The best way to let others know you have something for sale is to simply email your unique 2good2tip stall address to all your friends and family. So many times I have heard people say ‘ if I’d known you wanted to get rid of that, I would have made you an offer for it’ – its true ! There is always someone close by who will want what you no longer need and are happy to come get it and … pay you money for it! – so whizz them your stall on email so they can take a peek what you have on offer !

This is one of those tear-jerker stories I usually avoid:  it shows people at both our worst and our best.

About 150 km North-East of Ottawa, there once was a musher who bred Huskies as sled dogs.  Then the economy went bad….

This is the ‘worst’ bit….I will never understand how anyone, anyone can just leave animals tied up, without food or water….over a hundred of them!

I don’t know the full story, but my ‘educated guess’ is that the owner permitted rescuers to look after the dogs and eventually surrendered ownership to them in exchange for not facing charges.  Personally, I would find it difficult to be so generous with such a person.  The animal rescue folk are better people than I!

OK – here is the ‘best’ bit:  people are helping.  Complete strangers are opening their hearts and homes, and many others are opening their wallets. Looking after and protecting those who are not able to do it themselves (and, let’s not forget, in our society, we do not permit dogs to ‘look after themselves’!) is one of those best qualities we have.

My son brought this story home from school and asked me to blog about it, to make sure that as many people as possible learned about it. He proudly told me that his teacher was one of those good people who are helping.  And, he himself is dipping into his allowance…

Like I said – a tearjerker of a story!

table top sale

This 2good2tip table has so far managed to raise 45 pounds in for a local charity. Recycle your old stuff and raise some christmas cash – maybe donate it to the charity closest to your heart.

THANKSGIVING JUST GOT A BIT MORE SOCIAL

Making the Tasty Treats

The first year my mother tried to make a turkey, she apparently over-stuffed the bird and a turkey powder keg blew a hole through the oven door exploding precious white meat all over the wall of our kitchen. Being that I had heard this story on numerous occasions, my first attempt at bird making was very well planned.

Here are a few sites to help get you started using language even the most beginner chef can understand. As an added bonus, after several years of trial-and-error, the Marauder kitchen recommends sage butter (and lots of it) underneath the skin. Also, when attempting to brine, soaking a bird in the crisper overnight is probably not the best idea…

How-Tos:

Videos to impress the giblets out of your friends:

Amazing recipes itemized by course:

Wine Pairing

Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV offers 12 wine selections to pair with the bird, a somewhat more difficult wine-pairing item.

Giving Thanks

Tweetsgiving

Last year, Epic Change launched Tweetsgiving raising $11,000 for charity in 48 hours. Those donations were used to build a classroom in Tanzania. How’s that for giving thanks? This year, the bar has been raised to $100,000. While many are returning for their third plate of stuffing, Tweetsgiving will be raising awareness across social networks from YouTube to Twitter asking users what they are thankful for. Follow @tweetsgiving on Twitter and tweet about what you’re thankful for from now until the 27^th using the hashtag “#tweetsgiving” at the end of your tweet.

Socialvibe

Socialvibe donates to charity by marketing brands such as Kraft, Timberland, and Powerbar. Every time a brand is successfully marketed, charity benefits. At first, I thought this sounded a little sleazy. But really, marketers scream for your attention on a daily basis. At least in this case, charities benefit somewhere along the line.

Download the Thanksgiving Feast App to play. Every time you add a meal to the table, a real meal is provided through the UN World Food Programme.

Setting the Mood: Best Thanksgiving Song

Sure, this song is old but no has yet to top Adam Sandler on the joys of Thanksgiving.

Talking Tryptophan

Yet again this year, you can get your thanks on via many of your favorite social networks.

Get real-time cooking advice from the Butterball team either on their Twitter feed or Facebook page.

What to do when mom locks herself in the bathroom because your 35-year old brother insists on making fart noises at the table? Butterball may not have the answer for that one…

Get your spirit on with 23,000 of your other friends on the Thanksgiving fan page.

Mobile App Fun

iHost: Thanksgiving

Developed by a Rhode Islander (big-ups to my home state), iHost helps you get organized from menu, shopping list to budget. Their most recent update supposedly added recipes from local Newport, RI chefs. A little Rhode Island flavor has come to southern California. Very nice.

Chef’s Timer

If you’ve cooked with your iPhone in tow, as I always do, you know the device only has one timer. In most situations, that works just fine. But, what about situations where you have three side dishes and a turkey crammed into your tiny NYC oven while your friends stare at your assortment of tiny snacks in disdain? Yup…there’s an app for that.

