LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Monday 26th February 2007

The Talons of Weng-Chiang – The DVD

Thirty years ago this evening and four times as long ago in spirit, the BBC began broadcasting one of the richest slices of entertainment ever made for television. The Talons of Weng-Chiang brought Doctor Who to the Victorian era, with values very different to those of Mrs Mary Whitehouse. This eclectic extravaganza of efflorescent ectoplasm makes probably the all-round best Doctor Who DVD released so far, and certainly the one I’m most likely to pop on just to cheer myself up. So let me entice you through the fog alongside Tom Baker and Leela to see why it’s so special… ...

City Council Meeting - 27 February 2007

The agenda for the City Council Meeting on Tuesday 27 February 2007 has been published. This is the annual meeting to agree the budget and the main items of business are therefore the budget itself (with a proposed Council Tax rise of 1.9%) and the Council Plan 2007-10. However, the Chair of the Audit Committee (fellow Selly Oak Ward councillor Dave Radcliffe) will also be delivering his first

I stand accused

I'm under attack. Or, at least, I would be if they hadn't fluffed their lines. What my opposite number in the Labour group, Ed Turner -- a hard-working councillor, by the way, and an asset to the Town Hall -- intended to say in Council today was something like: see that man sitting there ouzing insouciance when we can make him tremble with the revelation that tergiversation would most aptly be his nom-de-guerre. Perhaps I haven't quite caught Ed's tone, but you get what he meant. I stand accused of changing my mind. What is more, they say they ...

Fairtrade Fortnight 2007

Today was the start of Fairtrade Fortnight and there are a number of events in Birmingham. The Fairtrade Association Birmingham (FAB) also has a directory of shops selling Fairtrade products in Birmingham. The Fairtrade Mark guarantees a fair and stable price to farmers in developing countries, it also guarantees consumers a top-quality and environmentally-friendly product. It is a simple and

The Strangest Hotel in Britain? Um, not that strange afterall…

Channel 4 screened a documentary tonight - ‘The Strangest Hotel in Britain’. It was about the Foxes Hotel in Minehead, Somerset which is a B&B hotel that employs staff with learning difficulties and mental ill health. In the usual way when programme makers talk about disability, the hotel and staff were completely sensationalised. [...]

Counting the cash

Here’s a fun thing for a cold, dark evening - browsing the Electoral Commission’s register of donations to political parties. This, for example, is the breakdown for the Lib Dems for each of the past six years. 2001 = 312 donations with an overall total of £1,537,428.32 2002 = 247 donations with an overall total of £937,629.10 2003 = 386 donations with an overall total of £2,964,902.85 2004 =

Back in the Echo

I’m in the Lincolnshire Echo again. Second time in seven days! Something to do with my slight obsession with number plates.

Why the UK's universities are dwarfed by Stanford

Here’s a rather frightening statistic… the ‘Ross Group’ of 75 universities in the UK raised £450m in donations during 2004-05 (the most recent year for which figures are available). Sounds pretty impressive, doesn’t it? However, it is rather put in perspective by Stanford University, which raised US$911m in 2006 - that’s £464m at today’s exchange rates. In other words, Stanford raised more

No traffic wardens in North Norfolk

The EDP reports that North Norfolk will have no traffic wardens operating for the next few weeks. I'd love to report that this is a new problem, but we have not had a traffic warden Fakenham for several months, and Norfolk Constabulary do not see it as a priority to employ one, neither will they allow Police Community Support Officers to issue traffic tickets for parking offences. It seems that Norfolk Constabulary seem disinterested in the traffic problems in North Norfolk towns. However, they are still keen to collect the money from speed cameras between Fakenham and Holt. Double standards ...

This Week’s Lobster Diagram

Untold numbers of Hooting Yard readers have been writing in with a single demand. What we expect, Mr Key, they all say, is regular lobster diagrams! We know what we want and we want them weekly! Whether this is a true reflection of the popular will or a sinister campaign to divert us from our [...]

Consistent as ever : Our NATO European allies let us down again

Another 1400 UK troops are going to Afghanistan, and more requests for help from our European NATO allies to support operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan go unanswered. France and Germany refuse to let their troops in Afghanistan operate in any dangerous areas whilst requests for more helicopter support have fallen on deaf ears. Some nations feel they can sit tight and that terrorism will pass them by. On a day when three French people died at the hands of Saudi terrorists, it is clear that this is no policy at all. I said it in September HERE, ...

