Making Sense on Scottish Independence: The questions over what happens next…

I have noticed that a lot of people on social media have a lot of misconception about the whole Scottish Independence issue, especially in the area of what happens afterwards if the vote is in favour of independence.

Let’s start making some sense.  Nothing is going to happen immediately after the result is known.  Independence is a process that will only begin, once the result is known.  During that process, there will be a general election, which will mean that Scottish MPs will continue to sit in the House of Commons until Independence actually happens.  Oh and by the way, there is also a Scottish Parliamentary Election due in 2015, as well as elections to the Assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland. 

There are lots of issues to actually sort out, such as currency, cross border trade, EU membership, UN membership, separation of the public services that are still controlled from Westminster and many others.  One of my favourite things to watch is what will actually happen to the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 in Scotland if they actually vote for independence.  Independence is a process and a negotiation that will take a couple of years to actually sort out.  And there could be two changes of government, one of each side of the negotiation, during the process. 

So we’re looking at a process that will take at least two years to actually sort out, and implement.  So independence for Scotland wouldn’t actually happen until late 2016 at the earliest, and probably not until 2017 if we’re being realistic.

But even if the vote result is not for independence, there will be some very interesting moves of powers from Westminster to Scotland, that much we know is going to happen, but what those exact powers will be, will only be known if the vote goes against independence.

Make no mistake, the story does not end with the result coming out next month.  In fact, we’ll just be getting to the good stuff, either way.

More self employment does not equal more entrepreneurs

Richard Seymour wrote such a brilliant ‘Comment is Free’ column for the Guardian that it actually got me thinking about what he was saying.  The whole article bears reading as it highlights a very worrying trend, but the last paragraph particularly summed it up…

“…The rise in officially counted self-employment, far from representing a surge in individual initiative, is to a large degree the outcome of a disciplinary process. To this extent, enterprise is not being freed so much as it is being forced.”

I had felt this myself, as I am placed in a similar position myself of trying to look for work in order to make a wage that I can actually live on, and enable me to rent my own place, but I find that so many jobs these days are less than 16 hours.

16 hours, by the way, is actually an important figure.  That’s the minimum contract amount you need to actually enable yourself to stop claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in the UK.  If you are working less than 16 hours per week, you are required to still sign on at the Jobcentre.

Even then, part time work, from 16-29 hours, may not be enough to actually enable people to actually live the lives they want to live.  Contrary to what you might have seen on the Jetsons, 3 hour work-days do not enable you to have all the mod-cons of today’s hi-tech world, especially when you are on minimum wage for doing an unskilled task, such as pressing buttons all day.  The Jetsons might have been a 1960s vision of the future, but in socio-economic terms, it’s prediction of part time working was correct, but not what you could do around that ‘part-time working’ culture, or indeed what you can buy through part-time working.

This ‘part-time working’ culture has led to situations where people have to work 2 or more part-time jobs to make a living wage, or go down the route of self-employment if you want to make some money, which is exactly what Richard Seymour talks about.

And yes, it does feel like you are being forced down that route, rather than being inspired to go down that route.  As Dr John Demartini might put it, self-employment has become just another means of rescuing desperation, rather than rewarding inspiration.

Self employment in and of itself, is not a bad thing.  I would heartily recommend that every worker tries self-employment at least once in their career.  The time spent doing that will open your eyes and your mind in ways you never thought possible.

But if self-employment is becoming merely another way to rescue ourselves from the damage caused by the ‘part time working’ culture that is so beloved by the Conservatives and by business, then that is not a good thing, and it cannot help to undo the damage that is being caused by businesses worldwide that favour part time working, over full time working, and having a team that views what they do at work, as being more than just a means to earn the money to do the things they truly want to do.

If the Government truly wants to cut the benefits bill, they need to encourage businesses to have more full-time workers, on a living wage, therefore eliminating the need for part time workers under 16 hours to have to continue to sign on and claim benefits, and by having business pay living wages, it would also cut the number of people who are claiming housing benefit on low pay, because they need it to pay the rent on their accommodation.  Criminalising the unemployed is not the way to go.  Turning the part-time culture back towards a full-time culture, most definitely is.

