Nick Clegg, speaking on Internet TV station 18 Doughty Street recently described our party as “painfully democratic” - he meant no malice or mischief by the claim, but it was a pithy, and accurate, summary of a key point about Liberal Democrat decision making. Every so often we keep the party’s democracy alive by [...]
The BBC’s morning God-slot has inspired me. Yes, I know, words never before uttered in the English language. That, and the proximity of a very festive date… Previously when I’ve not blogged for a while, I’ve put off coming back into it because the habit’s been broken and it’s taken a while to get back into the mindset. There’s a bit of that, but it’s mainly that I’ve had a distraction. Yes, it’s that old story: a handsome young man takes an interest in my body, and soon causes me a great deal of pain – but I keep ...
There's a suggestion that the South London Press may have misread Diamond Babamuboni's ASBO, although it is ambiguous. SLP's claim is that the individual was banned from the Wooddene in respect of being banned from Southwark in general. However what the ASBO actually says is: "that the Defendant: - must not enter the London Borough of Southwark, including Kingsdale School, Alleyn Park, Dulwich, London SE21 8SQ the boundaries of which are shown edged in blue on the plan annexed to this application." (see below) The map included with the ASBO (below) is the very ...
There is a good seasonal entry by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst on the OUP blog looking at the extraordinary career of this Dickens story. He ends on a thoughtful note: one wonders what Dickens would have made of the regular sight in London or New York of happy audiences leaving the movie theater after a seasonal showing of Scrooged or The Muppet Christmas Carol and carefully stepping over the beggars on the sidewalk.
Kings Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council have turned down a request to build a campus on the site of the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB). The CITB are the largest training provider for the Construction Industry in the UK and it is a real success story. Read more about it HERE. To my mind, it is a shame that Kings Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council (KLWNBC) have turned down the application as this would have cemented (no pun intended) the position of the CITB nationally, just at a time when the newspapers are full of stories about ...
Up at 5.30am to visit one of my local sorting offices and chat to the posties before they go out on their rounds. Every year I hear the same story that the amount of post has increased, yet...
I was stunned today to see just how many people didn't have their fog lights on driving in the fog, but even worse, the number of people who didn't have any lights on at all. It is a shame the police weren't stopping people for it !
Friday Ms Condescending Rice, who is the American Monkey-in-Chief's Secretary of State, says that the War in Iraq will be WORTH THE PRICE in lives and dollars. Well, that's easy for HER to say when neither her life nor her dollars are on the line! It would be nice to say that Ms Rice was using the ENDS to justify the MEANS. Except, no one really has any idea what the ENDS might actually be either. "There have been plenty of markers…" does she mean OIL WELLS? "…that show that this is a country that is worth the investment…" ...
I commented earlier this year on Labour's parliamentary candidate for Old Southwark & Bermondsey - Cllr Kirsty McNeill's difficulty with telling the truth. It seems that she's at it again. Her latest leaflet issued in a small part of South Bermondsey makes some pretty stupid claims, but I'd like to focus on one - her lies about the changes to the organisation of Southwark's Housing service. I sent her the following e-mail on Tuesday morning. She has not responded: _____________________________________________ From: Andy Mayer (personal) Sent: 19 December 2006 10:10 To: 'kirsty.mcneill@southwark.gov.uk' Subject: Old Southwark and Bermondsey Labour Rose ...
Another Friday, another South London Press attack on the Council in respect of a decision not to automatically 'name and shame' children issued with anti-social behaviour orders. The story in this case centres on the horrific shooting of Zainab Kalokoh in August 2005 at a relative's Christening party at the Wooddene Community Centre in Peckham by a gang of teenage thugs, who claim they organised the heist to pay back another group of gun-toting drug-peddling idiots, the Peckham Boys. The leader of the group Diamond Babamuboni, was issued with an ASBO in 2004 by the Police, according to ... 
