Labour come from 4th to win Gloucestershire

by Newswire    
February 4, 2011 at 8:30 am

Labour came from fourth to win the Gloucestershire County Council by-election in Rodborough, Stroud, last night.

The election was won by only 3 votes.

Result
Labour: 793
Conservatives: 790
Libdem: 660
Greens: 260

Labour swing from 2009 was a massive 19.4%. The by-election was called after the death of Conservative Councillor Stephen Glanfield.

In 2009 Labour were behind even the Greens.

The results in 2009 were:
Nigel Cooper (CON) 35.3%
Christine Headley (LD) 31.3%
Phil Blomberg (GRN) 21.1%
Brian Oosthuysen (LAB) 12.2%

The candidates remained the same for yesterday’s election

This is Gloucestershire called it a “crushing defeat” for the Tories.

Labour now have their fifth seat on Gloucestershire County Council.

hat-tip @BickerRecord

Video emerges of PC hitting student protester

by Sunny Hundal    
February 3, 2011 at 10:34 pm

The video package explains itself. Yes, I know its Press TV but the video raises questions regardless.

hat-tip @ThinkTyler

How much of our Forests are being sold exactly?

by Sunny Hundal    
February 3, 2011 at 5:31 pm

Some say that the Conservative-led government only want to sell off around 40,000 hectares (around 100,000 acres) of forest in England.

This equates to some 15% of the total. It would have been more but Wales, Scotland and N Ireland don’t want to participate.

Is that where their plans stop, as some say? Absolutely not.

The government has already admitted it is just a starting point; they just need the law changed so in future they can sell them off quietly and without debate.

Defra minister Jim Paice MP told a House of Lords Committee last November:

We wish to proceed with… very substantial disposal of the public forest estate, which could go to the extent of all of it.

But…

In order to have substantial disposal, we need to change the law. Our lawyers advise us that up to about 15% of the forest could be sold without risk of transgression of current legislation, which requires the Commission to own and manage the public estate. To get beyond that, we would need to change the law. That is the reason for it.

More on the law change required in this exchange (via Stanley Johnson)

The Chair of the Committee: “That’s a once and for all legislative permit, that you will never again as a Department have to come back for future sales of forestry or such?”

Defra civil servant: “That is the intention.”

Secretary of State, Mrs Spelman: “The Public Bodies Bill is an enabling Bill on the reform of a wide range of arm’s-length bodies.”

Chair: “So you will never, ever again have to come and ask permission?”

Secretary of State, Mrs Spelman: “We should not have to, no.”

Chair: “So this is our one and only chance?”

Defra civil servant: “Yes.”

But the rot (excuse the pun) has already started. It is likely this will be used as an excuse to push the plans forward.

The Times reported today:

Millions of trees will be threatened by disease under the Government’s plan to cut Forestry Commission funding and privatise public woodland, according to an internal document leaked to The Times. Deer and other wildlife will be neglected and charging could be introduced for many recreational facilities to which the public now have free access, the report says. The commission announced yesterday that it would cut more than 400 jobs

We reported on the job cuts here yesterday.

This is perhaps the best example of how Conservatives plans are much more driven by free market ideology than necessity.

Should Compass open out to other political parties?

by Guest    
February 3, 2011 at 2:10 pm

contribution by David Ritter

Organisations, like individuals and nations, face times of decision when they can mature and grow, or turn away from change and diminish. Compass is on the cusp of such a moment.

It is holding a ballot to change its membership rules to keep its relationship with Labour special but not exclusive: we can allow a greater openness of membership to draw in progressives from across the centre-left political spectrum, or we can turn in upon ourselves and risk decline.
continue reading… »

Why my colleagues and I are going on strike today

by Guest    
February 3, 2011 at 11:45 am

contribution by A Southwark Speech & Language Therapist

Hi, you don’t know me, but I’m a speech and language therapist and I’d like five minutes of your time to explain a bit about what I do and why my colleagues and I are going on strike today, in Southwark, London.

Communication skills are very important, they help you make friends and influence people, get a good job, help disadvantaged children and even help you feel good about yourself.

But a third of our department in Southwark have been put on notice of redundancy because the funding that used to be given to the local authority and ring-fenced for Sure Start is no longer protected.
continue reading… »

Mubarak may be gone, but democracy is unlikely to come to Egypt

by Sunny Hundal    
February 3, 2011 at 8:30 am

Watching Al Jazeera and MSNBC last night online was harrowing. People were still engaged in gun-battles in Tahrir square.

It looked like the pro-Mubarak supporters had been beaten back for now. But I fear the momentum is lost.

The game was up when the new Vice-President and defacto head of the army said there would be “no dialogue” until “the protests stopped”. The army generals are no longer going to act as saviours of the people as they have been portrayed in the media.
continue reading… »

Pro-Mubarak text messages in Egypt; who sent them?

by Sunny Hundal    
February 3, 2011 at 1:14 am

People on Twitter have been sending these text messages around (uploaded by @SheriefFarouk)

He tells me that all his friends (over 20) got the text messages from across Cairo (masr el gedida), Nasr city, Rehab city , maadi, Alexandria and Tanta. So the text messages covered a wide geographical area.