Party committees and confidentiality

The most recent issue of Liberator magazine includes an article by my friend David Grace putting the case against the party supporting a renewal of Trident. In it he quotes some of the less impressive arguments put in favour of keeping Trident at a recent meeting of the Liberal Democrats' Federal Policy Committee. In doing so, he has caused no end of a row - chiefly in the comments to this posting on the blog of another friend, Alex Wilcock. Reading only a little way between the lines, it is clear to Alex that everyone knows that FPC's discussion ...

Nick Clegg interviewed in The Times

It seems that Giles Hattersley spoke to our man as they sped through Market Harborough. His piece contains the following interesting snippet: Clegg’s background isn’t traditionally Liberal. He was born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, in 1967. His father was a City banker and his mother, a teacher, is Dutch and arrived in Britain via a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Indonesia. Clegg is only a quarter British as his father is half Russian, Clegg’s aristocratic grandmother having fled St Petersburg after the tsar was ousted.

The greatest kindness a parent can show to a child is to teach them that no means no

The news seems to be full of the story about the 8 year old boy who is 15 stone, and the possibility that he may be taken in to care. Here are a few of my observations on the story. 1) You can be locked up for over feeding a dog, but not a child. This is odd in itself. 2) His mother claims that if he is given healthy food he spits on it. WHAT ! My goodness, if I had done that as a child my parents would have made it clear in no uncertain ...

Germaine Greer on Gilbert and George

That's enough alliteration-Ed. Blogging for the Guardian, Germaine Greer paints a grim picture of life in Britain's most famous artistic double act: Gilbert Proesch apparently still has Italian nationality, but every word spoken or written by Gilbert and George is in English, which Gilbert still cannot speak fluently. What did Gilbert know of Flanagan and Allen before George had him singing Underneath the Arches in 1970? Before he came to England, Gilbert's education at three different colleges of art was all in German; English is likely to be not his second language but his fourth, after Ladinian, Italian and ...

Homophobia in Wales

I was shocked - shocked! - by a headline used on the blog of Julie Morgan, Labour MP for Cardiff North: Labour vs. the Tories: it's a straight choice in Wales

Williams meets with young farmers at Westminster

Trust in Wales Ymddiried yng Nghymru WELSH LIBERAL DEMOCRATS DEMOCRATIAID RHYDDFRYDOL CYMRU Welsh Liberal Democrat MP Mark Williams has welcomed his opportunity to meet with young farmers from Ceredigion this week. The NFU this week hosted a reception at their London office for young farmers to meet with MPs to discuss the issues facing farming today and in the future. The Wales YFC Rural Affairs Committee, which looks at all of the issues affecting young people in Rural Wales, spent the day visiting the Houses of Parliament before attending the reception. Commenting, Mark Williams, who attended the ...

Warnings on criminal checks in schools were not heeded says Assembly Member.

Trust in Wales Ymddiried yng Nghymru Warnings were given to the Welsh Assembly Government nearly a year ago that many schools and Local Education Authorities were not following the correct procedures in insisting on criminal record bureau checks for non-teaching staff, the Welsh Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson, Peter Black, has said. Mr. Black was speaking following revelations that up to 80 people working in Powys schools have not been cleared to work with children. However, an Estyn report published in May 2006 had already identified this as an issue across Wales and had clear recommendations on how to ...

BBC Breakfast

For reason’s I’ve already explained I had the misfortune of watching BBC Breakfast for about an hour this morning and I am still trying to work out where the news was? On BBC Radio 1 you have lad entertainment, on BBC Radio 2 you have a slightly more refined, intelligent entertainment, on BBC Radio 4 and [...]

Weekend highjinx

The weekend was great. Tam's birthday was fabulous, and our friends made it so. On Friday night we welcomed a couple of friends up from London, and they were joined by more on Saturday, turning our house into something approaching an upscale refugee camp for twenty-something professionals in search of a bed for the night. In the daytime we went to the Heaton Park funfair, which was Tamsin's

Aztec Fundamentalism

Ye gods and little fishes! It seems you can’t breathe a word about religion these days without being deemed “offensive”. Yesterday’s piece A Weekend With An Owl God brought to my postbag a letter from Stephen Atahualpagreen of Aztec Voice: Dear Mr Key : I am writing to protest in the strongest possible terms about your [...]

Working from home? We might all just have to!

