Musings from Macedonia

I spent this weekend being simultaneously translated into Macedonian and Albanian working with a group of MPs in the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. Like parliamentarians the world over they are grappling with a collapse of public trust in politics. However, for them the alternative to a healthy democracy means slipping back towards civil war.

It always feels a bit odd going off to train other countries about how to get their politics working well when ours in this country is so obviously up the spout. Turnout in our elections is miserably low and none of the major parties seem to get it. At the last European elections you could smell the loathing on the doorsteps and I can’t see that improving before the General Election.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is something to do with the unintended consequences of the obsession with party discipline that crept into our politics in the nineties. Back then party division was part of what made Labour unelectable and so the pagers and branding police brought in an era of blind obedience to the party line. A proportional electoral system based on closed party lists seems to have the same effect in Macedonia. Political careers are in the grubby hands of the party whips who decide how high up the list your name is and your chances of getting elected.

Party discipline, once a virtue is now a vice. It implies that MPs have left their capacity for independent thought at home (or perhaps in one of their flipped second homes). If they can’t think for themselves then people are entitled to ask what is the point of them at all.

Successful politicians seem to be the ones who show a bit of personality and individuality. Although it pains me to put Boris Johnson and Barak Obama in the same sentence, both made their name to some extent by speaking out somewhat against the party line.

My Macedonian MPs were at least thinking about how to restore some trust into politics – for them the alternatives are too unthinkable. As the next election here gets closer I fear that our politicians will cling even more tightly to their old friend, party discipline, and the voters will just stay at home.

Oxford in the 80s with Boris and Dave

Nostalgic evening last night watching the Boris and Dave documentary on More 4. There were some great touches, with a young Dave playing the classic Sade LP and sporting the 80’s Oxford trendy uniform of black polo neck and Levi 501s. It captured the delightful cheesiness of the decade and the slight other-worldliness of the dreaming spires at that time. However, I’m fairly sure we had colour television back then so why the documentary researchers couldn’t find some better archive footage than the 50’s black and white stuff they used, I’m not quite sure.

It turns out that the young Dave Cameron lived in the house next door to me on the Cowley Road, at roughly the same time I was there. I lived at number 67 Cowley Road with three house-mates and a relatively anonymous Dave lived at number 69. I didn’t notice him then. I’m sure he wouldn’t have noticed me but everybody knew about Boris.

Boris was a Neanderthal clown even then. He presided over the Oxford Union with a ridiculous act of pompous colonial buffoonery. He made Brideshead Revisited look like an episode of Eastenders. The Tories at Oxford were generally a pretty loathsome bunch. Wearing their “Hang Nelson Mandela” badges and singing songs delighting in the adhesive nature of napalm when applied to “Arab skins”.

I didn’t know any of the Bullingdon club members but their reputation for trashing expensive restaurants was well known. I have to confess that I did spend a very drunken evening with one member of the current shadow cabinet unleashing “Captain Egg’s Campaign against the Poll Tax”. This involved careering around Oxford on a “borrowed” bicycle breaking eggs into cash point machines. Sorry Messrs Lloyds, Barclays, Nat West etc. We were revolting teenagers being pretty revolting.

But that crowd of old Etonian, tail-coat-wearing Sloanes were a tiny pimple on the acne covered face of normal student life. The rest of us were running campaigns to get our colleges and banks to dis-invest from apartheid South Africa. My College JCR President, the other Oxford “Dave”, Miliband, invited Ken Livingstone up to talk about equalities, anti-racism and newts. Andrew, now Government Minister Lord Adonis, was losing an SDP Alliance Council by-election campaign defending the great institution of the Oxford Kebab van.

Some of us got the modern world and others went on to shape it. I did a few years of inner city politics as a local councillor with the Liberal Democrats in Southwark and Bermondsey, whilst Dave went to Tory Central Office and Boris went global. Dave and Boris’s Oxford Bullingdon chums were hanging on to an outdated class system and discredited free-market economics that were crippling our society. It has taken a long time to fix the chaos that Thatcher created in the eighties. I’m really not happy about the prospect of Boris and Dave shaping the next phase of British politics. They could leave the county in as big a mess as the restaurants they trashed back then.

Pre-season nerves

It is two days until the first game of the season for the Warlingham 4th XV and I’m feeling a mixture of optimism and nervousness. Optimistic, because it looks like I have got a massive squad of players available. Nervous because you can never tell whether they will all turn up. We also have a tricky season in store.

I’m not entirely sure how we have managed to get thirty one names onto the team-sheet for a friendly against Croydon. Last time I think we travelled there with twelve. During the rugby season I seem to spend most of my weekday evenings desperately emailing, texting and phoning potential players in order to cobble together a side.

