11:01 pm
I dragged myself out of bed at stupid o’clock to get to the second rehearsal in The Warehouse, Waterloo. Today’s rehearsal ran from 10am to 1-30pm - so significantly shorter than yesterday’s 10am to 6pm. First a word on the choir itself - 100 people from London and surrounding areas with varying degrees of muscial [...]
10:47 pm
If you visit Shropshire be sure to call in at The Bog Visitor Centre - more pictures here. It is open every weekend until the end of October.
10:19 pm
It has been a bad week for the Tories. Cameron faced some flak for taking part in an ill-advised television interview, and for some half-baked ideas on a British Bill of Rights (there may be a good idea in there somewhere, but Cameron hasn't had it). Then they had the blow of the two by-election results - leading them to question their role. Here is what Voice from the South West said on Con Home The plain and painful truth is that people still want to vote tactically against us when the opportunity arises. It didn't in the local council ...
10:06 pm
As local people may know, the current Christ Church building on Pershore Road (formerly the St Stephen's Church Centre) will shortly be demolished to make way for a new modern building. You can find more details about the rebuilding project on the Christ Church website. Since I was elected in 2004, Dave, Alistair and I have used Christ Church as a venue on the first and third Mondays of each
9:16 pm
Who at Ashton Gate were fabulous. I have seen the Who many times since they first started but for my wife and two boys it was their first Who concert. The crowd was a sellout, the warmup acts ?Never the Bride' and Zutons were good but as soon as the Who walked on the atmosphere was electric. Great show. The week started with the Core Cities conference at Bristol. It was a chance for...
8:52 pm
So the question is: Will the "human" race be around in 100 years?. We'd like the answer to be yes, and to be more precise "yes for the world with a quality of life as good as we have in Britain now". (Although some would disagree) But I think this question, and the paths it leads us down, links in with the discussions earlier in the year about a political narrative for our party - best
8:49 pm
Friday / Saturday was spent away, doing my duties as a trustee of the Community Development Foundation. And now I do know a lot more. I am on this as it requires an MP from each of the three main parties. The Labour MP is the Chair of the Board of Trustees and the rest of the members are made up from the four nations of the United Kingdom and from a range of high-level expertise. As this was my
8:16 pm
Last night saw the annual Dundee Liberal Democrat Summer Party (see photos below!) A good time was had by all! The local party is in the best shape I have ever seen it and if you click the headline above, you can sort of see why. Rather good result in Bromley and our Dundee prospects for the Council and Scottish Parliament next May look bright. Another couple of West End issues being
7:36 pm
The Premier League has it all: loadsamoney; loadsagoals ; and some of the world's greatest players. Young English players are able to learn from the very best in the game. Despite warnings years ago that English football would be worse off to cheap imports of foreign players, both the fortunes of the game at a club level, and the learning of English born players have benefited from the influx or talent.
6:55 pm
The evidence grows that the Conservatives have never met a principle that they could not abandon. After the simple weirdness of Cameron's "Bill of Rights" -which even Ken Clarke thought was pretty much contrary to every principle in our legal system- we now have the brilliant idea of making Scottish MPs second class members of the the House of Commons. After years of unyielding support for "The Union", which nearly drove Scots into the arms of the SNP, the Tories now have the idea that the only constitutional reform that is needed is to stop Scottish MP's voting on "English" ...
4:41 pm
It sounds like it. Conservative MP Alan Duncan says: "I'm beginning to think it is almost impossible now to have a Scottish prime minister because they would be at odds with the basic construction of the British constitution," ..because of the so-called West Lothian question, which has been around in one form or another since the Irish Home rule debate in 1886. So the Prime Minister of the
3:34 pm
For the first time ever I think, I have managed to get a consultation document that has clearly been sent to all households in Oxford. Usually these affairs seem to be "all households except Jock's". Or perhaps it's just that as a "tied worker" it's usually my employer that gets to answer on my behalf. Anyway, aside from the fact that over a thousand of them have been delivered to a now empty hall of residence, as consultations go I quite like it. And its ten questions about how we want to see Oxford develop over ...
1:38 pm
It looks like we are set for a “war” in the autumn over the Lib Dem Tax Commission’s proposals to drop the party’s commitment to a 50p supertax. The Federal Policy Committee are insisting that removing it should only be an “option” for the party to vote on, while Ming is staking his leadership [...]
1:24 pm
The various ceremonies etc around the Somme have led to quite a bit of feature coverage in the press recently, including some stuff about the poetry written during the First World War. I dug out the anthology I had at home and re read some of the poems. I had forgotten how moving and horrifying they are. I suppose today for most of us war is just something we see on TV, and then much of that coverage seems to be taken up with the hi tech stuff. It's harder to get an idea of just ...
