So David Cameron has pledged to protect children from "ruthless marketers and shameless retailers." So is he going to put his money where his mouth is and pledge to enshrine the WHO code on the marketing of breastmilk substitutes in UK law I bet not. I won't be holding my breath. 
"Foreigners coming here, bringing their foreign ways with them". That is a common phrase often spoken nowadays. Today, in Middlesbrough, we met a refugee from Iraq who is now able to be settled here permanently, and we have met him just once before. We were trying to find out when a place we were parked in front of opened. He offered to take us back to his home and have a cuppa whilst we...
This weeks London by-elections brought a good pair of Liberal Democrat results retaining a seat in Brent with a much increased majority and moving up into second place in Harrow. They also brought another two poor results for the Conservatives, results which look worse the more you know about their campaign in each of the [...]
On returning from conference I spent Monday and Tuesday lying on the sofa thinking I was going to die, then Wednesday, Thursday and Friday lying on the sofa hoping I was going to die. Accordingly my crabbiness rating increased markedly and so, unhappily, did my internet activity. Following the Budget that Ambition Forgot the usual shower [...]
John Gray has written in the Guardian today, about the athiestic books recently published by Dawkins, Hitchens, and a few others. Far be it from me to suggest I know more than such a learned person as Gray, but after all, that's what blogging is here for. I feel a fisking coming on: An atmosphere of moral panic surrounds religion. Viewed not so long ago as a relic of superstition whose role in
While it's definitely a good thing that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has agreed to look again at gay Iranian Mehdi Kazemi's asylum application, the battle is not over yet. Now is the time to build support for Mehdi by ensuring that you and everyone you know signs the petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/UKMADHI/ You will be asked to make a donation, but don't worry, you can skip through that part. Also make sure that you write to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith MP and your local MP to stress your opposition to his deportation.
The county borough council is to set up a committee. This is only two months after Labour AM Gwenda Thomas drew attention to the uneven distribution of the fund. We commented on the situation in July last year and in June 2006. County borough councillor Trefor Williams is reported as saying that they had been very proactive in the way they had handled this as a council.
There is no House Points column in Liberal Democrat News this week. I have been struggling with bronchitis for a fortnight and a few days ago was contemplating the grind of writing a column. It suddenly occurred to me that the editor had the Lib Dem Spring Conference to report and would probably be glad of the extra space. That proved to be the case when I phoned her, so I decided not to be a martyr. What you would have got was another rant about the Olympics. I would have made my usual points: that if you want to ...
From this morning's Guardian: Yet by most standards Sir Ming has had a wonderful life, full of laughter and the clink of glasses, one in which persistent naivety towards colleagues and the media reflect greatly to his personal credit. As does his evidently blissful marriage to the formidable, chain-smoking Elspeth Urquhart, daughter of an Arnhem general."That's good. My father told me never to trust men who order half bottles," she explains when Ming buys a bottle of white on their first date. Now if Elspeth had been leader of those soggy Lib Dems she'd have court-martialled the lot of them. ...
The Government has that it intends to approve the new Kingsnorth, Kent, coal fired power station. Nick Clegg's comment: At a time when the Government should be working to reduce the UKs emissions, ministers seem determined to allow a huge new polluting power station. What planet is John Hutton living on Without carbon capture and storage, clean coal is a total myth. This monstrosity will only emit 20% less than previous coal fired stations, and a massive 75% more than a gas powered plant. Kingsnorth should not be given the go ahead unless carbon capture and storage is part of ...
This can’t be right (hat-tip: Political Betting): “The Tories have opened up a 16-point lead over Labour, their biggest in 20 years, a poll for this weekends Sunday Times has found. YouGov put the Conservatives on 43%, compared with 27% for Labour and just 16% for Nick Cleggs Liberal Democrats*. Gordon Brown has now taken Labour to [...]
