LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Sunday 12th November 2006

And, farewell, Donald Rumsfeld

There's a pleasing headline. One that even that prescient paper, LibDem News, failed to predict. But as we toast the demise of the fixer for Nixon and for Reagan and for Bush (the less stupid and the more stupid), let's pay respects to his most famous quote -- you know, the one everyone remembers (alongside others). It was a moment worthy of Carbaret, presenting the Iraqi War as a vaudeville turn: you wanna know what I don't know? Everything! It echoes the headline gag of David Niven's Bring on the Empty Horses. But -- as ...

Remembrance Day and Post Offices

I laid the wreath this morning at the War Memorial in Whickham, leading the procession along the Front Street with my colleagues Councillors Allison Chatto and Peter Craig. We each laid a wreath for our respective wards. David shot the video so as he's not used to using it, it came out a bit wobbly and the zoom jumped about quite a bit. But it is on YouTube and can be viewed below. Afterwards

Another supermarket closes in Fakenham - Thank you...

The EDP reports on its website today that Rainbow supermarket in Fakenham will close in two weeks. This is the second supermarket to close in Fakenham since Tesco came to town. I openly and vocally opposed the opening of the new Tesco, not just because I feared for the economy of Fakenham, but also becaues of its ludicrous location and the unwillingness of Tesco to build a bridge so that it could be accessed from the by-pass. At the time I got a lot of stick from people. One or two said they wouldn't vote for ...

Is one of my constituents a terrorist?

My latest surgery brought the debates over what legal measures are acceptable in the fight against terrorism right to my doorstep. For one of the people who came to see me was Mouloud Sihali. He was tried – and acquitted - in relation to the Wood Green ricin plot of 2003, but it is clear that the authorities still very much suspect him. A bit of background first, as I've always been a bit uneasy

We remember them

Today was Remembrance Sunday, and I took part in the parade in Prestwich. The service was at St Hilda’s Church, followed by a parade down to the cenotaph by St Mary’s Park. I laid a wreath on behalf of St Mary’s Liberal Democrats. The turnout in the Church was very good. There were very many children there from various Scout-related groups, and armed forces cadets, and St John Ambulance. There

Thaksin may have to wait a year

Reports in the Bangkok Post and The Nation now suggest that deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra may have to wait a year or even more before he can return to Thailand. General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh a senior member of the Thaksin regime, had suggested that Thaksin should be allowed to come home and be contained to his residence. Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont has dashed any hope of Thaksin

Did the BBC deliver on the MIC?

There was a weight of expectation leading up to the BBC programme on the Midlands Industrial Council.

For Remembrance Day

At a Calvary Near The Ancre One ever hangs where shelled roads part.In this war He too lost a limb,But His disciples hide apart;And now the Soldiers bear with Him. Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,And in their faces there is prideThat they were flesh-marked by the BeastBy whom the gentle Christ's denied. The scribes on all the people shoveAnd bawl allegiance to the state,But they who love the greater loveLay down their life; they do not hate. Wilfred Owen Thanks to Stephen Tall and Benjamin Britten for ...

A lot of posts

Forgot to post this on Thursday, but I believe that on Wednesday we saw the largest number of posts on LibDemBlogs since it started. Some 73 posts were made and almost half were about the US Midterms. Unfortunately I’ve not got a proper record of posts per day so without going back through the last [...]

Britblog Roundup #91

Tim Worstall's latest selection has a few of your faves...

To robe, or not to robe?

I don’t go to many civic ceremonies as a councillor - most are held during the working day - but the one I make every effort to attend is the Remembrance Sunday service held at the war memorial on St Giles, in the centre of Oxford. (Incidentally, the one year I was absent, like so many of my colleagues, earned some little local notoriety in the Oxford Mail. Since when, attendance has much

Remembrance Day

I have no photos of this morning. Ian, Harry (the macebearer) and I were all involved in the ceremonies so could not take any. It was a full civic occasion with robes and maces. We began at the War Memorial in New Malden where I laid a wreath on behalf of the citizens of the Borough. Then on to Kingston for more wreathlaying and the 11am Act of Remembrance at the War Memorial. After...

BritBlog Roundup

Tim Worstall's latest selection is in place.

