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One last post on this, not because I care, but because I report "news" in this instance...

It was to be expected I suppose that the events of the past few days would be mentioned in Vince Cable's talk at the Oxford East constituency dinner this evening, and he didn't disappoint.

So for all of those out that are talking of splits in the party and and bad feeling, his message was quite clear.

There are no splits. We are (except perhaps for me) the most united party on the whole issue of Europe. There were differences of opinion over tactics; whether abstaining was going back on a manifesto promise, or rather whether abstaining specifically on the treaty rather than the constitution was going back on such a promise. Some people took that position. Those who resigned the front bench before voting did so with good grace and no rancour towards Nick or anyone else.

He did seem to me to suggest, but I'm sure not say explicitly, that the regrets are over the events of the last couple of weeks as a whole. The profile that by implication Nick has given to this one issue. For me of course, I think that's just the new boy not quite realizing in time he was being set up by the Tory Euro-shambles to take the fall for their own irresponsibility on the issue. And perhaps a regret that Nick was backed into a position in which he felt it was right to make it a three line whip issue.

Cameron has not faced such a media backlash for his massive rebellion because although it was a front bench position to abstain from Bill Cash's amendment, he had not insisted on whipping it - but the rebellion was larger than ours and shows up the Tory incoherence on Europe.

The parliamentary party are only too aware that they have caused headlines for the wrong reasons and are apologetic for that. But todays newspapers...

The Oxford Mail/Times reports today that the New Westgate [shopping centre is..] Vital For City

Confidential documents have revealed that Oxford would suffer serious economic damage if a hash is made of the Westgate redevelopment.

Plans for the £300m scheme to transform the shopping centre are due to be considered by a specially-convened planning committee later this month.

But papers leaked to the Oxford Mail show real concern at the consequences of the project failing.

When I was on the council I was wary of confidential documents that only councillors were supposed to see. If one were leaked there was always an outrage and often a bit of a witch hunt to try to find out who did it if it weren't already obvious. But most of the time, they did not relate to the specific wellbeing of an officer, as perhaps would details of a pay or disciplinary issue, but that much wider catch-all of "protecting commercial confidentiality" for the council's business affairs.

Well bugger that. It sounds to me from what little is in the Oxford Mail report that this is exactly the sort of information that is needed to help inform the public debate about what will be a massive disruption to our city for many years and which we are now led to believe could have more devastating long term efects on not just the city council's finances, in which we all have an over-riding interest since it is our money they are looking after but the general economic wellbeing and vitality of Oxford's city centre.

So. What precisely was confidential about these reports that the Oxford Mail got hold of? Perhaps the cabinet member for a better value Oxford could shed some light?

This project is already contentious. Has been in the air for, what, six years now already and has yet even to get planning permission. Frankly, I'm sceptical about the whole thing still and I hope they don't roll over and accept an application just because it might prove least worst for the city council, but local people have got to have a fully informed debate, which now cannot happen before the planning hearing happens if there really are such far reaching potential consequences for the city.

Yes, it's not a planning matter. they can still give planning consent and then pull out of the contract as landowner, but that is the bit we, the people, need to give a steer to our servants in government on.

Wow! So now using a litter bin could land you with a fine...BBC NEWS | England | Leicestershire | Man faces £50 fine for using bin:

A man who threw away junk mail in a litter bin on his way to work is facing a £50 fine from his local council.
Andy Tierney, 24, from Hinckley in Leicestershire, is reported to have dumped the unwanted mail in a bin located in the street.

Council officers tracked him down using the addresses on the envelopes.

Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council said Mr Tierney had actually dumped a bag of rubbish, including food...

Wowie! I do this all the time. Sort of. If I'm in town, say, and buy a sandwich lunch from M&S or somewhere and get a carrier bag and put my local newspaper, fags and sandwiches in the bag and then swap over the fags for an empty fag packet, don't finish all the sandwiches and complete my thirty-four second in depth review of the local rag, I'll wrap them all up in the plastic bag and put them in the nearest bin. There'd certainly be "food waste" in it if I had an apple core or banana skin or something.

So, calling a police-horse gay, swearing at your best mate in the park and now putting litter in the nearest bin are all bad, and some people think we are not getting more authoritarian and petty as a society?

So an ICM poll for the Telegraph today claims that:

"Sunday's survey provides some good news for Mr Brown - 65 per cent of those questioned support his 42-day plan, with backing coming from voters across the political spectrum.

Thirty per cent think the limit should stay at 28 days, the position favoured by the Conservatives."

Now, aside from the fact that I must be in the five per cent not even mentioned there, because I support no extension on the 2 days before charging that applies for other crime, I don't think I know a single person that supports any extension on the 28 days already permitted.

In his acceptance speech when he took over the leadership, Nick Clegg suggested (and I do believe) that most people in Britain were inherently liberal. So just who are the 65% that support this gross extension of the state's ability to "disappear" people. This is not Chile of the seventies for goodness' sake.

I've asked before, and the point was made by Shami Chakrabarti on Question Time on Thursday night with some force (she really laid into the boy Milliband to my delight!) why it is the British police and prosecution services are unable to get far enough on with their investigative work within two or four times the amount of time other countries have to charge people with something that could keep the accused on remand if necessary, with the introduction if necessary, as they do in many European jurisdictions, of post charge questioning.

I don't have the prescience to know where this country is heading, but with that 65% for one of the most egregious attacks on our civil liberties - remember we're talking about effectively disappearing people for up to six weeks without even telling them why, leaving families in limbo, probably losing the victim of the disappearing their jobs and so on, but I don't like it.

I've not left this sceptered isle for about twenty years (and then it was only a work trip to the emerald one next door) having had the travel bug knocked out of me by twenty four hour journeys to Tanzania, Kenya and Nigeria as a youngster. I don't even have a valid passport at the moment, and was content not getting one now that the intrusive questioning to get one has started, but I'm afraid I'm thinking that now I have to think about making plans for somewhere else to go when this country eventually becomes such an affront to civil liberties that I can no longer stomach being here.