Andy Strang

TransAmerica Trail

2008-03-21T11:43:00.003Z

For the next couple of months, I am going to be focused on my trip across the States and so all posting will be done on www.transamericatrailcycle.com as I prepare for and then bike across the TransAmerica Trail.
The ride is in aid of the National Association of Colitis and Crohn's Disease and any sponsorship would be much appreciated.

US Elections

2008-03-05T15:08:00.000Z

It looks as if the Americans have one last option in the Presidential Primaries

Oh the irony

2008-03-04T17:18:00.000Z

You really couldn't make this up

Dispute mediator votes for strike

Acas has struggled to resolve its own workplace dispute
Staff at labour conciliation service Acas have voted to go on strike in a row over pay.
Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) voted by almost two to one for a rolling programme of one-hour strikes.

Union members say the service failed to make a pay offer last year.

Publicly-funded Acas works to resolve workplace disputes. Unions warn that failure to resolve its own workplace dispute could embarrass the government.

"The failure of any pay offer and the lack of substantive negotiations have forced the very people who resolve industrial disputes into voting for strike action themselves," said general secretary Mark Serwotka.

"The government can avoid embarrassing and damaging strike action in Acas and elsewhere in the civil service by addressing low pay and paying a fair wage."

On its website, Acas says it "aims to improve organisations and working life through better employment relations".

Birthday

2008-03-03T20:34:00.000Z

Probably of no interest to anyone but its my dog's second birthday today!
I've got to say that it has been 2 of the hardest years I have had - dogs are like naughty, highly mobile children that can bite!

That said, I wouldn't swap him for the world and he is a good boy. He even got to meet Batman on saturday!

Harsh Sentence

2008-03-01T13:54:00.001Z

Kiera Coultas, a 25 years old woman from Hampshire was sentenced to 4 years in jail yesterday for killing a cyclist whilst driving home.

As a cyclist who has been knocked off before, breaking both my arms, I have a natural inclination to support this sentence, but when you look at the context of the death, things do seem a bit harsh. Sure, she was speeding and sending a text but who hasn't done that whilst driving??

The reason the cyclist got hit was becuase he skipped through a red light and so was in the road when he shouldn't have been.

Now when I ride to work I skip reds all the time, but only when there is no traffic coming and you're just sat waiting for the lights to change. This doesn't mean that I would try and defend my actions, but equally one has to face the consequences of skipping lights, which is the risk of being hit by a car.

The police and the victim's family have focused on how bad this woman was, but perhaps they could also draw attention to the part that the victim played in his own death.

When the police noted that for drivers, "Nothing is so important that it can't wait until you stop or arrive safely at your destination" they should have applied this to both parties.

Filipino Prisoners

2008-02-29T09:09:00.001Z

Words fail me

Inmates Do Soulja Boy and Hammer

Zimbabwe

2008-02-28T20:42:00.000Z

While Robert Mugabe spends millions on his birthday party, his country isn't celebrating:

25 February 2008 (IRIN) - Service delivery has collapsed in Zimbabwe's second largest city, Bulawayo, after local authorities recently announced that the municipality was insolvent and unable to cater to the needs of its almost two million residents. The council could not pay salaries in January and employees have been on a go-slow since then.

Refuse collection and maintenance have come to a halt: repairs to potholes and burst sewers have been affected, as has the procurement of medicines for council clinics.

The situation has been compounded by the central government's failure to approve the council's supplementary budget since September 2007, and local authorities cannot increase tariffs without this approval.

Despite the government's recent announcement that the National Incomes and Pricing Commission (NIPC) would approve council budgets, no funds have moved yet.

"The entire city is stinking - as you can see, all this rubbish piling up has not been collected for two months now and we risk a cholera outbreak very soon ... the situation is worse when it rains, as the garbage is blocking the drainage system," complained Nathan Mlilo, a hardware store owner, pointing to a heap of rubbish outside his shop on the city's busy Main Street.

Council is completely broke, and unless and until the NIPC approves the council budget and allows us to review rates periodically, then services will continue to deteriorate, as the hyperinflationary environment does not allow us to complete projects
Health services have also been disrupted and drug shortages were evident at most of the council clinics IRIN visited. "Patients come here for diagnosis only, and are then referred to private clinics, while those without money and medical aid schemes are told to go back home," said a nurse at Mzilikazi clinic, in one of the city's high-density suburbs.

A shortage of ambulances is also impairing medical services: only two out of 40 are in use because the spares needed to repair the others are either unobtainable or unaffordable.

Cash crunch

Council spokesman Phathisa Nyathi said the cash crunch had forced the city to suspend all capital projects. "Council is completely broke, and unless and until the NIPC approves the council budget and allows us to review rates periodically, then services will continue to deteriorate, as the hyperinflationary environment does not allow us to complete projects."

NIPC chairman Godwill Masimirembwa said his commission was currently working on council budgets and would soon make an announcement.

Water crisis

The cash shortage has left the municipality unable to purify enough water for Bulawayo's requirements and it has had to resort to water cuts, meaning it has been turning off supplies to various parts of the city at different times.

The city needs five metric tonnes of aluminium sulphate daily to purify raw water from its five supply dams at a cost of Z$14 billion (about US$933 at the parallel market rate of Z$15million to US$1). "Very soon we will run out of the chemicals and we will have no choice except to stop water supplies to residents," Nyathi said.