The pity of war, the pity war distilled

Strange meeting It seemed that out of the battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which Titanic wars had groined. Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, Lifting distressful hands as if to bless. And by his smile,

Remembrance Day

These last two days have seen me fulfilling the Civic duty part of being a councillor. Yesterday being the 11th November I was invited to attend the Remembrance Ceremony at the Lincoln War Memorial on the High Street. It lasted for around half an hour, and I stood fully gowned with the other councillors in [...]

Emanuel Wins

Fascinating article from the Chicago Tribune about the intense, forceful, and foul-mouthed Chicago congressman, Rahm Emanuel, who ran the campaign that has just won the Democrats control of congress. "The House that Rahm Built" Anyone who has been involved in the running of an election campaign will find some of the stories told in this article all too familiar. Two things from the article

Inspiration for anyone looking to make their fortune…

…milk, in three-pint bottles. There’s a market for it, I’m convinced. No Tags

High Mill Update

Many residents will recall that, last year, at my request and following residents’ complaints, the area of ground to the north of High Mill was cleared of the remains of the Half Time School and debris left by a developer - the work to tidy being carried out by the City Council under its planning enforcement powers. The half time school remains are in storage. Many residents have complained to me that the area is now getting untidy again – overgrown grass & litter (see right). Therefore, following my request to the Planning Enforcement Officer, she has ...

Is Gordon Brown raising terror issue to win suppor...

News that Gordon Brown will focus efforts on the terrorism threat if elected as leader of the Labour Party might be hard to criticise. Read about it HERE. What this does show is that he has been stung in to action by opinion polls that suggest that the only area he scores higher on in opinion polls than David Cameron is to the question "Who would make the best Prime Minister in a crisis ?" For some time it has been suggested by political commentators that Gordon Brown might need to raise the spectre of terrorism in order to ...

Remembrance Sunday

{Red poppies photo} Today is Remembrance Sunday and the official ceremony at which the Haringey dignitaries and leaders lay memorial wreaths. The ceremony is very well done with the scouts and the venture scouts raising standards or laying wreaths for those too frail to do so themselves. The sun shone brightly down, the traffic was stopped and those who died that we might live were honoured and remembered.

Remembrance Sunday Birmingham 2006

I have noticed that quite a few people are looking at my photographic record of Remembrance Sunday in 2005. I, therefore, took photos from my seat in the VIP stand plus a few others. I have suggested that the City Council kept a documentary photographic record of major city events such as Remembrance Sunday and post them on the web. If I remember to chase this up it would be relatively easy to

No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

My football team narrowly avoided the indignity of being beaten by non-league oppostion in the FA Cup. The mighy Leatherhead were one nil in the lead for most of the match, but we won 2:1 in the...

Prescott: Don't blame the government...

...it's Parliament that makes the decisions. I don't know how many times he's used this excuse in his interview with John Sopel so far. Detention without trial, ASBOs, House of Lords reform - "the government puts forward its policies but parliament makes the decision". On the one hand, at least there is someone in the government that recognizes this basic tenet of the British democratic system, but on the other, we work on a majoritarian system; if government can't persuade its own people who are in that majority, surely it's not parliament to blame, but the government not putting ...

Elton John and religion - Is he right ?

Elton John has today in The Observer spoken out against organised religion. He claims that organsied religion encourages people to "turn hatred towards gay people". Organised religion lacked compassion and turned people into "hateful lemmings", he told the Observer. Elton is making a point that has been made for centuries, that being that most wars are caused by religion, which even today is still true, but he goes further than that by also linking the idea of hatred towards other people being fostered by organised religion. I personally don't think that it is relgion that fosters this ...

Well done Kings Lynn and Norwich !

A superb day yesterday for Norfolk football (although not for Everton fans). Norwich beat West Brom 1-0 at the Hawthorns, again, Earnshaw was the goalscorer (he'll get 30 goals this season). Aside from the five goals conceded at Stoke, Norwich realy have tightened up in defence and with Ernie and Huckerby, they can always sneak a goal from nowhere. Kings Lyn, however, provided the best result of the day, beating Bishops Stortford 5-3 away in the FA Cup first round. Storford, who are in a much higher league, would have been a massive test for the Linnets, but ...

