Do 'left' and 'right' have any meaning?

In yesterday's Guardian, both Toynbee and Monbiot attack the econo-tards and corporate whores who make up the Labour government, selling us out to help the stinking rich, well, get richer. Quite timely given that Alistair Darling will be presenting his budget today.

Over on Curly's blog recently Labour councillor Iain Malcolm rated the Labour party as 'centre-left'. Given that not even Thatcher sold off the NHS (and the post offices), perhaps 'centre-left' has bizarrely shifted to the right of Thatcherism.

Carbon copy Tories

In an interesting about turn, the Tories are now pilfering Labour's policies - plans for nuke power and stripping the planning system to allow nuke builds to go ahead without the tiresome interruption of citizens.

Also aping Gordon Brown, David 'Gordon' Cameron made his announcement to the CBI at their annual conference. Dave made the remarkable claim that nuke is needed to combat climate change (erm, like Gordon).

However, the unanswered question is that if nuclear is such a good prospect, why aren't the energy companies getting out their chequebooks to build new ones? There's been no new nuke build for 12 years, and nothing has been stopping anyone from building them. What are they waiting for, if it isn't for some kind of promise of Government bail out?

The real Gordon Brown must be a bit miffed. No matter how hard he's been licking the CBI's boots over the years, Martin Broughton, president of the CBI, clearly nailed his colours to the Tory mast.

It's obvious the CBI is watching the polls and have now decided to back who they think is going to be the winner.

Poor Gordon. I suppose that's a risk of getting into bed with the CBI - sooner or later they're going roll you over.

No more 99's

It's sad to see a local business go, especially one that holds so many good memories for me, but to stoop to the conceit that the smoking ban 'forced' Minchella's to sell up the business at the Nook is just pathetic.

The truth is that Minchella's at the Nook has for a long time deteriorated and had begun to look tired and need of a good makeover. Also, despite the great ice cream, milk shakes and (adequate) coffee, the range of food was boring. Cheese toasties are hardly inspiring, especially considering when successful places like Cafe Nero can serve a range of delicious food along with excellent coffee - all without whingeing about the smoking ban.

Trevor Minchella said, "The smoking ban killed off this cafe." He's wrong. Apathy killed off the cafe. Of course some smokers stopped going into Minchella's, but he failed to bring in new custom, which he acknowledged when he said, "most of my customers were from a generation who frowned at the thought of having to stand outside in the street just to smoke".

The cafe has an air of neglect, most of the time has only a skeleton staff and has also become frequented by some with a vocabulary you don't want your children to hear.

To claim that the smoking ban was responsible for the business failure is disingenuous and just provides ammunition to pro smoking lobby group FOREST.

Without the secret Minchella ice cream formula I think it's unlikely that it can carry on as an ice cream parlour.

But I do hope that some enterprising soul can take the business on and make a success of it as the Nook needs a good coffee shop, although at £325,000 it's likely to be bought by a local property developer and split up.