Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 173rd weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (6th – 12th June, 2010), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox – just click here – ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. Pollwatch: ...
On 16 June the Accident & Emergency department is moving from Selly Oak Hospital to the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital building.Patients will be able to get to the new QE using the Selly Oak New Road from the roundabout on Harborne Lane. Road signs should be adjusted to direct you to the new hospital. You can find more details of how to get to the QE at www.uhb.nhs.uk/how-to-find-us.htm and there
if you are my age your memories of school meals are of lumpy mashed potato, lumpy custard, overcooked cabbage and once I had a slug in my lettuice (I suppose that meant it was fresh though!). Today our scrutiny committee was looking at the provision of school meals in Stockton, and we had a presentation on what was happening. Quite a change ! fresh food cooked properly with healthy choices. ...
If I was Nick Clegg I'm not be sure that I 'd be entirely comfortable with the positioning of Simon Hughes as Deputy Leader. After all, he has only been in the job five minutes and he is already moaning about VAT. I happen to think he is entirely justified. To raise VAT would be ...
Three years ago I wrote about the three villages which contend as the site of the martyrdom of St Wystan. Today I visited one of them - Wistanstow in Shropshire. The guidebook for Holy Trinity, Wistanstow, describes the stained glass in the boy saint's honour: St Wystan stands in a window as a golden haired boy in a red cloak taking the crown from his mother, who is dressed in blue, white and gold. Below is the scene of his martyrdom. Above is a group of buildings by a river which may be to investigate his home and final resting ...
Northdown Park has in recent times been subject to much neglect, due in part to Thanet council's management exemplified by the asset fiasco, in which council failed to take account of covenants as they tried to make a fast buck. Still hopefully with a change of leadership in the local Conservative party things might improve, anyhow for the last year or so I've spent most of my time working in North London, since that project is coming to an end, I've got now got time to catch up on things like taking a stroll. This afternoon I walked to Northdown ...
Imagine you support a football club which was only founded less than ten years ago and has risen up the non-league ranks since then. One of your former players has been selected for the World Cup for, perhaps, the least fancied team in the tournament. Late in the game he makes the cross that leads to his side scoring an equaliser for what his coach calls the nation's best ever result in world football. Good on ya Shane Smeltz. A massive result for New Zealand and a dewy eyed evening for all AFC Wimbledon fans. Wimbledon has only ever had ...
It was Full Council this afternoon. With music wafting into the Council House from the Food Festival, we debated an excellent Scrutiny Report on Flood Risk Management (led by Councillor Robert Wright a Selly Oak Councillor, who had his house flooded in 2008), the annual report of the Cabinet Member for Equalities and Human Resources, and a couple of motions for debate. This time it was the turn of the Conservatives to have the first motion and the Lib Dems the second. Each of the three main parties takes it in turn to go first and second every three months ...
Bless Frank McAveety. People are still dining out (geddit?) on the time when, as a Minister, he had to grovel to Parliament for turning up late for Question Time and using Ministerial Business as an excuse. Ministerial greed was in fact the cause as he was actually scoffing a pie in the canteen at the time. Thing is the Holyrood canteen is frequented by journalists and guests as well as MSPs so his fib was very quickly discovered and he was lampooned for a while. Today, when we could all do with a good laugh, he obliges again. You would ...
Dear Ian, This morning, the Office for Budget Responsibility - an office established by this Government - published its first assessment of the public finances. Regrettably the problems facing our country are even more serious than we had originally realised. We and many others have been warning for some time that the growth forecast in the March Budget was optimistic. The Office for Budget Responsibility confirms this. And because trend growth is lower than expected, the structural deficit is larger than anyone realised. In 2010/11 it's going to be 8% of GDP - that's £118bn; £11 billion more than Labour ...
Tonight I attended a useful committee meeting of the Blackness Area Residents' Association committee at the Corso Street sheltered lounge (pictured right). A number of local matters were discussed, including open space maintenance and the recent walkabout in the area covering local issues.
Do you know it's Carers' Week this week? Probably not. It hasn't exactly been trumpeted from the rooftops has it? Yet it is estimated that carers save the country £87 billion a year, the equivalent of the entire budget of the NHS. They deserve better recognition. But what do they get? Well in Wokingham, they get a consultation on changes to charges for Day Care, Home Care and Respite Care. And in case you are wondering what "changes to charges" means, it means "putting them up". The consultation document doesn't even tell you how much people would be charged. I ...
