Tories may 'lose broadband vote'

charles wrote:
In article ,
J G Miller wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 01:23:14 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

needs a cathedral first. Or possibly these days a mosque.

Birmingham was the first English municipality to achieve city status
without having a cathedral, and more recently Sunderland became a
city and it does not have a cathedral.

Conversely, although there is a cathedral in Chester, this municipality
lost its city status and was downgraded to borough in the recent merger
to become Cheshire West and Chester.

Guildford also has a cathedral, but is not a city.

Is nothing sacred?

The Natural Philosopher writes:

which IMHO is utter crap. You dont want vast monolithic organisations,
you want stratification. Regional crime squads probably need to be
national crime squads, but the bobby on the beat needs to be YOUR
bobby, from YOUR patch in a station that isn't 40 miles away, that you
can talk to easily, cos he hangs out in the local pub.

You mean bring back the Police House so the village bobby lives in the
village and the estate bobby lives on the estate.

On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:28:16 +0000, Phil W Lee
phil(at)lee-family(dot)me(dot)uk wrote:

The Natural Philosopher considered Fri, 19 Mar
2010 01:23:14 +0000 the perfect time to write:

David Rance wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 George Weston wrote:

The Royal County of Berkshire exists but in name as a geographical
entity. The unitary authorities within Berkshire are Reading BC,
Bracknell Forest BC, Slough BC, Wokingham DC, West Berks Council and the
Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

Thanks for that - a prime example of what a mess results from
splitting up an historic shire county into small pieces!
I can understand cities within the area of shire counties doing their
own thing but Berkshire doesn't have any!
(In any case, as far as I'm concerned, Slough is still in
Buckinghamshire - and I'm sure that the majority of Berkshire
residents would have similar feelings!)

Many years ago Reading was a County Borough. Then in the 1970's
reorganisation it lost that status, but now it appears to have regained
what it lost - or has it? It is canvassing for city status but it's
doubtful if it will get it.


needs a cathedral first. Or possibly these days a mosque.

Like Cambridge?

Because Cambridge did not have a cathedral it had to wait until 1951 to
become a city. The rules were relaxed.

Oxford, having a cathedral, gained city status a mere four centuries
earlier: 1542.

--
Peter Duncanson
(in uk.tech.digital-tv)

On 19/03/2010 01:22, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
George Weston wrote:


One way might be to make the UK into a Federal country, like the US or
Germany, divided into four States, with each state having equal
law-making and local taxation powers, with the UK government being
solely concerned with higher matters of state, for instance defence,
foreign policy, etc.?


Go one better, its a union of four countries already.

So devolve an English parliament to balance that issue, and split it
into shires as it always was, and where appropriate, town, county
borough and parish councils, with ALL matters that have no impact
outside a given authority being ENTIRELY the responsibility of that
authority.

If Brighton wants to ban heterosexual bars, let it.

For example.


And tell Europe that while we are delighted to be part of it, and have
free trade with it, people and goods and laws that do not pass national
boundaries are none of its ****ing business.

All sounds good to me...

George

On 19/03/2010 01:27, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
George Weston wrote:
On 18/03/2010 21:34, charles wrote:
In ,
J G wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:10:02 +0000, George Weston wrote:

but they all have one thing in common, which is that they all cover
*all* council services in their areas.

Except where there are parish or town councils.

writing as a Parish Council Chairman, I should point out that very few
Parish Councils provide 'services' other than cemeteries - where needed.

And writing as a (Welsh) community council member, I would agree with
you!

This makes life a bit simpler for the residents of these areas,
who don't have to try and remember "who deals with what" when it comes
to roads, refuse collection, highways, council tax, schools, etc...

So who deals with the local ambulance service, or the local fire and
emergency service, or the local police service, all of which used to
be under county council control.

In many areas the Police force covers more than one County, so this
shouldn't be a probem. Ambulance services are provided by the NHS not
teh
County Council. Even some Fire& Rescue services cover wide areas eg the
London Fire& Resue Service works across many boroughs.

Absolutely. In my area, Gwent Police covers the counties/county
boroughs/cities of Monmouthshire, Newport, Caerphilly, Torfaen and
Blaenau Gwent.

