Ellee Seymour

While the world debates the legacy of Tony Blair’s tempestuous leadership - 10 years on Wednesday - the legacy of his ridiculed deputy leader will come under far less scrutiny when he steps down. After all, what is there to say? What remarkable achievement has marked John Prescott’s term in office, one of the highest in the land, which limped from one scandal or disastrous decision to another ?

Meanwhile, having been booted unceremoniously out of Dorneywood, has it remained unoccupied since, with the taxpayer continuing to foot the bill?

While Tracey Temple may rue the day she embarked on her poorly judged fling with croquet loving Prezza, she is now barely recognisable a year later; let’s hope honours are not bestowed on Prescott after repeatedly bringing derision to his privileged position. 

The latest surprise is to learn that two-Jags Prescott is now an environmental champion; this is as convincing as saying Gordon Brown will abolish university tuition fees or inheritance tax.

Earlier this month, Prescott was was in Prague launching a youth forum on climate change, clutching his copy of the Stern report. At the same time, he is spearheading the destruction of our environment; if you can’t buy a house with a  decent sized garden in future years, you know who to blame, that is the Prescott legacy …..

He certainly kept us entertained, here he is, energetically punching a protestor. What are your highlights of the Prescott years?

My name is Veronica and I am a reformed alcoholic. And I don’t want it to happen to you too, which is why I have trained as a therapist and launched a training programme.

There has been considerable media coverage about Alcohol Concern’s idea recommending the prosecution of parents who allow under 15-year-olds to drink. However, I don’t believe prosecuting adults this way is the right approach. I remember when I was a teenager, and how if anything was forbidden, it immediately became more attractive and desirable. What I feel is needed now is investment into young people’s emotional lives; we need to look at the root causes of why people drink to such extreme levels.

The charity is absolutely right in bringing this serious issue to our attention, highlighting the massive problem we have in this country due to alcohol abuse, how we have indeed created a culture where binge drinking has been so normalised that most young people see this behaviour as acceptable and emulate it. This isn’t the odd person from a bad background drinking too much, this is the majority of the population who drink, drinking more than is good for them and many too dangerous levels.

I was a teenage binge drinker, I remember lying in the gutter in my own vomit after pub closing time. The reason I drank was because it changed how I felt because I had no confidence or self-esteem, I didn’t know how to have relationships with people. Alcohol made all of that better, it gave me confidence and bravado, I felt invincible, and then of course came the hangovers, depression, self loathing and guilt.

What I’m saying is we need to look at the reasons why young people and adults drink and start there; it has nothing to do with accessibility of alcohol. If someone has a drink problem and likes the effects of alcohol as much as I did, trust me they’ll find a way to get it.

This is Veronica’s story in full.

* This is the first of many posts I will regularly be posting from Veronica and she will writing on this subject too on her site. We are going to be working together to promote her work with PR blogging - so do keep checking her out. I have known Veronica for a couple of years now and she is totally dedicated to this cause and very professional, she genuinely wants to help as many people as possible.

Today I shall be in Cambridge participating in human rights debates, including ‘honour’ based violence against women, secret detention, children’s rights and the Israel-Palestine conflict. What better time to raise the mysterious disappearance of BBC reporter Alan Johstone which is causing increasing concern.

Expert speakers will include activists and policy experts from Amnesty, (which I used to belong to), Human Rights Watch, Liberty, and the Southall Black Sisters, along with academics and lawyers specialising in human rights issues.

A bonus is the venue, the glorious St John’s College, where many brilliant brains have sought, and continue to seek, academic excellence; it is a truly awe-inspiring place.

Update: This conference was well timed to coincide with the Libyan terror suspects winning their appeal against deportation from the UK fearing they would be tortured if sent home. Under international human rights law, the UK does not deport people to regimes where they may face persecution or torture.

Ben Ward, from Human Rights Watch, spoke about this, but insisted that it was wrong to return anyone to a country where this could happen, that we cannot trust any promises given by a government known to torture prisoners. He does not believe our national security is any worse today than after WW2. He believes the way forward is to work with the governments in countries known to abuse human rights, something he knows will take a very long time.

Does anyone have any ideas how this can work?

