An excellent video, highlighting a ridiculous imbalanced embodied by a Scottish Prime Minister who cannot affect Healthcare or Education in his own constituency but deigns to tell us what we can have. I fear that the English Parliament that the campaign calls for will be an extra layer of bureaucracy, but we must have at the very least a situation when English laws are voted on by English MPs.
The Sunday Telegraph has a feature article about the latest phone-in ‘scandal’ at the BBC. Is it me or are they acting like rabbits in the proverbial headlights? With the recent editing problems, they seem to be taking reality television to new levels by beating themselves up about the fact that not everything in TV is exactly as in real life.
People have lost their jobs because they ignored the winning entry in a competition to name the new Blue Peter cat and called it “Socks” instead of “Cookie”. Management have been quoted as saying that it is unfair on youngsters to ignore their wishes. Further examination suggests that it is because there was a suspicious late surge for Cookie and that this might have lewd connotations for some youngsters. Sounds like a biscuit to me, but then I haven’t been a child for a while. Nonetheless, I would have thought that this would be easy to investigate. In 1962 Blue Peter introduced a dog called Petra. The dog that eventually died in 1970 was not Petra as the original had died soon after its first appearance and was replaced by a near-identical dog. The BBC did not see fit to sack Peter Purves or anyone else at this time.
What is more of a issue to be clamped down on is why children were still able to telephone and be charged after the decision was made. Surely it is not beyond the wit of the production team to close the line, making it impossible for people to get through. This is incompetence that simply plays on the latest craze of phoning into every television show possible, thus enriching the telecoms companies that handle the calls.
Now, unless the BBC can tell me how they got those hippos to swim in a circle, I want a refund on my telly licence!
Boris Johnson came to Sutton this week as part of his continuing campaign to become the Conservative candidate for the London Mayoral elections to be held next year.
I have never seen such a warm welcome for any politician to Sutton. People were thrilled to meet a man who is so familiar to many that his campaign logo is his distinct silhouette and needs no surname. Ken Livingstone has visited Sutton once since he was elected last. He did not speak to a single resident, instead choosing to surround himself with journalists and lackeys. In stark contrast, Boris ensured that everyone that wanted to meet him aired their views thoroughly. Camera phones were the order of the day as people of all ages wanted a photo to show their friends. He visited Pearsons cycle shop and discussed bike theft and then willingly allowed himself to be pulled into Sussex Stationers to sign their entire collection of Boris books.
After the speech that you can see in the video below, two members of the Sutton North Safer Neighbourhood Team kindly took Boris and a small army around Manor Park discussing anti-social behaviour and policing methods. The visit showed Boris at his best, his jokes and bumbling image balanced with a sharp mind and an openness to listen rather than pontificate in an uninformed manner like too many other poiticians.
There are four candidates for the nominations, Boris, Andrew Boff, Victoria Borwick, Warwick Lightfoot. The result will be announced on Thursday.
Mums visiting a council-run nursery in Manchester have been told that they cannot
Jose Manuel Barroso addressed the LibDem conference in Brighton this week. His English is excellent, though I did have to listen again when he concluded by saying that “The more the UK lead the debate, the more they will get out of Europe.”
Isn’t that what the Better Off Out campaign have been saying for a while now!
No, he isn’t rapping in baggy trousers. In between dodging the leadership questions coming in from all directions, Ming the Merciless has decided that the rich have done “too well” under this government and so has decided to “hammer the rich” with his proposed tax changes.
Conveniently, he has pitched his definition of rich at those earning £70,000 pa, just above an MP’s salary, but including a household containing two policemen, junior doctors or some teachers.
The politics of envy makes for bad legislation. Political parties must exist to help everyone, not just pitch in the middle of a modern class warfare based on income levels. Tax levels need to be fair to everybody, sharing the burden and protecting the vulnerable.
Have you done too well under this government? Answers on a post-it note please…