The new Realpolitik podcast is now available here. In this week's show: The Government’s Black Tuesday as 25m personal records disappear somewhere between Tyne and Wear and London. The Northern Rock crisis rumbles on as no-one wants to buy them. Ken Livingstone wants to expand the still embryonic London Overground. The bid to get Boris Johnson to number 1 in the singles chart - there’s even a 
A plug for Bill Feldspar's indispensable site: This is a little project I decided to start once I realized how much George W. Bush looks like a chimpanzee.I'm not a member of any political party, and I have nothing in particular against the man. I just think he kind of looks like a chimpanzee.
A double dose of Liberal Democrat leadership candidate Chris Huhne in the Daily Telegraph. There's a Q+A session in the paper, plus also this filmed interview: PS And especially for one Lib Dem blogger I've counted up the words in some of his answers and can report that he gave three fourteen word answers, a twelve word answer, a four word answer and a one word one too!
Well England have done it again. They have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory ……. Well, if you count a 2 –2 draw as a victory. I know I am probably in the minority here but in a strange sort of way I look at this defeat as being the making of English football. Ok, so we lost and won’t be qualifying. We can’t change that. Let’s lick our wounds, take stock of where we are and where we’d like to be and build for the future. As with english football it’s an important time for the ...
The season of AGMs for local parties, and I've attended and spoken at 3 in the last week. As the London Assembly candidate for London North East, the constituency stretches from the city fringes in Islington, to Chingford, close to the Essex borders. Islington's AGM last week, held at the newly reopened Finsbury Town Hall. It was pointed out that when it was first built, Finsbury had a Liberal MP, an Asian, Dadabhai Naoroji MP from 1892-1895 (and a Liberal Prime Minister) We are confident that after the next election we will again have a Liberal Democrat MP in Islington ...
There's something quite bizarre about the drive to extend the period people can be detained without trial to 90 days. We've already had the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, admitting there hasn't been a single terrorist case so far where more than the current 28 days limit was needed. Today two more significant voices spoke out. First was the former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, who told the Home Affairs Select Committee that he had seen no evidence to go beyond 28 days - and that he would even have resigned from the Government to fight Labour's attempt to get 90 days ...
The huge disappointment felt by England fans across the country is understandable, but in retrospect we must ask ourselves if we even actually deserved to qualify. I would suggest not. That is not because our team lacks talent on the field, it is the fault of the manager. I switched off the Croatia vs England game at half time, viewing an England win as essentially out of the picture. Subsequent events demonstrate that England occasionally have it in them to come back, but as all the pundits were saying at half time, the failures in the squad were systemic. No ...
Last night at Bridgnorth Town Council the in response to an item about public question time, announced that she had been subject to bullying from Councillor Adrian Tacchi for the last 12 months. She said she was having to deal the consequences a large number issues that had been brought about by Cllr Tacchi which were [...]
A thought occurs about the England football unofficial anthem. The Great Escape theme is a wonderful piece of music but it celebrats glorious defeat. It may be peripheral but surely something a bit more positive would be better. What about 'We will rock you' by Queen. Queen just work on so many basic levels and the tune is instantly recognisable. Plus everyone can clap along with it. It's just an idea. Any suggestions, or is this a bit beyond the LD blogosphere pale?
One thing that particularly appals me about this fiasco, on top of all the things that appal us all, is the revelation, here, that Mr Leigh said the reason given for turning down the NAO request was that desensitising information would require an extra payment to data services provider EDS.Have we really surrendered so much control over government IT to consultants, that simple operations on the
So England lost again at football. This country needs to take a long, hard look at its team and our ambitions for international football based on this supremely dreadful performance. Croatia were excellent, playing the perfect away game: defending when necessary and being fast and ambitious on the break. England by contrast fumbled the ball, passed it more often than not to the opposition and generlly looked like a team without ambition. Only the superb David Beckham gave 100%, running from end to end, getting involvd in as much of the play as possible and floating in the perfect cross ...
