Good news for Kent:
* the end of the Pleasurama BVI fraud - a stale leftover from The Gang of Four for a big pension payday of crooked councillors and civil servants (from my Mansifesto #1 and Manifesto #3 A5 version).
Only Kolonel Latchford limping on as a turncoat and lame duck.
A shame for Cardy though in financial trouble - let's hope KCC steps in to support a decent East Kent company. Shovel-ready projects could include: clearing the Pleasurama site for the end of the Summer and a public consultation on a beach park and icerink, clearing the last rubble and disused wind turbine at Richboro power station (a policy from my Manifesto #1) and removing the old tarmac from the 1970's Pegwell Bay old ferry port UNESCO site (my Manifesto #3).
* The BHS Scandal with Philip Green and Lord Grabiner of One Essex Court (his fraudsters Hollingworth and Glick QC in my policy #11 in Manifesto #3 the A5 brochure) one of the worst corruption cases since Robert Maxwell (Serious Fraud Office pending).
Grabiner in a full page in today's Daily Mail lambasted as Green's patsy.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3709808/How-great-good-s-Lord-Tony-Green-s-patsy-QC-reluctant-act-BHS-sold-1-thrice-bankrupt.html?ITO=1490
And let's not even bother delving into the shambles of Chappell or Caring as a secret shareholder.
But when will our MP Craig Mackinlay, who sits on the pensions committee, speak up?
We've heard from dynamic MP's like Frank Field and Iiain Wright and Richard Graham MP dig into this mess (as well as Sports Direct sweatshops) costing 11,000 jobs and 22,000 pensions and funds shunted offshore to Monaco and Jersey and British Virgin Islands and back again, and round and round.
This should be easy for Craig as an accountant.
Let's hear from him: should Green have his knighthood removed? Should Grabiner be booted out of the Lords the Bar and as a Judge?
I think so.
They're both quite elderly, so a jail sentence might be a bit harsh with Winter coming on - not the first pensioners to give up the ghost when it gets cold: a horrifying 3k extra deaths in UK.
* What does Craig think of the corruption at TDC say the £500k OLAF EU report?
* Dreamland a mess going bust again - but the green shoots of recovery as a major amusement park linked to Paramount etc, with the capable Bernie Morgan as the new CEO
* Or the missing Manston monitors with Infratil/TDC and cocaine flights and gunrunning via Ostend, given Manston is his long-delayed policy?
Let's hear from Craig. Or what's the point of him?
Tim Garbutt
@timg33
Misc:
* shambolic seaside town parking yet again
* Silence on the cancer victim from Thor mercury contamination: arrests in Flint and upheaval in Klity
* I missed the Asean Rail conference in KL on TH/KH etc but interesting notes and a few interesting things coming up the track with Vinh-Vientiane
* Misc articles: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/misc-articles-updates-july-2016.html
Wednesday, 27 July 2016
BHS Scandal: Grabiner a patsy, and Pleasurama BVI ends
Good news for Kent:
* the end of the Pleasurama BVI fraud - a stale leftover from The Gang of Four for a big pension payday of crooked councillors and civil servants (from my Mansifesto #1 and Manifesto #3 A5 version).
Only Kolonel Latchford limping on as a turncoat and lame duck.
A shame for Cardy though in financial trouble - let's hope KCC steps in to support a decent East Kent company. Shovel-ready projects could include: clearing the Pleasurama site for the end of the Summer and a public consultation on a beach park and icerink, clearing the last rubble and disused wind turbine at Richboro power station (a policy from my Manifesto #1) and removing the old tarmac from the 1970's Pegwell Bay old ferry port UNESCO site (my Manifesto #3).
* The BHS Scandal with Philip Green and Lord Grabiner of One Essex Court (his fraudsters Hollingworth and Glick QC in my policy #11 in Manifesto #3 the A5 brochure) one of the worst corruption cases since Robert Maxwell (Serious Fraud Office pending).
Grabiner in a full page in today's Daily Mail lambasted as Green's patsy.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3709808/How-great-good-s-Lord-Tony-Green-s-patsy-QC-reluctant-act-BHS-sold-1-thrice-bankrupt.html?ITO=1490
And let's not even bother delving into the shambles of Chappell or Caring as a secret shareholder.
But when will our MP Craig Mackinlay, who sits on the pensions committee, speak up?
We've heard from dynamic MP's like Frank Field and Iain Wright and Richard Graham MP dig into this mess (as well as Sports Direct sweatshops) costing 11,000 jobs and 22,000 pensions and funds shunted offshore to Monaco and Jersey and British Virgin Islands and back again, and round and round.
This should be easy for Craig as an accountant.
Let's hear from him: should Green have his knighthood removed? Should Grabiner be booted out of the Lords the Bar and as a Judge?
I think so.
They're both quite elderly, so a jail sentence might be a bit harsh with Winter coming on - not the first pensioners to give up the ghost when it gets cold: a horrifying 3k extra deaths in UK.
* What does Craig think of the corruption at TDC say the £500k OLAF EU report?
* Dreamland a mess going bust again - but the green shoots of recovery as a major amusement park linked to Paramount etc, with the capable Bernie Morgan as the new CEO
* Or the missing Manston monitors with Infratil/TDC and cocaine flights and gunrunning via Ostend, given Manston is his long-delayed policy?
Let's hear from Craig. Or what's the point of him?
Tim Garbutt
@timg33
Misc:
* shambolic seaside town parking again
* Misc articles: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/misc-articles-updates-july-2016.html
* the end of the Pleasurama BVI fraud - a stale leftover from The Gang of Four for a big pension payday of crooked councillors and civil servants (from my Mansifesto #1 and Manifesto #3 A5 version).
Only Kolonel Latchford limping on as a turncoat and lame duck.
A shame for Cardy though in financial trouble - let's hope KCC steps in to support a decent East Kent company. Shovel-ready projects could include: clearing the Pleasurama site for the end of the Summer and a public consultation on a beach park and icerink, clearing the last rubble and disused wind turbine at Richboro power station (a policy from my Manifesto #1) and removing the old tarmac from the 1970's Pegwell Bay old ferry port UNESCO site (my Manifesto #3).
* The BHS Scandal with Philip Green and Lord Grabiner of One Essex Court (his fraudsters Hollingworth and Glick QC in my policy #11 in Manifesto #3 the A5 brochure) one of the worst corruption cases since Robert Maxwell (Serious Fraud Office pending).
Grabiner in a full page in today's Daily Mail lambasted as Green's patsy.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3709808/How-great-good-s-Lord-Tony-Green-s-patsy-QC-reluctant-act-BHS-sold-1-thrice-bankrupt.html?ITO=1490
And let's not even bother delving into the shambles of Chappell or Caring as a secret shareholder.
But when will our MP Craig Mackinlay, who sits on the pensions committee, speak up?
We've heard from dynamic MP's like Frank Field and Iain Wright and Richard Graham MP dig into this mess (as well as Sports Direct sweatshops) costing 11,000 jobs and 22,000 pensions and funds shunted offshore to Monaco and Jersey and British Virgin Islands and back again, and round and round.
This should be easy for Craig as an accountant.
Let's hear from him: should Green have his knighthood removed? Should Grabiner be booted out of the Lords the Bar and as a Judge?
I think so.
They're both quite elderly, so a jail sentence might be a bit harsh with Winter coming on - not the first pensioners to give up the ghost when it gets cold: a horrifying 3k extra deaths in UK.
* What does Craig think of the corruption at TDC say the £500k OLAF EU report?
* Dreamland a mess going bust again - but the green shoots of recovery as a major amusement park linked to Paramount etc, with the capable Bernie Morgan as the new CEO
* Or the missing Manston monitors with Infratil/TDC and cocaine flights and gunrunning via Ostend, given Manston is his long-delayed policy?
Let's hear from Craig. Or what's the point of him?
Tim Garbutt
@timg33
Misc:
* shambolic seaside town parking again
* Misc articles: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/misc-articles-updates-july-2016.html
Wednesday, 20 July 2016
The Bridges of Battambang
Nestled at the corner of Tonle Sap Lake, Battambang is a Cambodian town in resurgence. Poised between the Thai border, now seeing rail connections into Poipet after the destruction of the Khmer Rouge years, and equidistant to Siem Reap, and the wonders of Angkor Wat, or the capital Phnom Penh. The latter now, as of this month, with the first scheduled rail-link to the coast and port at Sihanoukvile in 30 years.
And amidst the rice basket and forests of Battambang Province is Battambang Town itself rippled by the River Sankhae and its four bridges. The Old Stone Bridge leading to the Governor’s Palace of 1905 built by the previous Thai administration, before French colonial rule took over until 1947 and Cambodian independence. The modern New Iron Bridge linking the river promenades and exercise areas to the hotel and restaurant areas. The Park Bridge through to the Russian market and commercial banks. And the New Stone Bridge to the modern hospital and river ferry to Phnom Penh.
A town now teeming with vitality, with potential listing as a UNESCO Heritage Town and recognised as a hub of the Performing Arts. A resurgence of arts built on the era of chanteuses such as Ros Serey Sothea, the Golden Voice, resonant of Edith Piaf, and Sinn Sisamouth and Pan Ron from the 1960’s heyday blending of traditional Khmer music and electric guitars.
All lost in the Khmer Rouge torture chambers such as S21 Tuol Sleng, a nondescript high school in Phnom Penh and thousands of work camps in the countryside as cities such as Phnom Penh and Battambang were emptied. The UK’s Trade Minister and Creative Industries expert, David Puttnam’s movie The Killing Fields detailing the story of journalist Dith Pran, played by doctor Haing S. Ngor, the first untrained actor to win an Oscar.
The American journalist Sydney Schanberg who worked with Dith Pran and won the Pulitzer prize for reporting on Cambodia for the New York Times, dying earlier this month.
Some of the main rural reservoirs and graves of the medieval wasteland of mud and skulls of the Khmer Rouge regime depicted in the movie are around Battambang.
And beyond the bridges and graves of Battambang, the necklace of 1,000 year old Khmer temples, such as Baset Temple with its pond that never dries, even in the hot season, and Wat Ek Phnom with its 11th century friezes of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk, that extend along The Royal Road to Angkor and on into Thailand’s Isaan region.
Such major tourist attractions are breathing life back into Battambang, along with the Creative Industries to the fore are the Phare Performing Arts Institute and circus, now internationally renowned. A somersault from the days when over 90% of artists and monks and doctors and journalists were routinely executed in the drive back to Year Zero, and the Killing Caves of Phnom Sampean with its breathaking views over the province.
Now Battmabang is peppered with graphic design studios, art galleries, a clutch of Khmer and Thai restaurants, social enterprise cafes, artist collectives, and art deco cinemas. And a wealth of visual and creative arts colleges, and universities pulling through a new generation of students.
And a wealth of returning emigres such as Princess Soma Norodom – a Princess Diana figure revitalising the reinstituted Cambodian Royal Family with work on landmines, fashion and textiles and film.
