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You can try as hard as you like to find a comment on this blog about Nick Clegg, but I don’t think you will – until today. The change of heart is because he’s said something I really believe in.

In his New Year Message he says:

If we as Leaders want people to turn out to vote at all at the next General Election, we have got to show people our convictions, not just dividing lines, our beliefs, not just soundbites.

This is so true, it is pretty difficult to really understand what the leaderships individually stand for, indeed it’s sometimes hard to see any difference between parties. And for as long as political policy is based on knocking down the opposition then we will never rise to a higher plane.

So here’s my message to the leaders: stop spouting at every opportunity when you see a camera or microphone, instead develop a conviction that you can articulate and convince us is right. I and many others want to be encouraged, enlightened and even lead by someone with a sense of vision and the ability to deliver it.

Then some of us might vote FOR you as opposed to not vote at all.

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Earlier this year I passed comment on how good a service I’d had from Linksys (see here) but maybe I spoke too soon. The gist of it was that they gave me great service for a router that was about 5 years old.

Today I had the same problem once again and rang the same number once again. Today it was different, no longer were they able to support me unless I paid a small charge: All they wanted was £25.

Since when did £25 make a small charge?

I declined, reckoning that a replacement for the failing equipment wouldn’t cost too much more than the £25 “small charge”.  So off to PC World and 30 minutes later I was now the owner of a new router.

There was a choice in the shop: Belkin or Linksys. Similar in price, similar in capability. Guess which I bought.

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I was on train to London yesterday and did something very different.

I said hello to someone. Well actually I said hello and commented on the title of a book that the young lady at my table was reading.

It was an introduction to International Relations, and for the next 2 hours we discussed the middle east, global warming, Copenhagen, education standards and the value of internationl travel.

What a joy. The journey flashed by and for the first time in a long time I felt that the time on the train had not been completely wasted.

I’ll remember the value of “Hello” from  now on.

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I was dragged into the middle of Cardiff’s shopping centre last night for the first time in many months. Like many men of my age, I hate shopping, especially the way that some people do it. For me it’s all about knowing what you want and going out to buy it at around 9.30 on a Tuesday morning when there are no crowds.

And that’s how it was last night – NO CROWDS. In fact it was almost no shoppers. As we wandered around the new developments in The Hayes and the Cafe Quarter the thing that was obviously missing was Shoppers. I spoke to one tailor who has sold me clothes in the past. He reported that this is the worst year he has ever had and that on some days he does not get 4 customers into his shop.

But 50 yards away, millions of pounds have been spent on building more shops, and the fit-outs continue on many “labels”  that already exist in department stores in Cardiff. How will these new shops survive?

The other thing that worried me was the number of new Jewellers in town, including probably the most expensive high street label: Cartier. Why are there at least 5 new jewellers shops opening in Cardiff now?

To have so many new shops, so few shoppers and a glut of new jewellers selling frippery make me worry about the security of business in Cardiff. Additionally, as the centre shifts towards the Hayes and the shopping magnet that is John Lewis, what will happen to the other end of Queen Street and the Capitol Centre in particular. Surely that too is facing even more challenging times.

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I must admit: I’ve been a slave to email. It’s been a friend, a distraction from real work, it’s given me a sense of being connected when all this exciting must read stuff lands in my inbox. And it’s helped me waste days if not years of my life.

But as of today all that is changed. I’ve decided to declutter my inbox, clear my desktop and instead of being busy, being busy I’m going to focus on the important things in my communication strategy.

No longer will I sit there waiting for someone’s broadcast; from now on it’s Proactive Communications for me!

So if you want to de-clutter your day, tidy up your thinking and focus on what’s important then I suggest that you too think about who you receive mail from and why. You could save yourself many hours a day with an auto delete filter on incoming mail.

The “unsubscribe” button is now a great friend. Have an uncluttered day.!

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So the PM has come out of the closet and said the “C” word at long last. Cuts are on the way and at least we now have one policy that will be common to all parties and therefore to whoever wins the next election.

So the PM has come out of the closet and said the “C” word at long last. Cuts are on the way and at least we now have one policy that will be common to all parties and therefore to whoever wins the next election.

And no doubt we will hear about “cuts to front line services” and suchlike as the steam rises in the debate about who will make the best or most reasonable or even the last destructive cuts. Sadly all that noise will be meaningless.

The reason is simple: cuts without a change of attitude will only fail. The Public Sector needs to understand that costs need to be managed and it needs to develop a culture that does so.

Let me give you some examples:

• I regularly walk past a council office, I’ll not say where to protect those who should hang their face in shame, and I know that all through the winter the heating system is on at weekends. From 9 am to 5 pm, Saturday and Sunday, without fail. The building is empty.
• In a harbour little town I visit regularly I can stand on the corner of the harbour and count 76 illuminated street lights visible after dawn.
• Road schemes are developed to meet the need to spend a budget rather than to meet the needs of truly controlling traffic or to reduce accidents.

If the attitudes were different these expenditures would be less likely to take place. And that is what we need, encouragement to attack the problems differently.

I’m reminded of Mayor Guilianni’s approach to cutting the murder rate in New York. He had a policy of “fixing the broken windows”, so that when kids threw stones and broke the windows the windows were repaired. Everytime.

Eventually the kids got fed up and stopped their foolish ways, insteadin of sliding along the path of crime that lead to murder. It was about Changing Attitudes.

It was a brave policy but it addressed the mindsets of those likely to commit offences and was in the end highly successful.

But it was the mind sets that changed and that is what we must change in our bloated public sector. Don’t let’s hear politicians leaping to defend essential frontline services. Instead let’s have people admitting that times are hard and things need to change, and one way they will change is to encourage a culture that stops ridiculous spending. It won’t fix the problem, but sure as hell will take a big step forward.

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I didn’t get to see all of the debate in Edinburgh today as the Scottish Government was put under the cosh over the release of the Lockerbie Bomber. But what I did see made me think that it was a chamber awash with passion. Definitely no love lost – speaking from the heart, and really going for it!

How would that have played out in Cardiff where few speeches are made as opposed to read, where blogging often takes priority over contributing and where even standing up to speak is by choice?

Politicians need to learn from the best and today Scotland put on a pretty good show. Nice one Jock!

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I’ve got 2 sons, both graduates. One is doing a PhD so is missing out on the challenges of getting a job, whilst the other, a graduate in Marketing in Management is on the trail for his first break. And it’s tough out there. Lots more competition than usual and for those will little practical experience getting that first break is what used to be called a significant challenge, but is now known as a “big ask”.

And it’s not helped when a company like BT announces that it is scrapping its Graduate schemes. The ripples from this statement will be great and could trigger others to do the same and the knock on effect could be that we seen the destruction of graduate schemes across the country.

At the personal level for my sons and many, many others this is serious. But for the economy in general it is possibly even more serious as graduate schemes do produce wonderful results.

Yes of course I know that Richard Branson and many other highly successful types did no go to or even finish university, but they are an exception. In the general scheme of things we need graduate trained minds to get into business and to be successful. They stand a better chance of doing this in a structured programme. Like the ones BT used to run!

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