed at local authority level rather than by national Government and this should ensure that the type of education being delivered is meeting local requirements and demands. The abolition of the National Curriculum is not something that the 2 main parties have really discussed before, but I do know that some teachers feel they are constrained by the Curriculum's requirements and so if there is an alternative that give a teacher more creative freedom which is able to lead to more productive lessons, then I think this would be a bold, but undeniably a positive move. Having an authority that is independent of Government that is set up to review school standards also seems like a good idea, as this should mean that there is less potential for failings to be covered up. I applaud the Lib Dems' commitment to more vocational courses, as these test the transferrable skills that employers are looking for more than traditional, exam driven qualifications do. Whilst I have reservations about expanding the university network too far, I feel that the Lib Dems would help get more students into university on the basis of academic ability rather than wealth, and so again, they score well.
VERDICT: The Lib Dems' education strategy, at least on paper, appears innovative and radical, and is focused around nurturing students at all stages of their development, while giving teachers more creative freedom. In the cold light of day, if they did somehow get into power then bringing these ideas to fruition could be the tough part, but their ideas seem more robust than the tired strategies listed by the other 2 main parties.

Family
Conservative: Let parents share maternity leave; recognise marriage and civil partnerships in the tax system by 2015; ensure that the tax credit system does not penalise couples by doubling the Working Tax Credit for couples who live together; focus SureStart on the neediest families; provide 4,200 more Sure Start health visitors; support free nursery care for pre-school children, from a range of private and public providers; extend the right to request flexible working to every parent with a child under the age of 18.

Labour: Extend free nursery places for 3-4 year-olds from 12.5 hours to 15 hours; provide two extra outreach workers for 1,500 SureStart community support centres in most disadvantaged areas; provide nursery places for 20,000 two-year-olds in the most deprived areas by 2012; fund two parenting advisers in every local authority; provide £73 million to help low income families access childcare; oppose the reintroduction of the married couples tax allowance; continue to provide nine months of paid maternity leave, but no extension to 12 months; give parents of one- and two-year-olds an extra £4 a week in Child Tax Credit for each child from 2012.

Lib Dems: Allow parents to share maternity leave; extend the right to request flexible working to all employees, not just parents and carers; fix the payments of tax credits for six months at a time so that payments are stable and predictable.
My opinion: This is not really a subject that will massively influence how I vote in the election, but for those with children, I can see that there are potential carrots offered up by each party. The Conservatives favour the traditional family model and this is emphasised in their policies, which they no doubt feel will be an antidote to the current "broken Britain". The tax credit system is likely to be appealing to families where both partners work. The right to extend flexible working to all parents is also going to be popular, although I can see that this will be challenging to put into practice in certain professions.

The Labour Party attitude would seem somewhat at odds with the more traditionalist stance of the Conservatives given that they are opposed to the reintroduction of the married couples' tax allowance. Their approach is geared to the times in which we live. As much as marriage remains a sacred institution to many, it no longer is the be-all and end-all for others, particularly those that have experienced at first hand the failures post-ceremonial vows. The keeping of the maternity pay at 9 months rather than increasing to 12 is something that I would expect to be under review at a later date, as and when the economic picture improves.

The Lib Dems seem to follow similar lines, except that they are wanting flexible working arrangements to be extended to all employees, regardless of whether they have dependants. This sounds reasonable in principle, but it is questionable as to whether it is entirely necessary other than for purposes of equality. What benefit ultimately is there to an employer in letting its single men work from home in the evening just so they can pop to the gym in the afternoon? Allowing maternity care to be shared seems a reasonable idea, even if one of the partners would normally be offering paternity care instead.
VERDICT: No-one really stands out on this issue and there are a few similarities on policies. For people that favour the traditional family model, there is more on offer from the Tories, whilst Labour seems to be striking a balance between what is helpful to families and what is helpful to the economy.


Time has beaten me tonight and there are several more issues which are likely to be key factors in the election. I hope to examine these in more detail in my next blog and hopefully this can educate us all, myself included, as to who would be the best party to cast a vote for on 6 May.

Serving up a treat

Hello again, cyber friends. As usual, I find myself apologising for an extended absence from subjecting you to my occasionally well thought out prose musing on the finer points of life. And for the most part, my idle ramblings on whatever enters my head. As much as I would like to inform you that my latest hiatus has been due to a hectic work schedule or a spell of globe trotting, the reality is simply that I have been waiting for the necessary inspiration to write about some interesting topics.

Well, since I was last here, what new things have we discovered? The scandal sheets have been full of stories of philandering footballers, writing with exclamations of moral indignation when footballers playing away from home, to use an appropriate analogy, is a tradition associated with the occupation for longer than the wearing of shin pads or the exchanging of penants before kick off. It was the exchange of a handshake that caught the press’s attention recently, although as it transpired, the handshake was not forthcoming. We will come on to the thorny subject of Bridge versus Terry in a future blog, along with some other topics affecting the beautiful game at the moment.

Outside of the national sport, the nation has been captivated by the coverage of the Winter Olympics. Well, that statement is certainly true if the nation in question is Canada. Given that Britain’s credentials in winter sports generally stop at their gold medal performances in the apres-ski beer consumption on the nursery slopes of St Moritz and of de-icing the car windscreen on a biting December morning in readiness for the school run, then Amy Williams’s gold medal in guiding the fastest tea tray in the west down the sliding slopes of Whistler was about all the mother nation could hope for. Although, I am sure the inquests into our paltry medal total have already begun. We invented snow, don’t you know?

Anyway, enough waffling from me. Let’s get down to business and waffle some more.


6 Music a sign of BBC running scared of its enemies
The recent news that the BBC has decided to discontinue the broadcasting of its 6 Music station has raised some eyebrows among media commentators. As well as closing its cult digital music station, the BBC has also announced further cutbacks with around half of its programme websites expected to close, as well as the Asian Network radio station also ceasing to broadcast.

The loyal followers of 6 Music have, understandably, been dismayed by the news of its closure, pointing to the millions of pounds that the BBC have spent on their premises relocation to Manchester. Meanwhile, the hardened cynics to whom progress is a dirty word, have observed that if all of the people that purport to listen to 6 Music had done so on a regular basis, then their beloved channel would not be going off air. Both schools of thought may merit consideration, but neither are contributory factors in why the BBC has reached this decision.