One of the things Charles Kennedy regrets about his time as leader of the Liberal Democrats is that he did not trumpet the party’s pro-European convictions louder. He made the confession this evening at the AGM of Hackney Liberal Democrats, which was held in the Allevi Centre in Dalston. He endorsed my expressed hope that [...]
I hate to say I told you so because in this case, I wish I had been wrong. However, I did say this afternoon that I thought England would lose. However, I had hoped England would lose heroically like they did to Poland in 1973. I had hoped England would dominate, but ultimately be very unlucky. I didn't expect them to lose to a better team. Well played Croatia.
Interesting, I think. Now I can live off other people's Child Benefit for the rest of my life. It turns out to be the prizes in The Great Liberal England Taking Liberties DVD Quiz.
As a Scot I am happy to support England at Fitba', unless they are playing against us or Trinidad & Tobago. Watching England tonight is turgid, depressing and actually embarrassing. Everything went England's way on Saturday so why are they playing as if they are scared of the ball tonight? Possibly they are having a "big stage freeze" match, possibly they are not up to the job. C'mon guys - get your finger out and win the bloody game! STOP PRESS: England have just got a goal back to make it 1-2 to Croatia. Well that's over then and none ... 
Marvellous news! Our friend Jenny has today brought her 3rd wee boy into the world. I've been remiss in forgetting to ask Dad, Lewis, what weight the wee fellow was but am utterly delighted for Jenny, Lewis and Alexander's elder siblings Donald and Innes. Congratulations!
Did I really hear Gordon Brown saying that the loss of data about 25 million people was due to some junior civil servant not following procedures? Yes, I did - he said this "When mistakes happen in enforcing procedures, we have a duty to do everything we can to protect the public." Did senior management at HM Revenues and Customs really believe that they could keep huge...
Football, I hate it, it is not a sport and it is not a talent. Its kicking a ball, and diving and crying. AND then having the audacity of claiming £1billion a week to do it. I bloody hate the stupid thing. It's not like rugby where there is actually team work and people who dont spend their £1billion a week pay on a haircut. oh and that beckham prat, he's like david blaine, he's a git person! Footballers are just over payed whining talentless idiots who dont contribute anything to society. Why is it so popular? Whats the difference ...
Chris Huhne answers Daily Telegraph readers’ questions here (prompting this story, Chris Huhne backs UK constitution referendum). Nick Clegg writes in The Guardian here about Labour’s lost data crisis, and the impact on ID cards. And Lib Dem blogger of the year, James Graham, finally ends the mystery of who he’s going to vote for [...]
The Daily Telegraph has published a Q+A session with Chris Huhne, with matters ranging from Europe and referendums to fruit drops. The Telegraph’s news report also includes a link to watch Chris answering a different set of questions. (The previous Q+A with Nick Clegg is here). 
I'm reading about this as a school governor - if you have a view on this programme please let me know - it really would be interesting to hear from you. Do you think it is going to work?
I seem to remember being told that once upon a time Inland Revenue officers used not to be allowed to work on different tax schedules so that no one officer would ever know a citizen's true financial position. Oh for such propriety today when whole records in their millions are transported around different departments merely for audit purposes. Much has been said today about the loss of disks containing the child benefit records of 25 million people and many have suggested that it would be quite wrong now to go ahead with ID cards knowing that information security is so ...
I commend to you the Ministry Of Truth's lengthy and brilliant vivisection of David Cameron's speech on rape. I keep forgetting about MoT, for some reason, despite the fact that it is one of the, if not the, best-written political blogs going.
