Saturday 14th April 2007

11:22 pm

Norman Baker: Was Robin Cook murdered?

Gravatar You may recall that one of the projects that Norman Baker devoted himself to after leaving the Lib Dem front bench was investigating the death of David Kelly. That is not the only death he has suspicions about. The Brighton Argus reports that Norman has doubts about the death of Robin Cook too: Mr Baker has signed a book deal to explain in greater detail his findings on Dr Kelly's death and he expects to publish it later this year. But the MP insists he will continue to investigate. He has nagging doubts about the official line ...
10:10 pm

A foul weekend to be grumpy

Gravatar I woke up with a headache with I spent the rest of the day trying to get rid of. Grr. It’s gone now, but I’ve been in a foul mood for pretty much the whole day, and I’m still feeling run down and grumpy - but that’s got more to do with the remnants of [...]
9:43 pm

That Sinking Feeling

Gravatar On the 14th April 1912 the Titanic sank.  Ninety five years later Torquay United Association Football went down.  A one all draw was not enough to save the club from relegation to the Confer...
9:43 pm

That Sinking Feeling

Gravatar On the 14th April 1912 the Titanic sank.  Ninety five years later Torquay United Association Football went down.  A one all draw was not enough to save the club from relegation to the Confer...
8:18 pm

Beautiful Saturday!

Gravatar The Macpherson Team had a super day in the West End (to be accurate, we spent the morning helping elsewhere across the City) but the afternoon was spent in the West End campaigning. The reception has been exceptionally positive and I am grateful to all residents for their support. Whilst campaigning in Perth Road, I noticed the bus stop information panel opposite Clayhills Grove has been vandalised (see below); have reported this to the City Council. Can I thank everyone helping us today - a real team effort - many thanks!
YouGov
7:57 pm

Don't Adopt These Children

Gravatar The link is to a list of children (with photos) where there is a dispute with the system as to whether or not they should be adopted. It is important to remember the European Court case of PC and S where it was found that a baby should not have been taken off its parents. However, by the time this had happened the baby had been adopted. There are many many absurd cases going through the family
7:31 pm

75th anniversary of the Highway Code

Gravatar Today is, I believe, the 75th anniversary of the Highway Code. A colleague told me that she has some great quotes from the original version from 1932... I'll try and post those in the next few days. In the meantime, if all the drivers in London could please read the Highway Code and start following the rules, that would be very nice. Thank you. By the way - and I know this is only adding fuel to the fire - but why on earth is Prince William breaking up with his girlfriend the headline news story across ...
6:22 pm

A Cheeky thought from dinner

Gravatar At dinner at a pleasant French restaurant last night, we discovered that we all had, by some coincidence, watched Tony Blackburn’s 1970s video selections on TMF (free-to-air digital music channel) at the weekend. This led to the curious suggestion that 70s popsters Baccara - of Yes Sir, I Can Boogie fame - might actually be [...]
6:18 pm

Robinson, Riddell, White: What Gets on the News

Gravatar Last night I was watching coverage on BBC Parliament of The Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons, chaired by Jack Straw, talking to three notable political hacks, Messrs. White, Riddell and Robinson, ostensibly about strengthening the role of the backbencher and making better use of non-legislative time, but in reality about how they could all get their faces on the telly and
5:51 pm

The things you miss when you’re hard at work

Gravatar Just got back from a day’s delivering and envelope-stuffing to discover that I missed a Green canvasser calling on us while I was out. Given that our candidate in a neighbouring ward, who also happens to be the sitting councillor and a former Mayor of Colchester, got a visit from a Conservative canvasser not long [...]
DataFlame
5:02 pm

Where are all the Poster Boards

Gravatar Having just driven back from East Devon this morning, I was shocked at the lack of evidence of any elections going on. The only boards I saw were in West Wiltshire (four Lib Dems signs all in a row) and in Norwich (again four Lib Dem signs) and nothing in between. No wonder awareness of the local elections seems to be at an all time low.
4:49 pm

