Royston van der Kerkoff's Blog

As we head for the General Election, I’m learning a lot more about how things work in British politics. Not that I’m a dedicated student now, or was uninterested before, but there is far more readily available information at our fingertips these days. Something I hadn’t known was that the speaker of the House of Commons is traditionally unopposed and so effectively gets a free pass. Not this time though. Which is actually two problems.

The first is that as he is now going to have to fight for his seat, there is the chance that the current speaker John Bercow may not be re-elected. On the one hand, this is a good thing, and the fact that speaker’s haven’t had to fight for their seat in the past is outrageous. The other major parties effectively honouring an old agreement and not putting up candidates of their own. On the other hand, as we now have a large proportion of what goes on in the House of Commons televised, it’s been very clear that Mr. Bercow is a huge improvement on the previous speaker, and as someone capable of keeping the rabble in check, is quite an asset. If he fails in his bid for election, then the process of finding a new speaker has to be gone through, and as a new precedent will be set, this could become the norm at every general election.

Realistically, it seems highly unlikely that Bercow will lose his seat though, as the opposition are a rag-tag bunch that are more likely to take the few votes they do get from each other than from him. The first to announce he was going to stand was Nigel Farage, former leader of UKIP, and regular supplier of outlandish sound-bites to the news media. He also does a sideline in trying to destroy diplomatic relations with his colleagues in the European Parliament. The rest are a fairly average bunch of fringe party members and independents that know they’ll get their five minutes on TV if they stand in this particular constituency this time.

The fact that he is the speaker, and has a reasonably high profile should see Mr. Bercow through, but there are points that he’ll need to answer. Although he has impressed in his handling of the house, and his lack of tolerance of the mooing and wailing that goes on there, he wasn’t entirely untouched by the expenses scandal that prompted the removal of his predecessor in the role. Some in his constituency are angered at the fact that the major parties are not providing candidates too, and rightly so.

I think it would be a shame to lose someone well suited to the role they are in, and who is doing a good job. Right from the off it was clear that some of the frills and faff of the speaker’s job were not for this man, as he dispensed with the ridiculous gown and garter garb of those who’d gone before. No doubt the now ubiquitous suit will become the comedy outfit of future centuries, but wearing it now makes a very simple point that getting on with the job is more important than the ceremony.

Ideally, the role of speaker should be done by someone other than an elected MP. There must be many capable candidates for the job. TV and news presenters that cover politics, lawyers, police officers, arbitrators, military types, maybe even former MPs. Breaking the link would prevent using the speakers attempts to be re-elected as an easy way to get media exposure for those that oppose him, and more importantly returns the proper choices to the people of a constituency no longer caught up in this old habit. In this case, the people of Buckingham would have their full choice restored, though it could be anywhere else next time. If John Bercow did fail to get elected though, the speaker would then be from some other constituency anyway, and the whole problem just moves somewhere else. Additionally, the unfair advantage of the speaker of ‘having the ear of any minister’ would also be removed, though the people of Buckingham might want to bear that in mind for now.

Realistically, the whole system of Parliament needs a massive overhaul. Again, the fact that the Parliament channel now exists means that we get to see more of what goes on in our name. A lot of it is archaic nonsense and should be done away with. The ‘wash up’ is a travesty and should be replaced with a simple pause. Rushing through or killing various bills just because an election is coming up is a disgrace. A worst of both worlds combination of work wasted putting bills together, and then last minute decisions resulting in half baked bills that aren’t fit for purpose. Part of the ceremonial side of this process involved the repetition of a couple of French phrases in answer to whether bills were passed or not. I’ve got nothing against the French, but that’s at the polar opposite of the plainness that should be brought in. On a more regular basis, throughout a parliament the members of the two houses use the term ‘the other place’ to refer to the Commons and Lords, which is utterly ludicrous. I’d love to see the Plain English Society given a leading role in updating the whole language of parliament and government.

A ten year plan would be my ideal. Carried out independently of the political parties. The brief would be to produce a way of working that is more fitting for the age we live in, and as much as possible with methods in place to allow future changes to allow for changes in the way the world works over time. I heard one politician on the news talking of the greatness of this mother of all parliaments. If this parliament wants to remain one to be looked up to it needs to reinvent itself, or it will be left behind and laughed at. Nothing more than a quaint tourist attraction.

Though his is likely to be a minor role in this election, if Farage is in any way responsible for starting the wheel rolling on complete overhaul, then it could very well be the one positive thing he’ll do in his political career.

I don’t think I’ll hold my breath for either outcome, but there’s always hope.

Recently, I’d noticed a few more cases of people in the public eye sharing their names. Some I’d been aware of for quite a while, but it was almost like there was a sudden spate in the last few weeks, so I noted a few down. Following the same law that makes hundreds of cars just like yours magically appear when you get a new one, more then appeared as well.
I suspect it’s due to the massive amount of information we’re exposed to these days that makes this happen more often than it used to. Or at least if it used to happen, it’s now far more visible in an era of sound-bites and short attention spans.
I came across the two matches that started me thinking about this quite close together. As someone brought up on TV and computers, it’s hardly surprising these were the source. More interestingly, they are both similar in the sense that the people involved are, to say the least, not very similar.

Danielle Lloyd:
Watching Question Time recently, I noticed in the end credits that the Head of Production was Danielle Lloyd. Not having anyone watching with me at the time, I had to content myself with a smirk rather than saying ‘ha, look, Head of Production is Danielle Lloyd’. I could have said it, but cats don’t care. Obviously this is a different Danielle Lloyd to the one famous for…….. erm, well let’s ask trusty google. ‘Model and TV presenter’ according to her own website, though serial WAG, racist and night club fight victim seem to be just as regularly mentioned. A sad sign of the times is that even with my preference for 100 hits per page on google, the BBC QT version is nowhere to be seen. In fact even a search for ‘danielle lloyd question time’ only finds her on the 5th item in the list! An article in the Birmingham Times.

