Ben Summerskill's Webb Ellis Moment

Image used with permission from
gyronny.com

Last week Ben Summerskill warned the LGB community (Stonewall doesn't do T) to beware of politicians playing political football with the issue of equal marriage.

Over the last week the tweets and comments have been coming thicker and faster from all political parties and those with none. There is uproar from a broad section of the LGBT community that hasn't been since 1969 and the original Stonewall riots. I think we have noticed that Ben Summerskill is like a poor confused pupil standing on the playing fields of Rugby unsure of what to make of William Webb Ellis's innovation. For those of you who don't know Webb Ellis was the pupil credited with picking up a football on the playing fields of Rugby and creating a whole new game which bears the school's name.

To me that is the ideal analogy of what has happened to Stonewall and Ben Summerskill over the last few months/years. Other groups and even the mainstream political parties have picked up the ball of equality and are running with it in hand. They are holding unto equality tightly, not controlling its passage with taps from their feet. For them equality is not just equalising LGB rights it is about inclusiveness of SLGBTQ* (Staight, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning) rights, something that while Stonewall say they stand for equality they seem unable to support.

The right of heterosexuals to have equal access to Civil Partnerships was part of the Lib Dem Policy passed last week. It was also part of the original CP legislation going through Parliament, which Stonewall say they were championing, yet now they (or is it just Ben) say they are not standing for heterosexual equality.

The policy also included Humanist celebrants in the right to marry or civil partner couples in England and Wales. Something that they had only been able to do in Scotland before. An equality of beliefs which Stonewall probably don't want to recognise or support.

The fact is that the equality that is left to fight for has to be fair to heterosexual, homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender people. That is the whole new ball game. It is the ironing out of the little things that were once thought separate is okay as long as we step along the right path. It's time to smooth those out, being equal need to be just that, equal opportunities for all.

If Summerskill can't see that maybe it is time for Team Stonewall to select a new captain. Or if Stonewall really cannot see them, maybe they should get out of the game. 86% of the recent PinkNews poll were in favour of equal marriage, 61% of the general public in a recent poll said the same.

It truly is time to work out how to do, not work out the issues for why 'society' can't.

* May even have to add AP to that for Asexual or Polyamorous.

Maybe No Dusty Bin but 3-2-1

Earlier today Sally Bercow tweeted this

It got me thinking what would have been the five cryptic clues that Ted Rogers would have read out on the show 3-2-1 for the five Labour Leadership contenders.

For younger readers 3-2-1 was a Saturday evening entertainment/quiz show by Yorkshire Television which had sketches intermingled with cryptic clues for contestants to try and guess what prizes they were. One of the prizes was Dusty Bin for which the contestants actually got a new bin and a small souvenir version.

So here are my set of clues can you tell who is who:

I'm off to the races and that suits me fine
But this two horse race needs a new winner this time.
I'll energetically bring about change
My words once laid out the Scottish range.


I've jumped to the challenge since I was born
But Swedish robes have my reputation torn
Some call me tasteless, but net beware
Our kids are best under two parent care.


I'm no coach potato any day of the week
I'm the first or so my tutor might speak.
Some Finns aren't so white I learnt to my cost
My child will be educated bugger the cost.


My ancestry is an important part of who I am
But I do with education is like American.
Though not with the Tracey's international rescue
Grey matter was the porn writer's 'hey you!'.


JFK was a way to help with my studies
But my family and animals is part of the stories.
It's good to talk but not always while driving
But second homes really ought to be in the West Riding.

I'll give you the answers tomorrow.

In the Interests of Balance

Here are the contact details of my Labour opponent taken from his official election literature



This from the man who in his first intervention in the Digital Economy Bill Debate said:

"I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend and I am a great follower of Star Wars. I realise now, however, that my hon. Friend has identified himself as Yoda."

Hat tip to Love and Garbage who's also blogged about it.

The Question of Our Online Past

The removal of Labour's Moray candidate< Stuart MacLennan over comments he made last yearon Twitter whilst a student leads to an interesting dilemma for current and future campaigns. Candidates above a certain age don't have a history on online digital communication from their youth.

Indeed it is possibly candidates around my age who started to use email at University with our tiny allowance on the server that may well be the eldest to possibly have some of our youthful comments retained for posterity on some server or someone's hard drive. Not counting University my online presence goes back for over 13 years, there is a lot of backlog. I've been quite respectful about comments I've made about others, either on my own spaces or in comments on others. But I know many others are not so careful in the language that they use Stuart being one example, but many of my student friends involves in politics of all parties are not always a careful in what they post through Facebook, Twitter or whatever.

