I wrote a 2-star review of a book on Amazon on Saturday; it isn’t there any more. I noticed over the weekend that it was getting a surprising number of people ticking the “this review was not helpful” box.

My question is, if a review gets more than a certain number of these ticks, is it automatically deleted? If it is, then the system is open to massive abuse by publishers seeking to censor an inconvenient review. Even without this kill policy, allowing reviews to be ordered in terms of which are the most “helpful” can be gamed by a publisher.

I couldn’t find anything about this on the Amazon website - does anyone know the policy?

Share This

Quote of the Week: “Bhuu-rrpp! Ugh. Kid was stringier than he looked. Hey, Shockeye, what’s fer dessert? Y’got any more o’that blood custard an’ them sweet pickled twins left?” - Buffalo Bill Cody sings for his supper in Stickleback.

Cover: Brendan McCarthy is back from la-la land, drawing his first 2000AD cover since 1991. And what a great cover it is too. I have to say I prefer the final version compared to the alternate version I found on McCarthy’s website (also pictured). Credit too then to veteran 2000AD designer Steve Cook for the final design.

Contents: Judge Dredd, Shakara, Kingdom, Strontium Dog and Stickleback all continue.

Review in less than 10 words: Everything gets complicated.

Spoilers… (more…)

Share This

Share This

One is an annoying talking donkey who came to prominence by getting in the face of a grumpy ogre (who goes by the name of Gordon Brown). The other is the shorter half of a former double act of curmudgeons with an interest in variety performance. And the answer to this question matters a lot: it directly affects the electoral chances of the two main UK opposition parties.

For the past few days, the Tories have gone on the offensive on economics. Following a lead given by his Shadow Chancellor, David Cameron said on the Andrew Marr Show this morning that nationalising Northern Rock would be “the most complete humiliation and failure for the government”. Meanwhile, Vince Cable has spent the last couple of months insisting that nationalisation is the only viable short term option for the company.

And let’s be honest, both Osborne and Cable have had a good few months recently. Agree with it or not, it has to be said that Osborne’s proposal to raise the IHT threshold did him a lot of favours, while Vince Cable’s tenure as Acting Lib Dem Leader won plaudits from across the political spectrum.

All things being equal however, a cursory look at the men’s CVs rather suggests that Cable is the safer pair of hands to run the economy than Osborne. A doctorate, policy advisor to the Kenyan government, lecturer, civil servant, former Chief Economist at Shell, advisor on the Brundtland Commission… Cable broadcasts experience and it comes across. Gideon Osborne on the other hand is a history graduate with some journalistic experience and lots more experience as a political adviser on both sides of the benches. The brutal reason why Cable got all the airtime over Northern Rock in October-November was that it was clear that he reeked of authenticity while Osborne rarely made it further than the partisan soundbites.

Cameron and Osborne’s latest assault is an attempt to regain the agenda on the economy; a tacit acknowledgement that since their IHT coup, both the government and Cable have outmaneuvred them. But once again, does it add up to much more than a bit of partisanship? Their argument is that the government put off a decision because of the prospect of an October election and they cite an offer by Lloyds TSB as one that should have been more seriously considered.

But does this charge stack up? Look at it this way; if Darling had gone for a quick sale (which according to Mervyn King would have involved a whopping loan to Lloyds TSB), would we now be in a remarkably similar situation with Cameron denouncing the government for rushing into a decision because they were planning an early election? Indeed, isn’t that rather similar to the scenario we had in 2005 with Michael Howard attacking Brown for bailing out Rover (only several times larger by order of magnitude)?

My own instincts tell me that regardless of the rights and wrongs of the whole credit crunch debacle in general and Northern Rock in particular, rushing into a quick sale would have been a remarkably irresponsible thing to do when it directly affected billions of pounds of taxpayers money and thousands of jobs. And that’s even assuming the shareholders would have let them (my grandmother is getting bombarded with letters from SRM at the moment). I appreciate I’m biased but the Tories’ line here doesn’t merely strike me as easy partisan point scoring, but bad policy too.

For a long time I’ve felt that Osborne is one of the Tories’ weakest links. A good marketing man, true, but not one with a particular feel for economics, and one with a whiny tone of voice that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. He is certainly in the wrong job. Cable on the other hand has always been one of the Lib Dems biggest secret weapons. Well, he’s not so secret any more and that could spell trouble for the Conservatives. If the Lib Dems manage to eat into the Tories’ commanding lead as the party most trusted on the economy, then things really could start to get interesting as it is the Tories’ greatest asset and one of the Lib Dems’ greatest perceived weaknesses. Yet could Cameron even contemplate cutting Osborne loose, his closest ally?

Of course, I’m not the only one thinking the unthinkable here: Tim Montgomerie was arguing for him to be made Party Chairman/Tsar back in October. Tim wasn’t attacking Osborne for being weak on the economy, but to argue this at a time when Osborne was still basking in his IHT glory said it for him.

