So we're back again for another dose of Kevin and his Castleford project. Last week we saw how the council and local community could clash and pull together, in one episode, to build a much needed bridge in the town. This week it's all about three public parks in the area, all with a distinctly different starting point and execution, and their apparent need to be revitalised after "Thatcher pulled the plug" on these spaces...as Mr McCloud puts it (I may paraphrase slightly).

The question you instinctively have going in to the program is just how much simply building public recreational space can help a community, especially with regard to crime and perception of crime. Unfortunately the program never really answers this, merely alluding to a drop in delinquency in certain areas. Perhaps the program never could answer this question, at least not before a full generational turn over to see the effects of a new set of children on an area they have no real ownership over.

But what was amazingly interesting was how different parts of this same town took to these ideas and ran with them, with very different solutions.

Here is a round up of some of the more obvious news of the last few days. Right now I'm actually likely to be in a hot air balloon for a work social, so if they feel a bit old then sorry...it's likely I'm just a bit high (*groans*?)

First up... Testing students narrows learning. Ofsted has been saying for years that strict curriculum's lead to schools teaching to test. Anyone that's gone through our educational system in the last decade or so knows this is the case as teachers work through a curriculum book to get us to learn what is most likely to be in the exam with only the few going so far as to actually inspire and help us become learning individuals.

Three weeks ago the Department for children, schools and families somewhat oxymoronically beat their chest over this last year's statistics on school exclusions. The reason I bring it up now? It turns out the government (as well as every other party) are unable to add 1+1 and make 2.

The report on child drinking shows without a doubt that truancy adds to the chance of a child starting down the path of "binge drinking". It's been reported in the past that delinquency increases with exclusion from schools. So is it any surprise when over 10% of our children are removed from school at least one week a year in any given year that some of them find the time to discover alcohol and/or drugs in that time of social exclusions.

A year ago statistics were published about child substance abuse, or more realistically put...drinking habits. This February just gone Jacqui Smith attempted to use those statistics to justify hounding kids off of the street and further taking away the rights of youths that were (previously) acting completely lawfully, cementing the idea of Labour as a nanny-state with Smith as it's queen.

Some things however didn't make sense, as I uncovered in the statistics. Painting children as alcoholics for having simply ever tried alcohol even if they only did it once was the order of the day, and indeed it seemed a large emphasis was going on to kids drinking in the streets when a large percentage of them actually also drank in their parents home.

Now it is the time of the Telegraph to completely and utterly butcher the actual message of this years statistics, causing potentially one of the most idiotic statements I've ever heard courtesy of Norman Lamb

These are shocking figures, reflecting a culture where binge-drinking is truly out of control.

I call bullshit on this statement, read on to find out why.

Did you know that every year 300 of us will die due to a fatal accident in the work place? How about that 400 of us die every year from domestic house fires, over half of which could have been prevented through use of a smoke alarm? What about the fact that almost 3,000 people die as a result of car accidents that at least a third could have been prevented by simply abiding by the law?

Perhaps most shocking of all, and I come to this subject cautiously given media (tabloid) involvement in it in the past, is that over 2,700 children under the age of 13 are raped every year and this figure is rising. Whether it's rising because (thankfully) reporting these crimes is becoming more common or because it's happening more is fairly inconsequential to the fact the problem is becoming more apparent.

Continuing with my theme of highlighting when I'm actually impressed with Labour, given how little it has happened in the last year, I am happy to say that I'm actually glad for once that Caroline Flint has opened her gob. Usually all that falls out of it is garbage, but when it comes to rent then buy schemes she wants to set up finally there could be something at least resembling roses flowing instead.

Unfortunately with every silver lining there must be a thunderstorm of moronic proportions. Undoing any shred of good work that she started at the beginning of the week, Jacqui Smith has gone back in to nasty mode in such a way that surely the Tory old guard must be blushing.

And while we're at it why don't we throw in the fact that the Lib Dem's have announced their own strategy to tackle youth crime, one that looks like a pantheon of saintly forgiveness compared to the now fleshed out policies of Smith.

You'd think we're in some kind of war time disaster scenario, or the pinicle of crime in our time, the way some seem to wish to go on about "youths" and the crime they cause. Of course, by crime we mean nuisence. And by nuisence we mean they look a little bit unruly while standing around causing no harm whatsoever to anyone. In Redruth they wish now to ramp up from dispersal orders which have clearly had no lasting effect by implementing a curfew scheme, something the Times claims has wide ranging support not only for Cornwall but nationally as well!

How Cornwall, completely ruled over by Liberal Democrats, can abide by this I'll never know. But I'll say this, if you wanted one shining example of why I could never be an active Lib Dem supporter then Cornwall is your answer. Try as we might, the Cornish are a fairly liberal sort...those not living there in their second or third home pushing those actually from the region away that is...it seems our endeavours to encourage liberal governance is being thrown back in our face at every turn.

So on a day where Gordon Brown states the obvious and tells us to stop wasting food, David Cameron unveils just how pointless and devoid of content the Tories are likely to be when they're in power. Mr Cameron says that anyone carrying a knife without a good reason should be jailed. No caution, just a straight to court and unless you can prove it's because you're going to the annual knife juggling fair then you're put in to jail.

Quite aside from this rubbish that knife crime is reaching "epidemic proportions", the figures show that knife crime is largely unchanged over the last decade, what is jailing every person with a knife going to achieve? Secondly how is it any better than Labour's "jail a Muslim for political capital" 42 days legislation, given that the main people being shoved unceremoniously into the slammer will be black youths?

So not long after the fuss in japan over changes to their child pornography laws it seems that our government is taking the next step in this countries long and rather despicable history of over baking legislation to protect people around the subject of sexual acts. That is to say that they are now asking for consultation on legislating against potential future crimes that don't appear to have ever really been committed yet, as well as undermining the entire artistic and creative sector by placing strict limitations on just how expressive they can be.

And, of course, it is working...the BBC itself leading barely with any other news than that of how paedophiles can film our little boys and girls and then turn the film in to a cartoon so as to avoid being prosecuted over child abuse. This is because the consultation paper itself is a form of propoganda, carefully worded and crafted to implant in to peoples minds the fear of what could happen, regardless of how likely, before asking us if it'd be ok to legislate against it.

Let's not be coy about it, this is about as bad as it's been for Labour for over two decades. Every day there seems to be more bad news, and where there isn't bad news coming about Labour tearing itself apart there's almost always simply better news about the other parties. That is, until today.

Today marks the time that the Tories are starting to think about getting serious, and with that comes a true fleshing out of the variety of proposals that they have merely drifted over in the past. Good news for the Tories? Not when it shows the same anti-youth, authoritarian instincts of the current government in a traditionally poorly thought out Conservative manner