Thanksgiving = Football

For those of you who know me, you understand why this comes last in the list. I know next to nothing about football. I do know that the grunting emanating from living rooms countrywide leads me to believe that you all care. This year, the NFL is offering a central portal for all 3 Thanksgiving games.

From Marauder’s home to yours, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The TwitterKids of Tanzania (epicchangeblog.org)
• Thanksgiving Wine Picks: A Trainwreck of Love (dirtysouthwine.com)
• How To Cook A Turkey: 7 Tips From Butterball University (huffingtonpost.com)
• Turkey tips from experts at Butterball University (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Brine Your Thanksgiving Turkey for Juicier Results [Food] (lifehacker.com)
• Recipes for a Vegan Thanksgiving (well.blogs.nytimes.com)
• How To Carve a Turkey (howcast.com)

Gary Hayes, autor del excelente blog Personalized Media, ha desarrollado un contador de Social Media, Mobiles y Gaming.  Entre las cosas mas geniales del contador, es el hecho de que Gary lo ha hecho “portable”, es decir, que es un widget que puedes incrustar en tu blog e incluso descargar a tu escritorio para tener un screenshot del momento en que lo “tomas”. Solo vean que genial esta:

Nota: La aplicacion es un un flash que pueden ver funcionando en el blog de Gary. Nos estamos mudando de plataforma, asi que mientras tanto, solo puedo pegar un screenshot de la aplicacion

Gary escribe que el contador esta basado en estadisticas que multiples sitios han publicado hasta final de septiembre 2009.  La cantidad de sitios es impresionante, y denota la habilidad y practica que cualquier persona seriamente interesada en social media y new marketing debe tener.  Copia aca del blog de Gary:

• 20 hours of video uploaded every minute onto YouTube (source YouTube blog Aug 09)
• Facebook 600k new members per day, and photos, videos per month, 700mill & 4 mill respectively (source Inside Facebook Feb 09)
• Twitter 18 million new users per year & 4 million tweets sent daily (source TechCrunch Apr 09)
• iPolicy UK – SMS messaging has a bright future (Aug 09)
• 900 000 blogs posts put up every day (source Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2008)
• YouTube daily, 96 million videos watched, $1mill bandwidth costs (source Comscore Jul 06 !)
• UPDATE: YouTube 1Billion watched per day SMH (2009)- counter updated!
• Second Life 250k virtual goods made daily, text messages 1250 per second (source Linden Lab release Sep 09)
• Money – $5.5 billion on virtual goods (casual & game worlds) even Facebooks gifts make $70 million annually (source Viximo Aug 09)
• Flickr has 73 million visitors a month who upload 700 million photos (source Yahoo Mar 09)
• Mobile social network subscribers – 92.5 million at the end of 2008, by end of 2013 rising to between 641.6-873.1 million or 132 mill annually (source Informa PDF)
• SMS – Over 2.3 trillion messages will be sent across major markets worldwide in 2008 (source Everysingleoneofus sms statistics)

I cannot say nothing least that a big THANK YOU to Gary for this greatest effort and such a great tool!

Fuente: Gary’s Social Media Count

cheers,

It’s fascinating to watch how different companies attempt to harness social media to create what Seth Godin describes as tribes.

Clearly there are many benefits to organisations creating online communities and engaging with their customers and potential customers via social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter – the most obvious being that communication is interactive, direct and instant.

One school of thought says its best to amass huge tribes (some companies by virtue of their brand power are able to do this anyway). Coca Cola’s Facebook Page for example, has some 3,773, 653 fans. But does size really matter, or is it more important to have a small, but highly interactive tribe?

Blue Dog Photography is one example of a small company who has created an engaged tribe. This photography training company is run by commercial photographers Danielle and Nick Lancaster out of Tamborine Mountain, in Australia’s Gold Coast Hinterland. Their Facebook Group page is relatively new and small – about 250 members. I joined the group after attending some Blue Dog workshops this year.

Blue Dog Photography - tribe-building via Facebook

Blue Dog engages with its workshop participants by offering a weekly photo competition. Open only to people who have attended a workshop, this competition instantly creates a feeling of exclusivity. Participants are asked to list the camera settings of the shots they submit, which promotes ongoing learning and information sharing. Members are invited to comment on each other’s photos, which promotes much discussion amongst the group, and is leading to the formation of many new Facebook friendships.

