A Nice Touch

Unless you've been living in a cave for the past month you can't fail to have realised politicians pounding the streets, pressing the flesh, frantically leafleting and kissing even the ugliest of babies. Yes, election day is just around the corner and seemingly every vote counts.

In the age of the internet, cheap reprographics and the podcast it's hardly surprising that most electoral candidates are seeking newfangled means of promoting their campaigns instead of the traditional method of banging on doors.

I don't know about you but, certainly as far as local politics goes, I'm not that keen on technological barriers between the electorate and their representatives. It's still nice to have some individual attention either on the doorstep or the phone.

This morning we received some electoral bumf through the door - not particularly uncommon in the days immediately before polling. What made this bumf different was that instead of being a shiny and offensively coloured leaflet it was actually in a tidy handwritten envelope bearing our names. Inside the envelope was a typed letter with a handwritten salutation and closing. It was in the hand of our local councillor Gordon Castle.

I don't suppose we're different to anyone else in an electoral division of some 3,200 people, which means Gordon and his team have been busy researching every one's names and hand writing envelopes, salutations and closings.

A small but nice personal touch I think. He's actually a very good councillor and we always vote for him anyway.

A New Broom Sweeps Clean

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was going to have a big tidy up. Well, clean up day has arrived and I am getting rid of all of the things that I thought I might need one day but haven't touched since. Unlike Trigger's broom on Only Fools and Horses most things do only have a finite lifetime and if you keep them purely for nostalgia then all you achieve is to collect dust and spiders.

Which brings me on to the pile of floppy disks that has adorned my desk for the past 2 or 3 years. Why oh why have I collected so many floppy disks? Obviously I collected them because at one time, long ago in computer evolutionary terms, they were the only convenient means of portable data storage. But for the last few years I haven't even been able to read them because I haven't got access to a floppy disk drive. It's like having a Picasso but keeping it in bubble wrap - absolutely pointless.

Bye bye floppies.

CDs are going the same way. I have data CDs which I haven't looked at in more than a year and I have no more need to look at because they have been surpassed by the writable DVDs and flash memory. A large proportion of new software - Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system being the prime example - now comes on DVD because it is that memory intensive. Microsoft, by withdrawing all support for its previous operating systems, is forcing the end user to adapt their practices in favour of the DVD. CDs will shortly become a thing of the past for computer users.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that things that were reliable in the past aren't necessarily so in the present and there's no need to keep them for merely for reflection.

Anyway, back to my cleaning. There's a whole stack of old journal articles and notes screaming to be binned.

Panic Buying Drains UK Petrol Pumps

Despite intensive talks between the unions and management workers have downed tools at the Grangemouth oil refinery. The action, in response to refinery owner INEOS's plans to change the pension entitlement of new workers, has also forced the closure of the Forties pipeline which supplies Britain with a third of its North Sea oil.

Despite the frantic efforts of the Government to deter panic buyers motorist have flocked to the pumps to top up their tanks. In a few cases petrol stations in the north of England ran dry as drivers queued around the block to purchase fuel.

John Hutton, the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, said: "There is every reason to believe that we will get through this period sensibly if people continue to buy fuel sensibly, too.

"But of course there is going to be a challenge if people change the way that they consume fuel."

The price of unleaded petrol has crept above the psychological £5 per gallon (110 pence per litre) mark in response to the current shortages. Some garages have taken to rationing customers by allowing each motorist to buy just £10 worth of petrol. Others have been accused of profiteering.

Fuel tankers from continental Europe are en-route to Scotland to bolster reserves but they aren't due to arrive for another couple of days - a case of too little too late yet again.

But on a positive note with the 10 pence tax debacle, teachers on strike, backbench revolts, Lord Levi knifing the PM and the ongoing fuel crisis it really is going to be an astronomically poor week for Labour in the Local Government Elections.

Every cloud has a silver lining!

Petrol Stations Running Dry

Grangemouth oil refinery.

What is it with this Government? The country seems to be lurching uncontrollably from one disaster to the next with teachers striking one day, prison officers threatening to the next and the threat of further public sector disputes later in the year.

