Why I'm Voting Labour Tomorrow

For the past five years, The Tories & Liberals have been punishing the firemen.  And the teachers.  And the librarians, the doctors, the nurses, the binmen, the Town Hall staff, the police, the soldiers, the street cleaners, the school crossing patrols.  In fact anyone paid by the public purse.  Apart from the politicians.

They have been punishing them for the crimes of the bankers.  This annoys me.

David Cameron says that this austerity is the fault of the mess they inherited from Labour - the huge debt-pile.

Except there is nothing wrong with debt - properly regulated and properly accounted debt.  How else does he expect people to buy these properties that he's forcing the Housing Associations to sell off cheap?  It is the same way Thatcher sold off the Council-owned properties in the '80s.  It is how most of home-owning Britain buys its homes.  It's how I bought mine.

It is with a mortgage.

The problem comes when corrupt bankers decide to give mortgages to people they know cannot afford them.  Then they sell those debts on to other bankers, gullible ones or incompetent ones or greedy ones who then sell them on again.  Until the people who can't pay don't pay.  Then we have the big crash and the world governments have to step in.  That is the real cause of this austerity.

The bankers seem to have gotten away with this though - certainly there aren't any languishing in prison anywhere - and I'm pretty sure they are not worse off than they were five years ago.  Cameron says that the economy is recovering now.  I'm not convinced.  I'm certainly worse off than I was five years ago.

So what about the other parties?

UKIP are just Tories who have argued with their constituency parties.  They have some very right-wing ideas.  They would probably try to reintroduce fox-hunting.  And smoking in pubs.  And probably fox-hunting in pubs.

I live in England so couldn't vote for Plaid Cymru, DUP, Sinn Fein, SNP etc. even if I wanted to.  Although if I lived in Scotland I would be asking myself why The Sun was saying Cameron is no good, vote SNP whereas South of the Border, the Sun is saying Cameron is wonderful and the SNP are trying to hold Britain to ransom.

Next question - what is this doing in a motoring blog?  Where are the usual inane comments about Formula 1 or Top Gear?

Well that brings me on to The Green Party.  Less than a month ago, they wanted to ban my car.  And my wife's.  And, almost certainly yours too.  They have now relented a bit on that and just want to fit future-tech speed limiters to all new cars.  Bad enough in itself but reading the rest of their transport policy does sound like war on the car-owner.

So, that just leaves Labour then.

E By Gum

The FIA Formula e championship kicked off this morning in Beijing.

It was on ITV4 so I watched it.  If it hadn't been on a Freeview channel I wouldn't have been that fussed but I'm glad I did - I have high hopes for it.

 

For those of you who don't know about Formula e, read this excellent piece on the subject.

 

Actually, don't.  That was written ages ago before anyone knew what it would evolve into - you'd do better checking out their official website.

 

Formula e is the all-electric alternative to Formula 1 - and based on the first race, could be more exciting than Formula 1.  I was wary that using street circuits as they do and having same-spec cars would mean overtaking was going to be difficult but the fact that they have to control the power in order to conserve battery-charge did lead to some very entertaining overtaking.

 

Swapping cars half-way through the race because the batteries wouldn't last is a bit strange and I'm sure that will die out once battery technology improves.

 

We also have the new innovation of "Fan Boost" (or #FanBoost if you're into Twitter) whereby fans vote for their favourite drivers and the top three vote-receivers get a power boost that they can use once in the race - but more about that shortly.

 

So...let's meet the teams...

 

First the ITV4 team who will be presenting the Season to us - 85.7% of whom I had not heard of before.

 

Firstly, we have Jennie Gow (who doesn't seem to be any relation to BTCC boss Alan Gow) but who does seem to be knowledgeable (and genuinely excited) about motorsport and seemed to ask the right questions.  Jennie is the main presenter based in the studio with race engineer Kyle Wilson-Clarke and F3 Driver Jann Mardenborough.  It was quite refeshing and interesting to have a race engineer in there with a different take on things.  Jann seemed a bit nervous and a bit young:

In fact, he even looks younger than Leonardo diCaprio if that is possible.  I'm sure his confidence will build up as the series goes on.

 

Former F1 mechanic Marc Priestley joined roving reporter Nicki Shields provided trackside insight with Jack Nicholls and Dario Franchitti doing the commentary.  Dario Franchitti being the 14.3% of the team that I was familiar with.

