Christmas presents: Let MPs’ expenses be your guide

On the first day of Christmas, my MP bought on behalf of me …

If it worries you that there are only 14 shopping days left until Christmas and you’re stuck for festive gift ideas, worry no more – the latest tranche of MPs’ expenses can inspire you to pick out the perfect present.

If you’re still looking for an addition to a friend’s kitchen, for example, why not buy a Genius garlic peeling and crushing set for £12.22?

The Conservative MP James Arbuthnot was so impressed with it that he bought three from a television shopping channel.

Or you could brave the crowds and hit London – remember that the John Lewis department store is popular with MPs.

The Darlington Labour MP, Alan Milburn, visited it to buy a new set of silver-lacquered coasters – something that would delight any family member this Christmas.

Ripping open the wrapping paper to find a state of the art iRobot Roomba 560 vacuum cleaner could make someone’s Christmas Day.

The tech-savvy Labour MP David Clelland billed the taxpayer for one of the £224.99 robot cleaners, which guides itself around the home with a sensor.

If you have a real fire, you could get the whole family into the Christmas spirit by buying a traditional yule log or two. Keep that winter chill at bay by taking inspiration from the Conservative MP for Saffron Walden, Sir Alan Haselhurst, who billed the taxpayer for £100 spent on one load of logs for his fire.

And Jacqui Smith could spur you on in your search for a present for the TV fan in your life.

The former home secretary claimed £555.74 for a Panasonic 32in widescreen television and £244.90 for a DVD player (she also infamously claimed for two soft porn films watched by her husband – something that could inspire a more risqué Christmas gift choice).

The Labour MP Ann Cryer charged the taxpayer £199.95 for a Roberts radio from Peter Jones. She then claimed £174 for two radios – a pure Chronos digital clock radio and a second Roberts – fine presents to sit comfortably under the tree.

Christmas lunch is always a bit of a blowout, and you’ll certainly need sweet treats to follow the traditional turkey dinner.

Douglas Carswell, the Conservative member for Harwich, claimed £2,960.21 for food in 2008-2009. A Tesco receipt reveals that he bought 25 bottles of mineral water (24 sparkling and one still) and some golden syrup.

The Labour MP Mike O’Brien could also help with your Christmas menu – the health minister claimed for 20 mini-doughnuts, sponge pudding, rice puddings, lollies, chocices and a banoffi pie.

And if you’re still stuck, you could always take a chance on a novel gift. What do you get for the person who has everything? Well, there’s always a bell tower.

The Guardian’s democratic new media push

Democracy is reaching new highs on the internet, as the Guardian has decided to open up one of its investigations to the public via Twitter and its website.

The paper is asking readers of its online content to help ’solve the mystery of Blair’s money’, with an interactive webpage that includes downloadable source documents detailling Blair’s finances, a comment box for observations, and the option to remain anonymous.

The Guardians editor Alan Rusbridger is also promoting the project via his Twitter feed.

The best contributor will win an original Steve Bell (the Guardian’s political cartoonist) illustration.

Although targeted primarily at journalists and lawyers, It seems that the Guardian is opening up the trade of journalism to the masses.

The move could be an exciting one for the future of journalism, particularly if the project helps to uncover a significant story as a result.

The internet has the scope to involve more people than ever before in the democratic process, which is something that politicians and citizen journalists have been showing us for a long time. Yet a lot of the time, traditional media companies have simply used the internet as a way of showing their readers that they can respond to stories via comments – involving the reader to a point.

Never before has a newspaper so fully given its readers the opportunity to so actively take part  in the construction of a story, and for that, the Guardian must be applauded.

Recieved Wisdom

‘Labour Party politics had become a variant of Conservatism, ‘revolutionary’ politics had become a game of make-believe.’

George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn (1940)

New media holds newspaper power to account

The Sun suffered a backlash this week for its agressive coverage of Gordon Brown’s handwritten letter to Jacqui Janes, the mother of guardsman Jamie Janes, who was killed in Afghanistan.

Roy Greenslade has done the legwork already here, noting the outcry by other newspapers and, most importantly, the adversarial comments on The Sun’s own website.

Comment boxes have for too long been a feeble throw away provided to give an impression of interactivity.

Maybe it’s high time for the newspapers behind these sites to take on-board the criticisms of their readers, and realise that the evolving media landscape is an interactive one which cannot be ignored.

In the past, newspapers were beyond reproach, and offending comments were often final, untouchable statements which the public could only stare aghast in silent rage at.

The noise generated by the multitude of online voices can at times threaten to drown out authoratitive, well reasoned arguments. Yet the fact that this new world finally gives readers a voice to challenge the offensive and outlandish comments of the normally rampant press, is no bad thing.

London Lite to be axed

Axed: End of the line for the London Lite

I’ve only just picked up on the news, reported in the Media Guardian last Tuesday, that Associated Newspapers, owners of The Daily Mail, are planning to close its London Lite freesheet.

The Guardian article also picked up on the interesting timing of the move, just two weeks after the Evening Standard went free and a month after News International’s London Paper closed.

The move to make the Evening Standard free has hotted up the freesheet market in London.

The quality of the long-running evening paper hasn’t dipped since it became free too, challenging the conventional thinking that free newspapers ought to be cheap to produce, no-frills products with a focus on popular culture and celebrity news.

Whether the high-quality freesheet  proves to be a sustainable business model remains to be seen but for now, it would appear that The Evening Standard has won London’s newspaper war.

Back Home

I’m now back from my trip around the old Eastern Bloc. It was incredible.

I’m now knackered and in desperate need of doing nothing for a couple of days. So I’ll keep this brief.

