Listening to Hazel Blairs this morning defending the Labour government I wonder what game she was playing It’s all to do with going through the hard times and we’ve got to stick with it. Ah, but who has caused it all Oh, so it’s nothing to do with this - then basically you can have any party [...] 
{[info]} purple_hez, {[info]} uglybuffy, you want to shed some light on this Why don't women play guitar In a similar vein, I've seen the suggestion in several places that Noel Gallagher is racist for suggesting that Jay Zee doesn't fit with the ethos of Glasto.... Well, no, Noel Gallagher may be racist for other reasons (like supporting the BNP), but I don't think it's racist to suggest that Jay Zee doesn't fit at Glasto. He doesn't. And the implication that it's racist to say that Glasto is all about guitar music I find to be insulting to the many fine ...
Now, I’m no mathematical genius, but I noticed something rather strange in my humble Newhaven the other day, about their signs. There is a sign at the train station, pointing towards Seaford, stating that it is 3 miles away. If one walks a few hundred metres along the same road, towards Seaford, there is then another sign, stating that seaford is now 3.3 miles away. Mathematic genius or mapping marvels. Who knows.. If anyone can explain this, you may well get a medal. Or a million pounds (see last post).
Ha! Got you. Just shows how money-driven this world is. It’s intrinsic to us all. We can’t help it, it’s human nature - or is it
Just watched an episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks on Dave - as a result I’ve leafed through my music collection for the treasured Sigue Sigue Sputnik album (and stumbled across a couple of other favourites too - no I am not ashamed to announce myself a fan of Alien Sex Fiend). Music is a [...] 
At a meeting to set up a "Friends of Hardwick Dene and Elm Tree Wood" we had a treat of a slide show on the flora and fauna of this area, sandwiched between Hardwick which is one of the most deprived areas of our Borough and Elm Tree in the ward I represent. Anyone driving through the area, or even many of the people who live there have any idea as to the richness of wildlife and plant life...
33 years ago a group of Yorkshire Ridings Society members, which included Colin and Hilary Holt and John Dargan, erected an East Riding boundary sign on a building adjacent to the old road bridge at Yedingham, on the boundary of the North Riding and East Riding. On Saturday 12th April 2008 Hilary Holt returned with a happy band of YRS members and friends to unveil a replacement sign as the original one was showing signs of age. The sign, in the garden of Mr Robert Neil, can be seen from the new road bridge and was provided by the Society ...
Anyone who's read any of my blog will know of the work I do on affordable housing through Oxfordshire Community Land Trust in my spare time. After five years of work, persuasion, lobbying, all for nothing, we have the opportunity, thanks to a very generous elderly lady who has settled all she wants to on her children is willing to swap us her house and its plot in return for about half its value and a smaller home carved out of half her existing cottage so we can at last get a site on which to develop a few affordable ...
It's a good week for TV crime fans: two episodes of Foyle's War in a row - though I fear these are the last two - and now a new series of Waking the Dead. The Independent had an interview with Trevor Eve, the star of Waking the Dead, a couple of weeks ago. It is centred on his recent portrayal of Hughie Green, but covers his whole career. And there is also a tribute site devoted to Shoestring, which was the series that made Eve famous.
Speaking as a parent this is always a difficult subject. You want your children to be safe on the internet, allow them to learn, get them to avoid Facebook, My Space, Bebo and a host of other social Networking sites until we as parents, and it is a very individual thing, feel they are old enough. Regardless of begging I have not allowed my elder children on any of the named sites; I...
Hat tip to Charles Crawford for the link to this rather clever edit of the footage of Hillary Clinton landing in Bosnia 12 years ago that has caused some fuss on the US.
Ok my title is rubbish, its aimed at an opinion poll. According to YouGov if there was an election tommorrow 44% would vote Tory (that would give them a majority in Parliament), 28% Labour, 17% LibDem (we got 22% in 2005, so that's not good enough, but hopefully we can see gains in these local elections). However if Tony Blair was still PM tories would have 39%, Lab 34% and LibDems just 15%! Although I think it may just be a matter of people forget and concenrate on now. But I have recently drawn to the conclusion that Brown is ...
Nick Clegg made a very clever point of how, "the Liberal Democrats are the only opposition to Labour in their urban strongholds in the North and the only opposition to the Conservatives in their rural and suburban strongholds in the South." He has a very good point and it's something we can be proud of. How we are working in all parts of the country and we are succeeding in opposition and of course in power. He then pointed out, "We are very much the national party, if you like, in these local elections and I very much expect and ...
