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Showing posts from March, 2016

Animated political map of Europe 1000ad-2000ad

This is an interesting thing to look at. UK history has been relatively static particularly since 1700. However, the continent has historically been quite fluid. Not so much since 1945, but still some changes.

Home Alone - law and cases in the UK and abroad

Justice for Families has been publicly campaigning on the issue of the law in respect of children left at home without parental or other adult supervision. Our biggest concern is that the law is not clear. The government claim that parents are allowed to decide whether their child is mature enough to be left alone. That, however, is not true. What happens is that either the police or local authority social workers decide whether in their opinion the parents have neglected their child. What is most unfair is when parents are prosecuted or have their children taken off them for something which they have done reasonably and with the best intentions for their child/children. There is, in fact, no published information about what does happen and when action is taken. Some of the cases are covered by family court secrecy which makes it much harder to review the case. Others have injunctions on the criminal cases which make looking at the case harder. However, here are a few exam

The EU and Democracy (making some reference to the referendum)

The debate about the EU has in many ways similarities to that in respect of the Scottish independence referendum. The SNP argument could in essence be summarised as "we can do a lot better on our own our problems are caused by London." The Leave argument is "we can to a lot better on our own our problems are caused by Brussels". In any rational sense the wheels fell of the financial argument for Scottish independence as the price of oil plummeted.  Although I expect oil prices to go back up (and there may even be a spike as a result of the cuts in investment) it remains a really tenuous argument. The narrative on this issue, however, is difficult because it is easy for the Scottish Executive to blame everything on the UK parliament.    The fundamental political debate that creates much division is about how to respond to the financial crisis of 2008 and the cut in GDP that resulted.  There are many people (myself included) who do not like the consequences o