West of Centre

This week, my local council has announced they are seeking the views of the public on how to minimise the impact of the cuts they have already decided. This request for our views has been rather poorly advertised but in spite of that, enough local people have successfully found where to air their views. By sharing that information with their friends and neighbours, the local council will hopefully receive the views of more people than they were perhaps expecting. Where do I start? Living in a modern democracy (as we are assured we do), I would have expected the council to first discuss the available options for cuts with the public through a proper consultation exercise. It is evident they have chosen not to do this. Instead, they have taken it upon themselves to decide who gets their funding taken away and who doesn't. Thus, it seems that our stated views will have little or no effect anyway. The council has already decided and in their eyes that is the end of the matter. The ...

The forthcoming by election in Rochester and Strood will exert profound influence over the outcome of the 2015 general election. Barring miracles, it seems a racing certainty that Nigel Farage will double his current crop of MPs from 1 to 2. This will be achieved despite the best interests of the Tory high command. There are still nearly 7 months until polling day next May and already the prospect of another coalition is by far the most likely outcome. The only part of this which remains undecided is which parties will make up the new coalition. It will either be a Tory led coalition or a Labour led coalition and current trends would seem to suggest that Labour is on course to emulate the doomed leadership of Michael Foot in 1983. Then as now, a new party had emerged to threaten to the old guard of Tories and Labour. In 1983, it was the SDP but now it is UKIP. The SDP had emerged from erstwhile Labour MPs disgruntled with the socialist dogma of the Labour party. In 1983, the SDP came...

When was the last time you became aware of a health story which frightened you as much as the current situation with the ebola virus in West Africa? In my life, people were quite scared in the 1980s when HIV first became apparent but that is now a relatively well treated disease. I also recall the H5N1 version of Avian Flu which was (and still is) so prevalent in South-East Asia. At about the same time, we also had to be aware of the SARS virus which caused many deaths due to it's effects on the respiratory system. So what I hear you ask. We've always had disease so what is my point? Last week, Margaret Chan delivered a speech to the United Nations which should have been blanket broadcast on every television and radio channel in the world. It is a sad reflection of our world that when someone has something to say which has a direct bearing on all of us, only the chosen few get to hear of it. I am writing this blog in an attempt to reach a wider audience with that same message...

The fact that I am even writing about the latest tirade from Kevin Pieterson arguably grants him his wish. As Oscar Wilde said in the "Importance of Being Earnest", there is only one thing worse than being talked about - not being talked about. Thus was born the modern age with it's unpleasant celebrity culture. It is a peculiar trait of modern life that autobiographies are now written before a life has been properly lived out. But that is legacy of nihilism most notably predicted by Nietszche in his groundbreaking book "Beyond good and evil". In his 1882 book "The gay science" Nietszche announces that "God is dead, God remains dead and we have killed him". Nietszche was one of the greatest philosophers of any era and his predictions have reached their fruition to the letter. God in the sense that Nietszche meant may well have been largely killed. But he also predicted that the old God would be replaced by new ones in which the primary go...

Like every other local council in the UK, my local council in Denbighshire has had to contend with significant cuts to it's budget.  Since the heady days of New Labour when "Things can only get better" in an economy being run on the principle of "prudence", the UK public sector has been allowed to swell like one of those marrows being lined up to take first prize in the local agricultural show. The problem is that just like the marrow, an overly large council has to be nursed with kid gloves to ensure it's continued growth. But as with all biological systems, the marrow has a finite size to which it can feasibly grow before nature calls time with a series of intricate molecular triggers. My local council is just like that marrow.  It has now grown to an unsustainable size following years of assisted life support. Figures appear to suggest that my local council has to account for a funding cut of around £8.5 million for 2015/16. If you were running my local...