Tories talk about localism, but the reality is very different
contribution by Jonah Oliver
A key part of the Conservatives’ programme for government has been localism; the decentralisation of power from government institutions to ordinary people and communities.
Eric Pickles introduced the localism Bill by describing it as a “centrepiece of what this government is trying to do”, while David Cameron sees it as a fundamental part of his flagship Big Society project.
Not all Tories seem to share their vision however.
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Remember this election poster, Mr Cameron?
The Prime Minister is today confronted by these stark front-pages, highlighting the deteriorating situation of the nation’s youth.
I’m sure they’ll blame Europe again.
But, as Larry Elliot points out:
The explanation provided by the coalition is bogus. It is pure, unadulterated spin, as is the hollow pledge to move heaven and earth to find work for the young unemployed. Why? Because the labour market has been weakening for the past year, because most of the jobs that are being shed are not from the international trade sector of the economy, and because the real reason the economy has barely grown over the past year is due to the sluggishness of domestic demand.
Unemployment is what’s known as a lagging indicator of economic performance; it takes time for a slowdown in activity to feed through into the jobless figures.
Anyone remember this pre-election poster?
What do you say about that now, Prime Minister?
Round-the-world ticket cheaper than Travelcard
New research has shown how the cost of transport in London is now so high that many Londoners could purchase an around-the-world plane ticket or two-week cruise holiday for less than their annual travelcard spend.
Thanks to Boris Johnson’s fare hikes:
- an Annual Zone 1-3 travel card (£1288) is now more expensive than a round-the-world flight visiting Dubai, Bangkok, Sydney, Christchurch, Auckland, Melbourne, and Kuala Lumpur (£1199)
- It would cost less to purchase five return flights from London to New York (around £350 each) than to buy an annual travelcard for Zones 1-5 (£1880).
- Commuters in zone 6 could spend this Christmas and New Year on a luxury cruise (£1,903) calling at Casablanca, Tenerife and Lisbon for less than the cost of their annual travelcard (£2,016).
The figures were highlighted today by Val Shawcross, Labour’s transport spokesperson and Deputy Mayoral running mate.
She said:
Londoners struggling on low pay are spending vast proportions of their wages on simply getting around their city – yet Boris Johnson is so out of touch with this daily struggle that in just a few weeks he will hike fares up even further.
Next week Ken Livingstone’s campaign is planning a ‘Fare Deal rally’, to campaign for fairer transport fares.
See London travelcard fares here.
Rather than focus on reducing transport fares however – Boris is instead spending millions on his expensive pet projects.
St. Andrews notice on masturbation a spoof
Over the last few days and weeks you may have seen this notice going around on Twitter and Facebook.
You may have even chuckled at the antics of the boys from St Andrews. Apparently it was posted to the boy’s toilets.
Alas! It turns out to be a fake.
An FOI request to the university asked whether the notice was genuine.
This was their brilliant response:
Thank you for your FoI Request re “Masturbation Notice”.
The notice to which you refer is not an official university notice. It was a student prank, and regrettably not even an original prank. The notice appears to be a copycat issue of a similar text hich appeared recently at Durham and Lancaster universities and a number of universities in the States. A quick check on Google should give you more information about these incidents should you require it.
A strong clue that the notice is fake is the line “Please go home and masturbate if you are bored.” As a matter of policy, the University would never encourage students to go home during term time.
I understand that two copies of the notice were attached, with chewing gum, to doors of the male toilets in the University of St Andrews Main Library on or about the afternoon of Sunday November 3^th 2011. The notices were removed by Library staff shortly afterwards.
Far from having a policy on masturbation or outlawing the practice, as the bogus notice alleged, the University encourages the study of it, academically at least. Among the titles in the University ibrary is “Solitary Sex : A Cultural History of Masturbation” by Thomas Walter Laqueur, pub Zone Books, New York, 2003.
Well, at least we know they have a healthy attitude to masturbation.
Morning Star could go under by Christmas
Britain’s only socialist daily newspaper, the Morning Star, is appealing for funds to save the newspaper.
Editor Bill Benfield posted a plea yesterday saying there were just ‘Six weeks left to save the Star‘.
He pointed out the paper had always refused advertising. “No normal newspaper could ever withstand the half-century of commercial advertising boycott that ours has had to,” he admitted.
