News from across the pond: legal guardianship of Courtney Love and the late Kurt Cobain’s daughter Frances Bean has been granted to his mum. To see what the girl who was two when her dad died looks like now click here.

Apparently:

“The court filing does not mention Love or give a reason for the guardianship [however] in recent months, Love, former frontwoman of the band Hole, has been criticized for rambling online postings that have attacked a former bandmate and others. A fashion designer sued Love in Los Angeles earlier this year over some of the posts, claiming they were libelous.”

A cautionary tale? To see what the dollar-chasing baby Spencer Eldon looks like now click here.

I’m not a big fan of acroynms but I heard a load on Tuesday at the Prevent 09 conference focused on PVE (Preventing Violent Extremism), a joined up government policy shared by the Home Office, DCLG (Department for Communities and Local Government), DSCF (Schools, Children and Families) and FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office).

The big step change in policy announced was that PVE, which was basically been anti-terror initiatives to stop militant Muslims carrying out atrocities in a 7/7 vein, is now being broadened out so those within its remit potentially include far right activity too or, as it was put in the breakout session I was at, DE (domestic extremism) as well as AQ (Al Quaeda). This includes far left, UAF (Unite Against Fascism) and animal rights although the “threat level” seems to be defined as greatest with the AQ. I’m not sure it’s a great idea to get into a competition about all this but when did CPGB or SWSS ever kill anyone? Other groups are more active in peddling hate but don’t seem to be demonised in the press in the same way as Muslims (extremist or not) are. Interestingly Gerry Gable from Searchlight spoke about how the nailbomber Copeland was always talked about as a lone wolf whereas actually he had been a member of the BNP.

An interesting day all round. Quite unlike the average sociology conference, lots more people of BME (black and minority ethnic) origin than you see on the academic circuit and lots of people from the police, local and central government.

Faux pas of the day: the moment when someone from the podium in the plenary was getting animated about how we must stop another 7-11. I thought most people found convenience stores quite handy but there you go. Of course Asian corner-shop proprieters pioneered that concept before such establishments arrived in the UK from across the pond. Pictured are John Denham (DCLG) and Samira Ahmed (C4 News), neither of whom comitted this error.

See post at Progress here. Explains how in the same week the Swiss banned minarets Brown threw open the doors of Number 10 to British Muslims to celebrate Eid. I even managed to broach the biscuit question…

In answer to Miles’ comment below, I have posted at OBV the following: 

As Brown circled the room, I told him I’d been asked to find out what biscuits he kept there. “Chocolate digestive”, he replied quick as a flash. Solid, dependable, wholesome; like the PM and his government. As for the Swiss… they’re taking the biscuit.

I’m not always the biggest supporter of the editorial line taken by Harry’s Place but the posting by David T on the decision by the Swiss in their referendum-canton-vote-thingy to ban the construction of minarets outside mosques there is spot on. The move is misguided and can only serve to whip up malcontented Muslims further in their feelings of being discrminated against. Such sentiments are often imagined and contribute to a culture of victimhood but here they appear to be legitimate.

I spent Friday morning at Kingston mosque (partly for reserach purposes) at what is their best attended day of the year when some 2,000 worshippers attend Eid prayers and a good-natured spirit prevailed throughout. A police officer and community support officer were on hand as part of their normal beat and all parties got on, taking tea together in a side room. If there was any complaint it could have potentially been about the restrictive council CPZ/mosque-goers annoying residents by double-parking but even that didn’t seem to really surface. The Royal Borough of Kingston then seems to be giving Muslims space to practice their religion but the news from Switzerland is a massive step backwards in community relations. Don’t know how far this can be put down to a system of decision-making suseptible to demogogery and knee-jerk reactions but let’s just say I’m glad we don’t share an analagous process in the UK – heaven know what would happen to public policy on hanging.

Was back in Dagenham at the weekend leafleting for Labour candidates in next year’s council elections. Blogged about earlier forays there here and here. Saw Jon Cruddas at the start who thanked me for coming down (so possibly recognised me from previous enounters) but most were young Labour folk from all over London partly spurred into action, now that  Nick Griffin has declared that he wishes to be a General Election candidate in the borough, by Facebook groups like this and this one. And talking of FB one of the ward candidates for Labour has been letting slip some interesting views on the monarachy via that forum which at least has generated some healthy debate on- and off-line.

