Isn’t this just a bit like the Cleggasm when Labour were temporarily at third place in the polls? 

And I could envisage a situation in the UK where UKIP might score as high as 20% in opinion polls, depending on events in the Eurozone.  I’m not saying that would necessarily convert into votes in the ballot box but it’s not that hard to envisage (at least, not for me).

 Apart from Brian Paddick, are there any LD candidates you’re aware of?

I haven’t seen any myself.

 I think the BBC should either do it properly or get out of the way.

Then Sky could almost certainly do a pay per race arrangement. The BBC taxpayer bung hides the cost. The ITV decision to get out highlighted the cost. Sky can probably, with a big audience, mitigate the cost to the viewer.

The days of the free lunch are over. The disappointment is how the BBC wastes our lunch money and gives us pap.

“Isn’t this just a bit like the Cleggasm when Labour were temporarily at third place in the polls? ”

It’s far more sustained than that. One of the reasons I dont find it stunning (sorry Stuart!) is because Sinn Fein have been 2nd or close to second in many polls for some months (it’s only a 4% increase over December). And the reason is fairly obvious – they are the biggest party who can credibly oppose austerity (FG / Lab are imposing it and FF are mainly blamed for it). One of the big political issues right now is whether the Government should repay about 3 billion in bank debt due in March. Only Sinn Fein can credibly say “no!” and opposing austerity / repaying promissory notes is a fairly obvious reason for polling success. I doubt this situation will translate into SF getting a quarter of the Dail seats in the next GE but it should persist for far longer than the Cleggasm.

The real travesty is that the BBC could’ve just let the deal lapse and it would’ve remained free-to-air.

Incidentally, Channel 4 got no approach whatsoever, and were reportedly planning a grassroots effort to take F1 into schools and get kids into engineering and so forth.

The BBC’s spending something like £20m on X-factor clone The Voice, so the argument about money is bullshit. It’s about priorities. The BBC’s terribly keen on empire-building, with total dominance of radio, BBC Three (which is worthless) and BBC Four (which has good progs but these could be shown on Two instead of so many repeats).

When it comes to something that actually hits its performance targets (exceeding Wimbledon’s reach despite less airtime) they’re not interested, even when their own coverage is BAFTA-winning.

*sighs* I’ll just have to live with it. It’ll be pretty shit offering tips after P3 and qualifying, but before I’ve actually seen qualifying and without seeing P3 at all, but there’s nothing to be done about it. Hopefully RTL will mitigate the problems.

The Lib/Dems do not believe….they rather hope, or wish  or  maybe..and wouldn’t it be nice ..a bit wet raggy really…useless.

I feel for you MD.

I’d already sold me soul to the old devil Murdoch, so will be enjoy the delights of Sky F1 for at least half the races. It will be interesting to see which service I prefer for the races on both Sky and BBC. I expect BBC for the build up, and Sky for the race itself.

Golly – a public official received over £80k from the Sun – that’s a lot of cups of coffee…

Another journalist channelled £150k to public officials.

> Usually lead to ‘an invasion of privacy/nothing more than ‘salacious tittle tattle’. I wonder how many brown trousers there are right now in public office land?

The government forced obscene cuts on the BBC. This allowed FOM to exploit the budget shortfall to construct a deal to get it on Sky. Much of the blame sits on the shoulders of Jeremy Hunt and his “efficiency savings”.

Of course, neoliberalism also deserves its share of the blame because regulators have repeatedly allowed Sky to use vertical integration to entrench its pay TV dominance. There is virtually no chance of this changing since governments are terrified of News Corporation turning its media dominance against them.

I’m hoping that F1 collapses in popularity like WRC and cricket before it.

You’re ill-informed.

The BBC approached Sky out of the blue. The BBC had the money for the existing contract and could’ve just let it lapse in a couple of years. The BBC did not contact or negotiate with Channel 4 or any other potential terrestrial broadcaster. The BBC chose to retain BBC Three rather than F1, chose to retain the less popular Six Nations, chose to spend tens of millions aping the X-Factor, etc ad nauseum.

A freeze, with guaranteed income of circa £3bn, is not an obscene cut.

Dan Sabbagh ‏ @dansabbagh Reply  Retweet  Favorite · Open
Consider what Coulson and Brooks appeared to have known in Sept 2006. What did they say to PM, parliament, in public statements etc

That would be the PM at the time..one of those Labour lads..and was it said at one of the sleepovers..we wait to see..

Not just Cameron.

Osborne too.

Could be worse. Osborne could’ve been on a yacht with someone and not asked for or received any money from him.

Oliver
Are you OK-you seem to have suffered a sharp blow to the head??

So if the Met Polis were talking to Crone/Brooks in 2006 surely the Home Secretary knew ? And the PM ?

Only Catholics get confirmed.

No doubt New Labour were too close to Murdoch’s grubby organisation.

That doesn’t justify Cameron’s Tories being even closer.

