BBC says Church Stretton library campaigners have won

A year ago I blogged about Shropshire Council's plans to move Church Stretton Library to a less central location.

After that local residents sought judicial review of the council's decision.

Today, at 12:40 on its Shropshire Live page, BBC News reported that:

Campaigners fighting plans to move Church Stretton's library say they have won their legal battle against Shropshire Council. 

They say the authority conceded the case moments before it was due to be heard by a court in Birmingham.

The report in the Shropshire Star is more guarded, and I suspect that is wise, but at least I have a chance to use my photo of the library again.

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BBC denies that The Archers is becoming too like EastEnders

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"Only 1 per cent of new fathers are taking shared parental leave" WRONG

Story that 1% of new dads taking shared parental leave: nonesense. Survey asks employers for % of ALL male employees pic.twitter.com/I2J9foRDpO

— Sarah O'Connor (@sarahoconnor_) April 5, 2016

This morning's news was full of stories about the failure of Nick Clegg's pet policies when he was deputy prime minister: shared parental leave.

Here is an example from the Evening Standard:

Only 1 per cent of fathers have taken up the opportunity to share parental leave a year after the option was introduced, a survey of employers and parents has found. 

According to research by My Family Care - which advises businesses on being family-friendly - and the Women's Business Council, 55 per cent of women said they would not want to share their maternity leave. 

The survey of more than 1,000 parents and 200 businesses found that taking up shared parental leave ... was dependent on a person's individual circumstances, particularly on their financial situation and the paternity pay on offer from their employer.

But as the tweet above from Sarah O'Connor, employment correspondent for the Financial Times, shows, these stories were nonsense.

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When David Cameron said Jimmy Carr's tax avoidance was "not morally acceptable"

"I know what irony is, but I can't explain it," a friend's bright young daughter once said to me frustratedly.

This is the sort of thing she probably had in mind.

I expect Cameron was told to attack Jimmy Carr because he was a "left-wing comedian".

As I blogged at the time, he is nothing of the sort:

Some on the right have been pleased to see Carr get his comeuppance, seeing the affair as confirmation of their belief that lefties are all hypocrites. But if anything, Carr was recruited to 10 O'Clock Life as a balancing right-wing voice. 

Certainly, as I argued in a post last December, there is nothing particularly lefty about Carr's comedy: 

Left-wing politics is based in a belief that things could be better. Carr's schtick, by contrast, is to imply that he is wiser than us. Life is shit, and he has seen through it. 

I don't see much hope there.

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