Councils, sadly, continue to behave badly.

Councillors at Portsmouth refused to donate £500 to a fun day aimed at raising money for Help for Heroes, a charity looking after wounded soldiers. Their rejection letter stated that they feared it might upset minorities from war zones like Afghanistan and Iraq living in the Portsmouth community “who may also have experience of injury/violence due to the war”.

After the charity complained Portsmouth City Council admitted that it had made “an error of judgement” apologised unreservedly and donated the £500. Continue reading →

Meanwhile the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is backing a couple who have been ordered by officials at Berwick on Tweed council to stop feeding birds from a bird table in their own back garden.

The council acted after a neighbour of the couple, from Belford, Northumberland complained that the birds brought mess, dirt and unwelcome noise to the village. The council agreed, adding that the food left out could attract rats and other vermin and that nesting birds can block chimneys and gutters.

The BBC has been fined a total of £400,000, a record amount for the BBC by Ofcom for fakery of which Beijing Olympic organisers would be proud.

The corporation, say Ofcom, deceived its audience by faking winners of competitions and deliberately conducting competitions unfairly, specifically by having them pre-recorded and presented as live. Affected programmes included Comic Relief in March 2007 (£45,000 fine), Sport Relief in July 2006 (£45,000 fine) and Children in Need in November 2005 (£35,000 fine). The BBC has reportedly put in place integrity training for its 19,000 staff though it is not known whether directors and presenters are required to attend. Continue reading →

The published number of repossessions of houses by lenders is inaccurate because it doesn’t include repossessions by second charge lenders, say housing charity Shelter. (The Times).

The figures are published by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) who say that the number will increase by 50% on last year’s figure of 271000, many for arrears of a few thousand pounds as UK lenders try to claw back losses made from imprudent investment in the US sub-prime mortgage market. One lender, Northern Rock, now owned by the government, set up a separate company to profit from the sale of borrowers’ homes it repossessed.

Men give more to charity when with women they find attractive than on their own, or with other men, according to research carried out by Oxford University and the University of Kent.

The researchers gave 45 men and 45 women the chance to win £24 in a simple game and then the opportunity to give a proportion to charity. Men gave 40% when on their own, or with other men but increased this to a minimum of 50% and a maximum of 100% when with a woman they deemed attractive. Women, on the other hand gave 40% whatever the circumstances. Continue reading →