LibDem Blogs - Archived!

Scope, the cerebral palsy charity, have announced that they want as many people (both disabled and non-disabled) to boycott the airline Ryanair. This follows Ryanair's disgraceful treatment of a group of 6 blind and 3 partially-sighted people from the Norfolk area - they were escorted off a plane because the flight already had 4 disabled passengers. This was reported on the BBC's Watchdog programme on Friday night. A group of six blind and three partially sighted passengers were made to leave a Ryanair flight because the airline claimed there were too many disabled passengers ...

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I don’t tend to write much on this site about my work on Oxford City Council’s Finance Scrutiny Committee (which I chair). There’s a simple reason: a lot of it is quite detailed analysis of how well – or not – different parts of the Council’s services are performing, and not easily translated into a 450-word story. So bless the Oxford Mail for deciding that the committee’s investigation of whether

When the First Minister announced that he was getting rid of the WDA name and logo following the merger of this organisation with the Welsh Assembly Government, he was insistent that the brand that we are selling is "Wales". We can all therefore be excused being a little confused this morning at the news in the Western Mail that a secret strategy has been adopted to drop the word "Wales" from the titles of our national museums.Robyn Gwyn, director of communications at the National Museums and Galleries of Wales, explained the new approach, "We have been looking at the way ...

The Civil Service have been driving away the values of the Social Contract for many years. The concept of the Social Contract is that people fund the government and as a consequence people obtain support from the government/society. This concept has faded in recent years with a growth in means testing and a development of a system based almost purely on arbitrary need. This causes a particular

News reaches us that British beef is still not good enough for the Americans. It is now some years since there has been any suggestion that eating British beef is in any way risky. The only possible reason that the US could have for continuing to ban British beef is because it's a convenient cover for protectionism. But we all know what a bully the current US administration can be when it comes to world trade. But in this case, the US is rejecting food aid that we gave them for the victims of Hurrican Katrina. It is an insulting ...

An old application that I've been hunting for since I managed to destory my old installation of Windows is Always On Top Maker. It's free, it's simple and if you put a shortcut in the Startup folder it will always run. Just a quick Ctrl+Alt+T will put a window on top of everything else. Great for stuff like the BBC mini windows with the cricket scores.

Thursday night was just one of those nights, all about the Conservatives. Margaret Thatcher celebrated her 80th birthday. Watching news clippings of her birthday party was like watching a replay of chunks of history. The question being asked! Thatcher at 80: What does she mean to you? Politically we are miles apart but my respect for her was her firm no nonsense approach to everything. Love her or hate her she was the iron lady, no doubt about that. She'll probably go down in ...

Went to see this last week. While I would agree that it isn’t the best film ever, as a Whedon-head I did enjoy it enormously. It was certainly more on a par with Star Trek 2: the Wrath of Khan than Star Trek: Generations in terms of successful transition from goggle box to [...]

…is excellent. Haven’t laughed so much in a film in ages. I’m not one of thse anti-CGI doomsayers, but it has to be said that the craftsmanship in an animation such as this (which in fact did use CGI for one or two effects) is there for all to see. When you just have to [...]

The nice people who brought you They Work For You, Write to Them and Public Whip have finally launched Hear From Your MP, a website designed to encourage MPs to keep two-way contact with their constituents.

Mark Lawson has a very good article in this morning's Guardian looking at the sudden respectability of Englishness in the arts. He is very good on the midatlantic awfulness of many modern British films: film-makers believed that movies from the UK had to genuflect to America in their look (the permanent Dickensian Christmas of Richard Curtis movies) and casting (Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings) to succeed.And: The latest example, out this week, is Kinky Boots, in which Northampton railway station, in reality a buzzing commuter hub, is depicted as a sleepy rural halt where the platform contains a single passenger.He ...

Surprised she didn't keel over from all the stabs in her back 15 years ago, but oh well.

Reading the letter from our one Tory Councillor in East London Advertiser made my blood boil. I agree with his criticisms of the Council's new scheme for resolution of disputes about service charges, but he has missed out on a huge part of what happened last week. If any Councillor doesn't like the content of the reports that go to Cabinet - policies, procedures and the like - she or he can "call in" a report. This means that the Councillor writes up their criticisms of the report, and proposes an alternative course of action for Cabinet. ...

by Peter This article from the BBC brings back memories of the 1980s. Before becoming Chancellor, Nigel Lawson was Energy Secretary. Famously he offered the quote that "The energy policy of this government is not to have an energy policy". A short time later the Department of Energy was folded into the DTI. Lawson was being economical with the truth (remember the miners? remember Sizewell B? the privatizations?). In practice the Tories spent a lot of time thinking about energy, and reduced energy costs in the UK down to the level of most other EU Member States. This is ...

I got the latest issue of the British Humanist Association’s newsletter in the post today. Weird, since I don’t recall asking for a copy. As a secularist and an atheist, I happen to also believe that data protection is a pretty important thing as well, so whoever decided to pass on my contact details, [...]