Northern Rock hits £57Bn bail out

Mervyn King the Governor of the Bank of England, has extended the Banks guarantee to cover any loans made by other financial institutions to the Northern Rock. This now means each and every taxpayer is exposed to the tune of £2000. This guarantee accounts for an additional 30% of the Rocks balance sheet.
The question is now, when do we call it nationalised?

Data, Data, Where for art thou data

More Data lost

This time the data, learner drivers names and addresses was lost 6 months ago; and the government knew. Yet ………………………………

Educational Standards are Slipping.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has published the finding of its 2006 assessment of educational standards, this is call the PISA with an assessment made of more than 400 000 fifteen year old students from 57 countries. Those participating countries account for somewhere close to 90% of the world economy with the focus of the tests on science, reading and mathematics.

Britain has slipped down the ratings dramatically, from 7th to 17th in reading and 8th to an appalling 24th in mathematics.

This gives undisputable evidence that Labours educational policy is not working.

In an attempt to refresh the memory on just what labours policy might be I visited the new departments website, for Children, Schools and Families,

“The Department will build on the successes in education and children’s services that we have seen over the last decade” so they are in denial.

But then in the next sentence “It will now focus on the significant challenges that remain – raising standards so that more children and young people reach expected levels”.
All this from the party of Education, Education, Education. One can only wonder at what they have previously been focusing on in that case!

There is a simple reason for this, it is called poverty of aspiration, our youth are uninspired by life under this Labour Government of uniformity and blandness.

Power to the People

David Cameron has today launched the Conservatives’ Green Paper on decentralised energy.
• In the face of the enormous challenge of man-made climate change, ‘business as usual’ is not enough. Britain needs dynamic industrial change if it is going to compete and win in the low carbon era.
• We need to move from a top-down, old-world, centralised system to a bottom-up, new-world, decentralised system. By enabling people to generate their own electricity, we are literally giving them more power over their own lives.
Key policy recommendations
Power to the People: The Decentralised Energy Revolution sets out a way of changing the architecture of Britain’s energy supply. Although this does not involve dispensing with the national grid, we want to enable every small business, local school, hospital and household in the country to generate electricity through micro-generation.

£200,000 Government job for data disc loss boss

Mr Paul Gray who initially so it seamed, did the apparently decent thing by quitting as HM Revenue and Customs boss over lost data discs, has not gone so far after all, and remains working for the government.
He was praised for resigning with "honour" when discs holding the child benefit database were lost in the post.
However channel 4 News reported that he had begun a short-term Cabinet Office post and is still paid more than £200,000.
But a government spokesman said Mr Gray's period of notice meant he would continue to be paid until 31 December whether he was working or not.
"In the meantime he has agreed to a request from Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell to undertake a short piece of work on cross-government matters until Christmas," the Cabinet Office spokesman said.
He added the period of notice meant "he could receive payment for no work or receive payment for doing some work.
"It was thought to be better in the public interest that he did some work. There is no additional cost to the public purse. He will leave the payroll on December 31."

I was going to say well Mr Gary was a patsy for Brown-Lazy-Mr Bean-Controllers but, £200,000. Does this mean he will get a massive pay off to go with his tax payers rather large salary!

Freedom of Maidstone for Ann

Last night at a special meeting of Maidstone Borough Council, Councillors of all persuasions bestowed the Freedom of Maidstone upon The Rt. Hon. Ann Widdecombe, this is the highest honour that the council can give.

The motion was proposed by Cllr Paulina Stockell and seconded by Libdem Leader Cllr Fran Wilson with all speakers praising Ann for her unstinting hard work for the people of Maidstone over the last twenty years.

Only 32 individuals have received the councils highest honour since 1897, last nights event was also graced by Sir John Wells another Freeman of Maidstone and Ann’s predecessor as MP for Maidstone.

Labours second largest donor is not even eligible to vote in a UK General Election.

The Mail on Sunday reporter Jonathan Oliver has uncovered, and published in the MoS today.
"The focus of the sleaze scandal engulfing the Government switched dramatically last night to the Labour Party's second biggest donor - an Iranian-born car dealer who is not even entitled to vote in general elections.
Mahmoud Khayami, a French citizen, has given a total of £830,000 in the past eight months, making him Labour's biggest individual backer after Lord Sainsbury.
The party said it would launch an investigation after The Mail on Sunday discovered that:
• Khayami made his first donation - of £500,000 - just 24 hours after becoming legally allowed to do so, by having his name added to the Electoral Roll.
• The tycoon - who runs a car dealership in California and has a villa in Cannes - had waited until the age of 77 before adding his name to the roll.
• Khayami is a close friend of Labour-supporting "fixer" Anthony Bailey, whose clients have included Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe regime, and whose own £500,000 donation was rejected by Labour because of fears it had come from foreign sources.
Even though his name is on the register, he is permitted to vote only in local and European ballots, not general elections.
Commentators said that while he was thus technically qualified to make party donations, the fact he had done so meant Labour was 'sailing close to the wind' on donation rules.
But Tory frontbencher Chris Grayling said: 'It is now very clear Gordon Brown had ordered a 'dash for cash' ahead of an early Election.' "

This report comes after a week of revelations about illegal (Jack Shaw’s words) funding of the Labour Party by Abrahmas, as a second Police Investigation is launched. Perhaps the Labour Party ought to read the laws that they pass a little more closely, since they clearly can not rely on having any common sense. Either that or they think they are above the law and can just carry on getting away with it. Time and again the Labour Party treat the public as fools and with contempt.
Paraphrasing Vince Cables career topping comment, “we have seen Stalin become Mr Bean in a week”