More new citizens

Gravatar More new British Citizens were sworn in during an impressive ceremony at the Guildhall today. This time we welcomed people originating from Kazakhstan, Iran, Sri Lanka, Canada, South Africa, Afganistan, India, New Zealand - and those were just the ones I managed to ask! Keen eyed readers will notice that Steve Vincent was filling in as mace bearer this...
4:36 pm

Tolworth Community Gardening Club

Gravatar Back in the summer I enjoyed a BBQ with the Tolworth Organic Gardening Club on their allotment. At their AGM yesterday they changed their name to Tolworth Community Gardening Club; not because they've given up on organic principles - far from it - but because they wanted to emphasise the open community nature of what they are doing. This is a club that makes strong efforts to be inclusive, is...
4:22 pm

Whipping It Up

Gravatar To the New Ambassadors Theatre last night to see Whipping It Up, a comedy about Conservative Party whips written by Steve Thompson. The play was pretty funny - the first half slightly more so than the second - with a few jokes that had we Lib Dems in the back row laughing particularly knowingly at. Robert [...]
4:14 pm

Record low number of hits today

Gravatar Whilst idly checking my server logs as yet another way of putting off going out leafleting, I see that today I appear to have a record low number of hits - just 10 page hits since 0:01 this morning. I imagine everyone’s out enjoying the sunshine or delivering leaflets, or like me, accidentally sleeping through most [...]
4:09 pm

SAVI

Gravatar The Mayor of our neighbouring borough, Elmbridge, invited us to his Civic Reception on Thursday evening. He wanted to tell everyone about the successful fundraising for his charity, the Surrey Association for Visual Impairment. SAVI is a voluntary body which offers support and advice to people with viusal impairment, and in particular provides training for those who have recently lost...
3:56 pm

Simon Hughes reselected

Gravatar On Thursday evening, I took a brisk walk from work over the river and down to the Elephant & Castle for the first parliamentary selection meeting I’ve been to. The subject of the meeting was the re-adoption (or otherwise) of Simon Hughes MP as the prospective parliamentary candidate for the area. Simon was on good form, [...]
3:44 pm

A close encounter

Gravatar Some muts just really don't like having their photos taken out here on the other side of the world.
3:40 pm

Easter bunny

Gravatar Some weekend silliness: a video I made last Saturday. Facebook friends may already have seen it.
3:38 pm

What makes a liberal party?

Gravatar Some like to claim that the Liberal Democrats is a Liberal party but its not liberal. The distinction is that a Liberal party is deescended from the Liberal Party or perhaps a liberal party, whereas a liberal party pursues liberal aims. Clearly the Liberal Democrats are a Liberal party, formed from the merger of the Liberal [...]
2:52 pm

More on faith schools

Gravatar Just thought a certain comment our Dear Leader made about education just about sums up how disastrously wrong New Labour's focus is on this matter. So much for education, education, education. Schools are not meant to be "popular with parents", they have a duty to the children. But on the other hand, children can't vote, so what's the point in making schools work? Tony Blair and the schools minister Lord Adonis believe strongly that faith schools are popular with parents and want faith groups to be more involved in state education to provide a "distinctive ethos", through privately sponsoring city ...
2:42 pm

This actually scares me

Gravatar With all this controversy about the supermosque proposal in London (which I don't really care about, though I am slightly concerned about the source of funding), it might be easy to forget the increasing influence Christian creationist groups have in the US. They are fighting hard to open a "museum" detailing the literal Genesis creation story. Should this be allowed to exist under free speech grounds, even though Ken Ham and his ilk at Answers in Genesis are just complete liars?
2:41 pm

