New Start editorial Jan-Jun07

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Community Regeneration Comment

June

 * 27 The teenage girl in the video was indignant about the way adults typecast young people. We don’t cause trouble, she said – only when we’re defending our territory.


 * 20 Those who remember Michael Heseltine of old won’t be surprised at some of the thinking to emerge from the Tory task group on cities.


 * 13 It’s just as well life doesn’t imitate art all the time, otherwise VCS staff throughout South West England would probably be sat with a pencil up either nostril and a pair of underpants on their heads.


 * 6 Define Britishness. Go on, you know you want to. If the challenge is good enough for Gordon Brown, it’s good enough for the rest of us.

May

 * 30 If you had to name some of our bank holidays, what would you call them?


 * 23 Remember Swampy? It was only a decade ago that eco-warriors constructed networks of tunnels and tree houses to prevent roads and runways being built. Now they’re nearly old enough for a reunion tour.


 * 16 There could have been a step away from the tired shibboleth of widening home ownership; instead, there was a reassertion of the pointless target of two million more homeowners under Labour.


 * 9 This year’s BBC Reith lectures make fascinating listening for anyone engaged in regeneration. They deal with global issues, but the parallels with local problems in the UK are striking.


 * 2 A few weeks ago I was talking with a regeneration practitioner from Burnley, and I asked about the council’s work on community cohesion.

April

 * 25 Google Earth is a wonderful invention, and not only for people who like to spy on their neighbours.


 * 18 Far be it from me to intrude on a period of national mourning, but I can’t help wondering why the demise of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s relationship was such tragic news.


 * 11 Radford and Hyson Green in Nottingham are the kind of neighbourhoods you could imagine benefiting from the latest government fund to enable communities to own public assets.

March

 * 28 The other week I heard a former cabinet minister describe the civil service’s culture as one of ‘institutional dementia’.


 * 21 Budget day is a time for trumpeting achievements, for dispensing (and taking) largesse, for bigging it up in the school playground sometimes known as the House of Commons.


 * 14 Who on earth would be a councillor? Hours and hours spent in meetings, often trying to get your head around complex issues.


 * 7 There are times when the advent of 24 hour news seems as helpful as a mobile phone weighed down with all manner of gadgetry.

February

 * 28 - Most regenerators, community builders, think tankers and politicians have a touch of the visionary about them.


 * 21 - Communities need to digest foreign migrants. Give them a little at a time, allow them to chew slowly and the delicate system that is a community will cope. Ram too much down their throats and the overwhelmed system will reject the lot.


 * 14 - When a politician declares that the mistakes of the past must not be repeated, it’s time to press the panic button, stock up with tinned food and redecorate the bunker.


 * 7 - As the burghers of Blackpool will tell you through gritted teeth, in a competition there are always more losers than winners. That’s why lotteries make money.

January

 * 17 - Old-fashioned Trots used to talk in earnest tones of the permanent revolution, when the oppressed would seize once and for all the means of production, overthrowing capitalist tyrants and replacing them with socialist tyrants.


 * 10 - Viewing Milton Keynes as it approaches its 40th birthday is a little like observing someone who has been given every advantage in life, hasn’t really made the most of it, but has been given a second chance.


 * 3 - Andy is a confident, cheeky Mancunian kid in his last year at primary school. He’s the sort of lad you’ll find organising playground games or playing practical jokes in class.

Previous Periods

 * New Start editorial Jul-Dec06
 * New Start editorial Jan-Jun06
 * New Start editorial Jul-Dec05

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