#Westminster City Council

[fitzrovianews]

Planning applications in Fitzrovia West, June 2024

Westminster Council has validated a number of planning applications so far during June 2024 in Fitzrovia West. (This page will be updated until the monthly list is complete.) Among the list this month are: change of use from commercial to residential at 17-19 Foley Street; amendments to previous permission at 16-18 Berners Street; and new mechanical plant and enclosures at 32-36 Great Portland…

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Jap Hospital Bill Disowned," Vancouver Sun. October 13, 1943. Page 7. --- Special to The Vancouver Sun NEW WESTMINSTER, Oct. 13. - Objection to the principle of paying hospital bills for former Japanese residents of New Westminster who are now interned in the Interior was voiced at the City Council meeting Tuesday night.

Tom Reid, MP, member for New Westminster, will be requested to take the matter up with the Dominion Government, which the Council felt should be responsible for all hospitalization charges of alien enemies.

A bylaw providing for registration of bicycles in New Westminster will be prepared. The finance committee will decide on the fee to be charged.

The practice of commercial vehicles parking on streets in residential areas will be curbed in a bylaw.

The city will also prohibit the repairing of motor vehicles on city streets.

A grant of $150 was made towards the proposed Pro-Rec physical training classes in the city. The T. J. Trapp High School auditorium and the Dontenwill Hall will be used.

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

Hey hi hello to any fellow Brits reading this.

You probably know we have a general election coming up, which by the way, make sure you're registered to vote and have the qualifying photo ID.

And hey maybe you're a fence-sitter who doesn't want to vote for Labour for whatever reason.

Well, this post is giving you a reason to vote for Labour (or any party other than Tory if the candidate actually has a chance to win the seat).

You might have noticed that a lot of local and city councils have either gone bankrupt recently or are teetering on the edge, and that officially, it's the councils themselves that have been blamed, and uh yeah, that's horseshit.

The majority of a local council's funding comes from core grants given out by Westminster.

There's actually a limit on funding that local councils can raise via taxes, and like a whole lot of issues in the UK, that comes down to Margaret fucking Thatcher. It's also thanks to her that local councils don't have as much power over the local area as you'd ideally want them to.

(That's been eased a little since, but if a local council ain't got the money, they can't exercise that power.)

Suffice to say, local councils are very much dependent on funding from the central government.

And as you might imagine, 14 years of Tory government has just made it worse. From 2010 to 2020, that funding was cut by 40%.

Wanna know why hundreds of libraries have closed down? Or why public services like bin collections are almost entirely ran by corporations? Or why bin collections are now once a fortnight rather than once a week? Or why council houses haven't been built? Or why public toilets are being closed? Or why you have to Tokyo Drift on the drive to work because it's been 2 years and no one's done shit about that goddamn pothole? Or why parks seem to now be maintained by Big Foot and by the way Big Foot has also declared bankruptcy? Or why local arts have had their budget of 17 paperclips and a whistle reduced down to 10 paperclips and no whistle? Or why your local museum is effectively a mausoleum?

It is all down to this.

Your local council runs on a shoestring budget because Tory rule has deprived local councils of the funding that they need.

If the Tories win in July, this problem is just gonna get worse and worse and worse.

More councils are going to go bankrupt; more public services are going to be cut or underfunded; more vulnerable kids are going to fall through the cracks; more local services will be privatised; more pressing issues will be ignored because there's no money left over to fix it.

You might not like the current Labour party, but hi hello welcome to harm reduction politics. Maybe a Labour government won't fix this, but another 5 years of Tory rule is going to break this country.

So for god's sake, get over yourself and your leftist purity bullshit, and just fucking vote for Labour as a vote against the Tories.

[Information for this post comes from this video by Tom Nicholas]

[probablyasocialecologist]

While there is overwhelming evidence that the rioters targeted a specific type of British citizen and immigrant - Muslims and people of colour – the UK media and political class have been unable to condemn the violence for what it is: Islamophobia and racism. One can safely say that, had the rioters focused their violence on other religious groups (Christian, Jewish or Hindu), the establishment would have immediately (and correctly) decried the violence as anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and anti-Hindu, respectively. There would have been an outpouring of condemnation from across the UK political spectrum, as well as from international leaders. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer would have rushed to the scene to stand with the victims. Muslims, on the other hand, are not afforded such dignity and support. Starmer was not moved to visit the Southport mosque that was attacked by the far-right (triggered by false and racist misinformation that the Southport stabbings were undertaken by a Muslim asylum seeker). It took the PM over a week to meet with Muslim community leaders, while pleas from the Muslim Council of Britain were ignored.

[...]

