Retail Week Live Review

Last week I visited Retail Week Live, in order to find out what trends, challenges and opportunities the UK’s major retailers had on their minds.

The event was at a new venue this year, the o2 Intercontinental, and the organisers did a very good job both with the logistics and the quality of speakers.

The whole conference felt very relevant and topical, none more so than when Leendert Den Hollander, VP and GM of Coca-Cola, was on stage the morning after the Budget. To be fair to him, he didn’t duck out or avoid discussing ‘Sugar Tax’ with the conference host, journalist Declan Curry. Rather, he pledged ‘trust and transparency for consumers’, and declared that ‘sugar tax is the wrong solution, we don’t hide from the need to tackle obesity crisis’. For those wondering, he also said the brand has ‘no plans to stop selling red coke’ – a relief for coke addicts, I am sure.

One of the most interesting speakers came from outside the world of retail. Sir Clive Woodward gave a well-rehearsed speech which he had no doubt performed a thousand time in recent years, nonetheless you couldn’t help but listen to a man with a CV containing  Rugby World Cup Winning Coach, and Team GB at the 2012 Olympics. Of his nuggets of advice, I thought the most memorable was ‘imagine writing the book about your brand, what would the chapters say?’

I thought the key theme running through the conference was bringing back customer experience and using technology to reconnect with people on a personal level. Starbucks and Virgin Atlantic both showed how technological advances (Spotify and Virtual Reality) were giving customers a more customised experience. This is undoubtedly sexy marketing, but the reality is that it is a more modern form of an old concept.

No one embodied this old concept more than Ray Kelvin, founder of Ted Baker. Ray was an old school retailer who had the room in the palm of his hand through his dry and witty keynote, his lack of notes and appearance (he was wearing overalls containing many strange and wonderful prompts) portrayed a sense of chaos, but the underlying message of his speech was that the Ted Baker brand has flourished as it doesn’t need to advertise when it keeps true to its customer-first ethos. He told a tale about giving customers in his first store in Glasgow a replica goldfish, to carry around and draw people’s attention to Ted Baker.

This individualism has never stopped being crucial in retail, or marketing, it is just that now technology has improved to the point where it is finally offering brands the ability to compete with the instincts of top class retailers like Ray Kelvin.

Yet the notion of actually connecting with real people isn’t just a marketing gimmick. Tesco veteran and now Business Minister, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, said that she hoped - and felt - that retail was being transformed by ‘localism and the digital revolution’. And this was echoed by digital newcomers, such as Simon Belsham of Not on The High Street.com. He preached that the importance of their brand was ‘software, services and community’, showing that localism and provenance is important even to pure play digital brands.

If that isn’t enough to convince even the most hardened cynics to the merits of localism and community in retail, then John Roberts of AO surely would have swayed them. He ended the conference by giving a platform to a youth project from Wigan, and the young people who took to the stage were the most inspiring from the two days.

So while The Budget has financial impacts on retailers, and technology opens up new avenues of profit, ultimately brands need to understand the human values that helped people like Ray Kelvin get to where they are today.  And if they still don’t get it, then there’s a whole new generation ready to show them the way.

Swindon Town shun media for Fanzai app

Credit: Jack Tanner

This caught my eye in today's Press Gazette - Swindon Town allegedly shunning local media in preference of club controlled output on a new app called 'Fanzai' (the club has denied this).

It's interesting as more and more regional sports teams are facing an increased demand for digital content, and smaller clubs simply don't have the resource to facilitate it beyond regular match day arrangements. 

This is why the idea of outsourcing becomes attractive.

Yet the chap in the Press Gazette piece called the move 'sanitised PR', I'd disagree with that. It's content marketing, pure and simple. If anything, it is bad PR, if true.

PR values the relationships between an organisation and its audiences, so while there will always be bust-ups and differences of opinion, ultimately relationships endure for the benefit of fans, the community and the wider audience.

Messages in content marketing are obviously more controlled and commercial, yet usually work in tandem with a PR operation. If you cut this out and lose the third party access and reporting, it will water down what's produced in-house via the erosion of trust.

I'll be checking out the Swindon app, it might turn out to be a test case.