Either way, Clegg should not be shy about keeping Cable in the limelight over the next few months; notwithstanding the importance of giving the public a chance to get to know Clegg himself, Cable should now be considered a central part of the party’s appeal and should be seriously exploited, particularly when the Tories use Osborne.

Share This

Over on Comment is Free I proffer my advice to the new leader:

My advice to Clegg now is remarkably similar to the advice I offered to Ming Campbell on what turned out to be the day of his resignation: concentrate on clarity and communication. In particular, Clegg needs to hit the road, catch a dose of initiativitis and take steps to ensure that even if the national media choose to ignore what he has to say, he is using every tool at his disposal to ensure that it comes across anyway.

I should add at this stage that based on Clegg’s acceptance speech, it appears that he intends to do exactly that.

Share This

So much for The Power of the Blog - I had a salutary reminder of the power of the mainstream media this week.

My girlfriend can be found beaming from page 17 of the Observer Cash supplement today under the headline Abbey bids to rediscover good habits. For those of you who haven’t been following the Observer’s Why Are We Waiting? campaign, the issue concerns the failure of Abbey’s probate and bereavement centre to release dead relatives’ accounts on the basis that apparently too many people died in 2006.

What I can vouch for is this: Alex and her mother have spent months pursuing this, taking days off work to have meetings with bank staff, making phone calls that go unreturned, getting fobbed off with standard impersonal letters. For the situation to get sorted out, what it ultimately took was a single phone call from a journalist. Either Huma Qureshi has mafia-like powers of persuasion, in which case her byline photo doesn’t do her justice, or banks really are craven when it comes to bad publicity.

When I read claims that ‘There is room for people to make mistakes - but if mistakes do happen, then we have procedures in place to deal with things quickly,’ I am thus sceptical.

The real scandal is that if this had concerned a public sector organisation, the story would have been on the front page of at least one major national newspaper. Yet for some reason we seem much more ready to suspend our critical faculties when it concerns a private company. I’m not blaming the media here, for understandable reasons. It is ultimately the mores of the general public that relegates this to the money pages. It is as if Adam Smith’s “invisible hand of the market” has taken on semi-mythic status - people assume they don’t need to keep a wary eye out because something called the “market” will do it for them.

These problems arise all the time, and time and again they appear to be rooted in an assumption within banks that they can afford to try it on on the basis that so long as most people don’t make a fuss.

Share This

Despite failing to promote it properly, my Liberal Drinks Pledge has been successful:

Still two more weeks to go before the deadline. It would be fantastic if this lead to dozens of Drinks starting up in the New Year. It’s easy-peasy to organise and we can help get your word out. What’s stopping you?

Share This

When I logged onto Facebook a few minutes ago, I was surprised that there didn’t seem to be a group calling for Sir Ian Blair to resign, so I took the liberty of setting one up before I get invited to “Support Chris Clegg/Nick Huhne (delete as appropriate) and his heroic campaign to get rid of Sir Ian Blair”:

I’m utterly baffled as to why he isn’t already gone. Whatever happened to people taking responsibility for the organisation they are in charge of? The only person in public life who appears to have understood the concept of responsibility was Menzies Campbell, and his only “crime” was being too old at the wrong time.

By contrast, not only does Blair want to stay, but he wants a bonus for his troubles. His position is simply untenable.

Share This

An interesting article appears out of the blue:

Last night the Department of Finance and Personnel reiterated the answer they gave to Mr O’Loan when he asked what consideration the minister (Peter Robinson] was giving to the rating of agricultural land.

It said: “Under the current rating system agricultural land is not valued nor rated and there are no plans to do so.

“However as you are aware the current review of the new domestic rating system that was introduced by direct rule ministers in April 2007 is examining a wide range of options for change in the shorter and longer terms, which were included in terms of reference agreed by the Executive.

“Strand 2 of the review is addressing longer term issues including possible alternatives to the current arrangements and one such alternative is Land Value Taxation.

“I have commissioned the Ulster University to investigate the experience of other jurisdictions that have used Land Value Taxation.”

This is being presented as a scandalous attack on farmers, but Tony Vickers makes an excellent case in his recent book for the replacement of agricultural subsidies in favour of LVT.

Either way, it is interesting to see that Stormont is investigating LVT as a possible replacement of the rates - the Tory government in the 80s not having scrapped them in Northern Ireland along with everywhere else. Without being saddled with the mess that is a Council Tax that hasn’t been revalued in 17 years, it would be relatively painless to introduce there and the potential benefits would be immense. And if it could be shown to work there, it would be an easier sell for the rest of the UK.

This is all putting the cart before the horse of course - it remains to be seen if the mishmash coalition in Stormont is capable of pushing anything through. But it is certainly worth keeping an eye on.

Share This

Seriously. The look. The lyrics. The sound. That dreadful, reedy, off pitch voice. Wendy James’ rather obvious appeal notwithstanding, can anyone name a worse band from the Eighties than Transvision Vamp? It’s even worse than I remembered!

Share This