Poundland to stop selling Chinese lanterns

Poundland will stop selling Chinese lanterns after one, not sold by the company, sparked a huge fire.

More than 200 firefighters attended a blaze involving 100,000 tonnes of plastic in Smethwick, West Midlands on Sunday.

“We have made a decision to stop selling lanterns and recalled all remaining stock from stores,” a spokesperson said.

The government has refused to ban the lanterns nationwide.

A spokesperson said they cause a "very small" number of fires.

I think it’s interesting that somebody somewhere, in trying to rationalise why Chinese lanterns shouldn’t be banned, came up with the sentence that they only cause a very small number of fires.  

Which is stupid because the point is they cause fires, like the giant blaze at Smethwick on Sunday, so if that’s the best defence for Chinese lanterns then they should be banned.

Aside from the fact that they are a fire hazard, I just don’t see the point of them there’s no special reason for them, they’re only paper bags with a candle in, so it makes it even more confusing why the government won’t do the sensible thing and ban them. 

Costa Rica ‘accidentally’ votes for gay marriage

Politicians in Costa Rica are in a bitter dispute after unwittingly voting for a change in law which paves the way for gay marriage.

Many in the country's Legislative Assembly thought their passing of a bill earlier this week would preserve unions between a man and a woman only.

But the conservatives later realised the wording of an amendment added to the bill before voting could now see same-sex couples wed through a loophole.

The crafty ninja politician who managed to slip this amendment through, José María Villalta, said the issue had been debated and there were no objections, clearly that’s not the case, but it does pose an important question, how do you secretly add an amendment to a bill without anybody knowing about it, particularly about an issue that seems to have divided the Costa Rican Assembly.

Was there a sentence at the bottom, scribbled with a biro, that said oh and by the way we also want to allow same-sex marriage.  

More of this should happen in governments across the world, all the politicians vying with  each other to add their own last minute amendments to one bill or another, what could possibly go wrong. 

Pirelli blames F1 teams over tyre failures

Pirelli has blamed the way the Formula 1 teams run their cars for the series of tyre failures during the British Grand Prix.

The Italian company will introduce modified tyres for this weekend’s German Grand Prix in an attempt to ensure the blow-outs are not repeated.

But it has requested that the sport’s governing body, the FIA, steps in to ensure teams run the tyres correctly.

I think Pirelli is running pretty thin on excuses, there have been several issues with the tyres this season and when there is a problem with the tyres the buck stops in one place and one place only, with whoever provides the tyres.

Pirelli is pointing the finger at the teams in desperation after the fiasco at the weekend which saw four tyre blow-outs during a race; thankfully all the drivers used their immense skills to avoid a serious accident.   

I do hope the FIA have earmarked a new tyre provider for next season because spending more time talking about tyres than races is not what anybody wants, let’s hope things are different in Germany this weekend. 

Opt-out organ donation system given go-ahead in Wales

A change in the law to bring in an opt-out organ donation system has been overwhelmingly voted through by Welsh assembly members.

Wales will become the first UK country to adopt a process where individuals will be presumed to have consented for their organs to be donated unless they opt out.

I think this is a bad idea and I do hope that the rest of the UK doesn’t follow suit and keeps the system as it is now where you have to opt-in, registering as a donor should be the decision of the individual not the state.

Presuming consent on this matter is wrong and judging by the evidence from other countries won’t actually make that much difference, in Chile when an opt-out system was introduced the number of donors fell.

Further evidence from nations with opt-out systems suggests that even if the number of donors does rise, it is only by a tiny amount with around 15 additional donors each year and approximately 45 extra organs.

Politicians are always debating and evaluating which laws need updating, scrapping, or fundamentally changing, but I think this is one situation where the original law should have been left well alone.

Under new Chinese law children ‘must visit parents’

Grown children in China must visit their parents or potentially face fines or jail, a new law that came into effect on Monday says.

China's new "Elderly Rights Law" deals with the growing problem of lonely elderly people by ordering adult children to visit their ageing parents.

The law says adults should care about their parents "spiritual needs" and "never neglect or snub elderly people".

This is an interesting one, particularly when you consider there are no set guidelines for the frequency with which children should visit their parents, and I’d also like to know just how this law is going to be enforced.

You could have a situation where someone in China goes to visit their parents, stays for five minutes and says well that’s my quota filled see you next year, or equally you could have one of those parents that still refuses to accept that their child is an adult and can do whatever they want and is constantly on the phone to the authorities complaining that their child doesn’t spend enough time with them.

The idea behind this law is well meaning, but it sounds impractical and judging by the initial reaction in China sounds like it won’t work. 

PGA Tour agrees to anchored stroke ban from 2016

The PGA Tour will implement the global ban on anchored strokes from 1 January 2016 to “avoid confusion”.

The R&A and the US Golf Association first unveiled plans last year which supported by the European Tour but not the PGA Tour.  

The PGA has now decided that a single set of rules on acceptable strokes is “desirable and would avoid confusion”.

Thankfully the PGA have come to their senses and done what they should have done when it was officially announced, six weeks ago, by the R&A and USGA that long putters would be consigned to the history books.