“Today we are seeing pogroms on our streets, the burning of hotels with the intent to kill asylum seekers, because for decades the British state and media have normalised racialised violence and far-right talking points,” says Kai Heron, lecturer in political ecology at Lancaster University. “Our choice has been between governments and media outlets that agree with far-right ideas wholesale, or that fail to locate the underlying structural reasons for racist discontent and in failing to do so, perpetuate it.” Immigration is economically advantageous to Britain’s economy, but it has the potential to become politically disadvantageous to elites unless racism is used to obscure the underlying reasons for social deprivation among Britain’s working classes, explains Heron. In short, the concentration of immigrant communities in underserved big cities or de-industrialising towns highlights and exacerbates existing deprivations, adds Heron. Rather than recognise this deprivation as a result of economic exploitation, or Westminster’s neglect of underserved communities, the media and political classes accuse racialised immigrant labour and asylum seekers of placing a ‘burden’ on the state and punching a hole in Britain's otherwise untarnished social fabric.

15 August 2024

[ukrfeminism]

Westminster city council and Social Work England last week became the latest to join a list of organisations – including Arts Council England, a barristers’ chambers and a thinktank – found to have discriminated against a female worker because of their gender-critical beliefs.

The social worker Rachel Meade’s winagainst the council and her profession’s regulator means she joins a select but growing group of gender-critical feminists who have successfully brought discrimination claims on the basis of their beliefs.

Gender-critical feminists believe sex is biological and cannot be changed, and disagree with trans rights activists who say gender identity should be given priority in terms of law-making and policy. Clashes in workplaces – in some cases with those who regard the focus on biological sex as transphobic – have led to a string of employment tribunals.

On Monday, a tribunal began hearing a constructive dismissal claim from Roz Adams against Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre. Next month, Kenny McBride’s case against the Scottish government is due to be heard in Glasgow, while judgments are pending in a claim from Prof Jo Phoenix against the Open University and that of the Green party’s former deputy leader Shahrar Ali against the party.

In all four cases – and more in the pipeline – the claimants argue they were discriminated against because they hold gender-critical beliefs.

They hope to follow in the footsteps of the barrister Allison Bailey, and of the researcher Maya Forstater who obtained a landmark judgment in 2021 that her gender-critical beliefs were a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act. The campaign group Sex Matters, founded by Forstater, has identified at least 19 current cases.

After the Meade case last week, which like several others involved disciplinary action being initiated against an employee as a result of social media postings, Westminster council said it would “consider what changes we need to make”. For the local authority it comes too late to prevent a payout, but other employers may need to learn from it.

Lucy Lewis, a partner at the law firm Lewis Silkin, said that on such a politically charged issue, employers could feel they must act quickly after a complaint.

“Because this has become a politically toxic issue, there’s a sort of temptation [on the part of employers] to take a kneejerk reaction rather than the considered view of actually, what is the impact, is there another way we can address this [other than disciplinary proceedings or suspension]?

“People are being influenced by the very public and political dialogue on this and actually there’s value in just taking a step back and understanding all the factors.”

Georgina Calvert-Lee, an employment and equality barrister at Bellevue Law, agreed that the wider debate – in which gender-critical feminists and advocates of transgender rights have been at loggerheads – may have influenced employers, but said they must adjust their behaviour in light of the case law.

“What Forstater and Bailey have done is they’ve set this very strong precedent of tolerance,” Calvert-Lee said.

“Above all, in a pluralistic society, which is what we want, you have to accept that people are going to have different views and some people are going to find their colleagues’ views completely obnoxious – but nevertheless protected because freedom of speech is something that … has been really promoted and underlined.

“It’s always been there but it’s been sort of forgotten in some of these culture wars.”

After settling a case with a gender-critical volunteer, Katie Alcock, Girlguiding UK said it remained “a home for trans people” but added: “We agree that sex and gender are different, and will reflect this in the language we use.”

After another case that was settled out of court, brought by the student James Esses, who was thrown off his course for expressing gender-critical views, the UK Council for Psychotherapy conceded it was a valid professional belief that children suffering from gender dysphoria should receive counselling rather than medical intervention and people should not be discriminated against for such beliefs. Esses’ case against the Metanoia Institute continues.

Calvert-Lee said the cases to date showed the importance of employers training staff “about what is acceptable and what’s not and what amounts to harassment and what probably doesn’t – the sort of respect they should give to each other”, as well as giving training to those staff investigating complaints.

“Whenever there’s some sort of complaint which involves a belief that’s basically pitted against another belief, they [the investigator] have to be completely neutral,” she said. “It’s not on for the investigator to come to it very overtly with their own value judgment.”

The tribunals have made clear that it is not a free-for-all but a balancing exercise. For instance, David Mackereth – an outlier in that he lost his case based on gender-critical beliefs – was found to have crossed the line by misgendering service users at the Department for Work and Pensions, making its decision to dismiss him reasonable.