Day 2293: Wolfie in Sheepish Clothing

Gravatar Friday: Oh dear, the Monkey-in-Chief’s imposition as head of the World Bank, Mr Wolfie Paulowitz has had to APOLOGISE. Mr Wolfie, who has sworn to crack down on corruption and nepotism, has very slightly used his position to give a great big job and a huge pay rise to his GIRLFRIEND without asking the permission of the actual people in charge. “I was new to the job and made a mistake,” is his version of the story. The mistake being that he forgot he was no longer in the Monkey-in-Chief’s WHITE HOUSE where it is ROUTINE ...
1:22 pm

Bloke and Bird split up

Gravatar My morning routine generally involves a quick look at my phone to flick through the overnight emails and a read through the BBC News stories. This allows me to work out if there might be anything exciting on the morning news. At 7am today, it looked like the headlines would most likely be about the Bourbon Dolphin, [...]
1:04 pm

Why?

Gravatar Why is the top news item that Prince William has split up with his girlfriend? I don’t care. There’s far more of importance going on in the world. The irony - its thought to be partly due to the intrusion into their lives… uhuh… and all this deep analysis is what? Get a grip. Lets hear in depth [...]
12:24 pm

Day 2293: Chocolate Fireguard

Gravatar Thursday: I learn from Mr Jonny that some BIGWIGS off the Internet have said that there must be a CODE OF CONDUCT for bloggers and diarists like ME! I think that this is a bit RUDE! I do not need someone telling ME what I can and cannot write! Besides, who could possibly think that a fluffy toy like me could ever be rude to anyone. Well, anyone except Lord Blairimort, that is. He is a twonk! Oops, see! The whole point of writing a DIARY like mine or like any of the diaries ...
11:20 am

Leeds update

Gravatar Ahead of today's vital clash with Burnley comes news that David Healy has been appointed as the Leeds United captain until the end of the season following the suspension of Jonathan Douglas. That news was immediately followed by speculation that Fulhams new manager Lawrie Sanchez has put David Healy at the top of his list of transfer targets after the job he has done for him in the Northern Ireland team. If we stay up I hope that we manage to keep him and learn how to make the best use of his undoubted skills. If we go down ...
10:54 am

A Car I'd Love to Buy

Gravatar I'd love to buy this car. To begin with, it looks like a car from the future. The top speed, 115 mph, is more than enough for me. It seats six- four in the front, two in the back (facing the rear) It has loads of features- a combustion efficiency gauge, oil temperature, manifold vacuum and fuel economizer gauges, battery charge level indicator, altimeter, barometer, compass, oil level gauge,
8:38 am

The Curse of Tutankhamun

Gravatar I am delighted the people of London are going to have the chance of seeing some of the treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun again later this year, even if the spectacular golden funeral mask is being kept firmly in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, for conservation reasons. The London Tutankhamun exhibition of 1973 (complete with mask) [...]
7:58 am

Tory MP calls for ethnic cleansing

Gravatar I saw the link to a post on Nadine Dorries blog declaring that Gypsies and Travellers aren't welcome in her constituency and should be forced to live like normal settled people on Iain Dale's Diary last night (more on his condoning of Dorries racism later maybe if I have calmed down). It annoyed me then, and thinking about it in bed this morning it made my blood boil. We have an MP, of a major
7:46 am

The art of polling

Gravatar Debate on the NOP/ITV Wales poll has been kicked off on the internet once more by a post from BBC Welsh Affairs Editor, Vaughan Roderick, on his Welsh language blog. A translation is available here. Vaughan refers to a strange apology that appeared in the Western Mail on Monday 9th April in which they sought to clarify the outcome of the poll: "In our analysis of an NOP opinion poll for ITV Wales on voting intention at the National Assembly election, we incorrectly suggested that a predicted 3.5% swing from Labour to the Conservatives would result in a ...

Previous days:

Friday 13th April 2007, Thursday 12th April 2007, Wednesday 11th April 2007, Tuesday 10th April 2007, Monday 9th April 2007, Sunday 8th April 2007