The fact that people in the City give us money, even though we are promising tougher regulation, is a sign that many people in the City understand that there needs to be change.

Osborne once sold himself as the Chancellor who would be progressive and tough on banks, carry out well needed reform, and still walk away with votes from the city, because he was decisive, on top of things, and they recognised the need and public thirst for change.

So what, 2 years on, was the change the bankers could believe in?

Britain’s biggest banks are to be given until 2019 – longer than had been expected – to implement radical reform of their operations to prevent another taxpayer bailout of the system.

Of course, George Osborne welcomed Sir John Vickers’ findings, or what the Independent Commission on Banking have admitted were “deliberately composed of moderate elements” – but, given the almost universal agreement that high street and speculative arms of banking should be separated (apart from Bob Diamond and a few others), one wonders why the ICB stopped short of a recommendation for a full break-up, plumping only for a ring fencing of the two activities.

(On the subject of Bob Diamond, he met with the Chancellor on the 1st of this month to request he delay banking reforms, possibly repeating previous threats that he’ll take Barclays and leave the UK. Just saying).

As an Independent leader article put it: “ring-fencing still leaves open the possibility of banks stealthily dismantling the internal demarcation over time.”

I guess with (not so) tough measures like this, it’s obvious why big shots in the city are bankrolling Osborne – they want a man who can get things done for them.

But yet a look at his name on google realtime shows a different story:

Is Twitter dangerously undermining usual media outlets? Will it therefore be the end for Twitter?

Orbital – Adnans

The Orb – U.F.Orb

The Future Sound of London – Pulse State

Underworld – Dark & Long (Dark Train)

Faithless – Salva Mea

Fluke – Kitten Moon

Massive Attack – Unfinished Sympathy

Primal Scream – Trainspotting

Brian Eno – Deep Blue Day

Lamb – Darkness

Leftfield – Melt

Leftfield – Song Of Life

Dreadzone – Little Britain

Zero 7 – Destiny

Air – Kelly Watch the Stars

Goldfrapp – Lovely Head

Bjork – Isobel

Royksopp – In Space

808 State – Pacific State

Aphex Twin – Xtal

Ceephax – Vulcan Venture

Missing anything?

From then on I took photographs on my phone of open spaces. The Tories and the Liberals are going to try and privatise our services; they are doing this by offering to tender our services and weakening the public sector, all the while expressing the vacuous notion of a big society to cover up for the fact that they are chipping away at the fabric of our lives.

In the distance, Pitsea Mount, oldest recorded building in Pitsea, now used as mobile phone mast

A chair in the middle of a vacant field. This just happens to be my old school, in the background on the tarmac, some boys have obviously climbed the fence to use the space to play football on

In the distance is Castle Point, this is taken by Hadleigh Castle

Overlooking Canvey to the left, Benfleet to the right and Tilbury Power dock in the distance

Between Benfleet and Chalkwall on the C2C line from Shoeburyness to London Fenchurch Street

Legend has it that before the Shoeburyness to London Fenchurch Street line was built (primarily to transport rich Londoners who had, or were thinking of investing in, weekend homes in the Pitsea Marshes) Dick Turpin and the highwaymen would walk the route back to London. Crime did find itself down this path. Which is why irony was not lost on me when a friend of mine was fined too many times on the line, bunking his fare, on his way to Southend College. He was living in a temporary accomodation after being thrown out of home, but once a summons came through the post requesting money he did not have, he took his tent and lived next to Hadleigh Castle. His girlfriend at the time, who lived nearby in Thundersley, used to bring him food, and I did too from time to time.

It’s fair to say he occupied some space in Hadleigh Castle, which looks like this:

Open spaces are important, free from commercialisation and profit-driven enterprise. We’ve never known anything else, but we’ll soon realise it all the more, and if we don’t do our duty as citizens, we can remember these days as the beginning of the end for the welfare state – and we know who are to blame.

Stephen Metcalfe, Member of Parliament for South Basildon and East Thurrock, and the like

I came across this abandoned building, what looked like a small house. It had two rooms, one completely uncovered. There was a box with what looked hay or straw inside, and droppings possibly from a mouse. I’m aware that around this area – close to Pitsea Marshes, there was an explosives factory, conveniently placed near pillboxes. Unfortunately during the war that factory caught fire. Near the train line there were houses, which believe it or not Londoners used as holiday homes. When the line to Fenchurch Street was first built, landowners would indulge visitors with champagne auctions – clearly the logic was to get the silver spoons pissed enough to invest in little homes in the marsh. Perhaps this house was one such example.

There was a site specifically for the production of nitroglycerin – a nitrating house – work in which was described as very boring. So much so, in fact, that the workers were made to sit one one legged stools to avoid falling asleep. The vat of mixture would go to a flushing tank. This tank was, presumably, situated near this tunnel.

TCF will soon be undergoing some sort of design/operation change to catch up with the other collaborative left blogs (that really should be in our shadow, not us theirs! Fact!) and I will want to put all my blogospheric time and energy into promoting that rather than living the blogospheric life of a cross-poster – a lonesome existence I can tell you.

It does mean that raincoat optimism will almost cease to exist.

But for those of you who may be interested my political output will be at TCF – to repeat the address: (http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/author/raincoatoptimism/).

Cheers.

Why is it OK for a surgeon to perform a sex-change operation, but not OK for a psychiatrist to try to “turn” a consenting homosexual?

At first the question seems stupid – what’s the connection between homosexuality and gender reassignment? Isn’t this blatant homophobia? As David Allen Green has put it, has Helmer not confused “the distinct issues of gender identity and sexual preference”?

Then you read it again.

It’s still stupid.

For a longer discussion on the issue read Heresy Corner, I’m going to keep this brief. Gender reassignment is, as it is well known, the process of altering the sexual characteristics of an individual. That means a therapeutic measure of hormone replacement, replacement of organs, and other secondary sexual characteristics that aren’t reproductive organs (such as facial hair or breasts). As far as is physically possible an individual reflects the gender they have been reassinged to – nowhere in the surgery is there any attempt to mentally reassign a person, to make him/her feel like a man/woman (perhaps because there is no such feeling at all).

The notion that Helmer is comparing this with is the attempt to change, not a set of physical characteristics, but the complex psychosexual structure of an individual, which is far trickier in many ways to reassign, some would say impossible.

I’m of this latter opinion; you can’t try and “turn” a consenting homosexual, you can only try and make a person forget he or she is homosexual, or do things contrary to his or her sexuality (like be attracted to, or enjoy sexual practices with, a person from the opposite sex). And it ought not to be available by national health services like gender reassignment is. However if you want a homophobe to rub you with salts and tell you that you’re really attracted to people of the opposite sex, and that homosexuality is a myth or a lie one tells themselves, then what people get up to in their spare time is up to them – like with homeopathy it will be incumbent upon sane people to promote the truth of such ridiculous practices.,

Once again therefore, Helmer is way off the mark.We can add this to the list of other gaffes and witless opinions such as:

• Homophobia doesn’t exist

• Beating “dumb” cubs over the head was “humane” and that they deserved to die because they were “guilty” of eating too many fish.

• Green climate policies are probably unnecessary