Backchat

Hot on the heels of communitycare.co.uk, the Care Services Improvement Partnership has entered the brave new world of vodcasting (video podcasting). Does the government quango have a resident Tarantino or Scorcese on its books? Backchat reckons you would need some pretty nifty directorial flourishes to keep people watching through 17 minutes of “Outcome-Based Commissioning”, despite this, of course, being a crucial issue.

The committee stage of the Mental Health Bill in the House of Lords has been a largely decorous affair. Only one issue has gone to a vote, with peers keeping their powder dry until the later report stage. But Conservative peer the Earl of Onslow offered a tantalising glimpse of things to come, when he urged health minister Lord Hunt of Kings Heath to listen to the expertise in the chamber and “instruct the whips’ office to get their tanks off his lawn” if he is convinced by any of the arguments he hears. Let’s hope there are more military metaphors to come from the bill’s opponents as the legislation progresses.

Backchat is rather disappointed in the users of communitycare.co.uk, after it discovered that a story about how salsa dancing can improve mental health proved the most popular on the site last week. Backchat does not approve of dancing or general gaiety and would hate to think visitors to the site were now out in public places putting this story to the test. I imagine it is the influence of the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing and its ilk that is to blame.

It seems the Mayor of Villaconejos in Spain could teach the government’s Respect unit a thing or two about tackling antisocial behaviour. Lope Benavente de Blas refused to condemn a 400-strong mob who burned down the house of a local bully, after putting up with seven years of his violent behaviour. “It was all of us. It was the people,” de Blas said, according to the El Pais newspaper. Backchat thought of asking Respect Tsar Louise Casey (pictured right) for a comment, but was too scared of being on the receiving end of an angry mob.