After transferring the blog over to a new system due to problems with the old site and making a few updates to the interface including the incorporation of several new features, Green’s Diary is all set to resume normal service.

Most of the blog will look pretty familiar, however there have been a few updates, such as links to the main topics under the banner and links to pages have moved to the top. Links to social network pages and subscription links for the blog have also been added. The mobile version of Green’s Diary is now fully compatible across platforms and is fully optimized for the iOS system.

The main development that you will notice quite quickly, is the return of podcasts. Green’s Diary was originally known as Tory Boy News which was started as a political commentary. As time went on, it became unviable to continue the podcast so it stopped. Now however, thanks to the advent of modern technology, it is very easy to podcast and so starting in two weeks from now, a NEW podcast called Green Lines will be launched – a news & reviews show that will run alongside this blog covering some similar and some different topics. Podcasts will be incorporated into the blog as posts themselves and you can subscribe to the podcast from today by clicking on one of the links on the right of the blog.

The main development on the subscription front has been a new email facility. You can now subscribe to Green’s Diary by email and receive posts as soon as they are published directly to your inbox without having to open an RSS reader, or visit the main site.

Another development has been social network integration. The blog is now fully integrated with both Facebook and Twitter. You can use your login credentials for these social sites to post comments on the blog as well as easily share articles to your profile. It’s quick, easy and saves you having to remember yet another user-name and password. You can also post an article to many more social sites using the button that will appear at the foot of every article.

Finally, as I alluded to in June, Green’s Diary is branching out as of now. It will still cover politics and current affairs but it will also feature other news, technology news, history and other topics of interest. Under the banner at the top of the page, you will see the main categories, there are many sub-categories relating to posts, but the all relate in one way or another to the list at the top of the page. The links allow you to quickly locate and read articles on the subjects that you’re interested in.

Finally, finally, I am pleased to say that I am at last making some progress on the hip situation and things seem to be steadily improving. The recovery from the operation, which was now nearly 3 1/2 months ago is taking much longer than had first been expected hence the time it has taken to do the work needed on this website. However, with University restarting in a few weeks  hope to be returning to some sort of relative normality and hopefully the blog will jog along in tandem.

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After a worry, earlier that I might not actually get the Blair book today, it arrived under separate delivery to the regular post. I have read the first chapter and a few things have struck me from the outset.

First, the writing style, sentence structure and paragraph linking. Now, I don’t claim to be the world’s best grammar expert and of course I make mistakes, but Blair’s style is just all over the place. He doesn’t just jump between themes, he jumps between decades. The exclamation mark also makes frequent appearances, often in rather annoying parts. His sentence structure is also a bit odd. He makes use of commas quite a bit which is fine, but quite a few of the sentences seem to be back to front. For example he takes about the1997 election campaign and says, “I had a strategy for guiding us from Opposition into government; I adhered to it, and I knew if I did so, I wouldn’t fail.” This type of sentence is both hard to follow and read as it does not have a natural flow. If it is to be one sentence it could quite easily be cut to half the length. The upside of this slightly poorly constructed style is that we know it’s Tony writing rather than a ghost-writer, which is probably better. If you can get past this annoyance factor, then the actual substance of the book is quite good.

Anyway, that’s my little complaint over. The substance, if only from the first of 22 chapters, is quite revealing, not so much about the relationships between the people around Blair during his time in Downing Street, but more about how Blair saw government and what it’s role was. It also tells us quite a lot about Tony Blair the person, although not in actual words. For starters, Blair dos not shy away from the fact that under his premiership there was a huge expansion of special advisers and policy units within Number 10. Blair claims that this is a good way of running government because special advisers are politically minded and also tend to be of the same political beliefs and therefore more in tune with the government’s aims. The problem in my opinion of this is that party political people will tend to fight for their own cause and the party cause rather than the national interest which is the first and foremost job of the government. Blair even states that the order of priorities in his life were, family, party and then finally country. This underlines how Blair went about his governance of the country and explains why much of what the about Government did had a lot more to do with ego outings for the individuals concerned and protecting the party’s interests.

