Protecting the Party: Beware of Friends Bearing Gifts
Friday, November 30th, 2007Despite the public regularly telling us how much they dislike politics, politicians can tell you about a significant minority who seem to be fascinated by us. You may find this odd but there is such a thing as political groupies. And in my experience many of these groupies are quite wealthy people. Possibly there are [...]
Cut Out the Cancer Now: but where’s the surgeon?
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007Last week I blogged that I’d been made almost speechless by the lost data disc fiasco. But that seems as just a little blip on the radar screen compared to the scandal that has rocked out party over recent days. There is something very rotten at the heart of our Party, a culture that needs [...]
FREE- Red Flag Ringtone
Friday, November 23rd, 2007I recently bought an iphone and I’ve been amusing myself by turning some forthcoming podcast jingles into ringtones. This one has caught a lot of people’s attention. Think of Jimmy Hendrix playing the Red Flag - in the style of his Stars and Stripes - and you get the idea!
I thought I’d share these with [...]
Fitness to Govern
Thursday, November 22nd, 2007No, not another comment on the data fiasco or Northern Rock, but a post prompted by Ed Milliband’s appearance at the Public Administration Select Committee yesterday.
Over the last decade there has been an extraordinary level of attention paid to the quality of local government, and the quality of local Councillors is something you hear a [...]
Completely Speechless …
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007I’ve just come home and watched the news. The Revenue loose the records of millions of people. And the Northern Rock fiasco goes from bad to worse.
I’ve always thought that once the skids are under a government, well, there’s very little they can do to pull things back.
Grief, I hope I’m wrong - but it [...]
Nice Environrment - City Environments for Global Warning
Monday, November 19th, 2007Just spotted this post in the Guardian.
All you city bosses out there should read it. You might be able to do to help global warming, through your planning processes, than the government can do by restricting CO2!
Confused. Read this:
Paint it white: Amid all the talk of cutting carbon emissions, we never hear about the simple [...]
New Trouble in the Balkans?
Monday, November 19th, 2007One of the best books I’ve read over the last decade has been Mish Glenny’s, The fall of Yugoslavia, which not only dealt with the collapse of the old Yugoslavia state but traced the development of the area since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
This was an wonderfully detailed, scholarly and knowledgeable book. But Glenny [...]
Training for Adults
Monday, November 19th, 2007I don’t know about you, but I’ve been spending some time pondering the announcement, at the end of last, week about the expansion of training programmes.
I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the “British Jobs for British people” notion and I see that this has been enough for some people to write off the initiative. But [...]
In Praise of the Heart of Birmingham Health Trust
Saturday, November 17th, 2007Woke up this morning to a very misleading piece on the Today programme that featured a new initiative by the Heart of Birmingham Health Trust. The Trust’s new development programme for GPs was portrayed as ‘franchising’ - which always raised the subliminal image of Macdonalds.
The BMA (British Medical Association) were right in there criticising the [...]
Recycling Food - Urban Compost
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007One of the biggest problems facing all of us - and waste disposal authorities in general - is how to better deal with waste. This is especially difficult in the big cities where the sheer diversity in housing stock means that a single authority must employ a range of different strategies and tactics to deal [...]
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