One of the Queen's dogs savaged one of Beatrice's (a blood princess, no less) dogs, apparently. This is front page news for the Daily Telegraph. On the same subject, the day that prince Philip was admitted to hospital with a bladder infection, which they said would be treated with antibiotics, the first 15 minutes of the BBC's 6 o'clock news was dedicated to this. I don't wish the bloke any harm, but I'm seriously NOT that interested in the state of his bladder.
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Also the lead on the Today Programme on BBC, and for that matter the Daily Telegraph, is the death of a film director who flung himself off a bridge, in California. Again with due respect to the guy and his family who must be suffering, I'm not entirely sure that that warrants quite so much attention.
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The English part of the UK government (because I know people get riled when I call it the English government, although it is based in England and makes decisions about England alone) has received favourably the notion proposed by Policy Exchange, a think tank close to David Cameron, that they should sell off social housing in nice areas and build new stuff in poor areas with the money. Although this may make some financial sense, it stinks of social apartheid to me. I hope we don't follow suit.
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Cameron has been on holiday in Spain, again, which is a bit rich after he lectured us about taking our holidays in the UK to boost the tourist industry. Anyway, he comes back this week to four rows all to do with England:
Ken Clarke refuses to move from the English Justice Department in the upcoming reshuffle....sort that Dave;
MPs in English commuter land are revolting (OK, I know) over increases in rail fares, which will be 3% above inflation in England, when they are only 1% above in Scotland;
MPs are revolting (again? do they ever stop) over the plan to raise the time shops are allowed to trade on Sundays in England, from 6 to 8 hours. Apparently Osborne thinks that this is the way to boost the economy. He obviously assumes that the more hours the shops are open, the longer people will spend money, which is, I suppose a not unreasonable supposition if you have a limitless supply of money to spend;
He's probably heard of Scotland, because that's where a disproportionate amount of his tax revenue comes from; he may like to know that we have no restrictions on Sunday shopping here at all, and it doesn't make any appreciable difference to the economy. Most people spend what they can afford and a bit more...giving them an extra two hours to spend their income won't make any difference unless he gives them any more income to spend
MPs are...erm...up in arms ..., nah, they are revolting, over the government's proposals to allow building on the Green Belt in England. The government clearly has problems with its short term memory. Only a few months ago, the Spelman woman was forced into a U-turn on selling off forests because of a campaign by the Daily Telegraph, and leading posh people who matter, including Boris Johnson's sister. Have they forgotten about this, or do they think maybe that the Telegraph and Boris's sister are in Tuscany and won't notice?
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Click on pics to enlarge.