 

Now the actual teams.  There are a few familiar names from motorsport in there: Virgin, Renault, Senna, Prost, Piquet and Andretti to name but six.  Ten teams in total, running cars that look like this: 

• British based Amlin Aguri is led by Japanese ex-Formula 1 driver Suzuki Aguri who also founded F1 team Super Aguri.
• Andretti Autosport is led by Michael Andretti (part of the American Andretti motorsport dynasty).
• Audi Sport ABT is the team behind Audi's DTM cars.
• China Racing - not to be confused with...
• Dragon Racing who are from California.
• E.Dams Renault are sponsored by a Dutch Cheese Manufacturer. (No they aren't)
• Mahindra Racing - from the Indian motoring concern responsible for some Jeep look-a-likes that got imported to the UK.
• Trulli GP led by ex F1 racer Jarno Trulli.
• Venturi Grand Prix a joint effort between Venturi an American car company who have experience in electric vehicles and Leonardo diCaprio (serious electric car advocate) who has experience in looking very young.  He wasn't seen once during the coverage - I hope he was actually there.

• Finally (for alphabetic reasons) we have Virgin Racing - Richard Branson has moved over from F1. 

In terms of drivers, Alain Prost has employed his son Nico:

That is actually a picture of Alain but with their helmets on, the likeness is uncanny.

Amlin Aguri have one of the two female drivers in the series, Katherine Legge who also happens to be a Brit.

Mahindra have the charismatic ex-F1 duo of Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna.

 

 Jarno Trulli is driving his own car whilst giving his other seat up to Italian Michela Cerruti.

 The other Brit in the series is Sam Bird driving for Virgin.

We also have several other ex-F1 stars (or their sons) in there too.

 

I think the fan boost may be a waste of time though with most people voting for the team with the best PR (Mahindra) or for the ladies (women voting for women and men voting for people they fancy) or for the countries with the biggest populations for for their own (Brazil, USA)

 

As it happened Mahindra's Senna, Brazil's di Grassi & Katherine Legge got the fan boosts.

 

We never got to find out when the boosts were used in the race.  I reckon a better system would be to have the vote during the race to potentially nobble someone or to help someone challenging for the lead.

 

The race itself felt a lot shorter than most motorsport I watch - but that was quite good - all done and dusted within three hours of TV.  Some excitement, some overtaking, some crashes, and, most importantly, a very dramatic finish with Nico Prost, who has led from the start, about to be overtaken by Nick Heidfeld on the last corner so cutting across and taking him out in a spectacular crash and taking himself out in the process allowing di Grassi to take the win.

 

As is traditional in motorsport, both blamed the other.

 

Prost was wrong.

 

So will I be watching the next race on November 22nd?

 

By gum I will.

Is Formula 1 Real Racing Any More?

I don't know, I don't watch it any more.

But that question was asked by Andrew Benson, the BBC's chief F1 writer on their F1 Website.

Now, being the BBC's chief F1 writer, he isn't going to answer no to that question - but his justifications don't really add up for me.  He quotes some stats that seem to show that drivers are driving as hard as they were before the BBC sold out to Sky but the very fact that the question is being asked is evidence that there is something wrong.

As it happens, the timing of F1's waning excitement is entirely coincidental with the Sky deal - the cause appears to be the Pirelli Tyre rule-changes making it easier to overtake.

What?

Easier to overtake!?

How can that be worse for a sport where processional racing has impacted on excitement for years?

Well, apparently, drivers are having to slow down to preserve their tyres.  Lot's of media interest was generated by a Lewis Hamilton quote over his pit-radio from the Spanish Grand Prix - "I can't drive any slower". Here is one example.

Judging by the highest-rated comments on Andy's article, those still enthusiastic on the sport all seem to agree that the tyres are an issue.

This weekend sees the Monaco Grand Prix.  This was always the highlight of the F1 Year for me - and for many F1 fans.  Now the BBC has even lost the rights to cover this race live - whoever did their negotiations (Ben Gallop, Barbara Slater, Mark Thompson) really were inept beyond belief.

Highlights is not good enough for me and there is no doubt that audience figures are dropping - globally as more countries are putting F1 behind paywalls.

So silly tyre rules need sorting!

Racing Legends

This short series concluded on BBC Two last night.

I say "short" because it was only on for three episodes and the first two went out on consecutive nights - so why we had to wait a month for the third I'm not sure.

It was mostly a programme about knights.

