So multichannel broadcaster UKTV is in the midle of a spat with platform provider Virgin Media over... something, something that ultimately doesn't really matter. I believe it might have to do in part with the fact that UKTV VOD (Video On Demand) is on Netflix and Amazon Prime, but not Virgin Media. I also hear that it might be in part due to the amount that UKTV charge Virgin Media for their channels, including ones that are available free to air on Freeview and Freesat.
As a result of this, all the UKTV channels, including the free ones, have been pulled from Virgin Media in both the UK & Ireland. If you go to where the channels are meant to be on the EPG (Electronic Programme Guide), you'll find different channels in their place, many of which do not offer similar programming to the channels they replaced.
One side effect of this is that in the UK, Premier Sports has been added to the XL pack, alongside the existing BT Sport and EuroSport channels, and the recently added FreeSports, which means for Virgin Media customers there is more live sport available without having to add the premium Sky Sports. If you include all the HD variants, there's 19 channels of sport available from around the world, including At The Races, Sky Sports Mix and Sky Sports News.
Neither side in this debacle looks good. Virgin Media have basically replaced a lot of channels that provided high quality programming, with a few channels that provide high quality programming and others that are not so high quality. And UKTV looks greedy for asking for probably more money than they should, for a product that whilst it is high quality, is far from a premium product. UKTV is mostly shows that have already been shown elsewhere, with a small sprinkling of original content.
Both sides are trying to hurt each other, but in doing so, the reality is they are only really hurting their loyal viewers, who are now unable to watch the channels on cable, and will now have to either subscribe to Sky for the UKTV channels, or will have to make do with the free channels on either Freeview, or ,if they're particularly sneaky like yours truly, on Freesat.
Not that I am particularly interested in watching anything that UKTV does currently. About the only thing I was remotely interested in was repeats of new Doctor Who from the 2005 series onwards. Oh, and the occassional live sport that was on Dave, and I can still get that on Freeview and Freesat, when they get the rights to show such events, but ITV4 gets more live sport than Dave does.
Overall, I am much happier that I now get Premier Sports as part of my subscription, which now means I have more accesss to live sport than ever before, which I think is an amazing bonus. This will probably end when UKTV finally agree a deal, but for now, I'm taking advantage of the situation, and enjoying the extra sports.
Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts
Tuesday, 24 July 2018
Monday, 23 April 2018
WrestlePod: Impact & WOS News
Ian Beaumont looks at two stories that broke this week in UK wrestling, involving Impact Wrestling and World Of Sport Wrestling in this week's episode of WrestlePod.
Thursday, 11 January 2018
Viewpoint: Now even Farage wants another referendum.
Okay, this is a genuine surprise, as I wasn't expecting this at all.
Nigel Farage wants a second EU/Brexit referendum.
Let me say that again. Nigel Farage wants a second EU/Brexit referendum.
I never thought I'd see the day.
Admittedly he thinks that a second referendum would kill off the "remoaner" campaign to undermine Brexit, and certainly if a referendum happened, and it went 55-45 or greater in favour of Brexit, then certainly it would kill off any further campaign to remain, but the evidence at the moment suggests otherwise.
The most recent poll, done by ICM in December actually gives Remain a 3% lead, 46 to 43. ORB International's Brexit tracker, puts disapproval of the Prime Minister's handling of Brexit at 63%. Neither of these are great indicators that a second referendum would deliver what Nigel Farage is looking for.
Of course, he does have the radical extremist right wing press on his side, which he thinks can deliver him the vote he's looking for. But the influence of the press continues to diminish and as their losses mount up, they try to get louder and louder to encourage people to take notice of them, which is in fact having the opposite effect. Plus, campaigns like Stop Funding Hate are having an impact on these company's bottom lines, by persuading advertisers not to advertise with these brands that have decided to align themselves with hateful messages.
I'd actually quite like a second referendum to happen, but I don't expect it to. Theresa May already bungled one major gamble with last year's general election, and I don't see her going for another big gamble in a second referendum, but I've been wrong before.
Nigel Farage wants a second EU/Brexit referendum.
