LibDem Blogs - Archived!

A sobering analysis from Reform today notes how the £5.4 billion of extra tax-payers' money being poured into the NHS next year, 2006-07, will dwindle to £0.6bn available to spend on patient care. £3.8bn (70%) of it will be swallowed by wage inflation, while a further £1bn (19%) will be needed to plug this year's anticipated NHS deficit. Which means just 11% of that whacking great increase will

Anyone not already outraged by the treatment meted out by the military, both British and American on our citizens from Tipton should have been watching: The Road To Guantanamo : - Channel 4's new drama from multi award-winning film director Michael Winterbottom – The Road to Guantanamo – created huge international impact and won the prestigious Silver Bear for Direction for Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross in competition at The 56th Berlin International Film Festival. ...tonight. You can say all you want about the necessity to do certain pretty nasty things in time of war, about ...

Cllr Dave Barnes is on the move again and has now joined the Conservatives. It means Islington now has its first Conservative councillor in 10 years. Wish he would make up his mind. He has represented Highbury East ward for 20 years but in that time he has gone from Labour to Independent, to Liberal Democrat, to Independent, back to Labour and now Conservatives. He's living in cuckoo land - he hasn't got hope of being elected in May - the Conservatives don't exist in Islington. Another former Lib Dem councillor, Cllr Richard Heseltine who is now Independent, ...

Give it up please for Heckmondwike Spen. (I told you I was ill.)

The Leeds Evening Post does: It must be the most humiliating way to be sacked. One minute you're the bees knees with voters who have backed you to become an MP and help run the country. The next, you're unemployed and standing on a stage next to the person who has just been handed your job before the eyes of a nation. Now, a study being undertaken by Leeds University is to examine how deposed MPs cope with the trauma of being rejected by their constituents in a General Election. Found via Iain Dale's Diary.

With a touch of regret, it is time to draw to a close Inner West. It has been coming for a while. I have a PhD to finish off and very soon I will cease commuting for four hours a day – I will have other things to do and need more time to do them. Over the next few days I will post the odd thing that has been hanging around for a while, but there will be no posts after this weekend.Blogging has

Not more woe from my house but drought and famine in Africa. Much of the Horn of Africa are suffering one of the worst famines in recent memory with more than 20 million at risk. People in Kenya, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and the Tanzania are thought to be the worst hit.

Great to see Jo Swinson, Sarah Teather and Julia Goldsworthy promoted to the front bench. Many will remember Chris Huhne’s own goal at the Scottish hustings when he cited all three as examples of how the 3 youngest MP’s were all female, and all lib dem… only to tee Ming up for the delivery of [...]

I now know the exact total as to what is being cut from PCTs as a result of the removal of the Purchaser Protection Adjustment. That figure is £320,229,000. If we use an estimate of 1.5% of the clawback/topslice from PCTs and assume that PCTs spend £64bn (actually £64.309 bn). Then that figure is £960M. This gives a total last minute cut of £1.28bn, The problem with this approach is that it

Did anyone see "Tory! Tory! Tory!" last night on BBC4? Fascinating, and challenging. I've often agreed with things from the Institute of Economic Affairs, as they have always seemed to be on the correct side of Libertarian to me. And indeed recently they published a very good pamphlet promoting Land Value Tax by a chap called Fred Harrison which definitely got me excited! But I had no idea that they were quite as instrumental as last night's program portrayed in the "creation" of Thatcherism. It turns out I am a monetarist. And that I rather expect ...

If you’ve not seen it yet, do check out The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant. It’s funny, mischievously satirical, and awfully furry: On the radio, a man from the police is saying that the police should keep their SHOOT TO KILL policy. But it should not be CALLED shoot to kill. Even though it [...]

Everyone seen today’s Pop Bitch? Oh dear. I never stop being disappointed by our people. Why does nothing that unbearably saucy ever happen to me?

Yeah right. Sure you’ve got the ‘flu. We believe you. Heard this sort of thing from Charles Kennedy all the time. So it begins. I’d snort with derision, but unlike Cameron I can’t afford it. On the other hand, I can well believe he may have made all this up just to get [...]

The Tory Shadow Chancellor has unveiled a masterful new strategy for attacking Gordon Brown: whinge for Britain: “It seems to me he has been nothing but unpleasant in his dealings with me,” Mr Osborne told a lunch meeting for women political journalists in Westminster yesterday. “That’s a decision for him to take. I’ve had very good [...]

Rather bizarrely the Assembly's internet system is currently restricting access to The Times on-line site and the equivalent domain for The Sun. Have we fallen out with Rupert Murdoch? I think we should be told.

And, in other news, the police admitted at the time (but since deny) that they knew De Menenzes, the Brazilian electrician shot by mistake at Stockwell tube, was innocent all along. I am not surprised. Given the circumstances as they were (police tail man from a large block of flats which is under observation because one of about 100 tenants is a known terrorist, he buys ticket legally and

The only reason the Transport Minster, Stephen Ladyman, or anyone else needs a speed camera detector is surely to slow down from travelling at illegally high speeds. Surely? Or am I just being naive? Therefore if the Transport Minster is an habitual speed fiend should he be in charge of Transport policy? Isn't that a conflict of interests?

This government is unbelievable. Identity cards, curbs on freedom of expression, people detained without trial, illegal wars, rendition flights, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill and now this suggestion that Members of Parliament should have an arbitrary limit placed on the number of questions they should ask. Parliament is becoming more and more neutered. If we carry on like this there will soon be little point in our elected representatives turning up at all. Four centuries ago their predecessors took a stand against the power of the monarchy. The time has come for present day Members ...

On Tuesday I went to my first Parish Council meeting since just after I left the city council in 2002. It certainly reinforced my belief in devolution, reparishing the city and how much better places can be with genuine, democratic, local involvement.

As I believe I have commented before the availablity of the internet in the Assembly Chamber is a mixed blessing. One of the reasons for this is that people in the public gallery can read everything that is up on the computer screen. Yesterday afternoon I discovered this for myself. I had popped out of the chamber during one of the short debates to show some constituents around the Senedd. I started off by taking them into the public gallery and took up residence on the front row of seats there. Looking down I could quite clearly ...

I've been out of the loop for a couple of weeks buried in work so haven't paid much attention to blogging and so on. recently a senior police officer in Oxfordshire told local media he would like to see an informed and open debate on drugs policy and specifically a look at whether legalisation would be better. Slightly surprisingly it hasn't generated a huge hoo-ha in the letters pages, but one yesterday I thought worth replying to... Dear Sir, I disagree with my good friend Alan Lester (8th March) and congratulate David McWhirter for wanting to raise ...