The BBC's decision to cut back on its output has nothing to do with cost savings. It also has very little to do with profitability, or even broadcast ratings. Just because 6 Music attracted comparatively small fry in terms of audience share, that is not a reason to pull the plug. When the channel was first broadcast some 5 years ago, the BBC would not have envisaged the station being a huge ratings winner. The station's music policy and the very deliberate placement of the station as a niche audience puller was a conscious decision, with the anticipation that the station would attract a small, but perfectly formed audience, but which would gather momentum over time through word of mouth.

So, you will be asking, if money wasn't the driving force behind the BBC's cutting back of services, then what was the motivating factor? Well, it would appear to me as though the main factor that has led to the BBC reaching this decision is fear. Fear of what exactly? Fear of change? Fear of competitors? Well, fear of a change in the political landscape would be my personal interpretation on the matter.

Within around two months time, the nation will have to go to the polls as the Labour Government's maximum five year term of office will expire on 6 May. At present, opinion polls vary, but in the main, it is suggested that the Conservatives' are enjoying a 5 to 8 point lead over the Labour Party. In real terms, if the electorate was to vote the same way on polling day, then the likelihood is that the Conservatives would win the most seats but would not have enough to claim an overall majority, therefore meaning the formation of a Hung Parliament.

A Hung Parliament would not concern the BBC's bigwigs as much as the prospect of a Conservative Government being formed, which looked like a formality only a few months ago. For some time, it has been well known that as and when the Conservatives next take power, one of the principle tasks they wish to undertake is to make the BBC a less powerful corporation and to muzzle the activities it is involved in. Their argument, as champions of a free market, open to many competitors, is that the BBC has become too big a player in its market and has moved away from its remit to provide a public service and instead has the structure and constitution of a corporate business. Their wide presence across the media, the Conservatives feel, is a prohibitive barrier for other organisations to realistically compete in the media market, and it is also leads to a danger of a lack of impartiality in media reporting. For some reason, there has long been a perception among some people of blue blooded stock that the BBC leans towards the lily livered liberal section of society, although there has never been any firm evidence of this.

All in all, you would have to say that the BBC in actual fact has been a victim of its own success. The corporation has shown itself to be a good innovator that has set trends across a wide variety of media platforms. You need only look at the success of its iPlayer, success that has manifested itself in the fact that all of the BBC's main competitors have now introduced a similar service to watch recent programmes broadcast by their network via their website. Imitation is indeed the highest form of flattery. Due to the BBC's ability to manoeuvre itself in so many pies, this has brought resentment from its commercial competitors, whose revenue is solely generated through advertising, rather than the licence fee in the case of the BBC.

The unique way in which the BBC is funded continues to be a source of irritation and anger among the more right aligned of the print media titles. The Conservative Party, who gather many of their traditional voters from readers of these newspapers, have spotted a convenient bandwagon to jump on (Conservatives, bandwagon, never) and so have promised that the BBC's spending and corporate governance will be top of their agenda should they assume power in May. Whilst newspapers like the Daily Mail and Telegraph have long held an anti-BBC agenda on the grounds that they object to anything that reduces the amount of disposable income that one could spend on something meaningful like a loft conversion or a pony, it is noticeable that one of the BBC's most vocal critics has been The Sun, which claims that the BBC is not politically impartial. The pungent, intoxicating stench you can detect is that of grade A hypocrisy.

As much as The Sun regards itself as the voice of the people and its powerful editorials and headlines ensure that a fair section of its readers tap into this self-promotion, the truth of the matter is that The Sun is the megaphone for the opinions and agendas of its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch is a Capitalist and all of his public comments are deliberately measured for what will provide him with the best opportunity for Capitalist gain. The Sun is quite deliberately targeted at working class, blue collar workers with only a limited amount of intellect and ability to form their own opinions and so consequently, it is people from this demographic that go on to Facebook and set up groups allied to The Sun's right wing viewpoint that preys upon other like minded individuals to sign up.

The purpose of this article is not to beatify the BBC and its hierarchy, but merely to point out that its detractors are looking after number one when they criticise the corporation. In a time when some businesses are failing, the BBC remains a very successful business model, but this appears to be part of the problem. Because the BBC is a public funded organisation, people seem to think that this means its constitution should be such that it should not be governed by making a profit, and yet there is not a business in any sector, including the voluntary sector, that can be sustainable unless it is making a surplus. That Rupert Murdoch and his equally charmless son James have been so vocal in attacking the BBC because its presence restricts what activity Sky can carry out almost makes me want to reach for the Kleenex. Neither Murdoch is interested in what's best for the market or what is best for the consumer, their only motivation is what is best for Team Murdoch and for the Sky corporation.

The point of the matter is that the reason for the BBC's decision to cut back on its website output and to close 6 Music and the Asian Network has little to do with cost cutting and also little to do with ratings, but has everything to do with the fear that the hostility that the Conservative Party has shown the BBC will ensure that if they take power that they will make sure that the BBC is reformed and held more accountable than it presently is. "Quite right too" you can hear the Daily Mail tubthumpers bellowing. "Not before time" they add over in the air conditioned offices of News International. But, who exactly wins in this situation?

The BBC has taken the view that by closing 6 Music, a commercial organisation could come in and acquire the station and the brand and enable it to be moved forward in a way that the BBC couldn't, because to them it was just a niche station in quite a wide radio portfolio. But, this is a case of executives making a decision without understanding the audience that the station was set up for in the first place. Although 6 Music was only moderately successful in terms of the size of its audience, the station had a cult following and its ethos was very much as the antithesis to the plethora of mainstream pop music stations that are available via digital radio. Although I was not a regular listener to 6 Music, one of the reasons for its listeners being loyal to the network is that it gives unsigned acts airplay and it also gives its presenters more autonomy over the selection of music for their show. Musicians such as Jarvis Cocker and Elbow's Guy Garvey have presented shows on 6 Music where they have played an eclectic range of music that is influential to their sound and because the station has veered away from having a set playlist, it gives the presenter more licence to play the type of music they want to play.

