London Riots : I predict a garden festival

So sad and so shocking to watch the capital burn last night. Actually scary to see anarchy live on your tv...all this from a peaceful protest involving an grieving family. Is that what it takes? The police stay at home for 5 minutes and all of a sudden it's time to loot a retail park? Seeing shops set alight and the flames engulfing the surrounding flats just made you feel sick.

You watch with confilcting opinions...the Daily Mail reader inside all of use wants curfews, rubber-bullets, water-cannon and troops on the streets. The Guardian reader in you thinks of the levels of dissaffection, deprivation & anger that must exist for this madness to take hold so quickly. The truth will be much more complex and will almost certainly go back throughout the duration of Operation Trident. For this reason I'm glad Labour haven't jumped up and immediately blamed the cuts.

One thing is for sure this will leave those communities even further in the mire than they were before, there has been a lot of talk from community leaders about staying indoors and clearing the streets and community politicians like Diane Abbott have been talking a lot of sense. I do have to ciriticise Theresa May, just standing in front of the cameras and repeating the words "Sheer criminality" and making vague allusions to how tough the reaction is going to be just made her look horrifically out of her depth.She straight-batted every question with "Let's be clear this is just sheer criminality" and gave no assurances whatsoever to Londoners. She was basically a wind-up toy put out there until the government can chair a COBRA meeting, I don't blame Cameron for going on holiday but there really needed to be a better reaction from those left behind.

It's true, I think.

Popped down to Liverpool Pride (via the excellent new Liverpool Murseum) to say hello to the LGBT Labour chaps and chappesses....it's fair to say they have all the best stickers :)

John Maynard Keynes Vs Friedrich August Hayek live on the BBC

Interesting article on the two economists, Keynes & Hayek. Obviously as a socialist I'd be on the Keynesian Economics side of the debate :

As their economies contracted, governments responded to their mounting budget deficits by raising taxes and cutting spending.

The Great Depression bottomed out at the end of 1932, with British unemployment having reached 20%, American unemployment even higher.

Keynes wrote the General Theory in 1936 to explain why the recovery was so feeble.

His revolutionary proposition was that following a big shock - usually a collapse in investment - there were no automatic recovery forces in a market economy.

The economy would go on shrinking until it reached some sort of stability at a low level.

Keynes called this position "under-employment equilibrium".

The reason was that the level of activity - output and employment - depended on the level of aggregate demand or spending power.

If spending power shrank, output would shrink.

In this situation it was the government's job to increase its own spending to offset the decline in public spending - that is by running a deficit to whatever extent necessary.

To cut government spending was completely the wrong policy in a slump.

When an economy is booming, a hair shirt at the Treasury is the right policy, when it is stagnating it is the wrong policy.

Keynes's message was: you cannot cut your way out of a slump; you have to grow your way out.

Eighty years on we have still not fully learnt the lesson.

Three years after the collapse of 2008, our economy is flat: there are no signs of growth, nor can the Osborne policy of a thousand cuts produce any.

A week away

Spent last week in Lourdes with the Hospitalite hence no posts...was shocked & appalled to hear of the events in Norway. Puts politics and sport in perspective. Thoughts and prayers with the AUF and the whole Arbeiderpartiet,

Lourdes was ace as always btw, hard work but good work...loads to be done and lots of new people to get to know.

It's great to just get on with the work at hand and then kick-back with a pint to relax afterwards. Not everyone's cup of tea but I love it.

Where for art thou Everton

As a blue I always know we aren't going to launch audacious swoops for top level players. Extravagent wages tempting foreign mercenaries to be joined by cherry-picked England internationals...nope it's fair to say that Everton are not a "Money" club.

Instead Moyes' revolution, whilst no less seismic than the City/Chelsea uber-splurges, has been all about players with a point to prove being given the perfect place to prove it. Generally players improve at Everton nowadays, they blossom. Cahill, Arteta & Pienaar cost the same as the amount liverpool lost on the Robbie Keane debacle. Seamus Coleman probably cost the same as Glen Johnson's daily wage.

That said this flow of players seems to have dried up now and signings seems to be very limited. After Lescott left we invested the money in Distin, Bily etc but since then Moyes seems to be feeding on scraps. Beckford was always going to be, at best, a slow burner and Gueye was going to take a long time to adjust to the pace but they represented our only striker signings....this close season looks to be more of the same, Everton have a solid base but they squad is tiny and needs augmenting otherwise another squandered season in the doldrums beckons

either that or we say goodbye to prize assets like Fellaini and/or Baines and trust Moyes and re-invest.

Ed Miliband takes on News International

So Ed is going for the jugular on this, a brave move given that he's the first Labour or Tory leader to disregard the consequences of a hostile News International.

Already dark forces are stirring and warning that they will make it personal for him if he makes calls for Rebekah Brooks to resign. We all remember what happened to Chris Bryant.

Miliband is sticking to his guns though, with David Cameron umming and ahhing and desperate not to make too much noise because he knows he's thick as thieves with the Chipping Norton Set it falls to the Opposition Leader to grasp the nettle and hope the public stay behind him.

The problem with this is that the public are notoriously easily lead (as the Kaiser Chiefs said)...despite the outrage they aparently doubled the print run of the final News of the World, possibly this was a clever, loss-leading publicity stunt but if not what message does it send to the advertisers who made a stand and boycotted the paper?

Interestingly I can see a pleasing devil-may-care attitude to Miliband's attacks and why not? He must have known he was never going to get a fair crack of the whip from the Tory press so why not go out of his way to take them on when they a vulnerable. Even if ultimately the right-wing media ends up as hostile as ever will that, in the eyes of the public, be a bad thing. If Cameron is still seen as their darling then being the man of the people on the outside will be a good thing and will allow him a free-er hand in his opposition.

