Anyone for a recycled slogan?

Leeds City Council has just discovered that the slogan 'Live it love it', which it commissioned from the imaginatively named PR agency An Agency Called England, is a direct lift from one used by the Hong Kong tourist board!

A snip at £150,000 for "research and launch costs" (which presumably didn't include a quick Google check, just to be on the safe side) the agency responsible for the slogan, Marketing Leeds, a joint venture between the council and the city's chamber of commerce, smartly sidesteps allegations of plagiarism by saying it hadn't cost anything to "develop" the new brand., whatever that means. An Agency Called England's head honcho, Tony Stanton, was, perhaps unsurprisingly, even more inventive with his response:

"The Hong Kong campaign targeted North American tourists on city breaks. We took the view we could use it as a brand as opposed to an ad campaign".

So there you have it - lifting the title of an ad campaign to use as a "brand" isn't plagiarism - more creative recycling - with the bill footed by the hapless council taxpayers.

Meanwhile, away from the self-serving frenzy and hype of the PR world, the BBC's website is currently featuring the 50th anniversary of the World Press Photo Foundation's annual photographic competition. The images are graphic and shocking, including a Turkish mother mourning her five dead children, victims of an earthquake; Chilean President, Salvador Allende, photographed moments before his death in the 1973 right wing coup; and the death mask image of a child victim of the Union Carbide gas leak. These are images that challenge our perceptions of the world - a far cry from the sanitised "news" increasingly served up for us by the major broadcasting channels.

Let me through officer, I'm a Proofreader

Police in New South Wales are embarrassed by a mis-spelling on new uniforms. Green vests to be worn by the force's ACLOs (that stands for Aboriginal Community Liaison Officers) were supplied with ALCO printed on them instead. Given the prevalence of alcohol related problems amongst certain sectors of Australia's indigenous population, the sight of officers trained to diffuse tense situations running around in vests bearing the word ALCO has prompted an apology by the force, as the Commissioner's spokesman said: "there was no intention to offend anybody. It was a simple printing error".

Preachers of Hate

Let's hope Charles Clarke's proposals include the Christians as well as the jihadis. Pat Robertson - 2 Commandments down, and counting (that's 6 and 9 for any atheists, agnostics or US televangelists who might be having difficulty keeping up).

For the rest of us, there's always Ship of Fools

I've never liked airline food

The Gate Gourment dispute has left an increasingly bitter taste. Not only has British Airways been landed with a £ 40 million pound bill, but the allegations of "union busting" and attempts to deny the workforce the protection available under UK law demand a proper enquiry.

Ownership of what was originally a Swiss owned in-flight caterer passed to US venture capitalist Texas Pacific in 2002. Since then, Gate Gourmet's losses have rocketed, so that today a £25 million loss is predicted for the current financial year. This is mainly due to cost cutting measures by its airline customers which have seen the in-flight catering market shrink by 30% (40% in the US) since 2001.

Just the incentive for a ruthless management to provoke industrial action to cut their losses and export the operation to countries offering cheaper, less protected workers?

Multiculturalism means what, exactly?

Strange, really. After spending the last 20-30 years telling to celebrate multiculturalism as a good thing, our politicians now either can't define it, or want to ditch it altogether.

A trite phrase capable of meaning all things to all people, is now blamed - post July 7 - for reducing community values to the point that they have become meaningless, alienating those it was intended to help adjust and find a common home in post colonial Britain.

Time now to do some real thinking about how we can live together - without using meaningless slogans to cover up the divisions?

Go Ruth, go

Only 24 hours after Ruth Lea, the economic diva, championed Anglo Saxon values and the victory of "new" Europe, she returned to have a go at the greatest threat to us all - that's right, children.

You see, Ruth has long been convinced that it's wrong to give incentives to parents and children - makes childless co-workers hopping mad and costs the economy millions.

Only a barking Thatcherite - wedded to the "no such thing as society" mantra could fail to notice that today's toddler is tomorrow's wage slave.

Time to get real, Ruth, take a look at the bigger picture. Even if you don't understand society values - you'd better make sure today's young are well-adjusted and educated, after all, some of them will be looking after you in your dotage. And you wouldn't want them to get the wrong idea about your views on their parents, would you?

