Alcohol 'Curfew' Pilot Proves Successful

Armadale, West Lothian was the first town in Scotland to ban selling alcohol to under 21s from 5pm on weekends from off-licences. The six-week pilot scheme was hailed as a success seeing a 57% drop in assaults, 54% fall in vandalism and a 55% drop in anti-social behaviour.
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A very interesting scheme. It is worth asking why every local authority does not conduct this pilot? The immediate drop in crime looks too effective! Even if this scheme provides a short-term effect at least it would serve as a short-term measure prior to getting more police onto the streets.

Passport Service Writes Off £11m

The Identity & Passport Service (IPS) has reported that it has written off £10.9m in development costs because of the cancellation of the Electronic Passport Application system (EPA2).
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Since opening its new, multi-million pound network of interview centres; the IPS has carried out almost 100,000 interviews with first-time adult applicants without one being turned down. The centres cost £50m to set up and £30m a year to run with about £12.50 of the £72 passport fee going towards paying for them.

£5bn ID Cards Scheme Does Not Add Up

James Hall, Chief Executive of the Identity & Passport Service (IPS), has stated that IPS cannot justify the £5bn National Identity Scheme (NIS) in financial terms within the business case.
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The government will of course make ID Cards compulsory simply to justify the scheme and recoup the heavy losses. In forcing the public to go onto the identity register and receive a card when applying for a new passport means they would be compulsory for anyone wanting to ever travel abroad. The whole scheme was initially ludicrous when proposed in Labour's (now broken) manifesto commitment of only rolling the scheme out on a voluntary basis. The £5bn would have been better served going towards police, border and security services to fight crime and terrorism.

Electoral Cleansing Ahead Of Zimbabwe Elections

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's government is sponsoring a campaign of violent intimidation and murder against Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters ahead of the run-off presidential vote..
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Intervention on any scale, is essential to put a stop to the country's tyranny and progressive genocide. The run-off is necessary because apparently no candidate got more than half the votes cast in the March 29 elections. It took the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) five weeks to announce the results and human rights lawyers say the delay was an abuse of the electoral law. Lawyers also complained that there are more than 120 ZEC officials detained in connection with the election results together with 700 people being treated in hospital with serious injuries. Mugabe admits his loyalists killed thousands of oppositon supporters in southern Zimbabwe in the early 1980's.

Britain Expects More Of Its Troops?

Over-stretched and under-valued British troops to be deployed to Kosovo reviving claims that the 'ungrateful' government is demanding too much from our armed forces. 600 troops from the 2nd Battalion, The Rifles will be deployed for six months as part of a NATO reserve force.

Salford Council Writes Off Over £3m In Unpaid Council Tax

Salford City Council had to write off over £3.2m in council tax in the financial year 2006/7. Salford - where Local Government Secretary Hazel Blears is MP - had the highest uncollected debts.

Conservatives Criticised Over 10p Tax Band

Lord Forsyth has said it would be mad to reinstate the 10p tax band. Criticising the Conservatives' defence of the 10% lower rate he stated "what we should be doing is taking millions of low earners who are being hammered with extremely high marginal tax rates out of the tax system altogether."