Our new tree fern is doing nicely

Lost so many plants in that winter. That cold cold did for the huge sprawling yukka we had out the back so we've decided to replace it with something a little more hardy (hopefully)

Andy Coulson to be arrested

It keeps going and going and going. Today Andy Coulson is to be arrested by the police for questioning about the News of the World phone hacking....still we are supposed to believe Rebekah Brooks is innocent and knew nothing about it?

Thought Ed Miliband, who I've been critical of recently, set an excellent tone in calling for a judicial enquiry and highlighting David Cameron's shocking error of judgement in hiring Andy Coulson and brining him into number 10. Apparently Cameron was warned about Coulson by both left & right but still pressed ahead with the appointment.

I did like Ed's careful call for a review that preserves the free press whilst shining a light into the murky world of journalism. He also did well to admit that New Labour were thick as thieves with Murdoch too (although not quite as personally in bed with them as David Cameron is).

The public have spoken, the politicians have listened and look like they are taking action...will the public vote with their feet and move away from the News International papers or meekly start buying the the S*n on Sunday when it arrives? Outrage and righteous indignation is one thing but if people fall into the same pattern of hanging on every word of the press then nothing will change.

News of the World disbanded, S*n goes 7 days a week

So Murdoch sends Rebekah Brooks to tell all those staff they have lost their jobs, she marched in flanked by security staff and then marched out.

Her job is safe though.

Murdoch et al must think we were born yesterday...the News of the World is gone but the urls for The Sunday Sun are already registered. I hope and pray people don't meekly ignore their outrage and switch over to this "new" publication when it inevitably arrives.

If the Tories let Rupert Murdoch take over BSkyB it will just show how under their thumb they are.

They must think we were born yesterday

New Everton home shirt revealed

Amidst all this politics and media scandal it's nice to have something sporty to think about for once. The new Everton home shirt has been revealed.



Blue socks? Not happy, nothing good will come of it. I know this is perhaps one of the most pointless posts in the blog's history but this is the only Everton news around! No signings at all whilst everyone else seems to be having a feeding frenzy. We really do need to augment the squad and get some fire-power up front if we are going to avoid the shambolic stuttering start to the season we've seen in recent years.

In other news the entire Waterloo squad is committed for next season so that is great news. If we can bring in a couple more players we should hopefully banish the spectre of the recent slide through the leagues and start to build for the future.

David Cameron, Andy Coulson, Rebekah Brooks & the Chipping Norton set

So what about David Cameron, Andy Coulson, Rebekah Brooks & "The Chipping Norton" set?

There are defining moments when a spotlight is shone into a world and all of a sudden everything is seen in brutal daylight....like the lights going up in the nightclub so everyone can see who it is they've been dancing with then trudge bleary eyed to the exit shaking their heads. Northern Rock and Lehman Brothers brought the suicidally greedy, debt-addicted bankers to their senses, the MPs expenses scandal presented us with a scandal that was beyond parody as we saw how the noses were in the troughs. This News of the World scandal may well be the a watershed for journalism but it may also be a defining moment in how politicians cosy up to the media.

This is not a party political point. Labour were almost as bad as the Conservatives (I say "almost" because Labour have had John Prescott & Alistair Campbell shouting from the rooftops about press corruption for years whilst David Cameron invited Andy Coulson into the inner sanctum when he was fresh from resigning after the original hacking scandal). The Andy Coulson appointment underlines how desperate politicians are to get on the right side of the media (and News International in particular). Reading this piece in the Telegraph makes you realise how much Cameron is thick as thieves with Rebekah Brooks & Andy Coulson

David Cameron, who has returned from Afghanistan as a profoundly damaged figure, now faces exactly such a crisis. The series of disgusting revelations concerning his friends and associates from Rupert Murdoch's News International has permanently and irrevocably damaged his reputation.

Until now it has been easy to argue that Mr Cameron was properly grounded with a decent set of values. Unfortunately, it is impossible to make that assertion any longer. He has made not one, but a long succession of chronic personal misjudgments.

He should never have employed Andy Coulson, the News of the World editor, as his director of communications. He should never have cultivated Rupert Murdoch. And – the worst mistake of all – he should never have allowed himself to become a close friend of Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of the media giant News International, whose departure from that company in shame and disgrace can only be a matter of time.

It was called the Chipping Norton set, an incestuous collection of louche, affluent, power-hungry and amoral Londoners, located in and around the Prime Minister's Oxfordshire constituency. Brooks and her husband, the former racing trainer Charlie Brooks, live in a house scarcely a mile from David and Samantha Cameron's constituency home. The two couples meet frequently, and have continued to do so long after the phone hacking scandal became well known.

PR fixer Matthew Freud, married to Mr Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, is another member of this Chipping Norton set. When Mr Cameron bumped into Freud at Rebekah Brooks's wedding two years ago, he and Mr Freud greeted each other with exuberant high-fives to signal their exclusive friendship.

The Prime Minister cannot claim in defence that he was naively drawn in to this lethal circle. He was warned – many times. Shortly before the last election he was explicitly told about the company he was keeping. Alan Rusbridger – editor of The Guardian newspaper, which has performed such a wonderful service to public decency by bringing to light the shattering depravity of Mr Murdoch's newspaper empire – went to meet one of Mr Cameron's closest advisers shortly before the last election. He briefed this adviser very carefully about Mr Coulson, telling him many troubling pieces of information that could not then be put into the public domain.

Mr Rusbridger then went to see Nick Clegg, now the deputy prime minister. So Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg – the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister – knew all about Mr Coulson before last May's coalition negotiations. And yet they both paid no attention and went on to make him the Downing Street director of communications, an indiscretion that beggars belief.

So the Prime Minister is in a mess. To put the matter rather more graphically, he is in a sewer. The question is this: how does he crawl out and salvage at least some of his reputation for decency and good judgment? This is a potentially deadly moment. If the Prime Minister plays his cards wrong, his public image will change in a matter of a few days. From a popular and respected national leader, he will come to be defined by his ill-judged friendship with the Chipping Norton set. This kind of personal degradation has happened before. By the end, Harold Wilson was irreparably damaged by his friendship with dodgy businessmen such as the raincoat manufacturer Lord Kagan. The Macmillan premiership fell apart under the weight of revelation from Lord Astor's Cliveden set.

