Clegg joins attack on VAT 'waste'

"Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has added his voice to concerns that the government's temporary 2.5% VAT reduction has been a 'waste of money'."

Read also start-of-13-month-vat-rate-today

Private firm 'may run' phone log

"A private company could be asked to run a huge database containing details of everybody's telephone calls, emails and internet use, it has been reported."

"The database, which critics claim would cost up to £12bn, is not intended to record the content of communications, but only the details of internet sites visited and what emails and telephone calls have been made, to whom and at what times. "

As reported today on BBC News

This is getting perilously close to George Orwell's 1984 vision of society.

Liberal Democrat Lords challenge telephone and internet record database proposals

Mon, 17 Nov 2008

House of Lords

Liberal Democrat peers have defended a person’s right to privacy, as the Government continue with plans to compile a huge database, containing records of all telephone calls, emails and text messages.

Speaking in the House of Lords, Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer described the measures as a "huge step" towards "a person with a right to privacy...being treated as a suspect." She questioned how effective the costly proposals would prove, given the vast amounts of correspondence the database would contain.

"With 3 billion e-mails - that is, 35,000 every second - 18 million internet connections and 57 billion text messages a year, does he think that this is really likely to prove the most effective way of fighting terrorism, given that the estimated cost will be up to £12 billion?"

Lord Avebury supported Baroness Miller's comments, highlighting the distinction "between looking at individual accesses with a view to the detection of particular crimes...and the collection of a record of every telephone conversation, every internet access and every text message made by you and me across the board, to be kept in a government-held database for ever." He called on the Government to publish a PowerPoint presentation given to internet service providers explaining the proposal in detail.

Lord Thomas of Gresford suggested, "that the information should be available only for the solution of serious crime" to safeguard against government abuse.

Read the House of Lords debate here

List of Labour's failures to date in IT related projects:
£13 billion on an NHS record system that is a complete failure
£200 million wasted over the past five years on IT projects that were never completed

Nick Clegg's New Year message

New Year message here on
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6B1cqj-oVdY on Digg here - so please take a moment to visit Digg and to click the 'digg it' button on the left to cast your vote.

Each vote helps get the film seen by more people.

Is carbon offsetting ever ok?

In Cllr Alexis Rowell's Blog Monday, 29 December 2008 he asks the question is carbon offsetting ever ok?

He writes: "The current edition of the Ecologist has an article castigating carbon offsetting Carbon Offsetting: forgive my carbon sin?. I have a lot of sympathy with the sentiments expressed. The price of carbon used in the offsetting business is far too low, because the market price of carbon is far too low, and investing in trees on the other side of the world, trees which might be chopped down one day, has never seemed to me to be a very sensible way to deal with the carbon problem."

I agree that the price of carbon is set too low to make carbon offsetting less attractive, I know from experience in dealing with blue chip companies tasked with reducing the company carbon footprint, carbon offsetting is "currently" very attractive to many organisations precisely because it is cheaper than directly dealing with the problem of carbon reduction.

Therefore, I would not directly advocate using carbon offsetting as it currently stands as a control method of dealing with climate change. However, if the carbon offsetting "cost" was increased to the point of being more expensive than "implementing" energy reducing solutions, I feel confidant that this would achieve a better outcome for the planet.

Author: Nigel Rumble

BLACK MOULD (FUNGUS) hits the Chalcots PFI £150M project

Black mould (Fungus) growing on the NEW window frames hits the £150M PFI "Chalcots" project. This serious and potentially hazardous situation has continued to become worse due to the moisture condensation during these cold and dump winter nights.

The new "state-of-the-art" window metal frames (with poor internal thermal insulation) conduct heat from the warm inside surfaces to the colder outside surfaces. Therefore, all the inside metal frame surfaces become very COLD which acts as a condensing surface for the moisture in the air of resident homes.

It is believed that the condensates (upto 50ml per window) which collects on the lower window frame and window ceils is responsible for the development of black mould spores in the "silicon" sealant, which appears NOT to be the "anti-fungicidal" type which would have helped to control these bacterial growths.

It will be asked at the next PFIC meeting that all 710 properties be checked and repaired to comply with building regulations and Health and Safety legislation of mould spore prevention.

It is widely recognised by medical experts that mould spores are responsible for potentially causing allergic reactions and respiratory problems. Some moulds also produce mycotoxins that can pose serious health risks to humans and animals. Exposure to high levels of mycotoxins can lead to neurological problems and in some cases death. The health hazards produced by mould have been associated with sick building syndrome.
If you are concerned and wish to know more Read Wikipedia here, APSNET

The thermal efficiencies of the NEW window frames is thus compromised by not having any thermal insulation properties, heat (energy) is being conducted straight out from all the window frames in this £150M PFI scheme, this energy conservation inefficient and poor design requires an investigation at the highest level.

PFI Contract info here

Author: Nigel Rumble