LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Sunday 20th April 2008

Nigel does have a clue

The current Assembly member for Ealing & Hillingdon, Richard Barnes, has said in a recent article that Nigel Bakhai is completely clueless about local needs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Richard goes on about this because he thinks that because Brian Paddick wants trams Nigel does too. Knowing Nigel as I do, I can safely say that he knows full well the needs of local people, he's one himself. Nigel campaigned repeatedly against the tram; he even went on several "Save Ealing Streets" marches. So to say that Nigel has no clue about local issues is erroneous in ...

Whats really going on in China: Update 3

An interesting Insight into the mentality of young, loyal Chinese people. And it seems I’m not the only person looking for the truth, as the existence of the Truth about China would suggest. Except that site is very clearly anti-China, which I am not. Again, I want to re-iterate, I am neither for or against China, I just want the truth, and that, when the truth comes out, for the appropriate propagandists to be suitably punished. Another interesting blog can be found at theTruth About China blog And again, another site, this time with several videos and more Anti-CNN

Charles Clarke lays into Ed Balls

Looks like the new week will be much like the old week when it comes to Labour infighting, for Monday’s Times brings us a letter from Charles Clarke in which he lays into Ed Balls: His injunctions about the "indulgent nonsense" of "private briefings against the Labour leader" certainly come from one who is well acquainted [...]

One Economist article, two dodgy statistics, one striking omission

What could have been a rather interesting piece about the internet and politics in The Economist is rather undermined by two of the statistics at the core of its analysis and one major oversight. First, the relative website traffic levels are taken from Alexa. Now, I’ve used Alexa in the past myself and their statistics have [...]

Congratulations Harry Hill

Harry Hill won two BAFTAs tonight - his TV Burp gained him both the Best Entertainment Programme and Best Entertainment Performance awards. Harry Hill's TV Burp manages to laugh at popular television without ever insulting the audience for those programmes. It is a remarkable achievement. But only one reward for Cranford? Those ladies in the bonnets were robbed.

Hallaton

English Buildings writes: Hallaton is one of those villages whose upland location and rich variety of ironstone buildings help make eastern Leicestershire a little known delight.You also get a photograph of the village's buttercross and information on its traditional Easter Monday bottle kicking and hare pie scrambling. The village even has its own saint.

Fake Gordon Brown site

Gordon's been in the news this week, what with his trip to the US. He's also had the micky taken out of him on Have I Got News for You. Apparently he's hired a new spin doctor who's jot it is to keep any embarrassing pictures out of the media. She's failed at the job already, lol. Whilst searching for those pics I came accross something else that was rather interesting. At the top of the listsings was a site called Gordon Brown for Britain. Aparently some Italian telecoms company has purchased that particular domain for some reason. I just ...

Whats really going on in China: a second update

This is less of an update, and more just to show the video that the link in a comment on the previous post gives. This video suggests that the ‘Western’ press have purposefully and intentionally acted to slander the Chinese government. They suggest image and video manipulation as the primary method, together with other forms of deception, such as mis-identifiying the Chinese police uniform - and I think this is quite possible - but of course, how can I know for certain that the creators of this video are not themselves modifying images to suit their cause? All I will ...

BritBlog Roundup 166

Tell Mr Eugenides I sent you.

Tim Buckley: Dolphins

Complete with an introduction by Whispering Bob Harris, this Sunday's video comes from the Old Grey Whistle Test and May 1974. Which means that it was recorded just over a year before Buckley's death. He is described as follows by Richie Unterberger: One of the great rock vocalists of the 1960s, Tim Buckley drew from folk, psychedelic rock, and progressive jazz to create a considerable body of adventurous work in his brief lifetime. His multi-octave range was capable of not just astonishing power, but great emotional expressiveness, swooping from sorrowful tenderness to anguished wailing. His restless quest for new territory ...

Facebook: what happens next

Just spotted this commentary about Facebook.

Leaflets and Lies

I have delivered a frankly obscene amount of leaflets this weekend - so many in fact that my hands have taken on a yellow and black tinge from the ink, and at one point during the rain earlier the entire contents of St Mary’s Focus transposed themselves onto my skin due to running ink. However, I am grateful for the fact that we live in an age of water running from taps, because it allows me to wash it off and not be cursed to wander around forever more with a mirror image of “Don’t forget that Labour tried to ...

