Byrne to Gove: Start making sense

David Byrne isn't the first person to point out that Michael Gove is making education rubbish, and he certainly won't be the last. But he is the most famous American to do so, so far:

"I think it has already been proven that arts education in schools benefits areas beyond the arts," Byrne said. "To cut in that way is narrow-minded. It is not about how many artists you produce, it is about what it does to the thinking of everyone else."

"School is how I found art," Byrne went on. "I had an art teacher who would encourage me and didn't tell me what to do. He would give me a pass to say I didn't have to go to gym class if I had something I was trying to finish. I realised it was a way to discover things about myself and a solace."

Ah, Michael Gove would counter, but can you name the consort to the third Tudor Monarch?

Tory-Lib Dems tell copyright industry to pay costs of pursuing unlicensed files

Ah, if only David Geffen had thought to invite a couple of Lib Dems onto his yacht, maybe things would have been different. The coalition have told the copyright industries they'll have to bear most of the costs for pursuing unlicensed filesharers.

ISPs will only be made to pay the costs of notifying their customers; 75% of the bill will be passed to the people who care about the copyright.

However, the government's decision today, based on a consultation on the cost-sharing proposal, said that the argument to split detection costs had been rejected as a "business as usual" bill for copyright holders.

"This argument was rejected as the initial proposal to share costs 75/25 was made in the full knowledge that copyright owners did have these separate costs to bear," said the government. "At the level of the individual copyright owner the level of detection activity (and any legal action) is a matter for them. It was considered these were largely 'business as usual' costs that copyright owners would face as part of protecting their own copyright material."

In a related decision, citizens won't be forced to pay a fee to appeal against one of these proceedings:

"As a free system risks the possibility of large numbers of unnecessary appeals, the government will monitor the situation closely, and reserves the right to introduce a small fee at a later stage," the government added.

This puts me in a horrible position of thinking that the coalition have made a good decision. Better if they'd scrapped the whole idea of snooping and letters, but it's a start.

You can tell its a good decision, because the copyright industry is squealing about how it's soooooo unfair:

"We continue to believe that ISPs should bear a greater proportion of the costs of communicating with their customers about illegal peer-to-peer use on their networks," said a spokesman for the British Recorded Music Industry (BPI), which represents the UK's music companies.

"We will work closely with the government and Ofcom to ensure that the costs framework overall is workable and affordable, in particular for small labels, and that the Code can be swiftly implemented."

Won't it cost what it costs?

UK Music plans to schmooze the Liberal Democrats

Ooh, look who's holding a Pop Quiz for the Liberal Democrats during their conference in Liverpool:

UK Music's Great Political Pop Quiz

Hosted by former Undertones frontman Feargal Sharkey and composer David Arnold (James Bond, Shirley Bassey). Free food and drink for participants, great prizes and special guests.

I'd feel a bit more relaxed about this if, for example, UK Music would choose to be a bit more upfront about how its funded and whose money is buying this access to one of the parties of government.

It says something that UK Music are choosing to lobby the Lib Dems with a pop quiz - something which by its nature is focused on the past - rather than, say, displaying some of the emerging talent that it claims is at the heart of its interests.

Andy Kershaw's dog sparks council tax enquiry

It's not often you see the phrase "Radio 3 DJ" written down but it turns up in a Telegraph headline reporting that a new Liberal Democrat/Conservative MP is being investigated by her local council after Andy Kershaw turned out to be registered to vote at her address:

Tessa Munt, the MP for Wells claimed a single resident’s discount on her council tax, telling her local council she lived alone in her constituency home.

However, the electoral register shows that Mrs Munt is one of three people registered to vote at the Somerset address.

Ms Munt's explanation is that she looked after Andy Kershaw's dog, and he used her house to register to vote as he had no permanent UK home - that's within the rules, of course. There's also a doctor who used her address in the same way:

The MP said she was co-operating with the council on the issue: “I fully support Sedgemoor doing this check and it’s right that they follow up any cases where the two don’t match up.”

The council declined to comment on Mrs Munt’s case, saying only that it was reviewing more than 700 “irregularities” in its council tax register that were revealed by its cross-check of the electoral roll.

