John Simpson's Strange Report from Zimbabwe

Robert Mugabe banned most international news organisations from covering Zimbabwe's recent election. The main exception was al-Jazeera, which often does provide objective coverage in spite of its iffy reputation. However, its coverage of Zimbabwe attracted criticism for being biased in favour of Mugabe. Eventually the network fired its correspondent in Zimbabwe, and the Zimbabwean government promptly revoked its permission to operate there.

John Simpson, meanwhile, managed to slip unnoticed into Zimbabwe, to report for the BBC. He sent this report, entitled "Mugabe's Remarkable Comeback". He describes the "extraordinary turnaround" achieved by Mugabe, and says that his opponent has been "completely outmanoeuvred". Simpson describes a "rather well-made advertisement" which lists opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai with Tony Blair, George W Bush and Gordon Brown as members of the "failures club".

Simpson concludes, "It all adds up to a remarkable sweeping victory for a man who only three months ago seemed to be on the ropes. The moral is clear: never underestimate Robert Mugabe's ferocious determination to stay in power, nor the ability of his political opponents to destroy their own case."

The tone of the article seems outrageously biased, but I will ask just one question: how did Tsvangirai "destroy his own case"? It seems obvious to me that he didn't, and would have easily won a proper election.

Perhaps next time, the BBC will be granted the rights to cover events in Zimbabwe, instead of al-Jazeera.

Royal Family Costs "Less than Two Pints of Milk"

At a time when many households are struggling, the Royal Family has had a 5.3% pay rise, well above the government's 2% target for public sector pay. In the last financial year, they received £40M, while in the year before, they managed to struggle along on just £38M. A Buckingham Palace spokesman said that the cost of the Royal Family was equivalent to two pints of milk or an MP3 download—per taxpayer.

It reminds me of the old joke that you can get rich by asking everyone in the country to donate 10p. They won't notice the loss of 10p, but you will be rich. Somehow it never happens, though. Someone gave me 5p last week when I had no change for the car park machine, but that's the closest I've got. (If my benefactor is reading this, though, I'm very grateful! That 5p saved my day.)

One of the strange spin-offs from my marketing job is my junk mail collection. No doubt when I die, museums will be fighting to raise money so they can save it for the nation. For now, though, it is a source of marketing ideas. I've got them all: good ones, and cheesy ones that humbug people with nonsense about pints of milk and things like that. So, now the Royal Family is being sold like a downmarket book club, here are a few ideas:

• "... at a price you will appreciate!"
• "Ask [the Inland Revenue I suppose] about our affordable payment plans!"
• "Eminently affordable!"
• "... for less than you expected!"
• "Get more than your money's worth!"
• "Gives you so much for so little!"
• "Once in a lifetime savings!"
• And last but not least, the magic of ambiguity: "A toast to extraordinary prices!"

Of course the reality is that this sort of treatment devalues the Royal brand. The Royal brand is about mystique, leadership, luxury. So imagine going to a shop selling luxury goods, and seeing a sign in the window saying, "A toast to extraordinary prices!" You would be a bit surprised, and what would it mean anyway? That you can get a £50,000 Patek watch for £45,000?

Soon the monarchy will pass to Charles, as the Queen is already long past normal retiring age. Perhaps we should say instead that, after the death or abdication of the Queen, we will switch to an elected President. Alternatively, we could be the first country with an elected king or queen; that would be reasonable too. Charles would, of course, be welcome to stand and royalists would be welcome to vote for him. On the other hand, the change would have made the country more democratic. It would also protect us from the possibility that the heir to the throne might be someone unsuitable.

WPP's Embarrassing Mugabe Advert

The WPP advertising group was caught out last week, when it was found to be producing adverts for Mugabe, like this one:


WPP have now announced that they will sell the Zimbabwean advertising agency which was behind these adverts. It is good news that WPP is severing its links with the Zimbabwean regime, but I wonder if there is another reason why they don't want to be involved with this agency any more. The thing is, this advert is not just embarrassing because it was prepared for the Zimbabwean regime, it is embarrassing because it is crap.

Before you can do anything in advertising, you need to be able to write good English, if you write sentences like this one, your adverts are not going to be any good because people are going to find them difficult to read or they will just laugh if they understand English grammar themselves so it's best not to write things like, "The unfair treatment which will never again be seen on our land, which our people were subjected to by the colonial settlers."

People also find it distracting if you change fonts and colours all the time. It's best not to write things like, "I know you Believe, and I Believe that ALL GOOD THINGS ARE POSSIBLE."

Did someone at WPP decide they wouldn't be losing much by letting this agency go?

Three Issues Bottled—in Just One Week

Last week, BBC sources suggested that British troops might be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year. This week, Bush visited, and the sources have gone quiet. Brown's spokeswoman had to deny reports of a rift between the leaders. She may be right that there was no rift, if Bush gave his instructions, and Brown simply obeyed without arguing.

On Friday, Ireland rejected the Lisbon treaty in a referendum. Brown, meanwhile, had bottled this issue by refusing to hold a referendum, as Labour had promised. He said that the Lisbon treaty was not the EU Constitution, so his promise didn't apply, but this didn't make a lot of sense. The Lisbon treaty has the same objectives, and says largely the same thing. Brown bottled this issue for the second time when he boycotted the signing ceremony. He sneaked in and signed away Britain's sovereignty several hours after the rest of the leaders had gone home.

