I remain grumpy as hell and have zero patience with anyone or anything. Continue reading →
A Liberal Democrat press release brings the news: The Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir David Norgrove, has ruled that Boris Johnson and Priti Patel "misrepresented" crime statistics and presented them in a "misleading way". It comes after Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael reported the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary to the watchdog for falsely claiming that crime had fallen by 14% between September 2019 and September 2021, when the exact opposite had happened. Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson, Alistair Carmichael MP, said: This is a damning verdict from the official watchdog. Yet more distortions from Boris Johnson ...
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia. Two trips to London and one to Bulgaria this month. This was also the month that Ulster University appointed me to ...
Ofgem today announced the price cap will rise by £693 in England, Scotland and Wales, an increase of 54 per cent. This means bills for the average customer will rise to £1,971, up from its previous limit of £1,277. This is just one factor in the soaring cost of living. Food prices are rapidly increasing. National Insurance is due to be hiked. Borrowers, including some mortgage holders, will feel the impact of the 0.5% hike in interest rates announced by the Bank of England today. Council taxes are due to rise in many areas, though lessened by a one off ...
There are now four funds devoted to the government's so called "levelling- up" policy. They are The Future High Streets Fund, The Community Renewal Fund The Towns Fund, The Levelling Up Fund. The funds of the first three have already been allocated, as has £1.4bn of the Levelling-Up fund, with a further £1.8bn to be announced Here, according to a Guardian article published 2nd February, are details of how some of the funds, totalling £4.7bn, have so far been allocated.. Bromsgrove (Worcs) £15m (c£148 per head) Sajid Javid's patch Central Bedfordshire £26.7m (£91 per head) Nadine Dorries's " Richmond (Yorkshire) ...
"Politician after politician has stood up in parliament to insist there is no place for dodgy money in London. But then the lobbying starts. Every one of these sectors — finance, law, estate agencies, auction houses, education — starts arguing for exceptions and loopholes, and nothing gets done." Oliver Bullough on Britain's addiction to dodgy foreign money. John Read and Joanna Moncrieff explain why drugs and electricity are not the answer to depression. In a Twitter thread, Gwen C. Katz looks at "pajamafication" - what happens when a challenging book like Art Spiegelman's Maus is replaced in the classroom by ...
Thu 3rd
11:01
Drop the proposed Green bin tax, it won't work, and will send the wrong message on climate change
I was amused to learn last night that our esteemed Mayor, Joanne Anderson has become responsible for waste in the Liverpool City Region. I nearly made the comment that her unesteemed predecessor, Joe Anderson had been an expert in wasting ... Continue reading →
Wed, 12:56: How can you tell if the company you're interviewing with is rotten on the inside? https://t.co/vSAnWJNxQU Sound advice. Wed, 18:52: The Doctor - his Life and Times, by James Goss and Steve Tribe https://t.co/sPWe5BRo2b
While the main attention in parliament yesterday was on tributes to Jack Dromey and Michael Gove's statement on Levelling Up, an important debate also took place in Westminster Hall. Olivia Blake, Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam had secured a debate on the impact of the Nationality and Borders Bill on LGBTQ+ asylum seekers l. Tim Farron made a major and passionate contribution to the debate. It is notable that no Conservative MPs spoke during the debate. Farron described the Nationality and Borders Bill as a peculiarly awful piece of legislation that is designed to solve problems that do not exist ...
As if things could not get worse for the Metropolitan Police's image, the Guardian reports today that a Metropolitan police officer, disciplined after an inquiry into misogynistic and racist messages, has since been promoted. They say that misconduct was proven against the unnamed officer after a watchdog inquiry into messages about hitting and raping women, which were shared by up to 19 officers based mainly at Charing Cross police station. There were also messages about the deaths of black babies and the Holocaust, prompting accusations of a culture of misogyny and racism within the country's biggest force: The officer was ...
[IMG: The Baptist Chapel, Evington] Zuffar Haq MBE, four times the Liberal Democrats' parliamentary candidate in Harborough, is standing for the party in a Leicester City Council by-election today. The contest in the Evington ward follows the death of a sitting Labour councillor. Before his demise, the council had 52 Labour members, one Conservative and one Liberal Democrat. Good luck to Zuffar!
I am very grateful to the West End resident who made the following good suggestion recently : "I'd like to suggest an improvement on how the Council informs residents about the dates when the various refuse bins are collected. At the moment, as you will know, the Council mails out a card calendar, and on their website you can view or download an electronic version of the same card My suggestion is that they also provide a link on this page to a file that can be downloaded and then imported into an electronic calendar - the .ics format ...