Pretty harsh stuff coming from the most staunch of the Tory press.

Bombardier decision costs 1,400 jobs

Well this is a bizarre one

Bombardier announces 1,400 job losses

What on earth is going on there? How can it possibly be the right decision to give this contract to a foreign supplier? How can it make economic sense? Aside from the actual money itself staying in the UK this represents 1,400 people who will potentially have to start drawing benefits. It is 1,400 people who will suddenly stop pay tax.

Government incompetence on a grand scale. Pathetic. Look at the quotes:

"I don't know of any procurement that's been in France or Germany that has gone to any other company other than the indigenous rail manufacturers in their countries," said Mark Young, Unite's co-ordinating officer.

Shadow business secretary John Denham and shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle have written to Prime Minister David Cameron urging him to review the decision.

Maria Eagle told the BBC: "I find it amazing that the Secretary of State is denying that he has the power to make any difference here. He clearly does.

"In fact, the last train contract that was let for intercity trains was reviewed twice by the Labour government towards the end of its time in office and by the new Conservative government - they made significant changes to the contract as a result of their review."

But Ms Eagle told the BBC: "I find it amazing that the Secretary of State is denying that he has the power to make any difference here. He clearly does.

"In fact, the last train contract that was let for intercity trains was reviewed twice by the Labour government towards the end of its time in office and by the new Conservative government - they made significant changes to the contract as a result of their review."

Even Vince Cable is making rumblings "There is a perception that other EU countries appear to manage their public procurement processes with a sharper focus on domestic supply than we have hitherto"

Wish the NHS a happy birthday

Got this through today :

The NHS celebrates its 63rd birthday this week, with public satisfaction at an all-time high. But the coalition government's proposals will put everyone at risk. Including you.

Don't be fooled. Even after "listening", the government's legislation would let private companies grab any part of the NHS, putting profits before patients.

Now is the time to stop them, to make sure that the NHS will still be in good shape when it's 64.

This week, we're holding all sorts of events across the country to celebrate the NHS, and make sure we continue to put patients before profit. There are also plenty of online actions that you can do to help us get the message across to our politicians.

It takes just two minutes to make your voice heard, so please help us protect the NHS for the future.

Take action now: Wish the NHS a happy birthday

Thanks for your support,

The Million Voices Campaign

P.S. Don't forget to encourage your family, friends and colleagues to add their
voices to the million voices campaign: http://million-voices.org

Boycott News International and News Corps, it can be done.

Sent this to The Times today

Sir,

Unfortunately I will no longer be buying The Times due to your parent company's association with the News of the World and its actions by standing by Rebekah Brooks. I know this scandal is nothing to do with The Times and it is with a heavy heart I end my longstanding loyalty to your fine newspaper however I have no other way of protesting and voicing my utter disgust at this vile episode and the arrogance your parent company has displayed. If Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson didn't know about the phone hacking then they are two of the most incompetent people to ever grace your industry.

We shall see if anything comes back. I know it is slightly churlish and it wasn't anything to do with The Times but I have no other way to show my disgust at the actions of News Corps and News International both in the original phone hacking and their arrogant refusal to accept responsibilty for it now it's come to light.

What really makes me shudder is this tweet from Robert Peston : "News International execs tell me they fear there may have been worse examples of NOTW hacking than that of Milly Dowler's phone". Worse???

Alone my boycott of News International won't make much of a difference but ask any Scouser; these things can be done. The S*n is by far the most popular paper in the country yet on Merseyside you are as likely to see someone reading USA Today or L'Equipe. You can either meekly grumble about these things or vote with your feet. Scousers have stuck to the S*n boycott ever since Hillsborough. It can be done.

News of the World hacking Milly Dowler's phone then closing ranks

I mean this Milly Dowler phone hacking case is beyond reprehensible. Despicable only covers about 10% of the outrage and revulsion we should feel about this. For months this case has rumbled on each revelation getting more and more eyebrow raising. Personally I thought it was jaw-dropping when I found out they'd hacked a serving senior police officer's works mobile but this...

Not only did they hack into a missing girl's phone to listen in on her messages they actually deleted messages to clear space for others...this gave hope to Milly's family that she was still alive and accessing her phone. And for what? To sell a few low quality tabloid newspapers. You can see why Andy Coulson had to jump ship as Cameron's right hand man, he must have known where the investigation was going to lead. I remember Cameron's shrugged, grudging acceptance of his resignation as if to say "These silly allegations are just tittle tattle but I suppose I'll have to soldier on without him".

The PCC have had this happen on their watch and are doing very little, the police were forced into investigating after avoiding taking on the case, the politicians of the day were too afraid of the backlash to bring up the matter.

The only conclusion you can draw is that the press are a law onto themselves and basically out of control. That fact that it seems that Rebekah Brooks is going to just ignore the matter and carry on is testament to this. And yet this week News Corp are given the green light for their takeover...giving this corporation even more power and making it even more unassailable.

Something has to be done and it's clear that a voluntary code of conduct and a voluntary regulatory body aren't up to the job.

Government hiding the truth about the impact of their benefit reforms

Am amazed more isn't being made about this leaked memo outlining the true impact of coalition. If it is how it appears it's utterly appalling. That government departments are issuing private warnings about the possibilty of 40,000 families being made homeless and then ministers are telling the country the exact opposite is reprehensible.

The memo coming out of Eric Pickles' office states "Our modelling indicates that we could see an additional 20,000 homelessness acceptances as a result of the total benefit cap. This on top of the 20,000 additional acceptances already anticipated as a result of other changes to housing benefit"

This article in the Guardian outlines the way the coalition have resorted to lying whenever Labour have voiced concerns.

