To AV, or to AV not?

I'm not sure how many times the Prime Minister has been stopped in a busy shopping street by one of those ever-so-nice market research people to explain his views on the sort of washing powder he prefers, or his preferred brand of mayonnaise. I suspect it hasn't happened very often. But most people will have experienced such an encounter at one time or another, being asked to rank their preferences with a 1,2, 3 and 4 and so on. This 'complicated' task is mathematically very similar to voting for contestants on the X-Factor, or the Eurovision Song Contest.

Choosing a brand of mayonnaise, a preferred washing powder or Simon Cowell's next signing are just three of the sorts of tasks the British public are expected to grapple with on a daily basis. It's also a bit like selecting an MP under a new-fangled voting system – the Alternative Vote (AV). But does David Cameron place such faith in the intelligence of his fellow citizens?

Like the opponents of decimalisation in the late sixties and early seventies, the No to AV campaign, led by Cameron himself, has decreed that AV is complicated and could be costly to explain and run. The evidence would, however, suggest that the electorate are rather more comfortable with changing the way we do elections than the vested interests of the Conservative party – and the more tribalist elements of the Labour party - might like to think. One poll in the last week showed the Yes campaign was 10 points in the lead, although this has not quite been matched by other polls.

Recognising its weaker position, the No campaign has scrambled to rely on an incoherent ragbag of arguments, which can hardly be said to be responding to a general public disenchantment with politics and politicians. It is also trying desperately to ignore the statistical evidence – that every government since 1945 has been elected with less than 50% of the vote. Even with its landslide victory in 1997, Labour only secured 43.2% of the vote. And in some seats at the last election, seven out of every 10 voters wanted other candidates.

The No campaign tells us that hung parliaments are more likely with AV, as if this is in itself an undesirable outcome. Playing on the supposed British preference for strong, single party majority, they've completely forgotten the democratically questionable results thrown up by hung parliaments of the 1920s, 1970s and in 2010 – all under First Past the Post. Each resulted in a single party being unable to effectively govern alone.

Yet the No campaign, as personified by local organiser and 2010 Tory candidate Chris Philp at a talk given to City University students in January, Philp criticised Clegg for 'making deals in dark rooms' – despite the essential presence of the third party in supporting Cameron's government. He then made an extraordinary personal attack on Clegg in his role as 'kingmaker'. But it's clearly news to Philps that the Conservatives can no longer rely on the support of a healthy chunk of the electorate to form a majority government. Those who oppose AV in the Labour camp are similarly misguided. And, where I slightly depart from the Yes campaign's official line, I believe coalitions will remain just as likely, if not more likely in the future as a result of the slow ebbing away of support for the major parties, including the Lib Dems. Negotiating a programme for government with other parties will become a part of the course to Downing Street.

We've easily established there's nothing difficult about AV. The hard work is left to returning officers and people who count the votes – and they're paid to do that. It will mean that election results come in much later in the day. That's a price worth paying for a move to fairer representation. What's more, the Yes campaign knows that there is still a clamour for change, despite general public disenchantment with the Lib Dems. And although introducing AV didn't feature in any of the manifestos in 2010, neither was 'business as usual' acceptable to the electorate in the cold light of day after the MPs expenses' scandal.

As Serge Lourie, AV proponent and a long-serving Richmond councillor also said at City, it's time for 'grown-up politics'. Lourie conceded that no electoral system was perfect, but the 2010 General Election was a rejection of the old politics, and the absurdities of tactical voting and MPs with 'jobs for life'. For me, if the Liberal Democrat side of the Coalition is worth anything, it's worth a push for change.

A slight smell of justice

I’ve experienced a welcome change of scenery this week by participating in something I’ve always wanted to do - being called to do jury service. My ‘number’ had come up just after Christmas –perfect timing for me as a trainee journalist. And so, on Monday morning I duly presented myself at a central London Crown Court expecting to get stuck into some nice juicy cases.

For obvious reasons I can’t go into too much detail about what went on in the courtroom itself. Last term’s module on media law with the irrepressible John Battle of ITN gave me a reasonably good overview of what I can and can’t say about a court case, so I’m not going to be tempted to break any laws this early in my career. If you’re interested in what the juror’s experience generally entails, the HMCS website is actually pretty good at preparing you for what to expect. But it doesn’t prepare you for what appears to be a remarkably inefficient system of selecting jurors, once you’ve turned up. I suppose there must be some sort of logic to their system, but I didn’t sit on a single case on Monday, presumably because there were just too many people available. Maybe this is a good thing, as judges are not the sort of people you keep waiting because there aren’t enough jurors (as we found out – read on). I ended up spending a full day back at work before being called back.