Monday's are always a bit of a nightmare for me, as I'm sure they are for many people. After all, the worst thing about weekends is that they end, and if they've been hectic like this last one, then it's all the worse. So today I have been working from home, negating the need to do things that normally spoil Mondays - like putting on a tie. I have achieved a reasonable amount from home though.

More Bl@@dy rules!

Oh No! David Cameron announces that he intends to spend some vast amount of money "to improve border security". The trouble is that every time John Reid or another one of these clowns starts making some meaningless grandstanding gesture it delays me another five minutes at the Airport when I come back into my own country. On Saturday after a six hour delay in Copenhagen- an ice storm, and no, don't ask me why I was coming back from Tallinn via Copenhagen- I had to wait for over half an hour just to show my passport at ...

Conference is coming

Not this weekend Conference, although that is coming, but the West Midlands Liberal Democrats Conference. It will take place in just under a month at St. Edmunds School in Wolverhampton on Saturday 24th March. Nick Clegg will be the keynote speaker.

“Lazy” students blame middle classes?

I read this today with interest. The writer was disgusted to note that less than 10 per cent of students turned up ‘after dinner’ to hear him speak, and even more disgusted that the same amount showed up to see the Lord Chief Justice. I wonder if Mr Jones considered that many of [...]

Trident and the Trouble With Amendments

Good news for anyone keen to debate Britain’s nuclear weapons capability in advance of Liberal Democrat Conference this weekend: just in case you’ve not already heard, tonight from 7-9 there will be a web forum with Nick Harvey, the Lib Dem Defence Spokesperson. Hopefully it’ll provide a useful platform for informed debate, and hopefully on the issues, which might provide more light than the rather silly squabbles I’ve been complicit in as people’s tempers have started flaring. Opposing voice Colin Ross has also offered to debate with you all individually by e-mail (surely he can’t be getting too much sleep?). ...

Credible Politicians

I was on Five Live’s Julian Worricker programme briefly on Sunday, making my nomination for most credible politician as part of their Political Awards (the piece was on at around 12pm, so about 2 hours in if you want a listen). My nomination was for David Howarth. I have to admit, I struggled with this [...]

Theo Walcott - our boy done good

It was a delight to see West Berkshire boy Theo Walcott scoring his first goal for Arsenal in the Carling Cup final. The goal looked magical and effortless. Theo's celebration afterwards was a treat. I have rarely seen anyone so euphoric.

Happy Thargday!

Tomorrow is 2000AD’s 30th anniversary, and BBCi have done a piece on one of my favourite themes: how the world is turning into a Tharg-edited comic strip: Imagine a society where cities blend into each other to form massive conurbations. Imagine a society where obesity is rife, mass unemployment is a fact of life and downtrodden [...]

Fight to Save Bassetsbury Allotments

Your Liberal Democrat Focus team have been alarmed to discover that Bassetsbury Allotments have been earmarked for housing development. The Wycombe District Council newsletter entitled “Imagine the Future (IF4)” shows housing earmarked for the allotments. Trevor Snaith is asking the questions of our Conservative Councillors why this has suddenly appeared in the local plan and why [...]

Benvie Road and Western Cemetery

Another useful meeting of the group aiming to set up a "Friends of" group for Western Cemetery this morning. Spent much of the day going through a huge lot of issues raised by residents - many about refuse and others on roads/pavements in the West End. Have had feedback from the City Council about the condition of the Benvie Road steps I had raised earlier following residents' complaints (click on headline above to view earlier story and photograph). The steps have been inspected and found to be safe but the inspector "was ...

The Valley of Fear’s Visit From Porlock

Porlock is an infamous name in literature; the place from which a traveller hiked to interrupt Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s delirious poetry. It complicates another fantasy as a character in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s last Sherlock Holmes novel, The Valley of Fear. ‘Fred Porlock’ is a lieutenant of Professor Moriarty’s and an informant for Mr Holmes, setting up an entertaining puzzle to start the story and to tell the reader ‘Moriarty is involved, so this is important’. But he’s a puzzle himself: why does he want to tip Holmes off, what good will his tip do, and who is he anyway? ...

Beckett fooled by Bremner tells a story

I haven't been reading what the papers have reported of the incident of Rory Bremner calling Margaret Beckett under the pretence of being Gordon Brown. What amazes me though is not what she said but the story it tells of Cabinet. Bremner is an excellent impressionist but it's very unlikely that he would know how Brown speaks in private, his relationship with each member of the Cabinet, how he calls them etc. This must mean that the members of the Cabinet do not meet much, do not talk to each other much, but conduct business via intermediaries. The business of ...

