Beasley's Place

Well it seems that Liam Fox did break the Ministerial code. Now there is a surprise!

Honestly, why did it take yet another report to state the obvious – that Liam Fox had lost all grip on reality. I remember asking my boss once if could take my ‘Best’ man on a business trip with me to Australia, surprisingly he said no!

The expenses scandal, Jobs for the Boys, privately (USA) funded advisors and now a whitewash of a report without us really finding out who knew what and when etc. etc.

We must not of course forget Oliver Letwin’s disposal of documents in a rather novel way, what was he thinking? However, I suppose we must thank him for not littering the park with his correspondence!

Politicians are such fools!

Thames Valley Police has confirmed that there were small outbreaks of disorder in parts of Reading and Oxford overnight (Monday 8th August).

Following a meeting between the police, council and other agencies,  precautionary advice has been issued to businesses in the area.

The key message is to carry on as normal and not to cause widespread public concern. There has been no intelligence received to indicate any specific threat.

Contact Reading UK CIC (www.livingreading.co.uk) at Davidson House, Forbury Square, Reading. RG1 3EU on Tel – 0118 900 1624 if you have any concerns.

I wrote to you last night about my total shock at the events unfolding on some of our UK streets.

They say that ‘we reap what we sow’ and clearly there are many issues to be addressed around Jobs (or lack of them), Social deprivation, Policing policies etc. But, however disenfranchise people feel about ‘their lot’, there just does not seem to be any real justification for these sort of actions & appalling sights on our streets.

People here are not dying of hunger as in East Africa, people here are not being killed by authoritarian regimes as in Libya or Syria, people here are not being blown up as in Afghanistan/ Iraq.

I know that many people these days seem to demand ‘Respect’, but how much ‘respect’ did any of these mindless thugs show for other peoples properties?

I don’t have a single answer to all the issues, but one major thing that struck me while watching the images over the last three days was how the police seemed so unprepared to deal with this. The time for Plastic Shields and Truncheons seems to have passed and more force was clearly called for to at least initially to clear the streets. Of course, the Police are damned if they do and damned in they don’t. But these events seem to me at least, to be exceptional circumstances.

I don’t blame the police for any of this, sadly they can only do what they can do with the tools that they have and the management that they have ended up with. But as David Green a Director of Civitas said in a Telegraph article yesterday…

“The present generation of police leaders gained promotion by mastering the art of talking about “issues around” racism or bearing down on hate crime “going forward”. Learning the management buzz words of the last few years has not produced leaders able to command men in a riot. The injuries sustained by officers show that we have plenty of men and women prepared to be brave when needed, but they are lions led by donkeys who listened a bit too intently to the sociology lectures about “hate crime” at Bramshill police college.”

It’s right and proper that Parliament has been recalled and I would ask you as my MP to demand urgent immediate action to address these shocking events as well as a serious review of the underlying issues that may have contributed to them. You should also carry over my disgust at the lack of leadership shown by all at the top level in this current government. They have failed in my eyes to show any kind of feeling of understanding about how to deal with this and have left the UK looking an embarrassed mess.

Know When to Buy an eReader and When to Wait – I cam across this good review of eBook Readers or eReaders as I tend to call them and as quite few people I know are looking to upgrade from last years Kindle presents, I thought I would post this.

The Prices are in US dollars, but the technical aspects and links for other reviews of the reviews is still valid.

Are we transforming our memory recall of events & information to the Cloud? This interesting BBC article about a research project at Columbia University seems to be indicating this.

We appear to be better able to remember where we bookmarked/tagged/ stored that important information nugget rather try and remember the information itself. Perhaps it’s another symptom of the information overload that live under in the ‘modern’ world!

Now where did I put that note I just wrote out!

Some interesting articles over the weekend about the resultant News of the World phone hacking scandal.

Phone hacking: A scandal that has diminished Britain – I wonder what the rest of the world thinks about this. I’ve asked some overseas friend to send some comments will post when I have them.

The threat to our press – what the Guardian has to say about the current events!

News of the World phone hacking scandal: live – Live feed of events as covered by the Telegraph. Keep this one open in your Internet browser for news as it happens, John Yates next to resign?

Newsagents hit by News of the World closure – a tangential effect of the scandal.

If Miliband is such a hero, why won’t he tackle the REAL threat to our way of life – the BBC? – Melanie Phillips as usual odd view on Ed Miliband and the BBC aspects of the scandal.

The country is at last to recognise the important work that the Bletchley Park coder breakers did during WW II and their successful cracking of the secret Nazi Enigma codes.

Although kept secret for over 30 years after the end of the war, it’s good that some of the original staff will still be on hand to see a special Memorial unveiled by the Queen.

What a great shame that so much expertise and technology remained hidden for so long as I am sure if we had had just a little more imagination and planning perhaps the early computing technology used by Bletchley Park may have provided the UK with a better post war recovery path.

I’m working through some Blogger Template changes at the moment, as have just realised that Google have updated the Template GUI and some other stuff, so there will be some style/format ‘funnies’ appearing on the blog for a short while.

To coin a phrase, “Bear with, bear with!”