Yet it’s still a tight ship. The administration of justice is well organised, with a formidable jury officer, whose matriarchal yet terrifying demeanour strikes the right balance between making sure people are welcomed and keeping the place running to time as far as possible.

Back in court today, I had hoped there would be a little more excitement. I was eventually called just before lunch to sit on a case which, although relatively minor, had made it all the way to Crown Court – costing the taxpayer over £4,000 according to an irritated judge. One person who might have had something to say about that was none other than Harriet Harman, who turned heads when she arrived in the jurors’ assembly area earlier. It made me realise what an egalitarian duty jury service is - even the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party can’t get out of it. I suspect she probably enjoyed a visit back to her roots (she’s a former solicitor after all), and she appeared to be busying herself with constituency business during the downtime.

For what it’s worth, today’s trial was resolved remarkably quickly, after a few hiccups. A point of law and faulty audio-visuals held up the trial for two hours. Then, after lunch, an overpowering smell of what seemed to be paraffin began to give everyone a headache, so we rose again. The usher had warned us that the antiquated building suffered from a lack of fresh air which might send us to sleep, but I wasn’t quite expecting this. It turned out to be an infiltration of fumes into the air-conditioning system, caused by nearby builders putting new asphalt onto a roof. And to top it all, a late juror prompted stern words from the judge.

As we sat for the third time, the defendant changed his plea to guilty, incurring the wrath of the judge and no doubt the court staff, who knew that had he done so at an earlier stage, taxpayers’ money would not have been spent needlessly and the case could have been heard in a magistrates’ court. If the clapped out building and defunct equipment were anything to go by, they need every last penny.

A moment of madness

The excellent Enemies of Reason blog carries an 'application' to join the Daily Mail trainee reporter scheme, which closes shortly.

Most other journalism students I know detest the Hate Mail and its view of the world. But few people acknowledge that the Mail has one of the best training schemes for journalists in the English language. And that's not to be sniffed out in a declining newspaper industry - although the Mail is well ahead of its rivals selling in circulating over three million copies a day.

I'll admit it now. For a few, unhinged and not-altogether-of-this-planet moments I considered applying to the scheme, as a natural progression to the first-class journalism training I'm currently undertaking at City University, which concludes in mid-September.

But, hold on:

Jan Moir?

'Mad' Melanie Phillips and her gay maths?


Richard Littlejohn?

A tyrannical editor?


A scattergun firing selective and preachy moral judgements about anyone who isn't white, middle class, heterosexual and Christian? In what kind of parallel universe would I ever feel comfortable having my words printed alongside these people, and these values?

Steven Baxter at Enemies of Reason says it much better than me.

Cutting to the chase

Where on earth are anti-cuts campaigns leading to?

The left of British politics seems to be stuck between the old, bureaucratic model of rigid union-based organising, and the 'flashmob' style of campaigning which organisations such as UK Uncut and False Economy are encouraging.
UK Uncut have swooped on unsuspecting Saturday shoppers with the likes of tax-dodging Vodafone and Topshop in their sights, building a movement through Twitter and Facebook. The TUC, on the other hand, promises a big demonstration on 26 March ‘All Together for Public Services’ – organising through all its constituent member unions in the workplace. Both marshal support from very different ranks.

Neither campaigns are based on anything insincere, or are fundamentally incompatible with each other. The people who attend the demonstrations, sign the petition or even just ‘retweet’ a powerful statement mean what they do, I’m sure. But I wonder how long ‘just being angry’ about the state of the world, and expressing a generally anti-politics view in reaction to the cuts will achieve.

So what are we campaigning for? Is it a new world order, or just the reinstatement of Joan the lollipop lady? Are we against the flogging off of our forests, and the savaging of our libraries as well as the cuts in rural bus services? And if we are against all these things, what binds this movement together?

If you’ll bear with me, I’m going to indulge in the romance of my Trotskyite days as a student anti-war campaigner and part-time revolutionary socialist.

To me, the different approaches that have been adopted in reaction to the cuts mean that in many ways, I struggle to find a parallel with the enormous anti-war movement which developed after the September 11 attacks on the US. It all meant there was a considerably limited use of the internet as an organising and campaigning tool compared with 2011.