Fact of the day was that in Conservative-stronghold Gidea Park Tory Havering Council spends three times more on pavements than they do in the Labour-voting Rainham Village we were in. General reception was ok, when people were in.  Most reaffirmed that they’d be backing Labour, we didn’t  come across any (openly) BNP sympathisers and had no shoes thrown at us. As Mandelson has said Labour need to be on the offensive and fight like an opposition these days. I heard it said on Saturday that complacency in Barking and Dagenham as a forever-presumed-to-be Labour citadel contributed to their erosion on the council; they still have a decent majority but there’s been a growth in the BNP since 2006 who are numerous enough to be the official opposition. There’s an enthusiastic team of volunteers working hard to reverse this. Join the Facebook group(s) for more details.

The picture includes Denis the candidate (in blue pulley), Josh from Islington, John the organiser (with board) and me.

Had a post at CiF today arguing that after years of people sneering at suburbia it’s now become cool, albeit in a kitschy way.  See this recent Evening Standard article here, New Book “The Freedoms of Suburbia” by Paul Barker and London Transport Museum’s current exhibition – details here – for more evidence. A talk for those interested in how the Tube facilitated the growth of London neighbourhoods on the edge is on tomorrow night at the Museum, whose poster I have displayed below here:

Hell even the kids in America are getting in on the act as last month’s mega suburban conference/ convention at Hofstra University in Hempsted, Long Island (a suburb of New York) demontrated.

The best bit of the Guardian thing (in myopinion) ended up on cutting room floor. It was meant to conclude with the words “Now where’s that old Spandau LP of mine?” (Read the article in order to “get” it).

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the UN Convention on Rights of the Child, a landmark declaration. Since then this has been built on with last year’s Manifesto for Children. Yet a disturbing report today from the charity World Vision shows that nearly nine million children won’t see their fifth birthday – that’s 8.8 million or 24,000 deaths. As mum of a five year old it’s a shocker.

All this is largely preventable: vitamin and mineral supplements to beat malnutrition  (like Oral Rehydration Salts that cost 10p)  and proper postnatal care to prevent post pregnancy complications and infections could turn this around but an agreement made in 2000 by the UN and Western governments to reduce infant mortality by two thirds by 2015 is falling way short of its target.

World Vision is now campaigning for rich countries to increase their commitment to health from the current level of $16 billion a year to $42.5 billion by 2015 to meet the Millennium Development Goals –  equivalent to five days of health spending in the USA. Significant progress has been achieved eg in Malawi, of every 1,000 babies born, 125 more children survived to their fifth birthdays in 2008 than they did in 1990. But there’s a long way to go.

Ways in which you can do your bit to increase awareness are listed here. If all this wasn’t so far away it’d be more widely considered scandalous – which it is in the 9th year of the new century.

Image courtesy of Channel 4 and their new interactive web2 type site Who Knows Who which reveals the incestuous nature of life at the top. Related programming begins on Saturday without another airing of faction docu-drama When Boris Met Dave at 8pm.

The nation feels terrible about the situation that’s arisen about Mrs Janes. Losing your own child is the worst nightmare for every parent – her son Jamie was just 20 years old. The PM-penned sloppy-looking letter was not appreciated by her, although by contrast other recipients of similar ones were on the tv news yesterday saying they were touched by the hand-written aspect of theirs. However having just clicked on the Sun website to hear the conversation between Gordon Brown and her I wonder if there is there a danger that the Murdoch rag is using the greiving mum to score points against a PM who it openly declared war on during the week of the Labour party conference. Why else would a transcript of the 13 minute conversation be available on several pages of the paper today? Obviously the Sun rigged the whole thing up, who normally records phone conversations after all? The clickable version is an edited highlights of 4 mins, obviously selectively cut.

Gordon Brown has written a few of these before (229) and sadly Mrs Janes’ one will not be the last. It was sobering to hear her describe exactly what happened to her son: bringing a human dimension to figures that we hear about in an often clinical way. The timing of all this was all the more poignant this poppy season with Rememberance Day having recently happened but let’s hope she is not succumbing to playing out the political agendas of the Sun and the Murdochs.

This was the best pic I could find but following the dribs and drabs coming out, it looks like it’s the Clapperboard signalling CUT  for state sponsored property purchase gains/ duck-houses/ moat cleaning/ porn DVDs/ gingernut biccies/ keeping it the family regarding staffing arrangements.

Opening titles for the cinema-themed Granada show of yesteryear are here (1981 version) while a whole episode (from that golden year 1972) is a click away here.