Student protests: school's out across the UK as children take to the streets



http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/24/student-protests-school-children-streets

Summary:

Tens of thousands of students and school pupils walked out of class, marched, and occupied buildings around the country in the second day of the protest against education cuts and higher tuition fees. The total estimation of students attending more than dozen protest runs up to 130.000 students, there were isolated incidents of violence and skirmishes with police. There was one exception at the end of the evening when police mounted on horses charged at about 1000 student gathered near Trafalgar Square. Michael Gove, the education secretary said the government would not waver, adding: “I respond to arguments, I do not respond to violence”. The biggest single protest was in London, where about 5000 people spent hours in Whitehall as officers thought about the prevention of chaotic scenes. About 3000 students and school pupils gathered to protest in Manchester, and a similar number gathered in Liverpool. Around 2000 people protested in Sheffield, 1000 doing so in Leeds and 3000 in Brighton. In Cambridge there were small incidents as a crowd tried to storm the university’s Senate House. On the other side there is Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, whose pre-election pledge to oppose increased tuition fees has made him the target of student anger, because he could not hold to his promise. "I regret of course that I can't keep the promise that I made because – just as in life – sometimes you are not fully in control of all the things you need to deliver those pledges," he told one of several angry callers to BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine Show. "Of course I massively regret finding myself in this situation."But he said that the fact the Liberal Democrats had been forced into a coalition, and that the country's finances were worse than they had anticipated, meant they had to accept "compromise". Of all protests a total of 17 people were treated for injuries in Londen. Police said 32 people had been arrested.

Opinion:

It is smart and good of the students to protest against the education cuts and higher tuition fees, especially when they were promised that the tuition fees would not increase. In this way they can show how angry they are and that they are not willing to accept this without a fight. Looking at the few incidents and the video on the site (click on the link above), I believe that they need to focus to keep their anger focused on the people who are thinking about increasing the tuition fees, and not trying to destroy things in and around the city because that will only work in their disadvantage and it will hurt the cause they fight for.

Too late for England World Cup bid say Spain: 'All the fish are sold'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/nov/23/england-world-cup-bid-spain


Summary:

It seems that Spain/Portugal will be hosting the 2018 World Cup. England one of the main rivals seems not to be able to win as Spain/Portugal claims to have 8 of the 22 votes. Predicting the race, the chief executive Miguel Angel López said that it would be a close race. England seems convinced that they will be able to secure at least seven votes required to progress through the first round of voting. In total there are four bidders, who also include Russia and Holland/Belguim and if none of the four receive an absolute majority in the first round of voting then the one with the lowest number of votes will drop out and the voting will be repeated until a us host declared. The Spain/Portugal bid was investigated by Fifa due to claims of working together with Qatar’s 2022 bid that was said to have secured a bloc of at least seven votes. But according to the Fifa’s ethics committee there were not “sufficient grounds” to prove that was the case. López also claims that if there was been substance to the allegations of vote trading that the ethics committee would have found something. And by López’s optimism that they secured the support of the four Asian delegates, would be a severe blow to England. The votes of three South American executives seem to be also in the pocket of Spain/Portugal due the connection with Latin America.

Opinion:

I think the race is exciting and interesting to watch because the result will have a great result on the World Cup and the country. As we could see the last World Cup South Africa there were not many people from Europe due to the fear for the criminal activities in South Africa, this resulted in a somewhat disappoiting atmosphere during the matches. As a viewer i did not get the real World Cup feeling of the previous World Cups. I do not really care in which country the World Cup 2018 will be held, although it would be nice if it was close so it will be easy to go to a game. As far as the allegations of the claims I can not really offer an opinion because there is not enough information about the different parties and on what the allegations are based on.

Pensioner crimewave marks rise of the 'Saga lout'

81-year-old Dorothy Evans was sentenced to six months in jail for multiple breaches of an Asbo in 2007. Photograph: Barry Batchelor/PA
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/21/pensioner-crimewave-saga-lout


Summary:
 

New statistics show that a higher number of pensioners are being arrested and ending up in Britain’s jails. Experts do not know if crime by elderly is caused by low pensions through necessity or the tougher attitude by the courts to the elderly in the dock. In Derbyshire, for example, 260 over-65s were arrested for serious crimes in 2009 compared with 88 in 2008. So there is a rise between 15% and 25% in the numbers of pensioners being arrested. In Scotland the number of over-65s charged with drug and weapon crimes doubled in four years to 80 last year. In the Netherlands where the same rise in offending pensioners has been monitored, researchers found that a high percentage of over-60s appearing in court had undiagnosed dementia. A report by the French Centre d’Analyse Strategique said the country’s criminal system needs to be adapted to handle the growth in older criminals; police would require specific training on how to find the older criminals and the jails need to be modified for the inmates with Alzheimer’s disease and other illnesses. The ageing of the population is going to lead to an automatic rise in crime by senior citizens.  