Well - what a slap in the face for everyone who is campaigning to save Salisbury Road Post Office. Labour-run Haringey Council has decided to double its rent - and backdate that for three years. You'd almost think they were deliberately trying to drive it out of business - and it certainly makes a nonsense of their claims to be wanting to support local campaigners against Post Office closures!
By the time that this entry is published The Rugby will be over for the day and I would have missed the Wales France game that I really wanted to see. But as I am sat here in the Guildhall waiting to go to another function with she who must be obeyed I thought that I would share my thoughts with you. I am sure that you will have all heard by now that England has had a good...
once had a hit with a song entitled Reasons to be Cheerful . Anyone remember it I think it was around in the 1970s. Anyhow, why do I mention it now I'll tell you. I've just watched this BBC video about Ashfield Young Offenders Institute and I'm now sat here searching for reasons to be cheerful. You may have guessed, I'm struggling. No matter how many times I watch it, I still end up coming away feeling that we've failed. It seems to me that any country that has to lock up it's children never mind build special wings is ...
We had some excellent news this week about the Hook Centre. The creche area on the ground floor of the old CAB building is to become a Children's Centre. This will be the second Children's Centre in the Neighbourhood, to add to the one in Castle Hill Primary. But this is pretty unusual in not being located in a school. The Centre will offer a whole range of services to...
On 12th March 2008 a little bit of history was made in Torquay. A House of Commons Select Committee held an evidence session away from Westminster at the Riviera International Conference Centre....
Mark and I have travelled down to Somerset, as I have two speaking engagements with local parties here this weekend; this evening just outside Wells and tomorrow lunchtime in Langport. We're staying overnight in Wells, which is one of my favourite places in England. My daughter Sally came here four years ago to work for our PPC, Tessa Munt, so I spent a lot of time here. I knew when I first came here that this was my sort of place when I spotted the billboard for the Wells Journal which read "tortoise used in break-in". I speculated that perhaps ...
For those of you still clinging to the idea that control orders work, read the account of Cerie Bullivant, a British convert to Islam placed under such an order, seemingly due merely to the associations he had with others: “The only time I have ever been close to suicide is since they put me on these [...]
Why have I not heard about this before The Laugharne weekend is on from 28th to 30th March and includes in its line-up, Richard James, formerly of Gorky's Zygotic Mynki, Lionel Shriver, Will Self and Patti Smith doing a show in the Millennium Hall and the Boathouse.. The programme also boasts the cast of Twin Towns reading the script. Will Rhys Ifans be there and will he be bringing Sienna Miller back to Laugharne with him Naturally, Patti Smith is sold out but there is still a lot of other events worth attending and it is just an hour's drive ...
I’ve known for a long time that there are many people who quietly go out on a regular basis and carry out litter picks in their own area. There’s a gentleman who cleans Nannygoat Lane every day and another who keeps Granville Terrace and the footpaths into town clean. I also know of a couple of others who regularly walk over Crown Meadow with a plastic bag which they fill within minutes. I do my little bit in Oulton Road. But the interesting development has been the knock on effect of the community litter pick a couple of weeks ago. ...
I have difficulty understanding what the Standards Board for England is about. An individual in Moseley called Safdar Zaman owns a building on the Moseley Road. This building has been subject to a large number of planning disputes over time and is currently the subject of a retrospective planning application. Two Councillors (Mullaney and Hendricks) produced a video of the state of the
A few updates:A busy Friday evening trying to sort out electricity reconnection for an elderly couple in the West End (the main electricity cable outside their home had been inadvertedly cut) and I was very concerned for their situation - in the dark and cold. Thankfully, after various telephone discussions with Scottish & Southern Energy, their electricity supply was reconnected about 11pm.I recently raised the damage to the "No Through Road" signs at the entrance to Bankmill Road, following residents' concerns. I have now had the following response from the City Council:"The 'No Through Road' signs at the entrance to ...
Dog singing the Spencer Davis Group tune - best advert on the TV!