Let me say that again. Nigel Farage wants a second EU/Brexit referendum.
I never thought I'd see the day.
Admittedly he thinks that a second referendum would kill off the "remoaner" campaign to undermine Brexit, and certainly if a referendum happened, and it went 55-45 or greater in favour of Brexit, then certainly it would kill off any further campaign to remain, but the evidence at the moment suggests otherwise.
The most recent poll, done by ICM in December actually gives Remain a 3% lead, 46 to 43. ORB International's Brexit tracker, puts disapproval of the Prime Minister's handling of Brexit at 63%. Neither of these are great indicators that a second referendum would deliver what Nigel Farage is looking for.
Of course, he does have the radical extremist right wing press on his side, which he thinks can deliver him the vote he's looking for. But the influence of the press continues to diminish and as their losses mount up, they try to get louder and louder to encourage people to take notice of them, which is in fact having the opposite effect. Plus, campaigns like Stop Funding Hate are having an impact on these company's bottom lines, by persuading advertisers not to advertise with these brands that have decided to align themselves with hateful messages.
I'd actually quite like a second referendum to happen, but I don't expect it to. Theresa May already bungled one major gamble with last year's general election, and I don't see her going for another big gamble in a second referendum, but I've been wrong before.
Saturday, 25 May 2013
Cornwall Independent councillor out-crazies the Tea Party.
I never thought that I'd see the day when a UK politician presented something crazier than the Tea Party Republicans do. I even less expected to find that crazy UK politician within my own home county of Cornwall. None the less, this year, it happened. What's even crazier is that he resigned, re-stood for election, and got re-elected. What's worse is that this politician is not a Conservative, not a member of UKIP or the ultra crazy BNP.
Oh no, this was an Independent councillor, unaffiliated with any major political party in the UK. Sit back, relax, and listen to a cautionary tale from the other side of the big pond, about a Cornwall councillor, disabled children, and council spending.
First, we must add in some relevant context to this tale. The UK Government is currently a coalition between the Conservatives, the UK equivalent of the Republicans, and The Liberal Democrats, a centre-left party not dissimiliar to the Democrats. That's enough to make you think that coalition would never work, but surprisingly, more than halfway through the five year term, it's holding together. Some activists in the UK have refered to it as a Con-Dem administration.
However in Cornwall Council, these two parties have been on opposite sides of the chamber since 2009. Conservatives once again were in coalition running the council, but this time, with a large group of independent councillors who held more seats than the Liberal Democrats. Cornwall is one of the few counties in the UK where Independent, unaffiliated councillors form a major political force, and will often work together, almost like a political party. The Liberal Democrats had been in charge of the previous county council from 2005 to 2009, but had been voted out of office for creating the current Unitary council, which combined the previous county council and 6 smaller district councils into one body. So, after the 2009 local election, they were the opposition to the Conservative/Independent coalition, along with 3 Green Party councillors.
Our story involves one of the Independent councillors, from a ward called Wadebridge East. His name is Collin Brewer, and he was elected relatively comfortably in 2009. At the time of his election, nobody knew that he was going to become one of the most hated people in Cornish politics. The incident that was to cause him to become the most hated man in Cornish politics happened in 2011 during an event at County Hall in Truro, the administrative capital of Cornwall.
The event was a disability forum, and Mr Brewer was speaking to a member of the organisation Disability Cornwall. Mr Brewer claimed that "...disabled children cost the council too much money and should be put down."
Now, you'd think a comment that controversial would have been reported straight away. Nope, it wasn't reported to the public until February 2013, almost 2 years after the incident happened. Hey, I know the pace of life in Cornwall is a bit slower than in big cities, but not usually that slow!
However, the charity Disability Cornwall did complain to the council and the Standards Committee (yes, we actually have standards committees in UK politics, and they actually do hold people to acceptable standards.) reported its findings in February 2013. After that report, there were many calls for Mr Brewer to stand down as a councillior.
Collin Brewer put up a vigourous defence, claiming that he wasn't being serious, he was only trying to provoke a discussion on the issue of service costs provision, during a time when central government grants to councils was being cut back, and regulations prevented them from raising all the money that had been cut through local taxes like council tax and business rates.
