Archive for December, 2007
31 December, 2007 at 4:46 pm
· Filed under Campaigns, Consumer ·Tagged Labour, pensions, Steve Webb, women
Older women, pensioner poverty, national insurance rules… it’s not the most festive topic, which may be why the Government’s Scrooge-like u-turn on the issue has not got much coverage. Women who have taken time out of making pension contributions because of time caring for their families lose out. Add this to women’s lower earnings and longer life-spans and it’s a triple whammy. To give them some credit, the Labour government is moving towards pensions equality. But its transitional arrangements are unfair. Women who turn 60 before 6th April 2010, will continue to lose out. Hence my campaign for fairness on women’s pensions.
Peers voted in the summer to allow women to catch up by buying up to 9 years’ extra National Insurance contributions. But now the Government has rejected that proposal. As Jackie Ashley wrote in last week’s Guardian, it’s “a mean U-turn on women’s pensions, something that will save the Treasury a little cash at the cost of poverty in old age for hundreds of thousands of women”. Ms Ashley, one of Labour’s own, goes on to call the decision “an important and woeful failure. It takes Labour in precisely the wrong direction, heading away from the human trouble it was elected to salve.”
Meanwhile Steve Webb’s campaigns, to highlight the entitlement of thousands of women to pensions, are needed more than ever.
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31 December, 2007 at 3:31 pm
· Filed under Consumer ·Tagged EU, Mail on Sunday, mobile phones
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24 December, 2007 at 11:50 pm
· Filed under Church & faith ·Tagged Christma
Twas the night before Christmas and all over the house, nothing was stirring, except Bridget’s mouse. And keyboard.
The rest of the household is asleep, the presents are wrapped, and I’ve done as much food prep as I can for now. So I’m off to bed then up early to peel potatoes and stuff the turkey before church.
I’ve blogged before about subtitles. Today there was a (Christmas) cracker on BBC News 24. “Across the world, Christians are preparing to celebrate the birth of jeers”. So conscious that I may indeed be inviting the birth of jeers, may I wish you a very happy Christmas; full of the faith of Joseph, the joy of Mary and the peace of the Christ child.
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24 December, 2007 at 12:57 pm
· Filed under Consumer, Family & friends ·Tagged Christmas, shopping
I finished [paid] work at lunchtime and it’s now the countdown to the arrival of parents for Christmas lunch. This explains why I am blogging (flagrant displacement activity) instead of cleaning. I’m very blessed in that Richard shares both the domestic chores and my untidiness threshold. My mother’s threshold is however different, so parental visits bring on a mini spring clean at any time of year.
Now I’m working from home, I anticipated extra hours in the day to prepare for Christmas. Ho ho ho. I had reckoned without the December FOCUS and Christmas card delivery. So for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been up with the lark, deliver a round of FOCUS, back home to work by 9am; repeat same at lunchtime and after work. And delivery all day at the weekends. I’m so grateful to my fantastic campaign team all doing their bit at the busiest time of year.
I do sometimes wish we had the big bucks needed to post the cards. Especially on the rainier days and chillier mornings. It is however great to get out and see so many people. And delivery has a couple of advantages over Christmas shopping. Not least that the bags get lighter not heavier as you go.
But the big plus for me is that I have delegated virtually all the shopping to Richard – with some anxiety. Revelation: he is brilliant.
Rich doesn’t enjoy shopping enough to prolong it pointlessly. I used to trudge round an extra hour on the basis that as I was there I should go round every department ‘just in case’. Just in case what? A family member is born or gets engaged while I’m shopping? I grow an extra arm to carry more things home?
He sticks to the list. I have a terrible habit of wasting time & money on ‘generic’ presents. I’m not sure if it’s because I so rarely shop that I suddenly overdose, or if it’s false prudence, a kind of insurance in case I don’t find the perfect present for people later on. All I know is come January; I have various objects – photo frames, bath towels, travel gadgets, candle holders – which are definitely hefker. Not this year!
Richard doesn’t agonise. I have been known to spend so long dithering between which of two scarves was better, that the store detectives had me in their sights. Richard sees and buys; and if in doubt, phones me with a shortlist. I’m halfway up a tower block “Bath stuff: Strawberry or mango?” Ten minutes later, “Calendar: Cezanne or Klimt?” On Saturday, he went out and came back with first turkey, then tree, all before 10am.
It is fantastic. I have a personal shopper. Richard has a job for life.
*for those of you expecting a political posting about the divisions of Labour, well it’s the season of goodwill. Until at least Wednesday.
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22 December, 2007 at 2:35 pm
· Filed under Neighbourhood
I was going to write a post about being too busy to blog cos of all the pre Christmas stuff to do. But I’m too busy. So I will merely share this overheard in N1 today. Harassed-looking Dad to lagging tot “Come on, Jake”. Jake: “Are we going to see the monster now?” Dad “No, that’s next week.”
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19 December, 2007 at 11:48 pm
· Filed under Movies & media ·Tagged money, Nottingham, Secret Millionaire, TV, volunteering, wealth
I’d heard about the Channel 4 series The Secret Millionaire but not seen it, until tonight. Normally Wednesday is a campaign evening, but seeing as it’s so close to Christmas we knocked off early (though not before recruiting another deliverer - a result!).
Back home early, I watched ‘Secret Millionaire’ Margaret Heffernan, under cover in St Ann’s, Nottingham. The premise of the programme is that a millionaire goes anonymously into a poor community to live there for a few days and find a person or project to transform with a gift of their money. Funders - whether individual or institutional - inevitably bring their own agenda to their funding. So the programme tells you as much about Margaret as it does about the people she helps. Margaret is a woman entrepreneur who supports other women in business through her publications and mentoring; so it’s unsurprising that she warmed to women running voluntary groups; and her unsentimental, unpatronising approach endeared her to them too.