Last week, Brown bottled this issue for the third time, by continuing with Britain's ratification of the Lisbon treaty. Apparently Brown's European masters have told him that a united front is required against the Irish. Rather than respect the decision of the Irish people, and the decision the British people would have made if they had been asked, Brown again obeyed without arguing.

Finally, David Davis stepped down from Parliament last week, to make the case for civil liberties in a byelection campaign. He believes that, contrary to the received political wisdom, people will support civil liberties if the case is made for them. He intends to make that case, and invite people to vote him back into Parliament if they agree with him.

Brown, however, has bottled this issue too. He won't put up a candidate to fight Davis, preferring to dismiss his act as a "stunt that has become a farce". The public seem to have a lot of respect for a politician who is prepared to take a risk for his beliefs, but Brown would rather jeer from the sidelines. Presumably it's easy to laugh at someone with beliefs and principles if you don't have any yourself.

Colour is Only Skin Deep

I just noticed that Britain's race equality watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has an interesting feature on its website. By clicking boxes at the top, you can choose the colour of the site. You can have black or white, as well as various other colours that human beings don't come in. It's nice to see that the EHRC doesn't even discriminate by the colour of its website!

Government to Vet Children's Friends

According to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, any person who is involved with children—even on a voluntary basis—must be vetted. If you are a member of a club which allows children to join, and you may informally supervise or train them, you must be vetted. If you run an Internet service which is mainly for children, even as a hobby, you must be vetted.

The Act claims not to regulate arrangements between friends, and to that end includes an elaborate definition of friendship. However, it doesn't work for the common case where people meet at a club or society, and become friends. You can't be said to be someone's friend until you've met them, so you would need to be vetted before you were allowed to see them for the first time.

It appears that children can be barred from working with other children, and can be vetted. So it looks as though schools should vet any pupils who will be acting in a supervisory role, such as the captains of sports teams. Presumably in practice schools will apply some common sense, and just ignore the law. Common sense is a good thing. Well written laws, though, shouldn't need to be ignored in this way. Every time someone ignores a silly law, it brings the law as a whole into disrepute, and encourages lawbreaking in general. (On the upside, I suppose this law does create a whole new excuse for avoiding school sport: "Please, Sir, my captain hasn't been vetted!")

A person can be barred from working with children if he harms a child, or pursues "conduct which, if repeated against or in relation to a child, would endanger that child." Since the government evidently didn't think through the implications, let's help them out. Two adults have sex. If one of them was to repeat this "in relation to a child" it seems pretty clear that the child would be endangered, by being exposed to a paedophile. In reality, of course, these adults have a perfectly normal relationship, are not paedophiles, and have no wish to do anything inappropriate "in relation to a child." It only looks that way because this silly law puts them in a hypothetical situation and then blames them for it.

In practice, the parts of this law which are obviously stupid will be ignored. The harm will be done by the parts which don't go quite so far. Many members' clubs are saying they will simply exclude children rather than go through the bureaucracy of complying. At the same time, the government claims to want children involved in constructive activities, rather than hanging around on street corners.

Clearly the government has just destroyed any chance of achieving this. At the same time, by vetting millions of people, it will be easy for the real paedophiles to lose themselves in the crowd. Watching millions of people is really watching no one, because on that scale you never have time to do more than a cursory check. A fake ID is all it will take.

Who will be in McCain's League of Democracies?

John McCain's proposal for a "League of Democracies" drew immediate criticism. Former UN under-secretary general Shashi Tharoor thought that excluding autocratic countries would make them less likely to become democratic. He also suspected that a "league of autocracies" could appear, led by Russia and China. (If this actually happened, presumably they would think of a better name. It reminds me of the days when the Burmese government was called the "State Law and Order Restoration Council" or SLORC. Eventually they realised that, in English, SLORC sounds like a group of villains from a Bond film—and they changed the name.)

Tharoor's points are all good, but I have a more fundamental one: who will be invited to join? Everyone seems to be assuming that Russia isn't welcome, but they have elections. It might be said that Russia's elections are bent, but that could be a reason to exclude a lot of countries. Should America be excluded because of the issues in Florida during the presidential election in 2000? Should Britain be excluded because winning the most votes doesn't necessarily translate into winning the most seats in Parliament? An election where the same number of people voted for both main parties would be won by Labour, because of the way the constituency boundaries have been set.

Then we would have to decide whether the Middle East's democracies are going to be allowed in. There is Israel, which doesn't give the vote to around half the people it rules. There is Iraq, where the elected government seems almost irrelevant, sitting and watching as others fight over its country. What about Lebanon, where the constitution splits power along sectarian lines, and doesn't grant women the vote on equal terms? Would the Gaza Strip be allowed to join, on the basis that it elected Hamas and is now governed by them, unlike the West Bank where—with the West's approval—Fatah ignored the election result?

McCain may think that, in practice, he can simply invite America's friends into the club. The trouble is, it won't be that simple. For one thing, some countries are clearly democratic on a basic level, but are not friends of America; Venezuela for example. For another, we will all have to listen to Mugabe's speech about the West letting in Israel while excluding Zimbabwe. Just thinking about it makes my hair stand on end.