In the first show, Sir Patrick Stewart spoke about and met Sir Stirling Moss. In the second show, car-nut and chef (but no knight) James Martin enthused about and met Sir Jackie Stewart and in show 3, Sir Chris Hoy learned all about Colin McRae who probably should have been a knight.

The BBC info on the series is here but the gist is that someone famous goes over a racing legend's life & career and with a little training, gets to drive that legend's racecar.

Since the first shows are now fairly distant memories, all I can really remember is that Stirling Moss is a Jewish name and that James Martin can't say "Formula 1" - he kept calling it "formlia 1" - very irritating.

Ironically - no, not ironic just sad - the only one of the legends not with us today is the youngest, Colin McRae, the subject of last night's show.

He will be known by anyone under the age of 20 as "the bloke behind those video games" but McRae was, indeed, a racing legend. He was winning from an early age although he did have the best start you could wish for given that his father was the very successful rally star Jimmy McRae, pictured above with Sir Chris. Jimmy played a big part in the show and showed that he hasn't lost any of his own skills.

Colin became the first British winner of the WRC whilst driving for Subaru where he proved a worthy match for his more experienced team-mate Carlos Sainz who spoke warmly about Colin in the show.

Colin was a driving genius - but I think the show showed us that he was a flawed genius too. His desire to win, meant that sometimes, he drove too hard. In 2001, driving for Ford, he nearly won the WRC again. He went into the last race one point up and was leading when he crashed out rather spectacularly. In 2005, he nearly won the Paris-Dakar Rally (which nowadays doesn't go anywhere near Paris or Dakar but in 2005 did actually still finish in Dakar) when, comfortably leading he crashed out rather spectacularly.

It's worth taking a look at him in the US X Games event though, driving too hard while trying to take the lead:He finished second.

Sadly he was killed, along with his young son, another boy and a friend in 2007 when a helicopter he was piloting crashed near to his home in Scotland. The inquiry verdict blamed him.

His father said, "We still believe we will never know what caused the crash but we were never in any doubt as to Colin's prowess as a fine pilot. Everybody knows from Colin's rallying career that safety is always an issue and that his reactions and eye and hand co-ordination were world-class."

He may be speaking the truth - I would love to believe that - or he may be in denial - the verdict statements seemed quite unequivocal.

"If in doubt - flat out!"

A sad end to a fine career and a fine series.

Betting on Formula 1

Before you check this out be warned that you should probably give up just after the Ford advert and as soon as you get bored with Tony Jardine.

That video is Sky's preview for the Belgian Grand Prix which happened last weekend and unfortunately is an indication of what some F1 fans will have to put up with next year.

It is simply encouraging people to gamble with a little help from Skybet.

Sorry to keep harping on about the dirty deal - it's not as though I can't live without F1 - I firmly believe that the BTCC is a more exciting and more accessible racing championship - however, the way the BBC has handled this - and still refuse to discuss it - is downright disgraceful and is what annoys me so much.

They are also censoring their own Blogs and tweets from their own presenters and gagging their presentation team from mentioning the deal during their programmes.

However, things are changing!

The Mirror has this report today.

This chap on the right (No, it's not that Grant Mitchell from Eastenders) is being called before a select committee of MPs to answer some questions about the deal. He is Mark Thompson, the Director-General of the BBC.

Speaking as a fan who contacted his own MP on this subject, I am delighted that, at last, we may get some answers.

It may be too late to save F1 - viewing figures and advertising revenue will plummet - but at least it won't feel like the BBC, an organisation I once admired, will have gotten away with this scot-free.

Ooh, sense the bitterness!

I've also been quite impressed by the Mirror, they seem to be the only press organisation who have been on our side. It was also them who broke the story that Bernie Ecclestone said that he would have done a deal with Channel 4 but the BBC blocked it.

Who'd have bet on that?

Could 2010 be the best Formula 1 Season Ever?

Probably not but now Schuey has signed up and the British GP has been settled it should be pretty good.

Schuey back together with Ross Brawn, one of the best and most successful partnerships ever and based on the 2009 championship team has got be a mouth-watering prospect for success. Then you've got McLaren with the British boys up against them. Red Bull won't have been idle and there's a whole raft of new teams including Lotus to provide some cannon-fodder or get stuck into the mix.

I'm not sure Michael should have come out of retirement though. There is a lot to be said for the Jackie Stewart/Terry Wogan philosophy of quit-while-you're-ahead. I sort of hope Michael has more success so that his career is not ended as an also-ran but then again, I want the British boys (most likely Lewis if you see my earlier post) to dominate the Championships for years to come.