SNP, Wales and comments policy

After last week's chain of comments on the SNP I am off to Wales tomorrow, so watch this space... On the SNP. Regular readers will know that my attitude to comments from other parties is that if you want to publish comments that are either anonymous or under pseudonyms and you just want to make cheap childish jibes, then get your own blog - don't expect me to publish them. If you want to enter

Politicians be Damned!

In an interesting piece on party funding on the BBC News website it is revealed that: During the final quarter of 2006, the Scottish National Party declared £550,518 in donations, followed by Plaid Cymru with £402,282 and the Blah Party on £168,309. Now at first sight this may appear to be an error by the BBC, but I suspect it is not. There actually is a Blah! Party, led by decrepit punk Captain Sensible (Say Captain! Say wot?!). It's standard “politicians are liars” protest fun… but gosh, what a lot of money!

Medical insurance

This morning I had an appointment to have something injected into my knees - apparently it would stop them hurting when I walk up the stairs, walk down the stairs, squat, stand up, walk, cycle, walk and generally just use my legs or even not use my legs. I wasn’t looking forward to this, I don’t [...]

We Are Not Amused

Is our society becoming obsessed with celebrity? Listening to the BBC Radio 4 News this morning and hearing the lead item on the Oscars suggested to me that even this most serious news broadcast...

Let freedom, rather than envy, be our rallying cry

Cicero is calling us to the barricades again. He is that rare type of blogger: one who can keep his readers' interest even as he approaches a thousand words. Let me give you just a dozen of them: "instead of talking about relative poverty we must talk about absolute freedoms" It would distinguish us from the ideological uniformity of the market-tolerant Left and the big-state Right and give us a platform from which to launch a better society, founded on individual freedom and responsibility. I like the sound of that.A site for political analysis and opinion of an ...

Eluned wades in

I notice that Labour MEP, Eluned Morgan, has now waded into the Deputy Leadership contest by endorsing for Peter Hain. What is most interesting however are her remarks about Gordon Brown. They hardly amount to an overwhelming vote of confidence in his future leadership of the Labour Party: Eluned Morgan, a member of the European Parliament, said Mr Brown lacked Tony Blair's communication skills and had a poor record on European affairs.Although she stressed she was still supporting Mr Brown as the next Labour leader, her remarks come at a time when some Labour MPs are privately nervous of ...

Trident web forum

If I have any criticism of the way we make policy in the Lib Dems then it is focused on the period between the puublication of a policy paper or conference motion and the actual conference debate. In the past I have wondered how much informed discussion and debate has taken place at a grassroots level before the full conference debate is held. So the decision to hold a web forum tonight with

Proposed cuts in RCI Labs

One of the aspects of the proposed changes to the Blood Service is a reduction from 10 Red Cell Immunohaematology labs to 5. This will be a particular problem in Birmingham. Although most testing is done in local labs from time to time there can be serology required in a central lab. That is partially because the local labs are being deskilled and partially because it always requires

Ming Campbell: person of the week

Ming has been picked as “person of the week” by the influential Politics Online email newsletter: Menzies (Ming) Campbell MP has been recognized as the first UK party leader to join the social networking site Facebook … You can read the full story here

Gettin at the real costs of so-called Trident

So the (in my view) totally misnamed ‘Trident’ debate enters its vital week for the LibDems. I am shoving some thoughts up on Nick Harvey’s live blog and also on the Harvey posting on LibDem voice. I hope a wide range of others do as well. I suspect as far as cost are concerned our Nuclear Systems represent an Olympic marathon of a never-ending stream of Millennium Domes. I copy below one of my questions to Nick Harvey. The thought behind it is that the UK ‘Nuclear weapons’ system is the ultimate in nationalised ...

CPZs: better consultation at last

Some good news on parking plans in Haringey for a change: the Council has now agreed to a proper length consultation period on CPZs. More details are in the news release from my colleagues.

Press photographer attacked & arrested by police for photographig Arrest, Miami

According to an account published by the alleged victim of the attack, he was assaulted and arrested by a group of Miami, Florida cops because they did not appreciate him photographing an arrest of some other unrelated person. This sort of thing seems to be happening with increased regularity in the USA, however there are times [...]

