On Saturday I spoke at the first Open Rights Group conference. Admittedly the title – ORGCON  – made it sound like a  1980’s Dr Who villain, but what can you do?

I was part of the first panel of the day; the topic of the panel was “Thriving in the Real Digital Economy”; and (for a Saturday morning) it was early – so I’m not quite sure how much sense I made. But here is what I tried to say:

There are many kinds of art where there is obviously an ‘original’ whenever you create a work. I’m using the word ‘original’ in a technical sense, to mean an  instance of the work, either produced by or on behalf of  the artist, and which has some attributes which aren’t preserved if the work is copied.

With a painting for example, the painting itself is obviously the original. While it’s certainly possible to copy it in various ways, none of them capture the whole experience of the original. So for example you can capture the colours of a painting under one set of lighting conditions by taking a photo. But change the lighting around the painting, and the colours often change in interesting ways due to the thickness of the paint, the properties of the pigments used, and the way light diffuses through the materials. None of this is reflected in the photo.

Other properties of a painting are even less likely to be captured by a copy, such as the construction of the canvas; its weight, feel and smell; and the change in its colours with age.

So while a photo of a painting is certainly better than nothing, the original is much better, and so more valuable.

Equally, many artworks don’t have an original. Most obviously, anything created digitally doesn’t, because a digital copy of it is in all respects identical to it.

Most recorded music is created digitally.  It is created on computers and then copied verbatim onto media such as CDs, so if you have an uncompressed version of a song, your string of 1’s and 0’s are identical to those in the mastered version of the song produced by the artist. There is therefore no sense in which the artist’s version is any better or more valuable than yours

But the problem for an artist is that having an original allows him or her to control copying, and so make a living. Without an original, the amount of copying is only limited by its cost, and the cost of making a digital copy is now virtually zero. So musicians are now being forced to find other ways to create originals.

The most obvious sign of this is the resurgence of live music. A recording of a concert is a poor second to actually being there, so artists can charge a premium for the experience.

There has also been an explosion in the number of box sets and greatest hits releases, which have tried to add back in some of the qualities of an original with special packaging and other non-music features. But of course there is a limit to the number of times you can sell the same music in a different box.

The music industry in recent years has been publicly obsessed with finding ways to limit digital copying, but they admit in private that they are on a hiding to nothing.

So the question that I think makes more sense to address is, how can the concept of an original evolve in the digital age, so that artists can continue to make a living?

I didn’t get any suggestions from the audience, but then, it was early…

I’ve been feeling a bit uncomfortable with myself over the last couple of days.

It’s to do with Wednesday’s Gabby Logan programme on which I was a guest. It was a good-natured show, and for the most part I really enjoyed it. However, when the topic changed to Peter Mandelson’s memoirs, fellow guest and Spectator editor Fraser Nelson referred to the former Business Secretary as ‘Mandy’.

It is well-known that Peter Mandelson is gay. Calling him ‘Mandy’ is a homophobic put-down in the oldest tradition. It’s like calling him a Sissy, or a Jessie. The implication is that, because he is a homosexual, he is not a man.

It is disgraceful, but not surprising, that the editor of a major national magazine should stoop to these kinds of anti-gay slurs. But to my discredit, I didn’t jump in and put him straight.

I’d like to apologise to anyone who feels let down by that.

In yet another vindication of my decision to train as a lawyer, it turns out that in 2008 the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) paid their lawyers more than $16 million to sue alleged filesharers, but only recovered $391,000.

The numbers in 2007 were even more extreme – $21 million was spent to recover just $455,000.

As Henry Brougham, the founder of the Central Criminal Court said

A lawyer is a learned gentleman who rescues your estate from your enemies and keeps it himself

Six- one to hold the bulb, and five to drink until the room spins.

Well, maybe that was true once upon a time, but these days if I get together with another five drummers, it can only mean one thing – the Sense Drumathon!

Sense are a charity supporting and campaigning for children and adults who are deafblind. Obviously being both deaf and blind presents enormous problems with communication, but as Sense explained, drumming is great way of reaching out. Even the profoundly deaf can feel the rhythms, quite literally, as the sound vibrations in the air ripple against their skin.

Sense gathered together a group of drummers a couple of weeks ago for a morning of music, and I was lucky enough to be asked to take part. One of my drumming heroes, Steve White, was also invited, as were an extraordinarily talented group of four teachers from Drumtech.

Drumming is a social activity; it’s a really dull thing to do on your own, but with 60 of us we had a great time. It was exciting to see how the deafblind students took to the instruments, and interesting to see how they adapted the rhythms based on what they felt.

Here’s a picture of the cast:

And here’s Steve and I working with one of the students.

