LibDem Blogs - Archived!

The Labour-inspired Nat Watch site has been relaunched.

It is said that at least half of all e-mails sent are spam. As a result most firewalls nowadays have automatic filters to try and restrict the arrival of these missives. Sometimes however there can be consequences as is demonstrated here: Emails objecting to a house extension failed to reach a council planning department because their computer system blocked the word "erection". Commercial lawyer Ray Kennedy, from Middleton, Greater Manchester, claims he sent three emails to Rochdale council complaining about his neighbour's plans. But the first two messages, which contained the word "erection", ...

The BBC reports: Home Secretary John Reid has been accused of possibly putting efforts to deport foreign prisoners at risk after joining a series of dawn raids. He watched a team of immigration officers raiding homes in London. They were trying to arrest some of the foreign prisoners released without being considered for deportation. Immigration experts and the Tories have raised fears the raids make it difficult for Mr Reid if he has to make decisions about deportations later. All very reminiscent of Balfour's comment on Churchill's conduct over the Siege of Sidney Street: "I understand what the photographer ...

Interesting quote from Louise Ellman.. one of the five Labour Mps in Liverpool.. from the Daily Mirror on Monday 29th "We are facing a problem of competence in government. I think that a series of events involving the Health Secretary and now the Home Office put question marks about the government's competency to deliver....." Louise goes on to say that this is a major issue for women. not just women I'd say

Can't for the life of me understand why the problem about John P is that he played croquet for a while. Unless by implication he's the sort of common boy who shouldn't play a toffs game! Pretty wrong headed I would have said. When I was working as a journalist I interviewd a whole load of croquet players in some lancashire mill towns.. not a toff among them. Croquet may have an image problem.. but I am told its a tactical game a bit like good snooker. (the idea is to put your opponent in a ...

I try not to make this blog about local politics - in many ways, this is my escape from my half-life as a councillor, an attempt to make sure I'm still keeping my mind alert to the bigger picture. But exceptions prove rules, so here's a bit of rule-proving... Back in December, I sat down to write some material which could be the basis for the Liberal Democrat finance section of our manifesto for

The most obvious way for humanity to be wiped out is by nuclear war. And it's nearly happened several times. Somehow I can't worry too much about Osama bin Laden when I know that Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon could have caused infinitely more destruction in 10 minutes than bin Laden could dream of doing in a year. At the end of the Cold War days, back in 1984, I can remember the BBC

... the BBC2 website, where a line from my posting two weeks ago about the channel's adaptation of The Line of Beauty has been transiently appearing-disappearing-reappearing throughout the day. A lovely lady from the BBC e-mailed last week saying they would link to me, and suggesting I might like to correct my implausibly wrong spelling of Tim McInnerny's name - which seemed a fair swap. So

Earlier this year I went on about Miss Marple at some length, arguing that the BBC adaptations starring Joan Hickson were superior to the recent ITV versions. Now Will Howells has revealed a pleasing connection with the Liberal Democrats. The script for the BBC's Sleeping Murder was written by Matthew Taylor's father. (Matthew is Lib Dem MP for Truro & St Austell.) A study of Ken Taylor's IMDB page shows that he also wrote the screenplay for Alfred the Great - a very 1960s realisation of the Dark Ages. So much so that it starred both David Hemmings ...

I've just added a little bit of javascript from Amnesty International's irrepressable.info Internet free speech campaign. It displays a snippet of censored text from the Internet, most of which we'd view as ordinary political protest. Tags:amnesty free_speech

Conservative party chairman Francis Maude has this week defended the so-called Tory "A-List" of PPCs, suggesting that they would not be imposing "mincing metrosexuals" on local constituency parties. I was confused as to what he meant by that terminology. Could it be that the Tories have finally come up with a new term to describe those they don't like in a more politically correct manner (i.e. the usage of "foreigners" was replaced with "immigrants")? I asked Wiki, and the only article that came up was the List of sexual slurs. Still, I was not 100% sure ...

