90,000 Followers, In Search Of A Leader

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

TUC Britain Needs A Pay Rise demonstration Anti Capitalist Protester SPS

 

Bring back Russell Brand, all is forgiven.

The comedian turned author was actually present at Saturday’s “Britain Needs A Pay Rise” demonstration in central London, showing his solidarity by marching with a contingent from the Royal College of Nursing and posing for pictures with the crowd at the rally in Hyde Park.

But good old RustyRockets appeared in a strictly unofficial capacity – in sharp contrast to his star billing at the People’s Assembly “March For The Alternative” anti-austerity protest in June, where he was rashly installed as the ceremonial figurehead of the socialist movement. And by the end of the day’s proceedings it was clear that the ideal quantity of Russell Brand to spice up your mass demonstration lies somewhere between these two extremes.

The TUC march drew up to 90,000 people onto the streets of London in support of their calls for a higher and more rigorously enforced minimum wage, and in opposition to various coalition government policies. This was almost twice as many as the People’s Assembly march back in June. And yet somehow it felt rather flat and underwhelming by comparison.

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Britain Needs A Pay Rise – If At First You Don’t Succeed…

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TUC Britain Needs A Pay Rise Demonstration SPS

 

Back in June of this year 50,000 angry people stomped through central London and held a rally in Parliament Square, while nobody else paid them the slightest bit of attention.

When the People’s Assembly “Demand The Alternative” march against austerity failed to achieve top billing on the BBC and Sky evening news bulletins (or to make the cut at all), aggrieved protesters took to the internet with wild claims of an establishment conspiracy and sinister media cover-up.

This blog responded by observing that protest movements that deny basic economic realities, sulkily view their opponents as two-dimensional cartoon characters and choose Russell Brand as their figurehead don’t really deserve the attention or respect of the wider public, let alone hold a legitimate claim to speak for the rest of us.

Defeated, the activists retreated to plan their next move. And now they’re back for Round 2.

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Lessons In Journalism, Populism And Diversity At ITN London (Extended Feature Version)

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ITN CDN Open Day semipartisansam 004

 

I walked through a doorway, found myself standing in the ITV National News studio, and for a moment I was shocked to realise that I didn’t recognise the space at all.

Not because of the floor-to-ceiling green screen backdrop and the absence of the computer-generated background – the final version, familiar to viewers, was displayed on a monitor to the side – but because I hadn’t deliberately or consciously watched the ITV News in more than a decade. The news desk, the set, the logo – nothing seemed familiar or evoked the old ITV I remembered from the late 1990s.

I’m a voracious reader and consumer of domestic and international news. In fact, I’m currently embarking on a side career in political journalism. And yet I was somehow completely untuned from one of Britain’s main news outlets. Should that be cause for concern?

Then came another shock. As our tour group wound its way through the humming newsroom, quite by chance I found myself standing behind a bona fide news celebrity – veteran broadcaster and news presenter Alastair Stewart – as he sat at his workstation, deep in conversation with colleagues sitting at identical high-tech hotdesks in the middle of the newsroom floor. Gosh, I thought, thinking back on his many years presenting London Tonight, I didn’t know he was still working.

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Lessons In Journalism, Populism And Diversity At ITN London

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

ITN CDN Open Day semipartisansam 004

 

I walked through a doorway, found myself standing in the ITV National News studio, and for a moment I was shocked to realise that I didn’t recognise the space at all.

Not because of the floor-to-ceiling green screen backdrop and the absence of the computer-generated background – the final version, familiar to viewers, was displayed on a monitor to the side – but because I hadn’t deliberately or consciously watched the ITV News in more than a decade. The news desk, the set, the logo – nothing seemed familiar or evoked the old ITV I remembered from the late 1990s.

I’m a voracious reader and consumer of domestic and international news. In fact, I’m currently embarking on a side career in political journalism. And yet I had somehow become untuned from one of Britain’s main news outlets. Should that be cause for concern?

The reason I was deep inside ITN’s London newsroom at all is thanks to an invitation to attend the Creative Diversity Network open day, one of many similar events being held around the country where major broadcasters (Sky, BBC, CNN, ITN and others) open their doors to give people from ethnic and socially diverse backgrounds the taste of a career in TV journalism. My invitation came through Poached Creative, the social enterprise with whom I trained earlier this year.

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The Establishment Are Still No Closer To Understanding UKIP Voters

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

 

What does a political party have to do to get some respect in Westminster?

On Monday, UKIP’s first Member of Parliament took his seat in the House of Commons.

The party of gadflies, cranks, loonies, fruitcakes, closet racists and loons had just equalled the Green Party in finally securing representation in the Commons, with every chance of doubling the Greens’ achievement if Mark Reckless wins his by-election in Rochester and Strood, and joins Douglas Carswell MP  in the UKIP caucus.

But two Conservative defections and worrying polling data indicating Labour’s vulnerability to the UKIP insurgency still have not resulted in any real change in tone or policy from either of the main political parties – though, in their most generous concession so far, some of their more nervous MPs now talk about the need to talk UKIP’s language while still doing what they’ve always done.

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