My theme of nostalgic and retrospective listening in 2024 continues. I never really got into the Moody Blues, nor indeed musical versions of pioneering science fiction novels, but remember this coming out when I was starting to take an interest in the charts as a 12-year-old in 1978. This was before I realised that my peer group would disapprove of my liking such stuff and that I should keep quiet about it. Anyway as the leaves began to fall this year I compiled a playlist of autumn-related songs, including this one that I ended up playing over and over as ...
A Tiny Forest is coming to The Headlands in Market Harborough. This video tells you all how Tiny Forests are grown and what they are intended to achieve.
Embed from Getty ImagesJoe Biden had managed to grant a pardon more controversial than the one he gave to his son Hunter.. Democracy Now explains: Biden announced nearly 1500 commutations and pardons last week in what the White House described as the largest single-day act of clemency from a president, but among those whose sentences were reduced is former Pennsylvania Judge Michael Conahan - one of two judges in the notorious "kids for cash" scandal. In 2011, Conahan was sentenced to 17.5 years for accepting nearly $3 million in kickbacks for sending 2,300 children, some as young as 8 years ...
Wouldn't it be wonderful if politicians from different parties sang, in harmony, from the same hymn sheet? That may seem like a Christmas thought but a workday impossibility. Well, some of the time some of us do. 20 years ago, a Labour peer who knew how many of us were singers but found that the parliamentary timetable prevented us from being in the same church or hall at the same rehearsal time each week suggested that we form a choir within the Parliament estate. I was sceptical of the idea, but turned up in the crypt chapel just off Westminster ...
Labour's new devolution plans promise to "transfer power out of Westminster," but don't be fooled - this isn't about empowering communities. Instead of genuine decentralisation, Labour is un-devolving power, stripping it from local councils and concentrating it upwards into the hands of regional "super mayors." Far from fixing local democracy, this plays into Labour's increasingly authoritarian approach, where control is centralised under a single figure while local voices are sidelined. The plans follow the government's review into local government organisation and devolution, but they take entirely the wrong approach. Labour wants to abolish smaller district councils—the ones closest to residents, ...
Fraser's weekly ward surgeries take place later today and every Tuesday during school term time. They are as follows : Tuesdays at 5pm prompt - Blackness Library Tuesdays at 5.45pm prompt - Ancrum Road Primary School All residents welcome - no appointment necessary. These are Fraser's final surgeries before the Christmas school holidays and his surgeries return on Tuesday 7th January 2025 - although Michael has his final surgeries of 2024 this Thursday evening.
The Guardian editorial suggests that the reorganisation of English local councils announced by the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday is not so much about empowering local communities as giving Whitehall greater control over them. The paper says that the reforms give with one hand while taking away with the other:The government's devolution white paper promises to empower local councils in England while simultaneously telling them what to do. Like their Conservative predecessors, ministers are mainly interested in local authorities because they recognise that they are key to economic growth. The kind of development that the government is desperate to see will ...