What makes it even more distasteful is that the government don't even think that the changes will save any money

"We are concerned the savings from this measure, currently estimated at £270million from 2014-2015, do not take account of the additional costs to local authorities through homelessness and temporary accommodation. We think it likely that the policy as it stands will generate a net cost"

This makes it clear, the changes aren't about the defecit, it is about the Tory ideology of "The devil take the hindmost". They see poverty & misery for ordinary people in this country as a price worth paying. 40,000 families are acceptable collateral damage as they slim down the state. The Lib Dems are standing by and doing nothing whilst it happens.

I hope now the media will start taking more notice when Labour highlight these fears...and I also hope Ed Miliband takes Cameron to the cleaners about this in the next PMQs, it's utterly indefensible.

June 30 Public Sector strikes. Mark Serwotka skewers Francis Maude

Don't believe the hype over yesterday's strikes. The lollipop ladies and nurses didn't cause this financial crisis so why are the government raiding their pensions? This article on New Statesman outlines exactly why these changes to the pensions are unjustified.

Just look at the graph, the pensions outlay is decreasing as a percentage of GDP. Mark Serwotka (Or "Sir Wotka" as he should be knighted) called Francis Maude to put up or shut up on the government's scaremongering and he simply couldn't. By the afternoon Maude (and his "unaffordable" mantra) had been locked in a cupboard and Danny Alexander was doing the rounds using the phrase "untenable".

So don't believe the hype over these strikes, this is just ordinary workers standing up for each other when faced with an ideological dismantling of their working conditions. Divide and Conquer is how the government will beat the ordinary people of this country into submission. They can casually say Labour are bought and paid for by the Unions (plainly nonsense given Labour's silence on the subject) but it seems to be a taboo to point out that the conservatives are bought and paid for by rich tax-dodging bankers.

The government are in disarray over this, they can't win the argument so they rely on media lapdogs, when they are put on the spot they are exposed. Listen to Francis Maude flounder and then think back to the NHS Reforms, the pitiful "bonfire of the quangos", the farce of the £9k student fees ("exceptional circumstances" anyone?).

So where is Labour on this, 1000s of members & supporters will have been on strike yesterday and ministers went out of their way to condemn to strike action as much as the government...it can't be right that the Labour party are too paralysed by fear of public opinion to make a stand on issues like this. Instead of vague allusions of sticking up for the "squeezed middle" we have to stand up and be counted in supporting and trying to protect ordinary hard-working people. Why did we let the agenda be set as loony left public sector fat-cats and their massively lucrative pensions instead of going out and saying "We will fight for public sector pensions just as much as we will fight for decent private sector provision". Unfortunately we allowed it to become "Divide and Conquer" and that's how they beat us every time.

Why are we afraid to stand up for unions, everyone knows they are on our side of the argument. Why try and be vague and mumbly about it? It is less toxic than the Tory affiliations with the bankers and tax-evaders. Again we let the media set the agenda and we are nipping around the sides. The government is there for the taking as Ed Miliband has proved 3 weeks in a row at Prime Ministers Questions...yet it falls to the likes of Serwotka, Crow and Bousted to skewer the ministers. It feels like a huge missed oportunity to show people that we are standing up for everyone rather than being afraid to stand up for anyone.

Mother in law email from Carolyn Bourne to Heidi Withers

I am posting this mainly so I can always find it and chuckle about it. Firmly on Carolyn's side it has to be said. Some superb quotes in there

from: Carolyn Bourne
to: heidi withers
subject: your lack of manners

Here are a few examples of your lack of manners:
When you are a guest in another's house, you do not declare what you will and will not eat - unless you are positively allergic to something.
You do not remark that you do not have enough food.

You do not start before everyone else.
You do not take additional helpings without being invited to by your host.

When a guest in another's house, you do not lie in bed until late morning in households that rise early - you fall in line with house norms.

You should never ever insult the family you are about to join at any time and most definitely not in public. I gather you passed this off as a joke but the reaction in the pub was one of shock, not laughter.

You regularly draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you should ask yourself why. No one gets married in a castle unless they own it. It is brash, celebrity style behaviour.

I understand your parents are unable to contribute very much towards the cost of your wedding. (There is nothing wrong with that except that convention is such that one might presume they would have saved over the years for their daughters' marriages.)

If this is the case, it would be most ladylike and gracious to lower your sights and have a modest wedding as befits both your incomes.

One could be accused of thinking that Heidi Withers must be patting herself on the back for having caught a most eligible young man. I pity Freddie.

Zane Lowe, Laruen Laverne & Beyonce at Glastonbury

Wow, amazing what Twitter will get itself worked up about. Seems as though Zane Lowe was honest about his opinions about an act on the BBC's Glastonbury coverage, in this case Beyonce. He said he didn't see her set so didn't comment. What's wrong with that?

Throughout the coverage I was wondering just what you'd have to do to get anything other than the gushing, sycophantic stream of hyperbole ("Just...Amazing") that follows every act.

In this case I thought Lauren Laverne saying how Beyonce's set encompassed punk & rock was clearly ridiculous. She glammed it up and the starry eyed girls in front lapped it up but it wasn't punk.

This blog post goes into more detail as does this but I'm with Zane Lowe on this one.

Africa Oye

Just to prove that the current deluge isn't all we ever get in the north west. Had an aqesome day at Liverpool's free African music festival. Sun, smiles and great music

Torrential rain? Gore-tex? Wellies? Must be England in June!

Ironically I got burnt to a crisp yesterday at Africa Oye in Sefton park. Love this country

1st Division play-off final

Had a great time at the Division One Play-off final with our Peterborough United fan friends. Great way to round off the season especially given that Posh emerged victorious despite being under the cosh for the majority of the 2nd half.

The Huddersfield Town fans had travelled in large numbers and dominted Old Trafford with their colour co-ordinated t-shirts....in contrast the Posh fans barely filled the lower tier but were a noisy boisterous bunch. They diid give me the daggers when I cheered Kilbane and Clarke though.

