<< Aug 2009 We are causing Earth's 'sixth great extinction event' Friday, July 31st, 2009 - 10:00 am
A review, published in the journal Conservation Biology, shows that human activity in one way shape or form is driving species to extinction in the Southern Hemisphere.
Richard Kingsford, at the University of New South Wales says, "Much of it [natural environment] is being destroyed before our eyes. Species are being threatened by habitat loss and degradation, invasive species, climate change, over-exploitation, pollution, and wildlife disease".
Proof if any were needed that we need to urgent action to reduce carbon emissions and pollution, as well as limiting land clearing, logging, and mining; restricting deliberate introduction of invasive species; and limiting fisheries.
It is demand in the Northern Hemisphere, and in particular the industrialised countries that drives these destructive activities.
We must counter all the naysayers and climate "sceptics" soon otherwise there will not be much of a planet left for our grandchildren to inherit. A dozen years of mismanagement, misgovernment, and missed opportunities Thursday, July 30th, 2009 - 9:28 am
A poll in the Independent has the Lib Dems on a healthy 18%, which is a good launchpad for the forthcoming general election.
Labour, are utterly exhausted and demoralised and riven by infighting, while there is still evidence of a continuing lack of enthusiasm for the Tories despite the deep hostility to the Government.
What we must do as a party is to come up with much more imaginative and radical proposals to put before the British public to win them over to us.
Here's one for starters, we've long argued for fixed-term parliaments, well why not go one further and have fixed terms for ALL of our elected representatives?
I suggest four parliaments or fifteen years, whichever is the longer. This would remove all charges of our elected representatives "being in it for themselves", and would have the added benefit of rejuvenating the benches much more quickly. RIP Harry Patch Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 - 12:07 am
Over the week-end I wrote of the death of Harry Patch, it was interesting that he had refused to discuss his war experiences, until about a dozen years back when approached by the BBC for a documentary.
He was quoted as saying "if any man tells you he went over the top and he wasn't scared, he's a damn liar".
He later said how when faced with a German soldier he remembered the commandment, 'thou shalt not kill', and couldn't kill him and instead, shot him in the shoulder, which made him drop his rifle. But as the German carried on, he shot him in the leg, "I brought him down, but I didn't kill him".
Five years ago, he met Charles Kuentz, a 107-year-old German veteran of the battle of Passchendaele,he was quoted as saying, "Herr Kuentz is ... all for a united Europe and peace – and so am I".
If it was good enough for two survivors of "the War to end all wars", it's good enough for me.
RIP Harry. Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman says the recession would "certainly" be worse under Tories Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 - 9:34 am
A couple of weeks back, I was in London for a Lib Dem reception and bumped into Vince Cable, or Blessed St Vincent of the Immaculate Perception as I like to think of him.
Lo and behold there is a piece in today's Independent where he says that "if there were fiscal contraction it would aggravate [the] recession".
So there you have it things are bad now, but boy would they be worse under "Nice" David Cameron, Philip "Slasher" Hammond, and George "Nice but Dim" Osborne Curriculum tsar vows to make school more 'business friendly' Monday, July 27th, 2009 - 9:55 pm
Those words in today's Independent sent a chill down my spine.
Education is not supposed to provide foot-soldiers for business. I believe that the job of schools and education in general, is best expounded by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in "Emile", namely that all children are perfectly designed organisms, ready to learn from their surroundings so as to grow into virtuous adults.
I really can't take the words of Andrew Hall, the new head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency that seriously, given that he apparently rejected a teaching career for accountancy.
What you need is MORE people in education who love, respect, and cherish children rather than be worried about double entry book-keeping.
Maybe I should send him a copy of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed? Keighley Civic Service Sunday, July 26th, 2009 - 12:02 am
Off to the Church of Our Lady of Victories in Keighley for Cllr Ward's Civic Service later today, am really looking forward to it.
The great thing about this country is that civic life is out in the public and not behind closed doors, so that all who may have concerns can address them to their representatives. Why is Jeremy Clarkson such an obnoxious little oik? Saturday, July 25th, 2009 - 8:21 pm
For once I actually don't have an answer, I genuinely, truly, madly, deeply want to know.
He epitomises ALL that is wrong with modern Britain, the incivility, the bullying, the thuggery, the total idiocy masquerading as blunt-speaking.
Whatever, one thinks of Gordon Brown, and I certainly am not a fan, to call him the c-word in public, is an insult too far.
