Allowing same sex couples to legally marry was a defining moment in the history of gay rights and a huge step in the right direction for equality. At the same time, however, it has created a situation that the Supreme Court has identified as entirely incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. Unfortunately it is still up to local government to decide whether to allow heterosexual couples to have a civil partnership. Incredulously, it has been suggested that there is now no requirement for civil partnership to exist. There are many reasons why couples of any sexual orientation may choose a civil partnership over marriage (this list is not exhaustive): -The institution of marriage is rather patriarchical. The bride is handed over to her groom by her father, and her father's job is required on the marriage certificate. -Some consider the terms husband and wife (or even man and wife as traditional vows tend to use) to imply ownership whereas partners comes across as more equal -Spoken vows are essential in marriage in front of two witnesses but not in civil partnerships. Declaring your love for each other in front of an audience can be daunting and also take away from the two most important people - the couple. -Civil partnerships are harder to dissolve than a marriage and therefore can be seen as more of a commitment. Adultery is historically not a good enough reason in its own to dissolve a civil partnership. Scotland has a history of being forerunners for equality in the UK and should follow the example set by the Isle of Man as soon as possible by allowing the same rights for all.

This is important for local health and wellbeing is represented by local people and democratic scrutiny. Until now all councillors have done is put cuts through and been hoodwinked by some CEOs of Trusts, on the HWB that do not care of the local population only payouts by big insurance companies trying to take over UK healthcare services.

This is important because female tunics are to heavy to wear in the summer months.

1 in 3 of us will suffer with a mental health issue in our lives. Whether it be depression, eating disorders, body dismorphia, suicidal feelings or stuggling to cope with life on a daily basis, yet we are not given any advice or lessons in schools to learn coping strategies or how to spot an issue and help others. We have sex education, but not education on how to cope with a relationship break up, we learn about nutrition, but not about how to spot someone who is abusing themselves with food. We need to teach our children how to cope if they or their friends, family need help.

The children are required to buy a ticket simply because the parent is entitled to a government bus pass (offering free travel for the parent with some reimbursement for the bus company from the government for it's use) due to their disability. There are strict criteria to get a pass and it is supposed to be part of opening up opportunity for those living with disability. If the parent is simply having to pay a child fare instead of their own there is only a 30% reduction in cost instead of the 100% policy intended. It is discriminatory to be charging disabled parents a fare that a parent with no disability would not have to pay. It risks isolating disabled people further and marginalising their children who often already have many disadvantages in life. I am only able to work part time due to my health needs so we along with many others have financial difficulties as a family. Many people with disability depend upon the buses far more than those who are able bodied as they may be unable to safely drive or be mobile over short distances. I myself am dependent upon bus use to get to the shops to buy food, get to GP and hospital appointments as well as taking my daughter to baby and toddler groups. My daughter is an integral part of my life, I have very little support to care for her and I am scared that a reduction in my ability to be mobile due to unfair charges will impact on the life I am able to offer her.

Due to the new sugar tax, the government is set to make £250 million a year. The very most female sanitary products could make from VAT is £130 million a year, and that's if every woman in the UK needed them, which clearly isn't possible, but it shows the maximum amount they could possibly make. It's clear sugar tax will make up this difference and making money wasn't even its primary reason for it being implemented. It's obvious female sanitary products are not a luxury item, and women all over the globe need them. Being charged VAT on them is simply ludicrous. There is simply no excuse now for VAT being on female sanitary products anymore even at a reduced rate. Periods aren't a choice, and female sanitary products are necessary to deal with it. Women shouldn't be charged on a product they NEED - not WANT, NEED. It doesn't make sense, its obvious it doesn't make sense and now it doesn't make sense financially either.

A Tight Spot The big news this week on the BBC news channel, is that Meghan Markle has started wearing tights to prepare for joining the royal family, who don’t go bare legged, for unexplained reasons of protocol. This reminds me of having to wear tights as part of my school uniform. Never mind the gender pay gap I was a child and had no income, yet I was obliged to buy a product that had built in obsolesces. My tights didn’t last long before they laddered, especially on splintery school chairs and under desks where gum had been secreted. Nail varnish only halted a ladder for so long. I was lucky if I could wear a pair of tights more than five times before throwing them out. That’s a total of a week’s wear per pair. In today’s prices Marks and Spencer sell three pairs of thick black tights for £5. There are about 40 weeks of term time in the school year, and no one wears socks in summer, or those sheer tights that tear when you are taking them out of the packet, so I spent £66 on tights each year. Or rather my parents spent £66 on tights per daughter per school year, and I have two sisters, so my parents were spending £200 per year on tights. They might have done this buy giving their daughters pocket money and hoping we learnt budgeting skills, but there was no way of saving or scheming that avoided the need for their daughters to buy 40 pairs of tights each. According to government statistics, in Britain today there are 1,564,819 girls of secondary school age in state schools, and many will attend schools where trousers are not part of the uniform for girls. So at the end of each school year British school girls have spent about £104,321,267 on 62,592,760 pairs of tights all of which are slowly decomposing on landfill sites. And I mean slowly, tights have the wondrous ability to ladder like greased lightening and decompose at a snails pace. It strikes me that this is not a great use of the earth’s resources and is good neither for the environment or the wealth of Britain’s school girls and their parents. I never liked wearing tights. I didn’t like that they failed to keep me warm in winter, and were sweaty all year round, and sweaty means fungal infections. So I say that protocol needs to move in the other direction. Wearing tights does not equate with decency. I am proud not to be royal and bare legs are fine by me. I just wish the people who design school uniform weren’t influenced by the royal family as much as they seem to be. There are better thing that Britain’s school, girls could buy with £104,321,267. Heck if all girls could wear trousers to school up-skirting and environmental disaster would both suffer a body blow. Others have campaigned on the cost of tampons for school girls, I say there’s more work for feminists to do. Ask Damian Hinds to make wearing trousers and option for all Britain’s school girls.