 Blue Dog lists details of upcoming workshops and retreats so that group members are always aware of when the next event is on – but it never feels like a sales pitch. You can practically hear the cheers from the community each time new workshops dates are announced. More recently, Blue Dog started posting daily updates from its photography tours on Fraser Island and Vanuatu. What better PR than to have happy customers posting amazing pictures to their Facebook and Flikr profiles, and the photo album on the Blue Dog page.

From a customer perspective, the regular interaction between the Lancaster’s and their “customers” (who they more frequently refer to as friends), is really valued. They converse online with the same friendly, professional approach they adopt in their workshops, so the “Blue Dog experience” is consistent wherever the interaction takes place. Blue Dog uses Facebook to provide advice and commentary on people’s images, regular tips about photography via the Blue Dog blog, links to photographic exhibitions, and information that is generally useful to their growing base of fans.

From a marketing perspective, it’s a positive example of how a relatively small business can engage instantly, regularly and cost effectively, with its clients and prospective clients. Importantly, it demonstrates that tribes don’t have to be huge to be effective. In the case of Blue Dog Photography’s tribe, intensity is definitely winning out over quantity.

Melanie Surplice has more than 12 years of experience in international BtoB marketing communications and is a former public relations professional. She is a part time Report Writer in the Dow Jones Media Lab based in Australia.

How will you wear yours?

This year for BBC Children in Need, Pudsey has gone digital.  The charity has upped it’s social media game and started fundraising with its ‘Pudspace’ tool, Twitter feed and Facebook page.  You can also ‘Pudsify’ your Bebo page, and buy virutal bandanas and Pudsey images for photos and social media icons.

Presumably all this is a pretty effective hook to get young people more involved in Children in Need.  It seems that with the recession upon us it’s hoped that reaching more people virtually is the way forward.

But when speaking to a friend she said something along the lines of ‘every year it creeps up on me and I have no idea it’s even on unless I flick on the TV accidentally’.  This person doesn’t even live with her head in the sand, which begs the question of why marketing around the ‘biggest night in of the year’ isn’t better?

Obviously thousands of people are involved and are doing a lot in their local communities for Children in Need.  People have been donating their socks off.  But it’s clear that new audiences aren’t being grabbed at a rate they could be.  So is social media the answer?

In these online social media times it seems to be the answer to everything, so I merrily joined the Facebook group and followed on Twitter… or tried to.  And to think I was just starting to get excited about a charity starting to use the internet effectively to market what they do!  This is one of my biggest gripes – charities just do not do themselves justice in the online world. For many of these grassroots world-savers (and I don’t mean that with any sarcasm) they think the work on the ground is more important.  And to some extent I agree.  But the funding opportunities are endless if more people know about you and what you do-then you can help more people.  Simple.  Charities that do the most amazing work deserve to be known about, and should be interacting with the online community as well as they do with the physical community.  After all, they’re often at the heart of what’s important in the physical world.

So, back to the point at hand.  You’d think a massive charity like Children in Need would be successfully leading the way online, for other charities to follow.  Well luckily now they are, if you can find them.  There are so many Children in Need Facebook pages I have no idea where to start.  They have varying member numbers, and all have limited information.  So could the real BBC Children in Need please stand up?  It’s the same with Twitter - there are more than one.

Because people are asked to get involved in their own communities it’s understandable that they’d want to promote their individual events online.  So have we found a limit to the use of social media when it comes to events like this?  Or is there a more effective way of centralising some of the offshoots?  Either way the official Children in Need could and should make it glaringly obvious who they are.

Have you ever felt fearful?  Do you worry a lot?  Do you feel unsafe in your own home or community?  Do you spend a lot of time thinking about your own safety?  Do you worry about your future?  Do you worry about the swine flu outbreaks?  Do you worry about your health?  Do you dwell on illness and death?  Do you worry about your job?  Do you worry about your safety on the highways?  Are your fears seemingly endless?

Well, did you know that  according to Dr. W.F. Peate in his book “Native Healing : Four Sacred Paths to Health”, the more pessimistic you are the more likely you are to develop heart disease?  He writes that  the Veteran’s Affairs Normative Aging study looked at over 2800 men over the past 46 years  and found that those who were deemed pessimistic developed  heart disease more often than not.  He reports that the results were based their findings on the Minnesota Multiphasic  Personality Inventory.  They found that pessimists had twice as much heart disease as optimistic people.  Think about that…could we be attracting the very thing that kills us because we dwell on all the negatives?