Distinguished Gaelic singer Wilma Kennedy is the guest at the Friends of Wighton Cappuccino Concert on Saturday 19th June 2010 - 10.30am for 11.00 am : Wighton Centre - Upstairs in Dundee Central Library, Wellgate, Dundee, DD1 1DB. Admission £5, includes coffee and newspapers served from 10.30am. Tickets available on the door, or in advance from Rainbow Music, 35 Cowgate, Dundee - 01382 698397.
Chris Bryant, a Labour shadow Foreign Office minister, has branded French a 'useless' modern language, and told the Commons other languages - such as Mandarin, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic were more important. 'Unless we have sufficient numbers of people who speak modern foreign languages - and not just the useless modern foreign languages like French ...,' he is reported as saying. Not only were his remarks insulting to France and Francophone countries across every continent, it was also insulting to language teachers who have struggled to keep languages on the curriculum after Labour dropped them as a compulsory school subject. ...
At this evening's Launceston Town Council meeting, a group of the town's traders brought a plea for lower parking charges. The basic message they were conveying was one with which I wholeheartedly agree: that the town centre is losing out massively to out of town stores and that part of the problem - and certainly a way of redressing the problem - is through parking charges. The Town Council runs the multi-storey car park and the traders were asking for the first half hour of parking to be free with, perhaps, the second half hour costing 20p. They had done ...
There have been far more eloquent postings made about the Saville report into the Bloody Sunday tragedy in Northern Ireland when i was only 7 days old, but seeing as i have previously commented on the impending report, I felt the need to comment further now it is published at long last. I am proud ...
As part of a week of action organised by South Glos Council, there will be an open morning at St Nicholas Church on Saturday from 10.00 am to 12.00 am. Police, Fire & Rescue and representatives of the NHS will be there too. This is a chance for local people to say what they're concerned about in the community. Maybe for example you would like to go along and say what YOU think should be done about the Rodford Way crossing situation, where there was the fatal accident and another serious accident recently? Or maybe you're concerned about the crumbling ...
Last year, this over anxious mum wrote of her horror at the new idea of the then Government to introduce a vetting and barring scheme. This would have mean that anyone who helped out by, say, driving a minibus for Brownies, would have to register with an Independent Safeguarding Authority. This Authority would then decide whether they were suitable people to be allowed round children. In doing so they could use everything from police records to criminal convictions to gossip. Yes, gossip. At least that's what I took "other appropriate sources" to mean. I, who am probably one of the ...
Today was the first of four days of the Public Inquiry into plans for a waste plant at Garston Dock (right next to the Cressington Heath housing estate) I'm tweeting from the Inquiry (www.twitter.com/paulakeaveney) so do follow me if you want regular updates. Today both sides opened their cases and we heard evidence from Liverpool City Council (which is defending the decision to turn planning permission down). Jack Allen, the company which wants the waste plant, has spent a lot on lawyers and advisers and the questions to the Council representative were pretty difficult. Tomorrow Jack Allen will be giving ...
Our complicity with torture in Karimov's Uzbekistan is a startling example of Britain's double standards. But where are Britain's other most current disgraceful examples of immoral foreign policy, and in particular support of dictators? I want to consider perhaps five of the most egregious examples for a media project. I have my own ideas, but would welcome your thoughts.
I quickly dashed in to Norwich this afternoon after work to get a few things I needed, and suddenly aware that I was next to the Apple Store, I decided to pop in and ask an iPhone related question. Big mistake. Now I've never been to an Apple Store before and obviously I simply do not understand the rules or know the code. Nowhere in the shop is there a desk stating the simple words "We're here to help" or "Customer Services", nor does there seem to be any clear or organised system for getting help. At the back of ...
I'm getting increasingly disturbed by an ad at Leytonstone station. It's been there for a few months. It's part of what I think is an NHS poster campaign series; this one has a young woman looking at the camera, with the charming slogan "Wake up to Rape" on her T-shirt. There's some text about rape being difficult to talk about, and I think it may be advertising a helpline number or something of that sort - I can't bring myself to read it all. I don't have rape triggers; I've never been raped. I've been sexually assaulted, though, both times ...
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Ednet, the long time scourge of the professional student politician, seems to have disappeared. Never exactly the home of the most reasoned debate and argument it did sometimes provide the odd insight into the student movement. More often however it was home to idle gossip at best and abuse at worst. It's a shame really because those involved in the student movement really do need somewhere outside of the NUS to talk about issues affecting their unions and affecting the wider student movement.