Well, I did the Xmas shopping last night. I survived to tell the tale! I have a bit left to do tomorrow but here are my loves and hates of Xmas shopping. The hates Hamleys toy shopQueues for tillsCouples joined at the hip walking aimlessly along the pavementGroups of men (normal 4 men together) walking side by side along the pavementSpending moneyPeople who walk into you because they are
My mother has just been in hospital for a minor operation. She has left today, two days later than expected, feeling very let down by the NHS. Let me tell you why. Firstly, she was supposed to go in for just one day, but the minor operation left her in too much pain, so they insisted that she should stay overnight because, and let me stress this point, SHE WAS IN TOO MUCH PAIN AND NEEDED LOTS OF PAIN RELIEF. So what happens when she gets to the ward ? She is not given any proper pain relief ...
He's the Prime Minister of one of the richest and most powerful countries in the world. His nation’s $2 trillion economy relies on its reputation as an open market, free of corruption and sleaze. He is overweeningly proud of his country and its place in the world. Yet he has just been interviewed for 17 hours by investigators - not as a suspect, mind; as a witness. It is a lasting shame to his countrymen. And we should know, because we have just been through the same thing. Dominique de Villepin has been interviewed by judges investigating the ...
I'm delighted to see that Peter Carroll's campaign for the Gurkhas has been adopted by the wider Party (my predecessor as Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesman for Folkestone & Hythe). Please click on the Victoria Cross button to the left and sign the petition supporting improved pension and citizenship rights for retired Gurkha servicemen. The Gurhkas are currently stationed at Shorncliffe Barracks near Folkestone and there are a significant number of ex-Gurhka servicemen living in the Folkestone and Ashford areas. Peter took up the cudgels on their behalf to win citizenship rights prior to the last General Election. ...
Whilst looking at Google Maps and Windows Live Local we noticed a small problem in Blackpool. Can you spot the difference?
Simon Jenkins wonders what's happened to Conservative Libertarians. We believe there is an oppportunity for the Liberal Democrats.
Yesterday I reported that unemployment was rising under Labour. Today, it’s the turn of income taxes. Hard working taxpayers are being squeezed as never before. Taxes on average incomes are at their highest since records began in 1987. The Office of National Statistics reports that taxes on incomes are now 23.6 per cent of wages and salaries. This must be borne in perspective; taxes on average incomes have hovered between 20 and 23 per cent throughout the two decades in which they have been measured. But taxes are creeping up, with no sign now that in the near ...
Friday 22nd December 2006 - It has been a hectic few days here in Pakistan with various meetings with NGO's and leading politicians including the Prime Minister and President Musharraf. We have visited the Punjab and Peshawar regions and also the area devastated by last year's earthquake around Muzzafarabad to see the work and progress being made there. I was able to deliver a donation of over
I was just reading on BBC News that the Queens Speech is going to be available as a podcast for the first time this year. I’ve spent the last 15 years, since I was about 10, trying to avoid the Queen’s speech on television. Unfortunatly while I still lived at home I was forced to watch it [...]
My life is ruled by targets. There are the targets that I help set for the school, challenging but achievable, my own targets for my performance management, targets that I am hoping to achieve as Chair of the local Liberal Democrats (I wont publish them here) and many more that I am either work to form or work to achieve. One annual one is the new year resolution. This year, like probably a 
The latest spat between Ken Livingston and Trevor Phillips is the most recent in a long line of confrontations between the two, and I guess has to be seen in this context. Read about it HERE. When Ken was in the Labour Party first time round and expressed a clear interest in standing as the Labour candidate, Trevor Phillips was one of those "New Labour" loyalists who spoke openly against Ken. Indeed, through various Quango's and other organisations within the Labour Party, Trevor Phillips was openly touted as the futire Labour candidate for Mayor of London at ...
My friend is currently going through a medical examination or 'lifestyle' examination. This is a Christmas present from her husband. I am sure we could all think of better presents, the complete series of West Wing (although I have got 1-6 already) for starters. Well today I didn't need to spend a couple hundred pounds on a medical examination to let me know I am fat. My insurance broker did
Reading this article about the BNP yesterday bothered me more than almost all the various reports about the Middle East recently. Ironically, in reading an article exploring other people's prejudices, it laid bare some of my own. I had always assumed in a sort of comfortable middle class way that members of the BNP could be easily identified because they would look something like this, but it profoundly disturbed my sense of normality to discover that in fact they now come in all shapes, sizes, genders and professions. Odd isn't it? It seems I have serious problems getting around the ...
