Ways to  becoming James Bond

 

OK At 33 I’m probably too old if Daniel Craig does one or two more James Bond movies, let alone becomes another Sean Connery.

 

So If its not gonna be me, who and how?

 

One you need acting experience and some appreciation of military and high technology. A reader of Janes Defence weekly or Modern Railways perhaps.

 

Or Scotland might secede with Wales and Sean Connery becomes President of a Republican British Irish Council subject to a Labour victory and referendums on:

 

1)      A written constitution for the whole UK

2)      Membership of the European Union

3)      Whether there should be a President for a federal British Irish state instead of a president Eirnan and UK Monarch.

 

Answers

1)      Yes

2)      No

3)      Yes if any Labour Leader asked the question at Prime Minister Questions, without hindrance by any institution.

 

“Should the United Kingdom have a referendum to change to an elected Head of state as well as an Elected second chamber?”

And then stood on it as a manifesto commitment. There was one nation in 1801.

 

There is not an English Republican Army and I am not its head.

 

 

 

Continuing Centrepoint.

 

Last week I texted into LBC that to deal with asylum and economic migrants from Rumania there should be more centrepoint hostels over cross rail sites.

 

A potted history is that CEntrepoint was a hostel when in economic good times the property cartel of crown estates and westminster council  and the Duchies of the Royal Boroughs didn’t know what to do with the sleaze of sex shops, drug dens and few affordable properties pegged to a monopoly style property system in the UK since the second world war and recovering bomb sites.

 

This continued with the refusal of the Thatcher government to build properties with the sale of council house receipts and the growth of housing benefit top up by local authorities so that some families could live in their home areas where they had settled.

 

This created a cat and mouse game where accommodation addresses and how far up the Piccadilly line from heathrow you could get.

 

The charities that then stepped into the breach were the red cross and Princes Trust that sought to mentor the youth and those who had drug problems on how to settle in the United Kingdom elsewhere and set up businesses.

 

This generated investment capital for part rent part buy housing associations around the home counties for families to relocate, reducing ghettoisation or increasing it depending on the borough.

 

Now with benefit capping, a return to housing hostels for initial employment screening and hello if EU nationals is a good idea as they could come here legally anyway.

 

They can then use the profits from Oxford and Regent Street to build houses elsewhere in the country and where there has been investment in public transport such as trams and rail to take workers to work.

 

So theres no need to collapse the stock exchange in a tit for tat revenge as occurred in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

The problem comes when illegal squats are tolerated as their desperate ways of funding themselves and relaying funds can cause problems.

 

 

James Ware

Student finance in England

After an application through UCAS or direct to some independent universities or external unis that offer taught programmes by residential fortnights (such as some  London Business Schools). You have to make a paper or online application for student finance if your parents can’t afford to support you or you are a mature or disabled student.

Student finance is administered by Student Finance England:

Student finance England,

PO Box 210,

Darlington,

DL1 9HJ

0845 607 7577 for students to seek advice and check applications.

There are two components to the loan, the fee loan (up to £9,000 2012/13) and the combined maintenance loan / grant (grant up to £3250, loan £8382 2012/13). Once registered on a course, the University gets the fee component and once attendance is verified, you get your loan and grant.

The loan and grant count as income under DWP benefit rules so that disabled people lose there income support (£100 a fortnight) but keep their incapacity benefit (£220 a fortnight) and housing and council tax benefits. In some local authorities this is assessed on a case by case basis. Hence the continuation of the grant component of the money paid to the student in part lieu of this income support.

For NHS prescription costs (the other £2000 of the approx £5200 annual income lost with the cancellation of income support), English students on sickness benefits (IB / DLA / ESA / Universal Credit) can use form HC1 from the NHS. There is also a prescription prepayment certificate if not on these benefits at a high enough qualifying rate.

Disability Living Allowance is paid for care support but there is also the disabled student’s allowance that includes both equipment and learning support components (note taking, though this is often taken to mean accessing lecture handouts on a student portal or blackboard software).

The loans are combined at the end of the course and repaid at a personal earning income variable rate. This repayment amount increases with the amount a person earns above £21,000 a year (the average wage of a station assistant on the London Underground). The amount paid back is approx 9% of total income according to UCL.