Of course these photographs were posed, but the actual event was wonderfully chaotic, and the sight of  60 musicians wandering the stage, bashing things as loudly as possible and howling with laughter might have looked a little odd…

This was the first of what I hope will become an annual event. What a privilege to be asked to take part!

We can’t afford to get the choice of party leader wrong. As the Tories discovered after 1997, leaders without vision, experience, and popular appeal can throw their parties on the electoral scrap heap for a generation.

It seems to me that David Miliband’s vision for the country is grounded in the fight against inequality, which is at the heart of what drives the Labour Party. It’s arguably the reason for the creation of the party in the first place.

I think there was a public perception over the last 13 years that the Government had stopped seeing their job in those terms, and that the focus had narrowed just to economic and public service management.

But David Miliband has now put tackling inequality back at the centre in his leadership campaign.

He is fighting for equality of opportunity, with proposals to transform education in this country, giving all children an equal opportunity to succeed.

He is fighting income inequality with a vision to rebuild the economy with a return to full employment, a  living wage, a High Commission to look at top pay in the private sector, and the creation of hundreds of thousands of new green jobs

And he is fighting for equality of outcome with a progressive taxation system, and a strong welfare state.

David has the experience to lead the party, and the country. In his 9 years as an MP, he spent 5 as a minister. He was behind the ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme, which rebuilt or refurbished every school in the country, he secured the Climate Change Act, and was a major contributor to the 1997 manifesto.

Finally, David is popular with the electorate. He is well known and liked all over the country, and in a Newsnight focus group of undecided voters, the entire panel judged that David was the best of the leadership candidates.

I think it’s essential that we elect David Miliband as the next leader of the party. He is the candidate with the vision, experience and popular appeal to lead Labour to victory.

Spent Saturday morning at David Miliband’s leadership campaign event. While most of the candidates seem to be playing the ‘my shirt’s hairier than yours’ game over losing the election, David seems to be the only one with real plans and a real vision for transforming the party.

If we get the choice of leader wrong, the Tories will have a decade to dismantle all the good work of the last 13 years. Personally I think it’s essential that Labour elects him as the next leader.

In the afternoon I went with some volunteers to help out at Tulse Hill, where there’s a council by election.

It was a beautiful day. Perhaps a little too beautiful, because almost everyone whose door we knocked on was out, enjoying the sunshine.

As you may be able to see from the picture, my skin is so fair that I can get sunburned even standing under a tree. Who’d be a ginger?

The Israeli government today attempted to justify the killing of at least nine activists on a ship in international waters. The activists say they were trying to ferry aid supplies to Gaza, by-passing Israel’s blockade.

On the Israeli Diplomatic Website, troops are said to have ‘landed’ on the largest flotilla ship – the Mavi Marmara – only to be ’set upon’ with clubs and knives. The site also maintains that the commandos were primarily armed with paint-ball guns.

On the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning, the Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Ron Prosor, used similar language, describing how the Israeli forces were ‘attacked’ by protestors wielding iron bars.

Two points scream into mind here.

First, Israel landing a string of special-forces commandos onto a ship seems to me to be the attack. If the activists responded by lashing out with whatever came to hand, that is normally called defence.

Second, if the Israelis were armed largely with paint-ball guns, how come nine protesters are dead?

Prime Minister David Cameron’s response was also a disgrace. If ‘urging Israel to avoid a repeat’ is the best he can do, he is not fit to hold office.

Out campaigning with the best constituency MP in the country, Karen Buck, on Saturday morning. If we look a bit glum, it’s because it was pouring with rain. By the time of the photo, Karen had gone to the other Labour stall in Church Street ward.

It was quite gratifying to see that the Tories campaign HQ has been abandoned, and is now up for rent. The local party estimate that Lord Ashcroft spent around £500,000 in Westminster North during  their five-year campaign,  but only managed to achieve a 0.6% swing.

I wonder if he thinks it was money well-spent?

This is a longer blog post than usual. Please stick with it – I think you’ll find it interesting.

The eagle-eyed among you may have spotted the following story on The Mail’s website during the election campaign: Gordon Brown tripped up by ‘celeb’ would-be MP (here is a screengrab in case the page is taken down).

Now lets’ get one thing straight from the start. The Mail are quite right: I am a rubbish ‘Celebrity’.  Trying to be famous is a full-time job, and it has just never seemed worth it to me. I’m not interested in night clubs, I don’t drink, and while I have nothing against soaps, I’ve no particular desire to spend my evenings with the cast of Eastenders, so it seems to me that ‘Celebrity’ has little to offer. I’m not famous, but I’m in a famous band. I think it’s the best of both worlds, because I can go about my days largely unmolested, but I still get to headline Glastonbury.

