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This is the end of the gap

London Overground’s Southern extension opened to rush-hour passengers two weeks ago, creating London’s first orbital surface railway.

The new link between Clapham Junction and Surrey Quays means passengers can avoid changing in central London and commuting is now quicker, easier and cheaper too.

The extension came just one month after London Overground celebrated its fifth birthday and at least four trains an hour in each direction now link the South-West of the capital with East London.

South Londoners can also enjoy a new range of journey options both East and West with quick connections to national Rail services to Gatwick and across South-East and South-West England.

According to Mike Brown, managing director of London Underground and London Rail, the Southern extension is the last piece in the jigsaw of the outer orbital route.

“If the Circle line is the equivalent of the North and South Circular roads, this is the M25 of rail,” he said.

London Mayor Boris Johnson, before boarding the new service for the first time said: ”The Overground is hugely popular. Trains are comfortable and air-conditioned. This has helped us mount our argument to continue the integration between the Underground and the Overground”.

The new 1.3Km stretch of line cost £75 million and most of it has been funded with support from the Department for Transport, while the Mayor and Tfl contributed £15 million to it.

Around 13 million passengers a year are expected to use the new rail link while forty-eight drivers and five support staff have been hired. This is surely good news in the current economic climate.

To find out more about London Overground, go to:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/projectsandschemes/16224.aspx

In such austerity measures, it is better to stay in the middle!

Source: http://www.cartoonstock.com

Austerity is beginning to seem less like a project and more like a long-term state of affairs.

While delivering the Autumn Statement last week, Chancellor George Osborne declared that reducing the deficit would take longer than he thought initially as a drop in the public debt burden seems unlikely until 2017-18.

Along with “the legacy of a decade of debt”, he blamed the alarming figures on recession in the Eurozone, the slowing growth in China and the US fiscal cliff.

The economy has suffered a blown worse than the post-World War II and anxiety about recovery keeps businesses from investing. Even the best firms cannot be sure of getting credit, which hurts productivity.

The Chancellor of Exchequer said that the rich, professionals and people on welfare would withstand the worst of the latest changes.

The Government in fact, will take money from the better off and those on benefits, while trying to preserve the incomes of those in the middle.

The three-year welfare squeeze will hit those on income support, housing benefit, Jobseeker’s Allowance, child benefit and tax credit.

The welfare payments of working-age households will be uprated by only 1 per cent in the three years from April 2013.

Wealthy individuals will also hard-hit by a £1 billion-a-year raid on pensions.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) reckons GDP will contract by 0.1 per cent this year, compared with the 0.8 per cent increase it hoped in March and borrowing will be around £50 billion more than planned, over the next five years.

Despite declarations that there are no “miracle cures”, just hard work, Mr. Osborne found spare cash to make the life of motorists easier by abolishing the 3p fuel duty increase due next month and delayed until September a second rise due in April.

Meanwhile the economists also warned of more big cuts in public services including the police, defence, local government, environment and transport, if the Government continues to protect spending on the NHS and schools.

Same-sex wedding recognised in a historic equality reform

The Culture Secretary Maria Miller unveiled the Government’s plans to allow same-sex marriages, including ceremonies in some churches and other religious buildings.

Within two years, thousands of gay couples will be able to convert their civil partnership into a legally recognised marriage.
 
The Commons statement was made yesterday in the face of angry religious opposition and hardline Tories.
 
However, Maria Miller promised a ‘quadruple lock” written into law to ensure religious institutions and faith groups will not be forced to take part.

In fact, the Bill will state that no minister or organization can be ‘forced’ to marry same-sex couples and the Equality Act 2010 will be amended accordingly to stop discrimination claims.

 
PM David Cameron suggested that there is no reason to bar other churches from voluntarily hosting homosexual weddings, instead.
 
According to the new reform, gay marriage will be banned only in the Church of England and in the Church of Wales.
 
MPs will have a free vote on a Bill next year and more than 100 Tories along with up to 40 Labours have already indicated they will oppose a change in law. 
 
Also the Coalition for Marriage expressed disagreement by saying it was ‘disgraceful and undemocratic’ that the Government had ignored 500,000 people who signed a petition opposing gay marriage.

Meanwhile, recent polls have shown clear backing for gay wedding among voters, with only older people and church-goers strongly opposed.

Mr Cameron has gone further than ever in his modernising drive to back gay weddings in church and this is a powerful symbol that his party is at ease with diversity, despite UKIP claims that the reform will ‘rip apart’ the Conservative Party.

 

 

Same-sex couples will stay together happily ever after

Government’s plan for gay marriage is set to become law within months. 

Prime Minister David Cameron and Nick Clegg are considering fast-tracking laws to allow same-sex marriage from next year and a bill to allow a change in the law may be put to Parliament within weeks.

At least 118 out of 303 Tory MPs have expressed concerns and condemned the proposal to redefine the institution of marriage.

However, with the support of most Labour MPs, the plan should not encounter serious opposition in Parliament.

David Cameron believes that the interest of society is to get it done quickly, even though no detailed timetable has been set yet.

According to Chris Bryant, the gay Labour MP, the legislation is likely to be long and complicated. It might have to be held back for the Queen’s Speech in May.

Meanwhile the polling organization ComRes has published results from a recent survey that has found 62 per cent of voters and 68 per cent of Tory supporters considering marriage “a life-long exclusive commitment between a man and a woman”.

Also, a further 65 per cent believes that the chief aim of  legalising gay marriages  is more a way to rebrand the Tory Party as “trendy and modern” than a matter of conviction.

We believe in our right to higher education

Thousands of students took the streets of London yesterday to voice anger at the Government’s plans, following which university tuition fees tripled two years ago.

 

Students from all over the UK gathered outside the University of London student union at 11am, to defend their right to higher education.

 

Police issued warning notices to protesters that they risked arrest, if they deviated from the pre-arranged route from the University in Bloomsbury via Embankment to join the other demonstration at Westminster Bridge.

 

The march took place amid a heavy police presence and Scotland Yard obtained a section 12 order banning protesters from going past the Houses of Parliament.

 

According to the National Union of Students (NUS), the number of applicants to all British Universities dropped 7.7 per cent, with highest fall of 18 per cent in the capital, following the introduction of the £9,000-a-year-fees.

 

Figures show that the steepest decline in application was from people living in the London boroughs of Hackney North and Stoke Newington.

 

Today demonstration was the biggest since 2010, when nearly 50,000 students protested against the tuition fees increase and a group of protesters smashed their way into both the Conservative Party HQ in Millbank and several stores in central London.

 

These young people believe in their cause and want higher education to be a priority. 

 

However, students are those battered the most by the cuts. In fact, not only tuition fees tripled but also the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) was abolished last year.

 

Two children are more than enough

The Secretary of Work & Pensions Iain Duncan-Smith (IDS) wants to cap welfare benefits at just two children.

At present out-of work households get more benefits the more children they have.

At least 1.2 million out of 7.8 million families receiving child benefits have more than two children and according to the Organisation of Economic Co-Operation and Development, the UK spending on family benefits as a percentage of  GDP is the third highest of all major economies.

Iain Duncan-Smith has expressed his concern over the fact that many working families in the UK decide against having more children or any child at all for financial reasons, while large households on welfare do not have to confront such reality. 

Child poverty campaigners expressed disapproval over the proposal, as children will be the actual victims if the Government follows through on this plan.

 “A cultural change is required so that the welfare system is a springboard into work, rather that something which traps people into a life of dependency,” Mr Duncan-Smith answered.

It is not yet clear which child-related benefits would be covered by any cap. However, the plan will not come into effect until after the next general election in 2015.