A warning about the dangers of ‘fracking’.
A blog from someone who like many right-minded people have fought against the privatisation of the NHS.
What the heck is this? I’ve been trying and failing to stop the government from privatising the National Health Service for years, and now a private healthcare company has contacted me about a job!
The email from Care UK says they are “seeking a Media Relations Executive for our Head Office based in Colchester and your skills and experience appear to be a good match.” Huh? They are offering a “competitive salary, 25 days holiday and corporate discounts.”
Here’s what I have replied:
Dear Laura,
Thank you for your unexpected email about the Media Relations Executive job with Care UK. I am very interested. Since Care UK is possibly the leading private healthcare company making inroads into the NHS, I would relish the opportunity to publicise what it does – indeed, this is precisely what I was trying to do in my previous job as information officer for Keep Our…
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The US will not satisfied till it controls all the resources in South America.
Anything to keep ‘business-as-usual’ on track, even if it means destroying the environment and ultimately the human race.
Hulme’s wild-life, part 1: Birds
I thought I would post about some of the wild-life we have in Hulme. And how an inner city area can be made attractive to wild-life by showing some of my visitors.
After yesterday’s council meeting on Steady State Economy, I am saddened to read the Green Alliance recommending the views of this writer. Like yesterdays meeting, it is all about ‘Growth’, not about living within our means.
This is a guest post by Paul Polman, chief executive of Unilever. It is an extract from his contribution to a collection of writings about the Earth Summit, Rio+20: where it should lead, published by Green Alliance and the RSPB.
These are turbulent times for the world and for the business community, addressing this requires governments and business to work together to create the right framework for sustainable development at Rio+20.
We need to find a new model of growth, one that is equally conscious of the need of people and of the planet, and puts sustainability and equality at the heart of consumption. Sustainable growth must benefit the world’s hungriest billion people as well as the rising middle classes.
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Manchester City Council’s Environmental Scrutiny Committee Meeting.
This morning I attended a Environmental Scrutiny Committee meeting, where the public were invited to attend. Some of the committee members appeared pleased that a number of the public were their, with some of public putting forward short presentations. Bot when the Council’s economic advisers gave their presentation, my heart dropped. They were advocating ‘business-as-usual’, even though this is the cause of our present financial crisis. Also a councillor dismissed the importance of local food production, stating he wanted his electorate to stop smoking and drinking. He obviously does not understand, this is due to the inequalities of the present system and their lack of empowerment.
And in the workshop I attended, once again a councillor argued that the airport was low carbon, as the emissions did not affect Manchester but were felt elsewhere. And it was best the expanded Manchester Airport, because if aviation went elsewhere it would not be a low carbon as that of Manchester Airport. The attitude of some of the councillors are totally blinkered, they cannot see the real damage the airport is doing to Manchester and the surrounding area. And things will get worse with the building of the by-pass, so motorist can get to the airport faster instead of using public transport. These views were reinforced by Richard Leese, he even decided that one of the action points would not be Manchester’s but AGMA’s (Association of Greater Manchester Authorities).
It would appear the council leadership have not taken any notice of the mass of information on the unsustainability of ‘business-as-usual’. Someone from AGMA, when someone said the council needed to show leadership, said Richard Leese had showed leadership because he gave a speech! This is not leadership, in fact Richard Leese, is very good at saying the council is not responsible for this, they cannot do this or that. He does not show leadership, but is a bully boy who wants to get his own way no matter what others think.
It is a pity this video from the European Environmental Agency was not available to show them. Though, I doubt it would make much difference to the likes of Richard Leese
A very good article pointing out the obvious negative impacts of biomass incineration. A cheap and antiquated technology being pushed by politicians and big business as being ‘green’, it is not.
