Bob Piper has been a Labour Councillor for the Abbey
Ward in Sandwell, West Midlands, for nine years. He is a lifelong supporter of Aston Villa Football Club and a follower of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
The views expressed here are mine in a personal capacity, not those of the Labour Party, Sandwell MBC, Aston Villa or Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Get it! Mine... just mine!
"Care needs to be taken over the candidates that have the potential to embarrass the Party - there will now be a fortnightly meeting to assess the watch-list of candidates, and the reasons they are on the list needs to be taken into consideration."
"The public output e.g. blogs, websites, press releases of candidates will [sic] now to be monitored by a new member of the CRD team," the minutes read. "Let JM or Stephen Gilbert know if there are any problems with candidates - de-selection should be the last option."
I would have thought there was a greater likelihood of me boiling my testicles in chip fat than agreeing with Melanie Phillips on anything. But it just goes to show how wrong you can be.
The notion that, as Phillips says, a Labour Government, yes a Labour Government can be so irresponsible and morally corrupt to encourage people to gamble at a time when we are plunging into economic recession almost defies belief.
According to this report Culture (?) Secretary Andy Burnham is doing this because... "many operators across the gambling industry are finding trading conditions very difficult in the present economic climate" Absolutely mind boggling. I don't suppose it has occurred to Burnham that the hundreds of thousands of victims of problem gambling might also "find things difficult" too.
I know there will be those libertarians who will say people have got a right to throw their money away if they want to, and that trying to restrict how much people win or lose should not be anything to do with the state. But given the number of illiberal measures that have come out of this government over the last 10 years I hardly think that Burnham is doing this because of his love for individual liberty.
The notion that it is being done because "the industry is finding it difficult" is frankly ridiculous. It is an argument against banning the possession of knives because shares in companies that manufacturer lethal daggers might take a hit.
So why has the Labour Government been so friendly to the gambling industry? Is it corruption through the "dubious links between the gambling industry and Labour funding" that Phillips refers to? When trying to promote super casinos they hid behind the masquerade of regeneration, with all sorts of nonsense about regenerating inner city areas by sucking the wages out of working people into the casinos (Ok, I accept, they didn't quite phrase it like that). But fruit machines in pubs??? No great regeneration gains from that, although I did hear some slick salesman for the slot machine industry saying it would help to save some inner city pubs. You see, people who aren't going down the pub because of the recession will suddenly feel compelled to go down and buy a couple of pints because they've installed a bright new flashing fruit machine to.... errrm.... take your money off you.
Now I'm not opposed to people having a bet (although I can add to my 'never having done' list the fact that I wouldn't even know how to buy a lottery ticket) because I have put money in fruit machines in the past, and I confess to having visited Las Vegas. But the liberalisation of our drinking laws and gambling laws strike me as extremely unhealthy for the country at any time, and during a recession, even more dangerous.
And if I was asked to say why I thought the Government had done so much to promote the liberalisation of both, I think I could sum it up in one word.
Tom Watson reports on Jeremy Paxman at his most offensive in an interview with poor George Osborne. I didn't see the interview, but from the transcript the most embarrassing bit is:
JP: You’re like the man who walks behind the horse with the bucket?
I went to a ‘public’ meeting tonight about the closure of our local fire station. A 12-week consultation by the Tory-led Fire and Rescue Authority which finishes in two days time.
Yes... Two. Days. Time. A 12-week consultation, and the public are invited to a meeting in the most inaccessible part of Smethwick, without a house within half a mile, and not on a bus route, at 7pm in the dark and the snow... and the meeting advertised precisely bloody nowhere! And still a couple of dozen hardy souls turned up to voice their opposition. Not that the Fire and Rescue Authority (Oh, by the way, did I say they were Tory controlled) are that interested in the public’s views. The Tory Chair and Vice-Chair didn’t bother to even attend to answer questions.
The reality behind this sham consultation is that the Tory-controlled Fire and Rescue Authority will rubber stamp a closure of the community fire station in Smethwick (that’s right, a community fire station, where they could have held their consultation meeting) at their meeting next month having ridden rough shod over local opinion.
I’ve been fairly cynical over the last couple of years about Labour’s commitment to what Hazel Blears refers to as ‘doorstep devolution’, but if this fiasco is anything to go by, community engagement by the Tories will be an absolute joke.
My initial response to the acts of piracy off the North East coast of Africa was, as I suspect that of many others, something should be done to teach these robbing swine a lesson. There they were, in the 21st Century, taking hostages and holding out for a ransom. It didn't make sense, particularly when the scale of the problem off the coast of Somalia was revealed.
Well, Johann Hari points out the other side of the story that didn't make it on to our televisions or in to the lurid tales of piracy on the high seas in our newspapers... When piracy is only self-defence.