Transferring the 6 Music in-house music policy to a commercial setting just simply would not work because a commercial radio station has other priorities, namely advertising. Although in theory the digital revolution gives the radio listener a far more extensive choice of stations and musical genres to listen to, the overall presentation of commercial radio is very formulaic and while various radio stations like to have their listeners believe that the music is their primary focus, there is no disguising the fact that the main consideration for these stations is the advertising mark-up. Three or four sets of adverts an hour plus additional product placement in the form of an auction style competition or a regular sponsor for the travel reports is the lifeblood for commercial radio stations in a massively saturated market.

As much as the brand name of "6 Music" would initially be a selling point for any commercial organisation that bought the station and the brand, ultimately the acquisition of the brand would be worthless unless the core values of the original station were upheld, and this simply is not compatible with the market forces involved in commercial radio. As discussed, commercial radio stations are governed by their advertisers and advertisers are more likely to go where they can get more listeners at key times. As depressing as it is to consider, mainstream is what the advertisers will choose because, by the nature of the word, mainstream means a higher and more accessible audience. Confronted with the choice of advertising on a station that is playing Robbie Williams and Lady GaGa to half a million listeners a week or advertising on a station that is playing the latest hot new act from the London folk rock scene or is playing 1960s album tracks by Bob Dylan to less than half of that audience size, the sad reality is that "Have A Break, Have A Kit Kat" will be aired to the highest audience portion.

The 6 Music listener would be less sad about the inability of the station to find suitable advertising because they are presently happy that they do not have advertising interrupting the music while it remains in the BBC family. This is another reason why it is hard to envisage the station working in a commercial format. The only way that it could really be incorporated into the commercial sector would be for an existing provider in the market to acquire the station and add it to their portfolio.

The only station I can see doing this is Absolute Radio, which is part of the Times of India media empire. Absolute, as well as having its main station, also has a specialist rock and a specialist 1980s music station. Although structurally it is feasible for Absolute to throw its hat in the ring, it has a very rigid and formulaic music policy and it is hard to see how it could continue to run 6 Music with the type of creative programming that it presently enjoys, or for it to have such a focus on unsigned acts. Acts like Florence & The Machine and Marina & The Diamonds have enjoyed exposure on Absolute, but only after they had been broken some months before on other stations. If Absolute took 6 Music on, it would likely just make it into a clone of the XFM indie station that can be heard in London. This would be all the more strange given that Absolute closed a specialist indie station just a few months ago in order to make way for its 80s music station.

In a time when mainstream tastes are catered for at every whim by countless radio stations within the commercial sector, it is a crying shame that the BBC has buckled under the pressure of its detractors and got rid of a niche service which, while not bringing in huge ratings, was never set up with that intention and which cannot be readily imitated with any great success by commercial rivals. It is ironic in some senses that the very people who condemn the BBC for forgetting its roots as a public service broadcaster have been responsible for influencing the corporation in ditching one of its services that was very much broadcasting a public service to grateful listeners, albeit they were a comparatively small audience. It seems strange that the BBC is choosing to axe 6 Music when, if any type of cull was necessary, it may have been better served to dump Radio 1 Xtra, a station that costs far more and which is offering a service already catered for by several commercial rivals. It also happens to employ Tim Westwood as one of its resident DJs and that alone should be good reason for taking an axe to the station.

The Director General of the BBC, Mark Thomson, may feel that making these changes will be enough to appease the dissenting voices in the Conservative Party, who if they had their way would force the BBC into mass cuts which would probably result in such a strain on spending that repeats of My Family would have to be shown on BBC1 every night of the week. First of all, the BBC Trust needs to ratify Thomson's recommended changes and that is by no means guaranteed. But even if it does, should the Tories get into office, I very much doubt these changes alone will be sufficient to satisfy the doubters. Thomson is likely to move on and get another executive position somewhere else, much like his counterpart at ITV, Adam Crozier managed to and then it will be somebody else's turn to keep out the enemy.

In the long run, the only way these people will back down is if the licence fee is discontinued, which could become a possibility once the digital switchover is completed as this could then pave the way to an opt-in/opt-opt out type of subscription television. In the short term, 6 Music's workers and listeners seem to be the unwitting casualties in someone else's war.

New balls please
The ongoing British sporting debacle that is the failure of its Davis Cup team recently reached a new low with Great Britain humbled by the mighty Lithuania in their Euro-Africa zone clash. This result left Britain requiring a victory against Turkey later in the year, in order to avoid relegation to the bottom division of the competition next year and face the possibility of a match against such superpowers as Iceland or Andorra. In fact, it says much for the malaise that faces Britain's team that their next opponents Turkey were defeated in their last tie by Ireland, a country that traditionally produces tennis players as often as Australia produces world champion bobsleighers.

As ever, a scapegoat for British failure was quickly identified and sure enough, it was John Lloyd, the Davis Cup captain who understandably carried the can for a humiliating result, a result that also happened to be Britain's fifth successive loss in a Davis Cup tie under his watch. Lloyd's ousting from office was inevitable because he was directly involved in picking the players that took to the court against Lithuania and so he had to take ownership for the defeat. However, whatever failings Lloyd had should not mask far greater and deeper deficiencies with British tennis which explain why a country with over 60 million inhabitants should continue to fail in producing high calibre players through its own system.

One man who has attracted criticism is Roger Draper, the chairman of the Lawn Tennis Association, the man who was charged with reforming the coaching structure of tennis in the United Kingdom. Draper seems to be another from the Adam Crozier and Mark Thomson school of soundbite, plenty of ideas, but less evidence of any meaningful action. Draper certainly has some vocal critics, not least the Brightonian comedian and tennis lover, Tony Hawks. Hawks, who coincidentally wrote the excellent "Around Ireland With A Fridge", is the patron of the campaign "Tennis For Free", a worthy campaign that tries to give children free access to tennis courts in a similar way to how they are available in the United States. Hawks's spat with Draper stems from the fact that he asked the LTA to promote his campaign, but found that support was in short supply.

The LTA have spent significant sums of money on reform under Draper's tenure and have pleaded for patience on their return on investment, but it is hard to be so sympathetic to this attitude when the LTA spent great sums of money on the hiring and subsequent pay of Andy Murray's coach Brad Gilbert, who would split with Murray acrimoniously within 18 months. Given the prize money that Murray amassed from his growing number of ATP titles, surely it was not unreasonable to expect him to pay for his own coach, rather than for the LTA to set aside the money for this purpose, creating a black hole in the coffers.

