Journalist, editor, analyst and trainer on computing, government, climate and data
Tyneside in England’s north-east has a revived centre for everyone in Newcastle and Gateshead, but its coastal edges are struggling, like Whitley Bay, or moving upscale like Tynemouth. It’s like Britain in miniature.
Originally published on Beacon.
Continue reading “From Tynemouth chic to Whitley Bay, where every day is like Sunday”
After a year of writing every week on Beacon, with the articles behind a subscription paywall, in 2015 I plan to publish longer articles every month. I will also open up what I write on Beacon, so everyone can see it. (This has already been the case if you have followed a tweeted link to an article.)
I have also opened access to some of my favourite articles from 2014 on Beacon, listed below. Hope you enjoy them. Continue reading “Opening up on Beacon”
Local authorities matter. They provide many of the most basic public services: schools, roads, refuse collections and recycling, social services, planning and benefits administration. They are the part of government you would notice first, if they stopped working. In many areas of Britain, a council is the largest employer, and with their elected members, local authorities are arguably the most democratic type of public sector organisation.
But they are tricky to follow. Journalists trying to cover councils nationally suffer from being based mainly in one place, London, from lack of resources and from the sheer number of authorities.
The exceptions are journalists who work for locally-focused publishers. Despite falling advertising and circulation income, it is still local and regional newspapers, broadcasters and online publishers that produce the best coverage of local authorities.
As a result, while it is easy to keep tabs on your own council, if you want to track local authorities nationwide – as a councillor or official keen to learn from your peers, or a supplier seeking new opportunities – you would need to monitor many hundreds of sources.
So let Council News Monitor do the job for you. It’s a new email service, sent first thing every weekday morning, with articles and press releases from councils in all nine English regions, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland – or, as the four nations can safely be called again, the United Kingdom. Continue reading “If you want to monitor local authorities, we’ll ask the locals for you”
The practices of a national budget hotel chain tell you a lot about a country; in Britain’s case, its need to have constant access to cups of tea and, in the morning, a large cooked breakfast.
Originally published on Beacon. Continue reading “Premier Inn: Welcome to the Hotel Britannia, Doncaster”
My latest two articles on Beacon have a theme: things torn apart by Margaret Thatcher.
The first is Britain itself, and obviously that has not happened – yet. But if Scotland votes for independence in September, Mrs Thatcher’s decision to test the poll tax in Scotland first will have played a part. Continue reading “Britain and Greater Manchester – both torn apart by Margaret Thatcher?”