Harriet Harman picks wrong time to get it wrong on Welfare Cuts

View image | gettyimages.com

Today was another PR disaster for the Labour Party, after Harriet Harman needlessly vowed Labour would not oppose the Government's proposed limit on tax credits to the first two children.

The rhetoric on 'listening to the lessons of defeat' that we've heard from leadership candidates in the world's longest set of hustings is bad enough, but to then come out with this ludicrous right wing statement before the impact of the policy has been revealed, is just daft.

Labour needs to understand that outside of Westminster and party members, no one is paying attention to their leadership election. That's flippant, yes, but also true. So there's no need to alienate grassroots at a time they are needed more than ever, or to get the party into a tricky statement that will be kept on record and wheeled out if the Chancellor needs it in the future.

Harman doesn't have a record of doing this, it sounds like a bad briefing in the leadership vacuum.

Labour's new leader needs to find their own green logo and husky riding project when they are elected. Be prominent for eye catching and ultimately forgettable moments that leave them ideological room to manoeuvre at a later date - when the public are paying attention.

That's the opposite of what the Left are saying, and with good reason. But Labour can either have another few years of North London intellectual naval gazing, or it can become electable.

The danger is that it's already too late. Dan Jarvis and Chuka Umunna are starting to look like the smart ones for staying out of this race.

Facebook puts women first

Facebook has redesigned its logo so that the silhouette of the woman is no longer behind that of the man.

Facebook's Caitlin Winner has admitted that the old design positioned women 'quite literally in the shadow of the man', so this seems an overdue move for a brand which has an increasingly prominent female user base.

It's part of the growing trend of marketing 'to women', which is no surprise given a study as far back as 2013 cited 57% of women held the purchasing power in their household, yet there are plenty of organisations driven by social equality rather than just profit.

The Sport England (a former client) campaign 'This Girl Can' has received widespread praise for its attempt to increase female participation in sport, while the recent success of the England Women's Football team (reaching the semi final) was part of a global phenomenon which saw Fox achieve  $40m in ad revenue for hosting a tournament which had limited coverage beforehand.

(Courtesy of Flickr, Liga Utama)

Women's sport and marketing clearly pays, even if sponsors stumble into it.

But there's still a long way to go for brands, even those supposedly on the side of women, as demonstrated by the FA's ill advised 'partners and mothers' tweet. Marina Hyde gets that right here.

The point about the women's World Cup is that it should mark a new dawn of modern marketing looking at working with women outside of traditional 'roles' such as motherhood or career. The idea that hopes, dreams and aspirations can be accessible to all genders - who would have thought it?!

And it's laughable that this is even a thing. It is 2015 for god's sake. But my wife tells me we're not there yet, so I believe her. And not because she is a 'wife' but because she is refreshingly honest and cynical with her marketing interactions, she engages when she wants and it's rarely within the confides of her domestic life but through hobbies, fitness and friends.

The first social wave of brand marketing was owned by the mummy blogger, and a good job they did, making fortunes for founders of channels such as Mumsnet.

But this new wave feels fresher, more unpredictable. Is it about fitness? Arguable, but no, because that plays to difficult audiences, as Protein World famously found out.

I'm a man so I don't have the answer, but I deal with enough intelligent female clients, marketers and creatives every day to get a sense that the answer might be individualism, and that this has its roots in social media.

It's an important phase and although I expect more than a few mistakes on the way, let's hope it inspires some great PR campaigns too.

Facebook is here to stay as trust in the channel increases

According to the latest corporate social responsibility report from Havas PR, communities are increasingly using Facebook as a source of local news, and the channel is gaining trust.



This means that despite the recent talk of Ello taking over, Facebook users in the UK aren't showing signs of abandoning it anytime soon. In fact, nine out of ten people claim they'll still be using the channel in two years' time.



I believe that although the results are good for the long term ambitions of Facebook/social media, it reflects the move to an older demographic and an increase in local community pages. Rather than compete with this, newspapers can take advantage through setting up strong and engaged pages which direct people to their site and paper.



The level of trust in local media for the second year running is a big selling point, and their advertisers would do well to notice it, in my humble opinion.



Check out the video for the full report.

