11:35 pm
In my essay "Defending Families", published in Passports to Liberty 5, I wrote: no one will take exception to the statement that we do not own our children. Indeed, given that no one alive in Britain has ever heard anyone claim that we do own our children, you wonder quite why it is being made. Is this argument addressed to a 21st-century audience or to some long-dead Puritan ancestor?On the Guardian's Comment is Free blog there is an article by David Archard. He writes: Parents do not own their children, although this view has a surprisingly long and respectable intellectual ...
10:45 pm
Am slowly watching the third session of the West Wing. I have noticed that during the open credits the stars are featured in alphabetical order apart from Rob Lowe who appears first. The only thing I can think of is that they needed a big star at thee beginning of the credits (Dule Hill) wasn't well known then.
9:51 pm
Firstly, a bit of good news! To quote blog on 29th June : "Following complaints, I have raised the concerns about the high shruberry on the roundabout at Riverside Drive/Avenue (near Marmalade Pot) - very difficult for drivers coming roundabout to see pedestrians - have raised this concern with the Planning & Transportation Department." Good news is that the Council has now advised me that it has asked Dundee Contract Services to trim the shrubbery - hope its done soon. Other issues : Sinderins - Following the complaints about squint signs etc, the situation has ...
9:48 pm
While we're thinking around irresponsibility with money and the Labour party, not much has been heard since April of Harriet Harman MP's speech at the Aylesbury Sure Start center where she expressed the desire to raise income tax by 1p to fund more child care. It's very unusual for a Labour minister to break ranks on tax policy, presumably she's either had a change of heart or been gagged by Gordon. However it does seem to be a bit of habit with Southwark Labour, we recorded over £34m of unfunded spending commitments by the leader of the opposition leading ...
9:39 pm
From this week's Sunday Times: Tony Blair is under pressure to account for his conduct after it emerged that he singled out Sir Cliff Richard’s campaign to change copyright laws as a priority for reform. Richard, who has given Blair and his family free use of his £3m Barbados villa for the past three years, has been lobbying the government to extend the period for which he can earn royalties on his work from the current 50 years. The Sunday Times has obtained a written record of an internal Labour meeting at which the prime minister sets out his ...
8:59 pm
Hat-tip to the blogger who forwarded me this analysis and the Guardian: it shows the full extent of the mess Labour are in after spending beyond their means in 2005 - £27m of debt and £15m more spent than received. In 2006, in London alone, the Labour party spent over £2m in this years local elections. Much of which was spent on glossy leaflets and call-centers for phone canvassing 150-200 target wards. So the situation is unlikely to have improved. Southwark Labour's campaign noticeably tailed off in terms of quality and quantity in the last month to avoid having ...
7:32 pm
Was talking to a colleague today, Barbara Mace who is a councillor for Woolton. She's been working for years, along with Cllr Barbara Collinge, with a group of residents and others on the Woolton in Bloom project. Over the years Woolton has entered the north west bit of the Britain in Bloom competition and done better and better until it was selected as the North west entry in the national contest. The judging has just taken place and now there's a wait for the results. Apparently the awards ceremony this year takes place in Perth. ...
7:18 pm
If there’s two things I’ve always had a weakness for they’re: telly and statistics. So, unsurprisingly, I find myself irresistibly drawn - like a moth to a flame, or David Cameron to pastel-coloured vacuities - to MediaGrauniad’s TV Overnights, which reports the latest ratings of the previous day’s viewing. For instance, I now know that last night 7.3 million of us were watching Emmerdale,
6:44 pm
I was rather struck by a statement by Tony Blair on the BBC this morning. He was asked why it seems that the UK and the US are standing alone in not calling for an immediate ceasefire by Israel. No, he said, the UK and the US are not alone. The same position, he insisted, is being taken by Germany, Australia and Canada. Ah! Then I had a little think.... Germany - led by Angela Merkel of the
6:43 pm
Butlin's are offering folk a holiday every year at their Minehead facility (I hesitate to use the old term 'camp') for the rest of their lives for £6,000. You can't say fairer than that. Minehead is a most beautiful place and Butlin's everything you would want for a family holiday. It all brings back some wonderful memories. We had a marvellous holiday there a few years ago. The standard of
5:32 pm
One thing that might be of interest to all, some or none of you is a breakdown of how far I’ve gone each day. And even if it’s not, then it’s good for me to have them all recorded here. Distances are all calculated from Google Maps, and are the straight line from start to [...]