And backing onto the Governor’s palace, and now disused art deco Battambang railway station, is the Bamboo Railway the last vestige of Khmer railways, now a tourist attraction of tank wheels and a bamboo platform, with its shrunken feeder lines into the fields for rice and bricks freight.
But, with the main railway being rebuilt, and the wealth of arts, surely the real bridges of Battambang should be not iron and stone but the flesh and blood of human capital - with greater links between Cambodia and UK?
A dynamic and active British Embassy under Ambassador Bill Longhurst has rejuvenated the UK’s political and diplomatic and administrative links beyond Phnom Penh to towns such as Battambang. Arts and Science links are fostered in depth with the Women in Science series of STEM books of Deputy Ambassador Bryony Mathew (highlighting UK excellence in engineering for railways and trams and tubes/metro), and a tripling of Chevening student scholarships between UK and Cambodian universities.
And a fizzing arts scene is crying out for UK showcases of Ballet and Khon dance at the Royal Albert Hall and Barbican again. Khon Dance is a good-natured Thai and Khmer balletic rivalry for the UN Cultural Heritage status. While Thailand’s Queen Sirikit Textile Museum, OTOP programmes and Bangkok’s futuristic Skytrains, are testament to Thai skill in preserving arts and crafts, and potential with Cambodia, to showcase such priceless fashion designs and silk-weaving expertise that is ripe for the fashion houses of Europe as well as Asia.
Sports Diplomacy too has come on apace with both the Leicester City Premiership win of the Thai-owned club a spur for more than ad-hoc club visits to Thailand by Arsenal and Chelsea and ManU.
And England too, given former England manager Roy Hodgson’s time as a player for not one but 5 Kent clubs from Ebbsfleet to Ashford, must sound the whistle, with the full heft of the FA, to kickoff cohesive sports programmes into Cambodia, Laos and the rest of ASEAN.
The roar of the Thundercastles of Buriram just over the border, winners of the Thai Foootball League’s first ever hat-trick of titles, and Invincibles in never being beaten during a full season must be an ideal lever to ASEAN-wide sports training programmes and exhibition matches and exchanges.
Britain’s excellence in sports whether football, golf, cycling, athletics and the Olympics – both playing and managing, as well as Sports Industries, should be the ideal footprint for Stadium Tours of the Kop and Wembley and cultural exchanges.
Khmer tourists won’t initially rival the record-breaking 1M inbound UK tourists to Thailand, or indeed Thailand’s 30M visitors. But the Kingdom of Cambodia’s 4M tourists will certainly grow as will the 4M Vietnam tourist trade and 4M Myanmar tourism.
While Thai inbound tourists to UK are already the 3rd highest spenders after the Chinese and Arabian gulf states – and c.8k Thai students in UK against only 17k Malaysia students and 89k Chinese students creating the basis for deeper university links as well as sporting events.
Twin town programmes are under-nourished in Cambodia with Battambang suffering from the rather non-descript links of Stockton in California or Germany. Potential that could be grasped in East Kent with Canterbury and its cathedral or Dover and its epitome of Englishness the White Cliffs of Dover or the Arts and Tourism shift of Ramsgate, plus the existing French and Belgian and Danish links. And Kent’s 4 universities, 400 schools – 40 in Thanet alone – and dozens of language schools and sixth form colleges.
There is time. The Sankhae still flows smooth and silent through the centre of Battambang.
Past the bustle of the market. The evening breeze rustling though bolts of silk as the market closes and balcony shutters are thrown open, whispering down through the trees from the far Highlands of Vietnam.
A Golden Voice of Khundrum melodies competing with Vietnamese tunes and the lilting refrain of the song Pleiku you are so lovely that sadly no longer rings true.
The Sankhae flows past Restaurant street, Pub Street and the collection of glinting trophies from the coffee championships of Cambodia routinely won by the baristas of Battambang, and past Gallery Street.
Past the Time to Think arts installation on a riverboat by artist Khchao Touch.
Two fishermen waist-deep in the current of lotus flowers waiting for the occasional catfish.
The air thick with the scent of malaria coils and incense and steamed rice and dumplings.
The Sankhae flows on past the parade of monks in their orange robes in the still morning air, past the twilight glow of the evening joggers and petanque players, as the moon comes out and shines on the Bridges of Battambang.
Time for Change
@timg33
* Sincerity article: Thai Foreign Minister, Khun Surin Pitsuwan and Thai-UK trade:
http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-waters-of-puay-si-should-flow.html
* Sincerity article: Soda Wars go pop http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/
* Surin Charity: Malaria a brief thought: http://surinvillagecharityschool.blogspot.co.uk/
* Sincerity article on Coca-Cola: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/sweet-moves-from-coca-cola.html
* 21st century Britain agenda article: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/a-21st-century-britain-agenda.html
* No Tobacco Day Smoking Sincerity article: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/axaing-tobacco-and-china.html
* EK Remedial points 2016: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/kent-remedial-work-and-uk.html
* EK strategy 2016: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/garbutt-time-for-change-2016-east-kent.html
* Time for a Free Economy article: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/time-for-free-economy-tobacco-china-and.html
* Surin restaurant review: top Thai restaurant in Kent:
- Surin Thai restaurant the best Thai restaurant in Kent and one of only 45 of any cuisine in Kent according to KM:
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/whats-on/news/our-guide-to-the-best-96108/
http://surinrestaurantramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/
Tim's Titbits:
* nice to see "Lord Fraud" Hannigfield having his fake expenses claims court case overturned by Parliament - and where is Lord "Grabafee" Grabiner and the fraudsters of One Essex Court? Silence only reigns now for GlickQC and the Ali Bongo barrister Guy Hollingworth and their fraudulent firm.
* a parking kerfuffle in Ramsgate with the PCSO's not quite sure about parking on the prom or BBQ's - silly me, of course you should park on the prom and pedestrian zone... the TDC litter chaps doing a good job of picking up the mess, and TDC's parking wardens now active on seafront and town centre parking.
* Kent Police seem to have gone off in a huff and retreated into the police stations or their IT isn't working - no sign of PCC improvments for The Boy Scott running what appears ot be another police department staffed by cops rather than credible scrutiny on behalf of the publc. Mind you the lawyers running the consultaion on the Nemo/National Grid pylons have gone off in a huff too with only silence not explanations. Some consultation - barely better than leaving the documents in the council basement for a day with a days notice before rubberstamping them approved.
* Speaking of which it seems the 2 Stolen Valour elections are on: announced on Friday and nominsations close...this Friday. For an election in 3 weeks or so. After 2 weeks of delay and 9 months without councillors. Another weak Kent election designed to reduce public involvement. The Election Commission specifies 19 working days for candidates nominations. Too difficult for TDC it seems along with the previous elections frauds. Useless. Simply refuse to stand or vote. We're already at some of the lowest-ever turnouts of 20% or less.
* an East Kent Supercouncil in the offing which is not bad as long as it's not mere rebadging. Many of the councils have failed to promote and protect East Kent and are over-stuffed and over-paid. A review of existing staffing and salaries etc would be useful as a basepoint.
* excellent news to see Ramsgate marina's historic Slipways announced as a refurb to a working port rather than a twee tourism building - the good folks of Hornby and the latter need support for elsewhere in the town.
* Terrible news with Live Animal Exports resuming with the SS Joline junkship - and large cargo/tanker ships berthed off Margate and its Blue Flag beaches rather than tied up in port.
* Disappointing to hear too of unnecesarily tighter immigration controls on Thai chefs into UK - dampening down the burgeoning Thai cuisine and restaurant scene in UK (UK's 3rd most popular cuisine). Time too for KORA the Kent Oriental Restaurant Association.
More later:
* Trident
* PM and Cabinet and Corbyn
* Thor mercury: Flint arrests and prosecutions underway
* Infratil directors of Wellington NZ's worst airport
* Shan heroin and Colombia cocaine
* South Sudan UK evacuation
* Jordan refugee camps
* Dreamland going bust?
* the foolish 750 houses for Manston initial plans given mega-developments at Ebbsfleet New Town and ThamesGateway2050, the latter with Lord Hezza oversight
@timg33
Tuesday, 12 July 2016
Gooooaaalllll for UK Sports Diplomacy, Thailand and ASEAN?
The British Summer may not be ideal, but it’s been a scorching few weeks of sport in Britain. In fact we seem to have entered a Golden Era for UK Sport - and Thailand and ASEAN.
(Perhaps it's best, albeit unusual in the conference season and the MalaysiaRail event, for me to be quartered here in UK given the rains in Thailand). First off the sports grid though there’s Andy Murray winning the Wimbledon Men’s Final so officially becoming a Brit rather than a Scot.
Something seems to have been put in the tea at Wimbledon, presumably nothing stronger than an extra sugar lump given the recent scandals in athletics and cycling, with Britain’s Heather Watson winning the Mixed Doubles. And Britain’s Gordon Reid becoming the first Wheelchair Tennis Men’s Singles Champion. Plus the World Cup of Tennis, the Davis Cup, underway with the UK defending the trophy against Serbia this week.
While Wales ended 58 years in the football wilderness by reaching the semi-finals in UEFA Euro 2016. England of course lost to Iceland, at best avoiding the traditional British football route of losing to Germany on penalties.
Northern Ireland and Eire played well and so are both officially sort of British, with Eire even gaining a medal from the Parisian Mayor for sportsmanship - a triumph of the footballing minnows for once.
While England Manager, Kent’s Roy Hodgson – a player for not one but 5 Kent teams(!) from Ebbsfleet to Ashford to Tonbridge resigned to make way for new Lions. Only Mark Clattenburg was left waving a small England flag in refereeing the Euro Final.
While the Iceland defeat was awful, Hodgson's record as England manager was better than most in recent years and undoubtedly should be commemorated, on a street sign or stadium, in the Ebbslfeet New Town – the Khon Kaen of Kent if you will - part of the Thames Gateway mega-development.
Even the Tour de France, that iconic French sport, rivalled only by petanque, saw Britain develop its unheralded cycling expertise despite Bradley Wiggins Olympic Gold and Tour de France win in 2012. This weekend saw Brits gaining 3 of the 4 prized jerseys: Chris Froome, race leader in yellow, Adam Yates, white for best young rider and Mark Cavendish in green this season for points. With a reigning champion in Chris Froome, and Mark Cavendish now within a lycra seam of Belgium’s great Eddy Merckx for the most stage wins UK Cycling is surging.
This week also sees the Pakistan vs England Men's Test Match at Lords, and if England football went to Iceland then Heather Knight, Captain of England Women's Cricket has gone to Waitrose for an energy drink or two, already beating Pakistan last month in the One Day International, then the whole Series and then the T20 series.
And the British Grand Prix at Silverstone saw a Lewis Hamilton win, narrowly ahead of the Dutch boy racer, 18 year old Max Verstappen, for the Red Bull team.
It’s apt that Red Bull, Thailand’s energy drink is amongst several key Thai brands for UK sports – the Premier League commencing in the next few weeks with King Power’s Leicester City defending the title.