Very few top class British players have emerged in the past 20 years, in either the men's or the women's game. Of those that have, Andy Murray spent many of his teenage years being schooled in Spain and so his present status among the current tennis elite owes barely anything to the British coaching system and everything to his mother's determination for Murray to achieve the best tennis education possible. Meanwhile, the 2008 Wimbledon Girls' champion Laura Robson spent most of her early life in Australia. Rewind a few years and Greg Rusedski reached the final of the US Open, but was only representing Britain as a flag of convenience, with his schooling having been on the hard courts of Montreal and Toronto. Of British top 20 players in the last 20 to 25 years, only Tim Henman was genuinely a product of the homegrown system. In his case, he was helped by being born into an affluent, middle class Home Counties family and where tennis was in the genes. It was Henman's grandmother who was the first to serve underarm at Wimbledon.

The class divide is one of the reasons for the continued failure of Britain to produce quality tennis players, although it is far from the only one. Tennis is an expensive sport to play, when compared to other sports. A parent can pay for their child to play football for the cost of buying a ball from the local sports shop, given that the goalposts will already have been paid for in the form of a rucksack or a few coats. Cricket can initially be played with a block of wood and a soft ball with the aforementioned rucksack used as the wicket. But, apart from the possible origins of playing Swingball in the garden, tennis is a costly sport to play due to the cost of getting a court, buying the racquet and if a child is prodigious enough to play competitively, there is the cost of engaging a coach. This is where Tony Hawks' Tennis For Free campaign has its undoubted merits.

While lack of money may end up with certain talented tennis players being lost to the game, I think that the attitude that people have to the game of tennis in this country is another fundamental reason for its continued shortage of a meaningful production line. You will only need to visit your local park on a Sunday morning to see what is wrong with the attitude to the sport in this country. Kids are being kept off the court by a couple of sweaty middle aged blokes, sometimes playing with a John McEnroe vintage wooden racquet who are playing the game with no movement, but gently exchanging rallies from the edge of the baseline and will be serving the ball from inside the service line, without even throwing the ball up to serve authentically.

Now, I am not suggesting that middle aged men should be banned from playing tennis. Far from it, in fact I think that tennis is an excellent way of keeping fit. My point is that there is a lack of intensity in the way the game is played. It is a leisure pursuit for many and because it is a gentle way of passing the time on the weekend before burning off the calories in the bar, people do not really approach the sport in the way it was intended to be played, that is as an athletic sport. Apart from the point that the Sunday morning player often lacks the physique to be an athlete, or is recovering from the previous night's excesses in any event, I think the parks player is often wary about throwing themselves around an unforgiving, concrete court.

While these types of player are hogging the tennis courts at weekends, children are waiting to get a game and if their first direct experience of seeing the game in the flesh is to see a singles or a doubles rubber being played with little energy or enthusiasm, it does not encourage them to stick with the sport themselves and consequently, tennis' loss ends up becoming football's or X-Box 360's gain.

It would help, also, if the public's attitude to tennis improved. In the eyes of many misinformed people, tennis is played for just a fortnight a year on the grass courts of SW19 in late June and early July. Whatever happens before and after in the calendar year is of little consequence. We also have a knack of criticising even the best players that have come out of Britain. Tim Henman was often regarded as a failure and a bottler by some of the British public because he never won Wimbledon, and yet he reached the semi-finals there four times and was once ranked the world's number 4. With the ability he had, Henman reached the absolute apogee that he could expect to ascend to. He was playing at a time when a scud missile first serve was a crucial weapon to possess and Henman's serve lacked the power or consistency needed to land enough killer first serves in against the best opponents.

Look now at Andy Murray, who has enjoyed an excellent couple of years and reached two Grand Slam finals, both of which he lost to the best player of all time, Roger Federer. Yet, for all his tournament successes, you sense that the British public is largely indifferent to Murray and will not change their mind until and if he wins Wimbledon. Murray's Scottish heritage and surlyness is one reason that the public does not connect with him, but there have been far more spiky players in the history of the game who the same public loved. Jimmy Connors for example. A chap called McEnroe too. It does seem a peculiarly British trait that we knock our own sportsmen, especially where those that attract the flak happen to be the best that we have.

The whole infrastructure of tennis in this country, from the way the game is taught in schools, to the public facilities available, right through to the coaching structure clearly requires radical overhaul in order for the game to move forward into the twenty-first century. The stuffy, country club mentality of the tennis committees across the country looks likely to be the greatest barrier to change being actioned and until change is embraced, the same culture of failure and the same negative attitudes to tennis and how it is played will continue in to the next generation.

Tennis is a fantastic sport and its greatest tournament is held in Britain. It is tragic that we continually fall short in producing good players worthy of the tournament. Any success that Andy Murray and Laura Robson achieve in the coming few years should be greatly received, and hopefully this would provide inspiration for children to pick up a racquet and feel compelled to emulate them, much in the way that Sweden enjoyed a boom time in men's tennis after Bjorn Borg's sustained success. But in the short term, any achievements that Murray and Robson muster will be down to them and their coaching staff and will only paper over the seismic cracks in the current running of the sport.

Policies need to be clearer than personalities
While the media are excited at the prospect of a mandatory calling of a General Election any week now, I am finding myself all the more disengaged from the current political landscape. As tends to be the way, the United Kingdom is following the lead of the United States and it appears that the spin doctors advising each of the three main political parties have advised them that in a tight situation, this election will be won by personalities rather than by policies. This has led to the uncomfortable sight in recent weeks of both David Cameron and Gordon Brown being interviewed about their personal lives, rather than asking them to explain their idealologies and their plans for running the country if elected in May.

I watched parts of both Brown's interview with the boorish Piers Morgan and Cameron's interview with Sir Trevor McDonald, which also featured a testimony from Cameron's wife on why her dearly beloved is the best man to run the country and in which she constantly referred to him as "Dave". Whether Cameron calls his wife Trigger I cannot say, although he did not do so during the programme. Neither interview really offered any great insight into the party leaders' personalities other than that they had a distinct lack of one, but I dare say Piers Morgan will feel he landed a potent body punch when he asked Brown if he and his wife had become members of the mile high club when they first romanced one another on a flight.

