Left right, left right, left right, left.

When New Labour waltzed into power in 1997 in the United Kingdom, it was to a different rhythm from the natural beat of the protest march. By taking the Clinton election as a template for what you need to do and say to win over the middle ground voter, I mean nothing definitive enough to be held up as an actual policy but memorable everyman sound bites such as ‘It’s the economy stupid!’ or Blair and Browns’  ‘Prudence’ and ‘Third way’, it was possible to swing onto the political dance floor with a shuffle and sway that could be abandoned at any moment as a misunderstood  manoeuvre for the exit.

A Product Manager of an everyday consumable such as a soap, knows he can increase sales by slapping on the adjective ‘New’ as a quick fix. It’s tantamount to an oxymoron of course since it sends a conflicting message. The reassurance of the old brand name which had been marketed as the best for years has somehow been improved to the point where its undefined shortcomings have been addressed in an exciting and rejuvenated way. It works best when the ‘New’ characteristics of the product are not well defined, allowing the recipient of the message to apply the fix to their own perceived issues with the product.

While the music remained nondescript and the floor remained crowded, the movers and shakers could strut their stuff, only occasionally attracting the attention of the crowd. The sound bites continued, ‘The 50^th consecutive quarter of growth’ and other ‘You’ve never had it so good!’ on mission messages were streamed at regular and timely intervals. Less attractive snippets, apologies and announcements were leaked to friendly forces and finally spun out on a Friday before the bank holiday if at all possible. Media management on a scale never seen before became a dark art so bad it was good, with the main players lauded as Masters of Spin. The world of journalism failed to properly confront this loathsome activity as so much government energy went into what appeared in the media tended to enhance their own sense of importance in world affairs. Even now, the story is often the story and the event is the backdrop.

Give them something to love, something to hope for or failing that something to do...Well by the third election the love affair was definitely over but people don’t lose hope easily, especially when they’ve never had it so good, the house is priced twice what it was bought for and the kids could get a loan to go to college. Everybody knows ‘on average graduates earn more’, the target was to get more than 50 percent of school leavers into college. Presumably at that point the average graduate would earn more than a graduate. Lake Wobegon is the model no doubt.

Unemployment remains surprising low, not just because of ‘improvements’ in the counting techniques that would leave a gang master of innumerate illegal immigrants blushing, but because a new erstwhile invisible army  of souls who were given a tag of ‘Economically Inactive’ which sounded more of a choice than ‘Given up Hope’. This hope was more likely to be an aspiration towards something that was preferred even if it was unlikely it was to be achieved, it was still theoretically doable. Now however, the option of falling back on the something to do, even if not wanted, has slipped away like a half empty lifeboat from the Titanic.

It’s true that the party that has attracted the most voters of the middle ground has achieved office in recent times. That’s what you need when you sense that the mood is for more of the same. If your policies are hard to distinguish from the opposition, you don’t alienate any groups and you do a good job of pointing out the failures of people and personalities in the previous term, you get your period of power.  An ever decreasing voter turnout will turn up and take a punt, give you more time, better the devil you know and a second or even third term is grasped.

Events however, conspire to rock the boat from time to time. Wars, though noticeably not on this occasion, since Blair and Bush were both re-elected despite dragging their countries into war, sleaze, scandal and economics all play their parts. The last election in the United Kingdom was brought about reluctantly by running out of the allotted term of office despite numerous wobbles in the previous years. While an economic catastrophe did not bring about an election, the election itself was almost exclusively about the economic situation.

More of the same, media spin, middle ground appeal was never going to win the day. ‘This is no time for a novice’  may well have been true if it was referring to an economic strategist at the world bank, but a political party in the 21^st Century must have a nimble tactician pulling the strings, not a stoic strategist. A savvy tactician would have ensured maximum mileage of the strong and heroic status of the countries leader in the opinion of the world’s statesmen and grateful economic leaders and the enhanced status of the United Kingdom as a result. Instead it was actually botched into a negative gaff as a Superman like comment about ‘Saving the World’ which was ridiculed with relish and yesterday’s joke in 24hrs.

So without the middle vote you can’t win?  Let’s assume you weren’t going to get enough of it anyway. Many disillusioned middle voters will simply abstain, none of the above, for which you can vote for with your feet. The alternative then is to revive your core vote by emphasising your differentiating policies, re-empowering marginalised voters sufficiently to believe in turning out and voting for you again. But you better believe in what you say and you better be sure what you say can be delivered, because it’s been such a long time since that’s been the case, if you get it right, it could be so refreshing it might just work!

