Earlier this year, the Boundary Commission came up with a draft set of proposals for new parliamentary constituencies. In Gateshead there was a straightforward proposal for 2 constituencies, both wholly within Gateshead. The new constituencies would retain the names of the two existing constituencies - Blaydon and Gateshead. Under the existing boundaries, 2 Gateshead wards are in Jarrow
Great news! Talking Pictures TV is to broadcast Crown Court, the ITV daytime programme from the 1970s that I praised last month. Old Time Review reports that screening will start in January and also the remarkable news that all 879 episodes of Crown Court still exist. It ran from 1972 to 1984. I explained the attractions of the series in my November post: Crown Court was the ITV daytime programme you watched if you were off school with a cold. Across four days, a trial was presented and a verdict then given by a jury of members of the public. ...
It is three years since the 2019 General Election, and everything is rubbish. October saw record strikes going back to 2010. Public services are under horrible strain (see Stephen's piece), and winter has barely begun. You can understand the strikes: private sector pay growth of 7% – still well below inflation - hugely outstrips thatContinue reading "What went wrong, when and how?"
The Guardian reports on the view of the New Economics Foundation that thirty million people in the UK will be unable to afford what the public considers to be a decent standard of living by the time the current parliament ends in 2024. They say that rising prices, below-inflation increases in earnings and projected increases in unemployment would result in 43% of households lacking the resources to put food on the table, buy new clothes or treat themselves and their families - a 12 percentage point rise compared with 2019: The NEF said its calculation that by 2024 almost 90% ...
The importance to our judicial system of having a jury of 'ordinary' people who are the sole judge of guilt in a case is a thing of which we should be immensely proud but, having done my jury duty I feel it is in need of huge reform. In October a dreaded letter arrived out of the blue. Some malevolent machine had drawn my name out of the unlucky lottery, and I was summoned to appear for Jury Duty. It is quite an inverse lottery. According to the letter about 200,000 are chosen at random every year from the electoral ...
Sarah Wise uncovers a forgotten passage of British history: "Between 1869 and 1925 an estimated 80,000 British boys and girls were sent to Canada as agricultural labourers and domestic servants by Macpherson, Thomas Barnardo and Maria Rye - the latter one of a small number of other philanthropists active in Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin. Only one third of them were orphans, meaning that the majority had been removed from parents and/or siblings." Alexander Smith from NBC News shows us how Britain is now seen by the wider world: "Britain once compared itself to giants like France and Germany; today ...
There are only 40 paramedics in the armed forces who would be qualified to work in the NHS, figures uncovered by the Liberal Democrats have revealed. The government has admitted in response to a parliamentary question that the armed forces have 107 paramedics, of which 40 are confirmed as meeting the qualification requirements set out by the Health and Care Professions Council. These are the qualifications needed in order to practise as a paramedic in the UK. The figures were uncovered through a parliamentary question tabled by Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP. It comes as the government has ...
Tue, 08:19: #Tunisia votes, ten years after the #ArabSpring; and the old guard are likely to make a comeback. By me. https://t.co/IF7t4WHyBD Tue, 10:45: RT @JamesBSumner: Chalk up another one for "The FT often appears to be some distance to the political left of most of the UK press, by simp...
The Office for National Statistics has reported that "total and regular pay in the UK fell 2.7% when adjusted for inflation in the three months from August to October". Responding to this morning's news, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney said: This is just the tip of the iceberg with families facing a nightmarish interest rate rise in just 48 hours time. A cost of living triple whammy of mortgage hikes, energy bills and tax rises is hitting Britain hard this winter, despite public services crumbling and coming to a near standstill due to this Government's incompetence. Brits are fair ...
Mike Batt explains: David Essex rang me late in 1982 - just after my return from Australia, and asked if I could write him a Christmas hit. It was already late October so we didn't have much time. I was due to be writing with Tim Rice the following day ... so I told Tim about the David Essex request, and we started thinking of ideas. ... we wrote a bit of the chorus and two lines of the verse, and then when Tim had gone home I sat and worked on it, coming up with the finished chorus and ...
Many thanks to all local primary school pupils who participated in the West End Christmas Fortnight Primary Schools' art competition this year! Also to the schools for their help and a huge thank you to Rev Dr Jim Connolly who masterminded the competition and iArtSupplies in Hawkhill Court for its support again this year. The standard of entries was really high and here's details of the winners :
People who read my blog will be aware that I have for some time argued that most (if not all) diseases of aging are caused by cells not being able to produce enough of the right proteins. What happens is that certain genes stop functioning because of a metabolic imbalance. I was, however, mystified as to why it was always particular genes that stopped working. Recently, however, there have been