Calvert-Lee believes the recent increase in cases will ultimately be a blip rather than a growing trend, as workplaces become more aware of the need to handle complaints and concerns more carefully.

The events that led to Meade’s claim came “just weeks before the Forstater employment appeal tribunal decision was given”, she said, and the results of the Forstater and Bailey cases would mean “employers will have training, and so they’re likely to fall off, you’re likely to have fewer cases”.

Lewis said there would always be “bad eggs” but compared the situation to legal cases on manifestations of religious belief at work, such as wearing a cross.

“You have a flurry of cases and people that aren’t lawyers … wonder why those cases go away,” she said. “In a common law system like ours, you have cases that set out some of the principles employment tribunals need to consider and then really good organisations like the CIPD [Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development] take all that reasoning, they give advice and training to employers and then employers are clear about what they need to do, how they should manage this kind of conflict in the workplace.”

She added that the media attention afforded to gender-critical cases perhaps suggested that they were more common than they really were. In fact, she suggested there were likely to be a greater number of claims brought by transgender people alleging harm, though many go unreported.

“The overwhelming majority of employers are not setting out to discriminate; they’re not just thinking ‘well all people with gender-critical views are bad, so we’re just going to get rid of them’,” said Lewis.

“They just have got strong alternative views in the workplace and they haven’t known how to navigate through that conflict.”

[dozydawn]

“Argentinian tourists Carolina Garguilo, 17, and Yanina Lopez, 17, feed the pigeons in London's Trafalgar Square this morning (Friday). Westminster City Council has proposed to ban feeding the birds in the square in an attempt to cut the population that flock there.”

Photographed by Fiona Hanson, 1997.

[flagwars]

Dragon Flag Wars: Round 1

There are so many amazing flags featuring dragons out there, so this tournament will have a wide variety of dragon flags! Because there are so many, each poll in Round 1 will feature four or five flags. Thank you for everyone for your submissions, and I hope you’re excited to see which dragon will reign supreme in this ultimate battle! Let me know which flag you’re rooting for in the comments! The tournament will begin on Friday.

Round 1:

1. Somerset, England vs. Plain Blue Banner vs. Hattingen, Germany vs. Lukova, Czechia

2. Slochteren, Netherlands vs. Dragon Banner (The Wheel of Time) vs. Craig-y-Dorth, Wales vs. Trégor, France vs. Kazan, Russia

3. Michalovice (Havlíčkův Brod District), Czechia vs. Wales vs. Garwolin County, Poland vs. Plomelin, France vs. Łańcut, Poland

4. Strzyżów County, Poland vs. Wessex vs. Nemenčinė, Lithuania vs. Potěhy, Czechia vs. Ljubljana, Slovenia

5. Contrada del Drago, Siena, Italy vs. Cardiff, Wales vs. Litobratřice, Czechia vs. Ingolstadt, Germany vs. Líšný, Czechia

6. Korea (1856) vs. Evenley, England vs. Malta vs. Dlouhá Třebová, Czechia vs. Empire (Yōjo Senki/Saga of Tanya the Evil)

7. Manipur Kingdom vs. House Targaryen vs. Yegoryevsk, Russia vs. Biała Podlaska, Poland vs. Wachtberg, Germany

8. Bořitov, Czechia vs. Bhutan vs. Warszawski Zachodni County, Poland vs. Stjørdal, Norway vs. Yellow Dragon Flag (황룡기)

9. Myanmar Royal Dragon Army vs. Suchohrdly, Czechia vs. Mladějov na Moravě, Czechia vs. Navès, Lleida, Spain vs. Erpužice, Czechia

10. Presidential Standard of Georgia vs. Flag used by Du Wenxiu vs. Štichov, Czechia vs. Royal Standard of Henry VII of England vs. Heide, Germany

11. Babice, Czechia vs. Royal Standard of the Suebi dynasty vs. City of Brussels, Belgium vs. Canton of Chinese Dragon from the Imperial Chinese Navy Fleet vs. Mírová, Czechia

12. Novoorlovsk, Russia vs. Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine vs. Santa Margarida i els Monjos, Spain vs. High Valyrian (Duolingo) vs. Y Wladfa

13. Qing Dynasty vs. Order of the Dragon (Manasija Monastery) vs. Amestris (Fullmetal Alchemist) vs. Łańcut County, Poland vs. San Giorgio Bigarello, Italy

14. Coast Guard Administration of Taiwan vs. Presidential Standard of South Vietnam vs. Somerset County Council vs. Moscow, Russia

15. Dolní Čermná, Czechia vs. Beesel, Netherlands vs. Y Ddraig Aur (royal standard of Owain Glyndŵr) vs. Vietnamese Monarchist flag (proposal)

16. Y Ddraig Ddu vs. Mikhaylovka (Volgograd oblast), Russia vs. Church of St Margaret, Westminster Abbey vs. Garter Banner of Sir David Brewer

[vintage-london-images]

Britain's first parking meters were erected in London, and they started operating on the 10th June 1958. Approximately 625 yards of them were put in place in Mayfair by Westminster City Council, with an hour of parking costing 6p in old money.

