Apparently Ed Miliband is being given plaudits for kicking the open goal that is the phone hacking scandal. Surely, unless he actually came out in support of Murdoch, it would be difficult for him not to be heard saying the right things wouldn’t it? Heaven help us if picking easy targets is all it takes to become a political leader.
Category Archives: Everyday life
No meat Mondays!
Is Brighton and Hove council, Britain’s first Green Party, a good example of what will happen when councils get more powers and freedom to do their own thing? Apparently, they’ve upset their refuse collectors by declaring Mondays a meat free day in the council’s canteen – along with the rest of their borough incidentally.
We all know that councils run by minority parties and groups can come with some wacky ideas sometimes, but once all councils get their hands on the business rates cash, I’ve a suspicion some mainstream ones will be following suit.
In defence of the little guys, in the past, it’s been the extreme behaviour of councils run by mainstream parties, such as Liverpool and Lambeth, that led Maggie Thatcher to centralise the business rates in the first place.
Heaven help the taxpayers!
Are they too slow, or are you too fast?
Having been somewhat under the weather this week, I’ve been a bit slow off the mark on making comment on a recent story about slow drivers. However, having seen an editorial piece in today’s Telegraph, that links this with another of my hobby horses – our impatient society – I couldn’t resist.
Apparently, the top gripe for those who drive, which is most of us, is slow drivers. Nobody asked me, so I suspect that claim will be based on one of those surveys where they asked a couple of dozen people and then using some clever sums, turn it in something that can be claimed as representative of all drivers – like I said, they didn’t ask me and I don’t agree.
Having come across relatively few genuinely slow drivers – 20 in a 30mph, or 40 in 60mph, I think there’s a completely different slant on this story. My question to those drivers who claim to see red when confronted with somebody driving too slowly is, what speed were YOU actually doing?
Over the years I’ve encountered many more drivers doing 40+ in a 30, or 50+ in a 40, than I have the opposite. On that basis, I have a strong suspicion that many of these unhappy drivers didn’t actually know what speed they were doing anyway. Alternatively, they felt that most speed limits, especially the lower ones, were too low for their taste and that drivers who observe them are a pain.
I find it particularly infuriating when I hear or read so called experts suggesting that ‘experienced’ drivers know best what their speed to drive at based on the road conditions and that it should be up to them to choose the right speed. This is one of the main arguments being used to resist the imposition of 20mph in residential streets – rubbish I say. It actually requires effort and concentration to drive well and it’s not just about what is happening inside the car. A genuinely good driver will consider what effect the noise of a speeding car has on those living in and around the street or road they are driving on and not just their own selfish wish to get from a to b as fast as possible.
Time for a name change
I was reading today’s newspaper and came across an item about dementia. Not for the first time it occurred to me that the term dementia has some sinister connotations, especially when you hear somebody describe as ‘demented’.
If you look up the word ‘demented’ in one dictionary, it says, “insane, mad; of unsound mind”. Another dictionary describes it as: 1. Suffering from dementia. 2. Driven to behave irrationally due to anger, distress, or excitement. This means that for some, saying that somebody is suffering from dementia, doesn’t necessarily trigger their sympathy response, which of course is grossly unfair to those suffering from this cruel disease.
There are a number of diseases and conditions that used to be called by names that we now considered unacceptable. Numerous charities for the disabled used to have the word cripple in their title. Scope used to be called The Spastic Society. Those born with Downs Syndrome used to be called Mongoloids because they looked like people born in northern Russia. These days most of us would consider these descriptions to be less than acceptable and that’s my point. Given the definitions for the word demented I’ve listed above, I think it’s high time somebody found a name for the condition that engendered sympathy rather than fear.
Even more important things are going on
Phone hacking is a nasty business, particularly when perpetrated against victims of crime. Bringing those responsible for the hacking to justice should be a priority for the authorities, especially because of the shocking involvement of police officers. However, it’s time the media moved on and put some equally important, but even more far reaching news on the front page.
Today’s Sunday Telegraph has a wealth of stories that deserve much greater coverage and I hope will resurface on the front pages of our daily press in the weeks to come.
One of these stories is about the scandalous and irresponsible proposals put forward by the government, for a wind farm tax on businesses. These proposals if pushed, or should it be blown, through, will cost the biggest employer in the county of Northumberland, £40m a year! If there’s anybody who doesn’t think that such a hit will cost jobs and a lot of them, please post a comment explaining why.
Another massive story for me, is the passing of The European Union Act 2011 last Wednesday. Providing it does what it says on the tin, this act is big news for the British people. However, lets not get carried away, because all the act does is put on the brakes – it doesn’t put anything into reverse. Please keep writing to your MP if you think reversing off of the EU toll road completely is a must.
Another story that we should all be writing to our MPs about, is the proposal by Tory MP Dominic Raab, to change the immigration laws. He proposes to limit the use of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the one that guarantees the “right to family life”. The idea is to prevent convicted foreign criminals, or more accurately, their lawyers, from using this as a way of avoiding deportation. However, this is a one man proposal and not put forward by the Government, so they could strangle it at birth if they get the urge. For that reason we, the British people, need to let the Government know, loud and clear, that this is something we, the British people, want to happen. Write to your MP and complete the Home Office survey at: http://www.ukba.home office.gov.uk/family-migration-consult.