The hierarchical structure of the Stop the War Coalition encouraged a united opposition to a single issue, and it was good at organising. The build-up consisted of rallies in every major town and city, even then encouraging school-age students to protest, and a flotilla of coaches culminating in a million-strong march in London on 15 February 2003. In 2003, there was no social media, and Facebook was just fictional dollar signs in Mark Zuckerberg’s head. Communications technology, in every sense, has exploded since then and it’s not inconceivable that we could witness such a huge scale protest now, if not bigger. But although this movement achieved success in mobilising opposition in quite a substantial way, it did not ultimately achieve its goal – of preventing war in Iraq. The movement which built up towards that demo drifted away, graduated from university, and found new political enemies. Fundamentally, the politics of the anti-war movement was always too fragmented, and too fragile to become anything substantial in the long-term.

Maybe the anti-war movement set an example which has yet to be beaten in terms of sheer support and the steady, long-term building of a core base of support.

Yet the current wave of protests – and they are just that at the moment – means that there is nothing on the scale of the anti-war movement, let alone something on the scale of the Chartists or the suffragists.

In response to latest surge of protests, some on the Labour supporting-blogosphere, including Owen Jones, Aaron Peters and the TUC's Nigel Stanley have begun to comment both in support of and against the two campaigning models. They also argue for a mixture of the two approaches.

But to me, the answers to these conflicts are clear:

1. Don’t 'expect' leadership – become the leaders!
2. If you need a democratic structure to do that, with an elected ‘committee’ – make it happen.
3. Define what you're for, not necessarily what you're against and be absolutely concise about it.
4. Have a clear set of goals in order to get you there, and a coherent view about how we want things to be.
5. Be unambiguous about your politics, even if you’re not aligned to a particular party.

Without any of the above in place, the means is irrelevant. Neither the traditional model nor the flashmob method will endure, because neither can achieve anything on their own.

If there is no consensus on the right approach, I’m wondering if it's as simple as lots of localised anti-cuts campaigns around the country - in which Labour candidates in marginal seats fight the 2015 election in order to ensure Labour becomes the next government. It might be the best hope of the progressive left that the deficit can be tackled in a fairer way. After all, anger may win the emotional argument, but it only gets you part of the way.

Do the gay maths...

Oh, how I love it when Melanie Phillips writes something so outrageous that my Twitter feed goes into a complete spin – or laughs it off. The beauty of social networking sites is that they can instantly make humour out of a situation.

Here's a good one:

“Marcus is going out on Friday and Saturday night, but he also has a dinner date on Tuesday, and a lunch to attend on Thursday. How many spray tans will he need? #gaymaths”

Or, more more ironically:

Q: Steven and Martin live in Bristol, and decide to book three nights away for a romantic weekend break at a small town in Cornwall. If they arrive on the Thursday afternoon, what is the likelihood (in percentage terms) that they will be returning home on Thursday evening?

A: According to the hotel's website "there are no petty restrictions, you can come and go as you like”...

Hmmm.

There are, justifiably, plenty of people writing about the wave of homophobia which has hit public life recently. It may be tempting, but I'm not going engage in a round of Melanie Phillips-bashing. She's barmy enough as it is, and probably best left in her own mad, sad little world. I'd love to think that we could “build a paywall around the Daily Mail website to keep the articles in", as David Schneider proposed, but it's never going to happen until Melanie meets her maker, or the Mail goes bankrupt.

Phillips, of course, is no stranger to this sort of controversy and nor is the Mail. But Phillips does join a hateful festival of vitriol which has been playing since Steven Preddy and Martin Hall won their court battle against the Chymorvah Hotel for its refusal to accommodate them in a double room.

Hot on the heels of Roger Helmer's ignorant outburst (and a later article on Conservative Home), we witnessed the brief appearance of a blogpost by Richard Drax MP in which he slurred the “questionable sexual standards” of gay and lesbian people in the context of Phillips' unhinged rant about gay maths.And there's a vocal cabal of Tories who are doing everything they can to undermine Cameron's new fluffy approach to LGBT issues.

In the open comments section of his blog, I asked Richard Drax what it was exactly what it was about my sexual orientation that he found so questionable. Was it the fulfilled and happy social life I enjoy with like-minded friends, some of whom also happen to be gay? Or maybe the loving and committed relationship I share with my boyfriend? A matter of hours later and the blogpost was gone, replaced by a mumbled half-apology and a restating of his not-originally-coherent views on education in schools.

