Lewisham Labour keeps its promises, as well is it can

Lewisham Labour keeps its promises, as well is it can

Yesterday, Lewisham Council at its Budget Setting meeting, agreed a legal budget. While this involves reducing expenditure in some areas because of Tory central government grant cuts, the Labour Council kept its key manifesto promises, to freeze the Council Tax, sustain the living wage & build new houses. I made a storify from tweets and blogs from the Mayor and councillors. which tells part of the story. John Coughlin, the sole Green Councillor allowed himself the luxury of voting  …

Musical talent

My lack of musical talent was exposed twice last night. It was open mic night at the Bird’s Nest, although I didn’t avail myself of the opportunity and I played the Battle of the Bards episode in NWN2 and used someone else’s answers. (It’s a copy this tune test, and there’s no way I was going to do that.) It reminds me of the piano puzzle in Myst, which I couldn’t do either. …

Europe’s winding road to Copyright Reform

This one of my recovered Storifies originally published in 2015. Over the last six months things have been moving on Copyright Reform in the European Union. On the 19th February, the new Copyright Directive’s rapporteur, the now sole Pirate Party MEP, Julia Reda, released her report, on which the JURI committee and later EP debates will take place. If you look at posts here and on my wiki published in 2018, you’ll get an idea as to how things changed.

This is published as at the date created. …

Digital Question Time

Digital Question Time

I went up to Blackfriars to techUK’s offices to listen to their Digital Question time. They had arranged for Vaizey, Onawurah and Huppert to speak. I covered the event using storify, which I moved here, after storify terminated their service.

I originally said on this blog that they covered privacy, access and inclusion, start-ups, brexit (briefly) and government IT. Computer Weekly have hosted a video here…, if you want the complete story. The Guardian ran a story, “Vaizey calls for tech firms to ‘meet politicians halfway’ over encryption” and sub-titled, “Debate needs …

Boris Johnson, President of the USA

Boris Johnson, President of the USA

While writing up the pointer to my linkedin piece on banks and customer service I looked up Google’s view of Boris Johnson and FATCA, possibly the world’s most famous dual citizen tax exile.   The press have been keen to comment, here’s one of the Forbes article’s and here’s Nigel Green in City AM. Green reveals that Johnson claimed that he was going to renounce his US citizenship in 2006, but clearly hasn’t. I wonder why?  …

Patriots

So no storify on yesterday’s meeting; I am planned a blog article on PASOK’s collapse instead; I finished the day watching Boston Legal S4E20, the last of the season where Alan & Denny go head-to-head over the “Patriot Act”, using the conceit of a town secession. This was first shown in May 2008 and is, given the time of production, a magnificently brave piece of writing; exploring the dilemma of the Republic and how one defends a democracy and keeps friends. Fiction as a lens on politics. …