• Pages

  • About Matthew Cain
  • Contact Matthew Cain
  • Other Matthew Cains
• Search for:

• Categories

  • Fatherhood
  • Hackney
  • Labour politics
  • Liverpool FC
  • Media
  • Music
  • Politics
  • Reserves
  • RSA
  • Sport
  • Technology
  • Trusted journalists
  • Uncategorized

Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, has been surprisingly quiet over the last few weeks. Whilst his newspapers are not accused of phone hacking or blagging his silence on the crisis has been surprising, unhelpful for his cause and even out of character.

Mr Dacre doesn’t believe that editors should have a public profile. He has previously made clear to the media select committee that he believes readers do not want to read about their editors. Regardless of whether that’s true, it’s a reasonable position to take.

However, Paul Dacre is not just the editor of the Mail. He is a defender of press freedom, or as he would rather describe it: the public’s right to know. Dacre has devoted hours of his working life, free of charge, to developing, supporting and defending the system of self-regulation in the UK. He sees it as a defence against government intervention. When suggestions have been made in the past of government having a role in press regulation, defenders of the status quo have muttered darkly about totalitarianism or a Mugabe-style press.

Over the last few weeks that system of press self-regulation has come under repeated and sustained attack from politicians and others in the media. The Press Complaints Commission has defended itself but Paul Dacre has not made a public utterance. He has neither renewed his condemnation of phone hacking, reminded people that it is a breach of the editors’ code of practice nor attacked those who are calling for the abolition of self-regulation.

Dacre’s silence is surprising given his track-record. As recently as January he used a foreword to the revised editors’ code to call for “greater vigilance than ever” against “an authoritarian government” and criticised parliamentary select committees’ “seemingly ceaseless inquiries”. One such inquiry on hacking takes evidence again this morning. Yet these threats appear absent from the pages of the Daily Mail and the pen of Paul Dacre.

His silence is unhelpful for those wanting to defend the current system of press self-regulation. Mr Dacre has held more senior roles in the bodies that support self-regulation than anyone else. He chairs the body that writes the code. He tells parliament that editors shudder at the thought of criticism from his peers. Yet his criticism or defence are not forthcoming.

It is out of character for a newspaper as pugnacious as the Daily Mail and an editor with such a profound belief in press self-regulation to not come to its defence at the moment when it is most under threat. The threat-level in January to press freedom may have been moderate at best. But for the odd ‘super-injunction’ there was no mention of a government role in press self-regulation from anyone with a chance of bringing it about. In the last week the prime minister and leader of the opposition have united in their calls for the PCC.

Why won’t Paul Dacre speak out to defend press self-regulation? The public has a right to know.

When the country faces a big challenges but there appears to be a lack of progress there is a call for new ideas. There are few more immediate challenges than how the UK gives rise to new enterprises. Yet solutions appear thin on the ground. New ideas alone don’t create successful enterprises but a combination of practical support, education and policy proposals can help the UK return to sustained economic growth.

Fresh ideas don’t appear to be emerging from government. Worryingly, Enterprise UK which had a stellar cast of backers has closed after the government withdrew funding.The coalition is at its weakest when it is attacked for lacking a growth strategy. Successive British governments have been reluctant to intervene in ‘industrial policy’ in case it hints at a 1970s-style central planning.

The business lobby certainly has a loud voice and anyone who can lay claim to being a senior economist appears to be able to generate newspaper headlines. However, debates between government and business often appear to hbe captured by large employers. They focus on issues like National Insurance and parental leave which are cumulatively more important for large employers rather than bank lending and the complexity of HMRC filing, which are more salient for small, growing enterprises (in my experience).

There are lots of good educational initiatives in various different ways up and down the country. From the young enterprise schemes to Oli Barrett’s Make Your Mark with a Tenner, there is no shortage of programmes to encourage enterprise amongst young people. There are lots of bodies which represent the interests of entrepreneurs from the Entreprenuers Organisation to organisations like Adam Street. But these do not appear to have a significant impact on public policy.

Politics already has thinktanks focussed on public services like Policy Exchange, or specialist initiatives like the New Local Government Network. A new thinktank alone is not required. But there is space for an organisation that can combine the practical experience of fostering startups, the cultural challenge of promoting entrepreneurship and use this to identify the public policy implications.