Dr. Peate also asks the question of… “what has the greatest effect on the differences in heart disease between rich and poor neighborhoods:  income, education, occupation, smoking, physical activity, diabetes, blood pressure, type of cholesterol, weight or body mass index?”

He stated that …”the answer, based on research in Britain and across the United States, may surprise us.”   He states that “Something beyond genetics, lifestyle, behavior, income, or health care disparities affect our health.”  Dr. Peate reports that “researchers suggest two areas for intervention…enhancing the social and psychological resources of individual people and improving the quality of neighborhoods and communal life.”

M.G. Marmot, one of the authors of an important study that Peate quotes in his book, states that, “My own view is that the mind is a crucial gateway through which social influences affect physiology to cause disease.  The mind may work through effects on health-related behavior, such as smoking, eating, drinking, physical activity, or risk taking, or it may act through effects on neurendocrine or immune mechanisms.”  Basically there is a good chance that what we think and feel affects our wellbeing.

Our bodies are marvelous machines that we need to understand and take care of.  The social influences in the neighborhoods we live in do affect our health.  Those people who feel that the world is out to get them will likely not fare as well as people who take responsibility for their bad decisions and make attempts at changing their behavior.  Those who blame others feel hopeless to change things while those who accept their part in things will make the changes needed.  It is the glass half full/half empty syndrome.

We recently visited relatives in Florida.  They live in a small 55 and over trailer parks.  What I observed there really made an impact on my thinking.  It seemed that those residents spend an inordinate amount of time talking about, thinking about, and sharing their thoughts on death and dying.  It seemed that who died, who was sick, and how sick they were was the primary theme of conversation on a continuous basis.  It permeated the community.  I hate to say this, but it seemed as if most of those people had gone there to wait to die.  That was their primary focus.

There were a few who organized bingo nights, karaoke, potluck dinners, etc.  However, the majority of the people did not attend.  Their lives consisted of game shows and dwelling on their illnesses.    And, the consequences of this negative focus was prevalent.  People just got sicker and sicker until they died.  Those who tried to create a life seemed hopeless and soon quit trying within the community.  Only those who sought activities outside the community seemed to fare better health wise. My theory is that the collective negative energy produced in the trailer park contributed to the pessimistic attitudes of the residents and thus a negative spiral existed.

Again let me suggest that you go to Youtube.com and type in “Quantum Physics applied to mind power” and listen to the various video clips that appear there.  It is quite the eye opener.  I was thinking that most workshops, symposiums, lectures, etc. are aimed at informing and changing thought.  It is obvious that those involved in these activities realize that good comes from thought changing ideas or they wouldn’t waste their time doing it.  All the self help books on the shelves are based on information and changing thought.  Psychologists and doctors spend a great deal of time trying to change our direction.

So, here we are at a cross roads of sorts.  We can embrace change or we can keep going down the same road.  We can change the way we think and feel or we can keep doing the same things we have always done.  The outcome, however, is becoming much clearer.  We have a choice to make in how we choose to live the rest of our lives.  We can work to change our communities for the better or we can live in fear and worry ourselves to death.  We can improve the lives of those around us, and by doing this, change our own life, or we can sit back and feel helpless and hopeless and continue the negative spiral we have been going down.

The choices are clear and our options sit before us.  What will you do?

Chris

sky box

There are some real bargains to be had out there on loads of the 2good2tip stalls – its worth a good old browse around to see what potential christmas pressies just waiting to be snapped up. Check out this Sky Box in Somerset.

Secondhand rules here and people are making money for christmas !

As the water recedes, the people of Cumbria join together to help each other in the aftermath of the floods…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: oceanic. The blog is also related to: ocean floor.

Home Base: (Origin) East Coast, USA

Project Bases: West Virginia, Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Colorado, California, Montana

Network Bases: USA and various other Countries

Network Communities are not publically exhibited as a list, to protect them from exploitation. SCOD functions to study, archive, and actively communicate with communities; not to make them vulnerable to outside commercial forces.

