You're a beautiful woman probably...

I voted Labour in the General Election and wanted another Labour government, in spite of its faults. However, I do feel strongly that it's now time for Gordon Brown to leave Downing Street and resign as leader of the Labour Party. It's clear that the Tories polled the most votes and for him to cling to power is just prolonging the uncertainty that is the last thing the country needs. Perhaps our best hope (although it's a slim one) is for the Tories to form a government with the LibDems which might last a year or so. That would give the time for Labour to regroup under a new leader and, hopefully, come back to power at the next election. Of course, anything could happen to the economy in the meantime but, if there's to be any hope of a real economic recovery, we obviously need a government that's as stable as possible soon.

Another rant, I'm afraid. I think I've said here before that the Tyne and Wear Metro doesn't provide the service it should, or that it used to. I have quite a list of grumbles: fares going up well above the rate of inflation every year; distorted station announcements with the beginning cut off for months at a time; ticket machines that don't work and no published timetable for the supposed investment in new ones; dirty and overcrowded trains; services that finish just when you need them most; having to wait 20 minutes on more than one occasion with the board saying "Next train 2 minutes" for the whole time and no spoken announcement. From the dismissive replies I've had to a couple of letters about Metro's shortcomings, I get the impression that the Metro management is not really interested in customer service. The thing that gets my goat the most - and this applies to the buses too - is that there are no trains on Christmas Day or New Year's Da...

Being a bit of a cynic, I wasn’t really surprised by the recent revelations about MPs’ expenses. I felt a vague sense of sympathy for Speaker Michael Martin when he was “grilled” in the House of Commons the other day, but he really did have to go: it must have been as obvious to him as to others that he had completely failed in his job. The House of Commons should feel collective guilt for their appalling attempt to exempt themselves from the Freedom of Information Act but, in supporting this, the Speaker was going against the principles of democracy and, for this alone, deserved to be ousted. Some MPs seem to feel it’s their birthright to take money from the public purse. I was amazed by the tone of some of the statements from Tory MP Anthony Steen , boasting about his large house and then asking “What right does the public have to interfere with my private life” – completely failing to acknowledge that it was his (and others’) misuse of public money, and their subsequent attempts ...

We've heard a lot lately about the desperate financial straits our country is in, and how eager the Government is to save money. All this is very worrying, and it certainly needs to try to ensure we're not deep in debt for a whole generation. There's one area where definite and large savings could be made with only a relatively minor degree of political embarrassment - i.e. by the Government admitting that its plans for a National Identity Card are misconceived and vague, and scrapping the whole project. The aims of the project are very vague , and the Government has been publicly criticised by its own advisors for trying to do too many things. Every citizen who knows anything about information technology knows that all of our recent governments have been technically naive on databases, and have an appalling record in both getting large databases to work (at a cost anywhere near their original budget) and in securing confidential data. We are told that the scheme will pro...

Being a member of UNISON (one of the major local government unions) unfortunately means I have to go on strike this week - for two days. The Prime Minister has said we have to show restraint, and while his own MPs have rightly concluded that they just wouldn't get away with awarding themselves huge pay increases at the moment, they have just voted to keep their very generous and non-transparent "allowances" package that allows them to claim thousands of pounds per year from the public purse. While I agree that the two-and-a-bit percent pay offer is not enough with the way the cost of living is increasing - and everyone knows that government figures in no way represent "real world" inflation - I voted against striking. This is because I don't think the strikes will achieve anything. The employers are unlikely to increase the offer in a hurry, and how long will it take us to earn back the two days of lost pay - let alone the money lost from any future strikes,...