Blessing Chebundo, chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee for Health and Child Welfare, warned that the situation in Bulawayo posed a serious health risk, with the possibility of outbreaks of communicable diseases such as cholera and dysentery, or other diarrhoeal diseases. He said it was imperative that government allow the council to charge competitive rates to be able to function.

The council has recently introduced a water levy to help cover the high cost of water-purification chemicals. Residents will be expected to pay a levy of Z$1,621,000 (US$0.10)) per month, while non-domestic users will fork out Z$24 million (about US$1.60) per month.

Migration of employees

The council has also been hit by staff shortages as skilled employees make their way to neighbouring countries in search of better salaries. Bulawayo's fire prevention division recently shut down two of its substations because it no longer had the staff to man them. Chief fire officer Edward Mpofu said the service had also been curtailed by the lack of foreign exchange to procure fuel and buy spares to maintain the fleet of fire engines.

Nomalanga Moyo, a vegetable vendor, said: "There is nothing we can do. Council has no money, so we have to swerve [to avoid] potholes, and if the water is not available we just queue at the boreholes sunk in by non-governmental organisations. There is nothing we can do, council is broke."

Bulawayo's plight reflects the situation in the rest of the country. Zimbabwe is facing a crippling economic crisis, characterised by skyrocketing inflation that has reached 100,000 percent and is still rising, shortages of foreign currency and most of the basic commodities.

Galloway's Bluster

2008-02-26T12:05:00.000Z

That friend of torturers and rapists George Galloway is at it again, defending his pervy old pal Tommy Sheridan and his wife Gail.

I Would Defend Tommy Even If I Thought That He Was Guilty, Which I Don't
Feb 25 2008 George Galloway

SHAME on Lothian and Borders police; and shame on British Airways.

The "raid" of Gail Sheridan's house, complete with black bags - in which they took away incriminating examples of her underwear and her baby's clothes - massed ranks of officers and timeously tipped-off media was more appropriate to an anti-terrorist operation than a swoop on a young mother alleged to have lied about her husband's sexual proclivities in a civil action against Rupert Murdoch's News of the World.

And Gail's subsequent suspension by BA, for whom she's been a cheerful and model employee throughout the near 20 years I've known her, because the big, brave policemen found some "miniatures" of alcohol during their raid on her house is a stain on the reputation ofthe company.

The Procurator Fiscal would be well advised to ponder his chances of finding a jury willing to send the fragrant Mrs Sheridan to prison leaving her little girl an orphan.

And if he tries and fails he will be open to the charge that this whole thing is a repugnant witch-hunt, Scotland's own Dreyfus Affair.

Tommy Sheridan is a friend of mine and I would defend him even if I thought he was guilty, which I don't.

Because, greater love hath no man... a friend in need... and all that.

But in a country where killers, rapists and muggers are not exactly thin on the ground, even Tommy's worst enemies must be wondering about the cost - £1million and counting - in police time and resources being put into this squalid "miniature" little case.

What a cock. Let's break it down line by line...

1.) Shame on British Airways (for allowing the police to bring charges of theft against an employee)

2.) The "raid"....complete with black bags (would he prefer see through bags so that the media could see whatever they had taken)

3.) Massed ranks of officers (would he prefer the local bobbie to undertake this search, taking over the house for 10 times as long?

4.) Young mother (she's no teenybopper by the look of her)

5.) Cheerful and model employee (well that's ok then, steal away as long as you smile)

6.) Miniatures of alcohol (so its ok if you package stolen goods in small bottles? How about posession of 200 small wraps of heroin?

7.) Leaving her little girl an orphan (firstly does he assume that Tommy is off to jail for sure then, and secondly, orphans tend to have dead parents and I don't think they hang thieves and perjurers yet in Scotland)

8.) Scotland's own Dreyfus Affair. (I don't think Galloway with his links to far right Muslim extremists is best place to comment on anti-semitic witch hunts!)

9.) Police time and resources being put into this squalid "miniature" little case.(The resources are put into a perjury investigation. Perjury is rightly seen as a major crime by the legal system since lying on oath goes against the very basis of our entire legal system. The squalid miniature part of the case was just something that the police came across in the course of their perjury investigation - if they found a dead body in the cellar should they just have forgotten about it?)

Finally, this whole investigation into Gail Sheridan came about because she and her husband decided to try and make a quick buck suing the News of the World for a story they published about Tommy's prediliction for group sex parties. If he had simply crawled back under his stone then none of this would be happening, but that is the problem with Sheridan, Galloway and all their ilk, they always think they can avoid the facts of a sitiation with bluster and bravado.

Coincidences

2008-02-24T10:01:00.000Z

Dizzy has pointed out the impossible defence that had to be given by Mark Dixie's solicitors at his recent trial.

What I found more amusing was the comment by a senior police officer involved in the case.

I haven't got the quote verbatim, but the essence of it was, "What are the odds of a homicidal maniac and a necrophiliac being in the same street on the same night".

You never know in London!

Chocolate Rain

2008-02-24T08:27:00.000Z

I was sent this video on Friday so am a few months behind the curve, but this boy is a legend!

Lenny Part 2

2008-02-22T20:36:00.000Z

It seems that Lenny Henry has hit the big time again. I take back my previous comments. He is an A-Lister again!

We're sorry but its time to go

2008-02-21T08:41:00.000Z

"The only thing you've done is yesterday, and since you're done you're just another day,"

So claimed John Lennon in a not so subtle dig at his former band partner Paul McCartney in this song "How Do You Sleep". Lennon was of the view that Macca's best work was behind him and even his contribution to The Beatles
was limited.

