government


The British government is leading a gunpowder plot against democracy | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

The more I hear about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the worse it sounds. But it gives so much power and advantage to the rich and corporations that, obviously, our government doesn’t want to do anything about it, and would rather no-one talks about it.

When David Cameron and the corporate press launched their campaign against the candidacy of Jean-Claude Juncker for president of the European commission, they claimed that he threatened British sovereignty. It was a perfect inversion of reality. Juncker, seeing the way the public debate was going, promised in his manifesto that “I will not sacrifice Europe’s safety, health, social and data protection standards – on the altar of free trade – Nor will I accept that the jurisdiction of courts in the EU member states is limited by special regimes for investor disputes.” Juncker’s crime was that he had pledged not to give away as much of our sovereignty to corporate lawyers as Cameron and the media barons demanded.

The British government is leading a gunpowder plot against democracy | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian.


Sign this petition

I’m a bit behind the curve when it comes to commenting on the proposed Digital Economy Bill (here’s one professional writer’s opinion, and here’s another’s). Frankly, the fact that Peter Mandelson is in any way connected to it should be enough to convince you it’s going to be awful.

Sign this petition on the Number 10 website to register your disapproval. It only relates to the proposal to cut people off from the internet for no good reason and without the necessity of evidence.

I’l try to investigate it all more thorouighly, but I don’t know if I want to be depressed and angered that much.


A letter from John Leech MP

This is the first response to my enquiry about microgeneration grants, actually an email-

Dear Mr Pattinson,

Thank you for your email. I am happy to chase the issue up for you, but if you are interested in investing in renewable energy yourself, you may also like to refer to the grants section of the Energy Saving Trust’s website (http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/proxy/view/full/2019/grantsandofferssearch) where you can find details of grants that you may be able to apply for to help with the cost of any such home improvements.

In the meantime, I will chase up you enquiry with the Rt Hon Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, and I will be in touch again once I receive a reply.

In the meantime, however, please feel free to contact me if you think I can be of any further assistance on this or any other matter.

Yours sincerely,

John Leech

The link to the Energy Savings Trust is useful, a quick search took me to www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk for renewables. It looks a lot like the last renewables grant scheme has been relaunched and I just missed it. Householders have until June 2010 to apply, so start working out what you need.

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