If saving £200 million a year is not good enough reason to stop the ridiculous European Parliament’s travelling circus sitting in Strasbourg to simply appease the French, then how about on grounds of saving carbon emissions.

A green study of the European Parliament’s two-seat operation, including environmental costs, transport and energy’, has shown this wasteful journey produces an extra 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.

Green MEPs have grabbed this moment to urge the EU to “show environmental leadership” and “close the Strasbourg building immediately in order to put its own house in order’”.

Conservatives have a strong voice on this too, with Timothy Kirkhope MEP, Conservative Leader in the European Parliament, saying:

“Having a second Parliamentary seat effectively means pouring millions of pounds paid by British taxpayers down the plughole and such nonsense destroys voters’ trust in the EU. To be voting on environmental issues when we continue to have to uproot every month with thousands of extra road, rail and plane journeys is nothing short of ridiculous.”

If the EU is as committed as it claims to tackling climate change, then how can it ignore this study? It is the equivalent of our MPs and their staff packing their bags and travelling from Westminster to say Edinburgh once a month in order to vote on parliamentary issues, something that is inconceivable.

*I am going to hear climate change denier Nigel Calder speak in Cambridge tomorrow at the city’s annual literary event, Wordfest. I’m interested to see what kind of support he gets.

Update: 3 May, Robert Sturdy’s letter in The Independent on this subject.

I would like to take my mother Loula to Greece for a week next month, back to Thessaloniki, her birthplace. I’m planning to book a hotel via the internet and wondered which online site you would recommend for flights.

I doubt I will be as lucky as Maalie and find a 1p flight which he has paid each way for a trip to Finland (read the comments).

One of my favourite films is Shirley Valentine, I love the free spirited way she went off and had an adventure when she felt unappreciated at home, how she stayed on in her Greek idyll.

When I feel my family push me too far, I threaten to go off and do a Shirley Valentine, and they look worried when I play the video, obviously thinking: “We had better behave, just in case mum means it.” It always does the trick.

Who says celebrity endorsement doesn’t work?  I would have liked one of these £5 eco-friendly bleached cotton shopping bags too, but there was no way  I was going to get up early and queue,  even if Reese Witherspoon, Lily Allen and Alicia Silverstone carry them around.

I’m delighted that these bags carry a simple green message to encourage the reduction of plastic bags. They also look sturdy and practical . The Anya Hindmarch creations have now sold out, and are fetching around £200 on Ebay.

The bag’s must-have credentials were firmly secured when it was chosen as the goodie-bag for guests at the 2007 Vanity Fair Oscar night party. Only 20,000 went on sale in Sainsbury’s.

People queued for hours when a few of the bags were sold at Hindmarch’s London boutique last month, and  the simple bag has become a symbol of ethical intent. It’s cool to be seen to be green.

I can understand queuing to buy a house at a bargain price, but surely not a £5 bag. Have you ever queued up overnight and slept rough so you could snap up a bargain?

I send my deepest sympathy to our fearless campaigning MP Richard Bacon whose tears of ecstatic joy have turned to tears of unimaginable sorrow within the space of two days.

On Monday, Richard’s wife gave Victoria gave birth to their first child. Tragically, his mother-in-law Elizabeth Panton died yesterday on a visit to see their baby son Rollo in a horrific accident. Doctors are also battling to save the leg of his young niece Pollyanna, aged two.

Mrs Panton was crushed against a wall by a bus after travelling to London from her home in Shropshire to see her new grandchild and was waiting for a bus to return home when it mounted the pavement.

I hope the innocent smiles of Rollo, with his soft dimples and sweet gurgling sounds, born on Shakespeare’s birthday and St George’s Day, will help them their grief. 

Daggers are already all but drawn in Labour’s leadership contest, with would-be contenders Michael Meacher and  John McDonnell publicly rubbishing each other’s claims.

A campaign has also been launched on facebook called Stand Down Meacher by Labour blogger Grimmerupnorth, and has 125 members so far. It supports McDonnell as the only credible left candidate for Labour leader.

All-guns-blaring Meacher has a letter in today’s Guardian claiming that McDonnell has only 15 verbal pledges, compared to the 24 signed statements he has from fellow MPs.

