LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Tuesday 29th August 2006

Dissent in China - Remember How Lucky You Are!

I didn't see this article on the BBC website published last Friday but it provides a summary of some of the examples of how the Chinese Communist Party has maintained its iron grip on political space in the country. And they wonder why Taiwan doesn't want "to come back to the Motherland"?! It is an ongoing tragedy that dissent is still ruthlessly crushed in China and should be a warning to us all to remain eternally vigilant against the authoritarian tendencies of Blair and co. who have certainly sought to reduce the political space available for dissent, notably the ...

The rats desert the sinking ship Blair

Blink and you might miss it. The subtle, off the cuff change in tone coming from some senior Labour MPs and long time Blairites, as they shift to cosy up to Gordon Brown like a teenager in the back row of the movies, is plain for all to see, if you're looking. The latest is Tom Watson, who has launched something of a broadside (if you read between the lines) on Stephen Byers, who is Blair's primary "outrider", for want of a less used word. This comes hot on the heels of the Honorable Geoff Hoon MP suggesting ...

Hurst on Kennedy: Is that all there is?

I was planning to write something about the extracts (here and here) from Greg Hurst's biography of Charles Kennedy in this morning's Times. But they hardly justified the excitement the paper tried to generate. There is little in them that we did not already know. It is interesting to know that the men in sandals went to see Kennedy after the 2004 Spring Conference. And equally interesting to know that Kennedy almost went public about his drink problem the previous summer. But that is about it. Time to move on, I think. Later. Iain Sharpe says much the same ...

LibDem Blog award

Thish ish all about personalities – It's the ishoos that matter

… As Tony Benn might say. I find it hard to get interested in let alone excited about the furore over this instand biography of Charles Kennedy by a hack I’ve never heard of. And much of the talk about whether Lib Dem MPs were too cruel or too kind to Charles or whether they ‘covered up’ his drink problem is nonsense too. I don’t claim any great medical expertise, but whereas it’s likely to be pretty obvious if someone has a cold or has broken their leg, it seems to me, drink problems are harder to be certain about: ...

Presumably it has lots of storage for skin files and lotions?

Sign seen on Gipsy Hill, London See Presumably it has lots of storage for skin files and lotions? on Flickr.com No Tags

How our legislation is made

If you haven't been studying law or politics at college and you haven't been a nerdy nerd and been involved in student politics, then chances are - like me until last May - you will not have a profound knowledge of how legislation is constructed and/or scrutinised. My first real encounter with 'motions' and 'amendments' - which are the pleb version of legislation - was through the Lib Dem

Discipline TV

As I write this, British television viewers can choose to watch: Bad Lads Army: Extreme (ITV1); Supernanny (Channel 4). I am certain this tells us something significant about our society, but I am not quite sure what. You can take things too far. Today's Shropshire Star (note the redesigned website) reports: A Shropshire man appearing in a reality television show today told of his horror as his parachute failed to open after he jumped out of a plane at 3,500ft. Self-confessed “layabout” Gavin Woodhouse experienced the terrifying ordeal during filming of the final episode of the ...

When Lawyers revolt

Who would have thought that a government minister would be heckled by a group of lawyers? This is not the usual approach of such a well-behaved group of people. The Guardian reports thus: Plans to cut legal aid fees for barristers and solicitors defending vulnerable children are to be reviewed after a minister faced heckling from angry lawyers at consultation meetings. Vera Baird, a junior minister at the Department for Constitutional Affairs, has decided to look again at the proposals after meeting what a department spokesman admitted was "a robust response" from lawyers in meetings from ...

Charles Kennedy Has My Sympathy

Although I did have some issues with his performance towards the end of his leadership I have a lot of sympathy for Charles Kennedy today having had an alcoholic father who spent almost all of his adult life in denial about his drink problem. It is very hard for alcoholics to face the fact that they have a problem and confront it. My Dad certainly didn't really quite get to grips with it and ultimately it contributed to his untimely demise. The sensationalist serialisation of the biography in The Times today would suggest some major cover up ...

The wrong news

The Lib Dems made the front page of The Times today, but it was depressing reading and not what I was looking for to mark a return to work after a long weekend. I found Andrew Pierce’s piece on Charles Kennedy disturbing for a number of reasons. First, since it’s the serialisation of his book, it’s going to be the first of many wince-inducing articles about our former leader’s problems with

My Weekend: Weddings, nudity and thin hotel walls...