And Everton sponsored by Chang as part of its Asia strategy, with NEC and Kejiang previously. And even the mighty Liverpool fending off a takeover by Chinese art billionaire Liu Yiqian, China’s 47th richest man. He's no doubt excited that Liverpool’s first home game against the Siamese Foxes in September will attract 54,000 fans. A game that will be the highest attendance at Anfield in 40 years, and part of the stadium building programme of adding an extra 5,000 seats.
Hi-Energy UK and Thailand Sports Diplomacy Beyond A Political Football:
As a UK MP candidate with an emphasis on Thailand and ASEAN, shouldn’t the tsunami of support for English football in Asia – especially Thailand, be more effectively reflected in UK policy?
Politicians often rather desperately tap into football for support – remember PM David Cameron professing support for West Ham Villa? Or was it Aston Ham? I’m no huge sports fan (is Kenny Dalglish still playing?) preferring to play them – well, Swimming or Crazy Golf anyway - than watch them, although I do find event football matches on the big screen strangely meditative and relaxing.
Leaving the glitter of trophies and roar of the crowd aside for a moment, Sports Science is a huge UK growth industry in itself whether STEM, nutrition (Andy Murray feasting on an Asian diet of fish and rice and a whole melon and berry smoothies before the Final), or DNA analysis or injury treatment, and a burgeoning part of the conflux of Sports Business and Sports Medicine that filters through into the NHS. Unfortunately sports doping is still vital for pharma labs given the recent Russian Athletics or Tennis or Cycling scandals, and ever-expanding plethora of strange substances. While Rio 2016 has been affected by the wider problems of pandemics with Zika causing Jason Day, World Golf No.1 and several others to pull out of those Games.
And the Tech Sports arena is already increasing and showing a clean pair of heels, whether goal-line or baseline rulings, virtual advertising hoardings and graphics or the Digital Squash Screen a real-life Wii for training and fun. As with Dodgeball a new sport in the making, especially as Squash was notoriously difficult to televise and develop as a spectator sport.
Sports Diplomacy Shoots and Scores for UK and Thailand:
And with my advertising hat on, aren’t both UK plc and Thailand plc failing to maximise the business opportunities of sports together? Sure there are football display matches in Bangkok from Chelsea or England or the mighty Gunners. But all rather ad-hoc, and driven by the demands of the Premiership rather than a systemic programme of sports for better UK-Thai relations.
Thailand is after all one of the top 5 UK Growth Markets for the future - along with other football-mad Asia-Pacific nations such as Vietnam and Mexico and Chile and Argentina. And British Football-mad at that.
The eye-popping number of Premier League football shirts in Thailand though is astonishing, whether tuk-tuk or taxi drivers or the street fashion of food vendors, university students or school kids. Lord Green, the Chairman of HSBC and a UK Trade Minister on a trip to Thailand and ASEAN expressed his astonishment on the prevalence of UK football and fashion.
Indeed the astonishing thing about say Thailand taking UK football so completely to its heart (by comparison try finding a LaLiga or Bundesliga match) is every bar or shopping mall or train plasma screen showing the latest UK matches day or night. And not just the big boys of St James’ Park or The Toffee Men etc, but the whole spectrum of The Great British Beautiful Game whether Charlton Athletic or Ipswich Town or Stoke City – teams you’d struggle to follow in UK never mind thousands of miles away in Asia. (Only joking Charlton!).
And the passion for UK football is as strong in Cambodia and Laos and Vietnam - DaNang for example the site of huge UK investment in universities and tech colleges and fortunately the VLeague team doing well as runners up.
The popularity of Soccer in Asia is borne out in detailed research. For example, Hakuhodo research for Panasonic detailed sports in the 10 main Asian cities from Delhi to Tokyo, both to play and watch.
Soccer was the No.1 sport to watch with only Manila citing Basketball instead and Taipei Baseball. Delhi opted for Cricket as the No.1 Sport, but that was closely followed by Soccer.
Badminton, Tennis - even before the UK surge at Wimbledon - and Volleyball all featured highly. And in participating sports, Soccer, Swimming and Cycling all featured in every city.
Strangely Taipei was the only city not to feature Soccer at all, with Jogging being the main Sport in the other cities. Perhaps one for detailed UK Sports Diplomacy efforts. And the research quibbled over whether Bowling was a sport rather than a hobby but didn’t pass the same critical eye over Motorsports which also featured. Neither Snooker nor Takraw nor Martial Arts featured despite being almost ubiquitous in Asia.
While participating in Sports, had Bangkok as the only city at No.1 for Football, and Walking and Jogging being the main sport in every city with Taipei and Seoul opting for hiking.
Swimming, Badminton and Cycling were all heavily participated in, with Delhi choosing Cricket as it’s second most active sport after walking.
Interestingly, watching Figure Skating featured highly in Tokyo, Taipei and Seoul but nowhere else. While sadly, only in Tokyo and Seoul were all 5 main participatory sports undertaken solo. Not even a robot for company.
While, if Bangkok can enjoy tropical heat and several indoor ice rinks it’s absurd that East Kent is unable to provide such leisure facilities. You'd think Torvill and Dean never existed.
Friends and family in Thailand smile and joke about the chaotic state of UK politics after the Brexit silliness, comparing the BKK Shutdown and Thailand upheavals previously with the pro-EU marches in Piccadilly. In the short-term of Brexit, the only benefit so far is better value from the pound sterling for Thai tourists. Perhaps another flood of UK football scarves and shirts on Bangkok’s streets when they fly back? With 54,250 used Wimbledon tennis balls being sold off for £3 each but ending up on Ebay for £20 each that demonstrates at a stroke the value of Sports Memorabilia industries.
If the UK Foreign Office is on something of a back foot in explaining the disastrous Brexit result, and a 25% budget cut between 2010 and 2015, then Sir Simon Fraser the previous FCO head mandarin, interviewed by The Sunday Times last week, has rightly called for greater opportunities in balancing the mix of aid, defence and diplomacy. He cites diplomacy as both cheap and effective. In aid the UK is already a world-leader and even FCO benefits from its own specific $600M DFID budget plus extra Cultural Diplomacy funds from the British Council and BBC.
To lose dominance in the English language and culture such as Sports would be a spectacular mishap, what's the phrase, akin to coming out to bat to find your own team has smashed the wicket, given not just the current Great Summer of Sport, but that Britain invented Football, Cricket, Golf, Rugby and so on.
The NATO 2% defence budget rather than 0.7% aid, increasingly looks excessive given that the rest of the EU27 struggles to reach c.1.3%, and the excessive costs of new F35 jets (£100M each: the cost of about 3,000 Surin Schools and educations for c.150K schoolkids and c.15K teaching jobs), over 500 Jackal armoured cars something of a kneejerk response to the Snatch Landrover Mobile Coffins MOD scandal of Iraq2 and the Chilcot report, and rushed vote on multi-billion Trident submarines amidst the political wreckage of Brexit.
ASEAN and Sports and Kent:
It’s a wider debate relevant in East Asia too with the dangers of both excessive arms spending and a naval arms race around the Paracels and Spratlys, now ruled against China by PCA in The Hague, rather than vaccines or Haiyan aid. Strangely both China and Thailand investing in Ukrainain kit of aircraft carriers and tanks, given Ukraine is the only European nation and military losing territory at the moment. Brexit aside.
Andy Murray cheered onto victory by Murray Mound replacing Henman Hill sported a No More Malaria logo on his sports shirt, which raises an interesting issue around sports sponsorship by NGO’s in Asia-Pacific as with UNICEF and Barcelona.
UK has also seen a surge in sports after the hat-trick of Olympic Games with London 2012 perhaps the best-ever organised Olympics and a benchmark for Rio in just 4 weeks. And is it so outrageous that the Arts Medals that featured in the Olympics until the second London Games of 1948 could be revived? Especially with so few of the professional golfers interested in bothering to attend the Olympics?
The ASEAN Games and Phuket Asian Beach Games recently demonstrated to me both the power of Thailand’s organisation of sports, range of display sports, and Muay Thai martial arts in Phuket for farangs – and surely Sintu, Sakorn and Samut and could be further developed as UK-Thailand Youth Sports mascots?
While Takraw, not so dissimilar to Keepy-Uppy, could introduce Thai sports to UK along with other niche sports such as Urban Golf from Hoxton to Haiphong. And certainly stimulate broadcast rights in UK for ASEAN games and sports such as Takraw.
It's interesting that the current ASEM Summit in Mongolia doesn't include Sports Diplomacy in any substantial or meaningful way.
Sports Diplomacy shouldn't be a fluffy nice-to-have: various research programmes in UK eg Cardiff University cite the often difficult ways to measure economic benefits of sport – except for the feel-good factor. The boost in morale from your team winning is reflected in the buzz of the workplace and classroom, and the surge online or the High Street for souvenir scarves and booklets as well as the next matches tickets. It's not just the 15M that can watch on television, a game such as England v. Iceland but the knock-on effect of newspaper headlines, news reports and math pundits and workplace chat that can boost morale.
Kent Police have been active on research and innovation programmes, with football and the increase in domestic violence (unfortunately a 10% uplift from England losing) and reducing racism and hate crime from Englands’s previous unsavoury reputation for hooliganism.
As well as research on drugs such as Afghan and Shan heroin given Frontline Kent status as the nexus between London, Amsterdam and Paris. And with Kent's Folkestone and Maidstone Ghurkas rotating back through Kabul and the worsening security situation. Again innovative sports and work programmes such as Doitung are crucial in such areas - the UK recording in Glasgow this week its largest ever drug haul of 3 tonnes of cocaine worth £500M and Kent just a few months ago the largest ever gun haul of over 30 machine guns.
But the 2007 Grand Depart in London and Kent,just the first UK stages of the Tour De France, resulted in £80M in direct spend of food, tickets, souvenirs, hotels etc. As well as £15M in indirect spend, 2,000 FTE jobs, and Transport for London estimates over 2.85M spectators travelling to the event. That's just one not particularly well promoted event for a rather neglected sport so far in UK.
But even where the economic benefits can be variable: an increase in sports tourists balanced by those staying away from the crowds, or not interested in sports there's a groundswell of sports participation. Britain's greatest sports after all are Swimming and Angling – here in Kent seafishing being a key niche. And from the first years of the Disabled Games, there’s been a rapid growth in the Paralympic Games and now the Invictus Games for wounded troops.
In Kent, the 2012 Olympics on Kent's doorstep and the super-fast HS1 hispeed rail saw something of a political scandal with few if any legacy benefits such as stadia or events for the millions of pounds in promotion – the Grand Depart cycle race now lost to the Tour De Yorkshire, and as an official Tour de France stage too.
That's still something of a body-blow to Kent given its numerous sports stars: Dame Kelly Holmes, winning two Athletics golds in the 2004 Olympics, Sarah Ayton OBE winning gold in in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics for Sailing, Sean King the 2012 water polo ace, and Georgina Harland winning bronze for Pentathlon in 2004.
Women’s sports in general in UK have blossomed with Women Football and Women Cycling ready to give Thailand’s Volleyball and Badminton and Golf expertise a run for their money.