If a student is in the fortunate position to work part time and want to study part time, they can apply for course fee grants and loans. If the Open University and disabled, some fee support / waiver is allowed if on benefits and disabled students allowance, letting you keep your state benefits (though you have to declare this with the Department of Work and Pensions and the OU would like a letter from the DWP confirming your receipt of benefits, for Housing benefit, the local authority can help at their office and council tax benefit reception). If a Four year part time intensity BA / Bsc / LLB degree at 90 credits a year part time you only get from student finance England a fee loan so would have to save for textbooks and stationery prior to the course starting and look at the feasibility of working part time.

This is opposed to 120 credits a year full time over three years or the Edinburgh / Oxford / Cambridge Masters included MA / MSC / LLM degree over four years (or the Six year Medical degrees), the disabled student keeps their benefits intact on a case by case basis or on the income reduced rate if they are working part time (such as £21 a week indefinitely income for things such as paper rounds, and £80-90 a week for a year if on transition to full time employment with disabled tax credits for those working over 16 hours a week). They get the full time student loans and grant. IF at Oxbridge (Oxford / Cambridge) they may get top up bursaries and loans for the even higher tuition fees set by the elite ‘Russell Group’ Universities. You need to check how these are repaid.

For standard tuition fee and maintenance loans if you fail to earn over £21k (nurses or social workers or bar staff / waiters) or are unemployed, you don’t pay anything back during that period. After 30 years the debt is written off.

POSTGRAD STUDY

This is funded separately by either university scholarships for the fees or fee grants from bodies such as the British Council, the Arts and Humanities funding council, Royal Society (Sciences). You have to amass your own funding and may be offered assistance by the university you apply to. You could be a warden for undergraduate students to get free accommodation if you are not privately renting on housing benefit if on a low income. Part time work is allowed if you are a part time student such as at Birkbeck or the Open University and that for mature students has included company or charity directorships on a pro rata part time salary. With The Open University it also includes full time work and distance learning.

The ecclesiastical parliaments of England

1)      General Synod of the church of England

Meets every six months once in London (Church House in the precincts of Westminster Abbey and York Minster (University campus). Sets policies and ordination criteria for the Church of England.

2)  Diocesan Synods

Sets budgets for anglican churches

3)      Area Diocesan Synods (such the General Secretary of Willesdens / Wealdstone, Bishop Peter Broadbent)

To set the budgets and admission policies of schools and advise the ‘area sees’ in urban areas. Some are appointed and ex offcio and can be seen as cliques promoting one political party (EG Tories in St Pauls Cathedral, Labour in the parishes and as Anglican.org separate websites).

4)      Deanery Synods

Where Clergy and lay elected representatives debate the policy for the locality and the implementation (or lack thereof) of General and Diocesan Synods owing to Churches Together priorities leading to light touch on other churches.

5)      Parochial Church Councils

Set the direction and mission focus for each church or group of churches.

All (allegedly) according to the laws of the Westminster parliament as it is devolved from it since the 1920s.

to ban these magazines and the way that they're produced would set the international ideal

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composition and function of formal and informal law

Parliamentary Law making

Types of Law

•         Statute Law of Westminster and the devolved Parliaments

•         Delegated guidelines to government departments

•         Common Law

•         Ratified European Legislation and Treaties

•         International agreements and Bilateral Treaties

•         Case Law of the Courts: Judicial Precedent

•         Codification Statutes (eg Offences against the person act)

•         Orders in Council (privy Council)

Scottish Parliament

•         1997 referendum, 1998 act of parliament

•         First elections 1999.

•         SNP (secessionists) seek to hold referendum in 2014 based on an overall majority in the last elections to it.

•         Scotland has its own legal system from pre union of parliaments, preserved in the 1707 act of Union

Welsh Parliament

•         1997 referendum for secondary legislation powers

•         More recent ‘ie’ vote in favour of devolution to primary law making powers

•         Silk Commission on fiscal autonomy within sterling area

•         Past tax fiddles with alleged oil supplies prevented by new set up.

Northern Ireland Assembly

•         Northern Ireland is a successor state to the Island of Ireland Kingdom, united with Great Britain in 1801. As such Ireland had its own court structure based on county governance since Elizabeth 1st

•         It had a parliament and central courts in Dublin.