To make matters worse the taps have been closed at Scotland's only oil refinery - a move that some unscrupulous petrol retailers have seized upon by making motorists pay through the nose for their fuel. Many others have been forced to ration the limited fuel they do have as apprehensive drivers queue at the pumps.

Up to 1,200 workers at INEOS's Grangemouth refinery on the south of the River Forth will be downing tools this weekend in a protest about their pension rights. Because there will be no-one to run the facility Ineos have to cease production at Grangemouth - a refinery processing 200,000 barrels of North Sea oil every day.

Unfortunately it isn't quite as simple as pushing the big red 'OFF' button - the refinery needs to run down a week prior to shutdown and will take a further week to return to maximum efficiency afterwards. The number crunchers estimate the closure will cost the UK economy £50 million each day.

To further complicate matters BP has said that it will need to shutdown the Forties pipeline, which provides a third of the UK's daily oil output, should the strike go ahead this weekend. The pipeline relies heavily on electricity and steam produced at the Grangemouth site.

The Government is trying to reassure motorists that there is enough fuel for everyone, although I seem to remember they also said that during the 2000 fuel protests that left almost every petrol station in the country bone dry.

I foresee a summer of discontent.

Lags Breaking into Prison

Drug dealers are breaking into prisons and inmates ignoring opportunities to escape their cushy lifestyle - those are two of the astonishing claims made recently by a leader of the Prison Officers' Association (POA).

Glyn Travis, the union's Assistant General Secretary, said that inmates in some of Britain's toughest prisons would rather take advantage of cheap drugs, prostitution and breakfast in bed than earn an honest living on the outside.

In an interview on Talk Sport Mr Travis highlighted the case of an unnamed establishment in Yorkshire where dealers have used ladders to take drugs into the prison.

"They had a ladder on the opposite side of the wall and prisoners were so comfortable in the environment they were living in, that none of the prisoners tried to climb up the ladder and escape.

"They had a ladder on the opposite side of the wall and prisoners were so comfortable in the environment they were living in, that none of the prisoners tried to climb up the ladder and escape."

Mr Travis also spoke of how outraged the taxpayer would be if they knew the true extent of the luxuries afforded to inmates.

He elaborated: "Prisoners receive a wage for being in prison, they receive a bed, a TV in all cells, free telephones, breakfast in bed on many occasions, cash bonuses for good behaviour; and prison staff are forced to deal with them in such a subservient way. It's ridiculous."

Speaking on Sky News earlier today the POA's General Secretary Brian Caton echoed the concerns of his colleague. He also warned that prison officers were likely to vote on further industrial action in the coming months.

Little has changed since the prison officers walked out on strike in August last year. The estate is still poorly maintained, over-crowded and morale of staff is at rock bottom.

Teacher Militancy

An estimated one million school children have an unexpected day off as members of the National Union of Teachers take strike action for the first time in a generation.

I'm not a huge fan of trade unions and even less so in trade union militancy. It reminds me of the bleak early-eighties when the nation was held to ransom by the unreasonable demands of the miners - not an appetising thought. Back then we gripped the miners hard and we were right to do so.

The crux of the situation today is that the NUT want more money for their members. They're under the impression that with 13-weeks holiday and a 2.45% pay award they're being hard done by. I would say to the teachers "join the club".

It's no secret to that the cost of living is rising by 4% per year and consequently a pay award of only 2.45% amounts to a pay cut in real terms. But everyone is in the public sector is in same situation - none of their pay awards are keeping pace with the cost of their mortgages, taxation, food or fuel.

So although the teachers may have a point they're by no means alone. What sort of a situation would we have if every public sector worker in the country shirked their responsibilities and went out on the picket lines? I dread to think.

Tom Speaks, Gordon Listens

So, the weak and ineffectual Labour Government has decided that they can rewrite the Budget after all. After a week of saying that the abolition of the 10 pence rate was a sound idea they have now all but admitted that they made a mistake.