Here we have a gentleman calibrating a meter in his white lab coat, oh and not to forget his collar and tie.

[mariacallous]

There’s an international socialist conspiracy afoot, and it wants to make it easier to walk to the shops. Fringe forces of the far left are plotting to take away our freedom to be stuck in traffic jams, to crawl along clogged ring roads and trawl the streets in search of a parking spot. The liberty of the rush-hour commute, the sanctity of the out-of-town shopping centre and the righteousness of the suburban food desert is under threat as never before. The name of this chilling global movement? The “15-minute city”.

Westminster can often seem like a badly scripted spoof of itself, but rarely has parliament descended into parody as far as it did last week, when the Conservative MP for the South Yorkshire constituency of Don Valley, Nick Fletcher, launched a plucky tirade against the concept of convenient, walkable neighbourhoods. “Will the leader of the house please set aside time for a debate on the international socialist concept of so-called 15-minute cities and 20-minute neighbourhoods?” he asked, in an ominous tone. “Sheffield is already on this journey, and I do not want Doncaster, which also has a Labour-run socialist council, to do the same.”

It is not the first time that an online conspiracy theory has made it into the Commons chamber, but it may be one of the most surreal. Simply put, the 15-minute city principle suggests you should have your daily needs – work, food, healthcare, education, culture and leisure – within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from where you live. It sounds pleasant enough, but in the minds of libertarian fanatics and the bedroom commentators of TikTok, it represents an unprecedented assault on personal freedoms.

“Creepy local authority bureaucrats would like to see your entire existence boiled down to the duration of a quarter of an hour,” warned a furious presenter on GB News last week, as if describing a plot line from Nineteen Eighty-Four. The 15-minute city, he suggested, was a “dystopian plan”, heralding “a surveillance culture that would make Pyongyang envious”.

Never before has a mundane theory of urbanism been such a lightning rod for outrage. It’s like suggesting that public parks are part of a sinister plant-worshipping plot to demolish our homes and replace them with grass. Or that public transport is the work of a satanic bus cult. Some online forums have claimed that the 15-minute city represents the first step towards an inevitable Hunger Games society, in which residents will not be allowed to leave their prescribed areas. They see it not as a route to a low-traffic, low-carbon future, but as the beginning of a slippery slope to living in an open-air prison.

As one irate TikToker shrieked, while jumping around his room in disbelief: “You’re going to have to apply for a fucking permit to leave your zone!” (Although he also ascribed the 15-minute city plans to the Tories, so it’s not quite clear which deranged Reddit forum he got his information from).

There are lots of good reasons to interrogate the cute logic of the 15-minute city – could it actually lead to further social segregation? Would wealthy residents, and their money, remain in the prosperous enclaves? Who is providing the services and where do they live? – but the threat of our rights being curtailed by travel permits isn’t one of them.

The conspiracy theory pot was given a powerful stir in December, when the Canadian rightwing culture warrior Jordan Peterson decided to get involved. “The idea that neighbourhoods should be walkable is lovely,” he tweeted, in a post that has since clocked up 7.5m views. “The idea that idiot tyrannical bureaucrats can decide by fiat where you’re ‘allowed’ to drive is perhaps the worst imaginable perversion of that idea,” he continued, “and, make no mistake, it’s part of a well-documented plan.” Peterson quoted a tweet that featured the telltale hashtag #GreatReset, referring to the World Economic Forum’s post-pandemic economic recovery plan – widely used in the stranger corners of the internet as a byword for a shadowy global conspiracy intent on robbing us of our freedoms. The anti-vaccine, pro-Brexit, climate-denying, 15-minute-phobe, Great Reset axis is a strong one.

So where did the fear come from? Many of the UK conspiracy theorists highlight that these “un-British” ideas of urban walkability emanate from France, so they must be distrusted on principle. Worse than that, they point out, the ideology has been driven by a bearded Colombian scientist with radical roots. The ideas had been around since the 1920s, but the 15-minute city phrase was coined by Carlos Moreno, esteemed professor at the Panthéon-Sorbonne in Paris, who was once a member of a leftwing guerrilla group in the 1970s. And now he’s coming for your cars.

“Their lies are enormous,” Moreno said in a recent interview , describing some of the claims made by his critics. “You will be locked in your neighbourhood; cameras will signal who can go out; if your mother lives in another neighbourhood, you will have to ask for permission to see her, and so on,” adding that they “sometimes post pictures of concentration camps.”

