TOP 100 ENGLAND SITES
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tory MP apologises for Equality Act at conference fringe debate Matthew Hancock, a former adviser to George Osborne, says legislation devised by Harriet Harman will cause government 'an awful lot of problems'.A Conservative MP apologised to business leaders for the new Equality Act when he appeared at a conference fringe debate this afternoon.Matthew Hancock, a former adviser to the chancellor, George Osborne, hinted at changes to the provisions during the coalition government's time in office.The Act, aimed at outlawing discrimination in the workplace, was devised by Labour's Harriet Harman but has since been championed by the home secretary, Theresa May, a Conservative.Speaking at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) debate in Birmingham, Hancock said: "I apologise that Harriet Harman got her equalities law through ... this government is going to have an awful lot of problems."I hope we're in government for a long time in order to do that – these are things we are going to have to move on to in the future."David Frost, the director general of the BCC, said his members had been worried about stories in the rightwing press that office jokes would be outlawed under the legislation.The debate, chaired by the Conservative blogger Iain Dale, took place directly after Osborne's speech.Hancock confirmed that a family with both parents earning £43,000 – just below the threshold – would not lose its child benefit, whereas a single parent earning £44,000 would. This was a "simple way, using the tax system" to make the change, he said.Osborne's speech had been "the strongest argument yet about supporting the speed and necessity of cuts now", he added, warning that business confidence would be damaged by departing from the coalition's plan.But he admitted the government had to be "alert, careful and aware" when making cuts affecting areas of the north that rely heavily on the public sector.The issue of the unwillingness of banks to lend to small businesses was repeatedly raised by the audience.Hancock said the issue was close to his heart but warned against "bashing" bankers, while Frost recalled an age when everyone knew the name of their bank manager and criticised the current generation."None of them [bank managers] are over the age of 35, and they have never been through the bad times," he said. "There is a massive business opportunity for the first bank that understands niche businesses."Margaret Eaton, the Conservative chair of the Local Government Association, was also on the panel.She was forced to defend the raising of parking rates by town halls, saying councils could only control 5% of their incomes and forecasting a £20bn shortfall because of an increase in the number of children at primary school and the ageing population.Eaton also admitted she had concerns about the government's plan for Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) to replace regional development agencies.She welcomed the move away from political boundaries, but warned that the pool of money had been "vastly reduced".Frost said the LEPs had the potential to go "horrendously wrong", warning that some of the bids submitted were not "business-led".It was also claimed that the VAT rise would lead to a surge in the number of cowboy builders carrying out work in exchange for cash payment.A member of the Federation of Master Builders told the panel he had "real concerns" about the effects of the increase, warning there was "next to no enforcement" being undertaken by the authorities.Conservative conferenceConservativesLiberal-Conservative coalitionGeorge OsborneHarriet HarmanLabourTom Moseleyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Row over child benefit for East Europeans Tens of thousands of children living in Eastern Europe will continue to receive child benefit despite the payment being stripped from middle-class families in this country. telegraph.co.uk |
Letters: Cuts in defence research won't help science The academics who write to suggest that defence R&D should be cut to spend more on civilian science (Letters, 13 October) are misguided.First, most of the £2bn the MoD spends on "R&D" is not research in the sense that academics would understand. The Royal United Services Institute's 2006 publication Decline and Fall of Defence Research pointed out that the actual technical research funded by the MoD is tiny (less than 1% of the total defence budget), and the remainder that is labelled R&D is, in reality, technical advice and paper studies to support the equipment programme.Second, what research science the MoD does fund often has a civilian benefit. For example research on vaccines for diseases which are too rare or too dangerous for drug companies to take an interest in. Or the new Orion laser facility at AWE, which will be available for scientists to perform high-energy physics experiments with peaceful applications.Third, the MoD spends a good proportion of its small technical research budget within UK academia, sponsoring projects and students, which is surely to the public good.Finally, and perhaps most crucially, a huge number of major scientific advances have their roots in military programmes. The academics who wrote to you on computers connected to the internet or travel by jet aircraft would not have been able to do so without the invention of these tools by gifted scientists working within national defence science programmes.The rejection of nuclear weapons (a not unreasonable position) by the academics has clouded their ability to look objectively at the relationship between the MoD and science. Frankly, if the MoD stopped doing research tomorrow it would have no discernible impact upon the current crisis in UK research funding.Dr Neil YoungBristolResearch fundingHigher educationResearchResearch and developmentMilitaryguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Two in court on £1m drug charges Two men appear in court charged in connection with the discovery of an estimated £1m worth of cannabis. bbc.co.uk |