Please Auntie starve this gobby sub-golf club wiseacre of the oxygen of publicity, however much money he brings in in overseas sales. "The noblest of all the generations" Saturday, July 25th, 2009 - 6:39 pm
It is with much sadness that I heard of the death of Harry Patch, the last British soldier to have served in the Great War trenches, at the age of 111. Is this the end of New Labour? Friday, July 24th, 2009 - 1:33 pm
What a disaster for the government, the Norwich North election results, though not terribly good for us Lib Dems was a disaster for the government.
We have to ensure that as a party we give the British electorate a distinctive enough choice to be electorally appealing.
As for the question "is this the end of New Labour?", the answer must be no because David Cameron is waiting in the wings to continue a dozen years of neo-conservative policy to the max. European Coal and Steel Community founded Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 - 9:08 am
Some of you may remember that I was a Lib Dem candidate for the recent elections to the European Parliament.
Well one reason, was the rather prosaic seeming foundation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1952. Barely a decade after the worst conflict this continent had seen, the ECSC was the first organisation to be based on the principles of supranationalism.
It was formed on the principle that if the two most important resources for the continent was in communal hands then we'd never go to war again.
It brought together France, West Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries to lay the foundation for the modern-day developments of the European Union. Ignorance is no protection Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 - 10:12 am
There was a news story about how teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases rose sharply amongst American school girls who were urged to avoid sex before marriage under George Bush's evangelically-driven education policy.
And there seems to be greater incidence of teenage pregnancies and STDs in the southern states, where there is usually the greatest emphasis on abstinence and religion.
Proof, if any were needed, of the need to provide the best contraceptive, and relationship advice possible in schools, and to keep God out of the classroom. Privit Edukashen - III Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 - 4:50 pm
A report by Alan Milburn released today says that top professions like medicine and law are increasingly being closed off to all but the most AFFLUENT families.
Note, the most affluent, not the brightest and the best, but the wealthiest.
We must work to close the gap between talent and privilege, we need a far fairer society where everyone gets an opportunity to contribute to the best of their abilities and is not excluded because of an accident of birth.
The full report is available from the Cabinet Office website as a PDF file, well worth the reading. 'never had it so good'? Monday, July 20th, 2009 - 12:51 am
Fifty years back Prime Minister Harold Macmillan told us we'd never had it so good, and in crude economic terms the trend has continued.
However, one question still remains, "why does health within a population get progressively worse further down the socio-economic scale?"
A cracking book by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (The Spirit Level), not only tries to answer this question, but comes up with even more profound findings, namely that in countries where there is a big gap between the incomes of rich and poor, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, obesity and teenage pregnancy are more common, the homicide rate is higher, life expectancy is shorter, and children's educational performance and literacy scores are worse.
Where incomes are relatively equal, there are high levels of trust, people feel secure, and see others as co-operative. In unequal societies, the rich suffer from fear of the poor, while the poor look upon the rich with bitterness and on themselves with shame.
Sadly, over the past dozen years the Labour government has only maintained inequality at the level at which it inherited it.
Credit where credit is due, there have been some moves for the better at the bottom income levels for pensioners and young families, but the problem is at the other end. Remember Mandy saying, "We're relaxed about people getting filthy rich"?
We Lib Dems believe in freedom, fairness, and trust... Actually, read the box on the right. Privit edukashen - II Sunday, July 19th, 2009 - 10:48 am
I appreciate that some of you reading the previous post may have seen it as a bit of a rant, and for that I apologise.
I really shouldn't post late at night, however the central premise I still hold, namely that private education seeks merely to entrench and widen privilege based on class and wealth.
Now I readily admit that there are some benefits to those who go through, but at what price and at what cost to whom?
Indeed, some of my best friends have had a private education, and don't seem the worse for it, as indeed has my party leader.
I re-iterate I want the BEST education for ALL of our children.
The figures speak for themselves, just 7% of the population are educated at a private school, they then go on to provide half of the intake at Oxford and Cambridge universities.
From there it's just a hop, skip, and a jump to the heart of the establishment. Nearly three quarters of judges, about a third of FTSE 100 chief executives, half of all senior journalists, and a third of MPs are privately schooled.
Of course ALL of us want the best for our children, in education, in health, and in life in general, but NEVER at the expense of another child's life chances.
Only when the state education system is so good that the accepted wisdom is: "You were educated privately? What a shame. State schools are SO much better!" can we be satisfied. Privit edukashen, a waist of munny? Sunday, July 19th, 2009 - 12:13 am
Private schools cheat the taxpayer out of millions of pounds under the guise of being charities, though what good they do society at large has forever escaped me.
