vivweb01blog

  There has been much reporting in the media recently about the 'rise and rise' of Nigel Farage’s Reform party, culminating in a row between Kemi Badenoch and Farage about his claims on snowballing party membership. This, and Labour’s abysmal performance since the July election, has inevitably led to speculation about whether our UK  2-party ‘first past the post’ system is still appropriate to our electoral needs. Before we look at the likelihood of anything replacing it , or indeed what might take its place, let’s look at the current state of the parties' fortunes. Labour, as we’ve already discussed, has not lived up to its electors’ expectations, and have made a series of strategic blunders, starting with the removal of the pensioner universal winter fuel payment just a few days into their term. Their many broken promises have made the leadership team highly unpopular, especially their PM and his chancellor, who are seen as responsible for the damage done. They have m...

  As one of the foremost and incisive questions of our age, "When is Bins ?" deserves some thought…and hopefully a reliable solution for the afflicted (i.e. most of us!). In days of old, life was much simpler when it came to getting our rubbish collected…. Most of us had just one dustbin - we put it out for the dustmen (as we affectionately referred to them in those days) on the same day each week, and with any luck it got collected the same day.  Life is much more complicated nowadays when it comes to dealing with our domestic waste. The advent of recycling and climate change awareness, was generally a good move given our profligacy with the earth’s resources over the last 100 years, and came none too soon. But it has led to a multiplicity of schemes for collecting, sorting and processing of our domestic waste, with very little standardisation between collecting agencies. The real ‘killer’ when it comes to the poor householder, though, has been the change to fortnightl...

  Keir Starmer’s speech last week was ostensibly intended to ‘rouse the troops’ and help drive his policies forward. It was also probably also staged by his advisors now as an attempt at a ‘soft reset’,  aimed at erasing as far as possible in our memories the decidedly shaky start his first 5 months in government have produced.  In this it was somewhat naïve, to say the least, given the magnitude and the almost universal unpopularity of the changes he has made. The tone of his address was even more inappropriate for the intended task and merely added insult to injury…. In playing the ‘aggrieved boss’, as Laura Kuenssberg so aptly puts it, he made his big (and possibly eventually fatal) mistake. By effectively ‘slanging-off’ his civil servants as being slow, inefficient and sometimes downright obstructive,   he will have made many more enemies amongst a key group of his government support team.  The bulk of civil servants are hard-working and highly skilled ...

  'Norovirus' (otherwise known as the 'winter vomiting bug') is the term in general use to describe the symptoms of an unpleasant stomach complaint caused by a virus.  This isn’t a new virus, as was the causative agent of Covid i.e SARS-CoV-2. Many of us will already have been exposed to it during our lifetimes. It’s certainly not a ‘nice to have’, particularly for the very young and the elderly. The incidence is to some extent seasonal, and the virus does seem to be gaining the upper hand at present, with significant numbers catching it in UK this winter, hence the recent reports in the news media. There have been quite a few consequent hospital admissions over the last few weeks, hence the use of the term 'epidemic' in the media. The NHS is concerned about a rapid influx of new patients, at a time when it's already stretched to the limit,  if the situation continues to worsen. The recent surge in admissions hospitals are already facing due to an emerging ...

  In a word, no..... Why ? Before I try to answer this question, here's some relevant background info.  In less straitened times, much more competition existed in the energy supply marketplace, and some quite competitive offers were available, particularly from new suppliers wanting to increase their market share. Amongst these deals were some involving tariffs which were ‘no standing charge’ i.e. you paid a higher unit rate for your gas and electricity, and only paid for the units you used, which were all priced at this higher rate.  This benefited low users of gas and electricity, and at the time these tariffs started to appear they were hailed by environmentalists as a much fairer and greener way of charging customers, given the urgent need for us all to consume less of the fossil fuels we use to power our boilers and generate our electricity. The recent upsurge in ‘raw’ gas and electricity prices, and the desire of the power supply companies to maintain their pr...

  A midst all the discussion about the perils of global warming, there has been no mention recently of when we might expect the start of the next Ice-Age.... This was a topic that hit the headlines some years ago and was all the rage for a year or two before fading into obscurity. It is probably no coincidence that this media fade-out coincided with the increased coverage in the media about global warming and its wider implications for our future well-being. There is now no doubt that our climate is warming – and doing so quite rapidly. There is also little doubt that our large-scale release of greenhouse gases since the dawn of the industrial era in the early 1800s will have contributed significantly to this process. However, despite the views of some environmentalists, our planet and its atmosphere are chaotic and unpredictable beasts, and the jury is still out on whether ‘man-made’ climate warming is the principal, let alone the only, contributor.  We need to look at...

I first published this blog in November 2022 at a time when we were nearing the 50,000 mark for small-boat illegal channel migrants arriving in UK. Although many of the arguments are still valid, I've revised the content to reflect the current change in 'mood music' with the EU and the more robust home office stance announced, in the hope that some of the suggestions may prove useful in determining future government policy. ***** This is a particularly controversial topic, and has been foremost in our minds in UK since Putin’s Ukraine invasion and its migratory aftermath.  There are no hard and fast solutions to what is now effectively a global problem, but I'll attempt to provide some suggestions, and will focus primarily on our own issues with controlling illegal migration to the UK. The many crises and disasters occurring in other parts of the world are continuing to drive further migration ‘waves’ and will continue to do so over the coming years as resources beco...