ITV needs to make its sports coverage distinctive.

Originally posted as part of LinkedIn Pulse, as I am now an author there as well.  Keep up with my postings there by clicking or tapping here.

In these days it's very rare for competing channels to both show the same thing, but Sunday night, 13th July in the UK, that's exactly what happened, as both BBC1 and ITV went head to head with competing coverage of the FIFA World Cup final. How is this possible you ask? BBC and ITV are both members of the EBU, the European Broadcasting Union, who actualy have the rights to show the World Cup across Europe, which they do via their various member stations.

Now, there is a history when it comes to BBC1 and ITV both showing the same event at the same time. Usually ITV loses, and it was the same here, although the margin in terms of viewing figures is huge.

According to a report on the BBC News website, the overnight figures showed that BBC1 had an average of 12.1 million viewers for the World Cup final, against 2.9 million viewers for ITV. The peaks for both channels were 16.7 million for BBC1 and 3.9 million for ITV.

This is becoming so routine for ITV, that you'd think they'd either give up, or try something else, but no, they seem happy to take the hit generally. However, this is a mere symptom of a much bigger problem at ITV Sport, and it is this. ITV Sport generally underperforms against similar BBC Sport coverage. If you were to look at the averages of live football coverage on BBC against similar live coverage on ITV, BBC is more watched, more often. But why?

It's a weird thing really, but in general terms, ITV Sport has a major image problem. It's too often seen to be style over substance, where BBC Sport is often felt to be more substantive. Is that a fair criticism? Not really. At one time, back in ITV's heyday, their coverage of sports was often just as substantive as BBC's, even though sometimes they'd have to settle for lower profile sports and events. But ITV's image took a general hit overall from about 1993 onwards. The hit was mainly in News and Sports coverage and Comedy, which had been areas that various ITV companies had excelled in. It was painful at times to watch what had been a great broadcaster slowly decay.

But in 2000, the rights for Premiership highlights went from BBC to ITV, and ITV announced what they hoped would be their saving grace for Sports coverage. "The Premiership" was to be the first time that Premier League football highlights were to air in PrimeTime, indeed, airing at 7pm from the start of the 2001/2002 season. ITV hoped that this would make them the new goto company for sports coverage. At around the same time, ITV launched the ITV Sport Channel on their digital terrestrial subscription service, ITV Digital, previously known as On Digital. ITV Digital had acquired the Football League rights at around the same time, and were showing these games on the new ITV Sport Channel. For some baffling reason, ITV, in the form of Carlton and Granada, decided that the ITV Sport Channel should not air on Sky, to try to give ITV Digital a competitive advantage.

It was a mistake. One of many that ITV did around that time. I should know. I was covering the whole ITV Digital debacle at the time for Transdiffusion. It was one of the lowest periods in ITV's history. A news service that was pretty universally derided as being style over substance; a failed platform in ITV digital, and a failed sports channel. 2002 was a low point for ITV, and their Premiership highlights were not helping matters. Instead of being at 7pm, the highlights had gotten relegated to a 10.30pm slot, due to low ratings, and would remain there until the end of the rights package in 2004, where upon the rights for Premiership highlights returned to the BBC, and have stayed there ever since.

But why did the Premiership highlights programme do so badly? That truly was style over substance. A typical 75 minute programme contained just under 30 minutes of highlights, far less than BBC had given to highlights previously, usually almost an hour out of an 80 minute show.

Since then, ITV has learned their lesson about substance, although some high profile automation problems that interrupted live football coverage at key times, have not helped their reputation. But now, ITV need to do something rather more radical if they are to undo all the years of damage and neglect that they have done to their Sports department. They need to be as radical as Sky Sports was when they first appeared on the scene back in 1991. But again, they mustn't over-emphasise style over substance, as substance is what wins ratings, something Sky Sports knew about in 1991, although they had their own style, they backed it up with substance.

