Ghost Passage Revisited Since I last posted about Ghost Passage and the police plan to close it there have been some developments in the matter.  Since the previous posts elicited several comments and a whole bunch of emails I thought it was worth writing a brief update on where we are now.  As some readers will know I hand-delivered letters to all the local residents to research their actual opinions rather than just presuming the police view of the matter was correct.  I’m glad I did.  Of the people who have responded so far not a single one has been in favour of the police plan exactly as stated.  Most have been against the plan completely.  Two have been for the plan in a limited form - but against full closure. Not a single person who has responded liked the proposals by...

I first heard that there had been another IED strike on a Viking early Wednesday evening, long before there was any media coverage. This was from Thomas Harding of The Daily Telegraph, who told me two soldiers had been killed, and more injured.At that time, we did not know that Lt-Col Rupert Thorneloe had been killed. Thus, to us, there was only one story – another example of men being killed in the perilously inadequate Viking, so lightly armoured that it is incapable of resisting even a minor IED hit under the belly or tracks.As the details of Thorneloe's death came in the following morning, to us the tenor of the story did not change. In fact, it reinforced the line and made it both more tragic and more outrageous. Although every death counts, there is still something special...

Unions representing college employees say millions of pounds is being wasted on agency staff and...

A London council withdraws its action against a mother it accused of lying to gain a school...

I would have posted this earlier if I hadn't been locked out of my house, apologies for the delay. Jack Straw, what an a-hole. It comes to something when you can be denounced by Ann Widdecombe from the left!Jack Straw has refused train robber Ronnie Biggs parole guaranteeing that he will die in prison. The ailing 79 year old can barely move and is hooked up to a nasal gastric feed. Biggs has had three strokes, he can't walk or talk and has served ten years of his sentence making him eligible for release, which the parole board has recommended.Yet Straw is a vindictive man.He doesn't claim that Biggs is a danger to society but that Biggs has an attitude problem. He must rot in prison because he is "wholly unrepentant". It seems that "Biggs chose not to obey the law and respect the...

You may remember the case of the Policeman who came over all shy? He was a former Chief Constable, a Deputy Commissioner of Scotland Yard responsible for discipline and anti-corruption and head of the anti – terrorist squad making life and death decisions (not necessarily a metaphor) when he suddenly become bashful, sensitive and upset. Yes, this sensitive soul was Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman of Scotland Yard who was responsible for the Metropolitan Police’s unit in charge of the fight against terror. In December 2007 he decided to retire immediately from his £180,000-a-year post, thereby avoiding a disciplinary inquiry or other action in relation to a number of matters. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) examined Mr Hayman's conduct after the shooting of...

Gordon Brown criticises personal attacks in politics as the spending row between Labour and the Tories continues to...

And let’s just be clear Roberto Maroni & the Northern League are fascists, just as torture is not called torture, fascists are never called fascists. Thanks media, heck of a job… Italian lawmakers on Thursday gave final approval to controversial legislation that makes illegal immigration a punishable offence and allows mayors to form civilian anti-crime patrols in towns and cities. The bill was approved by 157 votes for to 124 against, in the upper house Senate. The lower house Chamber of Deputies had already approved the package in May. A provision to triple the time illegal immigrants can be detained in holding centres, is also included in the package which is now law. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government relied on confidence votes in both houses of...

The prime minister should not be boasting about his gay-friendly credentials when he supports the ban on same-sex marriageI am not surprised that Gordon Brown has turned down an invitation to march on Saturday's Pride London gay parade. Downing Street is claiming that "security considerations" prevent the prime minister from attending. This is a poor excuse. Doesn't he have bodyguards and a flak jacket?More likely, he is not marching because he fears he would be booed and jeered, like he was at the D-day commemorations. His government is not as pro-gay rights as it claims. He has angered many people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community by blocking full equality on issues such as civil marriage and protection against homophobic harassment, which is explicitly...

This just in, on the Grauniad blog this afternoon: Ken Livingstone explains why the privatisation of the railways has been a catastrophe, and how the East Coast Main Line fiasco provides the opportunity to start renationalising the whole network, and why that would be a good thing.Every word is spot on. No need to add anything. Just read the piece. UPDATE: And see also this from the Campaign for Public...

Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw angers Tories by saying "a deep strain of homophobia still exists on the Conservative...

More than 100,000 people could be diagnosed with swine flu every day by the end of August, the government said, announcing that the disease can no longer be contained in the UK.A Commons statement by the health secretary, Andy Burnham, marks a watershed in the spread of the flu. No more schools will be closed, unless forced to by the lack of staff or if the pupils are especially vulnerable. Families and people in contact with those with flu will not be given preventative antiviral drugs.The new policy of treatment for those with diagnosed illness, rather than containment, has already begun in the hotspots – chiefly London, Birmingham and Scotland.The change of tactic is the predicted response to the swelling number of people infected. There are now 7,447 diagnosed cases in the UK, but...

Brockley Central is always happy to receive a guest column, even if they come from friends and family. This is from Nicola:Are there any BC readers interested in joining a creative mum's network?I'm a TV producer and mother to 2 young children living in Brockley. After the birth of my daughter last year, I decided to give up my staff job at the BBC to go freelance, partly because I decided it would better suit family life. What I hadn't reckoned on was that, without anyone to bounce ideas off combined with the the fact that motherhood often left me feeling pretty detached from the outside world, I felt stripped of any creative urges I may have had previously.Most creative industries strive on youth and enthusiasm and you're often left wondering where people go to once they reach 35. The...

Lord Adonis, transport secretary, wants to bring East Anglia and c2c routes under state controlThe government has a strong legal case for nationalising the c2c and National Express East Anglia franchises after the announcement by National Express that it will hand back its £1.4bn east coast contract, according to a respected rail industry lawyer.National Express is refusing to relinquish its two remaining rail contracts when it walks away from the London-to-Edinburgh route, as it is expected to do later this year. Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, is determined to strip the group of its other franchises under cross-default guidelines. If he is successful, the state will be the owner of Britain's most prestigious rail route and two of its busiest commuter franchises by the end of the...

Aubrey Meyer, 2008 Nobel Peace Prize Nomine:"I support Rupert Read's campaign to become the Green MP for Norwich North. He and his party project a version of the future that gives all our children the chance they need in the difficult times that now increasingly face us all."Mark Lynas, environmental author and journalist:"Action to save our kids' future is the great moral issue of our time. It's time to stand up for what's right, to stand up for what's needed to stop dangerous climate change. There's only one candidate standing up with the commitment to make that happen. That's why I'm backing Rupert Read and the Green Party in this all-important byelection."Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner:"Fed up with the established parties and corrupt MPs? It is time for change. Register your...

My post below on the likelihood of justice for Neda Agha Soltani featured a quote from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:"The massive propaganda of the foreign media, as well as other evidence, proves the interference of the enemies of the Iranian nation who want to take political advantage and darken the pure face of the Islamic republic."I am sure, Ahmadinejad probably meant pure in the sense of the face being homogeneous, free from impurities, containing nothing extraneous, faultless or even chasteThe problem for an anal retentive like myself or teh not-wife) is that we tend to think of pure in the sense of one of its older meanings and one that seems to have fallen into disuse in the 20th Century (or we would not have a chaine of tanning salos called Pure Tanning!) and is certinly dead in teh...

The woman at the centre of a high-profile online bullying case was exonerated by a US judge today - despite having previously been found guilty of computer crimes that led to the suicide of her teenage neighbour.At a sentencing hearing in Los Angeles earlier today, Lori Drew, 50, was told that the verdict of a Californian jury would be overturned and she would not face imprisonment for her role in the death of 13-year-old Megan Meier, who killed herself in 2006 after being bullied on MySpace. Despite having been found guilty on a number of minor counts last November, US District Judge George Wu overruled the jury in the original trial and said that Drew should be acquitted.Although the ruling was tentative - and the decision will not become final until papers are filed later this week -...