Ken Clarke PR comments show industry reputation still suffers

#91494336 / gettyimages.com

Ken Clarke, the big old Tory Beast, used his leaving party platform on Radio 4's Today Programme this morning to fire a warning to incoming Government Ministers to beware the 'lightweight sloganeering of PR men'.

Whether this means PR women are OK, I'm not so sure, but what it does show is that almost 20 years on from the birth of the 'sultans of spin', the PR industry is still regarded by many, including those in Government, as a hindrance to democracy and lacking in gravitas.

There's no doubt that 'spin' became a badly received four letter word during the end of the Blair years, as things can only get better gave way to dodgy dossiers and briefing wars.

Since then, the PR industry has been through a golden period where every organisation wanted their own Campbell-like operation, to some leaner times during the recession. During this period the sector fragmented and went through some very grown-up changes, now having two industry bodies with increasing national influence, to offering some of the very best training and opportunities for young people.

But all that is really a side issue to the point here, which is that 'PR' is still received by many as warmly as a cold cup of tea: it is a toxic phrase.

Part of that is because the communications industry is so vast that mainstream media and Joe Public wouldn't know where to begin to describe it, so the tabloid default sticks in the same way it does for 'public sector worker', 'freelancer' or any number of often lazily described professions.

But we still have to recognise that too many people within the industry are actually lightweight. Too many dinosaurs remain with their 2012  like jargon and inability to offer people anything other than a regurgitated marketing handbook.

The effect of this is that it often leaves 'PR' people somewhat lacking in confidence around the board table. Sure, they know how to get a message across (at least they should do) but ask them to pinpoint exactly how their work adds to the bottom line and they fold.

There's been too many 'the death of PR/the death of SEO/the death of lists about the death of' articles that I don't need to take that route, but it is clear that one of two things need to happen.

The Ken Clarke generation needs to retire and make way for impressive younger operators, especially women, who will win the public's respect through their professional and transparent modern two-way communications (I read that in a PR manual...).

Or, the P and the R need to quietly slip out for a drink one Friday afternoon and not come back. Its family move on and come Monday morning they are shacked up with digital communications in an integrated three bed semi in Richmond.

I'm not sure which one it will be, but I can assure voters that the squeezed middle won't suffer because of it, as we're all in this together.

Response to Floods Shows Public Relations Doesn't Have to Be a Dirty Word

'So then, what do we do about the floods?'

A question heard throughout boardrooms of businesses across the UK this past month. After one of the cruelest winters imaginable for thousands of families, big organisations were compelled to respond, not least because they too had been affected.

It is at times like this that public relations can really earn its money. Not in the hastily arranged 'wallies in wellies' photo opportunities (hello, Ed, Dave, Nick - how many sandbags did you fill?) but in the ability to advise decision makers within organisations of a simple truth:

Actions speak louder than words.

From supermarkets and clothing retailers, to mobile phone operators and white goods sellers, there have been thousands of businesses who have worked with, and without, the Government to help people, whether that be on a national scale, or supporting local communities.

Throughout the past few weeks, there has been a refreshing lack of advertising crowing about what a great effort companies have made, a dearth of staged-managed photo opportunities (the Royal family can be excused as a different case), and any media coverage has been truly 'earned' rather than sought.

Let's face it, many people see PR as a dirty word, but public relations is more than the knowing wink of the spurious survey, or the bikini-laden park bench work-out of a reality Z-lister with a new weight-loss DVD to flog.

It's about understanding and working with those people affected by an issue, regardless of their place in society, and knowing that communicating through action is just as important as rhetoric.

It's in the setting up a flood relief fund, as one major supermarket has, or in the donation of time and goods to local people whose lives have been turned upside down.

It's about knowing the good that this 'CSR' does for a brand locally and nationally, and not being ashamed by it. Of understanding that people are sophisticated enough to judge for themselves and that if you avoid exploiting disaster, and invest in the human condition, this judgement can be a positive one.

The floods continue to be terrible and the worst may be yet to come - but PR is part of the positive response, and we should be proud to work in an industry that can react like that.

First published at Huffington Post UK

Theresa May says BBC is undermining local newspapers

Speaking at the Society of Editors conference, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, has accused the BBC of undermining local newspapers.

According to the Home Secretary, the BBC's online local news sites are a juggernaut which eclipse local newspapers and create a culture where local people don't need to buy newspapers.

