I was obviously delighted that the BBC's political editor found time to come and address a large sixth form meeting here yesterday, and it looks as if he didn't miss any scoops while undertaking this charitable venture.Much that he said is worth further thought - he's always been an original and stimulating political thinker and observer - but I was impressed by the enthusiasm he feels for the political world, and his belief that we are indeed in exciting times. He ranged well beyond his British politics brief in assessing a world situation that is changing both the relationships of nations and the balance of power within them. How will China react internally to these precarious times? Do we look at Israel and simply say there is no solution? Has Russia lost the bounce she had earlier under Putin now that she's feeling her vulnerability?
Nick Robinson's survey of British politics is always worthwhile, and he updates his blog regularly with insights gleaned during his daily life at the heart of the Westminster village, but he also raised the interesting question of bias in reporting. Here he is, this former young Tory activist, needing to be the face of an impartial public broadcaster - does he achieve this? While one or two questions asked about the broader issue of BBC bias, no-one challenged him on his own position. Perhaps everyone was too polite; perhaps we think he has achieved a non-partisan approach. Interestingly, as he admitted afterwards, not everyone accepts that he is non-partisan - for a former Tory, the most regular accusation that gets flinged at him on his blog is that he is a Labour stooge!
Robinson was engaging and responsive, and I was impressed not long after he left when I wandered into one of the sixth form classrooms and saw students gathered round the interactive whiteboard, eagerly watching one of his earlier reports. Excellent, I thought, having heard him speak about his job they're now getting to grips with the raw material of his reportage. What better accolade can there be for a successful speech. Until I realised, they weren't listening to the actual content - they were waiting to see the policeman cross the screen behind him, the subject of one of his opening anecdotes! Serious politics is an uphill task after all.
1 comment:
Your right with Nick; he does seem to know much about the world, and how it's changed over the last few hundred years.
We really are on a pinnacle of recorded knowledge becoming universally available.
Riding the edge of the binary tsunami as riding the peak of a tropical wave.
The scientists alone have changed the world and its potentials for the quality of our living.
Medical care now; to people living only a few hundred years ago, would deny its possibility.
And here we are after all; cloning sheep and creating skin cells.
Yet by doing so, we are sharpening the opposite edge of the blade; creating a double edged sword.
Yes! I love to see technological advancements, Yes! I love to see people achieving goals' Climbing mountains and becoming entrepreneurs.
But take my life, there seems to be a lot of injustice in the world.
My Farther was English, my mother English; both divorced.
So now I'm stuck with White English, no dependents and a 24 Year old to boot.
When you take in to account the reduced requisitions of companies, then take in to account; immigration, Equal Opportunities, initiatives to get alcoholics back in to work, sexual discrimination policies and students in training awaiting positions.
Then my possibilities of a life without worry and stress from not having employment, are slim at best.
I've been waiting on four agencies to find me work, since January 31st.
And have sent out well over several hundred c.v.'s, all with courteous cover letters.
How long am I to wait, I live with my mother who has to subsidies my living. (Not an easy task for her either.)
Is this the price we pay for world advancement, is there a homeless program under way, similar to the nhs?
Why aren't governments building cheap fordable housing, why are similar circumstances to my own occurring all around the European Union, and most of the world.
Nick is correct as are others to determine that it is all interlinked, all connected.
The factor I guess would be that the rich are to rich and we have no way of becoming similarly rich.
Huge projects for example employ constructors, staff, a need for steel and raw matericals.
Stimulating growth and providing jobs in hundreds of diffrent ways.
Providing a focused end goal for everyone.
Should these stresses be going on? With technology being how it is, is there no solution?
In the meantime we can only hope Nick and others are working to find a similar feasible and agreeable balance, starting things moving once again.
I fear that could be a while, quite a while :) But I do hope something is being done.
This stimulus is trickling to the populous very slowly. My bank balance is still at fifty pence, and I'm no closer to the job.
Regards.
Paul, (P.S. Can I have A Job?)
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