Cornwall Council has admitted that officers made a mistake when threatening to give parking tickets to motorists who failed to pay for parking when a car park machine broke down. Until recently, the rules have been simple. In pay car parks, you have to buy a ticket. But if the machine has broken down, you don't. But with the introduction of the new RingGo system, motorists have the option of paying by credit card over their mobile phones. Some motorists in Newquay have been threatened with fines when machines were broken and have been told by enforcement officers that they ...
I've just been watching David Cameron Commons statement from earlier today following the findings of the Saville Inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday. The report is very clear that the 13 who were killed were innocent and that the order to go into the bogside should never have been given. Cameron's statement was also clear that he accepted the findings. That there should be no equivocation, that the actions of the army on that day were wrong and on behalf of the British government he apologised. Some other bloggers are talking about how there were many occasions when protagonists ...
Some time ago, I asked in a council meeting about the bid for money from the Building Schools for the Future fund. Many Cornish schools are in dire need of modernisation and the Council had asked the Government for the cash. But the first bid had been turned down and the Council was asking again. What, I asked, was Plan B should the money be refused again? The answer was simple. Cornwall doesn't need a Plan B because our application is so good we are definitely going to get the money. Now the Government has put all new BSF funding ...
It's taken Lord Saville 12 years to hear all the evidence and compile a report that's 5000 pages long, so I feel I need to be a bit careful about commenting on the events of Bloody Sunday in a quick blog post. I thought the House of Commons was at its most grown up this afternoon as David Cameron made his statement, revealing the dreadful conclusion of the Saville Report, that 13 British citizens had been killed by the British Army in an act that was "unjustified and unjustifiable". I didn't agree with everything that David Cameron said this afternoon ...
As I blogged before, at today's full council meeting my colleague Jeremy Rowe asked a question about second home voters and how many cases the council were aware of during the recent general election. Council Leader Alec Robertson replied and said that the council had investigated just 18 cases in the run up to the election. That sounds to me like an implausibly low number. Either there was remarkable compliance with the law or the Council was not doing its job properly in making sure that only those eligible to vote actually did so. The rules are clear. Only those ...
A truly historic statement from the Prime Minister on Bloody Sunday. It is quite breathtaking in its fulsome apology and unequivocal condemnation of the actions of the army on that day. This is a remarkable day for the whole United Kingdom and for Northern Ireland, in particular British Isles. After all the years, and the long enquiry, one expected, perhaps, a fudge. This, in no way, can be described as a fudge. Thank goodness for its clarity. No punches are pulled, judging from the BBC's summary. One can only hope that a line has been drawn in history and that ...
There has been plenty of complaints from people in europe about the sounds of the Vuvuzelas. Personally I think its tough. The world cup is in Africa and this is what an African world cup is. This world cup is not in Europe and we shouldn't go banning things just because we don't like them. For once I agree with Fifa president Sepp Blatter who "believes Vuvuzelas are part and parcel of football in South Africa." Indeed it is. I was pleased to see that world cup organisers will not ban Vuvuzelas from stadiums in South Africa. So lets get ...
By John Howson Sign the petition. Ideology rather than efficiency seems to be the Watchword in Sanctuary Buildings, the home of Mr Gove's Department for Schools. Not content with wasting money on changing the name of his department, the only minister to do so, Mr Gove has rushed out his Academies Bill, or Grant Maintained Schools (Academies) Bill as it ought really to be known. For the Tory academies are really only grant maintained schools with another name. The present Chief Secretary to the Treasury has the advantage of coming from Scotland where, although the relations between the parliament and ...
The United Kingdom is in 34th place in the league of refugees taken in by a country as a ratio of its population. The latest UN statistics show that we have 438 refugees per 100,000 inhabitants. This puts us behind Jordan, Syria, Montenegro, Congo, Chad, Malta, Iran, Djibouti, Lebanon, Pakistan, Kenya, Sweden, Serbia, Ecuador, Mauritania, Norway, Yemen, Germany, Venezuela, Luxembourg, Central African Republic, Switzerland, Gabon, Gambia, Rwanda, Cameroon, Canada, Guinea-Bissau, Panama, Austria, Netherlands, Sudan and Zambia. The names in bold in the above list are other developed countries with a UN Human Development Index score greater than 0.9. Many of ...
