Another security blunder

As if the HMRC blunder wasn’t bad enough, we now have the stunning story of a passport blunder closer to home.

A security guard working just one mile from Bearwood was sent someone else’s passport and driving licence.

It is clear to me that the Government does not have an adequate grip on data management and data security. How a National Identity Register and all its associated databases can still be on the table is beyond me. I have written to John Spellar MP tonight asking him to call for an immediate and permanent trashing of the Identity Cards Act 2006.

Black Country NO2ID is here

Over two years ago I joined the NO2ID campaign. Today I finally got to meet the National Coordinator Phil Booth and other members from the West Midlands. The regional meeting was an attempt to stimulate some local groups. Although the region has many members, there is relatively little activity compared to the rest of the country.

Firstly the turnout was much better than I had expected. Perhaps people’s attention was focused by the HMRC blunder this week, but whatever, it’s clear the anti-ID movement is gathering pace.

Several new local groups were formed, including Birmingham Central, Solihull and one for the Black Country.

The NO2ID campaign has always been politically non-partisan, so I expected to meet a variety of people. However, what I didn’t expect was to find such a variety of parties represented in just the Black Country group - a former Labour councillor, a former Tory member, a Liberal Democrat member (me!) and a UKIP activist. It was a really positive sign for the campaign that the group got on fine and focused on the job in hand, despite wildly different ideologies and beliefs.

For more information, check out the NO2ID website.

What next for England?

There was a stunned silence around me when Olic skipped around Carson for Croatia’s second after only 15 minutes. Nobody could quite believe what they were watching.

Contrast this with the atmosphere after an hour, as the new Wembley finally found an atmosphere. The place was ROCKING.

But then… the last 20 minutes was embarrasing to watch - the players didn’t have a clue how to approach it. Push forward for a third, or defend for the point? In the end they did neither - and paid the price.

McClaren’s departure was inevitable. So, what next?

Quite simply - the FA needs a rocket up its arse. The whole organisation needs restructuring from the ground up. What is the role of the FA now that the Premier League and ‘G-14′ are becoming more powerful almost by the week? Leave the National side debate for a while. This is the more pressing question affecting football from the grass roots, all the way up to the Premier League.

When the time comes to appoint a new national team manager, we must - MUST - employ a tactical brain. Fabio Capello and Marcello Lippi spring to mind.

The end of ID Cards?

What a balls up.

Surely now the time has come for the Government to pull the plug on the ID card scheme and the National Identity Register. This proves they are not capable of safeguarding private data on the most basic level. Think what chaos could be caused if everything was linked up.

On Saturday the NO2ID swings into Birmingham for a regional meeting. I would urge everyone angered by this latest twist to come along and show your support. Details below.

NO2ID WEST MIDLANDS REGIONAL MEETING

Phil Booth, National Coordinator, will be coming to Birmingham this November for a meeting of all NO2ID groups in the West Midlands.

Though NO2ID has thousands of supporters in the region, we have been relatively speaking inactive, compared with some other parts of the country. This meeting is open to everyone who wants fight against ID cards and the database state on their patch.

* Come and learn how to set up a group and campaign in your area;
* Meet other campaigners and share ideas;
* Find out where the ID scheme and related initiatives are heading;
* Find out and what you can do about it.

DATE & TIME: Saturday 24th November 2007, 10:30am for 11:00am start.

VENUE: The Priory Rooms, Friends Meeting House, 40 Bull Street, Birmingham B4 6AF

[Heading on after 13:00 to The Old Contemptibles, 175 Edmund Street for lunch/beer and further planning.]

Open to all. Free. (Collection towards cost of venue.)

Greens stand down in BNP by-election

Some interesting news from the Princes End by-election here in Sandwell. The Green party candidate Vicky Dunn has withdrawn “in an effort to keep the BNP out”, according to The Stirrer.

Have the Greens done the right thing? In my mind, the answer is no.

It is generally accepted across parties that the best way to keep the BNP out is to have as many candidates as possible. I know the Labour party were pleased when we put up a candidate for this by-election.

I believe the BNP made progress in Sandwell solely due to Labour switchers. By providing more alternatives, the number of votes moving from Labour to the BNP decreases. Labour still lose the votes, but they end up with other parties.

All this is likely to be irrelevant though, with the Sandwell BNP doing a grand job of planning their own demise over the last 12 months. That’s not to say anyone is taking any chances, which is why the above point needs to be made to the Greens.