While, UK Athletics even without star names like Mo Farah or Jessica Ennis-Hill gained their biggest haul of medals in the European championships for 58 years at the weekend in Amsterdam. And the Ruby Europe Sevens also triumphed over France to win gold.
Sports Diplomacy on your Bike?
And as The Open begins at Troon, obviously there are massive opportunities for Golf in both UK and Thailand, with the extensive greens in Kent of over 100 courses, Prince Andrew recently hosting World Bank CEO Jim Yong Kim at the Royal St Georges Sandwich course, apt for the Kent Cuisine Coast, previously trod by icons such as Tiger Woods and Ian Fleming's James Bond and Goldfinger.
The London Marathon, and easier Park Run, attract record crowds and the Guinness World record for c.$60M in fundraising: as does RunBKK or the quirkier sports such as the very British Brompton Cycling races with UK Embassy support.
While England’s football youth under Gareth Southgate for U21 are woefully neglected for their skills eg Ruben Loftus-Cheek stymied at Chelsea but victorious in the U21’s at Toulon in May - the first time in 22 years. With 50% youth unemployment in much of Europe and at least 20% in UK, the superstars of the future, and sports industries of the future, are already lacing their boots and need support beyond mere flying the flag.
The Brexit debate has sparked a review of England’s consistently poor performance in major football events and foreign players in the Premier League: 35% home nation players in 2014-15 compared to 58% in Spain 56% in France and 48% in Germany. As with UK film and television quotas, as France already has in place, there’s a sensible debate to be had on the balance of internationalism and encouraging home-grown talent.
It's a debate as viable for Thai cycling champions such as Khun Jutathip Maneephan or English footballers, with mega-teams such as Real Madrid now having to pay back millions in EU State Aid as an unfair advantage.
And if football is such an open goal for UK-Thai relations then where are the Thai teams on tour in UK? Shouldn’t the roar of The Thundercastles echo through Wembley or Old Trafford? Shouldn’t Insee Police United feature in display matches or a tussle with Cambodian Tigers or Can Tho or Champa FC, if not a regular Great British ASEAN Football League?
And shouldn’t the influx of Thai tourists face more organised Stadium Tours to the cathedrals of football in their trips to Britain?
Thailand’s upsurge in cycling in recent years – almost unthinkable on Vietnam’s dangerous main road(s) – again needs a UK-ASEAN Tournament, with Cycling UK or the Sports Council, whether along the new Chaopraya promenade or under-developed Yodpiman heritage walk, or around Thailand’s provinces as is beginning with Nan a dedicated cycling town and routes for Tourism Thailand Thainess.
Sports Diplomacy and Sports Tourism are still something of an undiscovered gem for both UK and Thailand, and could easily be ramped up and I’d suggest a focus on: Football, Cycling, Beach (volleyball, swimming, beach soccer and cricket, beach polo), Cricket and Niche (Golf, Paralympics, Invictus, Womens, even Kent's Pickleball and Petanque experts)as core UK sports.
Indeed is it so impossible that the BBC and Thai television and radio channels couldn’t organise a joint venture on Sports, Tourism and Culture as well as exchanges of Free-to-Air channels? Especially given the innovative BBC White Paper reforms this month, led by another ASEAN Trade Minister Lord Puttnam of The Killing Fields movie fame – filmed on location in Hua Hin and Phuket. A Sydney Schanberg media event could also be a fitting memorial to the NY Times reporter who died recently but broke the news of the Pol Pot regime.
Besides the BBC, Channel Four has dived into the Paralympics but often failed to tackle its remit for innovation through sports in recent years – Sumo or Kabbadi or American Football are a distant memory in terms of previous efforts and investment, and confined to the subs bench now.
Sports has never been more important with the UNFAO 2016 Global Nutrition report highlighting malnutrition in terms of obesity that now affects one in three people with resulting increases in cancer and diabetes. And obesity has trebled in the last 30 years - the Measuring Up report by the Medical Royal Colleges describes Britain as the Fat Man of Europe with one in four adults obese. And it’s interesting that the top 5 includes those nations that did well in Euro2016: Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Germany. Not so much beach-body-ready or match-ready as sofa-ready.
Certainly sugar and salt and fat taxes, product reformulations and promotion bans are key, but so is regular exercise at school and university and even work. Japan’s exercise culture in factories look less risible now.
Barclays and its Digital Eagles helped popularise Walking Football for the elderly with the first national tournament in November and afficionados such as Geoff Hurst from the 1966 World Cup team still going strong.
Sports Diplomacy after a Fashion:
If London and Bangkok’s traffic has improved beyond waliking pace in in recent years with the Chaopraya Prom plans, or futuristic Skytrain and dynamic SRT expansion of the trains and metro, now with the Orange and Purple lines and bus links in just over a decade – surely UK expertise in the bus (an everlasting London icon with the British Bobby for good reason) could help improve transport in Thailand whether to and from the sports stadiums or just getting to work?
Holland or Denmark may well be world leaders in cycling out of the Velodrome, but a British bus whether with a clean and green Rolls Royce engine or not is something to see and experience - not just on the traditional open-top double-decker bus tour for FA Cup winners or Leicester City earlier this year. Disabled access is paramount and I had to double-take recently at a bus that is pneumatically lowered at bus stops to allow elderly and disabled passenger on and off more easily while raising to navigate potholes or puddles for a smoother ride during the English Summer monsoon.
While Active Sports Diplomacy could highlight key issues in Thailand, whether that’s Road Safety and Cycling or Football and Fashion or Swimming and Water safety all of which must be relevant for sports brands too. Obviously Student Games and UK University scholarships too, beyond the usual faces of Chula and Thammasat, and across Kasetsart, SPU, Webster, Silpakorn, UTCC, Sri Nakharin Wirot University and Mahidol Business School.
The UK Football Association or UK Athletics have massive and deep grassroots sports programmes far beyond just the glitz and glamour of a Beckham or Man Utd eg the innovative goalkeeper schools from Arsenal, or schools programme with Show Racism the Red Card or Kick It Out supported by Ipswich and Leicester amongst many teams or Schools Cricket across Surrey and Kent.
Sailing is clearly a Sports shoo-in for Asia and UK cooperation whether from the Hainan developments after Beijing 2008, and series of local events around Phuket and Pattaya, whether yachts or kayaks or powerboats all relevant for links with Cowes.
And with China declaring football a National Strategic Issue for their 2030 Plan it would be as short-sighted as the Specsavers County Cricket Championships for UK and Thailand to neglect their existing strengths and potential in football.
While Sports Fashion (is athleisure really a word now?)is a political issue in UK at the moment with Sports Direct and other retailers shown the yellow card on minimum pay and working conditions in warehouses in UK, and the textiles supply chain abroad in Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Sports Fashion is crucial for the UK economy with Central Saint Martin’s arts and Fashion School or London College of Fashion, new Artsopolis Stratford, and retail giants such as Lord Rose of Arcadia and Marks and Spencer punching above their weight.
Fashion is a £28BN economic benefit to UK and employs 880,000 people, and can instantly marshal 500 heavyweight (or stick-thin) designers (that already clothe Asia and litter Bangkok’s innovative malls such as Paragon, MBK and Ploenchit) such as Paul Smith, Burberry, Alexander McQueen - and Kent’s Vivienne Westwood and Karen Millen.
And the British Fashion Council and Creative Industries Council pulling foreign designers together in UK eg Portugal’s Marques Almeida. All ripe for collaborations with ASEAN organisations such as the dynamic LCFS Hanoi Fashion College, an innovative partnership with Northumbria University, just as Kasetsart and Newcastle University are steaming ahead into the 21st century on ASEANRail and HS2 and HS3 cooperation over the next decade, with ideally ScotEireRail.
While Stella McCartney must be putting the half-time band through their paces for the 50th anniversary of Sgt Pepper next year, and helping UK Fashion balance the conflicting trends of vertical integration: sheep to shop if you will, or the armada of outsourcing opportunities for fashion and sportswear from Bangladesh to Battambang for Nike and Adidas and Fred Perry, the Andy Murray of his day in Sports and Fashion.
And a cohesive UK-Thai Sports Diplomacy programme, could be a huge economic boost to both Thailand (70% Foreign Direct Investment in Thailand down) and UK (35% of Thai investment in UK down) that could surge with the likes of Bangkok Bank - just one London office for such a financial giant?
Or SCB or True or Tourism Thailand or SCG, (Red Bull’s already doing rather well in UK’s supermarkets and shops), and NL brands such as Campina and Dutch Mill, lending corporate weight to sports activity – especially in entering the UK market with both UK ad Thai trade support. And undoubtedly into the EU as Brexit drifts away with new UK political leadership.
UK and Thailand already have c.$8BN in joint trade, and UK invests c.$15BN in Thailand fro standing start, so Sports Diplomacy and the new Golden Era of Great British Sport is just warming up before the kickoff.
Tim Garbutt is a UK MP candidate with an emphasis on Thailand and ASEAN links, and director of Surin Village School charity, and Sincerity Advertising.
@timg33
Misc:
• Tim Howes the legal beagle at TDC seems determined to keep silent and cash his pay cheque despite the Cayman Islands and BVI scandals contaminating Kent's governance
• Clarendon School selling off sports fields with a new consultation on the rates seems to belie all the above points on sport and obesity etc
• Silence too from Berry, Button and Sproates and senior management at TDC and KCC on the faked/removed Manston monitors and Thor mercury discharge
* Silence from Wellington airport in NZ with the same Infratil directors of Fitzgerald etc as Manston, Prestwick etc - Wellington now Asia's most dangerous airport?
* Silence from Ann Gloag billionaire and Stagecoach founder from the missing fines/monitors from Manston under her ownership
• Lord Grabiner of the notorious One Essex Court barristers of GLickQC/Hollingworth etc castigated in the FT as "Lord Grabafee" over the Philip Green/Chappell BHS £500M pensions scandal/fraud
* Sincerity article: Thai Foreign Minister, Khun Surin Pitsuwan and Thai-UK trade:
http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-waters-of-puay-si-should-flow.html
* Sincerity article: Soda Wars go pop http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/
* Surin Charity: Malaria a brief thought: http://surinvillagecharityschool.blogspot.co.uk/
* Sincerity article on Coca-Cola: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/sweet-moves-from-coca-cola.html
* 21st century Britain agenda article: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/a-21st-century-britain-agenda.html
* No Tobacco Day Smoking Sincerity article: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/axaing-tobacco-and-china.html
* EK Remedial points 2016: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/kent-remedial-work-and-uk.html
* EK strategy 2016: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/garbutt-time-for-change-2016-east-kent.html
* Time for a Free Economy article: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/time-for-free-economy-tobacco-china-and.html
* Surin restaurant review: top Thai restaurant in Kent:
- Surin Thai restaurant the best Thai restaurant in Kent and one of only 45 of any cuisine in Kent according to KM:
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/whats-on/news/our-guide-to-the-best-96108/
http://surinrestaurantramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/
* The Bridges of Battambang to follow
(Perhaps it's best, albeit unusual in the conference season and the MalaysiaRail event, for me to be quartered here in UK given the rains in Thailand). First off the sports grid though there’s Andy Murray winning the Wimbledon Men’s Final so officially becoming a Brit rather than a Scot.
