Matthew Revell

Last night, Wolverhampton’s Conservatives and Liberal Democrats came to an agreement that will see the Tories run the city council with support from the Lib Dems.

Neville Patten – the new leader of the council – gave the details to The Stirrer, where he revealed the following:

• The unpopular and ineffective A449 red route in Fordhouses will be scrapped.
• Kerbside plastic and cardboard recycling will finally come to the city and they’re promising within three months.
• There’ll be a review of youth services with the suggestion of more facilities for teenagers.

That’s on top of their commitment to lower council tax. I’m hoping to interview Neville Patten on tomorrow’s Wolverhampton Politics Show.

So, what happens now in Wolverhampton? Labour remains the largest party on the council but has lost its majority. While many assume a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition to be inevitable, activists from all three parties tell a different story.

Personal acrimony, policy differences and longer-term strategy are feeding a frenzy of discussion. Within the parties, councillors are deciding what they’re prepared to give up, while rivals play out a courtship dance over pints across the city. Although it remains the most likely outcome, a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition is far from set in stone.

Let’s take a look at the possible configurations of Wolverhampton City Council over the next two years:

• Conservative/Lib Dem coalition
• Labour/Lib Dem coalition
• no overall control
• a grand coalition of all three parties.

At first glance, that last option – all three parties working together – seems to originate in the realm of flying pigs. However, reliable Labour party sources have reported that the Conservatives may have made such an offer to Labour, so long as the leader of the so-called “progressive administration of city unity” had a Tory leader.

Tellingly, it seems the Lib Dems had heard nothing of the offer before Labour rejected it outright. Does that suggest the possibility of a crazy fifth option of a Labour/Conservative coalition? Probably not. There’s no love lost between the Tories and Labour in Wolverhampton, so talk of them working together in any capacity seems very far from both the private and public images presented by either party.

So, if such an offer really were made, what does it say for the relationship between the city’s Tories and Lib Dems? Anecdotes from the campaign trail, although easily dismissed when seen as isolated incidents, make more sense in this context. St Peter’s ward – one of the Lib Dems’ two main targets – was the scene of a particularly cogent incident: surprised to see Conservatives campaigning in a ward they had no chance of winning, Lib Dem activists asked the Tories how they were getting on. Their response was along the lines of, “we’re here to ruin your campaign”.

Of course, it’s right that each party should campaign wherever they stand. However, if this incident happened in the way that it was told to me, it suggests that there are bridges to be built between the two sides before they could form a coalition. Parties working together towards an inevitable coalition do not seek to sabotage each other’s campaigns, particularly in a ward where one has a strong chance of unseating the leader of the council.

The Lib Dems’ hard-fought campaign against Labour in St Peter’s was partly one of attacking the man. They accused Roger Lawrence of having a low profile in the ward and lay blame for its problems partly at his feet. While the Lib Dems locally do not rule out a coalition with Labour, they acknowledge that Roger Lawrence’s re-election as leader of Wolverhampton Labour group would make such an alliance nigh-on impossible. Additionally, the Lib Dems’ recent gains in the largely middle class Park ward are partly due to local frustration with Labour. A Lib/Lab coalition could set the Lib Dems back on their path to a greater presence in the city. However, Labour are certain that such a coalition is at least on the table.

So then, that Conservative/Lib Dem coalition. The question is: who seeks to lose most? As junior partners, the Lib Dems would be a natural target for blame if things went wrong and would be unlikely to receive plaudits for success. They’d benefit from a cabinet post or two and the realisation of some of their policies.

However, in Hammersmith and Fulham, the Conservatives ruled out coalitions because they were concerned that such compromises on policy could tarnish their reputation. With another local election in two years, should the current climate continue, the Conservatives could win enough seats to take overall control in Wolverhampton. By playing a longer game, the Conservatives could avoid compromise and give Labour another two years in which to pursue unpopular policies such as annual council tax rises.

Nonetheless, despite rumours of grand coalitions and sniping on the campaign trail, talk from both sides suggests that the Conservatives are keen to get coalition discussion under way as soon as possible. They’ve even floated the idea of a cabinet post for the Lib Dems were the Conservatives to take full control in 2010.

