Sunday October 28th 2012 at 20.40 having taken a break after losing a large chunk off my writing today rounding up incomplete writings before tomorrow when my new regime begins. Over several decades I have learned the process of compromise especial about recognising who I am and am not, my abilities and my limitations
To day I enjoyed roast chicken breast with vegetables and jacket potato for lunch around 13.15 followed by the remaining grapes. This afternoon I had a whole small quiche and banana and custard and the last of the walnuts with a large can of Pepsi.
I watched some of the Merseyside Derby while I continued to write catch up and clear the decks. The game ended 2. 2 after it appeared Liverpool were going to go against respective team forms having scored two early goals against all credit to Everton and David Moyes who look a much better outfit than recent seasons who came back 2.2 and both sides had chances to take all three points.
Before the Merseyside match ended I went to silent screen and commenced to listen to Newcastle against another improved team West Brom ahead of the Toon in the table and where I received an email offering a level 7 seat for £5, I should CoCo. It was something of a struggle with West Brom having two good chances in the first half and then Krull hit a ball collected by Shola who flicked it to Demba Ba who scored. West Brom equalised but in the dying seconds of extra time young Amiobe, younger brother of Shola hit the ball hard and Cisse turned to get out of the way and the ball hit is backside and went into the goal as the goalkeeper was wrong footed.
While I listened I also had on the visit of Man United to Chelsea but missed all the action live. What I understand happened is that Man U went up 2,0 but Chelsea came back to 2,2 but then had two of the players sent off, one controversially with Man U scoring a third winning goal by player who was clearly offside before he scored. I also watched a little of the American Football where the regular season game at Wembley. I have watched two exhibition matches at Wembley in the past. I had planned to write several pieces about the different disciplines who won UK Gold Medals at the Summer Olympics and Paralympics but these will now be postponed or abandoned.
There was an important interview with the Labour Deputy leader Harriet Harman on the Andrew Marr show at nine in which she repeated the call for one overall investigation into the Saville Scandal covering the BBC, and the other institutions and interests where allegation had been made of criminal activity, and she also insisted that an independent new Press Complaints Commission with statutory backing would be accepted if Lord Leveson recommended and she hoped there would inter party support. There is already a massing of opposition from the newsprint industry and from within the Tory party the extent of which remains unknown. Cameron made clear his position on supporting what Leveson recommends at PMQ
‘s last Wednesday faced with a hostile question from his back bench and the Lib Dems while supporting a free press will have no truck with those attempting to protect their commercial interests.
There was a report in the Independent that the Met has evidence that a senior Mirror Executive made payments of £125 a time to an agency for the private telephone numbers of personalities of interest so their phone could be hacked during the time that Piers Morgan was the editor. There are four civil cases involving Gary Flitcroft previously of Blackburn, the Beckham’s Nanny, a Coronation Street actress and former England Manager Erickson against the Mirror in the High Court at present.
Re Saville. Gary Glitter was arrested early this morning and spent the day being questioned and was subsequently released on bail. It is understood that a number of other well known people together with BBC employees or former employees who worked with Saville are to be arrested over the coming days with some major surprises promised.
There was an important speech by Ed Miliband back in June in which he said mea culpa for the Labour Party’s approach to immigration in the past and which led to many cities and towns changing in fundamental ways without existing residents being consulted and given the opportunity to oppose the transformation. It is too little too late but I agree with his approach of making the best of the new situation for everyone concerned and not making the position worse. Mr Miliband the younger was also faced with a major dilemma when invited to participate in the TUC march of protest against Tory economic policy in London with other marches held in Glasgow and Belfast. The protest could be described as moderately successful but calls for combined action with the effect of a general strike is if you forgive the analogy watering the wind. Miliband made it plain that while his party opposed the pace of government cuts and the nature of some of those cuts, cuts there has to be and that it is better to accept a cut in wages in the public sector rather than losing more jobs. This makes a grip on taxes paid by corporations; attacking general tax avoidance and creating measures which ensure the rich genuinely share the sacrifices more important than ever and where the Labour Government and present Tory led Coalition have failed lamentably.
Reducing tax from 50 to 45% for the richest means they will gain £40000 a year extra from next April and was a political miscalculation as well as being morally reprehensible. Why did the Lib Dems agree?
There was a row at a Banquet put on by the Army Chiefs at which a Tory MP called what Labour MP said “gobshite“. When he refused to quieten down the Labour Members at the Dinner withdrew. The Tory is reported to have remained unrepentant. On the other hand the Chief Whip was repentant but Ed Miliband demanded he should go a week last Wednesday at PMQ’s, Mr Cameron backed him up but many on the Tory party benches looked uncomfortable. What listeners did not know at the time is that the previous evening the Chief Whip had toured the private tea rooms for Tory Members and was left in no doubt that the 2010 intake in particular had little or no confidence in him. So with Portillo confident on Politics This Week that the man would stay it came as a surprise that he resigned on Friday. I am surprised Portillo was so out of touch unless he knew the way the wind was blowing and pretended otherwise. He is planning a political come back as the Party moves to the right.
Norman Tebbit had an interesting article in the Sunday Observer which the Guardian also reported where he declared that the problem with the Coalition led by Cameron was that it is incompetent. It is not a question of there being too many Toffs as there were more in previous Governments for example that of Harold Macmillan. The young Turks were then reported to be unhappy when Cameron appointed the 71 year old Sir George Younger as Chief Whip.
I did some research on George Smart a distant ancestor who became one of the first Mayor of Cape Town 1894 1895. He was the son of Samuel Smart who went to live in the Cape Province with his wife and four children when diamonds and gold were found. He was a Labourer who lived with his wife and their first child at the house of his father home in Cow Lane Calne at the time of the 1841 census. I was unable to find trace of them subsequently until another distance relative by marriage reported from Australia the news as his elder brother Seager had been transported for a conviction, and made a success of his subsequent life there his young brother had moved to South Africa, enclosing a published note of his arrival in the town which has become the second city of the Republic and the seat of its political institutions, favoured by the British and Tourists generally for its location by the sea and Table Mountain. The house in Kew/Cow Lane Calne is shown with the resident listed as his father in the earlier 1928 Cruse Tithe Map of the Town.
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