3 goals in 7 minutes were stunning given that Peterborough had barely had the ball for the previous 20, who cares though. Great day for Peterborough fan and daytripper alike.

Europa League Final zzzzz

Really dissappointed with the Europa League final last night...usually they are great games but last nights final in the ridiculously lob-sided Aviva Stadium (Lansdowne Road for the corporately challenged amongst us) was a sifled, scrppy stultified affair. Braga looked more afraid of losing than being desperate to win and Porto seemed to come down to their level. The game was illuminated by one piece of brilliance from Falcao although in truth Braga received at least one glorious chance to score themselves and really should have took their chance. In the end it looked like one of those games where both teams had about 14 players on the pitch. Never room to move, no space to run into. The Football League play-offs, on the other hand, have been excellent value with the games in Swansea, Cardiff & Huddersfield all showing exactly what a football match should look like.

The Poznan Celebration or attention seeking superfan knobbery

So Everton 2 - 1 Man City and our hoodoo over the billionaire mercenaries continues...Extremely gratifying given it was Lescott's first return to Goodison. Also gratifying given how much I detest the faux-zany superfan-wannabe scoring celebration that is "The Poznan". Honestly, what is that all about? I do know that going the game is meant to be fun...but your team has just scored a goal, why turn around and jump up and down looking at the arse of the person on the row above. It's the match not a performance art exhibit. I am just not impressed with all this co-ordination. Why do modern fans have an obsession with it. Music after a goal, all holding scraves up at once, flags, murals....what's wrong with just going to the game and enjoying the football. The trained seal routine just does not do it for me at all.

I have ceanothus envy

I am slighlty obsessed with ceanothus (californian lilac). One day I'll have one like this

Happy St George's Day

Although today my heart won't be with the 3 Lions or the England rose, it won't even be at Old Trafford with my beloved Everton. Waterloo have to go to Middlesboro today and win to avoid relegation. Tough task because our away form is not the best and Middlesboro have picked up markedly recently

Bluebells at Camp Hill Woods in Woolton

Taking the opportunity to walk in the woods on a truly "goldilocks" English summer day

Canvassing, campaigning, doorknocking & leafletting

Been spending some time working with Ian Jobling as he campaigns in the Allerton & Hunts Cross ward. It's been interesting and rewarding as we work our way through an area that has been Lib Dem for about 20 years.

We see apathy and resentment of politics in general and we are still meeting a lot of traditional Lib Dems but we are seeing plenty of people annoyed with the coalition and extremely dismayed with what Clegg et al have done. Having some superb conversations with people about what's happened in the last year.

I think it will be close but very interesting in May.

If you are on twitter check out #labourdoorstep hashtag to find out what's happening.

Andrew Lansley Rap

Just posting this so I can find it more easily in future.

A week away.

Spent a week away in the Cotswolds and it seems while I did Cameron has shown his true colours yet again. Losing his temper and dispensing petty, personal jibes yet again at prime-minister's questions and then his government try to bully the BBC and criticise them for describing the budget cuts as "cuts" and try to get them to use the word "savings".

Do us a favour, if you aren't upto the job call and election and f*ck off. You took millions upon millions of Ashcroft's money, got the media under your control and STILL didn't win the election....you and your Lib Dem quislings have no mandate from the people of this country so stop acting like any disagreement to your ideological dismantling of the country's public services is beyond the pale....think of all those vile personal attack Gordon Brown endured....if your skin isn't thick enough for the job quit now.

The budget for growth

Fuel in the tank? Yeah brilliant...1p cut on fuel coming after a 3p rice caused by VAT. Blithering on about simplifying things. Waffle, waffle, waffle. At the end of the day the only figures that matter are the growth forecast...downgraded again. Osborne & Cameron look like Canutes standing against the tide announcing things are okay.

The fact is that this ridiculous, reckless austerity is just killing things. We'd had a solid year of growth and now, before the cuts have even began to bite the economy is totally stalled.

Why take on the debt in one parliament? It's just ideology and ego.

Ed Miliband and Ed Balls have done superbly well in debunking the smoke and mirrors. I know there was very little Osborne could do but it seems clear to me that the Coalition are out of their depth, they bang on about the country's "credit card" or how "every housewife knows". We need a bolder more measured approach, instead we get this blind adherence to their small-government agenda and the devil take the hindmost.

John Maynard Keynes is probably a name Osborne has never heard of but people need to know that the country is functioning, dismantling the public sector, scrapping things like the EMA and raising VAT just tell everyone to batten down the hatches and wait for everything to blow over. Stagflation and mass unemployment loom large.

"It's hurting but it's not working"

Early April Fool? Republicans want to cut off food stamps if someone goes on strike

Wow, that is just despicable :

Now, a group of House Republicans is launching a new stealth attack against union workers. GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (OH), Tim Scott (SC), Scott Garrett (NJ), Dan Burton (IN), and Louie Gohmert (TX) have introduced H.R. 1135, which states that it is designed to “provide information on total spending on means-tested welfare programs, to provide additional work requirements, and to provide an overall spending limit on means-tested welfare programs.”

Much of the bill is based upon verifying that those who receive food stamps benefits are meeting the federal requirements for doing so. However, one section buried deep within the bill adds a startling new requirement. The bill, if passed, would actually cut off all food stamp benefits to any family where one adult member is engaging in a strike against an employer.

Read more here and thanks to NatalieDzerins for the heads-up

The Itchy Bees break their million month losing streak

Can't really go wrong on a night when you to the pub through fairly ruralish roads and hear owls hooting all the way and see two shooting stars.

Did really well at a tough Victoria Pub Quiz and WON....ain't in ages so nice to get on on the board. Stu, Anne, Ian and Steph but no Tina and Tony due to (God spares us) imminent baby arrival.

Frank Green art exhibition at Liverpool Art Academy

Went to see an exhibition of Frank Green paintings last night at the Liverpool Art Academy, Seel St in Liverpool.



Am pretty sure there must a be a good percentage of home in Liverpool that have a Frank Green print in there as he specialises in the areas of Liverpool making way redevelopment.