I've never been a big Lennon fan finding his anarcho-hippiness a bit self indulgent, but over time he seems to have had a point.

Don't get me wrong - The Beatles were a great band and their songs still sound relevant today, but Macca's problem is that he seems to have reached his peak of creative ability in about 1970 and has been living off the memories since then.

This only comes to mind after last night's Brits Awards Ceremony where Macca was presented with a lifetime achievement award and then banged out a 3 song set.

He opened with a song called "Dance Tonight", playing a banjo and singing lyrics that must have been written by his 4 year old daughter Beatrice:

Everybody gonna dance tonight
Everybody gonna feel alright
Everybody gonna dance around tonight

Everybody gonna dance around
Everybody gonna hit the ground
Everybody gonna dance around tonight

Well you can come on to my place if you want to
You can do anything you want to do

Everybody gonna dance tonight
Everybody gonna feel alright
Everybody gonna dance around tonight

Well you can come on to my place if you want to
You can do anything you want to do

Everybody gonna stamp their feet
Everybody's gonna feel the beat
Everybody wanna dance around tonight

This was painful stuff even by the standards of the man who gave us Band on the Run and The Frog Chorus.

He tried to make amends with Live and Let Die, arguably his only good solo song and then a big sing along of Hey Jude, but they just showed how bad his new stuff is in comparison. When he shouted "Let's Rock" to the audience one got the painful impression of watching your dad dancing at a wedding.

The very fact that his latest album is on release at Starbucks, home of "Easy Listening Christmas Classics" and "Music to sip Lattés to" gives you an indication of quite how low he has gone.

I have the utmost sympathy for Macca in his divorce battle with Heather Mills, whose greed and transparency shout out in every move she makes, but I hope that after the court case he takes the opportunity to relax, chill a bit and stop with the bad music - it sullies the memory of the great stuff.

Al-Fayed

2008-02-20T20:57:00.001Z

I just choked on my dinner laughing at this:

DIANA WAS SPIDERMAN, CLAIMS AL FAYED

Princess Diana led a secret life as a super-hero who was able to scale buildings and shoot a web-like material from her wrist, Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed claimed today.

'Giving evidence to the inquest into Diana's life, Mr Al Fayed said he was the only one who knew about the Princess's crime-fighting alter ego.

He told the court in central London: "She phone me up and say, 'Uncle Mo-Mo I am the Spideryman, I solve many crime'.

"She say I must tell no-one. She say she use spidery sense to uncover plot by dirty Greek Philip bastard to blow up Alton Towers."

He added: "I tell her for many year I am suspecting she the Spideryman. She very agile girl with good legs who know right from wrong. It all add up.

"I tell her my people make her new Spidery-suit with matching accessory. Very nice. Good quality.

"Later she give demonstration at my home. She dress up in suit and fire web at bar stool.

"Then, all of sudden, she disappear. We search every place and no find her. Then we look up and there she is - on ceiling!"

Mr Al Fayed insisted the Princess and his son Dodi planned to marry and have seven children who they would teach to sing and dance.

He added: "It be like Sound of Music, except on yacht."

Sodom & Gomorrah

2008-02-20T20:49:00.000Z

I couldn't help but laugh at this. I hope he is just appealing to an ultra-religious constituency rather than being sincere.

Israeli MP blames quakes on gays

Ultra-Orthodox Jews protest in Jerusalem
An Israeli MP has blamed parliament's tolerance of gays for earthquakes that have rocked the Holy Land recently.
Shlomo Benizri, of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas Party, said the tremors had been caused by lawmaking that gave "legitimacy to sodomy".

Israel decriminalised homosexuality in 1988 and has since passed several laws recognising gay rights.

Two earthquakes shook the region last week and a further four struck in November and December.

Mr Benizri made his comments while addressing a committee of the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, about the country's readiness for earthquakes.

He called on lawmakers to stop "passing legislation on how to encourage homosexual activity in the state of Israel, which anyway brings about earthquakes".

Israeli court rulings in recent years have granted inheritance rights to gay couples and recognised same-sex marriages performed abroad.

Last week, Israel's attorney general ruled same-sex couples could adopt.

Paedophilia as Politics

2008-02-17T18:32:00.001Z

The Home Secretary Jaqui Smith used the News of the World this morning to announce moves towards bringing in "Sara's Law", the paedophile tracking system that the police have repeatedly said they don't want.

I've got no idea on the efficacy of this move but I was appalled by the Home Secretary's disingenuous language when she mentioned how:

The News of the World has been a leading voice in the campaign for more to be done to stop sex offenders.

Your views, and those of your readers, have kept up the pressure on this vital issue.

Sorry, Jaqui, kept up the pressure on who? The only people that have been in government since Sara Payne was murdered are the Labour Party - your own government.
So is she thanking the News of The World for keeping up the pressure on her??

I love the way Labour try and pin the responsibility for inaction and incompetence on some "other" when the British public elect them to actually make decisions.

Brilliant Idea

2008-02-15T10:35:00.000Z

The Centre for Policy Studies today launched a report calling for soldiers to be retrained as teachers on leaving the army.
It is hoped that this plan would mimic the success of a US scheme which has been instrumental in bringing order and role models to classrooms.

Apparently the programme in the US has been a great success with 88% teacher retention which is way above the average 50% normally found in newly qualified teachers.

