LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Saturday 19th April 2008

Whats really going on in China

So, as I’m sure many, if not most of the readers of this blog will know, China is fairly infamous for its interesting records with things such as democracy, human rights, freedom of voice, etc., etc. Now, I have always been in support of a free Tibet, always been angered how quickly the global community forgot about Tiananmen square (1989), as well asthe many other things the Chinese government has undertaken, such as the ‘Great Firewall of China’, and general censorship of domestic media. However, my eyes were recently opened, and my afterthoughts somewhat confused, by a conversation I recently ...

Another sign of Labour doom and gloom

From their Prospective Parliamentary Candidate in Westmorland and Lonsdale: I seem to be in the middle of a nightmare at present. The BNP are standing all over my home constituency. Everyone seems depressed where I am standing for parliament. Gordon has decided to take money away from his core vote, PPS’s are threatening to resign!! When [...]

The Ambassador's Party

I've been looking for this for ages...

What is it about West Africa

When this site first started I had not long got back from an amazing trip to Sierra Leone - well the pause in service this last week has been a trip to The Gambia. It's very similar to Sierra Leone, both climatically and culturally, and I find the mix of relaxation and intense hustle and bustle totally intoxicating. I'll post more over the next few days but here is one picture that sums up the trip for me...

Scarbourgh Hotel St George's Day Beer Festival

One of the best pubs in Leeds. They are having a St Georges Day beer festival on April 23rd, 24th and 25th 11am to 12 midnight each day. Dozens of english beers as well as the usual real pub atmosphere, leather arm chairs and good food. Its situated in the city centre between the station forecourt and swinegate. If like me you prefer the cider they have Westons on tap.

Looking back at the Bush years...

...Through the eyes of David Letterman

Lewes win the league

Congratualations to Lewes FC! Their 2-0 victory over Dorchester today wins them the Conference South competition. Next season, they'll be playing in the Conference, which means that their results will be reported on TV. They'll be playing against the likes of the mighty Histon, and maybe Cambridge United (teams from my home town). Local rivals Eastbourne finished second. That puts them in the playoffs, so they could join Lewes in promotion.

Family History

Today was a day off council work! I'd booked some time ago to attend a Family History Day with my husband, organised by Cleveland Family History Society. We're both interested in our roots and have been doing some research. This was an opportunity to hear some interesting talks on wider aspects, and very enjoyable too. Strangely, it also turned into a chance encounter with one of his more

Some people haven't got a good signal

I only discovered 'Gavin and Stacey' at the beginning of this, the second series. It has some delicious comedy, headed up by Alison Steadman as Pam, the Essex housewife, and Rob Brydon as the Welsh, "don't mention the fishing trip", Uncle Bryn. In this week's episode Pam was trying to persuade her sanguine husband Mick of the importance of her planned silent protest to stop a proposed...

Maoists ruling Nepal! Why aren't we worried

Mao is of course the Communists who killed millions of Chinese. Maoism was followed by Pol Pot who killed 26% of his countries population. So surely the Maoist win in Nepal is quite worrying! The Maoists were in a bitter civil war with the Nepalese Government for many years, until recently when a peace deal was made and a road map towards elections. It was quite a surprise to me and many others that a rebel group could win elections so easily. Would you vote in rebels Well Nepal hasn't had Parliamentary elections since 1999, in which the Nepali Congress ...

Planet of the Ood

I thought that was a pretty good episode, and an interesting one from an anti-racist point of view. It's fairly clear we're supposed to read the Ood as chattel slaves (read "blacks", in historical terms) and the humans as slave-owners or traders (read "whites", for the most part). So how does the episode work with those readings in mind Well, it's good to see a successful slave revolt, for a start, because those tend to get written out of real history. And the early scenes establishing the slavery parallel are uncomfortable viewing in exactly the right ways, I think, with ...

Well done Carter

In the UK we know a bit more about talking with terrorists than our allies across the Atlantic. So it's no wonder that the current US administration has been so critical of Jimmy Carter's talking with Hamas. Hamas being the rulers of Gaza can be more useful, than if they were just an insurgant group. In Government they are more likely to want to be treated like a Government. Remember the BBC journalist who was kidnapped in Gaza, it was Hamas that got him released. It shows how they were able to deal with other Islamic groups and wanted to ...