Yesterday I blogged about the embarrassingly bad intervention from Blaydon Labour MP Dave Anderson in the Commons debate on Northern Rock on Monday. It seems as though the press were deeply unimpressed by his performance as well. Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail wrote: "The low point of the day in the chamber came from David Anderson (Lab, Blaydon), a man whose sparse Parliamentary talents are in
I declare, Duncan, that I am Huhne supporter and if you want something really positive about Clegg written by me, I commend you to this. Danny Finkelstein in the Times, observes Nick Clegg's performance in the furnace of the leadership campaign: Yes, er well no, hang on, or, sorry.” Thus Nick Clegg under a little light questioning on television a few days back, moments after he started an
Back from California just in time to catch the fun goings on in the leadership contest. Put simply, I didn’t think the calamity Clegg thingy and the growing bitchiness in each camp has done anyone any favours, least of all the party, but after watching the Newsnight debate just now I had my faith restored in both men. Thought both did well on the show, with Huhne going for the calmer and more nuanced explanations and Clegg being more passionate and punchier. As for the winner, for me it is still Nick’s passion that I think we need in a ...
Some days it’s great to be a Liberal Democrat. Tuesday, October 30 was just such a day – the day when one person alone was conspicuous by his absence from a state banquet hosted in the sumptuous surroundings of the Buckingham Palace ballroom. Yes, the only politician to take such a principled stand, eschewed the [...]
It's been a strange day. First I got these two CD's in the post. Strange really. I have wide ranging but eclectic tastes in music but I really can't get my head round these - just sounds like a load of numbers to me. Then the bank phoned me. Apparently I can no longer give my children's names and birthdays as a unique code if I want to know my bank balance. They asked me to give them some other unique and unusual information. I've never tried to measure my own inside leg before and I can tell you, it's ...
A junior BBC researcher rigs the result of a phone-in competition. The Editor of the BBC children's institution Blue Peter steps down. A Chris Huhne junior researcher releases background briefing document of quotations with a wholly inappropriate title. Chris Huhne blames researcher and stays in leadership contest. A junior official from HMRC in Washington, Tyne and Wear, sends two CDs containing password-protected records to the audit office in London through courier TNT, neither recorded nor registered. The discs fail to arrive. The HMRC Chairman Paul Gray resigns. Can you spot the odd one out?
This blog doesn't often dust off its pom poms and Cheer lead. However I'm genuinely delighted that Cllr Richard Brett has been elected as the new Liberal Democrat Group Leader in Leeds. I attended the hustings on Monday. I won't say to much as it was a private meeting but what I heard made me very hopeful although it all rather confirmed the size of the task ahead. As an experiment in including members ( because only Councillors had a vote) we invited the entire membership to come and observe, put on a bit of hospitality and allowed ordinary members ...
Acting Lib Dem leader Vince Cable today took Gordon Brown to task - and after this week’s Government shambles he had plenty of choice of subject matter. Cunningly Vince rolled up both Northern Rock and the HRMC’s lost data into his first question; though trying to stir up the Blair/Brown row allowed Gordon easily to [...]
It’s been such foul weather that I’ve been craving comfort food. Last night I made us a big vegetable hotpot – puy lentils, potato, onions, tomatoes and cashews, cooked in marmite stock, topped with a cheese gratin, and served with warm bread rolls. Delicious… More comfort food for Richard today as he had a business lunch [...]
"It was a boring weekday afternoon that day in London. It was pissing down and my motorbike kept skidding and sliding all over the place. When I arrived at the building in question a very posh looking and sounding man came striding up to me all cocky like and shoved a CD into my black leather gloved hand. "Here," he said, "lets fuck Gordon once and for all." "He was middle-aged, quite tanned looking as if he had just returned from an extended holiday somewhere exotic after standing down from a high profile post. He was wearing a stick on ...
Yesterday I had a strange day. Firstly, I had a call from my credit card operator to query some transactions in the previous 24 hrs. It turned out that my card had been the victim of fraudulent behaviour, although it maybe that they managed to stop the transactions early enough. In the afternoon, I was chairing the Council's audit committee. We touched on the issue of cracking down on fraud against the city council. In the last two days the work of the Audit Committee has received some positive press coverage, despite getting some of their facts slightly wrong. So ...