Last week I did however go flat hunting in London for a place to stay when I start at City University. There was to be four of us, though two of our number had somewhat of a falling out. And now there is only three of us .

Despite this setback, we found a great three bedroom flat in Bethnal Green – just opposite Cambridge Heath rail in an old hospital building.

I can’t wait to start at City. It’s going to be a massive drain on resources, though hopefully it will be worth it.

Roll on September.

Post Festival Fatigue

Today has mainly featured me falling asleep in uncomfortable places, capped off by the bliss of a bunk bed; a rarified object which I haven’t seen for almost a week now.

I flew in to the Latvian capital Riga at around 9:00am Latvian time, which was 8:00am Bremen time; a place which I departed at 6:30am. Far too early, particularly given a 5:30am check in.

Last night we had to beg our way into Bremen airport; pleading our case with, fortunately, quite a jolly German police officer. The airport seemed to shut come midnight, which is fairly useless for an international terminal. However, once inside we managed to find a half decent bench to sleep on.

Since arriving in Riga, after a quick snooze on the flight, I slept on a sofa for a few hours in our youth hostel before our beds became free.

In amongst all of this, we also found time to have a quick wander around Riga. We also found a way of buying overnight train tickets to St. Petersburg – our destination for Thursday night / Friday morning.

The reason why I’ve been so tired though, which perhaps ought to come foremost on the agenda, was Melt Festival.

The Trip So Far

We’re rapidly approaching the midway point of our adventure, and at the moment, I’m sat in a Budapest youth hostel.

I’ve not had much of a chance to blog all of my experiences so far, though I’m noting them down religiously so I’ll have a better account to upload once we’re done.

So far, we’ve experienced Istanbul, Sofia, Varna, Bucharest, Belgrade, Novi Sad (and Exit Festival) and now Budapest. It’s been a bit of a whistle stop tour and I’m thoroughly knackered: sleeping on trains is an economical and effective method of travelling, though for a nights sleep, it isn’t the best.

Travels

I’m now away on what is gradually becoming a yearly ritual. Me and my good friend Alex Hope have yet again hit the rails of Europe in search of sun, sea, music, alcohol, culture and much more.

Our first stop is Istanbul, before we head on to Sofia in Bulgaria, then Varna, on the Black Sea coast. We then head north to Bucharest, before returning west to Serbia and Exit Festival.

After a totally debauched former Yugoslav republic music fest, we will head north towards Germany, stopping in Budapest. Germany hosts our second music festival – Melt festival, before we fly from Bremen to Riga in the Baltic state of Latvia.

A quick replenishment in the beaches of the north-eastern European state will suffice before we head into Russia and a land of expense, corruption and a far-from-heart-warming welcome.

We will first travel to the northern jewel of St. Petersburg, where the days hardly ever turn in to nights, thanks to its proximity to the North Pole and 21 hours of daylight.

We will then take the train overnight to Moscow, an expensive captial steeped in significant 20th century history. After a breif stay, we will travel to Kiev in the Ukraine for a cheap flight to Luton.

The return to the UK isn’t the end though, as we hit Field Day in Victoria Park in east London on the 1st August. After this, Alex will leave for home and I will try to find accomodation in the British capital for my imminent return to tertiary education.

Well, at least that is the plan.

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Twitter at a rather politicised BCC conference

Today I was in my work guise for the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) annual convention, at the International Convention Centre (ICC) Birmingham.

It was an eye opening experience, I’ve never really done any high level conference type stuff before. I felt like my dad, carrying around a free, branded conference bag (made out of recyclable materials don’t you know) full of pages of corporate collateral and agendas.

The day was fascinating for two reasons: firstly, I was reporting live from the scene for Liverpool Chamber’s Twitter feed (which seems to be taking off apace under the e-content officer’s inspired direction), and secondly, due to the politics involved with a high profile business event just a week after the budget announcement. Timing indeed.

The Twitter coverage has already seen some interest being developed in the Chamber, with Twitterer marylkurek commenting, “You guys do a great job to staying connected. Like bullet hi-lites from conf. when done — make report available? @LpoolChamber”

Great stuff then already. I think my coverage was really quite good, I hope. Makes me feel this Twittering malarky is at least a little bit worthwhile too.

On to the heavy weight stuff…

One thing I heard, from an anonymous source at the convention, was that Ken Clarke – the Conservative economics supremo and speaker today -  had done a little bit of political dirty work over Labour’s speaker, Baroness Shriti Vadera.

Apparently, the seasoned politcian refused to speak before Vadera, despite the day’s planned programme. He even allegedly fiddled around in the toilets until it became too late for Vadera not to speak first.

As it was, an apology was made by the chair of the conference, BBC journalist Martha Kearney, that Clarke had been delayed by traffic (sic). This left Baroness Vadera to take the stage, whilst Clarke allegedly took notes in the ICC’s media suite – ready for him to change his speech accordingly.

This is all probably really unsurprising for hard-nosed-hacks and weather-worn politicians, though for me, this was a real life slice of small-scale scandal, right in front of my nose.

As a result of Clarke’s political games, it was obvious that he then had the upper hand to come on stage, all guns blazing, and take pot shots at everything Shriti Vadera said. And, with the assembled group of relatively right wing business folk, it probably had a massive impact.

However, to me, it sounded like Clarke was just peeking over the parapet, sniping at Labour from the safety of a shadow government who, at current, doesn’t have to deliver any concrete policy.

It will however be interesting to see, come the next election, whether the tories start to come out with some more concrete stuff, and stop sniping from their safe zone.