I don't agree with this assertion and here's why:

- Here's the site for BBC Manchester where I live. You will immediately see there are three headline stories, four links to other regions and six links to stories from local newspapers. In other words, the BBC is giving links to local newspapers while carrying little in-depth local news. It's performing an aggregation function and offering little in the way of in-depth local reporting as competition

- The people who access newspapers online are a different audience than those who purchase a newspaper. The editor of Trinity Mirror North East told me this himself recently. To help grow the two together newspaper websites are offering more news from smaller areas within a city. They need to make the advertising or paid for model work to fund this, but the challenge here is also to make businesses aware of the continued power of regional and local advertising...

- Which brings me on to my next point.  According to YouGov research into CSR and local communities commissioned by Havas PR, 67% of people trust local newspapers and two thirds of people still buy a local newspaper. This level of trust and popularity hasn't been affected by the BBC for more than a decade, so why the panic now at a time when the BBC is actually linking to those sites?

- If the Government is actually serious about supporting local newspapers it should start by discussing support for journalists in terms of training, investment in jobs and incentives for publishers who invest in journalism, not strip the products down because they aren't making their advertising models work in light of competition on the internet

- Advertisers are going elsewhere than local newspapers, correct - but they aren't going to the BBC, so yet again Theresa May is confusing the issue here by being too broad-brushed in her assessment of the situation.

I welcome the Home Secretary's comments as a chance to draw attention to local newspapers, but not as a cheap way to bash the Beeb.

Why I hate the Great British Bake Off

After much flirting, crying, icing and, finally, baking, Frances Quinn has been crowned The Great British Bake Off winner. 

The surprise BBC Two hit from 2010 has gained even more viewers this year and saw off a terrible copycat from Simon Cowell, earning it a slot on BBC One next year - which also guarantees its demise, naturally.

Now I have an admission to make - I think the show is turgid and my heart sinks when Mrs Welsh puts it on. 

I would rather watch re-runs of John Major in Prime Minister's Questions than be subjected to Paul Hollywood, who must have the most bizarre rise to fame as any man could have.

The Twitter chaos when the show is transmitted is mind-blowing, nobody seems to watch it any way but live and it's like someone has taken Twitter and dumped it in 1995. I half expect Mr Blobby to walk in with his home made Blobby buns.

I also can't decide if it strikes a blow for sexual equality with the male baker helping the mainly female cast achieve stardom in this male dominated TV world, or if it is some sort of secret misogynist plot, concocted after TV chiefs realised their wives were too busy watching X-Factor and not making them enough cake.

And there's the thing about cake, I like eating it, not looking at it. Bring me some cake, Hollywood, damn you.

But despite all this it has given the Beeb a format success that the more expensive The Voice failed so miserably to do.

It catches the British eccentricity and its success all over the world shows why people continue to flock to our great isles to capture this unique mix of politeness, imagination and creative rebellion.

I admire that and the BBC for having the guts to commission it.

So I'll have a slice of cake after all, Mr Hollywood.

Labour uses Audioboo to announce Ed Miliband energy prices freeze plan

Labour has used Audioboo to break the story of Ed Miliband's plan to freeze energy prices until 2017.

It plays some dispiriting music to talk about price rises under David Cameron (no mention of Cleggers) and is in contrast to the chirpy 'Britain can do better' message in his actual conference speech.

I personally think releasing detail like this distracts from the actual speech, but I like the Audioboo format and think it is a powerful advert which will damage the Coalition.

Stonewall and Paddy Power campaign scores with Everton

Everton have become the first Premier League club to support the 'Right Behind Gay Footballers' campaign by gay-rights charity, Stonewall, in association with online bookmaker, Paddy Power.

It's left the Premier League 'disappointed' and complaining, gently I might add, that the charity didn't go directly to them.

Instead, it has worked with rebel footballer extraordinaire, Joey Barton, and controversial master of stunt marketing, Paddy Power, to encourage players and teams to sport rainbow laces this weekend.

The Premier League has, in private, expressed doubts of the suitability of a bookmaker to support this campaign and questioned why it wasn't a part of it.

And that's exactly why it is a great marketing campaign.