•         Northern Ireland was created by the Churchill-collins Irish peace treaty of the 1920s and had sectarian home rule till 1972 when Westminster assumed direct responsibility

•         Anglo Irish Agreement 1986

•         Good Friday Agreement 1999

•         Northern Irish Assembly referendums

•         Off on power sharing

•         Current devolved with Sinn Fein- DUP power sharing executive

•         Cross community referendums on constitutional matters such as leaving UK.

•         1998, referendum, 1999 act and 2000 first elections

GLA

•         Devolved policing and transport policy

•         Works in conjunction with the 32 London Boroughs and the Corporation of London.

•         2000-2004 and 2004-8 Ken Livingstone

•         2008-2012 and 2012- Boris Johnson Mayors

•         GLA has multi borough constituencies and top up region.

•          

Channels and Man

•         Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney Sark successor to William 1sts Duchy of Normandy

•         Isle of Man has a parliament of its own, the Tynwald.

•         Both have common citizenship with UK and liase with the Home office

Other islands

•         Falklands

•         Carribean Islands

•         Gibraltar

•         Under Foreign Office and British Consular assistance

Old Empire Parliaments

•         Statute of Westminster Act 1931

–        Irish Free State (now republic outside commonwealth see later slide)

–        Canada and Newfoundland

–        Australia

–        New Zealand

–        South Africa

The Modern Parliament

•         Commonwealth Secretariat

•         British Council

•         Council of the Isles

Conclusion

•         Is the UK a federal democracy or devolved unitary state?

•         Can EU law allow continuation of the dictum of parliamentary sovereignty?

•         Is there therefore a need for a constitutional convention and renegotiation of the European Union relationship?

Privy Council

•         Institution of UK state

•         Also judicially of some Commonwealth states as their final court of appeal.

•         Advises the crown and parliament

•         Has a secretariat as part of the Royal Palaces

•         ? Role of royals lower down the line of succession.

Council of State

•         As ERII ages and as mentioned in Queens Speech, Prince Charles the heir apparent has formed a council of state to advise him and assist his mother in Royal Duties

•         Will the Duke of Cambridge sit on this body, especially pertinent as hes soon to be a dad.

•         Composition of said council of state is at present unknown to the author (no he hasn’t got a written invite).

The order, member companion and medal of empire

•         Advises the dean of the chapel royal

•         Writes to the great and the good and in many cases is said great and good.

•         Based in St Pauls Cathedral.

•         Funded through the livery companies of the City of London upon the advice of freemen of the city of london through the court of common council.

•         ‘gateway honours’ for others in the system.

Military Honours

•         Awarded through the crown and Mod

•         Some also given to intelligence services for things such as ‘Squidgy gate’

•         Some from the time of the crusades such as knights and baronets and peerages still awarded on the advice of the crown according to criteria set out by the crown appointment commission (no you can’t walk into AandE and ask for one).

Summary of JRC consultancy article in May 2013 Modern Railways

1)      HS2 HS1 Interchange is currently inadequate but debate time is still there for a better solution.

2)      A ‘Euston Cross’ East – West Interchange underground with bi directional, dual track tunnel from Old Oak Interchange is needed. The tunnel alignment would protect the British Library and leave space for Crossrail 2, for which ‘government needs to guarantee funding’

3)      This also needs a Railway Lords interchange at Queens Park to ensure that the Trains that are going to terminate at Euston (extended station) can do so.

4)      This may affect London Over ground provision into Euston which may have to divert at Primrose Hill junction to reach Camden Road and Stratford, possible extension onto Barking  / Grays or Chingford.

5)      TfL have plans for a DLR extension to Euston from Bank so how this fits in is open to question.

6)      New link to Euston Square Station to relieve pressure.

7)      Further tunnelling from Old Oak common onto Ickenham is an option, but would need to surmount Greenford topological dip and the Northolt Grand Union Canal (J Wares opinion based on correspondence with London mayors office)

8)      The Poirots moustache junctions and stations for west and north London Line London Overground services should allow for running through. Then Stratford trains can loop through Old Oak Common to produce a peak hour service on the core route. It would also allow for Clapham Junction Trains to each Richmond direct and from that services from Windsor Riverside could also loop there to spread commuter usage and use of Brentford loop.