So I have been a bit slow to comment on the whole David Laws saga as I had a week of not blogging the other week and not really caught up.
As Wired reports: Transport for London has announced that it's lifting all restrictions on the commercial use of its data. The move could fuel an explosion in mobile apps that need access to the datasets, making them more attractive to developers who want to charge for their apps. Currently, TfL offers up a selection of datasets, including live traffic cameras, Oyster card top-up locations, pier and station locations, cycle hire locations, and riverboat timetables. Some new data has been issued, including live tube travel info and departure boards, and the transport giant also plans to release further information on bus ...
I have been quiet on the blogging front for a little while now as I've been busy with Lib Dem campaigning and doing some post-election door-knocking. One of the wisest quotes I ever heard was from an old farmer friend who told me that the two most important things in life were a good pair ...
Johann Hari had a brilliant in-depth article in The Independent last Friday where he drew parallels between the current prohibition of drugs and the US experiences of prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s until it was abolished in 1933. Here's are a couple of snippets: When you ban a popular drug that millions of people want, it doesn't disappear. Instead, it is transferred from the legal economy into the hand of armed criminal gangs. Across America, gangsters rejoiced that they had just been handed one of the biggest markets in the country, and unleashed an Armada of freighters, steamers, ...
I see you've been speaking out today defending Labour's record over the Vetting and Barring Scheme. So I hope you don't mind me raising again my own experience of trying to raise concerns with the Labour government over one particular detail of the scheme it introduced. As I previsously wrote, I emailed Sir Roger Singleton [see letter here] on 14 September about my concerns with the way the Independent Safeguarding Authority's guidelines state that if someone has been found innocent in a court of law that does not mean they could have been completely innocent. Particularly given the many issues ...
Almost, but not quite enough:
Leeds Liberal Youth has launched it's new website. Check it out and take part in their polls. Feel free to leave comments too
I am hobbling around work today, doing my best Herr Flick impersonation and relying on the kindness of others to get me places. The public transport options from Prestwich (where I live) to Ashton (where I work) are deeply unappealing and would require several buses and several hours. In my limping state this is pretty impractical. Another thing that was limping along until today was the proposed Vetting and Barring database which would have meant that lots more people working with vulnerable people had to submit details to the government. I hope the same fate that has befallen the database ...
Just had to phone Bury Council to complain that my blue bin was not emptied this week. You see it happens to Councillors as well. We had put the bins out as normal but when I came out to go to work I'd noticed that the bin had not been emptied, and had a big sticker slapped on it saying "Ooops, we didn't empy your bin because there is wrong stuff in it" or some such. If that's the case then fair enough, I will waste part of my life tonight on my arrival home having a look see. BUT ...
The latest Department for Work and Pensions' figures show that child poverty remains at the 07/08 level of 32% for Wales. Among the 192,000 children, 126,000 live in severe poverty, continuously facing hardships as a result of their parents' economic situation. It is shocking that there has been so little progress in the fight against child poverty in Wales since we revealed last year that the number of children living in poverty had increased. This situation is both shameful and unacceptable and it clearly shows the lack of commitment by the Labour-Plaid Welsh Assembly Government and the previous Labour administration ...
I recently came across this paper looking at some of the lessons from the online campaigns of US political candidates. It finds the four key factors for success are, "embracing interactivity, empowering the liberal blogosphere, maintaining relations with the blogosphere, and valuing a Web presence". Useful lessons for the UK too. Netroots Narrative: The Evolution of Liberal Candidates from 2004 to the Present by Diana Tracy Cohen
As the county councillor whose electoral division includes the village of Burton Green, a community which would be split in two if the preferred route went ahead, I have been engaged actively in the issue since it was first announced on the 11th March. I have both attended and organised public meetings on the subject, and have kept in close contact with the various local action groups that have been established up and down the route. My first duty is to defend the best interests of the residents of Kenilworth Abbey, many of whose lives would be blighted in perpetuity ...
I see from the Council that the Co-operative Store is applying for a license to sell alcohol from 30 High Street, Cheadle, SK8 1AL. Interesting. Anyone got any thoughts on that one?
Council tenants will be consulted on proposals that would allow St Albans City and District Council to retain rental income and money from the sale of council housing to use to manage their housing stock, following a meeting of Cabinet on 1 June. Their input will be used to help the Council formulate a response to a consultation paper, Council housing: a real future, which was published by the former Government in March and which includes proposals to reform the way that council housing is funded. The new Coalition Government has said that it will review the current system of ...