So, while both sides would prefer not to be in opposition, they have their reasons for avoiding a coalition. Crucially, the Lib Dems’ advantage of being neither of the other two parties would take a hit in a coalition. Which leaves the fourth option: no overall control.

While neither Labour nor the Conservatives see it as a serious option, no overall control would give the Lib Dems a great deal of power without compromise. Okay, they wouldn’t have any cabinet posts but their effective veto during the election of cabinet members would give them an excellent negotiating position and could see the other parties promise to implement Lib Dem policies. During the everyday running of the council, the Lib Dems would hold the deciding votes whilst retaining their independence and avoiding the messy business of campaigning against their coalition partners at the next election.

Whatever happens, things are certain to change in Wolverhampton. With the loss of several cabinet members, at the very least there’ll be new portfolio holders. One middle-ranking council officer told me that many officers had only ever worked under a Labour administration and they’d be in for a few surprises were the Tories and Lib Dems to take control. Most party activists and political anoraks in the city are convinced that a Tory/Lib Dem alliance will happen and it probably will. However, there’s a lot of discussion to happen before we know. With the first meeting between the Tories and Lib Dems due to take place on Wednesday, we could be in for a few more days of speculation.

I’m sitting on the top floor of Wolverhampton Civic Centre, with my WCR FM co-host Neil Calloway, waiting for the Wolverhampton local election count to get underway.

So far, not a lot’s happening. Blue sky above, refreshments in the corner and a bloke from the Express and Star on the next table.

I’ll be updating this throughout the morning.

09.30: And we’re off. The presiding officer has started the count. Express and Start, BBC WM and national BBC are here.

10.40: St Peter’s declared for Roger Lawrence (Labour). Looks like a slim margin. Didn’t quite hear but sounded like 954 for Labour, 891 Lib Dem and 381 Conservative.

Update: Recording for and live reporting back to WCR FM took over from the blog.

Today has thrust me into a world for which I was thoroughly unprepared.

At every turn, gaudy intrusions have barked bleak promotional blather into my eyes, as I shudder in the knowledge that my value lies as a point on an Alexa graph.

Following a Firefox 3 beta update, I’ve stumbled – unprepared and blinking – into a world without Adblock Plus. From my employer‘s head office I can see Piccadilly Circus, all flashes and scrambled images. Today, the web has taken on a similar uncomfortable urgency, compelling me to consider breast augmentation, a new mobile phone, life insurance to help my family after the visual onslaught finally destroys my neural paths.

Even that most faux-anti-corporate of organs, The Register, is so determined to force my eyes from their latest rant that I found myself in a new tab watching a flash animation about the latest Ford Mondeo.

And yet I support commercial media. I believe in advertising as a way to fund things I want to enjoy. So, why do I take the apparently hypocritical route of running Google Ads on my own websites and yet blocking adverts on the sites I visit?

Here’s a list:

• Pop-ups: even though true pop-ups have largely gone away, at least from the sites I use, equally intrusive ads are still around.
• Web ads are mostly crap: TV ads in the UK are often both entertaining and creative. Web ads replace creativity with intrusion.
• The ads I run are, for the most part, subtle Google text ads.

I disable AdBlock Plus on sites that I particularly care about and whose advertising respects me. Today, though, has felt as disorienting as putting my head out of the window of an aeroplane. I’m going to leave AdBlock Plus off for a while to experience more of the noise that most people I know now block without a second thought.

I’ve just booked an eye test for next week and it’s made me love Google Calendar even more.

Adding the appointment to my calendar worked in almost the way I imagined computers would when I was a child.

I clicked Quick Add and a dialogue appeared. The example below the dialogue was enough to tell me I could talk to the calendar in a way that’s convenient for me, rather than having to fit the developer’s chosen format.

So, I tapped in:

Specsavers 12.40 next Tuesday

And that’s it. The appointment is now in my calendar.

As Labour takes us into yet another year of massive deficit and increasing taxes to fund their failed social engineering projects, our friends at BBC News are focusing on the real issues of this budget:

AGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GMTV interviewer: Did this earthquake have anything to do with global warming?