My weekend away was hugely entertaining, as I hoped it would be. I am rarely let down by my friends and relatives, who provide me with a constant source of amusement and good times. I headed down south on Friday evening, avoiding the catastrophe that is the M6 at rush hour. However, I hadn’t bargained for the eternal disaster that is the Birmingham stretch. In all my time at Birmingham University

Modern Times: Bob Dylan

Earlier today I obtained a copy of the much awaited new album by Bob Dylan. So far, it seems very good. It is very much in the same vein as Love and Theft, rather than the darker Time of Out of Mind. I am now off home to have a decent listen. I daresay I will report back with more details tomorrow. But for now you can read what seems to me a fair review by Alex Petridis in the Guardian.

Open Secrets

The revelations in The Times (and other newspapers and outlets) that actually Kennedy had been an alcoholic for a while should come as a surprise to no-one. But also stink of hypocracy.Surely the media are even more guilty for conspiring and covering-up than the "inner circle". At least the circle were working towards a public declaration, and getting CK to seek help.I think Rob F is onto it when he says that the LD membership will probably be the most sympathetic of all.

Commercial Street update!

Have had complaints over state of footpath in Commercial Street/Exchange Street at Children's Panel Offices - featured in mine & Claire's last FOCUS - click on headline above to read this! Anyway, update today from Director of Planning & Transportation to me: "There has been some delay in the manufacture and delivery of the tree guards and grilles and this has delayed the reinstatement of the footway. However, the tree guards and grille are due to be delivered this week (today) and the grilles will be installed as soon as possible after that. ...

Josie meets James McAvoy

Josie Crawford, Lib Dem Councillor for Coatham Ward, met Atonement star, James McAvoy, at a reception following the filming of scenes at Redcar. Nick Murray has posted some exciting Atonement pics on his blog http://www.nick.org.uk

Socialism and a liberal dilemma

I’ll never quite cut the mustard as a polemicist. Each time I post something controversial on this blog I then worry that I’ve been rather horrid to the person I have criticised. So, pondering my last post on obesity, I should point out, in fairness to Sandra Gidley, that she is doing no more than reflecting a strategic dilemma that the Liberal Democrats face at the moment. Here’s what I mean. Most Lib Dems would agree that they want the party to be liberal. But they also want it to be ‘on the left’. Unfortunately, for the past century ...

Consultation on Gas Market Dysfunction

Having considered the fact that the price per therm of gas for January 2007 (80 NBP) is something like twice the global LNG price for the same date (37p) and almost twice that of the European Oil link gas (43p) it strikes me that the UK gas market has anti-competitive elements within it I am considering asking the Director of Fair Trading to commence a Chapter II investigation into

Radio Nottingham

Edit: recording of interview here. I’ve just been in to Radio Nottingham to record a quick interview about the new Charles Kennedy revelations in today’s Times. I just missed hearing Matthew Taylor’s interview on WATO as I headed out to the BBC, so I didn’t hear until afterwards that he refutes some of the allegations made. As it [...]

South by southeast

So, having had a wander round Alston and a quick trip on the South Tynedale along the path I walked in on yesterday, here’s the rough plan for the next week: Tomorrow (Wednesday 30th) I’m heading off to Langdon Beck/Forest-In-Teesdale which, even using the roads, is likely to take me to the highest point of my [...]

Great controversies in waste disposal history

For work related purposes I was endeavouring to discover who invented the humble skip. In the process I found a delightful series of edits in Wikipedia. The controversy revolves around the line “On another occasion, a group of drunken revellers climbed into a skip and spent three weeks there in the name of charity. They were [...]

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

{studio60} Managed to watch a copy of the pilot this morning of the new show from Aaron Sorkin. I was really impressed with it, it had the feel of the West Wing, as well as a large number of the cast (at least 6 and I'm sure I spotted a seventh) whilst not actually being about politics. We've yet to really see how any of the episode will run, but the series is on Monday this Fall on NBC so I'll be watching out for it.

Are the Tories about to get £15m in foreign funding?

