ON SMP Sheet Metal Ltd’s concerns about finding a new site if plans for an Aldi supermarket are approved in Dudbridge.

Posted by R Allan: How many businesses/skills/jobs have to be lost to gain 50 ‘jobs’. We have no need for yet another supermarket, even less for one in this proposed position.

Posted by TigerTigerBurningBright: This supermarket will cause the loss of jobs all round. If it goes ahead it will be bad for the whole local economy.

Posted by Pisces123: The Stroud area has already lost far too many businesses through development. There are far too few industrial premises available for local enterprise and for the future of this area. We need to encourage small business not drive them out!

On the tributes to David Smith, who ran Stroud Music Centre.

Posted by Pisces123: I am so sorry to read this. I had the pleasure of meeting this gentleman back in the summer whilst dog walking along the Brimscombe canal. We got talking and exchanged fond memories of the Music Centre and the soundproofed booths where many of us would go and listen to the latest records, with no pressure to buy. Happy days, rest in peace sir.

On the hate crime strategy launched in Gloucestershire.

Posted by Haloge: It would appear that so called ‘hate crime’ has now become the flavour of the month, since it obviously serves various political narratives, and is arguably a direct threat to once cherished freedom of speech. Two outspoken critics of hate crime legislation James Jacobs & Kimberley Potter(1998) have argued the case for abolishing hate crime laws altogether. In essence, they challenge the foundations upon which the case for hate crime legislation is made on moral, legal, political and practical grounds. For them the alleged hate crime is simply not ‘real’ but is in essence a social construction. They further conclude that the so called ‘hate epidemic’ is a product of heightened public sensitivity to prejudice, the success of minority groups in moving ‘identity politics’ into the realms of criminal justice, the acceptance of broad legal definitions that encapsulate comparatively meaningless low-level offences for which the strength of the hate element is debatable, and an irresponsible media which exaggerates the latter point. Ultimately Jacobs and Potter are of the opinion that there is nothing so unique to hate crime that means it cannot be adequately responded to by generic criminal law.