Something seems to have been put in the tea at Wimbledon, presumably nothing stronger than an extra sugar lump given the recent scandals in athletics and cycling, with Britain’s Heather Watson winning the Mixed Doubles. And Britain’s Gordon Reid becoming the first Wheelchair Tennis Men’s Singles Champion. Plus the World Cup of Tennis, the Davis Cup, underway with the UK defending the trophy against Serbia this week.
While Wales ended 58 years in the football wilderness by reaching the semi-finals in UEFA Euro 2016. England of course lost to Iceland, at best avoiding the traditional British football route of losing to Germany on penalties.
Northern Ireland and Eire played well and so are both officially sort of British, with Eire even gaining a medal from the Parisian Mayor for sportsmanship - a triumph of the footballing minnows for once.
While England Manager, Kent’s Roy Hodgson – a player for not one but 5 Kent teams(!) from Ebbsfleet to Ashford to Tonbridge resigned to make way for new Lions. Only Mark Clattenburg was left waving a small England flag in refereeing the Euro Final.
While the Iceland defeat was awful, Hodgson's record as England manager was better than most in recent years and undoubtedly should be commemorated, on a street sign or stadium, in the Ebbslfeet New Town – the Khon Kaen of Kent if you will - part of the Thames Gateway mega-development.
Even the Tour de France, that iconic French sport, rivalled only by petanque, saw Britain develop its unheralded cycling expertise despite Bradley Wiggins Olympic Gold and Tour de France win in 2012. This weekend saw Brits gaining 3 of the 4 prized jerseys: Chris Froome, race leader in yellow, Adam Yates, white for best young rider and Mark Cavendish in green this season for points. With a reigning champion in Chris Froome, and Mark Cavendish now within a lycra seam of Belgium’s great Eddy Merckx for the most stage wins UK Cycling is surging.
This week also sees the Pakistan vs England Men's Test Match at Lords, and if England football went to Iceland then Heather Knight, Captain of England Women's Cricket has gone to Waitrose for an energy drink or two, already beating Pakistan last month in the One Day International, then the whole Series and then the T20 series.
And the British Grand Prix at Silverstone saw a Lewis Hamilton win, narrowly ahead of the Dutch boy racer, 18 year old Max Verstappen, for the Red Bull team.
It’s apt that Red Bull, Thailand’s energy drink is amongst several key Thai brands for UK sports – the Premier League commencing in the next few weeks with King Power’s Leicester City defending the title.
And Everton sponsored by Chang as part of its Asia strategy, with NEC and Kejiang previously. And even the mighty Liverpool fending off a takeover by Chinese art billionaire Liu Yiqian, China’s 47th richest man. He's no doubt excited that Liverpool’s first home game against the Siamese Foxes in September will attract 54,000 fans. A game that will be the highest attendance at Anfield in 40 years, and part of the stadium building programme of adding an extra 5,000 seats.
Hi-Energy UK and Thailand Sports Diplomacy Beyond A Political Football:
As a UK MP candidate with an emphasis on Thailand and ASEAN, shouldn’t the tsunami of support for English football in Asia – especially Thailand, be more effectively reflected in UK policy?
Politicians often rather desperately tap into football for support – remember PM David Cameron professing support for West Ham Villa? Or was it Aston Ham? I’m no huge sports fan (is Kenny Dalglish still playing?) preferring to play them – well, Swimming or Crazy Golf anyway - than watch them, although I do find event football matches on the big screen strangely meditative and relaxing.
Leaving the glitter of trophies and roar of the crowd aside for a moment, Sports Science is a huge UK growth industry in itself whether STEM, nutrition (Andy Murray feasting on an Asian diet of fish and rice and a whole melon and berry smoothies before the Final), or DNA analysis or injury treatment, and a burgeoning part of the conflux of Sports Business and Sports Medicine that filters through into the NHS. Unfortunately sports doping is still vital for pharma labs given the recent Russian Athletics or Tennis or Cycling scandals, and ever-expanding plethora of strange substances. While Rio 2016 has been affected by the wider problems of pandemics with Zika causing Jason Day, World Golf No.1 and several others to pull out of those Games.
And the Tech Sports arena is already increasing and showing a clean pair of heels, whether goal-line or baseline rulings, virtual advertising hoardings and graphics or the Digital Squash Screen a real-life Wii for training and fun. As with Dodgeball a new sport in the making, especially as Squash was notoriously difficult to televise and develop as a spectator sport.
Sports Diplomacy Shoots and Scores for UK and Thailand:
And with my advertising hat on, aren’t both UK plc and Thailand plc failing to maximise the business opportunities of sports together? Sure there are football display matches in Bangkok from Chelsea or England or the mighty Gunners. But all rather ad-hoc, and driven by the demands of the Premiership rather than a systemic programme of sports for better UK-Thai relations.
Thailand is after all one of the top 5 UK Growth Markets for the future - along with other football-mad Asia-Pacific nations such as Vietnam and Mexico and Chile and Argentina. And British Football-mad at that.
The eye-popping number of Premier League football shirts in Thailand though is astonishing, whether tuk-tuk or taxi drivers or the street fashion of food vendors, university students or school kids. Lord Green, the Chairman of HSBC and a UK Trade Minister on a trip to Thailand and ASEAN expressed his astonishment on the prevalence of UK football and fashion.
Indeed the astonishing thing about say Thailand taking UK football so completely to its heart (by comparison try finding a LaLiga or Bundesliga match) is every bar or shopping mall or train plasma screen showing the latest UK matches day or night. And not just the big boys of St James’ Park or The Toffee Men etc, but the whole spectrum of The Great British Beautiful Game whether Charlton Athletic or Ipswich Town or Stoke City – teams you’d struggle to follow in UK never mind thousands of miles away in Asia. (Only joking Charlton!).
And the passion for UK football is as strong in Cambodia and Laos and Vietnam - DaNang for example the site of huge UK investment in universities and tech colleges and fortunately the VLeague team doing well as runners up.
The popularity of Soccer in Asia is borne out in detailed research. For example, Hakuhodo research for Panasonic detailed sports in the 10 main Asian cities from Delhi to Tokyo, both to play and watch.
Soccer was the No.1 sport to watch with only Manila citing Basketball instead and Taipei Baseball. Delhi opted for Cricket as the No.1 Sport, but that was closely followed by Soccer.
Badminton, Tennis - even before the UK surge at Wimbledon - and Volleyball all featured highly. And in participating sports, Soccer, Swimming and Cycling all featured in every city.
Strangely Taipei was the only city not to feature Soccer at all, with Jogging being the main Sport in the other cities. Perhaps one for detailed UK Sports Diplomacy efforts. And the research quibbled over whether Bowling was a sport rather than a hobby but didn’t pass the same critical eye over Motorsports which also featured. Neither Snooker nor Takraw nor Martial Arts featured despite being almost ubiquitous in Asia.
While participating in Sports, had Bangkok as the only city at No.1 for Football, and Walking and Jogging being the main sport in every city with Taipei and Seoul opting for hiking.
Swimming, Badminton and Cycling were all heavily participated in, with Delhi choosing Cricket as it’s second most active sport after walking.
Interestingly, watching Figure Skating featured highly in Tokyo, Taipei and Seoul but nowhere else. While sadly, only in Tokyo and Seoul were all 5 main participatory sports undertaken solo. Not even a robot for company.
While, if Bangkok can enjoy tropical heat and several indoor ice rinks it’s absurd that East Kent is unable to provide such leisure facilities. You'd think Torvill and Dean never existed.
Friends and family in Thailand smile and joke about the chaotic state of UK politics after the Brexit silliness, comparing the BKK Shutdown and Thailand upheavals previously with the pro-EU marches in Piccadilly. In the short-term of Brexit, the only benefit so far is better value from the pound sterling for Thai tourists. Perhaps another flood of UK football scarves and shirts on Bangkok’s streets when they fly back? With 54,250 used Wimbledon tennis balls being sold off for £3 each but ending up on Ebay for £20 each that demonstrates at a stroke the value of Sports Memorabilia industries.
If the UK Foreign Office is on something of a back foot in explaining the disastrous Brexit result, and a 25% budget cut between 2010 and 2015, then Sir Simon Fraser the previous FCO head mandarin, interviewed by The Sunday Times last week, has rightly called for greater opportunities in balancing the mix of aid, defence and diplomacy. He cites diplomacy as both cheap and effective. In aid the UK is already a world-leader and even FCO benefits from its own specific $600M DFID budget plus extra Cultural Diplomacy funds from the British Council and BBC.
To lose dominance in the English language and culture such as Sports would be a spectacular mishap, what's the phrase, akin to coming out to bat to find your own team has smashed the wicket, given not just the current Great Summer of Sport, but that Britain invented Football, Cricket, Golf, Rugby and so on.
The NATO 2% defence budget rather than 0.7% aid, increasingly looks excessive given that the rest of the EU27 struggles to reach c.1.3%, and the excessive costs of new F35 jets (£100M each: the cost of about 3,000 Surin Schools and educations for c.150K schoolkids and c.15K teaching jobs), over 500 Jackal armoured cars something of a kneejerk response to the Snatch Landrover Mobile Coffins MOD scandal of Iraq2 and the Chilcot report, and rushed vote on multi-billion Trident submarines amidst the political wreckage of Brexit.
ASEAN and Sports and Kent:
It’s a wider debate relevant in East Asia too with the dangers of both excessive arms spending and a naval arms race around the Paracels and Spratlys, now ruled against China by PCA in The Hague, rather than vaccines or Haiyan aid. Strangely both China and Thailand investing in Ukrainain kit of aircraft carriers and tanks, given Ukraine is the only European nation and military losing territory at the moment. Brexit aside.
Andy Murray cheered onto victory by Murray Mound replacing Henman Hill sported a No More Malaria logo on his sports shirt, which raises an interesting issue around sports sponsorship by NGO’s in Asia-Pacific as with UNICEF and Barcelona.
UK has also seen a surge in sports after the hat-trick of Olympic Games with London 2012 perhaps the best-ever organised Olympics and a benchmark for Rio in just 4 weeks. And is it so outrageous that the Arts Medals that featured in the Olympics until the second London Games of 1948 could be revived? Especially with so few of the professional golfers interested in bothering to attend the Olympics?
The ASEAN Games and Phuket Asian Beach Games recently demonstrated to me both the power of Thailand’s organisation of sports, range of display sports, and Muay Thai martial arts in Phuket for farangs – and surely Sintu, Sakorn and Samut and could be further developed as UK-Thailand Youth Sports mascots?
While Takraw, not so dissimilar to Keepy-Uppy, could introduce Thai sports to UK along with other niche sports such as Urban Golf from Hoxton to Haiphong. And certainly stimulate broadcast rights in UK for ASEAN games and sports such as Takraw.
It's interesting that the current ASEM Summit in Mongolia doesn't include Sports Diplomacy in any substantial or meaningful way.
Sports Diplomacy shouldn't be a fluffy nice-to-have: various research programmes in UK eg Cardiff University cite the often difficult ways to measure economic benefits of sport – except for the feel-good factor. The boost in morale from your team winning is reflected in the buzz of the workplace and classroom, and the surge online or the High Street for souvenir scarves and booklets as well as the next matches tickets. It's not just the 15M that can watch on television, a game such as England v. Iceland but the knock-on effect of newspaper headlines, news reports and math pundits and workplace chat that can boost morale.
Kent Police have been active on research and innovation programmes, with football and the increase in domestic violence (unfortunately a 10% uplift from England losing) and reducing racism and hate crime from Englands’s previous unsavoury reputation for hooliganism.
As well as research on drugs such as Afghan and Shan heroin given Frontline Kent status as the nexus between London, Amsterdam and Paris. And with Kent's Folkestone and Maidstone Ghurkas rotating back through Kabul and the worsening security situation. Again innovative sports and work programmes such as Doitung are crucial in such areas - the UK recording in Glasgow this week its largest ever drug haul of 3 tonnes of cocaine worth £500M and Kent just a few months ago the largest ever gun haul of over 30 machine guns.
But the 2007 Grand Depart in London and Kent,just the first UK stages of the Tour De France, resulted in £80M in direct spend of food, tickets, souvenirs, hotels etc. As well as £15M in indirect spend, 2,000 FTE jobs, and Transport for London estimates over 2.85M spectators travelling to the event. That's just one not particularly well promoted event for a rather neglected sport so far in UK.
But even where the economic benefits can be variable: an increase in sports tourists balanced by those staying away from the crowds, or not interested in sports there's a groundswell of sports participation. Britain's greatest sports after all are Swimming and Angling – here in Kent seafishing being a key niche. And from the first years of the Disabled Games, there’s been a rapid growth in the Paralympic Games and now the Invictus Games for wounded troops.
In Kent, the 2012 Olympics on Kent's doorstep and the super-fast HS1 hispeed rail saw something of a political scandal with few if any legacy benefits such as stadia or events for the millions of pounds in promotion – the Grand Depart cycle race now lost to the Tour De Yorkshire, and as an official Tour de France stage too.
That's still something of a body-blow to Kent given its numerous sports stars: Dame Kelly Holmes, winning two Athletics golds in the 2004 Olympics, Sarah Ayton OBE winning gold in in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics for Sailing, Sean King the 2012 water polo ace, and Georgina Harland winning bronze for Pentathlon in 2004.
Women’s sports in general in UK have blossomed with Women Football and Women Cycling ready to give Thailand’s Volleyball and Badminton and Golf expertise a run for their money.
While, UK Athletics even without star names like Mo Farah or Jessica Ennis-Hill gained their biggest haul of medals in the European championships for 58 years at the weekend in Amsterdam. And the Ruby Europe Sevens also triumphed over France to win gold.
Sports Diplomacy on your Bike?
And as The Open begins at Troon, obviously there are massive opportunities for Golf in both UK and Thailand, with the extensive greens in Kent of over 100 courses, Prince Andrew recently hosting World Bank CEO Jim Yong Kim at the Royal St Georges Sandwich course, apt for the Kent Cuisine Coast, previously trod by icons such as Tiger Woods and Ian Fleming's James Bond and Goldfinger.
The London Marathon, and easier Park Run, attract record crowds and the Guinness World record for c.$60M in fundraising: as does RunBKK or the quirkier sports such as the very British Brompton Cycling races with UK Embassy support.
While England’s football youth under Gareth Southgate for U21 are woefully neglected for their skills eg Ruben Loftus-Cheek stymied at Chelsea but victorious in the U21’s at Toulon in May - the first time in 22 years. With 50% youth unemployment in much of Europe and at least 20% in UK, the superstars of the future, and sports industries of the future, are already lacing their boots and need support beyond mere flying the flag.
The Brexit debate has sparked a review of England’s consistently poor performance in major football events and foreign players in the Premier League: 35% home nation players in 2014-15 compared to 58% in Spain 56% in France and 48% in Germany. As with UK film and television quotas, as France already has in place, there’s a sensible debate to be had on the balance of internationalism and encouraging home-grown talent.
It's a debate as viable for Thai cycling champions such as Khun Jutathip Maneephan or English footballers, with mega-teams such as Real Madrid now having to pay back millions in EU State Aid as an unfair advantage.
And if football is such an open goal for UK-Thai relations then where are the Thai teams on tour in UK? Shouldn’t the roar of The Thundercastles echo through Wembley or Old Trafford? Shouldn’t Insee Police United feature in display matches or a tussle with Cambodian Tigers or Can Tho or Champa FC, if not a regular Great British ASEAN Football League?
And shouldn’t the influx of Thai tourists face more organised Stadium Tours to the cathedrals of football in their trips to Britain?
Thailand’s upsurge in cycling in recent years – almost unthinkable on Vietnam’s dangerous main road(s) – again needs a UK-ASEAN Tournament, with Cycling UK or the Sports Council, whether along the new Chaopraya promenade or under-developed Yodpiman heritage walk, or around Thailand’s provinces as is beginning with Nan a dedicated cycling town and routes for Tourism Thailand Thainess.
Sports Diplomacy and Sports Tourism are still something of an undiscovered gem for both UK and Thailand, and could easily be ramped up and I’d suggest a focus on: Football, Cycling, Beach (volleyball, swimming, beach soccer and cricket, beach polo), Cricket and Niche (Golf, Paralympics, Invictus, Womens, even Kent's Pickleball and Petanque experts)as core UK sports.
Indeed is it so impossible that the BBC and Thai television and radio channels couldn’t organise a joint venture on Sports, Tourism and Culture as well as exchanges of Free-to-Air channels? Especially given the innovative BBC White Paper reforms this month, led by another ASEAN Trade Minister Lord Puttnam of The Killing Fields movie fame – filmed on location in Hua Hin and Phuket. A Sydney Schanberg media event could also be a fitting memorial to the NY Times reporter who died recently but broke the news of the Pol Pot regime.
Besides the BBC, Channel Four has dived into the Paralympics but often failed to tackle its remit for innovation through sports in recent years – Sumo or Kabbadi or American Football are a distant memory in terms of previous efforts and investment, and confined to the subs bench now.
Sports has never been more important with the UNFAO 2016 Global Nutrition report highlighting malnutrition in terms of obesity that now affects one in three people with resulting increases in cancer and diabetes. And obesity has trebled in the last 30 years - the Measuring Up report by the Medical Royal Colleges describes Britain as the Fat Man of Europe with one in four adults obese. And it’s interesting that the top 5 includes those nations that did well in Euro2016: Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Germany. Not so much beach-body-ready or match-ready as sofa-ready.
Certainly sugar and salt and fat taxes, product reformulations and promotion bans are key, but so is regular exercise at school and university and even work. Japan’s exercise culture in factories look less risible now.
Barclays and its Digital Eagles helped popularise Walking Football for the elderly with the first national tournament in November and afficionados such as Geoff Hurst from the 1966 World Cup team still going strong.
Sports Diplomacy after a Fashion:
If London and Bangkok’s traffic has improved beyond waliking pace in in recent years with the Chaopraya Prom plans, or futuristic Skytrain and dynamic SRT expansion of the trains and metro, now with the Orange and Purple lines and bus links in just over a decade – surely UK expertise in the bus (an everlasting London icon with the British Bobby for good reason) could help improve transport in Thailand whether to and from the sports stadiums or just getting to work?
Holland or Denmark may well be world leaders in cycling out of the Velodrome, but a British bus whether with a clean and green Rolls Royce engine or not is something to see and experience - not just on the traditional open-top double-decker bus tour for FA Cup winners or Leicester City earlier this year. Disabled access is paramount and I had to double-take recently at a bus that is pneumatically lowered at bus stops to allow elderly and disabled passenger on and off more easily while raising to navigate potholes or puddles for a smoother ride during the English Summer monsoon.
While Active Sports Diplomacy could highlight key issues in Thailand, whether that’s Road Safety and Cycling or Football and Fashion or Swimming and Water safety all of which must be relevant for sports brands too. Obviously Student Games and UK University scholarships too, beyond the usual faces of Chula and Thammasat, and across Kasetsart, SPU, Webster, Silpakorn, UTCC, Sri Nakharin Wirot University and Mahidol Business School.
The UK Football Association or UK Athletics have massive and deep grassroots sports programmes far beyond just the glitz and glamour of a Beckham or Man Utd eg the innovative goalkeeper schools from Arsenal, or schools programme with Show Racism the Red Card or Kick It Out supported by Ipswich and Leicester amongst many teams or Schools Cricket across Surrey and Kent.
Sailing is clearly a Sports shoo-in for Asia and UK cooperation whether from the Hainan developments after Beijing 2008, and series of local events around Phuket and Pattaya, whether yachts or kayaks or powerboats all relevant for links with Cowes.
And with China declaring football a National Strategic Issue for their 2030 Plan it would be as short-sighted as the Specsavers County Cricket Championships for UK and Thailand to neglect their existing strengths and potential in football.
While Sports Fashion (is athleisure really a word now?)is a political issue in UK at the moment with Sports Direct and other retailers shown the yellow card on minimum pay and working conditions in warehouses in UK, and the textiles supply chain abroad in Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Sports Fashion is crucial for the UK economy with Central Saint Martin’s arts and Fashion School or London College of Fashion, new Artsopolis Stratford, and retail giants such as Lord Rose of Arcadia and Marks and Spencer punching above their weight.
Fashion is a £28BN economic benefit to UK and employs 880,000 people, and can instantly marshal 500 heavyweight (or stick-thin) designers (that already clothe Asia and litter Bangkok’s innovative malls such as Paragon, MBK and Ploenchit) such as Paul Smith, Burberry, Alexander McQueen - and Kent’s Vivienne Westwood and Karen Millen.
And the British Fashion Council and Creative Industries Council pulling foreign designers together in UK eg Portugal’s Marques Almeida. All ripe for collaborations with ASEAN organisations such as the dynamic LCFS Hanoi Fashion College, an innovative partnership with Northumbria University, just as Kasetsart and Newcastle University are steaming ahead into the 21st century on ASEANRail and HS2 and HS3 cooperation over the next decade, with ideally ScotEireRail.
While Stella McCartney must be putting the half-time band through their paces for the 50th anniversary of Sgt Pepper next year, and helping UK Fashion balance the conflicting trends of vertical integration: sheep to shop if you will, or the armada of outsourcing opportunities for fashion and sportswear from Bangladesh to Battambang for Nike and Adidas and Fred Perry, the Andy Murray of his day in Sports and Fashion.
And a cohesive UK-Thai Sports Diplomacy programme, could be a huge economic boost to both Thailand (70% Foreign Direct Investment in Thailand down) and UK (35% of Thai investment in UK down) that could surge with the likes of Bangkok Bank - just one London office for such a financial giant?
