Blind Shooting: How it works and my shotgun application

I am no stranger to shotguns, and over the years have shot many, but I was today introduced to Clay shooting at the Lea Valley shooting club in Hertford where an incredibly nice chap called Alex Mitchell spent a little over an hour with me and my lovely Girlfriend, working together to make blind shooting work. Both Alex, and Club Coach Tim are incredibly friendly guys, and I sincerely urge you to give them a call to have a go for yourself.

Ok, so first thing's first, shotguns are only dangerous in dangerous hands, and the idea that a shotgun is any more dangerous in the hands of a blind person really is misguided. The basic rule of handling any firearm is never point it at anyone, whether loaded or not. That way you'll never make a mistake.

Earlier today, we headed in to the shooting zone to listen to clays flying through the air, and then attempted to shoot them down. I'm pleased to say that I obliterated 4 clays... but before getting too excited, I discharged 40 - 50 cartridges, and one shot was aimed for me... but I've definitely been bitten by the bug, and working with Tim and Alex at the Lea Valley Club, we're now planning to design a proper method for blind shooting. It may involve a bell on a clay, or even just some paper taped to a clay to increase it's sound in the air... so keep it here for the eventual solution.

And so now bitten by the bug, it occurs that there is no specific reason in law why I as a blind person should be denied a shotgun license. You can be refused if you are a prohibited person (i.e. a criminal who has ever been sentenced to more than 3 years in jail, or a criminal sentenced to more than 3 months, but less than 3 years, within the last 5 years). You can also be denied on medical grounds if you pose a risk to public safety, or your own safety, but anyone who investigates the topic a little bit would easily see that as long as certain steps are taken by the blind person applying, there is no public endangerment. Truth be told, at this stage, I've just sent an email to the Herts Police for guidance before actually applying - but I'm really tempted. I'll let you know what they say.

Read Ed Balls letter to George Osborne

Dear George,

FAIRNESS IN PAY RESTRAINT

I am writing to you to raise the question of fair pay in the public sector, and fairness in delivering the further pay restraint which you have been forced to announce to deal with the consequences of the failure of your deficit reduction plan.

In 2009 Labour recognised the need for restraint on pay in the public sector as part of a balanced plan to get the deficit down and secure the recovery. We announced a 1% pay cap for two years, but we sought to impose pay restraint in a fair way, including freezing pay for the highest paid workers like senior civil servants and NHS managers.

In your 2010 budget you continued Labour’s policy and went further. But in announcing a two year pay freeze, you also promised a £250 a year increase for the 1.7 million lowest paid workers. In reality you failed to guarantee that rise for, according to House of Commons Library estimates, around one million low paid workers mainly in local government. That is wrong and unfair. Can you explain whether you intend to deliver on this promise?

As we have consistently warned over the last 18 months, cutting spending and raising taxes too far and too fast has choked off the recovery and pushed up unemployment. That is why Labour is calling on the government to adopt our five point plan for jobs and growth to get the economy moving again and unemployment down.

But with your refusal to change course and the costs of rising unemployment pushing up borrowing projections so massively to pay for this government’s economic failure, Labour will not oppose your decision to extend pay restraint for a further two years with a one per cent cap. Jobs must be the priority before higher pay.

As I said on Saturday, discipline in the public and private sector needs to be accompanied by fairness.
Your failure to deliver on your promises to low paid public sector workers so far shows why public sector workers deserve a real guarantee that this settlement for the two subsequent years will be delivered fairly.

The difference between a pay settlement delivered fairly and one which is not is stark. Two years of a one per cent increase in the salary of a local government chief executive earning £190,000 a year is over £3800 a year, or more than £316 a month.

For a teaching assistant earning just £15,000 two years of a one per cent increase represents just £300 a year – or just £25 a month.

By being tougher on those at the top we believe that, going forward, rises of at least the £250 a year which you promised but failed to deliver can be achieved for the lower paid – which in this case would leave a teaching assistant £200 a year better off at the end of the two years than a settlement which does not reflect difference in salary.

That is why I am calling on you to write again to the pay review bodies and the local government employers and this time ask them to consult and report on how you and they can guarantee to deliver the 1% average settlement cap in a fairer way than you have delivered so far – being tougher to those at the top in order to offer more protection to those at the bottom.
But as I said this weekend, we will oppose any moves to undermine the pay review bodies by shifting wholesale to regional and local bargaining in the public sector. Of course, as has been the case for some time, pay needs to reflect local circumstances, for example the need to recruit teachers in London. But I believe the consequence of breaking up national pay setting through the pay review bodies will be to make pay restraint harder, and real reforms more difficult - with costs getting out of control. That is what the previous Conservative government found when they failed to deliver regional pay in the NHS in the 1990s.