It looks like Drax may have been got at by the Tory high-command, although quite how Roger Helmer got away with it, I don't know. But a new surge of homophobic sentiment seems to be creeping in from the Tory right.

I'm no fan of conspiracies, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone, somewhere amongst the Tory backbenches is crying out 'please bring back Section 28'. And if they aren't, isn't it being inferred anyway?

One theory is that an increasing number of backbenchers are so incensed by the realities of the coalition that they're keen to make as much trouble for David Cameron as possible. That we know already in fact, judging by the recent rebellion over Europe. And, if you were under any further illusion that the new breed of Tory was somehow more progressively aligned, take Dominic Raab MP's tirade in the London Evening Standard today.

I hope, (and I do believe) that Cameron personally will not stand for anti-gay sentiment, but his inconsistent approach in dealing with ignorance, let alone outright homophobia in his party makes a mockery of the new, fluffy-bunny-Toryism. And Cameron is too damaged by his own past failures to let his party return to its default setting of prejudice.

Big trouble in the big society

How one local authority is facing a 46% budget cut



Will the citizens of Hastings take up the reins of the Big Society?



Hastings is a seaside resort famous for its connection with the Norman conquest. In 1066, William the Bastard became William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings, defeating Harold II as King. It led to William securing control of most of England, but twenty years of rebellion and resistance.

Today, Hastings is somewhat less concerned with dramatic occupations, and more in keeping the fabric of essential local services intact. A Labour-led borough council – unique south of London – is opposed by a docile Conservative party which steadfastly refuses to condemn the severity of the cuts which have hit the council. The area's Tory MP, Amber Rudd, even goes so far as to call the cutbacks “an opportunity”.

But in the words of the council itself, Hastings has just been handed “the toughest settlement in living history”. And this is a town which knows a thing or two about tough settlements.

Local government took a massive blow in the aftermath of October's comprehensive spending review. Over the next four years, government funding to local authorities will decrease by a total of 28%. Hastings loses an astounding 46% of its total funding; £3.6 million from an Area Based Grant (cut altogether), and its Formula Grant cut from £9.1 million to £7.7 million. A 'transition fund' replaces some of the lost funding - £2.6 million in 2011/2012 – but this too is reduced next year by around a fifth. Like other Labour-led councils, which are suffering disproportionately through the loss of central government grants, Hastings is emerging from the shock of the CSR to deal with the reality of cutting essential services as well as generators of economic growth.

Labour Councillor Paul Barlow “fell in love with the town” when he moved from inner-city London in 2003, just after a substantial amount of government grants had been awarded to breathe new life into the area. “I wanted to buy somewhere for an investment,” says Barlow, who came to work for a regeneration company, recognising the potential of what could have been just another unloved seaside town. His talents have recently been rewarded with a cabinet post, without any single portfolio, helping to run the council in an extraordinarily tough economic environment.

Barlow's 'patch' reflects a personal passion for regeneration and renewal, covering the Castle Ward, which aside from the castle itself, and everything from the railway station to the main shopping areas and the beach. It also includes the famous Victorian pier ravaged by fire in October and now the subject of a Heritage Lottery Fund application to restore it to former glory. A feature of the seafront is distinctive Georgian architecture, much of which seems to be looked after a lot better now than it has done for years. A variety of thriving independent businesses dominate the town centre: only a branch of Costa stands out as a rare concession to the global coffee giants.

Under Labour, Hastings received substantial public investment. The Priory Quarter office development is a prime example of the sort of boost – a speculative office development that has coaxed major employers such as Saga, which brought 800 jobs to the town. The new Sussex Coast College offers degree level courses to a young population habitually bound by the confines of the borough and lacking in aspiration. But despite these redeeming features, Councillor Barlow's ward is still the 29^th most deprived in the UK.

Barlow is understandably proud of the progress over the last ten years or so, and is keen to emphasise the council's overall vision for the town: 

“Many seaside towns like Hastings fell into a spiral of decline in the 1960s and 1970s because there was no-one to drive things forward and councils allowed the downward spiral to continue. When we took control in 1998 much of the seafront was semi-derelict, but using our planning powers we forced landlords to use their own money in refurbish their properties.  

"The council's own 'Grotbusters' team helped out, working with owners of run down buildings to help bring properties up to scratch.

