LibDem Blogs - Archived!

After getting home, watched the spelling challenge 'Spelling Bee' on ITV - such long words. I can honestly say I know what every word means but to spell them - not a hope. I can't even spell the simplest words - the worst thing is when typing I often can't even see that a word may be spelt wrong - my brain just doesn't register the fact. Need my dictionary and the computer spell check to do anything even for my emails. Often my blog gets posted late because I need somebody to check it. Would feel such a plonker ...

I am not a great admirer of the Harry Potter books. Whenever I open one a cliche flies out at me, and I have been known to give adults reading them on trains a hard stare. Nor do I admire J. K. Rowling, or at least her advisers, for seeking and winning an extraordinarily restrictive injunction against the few Canadians who innocently bought Harry Potter and the Load of Old Bollocks, or whatever it is called, ahead of the official publication day. But all this is insignificant when set against this: A primary school cancelled a Harry Potter day ...

This written question reveals part of the continual revolution that hits the health service in Birmingham. It ignores the Primary Care Groups and other organisations that perhaps the NHS wishes to forget. Payment by Results and the plans for 15% of health care to be done by private providers is going to have unpredictable effects on the hospitals.

First a press release reported on Harry's Place: The Stop the War Coalition would like to make it absolutely clear that the Jamaican born Lindsey Germaine identified in a New York Times report today as the possible fifth suspect in the London bombings is entirely unconnected with Lindsey German, the London born convenor, of the Stop the War Coalition. Any suggestion of any connection between these two individuals is both false and libellous. On a more serious note, the Canadian Globe & Mail is reporting: The transformation of four young British men into terrorists appears to have taken ...

In the end the last Plenary session before the long summer recess turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. This was disappointing as it had showed such promise earlier that day.The key debate was on the WDA and the issue that I reported on here last Thursday and on 30th June. The opposition were keen to hold the Economic Development Minister to account for the fact that Wales has slumped to ninth in the UK inward investment league for 2005 after topping the list the previous year. The number of new jobs created in Wales by overseas ...

Byers admits untruth on Railtrack On other pages: Pope: My Catholic shame Shit in woods case: Biffo's shock confession

On Tuesday it was a goat. Now it is snails. The Shropshire Star has the details: Hungry snails have been munching on people's letters after finding their way into the village post box at Wrentnall, between Pontesbury and Ratlinghope. Villagers say they can only post their letters immediately before a collection, so the creatures do not have time to chew their important correspondence to shreds. I do not think I have ever been to Wrentnall, but there is a nice picture of its former Baptist and Primitive Methodist chapel here - with not a snail in sight.

At 11.55am everyone in the building where I was attending a meeting walked out into the sunshine. We were close to Parliament, and the first strokes of Big Ben were overlaid with chimes from a higher pitched bell. It became very quiet as we remembered the victims, and very moving. After two minutes the high bell - probably from Westminster Abbey - rang again. The Mayor of London had asked us to go out into the streets for this act of remembrance as a gesture of defiance. We're not afraid. And that is the ...

Typical of the internet, and particularly Google Images. I'm trying to research images for a cartoon I'm directing. I have a mob of villagers with torches and farm implements, so I search for spade, and get only one image in twenty that's any use!

Bus firm takes French car sharers to court. (Via.)

Things have been getting a bit serious on the blog lately, so here’s something ridiculously geeky - in the “You wasted your lunch hour on that?” sense - to lighten the mood. Just to show that sudokus don’t have to use numbers - any set of discrete symbols will suffice - Christopher Lee stars in a [...]

The details of the suicide murderers that have emerged over the last few days are testament to the banality of evil. Perhaps most shockingly, one of the men who blew himself and others apart last week worked as a teaching assistant. What is it that makes a man who looks after and develops young life one week bring so much horror and destruction into the world the next? The other bombers, too, seem to have lived fairly ordinary lives. One may have been a teenage tearaway, but there are thousands of them up and down the country; only one has ...

This article from The Guardian has to be one of the best ones I've read about the London bombings and the link to Iraq. If only everyone would read it perhaps some sanity would be achieved...

Conspiracy nuts will be overjoyed: London Underground Bombing ‘Exercises’ Took Place at Same Time as Real Attack. (Via.)

At the busy junction above Bank tube station, you could have heard a pin drop. Every vehicle stopped and every engine was turned off. The quiet resolve of Londoners of every race and religion could be palpably felt. London is indeed a very special city.

Why does everyone seem surprised and shocked that last week's suicide bombers came not from the Middle East but from Yorkshire? In an article in Spiked published yesterday, British-born bombers: not so shocking, Brendan O'Neill explains that most al-Qaeda supporters are a home-grown product. The harsh reality is that these young Brits would appear to be pretty typical al-Qaeda types. For

Thursday 14th July 2005 - It has been busy week so far, as well as helping out in Cheadle where I could we had a Council meeting last night where we supported the oppositoin to the Boundary Commission's proposals to carve up Knowsley's Parliamentary seats and gave our backing in principal to supporting the Merseytram project. However, despite all political parties across Merseyside working

Thursday 14th July 2005 - Today is polling day in the Parliamentary by-election in Cheadle and like many of my colleagues from around the region I will be going to help out as much as I can before and after work. It is vital for the Party we hold this seat and see off the threat from the Tories who have been running a very nasty and negative personal campaign, let's hope it backfires on them!!

“I will ‘blog for victory’ on the 10th of August by writing a post about the need for House of Lords reform, and link to the Elect the Lords campaign website but only if 20 other bloggers will too.”

In a few minutes, we are going down to the streets to show the world that the spirit of London has not, and cannot be broken. This feeling is wonderfully summed up on the website werenotafraid.com where you can now purchase 'We're not afraid' T shirts in aid of the Red Cross London Bomb Relief fund.

Like many other people I am sure, I have been glued to the television news this week watching the unfolding story of the London bombers. It has been hard to think about blogging on my normal range of subjects while all this has been going on. We now know that a group of young men [...]

Yesterday, for the first time in months, I completed the daily Guardian cryptic crossword - all on my own, without a dictionary or Google, and before I’d even reached the station for the train journey home. I was suitably flushed. Even better, it was set by the crème de la crème of setters, Araucaria, and [...]

I have been having problems with Blogger this evening and the result is a few changes to the template. In particular, I have lost my Haloscan comments and do not seem able to reinstall them. Haloscan does have an automatic install facility for Blogger, but it crashes every time I try to use it. Apologies to those whose comments have been lost. I think I will stick with Blogger's own comments system from now on.