Gambling companies may have to pay a compulsory £5m-a-year levy because of their "very disappointing" failure to fully fund treatment for gambling addicts, the government said today.Publishing a consultation paper, the sports minister, Gerry Sutcliffe, said that the money would be used to fund helplines and treatment centres for gambling addicts, as well as to pay for research.Sutcliffe said that the government was resorting to a compulsory levy because gaming firms were failing to fund this sort of treatment on a voluntary basis. The industry has three months to draft an acceptable voluntary scheme or the government will quickly impose its alternative."We have put the protection of vulnerable people at the heart of the Gambling Act and that remains our priority," he said."We must ensure...

The top manager at the centre of the Baby P case, Sharon Shoesmith, is to appeal her against her sacking on the grounds that she was unlawfully dismissed.Shoesmith, 55, the former director of children's services at Haringey council, was removed by the children's secretary, Ed Balls, in December following a critical Ofsted inspection report into the circumstances surrounding the death of baby P.Baby P died aged 17 months in a blood-spattered cot in August 2007. He was on the council's child protection register at the time, and had suffered more than 50 injuries at the hands of his abusive mother, her boyfriend and their lodger despite 60 contacts with the authorities over eight months.A council statement published on 9 December said: "Ms Shoesmith will not be returning to work in Haringey....

Hospitals in England should allow the use of mobile phones except in areas where they interfere with medical equipment or invade privacy, ministers said today.NHS trusts should give patients, staff and visitors the "widest possible use" of their phones, the guidance from the Department of Health states.It comes five years after experts said hospital-wide bans on mobiles were unnecessary.In May 2007, the department recommended mobile phones were banned on wards and in operating theatres. The latest guidance is less prescriptive.But it states that mobiles should continue to be banned where the electromagnetic fields could interfere with critical care equipment.Hospitals must clearly indicate where mobile phones can and cannot be used, the guidance states.Ben Bradshaw, the health minister,...

posted by Cptn Torbay mayor Nick Bye’s master plan for The Bay could be under threat with the possible closure of Brixham’s museum. Mayor Bye, who has inspired the Facebook group I F**king hate Nick Bye, was looking to create a artistic and cultural enclave in the fishing town - a kinda South Coast St Ives. But Torbay Council budget proposal to cut the museum’s grant – half of the museum’s running cost – from September could see the end of such pretensions, along with the demise of a valuable cultural, historic and educational resource. Last year, for example, the museum organised an archaeological dig for youngsters at Berry Head as well as work inside the museum itself. “Over its 50 years, Brixham’s museum has amassed an important collection of...

Government draws up amendment to equality bill which will require firms to publish pay band......

David Cameron took the side of savers hit by tumbling interest rates yesterday and promised to abolish tax on the savings income of all basic-rate taxpayers. He also promised to lift personal allowances for pensioners by £2,000 a year. Pounded by Labour charges of offering a do-nothing approach to the crisis, the Tory leader said that he wanted to help the "innocent victims" of the recession.Cameron also toughened his approach to public spending, by proposing for the first time that its growth in the financial year 2009-10 be cut from 3.4% to 2.6%, saving £5bn. Setting out a plan for Conservative government, he said spending on schools, health, defence and international development would be maintained at Labour's planned levels, meaning projected spending in other departments...

Jenny Linnell of the International Solidarity Movement is in the Gaza Strip. Here are some of the images she sent through of the January 1 attacks. Listen to her interview from December 29, 2008. Similar Posts: Paying the bookies Plymouth’s Proximity Effect art show to, er, take effect View From Here film events Feel the pressure, but do it anyway Reader offer Get all the latest, subscribe to the People’s Republic of South Devon ————————————————————————————...

As Britain's bars and nightclubs finish their busiest time of year, a Manchester doorman wears a camera for a night to record what doing his job is......

posted by Cptn We have received this email with news from the Gaza Strip from Human Right’s Volunteer Jenny Linnell, on the day when more than “300 people from across the west country gathered in Exeter city centre for two hours of vigils in the cold. The crowd of all ages and from all backgrounds held silences, walked and chanted, and laid flowers in memory of the 400 killed and 2000 injured in the Gaza Strip in the last seven days of heavy shelling”. The press release, from the International Solidarity Movement, says the demo is part of an international day of solidarity for the people of Gaza, and protests have taken place across the country. They come the day after the Israelis allowed foreign passport holders the opportunity to leave Gaza for safety. About 400...

posted by Cptn The value of local reporting, good old-fashioned investigative journalism and use of the Freedom of Information Act have been on show in a Devon newspaper, which, among other stories, has highlighted the £150,000 costs to the council of blocking a wind farm, and the level of thefts at a hospital. At a time when ITV South West has moved to Bristol, the BBC has pulled out of its local TV channels, and local and regional newspapers are beings squeezed in every direction, it’s good to know that some papers still put value in the bread and butter, on-the-ground reporting. The North Devon Journal, a weekly newspaper from up north, has had six months of ‘hard-hitting exclusives based on Freedom of Information requests’, according to the paper’s...