5:06 pm
Just a thought - if anyone out there can email from their phone (which I suspect includes just about everyone except me) and fancies doing me and the other readers of this blog a favour, please get in touch - I can take photos with my phone, but if I could send them via SMS [...]
4:43 pm
Listeners to a Christian radio station, KFYE-FM, in California received something of a shock when their station started announcing itself as Porn Radio - All sex all the time and playing an hour long compilation of sexually themed songs such as Why Don’t We Do It in the Road by The Beatles (Clint Ruin and Lydia Lunch did a fantastic cover of this BTW), Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye and Nasty by
4:13 pm
The US occasionally throws out a great wit. Mark Twain and HL Mencken come to mind. The modern equivalent is P J O'Rourke. His ascerbic and wise comments are particularly apposite coming from a Liberal perspective, although his attacks on American Liberals (Leftists, rather than Libertarians) are pretty sharp: "People ask me if I've ever been called a Nazi. I answer that no one has ever had dreams of being tied down and sexually ravished by someone dressed as a liberal." Other stupendous quotes from PJ: Politicians are always interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas ...
4:06 pm
The BBC report that Currys are selling solar cells, to provide domestic electricity. According to the story, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5234402.stm these systems take at least 64 years to pay back the investment. There’s little chance that the system will still be there in 100 years! What a waste of money. Far better to invest in solar water [...]
4:01 pm
As of today, you can now discover the likelihood of being suddenly slain. The current threat level is SEVERE. The red capitalisation is mandatory. According to the Intelligence.gov.uk website guidance, this means: Substantial - an attack is a strong possibility I’m disappointed that the “Intelligence Community” haven’t taken the lead from the LibDems and made us buttons [...]
3:49 pm
Last weekend saw the final edition of Top of the Pops, a show that’s been fading away on BBC2 life support for some time. I’d intended to watch it but, come Sunday, we were watching DVDs and didn’t remember. I suspect that’s pretty much been the story of the end of its life: with so many other pop outlets, it simply wasn’t essential viewing for anyone any more. I did, however, celebrate the programme earlier in the week by buying a couple of singles. The Pet Shop Boys’ Minimal was for Richard, and the Who’s Wire & Glass for me. ...
3:25 pm
I’ve just had a conversation with one of the leading anti-phone mast campaigners in the area who led the campaign against the proposed mast on the Crystal Palace Tavern. The owners of the pub, Punch Taverns, have decided not to give permission for a phone mast on their building after all. This follows months of pressure [...]
3:18 pm
Now before I start I just want to reinforce that I am not and I am far from being a big muscle guy. Nor am I suggesting that I am a local celebrity. Now that I have that off my chest... How long doies it take to leave the gym? No it is not a joke. I have just been to the gym (a luxury of being on holiday means that I have more time for things like my health) and it took at least 10 mins to leave the complex. I bumped into so ...
2:44 pm
The old system of threat levels with various colours including Black Special was not exactly straightforward. However, we now have a new system of identifying a threat level. These new categories are:LowAn attack is unlikelyModerateAn attack is possible, but not likelySubstantialAn attack is a strong possibilitySevereAn attack is highly likelyCriticalAn attack is expected imminently The
1:07 pm
I was asked today how long I’ve been a blogger, and I wasn’t entirely sure. The only things I could say with confidence were that I’d been a blogger longer than I’d been a Lib Dem, and I’d been a blogger longer than the term ‘blog’ had been in wide circulation. The archive from this blog [...]