Only boys comics are commemorated at the moment. ‘Beano’ and ‘Dandy’ were great but the girls’ comics were loved by the other 50% if the population too. Can we have our memories recognised as well?

In London most single and double decker buses are able to accomodate disabled passengers by lowering the step or deploying a ramp for wheelchairs and mobility scooters. It has been noticed that a large number of cities and towns outside of London do not seem to have a similar service for the disabled passengers in their communities. For example: in the Greater Manchester area, where some buses do have a step that can be lowered for disabled passengers, they either do not work or only do so intermittantly, therefore causing disabled passengers with crutches a lot of distress when entering the bus and where wheelchairs and mobility scooters are concerned, where the step cannot be lowered, those disabled persons are unable to travel. The picture above shows one of the latest buses to be put into service in Germany. If you examine it closely you can see that the set of doors in the middle has a sign for wheelchair and buggy access. This includes a deployable ramp. This design should be a standard requirement on public transport that use roads.

Please consider any local café, restaurant, pub, clubs/sports associations and village hall a community asset, i.e. somewhere people can gather and socialise and ensure that these establishments are protected under Planning Law. Under current planning law a change of use is permitted through the planning application process, which in turn initiates a "consultation" process i.e. the community has the opportunity to object to an application. However Planning Officers have a tendency to ignore objections and rubber stamp development, a recent example local to me had 700 petitioned objections 13 written and the support of a Local Councillor, planning was still granted. The Government must support the community and prevent Council's and developers ignoring the wish of the local populous. Media reports that society is changing, and that the mental health of the nation is suffering, could this be because people have become insular by not going out. Pub’s, as an example, used to be a place where the local community met, socialised and resolved local issues between themselves, everybody knew their neighbour, their neighbour’s kids, etc. This sense of community is rapidly being lost. People are sitting at home becoming keyboard warriors and panicking over fake-news, they do not have an outlet to talk to others, attributing to the overall mental health of a Nation. Community assets should be protected by Law and encouraged with lesser rents, exemption from business rates, they after all are providing a service to the public, the local community and at times law enforcement. If a building cannot be maintained in it's current use, an alternative use that benefits the community would be preferable, i.e. conversion to a youth club rather that developed for profit.

If you walk into a chain Bookstore like WHSmith, Waterstones, The Works etc. you will almost inevitably never find Gay, Lesbian and Trans related fictional material that is clearly and obviously available for purchase and Non-fiction is often hidden away among Feminist and activist books which for many is highly inaccessible or is culturally shunned. This places young people and indeed older members of the Queer community in a truly difficult position. LBGTQA+ fiction is notoriously hard to get hold of in Highstreet chains and is often hidden among books about Hetrosexual people where you have to physically ask staff to find it for your which for some LBGTQA+ people puts them at risk. There needs to be at least a shelf or two dedicated to LBGTQA+ fiction and non fiction so that LBGTQA+ people can access cultural resources that involve them and their identities. It will also help to normalise the existence of LBGTQA+ people and grant educational resources to those who aren't that are accessible to all ages. Granting LBGTQA+ Fiction and Non Fiction their own dedicated section will display the historical literary achievements of people within those minorities in a way that no other place does.

Retirement-age UK citizens who migrated from commonwealth countries as children, and who have lived, worked, and paid taxes in the UK for several decades, are now having their rights as British citizens called into question. British citizens are being denied NHS treatment, evicted from council homes and denied the right to work, on the basis that they do not have the paperwork to prove their entitlement to these basic British, and fundamentally human, rights. Take the case of 63 year old Albert Thompson. He has lived and worked in London for 44 years, but was recently denied NHS treatment for cancer because he is not able to produce a British passport. He will only receive the treatment if he can produce the £54,000 needed to fund it. He arrived from Jamaica as a teenager, but the Home Office is disputing his eligibility to remain here. Last year he was evicted from his council-owned accommodation because the Home Office suddenly questioned his eligibility. According to the migration charity Praxis, they have seen a sharp rise in cases like this since records began in 2015. British citizens cannot allow this callous treatment of our friends and neighbours to continue.