Parish Council

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Category: General

Summary re track leading straight up from four cross way to Ridge Road: It is not 'Gulmswell Lane'

David Halpin FRCS

http://map.devon.gov.uk/dccviewer/MyLocalPaths/> LABELLED TRACK

No apologies for length. This is a very important business

History

Farms in hilly parts of Devon were poor. Wagons were not afforded. Pack horses were used to bring the crops in. Small numbers of animals would be driven up to pastures as they greened up. If wagons were available they could not be driven up this track or driven down given the steepness.

My custodianship

I opened up the long disused buddles/drains before we bought the 25 acres from the Boyds – about 32 years ago because I like to see things working and damage reversed. After the purchase I attended to them about 3 times a year and often with paid help. (Buddles above Home House Orchard and up Barcombe Lane were also opened up.) Later, when I was chairman of the Village Hall committee, heavy concrete lintels were spare. These being ideal for diverting water into the buddles, one was used for each buddle. They were fastened to the bedrock. Mark helped me in this - paid. There had been two 'rallies' prior to this – Midland Motor Club. The rallies involved at least 100 VW Beetles ?2WD. Some needed extraction by tractor. The track was widely flattened including the primroses and other flowers. Mrs Sutton, a widow of the Paignton Park Superintendent who lived by the road to Stoke, liked to walk the paths. She wept at the vandalism.

Address to Exeter Socialist Workers' Party: and NHS in Crisis – Fix it Now

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Category: NHS

I will describe the manufactured changes in the service, note fragments of the chaos, the public mind and how we might turn the tide. There will be plenty of time for questions and for contributions from you. You know that OUR NHS is in the ICU and that many want it dead.

My background helps

Qualified 1964 St Mary's. Came to the old RD&E, just down Southernhay, in 1969. After 11 years of training I became a Consultant Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgeon at Torbay and the very good Princess Elizabeth Orthopaedic Hospital which the politicians bulldozed.

I have seen frequent and mostly harmful convulsions in the service arising from political dogma. Remind me to speak of a solution I have seen for 20 years. I have almost always spoken up; sadly that sets me apart from a large majority of doctors.

1988 was a good example. That most vicious leaderene was pushing for the 'Internal Market', a hospital dog eats hospital dog. Professor Enthoven, formerly of the Rand Corporation, had been flown over. I briefed myself and could see harm in at least 3 directions, but especially the cost of a swollen bureaucracy. All Torbay consultants turned up for a presentation by the unpleasant Regional General Manager, Ms Kathreen Hawkins. I stood and said – 'with the cost of administration now being 5%, is it not likely that it will double with these plans?'. '7% at the most'. I stood again and was told to SIT DOWN' by the surgeon chairman. That still hurts. No support from my fellows. The Internal Market, which was opposed by the BMA and colleges was rammed through. £1.3+ billion of administration costs were added to a budget of £30 billion – 5% to at least 10% in the first year. I was alone amongst the consultant staff at Torbay in fighting it. That set the pattern – of being alone in this most vital of things.

Torture in Palestine. The silence of Professor Marmot and Ladies Lawrence and Evans - Part 2

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Category: Palestine/Israel

Andrew Woollatt | Ministerial Support Officer to the Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords | Government in Parliament Group | Cabinet Office

Dear Andrew,

Thank you, and for listing my correspondence.  'Chain' in this context is pejorative.  Read my first e-mail to Baroness Lawrence.  My concern was great and my approach proper, especially given her membership of the Joint Select Human Rights Committee.  That a 'chain' followed resulted from the discourteous silence towards an older, well informed citizen of the UK who had served many thousands of patients in his time.  I asked that two colleagues and myself met with Baroness Lawrence.  An unexceptional request.  I achieved it once with Dr Burns-Cox in the HoC - the International Development Committee, chairman Malcolm Bruce.  We had pleaded that the UK, with others but with Iraqi doctors central, should reconstruct the medical services in Iraq which we had destroyed in an unlawful/aggressive war - Nuremberg.  That the meeting was fruitless was no surprise.

You mention the well worn and empty 'Middle East Peace Process.'  The Zionists, from the turn of the twentieth century, planned for the expulsion of the native people and the forceful acquisition of much of the countries around Palestine.  That unlawful process continues.  The worst expression of it was the 'nakba' when in 1948 800,000 Palestinians (two thirds of the population) were driven by force of arms and by extreme terror from their homes, their land and thus their living.  The terror continues in many ways including with the screams of youngsters I tried to get Baroness Lawrence to hear.  The terrible cruelty practised by the Zionist entity on the native people is shown well in the daily bulletins sent by Leslie and Marian Bravery from NZ, and derived from the Palestinian Monitoring Group.  Attachment 1.  Please read it.  The British Press is silent also.

Syria. Pretext - chemical weapon attack > bombing Syrian civilans

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Category: Syria

Mr Stride,     MP for Central Devon and  Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster General

FORTY TWO DAYS SINCE MY LAST COMMUNICATION RE SYRIA

Mr Balchin told me that a letter from another constituent from Central Devon had been sent to the FCO, that being similar - allegedly.  I had had no way to judge that having had no response from you to my letters of 27-06-17 and 30-06-17.

http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/36-articles/syria/222-sarin-use-at-khan-sheikhoun-in-syria-the-response-of-the-uk-foreign-secretary

and no sight of the letter from the other constituent -anonymised. Your assistant had not informed me of this unusual arrangement.  'A letter from Mr X will do for Halpin.'

Aside from automated replies, you have not sent ONE WORD to me.  I am writing about the likelihood of HMG being party to further killing and maiming - under pretext - as usual.

Sarin Use at Khan Sheikhoun in Syria. The Response of the UK Foreign Secretary

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Category: Syria

Urgent E-mail to my Mr Stride, MP for Central Devon, further to that of 27-06-17 (below and with automatic response only)

Sarin Use at Khan Sheikhoun in Syria. The Response of the UK Foreign Secretary

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — 30 June 2017 — In a report released by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) confirmed that people were exposed to sarin, a chemical weapon, on 4 April 2017 in the Khan Shaykhun area, Idlib Province in the Syrian Arab Republic.

(This comes, conveniently, a few days after threats made by Messrs Trump and Spicer.)

hhttps://www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-fact-finding-mission-confirms-use-of-chemical-weapons-in-khan-shaykhun-on-4-april-2017/

…....................................

The assertion of Mr Boris Johnson, Foreign Secretary as broadcast on the BBC Today programme today (30-06-17)

“There is abundant evidence that the Assad regime (or similar) was responsible …..

…....................................

There has been much talk from the UK about the need to 'topple' President Doctor Bashar Assad, and one assumes in the manner of President Ghaddafi.

Has Mr Johnson been rational in his analysis of the maelstrom in Syria, created by the UK,US, NATO countries , and Israel along with the surrogates in the Arabian Peninsula?

He has shown no balance but only an arrogant disregard for the further loss and maiming of Syrian people, and the creation of yet more terrified refugees.