2 Must-Read Blog Posts
What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Yesterday was a busy one on Lib Dem Blogs, though a lot quieter if you take out the posts from Lib Dem councillors and campaigners giving people information on snow, gritting and road conditions.
- John Ault on the perils of paper underpants
- Darrell Goodliffe picks out some interesting points from the latest ComRes poll (and it’s not the headline figures, which are all over the shop in recent polls).
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.
2 Big Stories
I’m going to work on the assumption that you’ve noticed the spot of bad weather we’re having and don’t need me to point it out to you.
More poor people should marry, say Tories
The Conservatives want to use the tax system to encourage more poor people to marry. There’s a green paper on the way.
Mr Willetts argued that marriage helped couples stay together, for the benefit of the children.
The shadow universities and skills secretary, whose responsibilities include family issues, told The Guardian: “I think there are things that have gone deeply wrong with our country.
“The rate of family break-up is a disaster for children.”
Foreign criminals showered with taxpayers’ money
As surely as night follows day, the Taxpayers’ Alliance can be guaranteed to come up with some kneejerk response to a story like this one in the Express.
It’s an outrage that foreign criminals, on release from prison, are being given an extra £454 pounds if they agree to voluntary deportation, as part of a package worth up to £5,000 in total. A waste of our money, we’re told.
Of course, no mention is made of how much it costs taxpayers to deport someone if they don’t go voluntarily. This parliamentary answer from earlier in the year suggests it costs between £12,000 and £25,600, meaning this scheme – whatever its other merits or failings – saves taxpayers thousands of pounds for each criminal who accepts the offer and leaves the country.
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Cleanliness at Harris Academy swimming pool #dundeewestend
Welsh councils still facing financical difficulties
David Hemmings in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (BBC, 1980)
Geoffrey Payne
Mary Fulton
David Allen
John Waller
2 Comments
The whole Tory ‘marriage’ agenda really annoys me – even if one accepts that in some way marriage is intrinsically better for society than unmarried relationships (which I don’t – not that I think it’s worse, I just don’t think the link between marriage and a better society is proved), assuming that financial benefits will encourage people to get/stay married is just nonsense.
It’s typical Tories – they are getting rattled that the election isn’t in the bag, so they are falling back on the old chestnut of ‘family values’.