Attended a meeting of the Central Lewisham Housing Panel on Thursday evening.  Often, Cllr Bentley and I are the only councillors who show up.  This time the new Lib Dem councillors from Blackheath showed up.  All of them!  I dunno, you wait years for a Blackheath councillor to show, and three turn up at once. The main agenda item was the arrangements for consulting residents when the bulk of housing stock is transferred to an ALMO (Arms Length Management Organisation). There were quite a few concerns about not breaking some of the exisiting consultation arrangements.  There were also a lot ...

There are a number of issues on my plate at the moment which come under the general heading of anti-social behaviour. First up, the local policing partnership have agreed a Dispersal Order for the centre of Lewisham, to take effect from 1 June. I have mixed feelings about this.  There is clearly an issue with low-level crime and disorder in the centre of Lewisham, particularly with gangs of youths hanging about Macdonalds. Unlike some people, I don't have any objection in principle to dispersal orders in these circumstances. But I do think it should be handled sensitively, as there is potential ...

A quick catch-up with what I've been doing over the last week. The big formal event of the week was Lewisham Council's Annual General Meeting last Wednesday.  Most of the places on the Council's various committees had been carved up (sorry, I mean agreed) beforehand. So it was no great surprise to find myself on the Healthier Communities Select Committee.  Veteran Labour councillor Sylvia Scott is its Chair, and I am now her Vice.  Healthier Communities is a personal as well as a political challenge.  Really must do something to improve my health.  The Lib Dems will never speak to ...

Something I’ve learnt today, having never previously felt the need to read Matthew Taylor’s official profile. Turns out the LibDem MP’s dad is Ken Taylor, who wrote, among other things, the excellent BBC adaptation of Sleeping Murder. It’s one of my favourite Joan Hickson Miss Marples (yes, ITV, Miss Marple), with a particularly nightmare-inducing climax. Tags: [...]

Remember Guy Goma? The man who went to the BBC for a job as a data cleanser and ended up appearing on BBC News 24 talking about the Apple v Apple case. Well, he now has his own website.

Gosh, when it rains here, it really means it. For the second successive day, my sightseeing has been ended by the onset of a violent electrical storm and an attempt by the Mekong to reclaim these parts from the air. So I've retreated to the hotel for a workout followed by massage (no sniggering at the back, a real spa massage...). Unfortunately, the Reunification Palace was closed today, due to

A farmer near Blackridge has blocked off a section of National Cycle Route 75 which runs across his land, this is a major route linking the Forth and Clyde valleys. The sustainable development charity Sustrans say that £150,000 of public money was spent on the tarmaced section that the farmer Roy Orr has blocked off. Mr Orr claims that this was done without planning permission and has fenced in

Is it me or is there something of Sir Francis Drake about John Prescott? There he is playing croquet whilst an armada of Labour MPs gather menacingly in the usual channels. It can only end badly.

Or at least that is my paraphrasing of Alistair Campbells position as mentioned in the BBC report. Prescott appears to be seriously damaged and in real trouble particularly with the Parliamentary Labour Party. However, Blair wants to hold onto him particularly as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party to prevent triggering an election for Deputy Leader which might lead to calls for an election for Leader. Is there a possibility that Prescott will go but only in his capacity as Deputy PM and not in his capacity as Deputy Leader? If so who might Blair pick to be interim Deputy ...

On Sunday night I was in a club in Blackpool which had a free internet café. I hope I gain a little street cred for not logging on and posting a blog entry despite the temptation. I was down for a stags do - my sixth trip to the town but my first not attending [...]

We tend to take road-naming for granted. Trying to find our hotel here in Paris, we were confronted with Rue de Clihy, Boulevard de Clichy, Avenue de Clichy and Place de Clichy (pictured) all next to each other. It was all a bit clichéd. I feel for the posties.

They've already done a version in the States. Now they're doing "The Office" here in France. "David Brent" is a bit older but the dodgy humour is the same. The BBC tried out an episode on some office workers. One scene, where "Brent" pretended to sack his secretary for a laugh, didn't raise even a smirk. "Stone-faced" would well describe the reaction. Another winner then.