On Tuesday night at my first selection meeting of the year it gradually became apparent that I almost had enough players to field two complete separate teams. It could be something to do with the fact the the first team have recruited a batch of new players over the summer, in a serious bid to make their way into national league rugby. Some quite handy players have drifted down the sides as result.

There may be a few bruised egos as some players take exception to being dropped in favour of a few “Johnny-come-lately” new recruits. They may stay at home and sulk rather than coming out to play for my lowly 4ths. I wouldn’t blame them really.

Last season, the Warlingham 4th XV finished third from bottom in the bottom league in Surrey. Surrey is apparently one of the biggest rugby counties with more leagues and teams than anywhere else. So that could mean that my team is the third worst in the entire nation. Only two teams are lower than us. One of those was Old Rutlishians, who failed to turn up at all for most of their games last year. They did manage to get a side together to play us twice, albeit without a front row, and beat us both times. The only other side was Croydon - our opponents this weekend.

This season could be slightly more tricky. The bearded and beer stained gentlemen of the Surrey RFC committee have decided, in their infinite wisdom, to merge the two bottom leagues and create one new super league - or “Foundation”. We will only play each side once and so on our current form we will be at the bottom of a much larger league, losing by much larger margins to much larger sides. Instead of being worse than six out the eight other members of our league we will be much worse than fifteen of the seventeen other members of our league and get spanked slightly more often.

So desperate times call for desperate measures. We have recruited a coach, Big Phil Sheridan, who we are sharing with the 3rd XV. We have signed up a physiotherapy student to run on from the touchline and administer the magic sponge once in a while. We have a complicated new set of line-out moves to perfect and some of us have even been to training.

I could have some real team selection dilemmas if everyone shows up. Normally, at this level of the game, the process is fairly straightforward. Last season, if I was lucky enough to have fifteen players available, I just allocated the positions on a first come first serve basis. That way a few people made a bit more of an effort to get to the pitch before the kick-off.

This year as its my third and possibly final season as 4th team captain, I have decided I really would like to win a few more games. That probably means identifying the better players and working on them to make sure they turn up every week. It also means doing something to help the less good players to improve their game and stay involved. Difficult, because I’m no great player myself. I only started playing rugby at the age of 35 when I got contact lenses for the first time. I have the physique of an under-developed hobbit and am not known for my physical prowess or co-ordination skills. I had to resign as the under 13s coach because they were all bigger than me and kept knocking me over when I was holding up the tackle pads.

Last year around seventy different players had a run out with the 4ths; mates and mates of mates who haven’t played for years or in some cases haven’t played at all. They have turned up and pulled on a Warlingham shirt and had a go. Its been quite fun really even though we lost more often than not. I’ve tried to be open to anyone who wants to get involved and we’ve adopted the principle that “No-one gives anyone any sh*t for being sh*t.” People who probably wouldn’t get any other form of exercise have enjoyed being part of a team.

The only problem has been that the rest of life sometimes gets in the way and it has been really hard to get any sort of consistency in the team we put out and the way we play. This year I’m going to try, so far as I can, to build up a slightly more regular squad, one that plays together every week, wins a bit more often and keeps a really good 4th team spirit. Wish me luck.

Recession... Was that it?

I was delighted to hear this weekend that the recession is over. As someone who launched a new company at the peak of the global economic meltdown, I am looking forward to seeing what business will be like as the world gets back to normal. I thought now might be a good time to reflect on a first few months trading through a downturn.

As I suspected when I set up Gauge Opinion Ltd., the public sector has kept on spending and I been fortunate enough to have work from a handful of local authority and quango type clients. I have worked for Southwark, Camden, Waltham Forest and Bristol Councils providing a range of services from training, facilitating, coaching and general political communications. I have also spent some time touring the country, interviewing local councillors and their partners for a series of videos for the Audit Commission.

Local councillors have had a hard time of it over the last few months. Unfairly tainted with the general anti-politics malaise, they plough on, trying to improve local services against a backdrop of funding cuts, central government targets and small "c" conservatism. They are expected to lead local change without the support, salary and status that would be taken for granted in the private sector. I worry that things will get even tougher for them once the official recession is over and the Government starts trying to pay back the massive national debt incurred during the banking crisis.

I was pleased to find some private sector companies thriving over the last few months. The PR firm Hanover has been busy enough to employ the services of Gauge Opinion recently. We were asked to help with a pitch to a major drinks manufacturer and I was dispatched to Epsom to gauge opinion amongst local businesses and health service employees about recycling schemes. They were a really great bunch of people to work for, bright, beautiful and fizzing with creativity. Mind you, I did slightly feel like Betty Suarez as I walked into their glamorous Holborn offices.