The Tory front-bench is famously full of privately-educated bods, as is Boris Johnson the Mayor of London, though it is sometimes difficult to see what good it's done them apart from providing with a social cachet and the ability to spot each other at fifty paces.
Look at the sentence below from the Mayor's warning on business rates.
Boris says: "Watching the hoards stream over London Bridge..."
Oh dear! Oh dear! Johnson see the beak after class for substandard work.
A hoard is a hidden or secret supply or fund, and in archaeology a cache of valuable objects or artefacts; as in treasure trove.
A horde, however, is a wandering tribe of nomadic people (originally Tatars as in the Golden Horde) migrating for the sake of plunder. Generally nowadays used to mean a large number of people.
I suppose we should be grateful he didn't use another homophone, whored.
If I was Boris's dad, I'd ask Eton to return his tuition fees.
There is something fundamentally un-British about private education something grubby where daddy's ill-gotten wealth is used to push junior to the front of the queue.
It's just not cricket!
I am passionate about the best education for ALL our children, not educational apartheid and division based on wealth, faith, or perceived academic ability at age 11. Yevtushenko's Zima Junction Saturday, July 18th, 2009 - 12:14 pm
As we get older we become more open,
and therefore we bless our lucky stars...
The changes taking place in life quite often
coincide with changes taking place in us. Happy Birthday Nelson Mandela! Saturday, July 18th, 2009 - 1:04 am
Today is Nelson Mandela's 91st birthday and also Mandela Day.
Nelson Mandela has fought for social justice for 67 years, and so the campaign is asking people to start with 67 minutes.
Today should bring together people around the world to fight poverty and promote peace and reconciliation.
Well I'll be on a stall in Todmorden doing my bit, not much I know, but every little helps. Significant anniversaries Friday, July 17th, 2009 - 11:10 pm
Two anniversaries that I want to flag up, one in 1936 and the other in 1942.
In 1936 in Spain an Armed Forces rebellion against the recently-elected legitimate Popular Front government of the day started the civil war, which was possibly the most heroic moment of the left in Europe until that moment.
Six years later, for different reasons, during the Second World War the Battle of Stalingrad was to decide future of Europe. Iceland to be 28th? Friday, July 17th, 2009 - 12:52 pm
Back in April, I mentioned the Icelandic general elections and predicted how the result may eventually lead to Iceland joining the European Union, well guess what?
Today the Althing (the Icelandic Parliament) formally applied to join to become the 28th member of the European family.
It's rare that I make predictions, and even rarer that they come true, but on this one "gangi þér vel Ísland". "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" Thursday, July 16th, 2009 - 11:44 am
Forty years ago, on a Wednesday I believe, my class at Redlands Junior School had gathered in the hall, to watch the Apollo 11 launch.
There'd been a big build-up to the whole event, the Radio Times even had a rocket on the cover with the caption “Target Moon”.
That evening I was fascinated by the BBC's coverage, and thought that James Burke was the most brilliant person I'd ever seen.
Like most children of the Space Age, the first job I wanted when I grew up was to be a cosmonaut, like my hero Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.
Amazing how a race that developed out of the Cold War, eventually produced one of the greatest achievements in human history. BoJo - Some chicken some neck Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 - 12:09 am
Keep repeating to yourself "Tories aren't Toffs, Tories aren't Toffs".
Lovable (?) buffoon, Classicist, adulterer, Old Etonian, former Tory Shadow Front-bencher (twice), ex-MP for Henley, Boris "Boom Boom" Johnson, has revealed that £140,000 for running our nation's capital as its Mayor is not enough.
I know we're all having to tighten our belts in these straitened times, and some people have to hold down more than one job to make ends meet, but this is ridiculous. He allegedly gets paid £250,000 for a weekly column in the Daily Telegraph.
That's right, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, sterling.
I'll do some maths for you that's fifty columns, so about £5,000 a piece, at about a 1,000 words that works out to £5 a word, or a pound a letter.
I repeat a pound a letter.
Now, I'm not a fan of Johnson's, nor the Daily Telegraph, nor yet its tax exile billionaire owners, the Barclay Twins, but what they do with their money is their business.
But what really galls, what sticks in my craw, is Johnson's asinine comment that the fee he receives as a lickspittle wordsmith is... "chickenfeed".
* Ten times the national average wage, is "chicken feed".
