Foreign Secretary: "Those opposing UN Security Council action will have to account to the Syrian people for their actions."…

Foreign Secretary William Hague writes in the Huffington Post UK, following his visit to Somalia.…

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office condemns the actions of protestors who broke into the Syrian Embassy in London on 4 February.…

Foreign Secretary William Hague "horrified" at escalating violence.…

      Yesterday I called in at the consultation on the construction of new homes in Shinfield.

        I raised several issues with the representatives of the developers. These included

        whether they would build homes in a style which harmonised with the existing village, as their display boards showed very different designs with no local reference or roots

         whether they would offer compensation to local residents close to the development and to the construction disruption

         whether they would consider buying by agreement any homes badly affected, and including them in the scheme.

                I am willing to pursue these or other issues for residents if they would like my help.

…

      The Euro crisis has been postponed. The Euro area has now adopted the very popular approach in the modern west of simply printing more cash to see them over a rough patch. The European Central Bank’s decision to lend more than half a trillion euros to Euro area banks, for 3 years at 1%, was the nearest thing to a free gift to the banks they thought they could get away with.

          In the short term it has worked. Very weak banks now look stronger, because they can now get their immediate cash needs direct from the ECB. They are not so beholden to the markets, who were getting prickly about which banks to lend to, how much to lend, and what price to charge. Some banks are using extra cash borrowed cheaply from the ECB to buy into the sovereign bonds of Italy and Spain. They can then pocket the difference between the 4-7% yield they pick up on the bond, and the 1% they pay …

There is much to welcome in David Miliband’s call for a ‘comradely and serious debate’ about the future for the Labour Party, as prompted by Roy Hattersley’s recent article in the Political Quarterly on social democracy.   He is certainly right about the spirit in which the debate should take place, but this initial foray will have to sharpen its edge drastically if it is not to fade into a merely pious exchange about abstract aspirations.   The starting point has to be what went terribly wrong in the last decade or two leading to financial collapse and cataclysmic defeat in 2010.   Those factors include financial deregulation which opened the way to toxic derivatives and the crash, a bonus culture that pumped up recklessness in the City and ballooned inequality, over-reliance on finance to the huge detriment of manufacturing, a naive belief in the self-regulation of markets, and an extension of privatisation into all public services on ideological grounds irrespective of outcomes.   David does not mention one of them.

The real problem with his analysis …

There is no conceivable British interests threatened by Iran. But vast profits beckon for the international war profiteers. Ever thus.

179 British lives lost in Iraq after Commons was bribed, baffled and bamboozled with lies on on non-existent WMDs. New Iran lie is being spread

Afghan and Iraq war sacrificed the lives of 575 British soldiers and achieved nothing. Corrupt regimes still rule. Iran war would be worse.

Lying to war AGAIN? Clegg says Iranian WMD missiles threaten UK and USA. Another war planned with unimaginable costs in blood and treasure.

Simon Jenkins said today:

Unlike most European countries, sucked into the Afghan vortex by Nato blackmail, Britain and the US were willing warriors, with belligerence in their cultural genes. Discussing "what must be done" to order the rest of the world is second nature to their political class. Successive British governments bought into the lies and scaremongering of George Bush's war on terror. Gordon Brown and David Cameron alike claimed that the killing fields of …

The map’s remarkable detail shows Brockwell Park as it is enjoyed by hundreds of local residents, as well as providing information as to the park’s history. Clare will be supplying the poster shown here, as well as posters of Dulwich Park, Regent’s Park and Brixton, to local businesses which have supported the project and portions of the proceeds will be given to community charities. …

Arriving at DECC’s headquarters in London, Mr Davey said:

“This is a sad day because Chris Huhne has had a real vision for a green economy and he’s done fabulous work as Secretary of State.

“I’ve now got to take up the challenges - the challenge of climate change, the challenge of energy security.

“And I’m particularly conscious of the impact on households across the country of high energy bills.

“I’m determined to work to follow on Chris’s priorities, the Coalition’s priorities and to make them my priorities.

“I want us to have a green economy, with the green jobs and investment we need to help grow our economy.”

Foreign Office Minister for North America and the Middle East & North Africa, Alistair Burt, concluded his visit to the United States with a visit to Washington following stops in Houston and Minneapolis.…

Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt said that such deplorable tactics illustrate the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran, and the desperation of the regime to silence any independent voices.…

Over that period as a whole, the UK economy has more or less flat lined.  The downturn has taken us pretty much to where we were.  About the only double digit growth has been in our levels of public debt - which continue to soar.

Is this all an unavoidable consequence of a crisis made in America    the banking sector the Eurozone? 

Or a result of what happens when you stick to a high tax/spend orthodoxy, keep throwing cheap credit at a problem caused by a glut of the stuff, and don't have any new ideas to set wealth creators free to make wealth?

(* - Measured in national currency GDP terms, in US$ terms the growth is even greater)…

Margot attended a school assembly, where she talked about the new Reading Champions Initiative which the school is launching. The initiative will encourage children to read by awarding children Bronze, Silver and Gold prizes according to how many books they read.  read more »…