A very smelly story is brewing under the feet of David Cameron. As reported by The Observer, the Conservatives are set to make a profit of over £15m from the sale of their old headquarters, with the money coming from a foreign source (now illegal under party funding rules). The building in question, on Smith Square, was previously leased by the Conservatives for £1 per year, until 2003 when they moved to other leased premises. However, they still own a long term lease on the property (and some adjoining offices) and bought the freehold in March this year for ...

It's a crap sandwich, and we all have to take a bite.

To many people with any sort of inside track on Lib Dem politics today's “revelation” that senior party officials knew about Charles Kennedy's drink problem long before it became public won't seem like news. Rumours has circulated for years, and the coverage we're getting at the moment is a much due to a slow news month than the presence of anything really juicy. However, we shouldn't adopt a bunker mentality, and learning from these mistakes is crucial. Charles Kennedy committed a fundamental political error when we made a decision, allegedly at some point in 2003, to not “go public” ...

Rubbish spying

The Register is reporting the growing trend of monitoring how much rubbish people throw away by putting RFID tags on wheelie bins, often without the household's knowledge. This could be the prequel to a rubbish tax based on how much you throw away. This is an invasion of privacy in my opinion and I hope the LibDems would oppose it. Even the Sun is opposed, although I bet if you could connect it

The book meme

Tom at Let's be Sensible tagged myself and James with the book meme that is doing the rounds. Personally, I think our own high-brow quiz is much more interesting, but since I have not yet coordinated publishing any replies to it.... 1. Name one book that changed your life. The Bangers and Mash series of children's reading books used in Northumberland schools in the early 1980s. I imagine they are very obscure now. As a boy I whizzed through them. I thought they were crap. But my teachers did not believe that I was capable of reading them ...

Tagged again....

The issue I have with these kind of memes is that they are supposed to reveal you as a deeply interesting, thoughful and preferably well read person. As I considered my answers to the questions below I realised that almost none of these things were the case, and in fact an honest answer to each one would be so ambiguous as to be practically meaningless. So, do I give clear answers that reveal myself as I would like others to see me, or do I try to be more straightforward at the cost of probably just writing rubbish? 1. ...

Things wot I hate: Run London adverts

Readers outside of London should feel privileged that they have been spared Nike’s latest marketing/CSR initiative: Run London. They’re adverts are everywhere and they have been driving me nuts. Irritation the First: this cheery repackaging of North versus South London rivalry. In truth, there is no such rivalry, just a simple tribalistic identity rooted [...]

When the leader must go

The Times leader today re-reports the much circulated Westminster rumour that Charles Kennedy's drinking problem was known about by senior figures longer than the short period after the last General Election in 2005. No really... The two stories that were doing the rounds at the time were that either Kennedy was removed by mean MPs who failed to show due compassion to a man overcoming his demons, or that loyal friends had for a long-time been trying to help him, but had finally decided for both his sake and that of the party that enough was enough. What the ...

Copying Cambridge

Hot on the heels of news yesterday from the Oxford Mail that Oxford City Council need to look at how other places are run, citing Lib Dem run Cambridge City Council, comes news that our Central area committee have approved a scheme to license people who hand out flyers that end up littering the place (though only in the city centre it appears, despite the problems elsewhere in the city). They

More lazy Guardian journalism

Neil Clark, while making a strange attempt to explain that totalitarian socialism in eastern Europe wasn't so bad after all, writes that: Children of the former socialist countries regularly come top of European studies of comparative education systems: in the latest International Maths Organisation competition, Bulgaria finished fifth, Hungary seventh and Romania 10th.1. A Maths competition is not a comparative study of eduction systems. 2. Even if it were, as far as I can tell the "International Maths Organisation" is a largely a figment of Clark's mind. Google search it here to see no results.

Selection of short and (un)amusing stories...

Here are a selection of camp experiences from the weekend. I went camping with my auntie's cub pack to Skreens Park, near Chelmsford. I am in love... ...with a set of toilets and showers. No i am not weird, but as I said before I am a big wimp when it comes to camping. I much prefer my home comforts. But at Skreens Park they have invested heavily since the last time I was there and one such

Mud, mud, inglorious mud

If anyone ever tells you that you should walk the Pennine Way because it’s fun and enjoyable, here’s what to do: Go straight to your nearest outdoor shop (Milletts or Blacks, most likely) and buy yourself one or two walking poles - preferably aluminium ones, not carbon fibre - then go back to your friend [...]

