My colleagues and I got a very positive response from most people in Chase ward, Enfield, and I had three particularly interesting debates:

• One man told me he was voting BNP to send a wake-up call to the main parties, even though he didn’t really fancy them or their policies.
• Another man told me that he was a Conservative, but was voting for Ken because his son was finding it too expensive to go to work, and because he didn’t like how elitist the Government appears.
• One couple told me that they were not going out to vote at all because they were fed-up with all politicians and felt disenchanted with the whole lot.

I knocked on the doors of a few supporters to thank them for their support and remind people that there would be no Party without them.

When wrapping up as the darkness descended, the local MP, Nick de Bois, and I rescued a young girl who was sitting at a bus-stop in Lancaster Road from a nutter who was pleading for her telephone number and not taking no for an answer.

“I’m your local MP!” said Nick cheerfully, “Marcus is your local councillor.”

“Wow!” she said. “Thanks so much, Mr Politicians.”

All in all, a fascinating and fun day, and I fully expect us to wake to tomorrow to find London once again warmly cosseted in the ample bosom of Mayor Johnson with Red Ken finally sent off into the wilderness where he belongs!

Enfield Town Library

Cate Blanchett - untouched and beautiful!

Earlier today I read a very interesting article on ‘Shine’ regarding several recent examples of celebrities who are resisting the use of doctored and digitally-enhanced images of themselves in the media.

There are some particularly strange examples of celebrities looking wonderful au naturel, but being altered, no doubt to please the tastes of those who thought that they needed enhancement. They didn’t – natural beauty is the only beauty.

I am hoping that this is the start of a movement against the use of routinely-altered images, and I used the word ‘altered’ rather than enhanced, deliberately.

Magazine covers are dominated by images that are nothing more than digital creations inspired by photography, and in doing so they manipulate their readers and society in a way that is damaging for both men and women.

Men are too often presented with unrealistic images of women that corrupt their understanding of real beauty, and objectify and sexualise women.

In turn, women are bombarded by ‘idealised’ images that they can never hope to live up to, but feel under increasing pressure to do so, no doubt contributing to increasing prevalence of self-esteem issues and eating disorders that we read about in the same magazines that place these images on their covers.

I hope that the recent move away from celebrities wanting to be airbrushed is the start of a change in attitudes towards the manipulation of images – and society.

Let’s see natural beauty, not manufactured confections…

Britney Spears airbrushed - but why? The original image was beautiful.

I asked the very nice waitress for a Doggy Bag so that the leftovers it didn’t go to waste, and I took it back to the office with me and dreamt about having it in a sandwich tomorrow.

However, on the way home, a homeless man came into my Tube carriage and made a plea for money to buy food.

Pretty much everyone ignored him, but I asked him if he was genuinely hungry.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m not kidding.”

I took out my lovely bit of sirloin with fried courgettes and Parmesan and handed it to him in the plastic tub. He looked genuinely grateful and thanked me warmly and it reminded me how privileged I am to have more than I need.

I’m really glad that I took the extra food and didn’t just bin it – I’m going to make that a policy now. We should all take our extra food when we leave restaurants and give it to those less fortunate than ourselves.

Picture of Il Baretto

In this sequence I talk about the use of social media to drive donations for charities, and the full session including the slides used is available from Third Sector Magazine at: http://www.donationsthroughsocialmedia.com/

Click here to view the embedded video.

http://www.economist.com/node/21536460

Picture of a robot writing an article about robots

Few can fail to remember where they were when the news of the first aeroplane striking the North Tower. I was in my office at Agency.com in Crinan Street preparing for a pitch with a number of my colleagues from New York.

The images were so confusing that I didn’t know what to make of them at first. It had to be an accident, but how could a pilot accidentally crash into one of NYC’s greatest landmarks?

When the second plane hit the South Tower just over 17 minutes later, it was obvious that this was no accident and a wave of shock rippled through the office; people were genuinely speechless.

World Trade Centre after being struck by hijacked aeroplanes

Today, 10 years on, the world has changed forever and the moving tributes remind us of how much this terrorist attack has shaped the world – leading to two wars, countless lives lost and a loss of innocence.

Many things impressed me about the dignified nature of the memorials around the world, and something in particular made me think:

This afternoon in London, I was amazed to see a group of Islamic Extremists burning the Stars & Stripes during the 9/11 memorial in Grosvenor Square, taking advantage of the very freedom of speech that they would happily deny others.

