DaveR

"I can ,however, be found frequenting a better class of establishment off of Pall Mall and St. James' Street, such as The Royal Oversees League or The RAC Club. See you there ? Nah I don't think so." Curiously, your diction brings to mind establishments "off of" the Old Kent Road (and nowt wrong with that).

If we are talking specifically about residential burglaries, the guidelines are actually pretty clear. Also, although the crimes may be opportunistic they are rarely one-off i.e. a large proportion of residential burglaries are commmitted by people who habitually commit that type of offence (as well as others crimes, potentially). I think it's pretty widely accepted that deterrence is a function of both the likelihood of being caught and the likely sentence - the point about property marking kits is that they increase the likelihood of getting caught (and the stickers may act as a deterrent in themselves). FWIW, in my experience habitual burglars know full well that if they get caught they are likely to go inside(particularly if they already have burglary convictions), and they mostly do get caught. However, burglars tend to be prolific and the odds of getting caught on any particular occasion are small. It's also worth observing that policing is one of those areas where there is a conflict between what the public ultimately want i.e. high prevention and detection rates, and what they immediately want i.e. lots of visible police presence on the streets. The evidence for any link between the two is thin, to say the least.

"Would you care to speculate what punishment the couple arrested for burglary recently locally, assuming that they go to trial and are convicted, might get?" Not sure why this is a sensible question to ask a local councillor. See below. http://sentencingcouncil.judiciary.gov.uk/docs/Burglary_Definitive_Guideline_web_final.pdf

Just saw two kids in full costume trick or treating at lunch time in Pret, Kingsway. Weird.

Adonirum, perhaps the fact that, through modesty, you wear your undoubted erudtion so lightly, led her unsuspectingly into an error that can, on reflection, be forgiven?

The offence that they were convicted of requires threatening behaviour "with intent to cause that person to believe that immediate unlawful violence will be used against him or another by any person or: whereby that person is likely to believe that such violence will be used" so it has to be more than just causing offence. Sometimes putting people in fear of violence, particularly by a group of people and, as here, where it's not easy to get away, can be just as serious as actually using violence. That having been said, the lesser public order offences are IMHO those most open to abuse by police and prosecutors. It's often a fine judgment whether someone has caused fear of violence or "harassment, alarm or distress"; the maximum penalty for the latter is a fine. The comments by the prosecutor that people were 'shocked and disgusted' perhaps suggests that this was a case close to the line, but obviously we haven't heard the evidence actually given.

"I went on a work trip to KL...." I'd be interested to know whether you were recommended to have any jabs before this trip. None should be needed unless you are in a high risk profession. I go to Malaysia every year and have never had any jabs specifically for those trips.

33/60. Is there really such a thing as a football hipster? It could be re-named "are you a twat?"

There are definitely some shops in ED where you get the feeling that the proprietor thinks he/she is doing you a favour by letting you in, or that customers are an unwelcome distraction, which is kind of odd when the USP of an independent business should be their knowledge, enthusiasm etc. Having said that, there are plenty that are consistently excellent IMHO. In no particular order I would put in the excellent category: Rye Books, Mootown, Blackbird bakery, Callows, Fresh Flower Co, the card shop near the Dulwich Tandoori, the shoe guy near the station, and the cafe next door to the shoe shop with the new name I can't remember.

"Dave would be less willing to make "veiled" threats if he didn't feel the rest of the newspaper industry would pile in behind him it has nothing to do with bodies other than the law - it's the same cosy politicians/media/law circle that saw papers get away with so much for so long After being initiatlly defensive, the US have accepted the need for this debate (surveillance) but Cameron is way behind the curve. If this country's press was worth fighting for it would be shaming him over this" The Leveson:Snowden parallel you are so desperate to draw is just bollocks, though. Govts (and indeed individuals) have always been able to go to court to get an injunction to prevent unlawful publication of material, but the key word is 'unlawful' - you have to satisfy a High Court judge that you've got a good case, and you have to have some evidence. And High Court judges don't exactly have a record of doing whatever govt wants them to, even when national security is involved. What Cameron said was the govt was prepared to go to court if necessary - nothing new there. The implied suggestion is that in the past papers exercised more discretion about what they printed when there was an obvious potential security angle, and that's also true. What the right balance is a matter of legitimate debate. However, whether you believe in total and unfettered publication of everything, or that the wider public interest is served by some things staying secret, everybody knows that the ultimate backstop is a court applying the law. That's the opposite of what Leveson is proposing.

We have one of these: http://www.rebotrampolines.co.uk/?gclid=CJfQh8-asroCFe7HtAodHngAuA It stays outside in all weathers and still in good nick after 4 years

Brockwell Park: http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/Services/Environment/ParksGreenSpaces/EventsInParks/Fireworks.htm and there is always one at the Sports Club on Burbage Road in the village, which is popular (I haven't been though)

If you travel to Europe more than once a year it's probably worth getting a euro denominated card. They operate as pre-paid credit cards that you top-up with euros at whatever the rate is on the day, and you then use as a debit/cashpoint card. It will definitely work out cheaper than using a UK card or getting cash from most bureaux de changes, and also safer than carrying cash. http://www.fairfx.com/ There is a fee for the card but usually waived if you top-up a minimum amount.

