20 differences between a district council and a county council, using examples from councils in Hampshire

District and country councils have many difference within the United Kingdom. County councils often cover a population of roughly 500,000 to one and half million whereas district councils is much less, covering roughly a population of 100,000. However, although district councils cover less of a population than a county council, in each county council there is around four-14 district councils.

In the early 90s, the local government system in England was revised and so came about the single and two-teir system. The two-tier system represents a city and is divided into a district and county council. Single tier councils are unitary authorities with have the combined powers of district and county council. For example, Hampshire is a county council, a unitary authority in Hampshire is Portsmouth and Southampton and Winchester City Council is a district council.

A county council is made up from elected members from a wide variety of areas across the public sector and sees a vote every four years. Each councillor within the county council represents an electoral ward within the county. From these elected members, a cabinet is drawn up. Unlike district councils, county councils have civil servants. These are members of the council that are permanent fixtures and are not elected in. County councils are responsible for much more wide-spread services such as education, social services and transport. The gross expenditure of Hampshire County Council for 2013/2014 is £1,837.6m. Typically, the is made up from roughly 25% of funding from the British government with the rest of the funding coming from council tax residents pay in Hampshire. Council tax in Hampshire has remained the same cost for four consecutive years and is one of the lowest in the country.

The main responsibilities of a County Council include education, social services, transport, strategic planning, fire services, consumer protection, refuse disposal, smallholdings and libraries. A county council is bound by law to fill all these responsibilities. Share responsibilities between county and district councils include recreation and cultural matters. The current Chairman of Hampshire County Council is Councillor Ken Thornber, and he was elected as Chairman at the Annual County Council Meeting held on 23 May 2013. He usually finalises decisions made within the council.

District councils focus on more specific services in a much smaller district. Winchester City Council deals with responsibilities such as local planning, housing, local highways, building regulation, environmental health and refuse collection Kelsie Learney is the current leader of Winchester City Council as she is the representative for the Liberal Democrats and the Lib Dem party currently hold the majority within Winchester. Their budget in comparison to Hampshire County Council is much smaller, but this is understandable as the responsibilities aren't as great. They look at issues like Housing and Council tax benefits, Council tax collection, Council’s social housing maintenance, recycling and leisure facilities including playgrounds & parks.

It is easier to find information online about Hampshire County Council as it is a council on a much larger scale. It is quite easy to contact members of Winchester City Council and their separate wards to find information but not much can be located online. 

Kant's writings are largely a response to Hume, discuss

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher that sought to reject the epistemology of Hume. He rejected Hume's idea that people were irrational and thought it was essential that humans should be rational, so that they could be moral and free. Hume is a very important philosopher to know in journalism; he's interesting and fearless.

Hume speaks about perceptions which is any content of the mind. Perceptions can be impressions or ideas. They can be anything you see, hear, feel or think. Beliefs can be separated into either relations of ideas or matters of fact. A relation of ideas is a priori bond between ideas. For instance, 5+5=10 or all bachelors are unmarried. Matters of fact are to do with experience, a posteriori. We know these through a process of cause and effect. This does, however, rely on a belief in causation and induction. Hume believes that all matters of fact are fundamentally non-rational.

Kant believe he had a stronger form of Hume's a priori knowledge, named synthetic a priori; knowledge that can be gained independently of experience. For example, if there was 1,000 living people in a football stadium and this is fact, you could also derive from that knowledge the minimum capacity of the stadium must be at least 1,000 people, you would also know the stadium could support human life and that time elapsing.

Through this, Kant has established the existence of both space and time. An object cannot possibly exist outside of time and space, they are the pre-conditions of all experience.

Kant supposedly saves science and metaphysics from scepticism, such as Hume's, in observing that every change has a cause and effect to nature. 

He rejects previous ideas that things exist if they are perceived, claiming they have to exist in order to perceive them; existence is a predicate of perception. Although Kant suggests reality is shaped by our perception, his theory is not solipsist as he believes the universe exists independently of the mind.

Kant believes we perceive the world by processing raw data into 12 innate categories; unity, plurality (or not), totality (or not), reality, negation, extension (substance), cause and effect, community (likeness to other objects), possibility (or impossibility), existence (or non-existence) and necessity (or contingency).

Anything in the world that is observed fits into at least one of the above categories. Kant argues that our perceptions only exist in our minds as phenomena. Phenomena are real objects in the mind as we perceive them whereas noumena is the object itself, rather than as it is perceived.

Any object has a dual nature; the way it is naturally and the way it is when we perceive it. We can never know the noumena as once an object it is perceived by us, it is the phenomena.

Kant's moral philosophy was called the Categorical Imperative. It was a set of maxims that should be lived by, regardless of the situation. Any action could only be justifiable moral if it could be universalised without contradiction. For example, stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving family may seem justifiable, but stealing a car is not. However, as stealing is not acceptable in every situation, you have a contradiction, so in Kant's view, it would never be acceptable to steal.

Coming of Age

By Gracie May Bawden

www.BloomLikeApril.tumblr.com

www.youtube.com/user/BloomLikeApril

Gracie_Bawden@hotmail.co.uk

Growth. The journey of life. Coming of age. Call it what you want; it isn’t easy.  It isn’t easy for anyone, though it doesn’t feel like that when you’re young of course.  Everyone around you feels taller, and less spotty, more flirtatious, more together.  At 19 I think it’s fair to say that most of my coming of age is over, or the hardest parts at least (though I’m sure some of you will disagree).  Looking back, there seems to be only one word that adequately sums up my coming of age and that word is angsty.  Always feeling inadequate and ugly and misunderstood.  You only have to dig through my old notebooks and read my ‘poetry’ to understand that.  I’m sure this is ringing bells for some of you, though not all.  Some people’s adolescence was angry, rebellious, for some it was painfully shy and awkward.  We all have our coming of age stories.

