Spontaneous Monotony

The BBC’s decision to offer its ‘iPlayer’ download service only to customers of Microsoft is facing referral to the EU’s competition authorities. For those of you outside the UK, I’ll give a bit of background:

The BBC is funded by the public through a tax known as the ‘TV licence’. Anyone who owns a TV is obliged to be a paying customer of the BBC, even if they have no interest in is content. Failure to pay results in criminal sanctions. As well as having to provide the service which members of the public have paid for (some under protest), the BBC is required by its charter to be impartial.

The company intends to use Microsoft DRM with its ‘iPlayer’ service, which results in the exclusion of all BBC customers who are not also customers of Microsoft (as the latter has not provided DRM players for other operating systems). This is despite the existing use of RealMedia for all of the BBC’s streaming video services - a DRM system which is available on most computer operating systems. This shows that there is no need to endorse one operating system vendor in order to ‘protect’ content.

EU law prohibits companies from concluding market-restricting agreements which harm competition or consumers. The Open Source Consortium (who I’ve never heard of, despite using a lot of OSS) plans to make a complaint to the EU authorities on this basis. Although I’m actually a Windows user myself, I think it is unacceptable for a publicly-funded broadcaster such as the BBC to refuse to provide its services to customers of companies other than Microsoft. What is worse is that the government has allowed this to go as far as the EU - this proposal should have been stomped on at the UK level.

Well Gordon Brown is now officially Leader of the Labour Party, and will become Prime Minister on Wednesday. I’m feeling much the same as people must have thought about John Major when he took over - he can’t be any worse than his predecessor.

Time will tell whether that is true, but let’s not pretend that all is well and Gordon Brown is the saviour of British politics - plenty of what he has been saying over the last few weeks simply does not tally with his actions in government:

• Gordon Brown promises more open, spin-free politics. So he goes behind Ming Campbell’s back and invites Lord Ashdown to join his Cabinet, after Ming Campbell had said he did not want any Lib Dems to do so. That’s precisely the sort of underhanded politics that people detest Bliar for (well, among other things), and if this is what Gordon Brown passes off as ’spin-free politics’ then things may get worse before they get better
• Gordon Brown says that the levels of child poverty and inequality in Britain are unacceptable. I’d bet that most of us agree. What he doesn’t explain though, is why after ten years as Chancellor the former still exists (to the shame of an oil-producing rich nation) and the latter has actually gone up
• Gordon Brown calls for increased personal responsibility. This is the chancellor responsible for the biggest raid on pensions - and, resultingly, the biggest pensions collapse - in living memory.

So there are certainly quite a few issues with Gordon Brown’s record as Chancellor, but for now I’m just glad to be (almost) rid of the smarmy, warmongering arse we’ve been passing off as a ‘leader’ for the last ten years.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the end of the Falklands War. It seems strange that some seek to criticise the conflict. The Falklands War represents what seems alien to many in post-Dossier Britain: a just war. The people of the Falkland Islands wished to remain British citizens, and 248 service personnel gave their lives to restore their right to make that decision.

As a left-of-centre Scot I am no fan of Margaret Thatcher, but she showed great political courage in ordering the recapture of the islands. If there is nothing else, let this be the one event in the Thatcher years that everyone in Britain can take pride in. Thousands of servicemen showed a more immediate, personal courage, and many sacrificed their lives for their country.

We should never forget those sacrifices, and we should never stop celebrating such an important victory. The Falklands War set down an important marker - the UK would not allow its citizens, wherever in the world they were, to be deprived of basic democratic rights.

The SNP has fulfilled its manifesto commitment to scrap the ‘graduate endowment’. The backdoor tuition fee was introduced by the Lib-Lab Executive during the first Parliament, as a compromise between the Labour policy of tuition fees and the Lib Dem policy of free education (in fact, the graduate endowment is literally half the then tuition fee for a four-year degree).

The Education Minister Fiona Hyslop today announced that the hated experiment is to end - for both current and future students. Draft legislation will be introduced in the autumn, and if passed by Parliament (as it probably will be, with Green and Lib Dem support) will come into force next April. As of then, Scotland will once again be a country that believes in free education. Other parties (even Neo Labour) have made promises to students, and failed to honour them:

We will not introduce ‘top-up’ tuition fees, and have legislated to prevent them

Still others (such as ‘Scottish’ Neo Labour in this year’s election) have argued that it is somehow in the interests of students to have to pay £2000+ for accessing a basic right such as education. The SNP have made a genuine commitment to students, and more importantly have stuck to their word (unlike certain other parties). Long may it continue!