Moreno first promoted his concept of la ville du quart d’heure in 2016, but it gained international attention when the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, adopted it as part of her re-election campaign in 2020. She promised she would close off roads and turn them into public plazas, plant more trees and turn schools into the “capitals of the neighbourhood”, open to everyone for sports and recreation in evenings and at weekends.

The pandemic proved to be a powerful trial for how a 15-minute city might work in practice, and led to bodies such as UN Habitat, the World Economic Forum, the C40 Global Cities Climate Network and the Federation of United Local Governments championing the cause – which also helped to boost unhinged fantasies that it is all part of a grand global scheme of totalitarian oppression.

More recently, the principles have gained traction in the UK, with Oxford, Birmingham, Bristol, Canterbury and Sheffield councils considering 15-minute city ideas. Cue outrage from those with no other cause left to flog. “The climate change lockdowns are coming,” tweeted Nigel Farage, in response to Canterbury’s innocuous traffic filtering scheme, while Oxford’s plans triggered similar ripples of incredulous fury.

“Oxfordshire County Council yesterday approved plans to lock residents into one of six zones to ‘save the planet’ from global warming,” screamed one alarmist headline. “The latest stage in the ‘15-minute city’ agenda is to place electronic gates on key roads in and out of the city, confining residents to their own neighbourhoods.” The claims had zero basis in fact, but they poured further fuel on the fire of those battling low-traffic neighbourhoods, and their fellow band of assorted culture warriors.

It seems fitting that a leaflet drop warning against Oxford’s traffic filters plan was organised by Not Our Future – a new pressure group led by none other than Fred and Richard Fairbrass of 1990s band turned anti-vaxxers Right Said Fred. Too sexy for their car? Maybe they could try cycling to the shops instead.

[fitzrovianews]

Westminster Council compensates disabled elderly tenant for failures on home repairs

A disabled elderly tenant was left in a flat needing repairs “for years” by Westminster City Council. The local authority has agreed to pay more than £21,000 in compensation as a result of their “significant failures”. It said it was “deeply sorry” for the distress it had caused the tenant and felt the large payout reflected the gravity of its failures. Councillors voted unanimously on Wednesday…

[grandmaster-anne]

Court Circular | 9th February 2023

Buckingham Palace

Her Excellency Mrs Hélène Duchêne was received in audience by The King today and presented the Letters of Recall of her predecessor and her own Letters of Credence as Ambassador from the French Republic to the Court of St James’s. Mr Remi Duchêne was also received by His Majesty. Her Excellency Ms Francella Strickland was received in audience by The King and presented the Letters of Recall of her predecessor and her own Letters of Commission as High Commissioner for the Independent State of Samoa in London. Ms Juliet Chua (Director General for Finance and Corporate, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) was present. His Majesty this afternoon visited Leighton House, 12 Holland Park Road, London W14. Later Miss Dileeni Daniel-Selvaratnam was received in audience by The King and kissed hands upon her appointment as His Majesty’s Governor of Turks and Caicos Islands. The following were received in audience by The King and kissed hands upon their appointment as His Majesty’s Ambassadors: Mr Edward Ferguson (the Republic of Serbia), Mr Vinay Talwar (the Republic of Djibouti) and Mr Simon Walters (the State of Israel). Mrs Ferguson was also received by His Majesty. The King subsequently received Colonel Chris Hadfield (former Canadian Astronaut, Commander of the International Space Station). The Queen Consort this morning visited Storm Family Centre, Strasburg Road, Doddington Estate, Battersea, London SW11, and was received by Mrs Colleen Harris (Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London).

Kensington Palace

The Prince and Princess of Wales, Duke and Duchess of Cornwall this afternoon visited the National Maritime Museum Falmouth, Discovery Quay, Falmouth, and were received by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Cornwall (Colonel Edward Bolitho). Their Royal Highnesses afterwards visited the Dracaena Centre, Dracaena Avenue, Falmouth.

St James’s Palace

The Earl of Wessex, Patron, the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, this afternoon attended a Luncheon at Coutts and Company, 440 Strand, London WC2, and afterwards attended a performance of Much Ado About Nothing at the Duke of York’s Theatre, St Martin’s Lane, London WC2. The Countess of Wessex, Chairman, Women’s Network Forum, this afternoon chaired a Meeting at Buckingham Palace. Her Royal Highness, Patron, Chartered Management Institute, later attended a Conference to mark National Apprenticeship Week at County Hall, Belvedere Road, London SE1.