    

And it is for this reason that coming of age stories are so popular.  Every adult or young person out there can relate to them.   For adults it’s a chance to cringe and laugh, and for teens it’s a beacon of hope, a banner waving in the sky with the words ‘You’re not the only one!’ printed in bold.

The first coming of age story I ever fell in love with was Jane Eyre.  Before starting Secondary School, I was both wracked with fear and uncontrollably excited about the concept of what felt like endless possibilities being laid out before me.  Although many would consider it outdated and irrelevant, as a rather plain, shy (and working class) 11 year old, the story of Jane Eyre’s journey from penniless orphaned governess to the wife of a rich and powerful man excited me awfully.  Though of course my ambitions were slightly more modern than marrying into a wealthy family.

Ambition is an important aspect of coming of age.  That big question constantly shoved down your throat: ‘What do you want to do with your life?’ and that even bigger, unspoken question hanging over your head: ‘What sort of person do you want to be?’  And just when you start to make some decisions, your parents seem to disapprove of everything.  Be it dying your hair blue, or choosing to do a degree in Creative Writing.  They just don’t get it.  Your friends however stick by you whatever choices you make.  Especially when you’re young.  When you’re 12 years old your friends will encourage you to do all sorts of stupid shit.  ‘Yeah, wearing two inches of eyeliner is a great idea, why don’t you try cutting your own hair with blunt scissors whilst you’re at it?’  However; in the great words of Gordie LeChance from Stand By Me ‘I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve.  Jesus, does anyone?’  This is a line that has always resonated with me.  As has the whole film.  I discovered it when I was about twelve years old and realised that just like the kids in the film, now was the time to just work shit out.  Without your parents.  Without seeking approval.  And who better to help but the people who were doing the exact same thing-your friends?  Unlike the boys in Stand by Me, my friends and I were not on a journey to find a dead body.  We were hanging out in the emo sections of record shops and drinking cherryade on the beach.

But not everything is quite so happy-go-lucky.  Sometimes having friends isn’t enough.  Sometimes it feels as though you’re falling apart and the world and his cousin are just watching you.  Luckily I never had it as bad as Jim from The Basketball diaries.  The occasional bottle of Morgan’s Spiced was about as low as I stooped, but Jim’s desperation is truly stunning and something I’m sure a lot of those on the brink of adulthood can relate to in some distant way (even if they’re not drug addicts on the cusp of death). But my favourite part of this story is the ending. Recovery. From the disease that is adolescence.  I guess it just goes to show that if Jim can do it, anyone can.

There’s a coming age story for everyone, whether you like a spot of ‘80s angst, or happy-go-lucky indie flicks.  Check out my list of favourites and comment with yours.

Bronte Meets Amsterdam; The Journal

The Wickedland Exhibition

Coast to Coast Leicester

Today me and my friend Amy went to the Wicked-Land Art Exhibition in Leicester (post up soon). I haven't really been to Leicester much before, despite it being only 20 minutes from my hometown. Anyway, we went to grab a bite to eat before the exhibition and was recommended to go to an American restaurant that open it's doors to hungry customers only last month named Coast to Coast.

Service & Ambience

From the second I entered the restaurant door the service was top notch. The two of us were sat in a booth right by the window which could have easily seated four, our waitress was incredibly polite and checked back during every course and was a little charmer. Despite the restaurant being really busy, seeing as it's a Friday night, it was clammy or uncomfortable or cluttered. They clearly don't let it become overcrowded so the entire restaurant was nicely spaced out with such a stylish, classy interior. It was kind of like a mixture between Pizza Express and TGI Fridays. 

Food

Starter: Garlic Bread with Cheese & Herbs

Price: £4.95

Review: The portion size of this was absolutely intense. The picture was only one quarter of the starter which is only intended for one person. It was very similar to Zizzi's or Ask, it was fresh, delicious pizza dough topped with garlic butter, herbs and mozzarella. It was almost a full 9 inch pizza size.

It came within ten minutes of us ordering and was cooked to perfection. Unlike many restaurants, despite being the dough being thin, it was still crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. It was an absolutely perfect mix of textures, and it came with this garlic butter and herb sauce which was so creamy and just gave the starter that little bit extra something special.

Main: Meatball Mayhem Calzone

Price: £10.95

Side: Mac 'n' Jack

Price: £4.25

Review: Let me start with the variation of the classic macaroni and cheese. It was basically macaroni with a cheese sauce with Monterey Jack cheddar melted on top and I asked for bacon with it too, because everyone knows, bacon makes everything better. The bacon was crumbled up on top and was the real smoked, crispy American bacon and it's saltiness really added to the mac and cheese. It was a huge portion too and could probably have been eaten as a main but was really good.

Now for the main, the calzone. I asked for it without meatballs because I wasn't in a mega meaty mood so in it was pepperoni, some form of Italian tomato and herb sauce, mozzarella and was covered in garlic butter, then it was topped with more sauce. IT WAS SO DELICIOUS. Seriously, best calzone I've ever eaten. It wasn't over stuffed like some can be and there was just enough dough to make it a perfect dough/filling combination. It was piping hot when served and was so flavoursome. 

STATISTICS

Service: 8/10

Quality of Food: 8/10

Portions of Food: 10/10

Price: 7.5/10

Atmosphere: 8/10

Overall: 41.5/50

Anyone that knows me knows I am a massive fan of food and love to go out to eat and Coast to Coast is probably now my favourite restaurant.