That said, what about the rest of the article?

Apparently Gordon Brown had planned a ’series of high-profile photoshoots’ with me. When I saw this, I called Dan, my campaign organiser. He said no one had contacted him, but if true, a request would have had to come through the London Region office. Dan gave them a call, but it was the first they had heard of it. Region called Number 10, but they were baffled as well.

So had The Mail just made this up? Thinking on it over breakfast, it had to be rubbish. What are ‘high-profile photoshoots?’ High-profile for who? Gordon Brown is genuinely famous. What good would it do him to be photographed with me? So the implication was that this was for my benefit. But if any election candidate wants a picture with their Party leader, it can easily be arranged. If I’d wanted a picture of the pair of us grinning together, I would already have had one.

And how could these photoshoots be high-profile? What newspaper would print a photo of me standing next to Gordon Brown? Let alone a whole series of them. What would be the story?

The rest of the article didn’t seem to hang together either. Apparently, ‘Labour chiefs’ were ‘galled’ by the fact that I called for a return of  the 20p starter rate of income tax. Well it’s true that I have talked about it, but the article says this was particularly galling because Gordon Brown had recently admitted that abolishing the 20p rate was a mistake. So Gordon and I agree on the issue. So why would this be particularly galling for the Labour chiefs?

The article says that it is ‘Leftwingers’ who have complained that abolition of the starter rate disproportionately hit the poor, but then it quotes former Tory Chairman Eric Pickles as saying exactly the same thing. Is The Mail saying that Pickles is a leftwinger?

Then there are the quotes from me. A nice woman from The Mail did write some time ago and ask if I wanted to do an interview, but I never replied. To read the article, you’d think I had spoken to the journalist. Apparently, I ‘warm to my theme’ and say

“I’ve had a successful musical career as the drummer in Blur. Thanks to that, I am in a position where I can make myself heard in ways that others might not be able to do. My top priority: to lead a campaign to reinstate the lower 10p tax rate.“

And in response to criticism (presumably from Number 10), I’m supposed to have said

“I am a new kind of politician.”

But I didn’t. So where have all these quotes come from?

Well let me explain a bit about how I ran my campaign.

There are around 70,000 electors in the constituency I was fighting – the Cities of London and Westminster. We didn’t have the resources to knock on every door or print 70,000 copies of every leaflet, so we tended to targeted certain areas where we thought the Labour vote would be the strongest. Election law allows candidates to post one letter to everyone in their constituency free of charge, provided the candidates supply the letters.  So I used this service to try and plug the gaps, and make sure that everyone in the constituency got at least one leaflet from me.

The Post Office have quite complicated regulations for how the letters have to be sorted and bagged when given to them for delivery, so the Labour Party have a central computer system that takes care of this. It is web-based, and you basically pick a leaflet template, slot in your own words and pictures, and the program creates the leaflet, forwards you a proof for checking, and then sends it on to the printers, where it is automatically printed, sorted and bagged in the correct way.

Here is the proof of one of the leaflets I sent out using this system (pdf). Notice anything? All the quotes have been lifted from here.

The headline of the leaflet is

“I am a new kind of politician.”

Fourth on my list of ‘Top Priorities’ is

“To lead a campaign to reinstate the lower 10p tax rate.”

Under ‘Making Myself Heard’ I say

“I’ve had a successful musical career as the drummer in Blur. Thanks to that I am in a position where I can make myself heard in ways that others might not be able to. I think I have a duty to use my fortunate position responsibly.“

Maybe the journalist lives in the constituency? Certainly he has taken some quotes from an election leaflet of mine, and strung them together to make it look like I’d had a falling-out with the Party. It’s my first experience of the press simply making a story up, and I have to admit that until then I was a bit cynical when people suggested that they actually did things like that.

Naïve? Probably.

The really ridiculous thing about this whole affair is this. As part of the leaflet service, you can have the Labour Party check over your material for you, and suggest out any corrections or improvements. I had taken them up on the offer with this very leaflet, and had indeed made some sensible changes as a result. So I already knew the Party were fine with my 20p campaign.

And just for the record, I’m not married – I divorced many years ago, and I’ve no idea if I ever described myself as a “little g*t”.

But if I did, I stand by that description.

The scandal of the MMR vaccine / autism scare is a story of greed, ignorance, gullibility, and the willingness of certain newspapers to print anything to shift copies.

The shoddy doctor at the centre of the scam Andrew Wakefield seems finally to be getting his just deserts.

Here is the story in full, beautifully illustrated by my Open Rights Group comrade Ben Goldacre.