“We've now changed the seafront so dramatically, at one point the town even ran out of scaffolding!” laughs Barlow.

Indeed, the pleasant surroundings of the White Rock Hotel, where I meet Barlow, is testament to the general improvement of the area.

But Barlow is fearful that this sort of progress could be reversed:

“We recently won money for developing the fishing industry in the town from the European Union, but a lot of our regeneration staff are paid for from area-based grants – which are going completely. So, we lose much of our regeneration funding, and the ability to put forward applications for new money.

“These people provide a lot of added value to the town. But we're losing experience that we've built up. And if the council doesn't provide direction and funding, who does?”

In the aftermath of the spending review, Barlow has to help make decisions on what, if any of this sort of work can be continued.

“There are things we have to do, like development control, but there's very little guidance on what you have to provide. We will have to bring things down to a level we think is safe, and look at what else we've got left in terms of savings.” 

In that case, what happens when the council says they can't afford to certain things any more? Isn't the Big Society already waiting in the wings, geared up to provide services more cheaply?

Unsurprisingly, Barlow is sceptical of this notion. 

“It's rather patronising to assume that there are lots of people just waiting to take over – there aren't.”

Barlow questions the benefit of increased involvement by the voluntary sector: 

“They may have a different angle. But it's hard to think what else we could outsource - there's no way any other organisation can provide a lot of things cheaper. Local government is already the most efficient way of doing a lot of things. 

“Much of the regeneration money goes through the council's budget to Hastings' voluntary sector. The Pier and White Rock Trust already has some great people doing a full-time job voluntarily. But as a result of cuts in our regeneration budget, we're going to see a smaller 'Big Society'. It will contract and shrink as a result of the cuts." 

Barlow points out that the council have already begun to consult with local residents about what's most important to them. 

“We had a borough wide conversation about people's priorities. Not what about we improve, but what we dramatically reduce, or cut. People prioritised safety things, environmental issues, cleaner streets - a greener town. 

“Lower down on their agendas are things like arts and the theatre. But we're a small council, and very often services are provided by just one or two people. If you make a 40% cut in some arts services you end up stopping it altogether. The severity of this is pretty much out of the blue, and we're still in the process of going through what's possible”.

Barlow is convinced that central government fundamentally misunderstands what local authorities like Hastings actually do. He argues that local government is an essential co-ordinator of services, not necessarily responsible for carrying them out. 

“They've a weird idea that local government is a monolith, but most money simply goes through us to organisations that work on our behalf. And there's this myth that people will provide things for free - that's not going to happen. Even the Friends of the Park requires office space and structured professional support to keep them going. And we're already engaging local people in the management of the park”.

Does Barlow have any faith in the government's vision for more localism?

“The net impact of localism so far has been zero because we have no resources to achieve it.

“We have some staff for example, who help develop community forums. But when you no longer have the grants for these kinds of things, how do they happen? You just get the same people coming forward at planning meetings and organising petitions”.

In the light of all this, what successes might Barlow have to his name in five years' time?

“We're going to be hard pressed to identify great achievements.

“I suppose I'm quite lucky in that I've been able to take control of a trust which, under an Elizabethan agreement, dictates that an area of land between high tide and low tide would be given for the benefit of the people of Hastings. It got drowned by council bureaucracy, which we managed to unpick. What we have now is a large area of the foreshore which is now land – not underwater – including fairgrounds and a car park – and which has an income. Once the trust pays off its costs, there's an opportunity for the excess to be spent in a targeted way. We can focus it on the most needy in Hastings and St Leonards – and possibly some seafront improvements."

At the same time, Barlow is realistic about his political responsibilities:

“My main role, as local campaign co-ordinator for the Labour party - is to see that our Conservative MP has a short tenure, and that she's replaced by a Labour MP. The previous Tory MP only lasted one term – and the way the current MP is going, she could follow him.

“If we can keep things ticking over in a way that protects the most vulnerable – that's probably the best achievement we can hope for”. 

 

That was the year that was

And so I've come to write my look back at 2010 – a sort of between Christmas-and-New Year special – in which I pick out the things that have made an impact on me this year from the political, to the personal, and the things that just didn't quite make sense. Or just or made me laugh.