Ooooh, did they have slumber parties as well?

Has Cameron had many celeb sleepovers at Chequers..doesn’t seem his style somehow..and Coulson did get a note from his old Buddy Brown when he left 

Indeed.  After all, in was in their own manifesto – a rare (indeed, unique) example of the Conservatives watering-down a LD proposal…..

The quicker we get a ‘dry’ Conservative Govt with a decent majority, the better!

Please don’t use the word “Cleggasm” Lucy. Mark Senior follows these threads you know, and Cleggasms have him sobbing into his lavender-scented pillows, tightening his grip on poor teddy and reaching for his pink Kleenex.

 Did you hear about the psephologist from Krakow who moved to Haiti?

He became a Voodoo Pole!

That’s not right.  I was confirmed aged 15 in the United Reformed Church, which is about as unCatholic as you could get.  My parents’ church had only just agreed to allow organisations to hold tombolas on the church premises when we moved to the area.

Yes, because the Premiership football is doing so badly at the moment isn’t it…

Boxing is at a low ebb throughout the western world, as it’s simply not as attactive a sport due to it’s image, and the lack of character fighters.

Oh dear – interesting re Tom Crone since he was a poster boy for the Left as being Mr Bringer Down Of Murdoch in the NI camp.

Police briefed Ms Brooks, then editor of The Sun, about their investigation into the illegal interception of voicemails within weeks of the arrest of royal editor Goodman and private detective Glenn Mulcaire.

Scotland Yard assured Rebekah Brooks in 2006 that it was not planning to extend its phone-hacking inquiry to include News of the World staff other than Clive Goodman, the Leveson Inquiry heard.

She was told detectives were confident Goodman and Mulcaire were “bang to rights” but would only widen the case to include other News of the World employees if they found “direct evidence” of wrongdoing.

The press standards inquiry heard that police also told Ms Brooks they uncovered evidence of more than £1 million in payments by News of the World publisher News International during the phone-hacking investigation.

Tom Crone, the News of the World’s head of legal, summarised Scotland Yard’s briefing in an email headed “strictly private and confidential” to the paper’s then-editor Andy Coulson on September 15 2006.

He began his memo: “Here is what Rebekah told me about info relayed to her by the cops.”

It went on: “They suggested that they were not widening the case to include other NoW people, but would do so if they got direct evidence, say NoW journos directly accessing the voicemails (this is what did for Clive).”

The email also noted: “The only payment records they found were from News International, ie the NoW retainer and other invoices, they said that over the period they looked at (going way back) there seemed to be over £1 million of payments.”

Mr Crone’s message concluded: “They’re going to contact RW (Rebekah Wade, Ms Brooks’s maiden name) today to see if she wishes to take it further.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9108480/Scotland-Yard-tipped-off-Rebekah-Brooks-about-phone-hacking-in-2006.html

Collapse in the popularity of cricket? I trust you are being ironic. There is more money and more grassroots involvement in cricket than ever before. More people are playing the game than ever before and more people going to watch matches. In one year alone – 2008 – there was a 24% increase in participation according to the ECB. 

The popularity of the World Rally Championship collapsed because the manufacturers got unhappy about how tough the races were and so castrated the sport. WRC used to be the most popular live spectator sport in Britain – and with minimal TV coverage. Now it is ruined and that has everything to do with how it is run and nothing to do with who is showing it on TV. 

Do you seriously believe the BBC approached Sky over a deal covering 6 years of F1 rights without FOM being involved? If so, I have a bridge to sell you.

The BBC cut their single biggest expense and got a payment plan for their remaining obligations.

Not only are the BBC getting a freeze (3.6% inflation, folks), the Foreign Office are putting the cost of the £237m World Service onto the BBC’s budget from 2014, as well as added S4C costs. The BBC also has added expense of covering the 2012 Olympics.

You’re right: the BBC chose to retain a years worth of content on a channel over a sporting event (although the choice was apparently BBC4 over F1), retained an event that’s considerably cheaper than F1, and is spending a fraction of the money creating its own version of the most popular show in the world.

 All ‘communicants’ in the Anglican faith (world-wide) must be confirmed.
The same is true of many other Christian faiths.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-mayor/article-24038852-ill-curb-power-of-tube-unions-says-boris.do
“Boris Johnson today vowed to reduce the power of union bosses by introducing driverless trains – and revealed that key Tube lines will be fully automatic within two years.”

Apologies for what may well be an inane question, but does Leveson have the ability to compel people to appear at his enquiry?

‘
Not only are the BBC getting a freeze (3.6% inflation, folks), the Foreign Office are putting the cost of the £237m World Service onto the BBC’s budget from 2014, as well as added S4C costs.’

How sad is that.

 ”the BBC could’ve just let the deal lapse and it would’ve remained free-to-air.”

Not sure that would have been the case. Channel4 can no more afford it than ITV. I suspect that pay to view will become universal – even in Germany it is mooted – because Bernie wants so much for the rights.