Although judging by their comments on why they agreed to the ban it sounds like their still not too happy about it, saying they did it to “avoid confusion”, the confusion being that if they decided to reject the ban we could have a had a situation where long putters were banned one week but ok to use the next.

Maybe now the PGA can turn their attention to slow play and start dishing out real punishments for those who take way too long to over their shots, like say banning them from tournaments like the great Jack Nicklaus suggested, rather than just making them pay a small fine. 

David Cameron ‘warned that he can’t stop pay rise for MPs’

David Cameron has been warned he will not be able to block plans for a big pay rise for MPs.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is expected to say backbench MPs’ £66,000 salaries should increase to more than £70,000 from the election.

Prime Minister David Cameron has said such a plan would be “unthinkable”.

Well this is comforting news isn’t it, MP’s want to give themselves a pay rise of about 15% taking their salary to around £75,000 a year, and the Prime Minister can do nothing about it, the system works.

Is it just me or do politicians deliberately try and make themselves unpopular, because they’ve announced they should all be paid more less than a week after the spending review when George Osborne announced that millions of public sector workers will lose automatic annual pay rises, and those that don’t will see their increase held at 1%. 

Now last time I checked MPs’ are public sector workers so they should follow the guidelines set by the government, which they will have all agreed and had a say on, and be grateful that they already earn two and a half times the average UK wage of £26,500. 

Lewis Hamilton ‘not happy’ with Mercedes car

Lewis Hamilton says he is not enjoying driving his Mercedes after finishing fifth fastest in second practice for the British Grand Prix.

The Briton, 28, was seven-tenths of a second behind team-mate Nico Rosberg, who went quickest at Silverstone.

“I'm not happy with the balance of the car,” said the 2008 world champion.

“I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt so uncomfortable. I don’t really know what it is but we’ll work on it and we'll fix it.”

When Hamilton moved to Mercedes many, including me, were perplexed, but actually given what has happened at McLaren this season his choice to leave doesn’t seem all that bad now.

But he’s not exactly developed, in the sense that last year he finished fourth in the championship and won four races, this year so far he’s won no races and is fourth in the championship, so while he hasn’t dropped back he hasn’t moved forward.

And now he’s revealed that he doesn’t like his new car much, always good to say that on the eve of your home race to boost your team’s confidence.......

This is a strange announcement when you consider all of the work that goes into developing an F1 car, and particularly when you consider how much the drivers are involved in the process and they even decide on the set up of the car, so I’m not sure who Hamilton is unhappy with, his mechanics? Himself?  

When he first moved Hamilton was very upbeat and positive about the driving for his new team, but it’s only been about nine months and he’s already unhappy, bodes well for the rest of the season and next year.

   

Eric Pickles’ department fined for £217m overdraft

Eric Pickles’ department has been fined for having an unauthorised bank overdraft, it has emerged.

Just two days ago, he was praised by Chancellor George Osborne as “a model of lean government”.

The Department for Communities and Local Government ended the financial year £217m overdrawn and was fined £20,000 by the Treasury.

Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said it was "a shocking example of incompetence".

Hodge is right this is incredibly incompetent, but I would also question the decision of the treasury to issue a fine, if a department is this majorly overdrawn, particularly during a week where the chancellor announced £11.5bn of cuts, how is a fine the way to go.

Surely the thing to do would be to remove the minister responsible and have him replaced by someone who can manage the department finances properly.

I bet this will anger many, but none more than the local council leaders who have been continually lectured by Pickles to get their finances in order, if he keeps his job, which he probably will, when he next opens his mouth to preach about money managing I suspect very few will bother to listen. 

Spending review leaves little left to cut

Yesterday the chancellor George Osborne unveiled his plans for a further £11.5bn of cuts covering the financial year 2015-16.

While there was the expected massive reductions in some government departments, Justice 10%, Environment 10%, Local Government 10%, Work and Pensions 9.5%, Energy 8%, basically meaning that there really isn’t that much more that can be cut.  

There was also an announcement for a potential cap on total welfare spending, limiting welfare spending to £100bn, which as it now stands around £112bn means that the £12bn difference could be an emergency in case this latest round of cuts don’t have the desired effect.   

We shouldn’t forget that Osborne predicted that his intial spending cuts would solve the country’s economic problems before the next election, now he predicts around 2018.

There was also the puzzling plan to spend an extra £10bn on the HS2 high speed rail links, which given that £30+bn has already been allocated for it and nobody seems to want it, and that it will take 20 years before it’s up and running, makes the decision even more bizarre, because government projects never finish on time so this rail link will probably be finished in 2042 not 2032 and will have cost £60bn rather than £40bn.

Another announcement that was made, today, is that between 2015 and 2020 the government will spend £100bn on various infrastructure projects, great but why then why not start these projects now, if these projects are so vital why delay them?

If the government wanted an investment in infrastructure that would boost the economy and create jobs and could be built relatively quickly, might I suggest building another runaway at Heathrow.  

As usually I managed to find something amusing from this incredibly serious set of circumstances and it concerns the plan to axe the winter fuel payments for expats in hot countries.

That’s not that funny, but what it is that there will be a test to see if the country has a warmer climate than the UK, right these are hot countries, I’ll say it again hot countries, by definition they will have a warmer climate than the UK so scrap the test and just take the money.