Facebook was mobilised against him, a page that demanded his resignation garnered over 3600 likes. He was told he was no longer welcome as part of the Independent group on Cornwall Council.
But finally on 28th February 2013, Collin Brewer finally realised his position was untenable, and he finally resigned admitting he was wrong, and that he would probably be apologising for it for the rest of his life. He also said it was unlikely that he would stand in the local elections in May. Now you might think that this would be the end of the story and 99 times out of 100, it would be. But as Keith Olbermann once said about an unrelated story, "...this is the 100th time out of 100."
On the 5th of April, Collin Brewer announced that he would be restanding for the seat of Wadebirdge East that he had previously held, in the May local elections, once again, as an Independent. In 2009, he had been one of four candidates, but this time, he was up against 5 other candidates, one an Independent also, the other four represented four of the political parties in the UK. Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats and UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party). He stated that the decision was a response to local people who had asked him to stand again.
During the election campaign, the movement that had gotten him out of office, suddenly coalesced again, this time to persuade people not to elect him.
On my own Viewpoint blog, I highlighted the Wadebridge East ward as one of the stories to watch for that night. I didn't know if Collin Brewer was going to be re-elected, but I suspected it would be close. I thought it was too soon for him to have been forgiven for his comments, but I did wonder if he might have persuaded enough people that he hadn't meant what he said.
Come the following day, it was discovered he had won his seat back, by just 4 votes. 4 measley little votes gave him victory, a victory that he certainly hadn't deserved, nor should he have been allowed to earn. Disability Cornwall's chairman Steve Paget was "staggered" and "appalled" at the result. Almost immediately, the movement that had gotten him out once before, went into overdrive, in order to drive him out once again.
In the less than 3 weeks since his election victory, there have been a number of protests and tons of calls for him to resign once again. The leaders of all the political groups in the new council, Liberal Democrat, Independent, Conservative, Labour, Greens, even UKIP, have all called on him to stand down. The new leader of the Independent group, now in coalition with the Liberal Democrats on the new council, has taken the same decision, and said that Collin Brewer is not welcome as part of the Independent block. Collin Brewer is a councillor with no support at all in council.
But even that might not be enough to unseat him, now he feels he has a mandate for his views and an electorate behind him. He has gone one stage further now, in an interview with the Disability News Service, he linked the killing of disabled babies, to farmers killing deformed lambs, a situation that had occured recently due to a disease that was causing many lambs to be born with deformed limbs. Devon and Cornwall Police are investigating complaints about this interview, and more complaints are expected to be lodged with the police. Cornwall Council are also investigating.
As far as my research goes, no Republican has ever dared to suggest such an idea. If you do know different, let me know and point me in the direction of where it was said, I'd be happy to be proved wrong.
So you see, political crazies are not limited to the extreme right wing, they can appear from almost anywhere, even those unaffiliated with any political party or movement. Remain alert everyone, and watch out, for you never know when a political crazy will suddenly rear it's ugly head.
(Cross posted on my Daily Kos diary.)
Oh no, this was an Independent councillor, unaffiliated with any major political party in the UK. Sit back, relax, and listen to a cautionary tale from the other side of the big pond, about a Cornwall councillor, disabled children, and council spending.
First, we must add in some relevant context to this tale. The UK Government is currently a coalition between the Conservatives, the UK equivalent of the Republicans, and The Liberal Democrats, a centre-left party not dissimiliar to the Democrats. That's enough to make you think that coalition would never work, but surprisingly, more than halfway through the five year term, it's holding together. Some activists in the UK have refered to it as a Con-Dem administration.
However in Cornwall Council, these two parties have been on opposite sides of the chamber since 2009. Conservatives once again were in coalition running the council, but this time, with a large group of independent councillors who held more seats than the Liberal Democrats. Cornwall is one of the few counties in the UK where Independent, unaffiliated councillors form a major political force, and will often work together, almost like a political party. The Liberal Democrats had been in charge of the previous county council from 2005 to 2009, but had been voted out of office for creating the current Unitary council, which combined the previous county council and 6 smaller district councils into one body. So, after the 2009 local election, they were the opposition to the Conservative/Independent coalition, along with 3 Green Party councillors.