What the political strategists need to realise is that personalities are in pretty short supply in politics these days and while it is true that the next Prime Minister will be the one that connects with the electorate the most, this connection will be largely determined by who provides evidence of the most convincing policy, rather than who can come up with the best one liner, who can pull the funniest face or who can cook an omelette quicker. Mind you, Gordon Brown versus David Cameron on the Omelette Challenge might make Saturday Kitchen compulsive viewing in the run-up to the election.

The depressing aspect of politics at the moment is that it is just weeks before an election and still all of the main parties seem unclear on what their election winning policies actually are. Prime Minister's Question Time is pure theatre, an opportunity for Cameron and Clegg to attack the Prime Minister and to point out all of the present administration's wrongs, but neither have actually explained what it is that their prospective Governments would do differently. It is for this very reason that the polls show that the Conservative lead in the polls is now anticipated to be around 5 to 6 per cent, whereas at one point last year at the height of the recession, they had a 20 point lead. This advantage has been cut drastically not because Gordon Brown has done anything inspirational, but because David Cameron has done little to convince the British public that he and his Government would offer a better alternative. If Cameron fails to get the Conservatives elected in the current political climate, it will be an indictment on his lack of clarity concerning policy.

It could also be the case that the print media underestimated some of their readers (or misunderestimated it, as George W Bush might say). The Sun has nailed its colours firmly to the mast and is fully behind the Conservatives again after its unholy alliance with the Labour Party was severed last year. Since changing horse, The Sun has given Gordon Brown seven barrels of the horns effect treatment, without ever quite giving David Cameron an equal measure of the halo effect.

Some of The Sun's criticism of Brown's Government has had justification, but some of it has also misjudged the public mood. The story of Mrs Janes, the bereaved mother of a soldier that had been killed in Afghanistan was a case-in-point. The Sun made a big deal out of the point that Brown had misspelt the bereaved mother's name in a handwritten letter of condolence that was sent to her, when in actual fact, Brown had not misspelt her name but his handwriting was not particularly legible and so this made it appear as though her name was spelt wrong. The Sun certainly scored an own goal when they then went and spelt Mrs Janes's name wrong on their website's discussion board section. But they were guilty of misreading public attitudes and forgot that many of their own readers are illiterate or dyslexic and so their attitude towards Brown was offensive to them.

More recently, Labour received another boost when it transpired that the charity that had blown the whistle on Gordon Brown's reputed physical and verbal bullying of his staff happened to have Conservative patrons, who no doubt expected to benefit from this story breaking. Nothing like manipulating your position for political capital. It was just the small matter that by throwing the story out to the public domain, it compromised the confidentiality of the person that had reported the allegation in confidence in the first place. The public will have noted incidents like this, and as with the expenses scandal, will have concluded that all political persuasions are as corruptible as each other.

As speculated on above, the forthcoming election appears to have the makings of producing a Hung Parliament, with no one party in overall control, but with the Conservatives likely to have the most seats. Such a result would thrown open the possibility of a certain amount of horsetrading among all the main political parties on the key policy issues and in the short term, it could be the way to restore some political integrity. The Italian Government, however, is not a ringing endorsement for a coalition style Government, although that may be due more to the volatility of the Italian political culture than the weakness of the system.

The biggest winners though are likely to be the Nationalist parties. In times of trouble, people become naturally more insular and in both Wales and Scotland where devolved national Governments are in place and where Conservative votes are rarer than Iceberg lettuces, it is likely that the voters will show their disdain for the national Government by increasing the vote for Plaid Cymru and the SNP respectively. The nearest equivalent to a Nationalist party in England is the UK Independence Party, which is a watered down version of the BNP except without the membership restrictions. I was going to say without the racism, but given Nigel Farage's recent outburst about Belgium in the European Parliament, that may not be altogether true. Despite certain credibility problems, UKIP will attract a reasonable portion of the vote among Euro sceptics and there are places where they could come second in the count, although I would be surprised if they won any seats.

It is to be hoped that the forthcoming Prime Ministerial televised debates provide some opportunity for the triumverate of candidates to bare their teeth in a figurative sense, if not a cringeworthy, airbrushed poster campaign literal sense. People have suggested that Nick Clegg could be the lucky beneficiary from those debates as he has less to lose than messrs Cameron and Brown due to the lack of awareness there is in his existence by the British public. This lack of awareness was backed up this week by a survey in which more people were aware of the racehorses Kauto Star and Denman than they were of Clegg. A good story, although the papers that carried the story tended to gloss over the bit that said the survey was carried out by Ladbrokes, one of the UK's premier turf accountants. One suspects that Ladbrokes take more bets on popular racehorses than they do on the Liberal Democrats winning the General Election. The only difference between Kauto Star and Denman and the party leaders is that one of the latter is guaranteed to finish first past the post.

The death of Michael Foot a few weeks ago and the subsequent obituary columns were a timely reminder of how politics has changed. Foot was an honourable man, but an unelectable party leader, and yet he was a man who always put substance and principles over style. Looking at politics now, the philosophy has been turned on its head to the point that many politicians are reticent to actually stand up for what they really believe in because of the harm it could have on their ambitions. Despite being an aberration so far as being a prospective Prime Minister was concerned, Foot at least had honour. That is not a trait that has yet to be evidenced by the three princes who would be king.

Champions League last 16 previews - week commencing 22 February 2010

Another batch of 2nd round 1st leg Champions League matches are taking place this midweek. Here's my take on affairs:

Stuttgart v Barcelona
The holders have been in imperious form in La Liga this season, although their unbeaten domestic campaign was ended by Atletico Madrid last weekend. They have continued to be the free scoring force that they were in winning this competition last season, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic having been a regular goalscorer since his signing from Inter Milan. Stuttgart by contrast have had a poor season and their place in the second round owed much to being in the weakest first round group. A 5-1 win at struggling Cologne at the weekend was a rare moment of joy in what has been a poor campaign. Stuttgart have Barcelona old boy Aleksandr Hleb in their ranks and will look to him to provide their creative spark. Given that Stuttgart are out of contention for Champions League qualification for next season, they can enter this match with a nothing to lose and that could make them dangerous. All said and done though, Barcelona should have enough technical quality and experience to negotiate this tie and to finish the job in the Nou Camp.
Prediction: 1-2

