Monthly Archives: December 2009
Wandsworth in the recession
With the year drawing to a close, and hopefully the UK’s longest and deepest recession with it, I’ve spent a little time looking at how Wandsworth has coped. I’ve repeatedly said that while Wandsworth isn’t immune to the effects of recession it is better placed than most to weather it. The graphs below are various [...]
Crime briefing, 3 – 10 December
The map below details crimes reported in Wandsworth between 3 – 10 December. It’s certainly more sparsely populated than recent weeks and there has been a drop in the rate of certain crime types recently, although there are all sorts of factors that may have caused this – not least the atrocious weather that keeps [...]
Tweets for week ending 2009-12-13
Bought the Co-Pilot iPhone app today. @jesscousins is delighted that the 'James' voice sounds "a bit like Sean Connery". # Despite the facade I present of being a grumpy Dad I'm rather sad there's no playgroup for MiniMe today. # Blogged: Crime briefing, 26 November – 3 December http://bit.ly/7ytCch # The Prince of Wales has [...]
Weekly wrap-up, 11 December
Although I usually use this last post of the week to witter on about the past week I’m going start off with an event two weeks ago. Battersea Police Ball I can’t believe I forgot to mention this last week, but on Saturday 28 November I attended, along with about 1,500 other people, the Battersea [...]
Council & Police Utd 1 – Con men 0
I don’t often (if I ever have) republish council press releases on here, but the one below is – I think – a great story and worth repeating. There’s something particularly callous about this type of crime, where the vulnerable are conned out of huge sums of money by criminals who are pretending to help. [...]
Battersea’s election gets a fourth candidate
Alongside Labour’s Martin Linton, the Conservatives Jane Ellison and whoever the Liberal Democrats put forward (assuming they do) there is now an independent! I’ve just been canvassed by Tom Fox – well, not canvassed, as such (canvassing has a specific purpose) – but invited along for some mulled wine and mince pies at an event [...]
Excellent. Again.
Nothing like a happy hypocrite. Despite whole-heartedly concurring with the council’s decision to do minimal work for the assessment I’m still chuffed to see that Wandsworth is an excellent council according to the Audit Commission. What has been interesting, though, since the council’s announcement are the number of people who – privately and publicly – [...]
Darling’s last pre-Budget report
The earliest post on this blog is from 24 November 2008 on the benefits of low taxation (actually the blog wasn’t public until nearly a month later, on 17 December, but that was the oldest surviving test post). In it I suggested that the temporary VAT cut probably wasn’t that good a measure, and that [...]
Ego-Kemp folding
Or maybe it’s Kemp ego-folding. I don’t know. One thing I do know is that despite my love of the internet it infuriates me to discover that little fads have passed me by. And so it is with Kemp-folding which I’m currently finding very amusing, even though I can see that it is one of [...]
Au revoir, box-ticking
I was surprised that the weekend announcement that Wandsworth, joined by Hammersmith and Fulham, would be limiting their involvement with the Comprehensive Area Assessment didn’t get more coverage. On reflection, it was only a surprise because of who I am and what I do. I’m a councillor, so am aware of the amount of work [...]