Labour's obsession with privatisation is damaging ...

Choosing Doctor Who DVDs Made Easy

Doctor Who: one of the longest-running and best TV series ever made. When there have been over 180 stories made so far, and even the 50-odd adventures now available on DVD can be daunting, where do you start? The obvious DVDs to recommend are the 2005 and (due November) 2006 season boxed sets, but there are also plenty of superb DVDs available to introduce the 1963-1989 series. Depending on what you’re looking for, I’ve picked out sets of half a dozen DVD releases you might pick up as a ‘beginner’s guide’, as exceptional DVD releases, or simply as great stories. ...

Tory copycats: They say imitation is the best form of flattery.

Monday! An early morning email via my blog email from Iain Dale completely knocked me for six - saying the Independent had a write up about me.and the blogging competition - Media Diary: George seeks a peek. Thought crikey what have I done now - opened it with great trepidation. Apart from the fact they have misrepresented me (cringe) as from where the writer garnered the info about possibly nominees is anybody's guess. Speculation is running rife - for a start Lynne is one of the panelists so her blog is not in the frame (sad really because she's is ...

Wire Tapping Doonesbury

Yesterday's Doonesbury once again spots a flaw in US President George Bush's approach, this time relating to the recent wire-tapping judgment: (Click to enlarge) See Also: Fox News WatchAnother good Doonesbury

Big Finnish

I’d just entered a piece here this morning when Blogger went down. There was a moment of fear and swearing; was it just my blog? Was it just my PC? Then the mingled relief and “Well, I hope Blogger isn’t completely f****d,” when 8am passed and Lib Dem Blogs showed the last two days’ posts suddenly down from thirty-odd to nine, with the number of functioning blogs cut by two-thirds. It made me think of the pleasure and the precariousness of this ‘self-publishing’ phenomenon, and of how pleased I was a couple of months ago by a request from Finland. ...

The Times on Lib Dem party members

The Times leader today says The disclosures will make difficult reading for Liberal Democrats. They are entitled to feel queasy that they were being led through at least one general election, the Iraq war and other pivotal events by a figure whose, largely secret, drinking made him unreliable. That his public performances were growing increasingly erratic was [...]

Outdoor disasters

Forget the recent spate of illegal raves, according to Matt Withers yesterday, the event to avoid this summer is the BNP's annual Red, White and Blue festival, outside Burnley, the highlight of which was apparently a concert by folk musician Lee Haggan, performing songs written by the BNP's leader Nick Griffin and including such ditties as British Revolution and Our Towns Will Be Our Own. If you are already feeling queasy at the prospect and need cheering up then consider this tale from the BNP website of two activists who set out to raise funds: The valiant ...

Unhelpful Headlines

Anyone listening to the BBC’s headlines about Charles Kennedy this morning will be misled. Shocking, I know. I admit I’ve read the Times pieces (oh, look, a newspaper that means us no good is serialising this; another shock), and while they’re in no way helpful to Charles or the Lib Dems in general, the headlines still misrepresent them. He “had a serious drink problem before he took up the post,” says Today, “and senior Liberal Democrats concealed it from the electorate.” You’d think that was one headline, but in fact – if the Times’ story is fact – it’s two. ...

So now the police are for sale

This piece in yesterdays Guardian suggests that the police are now for sale. Well at least the saddlecloths and horse boxes of the police horses in Nottinghamshire are. This strikes me as being the edge of what may turn out to be a very long and slippery slope. What next I ask myself? Sponsors logos on the chest and backs of the local bobby on the beat, branded police cars or logos on truncheons and riot shields. How long will it be before someone suggests that the police have backpedalled on an investigation into an alleged crime because it is ...

Planning and Area Committees

I noticed Antonia Bance the other day getting exercised about why planning decisions are an area committee function in Being a councillor - the joy of planning. I wonder if Antonia knows the full history of what has been the longest running disagreement between the political groups since planning for local government "modernisation" started in 2000 or so. And the reasons for the disagreement, I

Not Nasty Enough

We all know that you can never win in politics but a story running tonight about Charles Kennedy’s drink problem really takes the biscuit. The accusation is that senior Lib Dems knew that Charles Kennedy had a drink problem some years ago and did not go public about this. Well, of course many Lib Dems, [...]

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Tuesday 29th August 2006

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