Perhaps one of the most flat sections of the book’s opening is when he recalls all the ‘achievements’ of the first 100 days in government back in 1997. Many of those listed focused on constitutional change, indeed he remarks that at the time he was aware of people (although didn’t seem to care about) who were unhappy at the widespread constitutional changes being pushed through. At least twice in the opening chapter, he makes it fairly clear that he didn’t care for tradition and convention. He found the cabinet secretary loyal when he arrived in May 1997, but doesn’t like the fact that he was a traditionalist. When writing of going to Buckingham Palace to be asked to form a government, he seems to talk down the gentleman who runs him through the conventions of such a meting.

From just this chapter, the scene has been set for the following 21 chapters which I am looking forward to reading. It will be interesting to see if assumptions I have made about Blair in the past come through. I don’t like Tony Blair and I never have done. I was 10 years old when he became Prime Minister and so didn’t really know a government before his. I don’t like his ruining of our country’s constitutional heritage. I don’t like his attitude towards traditionalists and I detest his style of government. But, that said, nothing can be taken away from a man who works his way up the Labour party, becomes leader and then carries out this country’s biggest ever stunt to such a success that he dupes the country into winning a landslide victory. The fact that he dos not agree with the Brown government’s handling of the economic crisis, the fact that he thinks the Freedom of Information Act and the fox-hunting ban were wrong shows us that Blair is speaking openly in his book, but let us not be fooled twice. There will be fabrication in this book and there will be fantasies. Sometimes autobiographies are written and show us what the author believes happened, other times it is that they are writing what they believe they want us to believe. I fear this book may fall into the later category, but I will withhold final judgement until all 691 pages of the book have been read

Sometimes new electrical items come out and we wonder why features that should be there have been left out. Today, via Gizmodo we learn that the new Apple TV Is to be called the iTV.
As usual, Apple has been rather unimaginative with naming their new product, but that’s not the worst part of it. In short it’s a tv sort of iPhone4 without the telephony. However, in this day and age of HD video, the iTV will not have support for full HD, 1080p. Instead it will support a maximum of 720p.
Why is Apple doing this? Why do they always keep back technology that is already there that could be easily incorporated into new models. The reason is simple. Business. Apple works on the basis that it produces fantastic technological products that are incredibly user friendly, but leaves bits out so that they can easily produce an update a year later in order to convince people the new product is much better and therefore the consumer needs to part with more of their money. It’s good business and it aortic makes sense, but really no HD on a new TV? I really thought standard definition was on the way out. Obviously Apple has other ideas.

Due to Internal Server Faults, Green’s Diary is undergoing a major upgrade. As a result there will be periods when the site is unavailable. These will mostly be during the BST night-time hours, however, som outages will occur during the day.

Please accept my apologies for any problems this may cause, but it should lead to the website fully functioning once the upgrade is complete

THIS SITE IS THE NEW VERSION AND THEREFORE PARTS OF IT ARE MISSING AS THE MIGRATION FROM THE OLD SYSTEM CONTINUES

UPDATE: 1/9/10 – Most of the upgrade has now been completed. A few interface alterations have been made, the only thing that is not fully functioning yet is the podcasts page.

Thank goodness it’s the end of the day. It been a terrible day and really not a great day, especially if your name is David Cameron and or Nick Clegg.

It started with a below average performance from Clegg at PMQs as he stepped in for daddy Dave who is talking to Uncle Barack over the pond. Firstly, he waffled his way through the Sheffield steel company issue, claiming that he didn’t write letters that he did. When questioned on the government’s apparent u-turn on the matter, he only needed to apologise for making a mistake and the whole line of questioning from Jack Straw would have been substantially reduced in strength. But he didn’t, he continued to refute the claims by talking about… Yup, you guessed it Mandy Memoirs.