In an earlier entry I wrote about the issues of the world food crisis. France has spoken about suspending the Biofuel plans to produce more crops and help bring stability back. I would agree. Biofuel's are questioned and I'm not convinced they are the real answer. Investing in technology like Hydrogen cells is a better option, rather than starving the World of Food. We should keep Stewardship Schemes, but suspend set-aside and biofuels so we can produce to bring down these prices and shortages. It needs immediate action and should have happened before the start of spring really, but we ...
From The Scotsman: POLICE have been called in to investigate allegations that a Scottish Conservative Party worker stole £150,000 from party funds. Senior party officials called in the police after the money, thought to have come mainly from subscriptions, disappeared from their Edinburgh offices over the last year. The missing funds were discovered after a routine financial check, [...]
There are 2 planning applications this week that I need to bring to your attention. The first application is for the erection of a single storey shed at 42 High Street Twerton Bath. The application was first registered on 8th April 2008 and has a decision date of 3rd June 2008. The application number is 08/01132/FUL and you can view the application by following the link on...
With the launch of the new and rather good BBC i-player, internet service providers (ISPs)are demanding that the BBC help pay the costs of upgrading the network infrastructure of the ISPs in order to cope with the demand for the service. ISP's claim that the i-player is putting too heavy a burden on their systems which will cause them to need to upgrade. The truth of the matter though is that ISPs have for some time been able to get away with telling people half truths and putting them on broadband packages which are to the advantage of ISPs and ...
The Electoral Commission is clearly not independent as it continuously delays releasing the Presidential vote. Now recounting is going to take place in some constituencies won by the MDC as Mugabe plots returning a majority in parliament back to Zanu-PF by frauding a recount. It's quite funny that despite his fraud, the mass of people turning against him led to Zanu-PF loosing Parliamentary control and probably the Presidency. Also the legal system is dysfunctional. They have stopped the MDC from forcing the electoral commission from releasing the Presidential vote.
Balances gracefully on the Wardman Wire.
A poll in today’s Financial Times suggests that: Gordon Brown is less trusted to steer his country through the global financial crisis than any other major western European leader… 68 per cent of respondents said they were not confident at all in [the Government’s] ability to deal with the economic crisis.”. You can read the full [...]
On the news they were showing the clips of those men involved with helping the 7/7 bombers. The videos they made aren't very good. They're trying to say strong scary stuff, like how we're going to get tornadoes of punishment, but they seem to be making it up as they go along, they pause loads, they're simply not very good at speeches. However they do say strong words, words that are so strong, they're blatantly not going to happen. However the question is: is it enough to make the general public fear them Because if it is, it incites racism ...
Dear All, Time for a diet update, its 14 days since i started my diet again and after 2 weeks have lost about 1/2 stone. I was 18st 8lbs this morning, i started at just over 19 st again. Reasonably happy with this as i have tried to be sensible in my eating habits, enjoying the odd teat etc... Next step is cutting out the late night nibbles, trying to eat apples etc... instead of too many
Stephen Tall's report on Lib Dem Voice that deaf couples are to be allowed to choose to have a deaf baby has got me a little bit mad. Apparently the Government have caved into the lobbying of a small group of deaf activists who believe that deafness should not be viewed either as a disability or even as a serious medical condition and want the chance to screen embryos for children who would be deaf. Deafness, although in my view a disability, is not a debilitating condition whereby sufferers enjoy no quality of life. And therefore the idea that people ...
A rare evening off the campaign trail tonight, as I’m putting the finishing touches to the church Annual Report. This is really just an editing job, as the real work is done by the many contributors; but I find it a hard one to finish off. Somehow cleaning the sink is suddenly attractive. The publication deadline [...]
A month ago, listeners to BBC Radio 4s Today Programme heard a debate between presenter John Humphrys and deaf activist and parent Tomato Lichy. At issue was Mr Lichys passionate belief that deaf couples should be allowed to use embryo-screening technology to choose to have a deaf child such a choice would become illegal [...]
My latest New Statesman column can be found on the magazine's website: In their blue track suits and white baseball caps they resembled nothing so much as the race of fierce, war-like Smurfs that Saruman bred in the vaults beneath Isengard. (Its a while since I read Lord of the Rings, but I think you will find I have got the essentials right.)
Over the last few weeks there has been an enormous amount in the press with regard to the ‘John Lewis list’ and MPs’ second homes. I have at times been frustrated that every MP is tarred with the same brush, and at others overjoyed at the growing realisation that the whole system needs an overhaul. We [...]
