Londons Mayor has been a naughty boy !

KEN LIVINGSTONE is facing an official investigation for alleged misuse of public funds after giving left-wing campaigners free use of London’s City Hall at a cost of £50,000 to taxpayers.

The London mayor waived the normal hire charges for the building to enable the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) to stage two weekend conferences. He is himself a member of the antinuclear group.
The Tories and Liberal Democrats said this weekend they would be lodging official complaints with the district auditor for misuse of public funds and a “shocking” conflict of interest.

Details of the CND events, billed as the group’s annual meetings, have revived memories of Livingstone’s management of the Greater London Council, which during the 1980s was famed for it links with CND and championed the capital as a “nuclear-free city”.
In a two-day conference last October up to 200 CND delegates took part in plenary sessions in the assembly chamber and enjoyed “live music and drink” in the London Living Room - the building’s top-floor venue which costs £6,268 to hire for a Saturday night.

In recent weeks Livingstone, who is fighting for re-election on May 1, has been plagued with accusations of sleaze and financial impropriety in his office and at the London Development Authority, the mayor’s business arm.
- Gordon Brown’s donations nightmare deepened last night as another cabinet minister was accused of accepting cash through a proxy. It was claimed that a Labour party treasurer used his brother to channel more than £3,000 to Alan Johnson’s failed bid to become deputy Labour leader.
Waseem Siddiqui, the brother, said he did not know who the health secretary was but he had been asked to write a blank cheque. Siddiqui, 50, from Pakistan, has been living in Croydon, south London, on a student visa for three years, according to the Sunday Mirror.
He claimed his brother Ahmed Yar Mohammed, treasurer of Croydon Central Labour party, asked him to write the cheque for £3,334, and then gave him the money.

Full Story at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3257532.ece

SCANDAL OF BRITAIN’S ROMANIAN GANGSTERS

GANGS of Romanians are behind a £1billion crime wave sweeping Britain, police revealed yesterday.

Since Romania joined the European Union a year ago, the number of crimes committed here by that country’s nationals has risen by 530 per cent.They include at least three murders in London last year. The gangs use children smuggled illegally into Britain as beggars or pickpockets, like the Charles Dickens character Fagin in Oliver Twist.

Ten of the child slaves were freed yesterday in raids on homes in the Berkshire town of Slough, which one gang was using as a base for its operations in London’s West End.Police estimate that each child is worth £100,000 a year to the gangs, and the Romanian authorities believe that up to 2,000 children have been smuggled into Britain.The gang bosses channel millions of pounds back to Romania, where the money is used to build luxury houses and buy expensive cars.A police source said: “These people are driving BMWs and Mercedes and carrying weapons. They are highly organised criminals.”

Officers wearing protective uniform and supported by police dogs raided the homes in the run-down area.At one terrace house, riot squad officers used a sledgehammer to break down the door and burst in shouting: “Police, police, police!”They had been warned that the suspects could be armed with knives or lumps of wood, which they carry to protect themselves from rival gangs.In one of the raids, six children held in adjoining three-bedroom houses were freed.Apart from the children, officers also found large sums of money and credit cards.At least 25 people were arrested for offences including breaches of immigration law, deception, fraud and theft.The raids brought to light the full extent of the Romanian crime wave in Britain.Before the eastern European country joined the EU, its nationals were associated with 146 crimes over six months in Britain.A year after it joined – over a second six-month period – that figure leapt to 922, a 530 per cent rise.

MigrationWatch chairman Sir Andrew Green said: “This is further evidence that there is no check and cannot be any check on the criminal past of migrants from eastern Europe. The police are right to crack down on this widespread criminal activity.”

Full article at http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/32674

Theatre of Silence: The Lost Soul of Football

This book has just been released and I simply must recommend it. Hits the nail on the head on many problems and challenges facing football today.

They used to call it the people's game - but not anymore. In this insightful, witty and ultimately damning look at modern football culture, lifelong fan Matthew Bazell asks why no one's singing anymore. In a uniquely personal journey, Bazell examines the way in which football, both on and off the field, has changed since the formation of the Premier League, and looks at the passive consumerism thrust upon fans. Does the modern follower pay too high a price for the spectacle of seeing over-paid world superstars in comfy all-seater stadiums, whose very name can be sold to the highest bidder? If so, can anything be done to reclaim the game? While it's easy to take a rose tinted view of football's past, Bazell argues that the heart and soul of the game needn't be left behind, and shows us that ultimate power may still lie with the fans.


Product details
Paperback: 245 pages
Publisher: Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers; 1st edition (7 Jan 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1903490324
ISBN-13: 978-1903490327


Available at good book stores, waterstones and through amazon.co.uk on this link Theatre of Silence: The Lost Soul of Football

Happy New Year !!

I had such a great Christmas and New Year I almost forgot I had a blogsite to maintain. Happy New Year 2008