St James’s Palace

The Princess Royal this morning opened the renovated David Livingstone Birthplace in Station Road, Blantyre, and was received by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Lanarkshire (the Lady Haughey). Her Royal Highness this afternoon visited the South Lanarkshire Council housing regeneration project at Rona Terrace, Whitlawburn, Cambuslang, Lanarkshire. The Princess Royal, Royal Patron, Friends of TS Queen Mary, later attended a Ninetieth Anniversary Reception at Voco Grand Central Hotel, 99 Gordon Street, Glasgow, and was received by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of the City of Glasgow (Councillor Jacqueline McLaren, the Rt Hon the Lord Provost).

Kensington Palace

The Duke of Gloucester, President, the Britain-Nepal Society, this afternoon received Mr Andrew Sparkes (Chairman) and Colonel Nicholas Hinton (Chairman, Britain-Nepal Non-Governmental Organisation Network).

St James’s Palace

The Duke of Kent, President, Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund, this morning attended a Memorial Service to commemorate the anniversary of the death of the Viscount Trenchard OM which was held in the Royal Air Force Chapel, Westminster Abbey, London SW1.

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

[Alt text:]

Sadiq Khan tells Met to conduct review of coronation policing and explain why Republic activists detained for so long – live

Six anti-monarchy protesters were detained on day of coronation but Met later admitted they ‘regretted’ their arrests

Andrew Sparrow, 16:56, Tuesday 9 May

Sadiq Khan tells Met to review coronation policing, including explaining why Republic activists detained for so long

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has written to Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, calling for a “lessons learned” review of the policing of protests at the coronation. Here is an excerpt.

Despite the welcome efforts of so many committed officers, it is clear that some of the arrests made have given rise to concerns and, in my oversight role as mayor, I am seeking assurance from you that the issues related to these will be subject to a review and lessons learned. In particular, I would ask that you urgently provide me with further information on:

-The arrests of six members of the “Republic” group, and why the arresting officers did not appear to know or take into account of, the liaison Republic had undertaken with Met in advance of the event?

-Why the protest liaison officer was not part of the decision-making process on the arrests or even contacted?

-Why there was not a faster resolution in respect of these arrests following the initial decision to arrest?

-What role the new legislation played in the arrests, and what consideration was given to concerns raised by City Hall that Section 2 Public Order Act 2023 “being equipped to Lock On” was so broadly drawn, that it could interfere with peaceful protest if not carefully interpreted?

-What liaison took place with Westminster city council after the arrests of the “Night Star” volunteers?

-What briefing was provided to officers who were drafted in from outside of Westminster borough area to ensure they were aware of local partnership arrangements?

In his letter Khan also accepted that “balancing public safety requirements against the fundamental right to peaceful protest is not easy” and he thanked the police for their success in making the coronation a global success.

last updated 16:36

full article

hey guys!! look!! we finally have someone actually in charge making sense about the blatant police misconduct!!

its not perfect, but its something

of course, we should note that sadiq khan is in the labour party, and in the meantime, rishi sunak has taken a helicopter to the south coast rather than the oh-so-horrible-peasant's train journey that takes a single hour.

so to anyone who spouts that "theyre all the same" bullshit, fuck you. one party is addressing the unlawful arrests while the other is frolicking around in a fucking helicopter.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Royal City Backs Plan to Remove 'Pen'," Vancouver Sun. August 24, 1943. Page 12. ---- Special to The Vancouver Sun NEW WESTMINSTER, Aug. 24. Proposal to remove the British Columbia penitentiary from New Westminster was en- dorsed by the City Council Mon- day night when Tom Reid, M.P., was assured unqualified support in his efforts in this connection.

Mr. Reid pointed out that even as far back as 1878 a report was made to the minister of justice that the penitentiary was in the wrong location. Subsequent reports in 1920 and 1923 recommended that the prison be constructed in a new location.

Mr. Reid agreed with members of the council that the Penitentiary occupies valuable residential sites and also valuable waterfront which could be used in building up the city. The proposal will now be taken up further by Mr. Reid working in conjunction with Mayor William Mott.

WORTH $800,000 Surrey and Langley were suggested as sites for a new penitentiary.

The prison buildings were reported to have a value of $800,000. Construction of a new prison could be undertaken as a rehabilitation project, it was stated.

Mayor Mott vacated his chair in favor of Ald. J. A. Courtney and debated from the floor of the council, during heated discussions over the curbing of dog kennels and the demolition of old buildings.

