LibDem Blogs - Archived!

Thursday was the Council's Awards for its outstanding employees. For me, it was an education into the lesser known parts of the Council. I was so pleased that Sarah Gale won Best Manager for her work on Equalities in the Education Department. Also outstanding was Maf from the leaving care team in Social Services, in how he helped to get youngsters resettled. I was impressed at the way Swan Housing when they nominated one of our Housing Repair Team had described how much she enjoyed her job and how that communicated itself in the ...

One of these people may be breaking the law (soon). The gentleman on the Right is playing "King James I" and is entirely safe. The gentleman on the Left is playing "Guy Fawkes" and could be at the risk of being guilty of glorifying terrorism. In the same way any boys who ask for "penny for the guy" next year are taking a risk (particularly if they use a sign). To be fair anyone could be

The above is an example of someone wearing a Birmingham Poppy. There has been a certain amount of Comment about the poppy that I wear in remembrance of the sacrifice of others. The fact is that it is a proper British Legion Poppy. Many men in Birmingham (including the parking attendant photographed in Kings Heath) wear these poppies. There are also more frilly poppies that are also

Sir Christopher Meyer, the UK's former ambassador to Washington, is in trouble. His former civil service colleagues, Lords Butler and Renwick, have accused him of a "breach of trust", and of flouting a well-established "self-denying ordinance". The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has gone far, far further, dissing Sir Christopher's behaviour as "preposterous and very demeaning… completely

There is much fuss about this story on the BBC Have Your Say section of their website. Now as long as bank don't remove their current free cash machines, charge each others customers to use their own machines and that there is advance warning before inserting your card into the fee paying machine, what is the fuss all about. The news story highlights how the number of fee paying machines are

Outstanding!

Butt c Jones b Udal 74 Two of my most prized possessions are items of sports memorabilia. A white England shirt worn at Old Trafford in 1994, and a very large blue jumper worn in Australia in the following winter. When I was much younger, I remember watching a Middlesex vs Hampshire NatWest Trophy quarter-final on the BBC (1992, I think). Hampshire won; their star player that day was a young off-spinner called Shaun Udal. I wrote to him, and received a letter back quite soon after, including two signed photos. He was going to be playing in my ...

Defence Secretary John Reid has been defending the police. Saying the the Tories are using the political activies of the police over the last week over the 90 days they said they needed to detail suspected terrorists. Firstly when the police come under the Minstry of Defence? Are they not under the remit of Charles Clarke the Home Secretary? Secondly the fact is that the Tories along with a

This piece on Newsnight should make anyone with any democratic instincts feel queasy about how politics is conducted in Westminster.

Stephen Tall has written a nice summary of the political fall-out from the government’s failure to win support for their authoritarian meansure to detain people for three months.

A bizarre little row has emerged on P-7, with Downing Street officials accused of mopping up some of the more colourful language used by Tony Blair at his press conference. It’s interesting at how the BBC reported this however, claiming that Blair said that he would be “reduced to ‘a little puddle of water’.” This is what [...]

This morning's Guardian highlights a fairly patronising piece of literature from Transport for London designed to help women get the best out of journeys on the Tube. Now I hold a fairly controversial view that despite the shortcomings of their transport system most Londoners do not appreciate what they have got. It is true that the tube network can do with substantial investment but even with all the problems of breakdowns, bomb alerts and overcrowding the benefits of regular and fairly frequent trains combined with a substantial bus service can not be bettered in most of the rest of Britain. ...

Woke up this morning and in between waiting for my online chess oponents to respond to my moves noticed Susanne Lamido and other Liberal Democrats have found and listed themselves on what is seeking to be the ultimate list of all blogs. I was good to see that the Lib Dems are by far the best represented UK political party on this list. Although to be fair Bloggers for Cameron and Boris Johnson

A recent study by researchers from the London School of Economics provides some important background to the education debate - and many other debates: Jo Blanden, Paul Gregg and Steve Machin found that social mobility in Britain - the way in which someone's adult outcomes are related to their circumstances as a child - is lower than in Canada, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. And while the gap in opportunities between the rich and poor is similar in Britain and the US, in the US it is at least static, while in Britain it is getting wider. A ...

Friday was another private members bill day. I had turned up for two bills, but only one got through second reading. The reason for this was Eric Forth. I am not quite sure what he gets out of the process, but he turns up to filibuster the private members bills and as a consequence it becomes harder to get one through the process. A bill has to have 2 hours debate after which, with the

Yes, someone at BBC online has a sense of humour. Thanks to Erin at Great Court for the link. [It's not really the BBC online, btw]

The commentariat and the bloggers have been tackling the French Riots recently. No truer word has been written about this that Jake at The Uncertainty Principle in his entry for November 9th 2005: The French riots bear out your political opinions. Whatever they are. The hyperbole and polemic of the rioters, French government and opposition, the torched Peugeots on the housing estates, they all merely serve to underline the fact that you are right about stuff. You should point this out to people more. Quite right. The self-flagellation tendency among bloggers may be catching. In a class I was taking ...

A hil-arious student has launched a pledge intended to get Boris Johnson elected as leader of the Tories. Rah! Isn’t that precious? UPDATE: My conscience forces me to admit that I am being completely hypocritical here as I attempted to use pledgebank recently to encourage traffic to a website called kittenwar (not as cruel as it sounds). [...]