* Enough to house, clothe, and feed TEN ordinary hard working British families, is "chickenfeed".
* The Old Age Pension is £95.25, Johnson gets paid, for one column mind, what a pensioner gets for a YEAR. That's "chickenfeed".
* The minimum wage is £5.73 an hour, Johnson gets paid the national minimum wage for writing one letter. ONE LETTER. And that's "chickenfeed".
* A small infant school costs around £250,000 a year to run, that's what Johnson gets, "chickenfeed".
Remember that, next time you think what a nice bloke that Dave Cameron is, and that you'll give him a chance, and trust him with your vote. Remember the Tories, and their backwardness, their arrogance, their smug self-righteous superiority, their lack of knowledge of and feeling for ordinary folk. Where's the money come from Dave? Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 - 2:29 pm
Every time that David "call me Dave" Cameron tries to claim that the Tories have changed (!) along comes a new scandal to bite him on the bum.
Lord Ashcroft, deputy party chairman is a "non-dom" who has bankrolled Tory candidates in marginal constituencies (like Keighley) to the tune of thousands of pounds.
When he was ennobled in 2000, Ashcroft assured us all that he would start to pay UK taxes, but refuses to confirm that this is so.
Like most people, I think that Fat Cat Tory donors must pay their dues to the country before they pay their subs to their party. And the Tories must stop taking what many people believe to be "dirty money". Bastille Day - pleasant exercise of hope and joy Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 - 9:14 am
Today is Bastille Day, and I am celebrating as ever. I've just bought a croissant and the coffee pot is on the boil, I've even treated myself to a copy of Libé, well a couple of pages off the Libération webpage.
Anyway I digress.
I love "le quatorze juillet", I love the republican feel, I love its symbolism as an act of rebellion, I love the fact that a few weeks later feudalism was abolished, and a couple of weeks after that, the Declaration of the Rights of Man was proclaimed.
I shall make a nice cassoulet for my wife and boys for tea tonight. I know it's really a winter dish, but the weather is pretty overcast today.
When we've put the boys to bed, I think we'll watch Casablanca. I just love the bit when everyoe in Rick's Cafe, of all colours and nationalities join in with singing the Marseillaise, and drown out Nazis.
It still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The Day Music Changed the World Monday, July 13th, 2009 - 10:31 am
Today two dozen years ago, a brilliant idea born out of two men's obsession and determination gave us Live Aid. How Magnificent!
The famine in Ethiopia the previous summer had been of almost Biblical proportions, and genuinely moved people in this country like no other natural disaster. I remember, how everyone I knew was so moved and wanted to do something about it.
Over Christmas there was Band Aid, and in the months that followed the concert grew and grew and grew.
As a charity fundraiser it had been hoped that Live Aid would raise £1m, the final figure was £150m.
It was as I said on the day magnificent, my favourite acts were U2, Sade, David Bowie, The Four Tops, The Pretenders, Santana, Madonna and of course The Cars singing "Drive".
Brilliant. An hour to play, and the last man in... Sunday, July 12th, 2009 - 7:38 pm
Well, what a match!
Paul Collingwood emulated his namesake to defiantly bring England in for a draw against Australia in Cardiff. 343 minutes, 245 balls, and 74 scored, well done that man.
Oh and three cheers for Monty Panesar, he even got a boundary.
"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"
Roll on Lord's. Srebrenica- "People are not little stones" Saturday, July 11th, 2009 - 9:07 am
Today is the anniversary of the most horrific atrocity on European soil in my lifetime, namely the genocide at Srebrenica in the former Yugoslavia.
In July 1995 more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed, and 25,000-30,000 refugees were "ethnically cleansed" in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska under the command of General Ratko Mladić.
The presiding judge at the Hague said, "The Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the forty thousand Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica... They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity".
The Srebrenica massacre is the largest mass murder in Europe since World War II. It was and remains a shameful stain on the conscience of Europe.
We must never allow such barbarity to occur again, and by strengthening the European Union and embedding democracy across Europe, we will go a long way to achieving this goal. The wheels begin to come off the Cameron juggernaut. Friday, July 10th, 2009 - 1:13 am
There's an old saying to the effect of when you sup with the devil you should use a long spoon.
Given the undue and malign influence that Aussie/Yank Rupert Murdoch's News International empire exerts on the body politic of this country, it is shocking though somehow not surprising to hear that they've just had to pay out a million pounds for tapping into people's private phonecalls.