12:27 pm
We have recently had a very hot month, possibly the hottest on record. Many people have been blaming global warming (something which I think is definitely happening), but a radio amateur recently suggested something else.Our planet is affected to a very large degree by the sun and radio amateurs tend to be very concious of the sun, the 11 year cycle of sunspots affects the conditions for world wide short wave communications. Solar weather also affects communications at higher frequencies and can even wipe out communications. Amateurs with a longer memory than myself have noticed a correlation between hot summers ...
12:15 pm
I couple of days ago I suggested that Iain Dale was seeking to emulate Marina Snyde’s glittering career: now he’s taking the shortcut by quoting large chunks of her articles on his website. What can I say? QED. As for the article itself, it starts off well: there certainly is a self-destructive streak running [...]
11:21 am
SpyBlog (recommended reading for anyone interested in civil liberties, security, technology and the law) points out that we now have a 'Severe' security level.They also point out how pointless this is as it does not tell us anything about what we might want to do in this state. There is no reason for this from a security point of view if you are going to keep all information secret, or even tell people how they might prepare for events. The only reason I can see is to keep up a climate of fear for political reasons (be they party politics ...
11:17 am
Conservative Home http://conservativehome.blogs.com/ has some interesting research today on the cost of being a Conservative Candidate - £41,550 for winning candidates and £27,235 for losing candidates. I know its costs a fortune, although my candidacy in Wolverhampton South West was done on the cheap.
10:33 am
Well, it’s not really, but I’m on the Black Isle and find my thoughts drawn to Johnny the depressive painter from The Fast Show so it seemed appropriate. Actually, grey would be even more appropriate as it’s rather rainy today, which is why I’m glad this is a day off - I got somewhat wet [...]
10:15 am
The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management has spoken after a long and 'transparent' consultation process. The report is available to download here. A summary: bury it deep and bury it fast in some kind of fantasy partnership with a 'host community'. In an insulting political aside, news reports last night suggested that host communities might get some benefits, 'like a new hospital'. The
8:52 am
So what exactly is Culture Minister, Alun Pugh trying to say when he combines criticisms of the way that the Western Mail report the Assembly with the news that his Government are reviewing the £3 million a year they spend on advertising with parent company, Trinity Mirror? A number of Labour AMs have been very critical of the paper recently, complaining that it no longer has a reporter at the Assembly, that it does not cover everything that they think it should and that it shows the Assembly Government in an unfavourable light. If this is the Government's response ...
8:44 am
The results are out and it seems that my meagre efforts to generate electricity in the WWF Cymru tent at the Royal Welsh Show last week were eclipsed by a number of Assembly Members, including my Group Leader, Mike German. The Western Mail reports that the top AM was David Davies who, on his second attempt clocked up 12,449 watts. In second place was Environment Minister, Carwyn Jones whose score of 11, 724 was enough to power a sheep shearing machine and a microwave. I am afraid that my second attempt fell far short of the 9,300 watts ...
12:53 am
There's a bit of a kerfuffle started up over a report by eminent science guru Colin Blakemore and David Nutt of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and MPs like the report and want change. But there's something I would like to know about the research - if anyone finds an answer to this I'd be grateful. Heroin and cocaine are in there as number one and two most harmful drugs (followed by barbiturates, methodone and then good ole grog incidentally - way ahead of LSD at 14th and Ecstacy at 18th). Now I presume first that ...
12:14 am
The Lib Dem newsfeed on Monday included this - Urgent need for review of banking system - Cable: Urgent need for review of banking system - Cable31 July 2006 Responding to the news that HSBC has posted pre-tax profits of £6.7bn, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable MP said: "There is a serious question mark about the level of profits in the banking sector. In March 2000 the Cruickshank report provided a serious set of broad recommendations for action, yet the Government’s failure to act has meant that we are in the worst of all worlds. "Piecemeal and ...
Monday 31st July 2006,
Sunday 30th July 2006,
Saturday 29th July 2006,
Friday 28th July 2006,
Thursday 27th July 2006,
Wednesday 26th July 2006