This is being touted as a way for young people to have accessible role models in their classrooms who can help give them a sense of self-discipline and show them the true ethos of public service.

Considering the problems many servicemen and women encounter on leaving the military, this scheme may well provide them with a sense of direction and purpose and there is no doubt that pupils would benefit from their broader life experience and values.

Bring it on.

Burglary Invitation

2008-02-14T11:25:00.001Z

Some pointless old woman has been in the papers and on the news today becuase she lives in a block of flats where lots of the residents are away

Lonely life for a lady of luxury

An 83-year-old woman is living a life of splendid isolation in a luxury block of seaside apartments - because all her neighbours are hardly ever there.
Mavis Ward is the only permanent resident at the ultra-modern flats in Newquay, Cornwall.

All the 29 other properties are used as holiday homes, so for most of the year she enjoys exclusive use of a gym, swimming pool and underground car park.

"I am the lady of the manor and I have the whole place to myself," she said.

Mrs Ward said weeks can go by without seeing another resident and even when people do visit it is only for a couple of days.

"I have my gym with swimming pool, treadmill, rowing machine, exercise bike and sauna.

"There is also a rooftop garden - but I never use it because it is windy up there.

"It is peaceful and quiet here and the view is fabulous."

She also has exclusive use of a team of maintenance workers for the building, which overlooks the town and the Cornish coast.

Now whenever I go on holiday, I follow the normal advice from the police to put lights on a timer switch and to make sure someone moves the post and collects milk etc so that burglars don't realise that the house is going to be vacant for a couple of weeks.

This old woman has done burglars the very kind favour of publicising a block full of furnished flats which are empty for 95% of the time.

If I were a scrote in Cornwall, I'd be straight over there on the rob.

Priorities

2008-02-13T10:09:00.000Z

The government has announced plans for children to have access to "at least five hours of high-quality culture per week".

This sounds great but strikes me as yet another gimmick from the government, eager to distract attention from the real issue in schools - the chronic inability of tens of thousands of school leavers to read or write. It would be lovely if all of our children could wax lyrical about the latest performance of Hamlet at the RSC, or the flowing movements and lyrical interpretation of Swan Lake by the Royal Ballet, but surely being able to do basic addition, subtraction and division, and to read a job application form is a bigger priority.

This follows on from the governments's launching of a scheme to send 2 pupils from every 6th form in the country to Auschwitz to learn about the Holocaust. Most worthy again, but this money could be better spent on direct education in Muslim ghettos in the UK where holocaust denial and anti-semitic vandalism and abuse is commonplace.

Land of Opportunity

2008-02-11T20:40:00.000Z

Tom Lantos, Congressman for California died earlier today after a long fight with cancer. He only came to my attention last September when I saw him on BBC World whilst on holiday and he struck me as quite a unique character.

His eastern european accent stayed with him and acted as a reminder to many of his past as a freedom figher in Hungary against the Nazi occupation.

I mention Lantos, a man on whom I am no expert, to show an example of how America stands out from other countries around the world in terms of its attitude to newcomers and their attitude to her.

People who over successive generations have moved to the US to start a new life have the opportunity and the desire to enter the great melting pot that exists, and the country has grown stronger because of these people.

As Lantos put it,

"It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family, and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a Member of Congress." I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country"

I wish we had the same attitude and opportunities in the UK but as a society we seem to be pushed to focus on those things that divide us such as race, colour, religion, class etc, rather than the things we have in common.

America isn't perfect by any means but it still has a great deal to teach the world.

He's just not funny anymore

2008-02-08T17:25:00.000Z

Lenny Henry is having a moan about how white the BBC's editorial and programming staff are, despite the even scarcer presence of competent middle class white males across the shows they make.

Of all the organisations in the UK that could have any credible claim to being in touch with the needs and desires of the ethnic minority members of society, the BBC has got to be a front runner.

Not for Lenny it seems, who feels that the BBC is excluding black programme makers. So why might he be complaining.....

When I was young, Lenny Henry was funny. Now that he seems to have lost his ability to tap into the zeitgeist, and so doesn't get commissioned, he seems eager to turn on the organisation that propelled his career thus far.

Perhaps if he had moved his comedy beyond the 80's racial clichés of DJ Delbert Wilkins and Theophilus P. Wildebeeste then he would get a bit more airtime.

In the US Presidential Primaries, Barak Obama seems to be a credible "post-racial" candidate, able to reach beyond the tired old language of black and white politics, but in the UK we still seem to be in thrall to people who have 'racial grievances' to explain their problems.

Rowan Williams

2008-02-07T13:18:00.000Z

I'm not religious but if I was a member of the Church of England, I would be both embarassed and ashamed to have Rowan Williams as the Archbishop of Canterbury.

This druid ceremony loving beardy seems to have made it his mission as the head of the CofE to renounce all beliefs and traditions of Christianity and has spent more time pandering to other faiths than defending his own.

Today, Williams has been on the radio suggesting that Sharia Law would be great in the UK

Dr Williams argues that establishing Sharia law in the UK would help maintain social cohesion.

In an exclusive interview ahead of a lecture to lawyers in London later on Monday, Dr Williams proposes that Muslims be able to choose whether to have issues like marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in Sharia-compliant proceedings or the existing legal system.

What planet is he living on. The UK is respected as the home of freedom of speech, fair judicial process and individual liberty but Williams thinks that a legal system based on the medieval theocracy of Islam would be welcomed by Muslims, completely ignoring the experience of millions of Muslims globally who suffer under the intolerance, cruelty, brutatlity and misogynism of Sharia Law.