Some superb ones in the collection and a lot more styles and subjects than you generally associate with him. Well worth a look if you are around town in the next few weeks.

Street of Liverpool

Superb website featuring old images of Liverpool

Streets of Liverpool

Seriously have been listening to the same guitar solo for 20 mniutes

If there is a finer pub in Liverpool than the Swan let me know. It is definitely one of the best.

England get out of jail in the cricket world cup again!

Another stuttering Cricket World Cup performance from a completely over-cooked England team leading to another nail-biting and highly unlikely win snatched from the jaws of defeat.

Tragedy in Japan

The daily news updates from Japan are just getting more and more horrible.

So sad as between Japan and New Zealand they my favourite places on earth.

Deforestation map by WorldMapper

Do love this site...always something interesting

Forests and Deforestion

Geoff Hurst scores whilst a meatball looks on

Can't believe I've never noticed this before. The referee in the 1966 World Cup Final clearly has a meatball for a head.



Perhaps that's actually what Kenneth Wolstenholme was saying "Some meatballs are on the pitch, they think it's all over..."

David Cameron playing to the galleries AGAIN

Good old David Mitchell for laying bare the bonkersness of David Cameron's pathetic showboating over public services

That's precisely what David Cameron thinks about government. He simply can't understand what all the guys in headsets – the civil service – are up to. And he says it's not just him they're annoying – they're pushing past or obstructing the whole private sector. In an extraordinary speech to the Conservatives' spring conference last weekend, he called them the "enemies of enterprise". To him, they're the Klingons.

He said he was "taking on… the bureaucrats in government departments who concoct those ridiculous rules and regulations that make life impossible for small firms". On the face of it, this is simple crowd-pleasing stuff. It's easy to slag off the faceless bureaucrats, who supposedly waste our time and money with all their stupid rules. It's convenient to forget that bureaucrats, or civil servants as they're called when they're not being victimised, don't actually make rules, they just enforce them. Maybe, sometimes, they enforce them officiously. Maybe, sometimes, the processes they "concoct" for enforcing them are unnecessarily time-consuming. Maybe fewer of them could enforce the rules just as effectively. But they don't make the rules, Parliament does.

In seeking to blame the civil service for the rules as well as their enforcement, I think this speech is more sinister than Cameron's usual second-rate demagogy and I'm surprised it didn't attract greater attention. To me, these remarks are just as damaging as the prime minister's disparagement of multiculturalism, which rightly drew criticism, and a truer reflection of his political standpoint. Here he's breaking new ground for his evidence-averse Thatcherite ideological crusade.

The whole premise of this government, of its NHS policy, of the "big society", of the "free schools" initiative is that the public sector sucks. The private sector, according to the Tories, beats it for efficiency every time, can be just as compassionate and, at the top, "rewards enterprise". Meanwhile the top of the public sector merely "pays people more than the prime minister".

But in this speech Cameron takes the argument further. By labelling civil servants as enemies of business, he's trying to make them responsible, not just for the failings of the public sector, but also those of the private: "Every regulator, every official, every bureaucrat in government has got to understand that we cannot afford to keep loading costs on to business," he says. "If I have to pull these people into my office to argue this out myself and get them off the backs of business then believe me, I will do it."

He's always said that, when the state wastes money, it's because of the bureaucrats. Now he's also saying that, if private enterprise fails to grow, prosper or fill the gap that shrinking government creates, that's not a flaw in George Osborne's economic policy, that, too, is because of the bureaucrats. In short, whatever goes wrong is the bureaucrats' fault.

If he can get this to stick, it's a masterstroke. It's what Mao was doing when he declared war on sparrows or intellectuals. In difficult times, deft powermongers deliver up whipping boys for the disgruntled. By picking on civil servants, Cameron has made an excellent choice: they work for him, so it's hard for them to complain; they enforce government policies so if policies fail, he can blame the enforcement; yet if they succeed, he can keep the credit.

As a policy, however, it's meaningless. He can't act separately from bureaucrats, he has to act through them. Everything he does – every transparency initiative, every "big society" clarification document, every restructuring of the NHS or the welfare system, creates work for bureaucrats. He also said in the speech: "There's only one strategy for growth we can have now and that is rolling up our sleeves and doing everything possible to make it easier for businesses to grow", without acknowledging that it's the bureaucrats' sleeves he's talking about, not his own or those of his party faithful.

Cameron also doesn't realise, or is wilfully ignoring, how important our large and basically effective bureaucracy is to our place in the front rank of free nations. Without the civil service, acts of Parliament are only words and elections just millions of little slips of paper, like they are in Afghanistan. Civil servants don't merely oil the wheels, they're the axles that join them. Without them David Cameron and his policies would be no more a government than Ian Hislop sitting in a field being sarcastic would be an episode of Have I Got News For You.

Arteta tears his hamstring

It can only be assumed that the Everton team bus must have ran over a unicorn at some stage of pre-season. We just can't get a break this season at all, there have been some abject capitulations but the injury situation is just becoming ridiculous. Cahill, Fellaini and now Arteta all out :(

Add to this the refs absolute inability to spot a foul on our players in the box. What do you actually have to do to an Everton player to give away a penalty? Shoot them with a shotgun? Ritual sacrifice? Nuclear attack?

And whilst I am moaning how is it an advantage to Everton if we are surging forward, get fouled then scramble back possession ten yards back facing our own goal and under pressure?

Argh!!!

Giving up crisps for Lent tomorrow

So this will be my last bag for six weeks. Have give up beer and chocolate without a problem but crisps and tea are soooo tough.

As well as the giving up I also keep a Lentern swearbox so self improvement all round lol

Do love Lent....love hearing about what other people are doing and sharing the collective challenge. The sense of community it really nice. Makes for a great preparation for Easter.