Why is France deporting it's illegals

Illegal Immigrants in France are often people who may have walked across the Sahara, and packed into a tiny boat, clinging to their lives. The Dangers are huge, people will do all sorts of things to get to Europe, for them it's like a continent made of Gold. But Nicolas Sarkozy promised he would send away 25,000 Illegal Immigrants home every year. He is doing exactly that. The thing is it's not just the immigrants that don't like it, but also the businesses. France doesn't have a good economic position, with 8% unemployed, but that doesn't mean immigrants are taking ...

All Blacks fall to frustrating Bedford but fight on

The Cornish All Blacks suffered a frustrating loss to Bedford Blues today, but the fight goes on to the final week. Today's 22-18 loss was all the more annoying because the All Blacks trailed 14-0 and had fought back well with a Matt Jess try just before the half. After the break, the All Blacks camped down in the Bedford 22 and secured a penalty try as the Blues repeatedly stood up in the scrum. In the end, however, the Blues were disciplined enough to hold the ball in their pack within their 22 for a full seven minutes without ...

Blow to Snailbeach railway reopening scheme

Sad news from the Shropshire Star: two of the men behind plans to reopen the Snailbeach District Railway have been killed in a road traffic accident in Switzerland. The newspaper reports: Dieter Bühler, 57, and Kurt Brugger, 41, both Swiss, were to start work next week on reopening the Snailbeach District Railway, once used by the countys lead mining industry. Their car was in a head-on smash with a lorry, as they started their journey to Shropshire. The lorry is said to have been on the wrong side of the road.Bühler was the general manager of the railway and a ...

The Cheeky Girls and the Gay Dolphin

Relax. This is not about some juicy new scandal involving Lembit that you have missed. Thursday's Daily Telegraph had an interview with the girls by Neil Tweedie, and he met them at the Mermaid Hotel in Rye. This naturally attracted my interest, as the Mermaid is the model for the Gay Dolphin, a fictional Rye hotel which features in several of Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine stories. Though a careful reading of the stories suggests that while the building of the Gay Dolphin is modelled on the Mermaid, it occupies the position of the real-life Hope Anchor. Follow the links for ...

How a Conservative employee spread defamatory comments about Ming Campbell

I’ve not seen this passage from Ming Campbell’s memoirs, My Autobiography, quoted elsewhere, so here’s the story of the Conservative Press Officer and the defamatory email: A former Liberal Democrat party employee working in public relations rang to alert my team to a damaging e-mail. It accused me of taking money from defence manufacturers in return [...]

Bourne Park Airfield!

Did you you know we had a an airfield 200 metres from the Parish boundary. Nope nor did I or 2 of my fellow Parish Councillors and people who have lived in the Village for years. I was reading the Andover Advertiser one night and spotted a planning permission notice for retrospective planning permission for an Airfield at Bourne Park which backs onto Little London. A quick call to Len Gates confirmed that the airfield had been operating since 1992 without permission and this was a retrospective permission. You can imagine my concern so a quick call to the my ...

Can you deal with the idea of test tube meat

One of the innovations which would greatly help what I outlined as the number one global issue we face today is test tube grown meat. It could be on European market shelves within a decade. It has many benefits. We won't have to use grain to raise cattle, which will lower global food prices. We won't have to subsidize European cattle farmers in the same way, meaning that we can get cheaper meat and allow developing world farmers to grow. The environmental impact of farming will decrease, slowing global warming. What remains to be seen is whether people will be ...

Springsteen, wrong for anyone born in the USA

Check out slate's new video below. Amusing. Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan

A tired walk

Earlier on today I did my first major piece of delivery for the mayoral election campaign. I only did a small walk, in my local area. I did have some help, with Cllr Jon Ball giving me a hand! It may only have been a short walk, but boy was I tired afterwards, especially with having to get the shopping in. In case you're wondering, I did some major damage to my ankle just before Christmas. This was the first time that I felt comfortable enough on it to actually do some serious walking, other than to the shops and ...

Botanic Garden Update

Last night's "Evening Telegraph" gave an update on the Botanic Garden. This is an issue in which I have taken a close interest (click on headline above to view an earlier blog entry) and the Tele last night featured the fact that the University has not been prepared to give me an assurance that, in looking at ways of providing the garden with a sustainable financial future, it would rule out selling any of the garden ground to a developer. The University has made clear it (and the working group assisting with the future of the Botanics) will consider all ...