Now it happens that the editor of the News of the World at the time that these unethical and underhand activities took place was one Andy Coulson. He stood down in 2007 and is now communications chief for the Tories.
Cameron believes Coulson is invaluable because he has sharpened the Tories' act in the last two years, and so seems to be standing by him come what may. This shows how Cameron protects members of his inner circle while doing little to support other Tories, leaving them to the wolves.
Coulson is vital to the Cameron Project, while others are "modernisers" he reminds "Dave" not to forget the bread and butter issues of Tory politics, crime and tax, and good relations with the mass-circulation tabloids.
Now it turns out that as editor he was "unaware" of any shenanigans going on in his paper. Hmmmm.
Watch this space! Nick Griffin-what an arse! Thursday, July 9th, 2009 - 1:11 am
Honestly, how crap do you have to be when even European fascists don't want to sit with you? Oh yes, when you are the BNP!
News comes that having been elected to the European Parliament, he cannot find enough European MEPs to sit with him and Andrew Brons.
Instead the Italian neo-fascists, the Greek far-right, the Slovak xenophobes, and various anti-Semites, feel that the BNP is beyond the pale and would rather sit with UKIP (whose members are old-fashioned "golf club" bigots). This is UKIP, who in the last European Parliament lost two of its members because of fraud!
The Italian Lega Nord leader Umberto Bossi described African immigrants as "bingo-bongos".
The leader of the Greeks in this group challenged the Israeli ambassador in Greece to come and discuss the "Auschwitz and Dachau myth", and claimed that "the Pope and the Jews are conspiring against Greece" and suggested that "the Jews" were responsible for the September 11 attacks.
The Slovaks in this motley crew are the SNS who are a "political party which incites or attempts to stir up racial or ethnic prejudices and racial hatred".
Their leader Ján Slota once said the best policy for dealing with the Roma was "a long whip in a small yard". He is quoted as saying "we will sit in our tanks and destroy Budapest" and that "The Hungarians are a cancer in the body of the Slovak nation".
Let me remind you that this lot REFUSED to sit with the ridiculous "Laurel and Hardy" of the Fascist world.
Griffin, "would be Fuhrer of the BNP", has been a Tory, a revolutionary nationalist, a radical National Socialist, a Third Positionist, a friend of the boot boys and the skinhead scene, and a man committed to respectable politics.
He has however, kept his links with the far right in Europe and America, where he has spoken on platforms with white supremacists, anti-Semites, Islamophobes, and Holocaust-deniers. He is obsessed with a coming race war and has called for adults to keep "in their homes a standard-issue military assault rifle and ammunition".
Well this week he outdid himself when talking about African immigration to Europe, when he said "The only measure, sooner or later, which is going to stop immigration... is to get very tough with those coming over... Frankly, they need to sink several of those boats".
How Christian of him, the jumped up little oik! Flipping Heck. Tory would-be Chancellor owes us £55k. Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 - 2:21 am
George Osborne, heir to the baronetcy of Ballentaylor in Ireland, has avoided £55,000 in capital gains tax by 'flipping' his second home allowance.
The Lib Dem treasury team have revealed, that he claimed his second home allowance on a London property for two years which he later sold for £1.48m, a £748,000 profit.
The capital gains liabilities for those two years would amount to £54,948. You can't tell the taxman one tale and the fees office another.
Osborne is a member of the Irish Ascendancy, the old Anglo-Irish aristocracy. So you know that "he feels our pain", in the current economic climate.
How can this man be put in charge of the country's finances? Spread Persepolis Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 - 12:43 am
It explains all you need to know about what's been happening in Iran over the last few weeks. Life expectancy gap between rich and poor is widening! Sunday, July 5th, 2009 - 9:28 pm
The gap in life expectancy between the prosperous middle classes and those in the most deprived homes is widening sharply.
The emerging pattern suggests that the well-off are adopting healthier lifestyles while the poor are still drinking and smoking and cannot afford to change diets.
Men in Blackpool now live on average 10.5 years fewer than their counterparts in Kensington. Whilst women in Hartlepool have the lowest female life expectancy, around 9.6 years less than in the central London borough.
This is simply not good enough, whilst life expectancy has been rising for the past two centuries, the gap is ever widening.
Yet another damning indictment of New Labour's inattention to the needs of the working classes. Happy Birthday USA Saturday, July 4th, 2009 - 10:24 am
Who would have thought 233 years ago, that Americans would celebrate Indepenence Day under a Black President?