By-Election : Oldham and now Barnsley send the coalition a message

So now the Lib Dems have been beaten back into 6^th place in the Barnsley Central by-election. This is after the Lib Dem vote was blatantly propped up by Cameron virtually ordering tactical voting (and causing the Tory vote to collapse there).

 

It is now up to Clegg and Cameron to take heed of the message. People aren’t happy with this ideological dismantling of the welfare state. There is a huge amount of saving that has to be found but just destroying the services people rely on (EMA, Surestart, Schools for Future) is just not fair.

 

The mantra about Labour’s spending is wearing very thin.

Hard work only beats talent when talent doesn't work hard

First of all I am not being churlish about Reading, they deserved to be Everton last night. I along with 1000s of other Evertonians waited until the Everton players had left the field and waited for the Reading players to finish celebrating & start walking back across the pitch solely so we can applaud them. It was actually a nice moment but it briefly masked a massive anger and a huge disappointment over a big opportunity lost for the blues.

 

Everton just never got going and Reading, from the off, were all over Everton. There was a good period in the first half were we kept the ball for about 15 minutes and you sensed that Reading were clinging by their fingernails but once they’d stabilised and scored they never looked back.

 

Dumped out of the cup by a lower league team with a plumb quarter final tie beckoning. Win last night and we were 90 minutes from Wembley and everyone who went last time remembers how fantastic a-day that was.

 

Aside from Osman and maybe Beckford they just didn’t look like they knew how to apply themselves. Players who have been brilliant all season getting taken to the cleaners by opposition they, let’s face it, should beat comfortably.

 

They never imposed themselves or set a tempo...as the game went through 80-90 minutes and into injury time Everton never looked like building a head of the steam and laying siege. All credit to Reading...we all knew they deserved to go through, just gutted at the last ray of light in this miserable abomination of a season being snuffed out.

Oh I never felt more like singing the blues...

...when Everton win and Waterloo too

and England as well.

Can't complain about that. Top sporting weekend for once. Waterloo out of the relegation and Everton back in the top half.

Plus England beating our Belle Enemmi meant I won £10 off a Welshman (thus shrinking their economy by a quarter of the percent).

Download From Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp

Been watching the events in the Arab Spring with admiration and trepidation. The people there are massively brave for standing up and being counted. So horrible that they might well be killed just for asking for self determination.

Saw an article about this book being used as a blueprint for these peaceful revolutions : Download from Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp

Thoughts and prayers are with them.

"In recent years various dictatorships — of both internal and external
origin — have collapsed or stumbled when confronted by defiant,
mobilized people. Often seen as firmly entrenched and impregnable,
some of these dictatorships proved unable to withstand the concerted
political, economic, and social defiance of the people."

Don't buy the Sun

Was looking forward to the manchester United - Crawley Town match all day...everyone loves an underdog FA Cup performance after all. Any semblence of anticipation was stymied in a moment when I saw who Crawley's sponsors were.

A fairly impressive marketing coup as far as the rest of the country were concerned but on Merseyside we instantly plunged into turmoil....Do we support United against a non-league club because of THAT logo.

The answer for me is yes. Totally irrational and pavlovian I know but there you have it. The rest of Liverpool felt the same (as far as I can tell). I checked twitter and #dontbuythesun is one of the top trending topics. Well done folks, Scousers should NEVER forget that vile rag twisting the knife out of pure spite.

Am so proud that you still are more likely to see USA Today being read on Merseyside than the country's most popular daily newspaper

Leafleting & canvassing for Labour

Spent the morning and early afternoon leafleting for Allerton & Hunts Cross campaign....home just in time to hear the extra time of the Chelsea v Everton replay....and then the penalties. Utterly fantastic, just didn't think Phil Neville would slot that penalty. Queue absolute joy in our little Evertonian household. Love it so much. A great reward for a long morning on the campaign trail.

Best commentary EVER

Simon Hughes accuses Labour lead councils

Well done to Joe Anderson for standing up against that outrageous smear. Simon Hughes needs to put up or shut up because this is just the lowest of the low.

From the Echo

Mr Hughes said: “There is a huge difference between councils that we run in places like Sheffield which are having a small number of redundancies, places like Portsmouth where they are opening services, not closing them, and places like Manchester and Liverpool which are clearly politicising the cuts to make it sound worse and, bluntly, forcing people out of jobs when they needn’t do so.

“Some Labour councils are making choices that I regard as blatantly unfair.”

Around 1,500 town hall jobs are going to be lost in Liverpool as the council tries to plug a £91m financial black hole. The move means one-in-six of the council’s workforce will be out of work.

Liberal Councillors attack coalition spending cuts

AT LAST!!!

Lib-Dem councillors attack spending cuts

More than 90 prominent Liberal Democrat councillors, including the leaders of 18 local authorities, have criticised the scale and pace of government cuts.

In a letter to the Times, they say cuts will have "an undoubted impact on all front-line council services, including care services to the vulnerable".

They also accuse ministers of "denigrating" councils in the media.

Lib Dem Communities Minister Andrew Stunell urged his party members not to "fall out" over "pointless debate".

The signatories, who include the leaders of Newcastle, Milton Keynes and Hull city councils, say they are facing the bulk of the cuts to their budgets in the coming financial year - giving them little time "to spread the cost of reorganisation and downsizing".

"Rather than assist the country's recovery by making savings to the public in a way that can protect local economies and the front line, the cuts are structured in such a way that they will do the opposite," they write.

This comes the day after Lord Oakeshott stood down after criticising the miserable damp squib that is Project Merlin. At long last Lib Dems are realising that they are getting nothing but ruin out of vile coalition.

The AV vote might well be crucial.

Coalition cuts taxes for multi-nationals whilst slashing public services

This is just breathtaking...at the same times as devastating public services under the maxim "We are all in this together" they are cutting taxes for multi-national companies.

Sickening and vile. NEVER TRUST A TORY!