His comments about becoming a net energy exporting nation particularly caught my ear: (Also on YouTube here.)
It is not often in the past fourteen years that I've actually gone "SQUEE!" when I've seen a news article. Okay, maybe very occasionally, but generally when the Labour Party were in power I'd feel generally angry, betrayed and devastated whenever they acted with a ridiculous, knee-jerk, instinctively statist and dictatorial motivation. I remember last year particularly, I felt as if I was in some sort of parallel universe, where a Government was using the safety and health of our children as a means of appearing tough politically. I remember blogging (here, here here and here about it, and setting ...
There is still no concerted international response to the violence on Kyrgyzstan, either in terms of peacekeeping or aid to refugees. Sporadic killings continue and much of Osh is burnt out. I have to confess at a grim humour in reading this morning articles in the British media by people who plainly know nothing about it: the Guardian has some prime examples of google and wiki knowledge part digested and regurgitated for sale. Here is my own take yesterday: Yesterday Maxim Bakiyev, son of the recently ousted Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was arrested in the UK when he arrived ...
I think this accurately sums it up
I have now discovered (after helpful advice from a friend) how to change the dating and timing system from US Eastern Standard Time to GMT. From now on the dates at the head of each post should be correct (I hope!)
Obviously this is a big weekend for Margate with the Big Event taking place, since I'm getting a lot of referrals from search engines looking for info on the event I thought it would be handy, rather than waffle to put up some pics from previous years. So Click here Also for the anoraks 10 seconds of Eurofighter
As Sarah Palin prepares for her pilgrimage to the living saint that is Margaret Thatcher, a right of passage that those on both sides of the compass have had to make in Britain for some years (though It's a good thing John MacDonnell was initiated some time ago), there has been calls by some people ...
Tue 15th
10:20
"Ignore us at your peril!" - Linda Jack reports back on the Lib Dems' first post-coalition Federal P...
The Lib Dems' Federal Policy Committee (FPC) operates under the Chatham House Rule: you can repeat what was said, but not who said it. But often what happens at FPC goes completely unreported. In some cases this is understandable, people throwing their toys out of the pram isn't something we really want to report (oh not that often, honest!), and sometimes it is just because we are discussing issues (such as the manifesto) that we quite rightly want to keep under wraps until it is launched. But someone (who of course will remain nameless) made the point at last week's ...
I attended an excellent public meeting at Rhosygilwen in Rhoshill, just south of Cardigan last night, organised by Pembrokeshire against the cull. There were well over 200 people there, many of whom are landowners and farmers concerned at the impact this cull will have on their livelihoods and its potential to actually spread the incidence of bTB amongst badgers and cattle. There were some excellent presentations on the English trials on vaccination together with a lot of information as to the future development of these vaccines and their efficacy. What was clear is that vaccinating badgers is more effective than ...
On Friday I hosted a seminar on the subject of Neighbourhood Partnership working and what the Partnerships can do to regarding Health Inequalities. In Edinburgh your life expectancy as a male can vary by as much as 25.8 years depending on where you live! Factors which have contributed to this have included housing quality, alcohol, drugs, lack of exercise and poor diet. What is clear to me is that the NHS can do little on their own about this. For example alcohol is a licensing issue, a community safety issue, a Law and Order issue all often before it becomes ...
The Guardian Leeds site has the details of a drop in session for residents of Kirkstall council ward (where I'll be living next year!) where people can come along and raise any concerns that they have over anti social behaviour, crime, graffiti, litter, fly-tipping and many more things with council officers. These type of surgeries are a great idea and it's good to see that the Kirkstall councillors are following the example of the Lib Dem Headingley councillors who started these surgeries themselves last year. they're a great way of getting many different groups of residents to raise issues that ...
In the past I've strongly challenged the idea that what this country needs to protect its children is a bloody great database constantly monitoring the activities of nearly one-quarter of the adult population on it. So today's announcement that the Independent Safeguarding Authority's Vetting and Barring Scheme is to be suspended pending a very rigorous ...
From the Council: Stockport Council is to consider proposals to improve the provision of secondary school education across the borough. The proposals will affect schools in the east of Stockport, and will be considered by the Executive on 14th June. The Executive is being asked to consider the following: · Removing excessive capacity at Marple Hall School and Werneth High School · Modifying provision at Stockport School to reinstate more places · A public consultation on the proposed closure of Offerton School This review of secondary schools has been brought about by falling student numbers. In 2004 there were more ...