As 2010 dawned I think I can safely say I was one of those people who would have put a bet on a hung parliament being the most likely outcome of the General Election. Six months on from that political soap opera in May I think the electorate probably think that overall, they made the right decision – namely, refusing to vote for any single party to have a whopping majority. Although the polls are looking positive for Ed Miliband's Labour with a backdrop of savage cuts to public services, most people aren't quite ready to trust them with government again just yet. They may even be prepared to give them a further drubbing with the Oldham and Saddleworth by-election early in 2011 – but for what it's worth, I don't think it matters. Labour's still my party and I want it to do well but Miliband is a wise man to play the long game, and not be forced into the sort of short-term tactics that damaged his predecessor.

Whereas, at the beginning of the year most people would have wagered on David Cameron becoming Prime Minister one way or another, I'm not sure many would have envisaged the stratospheric journey of Nick Clegg and his subsequent appointment as Deputy Prime Minister. It was hard to make sense of a new sort of Liberal Democrat party, half of them parachuted into ministerial positions by Cameron's 'open and generous' offer. In one bold move, Cameron enacted Blair's pre-1997 dream, except this time it was the Tories and not Labour who were joining forces with the third party in the 'national interest'. I'm still not sure whether LibDem ministers could quite believe their luck at being able to play with the big boys at last, but it's clear that there were many more of the so-called 'Orange Book' free market types able to work with some decidedly Thatcherite Tories in government. The Labour party has enough ideological baggage to permanently put them at odds with the Conservative view of the world – not so for the LibDems who didn't take too long to decide whether they wanted real power, and after all have happily worked with Tories in local government for years.

Despite the cosying up and the rose garden love-ins, we've already witnessed some of the bloodiest battles already and the next year could highlight more dividing lines in the Coalition.

The certainties of politics and I think, the nature of democracy have been called into question in other ways. We now have a spontaneous, radical student movement, united in opposition to tuition fees that has taken politics in protest to a new level. While it's fair to say that this movement haven't quite agreed what they're for – there may be a few disagreements down the line over the extent to which education should be funded by general taxation – there's a renewed engagement in ideas and the way in which debate is framed. Politicians themselves seem ever more terrified of the prospect of having to have a genuine conversation over these 'policy outcomes'. The only comparable 'movement' of any kind I can think of was the poll tax riots in 1990 – and possibly the anti-war movement, in which over a million people marched against an invasion of Iraq in 2003. The UK Uncut campaign will be interesting to watch too. I've already boycotted the January sales at Topman in solidarity.

***

Technology – and in particular the web - has been a bigger part of my life this year than ever before. The edge-of-your seat political blockbuster of 2010 has been accompanied by a revolution in the media. Although the 2010 General Election was by most accounts a TV election, the part played by social media can't be ignored. I followed every development of the election campaign – and plenty of other big news – through the all-knowing Twitter and Facebook and many other sites through my trusty laptop, not to mention the background distraction of rolling news. And when you're me, it really is a terrible distraction. I love 'microblogging' and the conversations of the Twitterati, but I must learn in 2011 to focus my creative efforts on more than 140 characters. But cats in wheelie bins, Chilean miners, rogue Geordie gunmen and bigoted Daily Mail columnists all make up the rich tapestry of life and I suppose the media would have even more space for DFS adverts if these things didn't make the news.

***

I got engaged in July. Andy caught me completely unawares, since I'd always assumed it had been my responsibility to pop the question. It all happened in a quite beautiful location on 2 July, in the garden of a pub overlooking the Millennium Dome – or the O2. There's nothing quite like that place to represent an exciting new beginning, marking the transition from my relationship with Andy over the last three years – to the beginning of the rest of our lives. It was lovely, and beautiful, and a bit soppy! Plans remain at what I call the 'storyboarding' stage but once I've got this MA out of the way I'll be in full wedding mode. 

Talking of the MA, I took a bold decision to apply for a Political Journalism course at City University in May, and subsequently got offered a place, accompanied by a generous bursary which was a much appreciated reward for my written efforts. It's going well so far, and I can't say I've ever been bored or unmotivated during the week-night lectures which have included some fantastic guest speakers. Over Christmas I became the proud owner of a new digital voice recorder (thanks, Dad!) which I think symbolises me becoming a 'proper' journalist at last – even if I'm not being paid for it just yet...

The next year presents just as many questions as the beginning of the last one, and I'm not going to make any more predictions here. Except to say that it won't be dull – and I hope that everyone who reads this blog will continue to read my occasionally thoughtful analysis of what's going on in the world.

THANK YOU FOR READING!