Heres Comes The Snow…

 

Rutland Road, Bearwood, 6.40pm tonight.

8.45pm - starting to settle

10pm - glad I’m not driving anywhere in the morning

Back in action

Well I’m back - and it’s good to see I’ve been missed. The reasons? My 26th birthday, a wedding reception, two pieces of web design work, two gigs, a software program to learn, my parents moving house, a new iPhone to play with and of course, several Lib Dem meetings. Phew!

I’m also following the lead of a couple of Lib Dem Bloggers by splitting my blog. It’s been getting more and more music focused so in the next week or so I shall split that off and keep the politics separate.

Not much else to report, apart from on the leadership election. After declaring my initial support for Nick Clegg, I have been impressed with the performance of Chris in a variety of media. So much so, that I was reconsidering my vote - until today’s Politics Show that is. Whether Chris or his campaign team was responsible is irrelevant, internal campaigning should be positive.

Clegg wins BBC Five Live Speed Dating

I’ve just listened to what was effectively another leadership hustings on Five Live this lunchtime. Simon Mayo hosted the show where four listeners had five minutes to ask Nick and Chris questions. All four listeners then said they would prefer Nick Clegg to become leader.

Throughout the campaign so far I have seen Chris Huhne impress Lib Dem members with intelligent, articulate answers. On the other hand, Nick Clegg has gained increasing popularity amongst the media and the country as a whole.

Nick Clegg won over all four listeners with shorter, punchier answers. I particularly liked his answer on the decline of UK manufacturing, arguing for some protection whereas Chris effectively said the decline wasn’t a big issue.

We know a major problem with Ming was his potrayal in the media. It seems to me we have a golden opportunity here to pick a leader that the media and the country can love - and therefore make real progress over the next two General Elections.

We must pick Clegg.

Gigbeth Day 2 - LIVE BLOG!

Inspired by Pete Ashton’s live GDFAF blog last month, I thought I’d have a go at blogging part of the Gigbeth festival from a promoter’s perspective. Although it’s just a club night tonight (ie no bands), there’s still a lot of work that has to be done.

To set the scene - I run Distraction at the Nightingale Club and tonight is our Halloween Spooktacular. We’re also part of the Gigbeth festival, letting up to 50 wristband holders in for free. So come on down!

5.18pm - I’ve been at the Nightingale with my friend Mike setting up for the last hour. Despite having no bands on tonight we’ve still got oodles of Halloween tat to put up! Plus I want to check out a couple of bands that are playing early evening down in Digbeth. By the time we’ve finished here, it’ll be an orange and black paradise!

6.16pm - At Mike’s flat in Digbeth having pizza and chips… it’s a long night ahead and this food has gotta keep me going!

7.46pm - A real blow for the Gigbeth weekend - tonight’s Barfly headliners Boy Kill Boy have pulled out. The singer has been struck down with an illness seriously affecting his throat. Quite why they left it until late this afternoon to pull out I’m not sure. Support acts Destroy Cowboy and Guile will still play.

7.57pm - Wandering away from the Barfly I spotted this absolute gem. A gold star to John at the Spotted Dog, who I’m guessing is responsible for this. You can read more about “Twigbeth” in Issue 3 of the New Digbeth Whisperer

8.50pm - Gigbeth bills itself as “The UK’s most diverse music festival”. Well tonight, I’m going to bill the Nightingale as the UK’s most diverse nightclub. On the bottom floor we have a dance/trance night. On the middle floor a group of local mediums (medei?) are conducting readings for paying customers. Then on the top floor, we have the alternative madness that is Distraction, with (hopefully) a whole bunch of people dressed up to belatedly celebrate halloween. Add to this, right now I’m sat in a dressing room chatting to the two resident drag queens, who are about to start their shifts downstairs. One of them can’t find their shaving foam! This sure beats the 9-5 slog of office work

9.25pm - No decks yet, or power to the booth. No sign of the techie either…

9.40pm - I’m assured the decks on their way… well I bloody hope so as we open in 20 minutes!