Forthcoming event: assessing Asquiths legacy

Lib Dem Voice has already noted that we have just passed the century since Herbert Asquith became the last leader of a Liberal government. So we thought you might like to know of a lecture assessing his legacy which is taking place in Oxford next month. (If any LDV readers are thinking of coming, do [...]

Last week's FMQs ...

Another excellent performance by Nicol Stephen at FMQs last week, where he took the opportunity to challenge the First Minister over the SNPs proposed £3bn of "efficiency" savings and expose the complete lack of detail in their published figures. Annabel Goldie is also a consistently good performer at FMQs and Alex Salmond's response to her question on Thursday about whether or not students are liable for Council Tax ("As Annabel Goldie well knows, it depends where they are staying") sort of sums up Salmond's oft-repeated lack of grasp of the actuality (students are exempt Council Tax no matter where they ...

The catch up

Sitting in the hairdresser's shop in Newcastle as I am now, having my natural highlights removed, reminds me of being on the train. It is a time to do some reading (still plodding through Peter Hennessey's 'Having it so Good') and to write more blog posts.I managed to miss a few things off the blog through the week. One of them was to say that I had completed the next edition of 'North East

Ed Balls: one announcement, two reasons to apologise

A little while back, the Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, made a dramatic announcement that one in six schools in England are breaking the admission rules. Two problems though. First, the claim was - shall we say - not exactly right. When it came to checking the evidence - the evidence wasn’t actually there for his claims. And second, [...]

Rampant Lions slayed by Super Leeds

Striker Anthony Elding was named in the starting line-up, alongside Dougie Freedman, for Leeds United's penultimate away match against Millwall at the New Den. The injured Jermaine Beckford was not included in the 16. Jonny Howson, the young player who has made an enormous impact over the past few weeks, was named as captain and David Prutton was in for the suspended Jonathan Douglas. United had slightly more possession in a windy first-half but Millwall had more chances on goal plus four corners to United's one. A shot from Elding in the seventh minute was tipped around the post. A ...

Linky things

Spent last night sticking things through people's letterboxes for the Lib Dems. This resulted in sore fingers (why do people have those letterboxes that try to cut one's fingers off) and very wet legs (why do people keep water butts by their front doors) and being generally cold and grumpy. Still, a quick visit to the Old Ship remedied some of that... However, this morning I am all fuzzyheaded, so the things I want to blog about are not coalescing in the slightest. Firstly, {[info]} sovietkiki has a rant about JK Rowling (which is f-locked, but I link anyway) with ...

Good Morning Vietnam - sorry, I mean Good Morning Postal Voters

It's been a fun-packed weekend so far - Friday evening delivering leaflets, with the help of my uni friend Alastair, then up at 4.30am this morning to head out and... deliver leaflets. Just got home from delivering 'good morning' leaflets to postal voters, which means covering as much of the borough as possible, but with just a handful of houses to deliver in each street. My ward of Fortis Green has a very high number of postal voters and is also one of the largest wards geographically, but we did a pretty good job of getting around it. Delivering what ...

Why would you want to dress up as an Admiral in the Soviet Navy

Does anyone know why David Sullivan, one of the largest shareholders at Birmingham City football club dresses up in what appears to me to be the uniform of an Admiral in the navy of the former Soviet Union If there are any Birmingham fans out there who can answer this, I'd be delighted to know the answer.

Street Surgery

I was out this morning in Claremont, where Cllr. Norman Owen held a street surgery outside the Co-op. We got lots of support many of people expressed their anger over the governments decision to scrap the 10p tax rate (5.3 million people are worse off). While we were there, the local MP Hazel Blears appeared. [...]

Hanging on the telephone

Matt Withers has the lowdown on what happened after former Welsh Office Minister, Rod Richards, was arrested outside his home after an altercation with Conservative canvassers: As any keen student of TV crime dramas will know, once you're arrested you only get to make one phone call. Who did former Welsh Conservative leader Rod Richards opt for when he was arrested following a fracas outside his Cardiff home last night A loved one His solicitor Or, er, a journalist to let the press know exactly what had just happened to him...

Save Our Post Offices

By the end of May we will know which post offices in Torbay will be recommended for closure. It will be the third round of closures to impact on the bay. The threat does not come from the EU as ...

