Why 'business as usual' is a fatal response to Birmingham's riots

Image by marcreeves via Flickr
There have been riots in Birmingham at regular intervals throughout my life, and I’m sick of it.

It's like a simmering pot that occasionally boils over, but instead of taking it off the flame, we just force the lid down ever tighter.

I grew up in Handsworth and saw the impact of the 1981 riots at first hand. I reported on the 1985 Handsworth troubles as a cub reporter, and after living and working away for more than a decade returned to my home city in the still-raw aftermath of the 2005 disturbances.

I remember someone remarking to me then what fantastic changes I must have seen in the city after my years away. They meant the city centre sheen of the ICC, Brindleyplace and the horizon of budding skyscrapers, all taken as symbols of Birmingham’s progress. I saw and liked these developments for

Jeremy Hunt's field of TV dreams

Image via WikipediaThis was published originally on TheBusinessDesk.com on August 19. I republish it here for archhival purposes.

THIS week I found myself chairing the first ‘Local TV Summit’ organised by the government as part of culture secretary Jeremy Hunt’s mission to get a TV station in every town and city in the UK.
Hunt has set his DCMS civil servants a pretty ambitious goal of creating sustainable markets for local TV where there currently is none, within a timetable that demands that at least some of the new stations are up and running in time to cover the next general election.

With all the engineering and techie stuff paid for by a £25m ‘gift’ from the BBC, and owned by a single ‘multiplex’ company, the belief is that shoestring local stations will come forward to run services for as little as £500k a year, covering local news, sport, and culture at a community level that existing regional TV stations can’t reach.

At this point I should declare my various interests and prejudices that together probably disqualify me from making any sensible observation on these latest plans for local TV.