"As ever I’m afraid the people are ahead of the politicians"

Nice quote, Mr Blair, but "as ever" we're just a little concerned that you're not listening.

Grandstanding, whether on Europe or anything else is a favourite hobby for Tony, but the sweeping statements always hide the reality.

While he says he wants Europe to have a social dimension, this will - if he follows his form on domestic policies - take a back seat to unfettered globalisation. The French "No" vote was largely a rejection of this kind of open market challenge to adopt US practices and it looks like Blair is going to have a very uncomfortable EU Presidency if he keeps trying to make deregulation palatable by sweet references to a social dimension we no longer recognise in the UK.

The Ruth Lea Appreciation Society

She's back - the right wing economist with a great line in revisionism.

From the Institute of Directors, the great thinker has now moved on to become the Director of the Centre for Policy Studies, espousing multi speed Europe, Britain and "new" Europe (that's right, Ruthie has picked up on Donald Rumsfeld's memorable dichotomy put-down for France and Germany - although he used it to castigate them for not joining the Coalition in Iraq, Ruthie has taken it up as a term of derision for the social democracy she so hates) as bastions of "Anglo Saxon" economic values. No, that's not pillaging monasteries, but rather "competing" with low-wage economies.

Watch out, folks - when she really gets going it'll be bye-bye minimum wage and parental rights: if they don't have it in Myanmar, why should we?

Times might change, but Ruth just goes on, and on and on...

Old economists never die, they just find another market.

Tony's latest Opsi

So the failed "rebranding" of the DTI cost £30,000 - but at least it gave us a laugh. The government has also renamed HMSO - that's the department that publishes legislation and official information - it's now called OPSI: The Office for Public Sector Information.
Where will it end- how about Off Tony?

No secrets left

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It's the Constitution, stupid

Now that voters in France and the Netherlands have rejected the EU Constitution, Labour and the Tories can breath a sigh of relief that Europe won't raise its ugly head so soon in the new Parliament. But relief, or dismay, at not being able to rake up the old fears and half-truths in a referendum campaign might be misplaced. After all, the Dutch and French - far more ardent Europeans than the British - rejected the Constitution for very different reasons than the UK electorate would put at the top of its collective hate list.

In France, rejection was largely due to wide spread mistrust of "Anglo Saxon" free market privatisation and outsourcing - the very things that Blair openly champions. Could it just be that the French might be on to something here. Although he won't have to try and sell an unpopular Constitution at home, is Blair secretly hoping the reason for its rejection won't catch on this side of the Channel?

That's entertainment - not theology

The refusal by Westminster Abbey to allow filming to take place for the Da Vinci Code on the ground that the book is "theologically unsound" won't do the Church of England many favours in popularity terms. Reflect on this, just because the Church authorities, operating in the more enlightened 1970s, allowed The Omen: Part III to be filmed at Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire didn't mean that they condoned Devil Worship.

But then again, that was years before the curse of Springer walked abroad in the land, forcing evangelicals to rend our ears and their garments with the sound of their lamentations... Take me to the Ship of Fools, it's our only hope.

Lifelong learning - but only if you can afford it.

Post 16 further education has always suffered an image problem. Evening classes in schools and colleges starved of resources and taken by those who fell the need to get a few more qualifications later in life, or even just wanting to keep their grey cells active in retirement.

I know, I teach law to such groups. Now, as Adult Learners Week starts, those potential students are being hit by a reduction in funding, which at the College where I teach will see them expected to pay £50 more per year for a GCSE course and more for some other courses, particularly British Sign Language.

What was it that Mr Blair said about education?

Exactly who's being "flexible" here?

With the Institute of Directors, Confederation of British Industry and the Federation of Small Businesses all trying to shout loudest at the European Parliament's decision to end the UK's Working Time Directive opt-out, no-one is questioning how voluntary employee opt outs really are.