I don't care who the last Dr Who was, or the current one, or who has been selected to play the next one nor which actor was the best Dr Who in the last fifty years. So to those people I brush into over the next week and who might wish to engage with me in their fascination for the deeds of the good Doctor... I don't care, I'm not interested, go and pester someone else. OK!
In addition to which, I'm proud to say, I've never seen a single episode of Star Trek, Celebrity Come Dancing, X Factor or Eastenders.
You've just got to laugh.... "Polly is very influential within the Labour movement....". Errrrm, no! Smithson adds... "her pre-Conference column in September titled Unseating Gordon Brown maybe Labour’s last chance was hardly welcomed by Brown Central.”
Not to mention that it wasn't terribly influential either. The fact that potty Polly (a founder member of the SDP, who deserted them and later rejoined Labour) didn't support Brown when the opinion polls were bad, but "she seems to have eased off as Labour has improved in the polls" tells you all you need to know about this weathercock political journalist. Influential my arse!
UNITED NATIONS — The United States late Saturday blocked approval of a U.N. Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel and expressing concern at the escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas.
U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said the United States saw no prospect of Hamas abiding by last week's council call for an immediate end to the violence. Therefore, he said, a new statement at this time "would not be adhered to and would have no underpinning for success, would not do credit to the council."
To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
I'm grateful to Olly's Onions for reminding me of Finland's Leningrad Cowboys and the Red Army Choir. My favourite has always been the old Choir's version of Kalinka, so this gives me another opportunity to post it.
Their version of 'My Way' is also given the treatment.
Peter Oborne has obviously been at the cooking sherry over the Christmas-New Year period and hadn't quite sobered up when he penned this piece for the Mail.
I'll forgive him for the caption to the photograph which actually contradicts the text of the main piece, but the rest of the article appears to be well off mark too. I would be willing to bet Speaker Martin is not about to go quietly, and the notion of a 'Government of National Unity' appeals to only a handful of Labour MPs, most notably Frank Field who one suspects quite fancies a job in such an arrangement whereas his current prospects are just less than zero. To the overwhelming majority of Labour MPs the notion of such a coalition, even during a deep economic crisis, is complete anathema.
And that is without considering the deep distrust between Gordon Brown and the Lib Dems (or the Liberals as he pointedly insist on calling them) and the fact that Nick Clegg is much more likely to want to form a coalition with the Tories behind the backs of the electorate after a General Election. Had Blair still been Prime Minister and found himself facing a similar economic crisis, then his 'flexibility', his lack of ideological conviction and his absence of an attachment to or affection for the labour movement, may, just may, have led to a Ramsey MacBlair situation. Gordon Brown is an entirely different political animal in that respect, and for that, at least, I am grateful.
A good start to the new year as Liam Murray, (formerly Cassilis) my favourite right-of-centre blogger returns with a new blog, a wonderful new design and a resource box that is really worth visiting. Link added to the sidebar, and you might want to do the same if you haven't already. (Oh, and if you get the time, watch and listen to the 'Trane in the video box, it's splendid stuff).
Before we start having public feedback on GPs, would it not be better to start at the top, with the politicians who allocate the public funding and set the policies for our NHS? Therefore, instead of having to wait up to five years before we can rate our politicians via the ballot box let's adopt Ben Bradshaw's excellent idea and have a bulletin board on the House of Commons website where the electorate can post their comments on their MPs so that they too can rate their competence.
Devina Worsley
Mönchengladbach, Germany
OK... another year gone, and another New Year's Honours List that doesn't recognise the sterling work carried out for the community by yours truly. Robert Piper OBE... or Sir Robert Piper, or a simple Baron Bob Piper of Warley Woods in the borough of Sandwell and Aston Villa in the parish of Aston. It has a certain ring to it, I'm sure you'd agree.
Of course, none of these things will ever happen. In order to appear in these lists in the first place you have to reply to a letter which states that Lizzie Windsor is mindful of bestowing some sort of bauble on you, and should she so decide, would you be prepared to accept. And my answer would be a resounding no! The purpose of this little fiasco is to prevent people ever 'turning down' an award, because if you're not actually given it, technically you can't actually refuse it.
I don't begrudge any of the swimmers, cyclists, railway station clerks and cleaners their day out gawping at Buckingham Palace and meeting HRH (although one person of my acquaintance who will remain nameless was a bit put out to only get his of Charlie... and they didn't even get offered a cup of tea (Earl Grey?) and a royal biscuit). It would be churlish to criticise them as I suspect in doing what they did the last thing on their mind was the prospect of getting a gong from the Queen.
But the whole thing, with its myriad of ranks and absurd hierarchical nonsense, simply acts to reinforce the worst aspects of the class system in Britain. A ridiculous hangover from days we should have grown out of, and like royalty itself, based on medieval concepts of privilege and patronage. The recent trend, so very New Labour, of extending the honours to more 'little' folk is frankly, just embarrassing.
Anyway.... a Happy New Year to you ! See you next year.