Targeted at anti-authority figures such as Barton and Paddy Power, Stonewall has managed to give the brand some street credibility, and juxtaposed this against a Premier League and Football League which it has to be said haven't exactly pioneered gay rights in the league - there are currently no gay footballers in the league, out of 5000...

This has allowed the campaign to have an edge of rebellion and it was a great PR move by Alan Myers and the team at Everton to throw their weight behind it first.

This issue will take generations to fix, a cursory glance at the comments underneath some of the articles is evidence of that, yet the media coverage received at least puts it front of mind and moves the debate on.

The evolution of modern consumer PR

Marketing managers, ever wondered how PR geniuses create the strategic plans which result in the 'coverage' your brand craves?

This diagram spills the amazing secrets of success. It is believed to have been obtained using PRISM...

Probably missing an option for a shortage of bras...

Recent guest blog posts

Been quiet on here recently but I've done some guest blogs elsewhere, including research based posts for Huffington Post UK, and thought I'd share the links:

• Examining the impact of mobile consumer reviews

• A look at relationship between CSR and communities

• There's also a recent article I penned on the danger of poor content marketing.

• Prosumer Report blog, also on mobile consumers 

Hope you enjoy.

Jon

David Beckham - master of the PR stunt

Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

Henry IV, 3.4.283


Goodbye, David Beckham, master of the PR stunt and first modern global English sporting brand. From Goldenballs to golden locks, tattoos to missed penalties, you will be missed on the pitch. Yet, off the green grass, things will be strange only for their familiarity.

Brand Beckham is well publicised and SFX, then Simon Fuller, have helped the Beckhams create a niche market in happy family sporting icons; a brand not reliant on sporting success but shrewd endorsements, CSR and choosing the right moment, be it the 2012 Olympics or when not to put your name to a doomed musical.

This will undoubtedly be Beckham's epitaph, his gift not to the game but to the individuals who followed him, From Wayne Rooney to the next big thing, he has made English footballers a market force again, something not seen even with players of a higher quality, such as Gazza.

So why has Beckham's PR been so successful? Firstly, he understood the power of pictures to move around the globe faster than words. Not one for naval gazing interviews, his team knew when and where to ensure the right picture was taken. The finest example of this was when a local Manchester photographer who had always been respectful to Beckham was, allegedly, given a tip-off to be at a certain place and time one deserted Sunday morning. There he happened to get the shot of Becks with a rather large plaster on his forehead, following a heated row with Sir Alex. The photographer was rewarded with a shot that would be sold around the globe and Beckham said everything he needed to about his relationship with the manager, without ever uttering a disrespectful word.

One gets the sense Alex Ferguson would somehow have appreciated the gesture, he himself often using the silent but deadly approach to getting his point across - most recently demonstrated with Wayne Rooney being benched against Real Madrid.

Beckham never relied on this understanding and marketing team, though, he always worked hard. Gary Neville, his closest ally, often commented on his after hours practice and relentless approach to self-improvement.

What he showed was that even though his performances had long deserted him, Beckham was able to sustain a place at the top of world football for ten extra years through sheer desire. A desire to win, to build his image, to be remembered.

In the end, it was this lofty ambition was marked him apart. A gentleman, a fine sportsman and a good-looking man with an eye for a PR opportunity.

David Beckham won his place at court by seducing those who mattered. He gained glory in battles, despite not actually winning the fights himself, such as his 'redemptive' penalty against Argentina in the 2002 World Cup.

Yet desire is more than most can apply to their careers and it carried him through to win the game almost single-handedly against Greece in 2001. It was a performance fitting of the man, through its drama through to the conclusion.

People mock Beckham, they are foolish to do so. He has opened the door for many young men from poorer backgrounds to market their modest abilities and achieve superstardom in modern pop culture.

For all this is good, bad, and indifferent, it could not have been achieved without a unique desire.

Goldenballs always had balls.

Ed Miliband's 'new settlement' is a direct response to Tony Blair but it's Lord Heseltine he should listen to

Ed Miliband's call for a 'new settlement' is a direct response to criticisms from Blairites this week and shows that the Labour leader is clearly worried about the damage caused by those who have accused him of turning Labour into a protest party.