Opinion:

I think it is sad and funny that old people do crime. You would think that a pensioner can and will enjoy his pension and the rest of his life. But there are obviously still a lot of pensioners who think it is necessary to do crime. Instead of focusing of getting these people in jail I think it is important that it is figured out why they would do crime (next to the disease they may have) instead of adapting the police office and jail for the older people.

 

Government services to be online-only

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/20/government-services-online-only


Summary:

The government is planning for all their services to be online-only to cut costs. Services such as student loans, driving licences, passports and benefits will have to be applied for online. They think that getting rid of all the paper applications could save billions of pounds. They also believe that the people who do not have internet or are not able to apply online will be able to fill in forms digitally at their local post offices. Student loans will go first, followed by applications to schools, such as school meals and personal applications, such as driving licences. The change will take a couple of years. The online service is also better for consumers and better for government because the service will be available 24/7. At this moment 27% of households have no internet connection and six million people aged over 65 have never used the web. This group is most likely to react negatively on the plans but the post offices will be a place for the people without internet to access government services. But this could also be a threat because a lot of people will handle their services online and would not be coming to the post offices as often as before. So the post offices will see a reduction in their profit and the business model that sustains the offices will disappear.

Opinion:

Technology is developing at a fast rate. In the future we will do the most of our things online. Most of us have email and communicate with each other through internet or with our mobiles. We also do most of our banking activities online. It is only a matter of time before the government replaces the paper applications with online services and there is nothing that will change that development. But I do think that their needs to be a safety net for the people (especially older people) who have no experience with internet or are just starting to figure it out, so that they can get comfortable with the current way of life.  

Stop and search plans are 'discriminatory', watchdog warns

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/15/stop-and-search-equality-commission


Summary:

The government is planning to allow police to stop people on the grounds of skin color without having a reasonable suspicion. The government wants to take the race in account when an officer stops someone. It does say that race cannot be the only reason for the stop-and-search. The Equality and Human Rights Commission totally disagree with the plans and they want the plans dropped because there is a high risk that British and European laws will be broken. The serving officers represented by the Black Police Association are also strong against the plans because they think it is racist and they do not want to support the plans. Not only are the plans racists but they also increase the chance of a minority ethnic person getting stopped and searched than someone who is white. There was a Terrorism Act but it was dropped after the European court of human rights denied the act. Last year there were over 100.000 stops carried out under the Terrorism Act but the police did not make a single arrest for terrorism.  

Opinion:
I totally agree with the opposition of the plans to allow people to get stopped-and-searched based on their race. First of all it is racist to stop someone just because they are of a certain race. I do not think that this new law will help in any way with the security of the society. It will just be a matter of time before groups of different races unite to fight against this law. I also dont think it is fair or just to stop someone based on race. This will only lead to racism and seperation between the different races.

Phil Woolas ejected from parliament over election slurs - Summary and Opinion

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/05/phil-woolas-ejected-parliament-election


Summary:
Former immigration minister Phil Woolas was ejected from parliament after he lied about his Liberal Democrat opponent during the elections which eventually lead him to standing again for three years. He lied about his opponents that he supposedly was trying to address the Islamic extremists.  His goal with this accusation was to upset the people who are against the Islam culture and claim false statements about his opposition. Telling lies that are not based on reasonable grounds is obviously not allowed. The consequences of his lies are that Woolas is suspended from the Labour party because the party does not want to support winning by lying. The political parties also realize that they have to be careful in the future to prevent this sort of situations and they want to remind all the politicians that an election needs to be fought fair to keep the democratic system.

Opinion:

I would like to start off with Woolas' lie. I cannot understand that the politicians react so surprised about a politician telling lies to achieve his goals or get (re)elected. As I can remember a politician or party never achieved the promises made before they got elected or said something about their opponent that was not true. I agree that it was a good decision to suspend and kick Woolas out of the parliament but I also believe that his lie have been figured out faster as it was a part of his campaign, so somebody should have noticed it.