The rollercoaster continues

The three points at home to Southend which saw us out of the relegation zone was followed by a 4-1 defeat by Preston (not unexpected) and a 3-2 defeat by Barnsley (disappointing) dragging us straight back into the relegation zone. Three points yesterday against Colchester with a convincing 3-0 was a great relief considering that Colchester themselves are doing well despite losing Phil Parkinson

Bleeding Hearts

Somehow it is quite disturbing to find out that Home Secretary, John Reid, is on the more cautious wait-and-see side in the debate on whether to respond to acquittal of Nick Griffin with new race hate laws. Personally, I agree with Lord Lester that such legislation is unnecessary, especially when an existing race and religious hatred law has not really had time to prove itself. There is a real danger that trying to legislate for one particular case could have wider repercussions for the rights and liberties of ordinary people. The leader in the Observer sums it up well: ...

Hospitality

As if to reinforce my point yesterday that politician's enjoying hospitality at sporting events can cause problems, the Wales on Sunday reports that officials scored a humiliating own goal when they were exposed for entertaining VIPs at two Millennium Stadium boxes, which have cost the taxpayer £500,000. The boxes were leased by the Welsh Development Agency and Wales Tourist Board - quangos which no longer exist as they are now part of the Assembly Government. In an effort to take the sting out of a potential scandal the First Minister last night announced that the boxes - located ...

Voting machines: a warning from the US

There have been lots of tales from America about problems with electronic voting machines in the mid-term elections, but my favourite example is this one - where a candidate was recorded as getting zero votes even though he’d gone and voted for himself. Two things are common across many of the stories - the absence of [...]

South East Lib Dems call for change in party policy on the Lords

South East Liberal Democrats have voted by an overwhelming majority to call for a change in party policy to call for a fully elected body to replace the House of Lords. The new policy was passed at the Regional Conference in Effingham, Surrey. It goes further than the party’s 2005 manifesto pledge for a “predominantly” [...]

Tony Blair, soft on dictators

It's been a pretty bad week for Tony Blair in relation to the incoherence of his 'pick and mix' approach to principles. On Monday, 'call me Tony' announced a 'big push' on ID cards, insisting that as with CCTV and DNA the issue is one of 'modernity' not civil liberties. That modernity for Tony Blair means taking Britain back to a system of state control ditched as ineffective and expensive back in 1953 is no surprise. But that he attempts to draw witless comparisons between civil liberties and being 'modern' bears some comment. In one respect he's right, ...

Be afraid - be very afraid

Good advice - if anyone wants me, I'll be hiding behind the sofa...

baby girls

Two Liberal Democrat councillors from Forest Hill have had (or have caused to be had) baby daughters this week, one right in the middle of the US election results. My suggested names, including Virginia Montana, have been unaccountably rejected. But, despite that, many congratulations to Cllrs Peake and Russell. With that heritage, we're expecting at least one more Prime Minister idc.

Remembrance Sunday

As has been my custom in recent years I’m off to St. Paul’s Cathedral for the commemoration of the fallen. There’s been much debate in recent days about the wearing of red poppies, but I believe we have 363 days to make a statement about peace in the present and future, Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday [...]

Waitress, get me the alligator, and make it...

... on second thoughts, I'll take it with the creole aioli. I saw the fried alligator on the menu as an appetiser and thought, "Hmmm... an opportunity to eat something which, given half a chance, would be thinking the same thing about me.". And I have to admit that it was pretty good. A bit rubbery in texture, but very tasty. In narrative terms, this introduction is flawed, as the chronology is

Harrogate Spring Conference 2007

I've never been to party conference. The autumn one is always in our arrivals week at university. But I spent half a day at Harrogate in 2006 supposedly staffing the ALTER stand. So, having received a nice letter the other day from an oldish chap with scary eyes and named after a newsagent chain, I've booked up to go to Harrogate in Spring 2007. I'm not a local party rep - I presume that's no problem. But what about accommodation? I have booked a room in the Holiday Inn on the conference site, but it's ...

Disabled Babies Update

A modified version of my previous post has been published in The Sunday Times , along with some other letters of a similar tone. A healthy start to the RCOG's debate, then!

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Sunday 12th November 2006

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