LibDem Blogs - Archived!

There's only one place to be this weekend: the Sun Inn at Marston Trussell near Market Harborough. It is hosting the first national British Big Cats Conference. As an article in this morning's Guardian said: It is estimated that up to 7,000 people a year see panther-like (black) animals, or puma-like (brown) animals at large in the UK.If you do visit the conference, be careful. As the Rutland and Leicestershire Panther Watch site shows, this part of the world is simply crawling with the beasts. Mind you, Marston Trussell is just over the Northamptonshire border, so it ...

The BBC reports that Paul Burstow has won the contest to become our new chief whip.

I like Sir Alan Haselhurst (sorry folks, I know he’s a Conservative, but still…), the Chair of Ways & Means, and Deputy Speaker of the Commons. He has a dry wit which he often uses to good effect in the dullest of barely populated debates in the graveyard hours of Parliamentary sittings. He’s been standing in [...]

…people of Lewisham, vote Chris Maines for Mayor! This Website is similar in basic functionality to the Hughes campaign site, but takes on board many of the lessons learned in that campaign.

I've just returned from a meeting with the Kingston Youth Council. They wanted me to tell them a bit about life as a councillor, then to discuss with them different ways in which they can interact with the Council and get their views across. I'm very impressed with this group of young people. Halima Moin is the Kingston's Member of the UK Youth Parliament and chairs Kingston Youth...

Tuesday, apart from a very brief Best Value Review Sub-Committee, was really spent on day job things, but did raise a number of constituent concerns on grit bins, dodgy cobbles and damaged drains. The Tele called me about student exemptions from Council Tax. Apparently some English authorities are claiming that they are not fully reimbursed from central government for the cost of these. Let's

Had me worried for a minute. Seemed a bit early to be putting out the last Focus with polling day due on 4th May. Even the Pangbourne by-election is not until 20th April

One of my concerns about the smoking ban in Scotland, which comes in force on Sunday, is the prescriptive regulations being placed on businesses. They are required to display non-smoking signs meeting statute-set criteria for size and content. Given that the vast majority of workplaces will be non-smoking, it might have been less burdensome to [...]

Posted by Glynis: Whilst out delivering issue No 243 of our ward newsletter, Focus, I noticed that there were lots of individual red rubber bands on the pavement. In Brooksbank Avenue, where I first noticed them, there must have been at least 50, spread about 10 metres apart, right along the pavements on both sides of the road. They seem to be mainly discarded right up against the garden walls. There were not as many elsewhere but there were some in every street. They were even scattered on Redcar's pedestrianised High Street, when I went to Thomas Cook's to pay ...

Look what I've just found.

There are times in political life when a little bit of homespun philosophy can go a long way. In the Liberal Democrat minority party debate yesterday on the environment, Mick Bates was determined to drive home his point and reverted to a bit of Montgomery wisdom to do so: Mick Bates: As we know, vision without action is a daydream and, yes, there are daydreamers on the Government frontbench. Dream on, for example, if you think that the delivery of health in Wales is improving or that the incidence of child poverty has been reduced. Mind you, action ...

One of the things I've done in my time as a Councillor is saving Shacklewell Street playground. Hard to say whether I did this single-handedly, there was a campaign from local residents, too, which achieved national publicity. Hard to say if we would have got the money to refurbish it without my effort to get it on the budget for the "Quick Wins" at the Local Area Partnership Steering Group,...

Results Tariff Q: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the reasons were for the withdrawal of the national tariff for payment by results; when her Department will indicate what payment by results tariff will apply for financial year 2006–07; and if she will make a statement.(John Hemming) A:Regrettably it was necessary to withdraw the tariff for 2006–07 in order to correct underlying

My evening in the pub last night has been preserved for posterity by arch-loafer Paul Davies, of Make Votes Count. Paul kindly sets me (and indeed everyone else around the table - and lets be honest, in the world) up as naive stooges; contrast with his stance that someone who would embrace any kind of world view lacks intellectual integrity. I think Paul misses the point slightly, that most of us aren’t driven by a desire to be ideologically flawless, but by a wish to improve our lives and those of our neighbours. Paul also bizzarely claims that the Westminster ...

Gordon Brown is the master in making a 'nothing' budget sound like a triumph. He tinkers around the edges for cheap headlines while ignoring real inequalities. He says there is money to spend but does nothing for Britain's beleagured pensioners who have been hung out to dry by Labour.On the environment, once again he gives the appearance of doing the right thing yet the measures are so small as to be virtually ineffective. Take the £210 Road Fund Licence for the top 1% of polluting cars. The increase that these drivers will be paying doesn't even equate to an extra ...

Maoism supports the concept of "continual revolution". It seems that New Labour prefer instability to stability and see "continual reform" as a good mechanism for quality services. Sadly they have turned up the heat of continual change on the health service. This is causing problems all over the country.

I found this link on another site and the figure just gob smacked me I have added the counter on my left hand sidebar between the blogexplosion links and sitemeter At the time of writing the cost is running at over $249 bn. It is worth noting that this is only the cost to the US taxpayers. Further amounts would need to be added to this total for other members of the coalition. Does anyone know what the comparable UK figures might be?

This image is on the intro page of the Labour Party's website today. I'm so glad they've finally found something useful for Geoff Hoon to do.

Those of you who have lent me various items in the past (CDs, furniture, kitchenware, electrical stuff etc) on a long term basis should be aware that I cannot bestow you any great honours (freedom of Stirchley for example).

... a Grauniadista nerd-wipe who decides to act like he's been oxygen-starved at birth. Probability of sun rising in morning = ~ 1Probability of stupid pinko lefty deciding that disliking the Bush administration must mean that Alexander Lukashenko is nice but misunderstood also = 1 In this Grauniad article, Mark Almond emerges from under a rotten log to proclaim that Belarus is an almost model

The Labour party that is. Dromey accuses Blair, Clarke accuses Dromey, Beecham accuses Clarke. Whos next? Ah yes the small matter of a police investigation! http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1736488,00.html Please feel free to carry on!

The sad demise of the SNP’s Moray MSP Margaret Ewing will trigger a sequence of events that may cause SNP leader Alex Salmond to revisit his game plan for a return to Holyrood next May. Richard Lochead, the current SNP MSP for the North East has already been selected as the candidate for Moray and will almost [...]

I think everybody thought it was a bit peculiar when the Treasurer of the Labour Party went on television and openly attacked his own leader and Prime Minister over the way that he was raising money for the party. After all, the days of washing their laundry in public were meant to have disappeared with the discipline imposed by Mandelson, Campbell and Blair when they knocked Labour into shape so as to make it fit for power. However, the strains of the sucession battle are now beginning to show and party discipline is breaking down as the various factions manoeuvre ...

It is going to be a long 39 days until the end of the season if last nights performance by Leeds is anything to go by. Judging by the report and the comments on Sky last night it was a mixed game. Leeds had plenty of the ball and battered Palace with route one stuff. But it sounds as if Palace exhibited more skill on the break. Matters are no longer in Leeds hands. As an expert at clutching at straws one can only hope that Sheffield United continue to falter and that Watford start to ...

Released in 1928, Tron is an animated feature film from the Walt Disney Corporation. This film combines live action with CGI and traditional cell animation. The artistic result is way ahead of it’s time; indeed we can safely argue that Tron is the visual forerunner of [...]