MSPs urged to change law
Labour summit to tackle NI reforms
has been launched to do the same thing on a national basis.
Now, while this will involve transporting machinery longer distances, it taps into one important aspect of British farming – that differences in climate and geography mean there is a bit of a spread in the timing of seasonal jobs.
In fact, the chap who has set up the new scheme, called Farm-r – which he likens to a farming version of room letting website Airbnb – believes there are often several weeks or even months between important operations across the country.
Having worked in the agricultural supply industry he said that, while farmers in one valley were often busy with a time-critical job, their neighbours in the next valley had either finished – or were yet to start – the same job and their machines were sitting in the shed.
So he has set up a website which lets you hire machinery at the click of a mouse. The system benefits farmers both ways. They can get rental money when expensive machines would otherwise be sitting idle – or they can hire a machine rather than going to the huge expense of buying one.
What’s not to like?
John McDonnell.
The Reverend Tracy Har t was controversially imprisoned by a sheriff who ruled she flouted a court order which allowed her estranged husband visitation rights to their two children at a family centre.
The Reverend Ms Hart – who cannot be pictured for legal reasons relating to child identity – told Sheriff Gregor Murray that the visits were having a detrimental effect on their mental and physical wellbeing.
She also told him the children did not wish to have contact with their father.
But the Forfar sheriff jailed her for contempt of court 18 months ago and she served eight days of a one- year sentence before being released and cleared on appeal amid a public outcry. On Thursday, the clergywoman will address the Scottish Parliament’s public petitions committee, in the hope of securing new laws to stop violent offenders automatically qualifying for child access.
She said: “Women are urged to leave violent partners to safeguard children, but the system contradicts this by routinely ignoring their wishes.”
The Re v e re n d M s Ha r t married in 2007 and knew her husband had served 11 years for a 1992 murder which he claimed had been a “onepunch tragedy”.
But she left him in 2009 after discovering that the murder had actually been much more brutal and he had other convictions for violence.
A court then ordered he be given access to his children at a contact centre. LABOUR is to hold a special summit on how best to help self- employed workers in the wake of Tory plans to hike their National Insurance payments.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said Labour “had always been the par ty of workers, of artisans” and would produce a “radical” plan to deal with the growing number of people who work for themselves in the so-called ‘gig economy’.
Next month, he will chair talks with unions, self-employed workers and small business owners as the party seeks to develop its new policy.
He announced the move at a Labour economy conference in Glasgow just days after Philip Hammond used his Budget to reveal a planned 2% rise in Class 4 National Insurance Contributions .
Mr McDonnell recalled that the Labour movement “was born out of the struggle for decent pay and conditions when new technologies were ripping up existing ways of working”.
He told the conference: “We need that same spirit and vision again.
“So I’ll be convening a summit next month of unions, the self- employed and small businesses to develop Labour’s policy on self-employment.
“We want to win the widest possible support for change.”