Our story involves one of the Independent councillors, from a ward called Wadebridge East. His name is Collin Brewer, and he was elected relatively comfortably in 2009. At the time of his election, nobody knew that he was going to become one of the most hated people in Cornish politics. The incident that was to cause him to become the most hated man in Cornish politics happened in 2011 during an event at County Hall in Truro, the administrative capital of Cornwall.
The event was a disability forum, and Mr Brewer was speaking to a member of the organisation Disability Cornwall. Mr Brewer claimed that "...disabled children cost the council too much money and should be put down."
Now, you'd think a comment that controversial would have been reported straight away. Nope, it wasn't reported to the public until February 2013, almost 2 years after the incident happened. Hey, I know the pace of life in Cornwall is a bit slower than in big cities, but not usually that slow!
However, the charity Disability Cornwall did complain to the council and the Standards Committee (yes, we actually have standards committees in UK politics, and they actually do hold people to acceptable standards.) reported its findings in February 2013. After that report, there were many calls for Mr Brewer to stand down as a councillior.
Collin Brewer put up a vigourous defence, claiming that he wasn't being serious, he was only trying to provoke a discussion on the issue of service costs provision, during a time when central government grants to councils was being cut back, and regulations prevented them from raising all the money that had been cut through local taxes like council tax and business rates.
Facebook was mobilised against him, a page that demanded his resignation garnered over 3600 likes. He was told he was no longer welcome as part of the Independent group on Cornwall Council.
But finally on 28th February 2013, Collin Brewer finally realised his position was untenable, and he finally resigned admitting he was wrong, and that he would probably be apologising for it for the rest of his life. He also said it was unlikely that he would stand in the local elections in May. Now you might think that this would be the end of the story and 99 times out of 100, it would be. But as Keith Olbermann once said about an unrelated story, "...this is the 100th time out of 100."
On the 5th of April, Collin Brewer announced that he would be restanding for the seat of Wadebirdge East that he had previously held, in the May local elections, once again, as an Independent. In 2009, he had been one of four candidates, but this time, he was up against 5 other candidates, one an Independent also, the other four represented four of the political parties in the UK. Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats and UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party). He stated that the decision was a response to local people who had asked him to stand again.
During the election campaign, the movement that had gotten him out of office, suddenly coalesced again, this time to persuade people not to elect him.
On my own Viewpoint blog, I highlighted the Wadebridge East ward as one of the stories to watch for that night. I didn't know if Collin Brewer was going to be re-elected, but I suspected it would be close. I thought it was too soon for him to have been forgiven for his comments, but I did wonder if he might have persuaded enough people that he hadn't meant what he said.
Come the following day, it was discovered he had won his seat back, by just 4 votes. 4 measley little votes gave him victory, a victory that he certainly hadn't deserved, nor should he have been allowed to earn. Disability Cornwall's chairman Steve Paget was "staggered" and "appalled" at the result. Almost immediately, the movement that had gotten him out once before, went into overdrive, in order to drive him out once again.
In the less than 3 weeks since his election victory, there have been a number of protests and tons of calls for him to resign once again. The leaders of all the political groups in the new council, Liberal Democrat, Independent, Conservative, Labour, Greens, even UKIP, have all called on him to stand down. The new leader of the Independent group, now in coalition with the Liberal Democrats on the new council, has taken the same decision, and said that Collin Brewer is not welcome as part of the Independent block. Collin Brewer is a councillor with no support at all in council.
But even that might not be enough to unseat him, now he feels he has a mandate for his views and an electorate behind him. He has gone one stage further now, in an interview with the Disability News Service, he linked the killing of disabled babies, to farmers killing deformed lambs, a situation that had occured recently due to a disease that was causing many lambs to be born with deformed limbs. Devon and Cornwall Police are investigating complaints about this interview, and more complaints are expected to be lodged with the police. Cornwall Council are also investigating.