I was surprised to read such wide ranging and varying accounts of the Lib Dem leadership debate on various Lib Dem blogs today. Last week I agreed with those who felt Chris Huhne won the Question Time debate, although I felt he won it only narrowly. Those supporters of Nick Clegg who declared a clear win for their candidate were way off the mark. However, last night, unlike the Question Time debate, and in quite a role reversal, Clegg started with the passion and the desire whilst Huhne was lacking in passion and quite laboured. He was also on the ...
I have this terrible feeling that England are going to blow it tonight in their crunch qualification game against Croatia. I was speaking about it at work and to be honest, none of use are looking forward to the game with any excitement and apart from one chap, who insists David Beckham will come on as a sub and score, we are all feeling rather nervous. Does it make me unpatriotic ? I don't think so. I guess it makes me typically English. Aren't we all a little down on ourselves until some foreigner attacks us ? I guess I'll ...
People should be worried about the probable revelation of their tax credit records, and the associated personal details. The government assurances are worth nothing. The fact that no fraudulent activity has been detected so far means nothing. The rogues who would know what to do with the data would also know to take their time in making use of them. They have already had weeks to decide what to do with them. At worst, they may already have been sold abroad and are sitting on one or more databases in the South-East Asia. So, take the advice given by reputable ...
John Hemming MP ISSUES ADVICE TO CONSTITUENTS FOLLOWING HMRC DATA LOSS John Hemming MP is calling on all constituents to remain vigilant following the loss of bank account details, national insurance numbers and other personal information belonging to over 25 million individuals. The Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday announced that “two password-protected discs containing a full copy of
This is the central problem of modern British politics: too many kid politicians who have never had any experience outside of politics. Both Brown and Cameron and most of their respective front benches are people who have no understanding of even the first principles of management. They literally know nothing about it. The professionalisation of politics has created machine pols with limited life experience and poor administration skills. Meanwhile the machinery of government is being required to do more and more difficult and complex things. The result is a recipe for disaster. Without major simplification of administration and the constitution ...
I heard some great news today from the Council, and credit where credit’s due regardless of whether this is a decision made by an officer or a politician – serving members of the armed forces will now be able to use Council sports facilities free of charge. The service is to honour the sacrifices made by our forces - and celebrate the town’s strong links with them. And there’s a chance that it could be extended to ex services-personnel too. Members of the armed services face extraordinary risks for the good of our country and often don’t get the recognition ...
The BBC website has now covered the story of the Standards Committee's discussion of members' blogs, extensively quoting from this post. The item is also being covered by ITV Wales' Waterfront programme, AM PM on BBC Wales and Good Evening Wales on Radio Wales at 5.35pm tonight. The Chair of the Committee, Jeff Cuthbert is quoted as trying to justify the agenda item. He says: "issues such as what responsibility AMs had for remarks posted on their blogs would be considered. ...."the last three cases referred to the committee all involved AMs' blogs, although they had all been resolved. ...."Who ...
Tonight’s delights are a meeting of the Lib Dem Council Group at 6pm, followed by the inevitable heart-pounding trauma of England v Croatia at 8pm. As a party I imagine we’ll be talking about lots of the pertinent issues ahead of the next Council meeting in a couple of weeks, including Radcliffe Riverside School, and the Prestwich Children’s Centres. There have also been rumours lately of a planned extension to Forest Bank prison which borders the ward from Salford and already encroaches onto local parkland and other environmental sites of interest. So I reckon that’ll get a mention too. And there’s ...
Leaving aside the superficial similarities, what emerges are two very different personalities coming at this campaign at a very different point in their lives and focusing on very different priorities. Huhne invokes Bill Clinton when he states that it’s the economy (stupid); Clegg talks about how the economy-focused politics of the 1970s and 80s are now long dead and buried. Huhne talks about devolution, of bringing government closer to people; Clegg talks about empowerment, of giving people more direct control over the public services they use. Huhne talks about raising spending-per-pupil to public school levels within two parliaments; Clegg talks ...