[systemtek]

Cyber Security Playbook launched in the UK

The Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT) has this week launched the alpha Secure Connected Places Playbook for local authorities, a new resource offering practical and accessible support to improve the cyber security of their connected places, or ‘smart cities’, across the UK. Connected places are communities that integrate information and communication technologies, as well as Internet of Things (IoT) devices, to collect and analyse data to deliver new services to the community and enhance the quality of living for citizens. These improvements feature across a wide array of areas, including key public services such as transportation, utilities and wider infrastructure. Given the large amount data they collect, the interconnected nature of their systems, and the potential impact on local infrastructure, connected places can be attractive targets to hostile actors. This Playbook will help local authorities set a foundation to protect themselves against would-be cyber threats. Created in collaboration with a group of local authorities, the alpha Playbook provides practical cyber security support as communities increase their use of innovative solutions, such as automated traffic and waste management systems, and smart environmental monitoring. Minister for Cyber, AI, and Intellectual Property, Viscount Camrose, said: Connected places offer enormous benefits for the entire country, not just through improved public services for our communities, but through new innovations which will unlock better-paid jobs and grow our economy. We are already world leaders in cyber security, as demonstrated by through pioneering measures such as the Product Security Regime. It’s vital that this expertise carries over to the development of our connected places. This Playbook will help do exactly that – offering practical and accessible support to local authorities as we work collaboratively to grow secure and sustainable connected places across the UK. Designed to be accessible for those without a technical background, the alpha Playbook will help local authority teams who are working on connected places projects to get their cyber security foundations right and set a strong security culture in the process. The alpha Playbook addresses several key cyber security challenges which local authorities face in the deployment of connected places technologies, including a resources on cyber security governance, risk management, procurement and supply chain security, as well as guidance on how to conduct threat analysis. A diverse group of local authorities has contributed to its creation, ensuring it can address the diverse practical needs of communities across the country. The contributing authorities were: - Bradford Metropolitan City Council - Westminster City Council - Dorset Council - Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council - The South London Partnership - Perth and Kinross Council DSIT is committed to continuing its work with local authorities to ensure that the alpha Playbook continues to work for their practical needs. Today, DSIT is inviting applications from local authorities to participate in the next phase of the project, beta testing the alpha Playbook. This will involve an expanded cohort of 12 local authorities who will receive dedicated cyber security support to apply and refine the advice in the alpha Playbook. This will inform a beta version of the Playbook targeted for publication next year. Feeding into the government’s National Cyber Strategy and complementing existing guidance published by the National Cyber Security Centre, the playbook helps cement the UK’s place as a global leader in secure and sustainable connected places. Read the full article

