Last month, the excellent London mayor Ken Livingstone was ousted, with a great deal of innuendo spread about him.

The big stories were about how Lee Jasper (who?) spent 0.0000000001% of the mayoral budget after e-mailing Kumar Murshid (who?).

Not once, did you, or I, hear screeching headlines on papers, that read something like this:

"Ken announces housing revolution"

It seems that Ken announced the biggest housing building programme for a generation, spending £4 bn on affordable housing. But the right-wing media would hate to have anyone believe that things can really, and have got better under a Labour government. They offer no intellectual arguments to rubbish some of this government's greatest achievements.

Housing, has been an area that has got worse continuously since Thatcher was elected. And Ken was doing his part to help housing for an area that holds 10% of the population.

Notice how not even the Mirror, or the Guardian, compared this excellent policy with Boris' plan to help affordable housing for those earning OVER £60,000. That isn't a misprint. In an age of extreme inequality, Boris was only going to help the top 20%.

Boris' populist plan over bendy buses similarly drowned out the bussing revolution launched by Ken. 2 million more people were on buses, after Ken reversed the disasterous effect deregulation of bus services had upon London.

This is just a small example, of how the media doesn't report the radical policies of governments, and so New Labour has had to resort to populist headline-grabbers, that don't effect anyone.

Today we are getting a strong committment from the party leadership to listen effectively.

Getting this right matters, and we need to work on ways of improving the listening process, right through from from the door knockers like myself to the inner circles of Government. 

Doing it right will give us the early warning systems we need to deal with problems quietly, rather than in the middle of a media frenzy.  

Iain Dale will be verbally duelling with me on Question Time Extra this Thursday (BBC News 24 11.35pm)

If you're watching QT anyway, please do email the show amusing questions that will give me the opportunity to remind Iain that Tories are evil!

The link to submit questions is here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/6994949.stm

In gratitude for your support, I shall organise a Karaoke night in April.

Thanks

Alex Hilton
07985 384 859
alexhilton@gmail.com

Gordon Brown has ruled out the possibility of his taking part in a US style televised debate with David Cameron and Nick Clegg in the run up to the next General Election.

Will Parbury calls for more openess and transparency in the media

I've always had my suspicions. With people like Melanie Philips (Daily Mail) believing climate change to be some sort of socialist conspiracy and the Sun describing environmentalists as 'green hippy lunatics' its easy to feel sceptical towards these papers when they talk about green issues. If one ever wanted proof though of the absurd lengths these papers will go to to stop action on climate change then go no further than this weeks private eye. It has an excellent story showing the amount of trash that came out of these papers preceding the heathrow protest. Read on and enjoy.

Quite out of the blue, I have been asked (as a prominent blogger!) to give oral evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications.

The committee is investigating media ownership and the news and I'd be grateful for your thoughts on the points below that have been sent to me.

Lord Puttnam, award winning film maker and president of Unicef UK, writes this weeks guest blog.  He talks about the importance of including digital technology in educational practice to make it more relevant to young people's lives.

This blog is posted on www.the2020vision.org.uk. To read it and leave your comments click here

Saturday's conference was another chance for everyone to plot the renewal of New Labour

Adam Bowen adam.bowen@bbc.co.uk Researcher, Politics Show (vacancy no: 82676)
Close Date: 10/09/2006
Job Ref: 82676
Department: Political Programmes
Location: Central London
Grade: 5D
Contract Length: 5 months (contract until end February 2007)
Contract Type: Attachment, Contract

The Tories criticise the number of press officers the government employs on the public purse.

tyger on Ned Timko's article on today's MediaGuardian about politcal blogs

we are giving the media huge ammunition of course, like the dying days of Thatcher and Major, but they do love it dont they.  I dont remember the media pack feasting with such violence and consistency as they are doing now with our misfortune.  Is this terminal?  What is to be done.  I am not convinced that Gordon Brown will be treated with any more objectivity, wont they just rip into him too?