Is attacking a religion a hobby? Or an interest?

Having just read the first 100 pages of the Da Vinci Code I have put the book down just long enough to write about it. Robert Langdon is in a Louvre toilet with Sophie, who's attempting to explain why her grandfather is lying dead, naked and spread-eagled in the shape of a star in the grand gallery, and why he wrote Robert's name next to him in luminous pen before he died. So far so Agatha Christie, you may think. My first thoughts were that the novel was going to be very strong on ideas but weak on style and ...

Hillary: Dramatic Footage from Bosnia Uncovered

Hat-tip: Mike Smithson For more see www.barelypolitical.com

Tory Retreat to Guildhall speeds up

Well it should come as no surprise from my last few entries that our Conservative minority administration in Bath & North East Somerset are now in full retreat to the Guildhall. Two very bruising call in debates have left our Conservatives shell shocked to such an extent that they have served notice of their intention to move a change to the council constitution at our AGM that limits...

Mystery of stored flower planters revealed!

I'm pleased to say that I've now got answers to complaints by West End residents that around 20 large flower planters - currently in full bloom - have been stored beside a pavilion at Riverside, rather than being sited at prominent locations in the city as residents would rather expect they would. I have been contacted by residents who have noticed the planters, currently in full bloom and extremely colourful, whilst out for a walk south of Magdalen Green, near the Riverside Drive Pavilion. The planters are locked away and residents said it seemed a shame that they were not ...

Selling the Iraq War

Fascinating piece in the International Herald Tribune today on how the White House attempted to dominate the news. I can understand the desire to gain 'information dominance' but this is not how to do public relations.

Terminal 5: An apology to Willie Carson

I've recently flown out of, and back into, Stansted Airport. It's amazing. They actually take your suitcases off you and get them onto your plane before you take off. All without any to-do. Stunning. This morning I witnessed a remarkable team at Monastir, Tangiers who were able to pull off the same trick as Stansted. Bless them. They did it with old generation computer programmes (remember -

Damaging corporate reputation

I recently had a bit of problem with the customer service department of BT. I wrote a post on this blog that discussed brand delivery and how customer service can be an aid or hindrance. Since I work in public relations I spend quite a bit of time thinking about that sort of stuff anyway. It seemed natural to write about it. But later on I began wondering if this had been the right thing to do. Public relations is partly about relationship building. There may come a time when I need to develop a relationship with BT and/or their ...

Words, after speech, reach into silence

As one does when money is a little short on a Saturday evening, I ordered a takeaway and - after Doctor Who you understand - sat down to re-read some Eliot. I was moved in particular by the Four Quartets and Eliot's understanding of time. He was an avowed Christian by this point, but there is still a healthy dose of Yeats-style mysticism. "...the still point of the turning world" and later, "Only by the form, the pattern, / Can words or much reach / The stillness..." and towards the end, "un-being and being." By "the still point of the ...

Vote for your "Night Mayor"

In one of the less cerebral contributions to the London mayoral debate, SpendapennySendapenny invites you to select your least favourite of the four main candidates for the Mayoralty and flush them away. More people have flushed Livingstone than any other; Johnson is second - and our own dear Paddick is currently winning by a whisker with [...]

A couple of days off - and look what happens!

Janet is very patient with me. I’m sure she thought that once I had fully retired we’d spend time doing what normal retired people do! Gardening, days out walking in Derbyshire and going off in the caravan at weekends. Little did she realise that when I became a local politician and an organiser of a food and drink festival I would have even less time at home than when I was working! So when a friend of ours suggested that we have a caravanning weekend together I immediately said “Yes” and looked forward to a couple of nights and three days ...

Apparently there are elections in a few days time

Is it just me or is there a severe case of election indifference in the air ? Okay, so I don't live in an area where elections are being held this year but I do work in an area (Norwich) where there are elections, and being honest, nobody would know. The usual display of signs by the political parties seems to be totally absent in some key wards whilst people I speak to who live in Norwich see oblivious to there being elections this year. I know this is very subjective and based on just asking a few people and ...