I’ve developed some broad principles:

1. This organisation would need to have enterprise at the heart of what it does. Ideally it should have a limited shelf-life to ensure it doesn’t start to exist to perpetuate itself.
2. Its success should be judged by the number of enterprises it helps stimulate.
3. Its political influence should emerge from its practical expertise at stimulating enterprise. And this will ensure that it has a ripple effect beyond the enterprises and communities it works with directly
4. It should rigorously chart its successes (and inevitably more numerous) failures to provide a wealth of material for its successors.
5. And it should aim to reach those parts which are hardest to reach. Digital entrepreneurs on Old Street are fairly well supported (do let me know if you disagree). Unemployed university graduates probably less so. London is probably an easier environment for startups than Sheffield.

So, where next?

A strange spectre will linger over SW19 over the next fortnight. Not sports fans in the meaningful sense of the word, but Wimbledon Watchers. People who don’t follow tennis, who will be surprised to discover Roger Federer isn’t one of the two top seeds. People who aren’t sure who the number 1 woman is in the world. These are strange people for whom a sporting event is more about the social occasion, the food and drink. We will spend the next fortnight reading of the wonderful tennis tournament in SW19 so as a counterbalance, here are 7 good reasons to dislike Wimbledon.

#1 Paying women less

How can any organisation get away with paying women less to do the same job as men? A 3 set game may last less time than a 5 set match but that isn’t the point. The organisers don’t charge less to see women play. Many women are valued more highly by sponsors than men. In any other aspect of British life, legislation would force the organisers to pay women an equal amount. Don’t expect to read much about this over the next fortnight.

#2 Distorting the debate about British tennis

Every fortnight we have a wailing and gnashing of teeth at the failure of Britons to do better at tennis. For those two weeks of the year, tennis courts are full. Britain is the centre of the sport. And then we turn back to the football and the sport continues elsewhere. We still have too few people playing tennis, too few courts and too few coaches. It should be of no surprise that Britons aren’t better at tennis. If it wasn’t for Wimbeldon, we wouldn’t be surprised.

#3 Smug satisfaction

Expect to read lots of guff in the next fortnight about how WImbledon in The Best Tennis Tournament In The World. Most of it appears to be based on polite foreigners humouring journalists. As if playing (or, quite often, not playing) in rainy London in June is actually better than an Australian winter or Paris in spring. Unlike other sports, there is no competitive environment which awards Wimbeldon its Major status. Do better-trained ball girls and boys really create a better tournament?

#4 Andrew Castle

Talking of smug satisfaction, Andrew Castle is the embodiment of the problems of Wimbledon – the leader of the Wimbledon Watchers. The ubiquitous ITV presenter is diverted to tennis for a fortnight because he once picked up a racket at some point in the 1980s before going back to daytime TV. Never knowingly penetrating, rarely insightful but never lacking in a sense of satisfaction.

#5 Faux formality

Is there anything more silly than the faux formality of Wimbledon? It’s no wonder that British children grow up thinking that tennis is about quasi-militaristic changes of the ball, servants handing players towels and umpires in uniform. Can you remember what they wear in France, or how the ball boys in America throw the ball? No, me neither. Perhaps it’s a fond reminder to Daily Telegraph readers of the years of Empire.

#6 Suspicious of winners

Tim Henman was Wimbledon and Wimbledon was Tim Henman. A nice boy with a nice wife and well-to-do parents. A good player but not a very good player. And one quite capable of not appearing to try too hard. But how we loved him. Andy Murray, even if he wins Wimbledon (which is highly unlikely. He will probably win the US Open and never quite receive full praise gor it) will never be loved. Because he wants to win.

#7 Increasing jingoism

The 1980s weren’t all good. But at least the absence of British tennis players meant that we could focus on the tennis. In stark contrast, this year ITV News led on a question to Rafael Nadal on Andy Murray’s prospects this year. How rude is that? The best player in the world who has graced Wimbledon with some of its best gamesof recent years. Being asked about whether he thinks the 4th or 5th best player in the world of beating him. Imagine the same journalist filing a piece for London Tonight asking Sir Alex Ferguson what he thought of Chelsea’s prospects next season. No, I can’t see it either.

Tennis is a great sport. And Wimbledon 1990 inspired me to play. But a more modernised tournament, with a focus on the sport rather than the trappings would be a better contribution to our national calendar.