9.49pm - All set up and ready to go, with 11 minutes to spare - and whilst blogging too. Perhaps I should try this every month! It’s this moment every month where I get nervous. I hire this venue and take the door money, so if noone turns up, I can lose out big time. We had 180 paying on the door last month with 200 in the club overall, which was our busiest ever night. Fingers crossed for something similar this month…

10.15pm - We opened the doors on time with 6 people waiting outside, always a good sign! Here’s my first DJ, suitably attired

10.35pm - Currently watching the light show go crazy to the Prodigy’s Breathe! We’ve got 30 people in so far, and some of those look fantastic…

11.37pm - 120 through the door, but only 4 from Gigbeth so far! Gigbeth Assistant Alex arrived and looked thoroughly perplexed at the variety of outfits making their way into the club. We’ve got devils, vampires, ghouls, goblins, witches, wizards and just about anything else you can think of. The atmosphere is fantastic - it’s nights like these that remind me why I love this job so much

Music wise we’ve been playing Shiny Toy Guns, CSS, Cribs, all of which has got the dancefloor moving.

11.43pm – BT Openzone is not so open! Having trouble connecting, so will keep this in Word and upload when I can… nice that this is the only major problem we’ve had tonight so far! (am I tempting fate?)

12.16am - With all the excitement of a large turnout I totally forgot I’d promised a cash prize for best dressed - bugger! Best put on my best mic voice and round up a few people who’ve made the most effort…

1.22am - A brief set from yours truly followed by the hastily arranged best dressed competition! Radio mics are an absolute nightmare in nightclubs and with no soundcheck it was feedback city, but I muddled through! Below are some snaps of the finalists and eventual winner - Amy Winehouse!

1.51am - The party’s in full swing now and Gabe just slipped in the Itchy & Scratchy theme tune… honestly. You let someone DJ and look what they do! Still, it’s one of those nights and somehow, a load of people managed to dance to it. Go figure! Final door figure - 165.

3.07am - The end, everybody’s out. I’m not sure if anyone will have found this blog useful / interesting / amusing, but hey, we had fun doing it and hopefully it’s given people an insight into the variety of work a promoter has to do. The real insight would’ve been if things had gone wrong, which they almost always seem to do - just not tonight!

Thanks for reading.

Gigbeth Day 1 - Conference

I made a lot of notes at the Conference yesterday but unfortunately my Gigbeth bag did a disappearing act! Luckily the iPod was in my pocket out of harms way, but it means a lot of what I wanted to write here will probably be forgotten. Still, from memory…

• An honest and passionate interview session with Ruby Turner. Amongst other things, she said artists shouldn’t be upset with illegal downloading, if it means those people learn to love their work.

• A panel of local kids (14yo girls) who highlighted the changing ways in which people consume music. More importantly for the business people in the room, they said they would be prepared to pay for concerts (”it’s about the experience”) and tshirts, but not the music itself. Quick point - a greater spread of age and including some boys would’ve given a more representative viewpoint.

• One interesting point raised by one of the record labels was that the music itself is worthless and to make money now you need to create and promote a brand, just like you would with washing powder. This has always been the case in pop music, but is it now the case with other genres? I’m not so sure.

• I chatted to a couple of guys from the Adam Mickiewicz Institue in Poland, whose job it is to promote Polish culture abroad. We had a fascinating discussion about live music in Poland and the issues they face there. They are looking to promote Polish bands here in the future and I hope to be a part of that.

• I bemoaned the quality (or lack of) of the mp3 format. Whilst it has opened up a whole range of new distribution channels, it also poses problems for DJs and anyone wishing to just sit in a room and listen to music. iTunes tracks are encoded at 128kbps which is fine for iPods and cheap headphones. But when you want (or need, in my case) better quality, where do you turn? There is still a place for physical recordings and noone should lose sight of that.

• I had to stick up for promoters in one session where it seemed we got the blame for falling attendances at live performances! Firstly I’m not sure attendances are falling. There are more gigs now than ever before and in my experience this has been demand-led. Promoters were also criticised for not paying bands. I would love to pay every band that plays for me, but it’s just not feasible. I tend to pay a headline band the going rate and then support slots are offered to local bands looking to make a name for themselves. The important point here is those local bands are quite willing to play for free.

That’s it for now, I’m sure there’s plenty more that I will mention in due course. I can’t finish without thanking Clare and the team for their hard work. The conference was well attended and that shows the work that was put in to make the conference attractive to so many different kinds of people.

I intend on live blogging tonight, although this depends on wi-fi coverage, so watch this space!