Olympiakos v Bordeaux
Greece's most regular participants in the knockout stages of the Champions League take on the reigning French champions and this will be an awkward match for Laurent Blanc's side, given that Olympiakos are always strong on their home turf, helped by a vociferous support. The important thing is that Bordeaux managed to retain their best players during January and that gives them the best possible chance of advancing from this tie. Olympiakos should have former Blackburn striker Matt Derbyshire available to them again after a spell out injured. Bordeaux showed in the group phase that they are not afraid taking on quality opposition and as long as they do not concede an early goal and then wilt, I see them having enough quality to grab a draw and then complete the job in the south of France.
Prediction: 1-1

Inter Milan v Chelsea
The blue riband tie of the week sees the much anticipated return of the Special One to take on his former employers with whom he achieved much success. The acrimonious way in which he left though will ensure he is very motivated to plot Chelsea's demise from this season's competition. Mourinho's present employers have much to prove in the Champions League, having continually stumbled at this stage in recent years. Inter have shown the pragmatic and efficient qualities befitting a Mourinho side this season without being spectacular. By contrast, Chelsea have at times been excellent but on other occasions fallible and their away form has been a concern. Inter have not been defeated in the San Siro under Mourinho's watch but their hopes of establishing an advantage will depend on how their back line can cope with the power of Didier Drogba, who has been in magnificent form. This has the look of a tie in which both teams will set up cautiously and not give much away, with the game being particularly congested in midfield. I therefore see only one goal, which I can see going to the home team to put the second leg in the melting pot.
Prediction: 1-0

CSKA Moscow v Sevilla
The early kick-off on Wednesday sees Sevilla travel to opponents currently experiencing their off-season. CSKA showed some attacking qualities in the group stages, in which their highlight was a 3-3 draw at Old Trafford. Sevilla's passage to this stage was easier due to being a straightforward qualifying group. The Andalucians' preparation for this match was not helped by finishing their weekend La Liga match with 9 men and so they could tire noticeably in the latter stages of the match in Russia. By the same token, CSKA's lack of match fitness is likely to have an effect on them in the final 20 minutes. Due to this and because both teams have a natural inclination to attack, I see this being an open, entertaining affair with the honours shared.
Prediction: 2-2

Champions League last 16 previews and predictions

This week sees the return of the Champions League after its mid-season break and there are four quite interesting match-ups, with two ties involving English teams. Here is my take on how these matches will shape up:

AC Milan v Manchester United
I think that the key to this tie is going to be the ability of Manchester United to dictate the tempo against Milan. If you look at their recent matches, United have reverted back to playing 4-3-3 and looking to exploit teams on the counter attack with their pace and interchangeable wingers. I would expect United to deploy this formation against Milan, particularly given the ageing spine of the Milan team. Milan will look to try and slow the game down and get the likes of Pirlo to orchestrate the game from deep positions. United have a dreadful record in the San Siro stadium against Milan previously and I expect they will be content to grab a draw with an away goal to set them up for the 2nd leg. I expect United to get what they came for.
Prediction: 1-1

Lyon v Real Madrid
In recent seasons, Lyon have generally gone further in the competition than Madrid and they have beaten them a couple of times in the group stages. But that was then and this is now, and with the loss of players like Juninho and Benzema in recent times, I do not think Lyon are as much of a danger to Madrid's star names as they would have been a year or two ago. Lyon remain difficult to beat at home, but Madrid have started to pick up momentum since the turn of the year and must feel as though they are equipped to go a long way in the competition this season. I particularly feel that Cristiano Ronaldo is keen to take his new employers far in this competition and so if Real bring their recent form into this match, I can see them inflicting a rare European home loss on the hosts, standing them in good stead for the second leg.
Prediction: 1-2

Bayern Munich v Fiorentina
These teams' seasons have been going in different directions since the beginning of 2010. Bayern have enjoyed their customary upturn in form after the New Year and are currently level on points with Bayer Leverkusen at the top of the Bundesliga. By contrast, Fiorentina are having a miserable run in Serie A and are currently eleventh in the standings. Bayern seem to have been buoyed by their victory in Turin that saw them through to the knockout phase at Juventus's expense and the return of Franck Ribery has greatly boosted them. They are scoring plenty of goals at the moment and are always strong at the Allianz Arena. By contrast, Fiorentina are poor travellers with far less Champions League experience than their opponents. Fiorentina need to score an away goal to stand any chance of progressing, but I can only see a comfortable Bayern Munich victory on all known form.
Prediction: 3-0

Porto v Arsenal
I feel that some pundits are guilty of underestimating Porto, who gave Manchester United a very hard match in the quarter-finals last season. They may be short of star names but they are always difficult to beat at home and possess plenty of technical ability in their team. Arsenal's morale will have been boosted by their win against Liverpool in midweek, but the win could not mask a mediocre performance. In keeping with their previous two matches against Manchester United and Chelsea, they enjoyed plenty of the ball but created only a handful of shots on target. Their lack of incisiveness in the final third of the pitch is a criticism that could also be levelled at Porto at times, and so I envisage this to be a low scoring match, although I expect the template of the game to be pretty open. If Arsenal can score an away goal, it would put them in a very strong position for the 2nd leg, in the knowledge that they beat Porto 4-0 at the Emirates just last season. But I am not entirely convinced by Arsenal's ability to score a goal with Arshavin playing centrally and so I fancy Porto to shade the first leg and leave the tie on a knife-edge.
Prediction: 1-0

Life is just a box of chocolates

Happy New Year everyone. I hope 2010 has been good to you all so far and that you are not experiencing the New Year blues. Scientists claim that the week just gone is the most depressing of the year. Let's look at the positives, another week and most of us should have received our first pay packet of the new decade and it isn't too long now until summer comes.

Well, I trust you have all been sticking rigidly to your New Year's resolutions and have become finer citizens as a result. Me, well, I didn't make any resolutions. That way I figured that there was no expectation and I wouldn't feel guilty if I had already broken them by the time the Christmas decorations came down.

As ever quite a few things have been going on to talk about. But the blog title may give a clue as to what the main topic of discussion will be.

