LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Sunday 27th May 2007

Films to see before you die

Channel 4's list of the 50 films to see before you die was pretty idiosyncratic so here are a few they missed: Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray); L'Enfant Sauvage (Truffaut); Solaris, Mirror, Andrei Rublev and Stalker (Tarkovsky); Rashomon and Ikiru (Kurosawa); Fargo (Coen Brothers); Manon des Sources (Berri); La Grande Illusion and Le Regle du Jeu (Renoir); Three Colours Red (Kiewslowski); Blade Runner (Scott); with an honourable mention for Groundhog Day, American Beauty, Fitzcarraldo, All or Nothing, Night of the Hunter, Once Upon a Time in America and Un Homme Echappe. I agree with C4 about including The Searchers and ...

Hallejujah! George Bush sees the light on diplomacy with Iran

The world seems a safer place today than it was six months ago. Why? Dick Cheney no longer rules the roost in Washington, getting the US Army to roam around the globe shooting off like he did with his hunting rifle. George Bush has now sided with Condeleeza Rice (herself no dove) and started talks with the Iranians. Hallejujah! Peter Beaumont reports in the Observer: …Bush – having initially

British sense of outrage over bin collections

I am a great fan of Jasper Gerard, who writes a page in the Observer. One good thing is that his page diverts my attention from Nick Cohen’s writing, which I blithely ignore unless a fellow blogger alerts me to some embarrassing logical inconsistency within it. Any road up (another one of my phrases which I am now rationing to one a week), Gerard had me laughing out loud today over the current

Cock and bull spin from Cameron on Grammargate

There is a full page article in the Observer which says that David Cameron started Grammargate to split the parliamentary Labour party. I’d be interested to hear verification of this story. I am sure that thought passed through the minds of Tory high command. But to suggest it was a deliberate strategy…..and to suggest after having a week or so to think it up. Come on! In all my years reading

Is Cameron trying to escape Grammargate with the dog whistle?

…Some further thoughts on the David Willetts idea to set “racial” targets for schools. It is reported as part of the Observer lead story, albeit in a more diluted form than the rather more starkly expressed original BBC report I linked to earlier today. Interestingly, in the Observer it refers to setting targets for city academies to take students from “both communities” where there are

Tory Love - Could have fooled me!

Finally it's been said out loud that the Conservatives' 'big idea' is to look as much like the Liberal Democrats as possible, as reported here in the Torygraph. However some of the detail of what was said is a little on the 'interesting' side. Apparently, "The party had previously been aggressive in its attacks on the Lib Dems, but has decided that flattering Lib Dem voters is a better way of persuading them to vote Tory." Where I was campaigning for the local elections, in Eastbourne, the Conservatives wereen't applying a 'love' strategy to Lib Dem voters. Their ...

Facebook

I’ve finally succumbed after much badgering from friends and joined Facebook. Originally, it was just one or two people saying that I should join but now it’s turned in to a torrent. So if you know me, then please add me as a friend. FACEBOOK: Anders Hanson

Suss Laws: my pledge

I pledge that, if stopped and questioned for no reason by an officer of the law without having invited him or her into a conversation with me, I will make it my business to make the whole business as long-winded and bogged down in paperwork and police time as possible.

Is this how you'll represent Oxford East, Peter?

Funnily enough when I joined Oxford East Lib Dems it was almost completely run by sexual deviants. When I hesitated to answer "I am gay" on my vetting question for city councillors "Is there anything else you want to tell us that, if it became public, might bring embarrassment to the party" I was reassured to find that not only were my two vetters also a little light in their loafers, but so were most of my fellow candidates and at least half of the constituency executive. read more

BritBlog Roundup 119

Let's start with Random Acts of Reality and a case of a passer-by saving someone's life. I am afraid it is all downhill from there. The political story of the week should have been the collapse of the Medical Training Application Service - see The Ferret Fancier for the gory details and the background. Instead it has again been the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal. PooterGeek satirises the reaction of the British tabloid press. This is a difficult subject to tackle but he gets the tone just right and makes some important points. Back in Britain ...

Balgay Update ... 2!

Been trying to get to grips with the camera on my new mobile phone; so took this photo at Victoria Park this afternoon with the new phone - have concluded it is seriously better than the old one!

Top of the Blogs: the Golden Dozen #14

Welcome to the 14th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (20th-26th May), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed. (And my thanks, parenthetically, to my LDV and Oxford city council colleague, Richard Huzzey, for holding the fort last [...]

Balgay in Bloom update ...