Dear Colin, Thanks so much for the opportunity to post a "rebuttal" on your blog. Yours is one of the best Lib Dem sites, and it's great to be asked to join in.
So I'm walking along the corridor, deep in the bowels of the Palace of Westminster close to my office. It's a part of the parliamentary estate few venture into unless they know where they are go...
Hug A Hoodie presents a Lib Dem leadership interview even more exclusive than James Graham's excellent offering. This is a full transcript of the interview which LDYS exec member Mark Mills and I recorded for the BBC's The World This Weekend last Sunday. In the final cut, reporter Terry Stiastny only featured a few soundbites from each of us, but you can read the entire exchange here. This is a "Hansardised" version - the content has been preserved faithfully, but I've edited where necessary for grammar, syntax and style. Terry Stiastny: What’s the leadership campaign been like from your point ...
I read Paul's piece before watching Newsnight this morning. It reminded me of this famous picture, here demonstrating that even small differences to that picture can influence perception. Actually, I didn't think either of them wiped the floor with the other. Both came across well (note Daddy Alex!) and I thought Chris handled the Calamity Clegg stuff well and I trust has now drawn a line under the debacle. But my doubts about Chris have not evaporated.I thought Paxman's use of the one word answer was great and demonstrated what I have been trying to say, particularly on Trident, in ...
After last week's Question Time I wrote outlining my support for Chris Huhne and explained one of the reasons was I didn't think Nick Clegg could deal with a Paxman interview. Well having watched the Newsnight 'hustings' it would appear I was wrong - Nick Clegg can deal with Paxman, and deal with him well, I may also have been wrong with my support for Chris Huhne.
I only wonder from the following message on Newsnight: `Well I think we all have our strong suits, I’m simply saying that my strong suit, clearly having been in those areas is being able to take Gordon Brown on on the Economy, which is going to be dominant issue as Bill Clinton said.` I always thought that [...]
I am so outraged about this that I’ve written to the local Labour MP (my opponent) Emily Thornberry. She’s a big fan of ID cards and the national database needed to support them. This is the letter I’ve sent: Dear Ms Thornberry Today families all over the country will be wondering who has got access to their [...]
Home Office Watch has the answer! Simply get another department to lose the details of 25 million people. Next thing you know, no one is on your case any more!
Tuesday: Déjà vu for Sooty, Mr Frown's Chancellor of the Blank Chequer, who was at the despatch box for his second emergency in two days. The sheer SCALE of the numbers involved just blows the imagination: twenty-four BILLION pounds loaned to a busted bank on the increasingly shaky gamble that he'll be able to get it back; twenty-five MILLION people exposed to identity theft and old fashioned bank robbery thanks to the Labour's OBSESSION with gathering up people's data and their CARELESSNESS about it once they've got it. You almost expect him to announce today the disappearance of twenty-SIX trillion ...
Don’t get all excited just yet… However, it’s clear that it would make a lot of sense to find a way to link Flock Together and Facebook… What information would you like to be able to see from Flock Together on Facebook? What would you like to be able to do with Flock Together events or organisations on Facebook? All comments very welcome!
The problem with being human, is that...........you are human..........and of course the more human you are, the more human you are likely to behave! This, it seems to me, is the crux of the matter referred to by Paul Walter this morning having yesterday sung the praises of Nick Clegg. Given my work commitments I come to my comments on the meeting with Nick late and with the benefit of having read James, Millenium, Paul and Mary first. But it seemed to me that all of them were impressed with Nick close up precisely because of his honesty, openness and ...
People who know me will have often heard my complaints about some of the annoyances of living in London. There’s a lot that seems tempting, for example, about what Jon has written about his recent move to Brussels. But of course the flip side of this place is the amazing range of things happening here - and the trick is (unlike too many Londoners) to take advantage of them! And at the end of last week I had the opportunity to enjoy two of its highlights. One of them has been widely written about and recognised - and is the ...