The much-derided John Lewis list was an attempt to fix a glaring issue: it used to be that MPs just claimed expenses. This meant, for example, that some MPs were claiming "communications allowance" to pay for several members of full time staff to run a website and a call centre, and others weren't even claiming for their phone bills. This is manifestly unfair, and means that MP #1 is getting vast amounts more taxpayer's money than MP #2. So they brought in the £10,000 a year communications allowance. This is how much MPs can claim for stamps, phone bill, internet, ...
In a recent opinion poll, Brussels was voted the most boring city in Europe. I suspect that result was based more on Euro-phobia than on real experience. Though I moved from Brussels to London in 1982, I always feel I’m ‘coming home’ when I revisit. It’s true that I was really narked when Reuters sent me to [...]
So, I'm listening to Any Questions. Geoffrey Howe is opining that it's terrible that everything in MPs' lives is so scrutinised and monitored and published in the name of transparency. And I found myself shouting at the radio yes, Geoffrey, you fuckwit, because we live under a government that insists on supervising and scrutinising and interfering in every aspect of the citizen's life. It's only fair that we get to scrutinise you in return, you patronising wanker... And then I wondered if this might be odd behaviour. View Poll: Reactions to the radio
Regular readers of our weekly Golden Dozen feature will know that we have opened up five slots to reader nominations. All you have to do is drop me a line at stephen - stephen.hat.libdemvoice.org.spam.com (this is spam bot hidden email address, replace .hat. with @ and remove .spam.com for the real one), highlighting the best Lib [...]
Test Valley Borough Council is proposing introducing alcohol free zones across several of the wards of the borough. The Designated Public Places Order (DPPO) gives the Police and other accredited persons, such as Neighbourhood Wardens, the power to confiscate alcohol from anyone found to be behaving in an anti-social way whilst drinking. The extended order would not prevent consumption of alcohol but would make it an offence to continue to do so after being told to stop by a police officer, and could result in a court appearance and a £500 fine. The council is now giving residents the chance ...
Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s (who) former Chief of Staff, appears in an interview with the Guardian today in which he discusses, amongst other things, the possibility of negotiation with Al-Qaeda, that charitable organisation responsible for such piffling things as the 11th September 2001 attacks and the 7/7 bombings. All very interesting, but that’s not why [...]
So Tony Blair is off to the Far East to lecture the locals on carbon emissions post-Kyoto. Aside from the question as to why anybody should be obliged to listen, I would like to know how this impacts on his Middle East envoy job. What is happening to that now he is doing this Far East [...] 
Well hats off to the Chinese authorities for actually proving a large number of the points that protesters have been, and will aiming at them in this Olympic year. First the act of disagreement with the authorities is frowned upon, hence the curfew they set up in Tibet, the pressure they brought to bear on India to halt the march to India. Second there is the misinformation or non-information.
Just when you thought that we had a government which was committed to tackling poverty, they have to step in and dash all of our hopes. The Times reports that the reality of recent budgets is that, far from helping low paid workers, they will be worse off. This is not really news, it was predicted this time last year by the Liberal Democrats in the budget debate itself, but the figures are sobering nevertheless. The paper tells us that more than 1.8 million low-paid workers face losing 60p more for every extra £1 they earn as a result of ...
A look at the landscape of Scottish Politics after 10 months of SNP minority control… Scotland is a very different place right now. Oh the lochs are still there, you can still drink your way from lowlands to highlands on the whisky trail (at a slightly higher premium thanks to the Chancellor) and the haggis hunting [...]
Sunday: We spent Sunday chatting with Mr Nick NO, not THAT Mr Nick... THIS Mr Nick! (I'll be chatting to t'other one soon though!) We were talking Doctor Who! Now, as you all remember, Dr Who was ALWAYS getting put on trial by his own people, the Time Lords. The first time was in "The War Games" when they caught up with Mr Dr Pat; the second time was in "The Deadly Assassin" when Mr Dr Tom gets framed for murrrrrrrder*; but the really really biggie is of course "The Trial of a Time Lord". Three guesses WHICH Time Lord! ... | < | March 2008 | > | ||||
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