As my friends will probably know, I have spent a considerable working in the small and medium enterprise research and development field, particularly internationally. I personally have always seen both the Liberal Democrats and liberalism as an ideology as being thoroughly compatible with the worldview of small business people given our historic and current emphasis on the freedom of the individual, concerns with excessive concentrations of power (hence the need for competition policy to mitigate the effects of excessive monopoly power on both consumers and producers), the desirability of self-reliance against dependency and our support for the idea of free ...
Bit of a Talking Heads week. I missed this a couple of weeks ago. Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim), collaborates with Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, Dizzee Rascal, Iggy Pop, Martha Wainwright and Jamie T. The first download on sale is Toe Jam. Here is the video, no freeze framing:
This week at Philobiblon.
Look at the top photo and the one before. Notice anything different? The bottom one loses a rasta-hatted man and the motor. Prince William is in the middle. Why could the Sun not have the third in line to the thrown on a little boat with a rasta-hatted man? Repellent. Hat tip: the Daily (maybe)
I accompanied John on a visit to the Gurdwawa at Thornaby which is the local Sikh Temple, after we had been to our own Church here. We were made most welcome and put at ease, as I was rather worried about doing something that might offend. The address by the Priest, responded to by John, made me realise how much that really matters is a core principle for both of our religions. I was also...
English Buildings has been to Dungeness and Derek Jarman's garden at Prospect Cottage. Malcolm Saville went to Dungeness too. The following passage is from The Elusive Grasshopper, published in 1951:Some days later Jon tried to describe Dungeness to his mother and found it very difficult, although it was little more than a desert of shingle which had been made even uglier by slovenly and haphazard building of bungalows, shack and old railway coaches.There were a few fishermen's sheds of tarred timber on the sea side of the road, besides the group of well-built cottages round the lighthouse and the square, ...
Forget those top 100 books that everybody reads. If you are like many of us who cannot get past page 50 and find it so dreary and predictable and find the characters shallow or ill conceived. Try this... How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman Yes, it is a Skawts novel. Yes it is not for people who like a bit of Trollope or Somerset Maugham. Yes, it is an aggressive novel and the language has many F and C words. The language used is experimental. But it is more legible than Lord of the flies. It has ...
On the way back from Hereford we stopped in at England's Gate in Bodenham for lunch. Great food and very friendly and helpful staff. I would certainly recommend it.
Duncan Borrowman reports the sad news that Russell Johnston has died. Russell Johnston was MP for Inverness and then Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber between 1964 and 1997. He then served as a Lib Dem life peer in the House of Lords.
I've just survived my second stag weekend in as many months. When I say 'survived' it remains to be seen whether my Sunday-surliness has blotted my copybook amongst that particular group of friends. The fact is, I am not naturally predisposed to the sort of mindset expected on these kinds of expeditions. At an extremely early age I tended to make individual friends and be shy of groups. As a result I ended up flitting between different groupings on the playground. Later, this 'oddness' made me a target for bullies: while large, I sadly lacked strength in numbers in and ...
As I was born in 1960, there are any number of songs from that decade that I have known all my life. Often I could not tell you who sang them, though the answer often turns out to be The Hollies or Manfred Mann, which suggest those two bands are somewhere near the top of the 1960s second division of singles bands. (The first being The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, The Small Faces, The Spencer Davis Group and The Zombies. Discuss.) This is one of those songs, and it turns out to be by an Australian ...
Playing Word Twist when impaired by Alcohol? Not a good plan... Steph is whupping my arse, damn her. ETA: I note that she's too COWARDLY to play scrabble, though :P In other news, James Grieves does at least have the balls to engage with his detractors, bless him. There appears to be humour in there somewhere. And he has also posted again to point people at this. Girls and Boys have equal performance at maths, eh? Who'da thunk it? Definitely needs spreading around that. Like girls don't blog, girls are bad at maths is one of those universally accepted things ...