Managed to catch the final stages of the event in Victoria Park this afternoon - see photo, right. Interesting displays and just a pity it was a bit rainy. Had an interesting discussion with a representative of the Shanwell Wildlife Rescue Trust, who had a display. SWRT is Tayside's only dedicated volunteer wildlife rescue service - if you click on the headline above, it links to SWRT's website.

Monaco Grand Prix - No wonder nobody is interesting in F1 any more

Can anybody tell me why watching 20 odd cars following each other around the streets of Monaco is interesting in any way ? For years the Monaco Formula One Grand Prix has been a joke, no race to speak off, just a case of seeing if anyone makes a mistake and watching lots of rich people drinking expensive champagne. I guess it is nice for all the driers who live in Monaco to have a hope Grand Prix, but for me it sums up why F1 is so boring.

Siralan

The firings from The Apprentice, in Lego animation.

The Great Wi-Fi Swindle (redux)

Last week I blogged about Panorama’s then upcoming programme about the supposed dangers of wi-fi. Nich Starling castigated me for criticising the programme before having watched it, which was fair enough. So, having watched to programme this lunchtime, what do I think? What I think is that TV programmes that investigate potential health risks [...]

Who to replace Bush? - The Democrats' Nominee

Every week Msnbc.com publishes a ranking, created by Nationaljournal.com, of the current presidential candidates. one week they rank the republicans, the next they rank the Democrats. This week the Democrat's have been ranked Not surpisngly the 2 candidates most of us have heard off, Senator Clinton D-NY, and Senator Obama D-IL, hold the top 2 spots, respectivly. it's seeming more and more likely that one of these 2 senators willbe the nominee for the Presidentcy, at next years election, the question is which one. Senator Clinton is about to face a new challenge, the focus on ...

Politicalbetting.com highlights new Tory campaigning technique towards Lib Dems - "Love bombing"

The Tories have, according to politicalbetting.com, decided that they get better results when they agree with the Lib Dems rather than bitterly opposing them. According to the Tories, and an article in the Telegraph, Tory successes in Bournemouth and North Devon show that where they are seen to agree with the Lib Dems more than oppose, Lib Dem voters are more easily persuaded to vote with the Tories for a change. This tactic is apparently called "Love Bombing". I'm not wholly convinced as in South Norfolk the Tories achieved some success by opposing the Lib Dems whilst in ...

Opinion: Margaret Hodge should go

Margaret Hodge has provoked furious discussion by suggesting that ‘indigenous’ British families should receive priority for social housing over migrants regardless of need. I admit being shocked when I heard her comments on the BBC – they seemed so very clearly to echo BNP policy. Throughout the piece I was prepared to accept that her comments [...]

Opinion: It’s only a boat

A tragedy of epic proportions has been unfolding before our eyes. A national treasure has been lost - a glorious piece of our maritime history - the ““Concorde of the waves” no less. A majestic ship, which for years ruled the South China Sea, as she conveyed to the nation that most essential of commodities [...]

Don't worry, liquid relief is on the way!

I am inordinately fond of all things Kiwi, so much so that, if my marriage had survived, we would have been emigrating to New Zealand this year. I have family in Auckland, have traveled widely on both islands, drink Monteith's beer by choice and take a day at the spa each year in Rototua. I zorb, bungy jump and find sheep fascinating in a 'gosh, they're so stupid' kind of way. But of all of the

Cats and MICE

I thought I had seen everything in local political campaigning. However even I was shocked by a press spat from this years Leeds Elections. Subsequently defeated Conservative Councillor, Mark Philips ( Garforth and Swillington ) donated £500 from his MICE allowance to a local Cats protection charity. You may not like that particular choice buts that's the strength and weakness of the MICE system. Despite plenty of Labour Councillors touting for city wide donations for there favourite causes the local Labour Party had planted letters in the local rag from outraged residents demanding why the money hadn't been spent locally. ...

Pole To Pole

This has been an amusing weekend. It started with a pager text message from the Party Press Office saying speak to us before commenting on the "Telegraph Pole". What on earth could one say...

Old Bexley & Sidcup MP under parliamentary allowance scrutiny

Hat tip ConservativeHome DEREK CONWAY MP UNDER SCRUTINY FOR PAYING PARLIAMENTARY ALLOWANCE TO UNDERGRADUATE SON "A senior Tory MP is paying his son to act as his parliamentary assistant even though he is still a full-time undergraduate at university. Commons records reveal that Frederick Conway was paid at the rate of £981 a month from the parliamentary staffing allowance handed to his father

Pebblehead Versus Pebblehead

“The annotation has been carried out on a scale which is necessarily extensive but which seeks at the same time to be as economical as possible in face of the twin challenges of Browning’s wide range of curious information and his immense and flexible vocabulary. Without the prior labours of A K Cook to draw [...]