ITV needs to create their own style, and back it up with substance, something ITV News has had to relearn to do since their 1999-2004 low point. Now ITV Sport needs to do the same. At the moment, they don't really do a lot to distinguish themselves, and sacrificing substance for style just isn't an option, not with the state of the sports broadcasting industry today. EuroSport, BT Sport and Sky Sports are all big players these days in the world of sports rights, along with the BBC. ITV do have some major events, such as The Tour De France, The French Open Tennis, and some Darts and Snooker tournaments, but most sport now is relegated to ITV4, rather than on the main channel. If ITV want to make themselves a sports powerhouse, then they need to have coverage with a lot of substance, in a strong authoritative style, that defines ITV, the way ITV News is now defined by the greater emphasis on human interest news. Maybe ITV Sport should emphasise the match coverage, rather than analysis. It would differentiate them from BBC and just about everybody else in sports broadcasting. Such a strategy would be a radical departure from ITV's long time emphasis on celebrities and personalities in sports coverage, but it would be enough of a departure that might get them noticed again in the sports broadcasting world.

ITV have been stuck in a rut for too long. They say a change is as good as a rest. ITV certainly need to make some major changes.

Murray sleepwalked to defeat? No Way!

So Andy Murray went out today at Wimbledon to 11th seed, the Bulgarian, Grigor Dmitrov, in straight sets.  And on social media, Murray was getting hammered, by people saying that he had sleepwalked into this defeat. 

Actually, it’s more like people sleepwalking into giving criticism that’s based on false premises and over-inflated, over-hyped expectations.  People were expecting Murray to actually successfully defend his title this year.  Only 4 men have achieved the distinction of defending the Men’s Singles at Wimbledon after your first championship during the Open era.  By far the most impressive of these, was Bjorn Borg, who won his first Wimbledon Men’s Singles in 1976, and then went on a run of 5 titles in a row, from 1976 to 1980.  He was only prevented in making it six on the trot in 1981, by a young brash American tennis player, named John McEnroe, who played the game of his life, to defeat Borg, who was still at the peak of his game, at a mere 25 years old. 

The other 3 to achieve that feat.  Boris Becker, in 1985 and 1986; Pete Sampras, in 1993 and 1994; and Roger Federer, in 2003 and 2004.  Coincidentally, there have also been 4 women to achieve the same feat.  Martina Navratilova in 1978 and 1979, Steffi Graf in 1988 and 1989, Venus Williams in 2000 and 2001, and Serena Williams in 2002 and 2003.  To have successfully defended the title this year, would have put Andy Murray in a very exclusive club indeed, a club that does not include Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Pat Cash, Stefan Edberg, Andre Agassi, Goran Ivanisevic, Rafael Nadal, Leyton Hewitt or Novak Djokovic.  So there’s no shame in falling short of defending a title. 

And the other part of the equation, Grigor Dmitrov, has been on a roll since towards the end of 2013.  He won the Stockholm Open, his first title in his career, and this year, he has taken off, winning another 3 tournaments; The Abierto Mexicano Telcel in Acapulco, The Nastase Tiriac Trophy in Bucharest and The Aegon Championship at Queen’s Club.  In fact, on grass courts right now, Grigor Dmitrov has won 10 matches in a row, a very impressive run by anybody’s standards.  Dmitrov is definitely the hot player right now.  His confidence is very high, and he is playing the kind of tennis that wins championships.  Murray just had a bad day at the office, played very passive against a very aggressive opponent, who actively prepared to face him, and Murray didn’t have the answers.

You know sometimes we tend to give criticism far too easily and often far too quickly, without actually considering all the evidence and background.  Too often, opinions on social media are written from the lower levels of the brain, which is very emotional, and often very limited in the kinds of responses that are available to you.  Stop, and think, and actually do some research.  Jurgen Klinsman, the USA’s team manager in Soccer’s World Cup, warned people about expecting too much from the team.  It’s always nice to root for someone to win, or for a team to win, but be realistic about it.  Nobody can win every time, as much as we might like them to.

The lottery of the penalty shootout

In this World Cup so far, we have had 4 second round and 2 penalty shootouts.  In that sense, we have had 2 of the most different penalty shootouts that you could have possibly had already during this second round.

