Entertainment retailer Zavvi has announced the immediate closure of 15 more of its UK stores.
It’s thought that 295 people will lose their jobs as a result of the new closures.
The announcement is the latest in a series of moves to downscale Zavvi since it went into administration on December 24.
Zavvi has recently closed 55 stores, with 826 job losses. However, the remaining 48 Zavvi stores are set to remain open. Source: NME.
These closures includes the Birmingham store, which pretty much leaves Birmingham to HMV – which is more of a games shop these days – in a few short months CD shops have practically disappeared from our High Streets. Something seems wrong, I don’t just want to download my music – I just old fashioned?
I know the policies being proposed by Cameron will be a disaster for the country and it’s not just me, when Johann Hari asked this year’s Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman about the Tories policies:
Krugman was “shocked” by hearing David Cameron’s economic statements in favour of “tightening the government’s belt” in a recession. “It’s pure Herbert Hoover,” Krugman says. “In fact, it reminds me of Andrew Mellon [Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury], who said the [government] response to the Depression should be to ‘liquidate labour, liquidate stocks, and liquidate farmers’.”
Many of Cameron’s statements are “just wrong”, Krugman says. For example, Cameron says Britain can’t afford a fiscal stimulus because we are going into the recession with the highest debt of any developed country. “But that’s not true. Britain is at the lower end of the middle of developed countries [when it comes to national debt]. Less than the US, much less than Japan or Germany or Italy.” Krugman is worried by the incorrect lessons Cameron has drawn from the 1930s. “Renouncing a fiscal stimulus when private spending is contracting is strange. Governments have very few tools at their disposal, and Cameron wants to not use them.” So are you saying our recession will be much worse if we follow Cameron’s advice? “Yes. For sure” says Krugman.
Hari sums up
This is our choice now. Obama and Brown will have to be pressured hard to make their stimuli much bigger, and to focus them less on propping up old corporations and more on building a new low-carbon economy. They will make many mistakes. But, as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt put it, “Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the constant omission of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference”. Source: The Independent.
Yes – let’s not get frozen in the ice of Tory indifference.
There’s been a lot of chatter in the media over the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s threat of legal action against over 100 councils for their failure to provide specialised services for women who have experienced violence – it does beg the question why the commission doesn’t include the remaining 300 odd; because with the exception of a few – most notably Glasgow – provision amongst these councils can best be described as woeful.
To support it’s research the Commission along with the End Violence Against Women campaign has launched Maps of Gaps, I urge you all to take a look and whilst there send your MP a message – it’s just not good enough.
Over 100 (one in four) local authorities in Britain have no specialised support services at all.
Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of rape crisis centres surveyed in England and Wales feared closure or cuts in services this financial year because of lack of funding. Almost two-fifths (39 percent) fear closure or service cuts in 2009/2010.
Provision is the best in Glasgow because women’s safety has been prioritised, while the best provision in England is in Bradford.
The worst provision is in the East of England and South East.
Ethnic minority women are especially poorly served: just one in ten local authorities have a specialised service that is uniquely suited to deal with women facing particular circumstances, such as forced marriage.
Local authorities and other public bodies are required by law to promote gender equality, and that duty requires them to take into account men and women’s different needs. Because violence against women is such a major cause of women’s inequality, public bodies should ensure adequate support for women in such circumstances. Source: Equality and Human Rights Commission.
I’m probably not the only one that fails to comprehend some of the arcane procedures of our parliament, but after the billions thrown at wealthy bankers who seem to still be lining their pockets.
Even after a year such as the last, when taxpayers around the world have bailed out their banks, bonuses have still been paid. UBS is the latest, preparing to pay out bonuses from a bonus pool reported to be SFr2bn (£1.24bn). Regulators are said to have forced a SFR1bn reduction in the size of the total payouts. Bonuses, though, nonetheless. Source: The Guardian.
