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How gallant of them!

Tories advocate watchdog to monitor aid impact

Larry Elliott
Monday June 4, 2007
The Guardian

The Conservatives last night called for this week's G8 summit in Germany to create a new international body to measure the effectiveness of aid spending as they warned that much of the west's development budget was being badly used.

Andrew Mitchell, the shadow international development secretary said Tony Blair should used Britain's position as the most effective aid spender in the G8 to put pressure on other rich countries to make better use of the resources earmarked for tackling global poverty.
...
The Conservatives have already announced plans for an independent aid watchdog to scrutinise British aid, and Mr Mitchell believes that, if successful, it could be used as the template for an international monitoring body.

He added that there would be a built-in international dimension to his new body for assessing UK spending, since so much of British aid went through multilateral channels such as the World Bank, or was used in partnership with other bilateral donors.

All those trips to aid recipient nations - wouldn't they just love it!

As if Oxford City Council hasn't had a difficult enough time adjusting to changes in the balance of power in May and since, the Oxford Mail reports another City Councillor Set To Quit:

Labour Oxford city councillor Dan Paskins has forced another by-election by announcing he is to quit the Town Hall.

The 26-year-old executive board member and Lye Valley councillor will become the fifth Labour councillor to quit this calendar year. He is due to leave officially in a couple of weeks.

Dan is generally the decent sort, and has done the decent thing - he's been offered a job in Liverpool and doesn't think, rightly, he should try to hang on at the Council pretending to attend the odd meeting or simply fading away over six months' inactivity. So he's done the honest thing and decided to stand down before he disappears.

Byelections always put a bit of strain on parties, and there was some discussion the other night about how much they cost to hold them separately (in this case unavoidably though as all recognised I think) rather than to announce any you know are coming up at the same time. So, whilst I am sure my party colleagues will want to crucify me for suggesting we want even more campaigning in early autumn, perhaps now is a good time for those who have not yet done the decent thing, who got where they are today through the efforts of other people in parties they have now abandoned, to do just that.

Paul Sargent, Sajjad Malik, if you're reading, you clearly have a couple of weeks to think about this. Do the decent thing, prove you have a mandate under the banner you now carry, or not. Let's have a "super Thursday" with three on one day.

This workfair business...can anyone answer me a question:

If there are jobs that need doing, someone should be employed to do them.  Are people at the end of their two years on JSA simply being herded into compulsory minimum wage jobs then - in which case they may be miserable with the job they get but they would, by definition, no longer be on benefit?  Or would they still be getting benefit rates, just being made to "do something" (anything?) to "earn" their benefits?

Obviously I don't like this idea.  Citizens Income would solve all of this without any potential stigma that might be associated with a sort of "community service order" for benefits.  To me it all just demonstrates that there aren't really any new ideas coming out of the Tories (or anyone else for that matter!) on welfare, just that "something must be done and this is something".

...on the other hand, the one good thing about the smoking ban is that it brings starkly into the open the fact that the "state" acting in the "best interests" of its citizens can decide and enforce with legislation and criminal penalties what you can and cannot do with your own property. Of course it always has in all sorts of different ways, but at least it's out in the open now.

So we can proceed to Land Value Tax unopposed by those who think it is not right for the state to take some of "your" property wealth yet okay to tell a landlord what he can and cannot allow in his own property...:)

Technorati Tags: land value tax, smoking ban

It’s wonderful, while most students are in recess, to see our streets, lamp posts, telephone boxes, park fences, trees, pavements, footpaths and so on clear of the detritus of advertising fliers and posters that make them so tatty during term time.

Once upon a time the City Council and universities collaborated to provide “fly posting boards” in strategic places around east Oxford and Headington. But they’re no longer enough it seems, and we must be deluged with these execrable bits of paper daily while the students are here.

But I believe that the new licensing laws put some power back into the hands of neighbourhoods and residents. A bar or club can have its license reviewed at any time following complaints from the public about anti-social behaviour.

So I would like to put bar and club operators on notice that once the students return, I shall be documenting and collecting such advertising litter around my area (Headington Hill) and ask the licensing authority to do something about the many repeat offenders I find so regularly.

I believe the new law means they cannot hide behind the claim that promoters of individual nights’ events are wholly responsible for advertising if their venue appears on that advertising. Are they willing to put their licenses on the line to prove it?