Claim that hundreds were convicted through flawed credit card evidenceOne of Britain's biggest online paedophile inquiries is to be challenged in the court of appeal amid allegations from campaigners that hundreds of men have been wrongly convicted in a mass miscarriage of justice.For more than two years a small group of experts have claimed that Operation Ore, the police inquiry into thousands of British men, was tainted because the database at the centre of the investigation contained evidence of widespread credit card fraud. Their allegations will be tested for the first time in the appeal court within weeks, when a judge examines a test case that could expose a huge miscarriage of justice, lawyers say.The single judge will decide whether the case should go to a full appeal.Chris...

Commander first to have died in active service since the Falklands war 27 years agoThe commander of a British regiment has been killed in Afghanistan, the first to have died in active service since the Falklands war 27 years ago.Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe, of 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, was killed on Wednesday by what defence officials described tonight as a "huge bomb" that shattered the armoured Viking tracked vehicle he was travelling in.The explosion also killed a soldier from 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, and injured six other troops.The soldiers were in a convoy heading for Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province, after completing the second phase of Operation Panchai Palang (Panther's Claw). Thorneloe was sitting at the back of the Viking.The operation which British...

• Investigators: Jet hit the sea belly first at high speed• Without black box exact cause may never be foundThe Air France plane that vanished in the middle of the Atlantic with 228 people on board did not disintegrate in mid-air but plunged into the water intact and belly first, investigators said today.Alain Bouillard, leading the preliminary inquiry on behalf of France's BEA accident agency, said examination of wreckage indicated the A330 Airbus was still in one piece when it crashed, at high speed, into the ocean."The plane was not destroyed while it was in flight," he told a press conference near Paris. "It seems to have hit the surface of the water in the direction of flight and with a strong vertical acceleration." Appearing to rule out any question ofterrorism, Bouillard added...

The Washington Post reports that Saddam Hussein’s interrogations by the FBI have been released, under US Freedom of Information laws, to the ‘National Security Archive’, an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University. The NSA’s website has “Twenty Interviews and Five Conversations with “High Value Detainee # 1″, should anyone still be interested. Fortunately, the Post has done the hard work for us. There is of course the usual, now unsurprising, confirmation that Saddam had no link to, nor even any sympathy with, Al Qaeda: Piro raised bin Laden in his last conversation with Hussein, on June 28, 2004, but the information he yielded conflicted with the Bush administration’s many...

Kirsty ScottThe weather has not been kind to Dunblane's most visible tribute to Andy Murray. A high banner strung between two poles by the local bowling club has wilted in the heat and humidity, and all that can be seen of the handwritten message "Bowl Them Over, Andy!" is the tennis player's name.That's as showy as it gets in this small country town, a community that maintains a fierce but quiet pride in the 22-year-old local lad turned great British hope.In the High Street, the local butcher's is advertising a Murray Burger, and the optician, owned by Murray's uncle, has a window display of plastic strawberries and tennis balls and glossy photographs of Andy and his brother Jamie, who is still in the mixed doubles tournament. Elsewhere, the good-luck messages are even more discreet: A4...

President chides Russia's PM but says Dmitry Medvedev understands that cold war behaviour is outdatedOn the eve of a trip to Moscow, Barack Obama chided Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, today for keeping "one foot in the old ways of doing business". By contrast, he said Putin's handpicked successor as president understands that cold war behaviour is outdated.In a White House interview with The Associated Press, the president said he will meet with both Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, on his trip, in hopes they can "move in concert in cooperating with us on some critical issues."On an important domestic issue, Obama said the US supreme court was "moving the ball" on affirmative action in this week's decision favouring white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut,...

Well I guess all good things come to an end, or at least that’s what some people say. But it looks like that one good thing has unfortunately come to an end, that of which I’m sad to see go as I was a part of it, that is that the rumors circulating earlier this week about the MSN/Windows Live Butterfly program closing have come true. A Microsoft spokesman sent Mary Jo Foley the following response when she questioned Microsoft about the closing of the MSN/Windows Live Butterfly beta testing program. “The Butterfly group has been involved in beta testing MSN and Windows Live products for a number of years.  Rather than continue the program as something only focused on beta testing, we’re offering the group a variety of options to engage in the broader Windows Live...