That this House notes with concern that unemployment has risen to around two million; sympathises with those newly redundant workers who will find themselves on unemployment benefit; expresses concern at the low level of such benefits at just 60.50 per week for those over 25 years old and 47.95 for those under 25 years old; refutes the justification for such low payments that higher benefits would be a disincentive to work; draws attention to a wealth of evidence that suggests that the descent into poverty has proved to be a greater cause of economic inactivity; therefore supports the TUC campaign to increase jobseeker’s allowance by 15 per week in order to allow people to live a healthy lifestyle for both physical and mental wellbeing in order to best encourage and assist such people back into work; and points out that, although this would cost more to the Treasury, higher benefit payments would also stimulate demand in the economy, which would help to avoid further rises in unemployment. Source: United Kingdom Parliament.
I can only speak from personal experience – I’ve allowed all my children a drink, not excessively and generally only on Sunday’s with our main meal, this has worked, none of our three boys who range from 16 to almost 20 binge drink, yes they’ve had their moments but that’s teenagers.
Now I see the government’s Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson is saying that taking that approach with my youngest who is just 7 is wrong (and no I don’t propose giving her alcohol 7).
I’m of the opinion the best way to avoid the dangers of binge drinking is introduction of alcohol at home with parents in sensible moderation. Banning alcohol until a child is 15 only increases the likelihood of experimentation outside the home, and that’s surely not the aim.
Donaldson’s advice flies in the face of reality, binge drinking is not about whether a child has a drink or not, it’s how the child’s parents deal with their children that matters and when things go wrong what support the state provides. I’m sure in an ideal world it would be better that children didn’t drink, however in the real world children are going to be curious about alcohol long before they’re 15. Any parent who says different is a fool.
And where’s the research that backs up Donaldson’s assertion that drink could seriously affect brain development in the young – how much alcohol, a small glass of wine, a half of beer, a pint?
In an article about the greed of executives at Lloyds Bank in requesting pay rises after the government brokered take over of HBOS, the executives arguing a bigger bank required bigger remuneration packages, The Guardian reveals.
That 12 top bankers earned more than £1bn in performance-related pay and shares in the run-up to the credit crunch – even though their banks have subsequently racked up more than £300bn in losses, write downs and emergency bail-outs from governments and shareholders. Source: The Guardian.
The pure naked avarice, that’s £83million pounds each for failure, most people would be fired if we turned in such a performance, not collecting bonuses.
Oh and Eric Daniels the Lloyds chief executive currently earns £1.03m plus an incentive scheme that includes an annual bonus of 225%.
I can’t see what justifies such fantastical salaries?
It looks, as if interbank credits were financed by funds, which come from the drug trade and other illegal activities. It is obviously difficult to prove, but there are indications that some banks have been rescued using these funds. This is my translation; you can read a Google translation here or the original article in German here.
So it seems towards the end of last year bankers didn’t care where they got the money, just so long as they could save (or mostly not) their banks. Hey seems like we’re all pimps now.
Watch the Gaza Appeal Video that the BBC refused to show
Now I’m no expert on the Middle East, but I find Hamas distasteful and wouldn’t like to live in a world ruled by them, equally I find the actions of Israel abhorrent. As for the BBC?
The BBC decision was made because of question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation and also to avoid any risk of compromising public confidence in the BBC’s impartiality in the context of an ongoing news story. Source: The BBC.
Well the appeal is supported by these charities ActionAid, British Red Cross, CAFOD, Care, Christian Aid, Concern, Help the Aged, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision, you know I’d trust them over the BBC on whether they can deliver aid or not. The second point the BBC’s impartiality, we are talking about a charitable appeal not a news broadcast, dose the BBC check all of it’s programming for impartiality? No of course not, BBC programs would be pretty boring if they did. The BBC is talking absolute rubbish, are they in pay of the Israeli government?
You can donate at any of the charities websites or here at the DEC.
Listening to Radio 4 this morning and an interview with John Fassenfelt, Deputy Chair of the Magistrates Association about the reclassification of cannabis from a Class C drug to a Class B, I found his lack of knowledge quite stunning – the interview asked Fassenfelt what other types of drugs are Class B, Fassenfelt he replies
“You’ve got me there; I’m not a big user of Class B drugs”.
To enlighten Fassenfelt – other Class B drugs are amphetamines, Methylphenidate (Ritalin) and Pholcodine, you’d hope a magistrate would know that – Fassenfelt a man with no idea.
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