Its not been a good few days for

Variants on the question “Is Gordon Brown finished” continue to dominate much political commentary, with The Guardian today running a fascinating first-hand account of what it’s like working with him: When Gordon Brown used to hold meetings at the Treasury, coffee would be served with the milk already added. I always thought that summed up his [...]

So when's polling day again

Love the way the pencil is suggestively pointing towards the Lib Dem box...although in this instance, the ballot paper may be void...

With Friends Like These...

On leaving the tube station on Thursday morning, I was confronted with a billboard boldly declaring Suicide bomb backer runs Kens campaign.The headline refers to comments made in 2004 by Azzam Tamimi who is part of a campaign encouraging young Muslims to vote for Ken. In a BBC interview, Tamimi revealed that he would be prepared to perform a suicide bomb attack in Palestine. Another headline, Embracing Islam gives Ken new election hope, links pro Ken Islamic leaders and groups with Islamic extremism. The following question is asked:Ken appears to want the Muslims to help him with a historic victory of ...

"A new dawn of collaborative action" indeed!

Eight former Guantanamo Bay detainees are suing the British Government for millions of pounds, claiming it had knowledge of, and was complicit in, their illegal arrest and the process leading up to their detention at the camp. Possible state-sanctioned torture and the implications aside, the article coincides with another story in the Guardian which states: The prime minister voiced the hope that a "new dawn of collaborative action" would be ushered in next year with the election of a new US president. Which sent shivers down my spine as I read on in the Times article: The eight men were ...

A case of, do as I say and not as I do

Following on from my post of Friday 4th April; What to do for the best . I have now had a response from The Standards Board for England. Sadly, as I had suspected, they say that being a drunk driver and lying to the police isnt enough of a reason for a councillor to be investigated. Apparently they only have jurisdiction to consider complaints relating to the conduct of members when they are acting in their official capacity, or using or seeking to use their position as a member. Im sorry but that cant be right, can it People convicted ...

Day 2604: Flowers on the Moon

Thursday: No, I have NOT blasted Daddy Richard into orbit! This is SCIENCE and news that the European Space Agency has discovered a way to let marigolds grow on moonrock. I'm sure you must realise that this is quite IMPORTANT if we are ever going to build a successful MOONBASE. In the CARBON CYCLE, plants absorb CO2 and water and sunlight to make carbohydrates and oxygen; elephants and people and animals then eat carbohydrates and breathe oxygen to get energy and make CO2 and water as by-products. If you want to keep breathing you have to keep these in BALANCE. ...

Dollhouse casting

I'm really excited about this show, and nothing they do in casting is likely to change that, but: Joss asks Casting for "beautiful, heavy". They cast someone with BMI 21.4. The racial aspects of the casting are starting to look a bit dubious, too, although it's early days. Most of the comments on this are scattered widely across my friendslist and difficult to find for linking purposes, but there's a sort of overview here.

Those boots are made for walking

It has been a mixed week for jobs in this part of Wales, what with the bad news of redundancies at 3Ms and Trostre. On the bright side there is the 1,200 plus jobs at Amazon's new 'fulfillment centre' in Jersey Marine. Welcome as these jobs are they cannot compensate those who face losing a well-paid manufacturing job elsewhere. The Amazon building is huge. It covers 800,000 square feet. A comment on the South Wales Evening Post site drew my attention to the job adverts which underlined this fact. Applicants are being warned that they maybe required to walk up ...

Ireland Takes the Lead with EU Voters

The Republic of Ireland looks set to become the first EU member state to give a vote in its general elections to all legally resident EU citizens (with the proviso that they can speak English). This would be a milestone in the development of European citizenship, as well as a major advance for Eire, which [...]

Lounge Redevelopment Drop In

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water local Developer Chris Ure has submitted revised Planning Applications for the former Lounge Cinema site on North Lane, Headingley. A cynic might suggest that the applications do little other than reverse the hard won concessions/safeguards that the community won in 2006 on the last application. Because Mr Ure has expensive lawyers I'm not suggesting that. I have arranged a residents drop in to discuss the issue between 7pm and 9pm on Tuesday 29th of April in the small hall of Headingley Methodist Church. This is opposite the ...

Saturday 19th April 2008

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