At first it made me angry as it reminded me that not everyone is united in grief, and that there are some very unpleasant people out there, but then it was also a reminder how tolerant our society is to rightly allow them their freedom of expression, no matter how distasteful.

Our protection of the right to free speech is one of the things that makes our society so great, and the terrorists clearly failed in their attempt to undermine that.

God bless America , God bless the United Kingdom and God bless those who died in the attack, and as a result of the devastation.

Image of a 911 Memorial Stone

D’Angelo – Cruisin’ on MUZU.TV

(You may have to tolerate a brief advert that runs before the music video!)

Dave Prentis: 'The purpose of industrial action is not industrial action, it is to get an agreement that is acceptable.' (Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian)

The argument put forward by the union is that the Government shouldn’t push ahead with plans to increase the retirement age for public sector workers, to move away from final salary pensions or to force them to make greater payments into their pensions because it is unfair; this argument denies the basic economic realities – the Government has no choice.

Historically, it was the case that public sector professionals accepted that they would be paid less than those in the private sector, but that in return they would have better conditions – more holiday allowance, earlier retirement age and greater stability. Workers in the private sector experienced less security, less holiday allowance and worse pension provisions, but earned greater salaries with which to make their own provisions for their financial future.

The differences between the two sectors have been eroded over a number of years, to the extent that some jobs in the public sector now have greater salaries than those of equivalent responsibility in the private sector, due to the need to attract the best talent into the public sector into less ‘glamourous’ roles.

At the same time, workers in the private sector have experienced significant downward pressure on salaries as a result of globalisation and the global recession, and so the balance that existed no longer prevails – the difference between the working conditions across the whole of the economy are now much more similar than they once were.

Against this backdrop, it is hard to understand how the leadership of the Unison can justify the inevitable equalisation of pension provisions for public sector workers when people across the whole of the economy are suffering as we fight our way out of the economic mess left by years of Labour mismanagement.

It is hard to imagine that people in the retail sector who have seen their hours reduced and their salaries squeezed by increased living costs whilst having to work harder and faster than ever before will have much sympathy for striking workers that prevent them getting to work by disrupting train and Tube services or deny their children the education that they need by closing schools – especially when those public sector workers are often better paid.

However, I also sympathise with the overwhelming majority of that union’s membership who DID NOT vote for strike action; can a 20% vote for strike action really be considered sufficiently representative to justify a strike? It defies all logic.

It certainly cannot give Dave Prentis and Unison’s leadership a mandate to call strikes “on a scale not seen since the General Strike of 1926″ – such language is clearly politically motivated, and driven by ideology and a desire to bring down a Tory-led government, rather than what is in the best interests of the workers they are meant to represent.

Can workers really afford to give up wages at a time of economic hardship, especially when only a minority of them support strike action? Will they be willing to do so, when so few of them could even be bothered to vote in the first place?

Even Ed Balls, writing today, seems to be encouraging the unions not to strike, conscious that our delicate economic recovery simply cannot sustain a wave of rolling industrial action – it would be irresponsible.

It’s likely the the British public will not be sympathetic to strikers whose working conditions are at least as good as – and in many cases better than – their own.

Bearing this in mind, surely going on strike is the last thing that the unions should be doing now?

Weakening the economy can hardly be in the interests of the people that the unions purport to protect and serve – they should be thinking strategically, rather than focus on the little picture.

I have a feeling that George Osborne will welcome a fight with the unions – it will give the Government a reason to introduce legislation (quite rightly in my opinion) that will force unions to secure at least 50% of the votes of their membership to legitimately hold strikes.

More importantly, it will accelerate the reform of the public sector in a way that aligns well with the Government’s overall plan to reduce the size of the public sector and stimulate growth in the private sector.

I’m torn; I do not want to see our economic recovery disrupted by unnecessary strike action, but at the same time I think that a programme of mass strikes will accelerate the demise of the unions and help to eradicate the militancy that continues to undermine the effectiveness of British trade unions – and ultimately strengthen our economy.

Striking is never effective; in this instance, it is also not right. But it may have positive political outcomes for the Government.

Get out of the car! Carjacking with a difference!

All joking aside, it could have ended rather horribly…