For those reading this comment in parts of the world affected by military activity and bewildered by the absence of reference to any conflicts, you need to know that it’s not the custom to express opinions on the pro’s and con’s of such activity while information is difficult to objectify and staff are actively deployed.

Julia, the bombshell Miami will never forget.

This is not a headline yet, I was saving it for the right moment. In about a week from now, east coast America may well be trying to cope with the impact of yet another hurricane, this time going by the friendly unthreatening name of Julia. This name amused me because I know a Julia and while I’ve never known her to be threatening or unfriendly she always makes an impact. You know when Julia has been around, the day’s a bit brighter, the future looks good and you feel things are looking up.

I hope hurricane Julia doesn’t leave the Julia’s of the world with the same tag as Katrina. The curious habit of naming TC’s or tropical cyclones started in the 1953 Atlantic season when the American National Hurricane Centre began naming storms which reach tropical storm intensity with human names. This replaced a 3-year plan (involving the 1950, 1951, and 1952 hurricane seasons) to name storms using the spelling alphabet. Initially, storms only had female names, but after some protest, male and female names were alternated beginning in the1979 season. The World Meteorological Organization now creates and maintains the annual lists. Names are used on a six-year rotation, with the deadliest or most notable storms having their names retired from the rotation. (Wikipedia)

What may come as a surprise to many Americans is the fact that many Europeans will not be aware of this whole hurricane season, the risk of bad weather in the North Atlantic Basin, the Caribbean to me and you, is rarely mentioned in the media. For sure, as a hurricane strikes a resort and dramatic footage can be syndicated from the agencies, a certain relish is enjoyed as the name of the culprit is pronounced an enunciated for the first time. The story dies as fast as the wind speeds after landfall; follow ups are rare with the occasional exception of an estimate of the insurance costs months later.

So why am I bothering to write about this? Well the clue is in the title, you now know there is a possibility of a serious hurricane in Miami in a week’s time. You can decide to go or not, since you are aware of the risk. Was it a secret? No. Is it important? If I was going to Miami next week it might change some of my plans, return options and so on.

The point is that other people are still managing the information flow, as you would with children, so as not to alarm them. I will not enter into the motives as to why they would want to control the flow, you do the Math. I don’t want to try and explain to an old man in a Georgia Courtroom why I think it’s time think again about anything, anytime.

It’s now possible to collate stories on a mobile device and find out what’s important to you. You don’t have to leave the timing to major News networks. I don’t know what’s important to you, but you’re probably not alone, I bet there’ll be an APP somewhere, somewhen.

The Mexicans remember Julia I’m sure, she breezed in an out spreading fun and joy, missing hurricanes as a lucky girl in Europe might miss showers between garden parties, blissfully unaware of her father and I blowing out our cheeks in relief.

I hope hurricane Julia just brings joy to extreme surfers as did Earl this season.

But if lady luck runs out. It wasn’t an unknown unknown was it Rumsfeld?

Before The Beginning

It seems an appropriate moment to start, as questions about the Big Bang and the need for a creator once again get dragged out of the long grass. We've been here before of course, when Steve published the Brief History of Time which most of us took a historical amount of time to finish. I finally finished it while sitting in a deckchair unaware of being overwhelmed by heatstroke in the coming minutes. My lack of coherent conversation and short term memory lapses we identified later as too much sun and not bewilderment with the vastness of time and space some harsh observers had supposed. Red faced I retreated to the cool embrace of the A/C lounge to chill out.

When Einstein made an event out of space and time he bound them together forever in our consciousness. Anywhere also has an anywhen. Meetings have a time and a place. Trains have an arrival time and a destination .They do, Einstein explained that it just depends on the observer’s point of view. Otherwise chaos prevails, some future events cannot be predicted, as Prof Martin Rees warned us in his Reith lectures this year. Are we alone? Probably not, but we would need to come up with Wormhole hopping technology as seen in the scientist’s favourite scientist’s film about a scientist, Contact.

I never saw Carl Sagan and Kermit the Frog at the same time in the same space, some things we will never know. What happened before the Big Bang probably didn’t worry either of them very much. Carl and Kermit were great educators by any creature’s standards and their fondness for weeds did nothing to dampen their enthusiasm

So chill out and think, in that order, the Heisenberg compensators will never work, it was a joke after all, we will never know exactly where we are at a given moment in time and space. We will never know what happened before the big bang and whether the creator existed at the same time. We do have the here and now, and much more educating to do, we have some great new toys to play with, they won’t help if the story telling gets neglected.....