11:23 pm
In the early days of Liberal England I wrote about E S Turner and his book Roads to Ruin. Sadly, Turner has died (at the age of 96) and his obituary was in this morning's Guardian. I have a large format paperback from the 1960s which reprints many pages from the early issues of Private Eye. One of them makes fun of Punch for being staid and mentions Turner by name. It is no mean feat to be writing 40 years after you have been dismissed as a boring old fart. As a tribute, here is a recent article of ...
11:09 pm
Yesterday's test match may have petered out into a draw, but it did have one highlight for me. An e-mail of mine was quoted by the Guardian's over-by-over pages - the blogosphere's answer to Test Match Special. Go to the morning session and then the 9th over of Pakistan's second innings and you will find the following: Jonathan Calder remembers that John Arlott once described Masood's run up as looking like "'Groucho Marx chasing a pretty waitress'".Asif Masood was a Pakistani opening bowler in the 1970s. And the great John Arlott fought Epping for the Liberals in 1955 and 1959. ...
8:53 pm
I don't have a holiday until September. Until then, I'll just content myself with reading Kim Ayre's account of his travels this month from Castle Douglas to Brittany. "Ten miles from Dover I was feeling pleased with our progress... In the sweltering heat I asked Maggie to pull out the directions I’d printed off to find the Premier Travel Inn motel I’d booked for us to stay in the night before
8:20 pm
The Shropshire Star now has its own blog.
6:52 pm
I hadn't read the whole of the local news in the Nome Nugget before posting on Sunday. If you want to read it all, there's a lot of scrolling down to do. If you go past the Independence Day parade The pictures of the Wheelbarrow Race and the Eskimo High Kick competition The results of the Slowest Bike Race The Herbie Locke Memorial Pie Eating Contest Right at the bottom you get to a photo with
6:51 pm
For people who were complaining that they couldn’t download a copy of the sponsor form, it seems that I managed to get the link wrong, which was why you were having problems. I’ve fixed it on the original entry, but you can also click here to get one.
5:36 pm
I enjoy reading Iain Dale's amusing and good-humoured blog, and so it seems a shame to take issue with Iain for the second time in a week. But his piece for Comment is Free should not go unexamined. Tim Montgomerie is a man the Cameron leadership listens to. His ConservativeHome blog has established itself as the pre-eminent British Conservative website on the net, and his influence now extends far beyond the Conservative Christian Fellowship, with whom he was once exclusively associated. Last week, so sensitive was William Hague about the announcement on leaving the EPP, that he spent half an ...
5:13 pm
'Campaign 2007 starts here!' is a series of five modules designed to ensure that the Liberal Democrats do as well as possible in the May 2007 local elections. The first set of these modules will take place in Birmingham in September and will hopefully be rolled out across the five counties of the West Midlands later in the year.
4:49 pm
I’ve just posted up information about Ming’s new podcast hotline. We did this during the leadership campaign and it worked quite well. One of the mobile providers in the UK allows you to access voicemail via IMAP, thus allowing us to capture the calls off a phone line onto a computer, and it [...]
4:05 pm
On the birth on their second son, James Brown. Music aficionado will appreciate the fact that James Brown was a big influence on Edwin Starr and his classic song: War (what is it good for?). Which is question that could be asked of Bomber Brown. Of course, the answer will be absolutley nothing.
3:52 pm
You might have though that the Conservative transport spokesman, Chris Grayling might not have wanted to "mention the rope in the house of the hanged man"; but no, he is determined to create a Conservative policy about railways. However, even he now accepts- apparently- that the Tories made a massive blunder in the way that they privatized the railway system of the UK. A dignified silence on their biggest balls-up might have been considered polite, but no, the Conservatives are determined to make good their error and should they ever return to power, then they will "fix the problem". My ...
3:48 pm
I didn't realise until I saw this: John Prescott is running the country! Look up your daughters, civil servants and any cattle ranches you happen to have lying around. Via Theo Spark
3:47 pm
Last night I had the great pleasure of flummoxing a call calling market researcher on the phone. The opening question of his survey was 'Have you heard about the Scottish Executive policy of free personal care for the elderly?'. Well as a good Scottish Liberal Democrat I had to say yes. His second question was 'Where did you hear about this?'. Well, I told the truth and told as someone who stood
3:12 pm
A committee of the House of Commons has just produced a report looking at the mix of things you end up having to pay for in the NHS. the Mps say the system is in a mess and the charges need sorting out. Two problems they highlighted are parking at hospitals and the cost of bedside telephones - which can really hit people hard. They also looked at presciption charges and how they can be very unfair.... and went on to suggest that instead people should perhaps be charged for missing appointments at GPs (which probably costs ...
