It seems [from http://www.overgrownpath.com/2015/09/dont-let-facts-get-in-way-of-self.html] that the World Service costs three-and-a-half times as much as al-Jazeera. Even allowing for the probability that WS broadcasts in more languages than the Qatar-funded news orgnaisation, this is a large discrepancy, especially as the latter's global news-gathering and documentaries are superb.
The total cost of running BBC's News channel in 2013/14 was apparently £114.2m. However, its coverage is not as wide as the other two outlets and it also relies extensively on cheaper domestic news and relays.
Monday, 7 September 2015
Yvette Cooper: Corbyn wants to turn the clock back
Consider this: the NHS, post, telephone, water, power, rail and most bus services are all under public control after four years of a ... Conservative prime minister. Forgive the historic present tense; I am thinking of sixty years ago.
Yesterday's conservative is today's raving lefty.
Do not get me wrong. I believe Corbyn is mistaken if he wants the state to take control of commerce and industry. However, much of the criticism of his programme is too apocalyptic, seen through a Thatcherite prism. It is not only Labour rivals who should be considering how to adjust to a Corbyn leadership and whether they have metaphorically burned bridges. Other party leaders will have to do so. Only six Conservative seats need to change hands between now and 2020 for No Overall Control to rear its head again.
Yesterday's conservative is today's raving lefty.
Do not get me wrong. I believe Corbyn is mistaken if he wants the state to take control of commerce and industry. However, much of the criticism of his programme is too apocalyptic, seen through a Thatcherite prism. It is not only Labour rivals who should be considering how to adjust to a Corbyn leadership and whether they have metaphorically burned bridges. Other party leaders will have to do so. Only six Conservative seats need to change hands between now and 2020 for No Overall Control to rear its head again.
Sunday, 6 September 2015
Elected emperor of Bavaria
Today is the centenary of Franz-Josef Strauss, the very conservative Bavarian leader of the Christian Social Union, a habitual coalition partner of the Christian Democrats in the federal parliament. One wonders what he would make of the way that Germany today acts as a magnet to migrants.
Friday, 4 September 2015
Dr Albert Schweitzer
Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Albert Schweitzer. Extremely famous in his own day, his reputation as a humanitarian has slipped since, as his paternalistic attitudes have slipped from favour.
Thursday, 3 September 2015
Anonymous landowners
I thought the difficulty of identifying the final owner, operating behind foreign-registered shell companies, of property in the UK was associated only with the big cities and large country estates. However, thanks to the interactive online map provided by Private Eye magazine yesterday, it seems that Neath Port Talbot is also affected.
We already knew about the scandal of the open-cast restitution money which vanished into the British Virgin Islands (Land Registry titles no. CYM503759 CYM521522 & WA303502), relating to land mostly outside the county borough. Within the borough boundaries, it should not have been a surprise that St Modwen, the company developing Llandarcy Village among many other former industrial sites, had availed itself of an offshore holding company.
A name that did strike me as new was Link Holdings (Gibraltar) Ltd. Unfortunately, Companies House in Gibraltar is not as open as our own in providing any details from its register, so I cannot be certain of the purpose of this company. There are clues. One is that the company appears to own the land on which a nearby care home sits. (Clwydi Gwyn was one of those bought out of the Southern Cross crash.) Other properties are sets of houses on modern estates like Bay View Gardens, Cwrt Herbert and developments in Llansamlet, over the border in Swansea. (I have not checked for wider ownership.) So Link is presumably an old-fashioned landlord of mostly residential property, with added secret identity. Surely Link's tenants have a right to put a face to the name?
We already knew about the scandal of the open-cast restitution money which vanished into the British Virgin Islands (Land Registry titles no. CYM503759 CYM521522 & WA303502), relating to land mostly outside the county borough. Within the borough boundaries, it should not have been a surprise that St Modwen, the company developing Llandarcy Village among many other former industrial sites, had availed itself of an offshore holding company.