It leads to the question are such comments about other parties a new phenomenon or it is merely that the new generation converse in public rather than behind closed doors like their predecessors? The thing is having played chess in the Surbiton club for a while, or the occasion short mat bowls event in a working mans club I've heard the same sort of language used about opponents by Tory grandees and Labour politicians, I'm also not excepting my own party some of the discussions over a pint at a conference hotel can be bawdy as well. The thing is these conversations have always taken place, I suspect even in the Cabinet Room at Downing Street, they just haven't appeared on Twitter.

People use language in different ways, the generations communicate in different ways. Stuart had apologised for those comments made before he was a candidate, that should be enough. But Labour have gone to the extent of sacking him, possibly after he had gained the 10 signatures required to nominate him and will now be seeking a swift installation of a new candidate before close of nominations.

If this really is the first general election of the Internet age the party hierarchies really need to under the 7 ages of the children of the age of the Web. They are going to make many comments in public through social media that in the past were confined to closed doors. But they develop into an age of respectability (possibly) want to get more involved in political life and maybe even stand for election. Very few under 40s do not have a traceable online history, much of that is not the homogenised, controlled outpourings of some of our senior politicians who are trying to keep up rather than stay ahead.

Guess what the future is here.

We have people who have gone on uncontrolled, uncontained, unchecked, online rants in the name of their party, who now are seeking selection for that party. They haven't alwaysbeen careful with the language used and quite possibly may even have been tame compared to others in the discussion. However, if they are contrite and promise to be more careful in the future why should that hold them back?

People are wanting honesty in their politicians. Stuart MacLennan could have easily gone and deleted his Twitter account making is less easy, though not impossible, to find. He didn't and is now paying the price for such honesty not from the electorate but from his own party.

What I Find Surprising About the Caroline Righton Unpology*

I see that Matt Davies is reporting that Tory PPC for St Austell and Newquay Caroline Righton has issued an unpology. If fails to apologise for the email she sent in response to the Tweet that was reported to her but adapted somewhere along the way from Stephen Gilbert's original. All this while pledging to fight a clean and positive campaign.

What I do find strange is that this A-Listista PPC should take two weeks to get to this stage and still not issue an apology, merely shuffling around that this is some misunderstanding. Cardiff Blogger (formerly of the same party) reports that 'a person rather high up in the Conservative Party (who shall remain nameless)' told him within 3 days of a similar misuse of language he would need to issue a grovelling apology, and certain wording was suggested.This edict came in response to a complaint to David Cameron.

Considering he was only Conservative Future Chairman for UWIC and not a candidate in a tight election scrap you would suspect Ms Righton would have had even more pressure come to bear. Admittedly Stephen's agent's letter only was sent to David Cameron on the 28th October, but the story has been around the Lib Dem Blogosphere for a fortnight and gathering momentum and coverage of the sort that Central Office must surely frown upon.

Recent episodes do show one thing though, the Tories are just as concerned about attempting to control social media as Labour ever were under Damian McBride.

* Use of the word copyright Millennium Elephant

Muggles are Following JK Fast

I got news not from the Daily Prophet but Muggle.Net that a certain someone was starting to Tweet. Less than 10 minutes ago I became JK Rowling's 4458th follower on Twitter, however we noticed that her followers were growing fast. I guessed she would pass through the 5000 mark within 10 minutes by 19:48. I was wrong she made it at 19:43 and I managed to capture the moment for posterity*.



With the time now 19:52 she has 5,547, she's getting approximately 100 followers a minute at the moment.

* I'm quite good at guessing these things, but at the rate she was gaining followers even I was impressed by catching her at the moment of her 5,000. We were on constant refresh for a while and getting 3-6 every time we did that.

Woot! I've made a Lib Dem Top 10 #ldconf

The stats for the last week on the #ldconf hashtag reveal that I was Tweeting quite a bit, not as much as Caron from her sofa mind. But there did seem to be a fairly steady amount of Tweeting going on over the days as the chart below shows.

So the scores on the doors:

• 1. Tweetminster 131
• 2. Caron Lindsay 86
• 3. Cllr Daisy Benson 72
• 4. LibDemConf 70
• 5. Anna Pascoe 65
• 6. Me 64
• 7. = James Graham 63
• 7. = Lib Dems 63
  
• 9. Lib Dem Voice 62
• 10. HouseofTwitsLib 58

So Caron from her sofa at home was the Top Lib Dem activist. At Number three was the Councillor who started a raucous chant for her use of Social Networking etc at the BOTYs, of course the Jo Swinson response was laud, and poor Mark Reckons had to chant all by himself (he'd already won one BOTY by then).