The ones we ought to be taking some responsibility for, and aren't. Full marks to Richard Colebourne for continuing to highlight the issue. He notes that, according to the Washington Post, the same thing seems to be happening to those who helped the Americans. We'll use you for what we can get, and do as little as we can afterwards. That seems to be the message. One comment on Richard Colebourne's article says "all I can say is that I'm ashamed to be British". Yes, exactly. If you do nothing else, at least sign the petition at http://ourcampaign.org.uk/interpreters
I mean the Child Benefit details fiasco. I won't go into the details which have been well covered elsewhere, but just make the point that this gross lapse of management affects all classes of people. So I hope that a tide of opinion will hold the government well and truly to account, and I also hope that many of those affected, who have been sleepwalking towards ID cards, will realise that they are in more danger of government incompetence than of terrorist attack. The key issue of management is very well covered in Nick Robinson's blog. Negative point to the ...
How the BBC promoted the contest on their website Posted by Chris: With the original, slim version of the Bird of Liberty soaring in the background the contenders for the leadership of the Liberal Democrats faced each other as they stood at lecterns waiting to begin another TV debate, this time with the formidable Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight. The impression given to viewers was that they had to stand there waiting whilst Mr Paxman presented Newsnight's coverage of the Government's disastrous loss of two CD's containing the personal and banking details of 25million UK residents. Chris Huhne used most of ...
I'm sure I speak for everyone in Scotland in wishing the England football team the best of luck this evening. Don't I?
Its been a calamitous week for the British Public. We have each put £900 pounds of our taxes into Northern Rock something in the region of £20-30 Billion and it looks as though we may not get our money back. Yesterday it was revealed that the Government had lost a CD containing the personal details of 25 Million People. Perhaps only Nick Clegg can save us from this calamity.
I have to disagree with what my friend Andy Mayer has written. The fact is that your life chances are still to some significant extent dependent on factors beyond your control, especially who your parents happen to be. Your chances of living an economically comfortable life or achieving whatever kind of goals you set for your [...]
The morning after the 3.30pm statement before, I'm still flabbergasted by this single paragraph: "Two password protected discs containing a full copy of HMRC's entire data in relation to the payment of child benefit was sent to the NAO, by HMRC's internal post system operated by the courier TNT. The package was not recorded or registered. It appears the data has failed to reach the addressee in
One of the more unusual records of donations to political parties registered over the last couple of quarters has been by the Cloburn Quarry Company of Lanarkshire to the New Party. The £31,000 donated in the last quarter exceeds that donated to the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens combined. I would imagine there is a link with the Party's Chairman Robert Durward who is listed on the Party's website as having interests in the 'minerals industry'. The Party includes a former MSP in its number and a sort of endorsement by Sir John Harvey-Jones. I've always been fascinated and ...
{Champagne} {Champagne} It’s a case of ‘hip hip hooray’ for the Home Office today. It’s no longer the worst performing government department. Might be nicer if they’d moved off the bottom of the list because they’d got better rather than because 25 million records had been lost by another department, but hey - you can’t have everything, can you? So here at Home Office Watch we’re off to the newsagents to get a “Congratulations” card for the Home Secretary, which we’ll be shortly popping into the post to the Home Secretary, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF. Hope you can ...
I've said that I am disenchanted with the leadership election. That doesn't mean that I have disengaged from it. I've been following the campaign through the media and across the web, although I haven't had the opportunity to attend a hustings yet. For a beauty contest there has been a marked absence of sparkle and glamour. I have found the substance of the campaign so far dull, unimaginative
To describe WB Yeats as a politically ambiguous figure is something of an understatement. Over the decades he showed an astonishing inconstancy of conviction, swaying back and forth on, amongst other matters, the merits of freedom and authority. Though much of his poetry is extraordinary, it’s difficult not to find some of the nationalistic allusions he conjuures, faintly ridiculous. And when he laments in ‘September 1913’ that Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone; it can be a struggle not to feel rather grateful. He did, however, serve two terms as a Senator in the Irish Free State, and made some impressive ...