2:47 pm
Last week’s story about Aaron Kosminski piqued my interest and so at the weekend I watched Jack the Ripper, a three hour long 1980s TV adaptation of the story, starring Michael Caine. While taking care in places to feature lots of detail from the time, for the sake of drama it also takes some significant [...]
2:21 pm
Today's storm in a teacup is about the proposal currently before parliament to create an additional bank holiday on 30th November. According to the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, taking an extra day off work will cause an economic crisis second only to the Wall Street crash of 1929 and "more than 650 companies were opposed to the move". As the company I work for is a member of the Glasgow
2:18 pm
LDYS, Liberal Democrat Youth & Students, is the youth and students wing of the Liberal Democrat party in the UK. Following the success of other regional branches such as UniS Lib Dem Society & LDYS Guildford (generating over 100 new members in a single day last year), this is being rolled out for both Borough (including the London Borough of Bromley) and University branches, using our winning formula. To coordinate this launch, a website has been set up by Stuart Morris: Students can join the Liberal Democrats for as little as £3 and ...
2:00 pm
Yesterday a junior home office minister was taking in the house of commons about ID cards. And her view - that these were going to be introduced on schedule, starting in 2008, and that the government was steaming ahead on this. This mad statement comes despite all the stories last week about how the logistics for ID cards just can't be done in time and that the whole thing may have to be really delayed, changed or abandoned. I cant think of a single government IT project that has started up on time, on budget and working ...
12:50 pm
One of the most important pieces of television ever made was broadcast 53 years ago today, and anyone who loves TV should say ‘thank you’. It was the first episode of The Quatermass Experiment, not just the BBC’s first science fiction but, in days when its limited drama transmissions consisted almost entirely of theatrical adaptations, almost the first original drama on British TV. Not only do the Quatermass serials still hold up today (particularly the third, Quatermass and the Pit, a strong contender for the best TV drama ever made) but their influence is colossal, not least on Doctor Who. ...
11:42 am
Energy Q:To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in which year the Government expect the UK to be a net importer of energy. (John Hemming) A:Data on net imports of primary fuel are published in the annual Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics. Table 1.1.3 in the 2005 edition shows that, having been a net exporter of primary energy since 1993, the UK became a net importer of
11:03 am
In a statement yesterday the Crown Prosecution Service said it will not prosecute any individuals for the shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes due to "insufficient evidence". Right, 'cause the officers involved only loaded seven bullets into his head and one into his shoulder. They've all confessed they did it and thus there is no evidence. See Also: Geeklawyer bitching about the CPS
10:49 am
Tory Leader David Cameron's insistence that he will push ahead with his plan to bar Welsh MPs from voting on England- only issues, underlines how little he understands about devolution in Wales. There are two principal and one minor objections to the proposal. The first is that Welsh devolution is not a settled event as with Scotland. Over the next decade the Assembly will accumulate powers at an uneven rate, but even where they assume responsibility for a service they might not take it all on. Thus there will be a large number of Bills that continue to ...
10:37 am
So we've all heard Tony Blair talk the talk: I am not saying that nuclear is the only answer—of course it is not. There are renewables, energy efficiency and everything else. Hansard 14 June 2006 Column 764 So why if is and Jack McConnell the Scottish First Minister do we read today that a renewable energy firm is in danger of closure due to lack of orders. Some people have complained that all we ever seem to have on the renewable agenda is wind farms yet here is Camcal doing great work to harness wave energy ...
10:26 am
More and more Members of Parliament are getting frustrated by the unaccountability of the government, and the failure of Ministers to answer questions properly. This exchange (below) took place in the House of Commons yesterday, and clearly shows how little power MPs have to hold Ministers to account: even with the Speaker's support. Points of Order 4.31 pm Mr. David Gauke(South-West
7:07 am
I am helping with an application for a scheme to make improvements to the Reading Room in Garston. This building, very much part of Garston's history, is used a lot by the community. The Community Council is now trying to raise money for improvements to make it more accessible which in turn would mean more services being provided to voluntary groups all over the area. It's a great scheme because its about helping groups develop and grow as well as providing services - so its all about sustainability. The Community Council needed someone to act as ...
12:09 am
I've recently joined Amnesty International as my time in China suffering ridiculous levels of internet censorship (I could rarely read the BBC news pages in China as they were always blocked) strengthened my convictions about freedom of expression. Occassionally stories would surface about persecution of cyber dissidents thanks to the excellent journalism of Jonathan Watts and others at The Guardian. If you read this blog then please visit the link at irrepresible.info and raise your awareness of the freedoms that we take for granted in the UK (and the Blair Government would love to take away given half a ...
Monday 17th July 2006,
Sunday 16th July 2006,
Saturday 15th July 2006,
Friday 14th July 2006,
Thursday 13th July 2006,
Wednesday 12th July 2006