A group of disgruntled hacks, inspired by Nick Davies’ journalism expose Flat Earth News, have started a new blog: The Churner Prize. Dedicated to honouring those hapless hacks who find themselves regurgitating press releases and spurious surveys rather than investigating real stories, both the book and the blog are worth a read for those of [...]
The answer is that its still too early to tell even if one or two bits of polling data don't look good. As I have argued previously, we need to look at the trends, probably over six months. For the first three months of 2008, the trends were pretty good. The Lib Dems scored between 16 and 21 per cent in the public opinion polls. This compared to an average of 16 per cent across all the national polls for all of last year. But the April Populus and ICM polls both showed slight dips in Lib Dem support. In ...
Although I have had a lot of thoughts about the state of Gordon Brown's troubled Labour Government I haven't written many of them down. Mainly this is because they tend to be rather contradictory. I am finding it difficult to come to a conclusion about what is really going on and what the ultimate consequences will be. However, I thought it was worth bringing to people's attention this
Well it's now official what I blogged earlier about my team Livingston FC. Apparently Irishman Anthony McMullen has bought a 50% share to join with another investment from local business man Ged Nixon. McMullen had some encouraging words. "You don't just buy a club, you build a club. "I'm coming on board because I want to build Livingston into one of the top clubs in the SPL." We'll wait
Charlie Brooker in today’s Guardian gives five well-argued reasons not to vote for Boris Johnson in the upcoming London Mayoral election (as well as slightly endorsing - but really not - Brian Paddick). My favourite reason comes last: I’m genetically predisposed to hate the Tories. It’s my default, hard-wired position. If Boris wins, their simpering pudge-faced [...]
I hope that this report does turn out to be something substantial for Livingston FC. It does appear to be just a throw away line at the start of a report, but the Chief executive Vivien Kyles was showing some people around on Saturday before kick-off, and I had half joked she was in estate agent mode. Maybe my joke to fellow fans may have been closer to the mark than I realised at the time.
I dont know how Americans have come to restrict their vocabulary so much, but the dichotomy Liberals (which in the US is taken to mean left, from centre-left to loony-left) and Conservatives (meaning right-wing) seriously distorts any meaningful understanding of political science. Such acception empties the term liberal of its authentic meaning. Liberal does not mean lefty!!! When such flawed
The Tories claim to be the party of free enterprise and according to allegations in today's press someone at their Scottish HQ in Edinburgh has taken this belief a tad too far. It seem that they have had to call in Lothian & Borders finest after an office worker managed, allegedly, to make off with £150 000 from their coffers. A Scottish Tory spokesperson has said: "The whole thing has been a major embarrassment. It has shown the accounting system was not too robust - which is why nobody noticed until it was too late. An individual has been referred ... 
Because that’s what some seem to think. I get the impression that many LibDems think we should vote for Ken Livingstone so we can keep Boris, and by extension, the Tories out of power. If I was in politics to keep the Tories out of power I’d have joined the Labour Party. That is not my aim [...]
Yesterday I was leafleting and saw a man allow his dog to foul the pavement twice within about 50 yards, whilst the dog was on a lead about four feet from the owner. One of the two occasions was actually right outside the mans own door. I could barely believe what I was seeing, and would have challenged him were it not for the fact that his dog looked a bit growly, and he himself looked like he could kill me with a single blow, and wouldnt hesitate to show me how. People get so fed up with ...
I cant quite put my finger on which year it was, but there must have been one year when the balance of my birthday decisively tipped away from wrapping paper and candles, and towards emails and report-writing. I suspect it was around 1998. And so today, whilst there was indeed some gift unwrapping at 7am, I will mostly be doing mundane things. Which is a shame I think, partly because I am yearning for lost innocence and my youth back, but mainly because I think were all inherently lazy and would rather be reclining on a chaise-longue being fed grapes ...
I wasn’t going to write about the Serious Fraud Office / BAE Systems High Court judgment last week*, but then Jo posted the thoughts of her BAE-employed friend on the case. In summary, they say that bribery is okay with non-democratic countries because everyone else is doing it and it’s the only way to safeguard [...]
The President of the Family Division has expressed concern that the number of applications for non-molestation orders has dropped by 25-30% since breaching such orders became a criminal offence last year. The implication is that people are reluctant to report domestic violence and take action on it if it means their partner is at risk of getting a criminal record. This might suggest that, whatever the arguments from principle, criminalisation is not always the answer.