A mysterious package was mistakenly delivered to my flat yesterday. Given that we’re at war with terror, I naturally assumed it was a dirty bomb - but after a few hours of prodding, the jiffy bag turned out just to contain a couple of CDs. I was hoping it’d be something rad like the new Bloc Party single, but it was a bit boring really – lists of names and bank details. Anyway, after the trawling through the data all day yesterday, I’m spending today draining the accounts of prominent Labour bloggers. Unfortunately, it’s not making me a rich man ...
Last night the Planning Control Committee of Bury MBC decided to withhold its decision on the planned Butterstile Children’s Centre, and make a visit to the site on December 18th. It was a tight call, with a 5-5 split vote decided by the Chair’s casting vote. I’m glad the vote went the way it did because I think a number of the people voting against a site visit did so on the grounds of proper committee procedure rather than common sense. The fact that the question wasn’t raised at the proper time during the meeting shouldn’t be a good enough ...
Yesterday's fiasco over the missing Child Benefit data raises an awful lot of questions. One of the most obvious in my mind is if one junior official had the authority to download the entire Child Benefit data and send it in the post, how many other people had access to that data? More worryingly, if this is true in HMRC with Child Benefit, what is going to happen when all our medical histories are on a single NHS computer that can be accessed by tens of thousands of people up and down the country? Of if a national ID database ...
Once again Chris apologises for the actions of a junior member of staff, then repeats the same line of attack. I'm all for taking a more aggressive line with the other parties, but this is damaging us. Interesting that the head of Revenue and Customs resigned over a mistake made by a junior member of staff. No comparison of course.
The data disaster that was revealed yesterday is all over the headlines. Sometimes problems seem less dramatic the day after; not this time. A strategic error – ‘let’s put all the information in one place, that will be safer’ – combined with operational incompetence – ‘I’ll bung a disk in the post, should be OK, [...]
Good morning, darling readers. Today brings the first report of Czech Adventure 2007. One rose from the greenery of Gatwick yesterday afternoon and arrived in Praha also yesterday afternoon. During the flight I managed to spill water all over myself. I also drew disapproving looks when I was offered a drink and responded: 'You mean with alcohol in it?'. This happened before the water-spilling incident. I attempted to get us a bus and tube into the city, but gave up after missing the bus. Hence I was ripped off by a taxi driver who seemed amused that I didn't know ...
This is one story about another party that I wish weren’t true. From The Mirror: George Hollingbery, a Tory councillor in Winchester [and Parliamentary Candidate for Meon Valley], Hants, has sparked fury by calling the death of Lib Dem colleague Sue Fitzgerald “very useful”. Sue died suddently at the weekend, aged just 52. To his credit, the [...]
There are few ways in which to reach half the population of the UK in one single hit and really capture their attention. I think the loss of their personal data and putting their identity at risk may be one of them! No amount of opposition leaflets could have reached the number of people that the HMRC blunder will. To undermine half the populations trust - including the politically disengaged has to be a sure route to engagement - even if it manifests as a protest vote. If HMRC does, as it should, send a letter of apology to every ...
All media are leading today on the startling and difficult to believe news of the Government losing 25 million personal records in the post. The Guardian describes the error as a fundamental breach of faith and says that it opens up the threat of mass identity fraud and theft from personal bank accounts. The Telegraph says that Chancellor, Alistair Darling is fighting for his job, whilst The Times describes the incident as a catastrophic breach of personal security. There is a general feeling that this failure could be Labour's Black Wednesday, the day on 16 September 1992 when the Conservatives ...
