Today's Budget is a green cop out which kicks the difficult decisions on environmental taxes into the long grass, Nick Clegg has said. He also accused the Government of doing nothing to help millions of hard pressed families struggling to make ends meet. Among the proposals in what has been widely seen as a dull Budget are:
Liberal Democrats at North Yorkshire County Council are asking the ruling Conservatives to look at what Essex County Council are doing to try to save Post Offices.
The Liberal Democrats have today presented a petition of over 50,000 signatures calling on Gordon Brown to reverse his Government's savage Post Office closure programme. In Shepway, 5 Post Offices have recently been axed and the main Folkestone Post Office will be closed with services moved to whsmith in Sandgate Road.
A report commissioned by Gordon Brown on British citizenship has suggested that school-leavers should be encouraged to swear an oath of allegiance to Queen and country. Report author, ex-attorney general Lord Goldsmith, says it would give teenagers a sense of belonging. Council tax and student fee rebates are suggested for people who volunteer - as well as a "Britishness" public holiday.
From April, the controversial charge to removed bulky waste will be removed. The controversial £18 charge had been blamed for the number of fly-tipping incidents in the Borough.
DELGA are disappointed to learn that Mehdi Kazemi, a gay Iranian who fears he will be executed if he is deported back to his home country, has had his claim for asylum in the Netherlands overturned. Mehdi fears for his safety if he is returned to Iran, where he says his boyfriend named him as a partner before being executed.