Shaking ground expert: Err, no.

Today is the fourth anniversary of LugRadio‘s first episode!

Listening back to that first show, it’s interesting that one of the first things we talk about is GPL v3. Four years on, that particular discussion continues

When we recorded that first show, we had no idea what LugRadio would become. Actually, listening to that first show, it was clearly touch and go

So, congratulations to the current LugRadio team, howdy to my fellow former LugRadio presenters and thanks to everyone who listens to the show and comes to the events. See you at LugRadio Live UK later this year.

I like Matt Wright, as a broadcaster. He’s got a friendly smile and a chummy way about him. He also likes Hocus Pocus by Focus. However, he’d really do better to stick to the sort of fluffy subjects at which his show excels.

When I was a child – very young – I couldn’t understand why the government didn’t just do everything. After all, they were there to do the best for everyone, right? Experience and a little reading soon rid me of such naive thinking. Sadly, Wright and his guests – perhaps spurred on by Northern Rock’s bungled nationalisation – appear to cling to such childish notions.

Today’s lead topic on The Wright Stuff was, “Is gas a rip-off?” Here are some of the wonderful insights that Wright and his guests shared with the audience:

• Gas privatisation was supposed to make gas bills cheaper but they just keep going up.
• They say they need the money for windmills but I bet they’ll still charge us for electricity when they’ve built the windmills, even though the electricity will be free to them.
• We need evidence that they’re spending this money on windmills and not just giving it back to (evil) shareholders! If they were nationalised, then we’d have access to that information.
• There’s only one other gas supplier in my area and a few weeks after switching to them they put their prices up too.
• I don’t have time to switch my gas supplier.

(These aren’t direct quotes.)

That last one is my person favourite, particularly as it was uttered by Natalie Cassidy (y’know, her what used to be Sonia in Eastenders and, no, I didn’t realise she was a fount of political and current affairs wisdom, either). Three things to say to that:

1. Is anyone really that busy after they leave Eastenders?
2. If you choose not to switch gas suppliers, tough. What do you want? Someone to choose the brand of toothpaste you buy as well?
3. Switching gas suppliers is not hard: there are so many companies vying to help you choose and even the tax-funded Ofgem will help you out. Hell, I even got paid £15 as an incentive by such a website last time.

Let’s look at the others, though, starting with the idea that utility privatisation hasn’t worked because gas bills have gone up recently. It shows a stunning lack of awareness, or self-delusion, to ignore the other factors that have led to our recent rises in utility bills:

• dwindling North Sea reserves
• increased demand from across the globe, not least China
• the woefully under-reported renewables obligation, which is the largest contributor to recent bill rises.

Now, I’ll give it to them, they did say that British Gas are “claiming the rises will pay for windmills” or something similar, but the immediate leap to demand nationalisation is worryingly indicative of the current political climate. Nationalisation, as Chris Mounsey points out, doesn’t have a particularly glorious record. Anyone remember the British-owned car industry? I just about remember the pre-privatisation days of British Telecom, when phone usage was a luxury thanks to high pricing. Granted, new technology has always contributed to the lowering of phone prices but competition has been the driver of both that new technology and lower bills overall.

Let’s touch briefly on wind power: the renewables obligation goes to subsidise electricity generated now, so rather than being free, that electricity is costing more. Wind turbines will require investment to build and ongoing maintenance, along with transmission costs. Wind power, also, is not reliable nor particularly efficient and requires generation from other sources (coal, gas, nuclear, for example) to back it up when it’s either too windy or not quite windy enough. So, this is the Goldilocks of power generation and just like Goldilocks in the story, it can’t go for that long without needing a lie down; it’s the energy source with ME. So, no, your electricity won’t be free and nor should it be.

As for there being just one alternative gas supplier in a given area: that’s simply untrue on mainland Great Britain. So, if you do switch and find that eventually your new supplier raises prices, there are other suppliers to whom you can turn.