I hope there are very few people who simply think the market should be left entirely unchecked. On the other hand, a return to old style Rent Act tenancies is probably not the way forward; secure tenancies for ever and artificially low rents drive good landlords (and good properties) out of the rental market altogether. There is obviously a supply issue, and financial incentives for established housing associations to develop brownfield sites would be a positive step, maybe in partnership with commercial developers for a mix of housing types. Incentives for longer term residential tenancies would also be a positive step - it doesn't have to be either tenancy for life or 12 months and then out on a month's notice. And key worker schemes do make a difference, even if only a small one. However, none of this is going to make London a cheap place to live - there's just too much money chasing property here for that to happen. Like it or not, in large part it's a function of the success of the city (with a small 'c'). Specifically with regard to SE22, and despite bawdy nan's post above, the fact is that ED has got expansive and there are many other places that are cheaper. No one is forced to live here, as the regular posts on here from folks who have chosen to move on and benefit from cheaper housing costs demonstrate.

More on this from the Independent: [www.independent.co.uk] This doesn't really takes us any further than the Guardian piece. Saying this: "I wonder if it has crossed his mind that until the arrival of the ?free food? people had spent months or years in daily hunger." doesn't make it true, and in fact there's no evidence that it is true. It's just an easy, thoughtless throwaway comment from a journalist who'll be spouting crap about something else the following day. It's so easy to say "people are using food banks, therefore they don't have enough money to eat, this is a rich country, it's a scandal". IMHO a more rational analysis would be "people are using food banks, this is a rich country (with a well established welfare system), it's unlikely that the problem is as simple as people not having enough money to eat". I have huge sympathy for people who find themselves in crisis, and I'm pretty convinced that the vast majority of people using food banks are not taking the p!ss, but are victims of all sorts of unhappy circumstances. I just don't agree that political grandstanding or asserting my moral superiority is likely to help, in the short term or the long term. I donate to food banks.

Not amateur, but I highly recommend Greenwich Theatre: http://www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1265:puss-in-boots&catid=7:playingnow&Itemid=1 We went last year and it was excellent; quite a small theatre so a nice atmosphere, and a good balance between old panto traditions and new stuff.

Sorry SJ, what are you saying here? Other than 'it's a scandal, something must be done!' Or: "before we go looking for a solution, we need a consensus about the steep rise in food banks" Do we need a consensus? Or, somewhat more controversially, have you considered that if the real problem is short term emergency need, then maybe food banks are the solution?

"you really can't think of scenarios where people might be driven to foodbanks as a last resort?" No, I can. But something like 1/3 of all the people using food banks said the reason was delayed benefits. The point (if I have to make it again) is (i) the campaign highlighted in the firat post on this thread says 'it's a scandal - something must be done!" (ii) the first post basically repeated that uncritically and (iii) presenting these figures in that simplistic way is knowingly misleading. If you acknowledge that it's a complex situation it makes it obviously fatuous to say "something must be done" and act as if that's enough. NB - to be scrupulously fair to the Trussell Trust, in their full press release they point at welfare system deficiencies as being the biggest problem, but on the other hand that obviously wasn't the headline they were punting for.

The point made by Neary (who knows more about this than most of us) was that it is not simple, black and white, goodies and baddies, but that if you are campaigning there is an incentive to portray it that way. A bit like this: "It seems self-evident that it's a sign of something being wrong but then as soon as someone says something like that we have an array of people going "pish and nonsense, nothing to worry about" The point I made was that the main cause identfied for people attending food banks was delayed benefits payments i.e. not people not having enough money to buy food generally, but people not having enough to on a particular day, because of mistake, cock-up, bureaucracy or whatever. I can understand that completely - do you go to the DSS and try and get a crisis loan or do you go to a food bank and get a box of free food (and probably a smile). I know what I'd do. As to the cynicism, there's been quite a lively debate generally going on about poverty, which can be summarised as "how can you be called poor and still smoke fags and/or have a big telly?". It's really just a re-hash of the old Victorian argument about deserving vs undeserving poor. The point, though, is that most people believe (with some justification) that at least some of the poor are 'undeserving', and, in the context of the food bank story, that some are picking up the free food and spending the money on fags. Who knows whether there is any truth in that?

"I know quite a few people who couldn't sell during the financial crisis and were forced to rent out their first home to fund a move and now have 500K to a million in debt. Even a very small rise in mortgage rates would hurt people in that position." I guess the question is how many people were in that position, and how many still are. Where prices have come back to 2007/8 levels, you would have expected them to sell up and get out of debt. The general point is that although the BoE base rate has been 0.5% for a few years now, mortgage rates have only been very low for buyers considered to be very low risk (high equity and high income) or for the very few who were on base rate trackers in 2007.