The real lesson of the 10p tax rate fiasco

{HM Treasury sign} It'd be easy to simply point fingers at all those Labour MPs who cheered when Gordon Brown delivered his last budget (the one that scheduled the abolition of the 10p income tax rate for this year) and then stayed silent in the intervening year until finally, at the last gasp, speaking up on the issue. But there's a larger point underlying all this - beyond the failure of MPs to speak up for so long. It's the whole way we do our budgets and our politics. Gordon Brown slipped out the announcement of the abolition of the ...

Two bits of feelgood news and WTF

Firstly, via Official Lib Dem Lovely Lynne Featherstone, a small skirmish appears to be resolving favourably in the great war. Like she says:It's not equal pay and it doesn't address women's pensions or carers' allowances or improving rape convictions - all of which are desperately important and need priority. However, the screaming message of male primogeniture in accession to the throne has been that men are better than women. So good riddance to that! Secondly, an interesting little scheme in Wycombe, although I notice that (once again) there's mention of Christians and Muslims, but not the non-religious majority. Hey ho. ...

What's going on in China: an update

So, it seems the US are suffering from similar protests and uprisings as we are here in the UK, as this CNN article suggests, complaints and protests have arisen after a comment by one of its commentators. The more I read about China, and what I’m told, the more I realise that neither ‘truth’ are compatible. Either the Chinese government are fooling it’s people, or the UK and US media are fooling us. It being ‘a bit of both’ doesn’t seem to work in this situation.. But I’m determined to find out the real ‘truth’!

Darling: I can't rewrite Budget - Liar!

{Pants on Fire} Alistair Darling today suggested that he couldn’t rewrite the budget. Almost trying to put the blame for the tax rise on one Gordon Brown. However he LIES!!!!!! On the 12th March 2008 he read out his first budget. It would have been possible for him in this one to either re-introduce the 10p tax band, or alternatively put up the tax free threshold so that no one was worse off. However the Labour Party seem to be a bit thick and didn’t realise that this was such a big issue that they would have ministers almost resigning, ...

Stalags

A counterpoint to the debate about Max Mosley's position after media revelations about his alleged concentration camp kink: Stalags, a genre of 1960s porn catering to a similar kink, but in Israel. The Mosley stories and some unrelated posts about porn on some of the feminist blogs I read have prompted me to re-examine my own feelings about kink, and I'm currently in the "more confused than I started" phase, which is probably a necessary stage and one I expect to be temporary. That said, Andrew O'Hehir's comment about how many people fixate on salacious aspects of the Nazi regime ...

Borough to decide on town council bid

As expected the government has devolved the final decision on whether an area can have a town or parish council to borough councils. Quoted in the Andover Advertiser, Stephen Lugg, Director of the Hampshire Associaiton of Local Councils condemned the move as “disastrous”. Mr Lugg argued that the county council should make the decision because the borough council is using evidence from ten years ago, based on a small selection of people that they selected, to say that Andover does not want a town council. Borough council leader Ian Carr continues to argue that borough councillors are in a better position to ...

UStream.TV: another first in the bag

On Friday night, Brian Paddick became the first British politician to use UStream.TV for a live question and answer session, broadcast over the internet. The 60 minute session was hosted by Susan Kramer, Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park. Taking into account viewers at the time and since, it garnered approaching 1,000 viewers, with the number [...]

Vsiting farmers at Allet

It's hard to think that in April last year we were basking in sunshine. On Friday I visited some dairy farmers at Allet. Although milk prices have gone up over the past year by about 8p a litre this is just about compensating for the huge increases in feed, energy and fertilizer costs. Farming is never easy. From my days down on a dairy farm I know that. The milking starts early meaning that most dairy farmers start at about 5.30am and go on until late sometimes working via tractor headlights in the fields in the evenings. Paper work tends ...