Local reader J. Hirst has sent me an Open Letter to Laura Sandys. The pictures are of two of the local improvements the Labour government has provided in South Thanet. The new built Montefiore Medical Centre on Dumpton Park Drive, Ramsgate. This houses the East Cliff Practice which was made up by the joining of the former Mildmay and Addington Street Surgeries, and the Grange Practice. Below is the Science Annexe at Clarendon House Grammar School in Ramsgate."Dear Ms. Sandys,I keep reading that David Cameron, the Conservative Party Leader, wishes to cut public expenditure by 10% in order to protect the NHS, a service that has saved thousands of lives since its creation in the 1940s. One of the Conservative MEPs for this region, Daniel Hannan, made an outrageous attack on the NHS recently...

The Eastern Daily Press has produced an intriguing analysis of last month’s local elections results, attempting to estimate how voting then might map across to the Norwich North by-election to be held later this month: Calculating party support ahead of the by-election is difficult due to division boundaries overlapping constituency ones. An approximation would give a line-up based on the June 4 results of: Conservatives 10,656 (40.1pc); Labour 4,953 (18.6pc); Lib Dem 4,371 (16.5pc); Green 4,251 (16.0pc); Ukip – standing in only four seats – 2,106 (7.9pc); BNP 228 (0.9pc). … Labour, Lib Dems and Greens will be seeking to establish themselves early in the campaign as the main challenger to the Tories. This compares with an ICM opinion poll last week (with a high...

[A group of UK relatives of victims of Pan Am 103 had a meeting on 1 July with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill MSP, in the context of Mr MacAskill's duties in respect of prisoner transfer and/or compassionate release in the case of Abdelbaset Megrahi. What follows is Dr Jim Swire's personal submission to the minister, reproduced with the consent of Dr Swire and Mr MacAskill.]Secretary, The prisoner transfer agreement (PTA), which is among the subjects we will raise with you today was born in what the media have come to refer to as ‘the deal in the desert’ between Prime Minister Blair and Colonel Gaddafi. We, relatives of some of those who died aboard the Maid of the Seas in 1988 come from a deeper darker desert of more than 20 years duration: the desert of loss in...

Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thornloe (pictured on patrol), CO of the 1st Bttn Welsh Guards, has been killed in Afghanistan by an IED. He is the first CO to be killed in action since the death of Lt-Col H Jones of the Parachute Regiment in 1982 at Goose Green in the Falklands War and the highest-ranking British Army officer to be killed in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Thornloe's death comes less than two weeks after the death of Major Sean Birchall, also of the Welsh Guards. He is the third Welsh Guards officer to be killed on the current roulement, with Lt Mark Evison killed on 12 May after sustaining injuries whilst on patrol outside Check Point Haji Alem in Helmand.The first bare details were reported early Wednesday afternoon by AFP, which released details of an incident in which a...

Turkish gameshow enlists imam, Greek Orthodox priest, rabbi and monk to try to convert atheists, with pilgrimage as rewardIt sounds like the beginning of a joke: what do you get when you put a Muslim imam, a Greek Orthodox priest, a rabbi, a Buddhist monk and 10 atheists in the same room?Viewers of Turkish television will soon get the punchline when a new gameshow begins that offers a prize arguably greater than that offered by Who Wants to be a Millionaire?Contestants will ponder whether to believe or not to believe when they pit their godless convictions against the possibilities of a new relationship with the almighty on Penitents Compete (Tovbekarlar Yarisiyor in Turkish), to be broadcast by the Kanal T station. Four spiritual guides from the different religions will seek to convert...

Shorter, milder winters caused by global warming to blame for steady decrease in size of St Kilda sheep, experts sayThe mysterious shrinking sheep of St Kilda sounds like a job for super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes.The case involves a rare herd of wild sheep on the remote Scottish island - known in Scottish Gaelic as Hirta - that are refusing to bow to conventional evolutionary pressure, which says big is best. Instead, they have steadily decreased in size since the 1980s.Scientists have now stepped in to solve the conundrum, and fingered the culprit as the new Moriarty of mankind: global warming.The experts say shorter and milder winters mean that lambs do not need to put as much weight on during their first few months of life. Smaller animals that would have perished in harsh winters a few...