Cadbury's being bought by Kraft
The main talking point in the business pages over the past week or so has been the news that the Cadbury's confectionery group has been bought out by Kraft, the American foods company with a vast portfolio of brands, but which is possibly most well known for its Philadelphia cheese spread brand. Kraft had been an active suitor of Cadbury's for several months and they had made a number of "hostile" takeover bids, which Cadbury's management had previously rebuffed. However, a bid of around £12 billion ultimately proved too enticing to shareholders who voted for the takeover to be accepted, no doubt having visions of the killing they could make on their shares. One wonders whether a Wispaing campaign prompted the sudden change of heart.

The general consensus of opinion appears to be that this is a victory for cut-throat Capitalist gains but a kick in the teeth for British industry and for Cadbury's staff. Cadbury's is intrinsically linked to the West Midlands area in which it originated and its Bournville operation is one of Cadbury's strongest emblems. The Bournville name is so associated with Cadbury's that they even lended its name to one of its small chocolate bars. To this day, the firm remains one of the leading employers in the West Midlands and so this takeover by an American company, renowned for closing plants in order to improve efficiency leaves many staff pondering their job security. Just a few years after the closure of Rover, the spectre of potential unemployment hangs large over England's second city.

On first impressions, it would seem that Cadbury's were coerced into selling themselves due to the guerilla style tactics adopted by Kraft. Certainly, it would seem that the hierarchy within Cadbury's did all they could to resist the lure of their American cousins. Months of stand offs took place with the irresistible force of Kraft's intentions coming to no avail against the immovable object of Cadbury's. This begs two questions. What was it that meant Kraft kept persisting? What was in it for them, especially considering the great expense to which Kraft were prepared to go in order to snare Bournville's finest? Secondly, what was it that changed for Cadbury's? What do they get from their union with the powerful American firm?

Dealing with the first question first, Kraft know that the power of the Cadbury's brand will enable them to conquer new markets. Cadbury's has such a powerful brand identity the world over and its portfolio of chocolate bars attract loyalty in many far flung outposts. Think of chocolate and the name of Cadbury's is one of the first words that you would associate with the brown foodstuff. Kraft, by contrast, has relatively minimal presence in the confectionery markets. It acquired Terry's, the English confectioner famous for its Chocolate Orange and All Gold products, in 1993 but with due respect, Terry's is a comparatively small fish against the Leviathan prsence that Cadbury's has in the global chocolate market. Cadbury's previous acquisition of chewing gum producers also allows Kraft to enter another market it does not presently operate in.

The Cadbury's name is all powerful and the quality of its products is well renowned but the principles of the company which are ingrained in the company are what makes it special. Thomas Cadbury, like Joseph Rowntree his fellow confectioner, was a Quaker who believed in Puritan principles of giving back something to people in society who were deprived. Hence these names being given to charitable trusts that still operate to this day. Although the Rowntrees name still appears on many chocolate bars, they have been part of the Nestle empire for the past decade, a Nestle name that is much maligned due to its perceived Capitalist attitudes.

People will see that there is a danger of Cadbury's heading the same way now that it has been acquired by Kraft. However, I think Kraft should do well to remember the power of the Cadbury's brand and what it stands for. Although Cadbury's is now part of the Kraft "family", many of Cadbury's leading branded goods are just so associated with the Cadbury's name that they should adopt a standalone approach to the branding of these products. Using the Cadbury's name will enable Kraft to enter new markets and new regions and so Kraft's marketing men should ensure that they make the most of the good name they have acquired for the princely sum of £12 billion.

To go back to my questions, I asked what would be in it for Cadbury's by them entering into this marriage of convenience with Kraft. Well, it would seem that although Cadbury's is largely the market leader for confectionery in the UK and a fair chunk of continental Europe, in other parts of the world, such as the Americas and the Far East, it finds itself lagging behind Mars in terms of market share. Although Kraft does not have much experience in the confectionery markets, it has good background knowledge of these regions due to the success of some of its other food products. This knowledge appears to be the vote swinger and could present a number of new opportunities for Cadbury's and for the diversification of the brand into new products.

There are concerns though, both for those directly affected by this deal and those indirectly so. Kraft have shown in the past that they are quite willing to make efficiency cuts and relocations in order to save money. Terry's chocolates for example are no longer produced in the original home town of the confectioner, York, but instead they are produced in the world's very hotbed of chocolate products, Poland. Rumour has it that Kraft agreed a deal to set up chocolate factories in downtown Krakow in exchange for 100 plumbers to be dispatched to the West Midlands, although this may just be a myth. Job cuts are likely to occur at some point, but there must be particular concern that the iconic Bournville could be closed down. Personally, I doubt this will happen, certainly not in the short term. Bournville is an important part of the Cadbury's brand and so if the plant is to be phased out, it will be done over time. That doesn't mean to say there won't be redundancies there. I expect this will be inevitable. What I do envisage happening is that other factories could be closed and it is certainly feasible that some relocations to Eastern Europe or Asia could be part of the strategy.

On a wider point, it is a sad reality that there are very few British companies with a global profile that still exist due to their swallowing up by foreign direct investment. The British car market ceased to be some time ago, but within the banking and utility sectors there are very few major players that are wholly British owned now. This is something that we bemoan, after all Britain invented all of these things, didn't they? Chocolate? Tick. Banks? Ah yes. Cars? Of course, that Henry Ford was Dagenham born and bred. Ah, hang on.

Speaking of banks, the news that Kraft had been lent some money by the Royal Bank of Scotland to part finance their takeover was greeted with uproar in some quarters because of RBS being in Government hands and this deal seemingly not being in the national interest. Realistically though, the RBS would have had no business vetoing this deal. Regardless of whether a bank is privately or publicly owned, its only consideration when lending money should be whether the transaction poses too great a risk to them. So long as Kraft showed concrete evidence that its adoption of Cadbury's posed no major risk to its long term financial sustainability then RBS were perfectly entitled to lend its customer the money it needed. Once banks start getting involved in ethical concerns and not on what is a financially viable project then you get problems and that is why banks failed in the first place, hence some of them being put up for public ownership.

While it is sad that Cadbury's employees face an uncertain future due to the corporate muscle that Kraft have exercised, it does not need to be the end of the Cadbury's story. There are too many identifiable products that are so intrinsically part of the Cadbury's family and the fabric and ethos that added up to the Cadbury's name is too powerful for Kraft to shed after 200 years of heritage. Sadly there are casualties in every war, but it would be counter-productive for Kraft to be too gung-ho in its approach. Apart from the not inconsiderable financial motivations, it was for reasons of synergy that this union came to pass and the knowledge of markets that Kraft and Cadbury's can both impart is likely to ensure that both names continue to flourish for the foreseeable future, even if the ownership is no longer in British hands.