The official Twitter account for conference as blasted all over the programme only came in 4th. Really must do better.

However, with 2 of our councillors, 3 of our top Bloggers, the party's official Twitter accounts, Lib Dem Voice from their broom cupboard and two of the leading followers of politics Tweetminster and House of Twits shows the spread of interest in the conference and views that were being given.

One of Those Twitter Moments

If anyone every asks me about the point of Twitter again I'll add it brings light to the occasional day like the following exchange between me and another Stephen.

Just a little bit of connectivity that made a gentleman and a scholar, who does understand Twitter, titter in the mid of a little debate this evening.

Rachel Sylvester: Fail

Rachel Sylvester's column in today's Times really wound me up as I walked from the bus stop to work. First her headline drew me in then wound me up as she quoted Oliver James, but more on that later.



What really got me exacerbated was her daring to comment on politics when she clearly has no idea of opposition "parties" (yes plural) or at least of the English language. She says:

"At the very moment when leadership is required to deal with the economic downturn, politicians of all parties are frozen in the headlights of the recession. The Government is now the majority shareholder of several banks but seems to have no control over the bankers.The opposition parties are quick to criticise Labour's decisions but find it hard to say what they would do instead.

"The political elite has been neutered by the collective failure to predict and prevent the credit crunch and their apparent powerlessness to reverse it now."

Scathing comments if they were 100% true. She mentions parties, Rachel that is the plural of party yet you only mention the Tories as an opposition party. The reason that this really grates is that one party did predict what might happen, did call for measures to be tightened to prevent the banks having carte blanche and are now suggesting what to do different to get out of it. Yes, folks surprise, surprise the MSM, or at least Ms Sylvester, have overlooked the Liberal Democrats.



Strange then that she should have used Oliver James's quote about Tweeters:

"Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It's a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity."

Strange that as Ms Sylvester calls for a party to have a sense of a identity, by her own definition it would seem, had over 1000 uses of the #ldconf hashtag over their conference weekend. Top trended during the leaders speech as well as souring when Howard Dean was speaking. I think that overturns both what Ms Sylvester tried to propagate and disproves what Oliver James has said.



We're Liberal Democrats, we have an identity, and we're going to speak, Tweet, blog and make a fuss about it because it will make a difference.

Lynne Featherstone MP agrees.
Footnote: Proof positive that she doesn't get Twitter she says Nick Clegg Tweets but has fallen for the unofficial Nick as it even says in the profile.

Is @lordmandelson a Twitterphobe?

No sooner had the Lord Voldermort of Hartlepool and Foy appear on Twitter according to that first Tweet on Monday "Looking forward to listening and providing updates on my department's support for business through tough times." Than he is running away to hide.

Surely the Dark Lord of Spin can't be more of a technophobe that John "Prezza" Prescott. Who'd have thunk it?

Or is he about to resign yet another cabinet post?

Yes She Can!

In response to the Obama campaigner, Labour party activist and no longer former bloggers question "A girl can change her mind, can't she?" I'd like to say (before the Obama's impose copyright sanctions) "Yes she can". Only yesterday she appeared on Twitter:

Well it took a total of 8 hours and 37 minutes from the commencement of Micro Blogging for the soapbox to be given a fresh lick of paint and to reappear from under the melting snow. At least until she announced that she had changed her mind.

It's good to have you back Kez. Now it only we can get Scottish Tory Boy, ASwaS and the rest to get some va va voom into their keyboard. Oh and get some Lib Dem representation on her blogroll.

Labour's Bitch

I've been sort of watching Derek Draper's Twit Bitch at Iain Dale this morning starting here. It doesn't surprise me too much as Draper seem woefully unable to remain civil in the blogosphere and his blogiquette is atrocious.

It started with the statement:

LabourList has suspended Iain Dale from our blogroll until he clears up
remarks he has made about "Golliwog" being an acceptable term.

Actually if you Iain's original post you find that he was actually pointing out inconsistencies in the BBC's policy over racist comments. He cited Chris Moyles as an example who got away with it not once but twice. While the daughter of the former Prime Minister, Carol Thatcher upset Brummie man of the people Adrian Chiles, Moyles upset Oscar royalty in the form of Halle Berry. Iain was under the assumption until earlier this morning that the hair in question belonged to Andrew Murray, as white as the snow that is cover so much of the UK south of Dunblane.