Why does he believe that Muslims want to have their daily lives governed by an artifically constructed quasi-religious legal code, rather than live like the rest of the population, enjoying equality under the law as part of a tolerant modern society?

In case you aren't too sure on the impact of Sharia Law in the modern world, a few of its tenets include allowing husbands to beat their wives, amputation of hands of thieves, execution of homosexuals, killing of apostates (Muslims who recant), and killing of those who insult Mohammed.

If the natural conclusion of Williams' suggestions wasn't so terrible, it would be easy to dismiss him as a silly old man, but this guy is meant to represent one of the biggest religions in the world....the road to hell truly is paved with good intentions.

Natural Selection

2008-02-07T10:31:00.000Z

The Beeb have another wonderful demonstration of how stupid people tend to be their own worst enemy.

The "supermarket" tattoo is here to stay
When teenager Joanne Raine had her boyfriend's nickname "Roo" tattooed on her stomach it was supposed to be a sign of her undying love.
The 19-year-old from Darlington paid £80 for the Chinese artwork in 2004 and was delighted with the results.

That was until she showed it off in a Chinese takeaway and found out it actually spelled "supermarket."

The pair have now split up, but Miss Raine said she will keep the tattoo because she cannot afford a new one.

She said: "I did it because I wanted to show him how much I loved him and he had one done as well.

"I did not think about whether it meant forever. I'm just going to have to keep it as I can't afford to get another one done."

One can't help but feel a sense of schadenfreude at situations like this.
Tattoos are one of the most short sighted things to do to yourself - they make people look really cheap, and the ones with "chinese symbols" don't make the wearer seem mysterious and oriental - they just shout "chav". I'd be very surprised if young Joanne has any idea where China is, let alone why Mandarin isn't a big satsuma.

Reality TV

2008-02-06T20:09:00.000Z

The BBC announced today that they are to kill off Grange Hill, the popular children's TV stalwart of 30 years. Like most English kids I grew up with Grange Hill and loved the show's nod to realism in its storylines which were often more crimewatch than jackanory.

Whilst it is a shame that this once great show is being canned, perhaps it shows a recognition of the real world on the part of the BBC.

Grange Hill was once an accurate reflection of the often rough inner city schools, which helped it stand out from other sanitised shows about young people which were closer in theme to High School Musical.

Nowadays though, the BBC dare not show an accurate reflection of inner-london schools where English is swiftly becoming a secondary language, teaching materials are provided in Urdu, Somali or Arabic, and english born students are almost a minority.

The same applies to shows like Eastenders. Having lived in the East End of London for 4 years, I can see that the TV version bears no relation to life beyond Bethnal Green. For starters, 95% of the cast are white cockneys whereas much of East London is now Bengali, Bangladeshi and Pakistani, with ethnic minorty ghettos dominating the area.

I'm not commenting on the rights or wrongs of the massive transformation of the population of London but just feel that it would be refreshing for the BBC to reflect the reality of life in London rather than just commissioning more "reality shows" full of tubby housewives, ballroom dancers and bad karaoke singers.

Hollow gimmickry

2008-02-05T12:29:00.000Z

Today, we learn from the BBC the new housing minister has come out with a proposal for unemployed council house tenants to lose their homes.

Council tenants who do not work should seek employment or face losing their homes, the new housing minister Caroline Flint has proposed.
In an interview with The Guardian, Ms Flint suggested new applicants for social housing should be given "commitment contracts". The scheme would not be aimed at genuine incapacity benefit claimants. Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps said the idea was "meaningless" as it could not be legally enforced. Half of all households paid for by benefits are without work, the Hills report published last February showed. Ms Flint will discuss the issue in a speech at the Fabian Society on Tuesday, through which it is thought she hopes to start a debate on a "something for something" culture. She told the Guardian: "It would be a big change of culture from the time when the council handed someone the keys and forgot about them for 30 years. "The question we should ask of new tenants is what commitment they will make to improve their skills, find work and take the support that is available." It is understood that Ms Flint, who has just moved to housing from the Department of Work and Pensions, is keen to look at the link between housing and economic inactivity. Living in an area where there is a concentration of unemployment can be a deterrent to finding work, she said. "If you are in a family, an estate or a neighbourhood where nobody works, that impacts on your own aspiration. It is a form of peer pressure." The new contracts would apply to new council tenants at first, but could be extended to existing tenants. More job centres could be opened on the estates themselves to tackle pockets of joblessness. Ms Flint also said tenants who moved to take a job would be given priority in finding a new home. Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps said Ms Flint was trying to "grab the headlines" with proposals that could not be legally enforced. "Ministers and local councils have a statutory duty to house homeless families with children and so they can't boot them out of their houses without then providing alternative accommodation," he said. "What we've heard is classic Labour spin - designed to sound tough, but is in reality meaningless." Housing charity Shelter condemned the suggestion, saying the government wanted to return unemployed people to the workhouse "by throwing them onto the streets". Shelter chief executive Adam Sampson said: "What is being proposed would destroy families and communities and add to the thousands who are already homeless. "We accept there's a problem with some unemployed people shying away from work, but the government must find other ways to tackle the issue like revamping the housing benefit system. "Making people homeless means they do not have an address, which makes it even more difficult to find work." The speech will be the first made by Ms Flint in her new post

If ever there were a case of headline grabbing initiatives, this is one. There isn't a hope in hell of the government evicting people from their council houses - if you are a nuisance neighbour with a criminal record, a dozen ASBOs, no job and a house full to the brim with rubbish and clutter then the government just rehouses you in a different area.