David Cameron announced today that the Conservatives would abolish income tax on savings for basic rate taxpayers and raise the tax allowance for pensioners by £2,000.In a speech on Britain's economic future, the Conservative leader said he would find the £4.1bn necessary to pay for these measures by cutting government spending from the start of the 2009 financial year – and not just from 2010, as the Tories have already proposed.Cameron said the measures were necessary to encourage a culture of savings and would make some people with income from savings up to £7,200 a year better off.But his proposals to cut the rate at which government spending increases in 2009-10 from 3.4% to 2.6% is likely to be seized upon by Labour as evidence that public services would suffer under the...

After the excess of New Year's Eve and the Christmas season, the desire to detox is natural. But the burgeoning industry which caters for this demand makes claims which are frequently misleading or questionable, a group of scientists says today.The charity Sense About Science has compiled a dossier of information on claims made about 11 products including drinks, patches, diet supplements and even a "detox brush". A charity leaflet says: "The multimillion pound detox industry sells products with little evidence to support their use. These products trade on claims about the body which are often wrong." Our bodies are capable of recovering from binges on their own, the scientists argue.One product criticised is Boots's "detox brush" which the company claims will "brush away impurities" and...

A significant number of young people are depressed or struggling to cope and the situation is likely to worsen as recession takes hold, according to a report by the Prince's Trust. One in 10 16- to 25-year-olds polled by the charity for its Youth Index study said they felt that life was meaningless, and more than a quarter (27%) said they were always or often down or depressed. Almost half of all those surveyed (47%) said they were regularly stressed.The trust, which interviewed more than 2,000 young people across Britain, said the results were "alarming". Young people not in work, training or education were worst affected, the research found. Some 37% of those outside paid employment or education admitted to being frequently down or depressed, while 27% said their lives had no purpose....

posted by Cptn People in Plymouth have today been protesting against the bombing and invasion of Gaza. According to Talking Liberties: “The turnout was especially heartening as the event was called at very short notice, with it only being organised last night on finding out that Israel’s ground forces had entered the Gaza Strip.” For more pictures and details of the next vigil, visit the Talking Liberties site. Similar Posts: Jobs update Sunday Service Crime and punishment Food Wrap Marine Bill Get all the latest, subscribe to the People’s Republic of South Devon ————————————————————————————...

A new year is usually a time for hope. But today many of us are full of doubt. The financial crisis has brought wave after wave of bad news, replacing the old certainties with a sense of dread and insecurity. And then there's terrorism, climate change and social breakdown... Are our nightmares based in reality or are we the victims of a very modern kind of mass hysteria? Out with the old... in with a new age of anxietyIn the week that Lehman Brothers needed $20bn to stay afloat, I needed £10,000. It was mid-September and we were at the end of a gruelling house renovation "project" (what on earth could we have been thinking of?) that had sucked up more money than I cared to add up and the builder was waiting for his final payment. No problem, I'd thought, we'll just add it to the...

Thousands of teachers and pupils are expected to call in sick this week as widespread outbreaks of flu and the norovirus "winter vomiting bug" threaten to disrupt schools across Britain. Teachers' unions warned that schools face a "tough time" when the new term starts tomorrow with flu cases up by 73 per cent on a year ago and the norovirus still rampant.Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "There are more people struggling with this very unpleasant flu bug, which seems to lay you low for weeks, and various forms of the norovirus. I think the beginning of term is going to be a tough time for schools."Staffing would inevitably be stretched, he added. "It's not like other workplaces where they carry on; if a teacher is off, the work doesn't get...

A dying man who was allegedly neglected by ambulance workers after noting his squalid living conditions was unable to clean his house because he had a crippling form of arthritis, it emerged last night.Two paramedics have been arrested on suspicion of neglecting their duty to Barry Baker, 59, a civil servant who lived alone in Patcham, Brighton, after they were allegedly heard to say they could not be bothered to resuscitate him.Mr Baker collapsed on the floor while telling an emergency operator he thought he was having a heart attack. The phone line to the emergency control centre remained open, allowing controllers to hear the moment the ambulance crew arrived.His cousin and next of kin, Phillip Davy, said the messy appearance of the house belied the fact that Mr Baker was clean and...

Something For The Weekend* features posts from the Little Frigging In The Wold blog (now deleted), that I believe are worthy of reposting here. [The dates will only be approximations, and I will try to remember to check that the links still work before reposting them.] Science And Democracy - 17/01/06 It hardly seems fair in this day and age, here at the beginning of the 21st century, that science should be under the control of the self-proclaimed 'scientists'. Did you or I vote for them? Do they allow us any say in what they call 'scientific fact'? Quite simply, it is now obvious that science is not democratic enough. In an age where not only politicians can be voted in or out of office, and, in the even far more important, and far more real, world of celebrity reality shows, we - the...

Many white working-class people across the country feel their concerns about the impact of immigration are being ignored, according to the communities and local government secretary, Hazel Blears.Politicians need to start reconnecting with this group of people, Blears said today, as a study of attitudes to immigration was published finding a widespread sense of resentment, unfairness and disempowerment among white working-class communities in England."White working-class people living on estates sometimes just don't feel anyone is listening or speaking up for them," Blears said."Whilst they might not be experiencing the direct impact of migration, their fear of it is acute." It was the responsibility of politicians to challenge the myths about immigration spread by the far right, she...