An MP under suspicion of financial misdeeds and a BBC connection - if they could have found a way to work in a photo of blonde twins collection A-Level results, it would have been the perfect Telegraph story.

Hunt won't undo DEA

Anyone hoping for the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Government might unpick the rushed-through Digital Economy Act might as well be using their wishes for a magic bucket or for that Clare Grogan solo record to be released. It isn't going to happen. Jeremy Hunt has confirmed:

“We’re not going to repeal it,” the new UK government’s Conservative culture secretary Jeremy Hunt told paidContent:UK.

Funny that, given that as it was passing through Parliament Hunt insisted that great chunks of the Digital Economy Bill were terrible, terrible pieces of legislation:

I want to say plainly to the Government that, while we recognise that some parts of the Bill will have to be let through if we are to avoid serious damage to the economy, other parts of it are totally unacceptable, and we will use every parliamentary means at our disposal to remove them.

Apart from, you know, repealing the Act if they get into power.

Lib Dems say no to Digital Economy Bill

Making some amends for their Lord sticking a BPI clause in during its passage through the upper house, the Liberal Democrats have told the government they won't support the Digital Economy Bill:

On Tuesday afternoon, the party's chief whip Paul Burstow tweeted that he had told the government the Liberal Democrats will not support the bill as it is drafted because there is "not enough time for MPs to examine it in detail".

The bill is expected to be become part of 'wash-up', a brief period at the end of a sitting parliament when outstanding legislation becomes the subject of back-room deals between the main two parties, the Conservatives and Labour.

It probably won't be enough to kill it, but maybe it will be enough to persuade the Labour Party that this might not be the way to behave seconds before asking everybody to vote for them.

Don Foster jumps on the Andrew Sachs bandwagon

You might have thought the Liberal Democrats would have been busy trying to shift a general dissatisfaction with Labour and Tory politicians into some sort of political advantage for a relatively untainted third party.

But, no, apparently they just want to bang on and on about Jonathan Ross.

Looking for someone to feign outrage that Ross made a joke after the Ofcom ruling on the Russell Brand show was broadcast on Radio 2, the Liberal Democrat Culture spokesperson Don Foster offered this:

Giggling, the presenter said: "You didn't get that address down, did you? I want to get the full thing, ... I can't read enough about it." Lib Dem culture spokesman Don Foster said: "If Ross can't show he understands... his responsibility, it may be time to clip his wings."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Foster has yet to add this gallery-playing half-thought to his In The News column on his website. Almost as if it made him feel a little dirty.

A musical joke

It's probably a little unfortunate that Richard Younger-Ross is picking up so much coverage for his idiotic, timewasting early day motion about the Eurovision Song Contest. Since his dogged and determined Parliamentary lobbying against the Iraq War tends not to be reported, the casual observer might just assume that Younger-Ross is a bit of twit trying to draw attention to himself, which isn't the case at all.

Anyway, he has taken time and effort to bring the matter to the government's attention:

That this House believes that voting in the Eurovision Song Contest has become a joke as countries vote largely on narrow nationalistic grounds or for neighbour countries rather than the quality of the song; and that such narrow voting is harmful to the relationship between the peoples of Europe; and calls for the BBC to insist on changes to the voting system or to withdraw from the contest.

Actually, not only is treating the song contest as something worthy of the expense and time of processing an Early Day Motion a shocking waste of our money, but it's clear that Younger-Ross didn't pay any attention to the contest at all.

After all, following the last month or so of tension surrounding the resiting of a Soviet war memorial in Tallinn, isn't Estonia's gifting of twelve points to Russia less "harmful to relationships" and more an affirmation of friendship between the peoples of the nations? And that Serbia can win, despite having been so recently fixed as the centre of evil's gravity in the continent, and entering a rubbish song, says more about the restoration of a sense of normalcy in the Balkans than any number of biographies of Paddy Ashdown.

All this talk of countries doing favours for their friends and neighbours being bad just smacks of the unpopular child trying to wreck relationships because he's got nobody to play with at lunchtime. Is Younger-Ross really saying he wants the BBC to pull out unless they can guarantee Bosnia won't make any conciliatory gestures towards its neighbours ever again?