Is Manchester’s future going to follow that of Catalonia
Richard Leese, the leader of Manchester City Council has pushed his dreams of turning Manchester into another Barcelona unceasingly. This is despite the fact that Manchester has high unemployment and a number of children in poverty. He has continued with his policies which only benefit multi-national companies and starve the City of any real inward investment. I wonder if he has bothered visiting Barcelona again, to see the unfinished buildings and the blight the City is now suffering from? Has he not noticed the unfinished buildings here in Manchester, the empty office blocks and empty retail units. Then there is the EU grants which cannot be fully accounted for and the EU may want to claw back. Reading an article about Catalan, of which Barcelona is the capital City on the Share Centres web-site. I started to wonder if we were heading the same way as Catalonia?
But then there is the problem of local government debt. Catalonia is a wealthy region. Perhaps you could say that the region is to Spain, what California is to the US. And it has one other thing in common with California – it carries enormous debts. Its President Artur Mas displays all the hallmarks of a troubled man. On Friday, he said at a press conference: “We don’t care how they do it, but we need to make payments at the end of the month. Your economy can’t recover if you can’t pay your bills.” This year the region has to refinance 13 billion worth of euros. But how? The citizens of Catalonia do their bit, but, according to Reuters, a quarter of their savings are already in patriot bonds, and that source of funding is now dry. The region could turn to the banks, but, again using Reuters as the source, the region next door Valencia paid out 7 per cent interest on a six month bank loan recently. And that is not really affordable – or so we are being told.
But Catalonia is just one of 17 regions. Last week Moody’s downgraded the rating for Catalonia, but also downgraded three other regions: Murcia, Andalucia and Extremadura. In all, the regions that make up Spain have to re-finance around 36 billion euros of debt this year.
Mr Mas wants to see central government underwrite loans to the regions.
But this is the scary thing. It is generally agreed that Spanish house prices have further to fall. And with unemployment running at nearly 25 per cent of Spain’s labour supply, how can further falls in Spanish house prices not result in more defaults, more bad debts, more bank losses, and the need for even more bail-outs?
How can Spain possibly manage such a situation?
Only through getting many more of its work force into productive jobs can this problem begin to be fixed. But too high a proportion of the workforce only has experience working in construction, and the Spanish construction industry is not likely to recover for a very long time.
Sustainable Communities Act
This is the reply I received from Tony Lloyd, MP for Manchester Central:
Dear Mr Sudlow
Please find enclosed a copy of the reply I have received from the Department for Communities and Local Government about the forthcoming regulations under the Sustainable Communities Act 2007.
Clearly we need to keep pressure on the Government on this.
With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Tony
Tony Lloyd MP
Manchester Central
This was in reply to an e-mail I had sent him about the delay in the Sustainable Community regulations:
Dear Anthony Lloyd MP,
Thank you for your support on various issues but I am very concerned about the very long and ongoing delay to the required Sustainable Communities Act regulations. This delay has now been going on for over nine months.
Only when these regulations are made can people get involved in the ‘bottom-up’ process of the Act and use it to help local shops, services and communities. It has been shown many times, especially in countries like Austria and Denmark, that 'grass-root activism' has a far better success rate than 'top-down' initiatives.
The longer this delay goes on, the greater the risk that the initial enthusiasm for the Act will turn into cynicism and disillusionment.
Please could you write to Communities Minister, Greg Clark, urging him to make the Sustainable Communities Act regulations urgently? Thank you.
Sincerely,
Patrick Sudlow
And here is the official reply:
Dear Tony,
Thank you for your email of 26 April to Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, enclosing correspondence
from Mr Patrick Sudlow, Hulme, Manchester, about the
forthcoming regulations under the Sustainable Communities Act 2007. I have been asked
to reply.
We have been discussing the scope of the regulations with Local Works as well as with
the Local Government Association to ensure that they are content with the forthcoming
regulations. While these discussions have contributed to the time taken in making the
regulations, I believe they were necessary to ensure the regulations helped support the
management of Sustainable Communities Act proposals and appeals.
We hope to make the regulations within the next few months .
..-
ANDREW STUNELL MP
patricktsudlow 