Michael McIntyre:
Yes, of course, you all know him as the Level Design Director for the next Prince of Persia game, The Forgotten Sands. Or maybe you don’t. When I saw an interview with him on joystiq, I couldn’t help but see the ‘Roadshow’ MM working in the office, bobbing his head, geeing up the programmers with some jolly japes and the odd switch up into castrato for added laughs, and a little skipping to enthuse the graphic designers……..

A couple of others came to mind after these set me off:

Michael Jackson:
The singer/songwriter/dancer has been written about more than enough I think, but I can’t help wondering what his namesake’s colleagues go through. Gen. Sir Michael Jackson has been in the news quite a lot for various reasons, and reached the very top of the military, garnering great respect. So it must have been hellish for any squaddies that met him face to face and had to resist the urge for a high pitched ‘ow’ and a grab of the crotch. I thought we’d got lucky when I briefly scanned the wiki page for Gen Sir MJ, but I think it’s a grammatical error: ‘Sir Mike has condemned the approach taken by former Donald Rumsfeld as ‘intellectually bankrupt’

Steve(n) Wright:
A slight stretch there, but I had to put this one in, as unlike the previous selection, these two have actually done the same job as a Radio DJ, on the same station! Unless I imagined it, Steven Wright used to be on Radio 2, but the Internet seems to disagree. (Google, if you’re going to ask ‘do you mean’, give me a ‘no’ option as well….)
If you have spotify, Steven Wright has two albums on there. Very funny.
(I would have added Dickie Davi(e)s, but I think one differing spelling is all I can allow myself)

Richard Bacon:
Given that the majority of my TV watching is done via the Internet, I’m not sure why I’ve seen so many end credits recently, but this was another. Not particularly interesting as I know very little about the Richard Bacon’s, TV presenter, or cameraman on Question of Sport.

Adam Clayton:
After many years in U2, has also managed to make his way up through the divisions and also now plays for Carlisle United in League One, and has even scored a few this season.

and finally,
Heather Brooke:
I caught HARDtalk on BBC News Channel a couple of nights ago, and the guest was Heather Brooke. I’d never heard of her before, but she was described in the program’s intro as ‘the driving force behind the expose on British MPs expenses’. It was a very interesting interview (by Sarah Montague), well worth checking out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rvzhv/HARDtalk_Heather_Brooke_journalist_and_campaigner/ though as with most iplayer content, it won’t be there for long.
The other Heather Brooke you’ll have to look up for yourself. But not at work. Or in front of your parents. Or children (any children). Or religious people. In fact, maybe just don’t. After all, there must be loads of these matching names these days. Just find your own instead. It’s for the best.

The trailers for the Channel 4 series ‘The Restoration Man’ started a while ago, but I’ve only just caught up on watching the first couple of episodes. I quite enjoyed the last series George Clarke did, but was a bit wary about him jumping on the Grand Designs bandwagon and messing about with old houses. The thing that really stuck with me from that last series was the amount of Bi-Fold doors that got used. Virtually every show that I saw had them in. I started wondering whether he was getting a backhander from whoever made them, and checked the credits. And there was a bi-fold door company in the credits! *

So I was interested to see if the same would happen in his restoration jobs. I even posted a reply to Charlie Brooker’s @YHBW show on twitter suggestion they should look at it. The chances are pretty slim though, as I must have been in a period where my writing was severly lacking in detail and clarity: “@YHBW – if it’s on the same time, that house bloke who’s doing old places this time. See how many end up with bi-fold fucking doors.” Now, I’d get that, obviously, but I suspect I’d be in a rather small group.

The two episodes so far of “The Restoration Man” are on 4oD, so I watched them back to back to see if I was right. There was no mention of bi-fold doors in either show, and none in the credits, but I’m fairly certain that there were a load of the things themselves in the first show. The program was alright, but basically Grand Designs lite. George didn’t actually seem to do much, apart from the odd suggestion which the homeowners then ignored, and telling them how great it was at the end whereupon he presents them with a book of the history of the job, and the building prior to that. If anything, the guy in the second show who swung between ruining and renovating and old church is far more deserving of the title ‘restoration man’. He did the job virtually single handed, sourcing largely from ebay, and not a bifold door in sight!

The actual restorations didn’t look all that sympathetic to me, the one in the first episode in particular. I guess you need a certain combination of drive and ego that verges on madness or megalomania, so I just don’t get the desire to turn an old wreck into what is effectively a modern house with an old fashioned skin, with everything against you, ignoring all the much better value houses that are for sale with none of the traumas attached. Each to their own I guess.

I might revisit the styles of presenters these days some other time, but George Clarke seems to have been to the same training course as the rest. A lot of politicians have also spent some time at ‘whatever your point is, wave your hands about a lot’ college. Other things are more likely down to the program makers, and the presenters just get made to look like muppets. In episode one, doing the final piece to camera at two cameras, then using the footage from the one you aren’t looking at? Madness.

* As I’d remembered it from months ago watching the shows originally, I thought there was a stronger link to the bi-fold door people, but it was a thanks at the front end of the credits, along with other suppliers.
They had a fair hit rate though, considering some houses wouldn’t have worked with them:
Series 1 – 2 of 6
Series 2 – 6 of 11