Jonathan Ross leaving the BBC
The news of Jonathan Ross's departure from the BBC did not elicit a great deal of surprise, although it did receive plenty of press and Internet message board scrutiny in the days that followed the announcement. The main question was whether Ross chose to leave before he was pushed in order to pursue greater autonomy and possibly far greater riches in pastures new, or alternatively, whether the BBC chose not to renew Ross's contract beyond the summer because they felt Ross's continued presence left them with a permanent souvenir, a millstone around the neck, from the absurdly overblown Sachsgate affair.

Whilst we can only speculate on the conversations and events that led to this privately conducted parting of the ways that was so paradoxically played out in the public eye, it would seem reasonable to conclude that Ross took his decision to leave before he was pushed, or before he was told in no uncertain terms that there would be no deal. By commenting that he never negotiated a new deal, this makes it appear that Ross made the decision to leave and that the BBC were willing to let their most prosperously remunerated employee move on to more creative freedom with no hard feelings.

The truth of course, is somewhat different to the euphemistic and cordial ending that Ross and the BBC execs would like to pass off as the gospel. From the BBC point of view, Ross's continued stay at the BBC after so many other names implicated in the Sachs affair sacrificed themselves has meant that the one time TV researcher has become a continual elephant in the room and it has been becoming increasingly apparent from the media coverage amongst the BBC's most hostile enemies that Ross would have remained so for as long as he was on the BBC payroll and appearing across their network.

From Ross's end, the aftermath of Sachsgate and the culture of compliance that it created is that he has been stifled of creative freedom. In short, he has been muzzled and an off-the-cuff performer like Ross is not going to work well in such conditions. Firstly, his chat show was heavily edited upon Ross's return from suspension at the beginning of last year, with neither Ross or his guests allowed to swear even mildly on the show. Although there have still been some very interesting and amusing interviews conducted, Ross's interview style has suffered a little for becoming too stiff, with Ross not always able to relax and be himself.

Furthermore, it is likely that the straw that broke the camel's back was the decision to pre-record Ross's Saturday morning Radio 2 show. Personally, I thought this was a big mistake and it was a decision that neither Ross nor his radio show have recovered from. The great selling point of Ross's show was the spontaneity and energy that his live radio programme offered. Yes, at times there were caustic comments and banter that would have upset the type of people that go out of their way to look for offence. But the show was the perfect way to lie in on a Saturday morning and get you in the mood for the weekend. Once the show became pre-recorded, the edginess and spontaneity associated with the show was drained out.

In public, Ross seemed unabashed so far as this was concerned and even said that it was good that he could pre-record the show as he could spend more time with his children at the weekend. In private though, you somewhat suspect that Ross knew this arrangement could not be sustained. There was no comeback and the longer he stayed at the BBC, the more he would be muzzled. A parting was to be inevitable, the question would just be when.

This is not a bad time for Jonathan Ross to make a career change. Ross is 50 years old this year and he can look upon himself as one of television's great survivors, given that he first appeared on our screens over 20 years ago as the host of Channel 4's late night chat show "The Last Resort". Ross is sometimes perceived as an arrogant man by some sections of the public, but the name of his first television project is actually a prime example of his self-depracating nature, given that he only stepped in front of the camera when everyone else who had been asked had said no.

Due to the current economic situation that is being faced the world over, I think you will see a shift from the days when top light entertainment and comedy stars will enter in to "golden handcuffs" arrangements with networks and you will see more performers wanting the autonomy to pick and choose what projects they take on with whom without being tied to a contract. The BBC continues to have some performers that are in a tied arrangement, most notably Graham Norton, but I would anticipate there being a reduction in these arrangements over the course of time.

There has been some talk that Jonathan Ross's future may be outside of this country and that he may particularly be courted Stateside. After all, Ross has interviewed many of Hollywood's A-listers on both his chat show and on the Film programme and appears to have a good rapport with his subjects. I can see this school of thought, especially as the template for Ross's chat show is far closer to the type of talk show that David Letterman and Jay Leno have presented over the pond than it is to the more conventional, stiff Parky-esque British template of chat. However, Ross is a huge animal lover who owns three dogs as well as a number of other exotic pets and so I doubt he would want to contemplate putting pets in quarantine in order to crack America for a sustained period. Maybe like Cat Deeley he could divide his time between both countries, but I think there will be other projects to occupy his time closer to home.

From looking around the message boards, it seems that Ross has made a lot of enemies with the British public and it may take time for him to rebuild his reputation. Perhaps with that in mind, his best approach may be to avoid ubiquity in the months after his BBC contract expires in the summer but instead to pick and choose his projects carefully. There are certain types of show that Ross has not really ventured into before, such as travel programmes and game shows (apart from the famous Only Fools & Horses Christmas special) and I could see his agent being approached to ask for Ross's involvement in these types of show. The programme that Ross did on Japanese culture for BBC3 a few years ago was both informative and entertaining and I could see him using his wit and irreverence to good effect in travelog type programmes in the way Clive James used to.

Ross's main passions though are the movies and comics and so you would expect his future career projects to have a focus on these subjects. The BBC may have dumped Ross for now, but there is definitely a market for other networks to approach Ross with a view to him presenting a film interview type programme. Some of Ross's best interviews have been with film stars and his knowledge of the big screen is exceptional. Just because the door at the BBC has closed, I very much doubt that we have seen the end of the Jonathan Ross story. It might just be that like Noel Edmonds, he spends some time in the wilderness before enjoying a renaissance in his mid-50s as a result of landing a project that is a hit with the British public, as Edmonds managed with Deal Or No Deal.

At the moment, Ross is a convenient emblem for what is wrong with the country among people who are down on their luck. Just as the bankers are despised for being paid obscene bonuses when their investments have failed, so Ross's stock has dropped because he has been identified as overpaid, overrated and over here. Overexposure is more of an issue now than in the past due to the intense cult of celebrity that exists in the media. But you do not just become a bad performer overnight and a change of environment with greater licence to be himself again might just give the great JR the kickstart his career is in need of.