They were sent around yesterday, calling on Egyptians to “confront the traitors and criminals”. They have been widely seen as an attempt to shore up support for President Mubarak.

There are allegations all over Twitter that they were sent to Vodafone customers in Egypt, unsolicited. I am currently trying to confirm this, so don’t take it as fact.

Vodafone has now confirmed they were sent using its network.

Updates at the end

—-

Translation: Youth of Egypt, beware rumors and listen to the sound of reason – Egypt is above all so preserve it.

.

Translation: The Armed Forces asks Egypt’s honest and loyal men to confront the traitors and criminals and protect our people and honor and our precious Egypt.

.

Translation:
First text: To every mother-father-sister-brother, to every honest citizen preserve this country as the nation is forever.

Second text: The Armed Forces cares for your safety and well being and will not resort to using force against this great nation.

.

Translation: The Armed Forces asks Egypt’s honest and loyal men to confront the traitors and criminals and protect our people and honor and our precious Egypt.

——

The translation have been verified as genuine. Several Egyptians have also confirmed they are actual text messages, and not spoofs.

Pictures via @glinner (via @BodyInTheThames).
Thanks also to @esraa_ali and @El_Amster and @inkelectric and @salmaeldaly and @monaeltahawy.

——

Update: One tweeter from Cairo tells me they were sent to all Vodafone customers, including herself. We still need official confirmation from Vodafone.

Another confirmation here that the text messages were received.

Update 2: A Facebook group has been set up for Egyptians to upload pictures of their text messages. If you got these messages or other ones, upload yours there and say how you got them!

Update 3: Vodafone Egypt is 45% owned by Telecom Egypt. [hat-tip R_McCormack]

Update 4: Vodafone confirms it sent them, but says it had to, according to this statement:

Under the emergency powers provisions of the Telecoms Act, the Egyptian authorities can instruct the mobile networks of Mobinil, Etisalat and Vodafone to send messages to the people of Egypt. They have used this since the start of the protests. These messages are not scripted by any of the mobile network operators and we do not have the ability to respond to the authorities on their content.

Vodafone Group has protested to the authorities that the current situation regarding these messages is unacceptable. We have made clear that all messages should be transparent and clearly attributable to the originator.

Is Vodafone blameless? See this earlier article by Salil Tripathi on Vodafone and Egypt.

——

Note: This page is being cached (to stop the site from going down) so your comments etc will appear after a delay.

Lord Freud blunders again on housing benefit

by Don Paskini    
February 2, 2011 at 5:30 pm

Our old friend Lord Freud, minister for welfare reform, was recently caught out again using dodgy and inaccurate stats to justify the government’s savage benefit cuts. Channel 4 Fact Check has the story:

On January 11th, Lord Freud wrote to the South London Press, to point out, “It is also important we end the sensationalist myths about the local housing allowance reforms in 2011…In London around 750,000 private rental homes will still be affordable.”

Two weeks later, in the House of Lords, Lord Knight posed the following question:
continue reading… »

Forests: Govt plans job cuts and “asset sales”

by Sunny Hundal    
February 2, 2011 at 5:28 pm

As the government claims that it will protect our forests, and not sell them off under their new plans, hundreds of jobs are being cut from the Forestry Commission.

The FC is planning a 25% cut in jobs and a major restructuring could cause 300 job losses in England, with 256 jobs at risk at the Forest Enterprise which runs the public forests.

And while Conservative MPs keep claiming they don’t have any plans to sell forests, in other exchanges in Parliament they say the sale of these “Forestry assets” will contribute towards flood defence.

I’m sure the Chair would be interested to know, because of her interest in flooding, that it would be perfectly possible for us to use the proceeds from sales of these assets towards increasing the capital available for flood defences, for example. We have that assurance from the Treasury and it is very valuable to us.

(hat-tip William Green)

Some MPs have already received hundreds of hostile emails about the proposed sell-off.

The PCS union plan to hold a rally outside the Foresty Commission’s headquarters in Edinburgh tomorrow.
Its general secretary Mark Serwotka says:

These job losses will hit industries and services allied to forestry, have a severe impact on small communities and affect tourism and other services to the 40 million visitors a year to the forests.

The only way to protect staff and avoid the wider impact on jobs and economies from the attack on the forests is to have a properly-resourced Forestry Commission to directly own and run the public forest estate.

Over 410,000 people have now signed the online petition against the forest sell-off at 38 Degrees.

Bringing the City of London to account is more difficult than we realise

by Richard Murphy    
February 2, 2011 at 2:31 pm

Maurice Glasman, a lecturer at London Metropolitan University was appointed a Labour peer in the New Years Honours List. He has long researched the City of London and all that is abusive about it.

It is a power Maurice has threatened, as he told at a meeting at LSE last night, when he shared a platform with Nick Shaxson of the Tax Justice Network and author of the excellent Treasure Islands.

Maurice threatened that power in a very simple way. He asked to have the title when offered a peerage of Lord Glasman of the City of London. And he was told that was not possible.
continue reading… »

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