Environment awards

A very belated blog really - but one of the highlights of this month so far was the Groundwork environment awards - which cover the whole of Merseyside. Groundwork do both community awards and "business" awards for projects that make a difference to our environment. I went along as one of the Liverpool City Council representatives to see the winners and runners up announced and the trophies collected. Last year Liverpool had put virtually no entries in... so needless to say the City, and the organisations in it, won virtually nothing. This year however many ...

Sorting the diary

Got up early this morning to sort out my diary for the week and do some more planning. Obviously what would help would be an extra day each week.. or at least some more hours. But without that I just have to make sure that as many things fit in ( a bit harder when reliant on walking and public transport). Anyway - so far this week I am doing a meeting with the church of England representative about the money that'll come from Bankfield House and where it should go (there was an agreement it should ...

No points and rumours continue

Once again Leeds picked up no points from Saturdays game although at least they only lost 1-0. We are firmly rooted to the bottom of the table and whereas a week ago three points would have lifted us out of the relegation zone we now need at least 5. Realistically it is still three from the bottom six to go down although I suppose one or two above that could get dragged in if they hit a really bad run of form. Meanwhile behind the scenes the rumours continue especially if you are a keen reader of WACCOE. ...

An opportunity not to be missed

As Alun Cairns points out there is a very real chance that the Millennium Stadium will have one last opportunity to stage the FA Cup final this year. The Telegraph reported on 13 February this year that the new Wembley stadium may not be ready in time to stage the FA Cup final on May 19 because of a legal dispute between contractors: It is understood that an impending legal case involving Wembley contractor Multiplex and one of its subcontractors, Honeywell, could delay the staging of test events.However, Multiplex have rubbished the claim as "misleading" and said that ...

Kaiser Chiefs

Last night Faye, Ian and myself went to see the Kaiser Chiefs play in Wolverhampton. They were fantastic, obviously celebrating Ruby being number one yesterday too. Their new album - Yours Truly, Angry Mob - is out today, I shall be buying it at lunchtime!

Day 2247: A Problem in Physics

Sunday: Seems obvious really! {Posted by Picasa}

Opinion: Nick Harvey MP makes the case for an unamended Trident motion

All rational people must be sincerely and passionately committed to ridding the world of nuclear weapons, so destructive is their potential. The age-old debate is about how best to do this. The FPC motion for Harrogate is a combination of the best traditions of unilateralism and multilateralism. For the first time in a decade the Party [...]

Labour vote against fast-track regeneration

Also doing his homework was Liberal Democrat Councillor Richard Thomas who has pointed out that Southwark Labour's votes against an extra £360,000 for planning major projects and expanding the planning department shows they have no understanding of how crucial these functions are in respect of ensuring regeneration projects, such as the Aylesbury and Heygate proceed to schedule. He commented: “(At the Council Meeting) the Liberal Democrats showed their commitment to local residents by budgeting for a step change in our ability to deliver the new homes local people want. By demanding that we cut planners and project managers, ...

Labour's hollow Police claims

Further to last week's post on Labour's claims that they could provide 24 hour Safe Neighbourhood teams in every ward in Southwark with just 50 extra Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), Liberal Democrat Councillor David Noakes has been doing his homework to highlight just how far off they were. He comments: "Labour Leader Cllr Peter John suggested in his speech that by recruiting an extra 50 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) they would be able to provide 24 hour Safer Neighbour Teams in every ward. Labour’s claims, however, simply don't stack up and expose their complete lack of understanding ...

Undercounting costs Southwark £10m

A dispute over how Southwark's population is counted has been highlighted by Leader Nick Stanton as costing residents as much as "£10m in extra money". The government currently uses mid-year estimates provided by the Office of National Statistics who believe that our population has fallen from 257,700 in 2005 to 252,569 today. The Greater London Assembly though believe our population has risen to 265,100. Intuitively the GLA figures seems more likely to be correct. If our population was falling you'd expect to see house prices go down and less pressure on housing waiting lists. Neither is the case ...

Lambeth Council, worst in London - official

Lambeth Council, after only 8 months of a Labour administration has lost a star officially making them the worst Council in London. As the Lambeth Liberal Democrats have pointed out, the previous administration made great strides in raising Lambeth's performance from zero to two star, and much of the blame for the drop appears to be due to Labour's previous team in 1998-2002 closing libraries. Meanwhile Leader Steve Reed's attitude is described by the local paper as "dismissive". The Southwark Labour Leader perhaps unwisely chose the day before this announcement to issue a challenge to Lambeth Liberal Democrats on the ...

Monday 26th February 2007

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