Or SCB or True or Tourism Thailand or SCG, (Red Bull’s already doing rather well in UK’s supermarkets and shops), and NL brands such as Campina and Dutch Mill, lending corporate weight to sports activity – especially in entering the UK market with both UK ad Thai trade support. And undoubtedly into the EU as Brexit drifts away with new UK political leadership.
UK and Thailand already have c.$8BN in joint trade, and UK invests c.$15BN in Thailand fro standing start, so Sports Diplomacy and the new Golden Era of Great British Sport is just warming up before the kickoff.
Tim Garbutt is a UK MP candidate with an emphasis on Thailand and ASEAN links, and director of Surin Village School charity, and Sincerity Advertising.
@timg33
Misc:
• Tim Howes the legal beagle at TDC seems determined to keep silent and cash his pay cheque despite the Cayman Islands and BVI scandals contaminating Kent's governance
• Clarendon School selling off sports fields with a new consultation on the rates seems to belie all the above points on sport and obesity etc
• Silence too from Berry, Button and Sproates and senior management at TDC and KCC on the faked/removed Manston monitors and Thor mercury discharge
* Silence from Wellington airport in NZ with the same Infratil directors of Fitzgerald etc as Manston, Prestwick etc - Wellington now Asia's most dangerous airport?
* Silence from Ann Gloag billionaire and Stagecoach founder from the missing fines/monitors from Manston under her ownership
• Lord Grabiner of the notorious One Essex Court barristers of GLickQC/Hollingworth etc castigated in the FT as "Lord Grabafee" over the Philip Green/Chappell BHS £500M pensions scandal/fraud
* Sincerity article: Thai Foreign Minister, Khun Surin Pitsuwan and Thai-UK trade:
http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-waters-of-puay-si-should-flow.html
* Sincerity article: Soda Wars go pop http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/
* Surin Charity: Malaria a brief thought: http://surinvillagecharityschool.blogspot.co.uk/
* Sincerity article on Coca-Cola: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/sweet-moves-from-coca-cola.html
* 21st century Britain agenda article: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/a-21st-century-britain-agenda.html
* No Tobacco Day Smoking Sincerity article: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/axaing-tobacco-and-china.html
* EK Remedial points 2016: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/kent-remedial-work-and-uk.html
* EK strategy 2016: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/garbutt-time-for-change-2016-east-kent.html
* Time for a Free Economy article: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/time-for-free-economy-tobacco-china-and.html
* Surin restaurant review: top Thai restaurant in Kent:
- Surin Thai restaurant the best Thai restaurant in Kent and one of only 45 of any cuisine in Kent according to KM:
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/whats-on/news/our-guide-to-the-best-96108/
http://surinrestaurantramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/
* The Bridges of Battambang to follow
Monday, 4 July 2016
2016 The Summer of Refugees and Common Ground?
Certainly the Summer exodus of refugees that we’ve seen in Europe in recent years has subsided. Yet the UNHCR confirms a world on the move with refugees reaching 65M up from 59M last year.
Chatting with advertising friends, there’s a real need for agencies to deliver on the UNSDG30 goals and Common Ground themes and sub-themes such as refugees or consumption and cities. Food brands may well smack their lips at being involved with healthy eating or Fairtrade coffee, but refugees are to some extent the unwanted guests at the feast.
Rolex for example are unlikely to support refugee programmes when there’s yacht sponsorships to be had – especially with Denmark now introducing a jewellery tax on refugees to allow them to bring in only £1,000 in cash or jewellery and the rest confiscated. A surprising move by a nation with a great tradition of liberalism and support - but not unlike the Germany of the 1930’s and Jewish exodus after Kristallnacht.
Almost 50% of refugees are from hell-holes such as Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia. And almost all the population of Syria is now in massive refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan. While the collapse of Libya will continue, and the resulting c.3k refugee deaths in the Mediterranean.
In East Kent we’ve seen concerns over the expansion of the Calais Jungle to 5,000 refugees and the possibility of any Brexit leading France to relocate the UK border and refugee camp in Dover. While the political unrest in Sudan and Eritrea has resulted in Abdul Haround from Sudan, now freed in Canterbury. He escaped the Calais Jungle, walking the 31 miles through the Channel Tunnel to reach sanctuary from the Janjaweed and ISIS terror blighting East Africa.
While KCC has rightly raised concerns over looking after an extra 300 refugee children, and how those are sensibly allocated around the county and the rest of UK, given the almost total collapse of Kent social services in recent years and shocking mismanagement over Kent’s 900 vulnerable children.
While in Asia, a new wave of boat people is underway with the Rohingya fleeing unrest in Bangladesh as we’ve seen with yet more ISIS suicide attacks at the weekend, and Myanmar, by heading to Thailand and Malaysia and the dangers of trafficking and even proto-death camps.
While the new Aung San regime has opened talks with Thailand on the longer-established refugee camps on the Shan state border with its toxic mix of ethnic cleansing and heroin. Indeed both Afghanistan and Shan state in Myanmar provide almost all the heroin that washes up on Britain’s streets.
And the boat people of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea heading for Australia are cause for concern with Manus Island used as a detention camp for refugees to be held in limbo for years as part of the Pacific Solution that attracted more concern than the Australian points system Brexit debates.
While a new EU-RUSI campaign seeks to stem the cocaine flow from Latin America into Europe via West Africa and narco-states such as Guinea via airports such as Ostend, Manston and Lydd.
The Americas are providing one small glimmer of hope with the 28 year civil war in Colombia reaching a ceasefire this week between FARC rebels and the government likely to lead to greater peace and prosperity and a clampdown on cocaine farms and smuggling to Europe.
Much of Latin America though is facing not so much a refugee crisis as internal migration from cities that are hotter than any warzone through gang and drugs violence - most evident in Mexico and El Salvador. While Brazil’s safety precautions for the Rio Olympics in the next few weeks have reached fever pitch with 238 shootings this year by the police in the city to clamp down on guns and drugs.
As the political unrest continues in UK it’s worth noting that Boris’ 3 German watercannon tanks have turned up in a Kent warehouse in Gravesend run by the Met Police before being sent to the scrapyard with his political career. Both the likely new Tory leader Theresa May and London Mayor Sadiq Khan highlighting the rather foolish approach to riot vehicles only deployed previously in Northern Ireland.
Remainers in the EU like me may want to become official eRomanians with your own Romanian-EU identity card and Romanian helper, with the fun http://romaniansadoptremainians.gandul.info/ website.
Tim Garbuttescu has a ring to it – and certainly in East Kent with Canterbury and Kent University and Canterbury Christchurch University the largest Romanian populations outside of Bucharest. And there's the importance of economic migrants from Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia and of course Poland for the shops and restaurants and cafes and hospitals and farms.
While Germany is considering offering German citizenship to UK citizens already living in the EU. No doubt Farage hastily resigning to take advantage of the offer to continue on the EU gravy train before Brexit completely derails.
Certainly refugees and economic migrants must question being in UK, not just as the first nation to consider withdrawing from EU, with race hate crime rising by 5x as reported by NPCC and Kent Police. As indeed must the economic and lifestyle migrants of the UK in the Costa del Sol and Paris and Berlin and Rome.
Yet 65M citizens on the move across the world can be considered both horrifying and yet resolvable. Add in too the 62M children not in school (over two-thirds of them girls). One of the major successes of UNMDG - version 1 of the UNSDG30 if you will - was attaining, in only 15 years, 90% of children in primary school.
Obviously they won’t all stay in school and there’s an issue of high school and university provision. But 90% in schools is as astonishing a success as polio eradication by Rotary in the last 30 years, or a Woman on Mars by 2030.
The problem of teaching remains for 715M who cannot read and write and the c.20M or so children in refugee camps who have had their educations disrupted if not destroyed by upheaval in the trek through the desert from Syria or Somalia or Afghanistan. Or the death-defying boat trips from Libya or Bangladesh or Myanmar.
And 65M refugees, I the world, about the population of UK, is comparatively few compared to the disasters that created Oxfam and UNHCR with the destruction of almost all of Europe after WW2 and millions of Europeans made refugees.
Refugees now more than ever need Common Ground.
The advertising industry has stepped forward with a superb in initiative, but where is the Common Ground by other industries? Why aren’t the soda giants of Pepsi and Coke pulling together? Why aren’t the car giants of VW and Ford and Nissan pulling together? And so on. Every industry should have a Common Ground programme for UNDG30 beyond their own specific corporate and brand activity.
Most shameful of all - where is the public sector Common Ground initiative? Not one UK public sector organisation has even pledged to support UNSDG30.
Not one.
And Britain and East Kent facing the Brexit crisis, now more than ever, need Common Ground.
Time for Change
@timg33
* Sincerity article: Thai Foreign Minister, Khun Surin Pitsuwan and Thai-UK trade:
http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-waters-of-puay-si-should-flow.html
* Sincerity article: Soda Wars go pop http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/
* Surin Charity: Malaria a brief thought: http://surinvillagecharityschool.blogspot.co.uk/
* Sincerity article on Coca-Cola: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/sweet-moves-from-coca-cola.html
* 21st century Britain agenda article: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/a-21st-century-britain-agenda.html
* No Tobacco Day Smoking Sincerity article: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/axaing-tobacco-and-china.html
* EK Remedial points 2016: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/kent-remedial-work-and-uk.html
* EK strategy 2016: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/garbutt-time-for-change-2016-east-kent.html
* Time for a Free Economy article: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/time-for-free-economy-tobacco-china-and.html
* Surin restaurant review: top Thai restaurant in Kent:
- Surin Thai restaurant the best Thai restaurant in Kent and one of only 45 of any cuisine in Kent according to KM:
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/whats-on/news/our-guide-to-the-best-96108/
http://surinrestaurantramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/
* The Bridges of Battambang to follow
Tim’s tidbits
1. Good to see the good folks of Waitrose in Ramsgate supporting East Kent-Benelux with not just the rather splendid Panasonic batteries display but also Alpro yoghurt on an extraordinary trial price of just £1. Most of the large yoghurts costing at least £1.29. With Panasonic batteries based in Belgium it’s worth East Kent’s schools and hosptals tweaking their procurement roster on batteries. And if you’re buying batteries yourself to tune up your radio for the tennis or cricket then Panasonic are as good as any, and better than most. While with Belgium’s Alpro yoghurt for a quid how can you go wrong? It’s worth a try (and Alpro milk) and if you don't like it then don’t buy it again. But certainly Waitrose are to be congratulated on helping boost the EK economy over the longer-term and they need to know in terms of product ordering and display which brands the Great British East Kent public are getting behind to support.
2. While in terms of cricket, Waitrose support for the England cricket team is both a good fit and ideal for the Sports Diplomacy programme especially with India to boost UK exports.
3. Football unfortunately has gone to Iceland and lost. More later.
4. The Dreamland murk continues with TDC after 6 months having the information dragged out from them (well some of it) of the £900k court fine paid to Sands Hotel etc by TDC. Why? And Cllr Driver has raised questions over the whole £30M public tax bill for Dreamland and strange £600k Cayman Islands loan. I too am a huge supporter of Dreamland and want it to work – and it will – but what a ramshackle way of going about it by TDC/KCC.