A name that did strike me as new was Link Holdings (Gibraltar) Ltd. Unfortunately, Companies House in Gibraltar is not as open as our own in providing any details from its register, so I cannot be certain of the purpose of this company. There are clues. One is that the company appears to own the land on which a nearby care home sits. (Clwydi Gwyn was one of those bought out of the Southern Cross crash.) Other properties are sets of houses on modern estates like Bay View Gardens, Cwrt Herbert and developments in Llansamlet, over the border in Swansea. (I have not checked for wider ownership.) So Link is presumably an old-fashioned landlord of mostly residential property, with added secret identity. Surely Link's tenants have a right to put a face to the name?
Wednesday, 2 September 2015
Threat to ancient woodland
Coed Cadw has alerted us to a threat to ancient woodland at Cwm Nant Lleci, Pontardawe. The deadline for objections is tomorrow.
Local councillor details are here.
Local councillor details are here.
Refugees: justice delayed is justice denied
It occurred to me when posting yesterday's piece about food parcels that mid-twentieth-century opinion in the US was divided. For Bob Hope and his conservative friends, Brits were whining scroungers, taking undeserved advantage of Uncle Sam's generosity. (As the son of immigrant English and Welsh parents, Hope was a great example of the "pull up the ladder, Jack" syndrome.) To thankfully rather more of his fellow-citizens, the poor people of Britain had fought on the Home Front to keep the world safe from dictatorship and needed support in their time of great need.
Similarly today David Cameron categorises all would-be immigrants to the UK as free-loaders taking advantage of the thriving economy created by the Conservative long-term economic plan. (Of course, he neglects to mention that national debt continues to grow and that most migrants prefer to go to the more successful economy of Germany.) Liberals would give the benefit of the doubt to the brave souls who have endured incredible dangers and privations in fleeing their homelands to reach Europe.
The truth must lie in between. Surely most reasonable people would endorse border controls which facilitated the speedy acceptance of genuine refugees, for as long as they need our shelter, while resisting the claims of others to settle unless they had special qualities to bring to our society or genuine close links to Britain?
The true crime of the Home Office has been the extraordinary delay in examining the cases of probable refugees. The relevant agencies have been under-resourced both in terms of numbers and in expertise, resulting not only in leaving claimants in limbo, living on a pittance and barred from any paid employment, for an appalling length of time but also in refugees suffering poor decisions at the end of their wait.
Similarly today David Cameron categorises all would-be immigrants to the UK as free-loaders taking advantage of the thriving economy created by the Conservative long-term economic plan. (Of course, he neglects to mention that national debt continues to grow and that most migrants prefer to go to the more successful economy of Germany.) Liberals would give the benefit of the doubt to the brave souls who have endured incredible dangers and privations in fleeing their homelands to reach Europe.
The truth must lie in between. Surely most reasonable people would endorse border controls which facilitated the speedy acceptance of genuine refugees, for as long as they need our shelter, while resisting the claims of others to settle unless they had special qualities to bring to our society or genuine close links to Britain?
The true crime of the Home Office has been the extraordinary delay in examining the cases of probable refugees. The relevant agencies have been under-resourced both in terms of numbers and in expertise, resulting not only in leaving claimants in limbo, living on a pittance and barred from any paid employment, for an appalling length of time but also in refugees suffering poor decisions at the end of their wait.
Tuesday, 1 September 2015
Food parcels
I can't say that I can remember the family receiving food parcels from the US at the end of the war. I do remember the sneering jokes by Bob Hope about the recipients of the generosity of his fellow-citizens, less well-off than himself, in helping out the victims of war-time and immediate post-war austerity. The scheme went on until 1955 as the organisers, CARE, now remind us.
On the seventieth anniversary of their founding, they are looking for stories from anyone who benefited from the scheme, or who has relatives who did.
On the seventieth anniversary of their founding, they are looking for stories from anyone who benefited from the scheme, or who has relatives who did.
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