If necessity is the mother of invention, then a recession should turn up some innovation. We are working on that here at Gauge Opinion Ltd. The highlight of my own personal downturn experience was a day's business planning with a team of associates who have joined me to create a new opinion polling service. Former MORI researcher Liz Cadman, political documentary researcher Lucy Bell and a tech/marketing genius who for contractual and legal reasons has to remain anonymous, all joined me in our offices in Money Road to plot, scheme and create. As a result we hope to have a new, incredibly speedy method for accurately gauging the mood of the UK population, ready to launch on an unsuspecting marketplace in the autumn. Poised to track the shifting tides of opinion as we come out of the economic gloom and into the run up to a general election in the spring. Roll on the recovery!

Serbian Liberals gauge opinion in Belgrade with positive results

One of the highlights of my weekend spent training members of the Serbian Liberal Democratic Party was when we sent our participants out into the streets of Belgrade armed only with clipboards and a resident's survey. 

Within five minutes, Selena, an LDP member of Belgrade's City Council, had found a group of three young women to interview. As they reached the end of the questionnaire, Selena asked which political party they usually supported. One of them turned out to be a committed LDP supporter who enthusiastically handed over her contact details so that she could join the party and get more involved in the upcoming election campaigns. 

One of the added benefits of talking to people and asking their views is that they often end up more favourably disposed towards your organisation. Gauging opinion clearly has hidden benefits ;-)

Live from Money Road

As I type there is a huge BBC outside broadcast van parked in the street and a small group of engineers running wires around the Gauge Opinion headquarters here in Money Road. At 6:30 I am due to be live on BBC London News commenting on today's budget with some other local businesses.

I'm just pulling together my thoughts about the budget so I can condense it down into the 30 second sound bite I suspect we will be allowed. 

I don't want to be too negative. The first few months of running my own business from here in Money Road has been quite encouraging. I've been able to find a few clients relatively easily. I've delivered public speaking and media training to South American medics in Amsterdam, one to one executive coaching to senior Local councillors in Bristol, and travelled all round the country interviewing chief executives for a video for the Audit Commission. 

In March I managed to send out invoices for more that I have ever earned before in a month, which is encouraging. However, it is tricky to plan when you cannot be sure where the next project will come from and how long it will last. I'd quite like to take on a couple of staff at some point soon, to help grow the business, but the prospect of filling in the forms fills me with dread. Perhaps the chancellor could have merged the Inland Revenue and National Insurance in the budget which would cut the paperwork in half.

The Chancellor is  promising to find £15 billion worth of efficiency savings somehow. As someone who has worked in the public, private and voluntary sector, I know there are plenty of ways the Government could spend our money more efficiently. That'll take a bit of a culture change and some real political leadership, which is currently sadly lacking. 

I expect they'll ask me about the new 50p tax rate that seems to be leading the news at the moment. I think that is a bit of a gimmick really. Political game-playing designed to put the Tories on the spot. Nothing wrong with that but running a business you learn to look at the big numbers first. When the Government needs to borrow £200 billion plus in bonds to fund this budget that's when you need to start worrying. 

Still, there's always the penny on a pint to talk about - perhaps we can drink our way to a recovery. I know my fellow Warlingham Rugby Club players will be happy to take on that challenge. I don't mind paying a bit more tax - but we should be able to see clearly where it's going. If you want to tax alcohol more then spend it pound for pound on dealing with some of the problems that alcohol creates, tackling violent crime for example. More money for bobbies on the beat rather than bailing out bungling bankers. I wonder if I can get that into the interview - might be a bit of a tongue twister. 

There's plenty of help in the budget for the army of young unemployed people the Chancellor expects to create. There's less help for older people who are just as likely to be hit by the recession but will have greater responsibilities. The Chancellor might regret that when he and his cabinet colleagues lose their jobs in a year's time. 

Global Favour Bank thriving in credit crunch

Just returned from a week on the road, gauging the opinion of local authority chief executives in the Midlands, to discover that my favourite bank is thriving in these troubled times. The Global Favour Bank (GFB) is the one that we all make deposits in, every time we help someone out, and it gives us credit every now and again when we need a bit of support. 

On my way back home, I thought I'd take a little detour and pop in to see some friends who are converting a barn.  I spent a thoroughly enjoyable day and half with them, shovelling sand and levelling concrete. By October, they should have brought a grade two listed barn back into use and created a new wonderful home. 

Conventional banks usually take 3 days to clear a cheque, about a week to sort out a loan and almost a month at times to open a business account. GFB turns things round a lot quicker. What should I find when I get home but a lovely new desk chair, donated by a rugby playing colleague, who took pity on me after seeing me on the TV sitting on a totally inappropriate piece of furniture whist typing out invoices. 

GFB - The bank that likes to say "Here you go mate."