Pay restraint in the public sector in this parliament would have been necessary whoever was in government. But your economic mistakes mean more difficult decisions on tax, spending and pay. It is now inevitable that public sector pay restraint will have to continue for longer, but it should be done in a fair way. I hope you will agree and act to guarantee a fairer way forward.

Yours,

Ed Balls MP


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"The Iron Lady" I loved it, yet I hated it: Here's why

The portrayal of the UK's first and only female Prime Minister was always going to be hard to get right, and Mrs Thatcher's polarising policies made that task all the more difficult. I'm glad I caught the film, and I'm glad I paid to support it's production, yet I'm afraid this is not going to be a rave review.

Starting with the good... no scrap that, starting with the exceptional has to be the performance of the cast, particularly Meryl Streep who was entirely plausible as 'the Iron Lady'. Performances were strong, and I'm sure award winning. Each of the main characters, Margareth, Carol and Dennis were engaging and at times made me believe I was actually witnessing the real person speak... yet an actor can only read the lines they are given, and can only appear doing the things their directors and producers tell them to do.

No one would ever be able to seriously proclaim that Mrs Thatcher was a leader without faults, nor that her policies did anything other than divide great chunks of the British people. Some (and I wouldn't agree wholeheartedly) would point the finger of blame at Mrs Thatcher for the current mistrust enjoyed between Edinburgh and Westminster - but no one who is not lying through their teeth, or who is otherwise ignorant to the true history would be able to tell you that she wasn't popular with great chunks of the country, since like Tony Blair, she won three elections hands down.

It is for the many complicated reasons that saw Mrs Thatcher elected three times as Prime Minister that I was so sad to see her life denuded to that of a dementia suffering old lady. Clearly there is some attempt to show that in younger life she was formidable, and the viewer may even decide that it was this 'full steam ahead' approach to life that effects her so today, but I found that the filmmakers made lots of cruel assumptions about Margaret Thatcher, including that she still sees and hears her late Husband Dennis talking to her. To put it another way, the opening and closing scenes show a nuts of woman, and imaginary Husband Dennis, who leaves her alone at the end says, "you'll be fine on your own, you always have been", in what seemed to me as a spiteful suggestion (along with others in the film) that family has been entirely unimportant to the UK's longest serving Prime Minister. From what I know of Baroness Thatcher, this is most unfair.

For me, I was deeply disappointed that rather significant political events and controversies were merely skated over - a device that the makers would no doubt put down to restricted time to address everything. One of my anti Thatcher friends explained, "I still dislike her, but that was a really good attempt to humanise a monster". Interested how perspectives can be so different, and this review is of course merely my own perspective.

So my review of the film is a blockbusting performance by a host of A-list actors, and you should definitely watch it. I feel it was let down by the shallowness of it's political content, and though others may disagree, I feel the balance of sympathy is tilted away from the Baroness in a way that I don't feel fair.

Readers should not infer any view on my part on political matters, since I would happily talk anyone to sleep about both the good and bad points of the Thatcher era, but I think it's clear to me which side of the argument the film makers would be supporting, and which they'd be scoffing at.

I Partridge: We need to talk about Alan is up there with Catch 22

Spin off books never work. That's something I'll never be able to say again having read the excellent I, Partridge: We need to talk about Alan" talking book.

I was sceptical of downloading I Partridge from Audible, frankly because I thought it would be cheap, tacky and as funny as a honey bath with bumble bees but I'm glad boredom prompted me to change my mind.

Friends and regular blog / twitter followers will know that reading is one of my passions, and I hope they'll also know that I don't just recommend any old book. The book is written and printed entirely as if it really was written by Alan Partridge, and there is a delightful lack of any explanation that Alan Partridge isn't real. This happy fact means I have today been able to buy a copy of the book for my 84 year-old ex-neighbour who has a strange habit of reading random autobiographies and boring everyone he comes in to contact with by reading copious passages, and recounting incredibly detailed, yet usually inconsequential information about someone they have little interest in. Already he has called me to tell me how odd he thinks "this Alan Partridge man" is, and how some of the things he says seem "not very nice", but for me, the biggest belly laugh came when my 84 year-old friend read the words, "I was fortunate enough to see a female steward being shot and badly injured".

