LibDem Blogs - Archived!

I have been (very kindly) offered a place at a party "assessment day" on August 5th to try for approved parliamentary candidate status. But I have decided not to go. I attended one just before the last election as I was angling to be a paperless candidate in one of the Leeds seats. I got a grade 3 which ment I wasn't allowed to stand which was slightly frustrating as the experience would have

What better way is there to spend a Sunday afternoon in June? We were under the trees by the river, watching fit young people showing off their prowess. The Dragon Boat Challenge is another brainwave of Kingston Rotary. 21 teams entered this year, all contributing to the chosen charity of the Rainbow Trust. Some were experienced paddlers from dragon boat clubs, but most...

The past week has been a bit challenging logistically in that half of it was spent in London visit the new wind turbines. Photos below taken from underneath one of them - I was really surprised at just how quiet they are. Impressed by Michelin's tackling of assisting residents with any concerns.

When I repeated the observation that the Eurovision Song Contest had been won by "a sort of cross between Klingon warriors ... and The Wombles", I was not far off the mark. An interview with Mr Lordi - Tomi Putaansuu - on the BBC website reports that he: described himself as "a huge monster freak", naming Freddie Kruger, the Incredible Hulk and Monster from the Muppet Show as his favourites.

Only a week ago I wrote to congratulate the England selectors for consistently making the braver choice this summer when faced with a dilemma. This time they did not do that and we lost the test. You can hardly blame Jon Lewis for that defeat. His performance was at the upper end of what we could have expected. He took wickets against inexperienced batsmen in helpful conditions in Sri Lanka's first innings. In their second he was tidy without being threatening. But if Sajid Mahmood is the bowler we hope he is - able to reverse swing the ball at ...

Whilst I was in Hay on Wye at the weekend I indulged in two of my weaknesses: I bought a load of books I do not really have time to read and I acquired two more of my trademark colourful ties. With regards to the latter purchase, we stumbled onto a small shop selling wonderful ties. They are hand-painted silk by Sue Forrest. The owner told us that Jon Snow had been in earlier in the week to purchase some to wear at festival. He gave us a web address for her but I appear to have lost it. ...

Cristina Odone has an interesting take on The Sun's current little local difficulties in today's mediagrauniad: The paper failed to expose the scandals surrounding Prescott, from his romps with Tracey Temple (a Mirror scoop) to croquet on the lawn at Dorneywood (Mail on Sunday). Kate Moss's coke habit (Mirror) and Heather and Paul McCartney's split (Mirror again) were also missed

ARCH - Action on Rights for Children - has a valuable blog detailing all the systems that exist and are planned to keep track of children for different reasons. ARCH is planning a conference on the subject on 27 June and also maintains a news blog.

Residents of Lee Warner Avenue in Fakenham have raised concerns regarding the state of the verges on their road.

There have been stories today about the government wanting to make progress on the "respect agenda". As usual they have no real idea of how to achieve things. Anti-Social Behaviour Orders have been around for centuries. They are originally known as court injunctions. Much that there is criticism of ASBOs I do support their use. They are not a complete solution. It takes police resources to

Have the Conservatives taken a surpising pro-European turn? No?

Went along to St Aidans church the other day for the service to install a new team vicar in Speke. The new vicar, Gill, is really welcome as there has been a vacancy for a while. She is joining Carol Kidd. Carol is based in West Speke and i see her regularly when I do my surgeries. I haven't been to a service like this.. well not for ages.. and I was really impressed at how happy and relatively informal it was. Obviously all the right words had to be said.. and it was a ...

The Liberal Democrats today launched an online petition as part of their campaign to tackle homophobic bullying. I would not consider myself to have bullied at school but like most kids got called some names in my case mainly 'four-eyes' or 'fatty', it must be awful to be bullied and particularly homophobic bullying its bad enough for most kids to deal with puberty but gay kids also have to deal with coming to terms with their own sexuality and realising they are not deviants but just happen to be gay.

Today is the United Nations's World Environment Day. To coincide the Environment Agency has issued a list of pledges that you can sign up to. I have pledged to all bar one (I do most of them already) - I can't pledge to the one to reducing my driving as I do not drive.