The newspaper costs around £1.4 million each year to produce, he said. The aim of the ‘Fighting Fund’ was to raise £16,000 each month to survive, but had fallen short of an average of £3,000 each month.
The total shortfall of funds was over £100,000, he admitted.
The editor says they need to raise an additional £50,000 before Christmas or the newspaper paper “will not survive”.
We need every supporter to rally round and back us, contribute what they can and take us through this immediate crisis not of our own making.
We will need the efforts of every reader, of each readers and supporters group, every communist and every socialist and every trade unionist of goodwill.
Cashflow problems meant they could pay staff wages this week, he admitted, but there is “no certainty” about next week.
You can donate to the Morning Star’s Fighting Fund from here.
How the super-rich have prospered across the world
Following Duncan Weldon’s example, I’d like to share some graphs that tell a story without too many accompanying words being needed.
The World Top Incomes Database is a new (to me at any rate) resource that allows you to look at data on the incomes of the rich in 26 different countries.
A good starting point is to look at the share of total income going to various groups of the rich over time.
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Germans slam the UK over Robinhood tax
In a speech to members of the German chancellor’s CDU party, Volker Kauder, its parliamentary leader, criticised Britain for opposing a European tax on financial transactions. To applause, he said it was not acceptable that the UK was “only defending its own interests” rather than that of the wider EU.
Ms Merkel has said that the eurozone should push ahead with the so-called Tobin tax if Britain continued to block the measure – raising funds from the financial sector to help cash-strapped governments – even if that put Frankfurt at a disadvantage to London.
…
Mr Kauder told the CDU annual conference in Leipzig: “The British are not members of the currency union but they are members of Europe and they have a responsibility for the success of Europe.”
Wow.
This is significant not only because those are strong, fighting words, but because the EU plan to go ahead with the Robinhood tax anyway.
Goldman Sachs’ role in killing democracy across Europe
contribution by Josh Ryan-Collins
Early last year, the investment bank Goldman Sachs came under massive criticism for helping Greece raise $1 billion of off-balance-sheet funding in 2002 through a ‘currency swap’.
EU regulators apparently knew nothing about until February 2010.
At the time, Goldman was criticised for helping the Greek financial situation appear considerably better than it actually was, making it easier for the country to enter the Euro. After the Enron scandal in 2005, Goldman sold the swap to the National Bank of Greece.
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FOI shows Free Schools ignore poorer children
Freedom of Information requests show that the government’s much lauded Free Schools significantly under-represent children from poorer backgrounds.
The finding will undermine a key claim by its proponents that free Schools help children of more disadvantaged backgrounds.
The School Duggery blog reports:
392 children entitled to free school meals (FSM) are attending the first wave of free schools, according to data supplied under a Freedom of Information Act request by the 24 schools. The data shows that in these schools about one in ten of the children on roll were registered for free school meals in October 2011. Nationally, 16.7% of children are entitled to claim free school meals because their household income is below £16,000.
More significantly, when the data for individual schools is compared with that of their nearest five schools with the same age range all but two of the free schools are below average…
The West London Free School, co-founded by author Toby Young, just over 23% of pupils were eligible for FSMs, while over 32% of pupils were eligible in neighbouring schools.
Oddly, Education minister Michael Gove has been very silent for the past few days.
Why all-male panels in politics must end
I’ve written about this before in the context of the Labour Party conference, but it’s a wide spread problem and if anything it seems to be getting worse.
Panels at political events are, more frequently than ever, men only affairs. I’m very glad today to be a signatory to a letter in today’s Guardian calling for a stop to this practice.
When I wrote about this last time, I was (yawn, of course) accused of tokenism.
continue reading… »
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» The real agenda behind Telegraph’s abortion investigation
» How Scotland Yard monitors prying bloggers and journalists
» When disabled people want to work – employers can hold the back
» Revealed: the reality behind Workfare and why it doesn’t work
» Job snob? No, I’ve got the T-shirt
» Why country-by-country reporting matters to our wellbeing
» If Unions want to become stronger, they need to modernise
» Why work “reforms” in Spain are a warning for workers across Europe
» Five things you need to know about the NHS bill
» Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier. More Racist.
» Laziness levels in Britain getting lazier, wails government
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