Day 2331: Human Nature?

Sunday: Daddy Richard has had rather a trying week, and that is why my diary has fallen behind again. Sorry! Anyway, to make up, here is an ENORMOUS essay about some science fiction of the early twentieth century. If you are disappointed to learn that it is NOT this week's Doctor Who, though, you should read on. Doctor Who's (arguably) greatest Script Editor Mr Robert Holmes insisted that everyone who wanted to write Doctor Who for him should become literate in the greats of Science Fiction. This is the good stuff. Scary scarecrows will just have ...

Still disgruntled: Plus ca change.

One reason for my rush to London was to deliver some documents to LD HQ in Cowley Street. I well remember visiting the old Liberal HQ at Exchange Court off the Strand in 1974. I was in search of rosettes for an election meeting in the Albert Hall. I wandered through a labyrinth of small rooms until I found a staff member, a woman doing her nails. I asked for rosettes and without looking up

Perhaps the police could ask Anne Robinson if she could ask the questions ?

I had to laugh at the title given to proposed new powers for the police. The whole idea of being stopped, then asked "What is the capital of Venzuela ?" or "What element is represented by the letters NA in the periodic table ?". Perhaps instead of doing on the spot fines the police could give out spot prizes too for those who do well in the quiz ? It would certainly stop police asking "Are you trying to be clever with me"

Disgruntled

It may have been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone, but it's been hell in Chard. Friday was complicated. I caught an early train from Taunton to London for a business meeting. Unused to this line, I was not merely disgruntled but actually discombobulated (Don't bother, it's not in the OED but what do they know ?), yes discombobulated to be asked for £156 ! I could have gone to France, Scotland or

Tory MP hires his son and taxpayers foot the bill

I'm sure that it is not implausible that as an MP, employing your partner might not be a bad idea. But Tory MP Derek Conway has been paying his wife and has been paying his son out of his office expenses for the last two years, claiming his son is a member of staff. The problem is that this seems slightly odd given that his son is a full time student in Newcastle. Is this a creative way of paying his tuition fees ? Derek Conway is, after all, the same MP who claimed so much in petrol ...

Stop Removal of Janipher Maseko, 18 year old breastfeeding mother

Breastfeeding supporter colleagues of mine have been involved in helping Janipher Maseko, an 18 year old Ugandan woman who is currently being held in Yarls Wood Immigration Detention Centre. She has two babies, aged 15 months and 4 weeks. The tiny baby is being breastfed. She has been told that she will be removed from the UK without her children on Friday 1st June. Janipher sought asylum as an unaccompanied minor after coming to this country as an orphan and after being raped in Uganda. Her asylum claim had been closed in March 2007 when ...

People of the Book

Last Sunday I attended two farewell services. Ray Gaston, Vicar of All Hallows, Hyde Park is leaving to do a MPhil on Christian / Muslim relations. Cllr Mohammed Iqbal ( Lab, City and Hunslett ) the out going Lord Mayor of Leeds had his Civic service at Makkah Mosque in Headingley which is in my ward. Its worth observing that the Leeds 6 area saw the lowest BNP votes in the city in this Mays elections. Although we were the site of the "Bomb Factory" of the 7/7 bombing with all the soul searching that caused the area ...

The Leeds 6 Coffee Challenge

In response to my regular commentator Merrick, I have been thinking again about coffee ( and check out today's Observer article on the subject as well). I have previously blogged a local contextual defence of Starbucks. Rightly or wrongly no one sells decent coffee in Headingley, Starbucks sells fair trade and in our alcohol saturated town centre which lacks "family space" Starbucks provides for a niche un met market. They have been tarnished with a generalised anti franchise prejudice. So I set myself the Challenge of having a cup of coffee in every available outlet in Leeds 6 ...

'Tory bid to select pupils by race' - another too clever by half idea from 'Two Brains'?

Some schools would be able to select pupils by race in order to improve community relations under plans being considered by the Conservative Party. So reports the BBC. I was on outrage alert when I read the headline. I am still am a bit...the details are sketchy. However, if, as David Willetts says, the intention is "use racial selection to unite communities divided by race or religion" then the

Papers please!

More authoritarian nonsense, this time giving the police the power to harass anyone they don't like the look of, whether or not the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed! If the person objects to being harassed, it's a £5000 fine due to "obstructing" the police! Has the government got any ideas about dealing with crime which actually address the problem, which is a lack of social cohesion between communities, a failing education system, and a discredited foreign policy? Whatever happened to tough on the causes of crime?

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Sunday 27th May 2007

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