2 Big Stories

Guy Fawkes Killjoys

The Guy Fawkes celebrations started yesterday and, as we look forward to the next round of bonfire and firework celebrations tonight and tomorrow, it wouldn’t really be the bonfire season without some daft health and safety stories in the press.

A nice example appears in the Daily Express, which rails against “health and safety killjoys” who

have forced a rugby club’s Guy Fawkes revellers to watch a film of a bonfire on television rather than enjoy the real thing.

Frustratingly for the Express, it turns out that nothing of the sort has happened.  Faced with having to fill in paperwork, supply metal barriers and provide five marshalls to keep a crowd of 2,000 safe, the organisers have decided, in their own words to “come up with an original, imaginative and fun way to fill the void“.

Maybe health and safety regulations go too far sometimes, but in my neck of the woods – across a population of a quarter of a million – not a single person ended up in casualty as a result of bonfire or firework injuries at guy fawkes celebrations last year, so perhaps there’s something to it.

Castration day

First, French minister Pierre Lellouche backed down on his claims that the Conservatives have “castrated themselves” with their European policy (everyone’s friends again, according to the BBC).

Then veteran Labour MP Austen Mitchell accuses senior figures of castrating parliamentarians. As the Telegraph reports, Mitchell said:

‘I think that’s unrealistic and unfair too. It is in the interests of mandarins and ministers and leaders to have a weak Parliament with members who aren’t well-paid enough to do their job.

”In pursuing that, they are actually neutralising Parliament, castrating us in a sense.”

Are Conservative MPs being castrated twice? Not a nice thought.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here’s are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

• With the analog BBC2 signal turned off across the Granada region, Manchester councillor Jackie Pearcey was expecting to watch BBC1 on her Freeview box. The Channel she actually saw seemed to cater to an altogether more niche market.
• Another great post from John Ault on his Alter Ego blog. “Hello Minions”.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.