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A lot has been made of the Nixon-Kennedy debates in 1960 – listeners on the radio gave the debate hands down to Nixon, those watching TV backed Kennedy. Some have argued this will happen when Brown and Cameron slog it out. Cameron (for all his many faults) will I am sure look to smoother of the two.

But Kennedy debated in an age when the public at large were not experienced at watching politicians in full flow, interacting. In an age where spin is derided it is possible that the very smoothness that aided Kennedy will be Cameron’s Achilles heel…plus Cameron is no Kennedy.

Strip that away, and the hothouse atmosphere of PMQs and what do you have? One man vastly experienced with a mastery of detail, and another policy lite.

To that end, the TV debates certainly have the potential to be a game changer.

However, it needs to be pointed out that Paul and Ashcroft are different in several key respects:

1. Lord Ashcroft has given significantly more money to the Conservatives that Lord Paul has to Labour.
2. Lord Ashcroft was originally refused a peerage and only given one on the understanding that he would take up permanent residence in the UK .
3. The way in which Ashcroft money has been directed into marginal seats could have a disproportionately large impact on the outcome of the election.
4. Lord Paul is not part of the senior Labour establishment in the same way that Lord Ashcroft his (he is former Treasury, Deputy-Chair and has accompanied William Hague on several recent high-profile foreign relations visits.

I’m not a fan of having non-doms in the House of Lords at all. But to compare Lord Paul and Lord Ashcroft’s roles is inaccurate.

Two things for the record:

1. Andrew Rawnsley has always been, and will remain, my favourite journalist. I find his columns insightful and generally on-the-mark.
2. I wish every controversy could stop being suffixed with the word “gate.” “Watergate” was only a “gate” because of the hotel name…not because of a scandal involving water.

What do we know so far about Rawnsley’s allegations:

1. Gus O’Donnell has denied having anything but a passing conversation and tangentally connected conversation with the PM about treatment of staff. It sounds like any ‘chat’ that did take place was not ‘official’ in any sense and most likely related to generic work practices of civil servants within 10 Downing Street. That is, after all one of O’Donnell’s top jobs.
2. The National Bullying Helpline has had no complaints about Gordon Brown.
3. Bob Schrum has denied being yelled at as Rawnsley describes.

Hardly convincing evidence for Rawnsley’s case. However, two caveats to the Labour partisan’s case thus-far presented:

1. Throwing the word ‘fact’ around is a dangerous thing. Those who disagree with Rawnsley’s take on the situation shouldnt accuse him of “hiding behind sources.” Two interpretations of the same event can be equally legitimate and Rawnsley must defend his sources.
2. Rawnsley should not be blamed for presenting the facts as he believes them to be. I imagine upon a full read of the book that the ‘End of the Party’ will have some highly complementary things to say about senior Labour figures – he has said as much himself already. I suspect the publisher’s hand behind the prominence of the Brown bullying claims in the revelations so far.

In short, Brown as a bully? I’m far from convinced. Yet I don’t think there is any currency in going after Rawnsley’s integrity on this one.

Cameron was basing his arguments on a recent report by Demos, although his the fact that he employed some artistic license with Demos’ conclusions has already been well documented here by Polly Toynbee.

Another question worth exploring is why has Cameron chosen a discourse of parental character.

On a surface level, it’s not rocket science – this is an election year and a discourse of parental character ties in nicely with his overall ‘responsibility’ theme.

But probe further and some interesting insights come to light on why ideas of ‘responsibility’ and ‘character’ as antidotes to poverty hold traction with the general public.

Noteworthy here is the research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on ‘The Media, Poverty and Public Opinion’, which notes that “coverage of poverty is peripheral in the mainstream UK media. The causes of poverty and the consequences of poverty (are) rarely explored.” This was comprehensive research across 150 newspapers, 100 radio news programmes, 75 news programmes plus other news and media outputs.

Furthermore, where poverty is featured nearly half of the stories featured contained only a journalist’s representation of poverty, whilst only around 12% featured people actually experiencing poverty.

This underlying reality leaves a void in public knowledge filled by programmes such as the Jeremy Kyle Show. consequently, an image forms in the collective public conciousness whereby a bit of ‘commonsense’, ‘stiff upper lip’ responsibility from those in poverty could remedy all of their problems.

A better understanding of both the causes and experience of poverty would lay bare that poverty and character cannot so easily be de-coupled as Mr Cameron suggests.

I thought I’d put it up on the site so here it is…

High value jobs and high value skills for a 21st century Suffolk

“High value jobs in rural Suffolk are limited. There are fewer career opportunities for young people in Suffolk.” So says the Audit Commission’s Area Assessment of Suffolk, which was published this month.

So many of our Suffolk sixth-formers leave the county to go to university and then when they complete their degree, do not return to Suffolk to work.

The Audit Commission’s critique can be summarised in one sentence – there are not enough high value jobs in the county and Suffolk does not have a sufficient skill base to attract such employers. It isn’t rocket science to note that you cannot have the former without the latter.

