LMSOAFA - this would never have happened with an Elected Regional Assembly

The key phrase the Government is using is that they made a decision "on behalf of the regions".  To me this opens up a whole can of worms of unfinished business about the devolution to the regions.  The Government has ruled out access to hundreds of millions of pounds because we don't make these decisions, but similarly have few mechanisms for making our displeasure known without sabre rattling.

 

FT article here

 

To be fair, even the Conservative Green Paper has many good things in it, but none of them would have answered the technical mess this has created...

 

SH

words of wisdom

"[Conservatives] have absolutely no reason, none, to trust our word or our actions at this point."
-- RNC Chairman Michael Steele

Harriet "chatter"

A couple of things are beginning to make sense.

 

The recent increase in "chatter" about Harriet had me wondering what was going on.  Then today I saw this:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23646854-details/Treasury+minister+Yvette+emerges+as+leadership+choice/article.do

 

Now, on a separate note, several people have mentioned to me that Yvette would be a much better contender for leader of the party than Ed but there's no way she would go up against him given how much he wants it.

 

So - what if people are constructing a need to push her towards standing in a way that was seen as not in conflict with Ed Balls?  I'm not saying she knows about it, or even agrees with it - but it would help explain the sudden increase in Harriet's column inches.

 

Of course, I disagree with any speculation about a new Leader at this point in time.......

SH

during these economic times.... how dare they!!!!!! ;-)

"[John Denby (cumbrian farmer) ] will also build a roundhouse barn at his High Lowscales Farm in the Duddon Valley to house his herd of Japanese Wagyu cattle – regarded as gourmet delicacy and served in his restaurants.

The herd are the first to be reared in England and were born using embryos and surrogate mothers. The calves are pampered with massages, classical music and local beer according to Japanese tradition, which is supposed to produce extra tasty meat."

When people are landing on the dole, look at the corruption of capital.....

is this anti-NW bias?

I'm currently doing a round-up of the work of think-tanks at the moment, and the inescapable man-of-the-hour is Philip Blond, who's work on a book Red Tory which is due out later this year is already seen as one of the political events of the year, because David Cameron is said to be basing a lot of his philosophy on the Progressive Conservatism that Blond is now "rediscovering"/espousing/creating.
The Progressive Conservative project is run by Demos, and I think it's interesting to note the prevalence of Demos in the run up to Tony Blair's 1997 election victory and their apparent resurface after years of silence (remember Perry 6?).
However, something about the situation has really offended me. Below is a link to Philip Blond's profile on the Demos website:
http://www.demos.co.uk/people/phillipblond

Fair enough, except the next link is his profile on the University of Cumbria's website:
http://www.cumbria.ac.uk/AboutUs/Faculties/FacultyofTheArts/Ourschools/Humanities/Humanities%20Staff/Phillip%20Blond.aspx

In other words, the University of Cumbria has been deemed not important enough to be mentioned by Demos. Fair enough, it isn't the University of Cambridge - but I think it's a real coup for UoC(umbria) and we should be pointing out that Demos' decision is yet another reinforcement of the idea that us oop 'ere cannae ha' big ideas.

Pulp fiction

scroll down, and play the recreation of the diner scene from Pulp Fiction by two kids....

 

http://oxfordfilmfest.blogspot.com/

Uganda

Off to Africa next week and have been reading up on the country - very interesting - do you know a referendum abolished political parties in the 80s!

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Civilisation IV

Have been playing this classic strategy game over the Christmas break, particularly a rhyse and fall mod which mimics real history! First time I played Russia starting in the 1600s - shame I thought reckless expansion across the continent was what I was supposed to do! I also managed to bring the first world war forward by about 100 years!

This time I'm in touching distance of finishing a whole 500 year epic as the Netherlands - with only one city in Europe I thought I was screwed so I ventured out tocolonise south Africa, Australia and south America - now I'm winning! And almost finished!

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EU-US Relations

Just Reagan excellent memo about how institutional relations can be strengthened by Obama and the EU to create much greater harmony between the two richest greatest powers in the history of mankind - Europe and the US! I will post the link later.

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