At the moment tax law ensures that companies based here, with branches in other countries, don't get taxed twice on the same money. They have to pay only the difference between our rate and that of the other country. If, for example, Dirty Oil plc pays 10% corporation tax on its profits in Oblivia, then shifts the money over here, it should pay a further 18% in the UK, to match our rate of 28%. But under the new proposals, companies will pay nothing at all in this country on money made by their foreign branches.

Foreign means anywhere. If these proposals go ahead, the UK will be only the second country in the world to allow money that has passed through tax havens to remain untaxed when it gets here. The other is Switzerland. The exemption applies solely to "large and medium companies": it is not available for smaller firms. The government says it expects "large financial services companies to make the greatest use of the exemption regime". The main beneficiaries, in other words, will be the banks.

Chris Ashton try...a warning from history

Obviously we were all ecstatic at England's win over Wales on Friday and Toby Flood was awesome and Chris Ashton flying leap try made us cheers...


...but this sort of thing doesn't bear thinking about :



Never forget Legiuzamon

Everton v Blackpool....bonkers

You might have noticed the as well as a general decline in the number of posts on here the number of posts reporting on Everton & Waterloo has gone down too.

Both having pretty wretched seasons really. Everton just can't get going and Waterloo are struggling desperately to find a stable level.

Yesterday though we had Everton scoring 5 in a ridiculous roller-coaster of a game and Waterloo scoring 5 tries for two good wins.

Felt totally drained after the Everton game, angry at one all (because of the quite ridiculous refereeing decision not to allow advantage as we broke into the box to score), utter deflation at 2-3 and surreal joy as we finally kicked clear of Blackpool who it needs to be said are a proper exhilerating attacking footballing side.

Thank God for King Louis.

Waterloo are finally out of the relegation zone. That is brilliant news but Middlesborough have two games in hand. Interestingly enough despite being 4th from bottom Waterloo have the most bonus points in the league. It shows how close to being a comfortably mid-table team we are at the moment.

Oh dear, Sally Bercow stitched up by the Evening Standard

That really is naughty of The London Evening Standard. They told Sally Bercow, the partner of the commons Speaker John Bercow, they were doing a big article for valentines do so she naively tell them personal stuff about their relationship and now it’s popped up as a pretty lurid article with Sally posing wearing a sheet and talking about John being a sex-symbol. Very silly and utterly naive but you can feel sorry for her. More than that poor John is going have a pretty awkward time of it too I’d imagine.

What is the Lib Dem Party Song?

I know Labour have The Red Flag and The Internationale and I presume the Tories have The Eton Boating Song and Carmen Etonense but what song do the Liberal Democrats have...they sing The Land but how about this for the official Lib Dem Party song :

The Lib-Dem flag is palid yellow

all limp and bland like Marti Pellow

Cleggies dreams come to fruition

for now he's in the coalition

Then raise the yellow standard low,

But don't believe our manifesto

Though Kennedy moans and Cable tuts

We'll back the Tory spending cuts

So Nick and Dave looked very pleased

and then put up tuition fees

The EMA and forests next

and then destroyed the NHS

Then raise our tax and V.A.T.

and sabotage our economy

But Quisling Clegg just doesn't hear

He only cares for his career

More verses welcome

Labour leafleting

Today I'll mostly be tired due to delivering roughly half of this lot round south Liverpool. Knackered but it has to be done, every day the news gets worse and worse.

Read this at the weekend and it absolutely terrified me :

What do you call a government that embarks on the biggest upheaval of the NHS in its 63 year history, at breakneck speed, while simultaneously trying to make unprecedented financial savings? The politically correct answer has got to be: mad.

The scale of ambition should ring alarm bells. Sir David Nicholson, the NHS chief executive, has described the proposals as the biggest change management programme in the world—the only one so large “that you can actually see it from space.” (More ominously, he added that one of the lessons of change management is that “most big change management systems fail.”) Of the annual 4% efficiency savings expected of the NHS over the next four years, the Commons health select committee said, “The scale of this is without precedent in NHS history; and there is no known example of such a feat being achieved by any other healthcare system in the world.” To pull off either of these challenges would therefore be breathtaking; to believe that you could manage both of them at once is deluded

New Zealand government scientist Stephen Wilce "complete fantasist"

I am sure our friends in New Zealand are always trying to move away from the affectionate stereotypes portrayed in Flight of the Conchords but this has just set back those efforts years

New Zealand intelligence failed on fantasist scientist

British-born Stephen Wilce was hired as chief of New Zealand's Defence Technology Agency in 2005, having got top level security clearance.

Last year it emerged that he had made a series of false claims about his past.

Mr Key then ordered an inquiry by the State Services Commission (SSC).

As head of the DTA for five years, Stephen Wilce oversaw 80 staff and had access to highly classified intelligence.

He resigned in September 2010 after a TV programme revealed he had falsely claimed to be a former Royal Marine and to have raced in an Olympic bobsleigh event against the Jamaican team depicted later in the movie Cool Runnings.

A separate military inquiry concluded last year that Mr Wilce had embellished claims about his former military work, academic qualifications and life experience.

Investigators uncovered other fabrications: for example, the scientist reportedly told colleagues that he had served as a helicopter pilot with Prince Andrew, and that he had been a spy with British intelligence.

He also apparently claimed he had designed the Polaris missile guidance system, been a member of the Welsh rugby union team and had a career as a guitarist on the British folk music circuit.

Mr Wilce told the investigators he had been telling tall stories about himself since childhood.

What's that coming over the hill? Is it Serwotka

Couple of interesting links about Today's TUC meetings about co-ordinating Union action in response to government cuts.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE70R22U20110128

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/28/coordinated-strike-action-cuts-tuc

This very week here in Liverpool we have the announcement that 1,500 council jobs will go. This are just numbers to the privileged elite running our country. They don't care, they simply aren't capable of caring.

The thing is it would be less heart-breaking if there was any point to the deprivations the coalition are heaping upon the ordinary people. We have seen the economy stop growing and go into decline because of their austerity measures.



It is now impossible for the Tories to argue this isn't an ideological dismantling of the countries public services.