Half measures could cost council taxpayers dear!
Whilst I applaud the government’s proposals to make it slightly easier for teachers to do their job by restraining unruly or even violent pupils when needed, I fear this could prove to be yet another piece of bad legislation by a government that, like its predecessor, is often in too much of hurry to please.
To date I have not seen any proposals to prevent the restrained pupil’s parents, who can often be more badly behaved than their off-spring, from reaching for the Yellow Pages and setting the whole no-win, no-fee gravy train in motion.
What’s the point of telling teachers that they now have protection at one level, if in fact the education authority that employs them can still itself be sued by self serving parents? It’s also worth remembering that it is local taxpayers, through their council tax bills, who will ultimately be picking up the bill for the avalanche of law suits that are likely to follow as newly empowered teachers begin to flex their new found muscles.
Government now needs to finish the job by offering the local taxpayer protection from the often unruly and sometimes ‘violently’ greedy parents and lawyers, who could soon be stalking the corridors of town halls up and down the land.
Growing children and trees together
I went to St Bartholomew’s Primary School in West Pinchbeck today, to support Richard Knock, our grounds maintenance magician (he regularly pulls rabbits from hats) in a project he’s started.
The idea is to give a local school a number of trees, over 25 in this case, for pupils to adopt and care for. As the child grows so does their tree and they keep a record of it. Just like the child, when the tree is mature enough it will be moved out of the school to takes its place in the community, where the youngster can continue to keep an eye on it.
In the ideal world, both the child and the tree will grow up together and become an intergral part of our community. Can you imagine how much fun they will get from pointing to a 40 or 50 ft (sorry, 12 to 18 mt) tree and telling their own children they grew it!
Of course the children have to accept that their tree might not survive the rigours of life, as many of our local trees suffer from mindless vandlism – but that would also be a lesson in life for the youngster and might just help one or two to stay on the straight and narrow themselves.
I wish them all well – children and trees. Well done Richard! By the way, good luck with those Latin names kids!
Beware the Bishop’s mind set
Following on from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s outburst at what he sees as the unfairness of the government’s attempts to get the economy back on track, I offer the following sweeping statement.
The wide spread introduction of the voluntary sector, in to the delivery of public services, will inevitably lead to left leaning, liberal views ‘infecting’ these services and will inflict the same long term damage to those services as happened to our education system when such like minded people took control of that some 40 plus years ago.
Wind Farms rake it in no matter what
It seems that a collection of these white elephants located in the wilds of Scotland, are now even more profitable than their owners could of wished for. Not only do they receive a ridiculous level of subsidy from you and I every time we use energy in our homes, it now seems that they receive even more cash when they’re switched off – £900,000 for one nights non-work! Read the Telegraph story
I think the champion of the fight against non-jobs, Eric Pickles, should get stuck in to this issue.
Spalding Post Office on the move again
How disappointing it was to see the Spalding Post Office once again under threat of extinction, following a commercial decision by person or persons unknown.
When the current location, within the Co-op centre in Winsover Road was first proposed, I made my reservation clear, particularly with regards to its location within the bowels of the building. When the proposals were first made public, I asked what would happen if the Co-op decided to move on and what guarantee would there be that any new owners would want to continue to run a Post Office slap bang in the middle of their retail operations? As it happens, I have been proven right, with the new owners wishing to evict the Post Office operation.
Also, not only was it a far from obvious location, sandwiched between the food and furniture departments, it was also one of the most uninviting and depressing places I had ever seen a shop located in. It was bad enough just being a customer waiting in line and staring at the blank magnolia walls, what it was like to work in that windowless tube day in day out, one can only imagine. A plea to the management to put up some posters and place the odd artificial potted plant fell on deaf ears, like most communications with Post Office management.
The loss of the experienced, dedicated and well liked staff of the original Sheep Market Post Office was immediately noticeable, as was the apparent under-staffing, as queues regularly formed well beyond the opening – entrance is too grander term.
We are now told that the Post Office is to move next door to No 7A Winsover Road, a modest shop front previously home to an insurance broker. We are also told that the nearest car park is only 50 yards away. What they don’t mention is, that this is the old the car park, but is now around the back of the building and without direct access.
Given Spalding’s current lack of any meaningful parking enforcement, I imagine it won’t be long before we see traffic backed up due to drivers pulling up in front of 7A in order to just ‘nip in’ to post a parcel.
As I said, the shop front is modest and it is difficult to judge exactly how much space will be available to customers. However, I’ve a strong suspicion that at busy times, queues could well be out of the door and on to the street.
On the plus side, the place will now have some natural light from the shop frontage, so the staff should find it a much more pleasant place to work. I just hope the rest of us find more pluses than minuses come from this latest move of our Post Office.
Check the Conservative Group website for the latest
information on what’s happening in the Spalding Wygate ward
Roger Gambba-Jones 