This morning I am assuming I am one of the 25million people whose details have been carelessly lost by the government. As a family in receipt of Child Benefit, I am completely outraged at the news that two disks have been lost that contained the names, addresses and bank details of people who are in receipt of child benefit. Who has the authority to download such details to two disks? Who has the authority but not the sense to send them recorded delivery? "The chancellor said the official had broken the rules by downloading the data to disc and sending ...
Was Newsnight shown twice last night? Why do I ask? It seems I must have watched a different show from Liberal Burblings. As a declared and joyously enthusiastic Clegg supporter I have no doubt that Nick Clegg won the night. Two versions of one show? How can that be? Perhaps we all see what we want to see.
An expresso apparently - hm think not - a double expresso maybe. Still they are right about the caffeine addiction level. You Are an Espresso At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energeticAt your worst, you are: anxious and high strung You drink coffee when: anytime you’re not sleeping Your caffeine addiction level: high What Kind of Coffee [...]
Yesterday evening I along with three friends went to see Take that at the NEC as part of their Beautiful World tour. They were great, I had prepared by listening to the new album almost solidly for a week!
At conference Vince Cable (who is doing an OK job as leader at the moment) very simply laid out the difference between himself and Gordon Brown. Gordon Brown, he said, was a socialist. Not in the sense of caring for the working classes more than for large business corporations and banking conglomerates (Northern Rock has shown us whose side he's really on) but rather in that he has an unfettered faith in big government over the rights of individuals. There is no better proof as to why such faith is misplaced than the story this morning that the government has ...
As a declared and joyously enthusiastic Huhne supporter (but who still, never the less, very magnanimously made a posting about Clegg yesterday that was so positive that it was linked to at the top of Clegg's campaign web site), I was mightily impressed by Chris' performance on Newsnight. All right, Clegg won the opening gambit thingy but that was a rehearsed set piece. Huhne made a good pitch
The things I do… J is Paxman, or Jezza to his mates. C is Clegg, H is Huhne. Frankly after this my head is spinning, and not from the effort. (more…)
Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne are standing at their podia waiting for Jeremy Paxman’s grilling on Tuesday’s BBC2 Newsnight. After last Sunday’s fireworks, I imagine we can expect a love-in tonight… Update: a good performance from both candidates. Interesting to see the fall-out from Sunday’s Politics Show… Nick Clegg was able to lead on the front [...]
One of the downsides of being married is that one is never the first person to post about a recent event. (There are fringe benefits, however). So I imagine that the LibDemosphere is already awash with accounts of tonight’s Newsnight, however, where Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne battled it out in a leadership special. It began pretty painfully. Having shunted us to second billing after Alistair Darling lost the personal and bank details of half the British population, we were then met by the two contenders failing to agree on who should start, so that Jeremy Paxman was obliged to ...
My problem is that once I scan down somebody's posting on the leadership, I spot lines like "candidate x had lovely eyelashes tonight!, turn off, and look at other postings by the same person. So can I announce, I will ignore all postings that do not declare IN THE POSTING that somebody is a declared supporter of either candidate or a genuine declared undecided (but don't try to cheat...).
Almost exactly a year ago I wrote a piece called 'poverty-balls' criticising the vacuity of Labour and Conservative thinking on poverty. I am less than delighted then to see the same kind of empty rhetoric entering the language of the Liberal Democrats in our Leadership election. Particularly at a time when the party is running a campaign that attempts to suggest... largely unconvincingly... that Labour and the Conservatives are part of some 'cosy consensus'. Susan Kramer, for example, writing for Chris Hunhe states: "For thirty years we have had rule by Conservative and Labour governments who do not care about ...
November is the month when local political parties have their AGMs. In London, there seem to be two or three each night. After a meeting yesterday afternoon at the National Liberal Club with Anatoly Lebedko, Chairman of the United Civil Party in Belarus and a key figure in the Belarus oppostion coalition for next year’s [...] | < | November 2007 | > | ||||
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