Now in past with Mr. Dale and other bloggers that I read I will point out an error, asking them to correct it, if after giving adequate time for a correction to be made nothing is forthcoming I may consider other action. Not so with Mr Draper ignorer of Blogiquette extraordinaire. His hissy fit a suspending of Iain's blog came after Dale had struck through his comments thus

And the tennis player concerned is allegedly the hideously white Andy
Murray.

See Derek Iain know that if a blogger is found to be in error transparency of that error is what counts. It's what the audience expects. You see another example last night where Iain posted John Prescott's video response to his own error of assumption.

Sadly LabourList like so many of the Labour blogs seems to think that political blogging can exist without referring to the rest of the rainbow of Political opinion. One thing Iain Dale despite his own right wing leanings can never be accused of. Labour need to lighten up in the Blogosphere and engage with others constructively, sadly as the approach of Mr Draper seems to so they seem to think they can control it. Tough that got out of the bag too long ago.

The Water 'WHO'-ler Moment

Well I'm sure most people were merely content watching the announcement of Matt Smith's taking over the controls of and keys to the Tardis on Doctor Who Confidential but I know, cause I was one of them, that many of use were Tweeting, posting on forums, blogging, hitting websites and looking it up all at the same time.

The fact that my reveal of the name Tweet posted as soon as Matt Smith's face appeared on the screen is actually ahead of the BBC Breaking News Tweet was something I quite enjoyed. The fact that like a good Agatha Christie novel I'd already worked out the clues before hand and live blogged the final piece as looking certain before that even, even more. And now Twitter has gone down being over capacity. Yeah all us geeks are Tweeting to each other about the event and have brought down one site. Next.

Doctor Who where are you?

No must get away from the vision of Scrappy Doo as the second canine companion. I bite my thumb at you Wesley Crusher.

Watching it solely on TV you wouldn't have picked up the full excitement. This was a truly 21st Century water cooler moment. The thing is the watercooler was accessible through you own laptop. Every one from across the country and with Wil Wheaton a established Hollywooder we can say around the world was discussing it as it was being revealed without having to be sat on (not behind) the same sofa.

Matt Smith it is to be that is the answer. With all this hype on the net Steven Moffat and the rest of the team are going to have to deliver a superb 5th (or do these specials make it 6th) series of the revived series. However, having seen their work up to know I'm pretty sure we won't be let down.

Although Wil did raise and interesting question. Who will be the next companion(s)? I add in the plural as maybe it is time to return to having more than one companion again. I know the youngsters aren't used to it but having had Rose, Martha, Donna and Sarah Jane (plus the rest)all coming to the the Doctor's aid at the end of the last season, maybe we've weaned them in to the possibility.

Update: Whoops in all my excitemet I got Northern Irish news presenter Stephen Nolan mixed up with the sucessor of Mr RTD Steven Moffat

Top Gear Sink to the Bottom in Latest BBC Mislead

I have to say following Robert Llewllyn on Twitter is that as befits the man who has fronted scrapheap challenge he does appear to be greeny technophile. Hence I followed his link to this about the last Top Gear of 2008.

The gang were testing the Tesla Roadster the electric sport's car on Sunday night's show and claimed it had run out of power for them on the track, not once but twice. Well as you can read the scenes at the end with Jeremy Clarkson walking along an empty, quiet track claiming that while he expected the electric car to be quieter but actually moving, and the scene of one of the car being pushed back into the garage may have been fabricated.

Now as is well know the gang Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May tend to mock every green initiative in motoring. They are such out and out petrol heads that hybrid and electric heads must at times want to hide their heads in shame. The other week when Kevin McCloud the environmentally aware host of Grand Designs came second in the stars in a reasonably priced car board behind Jay Kay they seemed almost incredulous and mocking of his green credentials.

However, if they have deliberately misrepresented a car, on what is primarily a car show after the various other misdemeanours of this season the BBC may well end up in even more hot water: possibly that produced as emissions from the Teslas in question.

The Tweeting Twit

Earlier I Tweeted about Sathnam Sanghera's article in the Time's 2 Section this morning about Tweeting and Facebook. On reading it I though woo hoo here is a MSM journo who Tweets with impunity.

That was until I visited his Twitter profile to find he's protected his updates is only following 21 people and has only posted 8 updates. Reckon he logged on yesterday merely to write his article at the behest of his editor. What a Twit? Both he and his editor if that is the case.

Now Tweeting

As some of you have already noticed I've finally got around to using Twitter. I think on some days, like today, when I don't have time to blog as normal I will be able to microblog and at least let you know what is going on in the side bar here and on Twitter.

You can follow my Tweets through my user name stephenpglenn.