As the Labour Party’s candidate for Suffolk Coastal, I want to reverse this. Here, I want to highlight how things are getting better in terms of both the number of high value jobs available and the size of skill base from which employers can draw. Then, building on this positive momentum, I advocate a head-long drive for new low-carbon technologies in Suffolk to accelerate growth of both 21^st century jobs and a 21^st century skills base.

On the high value jobs front, things are improving. Everybody knows about the work BT does in their research facility at Adastral Park in Martlesham. Newer organisations are springing up too. In Woodbridge, the Centre for Integrated Photonics is working to build bridges between the academic and business communities to harness photons for business uses – for example in fibre-optic broadband cables.

Likewise, whilst Suffolk has always struggled with a ‘brain drain,’ things are looking up with the arrival of University Campus Suffolk (UCS) in our region. Last year saw a 5% rise in applications to UCS, half of which came from people based in Suffolk. Now, instead of leaving our region and settling for good in their new place study, young people in Suffolk will increasingly stay in our county and contribute to our economy.

But we must do more. The high value jobs and skills can be grown simultaneously through encouraging increased investment in low carbon technologies. This would be my top priority if elected in Suffolk Coastal.

140 additional wind turbines are already in development off the Suffolk coast to create 500 MW of renewable electricity. Our county already has 8,000 jobs in the energy sector; 2.7% of our total workforce and well above Eastern regional average of 0.6%. We are blessed with a great natural resource of wind energy off our coast and we need to do everything we can to harness it. More new industries in this vein will mean more high value jobs for local people.

Simultaneously, young people in Suffolk can be encouraged to stay in our county through stronger links between academic courses at UCS and low carbon businesses – many such links exist already.

The Audit Commission’s assessment of our county should be sobering. Things are getting better but more needs to be done to bring high value jobs to the high calibre young people of our region. We can best do this by exploiting the great natural resource that blows along our coastline.

Actually it was in blue and white…but let’s not get bogged down in technicalities.

You can see a copy of the poster here.

On Newsnight last night, former Number 10 staffer Peter Hyman made two good points about the poster which are worth noting.

1) It’s too defensive. It implies Cameron assumes people think he will cut the NHS. Arguably they do and Cameron’s paranoia perhaps indicates good reason.

2) You don’t want to have a poster with “cuts” and “NHS” in the same line. As Hyman points out, somebody driving past could get an entirely unintended impression.

So, unexpectedly, I’ll have a new opponent for the General Election in Suffolk Coastal, following the news that incumbent Conservative MP John Gummer has resigned.

Graham Dines in the East Anglian has the full story here.

This meant a busy start to the new year with the need to respond quickly in the local media. I’ve been really pleased with the amount of media coverage my analysis of John Gummer’s retirement received in the Ipswich Evening Star, East Anglian Daily Times, Eastern Daily Press and Lowestoft Journal. It certainly made a change reading in my Google News Alerts about me and not the Adam Leeder who plays for the Uxbridge Bruins ice hockey team!

So it’s been a busy start to 2010…but I’m sure the year will only get busier.

So here it is…

http://www.youngfabians.org.uk/content/view/236/5/

Let me lay my cards on the table. I like the X Factor. I’m not sure why. I know that it runs contrary to the default left-of-centre cynical position, but I’m not sure I need a reason, I just do. So there it is.

But what works for music on Saturday night TV doesn’t work for politics. This argument has been well rehearsed over the last week so let me just pick out a few highlights as to why…

First, it doesn’t matter that 10 million people voted in the X Factor final on Saturday night. This is still nowhere near the 27 million that voted in the last General Election, which, incidentally was an election with an almost historically low turnout.

Second, the model that Cowell champions is presumably primarily to generate revenue. Fair enough, he is after all a businessman. But this is a problem if it means subjects are intentionally not explored in their full complexity but instead reward emotive argument.

Take knife crime. Look at any opinion poll and locking up anybody found carrying a knife and throwing away the key is cited as a necessary deterrent.

But this presumes rationality on the part of the potential knife-carrier when deciding whether or not to leave the house with a knife in his pocket. It also presumes that, even if he has made a rational choice, he would decide that the likelihood of being arrested is higher than the likelihood of any threat he may fear he will encounter – in his mind, it may not do.

I somehow doubt that Cowell’s debates will spiral beyond the immediate issue into the more structural causes of society’s problems. On a Saturday night over a curry and bottle of wine I can’t see the appetite (and therefore commercial value) for it.

Third, the level of thought the public will give when voting on an X Factor-Political hybrid will be minimal in comparison to visiting a polling station. The electoral officials and the privacy of the polling booth instill gravity and importance of voting in the mind of the voter in a way that picking up the phone simply will not.

One might argue that all of the above are irrelevant – what does it matter if people phone in and make a potentially ill-informed judgement on the basis of incomplete and purely emotive evidence? But as Michael White points out in the Guardian - “It does matter if 10 million people think that by voting on TV they have given the Government of the day a mandate to do something…and do it now.” It shouldn’t be forgotten that only a few years ago, an opinion poll showed widespread support for introducing the death penalty for those found guilty of murdering police officers.

However, curmudgeonly moaning over, and in the spirit of Christmas, here is a link to Iain Dale’s blog where he speculates on what such a programme might look like…well worth a read.

 http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/12/x-factor-goes-political.html