Secondly Michael Howard has been criticising the ‘prison doesn’t work’ policy of the new Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke.

Thirdly, Andrew Lansley has come under attack from Tory backbenchers for reversing the policy on the death tax.

Fourthly, and this is where the huge mistake was made: David Cameron is quoted as saying. “I think it’s important in life to speak as it is, and the fact is that we are a very effective partner of the US, but we are the junior partner. We were the junior partner in 1940 when we were fighting the Nazis.”
He said this despite the US joining the war a year later in 41 after the attack on Pearl Harbour! Now I now Dave is a special man, but I don’t think he possesses the power to rewrite history!

Clearly, in government when it’s a bad day, it’s a very bad day and this is no exception. Perhaps what we see here are the first inevitable cracks appearing in the coalition, however I still think it will go on for the full term by which time maybe there will be a reunited Labour Party, or something else that catches the public’s eye.

Of course much more than is necessary is always made of bad days by the media as good news is not news and so the coverage these ‘issues’ are receiving can only be expected.

Still, just imagine what the Tories would be saying if this sort of day happened under the previous administration…

So Parliament’s best friend, John Bercow wants to push ahead with reforms of PMQs. He is convinced that the public don’t like the current ‘punch and judy’ antics of the party leaders as abuse is hurled across the theatre of debate to the backdrop of MPs of all sides roaring with excitement.
Some say it’s good to give an opportunity for MPs to let off steam, but Bercow is far from convinced. Almost every week he interrupts to tell MPs to quieten down as, “the public don’t like it and neither do I”. Well, no that’s not really the point. For starters most of the general public do not watch PMQs, it’s only politically interested members ofthe public who bother – and that is sadly a very small minority of people. Indeed I know of quite a few people who have stopped watching it because it has become very formulaic and monotone.
Amongst the proposed reforms, the speaker wants to double the length of PMQs to an hour, the justification given that it will provide more time for backbench members to ask questions. Good, that sounds like a reasonable idea, however, maybe not so reasonable when you mix it with the second proposal: He wants to lessen the number of questions the leader of the opposition can ask the Prime Minister, the reason again? Yup, to give more time for backbench questions.
The problem here is that 6 questions might appear a lot in a half hour session, but in an hour long session there would surely be space for more questions, not less. There’s accountability for you.
The idea of question time is to hold the government to account. PMQs does not do this successfully because the questions are preprepared and the answers are prepared in the PM’s briefing folder.
So to summarise, Mr Bercow wants to increase the length of PMQs, lessen the number of questions the leader of the opposition can ask and to dull down the whole affair by making it horrendously boring, not just for the MPs but for the viewer as well.

If Bercow was going to properly reform PMQs he would have two half hour sessions a week where the leader of the opposition can ask four questions at each sitting and the questions are not seen beforehand.

Unfortunately Bercow seems intent on ruining parliament with his pathetic ‘modernisation’ agenda. I agree that changes do need to happen, but his proposals will make PMQs that bit more pointless and so the only natural conclusion one can make of the proposed reforms is that they too are pointless.
I always get concerned when I hear the word ‘modernisation’ as it usually means ‘to ruin a reasonable system that needs tweaking’ and this case is no exception.

I am rather baffled by Vince Cable’s remarks on University funding today. It seems he wants to change things by protecting the status quo and in so doing, nit actually change anything.
The main issue with Higher Education funding is that there are too many people in it and too many useless degrees.
Whatever funding structure is in place will never satisfy everyone. The problem we have is that the government is telling everyone to go to University, but no one seems to want to pay for it. With every change to the tuition fees and loan system it basically shifts more costs onto the government from the student or vice versa. In the 60s and 70s you only went to university to do a proper degree that either led directly to job or gave you the skills necessary to compete in your chosen field. Now the Market is over inflated and as a result it is too expensive. I am yet to find a complete solution, however for fear of rambling on endlessly here, I will simply quote Fraser Nelson who as per usual hits the nail right on the head:

There are plenty hard questions to ask. The main one is what I regard as a national scandal: young people being missold useless degrees that benefit neither students nor society. They get fed this line, about how graduates earn more, and are led to believe that the letters MA after your name mean an extra £7k or more, for life. You can bet such studies merge together Oxford degrees in Science with media studies courses to claim that the degree – not the subject or institution – is what matters.

