Vox Polis

Tony’s going to lecture us all tomorrow about social exclusion, and we can all gather and watch it “live” on the Downing Street website- what fun!

Tony said last week that there are “people that have multiple problems, who we need to identify far earlier.” - In Tony’s case there’s his announcement that he’s leaving, coupled with the failure to agree on a leaving date, which has resulted in growing opposition in the media, from the Tories, resentment from the public and even his own party. Would have been easier if he’d identified this problem far earlier, and resigned.

Clearly Tony’s is being excluded. Social exclusion is defined as:

“This is a term to describe marginalisation from employment (very soon), income (well compared to a director of a multinational), social networks such as family, neighbourhood (he lives next door to Gordon) and community (hmm..labour party, trade unions etc etc), decision making and from an adequate quality of life (who’d want to work his hours?- 5 hours sleep a night).”

Poor Tony! The Labour party certainly needs to tackle social exclusion. And it must start by tackling it within its own party.

Oh dear it looks likes Milliband’s recent attempt to “get down with the nerds kids” has backfired. Guido and co-conspirators have been playing around with Defra’s attempt at a Wiki on an environmental contract - see the results here and here
Although I appreciate Defra’s idea, the execution is wide of the mark. I think it is important that people realise their responsibilities. However the Defra submission is (inevitably) in Government speak (Does anyone else hate the word “stakeholders”!), and outlines no new ideas, listing a number of things the Government has to provide by law anyway (e.g. disposal of waste, recycling etc). This of course raises the question if the Government has to do these things, how do you enforce these responsibilities.