The Government must have been cringing with embarrassment at PMQs yesterday as the Prime Minister tried to make it appear as if his sudden change of heart was all part of the master plan anyway. Brown managed to slot in a few digs about Conservative mismanagement of the economy in the early-nineties, but that did little to distract the viewing media from the conjuring act that was unfurling before their eyes.

The Government were forced into the humiliating retreat when a large number of Labour backbenchers, rallied by ex-minister Frank Field, threatened to rebel against the controversial tax-snatching decision. Had the amendment been voted on it would have almost certainly led to the Government's defeat and irreparably weakened Brown's tenure as PM.

Details are still sketchy but it's believed that the Government will compensate those who have lost out on the abolition of the 10 pence rate by increasing the minimum wage, tax credits and winter fuel allowance.

In effect the Government will be taking with one hand and giving back with the other - what's the point in that you might be thinking? The point is that it is the only way that the Prime Minister and Chancellor can furiously back pedal without making it look like a humiliating about face. Unfortunately for them they haven't managed to fool anyone.

The next Labour brainwave is the reduction in the basic rate of income tax from 22 pence to 20 pence in the pound. That reduction was also implemented this month and will be seen in the nation's pay packets in May. With the country facing such financial uncertainty I wonder how long it'll be before that headline-grabbing generosity is reneged on too? Stay tuned.

Criminal Incompetence

Hundreds of innocent Britons have mistakenly been branded as criminals by the Government's maligned Criminal Records Bureau (CRB).

The Bureau, established in 2002, performs criminal record checks on future employees on behalf of organisations throughout England and Wales - a process known as 'Disclosure'. There are two levels of Disclosure: Standard, which includes a check for previous convictions, and Enhanced, which also checks for non-conviction information held by the police.

CRB Disclosure is a prerequisite for many jobs where the individual concerned is in a position of trust - working with children and vulnerable adults being obvious examples.

The BBC's Watchdog programme recently highlighted the cases of teaching assistant Rachel Bunker and stuntman John Street who were both wrongly branded as criminals thanks to the negligence of the CRB.

Rachel's Disclosure mistakenly recorded that she had three convictions for theft dating back more than 20 years. It transpires that the Bureau had confused Rachel with someone else with a different name but the same date of birth (as you do). Despite having provided the CRB with supporting documents to that effect they still haven't rectified the problem a year after it was first put to them. Thankfully Rachel still managed to secure her job, but no thanks to the CRB.

John's case is even more alarming. When John received a copy of his Disclosure he was astonished to see it ran to ten pages long and included details of thirty convictions he didn't have. To make matters even worse these convictions, some relating to violence and drugs, had been wrongly adorning his record for more than 20 years. Fortunately for John he was able to convince the CRB of their mistake and they put matters right within a few months. However, John has no way of knowing how many previous jobs have been stolen from him thanks to the incompetence of the CRB and his local police forces.

Yet another example of a Government agency mismanaging the data they hold.

Happy Birthday Ma'am

Today is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's natural birthday. She is 82 years old.

I like the Queen. She is a tremendous asset to our nation and has done immeasurable work promoting the United Kingdom and Commonwealth overseas. It's important that people recognise the unconditional, un-party political loyalty that she offers the country. In times of adversity she is always there to counsel to her Government and reassure the people.

To all you people who cry for the abolition of the monarchy I say "up yours!"

Scottish Day Trip and St. George's Weekend

The Falkirk Wheel linking the Forth and Clyde Canal
and the Union Canal.

It's been a busy old weekend for me. On Friday I went on a fact finding mission to the Glasgow Science Centre and Falkirk Wheel. On Saturday and Sunday I've been celebrating St. George's Day.

The Glasgow Science Centre was quite interesting and there are lots of hands on exhibits to keep the youngsters entertained. Unfortunately there isn't much of appeal to anyone over the age of about 20 - even less so if you actually have some scientific knowledge. The highlight of the visit was an interactive demonstration about fire. I've written before about the primeval attraction of fire - the way it was discovered by our ancestors and used to provide warmth, light and cook food. This base instinct of harnessing the energy of fire comes to the fore when you're having a barbecue and everyone wants to cook! The demonstration included cooking of popcorn (lid off for added 'woo' factor), producing lightning with a Tesla coil, use of a flint and steel and igniting detergent-entrapped bubbles of methane. All pretty Key Stage 3 kind of stuff, but entertaining to watch nonetheless.