Again from The Register: Government mulls mind expanding drugs, man Government mulls mind expanding drugs, man Soma timeBy Chris WilliamsPublished Monday 5th June 2006 11:25 GMTFind your perfect job - click here for thousands of tech vacancies. New Labour's top science advisor has told government a new generation of brain function-enhancing pharmaceuticals are set to change how people live their lives over the next 20 years. In a presentation to ministers at Downing Street, Sir David King said “recreational psychoactive substances” will be used by healthy people to improve their cognitive abilities, The Sunday Times reports. ...

From The Register: Aussie council deploys Barry Manilow sonic weapon Aussie council deploys Barry Manilow sonic weaponMerciless assault on tearawaysBy Lester HainesPublished Monday 5th June 2006 13:03 GMT An Australian council has decided to deploy the ultimate rowdy youth repellent - piped Barry Manilow backed by a further selection of "daggy" melodies. The radical sonic attack plan is designed to drive the ne'er-do-wells from a car park in Rockdale, Sydney, where they have been "revving their engines and generally annoying residents", the BBC reports. Nice one!

Gordon Brown is to “re-examine” the £3,000 cap on student top-up fees - i.e., increase it. Universities need more money and apparently charging people who aren’t available for full-time work and who are already paying thousands into the system is attractive to the Chancellor. Top-up fees haven’t even come into effect yet and already the [...]

Today is World Environment Day and via Rob and the Liberal Democrats comes an excellent scheme from the Environment Agency. You sign up for certain environmentally-friendly actions that you can take (thinking globally, acting locally, etc.), and their website keeps track of how much you’ve helped. Suggested green pledges include reusing shopping bags and conserving [...]

What is Annabel Goldie up to? Every analyst in Scotland knows that the Labour vote is collapsing. You only have to look at recent results Dunfermline & West Fife, Moray etc to see the party is heading to meltdown. Yet the leader of the Scottish Tories has said she would prop up Labour in a 'stability pact' should they lose the support of the Lib Dems and cannot find anyone else to help them.

It looks like poor George Foulkes former MP, former Chairman of Hearts FC has been taking maths lessons from Alex Salmond. Mr Foulkes is looking forward to returning to politics for Labour on the Lothian list at next May's elections. This must spell disastor for some of the regions constituency MSPs in that event. Even if Labour could maintain their second vote share from 2003 they would have

With the World Cup kicking off this week we have had to bring a new factor into play when arranging business meetings - check the football fixtures first. This may require some translation to the US parts of the business where the concept of dropping everything for a World Cup match is not so well known. There [...]

James Lovelock appeared at the Hay Literary festival and, in the words of the Guardian's John Harris, showed that he is 'practised at the art of telling people what they don't want to hear'. If ever we needed that talent in spades, it is now. When Lovelock appeared on BBC 4 he aired similar, uncomfortable views, especially on the need for nuclear power and the fallibility of renewables.

It’s world environment day - join the Lib Dem pledge pyramid, unless, like my old boss, you’re scared of sunflowers. In which case, stay away from the Lib Dem Website today.

I have read two interesting blogs on this subject over the last couple of days. First of all at QuaeQuam Blog and secondly at Jocks Blog. There was also a piece in yesterdays Observer and another one in today's Guardian. All of this has set me thinking about which bits I like and which bit I don't (bearing in mind of course we are yet to see the actual proposals). I am not keen on dropping the 50 percent tax rate simply because I believe that those who are substantially better off can afford to contribute more to the pot ...

The Conservatives don't have any policies and a ten percent opinion poll lead. Go figure. I'm off to find some chicken entrails to rummage through. Maybe that'll give some answers, and failing that something to make a pate out of.

I notice that our friends McDonalds are at it again. This time their sponsorship of politicians to go to a major sporting event has attracted a lot more attention than they are used to. As their major business is to sell fast food then the company will not worry too much about the publicity. It may also be the case that the MPs concerned can find the words to justify their behaviour until the cows come home. However, this sort of patronage really is indefensible in my view. Those picking up the bill always have a price that they ...

The shiny new Tory Party looks a little less shiny today, after its Bromley members last night rejected two high-fliers from David Cameron's A-List as their Parliamentary by-election candidate in favour of a middle-aged white male Freemason from Tower Hamlets who seems to represent everything the Tories are supposed to be moving away from. Cameron did say local associations were free to select local candidates over the A-List, but Neill's local connection (he represents Bexley & Bromley on the Greater London Assembly) is tenuous at best - no stronger than Robert Evans had in Brent East as the area's ...