So who is this book for? Well you might think it's for diehard Partridge followers only, and while diehard fans will love this book, it's also very well worth passing on to anyone who is not hard of thinking, or otherwise comically challenged, with a brief bit of background on the character.

To my mind, this book is well up there with Catch 22, and has undoubtedly made me laugh much, much more. An absolute work of comic art by Steve Coogan - 10/10.

It's available from Amazon of course, any good book shop, and half price at Waterstones for just £10.

Labour don't axe leaders: Only @ed_miliband could cause a new leadership

Much is being written about Ed Miliband's future as Labour Leader, and unhappy Labour MP's are grumbling about the party's popularity, but Labour don't force their leaders to resign... that's much more of a Lib Dem, and Tory thing, but this isn't to say that Ed Miliband shouldn't be worried about some of the coverage doing the rounds.

Like the rest of the public, I know the Shadow Cabinet is an unsteady ship right now, and like most Lobby Correspondents, I know that Ed Miliband has it within him to steady the ship if only he believes in himself.

As a journalist, it is not for me to take a view on who leads which party, but my professional judgement is that Ed Miliband has been getting steadily better in his delivery and stature as each week has passed - but recent decisions to start altering his team of advisers around, and conversations he has been having with Shadow Cabinet colleagues about repositioning the party all goes to mix message politics and a lack of clear direction.

Aware (and I don't think by self flattery) that Mr Miliband will probably read this post, he may feel that it's easy for armchair leaders to have their two penny's worth, but speaking with a little experience in political media and communications, I think his easiest and most sensible path forward is to decide himself and not through advisers how he wants to lead, and stick to that vision.

As with all political parties and Westminster politics of the late 20th and early 21st century, it's all too dominated with focus groups and advisers, which is why you can hardly stick a fag paper in between the party's on most subjects other than the economy - and even then, eminent economists honestly don't know which party has the right idea for certain.

So my professional reading is that Ed Miliband should stop playing to the inevitable grumblings in his own party, and stop reacting to commentators (including from time to time myself) and focus on what is right, not what is seen to be right. This advice is equally applicable to David Cameron and Nick Clegg - but only Ed Miliband's leadership is ENTIRELY surprisingly being questioned.

Lastly, a change in Leadership would not be in Labour's best interests, and actually, as a strong constitutionalist, I don't think it would be in the interests of the country generally. We need a strong opposition, and though it may not yet be strong, strength can only come from stabilityy and a clear sense of purpose. You know it makes sense.

And so I think Ed Miliband's downfall can only come from himself, unless the country suggests otherwise in 2015. So to coin an expression, calm down dear.


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Diane Abbott and Westminster's double standards

I've never found Diane Abbott the most pleasant of people, stopping to speak with me only when I've been in the company of senior bosses and presenters from the BBC, or senior Labour politicians, on such occasions, she pretends to be my long lost friend. In contrast, when she has been pointed out to me on several occasions in the past, I have gone out of my way to say hello only to be blanked, and I'm told, on occasion, given dirty looks... but my personal view does not change my professional overview in this case.

I have studied British Colonialism and the terrible way in which, judging by today's enlightened values, Africa was carved up by European powers without any African representative being consulted, or invited to the Africa conference. I believe it is this that Mrs Abbott basis her attack of white people dividing and ruling, and calling on non whites (one presumes) not to "play their games".

Quite correctly, had a white MP had attributed a certain behaviour to black people and insisted that whites "should not play their game", the whip would be withdrawn, their political career would be in ruins, and the police would investigate any inevitable complaint. This would happen because all mainstream political leaders believe racism is totally disgusting, and I agree with them wholeheartedly.

It is not for me to call for Diane Abbott's sacking, or to castigate her as a racist, instead the public should form their own view, but it smacks of total double standards that these unacceptable comments are any different to the reverse. They are not.

Compare this case with that of the Newark MP Patrick Mercer who was "resigned" from David Cameron's Shadow Cabinet for giving an interview in which he said that racist comments were "part and parcel of army life". No one in their right minds would suggest that Mr Mercer is a racist, but David Cameron took the view that the comments were racist and he should and did go.

Why is this case different?

For the record, whatever else Diane Abbott is, she isn't a racist in my view, but these comments appear to be. In the circumstances, a full and frank apology should be issued, but instead all we have is a castigation from her to the public for taking her comments out of context.

Surely in 2011, all Westminster MPs should be calling for equality.

So can we have a full apology?

As a side note, credit must go to Sky's talented political correspondent Sophy Ridge for taking the bull by the horns and dragging this unfortunate issue from under the carpet.