Can you really imagine the government sending in the baliffs and then turfing people out onto the street? They'd lose half of their natural voting base in a second for starters, not to mention the "abuse" of human rights that such an action would swiftly be declared courtesy of Labour's much loved adoption of international regulation on this front.

So why has Caroline Flint made this speech? Clearly she is trying to position Labour as the party of good honest working people against the indolent masses who exploit benefits when the facts show the complete opposite. The only Labour Minister to make a serious attempt to tackle the dependenct culture in this country was Frank Field who was fired by Tony Blair when he tried to "think the unthinkable".

Gradually the British public are starting to see through the transparent gimmickry of the Labour government, as they see their taxes spent on propping up the workshy both of this country and of many other countries around the world who choose to head here and live at the expense of people who work.

There is certainly a problem but this isn't something that Labour are going to fix - it is a problem that Labour created and will continue to create, as this subsidised underclass are the core of their vote

Equality before the law?

2008-02-04T12:41:00.001Z

It came out at the weekend that the "Wilson Doctrine" may have been breached. This 40 year old doctrine which was reaffirmed by Tony Blair before he left office, is supposed to protect MPs from bugging and wider surveillance from the intelligence community.

As I see it the Wilson Doctrine, whilst having certain advantages in keeping MPs free from attempts to undermine them by elements in the security services, doesn't work when judged in the context of modern surveillance. One can easily make a case for stopping the securiity services bugging the offices of MPs but in this instance, the MP concerned was visiting a chap in prison. the recording equipment wasn't set up purely for Sadiq Khan's visit but was part and parcel of MI5's attempts to monitor potentially dangerous Islamist extremists and was built into the table.

If these conversations can't be recorded then what happens if MI5 are bugging a room full of suspected bad guys and an MP walks in? Do they have to shut down the tape recorders and cover their ears? MPs can expect to pursue their parliamentary and constituency duties without undue interference from government agencies but they can't expect to have a magic bubble cast around them that deus ex machina stops surveillance of legitimate suspects.

The son is often out

2008-02-04T08:42:00.000Z

Anyone reading the papers or watching the news over the last week will be aware of Derek Conway, the Conservative MP who was censured by the house of Commons for employing his sons to do bugger all at the expense of the taxpayer. The Sunday Times yesterday also mentioned the case of a Labour MP, Mark Fisher, MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, who employed his stepson as a full time researcher for 5 years until the end of 2007.

This came a a bit of a shocker to me, since I recall Crispin Hunt as the lead singer of indie stalwarts The Longpigs. Since the bad split up in 2000, Hunt has produced and written a number of songs such as Natalie Imbriglia's single "Glorious", and four tracks on a No 1 platinum selling album for Newton Faulkner as well as recording his own music and apparently in May 2007 he signed a deal with Sony BMG.

How on earth he managed to work as a full time researcher whilst living the life of a pop star and record producer is beyond me, and what skills did he bring to the table that are worth £30,000 other than having a mum who is sufficiently imaginative in the sack to amuse Mark Fisher?

Foodways

2008-02-03T20:55:00.000Z

I love living in Earlsfield as it combines the proximity to central London with the look and feel of a small town, almost like an enclave from the surrounding areas of Wandsworth, Tooting and Balham.

The only downside of the area is the lack of a decent grocery store close by. You can walk up to Sainsburys in Wandsworth or there is a little one on the way to Southfields but if you want to pop out and get some bread, milk or basic meals then you have the immense pleasure of going to Foodways

Now this shop embodies everything that is wrong about small independent grocery stores in London. None of the staff make any effort to engage with you, and when they do it is in a combination of broken english, gujurati and strange grunts. For them customer service means ignoring you when you ask for anything, refusal to acknowledge your actual presence at the till, as they run your items through without breaking from their conversations with one another, and an exasperated sigh when you ask for a bag.

Add to this the exorbitant prices they charge for crappy produce, it makes me extremely delighted that there is a new supermarket (either M&S or Tesco Local apparently) opening up on Magdalen Road.

Without wanting to do down small businesses, I hope that the new supermarket hammers these guys either into closing down or having a radical rethink of how they operate as they have abused their near monopoly position in Earlsfield for too long.

Nasty Politics

2008-02-01T13:35:00.001Z

I try and read a few Conservative blogs every day but Donal Blaney's latest blog post seems to be a prime example of the nastiness of modern politics. Politics used to be about ideas, principles, grand themes and great plans for our country instead of thinly veiled homophobia, hiding behind the fig leaf of another Martin Luther King quote.

The sight of Brian Paddick, famous only for being a gay policeman and downgrading cannabis on his patch, at a celeb-filled fundraiser for his London mayoral campaign shows how weak his campaign for mayor has already become. How he can use the phrase "Serious About London" as his campaign slogan is beyond me: it must be his display of humour.

Yes, Paddick was surrounded by Dale Winton, Elton John, David Furnish and other lovers of Dorothy along with the usual assorted crowd of self-confessed (and vulgarly described) "fag hags" who see hanging around with prominent homosexuals as a badge of their tolerance and sophistication (when, of course, they only do it to get photographed in the newspapers - by the way, why is it acceptable for them to call themselves "fag hags" or for gays to call themselves "queer" but for anyone who is not gay to be barred from using such terms?).

