The ‘Virtual Travels’ of Gary Glitter

Gary Glitter was today released from a Vietnamese jail, and immediately deported back to Britain. Convicted of abuse against two young Vietnamese children, paedophile Glitter (or Paul Gadd in old money) consistently refused to acknowledge his guilt, blaming his fate instead on a conspiracy involving the British press.

So what now? Our laws dictate that Glitter will be placed on the Sex Offenders Register, which will require him to report regularly to his local police station.

But even if UK laws seek to monitor him closely, will that prevent his “virtual” travels? After all, he was found to have countless obscene images of children on his computer in his UK home.

And in countries with less wealth, fewer if any legislative controls over child abuse, and with scores of shady ‘fixers’ always ready to facilitate the whims of the rich and famous, children will remain at risk from Glitter and others like him.

Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted

So Essex County Council has been given £150,000 by Government to combat teenage knife crime. In partnership with such footballing stars as David Beckham, the County Council intends to spend a large part of this cash on portable knife detectors.

Isn’t this slightly missing the point? Wouldn’t it make more sense to invest the money in prevention - particularly with such a high-profile partnership - involving young people in sport or other activities which will restore their pride in themselves?

As it is, doesn’t this seem rather like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted?

(Since writing this posting at lunchtime, I’ve checked into what Essex are doing on the issue of knife crime, and the council’s proud boast that Essex will be the safest county in the UK within five years. Check out the excellent web site 2smart.co.uk)

Lord Bruce-Lockhart of the Weald

Two days ago, in the early hours of Thursday morning, Sandy Bruce-Lockhart finally lost his fight against cancer. As the tributes pour in, many will praise him as Leader of KCC, Knight of the Realm, Chairman of the Local Government Association and of English Heritage, and Peer.

But as a newly-elected County Councillor back in 2001, the Sandy I remember spent time to encourage, to mentor, to advise and finally to bring me into his Cabinet after the equally sad demise of Tom Veitch in his late fifties.

He was a friend who would always be there when I needed advice or consolation; he expected the highest levels of passion, dedication, and political maturity from those around him, because that’s what he expected from himself.

His overwhelming sense of duty was his most important attribute. It was typical that just weeks before he died Sandy was still giving interviews and photo calls - still unstintingly singing the praises of the County he so loved.

I could go on for pages about one of the few people I have ever met for whom I would have done anything, simply because not once did I ever have cause to question his judgement.

But in the end, for the man who took on Governments and won, his illness was a battle that not even Sandy could win.

(photo courtesy of Wikipedia - click here)

Margate - everything it’s always been

Spent a great day down in Margate again today - this time I took my two daughters for some time at the seaside. And whilst I’m one of those people who usually loves seaside towns in off season - you know, cold, rainy, overcast - it was just great to drove along the Margate seafront on a hot, sunny day like today and to see the beach and the amusements crowded.

Interesting to see Shaw’s Fair next to Droit House - coming from Tunbridge Wells, it was only a week or two ago that the Kent and Sussex Courier ran a front page story on Shaw’s being banned by Targetfollow, the new owners of The Pantiles. Anyway, the kids had a go on some rides, then we went off to explore the trampolines (sadly Dad is substantially heavier than the nine stone weight limit).

But it’s the shops and the back streets that I love about Margate. Unusual one-off shops that you don’t find anywhere else. I love the fact that ‘The Gallery’, sets aside a whole session for service users from care homes, and that cheek by jowl with the kids and the parents were a small army of elderly people with the carers taking a stroll along the prom, stopping for tea at the excellent hut on the front opposite the station.

And you know what? On the way home, just near Thanet Earth, a squadron of what might have been Tornados performed a mini-airshow over the motorway - rehearsal or did we miss a show today? Maybe someone will tell me.

You know, Margate is everything it’s always been - it’s fun, it’s honest, and it’s accessible. And it doesn’t deserve the elitist claptrap that some have levelled at it for some years now. To the detractors, I say get in the car and go. You might learn something.

The Dark Knight - not a movie for children

I took my eldest yesterday to see “The Dark Knight” - the new Batman movie. And you know what? They’re right. It really shouldn’t be rated 12A. It’s certainly an action packed movie, but it’s too dark, too brooding, too forbidding for the British Board of Film Censors to grant it a 12A rating right in the middle of the school holidays.

At 152 minutes, it’s very long, and there are at least two occasions when you think it’s over. Christian Bale in the lead role almost takes a back seat to the late Heath Ledger, who as the Joker, is the epitome of psychotic maniac - as Michael Caine, who plays Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred says “some men just want to watch the world burn”.

My daughter enjoyed the movie, but the thing that stuck in her mind was the “social games” played by the Joker - deeply disturbing acts of violence initiated by the choices made by the innocent victims. Great cast - Bale, Ledger and Caine are joined by Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman - great story, great visuals.

But it’s not a movie for children nor should it be rated as such.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black.

You may have seen in the news that right-leaning think tank Policy Exchange have produced a report - “Cities Unlimited” (click here to open a copy) which says that Northern coastal cities such as Liverpool and Sunderland had “lost their raison d’etre” and that some were “beyond revival”.