After Glasgow it was forty miles eastwards to The Falkirk Wheel. The double-gondola wheel links the two different levels of the Forth and Clyde Canal and the Union Canal. Both gondolas remain perfectly balanced due to the displacement and replacement of water as boats travel in or out - Archimedes principle. I went for a ride on the wheel on the aptly named British Waterways boat Archimedes which is the resident mode of tourist transport. Despite a vertical ascent of 35 metres there isn't actually that much to see from the top of the wheel's arc. The Grangemouth oil refinery pumps its black smoke in the distance. Immediately at the top of the wheel the now Union Canal passes under the remains of the Antonine wall but this is shrouded by the adjacent railway line and thick foliage.

Next to Saturday and the beginning of St. George's weekend. Most people don't celebrate St. George's Day but for reasons that may already be known to some of you it has a deeper meaning to some people in the North East. It is one of the Regimental Days of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The reason it is important to Fusiliers is that the Regiment was formed from its founding Regiments on St. George's Day back in 1968. It's a good excuse for Fusiliers, both old and young, to get together and reminisce about old times as well as look forward to the challenges that lie ahead. As with most other parts of the British Army the Fusiliers are called on increasingly, only to be slapped in the face by a dwindling amount of recognition and support. The Sunday is usually marked by a large parade in Newcastle, but unfortunately the Newcastle-Sunderland football derby meant this was watered down. I chose a lower key event in Berwick - a border town now lacking in Fusiliers of its own following the Labour Government's ill-conceived Strategic Defence Review back in 1997.

Anyway, I think I've written enough critical comment. Don't want to fall foul of the Thought Police!

So, I Was Saying

I wasn't really saying... at least I don't think I was.

You might remember that I wrote about my chronic lack of short-term memory of late. Well I had an absolute humdinger of a memory loss last night too. I was meant to be out teaching first aid so I got myself all ready and headed off to the venue. When I got there I sat and waited and waited some more. By about 7 pm, the time I was meant to start teaching, I was concerned at the dire lack of students so I rang around to see where they all were.

It turned out that I was an entire week early. I know punctuality is a virtue, but by a whole week is taking the piss. Doubly embarassing is the fact that I had the correct date and time written down on a note in my pocket.

It's fair to say that I sometimes struggle even getting the date right at the moment. I have the monthly task of collecting the family's prescriptions from the pharmacy. The prescriptions need to be signed and dated and it's not unusual for me to have to ask what the date is or stand scratching my head for a moment until I work it out.

Yet another example of how I am rapidly heading towards senility. I suppose I should be concerned, but I've spoken to at least one other person around my age who is having the same trouble when it comes to remembering and losing things.

Desperately Seeking Stardom

Poor old Gordon Brown, the most boring man in Britain, is having a rough time at the moment - manufacturing is down, growth down, house prices down, unemployment up and economic uncertainty looms. No wonder he is seen praying in the image above.

He could blame the current economic downturn on the Conservatives, but after nearly eleven years that old rhetoric is wearing thin. Incidentally those eleven years include a whole decade of Brown clutching Britain's financial purse strings as Chancellor.

Little wonder too that Brown is trying to raise his profile in the US - it may be one of his last chances. There's a train of thought that says when the Government is smashed to oblivion in next months Local Government elections it might encourage them to go to the nation quicker than 2010. Who knows? They would have gone to the polls last year but for the Prime Minister's last minute realisation that the Government might lose.

There's no escaping the fact that Britain's current economic woes lie squarely at the door of the Prime Minister. No amount of rose-tinted reflection on the Labour wonder years is going to change that fact. No amount of prudence now is going to deflect Britain from its perilous course. Shit creek is just over the next set of rapids and the paddles were dropped months ago.