Network Communities by Location / Type (Public):

West Virginia, Spiritual Education

Virginia, Alternative

North Carolina, Alternative Arts

Maryland, Organic Farm

Virginia, Organic Farm

West Virginia, Organic Farm

Shepherdstown, Alternative

Harpers Ferry, Historic

National Park Service

Shenandoah River, Alternative

Florida, Art Farm

Colorado, Alternative Architecture

Wisconsin, Pagan

Yosemite, Miwok Tribe

Yellowstone, Lakota Tribe

Crater Lake, Klamouth Tribe

Wisconsin, Sword Arts

Georgia, Visual Arts

Texas, Military Pagan

Arizona, Alternative Architecture

Montana, Wolf Ranch

Ohio, Alternative Education

(not a complete list, to be continued…)

THIS PARTICULAR POST IS NOT INTENDED TO DEGRADE ANY POLITICAL PARTY OR GOVERNMENT, ITS SOLELY FOR THE PURPOSE OF ENTERTAINMENT.

Hyderabad. John Gupta, an MNC dude, wants to pay his tax using modern technological tools like facebook status updates or twitter tweets. Mr. Gupta, who hates to come out of his room and has made his company arrange for a workstation there itself, is planning to launch a mass agitation from within his room to force the government into accepting his demands.

“This is ridiculous. The UPA government claims it represents the young India but what is it doing to prove it? A young common Indian has to run from one office to another and gather a heap of documents even to pay money to the government. The government should take all the trouble in gathering information and documenting them if it wants money.” Mr. Gupta told Fake News.

Mr. Gupta wants the I-T department to make either a facebook or a twitter ID.

“I-T department can have a twitter ID and start following all of us young Indians. We would declare our earnings through tweets and the department can analyze and archive the data. If that sounds too cumbersome, the department could have a facebook page where we would put the required information regarding our earnings, savings etc. on the wall, if those lazy fellows don’t want to follow our status updates on facebook as well. We can even upload scanned documents on the facebook page wall if the government really wants to pain us and asks for proof.” Mr. Gupta expounded his proposed action plan.

He has sent a memorandum to the government and asked them to implement his plan within two weeks failing which he’d start a mass agitation by making facebook groups, orkut communities and various public blogs. He has asked all like minded individuals to support him in his endeavors. He was too lazy to give our reporter his contact details, where lazy like minded individuals could contact him.

As a wildlife enthusiast, I get excited at the thought of communicating with others who are passionate about observing and learning about wildlife. Since I’m lucky enough to interact online with people of all walks of life, I do take note of where I interact with some extraordinary people. The following are great communities to check out if you want to find me and others chatting about wildlife! (In no particular order…)

1) Twitter - I am continually impressed by the people I meet on Twitter. If you are a person who is passionate about something, Twitter is an excellent place to find like-minded individuals. If you are interested in finding wildlife watchers on twitter there are several ways I recommend–just by searching #wildlife, #nwf or #birding you will find new people to follow. Check out wefollow.com or twellow.com and search those who include wildlife or a specific species in their profile.

2) Wild Obs – If you’re looking to log your wildlife sightings then there are several great places for that, but if you are savvy with a phone or want to communicate their exact location–WildObs is an excellent place to go.

While many of the users are also active on Twitter the community and the photos shared on WildObs are freaking fun to check out and I feel like I can spend hours surfing through all the sightings. Definitely worth a try if you find yourself wishing to share the watching experience with others! Follow @WildObs

3) Wiser Earth – Aside from being a great look into the world’s conservation efforts, Wiser Earth is a community that helps bridge divides and provide meaningful resources for making the world a sustainable place. The community is full of passion and there are great wildlife resources posted throughout the site. Take a look and add a link to your favorite resource while you are at it! Follow @WiserEarth

4) Birdpost - While this site does cater very specifically toward birds I couldn’t leave it out. I am really impressed with the depth this site offers while giving bird watchers flexibility and a pleasing design to organize their life-lists and track their sightings. If you consider yourself a birder and you like technology you should definitely check out this site. It’s so fun to play with!  Follow @birdpost.

Would love to hear what other sites are out there…

I have been to a lot of Vietnamese Communities such as for church, events, and also holidays. I go to a Vietnamese Church call First Southern Baptist church at 31 and Camelback. In this church we do a lot of stuff such as going to different Vietnamese church for celebration on Christmas and other holiday. Also we hold camp during summer where different Vietnamese church from different state comes for a gathering and to talk about God and to expand our knowledge of God. After church I also do a lot of stuff with Vietnamese people such as going to one another house to hang out and go pick crawfish with them. Also I go to many events with the Vietnamese community. Event such as ” hội chợ”, miss áo dài, and many other Vietnamese events. Another thing I go to every year for the Vietnamese communities is their holidays such as Moon festival. There a lot of Vietnamese people there doing many thing with the communities such as making kids sing to win price and games to fundraise for their clubs.

