"Sometimes state delivery is best, but how has the country which once developed a thriving mutual and cooperative sector managed to lose so much of it? The loss of so many building societies during the 1980s/90s was a backwards step, for example. The demise of cooperatives (particularly in poorer/working-class areas) another." Tony Robertson is a social liberal, not a socialist. Polly Curtis has spent three years investigating how the state makes decisions on behalf of children at risk": That is potentially nearly 27,000 children in the care system who, with the right support, might not have needed to be there. ...
Malcolm Saville, my favourite author when I was a boy, was born on 21 February 1901. As I once argued in the Guardian (or at least on its website) he was a better writer than Enid Blyton, the writer he is inevitably compared to: For a couple of decades after he published his first story in 1943, Malcolm Saville represented the strongest challenge to the Blyton supremacy. Mystery at Witchend tells how the young members of the Lone Pine Club bring to justice a gang of saboteurs hoping, perhaps optimistically, to cripple the Allied war effort by blowing up a ...
Responding to the Government's plan on Living with Covid, Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said: The Conservatives have been planning to end free Covid testing for more than two months, yet still we have no clarity on what this means in reality. Boris Johnson wasn't even able to answer the simple question of whether any free testing plans would be kept in place for essential workers, such as NHS staff, or for those who are clinically vulnerable. This so-called plan has been cobbled together on the back of a fag packet. People are being asked to exercise personal ...
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. Quite a lot of travel that month - I went to Eastercon at Heathrow via Belgrade, Serbia, and returned via Sofia, ...
Many people were disappointed by the recent COP26 round of obfuscation and dithering by political leaders throughout the world. The intent was there, the words were put in place but the actions that were needed to put the words into ... Continue reading →
Sun, 12:56: Thread! https://t.co/LcQdahQHnO Sun, 14:57: What awful news. I enjoyed banter with Chris for almost twenty years, going back to when he won my election prediction contest for the 2003 Assembly election. Thoughts with his family. Really sad. https://t.co/y04LKtbGTB Sun, 18:20: Pyramids of Mars, by Kate Orman (and Robert Holmes and Terrance Dicks) https://t.co/HnI3d3lBMV Sun, 23:38: Hi #gally1, I do the daily Doctor Who anniversaries on the Facebook group and I blog about the show a lot (especially books). These are my latest blog posts: https://t.co/E4q9gjnirM Follow me if you like! Mon, 00:15: There are two Doctors here at ...
The Guardian reports that a wave of attacks on "woke" charities by rightwing politicians has "backfired", generating an outpouring of public support for the targeted charities and helping drive a surge in social justice activism. The paper says that an annual survey of social campaigning suggests many charities feel increasingly emboldened to speak out on contested issues, including race, immigration and the environment, despite attacks they feel are designed to intimidate them into silence: The findings of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation survey come as charities report huge concern over the "chilling" impact on civil society of a raft of proposed ...
It's been a bit blowy in deepest mid-Suffolk, and I hope that our readers have come out of the trio of storms unscathed. Dudley, Eunice and Franklin have brought chaos to a country undergoing a fair bit of chaos already. On this day in 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published "The Communist Manifesto", probably the most influential political manifesto ever written. Admittedly, those who claimed to be implementing it weren't terribly keen on winning hearts and minds through simple persuasion and an intensive leafleting campaign, but its impact still hangs heavy, as the situation in Ukraine reminds us. Richard ...
DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL - WEEKLY ROAD REPORT REPORT FOR WEST END WARD - WEEK COMMENCING MONDAY 21 FEBRUARY 2022 Perth Road between Glamis Road and Seymour Street - rolling 2 way temporary traffic lights for one week for City Fibre works. Perth Road (at Millbay Gardens) - off‑peak temporary traffic lights from Tuesday 22 February for 3 weeks for footway works. Forthcoming Roadworks Riverside Drive (near Wright Avenue) - temporary traffic lights from Monday 28 February for 2 days for Energy Assets gas service connection. West Grove Avenue - road closure between Perth Road and Blackness Road for 6 days ...