Today's proposals tackle employment, tax, housing and regional businesses. It's an attempt to re-light the Labour flame after Ed Ball's poor ratings and the intervention of the former PM which has caused Labour to become weird and introspective while the Tories have handled the death of Baroness Thatcher with aplomb. It says a lot about the state of Labour that Polly Toynbee warned this week about Blair 'making the same mistake' as Thatcher in interfering with the leadership after he has left.

Out of the policies it's the talk about regional banks which I would look to focus on if I were Miliband. I've mentioned before about Lord Heseltine's regional regeneration strategy and today he's urged LEPs to 'revolt' against central Government to demand finances and power. For me, these can have a greater impact than regional banks which will undoubtedly face regulative and trust issues.

As small business lending fails to take off, LEPs will fight the regional battles and gain traction with their regional media and public. Talk of a regional fight is exactly what people want to hear, they care little for devolution or credit ratings in the whole (the issues are too complicated for many voters), they are concerned about the local economy, jobs and prospects for their families and children.

I've been working on a project in work with YouGov, looking at how people view their communities, and there is massive appetite for getting disadvantaged people into work locally, sharing expertise and injecting cash into local communities.

Nationally Ed Miliband might not have time to become as popular as he needs to be, and to do so he's probably going to have to play yet more personality politics. But if he wants to truly impact Labour's vote regionally he could do worse than side with Lord Heseltine and start asking Ed Balls to talk more serious regional economics. It means Labour can build localised policies and not get caught up about the national 'who cuts what, how fast?' picture.

The irony that I'm referring to Lord Heseltine leading the way for regional economic policy in the week Baroness Thatcher's funeral was held, is not lost on me. Yet Labour could do worse than follow the old war horse's lead in this instance.

Margaret Thatcher's death leaves gaping hole in politics

I was born and bred in Liverpool. So the news that Baroness Thatcher, Britain's first woman prime minster, has died brings up a raft of emotions. Many will discuss her career and legacy in great detail and frankly I'm not adding anything to that debate, but I'm going to side-step the politics and think about why she had the impact she did.

What I do remember, vividly, is being about seven years old and the playground on fire with Chinese whispers that 'She's quit!'. That was in 1990 and we didn't talk about politics much on the playground, and I don't remember her being in Top Trumps - yet everyone knew about 'Maggie'.

From Right to Buy and The Falklands, to the closure of coal miners and denationalisation, her legislative programme was bold, divisive, relentless and created a divide between London and the rest of the UK which has since grown at pace beyond wildest expectation, the City becoming the Emerald Castle to the rest of Oz.

What marked her as a politician though, was character, she was 'not for turning' and she galvanised the Conservative party in a way which transcended in a way not seen post second world war. And she did this as a woman, a trailblazer for the modern boardroom and a shatterer of glass ceilings. It's no coincidence that many accused her of having blood on her hands, Thatcher echoed Lady Macbeth's unrelenting ambition, right up to the point of her career's end and the ghost of Heseltine.

Compare her no-nonsense style, her cut-glass tongue and merciless march of capitalism, with the bland  'middle ground' of today. Standing next to her, Cameron, Clegg and Milliband resemble the Spitting Image caricature of John Major. Ironically, this too is because of Thatcher. Her unpopularity in the North, the divisions that remain in the Conservatives to this day, all acting as a lesson that to survive beyond Thatcher a leader had to walk the middle ground. John Smith's death arguably denied Labour its modern era equivalent and instead New Labour is now the template for gaining and retaining power.

She's still being attacked for decisions she made in 2013, yet hundreds of other politicians since have made unpopular and unwise decisions and hid behind civil servants, the media, or special advisers, deliberately alienating themselves from the aftermath of their work. In many cases it's unclear whose policies belong to who.

I'll miss Baroness Thatcher. The fierce hate her name provoked in some, the tales of how her policies destroyed towns, the loyalty and free market leader others declared her to be. She defined her principles and she acted upon them, so be damned those who disliked her way of doing things.

You knew where you stood with Maggie. Even a playground of scouse kids. if David Cameron visited the school it would no doubt be a bland stage managed photo.

We'd have egged Maggie's car -and she would have shut down our school. Those were the days.

RIP Baroness Thatcher.

'Where Are We Now?' - David Bowie's unfussy single launch is perfect PR

It is all about Mr Bowie at the moment so I have penned a short note for The Drum on his perfect PR - do have a gander...