And, just to twist the knife even further, Meacher adds:

“The figures make it quite clear that it is impossible for him to get anywhere near the 45 nominations required. That is all the more the case when his supporters have admitted that nearly all of them would transfer to me if he withdrew, while only a handful of my supporters would transfer to him if I withdrew.”

McDonnell has retaliated by accusing Meacher of making “some outrageous verging on the delusional statements,” that in fact Meacher’s support is dwindling. He says on his blog:

“The problem is that Michael Meacher will not reveal even in the strictest confidence the list of nominations he claims to have secured. His only known supporters - Alan Simpson, Kelvin Hopkins and even Michael’s own personal assistant - have confirmed that they have not seen any list

“Over the last month Michael Meacher has claimed 50 nominations secured. This then went down to 40. It is now down to 25. In Saturday’s Guardian it suggested what most believe to be accurate that he has only two firm commitments. In the Guardian today he claims to have signed statements from 25 MPs confirming that they will nominate him. Nobody has seen these statements.”

Meacher even believes that Brown’s supporters want to avoid a contest against him because of Brown’s poor record in office:

“But by playing down my support so absurdly and by exaggerating his support beyond anything that is realistic, Gordon Brown’s supporters are certainly making one thing crystal clear: they want to avoid a contest against me at all costs, and for good reason. His record on the environment, inequality, privatisation and PFI, means testing and Trident are all issues on which they fear a challenge from me. If there is to be a contest, they want John McDonnell to be their opponent.

“That is indeed the reason I’m standing - as the one centre-left candidate who can secure enough of the nominations to ensure that a debate does take place about the future direction of the government and that party members do have a choice of their leader, not have one imposed on them.”

In desperation, McDonnell has made this appeal:

“If there is anyone who feels they can exert any influence over Michael Meacher at this stage please do all you can to assist. His behaviour may well mean that we run the risk that no Left candidate gets on the ballot paper.”

How will this undignified row end? It is making Labour a laughing stock.

One of my first blogging heroes was - and still is - Neville Hobson and I am really looking forward to meeting him this evening for the first time when he speaks at this PR Unspun event in London.

Neville is a master extraordinaire in the social media field, and is very much into virtual marketing.

I am also looking forward to meeting Jacqui White, online communications director at Edelman, Stephanie Bonnet, director of  Burson-Marsteller, and  Mark Rogers, CEO of Market Sentinel.

This Chinwag event is certainly good value with its first-class speakers, especially compared to this PR and New Media conference charging around £700. It might have been worth it if Neville had been there - he was one of Europe’s first pioneering bloggers - but I am fortunate enough to only be paying £20 for the pleasure of his company and knowledge ….

How could any father accept money from a friend of his daughter’s suspected killer? I thought at first that Tim Blackman was brilliant in travelling to Japan to highlight Lucie’s disappearance, visiting bars with her photo.

His relentless pursuit helped lead to the arrest and 6 1/2 year trial of millionaire playboy Joji Obara, who has just been cleared of Lucie Blackman’s murder due to lack of evidence. Gross police inefficiency and long delays meant that no forensic evidence could be pinned on Obara, who has been jailed for life for raping nine other women, including an Australian who also died. And why would he offer the money if he was innocent?

He could be released after only six years or so as the 1,600 days served during the trial will be deducted from the sentence, and lifers are eligible for parole after 10 years.

Lucie had been drugged, raped then dismembered, her long blonde hair cut off and her head encased in concrete. Her remains were found in a cave.

What I can’t understand is how Tim Blackman could have accepted £450,000 (100 million yen) blood money, or “condolence” money, as he calls it. The chances are that it came directly from Obara and he used his friend as a go-between. By accepting the money, it meant that Obara stood less chance of being hanged or receiving a full life sentence had he been convicted, it meant that justice would not be served.

Only Tim Blackman knows why he compromised himself in accepting this money. His former wife Jane, who refused an offer of the same money herself — despite what she describes as a “campaign” by the defence team to get her to accept it — accused him of behaving worse than Judas:

“As far as I am concerned, Tim accepted 100 million pieces of silver. Judas was content with just 30. It’s bad enough losing your daughter in the terrible circumstances that Lucie died. But to then find out that her father seems to have colluded with the defence team has been emotionally crippling.”