It is worth pointing out that the single biggest cause identified was delays in receiving benefits. There was a similar media uproar a year or so ago when Save the Children suggested that mnay UK familes routinely go hungry. This was the response from Martin Narey (head of Barnardos 2005-2011 and ex-chair of the End Child Poverty coalition): "Child poverty in the UK is very real, but it?s not the simple poverty that Save the Children describes. Low income is certainly at the heart of it, but it?s also about poverty of aspiration, education and parenting. But I know why Save the Children is talking about missed meals: it captures public attention. Many times when I ran Barnardo?s ? and during the five years in which child poverty was our No 1 priority ? I declined to sign up to campaigns suggesting that British families do not get enough in benefits to feed or clothe their children. I did so for two reasons: because it?s not true, but also because such campaigns suggest that if we met the very basic requirements of a hot meal and warm clothing, people would think that poverty had been lifted. This isn?t to say that there are not emergencies when families do need urgent help with food or clothing. But they are generally short-term and caused by an administrative glitch, a marital separation, because money has been lost and sometimes, frankly, because it has been squandered on drink or drugs. Such crises are not symptomatic of the welfare state?s failure to provide families with enough money for the basics of life" In short, it's just too simplistic to say 'this is a rich country but some people can't afford to eat'. The reasons why people at a particular time don't have money to buy food are many and varied. One example that was widely reported this week, in apparent support of the Trussell Trust campaign, was of a JP Morgan banker with 2 kids at public school who got made redundant, had his credit cards cancelled, and couldn't get any cash to buy food. It's also worth saying (tho' a bit cynical) that if you give away anything of value for free you should expect demand to increase - it's not necessarily evidence of growing need.

Re interest rates, I wonder whether there are many current owners who are 'zombies' i.e. can only pay their mortgage debts because they have a very low pay rate and/or their mortgage company is unwilling to repossess. It's now been 5 year since the worst point of the credit crunch to the vast majority of borrowers (everybody who wasn't on a long term fix or pure floating rate) will have had to re-mortgage during that time. To get a really low rate they will have had to be both equity and income rich so would be likely to be able to withstand a rise to more 'normal' levels. Because of that it's difficult to see rate rises leading to falls in prices, but should definitely act as a brake on house price inflation. Re overseas money, it's difficult to see any reason for that changing imminently, particularly at the top end. I saw a news report recently that said foreign buyers of ?1 million + properties came from > 40 different countries. It's a fashion thing; London has always been attractive to the global wealthy for various reasons, and there are now more of them, from more countries, and London seems to be even more attractive.

"But let's take that two salary couple - what joint income do you want to give them? 80k? 3.5 times 50 k = 175k + second income of 30k = 205k That's not buying much. Even in Norwood" If we're going to talk in generalities, we can hardly treat Norwood as the extreme case. Many people who work in London don't live in London at all - they live in Harlow, Watford, Slough etc. - where ?205k does buy more, even after taking commuting costs into account. Prices in ED reflect demand, and as has been observed, that demand does not appear to be primarily driven by over-leveraged buyers, but by high earning, equity rich folks who have been persuaded that ED has 'upped and come'. What is happening here now is near on exactly what happened 30 years ago in Islington, 20 years ago in Notting Hill and 10 years ago in Dalston. The reason it's kept on happening is because London has continued to get richer and more (comparatively) rich people, both foreign and domestic, have decided they want to live/own property in the city rather then the burbs. All of which is not to say that there isn;t anything wrong with the housing market in London and SE England, in particular in relation to artificial limits on supply. But even if that changed, it's unlikely to make a significant dent in prime London property prices (and, strange as it may seem, SE22 is creeping into the lowest level of 'prime' housing).

I confess that unhappily I wasn't that surprised that, when asked by a prospective client, agents were willing to go along with it. What this doesn't tell us though is whether this is in fact widespread i.e. agents actually being asked to discriminate based on race by real landlords, or discriminating for anuy other reason.

Portugal, and specifically the Siver Coast - about an hour north of Lisbon. We had an excellent hoiday there is summer 2012. I reckon you could do a week there with five people for < ?2k, or two weeks for < ?3k. Easyjet flights to Lisbon x 5, about ?800, a hire car ?200/week, a decent apartment/house with a pool, about ?800/week. Lots of properties on the rental websites: http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/rentals/sao-martinho-do-porto/381913 Also, costs when you get there are v low by W Europe standards - a coffee is 1 euro, an ice cream 1.50, a sandwich 2-3 euros etc. I also liked the fact that there was a real mix of people - lots of Spanish and Portuguese, plus Brits, French, German, Dutch - and generally less busy than other holiday spots.