'Where Are We Now?' - David Bowie's unfussy single launch is perfect PR

AC Milan player walks off pitch due to racism

Taking a stand against racism in sport is oft-discussed but rarely practiced  so you have to respect the former Portsmouth and Spurs player, Kevin Prince-Boateng, for walking off the pitch during a football match due to racism from an Italian crowd.

If you haven't seen it yet, you can see the video here at ITV news.

It's about time a player took such action and while the game was a low-profile friendly and won't have the impact it would have had in a similar league match, the act could well serve to inspire other players to take a stand, or act as a deterrent for the idiots in the crowd.

It caps off a bad few days for the beautiful game, after a poll of professional players by Four Four Two Magazine revealed drug taking, homophobia and racism was rife in the game.

It's not the first time this year football has suffered and with the contrast between London 2012 still glaringly obvious, there's work to be done by the FA, clubs, players and sponsors to rebuild the game's wider image outside of core fans.

Globally, the racism issue is a much tougher nut to crack, and the actions of the Milan player are an important step in tackling such thuggery.

Leveson Final Report

David Cameron and Nick Clegg are at odds over today's final report by Lord Justice Leveson in a scenario which could set the battleground ahead of the next General Election.

I think this is a clear attempt by Nick Clegg to seize a march on David Cameron and signal the end of the internal cold-war which has seen the two leaders refrain from any major public policy disagreements.

His decision seems simple enough. The less-popular of the coalition partners, Clegg is attempting to tap in to perceived public disgust at the actions of the press and go against traditional liberal values in backing a statutory solution to upholding press regulation.

It's a dangerous move as for months now, newspapers such as the Daily Mail and The Sun have been running editorial against Leveson, and this could have resonated with some readers who will not want press freedom to be diminished.

There's also the danger of an accusation that this is a post-expenses opportunity for politicians to ensure the press don't embarrass them again - this is an angle which Clegg's detractors could well use against him and any other supporters of legislation.

For this reason I think the Prime Minister is sensible to welcome the findings but urge caution over protecting the freedom of the press . I believe this will protect him somewhat where Nick Clegg's motives will now be under more scrutiny and he faces yet another test of his leadership.

So while Nick Clegg has sounded the starting gun for the race to the next election, it could well prove to be a false start.

Result of the 2012 US Presidential Election?

There's 48 hours to go and President Obama and Mitt Romney are putting the finishing touches to their increasingly frantic campaigns.

I've been fascinated by coverage of the election both in the US and here in the UK as I think it draws a lot of parallels with the last UK General Election.

There's a world-wide weariness with politicians that stems mostly from the omnipotent global financial crisis (as Gordon Brown would say) but is also evident in a youth moment who have the technology to help see beyond propaganda and take a global look at local issues.

Whether it is the Arab Spring, the Russian elections, or the last Australian and UK elections, there is one common theme: voters disconnected with the ruling elite. This manifests itself in uprisings, riots, social acrimony and a blanket of online cynicism.

President Obama was meant to be  the man to smash apathy and reconnect the world. This was a preposterous platform but one born of hundreds of millions of dollars of campaign money as much as hyperbole regarding the first black US President.

Now Obama's platform has been shattered by the reality of the US system of checks and balances which squeezes the life out of each and every President who tries to take on the dual legislative system without a majority in the upper and lower houses.

Lacking the luck or legislative skill of Clinton, Obama has become distant to voters and openly disenchanted with the lack of support he has compared to four years ago.

His perceived and apparent mistakes, battles with the Republicans and disinterested first TV debate mean that even endorsements, like this from the New Yorker, are tempered with faint praise and openly criticise his mistakes.

Personally I think Obama has done a good job in the worst of circumstances. Yet there is no denying Superman has lost his cape, he is merely mortal like that famous seen when Christopher Reeve gets punched in the cafe after surrendering his powers to save Louis Lane.

Bleeding, it's up the President to embrace the global apathy and seize the opportunity to over-deliver in a second term which would have significantly reduced expectations.

Yet to do this he has to overcome the overbearing reality which strangled the message of 'Hope' before it was even truly born.

It's going to be compulsive viewing.