On LugRadio we were sometimes berated for discussing subjects we knew little of. However, our audience was (is) intelligent enough and well-read enough to pick us up when we were wrong. And besides, LugRadio is a purely hobby operation where the presenters don’t have the luxury of a professional research team or of actually being paid to know what the hell they’re talking about. The Wright Stuff’s daytime TV audience is probably only just one notch above that for Jeremy Kyle and almost certainly takes what its presenters say at face value.

Doubtless nationalisation will come up on tonight’s Wolverhampton Politics Show. Tune in at wcrfm.com on 101.8 FM in Wolverhampton between 7pm and 8pm tonight.

Thought mobile phone companies offering fixed line broadband was just a cheap way to boost ARPU or retention? Well, in the short term it probably does offer those benefits but, just as I imagine Sky do, mobile companies may have plans to use fixed line broadband to boost their core offering.

O2 has announced a large scale trial of femtocells.

Femtocells – the prefix “femto” meaning one quadrillionth, so perhaps we shouldn’t take the name too literally – provide mobile phone coverage in small areas, such as homes, offices and shops. Although your mobile phone sees them as just another part of the mobile network, they work much like wifi access points: they hook up to a broadband connection and act as a bridge between mobile devices and the mobile network proper.

The idea is that if, for example, you live in an area with poor network coverage, you install a femtocell and your house has its own low-powered mobile phone cell. In theory, you’ll always have perfect coverage in that location because your calls will bypass any local mobile towers and go straight over your broadband connection.

Interestingly, though, the O2 press release includes this quote from Vivek Dev, Chief Operating Officer of Telefónica O2 Europe:

“Our Apple iPhone is already driving unheard-of levels of mobile internet usage, and the introduction of flat rate data tariffs is expected to increase this further. Both of these place huge capacity demands on our networks, and because so much of that usage is at home, femtocells coupled with DSL could provide an alternative capacity resource.”

This is a fascinating idea: O2 seem to be suggesting that they plan to charge you a flat rate for mobile data but actually want to punt a large chunk of that over the broadband connection you also pay for. If that is what they’re planning to do, then you’ll be paying twice for data traffic on your mobile whenever you’re at home. In effect, their customers will be providing the mobile operator with free backhaul.

Now, as O2 is one of only two UK mobile networks with an LLU broadband operation, it would seem likely they’ll offer femtocells primarily to their own broadband customers. Then at least you can argue they’re using their own network and, who knows, perhaps the flat rate data packages they mention will be hybrid fixed line/mobile packages. However, if data is the primary motivation behind femotcells it prompts two questions:

• Is 3G data really that limited?
• Why not just sell more wifi capable devices?

The answer to the first question, based on my limited reading, is: probably. The answer to the second question, though, is more interesting: wifi is the enemy. Following the ridiculous sums spent on UK 3G licences, the mobile operators are keen to see 3G use increase; apparently 3G traffic is also cheaper than 2G traffic. If it’s true that most mobile data use is in the home (or another fixed location), then encouraging wifi use effectively remove the mobile operators from the picture. It would also make 3G less of a must-have phone feature, thereby keeping more traffic on the more expensive 2G network; the Apple iPhone is perhaps a good example of a device that has wifi but not yet 3G. So, the mobile networks would rather we have 3G femtocells in our homes because then we’re committed to 3G; something video calling could never achieve.

The fact that it’s just another – and possibly expensive – way of using your own broadband connection surely won’t be lost on people.

The good thing about femtocells, rather than wifi, is that the transition between real mobile network and femtocell will be seamless and they’ll work with any 3G mobile phone. If it cost me nothing, I’d certainly get a femtocell. Despite clear line of site to the mobile tower, the walls of our 1920s house whittle puny 3G signals down to a squeak. And I do mean it’d have to cost me nothing: I’m already paying my mobile network (O2 at the moment) for network coverage.

If it weren’t for Virgin Media’s lack of focus and difficulty in maintaining the quality of its current product set, I’d suggest they’d be in the best place to benefit from femtocells. They have an extensive broadband network and an MVNO in the form of Virgin Mobile. With femtocells, they could avoid paying transit fees to their mobile network provider (T-Mobile) and without the expense of building a full mobile network.