Spending cuts: Liverpool facing 'worse than the worst-case scenario' With 40% of jobs in Liverpool in public services, local leaders fear that dole queues will swell and social problems worsenLiverpudlians have long been exasperated at the persistence of the "gizza job" tag, bequeathed by Alan Bleasdale's seminal portrait of a working class on its knees in the 1980s drama Boys from the Blackstuff. Thirty years on, construction cranes have remodelled its skyline, replacing dereliction, fashioning chic city-centre apartments, and moulding vibrant shopping malls and arts centres.With the militancy of the dockers and car workers – symbols of the fight against Thatcherism – long vanquished, the city has hungrily hovered up grants. Now reinvented as a tourist and leisure destination, and service provider, its arts scene regularly enhances the culture pages of the Sunday supplements.Yet almost 30 years after a riot in 1981 became a symbol of the consequences of Thatcher's policies, Toxteth remains beset with problems that can only be exacerbated by job losses and benefit cuts.The city already has 50,552 on jobseeker's allowance and 28,330 receiving incapacity benefit, with another 43,960 such claimants throughout the region. A large proportion are in wards such as Toxteth, where Paul Brant, the deputy leader of Liverpool city council, fears dole queues can only swell, and social problems get worse.Social housing, which makes up much of Toxteth's stock, is a major issue, he says. In Liverpool, more than 23,000 are on the waiting list, with 13,000 homes boarded up awaiting demolition as part of a 15-year regeneration programme that surely must now have been derailed. "We don't want to be seen as 'self pity city' again. Liverpool is not that place anymore," said Brant. But he added: "It is worse than the worst-case scenario we expected."Liverpool estimates it will lose £45m each year with a 7.25% cut, totalling £180m over four years. The comprehensive spending review translates into 16,000 expected job losses in Europe's erstwhile Capital of Culture. Almost 40% of the workforce are employed in the public sector, with 60-70% of the council's budget going on wages. Central government provides 80% of its funding.Charities warn that the squeeze on housing and welfare benefits could well result in homelessness becoming a serious concern in areas such as Toxteth.Katie, a 26-year-old single mother, lives on a terraced Toxteth street, where pushing up the rent to 80% of the market value will be hard to cope with.She will also have to deal with the new challenges faced by those in higher education. Eager to grasp at Liverpool's new opportunities, Katie was studying tourism and travel at Liverpool John Moores University until she became pregnant. Her plan was to resume studies once her son started school. But with university tuition fees set to double to at least £7,000 a year, teaching budgets cut and the average graduate lumbered with £40,000 of debt, she can't afford it.As her son grows up, the Education Maintenance Allowance, which helps deprived 16-19-year-olds stay in school, will no longer exist."I agree the layabouts should be forced to find work. But if you're me, and you're trying to get qualifications to get work, there doesn't seem any way. It's very hard for those who really want to go out and pick themselves up. Nobody is helping you," she said.While the pain of the cuts inflicted stretch beyond the city out into the commuter belt, some areas appear relatively unscathed.Across the Mersey lies Wirral West, the most affluent of Wirral's four constituencies, reclaimed this year by the Conservatives from Labour and home to the genteel seaside towns of West Kirby and neighbouring Hoylake. More than a third of West Kirby's homes are detached, and Range Rovers and Jaguars are seen outside many of them."Yes, it is affluent," said West Kirby councillor David Elderton. Eight-bedroom mansions are not uncommon. In the exclusive enclave of Caldy, £5m will buy a home fit for a footballer. "But we do have some areas of social housing, and pensioners on fixed incomes have their worries," Elderton says.On West Kirby's streets the threat of cuts pass most by. Some express annoyance about increased commuting costs. Others were incensed about recent proposals for an 80-bedroom hotel and spa on the seafront, now axed. But benefits, social housing and job seeker's allowance do not affect the majority.Typically middle-class professionals or retirees, husbands tend to commute to Liverpool, Chester and Manchester, to jobs in the private sector. Many wives work part-time, some in the public sector."I suppose I am vulnerable," said one mother of two, who works part-time for the NHS while her husband works for an IT company. Losing her job would be unpleasant but not a matter of life or death. With her sons now working after going through the area's grammar schools, financial pressure has eased."Very few work in the public sector," said David Elderton. "And people travel great distances – some even to Birmingham."Jack Stopforth, chief executive of Liverpool's Chamber of Commerce, believes the city will survive, but not without a struggle."We are no longer dependent on grant aid as a city," he said. "But we still have a private sector starting from a terribly low base and it's too small to absorb that number of jobs."We've had more new hotels in the last couple of years that you can shake a stick at. Fantastic new arenas and conference centres. Undoubtedly those will be affected."But we are not living in the past. People still hark back to 18,000 workers on the docks or 10,000 in the car industry. That's so long ago. What we are about now is the service industry, leisure, retail, bio-medical."But the past is all around at the Casa, a city centre bar and bistro bought by ex-dockers from the profits of Ken Loach's film Dockers, depicting their bitter two-and-a-half year strike in the 1990s. Black and white photograph of Liverpool's docks adorn its walls, trade unions use its function rooms, students and city workers drink side-by-side, and welfare and benefits advice is dispensed upstairs.In the gents toilet someone has scrawled: "Opium of the people: pint of lager and Sky Sports.""I haven't rubbed it out because it's that good," said director Tony Nelson, 53, a docker since the age of 15, and shop steward who was on the picket line throughout the strike.Nelson believes the cuts will be devastating. "We had a march against the cuts and got about 500 to 1,000," he said. "Two days later there was a march by Liverpool FC supporters against their owners. There were thousands and thousands. Says it all."The young just aren't politicised anymore. And they are the very ones that are going to be affected most."Spending review 2010Tax and spendingWelfareState benefitsLocal governmentPublic sector cutsPublic services policyPublic financePublic sector payCaroline Daviesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |