megilleland

A multi-million-pound government policy to boost job creation has failed to deliver, research has revealed. In 2011, the government announced "enterprise zones" in England to try to improve economic growth, forecasting 54,000 new jobs between 2012 and 2015. But BBC-commissioned research found by 2017 only 17,307 jobs had been created in 24 zones around England - and in two areas the number of jobs had fallen. The government said it had created 38,000 jobs since 2012. Enterprise zones offered cheaper business rates, super-fast broadband and lower levels of planning control. The research, which was conducted by think tank charity Centre for Cities using data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), showed the number of jobs created fell short by nearly three-quarters of the amount predicted in the government's initial announcement in 2011. The figure for Hereford was only 146 jobs. It's created more jobs for those involved in planning, building and promoting the site than actually working there.

It's the way it is going with all the Mainstream Media. Fill your minds with rubbish, celebrity gossip and scare stories. No decent investigative journalism. Everything we read or look at will be decided by government to "protect us". Defend Media Freedom event has banned Russia Today and Sputnik from attending… Media freedom allowed so long as you don’t ask any questions. Proposed Government white paper on Internet Censorship Policy. Follow the video to grasp the consequences of what the government will allow you to say.

With the banks working with the government and mega corporations to abolish cash and use our smart phones for continuing surveillance, is this what will happen after Brexit. This government's proposed white paper on Online Harms centered on Internet Censorship will be the final nail in British democracy for the future. Nice piece concerning Jeremy Hunt in the video which will no doubt raise his popularity in the PM contest. Proposed Government white paper on Internet Censorship Policy: Online Harms consultation ends midnight tomorrow. Follow the video to grasp the consequences of what the government will allow you to say.

Boris says he is the man to get us out of the EU agreed, but it's a stepping stone for him to pursue his party's continuing aim of privatising and outsourcing what's left of Britain.

Now that we are down to two candidates and in view the Boris bashers are in full force it would be a good idea to quote The Slog who once again gives a clearer and balanced view of the two pretenders. ALL OR NOTHING ALL AT THE SAME TIME BORIS-BASHING: Leftlib naivety in alliance with Hunt balls & bloc-head neocons Brutal Boris, Horrible Hunt, Mercenary Media and the Lamentable Leftlibs. All human strife is on show today, but real life remains behind the curtains. ****************************************************** O to be in England now that Establishment civil war is here. My brief Blighty-pass will soon be at an end, but for once The Slog’s timing has been impeccable. A senior Tory whip “who does not want to be named” is saying that the second front runner Boris Johnson shows any sign of heading towards NoDeal Brexit, “he will be toppled within days”. This is the same whip’s office that failed three times to get the BerlinerDiktat through the Commons, and the same tendency that was powerless over the last fortnight to stop BoJo romping home. But that’s not the point, right? The point eeeez, right, yer Boris lacks bottle and is doomed to stumble into scandals involving wine-stains on the sofa. The swine. ‘Boris Johnson is a coward’ warbles Jeremy ‘Dorian’ Hunt from The Times this morning. I suspect he is right; and BoJo is also a tippler, a misogynist, a liar, corrupt, cynical and close to depraved. But Warwick Hunt is the greater hypocrite….and the only one in this pair peddling baseless accusations and idiotic “rules” when it comes to answering trumped-up media questions. Jeremy NotCorbyn is a desperate man resorting to despicable measures. So it would be as well to even up the score. Mr Hunt made his political career and fortune via a judicious mixture of bare-faced nepotism, fraud, tax-cheating, Newscorp arse-licking and serial mendacity. He used his relative Virginia Bottomley to establish a monopoly-supply deal for his company Hotcourses with eternally bent crony-quango The British Council. When Hunt screwed up the first job the BC commissioned, Bottomley covered for him and hid the invoicing relationship from the authorities. He conspired with his business partner to falsify employee reports and win a Newscorp Employer of the Year Award. When Bottomley ascended to the House of Lords as Baroness Nettlestone, Hunt got her South West Surrey seat. For years he lied about the Bottomley family connection, until this site forced him to change his Wikipedia entry to admit it. He was a prime fixer while in opposition, brokering the deal with Newscorp to switch from New Labour to Cameron’s Conservatives in 2010. He abused his position as Culture Secretary to oil the wheels of a full Murdoch takeover of Sky, and when caught in the act, redacted over 100 emails from the subsequent inquiry in a bid to cover his tracks. Somehow, he survived…and was being lined up for the chop by Cameron until a combination of pressure from Newscorp and shady Tory donor money suddenly saw him promoted to Health Secretary. In that latter role, he misled both hospital doctors and nurses, persistently created funding difficulties for NHS regions, brought in thousands of private agency staff to exacerbate the cost issues, ignored the blatant need for higher tech, and engaged eagerly in both the creeping privatisation of gp services and out-sourcing of hospital contracts. He remained – of course – in close touch with Nettlestone…a lobbyist in the Lords for private health insurer PPP. Jeremy claimed to be a lifelong fan of the NHS; but in 2008, he co-wrote with Dan Hannan a Conservative policy paper asserting that it should be “demolished brick by brick”. As foreign secretary, he has followed NATO’s absurd Russophobia, gleefully retailing the endless lies and exaggerations about Putin’s “intentions”. He was a solid Remainer in 2016 and – despite attempts at times to sound touchy-leavy – he remains an enthusiastic neocon eurocrat wedded to the idea of special relationships and federalist projects. Before writing his Times piece today, *unt ludicrously suggested that (by not discussing a tiff over spilt wine with his lover) Johnson had a private life that somehow made him a security risk open to blackmail. Today, he writes, “I am not interested in debating Boris’s private life”. That is correct: but he is very happy to big up that private life as an issue. He says BoJo should “man up and face me”, adding the specious assertion that, ‘A new prime minister needs the legitimacy of having made his arguments publicly and having them subjected to scrutiny, instead of slinking through the back door.’ So, er, crushing all his opponents (including Jeremiah) in the Parliamentary election and enjoying a huge majority of support among the grassroots is back door stuff then? Sorry Dorian duckie, you’ve lost me there….more back door than your entry into the Commons via Surrey SW? More backdoor than Theresa May whom, two years ago, you so enthusiastically supported? More backdoor than you sleazing under the door of the British Council? *********************************************** Leaving backdoors for a second or two in favour of next-door neighbours, Boris Johnson’s only stalwart media supporter the Daily Telegraph did an efficient demolition job on the Leftlib’s role in beefing up the “concerned” Johnson love nest neighbours. This delightful pair of liberal fascisti taped the wine-spillage tiff in full and then promptly handed it to the Guardian. What a signed-up pair of lovey-sweetie euromorons the neighbours turn out to be, engaging as they do (it seems) in daily V-signs and obscene insults towards Boris and Carrie. It never seems to occur to these Useful Idiots that in loving the EU and despising those who voted Leave, they are doing the dirty work of global monopolists and disastrous mercantile neocons for them. They loathe Trump but love Hillary….despite the fact it is is the former who displays much greater distrust of the oil-to-weapons axis in the US. Equally, they support a sabre-rattling NATO and a technocratically federalist European Commission led by a crooked banker alumnus of Goldman Sachs and socialist-destroying facilitator of tax evasion in Luxembourg. There is no end to the cognitive dissonance involved in all this. Many of them, of course, favour the Corbyn model of reform. They flatly refuse to take on board the obvious reality that at least four of his central policy strategies would be rejected out of hand by the European Commission. It is all, in fact, completely unreal. A political sky full of fireworks….or as the French call them, feux d’artifices. Spot on in my view: an artifice of pyrotechnics and rockets that fall rapidly back to Earth. Serial shoots of flame and loud bangs, spinning pinwheeels constantly getting stuck, or Mount Etnas that erupt for a minute or two, but then collapse into a molehill of malodorous smoke. In being like this, political life in the West today reflects our econo-cultural surrealism of Artificial Intelligence, fake data, fairytale ecologists, fanatical believers, funny business and foul play. Quite the most earnestly dotty ideas about race, gender, society, religion and fiscal management are first hyped, then lauded to the heavens, and then worshipped on the way to becoming assumptions masquerading as settled science. Once more, our embarrassment of political choices and options comes to the fore, desperately demanding our applause. Step right up ladizzangenelmen, and pledge your troth: what shall it be….Boris Brat the banker-loving justice-perverter and love-cheat, or Jeremy Jellyfish the glass-housed stone-throwing brown-nose nepotistic fraudster? Stay tuned. There is everything to play for, everything to lose, and nothing to choose between them. And you thought Bill Wiggin was a bit lack on his expenses. Jeremy Hunt makes him look like a penny pincher. Also as I have a partner who is dependent on the NHS for her continuing care, Hunt is the last person to be deciding it's fate.

Election of a District Councillor for the area of Whitecross Completed nomination papers must be delivered to the Returning Officer at the offices of Herefordshire Council, at the address shown below, on any working day after the date of this notice, between the hours of 10:00am and 4:00pm but before 4:00pm on Friday, 14th June 2019 The poll will take place on Thursday, 11th July 2019 between the hours of 7:00am and 10:00pm Herefordshire Council Electoral Services Town Hall St Owen Street Hereford HR1 2PJ

Debating the tram issue again on H&W radio this morning - Jesse having his say. As Colin says start with turning off the traffic lights. Hereford Civic Society this Friday: Friday 7 June 2019 at 6.00pm De Koffe Pot, Left Bank, Hereford Sustainable Transport Options for Hereford's Future Jesse Norman MP, Highways Minister A chance to hear from our MP about his transport ideas for Hereford with time for questions and debate.

What's all this nonsense about saving the planet. It all started to go downhill when schools dropped home economics in the 1970’s with a switch to computer and design technology, so that all you need to know now is how to handle a tin opener. The demise of home economics skills (cookery, laundry and budgeting) result in a scruffy mindless herd eating on the streets and throwing their tins, wrappers, plastic bottles and lottery tickets anywhere but into a waste bin. The specialty disposal method favoured locally is to deposit waste into someone’s garden hedge. What does this mess (not politics) tell us about our future citizens and their minds. This is the outcome of the Liverpool and Tottenham match in Madrid. No wonder the Spanish get the wrong impression of British tourists.

While they are counting the votes here is something to recall recorded 42 years ago. Sounds familiar today.

From The Slog today 26th May 2019: Doesn't matter which PM we get, it will always end in LIES. Roll on an election and clear the lot out.

Enough said.

To approve the expenditure of up to £200k to undertake feasibility work for the Hereford Urban Village Masterplan Decision Maker: Director of Economy and Place Decision status: Recommendations Approved Is Key decision?: No Is subject to call in?: No Decision: Approve expenditure of up to £200k to undertake feasibility work for the Hereford Urban Village Masterplan, the work will be delivered through the Council Development and Regeneration Programme using its appointment Development Partner Contact: Peter Clasby, Growth Programmes Technical Manager Email: Peter.Clasby@herefordshire.gov.uk Tel: 01432 261968. Publication date: 29/04/2019 Date of decision: 29/04/2019 Accompanying Documents:

04/03/2019 - Strategic Acquisition of a Development Opportunity Site known as College Road Campus in Hereford ref: 5986 Recommendations Approved Find out more about this decision (item 13) Decision Maker: Director of Economy and Place Decision published: 30/04/2019 Effective from: 04/03/2019 Decision: The College Road campus (as shown in appendix 1 on the red line boundary map – Southern Campus Only) is purchased for a sum of £5.395m (five million, three hundred and ninety five thousand pounds). The anticipated costs associated with the purchase are: Land Purchase 5,395,000 Stamp Duty 259,250 Professional Fees 92,500 Lead officer: Sonya Morris Accompanying Documents: Plenty of glossy graphics here.

Weren't Fisher German handling this?

But aren't they just the legal team, has it been sold to a developer?

March 2019 council expenditure published with some interesting figures. Davitt Jones Bould (DJB) is a national law firm that specialises entirely in real estate law. Appointed as real estate lawyers to the largest landowners in the UK Cyber Quarter Limited - Note Richard Ball is a Director of this Private Limited Company linked to University Of Wolverhampton The top 20 suppliers single payments: £5,395,000.00 Davitt Jones Bould £3,500,000.00 Cyber Quarter Limited £2,345,689.90 Balfour Beatty Living Places Ltd £1,973,007.27 Balfour Beatty Living Places Ltd £1,349,077.00 West Mercia Police & Crime Commissioner £797,946.29 Worcestershire County Council £770,067.94 Balfour Beatty Living Places Ltd £733,603.03 Balfour Beatty Living Places Ltd £577,357.64 Balfour Beatty Living Places Ltd £560,874.30 Hereford & Worc Fire & Rescue Service £454,303.20 Balfour Beatty Living Places Ltd £340,499.42 Fcc Environment Services (uk) Ltd £288,341.98 Western Power Distribution £277,987.88 Balfour Beatty Living Places Ltd £268,452.87 Shaw Healthcare (Herefordshire) Ltd £259,250.00 Davitt Jones Bould £246,355.01 Whitecross@Stepnell Ltd £233,052.11 Balfour Beatty Living Places Ltd £207,843.98 Wye Valley NHS Trust £151,793.47 Balfour Beatty Living Places Ltd Add in all payments to the above suppliers £7,760,733.01 Balfour Beatty Living Places Ltd £5,654,250.00 Davitt Jones Bould £597,086.30 Hereford & Worc Fire & Rescue Service £289,759.58 Shaw Healthcare (Herefordshire) Ltd £1,402,126.75 West Mercia Police & Crime Commissioner £945,748.29 Worcestershire County Council £252,377.19 Wye Valley NHS Trust Expense Areas Total Sums £9,948,220.33 Economic Development Delivery Board £1,451,141.63 Major Infrastructure Delivery Board £4,346,513.17 Public Realm Delivery Board but only £2,285,862.98 Highways & Transport £26,812,473.66 Total expenditure for March 2019 £20,730,503.29 Top 20 suppliers accounted for 77% of total expenditure

For the benefit of Newton Farm Residents does Mr Bernard Hunt have a point of contact ie address, telephone or email where they may bring matters to his attention. I understand he has business premises in Whitecross, however I doubt whether people may want to go there and find he is out or not available.

Cabinet members ousted so far Councillor H Bramer OUT Councillor BA Durkin IN Councillor DG Harlow (didn't stand, but his position gone) OUT Councillor JG Lester IN Councillor PD Price OUT Councillor P Rone IN Councillor NE Shaw IN Councillor EJ Swinglehurst Cabinet support Councillor AW Johnson IN Councillor RJ Phillips IN Quite right two wheels. Councillor EJ Swinglehurst - any news on her position? Voting results on Council's website.

Well done John Harrington.

Cabinet members ousted so far Councillor H Bramer OUT Councillor BA Durkin Councillor DG Harlow Councillor JG Lester IN Councillor PD Price OUT Councillor P Rone Councillor NE Shaw Councillor EJ Swinglehurst Cabinet support Councillor AW Johnson IN Councillor RJ Phillips IN

Cabinet members ousted so far Councillor H Bramer OUT Councillor BA Durkin Councillor DG Harlow Councillor JG Lester IN Councillor PD Price Councillor P Rone Councillor NE Shaw Councillor EJ Swinglehurst Cabinet support Councillor AW Johnson IN Councillor RJ Phillips IN

Newton farm ward result 2nd May 2019 Independent Bernard Hunt wins Newton Farm with just 171 votes. The turn out was a tiny 18.6% in the Hereford seat. Other candidates included Jacqueline Carwardine (Lib Dem 147) Labour's Margy Whalley (101) Glenda Powell (Democrats & Veterans Party 92) Jeremy Chapman (Conservative 43). In this ward 81.4% didn't, couldn't, wouldn't vote shows the state of local politics in Hereford/Herefordshire.

In The Daily Express today: Farmers deal with fly tipping on their land directly.

"The European Commission is keeping secret details of talks between EU commissioner Pierre Moscovici, former UK prime minister Tony Blair and Hungarian-US billionaire George Soros, about a second Brexit referendum. The commission told EUobserver in reply to an access to documents request that the need to protect the EU's decision-making process weighed heavier than any public interest in what was discussed last January in Davos". Tony and George with fingers in the pie. Of course Tony and George are acting for our benefit in trying to keep us in the EU - you plebs don't understand it's for your own good and for lining our own pockets.

No wonder the government want to pursue surveillance and control of social media and the press - just a word in a dozen ears is all it would take to get their message across. The UK media is dominated by a handful of corporations Media Reform Coalition produced their first comprehensive report on media ownership in the UK back in 2015 when they argued concentrated ownership was a significant problem for any modern democracy. Four years later, they have produced an updated version that suggests that, not only does concentrated ownership persist but that the problem may be getting worse. This report shows that just three companies (News UK, Daily Mail Group and Reach) dominate 83% of the national newspaper market (up from 71% in 2015). When online readers are included, just five companies (News UK, Daily Mail Group, Reach, Guardian and Telegraph) dominate nearly 80% of the market, slightly up from our last report. In the area of local news, just five companies (Gannett, Johnston Press, Trinity Mirror, Tindle and Archant) account for 80% of titles (back in 2015, six companies had the same share). Two companies have 46% of all commercial local analogue radio stations and two-thirds of all commercial digital stations. The digital landscape is hardly less concentrated. Google dominates search while popular apps like Instagram and WhatsApp are owned by Facebook, itself the most popular social media site. New, digital-only news sites have emerged as a significant force since our last report but these are overshadowed by the continuing grip of legacy news and, especially, national newspaper titles. The BBC remains a powerful presence in online and broadcasting but its budget has been massively cut by the last two licence fee deals and its room for manoeuvre has been limited by commercial competition and political pressure to be mindful of its impact on the wider commercial market. They believe that concentration in news and information markets in particular has reached endemic levels in the UK and that we urgently need effective remedies. Concentrated ownership creates conditions in which wealthy individuals and organisations can amass vast political and economic power and distort the media landscape to suit their interests. Urgent action is needed in order both to address high levels of concentration in particular media markets and to protect against further concentration in others. They hope that this report will provide data and arguments that will be useful to all those who want to campaign for a more pluralistic media in which a genuine diversity of views, voices and opinions are aired. To see the full report, click here. For the executive summary, click here. For all the data sheets, click here. Hereford Times is owned by Gannett. Generally there is no investigative journalism undertaken now and the worse for democracy.