101 phone line saved

Hamshire County Council has joined a group of local authorities who have agreed to save the non-emergency 101 phone line. The possible scrapping of this service was highlighted by Test Valley Liberal Democrats last year (see December 2007 blog on this site). The county will provide �27,000 to help develop the service which is being absorbed into Hampshire Constabulary’s call handling operations. In Hampshire and the Isle of Wight 380,000 calls have been made to the number since May 2006. I am pleased to see the county council has responded to public concerns over the loss of this service and has listened ...

Nick visits smallest post office

We all know that Lib Dems are campaigning hard on post office closures, but...

Things are changing for our Monarchy

{Buckingham Palace} Looks like the beginning of the end of male primogeniture - hurrah! The Sunday Times put the story on its front page and ran an editorial on the subject today. So what's the story all about? The rules about who becomes our Monarch discriminate against women - and skip over women to men. Now - that's the sort of crude discrimination that we should have left behind years ago (as have many other monarchies, which have changed their rules to remove this old-fashioned sexism). So a little while back I referred to the new Commission for Equality and ...

Aye, a Dundee spree is a done deed indeed ...

Good to see Dundee getting really good press over a very positive entry in the Lonely Planet guide. To quote Lonely Planet : "Aye, a Dundee spree is a done deed indeed. "Spreading along the southern shore of the Firth of Tay, Dundee boasts attractions of national importance in Discovery Point and the Verdant Works museum. Add the seaside suburb of Broughty Ferry, a lively nightlife and the most welcoming people you could meet - and Dundee is definitely worth a visit." You can read the Lonely Planet guide to Dundee by clicking on the headline above.

Taxing Time For Gordon

All the talk at the moment is about the abolition of the 10p tax band. Pity so few spotted it when Gordon Brown delivered his last Budget as Chancellor. Our Shadow Chancellor Vince Ca...

Shock rise in violence against UK's children

The link is to an Observer story. Quoting from two parts: The numbers, contained in National Health Service data, suggest that the incidence of intentional harm against children may be rising. Five years ago some 16,600 were counted as having suffered deliberate harm, but the figure rose to 21,859 last year. Alison Kemp, reader in child health at Cardiff University, said: 'The numbers are high

The Tolerant Tories

I don't live in London, so I don't have a vote in the Mayoral elections. However, across the country David Cameron's Conservatives are trying to paint themselves as tolerant and inclusive. So, let's see what their "tolerant and inclusive" candidate for London Mayor has to say about Islam: "To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia - fear of Islam - seems a natural reaction, and, indeed, exactly what that text is intended to provoke. Judged purely on its scripture - to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques - it is the most viciously sectarian of all ...

Peak Oil - lib-dems list

At the suggestion of John Hemming, MP, I've set up a mailing list for Liberal Democrat activists who are interested in peak oil. Any member of the Liberal Democrats can subscribe to the list at http://lists.libdems.org.uk/wws/subscribe/peakoil/. You may need to register your email address - and you'll need your party membership number to do so.

It's not been a good few days for... (UPDATED)

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 [...]

Learning from Barack Obama's original sin

Here's another reason why the US Democratic presidential primaries are so closely fought and why just a few points separate either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton from John McCain. OK, it's all about narratives, the candidates telling their stories. It's more than that - the contest is about how America wants to see itself. Roger Cohen of The New York Times says that the US may now be ready to confront one of the darkest chapters in its history, its central conflict; what Barack Obama has called America's "original sin" - slavery and segregation. In so doing, Cohen reinforces an ...

Labour's u-turn on tax

Alistair Darling has appeared on the BBC reassuring voters that the 10p tax rate will be reversed by some good fortune in the future. Which is a bit like whacking someone over the head really forcefully with a pack of frozen peas and using it to soothe the wound a few seconds later.

Evening Standard piece on JK Rowling

This was published in the Evening Standard on Thursday, slightly edited: The Harry Potter series is one of the most derivative works of fiction ever devised, from its boarding school setting (The Four Marys, Billy Bunter), magical theme (too many to mention) and even its plot (drawing from the same well as Star Wars and even The Matrix). He isn’t even the first fictional English boy wizard with spectacles and a pet owl, as fans of Neil Gaiman’s Books of Magic will testify. None of this is to deride J.K. Rowling’s genius for taking hoary cliché and making something new ...