As far as my research goes, no Republican has ever dared to suggest such an idea. If you do know different, let me know and point me in the direction of where it was said, I'd be happy to be proved wrong.
So you see, political crazies are not limited to the extreme right wing, they can appear from almost anywhere, even those unaffiliated with any political party or movement. Remain alert everyone, and watch out, for you never know when a political crazy will suddenly rear it's ugly head.
(Cross posted on my Daily Kos diary.)
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
The UK Budget 2012: Winners and Losers
What George Osborne has done today in Westminster, is akin to being a wolf in sheep's clothing.
On the one hand, he's helped everybody, especially the low paid, by raising the allowance, the starting point at which you earn tax, to £9,205 from April 2013, but he'spenalised the middle income earners, by lowering the point where they start paying 40% down to £41,450. And the rich get the bonus of having the over £150,000 tax rate lowered to 45%.
He's hurting pensioners by freezing their personal allowances until the personal allowance catches up to it.
Child Benefit will be kept by people earning up to £50,000, and there will be a sliding scale, so that when you reach £60,000, you get no child benefit. But that still means two people, earning £49,000 each could get the child benefit, whilst one earning £61,000 would not. That inherent unfairness has not been addressed.
Corporation Tax, will get reduced to 24% in April 2013 and down to 22% in April 2014.
Adding a 7% stamp duty for houses worth over £2,000,000 is one thing, and I do like the idea that any corporations paying for houses over £2,000,000 will pay 15%, that closes that little loophole.
Unfortunately, this is a budget that rewards the super rich, and penalises middle income earners, families and pensioners. It has been dressed up as fair, and it is clearly anything but.
On the one hand, he's helped everybody, especially the low paid, by raising the allowance, the starting point at which you earn tax, to £9,205 from April 2013, but he'spenalised the middle income earners, by lowering the point where they start paying 40% down to £41,450. And the rich get the bonus of having the over £150,000 tax rate lowered to 45%.
He's hurting pensioners by freezing their personal allowances until the personal allowance catches up to it.
Child Benefit will be kept by people earning up to £50,000, and there will be a sliding scale, so that when you reach £60,000, you get no child benefit. But that still means two people, earning £49,000 each could get the child benefit, whilst one earning £61,000 would not. That inherent unfairness has not been addressed.
Corporation Tax, will get reduced to 24% in April 2013 and down to 22% in April 2014.
Adding a 7% stamp duty for houses worth over £2,000,000 is one thing, and I do like the idea that any corporations paying for houses over £2,000,000 will pay 15%, that closes that little loophole.
Unfortunately, this is a budget that rewards the super rich, and penalises middle income earners, families and pensioners. It has been dressed up as fair, and it is clearly anything but.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Viewpoint - MPs Expenses & Commons Reform
A committee that was set up in the wake of the MPs expenses scandal, has published a report that is nothing to do with the MPs Expenses scandal. Ian Beaumont tells the committee what they REALLY should be worried about.
Stay tuned for a Viewpoint Election Commentary coming up shortly.
Thursday, 7 June 2007
Problems at the UK's Capital Life?
It might sound strange, especially with the way radio stations are criticised for high rotation of tracks, but this is real and is happening right now on UK digital radio station Life.
They have been playing the same two songs repeatedly for about 30 minutes and possibly longer. The songs are Big Yellow Taxi by Counting Crows featuring Vanessa Carlton and Sewn by The Feeling. No idents, no sign of any extra tracks. I think the computerised playlist has thrown a wobbly!!!
They have been playing the same two songs repeatedly for about 30 minutes and possibly longer. The songs are Big Yellow Taxi by Counting Crows featuring Vanessa Carlton and Sewn by The Feeling. No idents, no sign of any extra tracks. I think the computerised playlist has thrown a wobbly!!!
Monday, 4 June 2007
Lottery Update: Monday 04th June 2007
In the UK, every day from Monday to Saturday is a lottery day, thanks to the Daily Play draw. Today's results are now online, and unfortunately no-one has won the top prize on the Daily Play, which is £30,000.
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