The first one involved Brazil and Chile, where there were as many penalties saved as there were scored.  The second one involved Costa Rica, the unexpected unbeaten team of this World Cup, and Greece, and in that one, only one penalty was missed, by Greece at a crucial time, their fourth penalty, which meant that Costa Rica had to score to win, which they did.  Costa Rica didn’t miss a single penalty, and that is one of the rare situations where you can truly say that a team went through on penalties on merit, scoring every single one they took.

Otherwise, the penalty shootout is a lottery.  Saved penalties, missed penalties, over the bar, wide, hitting the woodwork, easy saves, spectacular saves, we’ve seen them all at various points.  It’s no way to end even a Johnston’s Paint Trophy match, let alone something as big as a World Cup match. 

No team ever deserves to go out on penalties, and it hurts to see it.  Some commentators seem to be under the false idea that a penalty shootout is something that all neutral fans love.  In fact, I find this not to be true at all.  Most true sports fans, the ones who want to see a great game, no matter who teams, no matter what the sport, absolutely hate the penalty shootout.  It turns a game of skill, heart, passion and conditioning, into a game of chance, a game of luck, a game of who can win the lottery.

In sports like basketball and hockey, you get overtime periods, and you keep getting overtime periods until you score.  In Soccer, you have 2 15-minute periods of Extra Time, no more and no less.  Then you are onto penalties.  Golden goal extra time was trialled, as was silver goal, where you had until the end of the 15 minute period to reply, depending on how late the goal was scored.  For some baffling reason, both players and fans complained about these, and they have been quietly forgotten by most within the game, and most fans as well. 

But, if after 2 periods of extra time, you cannot separate them, then you should have additional periods of extra time, where the next goal finishes the game.  It should be a moment of skill that wins it, not a moment of luck.  It would also stop the horrible situation that we get in most extra time games, where one or both teams ends up playing for penalties, for some, most or in some cases, all of that second period of extra time. 

Costa Rica’s penalty shootout was the exception that proved the rule.  Scoring every penalty you take, you can’t argue that they didn’t deserve to go through from that match, especially as they had a pretty blatant handball in the 18 yard box, missed by the referee, and that meant they didn’t get the penalty they should have had, but in the end, it didn’t matter, justice was done, and Costa Rica continue as the surprise undefeated team of this World Cup.

But I hope that sometime soon, we can finally persuade the footballing authorities, to do away with the lottery that is the penalty shootout.  It’s no way to decide a game, especially not at a World Cup.

Madonna and Katy Perry raunch it up, dominatrix style

I rarely post about the celebrity obsessed side of the media, as to be honest, it mostly bores me.  It either builds them up or tears them down, and that’s pathetically predictable and predictably boring.

Another predictable story angle is when a celebrity does a raunchy photo shoot or video, the more culturally conservative elements, will go batty over the raunchiness, and hyper-criticise the shoot.

So, when we had the raunchy shoot that involved Madonna and Katy Perry in lots of leather and thigh high boots, we got it all.

Personally, I believe in artistic freedom, and that means doing things that maybe aren’t quite so family friendly, alongside the more family friendly material.  Adults are fans of these singers, as well as kids, so they should be allowed to do something that is designed to appeal to their more adult fans.  Besides, there’s something really refreshing about seeing Madonna being dominated by Katy Perry in a few of those shots.

The alternatives to the Dawlish route, and those getting in the way.

BBC News Online has a page up about the alternatives to the Dawlish route, for the railways in Cornwall and Devon.

Now, I’ve posted about this before, both on my radio show’s Facebook page, and here on the Viewpoint blog.  And I’ll be honest with you, this matters a lot to me.  After the closure of Plymouth City Airport, the loss of the helicopter link to the Isles of Scilly, and the continued situation at Newquay airport, which could close if subsidy isn’t made available, the fact that our only rail link to Exeter, Bristol, London, Birmingham, Scotland, and Wales is shut for 2 months, is a situation I want us to avoid in the future, AT ALL COSTS.

Let me say that again, at all costs.

With that said, let’s look at the routes proposed. 

The first three I’ll mention here, are new routes, which require a lot of work.  They basically by-pass Dawlish to rejoin the main line, either at Dawlish Warren, Powderham or Exminster.  These are not pre-existing lines, and would require a lot more work than any of the other routes.  In my view, these would only be any good if there had been no other alternatives.