When should the Government's promised referendum on AV be held? That's the question causing a fair amount of debate at the heart of the coalition. From the simple good governance point of view, the answer is as soon as possible – because the sooner it is held, the more time there will be if AV is passed to get the law and then the administration right in good time ahead of the next general election. Late changes to election rules have been the bane of the electoral system far too often in the last decade. The second, and more contentious, ...
This is a guest post from Dr Kalvis Jansons, an applied mathematician and motorcyclist. Kalvis hit the headlines last year when he launched the "Gordon Brown resign" No 10 website petition. He eventually got his wish! Shortcomings of the LTI 20-20 laser speed gun By Dr Kalvis M. Jansons The LTI 20-20 is a laser speed gun in common use by the police throughout the UK. It works by sending a stream of short infrared pulses from the gun to the target, and measuring the return times to determine distance. The rate of change of this distance is then interpreted ...
The ever-popular Music in the Street is back tonight, Tuesday 15 June, starting in Broad street at 7.30 pm. The event kicks off with the winner of the School Battle of the Bands. The headliners are Vegas with their great music from past and present. And of course the Chipping Sodbury Festival website has details of many more events for all the family.
I am writing this in Shropshire. As my discovery of the county was largely due to the children's writer Malcom Saville, it seems appropriate to mention that he was the uncle of Lord Saville whose report on Bloody Sunday is published today. When that report was already long overdue, I observed in one of my late, lamented New Statesman columns: Lord Saville would do well to study his uncle's methods. Take 1950. In that year Malcolm published The Adventure of the Life-Boat Service - a tribute to "this wonderful and typical British institution". He also published The Master of Maryknoll ...
Following a complaint from a local resident, I asked the Council's Planning Enforcement team to check the appearance of an advertising hoarding on Cheadle High Street - on the side wall of Cheadle Deli by the old BT building. Hoardings like that need planning permission, and it's in the conservation area. I had a look on the online planning system and couldn't find anything. The Enforcement people have now come back and confirmed that no planning has been applied for. They've written to the owner, Wrexham Signs, informing them that it must be removed by 23rd June. If it isn't, ...
Being brought up with the strict religious upbringing I had there were only two occasions I could use the word bloody as a kid. 1. When referring to the Bloody River and Bloody Bridge at the south end of Slieve Donard2. When referring to Sunday 30th January 1972At the weekend I showed Caron the map of where things happened and pointed out that the Glenn family church First Derry, stood atop the old city walls on Upper Magazine Street looked practically over the killing fields on Bloody Sunday. Though my family came from the other side of the barrier both ...
Here are three extract from the Guardian's economics editor, Larry Elliott, in yesterday's paper: Title: "The deficit hawks need their talons clipped." "The determination to cut budget deficits in (the present) circumstances does not show that policymakers of probity and integrity have replaced the irresponsible spendthrifts of 2008 and 2009. It shows that the lunatics are back in charge of the asylum."(my emphasis) "...why is the government (cutting)? Is it, for all Nick Clegg's 'progressive cuts', that the real agenda is to finish the demolition job on the welfare state that began in the 1980s? Or are the deficit hawks ...
Tue 15th
06:35
Q: When is an oil rig not an oil rig? A: When it's a ship registered in the Marshall Islands
Staggering news via the LA Times: The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico was built in South Korea. It was operated by a Swiss company under contract to a British oil firm. Primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean. ...Under International law, offshore oil rigs like the Deepwater Horizon are treated as ships, and companies are allowed to "register" them in unlikely places such as the Marshall Islands, Panama and Liberia — ...
Oh dear me. I do love coming to Ireland! Bless them. They must have one of the highest listenerships of talk radio in the known universe. It's exceptional to come to a place with such an interest – albeit somewhat war-wearied – in politics and, now as of necessity, high finance (or is that low finance?). At the moment, there's an extra bonus, whenever you think the UK economy is in dire straits, you only need to glimpse over the Irish sea to prove that old adage: There's always someone worse off than yourself Just take a few little excerpts ...
I received an email from the Post Office recently. It seems that at some stage in the past I have given permission for them to send emails to me. The irony of this situation did not pass me by because in the past they have put many things through my door and so much of it has been unrequested junk mail. However this time there is a clear method for me to opt out of future emails. I thought that I would take a look at what they were sending and decide whether I should use the opt out. I ...