Consider that when the Local Government elections arrive in only 3 weeks time.

Royal Sex and Drugs Blackmail Plot - Update

Regular readers might remember that I blogged about the Royal Sex and Drugs Blackmail Plot back in late October last year. I still get lots of hits from people looking for more details about that story, so today I present a mini update.

I really hit the ground running with my October article - I blogged literally as the story broke very early on a Sunday morning. This meant I beat most lazy journos and my smouldering article was well up the search engines all week. Hopefully I'll repeat that today by my strategic positioning of a Royal name.

The two men accused of committing the offence, Ian Strachan and Sean McGuigan, are before the High Court next Monday. According to newspaper reports today the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has taken the decision not to call the male Royal involved to give evidence.

It is alleged that Strachan and McGuigan threatened to release incriminating mobile phone footage unless the Royal paid them £50,000. The home movie is believed to show a Royal aide taking drugs and boasting of a homosexual encounter with the Royal victim. The victim's identity is protected by a court order.

Even so a piece in today's Daily Telegraph confirms that the Royal in question is married and has children, so that kills widespread cyber speculation that Lord Frederick Windsor is involved.

My money would have been on Freddie too. Still, it'll all come out in the wash.

Spring Cleaning

We've been in spring cleaning mode recently. During one of our regular visits to see my grandfather we happened to notice an unusual odour emanating from the kitchen. After much sniffing and poking about in the cupboards we still couldn't identify the source of the problem. We did however come to the conclusion that the house needed a good clean.

Time has stood still in that house since my grandmother died in late 2005. Sure, the carpets get vacuumed, windows cleaned and woodwork polished, but it's not in the same thorough and houseproud manner as when Gran was here. It's amazing how much junk mail had accumulated over the last three years - there were piles of it all over the place. For some reason Granda has taken to keeping hold of old receipts too - I don't know quite what good grocery receipts are from last year.

It's as if he can't bear to throw anything away. Most things only have a finite lifetime but try telling him that. A couple of years ago we noticed that his kettle wasn't working properly so we bought him a new one. Two years on and the same old kettle sits in the kitchen and our boxed replacement lies unopened in the garage. It's only a kettle - no more than £15 and he can't bear to throw it away until he's squeezed every last ounce of water boiling prowess from it.

Anyway, we filled the bin with as much tat and pointlessly horded trinkets as we could and deep cleaned the kitchen.

It's now time for me to clean my place of paperwork and textbooks collecting dust. I feel not one second of nostalgia towards them. Who's up for a bonfire?!

Linking to TJO - Use of Permalinks

Dear Readers,

One of the good things about a blog like this with lots of written content is that it tends to fair quite well in the search engines. Lots of people are referred here as a result of their search engine queries. This invariably means that visitors link to our articles and comment about them elsewhere.

While I am obviously keen that people share our articles it would be helpful if anyone doing so used the post's permalink instead of the site homepage. Each post title is a permalink - simply right click on the title and copy the link location to paste elsewhere.

Using the permalink guarantees that other people see the same content as you instead of stumbling across a completely irrelevant story on the homepage.

In the past people have linked to the homepage with eye catching anchor text like "Pensioner Beaten on Tram" only to find that by then the story has migrated to the archive and is at a different URL.

Thanks.

Terminal Decline

I've obviously had my finger off the button for a few days because this story just popped up and caught me completely unawares.

Whenever there's a Budget speech the Government likes to make announcements that won't come into effect until the next financial year or even later. This gives them time to reassess public opinion, balance their ledgers and sneakily retreat under the cover of the electorate's waning memory if it all goes Pete Tong.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, has just used this grace period to maximum effect by delaying a proposed 2 pence per litre rise in fuel duty which was announced last year until October this year. Such a price rise, had it been implemented this month as planned, would have coincided with the largest oil prices in more than a decade.

Gordon Brown announced a new 10 pence starting rate of income tax back in his March 1999 Budget speech. The reduced rate was swiftly implemented on the 6th April 1999.

