Month: November 2009

As a complete aside, just stumbled on this great clip of Jerry Sanders, Mayor of San Diego (hat-tip: A Big Block Of Cheese). In 2007 he changed his mind – publicly – on the subject of gay marriage. Although it might seem like a slightly “Hollywood” moment in part, there’s also real emotion in this… Continue reading Principle vs expediency

Also wanted to highlight this slightly old news story about Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North MP) standing in on PressTV (Iranian state mouthpiece in English) for – you guessed it – George Galloway, that nasty apologist for dodgy Islamist regimes the world over. It does underline the point made in Nick Cohen’s excellent book, “What’s Left?”,… Continue reading Jeremy, Jeremy – What’s Left?

I needed something to be outraged about to blog after a couple of weeks’ (well-earned if you ask me!) break, so here it is: the Tories are trying to make everyone believe that Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance are going to be scrapped with nothing to replace them. It’s odd, but this seems to… Continue reading Disability benefits and what the Tories want you to think

As a long-time music anorak, yesterday the familiar words of Mick Jagger were playing in my head as I left the Coachman Hotel after the Co-op nomination meeting, as they often do at such times. The meeting had just voted, out of a field of two, to nominate the excellent Dan Whittle, which means, under… Continue reading You can’t always get what you want

One member has raised with me the new licencing system for landlords currently being trialled in Sedgefield, article in the Echo here, and it’s certainly conceivable that it could also be applicable within Darlington itself (and, indeed, any part of the country which has issues with either the quality of any of its rented accomodation… Continue reading Members’ concerns #6 – Letting licences

Had a chat with a member the other night who made an interesting point: that a relative had to go to Bishop Auckland, Darlington and Durham for three different parts of the treatment for the same condition. Another made the point that in residential care, it was seemingly impossible to find places – even private… Continue reading Members’ concerns #5 – NHS: specialisation versus convenience

This is another issue that I know is close to some members’ hearts. I know that the new renationalisation of the London-Edinburgh line (which as you all know passes through Darlington, home of the railways) is of the operating company and not the track, but isn’t the second renationalisation in not-so-many years giving weight to… Continue reading Members’ concerns #4 – The People’s Rail?

I’ve just written to the Echo on the following subject, published here with the usual comments: “I was struck by a mixture of concern and outrage to read in your newspaper this morning about the proposed effective scrapping of OneNorthEast if the Tories were to achieve power next year. Concern, because it would be typical… Continue reading OneNorthEast closure

“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect to their elders…. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company…and are tyrants over their teachers.” This was not a quote from a concerned Darlington parent from today, but from Socrates in… Continue reading Discipline in schools