With all reality TV you’re seeing the world through the editor’s eyes. Tony, the van driver who had fathered 12 kids (’on the record’), but was still living with his own Mum was shown telling Margaret gravely “women can’t do it all on their own” while his sister served dinner. Joy, who runs a carnival group for local kids, teasing Margaret about concealing her wealth - “I always tell my kids not to lie, that’s how you get to be a millionaire by lying.” Tony talking about his old van: “No power steering, no radio”. Tony’s mate: “No headlights.” The community laundry had a big messy job washing paintballing kit. Instead of pointing up the contrast in lifestyles, this programme pointed out that the paintball contract that keeps the laundry afloat.
Margaret Heffernan did the programme in part to show that business skills are a force for good, and how anyone can contribute through volunteering; you don’t have to be a millionaire to make a contribution.
You don’t have to be a millionaire to be rich either. Channel 4 has a handy ‘richometer‘ where you can plot your income against the rest of the UK and the rest of the world. On £30k a year, you’re in the top 10% of the UK and the top 1% of the world.
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19 December, 2007 at 6:49 pm
· Filed under Campaigns, Going green ·Tagged buses, Christmas, London, policy, public transport, TfL
Geoff Pope, one of the Lib Dems on the London Assembly, has been quizzing Mayor Ken about public transport at Christmas.
Last year Geoff pressed the Mayor to look at whether a Christmas Day bus service running on a night bus timetable might be possible; so far Ken’s answer is no. Bah humbug!
I think it’s a great idea; Christmas Day is the only day there is no public transport, yet it’s also a day when people want to travel to see family & friends, (maybe even go to church). And no bus or tube risks more drink driving.
Maybe if we get a change of Mayor, we’ll also get a Christmas Day bus service for 2008.
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18 December, 2007 at 5:50 pm
· Filed under Consumer ·Tagged names, plumbing
I heard a new variation on those ‘your name’ games recently: your space-age name is the firstname of your favourite childhood popstar, plus the first word of the latest gadget you bought. Which would make me Gilbert Solar.
Another one is your US senator name (the first part of your road name; the job of one of your grandparents; the number of loos in your house). When I lived in Barnsbury my name would have been Hemingford Clerk III which was quite grand. Now it’s Morton Clerk I. Which is a fancy way to say we have one loo, so having it out of action is no joke. Especially not just before Christmas.
Last night the pipe from the water cistern to the loo started leaking – right above the freshly-painting living room ceiling. A quick text message to a couple of friends generated a sympathetic phone call and the name of a good plumber. In the meantime, no flushing and an old towel round the pipe.
Angel Plumbing lived up to their name, came round today and fixed a new flush pipe [cue bad old joke about a few inches of rubber putting a smile on your face].
A loo may not be the most exciting present ever, but it’s more useful than most. And there’s still just time to order one!
All together now:
I don’t want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
I don’t care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I just want a place to go
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is loo.
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13 December, 2007 at 7:48 pm
· Filed under Consumer, Family & friends ·Tagged decorating, furniture, home
Last New Year’s Eve, looking at the dark pink walls inherited from the previous owner of the flat, and full of the boozy optimism of the season, I resolved that by 2008, it would have been redecorated. Life then intervened for a few months but we finally got round to it this month.
All last week our decorator, the very excellent Delia Mitchell, was busy ladling on the new, cream paint; she’s a former senior bod in the Probation Service now doing painting, so our tea-break chats were more stimulating than some, covering everything from dress-making to Dawkins, green living, is email a boon or a curse (discuss) and why raising the school-leaving age is barmy. And the paint job looks great.
On Tuesday Ecojunk took away the last of the old suite; and on Saturday the new sofa is due to arrive. We ordered it during the July sales and it’s been in the warehouse ever since. I hope it still looks the way I remember it…. Carpet will have to wait until next year for reasons of sanity (the bank manager’s as much as mine) but the room’s all looking light and lovely.
In the meantime the seating arrangements are a choice of cushions on the floor or Richard’s inflatable chair which seems to have a slow leak. So it’s a question of whether you sit on the floor immediately, or gently subside towards it. I hope the sofa turns up on time; we’ve invited my parents for Christmas Day, and while they’re game for most things, I’m not sure comedy seating is quite what they have in mind.
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13 December, 2007 at 7:07 pm
· Filed under Campaigns ·Tagged Europe, Gordon Brown, Labour, politics, referendum
Today the EU Reform treaty was signed by all the EU heads of government – kind of. Gordon Brown signed by himself after the group celebrations this morning, presumably hoping distance would lend enchantment to the view.
What Gordon may think is nifty footwork just looks inept to everyone else. Unlike our own Vince Cable, I can’t see the PM making a success of Strictly Come Dancing.
He had a clear choice; sign up with pride, trumpet his ‘red lines’ and make the British case for Europe. Or say ‘I want no part of this’, and refuse to sign. Signing up furtively achieves nothing.
If the treaty turns out to be bad news, Gordon Brown will still be responsible for signing us up to it; if it’s a success he’s airbrushed himself out of the historic photos. Unless he’s planning to do a Purnell, of course…..
The debate over a European treaty referendum rumbles on. I think debates over clauses mask the real issue. Section 28 wasn’t really about the curriculum; it was the last gasp of the homophobes. Clause 4 in the Labour party wasn’t just about economic policy; it was the last gasp of old socialism. If we are to have a referendum – as we should – then let’s have it on the real issue: Europe in or out.
Just because the Prime Minister is coy about where he stands on Europe, that’s no reason to deny we citizens our say.
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