The recent outbreak of Scottish nationalism, where First Minister Jack McConnell refused to support England in the World Cup, has been followed by rising tennis star Andy Murray.
Whilst McConnell was unrepentent in his decision to deliberately not support England after his ridiculous statement, Murray's nationalistic streak seemed a bit more sublte: when he appeared on court at Wimbledon he was sporting a white outfit edged with blue and a Cross of St Andrew wristband. Although he hasn't uttered a word, the message is clear: "hands off England I'm not yours, I'm Scotland's!"
With many other sporting events there are often teams from across the kingdom, but for Wimbledon Murray is put under the Great Britain heading. This is something he obviously dislikes, otherwise why wear such a display of nationalism. I don't know of any other tennis player that has done so.
Can anyone imagine if Henman had worn a Cross of St George wristband? No, because he would have been condemned as a Little Englander.
As Murray is now GB's only hope for tennis stardom I'm sure that most English, Welsh and Northern Irish people would fully support him as "one of us". If Scotland was playing in the World Cup, then I would be hoping for them to go as far as they could.
As with all things when it comes to national pride, the English in particular, are left wondering how things will be perceived. Every other country does its own thing and doesn't care who thet upset. Well, from now on I'm not so sure that Murray deserves (or even wants) the support of his erstwhile southern cousins.
Come back Hadrian -- all is forgiven!
Friday, June 30, 2006
Thursday, June 22, 2006
What a lot of hot air
There seems little doubt that we humans, especially in the northern hemisphere, are pumping too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and that this is likely to have an impact on our weather systems. The also seems little doubt that changes need to be made to our collective behaviour if we are to prevent the doomsayers' predictions.
The UK alone contributes but a small percentage to overall global CO2 emissions, so on a micro (UK-only) level the political debate on global warming seems quite removed from our everyday lives of getting to and from work or visiting our local supermarket.
On one level the government's message should be taken seriously and that we should all be doing what we can: cycling everywhere, installing solar heating and erecting wind turbines. If you were to spend the £20,000 or so that it would cost for both solar heating and a wind turbine you would struggle to ever see a financial return; that is, if the local planners allowed you to go ahead.
The mixed messages start to emerge when you understand how government finances work and how every government is actually addicted to motor transport, to the point that new railway lines will not be built (or re-opened) if there is a threat to revenues generated by car journeys. Governments aren't actually addicted to cars, it is just the billions raised from the tax on fuel, road tax and from the anticipated road charging schemes.
On the one hand cars are bad and on the other they're rather very good. How does, or how should, the government handle this dilemma?
From a communications perspective it is tricky. You can't go back to a time when we were less dependent on the car, but governments must re-evaluate their financial need for car-generated revenues. As the M1 grinds to a halt at Luton every morning around 7am, there surely has to be more the transport equation than what it would cost the government if none of us were in our cars. The costs of having hundreds of thousands of people sat going nowhere all around the UK costs businesses millions and these are the costs that we should be looking to reduce.
Governments need to put money into real transport alternatives, to re-open the rural branch lines, to promote bus services and to re-engineer the urban landscape so that we can actually use our cars less.
The UK alone contributes but a small percentage to overall global CO2 emissions, so on a micro (UK-only) level the political debate on global warming seems quite removed from our everyday lives of getting to and from work or visiting our local supermarket.
On one level the government's message should be taken seriously and that we should all be doing what we can: cycling everywhere, installing solar heating and erecting wind turbines. If you were to spend the £20,000 or so that it would cost for both solar heating and a wind turbine you would struggle to ever see a financial return; that is, if the local planners allowed you to go ahead.
The mixed messages start to emerge when you understand how government finances work and how every government is actually addicted to motor transport, to the point that new railway lines will not be built (or re-opened) if there is a threat to revenues generated by car journeys. Governments aren't actually addicted to cars, it is just the billions raised from the tax on fuel, road tax and from the anticipated road charging schemes.
On the one hand cars are bad and on the other they're rather very good. How does, or how should, the government handle this dilemma?
From a communications perspective it is tricky. You can't go back to a time when we were less dependent on the car, but governments must re-evaluate their financial need for car-generated revenues. As the M1 grinds to a halt at Luton every morning around 7am, there surely has to be more the transport equation than what it would cost the government if none of us were in our cars. The costs of having hundreds of thousands of people sat going nowhere all around the UK costs businesses millions and these are the costs that we should be looking to reduce.
Governments need to put money into real transport alternatives, to re-open the rural branch lines, to promote bus services and to re-engineer the urban landscape so that we can actually use our cars less.
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