The next route I’ll mention here is the old Teign Valley line, which connects Newton Abbot to Exeter, via Chudleigh and Christow.  It needs a little rebuilding, but it is a workable solution for when the Dawlish line is disrupted as it has been this winter.  I do have to agree with what the experts say though, it is of limited benefit really, but after the disruption we’ve had, I’ll happily take a limited benefit route over the messy situation that we as travellers have had to put up with.  This route should be put in place.

The last route is my personal favourite and should be running all the time, even alongside the main Dawlish route.  This is the over Dartmoor route that runs from Plymouth, up the current Gunnislake branch line to Bere Alston, then up an already committed line to Tavistock, then along a rebuilt stretch to Okehampton before joining up with an existing line that is currently used for freight, and Sunday passenger service during the summer, to Exeter.  This route should never have closed in the first place, and frankly, it shouldn’t be just an emergency route, it should be in operation all day, every day.

Unfortunately some people near the Tavistock route, seem to have very distorted priorities in this affair…

“…Colin Rogers, who owns the old Tavistock station - a mixture of holiday cottages and private homes - said property owners were concerned about how much compensation they would get…”

Compensation?  COMPENSATION???

Perhaps those property owners should consider compensating the business in their own area and everywhere westward for the loss of income that has resulted from the line closure at Dawlish.  If they invested in property without having a substantial cushion of liquid capital, then they’re playing in a class that they have no right to be in.  If they can’t handle the risk, they shouldn’t be playing the high risk, high rent district of property.

Viewpoint Sports: Does being 'booked' actually mean anything?

I've been thinking about this for a while, during various times watching either live football or football highlights programmes.  You watch a player commit a foul, and the referee decides that the foul is serious enough to warrant a 'booking' as it is called.  So the referee calls the player over, produces a yellow card, and puts the player's name and/or number in a little black book that he carries.

Sorry, but what kind of penalty is that?  What does going in the referee's little black book actually mean?

Apparently, not much.  A yellow card is a 'caution' that is issued to the player concerned.  That's it, merely a caution.  In Rugby Union, a player that is yellow carded is sent to the 'Sin Bin', for 10 minutes, temporarily reducing the team by 1, which in other sports is sometimes refered to as a "Power Play".

On this day, there were 5 Premier League matches in England.  Between those 5 games, there were 17 yellow cards and 2 red cards.  Now one of those reds was a straight red card, and upon viewing the footage, even that seemed harsh.  The Scottish Premiership saw 2 matches today, one of which had no yellow or red cards, the other had 5 yellows and no reds.  7 top flight games in the UK, and between them all, 22 yellow cards and 2 red cards.

In the English Premier League today, one team, Southampton, had 5 yellow cards issued against them. That's almost half a team in the referee's book.  It's not as bad as an infamous match in the 2006 World Cup when Portugal and the Netherlands were issued 16 yellow cards between them and 4 players got yellow carded twice and got sent off. 

It seems that cautions mean nothing.  Maybe it is time to change what a yellow card actually means in Football. 

Now there are two possible options.  One is to make a yellow card mean the same as it does in Rugby Union, 10 minutes in a penalty box or sin bin for the player shown the card, temporarily reducing the team strength by 1.  Such a move would stop the cynical fouls that result in bookings that prevent what look to be potential goals.  It would also make players think twice before making silly challenges as your team being down a player for 10 minutes is more of a penalty, than a mere caution.  Upon a second yellow card, it would still become a red and a sending off for the duration of the game. 

The other, is to separate the yellow card and red card offences, in other words two yellows would not be an automatic red card, and have various penalties, probably various cards, for differing lengths of time in the 'Sin Bin'.  You could have three levels of penalty, worth 5 minutes, 10 minutes or 15 minutes depending on how serious the foul was, and the red card would still mean sending off. 

I like both thoughts, and to be honest, either one would have more of a deterrent effect than a mere caution. 

Good Morning Britain to return, but is it the change needed?

