Some further information has emerged on how departmental spending budgets will be cut.

DCMS have announced that their £61 million of cuts will include taking £27 million from the Olympic budget, a cut of £5 million for the Arts Council and the less specific committments to cut 3 per cent from all ‘bodies in the DCMS sector” and a 3 per cent cut to the Department’s core budget.

The Home Office has published no further details of its £367 million of cuts, but The Times is reporting that police forces will be hit hard, losing £135 million from their annual budget. The Seriou

Read more…

BANGKOK VIOLENCE AFTERMATH

Bangkok almost back to normal by Monday (updated on Saturday 22/05- 4:00 pm)

Zen Department Store on Saturday morning (photo Luc Citrinot)

By Luc Citrinot, etn | May 22, 2010

The situation in Bangkok continues to improve. On Saturday morning, cleaning teams were active around Siam Square and Rachaprasong collecting garbage, disinfecting side-walks and checking on the safety of infrastructure such as slytrain stations, escalators or electricity.

Read more…

Are you facing a serious financial crisis? Are the bills just mounting one on top of the other and do you feel like you have no where to run? Well, you just need some debt management help. But before we begin, you must realize that there is no easy way out of this. You can sort out your debts for the time being, but you realize that there is something fundamentally wrong with your habits which are causing all the debt in the first place.

There are a number of ways to seek debt management help. If you realize that you will not be able to pay up on your credit account, then the first thing to do will be to contact the creditor.

Read more…

This post is taken from my speech to Progress‘ annual conference today. You can read a full copy of my speech on the TUC website.

Elections should be great debates about competing visions and priorities, when parties show they understand peoples’ real lives and are on their side, both in their daily struggles and long term dreams. But at times during this campaign, Labour seemed to have lost confidence in its core values, with its passion for change worn down by the cares of office.

I’ve always been a great admirer of the way that, in the run up to 1997, the Party put together a winning electoral coalition. It cl

Read more…