At the time Brown said: "The new 10p rate - the lowest starting rate of tax in Britain for more than 35 years - will make work pay and help people, especially those who are low-paid, to keep more of the money that they earn.

"People will see the benefit of the new 10p tax rate in their first pay packet after 17 May - just a few weeks from now.

"As a result of the new 10p rate, 1.8 million low-paid workers will see their tax bills halved as a result - a gain of up to £150 a year. And from today too, every worker in Britain who pays national insurance will have their tax bills cut by £65 a year, because of the reforms we have made to national insurance contributions."

Brown concluded his rallying call with the words: "When we make promises, we keep them."

Although, it would seem, only until their mouthwatering impact has been felt at the ballot boxes.

In Gordon Brown's last Budget as Chancellor, back in March 2007, he announced the abolition of the ten pence starting rate of income tax. In its place he dangled a cut in the basic rate from 22 pence to 20 pence, but thats of little consolation to the 1.8 million lowest-paid people who currently reside on the 10 pence rate. These changes came into force yesterday, 6th April 2008.

Some Labour foot soldiers are a little bemused with Brown's decision to stamp on workers with low wages. A report by the Commons' Treasury Select Committee, which is dominated by Labour backbenchers, calls the move: "An unreasonable target for raising additional tax revenues to fund the benefits of tax simplification and meeting the needs of children in poverty."

Chairman John McFall said: "While tax simplification is a laudable aim, it seems strange that the abolition of the 10 pence starting rate of income tax disadvantages mainly low income households.

"As such, the Government must ensure that the people are identified, and appropriate help given to them to ensure they receive the benefits to which they are entitled."

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said that: "Last week Gordon Brown was heckled at the rowdy parliamentary Labour Party meeting about his doubling of the 10 pence tax rate, and 30 Labour MPs signed a motion against the rise.

"Now the Labour-dominated Treasury Select Committee has launched a stinging attack."

The Committee said that people could lose out by as much as £232 per year under the new tax banding and warned that households without children and low income individuals over the age of 65 would be hit the hardest.

This tightening of the Government's purse strings comes at a time when their own growth forecast has been downscaled, house prices have peaked and public sector workers are up in arms over their pay and conditions.

Remember that when you vote in the Local Government elections on 4th May.

Did You Fall Foul of an April Fool?

The BMW M6 Coupe - complete with piss repellent alloys.

I like the first of April. Every year I scour the newspapers for bizarre looking stories written by unusually named authors - a large proportion of whom are anagrams of the phrase 'April fool'. The advertisers also have a field day by announcing wacky additions to their product ranges.

The first thing that caught my eye this morning was the news that BMW are introducing a smart system of Canine Repellent Alloy Protection across their entire range. Put another way dog piss repellent alloys? Come on!

There were also plenty of rumours abound about French First Lady Carla Bruni. Sky News were promising viewers all morning that topless shots of the Italian model would be on the screen shortly. I was disappointed when Kay Burley reminded viewers to check their calendars at around lunchtime. In the Guardian virgin reporter Avril de Poisson revealed that Bruni had been appointed as the Government's new style guru for Britain. The Sun also poked fun at the stature of her husband Nicholas Sarkozy by saying that he was to undergo stretch treatment to add 5 inches to his height.

One of the better April Fools' Day jokes involved an unusual three way collaboration between a gutter tabloid, cerebral broadsheet and national television broadcaster. The Daily Mirror and Daily Telegraph gave near identical accounts of a fascinating new BBC documentary series called Miracles of Evolution. Each of their websites carried a 90 second BBC trailer that showed amazing footage of penguins flying to the Amazon rainforest.



Internet giant Google who brought us such charms as pigeon rank and GMail paper were at it again today with the announcement that they were launching something called Custom Time. The ingenious system would allow GMail users to send emails that would appear in the recipient's inbox in the desired chronological order. Never forget to send an email again - with Custom Time your email goes back in time!

Of course there were a few things that made it to today's papers that as inplausible as they sounded were actually true. The idea of Nick Clegg having more than thirty lovers immediately springs to mind.