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.8

453 BC – Spring and Autumn period: The house of Zhao defeats the house of Zhi, ending the Battle of Jinyang, a military conflict between the elite families of the State of Jin. 413 – Emperor Honorius signs an edict providing tax relief for the Italian provinces Tuscia, Campania, Picenum, Samnium, Apulia, Lucania and Calabria, which were plundered by the Visigoths. 589 – Reccared I opens the Third Council of Toledo, marking the entry of Visigothic Spain into the Catholic Church. 1360 – Treaty of Brétigny drafted between King Edward III of England and King John II of France (the Good). 1373 – Julian of Norwich, a Christian mystic and anchoress, experiences the deathbed visions described in her Revelations of Divine Love. 1429 – Joan of Arc lifts the Siege of Orléans, turning the tide of the Hundred Years' War. 1450 – Kentishmen revolt against King Henry VI. 1516 – A group of imperial guards, led by Trịnh Duy Sản, murdered Emperor Lê Tương Dực and fled, leaving the capital Thăng Long undefended. 1541 – Hernando de Soto stops near present-day Walls, Mississippi, and sees the Mississippi River (then known by the Spanish as Río de Espíritu Santo, the name given to it by Alonso Álvarez de Pineda in 1519). 1608 – A newly nationalized silver mine in Scotland at Hilderston, West Lothian is re-opened by Bevis Bulmer. 1639 – William Coddington founds Newport, Rhode Island. 1758 – The Maratha Empire captures Peshawar from the Durrani Empire in the Battle of Peshawar. The Maratha Empire was extended to its farthest distance away from Pune that it ever reached, over 2,000 km (1,200 mi), almost to the borders of Afghanistan. 1788 – King Louis XVI of France attempts to impose the reforms of Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne by abolishing the parlements. 1794 – Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ferme générale, is tried, convicted and guillotined in one day in Paris. 1821 – Greek War of Independence: The Greeks defeat the Turks at the Battle of Gravia Inn. 1842 – A train derails and catches fire in Paris, killing between 52 and 200 people. 1846 – Mexican–American War: American forces led by Zachary Taylor defeat a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande in the first major battle of the war. 1877 – At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens. 1886 – Pharmacist John Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola" as a patent medicine. 1898 – The first games of the Italian football league system are played. 1899 – The Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin produced its first play. 1902 – In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a handful of residents survive the blast. 1912 – Paramount Pictures is founded. 1919 – Edward George Honey proposes the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate the Armistice of 11 November 1918 which ended World War I. 1921 – The creation of the Communist Party of Romania. 1924 – The Klaipėda Convention is signed formally incorporating Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory) into Lithuania. 1927 – Attempting to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York, French war heroes Charles Nungesser and François Coli disappear after taking off aboard The White Bird biplane. 1933 – Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast of self-purification and launched a one-year campaign to help the Harijan movement. 1941 – World War II: The German Luftwaffe launches a bombing raid on Nottingham and Derby. 1942 – World War II: The German 11th Army begins Operation Trappenjagd (Bustard Hunt) and destroys the bridgehead of the three Soviet armies defending the Kerch Peninsula. 1942 – World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end with Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attacking and sinking the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Lexington. 1942 – World War II: Gunners of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands rebel in the Cocos Islands Mutiny. Their mutiny is crushed and three of them are executed, the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War. 1945 – World War II: The German Instrument of Surrender signed at Berlin-Karlshorst comes into effect. 1945 – End of the Prague uprising, celebrated now as a national holiday in the Czech Republic. 1945 – Hundreds of Algerian civilians are killed by French Army soldiers in the Sétif massacre. 1945 – The Halifax riot starts when thousands of civilians and servicemen rampage through Halifax, Nova Scotia. 1946 – Estonian schoolgirls Aili Jõgi and Ageeda Paavel blow up the Soviet memorial which preceded the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn. 1950 – The Tollund Man was discovered in a peat bog near Silkeborg, Denmark. 1957 – South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem began a state visit to the United States, his regime's main sponsor. 1963 – South Vietnamese soldiers under the Roman Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem open fire on Buddhists defying a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, killing nine and sparking the Buddhist crisis. 1967 – The Philippine province of Davao is split into three: Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, and Davao Oriental. 1970 – The Beatles release their 12th and final studio album Let It Be. 1972 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces his order to place naval mines in major North Vietnamese ports in order to stem the flow of weapons and other goods to that nation. 1973 – A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ends with the surrender of the militants. 1976 – The rollercoaster The New Revolution, the first steel coaster with a vertical loop, opens at Six Flags Magic Mountain. 1978 – The first ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler. 1980 – The World Health Organization confirms the eradication of smallpox. 1984 – Corporal Denis Lortie enters the Quebec National Assembly and opens fire, killing three people and wounding 13. René Jalbert, Sergeant-at-Arms of the Assembly, succeeds in calming him, for which he will later receive the Cross of Valour. 1984 – The USSR announces a boycott upon the Summer Olympics at Los Angeles, later joined by 14 other countries. 1984 – The Thames Barrier is officially opened, preventing the floodplain of most of Greater London from being flooded except under extreme circumstances. 1987 – The SAS kills eight Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers and a civilian during an ambush in Loughgall, Northern Ireland. 1988 – A fire at Illinois Bell's Hinsdale Central Office triggers an extended 1AESS network outage once considered to be the "worst telecommunications disaster in US telephone industry history". 1997 – China Southern Airlines Flight 3456 crashes on approach into Bao'an International Airport, killing 35 people. 2019 – British 17-year-old Isabelle Holdaway is reported to be the first patient ever to receive a genetically modified phage therapy to treat a drug-resistant infection. 2021 – A car bomb explodes in front of a school in Kabul, capital city of Afghanistan killing at least 55 people and wounding over 150.

[bscnews1532]

The City of Richmond is home to another large gambling facility operated by Great Canada Gaming Corporation

Rockibal Casino's existing revenue into Precival Casino's proximity.

The city of Richmond reiterated its opposition to the construction of a full-fledged gambling facility south of Fraser, and Richmond City Council was negative about the construction of a new entertainment facility before BCLC selected Delta as a priority.

Members against the establishment of a new casino in the Delta region On November 25, 2016, Richmond Council sent a report to BCLC and Delta Corporation suggesting that "the casinos in Delta should be far enough away from Richmond", further explaining that it was an idea to protect the existing riverlock casinos, considered a stable and sure source of revenue.

Richmond's letter opposing the construction of a new casino in the area has angered Delta lawmakers. Last September, Delta received preliminary approval to build a casino in Town and Country Inn. The BCLC explained that the corporation granted approval for Delta Town & Country In after hearing opinions from communities and municipalities.

BCLC also conducted a survey with third-party consultants to learn that the proposed site would generate revenue without hurting the profitability of other gambling facilities in Richmond, Surrey and New Westminster. BCLC's Chris Fairclaw explained that Gateway's casino proposal is to make the most of the market's potential, not "take it from my hand and give it to my right hand."

Recently, the BCLC sent a letter to the Delta Commission reminding it that to advance the Gateway's casino project, it should discuss Gateway's casino plans for the construction of casino/hotel complexes with affected municipalities within 5 km of the proposed gaming facility. Gateway's zoning application is expected to appear on the Delta Commission desk after the city holds several public meetings on the application. The first public meeting will run from February 1 to 8 at Harris.파워볼사이트