CiF are voting on their blogger of the year.
I have gone on before about bird flu on this blog, but I do so because I really don't think that people are taking the problem seriously. A BBC programme a few weeks ago said the biggest problem that will lead to the spread of bird flu and the death of many hundreds of thousands of people needlessly is ignorance, ignorance of: 1) What to do if it starts. 2) How to protect yourself. 3) How to stop it spreading. 4) Most shockingly, ignorance of the fact that a flu pandemic will happen at all. It is ...
A name to remember, if ever there was. The title of the final part of the Harry Potter series of books has been announced and is to be called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The release of this book will be like then end of an era in my life as the Harry Potter books seem to have been published since I started teaching, and it has, for me, been fascinating to see children taking up the books at different ages and being fascinated by them. I know all good things come to an end, but somehow, it's a ...
I am off work for a few days now for the Christmas break and have come down to London to spend time with my family and friends down here. Last night I met up with some good friends in Blackheath including Sue Simmonds and Chris Maines who I always try and catch up with when I am in London, the rest of the weekend will be spent with my family.
Reading an article about the Anti-Imperialist league in late 19th Century USA, I came across a quotation which seems to have much bearing on the current state of play in the US and the administrations definitions of patriotism: This Club [the Massachusetts Reform Club] never met under circumstances more calculated to create the gravest anxiety in every patriotic man than tonight, and by
After all the serious stuff I write each year, I let myself have a bit of fun for my Christmas column in the local Ham High newspaper with my annual Christmas Fairy Tale, featuring red, blue and golden elves! Of course some people think this is terribly out of order and MPs should be terribly dour and serious all the time (hello Guardian Diary!), to which I say - bah humbug!
We’ve added some new features to the all-members website (reached via the link at the bottom of www.libdems.org.uk - you have to be a paid-up party member to be able to register). They include display of the latest party video, tidy up of some layout issues and - most importantly - a page listing party-recommended suppliers for [...]
It is possible that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had just read the Christmas Radio Times before deciding to limit the BBC's licence fee to a below-inflation increase. With only one or two exceptions, the choice being offered to viewers by terrestial TV stations is absolutely dire. Much as we would all like to cling onto the concept of a public service broadcaster, the time has come when we have to recognise that in television terms a great deal has changed. Long gone are the days of my childhood when we only had the choice of three channels. The ...
Today's Guardian reports that Russia is proposing to meet its growing demand for housing by building its own version of Milton Keynes - a £5.5bn city for half a million people close to Moscow. Nothing about concrete cows though. Presumably, they will come later.
Todays link takes you here to the Guardians Christmas film Quiz.
Thursday: Ms J.K. Rowling Pin has revealed that the title of the seventh and final Harry Potter novel will be "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was first published in 1997, and – since each book takes place over the course of a year – like my diary, the books have, er, drifted slightly, as it now ought to be set in 2003. For a LONG TIME my Daddies tried to avoid getting hooked on the Harry Potter PHENOMENON, until one BOXING DAY, in the year 2000 (just before I arrived!) they ...
We’ve just had the annual settlement in from Transport for London (TfL) - a month late but never mind. We now know where we can spend our money. It is a cause of constant frustration to me that Southwark Council can’t spend the money in transport according to our own local priorities - evreything we want to do has to [...]
A few days ago in my posting Trial by Jury I had a rant about media coverage of the Ipswich murders. Clearly I am not alone in my concern. These extracts from the Guardian article about a suspect being charged: A senior prosecutor added his voice to concern over media coverage of the Suffolk killings last night as detectives charged a suspect with all five murders... Michael Crimp, a senior
Nice privilege tonight with a second appearance on new Internet TV channel 18 Doughty Street in their last broadcast of the year, the late night round up. We spent a good hour reviewing and rounding up tomorrow's news with an unusually high number of links to local events in Southwark. These included the problems we're facing in respect of declining confidence in the criminal justice system, with a suspicion Police are not doing enough to respond to calls and make arrests, anti-social behaviour powers are being used as a substitute for arrests, courts are not securing enough convictions, ... | < | December 2006 | > | ||||
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