Recently, the Digital Economy bill here in the UK seems to have shown how powerful it is in this country, with MP’s voting on issues that they plainly failed to understand, making statements in parliament that caused geeks like me to stare dumbfounded at our screens in sheer incredulity at the lack of knowledge they displayed with their pronouncements. Discovering that secret lobbying is perfectly legal here just continues the old ‘cash for questions’ legacy which suggests that if  you have enough money you can change/influence policy.

Well, with a general election just 4 weeks away, the action group 38 Degrees which helps engage people with making changes to issues that affect the UK, are encouraging people to write to their candidates and ask about their opinions on secret lobbying. I’ve been encourages and inspired by my friends to try and become a bit more politically involved so this is the letter I just sent off to mine. It’ll be interesting to see what, if any, reply I receive.

Dear Sir,

after the recent debacle of the Digital Economy Bill, where it became ever more apparent that the MP’s voting on the issue appeared to have little knowledge about the issues involved, as seen in their clear misunderstandings of digital terminology and ignorance of what’s actually involved in putting their proposals into practice, it seems to me as though there is considerable lobbying pressure from financially motivated businesses pushing for laws that are only in their own commercial interests and not in that of the public.

Looking into this recently, I’ve been appalled to find that, right now, it’s perfectly legal for companies/interest groups to secretly lobby the government and that there is no way for the public to stay informed about this. Given the size of some corporate interests, I find this very worrying and believe it to be completely undemocratic. It continues in the vein of ‘cash for questions’ and suggests that if you have enough money you can influence parliamentary decisions.

With the general election just a few weeks away I would be interested in your views on this and whether you would state whether you intend to oppose secret lobbying in the future.

Thank you for your time,

Justin Peer.

“I don’t want to ever become the kind of person who doesn’t dare to fail and fail spectacularly. I don’t ever want to be unwilling to approach the unknown. I don’t ever want to live a life free of risk.”

Too often we are afraid to attempt things because of worries over how we might appear to others or too ourselves. It’s a timely reminder and one that I intend to write out and put up on my notice board. Thanks Jill, for reminding me of how important that is.

However, one of my friends pinged me about an offer with O2 where I’d get the same deal for the same cost, but with £100 cashback, bringing the 12 month contract down to £11.57. Much as I’d love to stay with Vodafone, that’s a significant difference. I told the customer service guy (Matt) this, and that I needed to keep the cost down as I’d recently been made redundant (which is why I didn’t go for the new phone) and he said, ‘hang on a moment’ and went off to talk to someone.

When he came back it was with a very interesting offer. Apparently Vodafone have a customer retention unit that are authorised to make occasional extra special offers to customers who would otherwise leave the network, and that they could get my bill down to £14 a month, on a 12 month contract. I was happy with that and I get to stay with Vodafone for another year.

Now, the thing that struck me most about this is that not many people know about the retention service, but it’s there and obviously something they will use to keep their customers. They’d rather get less money and keep a customer than have them go elsewhere.

Think about that for a minute, let it really sink in.

How many companies do you know that are as committed to keeping their customers and keeping them happy. Given the appalling level of customer service that is the norm in the mobile phone world, the personal stories I have from T-mobile, who I’d never, ever consider going back to, and the stories I hear from friends on O2, this strikes me as a rare and precious thing. Customer service that is there to help customers, treat them respectfully and maintain the brand loyalty.

We always complain when we get crappy service somewhere, but we don’t often give praise where it’s due. Over the past two years I’ve been with Vodafone they have repeatedly shown that they have an attitude to customer service that is second to none in the mobile phone market, at least as far as this customer is concerned.

So I’m telling everyone about it.

Peace, out.

Over on my other site I’m blogging my project of building a tiny off-grid house and that has recently brought John Wells to my attention, as he’s also building a tiny, self-sufficient house but he’s out in Texas, where I lived for several years a little while ago. I’m enjoying reading about his adventures, and thought you might too. He’s just posted a poem on YouTube that sums up what he’s been doing and I hope he won’t mind if I link to it here. You can learn more about his project by visiting The Field Lab. The most surprising thing is that he bought 40 acres of land for $8k, oh for the big open empty spaces where land is cheap.

“When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Thank you all very much.”

J.

Several of my friends were there and I heard first hand about what went on. I’d say it’s hard to believe some of the stories but, sadly, it’s really not. Peaceful groups of protesters being violently assaulted by baton wielding police is only too common worldwide nowadays, but having the police use a law designed to quell violent disturbances to remove all press photographers from an area, on pain of arrest for non-compliance, while they ‘attempt to resolve’ a peaceful protest is terrifying in it’s implications. Doing so basically shows that they are prepared to silence a free press while doing exactly what they like in the way of violence and there will be no evidence to show what really happened. All those surveillance cameras are only of use to them not the public, and you can be pretty sure we won’t be seeing much of that footage coming to light.

I must admit that I kind of expected it to kick off the way it did after hearing on the news before the event that a senior officer in the met (I don’t know who) was stating that it was going to be a violent protest. We know now that it was primarily violent due to the police instigating most of that violence. We’re now starting to see the video evidence of this, much of it contradicting police statements of what happened, and some simply showing outright abuse such as hitting peaceful protesters in the face for no reason, allowing dogs to attack protesters who are simply talking to policemen and others just randomly battoning non-violent demonstrators.

Now, don’t get me wrong, in general I admire the police for doing a difficult job in tough circumstances. However, with that comes a great deal of responsibility, and it will be interesting to see just what comes from it all in the way of prosecutions of officers. From the mounting evidence there seems to be plenty of scope for those, just take a look at the videos being compiled by the Guardian here, it’s horrifying.

G20 video evidence

Some people have said that if you’re not prepared for that then you shouldn’t have been there, but protesting is a fundamental part of democracy. We have a right to voice our concerns, we have a right to protest at injustices. Many people have lost their homes, livelihoods and life savings in the past couple of years through the greed of the banking system and then we’re asked to bail them out with tax money (an issue I’m not going to get into here). People are angry, and rightfully so, and we have a duty to protest, a duty to bring these people to answer for their mistakes.

Last year I was working around a bunch of city women who were discussing some of the financial packages they brokered and they knew that these packages were flawed, and that they were leading nowhere and would eventually lose people lots of money. They really didn’t care, they made their bonuses and just carried on. I wanted to shake them by the ears and make them realise that it’s other people’s money their playing with, that when the banks fail it’s the ‘little’ people that lose their livelihoods. I hope at least a few of those brokers are now out of work, though I doubt with their savings it will affect them greatly. I’d like, perhaps rather unfairly, to think that they find themselves out of work, with a big mortgage they can no longer pay and having to sell up at the bottom of the market. Maybe it will make them reassess their own lives. But I doubt it.

I’ll leave you with a rather good article about the day of protests from a wonderful ranty old chap I remember of old, Attilla the Stockbroker and his view from the inside of what went on that he put up on his myspace page, I hope he won’t mind me linking to it.

G20 Meltdown protest: tent city in the City, banged up at the Bank! An eyewitness report

Peace, out.

J.