Similarly, Avon and Somerset Constabulary covers Bristol, Somerset,
North Somerset, Bath & Northeast Somerset and South Gloucestershire.
Police services are organised on a regional basis rather than being
county-based, and sometimes still use the names of former counties
which no longer exist (examples: Avon and Gwent).


which IMHO is utter crap. You dont want vast monolithic organisations,
you want stratification. Regional crime squads probably need to be
national crime squads, but the bobby on the beat needs to be YOUR bobby,
from YOUR patch in a station that isn't 40 miles away, that you can talk
to easily, cos he hangs out in the local pub.

Agreed. We had a village cop until about 15 years ago, who definitely
*did* drink in our local - probably a bit too much, if truth be told!
One night, before the more relaxed licensing laws came in, his
colleagues raided the pub, which was still open at gone midnight, as
usual. They hadn't warned him they were coming and he just escaped
through the gent's toilet window before any of his colleagues recognised
him!
Anyway, the constabulary then decided in the interests of efficiency to
do away with village cops. They moved ours out and then sold the
police-house (which is now a foster home for teenagers "with problems").
A double-whammy for our village!
They've recently also restricted the opening hours of the police
stations in our local towns and may well close one of them completely.
We now have a "neighbourhood" constable who is based in one of the towns
about 8 miles away but who is also on call for emergencies, which in our
force's area means Newport city, where all the thugs hang out, so
there's no point in calling him out on a Friday night!
Apart from that, it's a case of calling 999 or 101 and waiting to see
who turns up, from wherever - if they do at all...


In that sense most other countries have local cops and national cops.

Yep. Mind you, having "local" police can sometimes bring local politics
and possibly corruption into play, as witnessed in many Hollywood movies
featuring fat, corrupt local sheriffs, who get re-elected by bribing the
locals, and so on...

George

In article ,
Graham Murray wrote:
The Natural Philosopher writes:

which IMHO is utter crap. You dont want vast monolithic organisations,
you want stratification. Regional crime squads probably need to be
national crime squads, but the bobby on the beat needs to be YOUR
bobby, from YOUR patch in a station that isn't 40 miles away, that you
can talk to easily, cos he hangs out in the local pub.

You mean bring back the Police House so the village bobby lives in the
village and the estate bobby lives on the estate.

You may havwe something there. 40 years ago, this village had a resident
sergeant and a couple of PCs. Now we share a single (neighbourhood) PC
with 8 other villages with the police staion in another village but we do
have a PCSO shared with only 2 others. This is all about to change in that
our local police station about to close and the PC will move to the town.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.16

In article ,


Because Cambridge did not have a cathedral it had to wait until 1951 to
become a city. The rules were relaxed.

not so much relaxed as changed. Cambridge didn't need a cathedral since
there isn't a Bishop of Cambridge. The city is in the Diocese of Ely.


Oxford, having a cathedral, gained city status a mere four centuries
earlier: 1542.

but actually its cathdral is a college chapel.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.16

In article , charles
scribeth thus
In article ,


Because Cambridge did not have a cathedral it had to wait until 1951 to
become a city. The rules were relaxed.

not so much relaxed as changed. Cambridge didn't need a cathedral since
there isn't a Bishop of Cambridge. The city is in the Diocese of Ely.



Yes, and a very nice one too..


Oxford, having a cathedral, gained city status a mere four centuries
earlier: 1542.

but actually its cathdral is a college chapel.


Yes, quite unique as well)....

--
Tony Sayer

On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I can understand cities within the area of shire counties doing
their own thing but Berkshire doesn't have any!
(In any case, as far as I'm concerned, Slough is still in
Buckinghamshire - and I'm sure that the majority of Berkshire
residents would have similar feelings!)

Many years ago Reading was a County Borough. Then in the 1970's
reorganisation it lost that status, but now it appears to have
regained what it lost - or has it? It is canvassing for city status
but it's doubtful if it will get it.

needs a cathedral first. Or possibly these days a mosque.

Actually that's an urban legend. You don't have to have a cathedral to
be a city.

David

--
David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK
http://rance.org.uk

On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 Peter Duncanson wrote:


Many years ago Reading was a County Borough. Then in the 1970's
reorganisation it lost that status, but now it appears to have regained
what it lost - or has it? It is canvassing for city status but it's
doubtful if it will get it.


needs a cathedral first. Or possibly these days a mosque.

Like Cambridge?

Because Cambridge did not have a cathedral it had to wait until 1951 to
become a city. The rules were relaxed.

Oxford, having a cathedral, gained city status a mere four centuries
earlier: 1542.

Hmm, Oxford's cathedral is a college chapel. King's, Cambridge, has a
college chapel which is equally suitable as a cathedral.

David

--
David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK
http://rance.org.uk