Prepayment meters: Energy companies must pay back 'Poverty Premium' to those impacted Spectator Interview: Truss is just another washed up Conservative minister Prepayment meters: Energy companies must pay back 'Poverty Premium' to those impacted The Liberal Democrats have called on the Government to ensure energy companies pay back at least the 'Poverty Premium' paid by the tens of thousands who had a prepayment meter forcibly installed this winter in compensation. Speaking in Parliament today, Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse challenged Energy Minuster Graham Stuart, to apologise and ensure all discussions around compensation for prepayment meters at least cover the extra ...
'Murder your darlings.' It's the writing advice you hear everywhere, but who first said it? The answer is this blog's new hero, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. In his The Art of Writing, published in 1916, he said: Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it — wholeheartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings. And it's good advice. It's the overall effect of a piece of writing, whether it's a poem or a work memorandum, that matters. In the days when I wrote lots of columns, when I ...
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has managed to generate a fair bit of interest after appearing on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg and promoting the idea of an increased minimum wage for care staff. During the interview, Mr Davey explained that "when I go and talk to people the biggest thing is the NHS crisis. Non-one thinks there is a silver bullet, a quick fix, but our policy to increase the minimum wage for carers - an extra £2 per hour - would deal with one of the big problems: namely, we don't have enough carers. If we get these care ...
The company behind the Arena now owes the Council £7 million. This may be good value for money or it may just be money wasted. We just do not know and as custodians of the City's money I think we ... Continue reading →
The appalling tragedy of the earthquake(s) in Turkey and Syria, in which close to 5 000 people have died, serves as a sharp remainder of how lucky we are to live in our cosy and comfortable island. True some of us are occasionally upset by floods (which our lifestyles are helping to create) and strong winds, but otherwise, by and large and in the main, and except for unavoidable illness, the only obstacle to our all living a cosy and comfortable life is our inability to organise ourselves sensibly. The re-emergence of Liz Truss and the seriousness which some of ...
The great man was born on 7 February 1812. This clip is from David Lean's 1948 film of Oliver Twist and the boy himself is played by John Howard Davies, who grew up to produce Monty Python, Fawlty Towers and The Good Life. I once blogged about a Radio 4 documentary on his experience of making the film: Years before I had a blog, I wrote an article on Oliver Twist. In it I said that, while the workhouse boys in Oliver! are obviously stage school brats, those in Lean's film look as though they would eat you given half ...
A director of Bridgnorth Cliff Railway, reports the Shropshire Star, fears the visitor attraction could go bankrupt if it stays shut for too long. As I blogged just before Christmas, the railway was closed because of the condition of a wall on a neighbouring property owned by the town council. Now Dr Malvern Tipping has told the Star: "If work is completed by Easter as the town council has said, that would be marvellous but I have had deep reservations that it will be done by then, but I'm heartened by the fact a few days ago engineers from Bridgnorth ...
Mon, 12:56: RT @thatbloodyMikey: Truss: "I was brought down by the left-wing economic establishment." Liz, the whole UK watched you get brought down by... Mon, 18:25: Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii, by James�Moran https://t.co/BZUvF6L7jO Tue, 10:45: RT @ftukpolitics: Fisking the Trussay https://t.co/XsJHSVQDIH Tue, 10:59: RT @BCommNI: @EarlofLeuven Hi. Representations from the third consultation should be published on our website in the next month or so - we'... </ul
Tim Spector's Spoon-Fed has for quite a while now been a best-selling book about what we eat. Political scientists can learn from it too.
[IMG: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license. Attribution: Stan Shebs] The Guardian reports: BP has scaled back its climate ambitions as it announced that annual profits more than doubled to $28bn (£23bn) in 2022 after a sharp increase in gas prices linked to the Ukraine war boosted its earnings. In a move that will anger campaigners, the oil and gas giant cut its emissions pledge and plans a greater production of oil and gas over the next seven years compared with previous targets. The huge annual profit led to renewed calls for a ...
The Guardian reports that Tory Ministers have quietly dropped restrictions on spending controls, allowing Whitehall departments to spend millions more on external consultants. They say that the limits were introduced under David Cameron in 2011, requiring central authorisation if contracts with firms such as Deloitte or KPMG lasted more than nine months or exceeded £20,000. The value of the contracts has been rising - with the limit earlier this year set at £600,000. But now those spending limits have been cancelled altogether, paving the way for department to spend millions more of taxpayers' money on external advice: The Cabinet Office ...
Mark's Monday press release round-up covered this story: Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey is today announcing proposals for a new Carer's Minimum Wage, to tackle the huge staff shortages in the social care sector. Under the Liberal Democrat plans, social care workers would be paid at least £2 an hour more than the current minimum wage, bringing their pay up to at least £11.50 an hour today - and £12.42 from this April. The proposals would benefit 850,000 workers, making up more than half of all people working in frontline care. You can watch Ed explaining the policy to Laura ...
The state of the Sycamore Place road surface - especially the part between Balgay Road and Logie Avenue - is in really poor condition. Last spring, we asked the council's Roads Maintenance Partnership if the road could be considered for the 2023/24 resurfacing programme. We are pleased to now advise that it has indeed be added to the carriageway improvement programme for 2023/24.
