England may be a green and pleasant land, but getting around it on foot is proving harder than ever as council cuts leave footpaths blocked, run-down and overgrown, according to a report. A report by The Ramblers, no less (it seems they’ve dropped the ‘Association’ from their title as part of a rebranding exercise). The organisation used the Freedom of Information Act to discover that more than 30 per cent…
Jake Bowers, the ‘Guardian’s Romany correspondent, on the expected Roma influx: As January 2014 approaches and the anti-immigration lobby warns of the arrival of millions from Romania and Bulgaria, it’s essential that progressive politicians – and I’m assuming Blunkett considers himself one – understand why 200,000 Roma migrants have already fled poverty, persecution and discrimination to live in the relative comfort of British cities. Whoops! Guess no-one told Nick Clegg.…
Antony Loewenstein becomes yet another ‘do Australia down’ columnist for the ‘Guardian’: This silence, which stretches across the country only to reach the highest levels of the political and media elites, is arguably Australia’s greatest outrage, and a stain on our projected global image as an egalitarian state with justice for all. This ‘silence’ being, it would seem, the silence of white Australia to the awful news that the prison…
Another school term, another fuss over uniform requirements and another case where you wonder who is the adult, and who the child: Holly-Mae Donaldson, 13, was told to go back to her Hester’s Way home on the first day of term because her skirt conflicted with the academy’s uniform code. Diane Donaldson, from Lee Close, called the decision to ban her daughter from classes “appalling”, and said she was disgusted…
Ian Birrell has had his (unrealistic) hopes dashed: Tomorrow marks one year since the Paralympics, that glorious festival of sport, began. It ended with highfalutin speeches and proclamations of a seismic change in attitudes. We were told people would never see disability in the same way after witnessing the dazzling exploits of David Weir. And you believed that? Really? Good lord! The sad reality is little has changed. Yes, there…
It seems H G Wells was right. Over in France, the Eloi are starting to realise the Morlocks are among them: In recent years, with the EU’s relaxation of travel restrictions across mainland Europe, hundreds of thousands of Roma gipsies, mostly from Romania and Bulgaria, have travelled west in search of a better life. As many as half a million are estimated to be living in France, according to the…
Wealthy gay dad, Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, says he and his civil partner Tony will go to court to force churches to host gay weddings. He told the Essex Chronicle that he will take legal action because “I am still not getting what I want”. Slippery slope..? Nah. That couldn’t have been predicted, right? H/T: TabithaBrowne via Twitter
The lesson from this weekend should be that we are stronger when united. It is tempting to see a conflict between the kind of protests we saw on Saturday, and attempts at dialogue, such as when York mosque invited EDL protesters to sit down for tea and biscuits. But they’re both necessary: when people are angry and want answers, talk to them. When fascists try to intimidate us by marching…
…via Aditya Chakrabortty: It’s a good question. Don’t surveys repeatedly show Sweden as one of the happiest countries (certainly a damn sight cheerier than Britain)? Isn’t it famous for its equality, its warm welcome to immigrants? Whatever happened to Stockholm, capital of progressivism, the Mecca towards which Guardianistas face for their daily five minutes of mindfulness? We all know the cliches, but the reality is they no longer fit the…
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…
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