Duncan Brack and Ed Randall, authors of the Dictionary of Liberal Thought, have kindly agreed to let us publish extracts on Lib Dem Voice. Last month, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Limited; this month Henry David Thoreau. The entire book is available on Amazon here and can also be bought at the Westminster Bookshop. American writer, [...]
Jeremy Hargreaves in his blog suggests that 2 years of Boris in charge of London will be enough to scare the country in the general election off the Tories forever; unfortunately the comments arent working on his blog so I cant tell him what I think of that idea! So, Im going to have to post my response here: So, Jeremy, the thing is, I don't think Boris Johnson would act as a vaccination. One of the things about Boris is that he has a distinct 'Boris' brand which is separate from the Conservatives. The Tories knew this when they ...
As if Gordon Brown did not have enough problems with his backbenchers today's Guardian reports that even his cabinet is split over the need to force through new laws to extend the maximum detention of suspected terror suspects from 28 to 42 days without charge. An embarrassing defeat is looming. Gordon is beginning to look even more accident-prone than John Major.
TV.com describes 'Bremner, Bird and Fortune as an awarding winning show that takes satirical sideswipes at the high and mighty. I have to say, having watched the show last night, a more fitting description appears to be the one given in James Graham's post; The colour of hypocrisy. For anyone, let alone an 'awarding winning show', to imply that the only contribution Brian Paddick would make to London, if elected Mayor, would be to increase the number of public conveniences in the city, is not what I'd call, satirical sideswiping, more a case of homophobic stereotyping if you ask me. ...
In case you're wondering, the websites for Edward Davey MP and the Kingston Borough Liberal Democrats have been down over the weekend and are gradually being restored as I write. Young Kingston is also affected as it is hosted on the same server. Please be patient!
Better, more affordable public transport not biofuels.
Recently the very western end of Perth Road (south side, west of Riverside Place) has been brought up to standard under the Unadopted Footways Programme and I have been asking about what is now planned for 2008/9. Specifically, the short stretch of Riverside Drive's east side between the Botanic Gardens and Perth Road, is in a very poor state (and - rightly - the subject of residents' complaints), and I have now had the following feedback from the City Engineer on this : I can confirm that the footway at Riverside Drive, east side of Botanic Gardens to Perth Road ...
Welcome to our once-a-week post pointing you to the best of posts from last week. The London Mayoral election keep us busy in the comments this week. We changed our poll to ask who, if anyone, LDV readers would back for their second preference. Hot debate ensued there, as well as in the follow-up to a [...]
Well, here I am sitting on the train at Newcastle Central, waiting to head for London. And amazingly, my train hasn't been cancelled! So no gripe (yet) about National Express. So how was your weekend Seemed like a typical election weekend for me: writing, printing and delivering Focuses, and still no sign at all of any activity whatsoever from Labour or Tories in my own ward. The Tories are too
Back again in the Albanian capital, which inevitably limits the opportunities to blog, since Internet access can be rather sporadic. Things continue to improve in this country, though as always the bad cars and bad roads leave your heart in your mouth when travelling more than a few miles from Tirana. Even in the few months since I was last here, there is visible progress, with new construction proceeding at a breakneck pace. There is, despite the general poverty, a certain optimism/ after all where else would someone build a hotel underneath a large electricity pylon and simply call in ...
Not content with extending the contract for First ScotRail, the SNP may be on the brink of awarding a multi-millon pund carriage contract to a company that will have no benefit to the Scottish economy. The Nats claim that they have the Scottish economy at the heart of their agenda. Yet if the contract for 120 carraiges for Glasgow/Ayr and Glasgow Airport routes goes to Siemens it will mean work
My daily digest of texts, tweets and status updates.00:09 is turning off the 'puter to watch more Heroes, back to work tomorrow (I hope) #Microblogging by SMS, using LoudTwitter and Twitter.
Sunday was Fortaleza Day: the annual holiday for celebrating the city’s birth, 282 years ago. Fortaleza is a mere child, compared with many of Brazil’s colonial centres, of course, but that didn’t diminish the enthusiasm of the crowds for the day’s celebration, nor the expense forked out by the city authorities. The fact that the Mayor, Luizianne [...]
Next sunday Paraguay is holding elections for their Congress and for the President. It is possible that Fernando Lugo, a former Catholic priest, could break 6 decades of Colorado Party rule and join the continents growing band of "leftist" Presidents. It looks a fascinating race and I'm going to try to find out more about it, find some polling, and read some analysis. For now, check out Angus Reid's excellent overview. | < | April 2008 | > | ||||
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