Michael MacDonald was arrested on the night of the 16th February when he was at home alone looking after his young son. The arrest followed an incident earlier in the day when MacDonald, known by friends and colleagues as 'Don', engaged with Nick Forbes, the the Labour Council leader, in the street. 'Don' wanted to discuss with Forbes, the effects of the cuts to Newcastle's youth services, which the youth worker fears will have a devastating effect on the most vulnerable residents of the city. Don was not threatening to him. He didn't swear. He only tried to explain to Forbes, as a professional youth worker, the effects these cuts would have on the city's services. The actions taken by Forbes and the police are not what we expect of those who are meant to serve and protect the residents of Newcastle. It is important that situations involving the police as outlined above are not allowed to occur, which serve to intimidate and disturb the people of Newcastle who exercise their right to peaceful protest and freedom of speech. Although a minor offence, if charged Don would be left with a criminal record and there would a black mark against this hard-working and well respected community worker. Don was served a fixed penalty notice under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, but has returned this notice to the court and has stated his intention to fight the accusation. His arrest has serious implications for public protest and freedom of expression in Newcastle and nationally. We stand with him against this attack on the right to protest. The accusation is unjust, meant to intimidate and is preposterous. It is clear that: 1. A civil servant has used their authority to demand an arrest. 2. The police have removed a family man from his home in the middle of the night when he had sole responsibility for his six year old child, detained him for four hours on the basis of a minor charge, during which time he was encouraged to accept a fixed penalty fine for doing nothing more than exercising the rights we all have as residents of Newcastle. Initial signatories: John McDonnell MP Kate Hudson, national secretary Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Jerry Hicks, Unite Grassroots Left Dot Gibson, National Secretary Pensioner Convention Bill Bowring, Haldane Society Socialist Lawyers Andrew Burgin, vice chair Coalition of Resistance

Many members of the Church of England and Church in Wales, both clergy and lay people, LGBT and not, are in favour of allowing gay marriage ceremonies. In time a new hierarchy will also be in favour and at that point it will be much simpler to allow "opting in" than to go through the process of amending legislation. Meanwhile the C of E will be just as well "protected" as the Roman Catholic and other churches which do not wish to hold gay marraige ceremonies. Legislating to make gay marriage illegal in the Church of England and Church in Wales simply makes homophobia legal, which wouldn't be allowed in any other institution.

**UPDATE - Victory! Danny Nightingale's sentenced was quashed and he has now been released! Thank you to everyone who signed the petition.** Danny was convicted of illegally possessing a pistol which his trainees in the Iraqi army had given him as a gift in 2007. He planned to donate the pistol to his regiment but soon after had to return to the UK following the sudden deaths of two of his closest friends. His colleagues packed all his belongings, including the pistol, in boxes which remained unopened until 2010 when police searched his house while investigating a complaint made against his housemate. In 2009, Danny collapsed while on a fund-raising trek in Brazil and incurred serious memory damage. During his court martial, expert witnesses said he probably had no memory that the gun was in his possession The prosecution praised Danny's character as being exemplary. Despite this, a war hero has been imprisoned and his wife and children are now facing being evicted from their home. He has been unfairly imprisoned. Please release him immediately. You can read more here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9669410/SAS-war-hero-jailed-after-betrayal.html

The law is a discriminatory one which relies on an individual police officer's judgement and, as such, is open to abuse. The police officer is open to criticism for misuse of the order and under 16 year old's are vulnerable to overzealous application and miss-accusations. The discriminatory nature of the order encourages the hatred and fear of young people and allows some to feel justified in discriminatory attitudes toward them. It encourages those who have suffered at the hands of badly behaved youths to believe that they are all like that and to become more afraid. It will only serve to alienate young people and make them feel that the police are there simply to control them but not to protect them. Already young people in Bangor are avoiding going out to the cinema and to after school clubs for fear of being caught in the curfew or of being beaten up by the marauding gangs that this order implies are on the loose in the city center. Bangor is a lovely historic place with much to offer young and old alike. It suffers from very little anti-social behavior apart from a very few people in limited areas and the usual after pub and club problems present in all cities. It is suffering in the downturn from an empty high street (the longest in the country) but there was no rioting in Bangor last year, the out of town JJB sports, PC World etc were not ransacked as was seen in other towns and cities across the UK, so why Bangor? There was no consultation with the public or even their elected representatives on the City Council. This is despite the ACPO guidance that there should be consultation with the effected community and a Rowntree report, which concludes that these laws have only been effective where consultation and involvement had taken place. This law is badly worded, heavy handed, discriminatory and draconian and it should be stopped now!

