Alex Singleton

On Telegraph.co.uk, I write about churches and Sunday trading:

I was once taken to a church in London called the Kensington Temple, the sort of church where people either engage in crass, self-indulgent behaviour or are led to visibly express their love for the son of God, depending upon your point of view. We were early for the service and ventured into the basement where the church had created what was like a small WHSmith, selling Christian DVDs, CDs and books. A credit card terminal let people pay on plastic.

This should have appealed to my capitalistic tendencies, but I wondered if the correct Christian action might have been to storm into the shop in a rage, driving out the checkout staff and turning over the tables, just as Jesus reportedly did to the traders in the Jewish temple he visited. I suspected that such Christ-like behaviour might have been considered criminal damage, though, so I resisted.

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times today about whether print publishers can successfully make the tradition online. It focuses on IDG, a magazine publisher for which I have freelanced.

The journey beyond print is uncertain and perilous, but the experience of I.D.G., the world’s largest publisher of technology newspapers and magazines, suggests that it can be done. A privately held company, whose magazines include Computerworld, InfoWorld, PC World, Macworld and CIO, it appears to have made a profitable migration to the Internet, with revenue from online ads now surpassing print revenue.

Advertisers and readers of high-tech publications have moved online more swiftly than other audiences, so I.D.G. may offer a glimpse of the future of publishing. Yet the transition at I.D.G. came only after years of investment, upheaval and changes in its practice of journalism.

“The excellent thing, and good news, for publishers is that there is life after print — in fact, a better life after print,” said Patrick J. McGovern, the founder and chairman of I.D.G.

On Telegraph.co.uk, I argue that the Fabian Society could learn from advice given to Jeanie Buller in the film Ferris Beuller’s Day Off:

In the cult 1980s film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, there is a lesson that the Fabian Society would do well to learn. Ferris Bueller’s sister gets herself worked up because her ever-charming brother is able to get days off school by faking illness. A youth she complains to gives her some advice: “Worry about yourself, not about what your brother does.”

I am reminded of this because of the Fabian Society is currently pushing to persuade people to get worked up about others inheriting money. Sunter Katwali, General Secretary of the Society, which favours inheritance tax, wants us to know that: “The core mission that should underpin progressive politics is that we should not inherit our life chances at birth.”

• Gordon Brown is a tax addict
• Is Ed Balls a bad parent?
• Spare us the listening Prime Minister
• British oppose green taxes
• Hugo Chavez is blinded by ideology
• Promoting local shops the wrong way
• Britain needs more toll roads
• Battle of the pollsters
• Restricting the railways
• Schools are key to reforming manners

Well done to the Co-op. It has ditched a hateful device called The Mosquito, which emits a high-pitched sound that causes irritation among people under 25. The purpose of the device is to stop youths loitering outside their stores, but it is irritating for the silent majority of young people who lead perfectly law-abiding livings. Moreover, the device is apparently particularly frightening for young people with autism.

Instead, the retailer is expanding the use of classical music as a deterrent. A spokeswoman from the Co-op denied that it was attempting to discourage hoodie-wearers, merely those whose behaviour can be intimidating to paying customers and staff. Sounds like a good idea.

I hugely enjoy watching Right On, the weekly Telegraph TV politics programme presented by Guy Ruddle, previously a presenter at the BBC. The programme combines Telegraph commentators with the television-producing expertise of ITN, the same company that makes news for ITV1 and Channel Four. I find it compelling viewing. Here’s the latest episode:

On Telegraph.co.uk, I write:

The rise in internet-based electioneering has been significant in the United States. On this side of the Pond, there is an argument – made by the likes of Computing - that electioneering over the past few weeks has been surprisingly old-school. Boris Johnson is supposed to be gaff-prone, so why were we not deluged with amusing YouTube-published videos taken on camera phones? Where were the media storms created by blog exposés of candidates?

On Sunday I was the guest speaker at the Cambridge University Conservative Association’s gin and tonic party. I spoke defending the privatisation of rail by the last Conservative administration, pointing out that, on all major measures, the railways have improved, whether you look at passenger numbers, punctuality, investment levels or safety. I pointed to the innovation of new “open access” operators like Grand Central, which run in competition with franchisees.

Because Grand Central operates in competition with National Express East Coast, it is innovative, for example embedding board games like Monopoly and chess into table-tops. It is happy for passengers pay for their tickets onboard trains, including if they want discounted fares, rather than treating them as criminals which seems to be the practice of the franchised InterCity operators (who themselves have made significant improvements since privatisation). Furthermore, if a passenger is forced to stand, he or she is given a 50% refund.

But there is still much more competition that needs to be introduced. Later this month, Wrexham & Shropshire will launch a new service competiting against Virgin Trains and Arriva Trains Wales. But such ventures are hindered by the lack of enthusiasm by government. British Rail removed a lot of capacity from the rail, and Network Rail has cut the available ”paths” to suit its own convenience, completely failing to understand that with rising passenger numbers, we need more capacity, not less.

One thing Network Rail ought to be doing is to construct more overtaking loops which would make it easier for greater numbers of long-distance trains to share track with commuter ones. There is also a golden opportunity for more competition thanks to the spare capacity at Waterloo now that Eurostar has moved to St Pancras.

Thankfully, Renaissance Trains, which was behind the creation of the Hull Trains open access service (now run by First Group) and is behind Wrexham & Shropshire, is looking at further new competiting services, including one between Glasgow and Liverpool/Nottingham and one between the Humber Coast, Lincoln, Cambridge and London.

Competition, I pointed out, has already brought improvements and will increasingly do so. The model of vertical separation between track and trains is vital to enable it to thrive.

The best bit of the evening was walking into an unrelated after-party and hearing one of my arguments being propagated. Mission successful. It was a good party, too.

On The Guardian’s Comment is Free site, I put some arguments in favour of an illegal immigration amnesty:

Boris Johnson’s support for an amnesty on illegal immigrants may not appeal to the party leadership, but he is right to propose the measure. The status quo has driven too many immigrants underground, into the black economy where they are vulnerable to all manner of abuses and where they do not pay income tax. An amnesty would be good for the Treasury, bringing in, according to figures from the Institute for Public Policy Research, a likely £1 billion in tax.

Over on the Telegraph’s Brassneck blog, I pick up on Shane Greer’s suggestion that David Cameron’s effect is to shift the centre ground of politics to the right: he’s realigning politics, not just his party. I also say that, far from leading Cameroonie thought with their policy review, John Gummer and Zac Goldsmith fundamentally failed to grasp what the Cameron agenda was all about.