David Cameron was quick to denounce the report as ‘insane’ whilst on a visit to Carlisle, making it clear that Policy Exchange did not speak for the Conservative Party.

But a report by the BBC (click here) claims that Vera Baird, MP for Redcar has slammed the report as “vindictive, anto-Northern thinking” - and then goes on to talk about Policy Exchange as David Cameron’s ‘friends’.

John Prescott, fresh from over exagerrating his impact on takeup of croquet (forty odd percent) whilst the professional body had already stated around fourteen - waded into the argument, saying:

“To state that northern cities like Bradford, Liverpool and my home town of Hull
have no hope of being regenerated in the 21st Century and that people should
move to London, Oxford and Cambridge is the most insulting and ignorant policy
I’ve ever heard.”

The Policy Exchange report is, of course, unhelpful and just a little naieve in the current political climate, but we live in a free society where such organisations are at liberty to publish their ideas. However, for Mr Prescott to talk piously about regeneration “in his home town of Hull” after the massive windfall generated by the sale of Kingston Communications was totally squandered and gave little or no benefit to the people of Hull, is surely the pot calling the kettle black.

The London Dungeon - excellent fun

So whose bright idea was it to visit the London Dungeon today? Mine I guess. We took the train to London Bridge, then walked out onto Tooley Street. By eleven o’clock in the morning, the queue stretched several hundred yards back towards London Bridge. Two and a half hours, two Capri Suns, a Snickers Duo, a bag of Cheesy Wotsits and a small cheap radio to keep from getting bored later, at 1.30pm we got to enter the front door. But it wasn’t over yet. Another half hour queuing inside for the ticket booth, then a further half an hour waiting for our tour to begin in the “Labyrinth of the Lost”…

The Torture Chamber, the Great Fire of London, Jack the Ripper, Sweeney Todd, all were realistically propped and acted out. The sights, smells, even temperatures. And then there were the actors - realistic and always in character.

And the piece de resistance - the rides. Unbelievably in this cramped arch under London Bridge Station, there was a “Boat Ride to Traitors’ Gate” along a pitch black waterway. And finally - well I won’t spoil it for anyone, but the “Extremis: Drop Ride to Doom” was unbelievable. Although as you’ll see from the picture above, I look quite chilled - bored almost, although those either side of me were clearly terrified. I guess I must have been tired by then!

My advice if you decide to visit is to go to the website (click here) and pre-book a time slot to avoid the wait. But all in all, despite the eternal queueing, despite the not inconsiderable entrance fee - over twenty pounds for adults, over fifteen pounds for kids - it was still excellent fun.

Scrapping our values - or valuing our scrap?

Following on from yesterday’s blog posting about the Allington incinerator and the rising price of recycled materials, I see from today’s Times that abandoned cars are becoming a thing of the past. Rather than having to pay £50 for a scrap yard to take your car, many will give you £200, or even up to £1000 for your vehicle as the value of copper, aluminium and steel continues to rocket.

My colleague Paul Bettison, Chairman of the Environment Board at the Local Government Association says that five years ago local authorities were having to tow away up to eight hundred abandoned vehicles a day. Now, because of rocketing value of metals and other recyclable components, people know the value of their old wreck and councils collect less than 225.

Keep your fingers crossed for a sudden rise in the value of bin bags full of old newspapers and garden waste, bald car tyres and divans. Maybe then people would stop dumping them in our hedgerows and country lanes?

A Gym so posh it’s called James

I see from today’s Times (“Steve Gerrard’s new gym is bigger than the houses next door” - click here) that Steven Gerrard, captain of the mighty Liverpool FC has built a gym behind his stately pile in Freshfieds, Merseyside.

Nothing unusual about that? Well this gym is larger than some of the surrounding houses, being built on the site of a former bungalow. The two storey copper and glass structure came with a price tag of £350,000.

And apparently the building is on such a scale that it actually has a different postcode to Gerrard’s house in whose garden it sits. “It’s like building an Asda in the middle of a beauty spot” said one disgruntled neighbour.

The neighbours will need to make sure they get the right address when they send their vitriolic letters of complaint…

The Changing Face of Waste

A decade ago, a serious problem confronted Kent County Council. Regular recycling just didn’t occur in many households, and the usual option for disposing of business and household waste was landfill. Kent’s million and a half residents produce around eight hundred thousand tonnes of domestic waste each and every year, and with the cost of disposing of this huge volume sitting at over £50,000,000 it’s a serious problem.

It was against this background that we made the decision to enter into a twenty five year contract with Kent Enviropower Limited to buy 320,000 tonnes a year of capacity at their new SWERF - Solid Waste to Energy Recycling Facility - at Allington Quarry in Maidstone.

The agreement looked set to provide a real solution to a large proportion of Kent’s waste disposal problems. But alas, things are rarely that simple. You see, the Allington SWERF has been dogged by technical problems, and much of the waste we expected to be able to recycle through this facility has still ended up in landfill.

But the most unpredictable element is the price of recycled waste. In the decade since we agreed the Kent Enviropower (KEP) deal, the value of some elements of recycled waste has doubled - yet the KEP agreement doesn’t allow us to share in the profits generated by selling on these products.

That’s the changing face of waste - who could have predicted a decade ago that what seemed like a potential saving, would end up costing us money.