The Channel Island of Sark has just 600 inhabitants. They lead a peaceful and historic way of life that has remained largely unchanged for hundreds of years. The islanders get around on bikes or by horse and cart - there are no cars or tarmac roads on the island. It is a unique and beautiful place, a rare piece of tranquillity in a chaotic modern world. But now the billionaire owners of The Telegraph newspaper, the Barclay brothers, are threatening that way of life. Twenty years ago, they bought the tiny neighbouring island of Brecqhou and built a huge mock gothic castle that looms over Sark. Ever since, they have been buying up every hotel, small business and piece of land they can get their hands on. The islands status as a tax haven means the brothers have to pay no tax on their fortune back to the UK. The Sarkees have been doing everything they can to resist their power over the island. In 2008, the Barclays tried to flood the island's first democratically elected government with their allies. When the islanders emphatically rejected them in favour of their own representatives, the brothers retaliated by firing everyone who worked in any of the businesses they had bought out - that amounted to a sixth of Sark's population losing their jobs. It doesn't end there. Those who speak out against the brothers' stranglehold on the island are publicly dragged through the dirt in the Sark Newsletter - a weekly propaganda piece written by the Barclays' lieutenant, Kevin Delaney. The islanders recently told the Guardian and BBC that they live in fear in a "culture of bullying and intimidation." The Barclay brothers company Sark Estate Management (SEM) has turned much of their good quality agricultural land over to vineyards, land that was traditionally used by the islanders for centuries for growing crops and grazing livestock. In November 2012 a peaceful protest at the Sark Mill vineyards against the spread of vines resulted in 120 Sark residents signing a petition asking the Barclays to reconsider their vineyard project but this was ignored. SEM continue to spray the vineyards with chemicals and residents fear for the health of Sark's pristine ecosystem and their fresh water supplies which come from under the ground. Sark is a dependency of the Crown but, so far, our government has left the islanders to fend for themselves. The Department of Justice has admitted that it has an "ultimate responsibility to ensure good governance" of Sark. They are aware of what's going on - former Justice Minister Lord McNally has already been to visit the island. It's time Lord Faulks, the new Justice Minister and Chris Grayling, the Secretary of State for Justice, lived up to that responsibility. You can find out more about the situation in Sark in this recent Panorama show: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01px74c/Panorama_The_Tax_Haven_Twins/ Or this earlier Today programme piece: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9709000/9709518.stm

The age of criminal responsibility in England is one the lowest in Europe, and the statistics show that we are in danger of criminalising too many children and young people. The age of criminal responsibility needs to be reviewed in light of the standards set by the UN Convention and these international comparisons. Young children are simply not capable of the sophisticated mental reasoning required to be held fully responsible for criminal actions, and we need to take a far more "welfare based" approach in dealing with young people who commit serious crimes. Furthermore, there is concern among neuroscientists in this field that the age of criminal responsibility in the UK is unreasonably low given the emerging understanding of how slowly the brains of children mature, and the evidence of individual differences suggests that an arbitrary cut-off age may not be justifiable.

This is yet another case of an egregious defamation by a government official being picked up by the taxpayer. Make Michelle Donelan pay the settlement fee back to the taxpayer.

I have personally found it impossible to get full Freedom Of Information about myself from: the NHS Trust, Borough Council, and a local Supported Housing Company- one of which my solicitor paid £50 for yet never received.

Alan Bates has devoted so much of his life in seeking justice for those who have seen their lives ruined, were sent to prison, lost their businesses their homes and had their previous good character destroyed. Without his devotion it is almost certain a that this wrongdoing would never have come to light and that those wronged would have had to live with for the rest of their lives.

Its bigotry and racist and has no room in the 21st century

Glasgow is a vibrant friendly city. We are welcoming and caring, we run toward problems and don't back away, we posses pride in abundance. However, we have as a city been let down greatly by knife crime. For decades we have faced this issue and its destructive outcomes - we have lost our sons and daughters, and there is never any going back from that. I would therefore like to see bleed control kits situated around the city much in the way defibrillators are, which can help to buy time whilst awaiting emergency help. Glasgow, we look forward to a day when knife crime no longer takes our loved ones from us, but in the mean time I hope we could achieve training and support to the public on how to effectively use bleed control kits, so that one day there are less 'what ifs'. Any one of us could be a victim of knife crime. Glasgow sadly still loses loved ones to this horrific crime which leaves a void to families that can never be filled, dreams shattered, chances taken away, love that can no longer be directed to ones who are gone .

The Deadly Downside of a Cashless Society I first became aware of the dangers 21 years ago. In a nutshell, a female client was tracked down by her abusive partner and held at knifepoint. He tracked her down using the cheque and card transactions and ambushed her at the hotel. Back then, she had a few weeks of breathing space because the bank statements arrived every few weeks. Now, every card transaction is instantaneous and gives massive amounts of detail about exactly where you are in terms of geographical location. Many women* I've worked with over the years only had some semblance of a life because they were saving their 'pin money' so their partner couldn't track their every move. In May 2022, I found the ticket machines at Paddington Station, London, didn't take cash. A distressed looking woman tried to buy a bottle of water on the train on the same day. They denied her. She didn't speak much English and said she didn't have a card. I was only on the train for an hour and a half, but imagine in this weather having to go for the full 4 hours without water. On a sweltering hot day in Regent's Park last month, I tried to buy an ice lolly and a banana with the exact change. No can do. The incident in the park did also make me wonder if children are now walking round with debit cards and tapping smart watches. Two years ago, as the pandemic took hold, it became apparent many families don't have a PC or regular Wi-Fi, so I'm thinking the aforementioned is unlikely. * I've said women because it was a woman who first alerted me to this problem back in 2001. I know there is also an often silent demographic of abused men in the world. This move to a cashless society creates several dangerous silos. Aside from those attempting to flee domestic abuse and violent situations and not wishing to leave an instant digital trail as they go, there are also those who do not have the luxury of access to fully topped up debit cards and smart watches. The incident I faced in Regent's Park when trying to buy an ice lolly on a sweltering hot day in London; yes, I know, a rare combination but true, raised the issue of children. Are 10-year-olds all now walking around with fully loaded smart watches? What about those less affluent families who can't afford such technology? And what about the elderly and those who don't cope well with or have access to technology or bank accounts? And what about the homeless population? I've been discussing this globally, and we are all now losing count of the number of places now refusing to take cash.