Earlier this week, we had perhaps the worst kept secret in broadcasting revealed to be true.  Good Morning Britain was indeed to return to ITV, although this time the hosts would be Susannah Reid, joining from BBC Breakfast; Ben Sheppard, former GMTV host; Charlotte Hawkins, joining from Sky News; and Sean Fletcher, joining from Sky Sports News and previously with BBC News Channel.

But this is not the first time ITV has changed the name of their breakfast programme.  In fact, Daybreak came about as a result of perceived problems with GMTV. 

But is another change of name and personnel what is required, or is it a case of moving the deckchairs on the Titanic?

In my analysis of Daybreak, and it's competition, BBC Breakfast, I noticed that whilst Breakfast looks like it comes from a BBC News studio, the look of Daybreak contrasts quite wildly with ITV News, despite having ITV News branded bulletins as part of Daybreak.  If anything, ITV needs to make it more like ITV News.  At the very least, the news bulletins every half hour should come from the ITV News virtual studio, albeit the colour scheme of the studio should reflect the Good Morning Britain look, to distinguish it from other ITV News bulletins, in the same way that ITV News at Ten does from the other bulletins.  

Editorially, the ITV News agenda has improved massively since the days of the 1999-2004 editorial debacle that was the excessively tabloid ITV News, which had replaced ITN News, even though the new look ITV News was still produced by ITN.  But the morning agenda, which has been carried through GMTV and Daybreak, hasn't caught up quite.  At times, it does catch up, and at other times, it seems to go backwards to being more tabloid again.  GMB needs to be popular, not tabloid.  There is a distinct difference, and it needs to be explained.

Tabloid is what you see in the red-tops, over-hyped, editorialised, and generally overdoing everything kind of news.  Another form of tabloid agenda is one that has been popularised by some local US TV stations, 'If It Bleeds, It Leads'. That's tabloid.  Shock value over News Value.

Popular News, as I call it, is the kind of news that actually isn't overhyped, isn't sensationalised, and isn't necessarily showbiz-based, but it is based on what people actually need to know.  It includes news about the economy and consumer related items, essential news about politics, mostly about real issues rather than the endless debates about Europe in the Westminster bubble; and it would also include some news about crime, although not in the hyper-sensentionalised 'if it bleeds, it leads' way that tabloid news does.

If ITV wants Good Morning Britain to be more successful than Daybreak, then it needs to totally embrace the current ITV News agenda, which is more like what I call 'Popular News'.  

But more than that, it needs to avoid the trap of going for competitions through the morning. Competitions are not required at that time of the morning, because most people who have the TV on at that time of day, can't stop to think about what the answer is, so don't bother with them.  Radio is learning this, and slowly moving away from competitions during their breakfast shows.

More than that though, GMB needs to cover things like Sport, which seems to get very little coverage currently on Daybreak.  Having Sean Fletcher as part of the team seems to indicate they are taking that angle more seriously.  Another angle that needs more coverage in the mornings is regional news.  6 minutes of regional updates across 3 bulletins, one per hour, isn't enough, when your competition is running 18 minutes of regional updates across 6 bulletins, twice an hour.  The contrast is stark, very stark.  If anything, even just a doubling of the number of updates, making theirs twice an hour, would be an improvement, but more than that, they do need to make their updates longer, and do something with them that makes them not just a copy of what the BBC does, but distinctive.

Some showbiz news will be a part of the programme, especially around the time of the awards ceremonies, like The Oscars.   But overdoing showbiz news is not a good thing, especially in the mornings.  ITV News has a lot of resources across the country, and using those resources wisely for the right stories, is going to be part of making GMB a success.

If they make a few changes of substance alongside the returning name and the new presenters, then it could help turn ITV's fortunes around.  If not, then it will simply be moving the deckchairs on the sinking ship.  Only time will tell us, if that is what happens.

Dawlish rail link to re-open April 4th.

This is a story that pleases me no end.

It will be exactly 2 months between the line getting damaged by storms, and the line re-opening, and that is great news.

Network Rail has been working around the clock to make the repairs that are needed to restore the line to working order.  They deserve our thanks and our appreciation.