I have just heard of the sad death of Russell Johnston. Here is his biography from the Liberal Democrats website: Russell Johnston was born in 1932 and educated at Carbost Public School, Portree High School and Edinburgh University, where he gained an MA in History. Whilst at the University, he refounded and was President of the Liberal Club there for a year from 1956. He was commissioned in
I met Dr Sue Black for the first time on Tuesday. She lives in Surbiton and is Head of Information and Software Systems at the University of Westminster. Then on Thursday she hit the headlines with her campaign to save Bletchley Park. In fact, a number of people have been trying to raise awareness of this for months now, but Sue united the concerns of 100 academics in a letter to the...
First, here's a story about love. Well, sex, anyway. It's from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution : Wendy Whitaker's name may be on Georgia's sex offender registry, but her offense suggests she is no predator. At age 17, while a high school sophomore, Whitaker had oral sex with a 15-year-old male classmate. In 1997, she pleaded guilty to sodomy and got five years' probation. Whitaker, 28, has
So John McCain's campaign is trying to run some counter-stories on Barack Obama. No surprise there. The weird thing is that they're breaking the first rule of creating counter-stories: tell one, simple, consistent story. There have been two John McCains running this year: the maverick Republican and the true conservative -- two narratives. And whether it's taxes or abortion or offshore drilling, he's spent the summer flip-flopping. Now the attacks on Obama cancel each other out! For further details, have a look at Jafapete's weblog.
I remember when they used to show party conferences in full on the TV. Labour used to baffle me as a child. Those votes in favour of Composite 2294 - Donations of Political Levy to Nicaragua - 8,483,984. Those against 2,546,823. That vote is carried comrades. So in that "110% of members of the soviet voted for Comrade Brown as leader" sort of way, John Prescott in his first ever blog posting
Sarah Teather was the guest of honour at the Holborn and St Pancras LibDem summer lunch today, in the home and garden of Camden councillor David Simmons and his wife, but she didn't have to speak, which was probably a relief for both her and the guests who were lapping up the sun and the [...]
The link is to a story from Scotland that I am not aware of anything other than in the media. This is where children were forcibly adopted because of an allegation of MSbP. The 16 year old has now returned from her adoptive parents to her birth mother (much like the Tammy Coulter story). The problem with these stories is that the children, birth parents and adoptive parents suffer from a what
The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton has leapt feet first into the controversy surrounding the award of £60,000 in damages to Max Mosley for breach of privacy after the News of the World published details of a sado-masochistic orgy the formula One boss participated in. In today's News of the World Carey argues that the ruling set a "dangerous precedent" and undermined public morality. The noble Lord believes that the outcome of this court case created 'a new privacy law, which undermined press freedom. He said the judgment made 'unspeakable and indecent behaviour' no longer significant and ...
Sun 27th
19:13
Can Gordon Brown keep blaming it all on the credit crunch ? Gordon Brown's eight mistakes of his own...
Labour officials, particularly the dreadful Harriett Harman, are doing the rounds of TV and radio trying to put the blame for all that is happening to the Labour Party down to economic woes from abroad. Whilst it is true that there are severe global issues have caused the UK lots of problems, which in turn have made Gordon Brown and Labour unpopular, it is worth looking at each incident in the last 12 months to examine just how much fault can be laid at the door of Gordon Brown. 1) A government of dither - A year ago Gordon Brown ...
Today's Plan:- get up around 9.30 - walk dogs, get home in time for Doctor Who prom. - do netcast while listening to prom. - go to pub for lunch. - go forth from pub to Elland, there to join in Lib Demmery at Diane Park's garden party. - schmooze with local Lib Dems and get our faces known a bit better. - come home and pick up the young 'un from her dad's. - cut each other's hair before bed.What has actually happened today:- got woken up BY Doctor Who prom starting. - dashed off netcast while still half ...
We've been in Cheshire and North Wales this weekend - two locations just a few miles apart on either side of the Dee, but against quite different political backdrops. Local government in Cheshire is trying to come to terms with a botched re-organisation which has been carried out with indecent haste, and as far as I can make out, the Conservative administration is fixated with the pressing questions of mayors and chairman, and what the logo should be, with the matters of social care and education clearly a lesser priority for them. There is a general feeling that we took ...
