Memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, Budapest
Around this time of year, I always get an upsurge of anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying comments, most of which are thankfully caught by my spam filter. They usually attach to this post and this post. This year’s batch were particularly virulent, and I happily deleted them, but it reminded me of the importance of Holocaust Memorial Day, which was this weekend. I couldn’t make any of the Oxford commemorations, so was hugely glad when an email dropped into my councillor account inviting me to a talk by Professor Deborah Lipstadt tomorrow. She was the woman whose book on Holocaust denial landed her in court on charges of libelling David Irving. She won, of course, proving him the liar that he is.

If anyone’s around in Oxford tomorrow night, feel free to join me: the invitation is open to all. Deborah Lipstadt will be talking about her encounter with David Irving, Tues 30 January at 8pm at the David Slager Centre, 61 George Street, hosted by the OU Chabad Society.

There is no quicker way to turn a Big Thinker into a Master of the Detail than to persuade them to stand as a local councillor - the bright ideas for changing the world quickly disappear and get focused into ‘my housing casework’. This is generally good news for their ward, and bad news for social acquaintances.

Dan is so right. I used to have opinions (though not Big Opinions), now I just have executive board agendas. Talking of which, there’s one tomorrow, and an agenda waiting to be read. /sigh

Some mornings you wish you hadn’t got out of bed, and given how cold and wet it was this morning, today is shaping up to be one of them.

This afternoon this particular councillor will be attending Executive Board and Full Council. There’s one main item of business on the agenda for both meetings: approving the city council’s submission to the government for Oxford to have a unitary local authority. There’s more information about the bid here, under the slightly curious heading “An Oxford council for Oxford people” (does that put anyone else in mind of the League of Gentlemen?), and you can read the draft submission here. I read it for the first time yesterday (you can tell what an interesting life I lead if that was how I spent Sunday afternoon), and I thought it made an excellent case, highlighting the absurdities of the current arrangements, and dispelling the myths about unitary status - for example, that the costs of transition couldn’t be met from within existing resources. The paper reveals that they can, and that it would take just four years rather than five to pay off the costs.

Oxfordshire County Council inevitably focuses on the requirements of the majority of the county. These needs - primarily rural and suburban, and mostly affluent - are very different from those of the city of Oxford.

Here’s hoping DCLG take notice and agree a change for the people of Oxford.

Unfortunately, the front cover of today’s Independent on Sunday comes as no surprise. I bumped into some LCLGR comrades last week, and they mentioned that the issue most likely to derail full implementation of anti-discrimination law for lesbian and gay people in the provision of goods, facilities and services was forcing Catholic adoption agencies to take gay couples onto their books.

The plan was for the issue to be put to bed by ministers early last week, but as the Sindy reports, that’s clearly not happened. It’s odd to say it, but thank goodness for the rearguard action being fought by Alan Johnson amongst others. I wrote to Ms Kelly early last week about this - am furious that I even had to do that much. I’m sure Ruth Kelly is a competent minister, but for heaven’s sake, will someone take the equality brief off her? I just don’t trust her on women’s equality, or lesbian and gay equality, at all anymore. It’s an issue that’s so easy to get right; why is she making such a meal of it?

That’s what I am. No Virgin trains, no coaches, no aeroplanes. Not that I am implying a) that Liverpool isn’t a nice place to be, or that b) staying with the lovely Don, albeit unexpectedly, isn’t fun. But still. I don’t live here. I want to go home. Let’s hope that the freakish weather passes soon.

From tomorrow’s Oxford Mail:

A teenager has been banned from most of Oxford’s Rose Hill estate after a string of complaints about him drinking and abusing and harassing residents.
Ricky Byles, 17, from Barton, has been given an antisocial behaviour order, which bans him from the area for two years.
He must keep out of most of the estate until January 12, 2009, after the police and Oxford City Council secured the Asbo against him.

Well done to Graham Pink, our neighbourhood sergeant, and his team and to the CANAcT team at the City Council.

Update: there’s more detail in today’s full report, including a photo.

Texted to me by a colleague from Hackney who heard it from a nameless Labour MP:
“I hear Opus Dei wanted to help Ruth Kelly out with her school fees, but they’ve had to tighten their belts a bit lately”.

For serious discussion on this point, allow me to direct you variously here and to Luke Akehurst’s post (when Blogger stops buggering about).

Do read Prague Tory’s incredible suggestion about the natural political home of John McDonnell. Then I suggest you point out to him the many and varied ways in which he is mistaken - not least in disregarding the central plank of the BNP’s platform, racism.

(I assume that Prague Tory is making some subtle point, in the manner of rightwingers, about how the BNP are not really rightwing. This is usually expressed less subtly as “don’t you know that Nazi stood for national SOCIALIST German workers’ party - they’re clearly a bunch of commies!” You’ll forgive me if I don’t get exercised about the rightness or leftness of the BNP, but merely their wrongness.)