I couldn't give a monkey's whether Paddick is gay, bi, straight or into cavorting with gerbils with a satsuma shoved in his mouth. His sexuality is none of my business and it will make no difference whether he could be a good mayor or not. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, I prefer to judge someone on the content of their character and not the choice of their lovers.

The fact that he has had to resort to so nakedly pandering to a community - in this instance "the gay community", rather than treating voters as individuals - highlights how his politics are closer to those of Ken Livingstone than to Boris Johnson (or dare I say, the majority of Londoners). He prefers to segmentalise voters in a way that pits one group against another: hardly a true liberal in the English sense of the word.

Paddick was a spectacularly poor borough commander who saw his job as being one of being accepted by the Lambeth Massive rather than protecting Lambeth's citizens - of all races, religions, sexualities and creeds - from crime. Paddick and Sir Ian Blair are the very model of what is wrong with policing in Britain: self-indulgent, publicity-seeking and politically correct careerists.

Paddick makes Susan Kramer look well suited to the job of being mayor and even makes Livingstone look respectable. Thankfully he has even less chance of winning the mayoralty than Elton John has of keeping his temper for more than five minutes.

I frankly don't care if Brian Paddick, previously a rubbish policeman who was universally disliked and distrusted by his colleagues, has the temerity to invite some gay friends to a fund raising dinner.

Its not as if this was a homosexual only party, unless Christian Slater and Tamara Mellon have been turned in the last few weeks...so why has Donal spent two thirds of his post going on about the man's sexuality and that of his friends?

Apparently by raising funds from celebrities, Paddick is 'nakedly pandering' to the gay community rather than treating voters as individuals. I hope Boris Johnson doesn't do any naked pandering to anyone in order to raise money for his mayoral campaign.

This kind of loony political commentary by Donal whose once important YBF is still integrated with the Conservative Party does him and the broader Conservative Party no credit at all.

BBC and the IRA

2008-01-31T15:31:00.000Z

Like most people, I use the BBC as the source for most of my news. I love Radio 4 and wake to the Today Programme every morning, which on its own is worth the license fee. However, the subject of the BBC's inherent leftist/anti-british/pro terrorist bias comes up pretty frequently on political discussion boards and it isn't too hard to spot a daily instance of their slanted reporting.

In fact there are now sites on the web purely devoted to the BBC's bias which give you some idea of the problem.

One angle to their bias which I noticed again today, is their persistent championing of anti-british violence in Northern Ireland, currently a constituent part of the UK. This story details a pub fight in which one man got stabbed to death.

2005: Belfast stab victim McCartney dies

A 33-year-old man found stabbed in Belfast city centre has died in hospital, police have said.
The man was found unconscious in Cromac Street after a fight broke out in a bar in May Street yesterday.

He was Robert McCartney from the Short Strand area of east Belfast. One man has been arrested.

The police have launched a murder investigation. Another man, 31, was also taken to hospital with a stab wound.

To any casual observer, this would be a sad tale of drunken violence that is increasingly common place in the UK.

Now normally when the BBC have an "On This Day" article, it goes into great detail about the situation and then has an "In Context" box which puts the story into the wider context, like this, this, this, this this and this article all from the same day.

For some reason, the BBC fails to elaborate on the pub violence story....now why could that be?

Could it possibly be becuase Robert McCartney wasn't involved in a pub fight, but was brutally beaten and stabbed by serving members of the Provisional IRA, no members of whom have been brought to justice for this public show of force? Is it because this killing gives a far more realistic picture of life in Northern Ireland for the majority of people living in fear of IRA thugs, drug dealers and murderers than the BBC and government sponsored narrative of happy communities living hand in hand?
The BBC does itself no credit at all in situations like this and simply feeds the clamour of voices calling for its privatisation and the scrapping of the license fee.

Crime and Punishment

2008-01-30T12:07:00.000Z

The House of Lords issued a "landmark abuse ruling" today, enabling victims of sexual abuse to sue their attackers many years later. I'm no expert on this kind of thing but apparently until now, you could only bring a claim within 6 years of an attack or 6 years after the victim turns 18 for child abuse.

This case has been brought in reponse to the £7million lottery win by the peculiarly named Iorworth Hoare who raped a 59 year old woman in the late 1980s and got rich from a lottery ticket he bought whilst on day-release.

Now I know that Hoare is a tough man to have any sympathy for, with a string of previous convictions for sexual violence under his belt so to speak, but it strikes me as being against natural justice to be able to claim compensation in these circumstances. We are meant to have a prisons system that both punishes and rehabilitates criminals, and so having served his sentence and been released into the community, Hoare is supposed to be free to live a normal productive life.

Are released prisoners going to have to face a situation whereby any success they have in life, once they have done their time, will count for nothing and can be taken away from them as "compensation" for victims of their earlier crimes. What hope is there for true rehabilitation when reformed criminals are constantly under the threat of having the rewards of their success in later life taken away from them. Why would they bother trying to succeed in any career, or to invest in property, shares or any other commodities they so choose?

Hoare hasn't actually built up a business or made some smart investments - he just got lucky on the lottery - this doesn't mean that this should be used as a precedent which will contradict the very concept of our modern penal system and will make it very clear to prisoners that they are never going to be free of their past crimes, no matter what how rehabilitated they are, so why bother trying to change...

Dream Ticket 2008

2008-01-30T08:31:00.000Z

The dream ticket!

Mitchell & Webb

2008-01-28T20:26:00.000Z

This truly is comedy gold.

