Tuesday, 15 September 2009 17:33
Written by Jonathan Walker
Below is the full text of Gordon Brown's speech today to the TUC. You may wonder why I am posting it here. It's because I have written a post on the Birmingham Post blog site comparing Mr Brown's speech to one delivered by George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, and wanted to link to full copies of both speeches.
Believe it or not, while the Conservative website has a copy of Mr Osborne's speech, the Labour website does not have a copy of the Prime Minister's words (and it is a Labour speech, not a Government speech, so it's not on the Downing Street site either). So I have posted a copy to this blog for me to link to. Here it is:
This is a video blog post showing some of the work I have been doing as Political Editor of the Birmingham Mail and Birmingham Post over the past week, and how MPs have responded to the expenses controversy.
"This was all set up to give people a little bit of extra cash and hide it from the taxpayer, and that was very wrong." John Hemming MP.
Saturday, 25 April 2009 18:03
Written by Jonathan Walker
Nick Booth has highlighted the Government's PR Twitter feeds.
Checking out the West Midlands feed - which provides links to press releases from our local government office - I was surprised it only has three followers, two of whom are Nick and I.
Government press releases aren't always fascinating reads, but they're definitely worth watching for local political anoraks and West Midlands journalists covering health, education, transport or just about any other area of public policy.
Wednesday, 22 October 2008 21:21
Written by Jonathan Walker
Okay, it's a bit of a naughty headline. But they have increased the number of press officers employed by the civil service.
Sir Gus O'Donnell, cabinet secretary and head of the Home Civil Service, today defended an increase in the number of press officers in government and said the increase was a response to the 1,600 political bloggers in the UK.
Monday, 08 September 2008 18:45
Written by Jonathan Walker
Fun at the lobby briefing in Westminster this morning, as hacks sought an angle on the Prime Minister's visit to Birmingham.
The nationals had lots of questions about how much it all cost, clearly hoping to build up a story about an expensive PR junket at taxpayers' expense.
Whether this is how it will be reported tomorrow, I don't know.
A better angle has probably presented itself with David Miliband declaring that Brown will lead Labour into the next election and win it, perhaps putting paid to stories about the Foreign Secretary challenging for the leadership (and leading to future stories about Miliband botting it, I suspect).
I have been writing about West Midlands Minister Liam Byrne's presentation to the Cabinet today, and Mr Brown's comments about the region playing a role in the development of environmentally-friendly, energy-efficient technology. There'll be more from Paul Dale and Neil Elkes for the Post and Mail respectively.
The event has provided an opportunity for some multimedia reporting, with contributions using Flickr and SlideShare, as well as blogs by Joanna Geary and me.
Tuesday, 12 August 2008 19:50
Written by Jonathan Walker
Obama Girl was on the telly recently. She told Newsnight: "Doing that video sparked a lot of interest in him early on in his campaign. It definitely sparked the youth vote, so it definitely helped."
With her -style lyrics, Amber Lee Ettinger may have shown how the interweb can change political campaigning, but is it a change for the better? Of course, she didn't write the lyrics, or even support Barack Obama when she was chosen to make the video.
It's great that young people have become enthused about politics, but I think we're still waiting for someone to find a way to enthuse them about, um, politics.
Downing Street has re-vamped its website and it looks pretty cool. Lots of YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and press releases which look like blog posts. I don't see Brown Girl popping up in the near future, and even Digital Dave might blanche at Cameron Girl (although David Davis gave it a shot when he stood for the party leadership with his "Double D" girls).
Maybe I'm just old fashioned. Sing along!
Universal healthcare reform It makes me warm You tell the truth unlike the right You can love but you can fight You can Barack me tonight
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