What did Alistair Darling say ?

I watched Sunday AM this morning which featured Iain Dale, amongst others, but the main political heavy weights were Gideon Osborne and Alistair Darling. For all my disbelief in anything Gideon Osborne says about the Tories caring for low wages earners (wasn't it the Tories who opposed the minimum wage ?) and my recollection that the Tories said next to nothing last year about the 10p tax cut, only realising in the last few weeks that it is an issue of significance, the one major asset Gideon Osborn has over Alistair Darling is that at least he keeps his sentences ...

One million pupils fail under Labour

As a report states in the Observer that a million children failed to achieve even grade G in their GCSEs isn't it time to acknowledge the fact that the grades below C are not worth the paper they are written on? As the report by the right-of-centre think tank the Bow Group concludes, the taxpayer is losing out as the million children pushed into the world of employment without a single qualification will be funded by them as they encounter the high percentage of potential employers who shred or delete their CV two seconds after it leaves the envelope or ...

Another nail

Now the Trade Unions have joined in the criticism of Gordon Brown and his policy abolishing the 10p tax rate. In today's Observer TUC top man, Brendan Barber, accuses the Prime Minister of being lured by the 'siren voices' of those campaigning for the super-rich and the corporate elite. Harsh words and ones that could do real damage in the run-up to the local government elections on 1 May. Even the Foreign Secretary is joining in, though he uses far more diplomatic language. Writing in today's News of the World David Miliband says that Labour is now the 'political underdog' ...

Greetings

Chag sameach to my Jewish friends!

What I've been up to by Text today

My daily digest of texts, tweets and status updates.18:27 is watching Doctor Who, and hoping his laptop and WiFi will stop crashing. # 18:31 trying to not be horribly cynical. Honest. But if Donna could stop repeating things three times it'd help. #Microblogging using LoudTwitter and Twitter. {[info]} matgb_twitter is there if you're mad enough.

Doctor Who: Planet of the Ood-delayed reaction poll

So, I haven't been doing my normal Doctor Who reaction polls so far, partially because I've been a bit bored of the whole thing, partially because I've got a bit of writers block and aren't writing much of anything, and partially because, well, Donna is annoying me and Tennant isn't getting much better. Haveing said that, tonights was actually OK, so much that I want to watch it again and try to make a more informed judgement, while trying to ignore Donna's repeating-herself-three-times annoyingness. So, well, here's a poll for the first three episodes so far. View Poll: Doctor Who ...

More Nanny State Nonsense: Labour for witch-hunting

The BBC reports Labour proposing yet more legislation to protect people from their own choices. This time the government wants to save us from clairvoyants by threatening them that unless they can “prove” (to whom? to what standard?) that they actually contact the departed they will face civil enforcement orders (ASBOs are an example of a civil enforcement order to [...]

Do we really have to wait until the end of June?

So the race is still going on, and maybe just maybe soon we will know who will face John McCain in the fall and have a chance to become the next president of the United States. The race officially began in January with the first primary, and it unoficaly began in 2003 when Hilary implied that she may run in 2008, whilst ruling out a run in 2004. And here we are a mere 4 months later, after the official start, and unlike the Republicans, who have nominated Senator John McCain, who out of the original possible contenders, is best ...

I hate that Mariella Frostrup!

Ever since she was on that prog saying `I always vote Labour - Lib Dems are so wishy-washy`. Now she’s doing adverts urging people to take up their tax credits! Nice work if you can get it. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. I take it she isn’t entitled to any - the patronising rich [...]

Vote for the Liberal Democrats: it just makes sense

Of course I’m going to say that, because I am a Liberal Democrat. But nevertheless, a quick look on each of the three main parties’ websites, to find out what they stand for, reveals: the Lib Dems The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience and their right to ...

<	April 2008					>
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

Sunday 20th April 2008

Previous days:

Archives

Search for...

Adverts

Buttons

LibDem Blog Box

Contributors

Campaigns

Backlinks...

From the LibDems...

Featuring Nick Clegg...

From the BBC...

From the Independent...

From the Guardian...

Adverts