5. The Pav on hold due to asbestos and concerns over Wetherspoons. Just one of the worst UK companies not for its Brexit stance but outrageous use of zero hours contracts like Sports Direct.
6. Sports Direct now expressing an interest in BHS with the pension scandal propped up by Chairman Lord “grabbin” Grabiner, the scoundrel of the Bar, and the feeble LIBOR review for the Bank of England. He declared no crimes - yet today 3 of the bankers are jailed. So much for that legal beagle. Rather we need more LIBOR bankers and lawyers and barristers like Grabiner's colleagues Hollingworth and Glick QC jailed.
7. Lucky Iron Fish: the more I see of this innovative Canadian product for malnutrition and iron deficiencies it’s perfect for Cambodia and other countries. A thing of genius. Perfect for Benelux-EK too, and the good folks of Unilever in Rotterdam. Keep it tea with a free LuckyIronFish donated to Cambodia for every 1,000 boxes of teabags sold? Probably a food brand would be better but you get the gist of it.
8. Kent's Cuisine Coast expands too with Niddy Thai Noodles launching in Harbour St, Ramsgate just near Surin Thai restaurant, Saffron Indian restaurant and Kyoto Sushi. Thoroughly recommended. Lend your support if you can and don't fancy an Alpro yoghurt.
Time for Change
@timg33
Chatting with advertising friends, there’s a real need for agencies to deliver on the UNSDG30 goals and Common Ground themes and sub-themes such as refugees or consumption and cities. Food brands may well smack their lips at being involved with healthy eating or Fairtrade coffee, but refugees are to some extent the unwanted guests at the feast.
Rolex for example are unlikely to support refugee programmes when there’s yacht sponsorships to be had – especially with Denmark now introducing a jewellery tax on refugees to allow them to bring in only £1,000 in cash or jewellery and the rest confiscated. A surprising move by a nation with a great tradition of liberalism and support - but not unlike the Germany of the 1930’s and Jewish exodus after Kristallnacht.
Almost 50% of refugees are from hell-holes such as Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia. And almost all the population of Syria is now in massive refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan. While the collapse of Libya will continue, and the resulting c.3k refugee deaths in the Mediterranean.
In East Kent we’ve seen concerns over the expansion of the Calais Jungle to 5,000 refugees and the possibility of any Brexit leading France to relocate the UK border and refugee camp in Dover. While the political unrest in Sudan and Eritrea has resulted in Abdul Haround from Sudan, now freed in Canterbury. He escaped the Calais Jungle, walking the 31 miles through the Channel Tunnel to reach sanctuary from the Janjaweed and ISIS terror blighting East Africa.
While KCC has rightly raised concerns over looking after an extra 300 refugee children, and how those are sensibly allocated around the county and the rest of UK, given the almost total collapse of Kent social services in recent years and shocking mismanagement over Kent’s 900 vulnerable children.
While in Asia, a new wave of boat people is underway with the Rohingya fleeing unrest in Bangladesh as we’ve seen with yet more ISIS suicide attacks at the weekend, and Myanmar, by heading to Thailand and Malaysia and the dangers of trafficking and even proto-death camps.
While the new Aung San regime has opened talks with Thailand on the longer-established refugee camps on the Shan state border with its toxic mix of ethnic cleansing and heroin. Indeed both Afghanistan and Shan state in Myanmar provide almost all the heroin that washes up on Britain’s streets.
And the boat people of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea heading for Australia are cause for concern with Manus Island used as a detention camp for refugees to be held in limbo for years as part of the Pacific Solution that attracted more concern than the Australian points system Brexit debates.
While a new EU-RUSI campaign seeks to stem the cocaine flow from Latin America into Europe via West Africa and narco-states such as Guinea via airports such as Ostend, Manston and Lydd.
The Americas are providing one small glimmer of hope with the 28 year civil war in Colombia reaching a ceasefire this week between FARC rebels and the government likely to lead to greater peace and prosperity and a clampdown on cocaine farms and smuggling to Europe.
Much of Latin America though is facing not so much a refugee crisis as internal migration from cities that are hotter than any warzone through gang and drugs violence - most evident in Mexico and El Salvador. While Brazil’s safety precautions for the Rio Olympics in the next few weeks have reached fever pitch with 238 shootings this year by the police in the city to clamp down on guns and drugs.
As the political unrest continues in UK it’s worth noting that Boris’ 3 German watercannon tanks have turned up in a Kent warehouse in Gravesend run by the Met Police before being sent to the scrapyard with his political career. Both the likely new Tory leader Theresa May and London Mayor Sadiq Khan highlighting the rather foolish approach to riot vehicles only deployed previously in Northern Ireland.
Remainers in the EU like me may want to become official eRomanians with your own Romanian-EU identity card and Romanian helper, with the fun http://romaniansadoptremainians.gandul.info/ website.
Tim Garbuttescu has a ring to it – and certainly in East Kent with Canterbury and Kent University and Canterbury Christchurch University the largest Romanian populations outside of Bucharest. And there's the importance of economic migrants from Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia and of course Poland for the shops and restaurants and cafes and hospitals and farms.
While Germany is considering offering German citizenship to UK citizens already living in the EU. No doubt Farage hastily resigning to take advantage of the offer to continue on the EU gravy train before Brexit completely derails.
Certainly refugees and economic migrants must question being in UK, not just as the first nation to consider withdrawing from EU, with race hate crime rising by 5x as reported by NPCC and Kent Police. As indeed must the economic and lifestyle migrants of the UK in the Costa del Sol and Paris and Berlin and Rome.
Yet 65M citizens on the move across the world can be considered both horrifying and yet resolvable. Add in too the 62M children not in school (over two-thirds of them girls). One of the major successes of UNMDG - version 1 of the UNSDG30 if you will - was attaining, in only 15 years, 90% of children in primary school.
Obviously they won’t all stay in school and there’s an issue of high school and university provision. But 90% in schools is as astonishing a success as polio eradication by Rotary in the last 30 years, or a Woman on Mars by 2030.
The problem of teaching remains for 715M who cannot read and write and the c.20M or so children in refugee camps who have had their educations disrupted if not destroyed by upheaval in the trek through the desert from Syria or Somalia or Afghanistan. Or the death-defying boat trips from Libya or Bangladesh or Myanmar.
And 65M refugees, I the world, about the population of UK, is comparatively few compared to the disasters that created Oxfam and UNHCR with the destruction of almost all of Europe after WW2 and millions of Europeans made refugees.
Refugees now more than ever need Common Ground.
The advertising industry has stepped forward with a superb in initiative, but where is the Common Ground by other industries? Why aren’t the soda giants of Pepsi and Coke pulling together? Why aren’t the car giants of VW and Ford and Nissan pulling together? And so on. Every industry should have a Common Ground programme for UNDG30 beyond their own specific corporate and brand activity.
Most shameful of all - where is the public sector Common Ground initiative? Not one UK public sector organisation has even pledged to support UNSDG30.
Not one.
And Britain and East Kent facing the Brexit crisis, now more than ever, need Common Ground.
Time for Change
@timg33
* Sincerity article: Thai Foreign Minister, Khun Surin Pitsuwan and Thai-UK trade:
http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-waters-of-puay-si-should-flow.html
* Sincerity article: Soda Wars go pop http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/
* Surin Charity: Malaria a brief thought: http://surinvillagecharityschool.blogspot.co.uk/
* Sincerity article on Coca-Cola: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/sweet-moves-from-coca-cola.html
* 21st century Britain agenda article: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/a-21st-century-britain-agenda.html
* No Tobacco Day Smoking Sincerity article: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/axaing-tobacco-and-china.html
* EK Remedial points 2016: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/kent-remedial-work-and-uk.html
* EK strategy 2016: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/garbutt-time-for-change-2016-east-kent.html
* Time for a Free Economy article: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/time-for-free-economy-tobacco-china-and.html
* Surin restaurant review: top Thai restaurant in Kent:
- Surin Thai restaurant the best Thai restaurant in Kent and one of only 45 of any cuisine in Kent according to KM:
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/whats-on/news/our-guide-to-the-best-96108/
http://surinrestaurantramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/
* The Bridges of Battambang to follow
Tim’s tidbits
1. Good to see the good folks of Waitrose in Ramsgate supporting East Kent-Benelux with not just the rather splendid Panasonic batteries display but also Alpro yoghurt on an extraordinary trial price of just £1. Most of the large yoghurts costing at least £1.29. With Panasonic batteries based in Belgium it’s worth East Kent’s schools and hosptals tweaking their procurement roster on batteries. And if you’re buying batteries yourself to tune up your radio for the tennis or cricket then Panasonic are as good as any, and better than most. While with Belgium’s Alpro yoghurt for a quid how can you go wrong? It’s worth a try (and Alpro milk) and if you don't like it then don’t buy it again. But certainly Waitrose are to be congratulated on helping boost the EK economy over the longer-term and they need to know in terms of product ordering and display which brands the Great British East Kent public are getting behind to support.
2. While in terms of cricket, Waitrose support for the England cricket team is both a good fit and ideal for the Sports Diplomacy programme especially with India to boost UK exports.
3. Football unfortunately has gone to Iceland and lost. More later.
4. The Dreamland murk continues with TDC after 6 months having the information dragged out from them (well some of it) of the £900k court fine paid to Sands Hotel etc by TDC. Why? And Cllr Driver has raised questions over the whole £30M public tax bill for Dreamland and strange £600k Cayman Islands loan. I too am a huge supporter of Dreamland and want it to work – and it will – but what a ramshackle way of going about it by TDC/KCC.
5. The Pav on hold due to asbestos and concerns over Wetherspoons. Just one of the worst UK companies not for its Brexit stance but outrageous use of zero hours contracts like Sports Direct.
6. Sports Direct now expressing an interest in BHS with the pension scandal propped up by Chairman Lord “grabbin” Grabiner, the scoundrel of the Bar, and the feeble LIBOR review for the Bank of England. He declared no crimes - yet today 3 of the bankers are jailed. So much for that legal beagle. Rather we need more LIBOR bankers and lawyers and barristers like Grabiner's colleagues Hollingworth and Glick QC jailed.
7. Lucky Iron Fish: the more I see of this innovative Canadian product for malnutrition and iron deficiencies it’s perfect for Cambodia and other countries. A thing of genius. Perfect for Benelux-EK too, and the good folks of Unilever in Rotterdam. Keep it tea with a free LuckyIronFish donated to Cambodia for every 1,000 boxes of teabags sold? Probably a food brand would be better but you get the gist of it.
8. Kent's Cuisine Coast expands too with Niddy Thai Noodles launching in Harbour St, Ramsgate just near Surin Thai restaurant, Saffron Indian restaurant and Kyoto Sushi. Thoroughly recommended. Lend your support if you can and don't fancy an Alpro yoghurt.
Time for Change
@timg33
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