An ambitious three year programme to review district and borough council services across West Dorset, Weymouth and Portland will be put before councillors next week. West Dorset District Counciland Weymouth & Portland Borough Council have already saved around £3million a year through their ground-breaking shared services partnership. It sees...
Here are my 10 predictions for 2014 in South Dorset… More people will be using food banks and going cold as the cost of living crisis continues to bite. Whatever is said about the economic recovery, inflation – particularly housing costs and energy bills - still outstrips...
It has become a scary cliché when someone raises their objections to the patriarchal and misogynist ‘tradition’ of topless women on page 3 with the retort ‘freedom of choice’. Do all women get the same opportunity and freedom of choice or is it socially constructed aesthetics as determined by a...
Labour parliamentary candidate for South Dorset, Simon Bowkett, has called on Richard Drax MP to apologise, after the MP’s comments defending Page 3 pictures caught the attention of the national press. Replying to a letter from a constituent who had asked Mr Drax his views on the daily topless...
It’s not often I agree with UKIP. However, today their summary of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement sums up my view. It was, they said, “an Autumn Statement for politicians, not people.” Much was heralded by Osborne today – and cheered by baying Tory backbenchers desperate for a decent performance...
Recently, I met with Roger, a local businessman. His company is small, but punches above its weight, recently picking up several awards in their field - digital marketing. In my time at his offices I learned that the cost of living crisis is as real to small businesses as...
There has been much debate recently about the Bedroom Tax, zero hour contracts, and the concept of a Living Wage. In Parliament, government MPs – including our local Tory MP Richard Drax – voted to support the Bedroom Tax while Labour MPs voted to scrap it as housing charities...
In the bygone days when we were all expected to be deferential and respect authority I would have assumed that any plum speaking, privately educated person could say and do what they wanted and nothing would be said publicly (apart from those who would then be labelled as socialists...
MP's will vote today on a Labour motion calling for an immediate abolition of the 'bedroom tax' - a measure imposed by the Coalition Government that they say will free up unused social housing stock, and critics oppose as 'unjust and unworkable' due to the number of smaller properties...
This week I spoke to Karen, a local charity worker who works in the care sector. She had just been given the “good” news that she was to receive a 1% pay increase, following the completion of national pay negotiations. This will be, she told me, her first pay...