Textual Relations

2008-01-27T09:51:00.000Z

That much loved America-phile (should that be Yankophile?) Peter Cuthbertson has raised an interesting concept at Conservative Home suggesting that test messages could be used by the British Police to secure confessions from unwitting rapists and other assorted crims.

Proposals for ensuring more convictions for rape often entail withholding evidence from juries, and sometimes even reversing the burden of proof so that the defendant has to show the complainant consented. By contrast with these very worrying suggestions, the idea of using text messaging to extract a confession is eminently sensible:
"The tactic, used by investigators in the United States, involves women sending texts or making calls to their alleged attackers to see if they can extract an admission of guilt.
... "Police get the victim to send a text saying something like 'how could you do that to me?'" said a senior CPS source. "They sometimes get a text back saying 'I'm really sorry, I know I was out of order, it won't happen again' or something like that"."
If the best objection opponents of this measure can come up with is that it may breach the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, then I very much hope Parliament will legislate to allow the tactic. PACE is merely an Act of Parliament like any other - and its contents should be debated on their merits, not upheld as irreversible. If parts of PACE unjustifiably conflict with sensible measures to protect the public, it is the relevant sections of PACE that should be dropped, not proposals such as these.

I'm more than happy for the police to use every possible means to catch bad guys but this has got to be right down the bottom of the list of their wishlist.
Firstly, texts are hardly the clearest of ways of communicating, and I can't imagine many rapists waxing lyrically about their evil deeds. We're more likely to see "hOp youre k. t% mch 2 drnk!" which is hardly case closed stuff.
Secondly, as soon as this becomes common knowledge then you're going to see a lot less of the confessional messages, and a lot more nice texts in order to cover one's tracks - "Had a gr8 nyt. c U rly s%n!". This would have negative consequences in so far as the victim gets a truly offensive message from her assailant which makes her feel doubly abused, and also the assailant could use this text in court to demonstrate his good intentions.

Tatchell V Musharraf

2008-01-26T13:42:00.000Z

Peter Tatchell was out and about in London last night, flinging himself onto Pakistan's President Musharraf's limousine according to Harry's Place.

The ambush happened outside the Hilton Hotel Park Lane, as the President's motorcade drew close to the hotel, where he was scheduled to speak. "I stood inconspicuously at a bus stop reading a newspaper, waiting for Musharraf's motorcade to arrive," recalled Mr Tatchell. "When the police motorcycle escorts drew level, I ran out into Park Lane and straight in front of the President's car. It screeched to a halt.
"I unfurled a placard protesting against Musharraf's massacre of civilians in occupied Baluchistan. The placard read: "Stop Pakistan Massacre of Baluch people."

"Musharraf could clearly see the placard. He did not look pleased. "His driver tried to back up and drive around me, but I ran in front of the limousine again, forcing it to halt once more. "I could see Musharraf in the back seat shouting something at his driver. Perhaps he feared that I was an assassin or a suicide bomber.
"The limo reversed again and tried to swerve past me. I blocked it for the third time. "Musharraf and his colleagues look very agitated. "Eventually, police motorcycle escorts ran over and dragged me away from the bonnet of Musharraf's vehicle. "They pulled me across the road to the central reservation in Park Lane, where I was pinned against the railing.

"Shortly afterwards, the police let me go and I joined the main anti-Musharraf demonstration outside the Hilton Hotel, organised by lawyers protesting against the arrest of fellow lawyers and supreme court judges in Pakistan. "Although my placard specifically condemned Musharraf's human rights abuses in Baluchistan, I support all the people of Pakistan who are struggling against dictatorship and for democracy. "It is shameful that the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is entertaining Musharraf at Downing Street on Monday. He is siding with a dictator against the people of Pakistan.

He has made a bit of a name for himself in recent years with his focus on human rights rather than just gay rights, and hit the headlines for his attempted citizen's arrest of Robert Mugabe. He has, in contrast, done himself no credit with his publicity hungry efforts to have Henry Kissinger arrested and to defeat Michael Portillo but I think the latest stunt is a step too far.

Firstly, putting aside the rights and wrongs of Musharraf's governance of Pakistan, what kind of fool rushes a Head of State's limousine in 2008 Britain? If police sharp shooters had shot him, or if Musharraf's driver had hit the gas, they would have been fully justified. Musharraf's supression of Islamo-fascist extremists in Pakistan has made him a hugely important target for Al-Qaeda or any equally mad offshoot thereof.
Incidents like this are also going to be present in the mind of police and security forces the next time someone rushes a car or a parade or a podium, and any pause in action could easily make the difference between success and failure of a suicide bomber.

Secondly, Tatchell is aghast that Gordon Brown is entertaining a Dictator in Downing Street, but he fails to offer any coherent alternative for the people of Pakistan. Musharraf is holding democratic elections, has given up his uniform and is trying to get Pakistan to enter the modern age, albeit very slowly, but he is clearly constrained by unstable forces within his country.

Sadly Tatchell is symptomatic of many on the left who can fire of a critique in 2 minutes but have none of the solutions, which is why even the Labour party has left them firmly in the past.

Hello World

2008-01-25T17:18:00.000Z

With more than a little help from Ray May I have finally got this to work in terms of sending the blogspot page to my custom domain. Ray goes into a fair bit more detail here but even after that, we still had to disable web pages on Google Apps....However, at long last it is up and running so thanks to Ray, and hopefully I won't get beaten by technology again for a fair while.