Next Salon Discussion

First Tuesday current affairs discussion - Tuesday 3 September 7:00pm start
For News Review on 2 Oct 2018
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For News Review on 2 Oct 2018

Scrap the House of LordsScrap the House of Lords

by Simon Belt

 

The House of Lords has once again declared itself at odds with the process of democracy and seeking to overturn and thwart the will of the people who voted by a majority of 52% to 48% in favour of leaving the EU. The scrapping of the House of Lords is overdue and needs to be discussed openly as a course of action by all sides in favour of strengthening the democratic process in the UK. So why isn't it?

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For News Review on 2 Oct 2018

First Tuesday current affairs discussion - Tuesday 1 May 7:00pm start FIRST TUESDAY News Review on 1 May 2018

The First Tuesday discussions on current affairs aim to provide participants with a way of developing and testing our understanding of a range of current affairs topics; improving our journalistic capabilities so that we can write opinion or comment style articles for the regional or national media or blogs, respond with a thoughtful angle on radio chat shows, TV talk shows or maybe just have an interesting angle to respond with when discussing the news at work.

 

The topics selected for discussion this month are:

  • First topic introduced by Simon Belt

  • Second topic introduced by Jane Turner

 

Venue and Time

The Shakespeare Pub, 16 Fountain Street, Manchester, M2 2AA at 6:45pm for a 7:00pm start. There is a charge of £2.50 per person to cover costs incurred, which can be paid in advance by using the Eventbrite booking mechanism (see https://first-tuesday-may-2018.eventbrite.co.uk), PayPal Donate button on the left hand side of Manchester Salon website (feel free to donate on top of the £2.50 ticket), and can also be paid for on the night if booked in advance by Emailing This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

 
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For News Review on 2 Oct 2018

Cyber privacy and Facebook's influence

Cyber privacy and Facebook's influence

by Simon Belt

 

It's true that much of our social interaction takes place online these days. This is more often than not via websites or applications that other people have produced for us, Facebook being the most prominent. Data privacy laws and personal practise is perhaps playing something of a catch-up game.

 

For all the talk of big corporations in the digital sphere playing fast and loose with our data, and we should be mindful of their activities, it isn't the wild west that many talk about, well for the most part it isn't anyway. There have been some high profile data breaches that get a lot of publicity, but this isn't the norm.The big corporations like Facebook, Microsoft and Google have very secure network infrastructure with a layered approach to data security. Don't get me wrong, they are clearly in business to make money from the services they provide to us, and to third parties who pay to get in on their customer base, but this isn't the wild west.

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For News Review on 2 Oct 2018

Freezing out Russia

Freezing out Russia

by Simon Belt

 

Subsequent to the poisoning of Russian ex-double agent Sergei Skirpal and his daughter in Salisbury earlier this month, the British government blamed the Russian state as the most likely body responsible. Things have escalated with widespread tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats, that include those of America, many European countries, the EU and further afield. With such seeming coherence of western powers in targetting Russia as responsible, it's worth asking if this course of action is wise, proportionate and likely to result in a good outcome.

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For News Review on 2 Oct 2018

Coping with the weather

Coping with the weather

by Simon Belt

 

The Beast from the East has wreaked havoc on poor benign Britain, not used to the funny ways and disregard for our quiet lifestyles. The news has had stories of NHS staff walking miles to get to work, sleeping at the hospitals even, whilst many schools closed for much of last week and transport services severely affected. Many supermarkets saw unusually high purchases of milk and bread, alongside farms not being able to get tankers in to collect the milk. The M62 was closed as it goes over the pennines and drivers left stranded. As if cold winds and snow wasn't enough, we now face a double whammy with flooding dues to melting snow, high tides and burst pipes. Was the weather this last week really so bad and unusual that it should have such an impact?

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