Or just more woeful handling of public money, mixed with a little soupcon of identity politics? A controversial plan to scrap the free parking enjoyed by more than 10,000 Blue Badge holders in the New Forest is today at the centre of a new row. Civic chiefs have been accused of wasting public money after accelerating plans to replace equipment installed only nine years ago. It seems they need to…
Gill Brown, chief executive of charity Brighter Futures, said increasing numbers of people are turning to drugs and alcohol because of the stress of daily life, which has been intensified in the recession. “We know there is more drug and alcohol misuse leading to hospital admission in Stoke-on-Trent than on average, and the number of suicides is rising rapidly,” she said.” Incredibly, she then went on to blame…poverty! Clearly, the…
Eric Samuel MBE, CEO of Community Food Enterprise, says Barking and Dagenham is rife with areas where affordable healthy food is scarce or difficult to access. It is? News to those of us who grew up there and still have occasion to visit or pass through! He said: “Barking and Dagenham is by far the worst. If you look around the Thames View Estate in Barking you will see there…
Immigrants attempting to gain residency in Blackburn have said a new citizenship test for foreign nationals will not equip them for life in the UK. The Life in the UK exam focuses on British history, with no requirement to know how to register with a GP, how to ring for an ambulance, or what to do if someone is attacking your neighbour which is currently required. Oh noes! No advanced…
The head of a Gravesend school yards from where a 12-year-old girl was hit by a car and dragged under a bus this morning is calling for urgent action… Oh, let me guess. Speed restrictions? It is, after all, the usual demand. That, or lollipop patrols. … to slash the volume of traffic. Eh..?! How..? What’s causing it? The section of Rochester Road, between the junctions with Forge Lane and…
…is that sooner or later, you find your back against the cliff. Sometimes literally: The council wants to build 1,200 homes across the borough and is promising a mix of council homes and first time buyer schemes, but residents say it could damage the character of the town. It’s already evident in Southend itself that the character of the town has changed, and not for the better, thanks to its proximity to…
An 18-year-old girl has been killed after her car crashed into a telegraph pole weeks after she passed her driving test. Hannah Lodge was driving towards Langtoft on the B1249 when her grey Suzuki smashed into a telegraph pole. I have no doubt the people who last week were clamouring for restrictions on newly-qualified drivers carrying passengers, as Longrider blogged, will have a contingency plan for singletons up their sleeve.…
Police are warning that a child could be killed crossing car-clogged streets at school time after a pupil was knocked down. The nine-year-old Bridlington schoolgirl escaped with minor injuries after being hit by a car as she tried to cross between parked vehicles. Great, so…they are warning the schoolchildren, right? Insp Hughes is urging parents to avoid clogging up the streets outside schools with parked cars as they wait to…
Tireless #firstworldproblems finder SE Smith gripes about the ‘commodification’ of breast cancer awareness campaigns: …groups like Breast Cancer Action are having to fight cancer on two fronts: battling for patients, as well as fighting the rise of pinkification. The group points out that many of the products tied to breast cancer awareness are themselves linked with cancer, or are produced by firms with a terrible record on environmental pollution and…
Lynsey Hanley (again) missing the point: When Zadie Smith defends public libraries, you know that it’s not because it is fashionable to do so: it’s because, in her estimation, she owes her life to them. Really? According to popular music, it’s possible for a DJ to save your life, but a library? “When we were children, you’d never imagine that you’d get into a right/left argument about the purpose and…
Children commit crime because they lack morals and not just because of the environment they live in, according to a study carried out by local researchers which has now been finalised by Paige, a representative for Avon and Somerset Constabulary. Really? Well, I never! Who’da thunk it? *continue ad infinitum* Researchers studied around 600 young people in Bristol and discovered that most adolescent crime is not just youthful opportunism. In…
Their names are Claire, Billy, Amira, Sydnee, Trey. Regular east London kids, some of the many who came along to the Poplar Boys and Girls Youth Club in Tower Hamlets during two days in August to have their pictures taken, and to say what they thought child poverty in the UK was and how they felt about it. Yes, it’s the good old ‘Guardian’ carrying water for the fakecharities yet…
For Somalis in Britain, the answer at least seems to be ‘Yes’: Teachers and community workers hope they’ll be able to harness that enthusiasm and confidence in their efforts to address the long-standing problem of Somali pupils’ underachievement. The Department for Education’s statistics on attainment aren’t broken down into ethnic groups beyond broad categories like “Black African”, so there is no national data on how Somali pupils are faring.But in…
Chibundu Onuzo relates tales of life in modern Nigeria: On my last trip to Lagos, I drove past a new supermarket in an upper-middle-class part of the city. It was a huge concrete thing with sliding electronic gates, CCTV cameras and the sleek live wires that have replaced barbed wire in all fashionable districts. I remarked to my cousin, who was driving, that the building hadn’t been therea year ago.”You…
On Friday afternoon, Joanne Corboy, 37, from Leigh, and Catherine Osborne, 43, from Westcliff, spotted two 11-year-olds struggling in the water off Chalkwell Beach. Ms Corboy and a male passer-by went into the water and dragged the youngsters out, while Ms Osborne stayed on shore and called the emergency services. The boys, called Liam and Shane, were taken to Southend Hospital for treatment. Phew! All’s well that ends well? Little…
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