COUNCILLOR ABJOL MIAH

Increasingly, I hear from residents concerned about the ever-expanding presence of Tesco’s in our Borough. Close to a dozen of their stores have sprung up in the last few years alone, the latest being the Tesco Express on Burdett Road opened earlier this month.

Now, a ‘Tesco Town’ adjacent to the Olympics site has been announced, complete with a primary school and library, which will further extend the multinational company’s influence in Tower Hamlets. All this has been carried off with the enthusiastic support of the New Labour-run council.

Tesco’s has also increased its dominance amongst the big supermarkets, since Safeways closed in Roman Road market. The Labour council, led by Michael Keith, stood by in the face of the threat of closure and it was left to George Galloway to write three times to the board of Morrisons/Safeways to plead with them to reconsider. But only the council had the power to offer them the inducements which might have led them to reconsider. They did not. The result has been a very serious blow to all of the businesses in the Roman Road and particularly the historic market.

Nobody is saying that Tesco’s does not have a place in Tower Hamlets. But the council’s approach has left neighbourhood convenience and grocery stores struggling to survive. These locally-run shops play an important role in the community, boosting employment and providing residents with a choice and variety of goods often not available in the large supermarkets. The owners of these stores come to me in real fear for their livelihoods, and understandably ask why the council has ignored their legitimate worries.

Recently a much-loved organic store on Roman Road that has been running for 30 years was forced to close. The manager said “Business has been slowing for the past four years across health shops with increased competition from supermarkets and other stores doing more organic and specialist products.”

I am in favour of striking a more equitable balance. Council leaders must now acknowledge that they should consider the position of local businesses struggling through the recession. A fairer approach that ensures grocery stores that are rooted in their communities can survive and prosper is essential. I am demanding that the council address this issue.

There is nothing more satisfying than living life. With our interactions in the modern western world, we are surrounded (if not swamped) in contact with social media. The internet, one of many tools that we use extensively in our daily lives can be considered the basis of social media.

As we access sites like wikipedia, facebook, twitter, youtube, windows messenger, and many others, we are advertising and using the social media. We all cooperate in society, each taking a separate role to fulfill our duties while returning home to most likely enjoying our privacy. The question can be posed of how much privacy are we really experiencing? As we return home to our own “schedule”, we find that most people still feel the need to participate in society whether for professional matters or just leisure. The cyber societies that have been established throughout the years and use of the internet compose the social media; establishing a common basis for interest or communication amongst individuals.

The cyber societies and  complete picture of the social media can be seen as our interaction with a collective in our personal privacy. We can interact from our couch, share information on the go, or talk with friends in virtually any part of the world. The social media is the most used unseen (physically, to the naked eye) source of interaction.

http://willscullypower.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/social-media-landscape.jpg

The social media map portrays the choices and possibilities that society is presented with. These are all sources for information and interaction, giving some everyday examples of sites and communities that can be accessed and used to interact with by an individual. Keeping in mind that these are few examples, the possibilities are limitless.

This is a letter from Councillor Abjol Miah published in this week’s East London Advertiser

Clement Atlee was a giant of the Labour party, committed to helping the less well off, the poor and the vulnerable and to making a fairer, more just and equal society.

He was also the most successful peacetime prime minister who established the National Health Service and the welfare state, nationalising the commanding heights of the economy so that public utilities received the investment necessary to ensure they provided a good public service.

It is a disgrace that his statue outside Limehouse Library should have been boxed up for so long after it was damaged by vandalism (‘Clem Set to be Repaired’, Advertiser, November 12). I welcome the decision to restore his statue at a more fitting location.

What an irony, though, that Conservative parliamentary candidate and former banker Time Archer should e photographed by the boxed statue with someone no one has ever heard of from Etonian David Cameron’s front bench!

Attlee’s statue will stand as an indictment of the rotten Tory policies pursued by this New Labour government and Tower Hamlets council over the last dozen years.

But it will stand as an even bigger indictment of the Tories themselves. Attlee, I am sure, would have strongly opposed the deregulation of the banks started by Archer’s hero Margaret Thatcher and continued by Tony Blair, the deregulation that has brought the world economy to its knees.

What we need in Britain is a return to the policies of Clement Attlee – public ownership that ensures public services meet the public interest, a crash council-house building programme and a system of redistributive taxation to ensure those most able to pay make a fair contribution to the public purse which pays for essential public services.

This is something you will never get from the Tories and their super-rich friends.