One ASBO Good More and the Police Can't Cope

Proof that ASBOs are not the best use of police resources comes today from West Lothian’s divisional commander.

While Superintendent Jim Coupland admitted the recent ASBO in Mid Calder had been a success he also told councillors that he would not have resources to police 2 or 3 concurrent dispersal orders across West Lothian. This adds weight to the Liberal Democrats believe that Acceptable Behaviour Contracts are a better way to deal with anti-social behaviour.

ABCs should be set up as a preventative measure rather than ASBOs having to deal with the effects when things go wrong. The result is that young people who signed up for fir ABCs in Islington learnt to take responsibilty for unacceptable behaviour. Similarly Parental control Contracts have been designed for parent of offending children under the age of 10.


Considering the lack of available police manpower to tackle concurrent ASBOs in West Lothian perhaps the local council should look at involving the community more in preventing anti-social behaviour before they find themselves unable to cope with the effects.

My Two Pence Worth on Leadership Shenanigans

I was going to start my post, about the briefing in the corridors of power against the party leader, by supposing I had got elected in May. But then seeing as on some projections Linlithgow and Falkirk East would have given us a overall majority Charles Kennedy would be residing in Number 10 and the issue would not have come up.

A lot has been said and written in the last 24 hours by my fellow Liberal Democrats. My fellow Bangorian Lembit Opik said "I would say if the boss delivers the best result in 82 years, you keep them on."

Stephen Tall points out that not everything CK does is perfect, nor does he please all of the members all of the time. But he argues that the man should be allowed to come to his own decision and not be briefed about behind his back.

James at Quaegquam Blog! warned of the problems of trying to live a life yesterday as Jonathan Calder noticed the BBC had changedits story to this.

Of course this is the biggest thing for us Lib Dems to write about today. Personally I’m ashamed that some of our senior figures are taking a backhanded route to try to oust the leader. Also if they have issues they should take these to the leader, after all we the party of openness, are we not?

However, I think Will Howells puts it best in this open letter.

Space Cadet - Who's Fooling Who

It appears that tow of the so-called ordinary members of the public being fooling into not going to space on Channel 4's Space Cadets may actually be actors after all. How many of the other 8 are may need some more digging.

Iranian President Calls Holocaust a 'Myth'

The Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has further enraged Isreal by saying the Nazi Holocaust is a myth.

He then says, if this happened, the countries responsible should give up some of their land in Europe, America, Canada or wherever to give these people a homeland. Therefore he is ignoring millennia of oppression of the Isreali people, including from the Persians, that forced them from their own homeland in the first place. Somehow he is attempting to justify oppression of the Palestinian people by oppressing another nation.

There is no reason why we cannot come to an amicable solution over the Isreali/Palestinian issue but diatribes like this are not helpful to either side and just heighten already existing tensions in the area.

Bathgate Main Post Office Set to Close

The Main Post Office in Bathgate is set to close under plans released today. A new post office will then be relocated in the Spar shop in the town.

Although this is only 150 metres away from the current location it is relying on the long term commitment of the Spar to maintain the post office on its premises. Recently the Carmondean Post Office was under threat when Safeways was taken over by Morrisons. Morrisons refused to maintain the post office as part of their take over of the business.

The people of Bathgate will be trusting a large number of much needed services to the whim of a retailer who may renege on the franchise if it does not prove profitable enough for their liking, or if the chain goes under or taken over. Then the community may find a newcomer to take up the Post Office franchise not so easy to find.

What if it had been Grangemouth?

Living near the fuel storage depot and refinery of Grangemouth I was wondering what would the equivalent impact of been if Buncefield had happened here. This map was taken from Encarta and modified.

The map above has the extent of the smoke cloud from Buncefield yesterday superimposed on a map of the same scale of central Scotland. As you can see the cloud would have stretched from Glasgow to Edinburgh. In fact Irvine and possibly Troon would be under the cloud to the west.

It would have stretched almost as far as the southern coast of Loch Lomond however, Milngavie, Erskine and the majority of the Glasgow conurbation would have been under the cloud out west. To the southern extent it would have strethed as far as Biggar, Peebles and Galasheils over the the eastern end.

Edinburgh like Glasgow would be almost totally enveloped with Prestonpans and Tranent just outside the eastern shadow. Falkirk, Cumbernauld and Livingston would all be in very dense smoke. as West Lothian, North and South Lanarkshire and the southern shore of the Forth would all be in the thick of it.

In fact the Forth is a worrying addition to the Grangemouth scenario. The expolsion was heard up to 100 miles away from Brucefield. What force would that have made? Would that have created some form of tidal wave or mini-Tsunami in the Forth Estuary? The impact would have gone both up and down stream affecting Kincardine and Stirling upstream. Torry Bay on the opposite banks. Rosyth shipyard down stream, along with Bo'ness the Queensferry towns, Dalgety Bay. And what about the famous bridges themselves?

It is scary to contemplate the added affects this incident could have had at Grangemouth. It is horrifying to work out part of the area affected based on a local scenario. Even knowing that the snapshot I usedwas not the full extent of the cloud of smoke it is still a harrowing thought. I think we are very lucky that nobody was critically injured in this incident.

Tony Blair's Broken Resolutions of 2005

Almost a year after the Tsunami and Tony Blair has failed to meet his promise to more than match public donations from the public purse.

£300 million were donated by the British public yet of the £275 million committed by government only £75 million has gone to direct humanitarian aid.

This is becoming a year of broken promises by Tony Blair as similarly he failed to meet expectations of his promise to Make Poverty History. If you want to send a Christmas card to the Prime Minister to ask him to meet his promises and encourage others to do so you can do so at the Make Poverty History website.