Another first for Obama, as for me I'm off to celebrate Bradford's Civic Service in my role as Deputy Mayor of Calderdale. The current state of Britain... Friday, July 3rd, 2009 - 12:19 am
Labour have now been in government for more than a dozen years.
This government started with so much hope, (do you remember "Things can only get better"? I do) but now we are left with so much disappointment. Labour has wasted its opportunities and wasted your money.
They've invested in health and education but lacked the courage that would have allowed them to spend it effectively.
They've failed to build a fairer society and instead inequality has increased and social mobility fallen. They're the party of redistribution but in the wrong direction.
Above all they will be remembered for going to war in Iraq. It was an illegal war waged on false claims. Labour may have taken the decision to go to war but the Tories voted it through.
Even before the current Economic Crisis, the gap between rich and poor is now wider than at any time than under Mrs T.
Shame! Alles gute zum Geburtstag Herman Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 - 11:29 pm
July 2nd is Herman Hesse's birthday. Hesse is one of my favourite authors, whom I discovered in my teens.
On a boat trip to France in the 1970s, a classmate disgustedly threw a book to me that he no longer wanted to read. It was called Steppenwolf, and he'd bought it in the mistaken belief it was about the heavy rock band of the same name.
After a few pages, I was captivated.
Upon our return to England, I bought and devoured everything else that Hesse had written.
I loved The Prodigy, Siddhartha, Narcissus and Goldmund, and The Glass Bead Game.
His work in shot through with humanity, and the individual's search for truth, self-knowledge, and spirituality. A dozen years of a Labour Government and the inequality gap is still widening Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 - 1:21 am
We all know that the Tories are for the well-off, viz Tory MPs' moats, duck houses, caviar-stuffed foie gras (okay, I made that last one up), but one thing we all knew (sic) was that Labour was for cutting the gap between the rich and the poor. In fact the last time that happened was under the Wilson/Callaghan government of the 1970s.
However, thanks to a fellow councillor and statistics supplied by the Left Economics Advisory Panel:
* 13.2m people live in poverty, including 2.1m pensioners and 3.9m children.
* Over 20% are officially income poor, in 1979 it was 13%. However, 58% of British Asian and 40% of Black British people are income poor.
* The poorest 20% of the population pay nearly 40% of their total income in taxes, compared to 34.8% for the richest 20%.
* At 17% of average earnings, the UK state pension is the lowest in Europe (the EU average is 57%!)
* The gender pay gap is 17% for full-time work and 38% for part-time work.
* If unemployment benefit had kept pace with earnings, Job Seeker’s Allowance would be over £100/week today. Instead, it is £64.30 or £50.95 for under-25s.
* Executive pay has risen at 7 times the rate of the average worker.
* Tax havens cost the Exchequer at least £18bn annually.
A total and shambolic failure of Social Justice policies by Labour. Oh and what do the Tories recommend? Removing Inheritance Tax for millionaires.
We aim at the highest possible accessibility standards -
WCAG 1.0, AAA and WCAG 2.0, level 3 (with valid HTML).
Unfortunately, that's hard to prove.
The checker linked above, for instance, fails almost every page on the site,
but when I follow up the "faults", so far, they have all turned out
to be warnings about issues that have been taken into account.
Please feel free to check for yourself, then
if you find an exception, please
In accord with our aim of accessibility, it is site policy not
to specify font families or point sizes for our pages. You can choose the
size and typeface you see: set the
'default font' in your own browser. (Roger Beaumont has published
some instructions about how
to set your default font.)
Volunteers required.
We use the automated checking tools above to try to make this Website accessible
but need help from someone who has a real sight disability to give us feedback
about practical use with a screen-reader - especially about problems. If you
can help, we'd be very glad to hear from you.
The REAL alternative
"The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a free, fair
and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental
values of liberty, equality and community and in which no-one
shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity." Preamble to the Liberal Democrat Federal Constitution, first sentence.
"Hope not hate"
This Website is hosted ("printed") by Roger Beaumont, 174 Skipton Road,
Keighley.
It is published and promoted by Judith Brooksbank on behalf of the Liberal Democrats,
198 Thwaites Brow Road, Keighley, BD21 4SW
All information and opinions on this site are provided in good faith, but we are
fallible - no liability is accepted except that required by British Electoral Law.
Forty years ago, on a Wednesday I believe, my class at Redlands Junior School had gathered in the hall, to watch the Apollo 11 launch.
*
*