Also, First Great Western deserve a lot of credit, for how they have handled the entire situation.  They have worked very hard to make sure that, as much as physically possible, some kind of service remained in place, even if it wasn't the one they had wanted to run, as based on their published timetable.

However, the whole situation has shown up issues that need to be tackled without delay.

The first one I'm going to bring up, is the continuing debate over whether there should be an airport in Plymouth.

I'm going to make no bones about this.  THERE MUST BE AN AIRPORT IN PLYMOUTH.

Why?  You even need to ask why?  The old Plymouth City Airport to London service could transport people there in less than an hour, whjilst the train still takes 3 hours at quickest.

It was also linked to Newquay Airport, in fact the route started there.  The whole route from Newquay to London via Plymouth took no more than 90 minutes, and was run up to 5 times a day.  And if you think that is the only route that Plymouth had, think again.  There were many others to other UK domestic airports, which made for a speedy connection to many places.

Such services could be provided again.  Flights to the Channel Islands, Bristol, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast, Derry, Birmingham, St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly (via Newquay and Lands End[if they can tarmac it]), Leeds, Southhampton, Manchester, Liverpool and many more places are all possible, helping to create an air network that would be speedier than the train, and enable cross country travel between the South West and the rest of the country in no more than 3 hours.  Heck, even some limited international flights to places like Dublin or Paris would help no end.

Sadly, the airport's owners, Sutton Harbour Holdings, have shown no real interest in re-opening the airport, claiming it wouldn't be viable.  Yet it seems to be the case that the airport was viable when Plymouth City Council operated it.  And maybe a consortium could run Newquay and Plymouth airports together, making sure both remained viable and operational.

Because in many ways, when Plymouth City Airport closed, the routes that ran from Newquay became a problem, as the customers that were picked up at Plymouth made those routes viable.  Now the airport at Newquay needs subsidy to run.  If Newquay closes, then Exeter becomes the only major airport in the South West, and as we've seen with the railways since February 4th, getting to Exeter would be problematic.

So what to do about the railway itself?  Well, the favourite idea for creating a second route, has been the re-opening of the old LSWR line that ran from Exeter to Plymouth via Okehampton and Tavistock.  The route from Plymouth to Tavistock has already be committed to prior to this, and it does seem to make sense to re-open that old stretch of track.  The line was closed in 1968, and it was a shame that this happened.  The process of concentrating traffic on one line, the one that got damaged on February 4th, meant that old LSWR line was deemed surplus to requirements.  It doesn't seem surplus to requirements now.

There is also an old Teign Valley route which is being considered, and in my view, reviving this, AS WELL AS, the Plymouth, Tavistock, Okehampton, Exeter route, would be an ideal double solution to the problem.  The northern line needs to be revived anyway, and run as a regular service all the time.  The Teign Valley line would work as a back up should the line at Dawlish get damaged again.

There is one other point that I would like to make in regards to the railways around Cornwall and Devon.  The fact that some areas, especially around North Cornwall, have been cut off from the railway network and could do with being revived in order to create a second Great Western route.  The line between Newquay and Perranporth should be re-opened, as should the lines that connected Padstow, Bude and Launceston to the rail network.  Indeed, connections should be made between Penzance and Perranporth, possibly via St Ives, and between Newquay and Padstow, which would have the effect of creating a nice mini network of lines that since 1963 have only been served by bus services, and that has meant that the bus companies, First Western National and Western Greyhound, have something of a public transport monopoly in those areas, and it would bring competition back. 

At the moment, the lack of transport connections is reinforcing the old image of those of us in Cornwall and Devon as being in the sticks and cut off from the rest of the country.  We need to counteract that immediately.  Restore the lines that should never have been cut, the connections that are in danger need to be protected, and even enhanced as much as possible.  We must not rely entirely on roads, especially roads like the A38 where there are accidents every day, which close the road for hours at a time.

Newquay Airport must remain open.  Plymouth City Airport must be re-opened.  Lands End Airport must be tarmaced.  The old railway lines that were closed must be re-opened.  We must do whatever it takes, pay any price, to make sure our links with not just the rest of the country, but also the rest of the world, are not cut off.