Media studies is a particular bugbear of mine. I was talking to the head of a large newspaper company the other day (not one I write for) who said that no media studies graduates worked anywhere in the whole company. In my own case, no employer has ever asked even if I have a degree – let alone if it was a 2:1 or what it was in. Two of The Spectator’s (excellent) staff started out as PAs. Journalism is a trade, people are judged by their output. You really are only as good as your last story.

And yet you now get some unis offering an MA in Political Journalism – as if, armed with this degree, you go off to work in the lobby. Similar cons operate everywhere in higher education. The college heads pick a job people want to do, offer a course in it, all on the often false basis that a degree in the subject will better enable you to do the job.

UPDATE: letters in Friday’s Telegraph also make a couple of very valid and important points on this matter:

SIR – The news that 225,000 people will miss out on university this autumn (report, July 16) is an opportunity to take a serious look at alternative options.

By positioning university as a cure-all for the nation’s skills deficit, successive governments have created a “university or bust” mindset that casts on-the-job training as a poor relation.

Campuses are filled with students who would learn more outside the academic sphere. Not everyone benefits from a degree; it is time that young people, their families and educational establishments considered the alternatives.

By improving vocational qualifications we can have a more balanced workforce of both graduates and apprentices. Businesses will then get what they want most: well-trained staff who are up to the task of rebuilding our economy.

Another says:

“SIR – A graduate tax (report, July 16) should not even be contemplated. It will make no difference to the fiscal crisis, and it will not produce a desirable restructuring of the education system.

The proposition that an individual will now earn more after taking a degree is dubious. It was true for earlier generations, when only a small proportion went to university. When half the population goes to university, a degree, as such, becomes meaningless.

Persuading half our young people that they should go to university on this basis is fraudulent.”

And finally one correspondent proves just how unfair a graduate tax would be:

“SIR – Is not one of the dangers of a graduate tax that those going into occupations where formal qualifications are not essential, such as the media and the arts, will just avoid graduation?

A tax might lead to employers being happy to take on a likely-looking prospect just before their finals when, presumably, they would not be liable for Vince Cable’s tax. Two people could then perform similar jobs, but with one taxed at a higher rate than the other.”

It’s a topic that’s been subject to widespread debate for generations: what came first, chicken or the egg?
Now, it seems that science has found the answer. British researchers say that it must be the chicken because the egg shell is made using a protein only present in chickens called OC-17. This protein is required to form the casing around the baby chick which goes solid to form the shell which we call the egg.
Scientists had to use a super computer to see the protein to prove to theory. Sources close the research team say that their next debate crushing research will seek to answer the question, why did the chicken cross the road?

Hat-tip: Metro

Via Conservative Home’s excellent blog, Centre Right, I learn today that the BBC is to cut it’s news programme Straight Talk.

Straight Talk has been one of the BBC’s last standing decent news productions. Almost all of the hourly bulletins have been sensationalised and politicians are very rarely questioned to the level if detail they are o. Straight talk. But that’s not all, as it is a 30minute programme with just one interview, it provides an excellent opportunity for the politician being interviewed to actually take the time to explain their answer fully rather than rolling off a few soundbites that they’ve been told to say by a higher power.

The BBC likes to think of it’s news production as the best there is on offer and in many ways it probably still is when compared to it’s closet competitors, the perpetual breaking news (whatever that is) channel owned by that Australian lad.

So it’s a sad day for quality news in the UK, but a great day for the childish politician who is not really interested in answering the media’s questions properly. From now on it’s just the soundbites that matter. I very much doubt that is a situation most people who are interested in politics are happy with.