LibDem Blogs - Archived!

United Nations Association -UK Special Event UN 60th Anniversary Speech by Secretary-General Kofi Annan On Tuesday, 31 January 2006 United Nations Association -UK will be hosting a speech by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to mark the 60th anniversary of the first General Assembly which was held in London in January 1946. The event will he held in the late afternoon at a central London venue, shortly to be confimed. To request tickets for this event, visit United Nations ...

'Tis the season of no news… I mean, c'mon on, the top three stories this week are: It's a bit chilly; shops sell cheap stuff; and fox-hunting, saboteurs, loopholes, blah blah. It's just dull. So I'm afraid I'm not inspired to pen some trenchant opinion piece, crammed full of wise words, and laced with shrewd liberal acuity. Instead you're getting what every other newspaper is serving up as

One of the low points of the Christmas TV schedules was the appearance of two of the On the Buses films. Samizdata.net has some interesting observations on what the awfulness of these films reveals about the 1970s: It was quite a shock watching the film. It was a reminder of how greatly Britain has changed since the early 70s. For starters, the constant leeriness towards women, the assumption that any vaguely attractive woman was nothing more than mattress-fodder, makes even yours truly - no fan of political correctness - feel uneasy. One of the main themes of the story is ...

by Peter One of the issues Boyle deals with in Authenticity (see below) is the proliferation of targets. Boyle really doesn´t like these. He is rather strangely attracted to the idea of Management by Walking Around, but hates the idea of Management by Objectives. At one stage (page 210 to 211) he quotes Peter Drucker with approval for his condemnation of Taylorism, with out acknowledging that Drucker is - to a large extent - responsible for all this target-setting. He's very down on counting That's the great fear: that in the end those who think reality lies in the ...

In case you are really interested, I'm willing to bet that the MI6 Chief alleged to have been involved in torture against Pakistanis by the Greek magazine Proto Thema, as reported on the BBC, Independent and Telegraph, is Maurice Kendwrick-Piercey. Was it really neccessary for the Government to issue a D-Notice to prevent this from coming out?

The BBC is reporting that Bob Geldof has had to 'defend' himself for agreeing to help the Tories in their newly-created Globalisation and Global Poverty Group policy unit. Now, I'm not necessarily the hugest fan of Sir Bob. I think the Live 8 "Make Poverty History" propaganda, whilst an excellent publicity stunt, was far too simplistic in the message it portrayed. Solving global poverty is not as simple as Geldof claims it is. If it was, it would have been sorted out. And he always seems to omit to mention that whilst an African child may die because of poverty ...

Go In Search of Mornington Crescent

according to this piece in today's Guardian. Worth a read.

ID is a superb initiative from the Open University, the New Economics Foundation and others. It involves a communications, debate and research. It aims to rethink jaded debates about sustainable development, globalization and environmental change. It aims to stimulate compassion, care, curiosity and creativity.This looks like a real public resource developing and we LibDems should be plugged into these debates. For more details see the ID website.Would it be helpful to build up a LibDem ‘Interdependence Day’ support group? To draw on the material and perhaps even contribute? If so I might be of some use, living as ...

Crown tonight with all the lads. Lots of cider, lots of beer. Crisps. Assorted around the table, a civil engineer, a politics student, a barista/writer, a Whitehall drone, a teacher, and Max. Talk about the future, what we're going to get up to; everything is still so exciting. It snowed on the way back, and I was keen to lie out in the fields, but Ross wasn't keen to stop the Golf.... perhaps tommorow. I do wonder if I can be bothered to go back to London. All I really want is to be able to smell to mushrooms, apples ...

It's Wednesday afternoon, and I feel like death... "And why is that?", I hear you ask. Perhaps the hangover induced by drinking too much and not getting back to my lovely safe, dark (key word, that one) hotel room until 4.30 in the morning is the clue. It all started with the seemingly harmless sentence, "You're coming back to Santacruz with us, Mark.". No explanation as to why, but then, with my

The Western Mail this morning reports on the anger felt by the Assembly's Tory leader at proposals to change the electoral system for the National Assembly from 2007 onwards. Nick Bourne accuses the Secretary of State for Wales 'of acting like a "colonial governor" by seeking to rig future elections to the National Assembly that fix the rules in favour of Labour.' Although Nick has a point here there is a real danger that we are fighting on Peter Hain's ground whilst allowing more important changes to go through unchallenged. We should bear in mind that whilst politicians are getting ...