Radio Waves

Have been picking up snippets on Radio 5 all week. Despite claims in some quarters that the election hasn't caught fire yet most items, even football, are throwing up politics. Three examples :

Health : Flash The Ash

One day I listen aghast as a strange woman rants and raves about MRSA. I have missed the first section and don't know who this is but she is apparently speaking for the Patients' Association. I'm surprised they have sent someone so emotional and unreasonable to make their case on MRSA. Then she says the PA doesn't do party politics ... Though Labour inherited a mess from the Tories they could've done more in eight years. Much has been done but much remains to be done to coin a phrase.

Presenter Victoria is pretty clear that following a climb the MRSA and MSSA figures are going down. The strange, still anonymous, woman says she doesn't believe it for a minute. Victoria says "oh, really why's that?". This is not because she has counter statistics. Not one bit. It is because she has met ONE person who has just got MRSA.

This is the huge weakness in the Lib Dem line WE OPPOSE TARGETS etc. If you don't have targets and statistics and monitoring you are left simply with anecdotes. This is the politics of Jennifer's ear and Margaret's shoulder.

This is one of the ten so called positive pledges which is just glib and negative sophistry. Most of them are. And though the media were onto this immediately all the evidence is that the Lib Dems are now and will continue to be treated less seriously by pundits. They get away with it.

The ranting woman by the way turns out to be esteemed political and health services commentator Lesley Ash.

Race, Asylum, Immigration and Terror : Silly Fash

There is a 'phone in on the Bourgass case. One caller comes out with what comes very close to BNP/NF lines. He demands a five year freeze on immigration including asylum. Dribbling on and on with weasley fascist nonsense. Another caller slams into him. "What I have just heard is racist pure and simple. They dance around this but basically they are racist and don't want black people in Britain." Brilliant.

Future of Football : Chelsea Backlash

Matthews and Mortenson were real gents says the caller who is from Blackpool where she used to wait on tables at a cafe they frequented.

Pretty picture postcards of seasides of yesteryear and cup final goals at 50 don't come to mind though. Because this woman has just given a beautifully coherent analysis of the capitalist exploitation involved in Abramovitch's accumulation of billions of previously collectively owned resources. Only to blue the people's money away on football.

And there's more. Lovely that there's democracy in East and Central Europe. They're now saying they'll do the same for the Middle East. So with this example Oligarchs from Iraq will be asset stripping the people's resources and buying football clubs in far-flung lands - thanks don't forget to the onslaught of freedom and democracy.

In Hollywood the waiting staff may soon be movie stars. In Blackpool, possibly with a little help from the Open University, they may be seeing through Chelsea's new clothes, not to mention that whole freedom-loving-peoples schtick.