The truth is that UK has the second highest proportion of men working more than 48 hours a week among the 15 longest serving Member States. In that context, it's a bit rich for the employers' representatives to start lecturing us about our inability to compete against low wage economies in China and the Indian sub-continent. The truth is we will never successfully do that - and requiring your hard-pressed workforce to opt out of the right to refuse to work in excess of 48 hours per week doesn't have any effect when you're dealing with economies that pay a fraction in wages. Or is that what they really want? A race to the bottom for the workers - with the "entrepreneurs" creaming off the profits in dividends and share options?

And here are some more defenders of the "right" to work all hours. Courtesy of The Times' letters pages - music to Mr Murdoch's ears...

A final word to the gullible: the world in which Westfield lives, works and has its being is characterised by the export of jobs to India and China. We will never compete with them on price - even if we work 24 hours a day, 365 days per year: we will only win this one if we argue for the quality of our products and the immorality of exploitation and threat. You could always start by refusing to bank with those financial institutions that "outsource" their call centre and other back office operations.

He's not listening: bring on the stalking horses

So much for our new listening third term PM. The backdoor appointment of Andrew Adonis - by way of a Tony's crony seat in the Lords (still hasn't got the message about an elected Upper Chamber, has he?) as Education Minister shows that Blair's going to keep a firm separation between listening and actually heeding what's said.

Adonis, for those not in the know, is widely suspected (he's not a guy to give headline speeches, but then again, he doesn't have to, as he never stands for election) as the brains behind "specialist" high schools, city academies and university "top-up" fees. Just what we need - more undermining of the secondary education sector by "blue sky" thinkers and New Labour psychobablers.

Strong goverment isn't good for democracy

Now that Labour have been re-elected with 67 seats on only a 36% share of the vote we really do need to consign "first past the post" to history. The entire thrust of the campaign was focused on the key marginals - those relatively few seats that have to be won or held to ensure success.

The rest of the electorate aren't really required - and, as both Labour and Conservative campaigns showed, are nothing more than an annoying side-show.

Even the traditional hostility of the Tories to electoral reform needs an urgent rethink. Multi party democracy demands an effective opposition - something that the Tories seem incapable of providing: thinking what we're thinking? No, they didn't even come close with their xenophobia and negative campaigning - and that's the opinion of one their own MPs!

Now that Labour have been re-elected with 67 seats on only a 36% share of the vote we really do need to consign "first past the post" to history. The entire thrust of the campaign was focused on the "key marginals" - those relatively few seats that have to be won or held to ensure success.

The rest of the electorate aren't really required - and, as both Labour and Conservative campaigns showed - are nothing more than an annoying side-show.

Even the traditional hostility of the Tories to electoral reform needs an urgent rethink. Multi party democracy demands an effective opposition - something that the Tories seem incapable of providing: thinking what we're thinking? No, they didn't even come close with their xenophobia and negative campaigning - and that's the opinion of one their own MPs!

Casualty figures

In a pre-election interview last week, Tony Blair couldn't give an accurate reply when asked how many British troops had died in Iraq. Today we know: 87, unfortunately we don't have accurate numbers for Iraqi casualties. As Blair keeps telling us, he's sorry for casualties but not for war, perhaps we should remind him that we're talking about sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters here not just the means of furthering foreign policy.

Remember that on May 5.

Freedom of Information - with a bit of help from a leak...

So after all the bluff and fluster, we finally have the Attorney General's advice on the legality (or not) of war with Iraq.

After all Tony Blair's stonewalling, it's taken a good old fashioned Whitehall leak to bring it into the public domain. It's all very damaging for New Labour, though - being forced to come clean in the final week of the election campaign, and in the midst of the Tory attacks on Blair's integrity and the Lib Dem anti war crusade.

Now for the leak enquiry...

An Uncomfortable Anniversary

Today marks the 90th anniversary of the deportation and killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman authorities.

Whether victims of war, as claimed by the Turkish government, or of genocide - the first used to describe the killings in 1924 - the full horror visited on Armenia by its Turkish rulers is still a running sore between the two countries, but also has wider resonance given that Turkish hopes of EU membership, already a controversial issue, are also clouded by Ankara's refusal to admit responsibility for the events of 1915.