12:49 pm
I’m usually quite sceptical of a lot of the schemes you read about on tinternet for solving our problems with democracy in this country, but this idea is at least worth debating: I want to see political parties get penalized for a low electoral turn out. In other words, if we are fed up with them [...]
12:35 pm
Those of us foolish enough to have The Politics Show on rather than playing last night’s edge-of-the-seat-brilliant Doctor Who episode again have just been treated to Tory Shadow Cabinet member Alan Duncan whining about how scared they were about the Lib Dems nearly thrashing them in one of their safest seats, then saying it’s impossible for any Scot now to be Prime Minister because, well, he just wouldn’t be English. Not that this is any way personal against Mr Brown or Mr Campbell, good heavens no, but in the United Kingdom only English people are local to England, you see. ...
12:30 pm
Removed the flag from my blog out of disgust. The whole world knows England lost against Portugal again so we are now out of the World Cup. Up really early yesterday to attend the English Council meeting - found out at the last minute it was being held in Birmingham and not in it's usual location in London, it was too late to do anything about it. Such a silly moo - felt so annoyed with myself for not checking the docs earlier. Just haven't had the time recently. It really disturbed my mind - I take my ...
11:10 am
Irrational is not usually a word I would use when talking about Nick Cohen but a small piece in his Observer column this week is precisely that. Mr. Cohen writes: The 'pavement politics' revolution the Liberals began in the Sixties now means we have MPs who know nothing about foreign or domestic politics, but their ignorance doesn't matter. What matters is that they're 'local'. Ultimately it is for the voters to decide whether 'being local' is a relevant factor in choosing their MP, however the promotion of local links is not something that is confined to ...
10:52 am
I am just powering through the latest Henning Mankell book I have got my hands on - The Man Who Smiled. This is curiously out-of-sequence with others I have read as it is from 1994, but has only just been released in English. For any reader unfamiliar with the work of this Swedish crime-writer and his [...]
9:47 am
In his Wales on Sunday column Matt Withers stirs some vague memories by puzzling over a newspaper claim that Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader, Lembit Öpik, was once a stand-up comedian. I believe that Lembit has done a stand-up routine at Liberal Democrat Conferences in the past as part of the infamous Glee Club. I also recall being told that he has taken part in open mike sessions at a comedy club in London. Apart from that I am unable to shed any more light. Meanwhile, a quote from Jon Snow elsewhere in the paper sums up my philosophy. Asked ...
9:28 am
The link is to an article, unsurprisingly in The Independent, about how someone was questioned for reading The Independent outside Downing Street. I have not been a great fan of encounter receipts. On this occasion, however, they give evidence as to why someone was questioned. It still means that they don't really help necessarily. The limits on demonstrations close to parliament (which has
8:59 am
Saturday started hot, and then got hotter. In the morning we welcomed, with due ceremony, new British Citizens as they took their oath of allegiance. This is always a memorable occasion, and lots of photos are taken in and around the Guildhall. The Deputy Mayor and I wore our mayoral robes, which was rather like wearing a thick fur coat in a sauna. Then a quick cool-down...
8:37 am
I've put up on the website my latest article (for the Highgate Magazine). It's about the Kenwood Concerts.
1:08 am
No, I am not that upset by the defeat in Gelsenkirchen. Three sports matches took place in white today. Andy Murray played his socks off and won in straight sets. France, in white, against all the odds, beat Brazil. (Allez France!!!). Ah yes, then there was England. Rooney - a totally deserved red card- what he should get is an equally deserved tarring and feathering for bringing the game into disrepute. So all the stuff about English heroics comes into context- none would have been necessary if Rooney was not such a third rate embarrassment to the game. Which makes ...
12:48 am
No, not the ugly mug who arguably just got us kicked out of the World Cup, but Josephine Rooney, the latest pensioner who has been getting all excited over the thought of being under the jackboot of Joan “the freak” Ferguson (only to be frustrated when a do gooder went and paid her council tax [...]
12:28 am
A day out of the big city for English Council in England's second city, Birmingham. Typically, Virgin had chosen the weekend for major track repair so, given the similarity in journey times from Euston and Marylebone, I picked the more scenic (and slightly cheaper) route via High Wycombe and Banbury. And with the pleasant company of our Regional Policy Chair, Havard Hughes, the journey sped by,
Saturday 1st July 2006,
Friday 30th June 2006,
Thursday 29th June 2006,
Wednesday 28th June 2006,
Tuesday 27th June 2006,
Monday 26th June 2006