I have just returned from a weekend away and had big plans for today. As part of those plans I had intended to have blogged by now but as ever events got in the way. As will become apparent when the Assembly Commission publishes details of member's expenses, I have been renting a flat in Cardiff since the beginning of this year. Previously, when I needed to stay over I booked into a hotel but the additional workload generated by the Government of Wales Act 2006 and the new Committee structure was making this arrangement more and more untenable. When ...
The Sunday Telegraph has my story today:Britain's poorest pensioners will lose out on £100m next year because of Government plans to reduce the amount of backdated pension credit they can claim. An answer to a Parliamentary question last week revealed that the proposal to allow pensioners' to reclaim just three month's worth of credit rather than 12 months will save the Government £100m in 2009, and nearly the same amount again the following year. Additional figures also show that similar proposals to change the backdating of housing and council tax benefit will save the Government £35m next year and £70m ...
The annual North Riding Duck Race, held on Saturday 26th July 2008 in Saltburn beck, was won by Mark Graham of Stamford Bridge, near York. Mark, who is well known as a guide on the Original Ghost Walk of York, won the Colin Holt Cup and a gift voucher when his plastic duck No 110, named 'Harry' and just pipped Redcar's Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate Ian Swales's duck, No 87, 'You Rang Mallard' by half a beak's length. In 3rd place, just a beak away, was Barbara Abbott of Harrogate (Chris's mum), with duck No 42 named 'Cheryl.' The prize ...
I was done in Hereford this weekend helping Sarah Carr in her campaign to be the next Liberal Democrat MP for the seat.
With the www.irfanahmed.tk URL having problems i would ask people to update their bookmarks using the bookmark button or by saving the new link www.irfanahmedblog.blogspot.com
According to the conservative Iain Dale on the link above Gordon Brown's memo was revealed and it consisted of the following things to do after Glasgow East: 1. Smash mobile phone 2. Chew fingernails 3. Blame global economy 4. Listen to what people are saying 5. Take difficult decisions 6. Get on with job 7. Er, that's it. Well now you decide is this man capable of running a country if he before elections plans on what to do when his party looses?
Many people have asked me this question so i decided to blog about it. When do you think Brown will resign or call a General Election? Well the answer i can give to that question is that the issue that Brown needs to look at before resigning is that if he was to is they any one who would be able to do a better job from with in the high flying Labour MP's at the moment? and i don't think they is. Then if he was to call a General Election he will need to try and make sure ...
Hazel Blears has made a good decision. Yes, I know, I had to go and lie down in a darkened room for some time, and I'm now only just strong enough to blog about it. The hill that provides the background to the title of this blog will sooner, rather than later, I hope, have a wind turbine on it. And this, according to an artist's impression, is what it will look like: Image borrowed from Glyndebourne (pdf). There's more about it here.
As a number of others have commented, the article by Lord Carey in the News of the World today is utterly repugnant. I hold no brief for Max Mosley, but what he gets up to in private with consenting adults is his own business. To quote the former Archbishop: "Unspeakable and indecent behaviour, whether in public or in private, is no longer significant under this ruling." and "Max Mosley claimed that what consenting adults do with each other behind closed doors — however depraved, brutal and repugnant — is both private and harmless. I think that is deplorable. And I ...
Saturday 26th July Well today was my first day off and as such I enjoyed a nice relaxing morning doing as little as possible , although I was woken up by army helicopters that kept flying over head. In the afternoon I took advantage of the fantastic weather we had and took a walk from the bottom of the road my garn lives on, onto the canal and then into Brecon itself, before going along the promenade;
Friday 25th July I'm not going to do a proper post today; instead I'm going to post the following picture - which is something I've been meaning to do for weeks. I found it on the internet and its pretty self explanatory.
Thursday 24th July Well since these aren't being published on the actual days they were written, anyone who has read my blog should at least in theory know the answer - Yes Mr Cameron was at the Royal Welsh Show, and no we didn't go.
Wednesday 23rd July Do we stay or do we go? We learnt today that David Cameron MP (or C**T as I call him for short) will be at the Royal Welsh Show tomorrow...so the question is do we go there as well, so that there is a good quantity of lib dems to counter act the evil Tory presence, or do we stay in the office so that we can get on with our very important case work? However for the record David Cameron will likely spend just a few hours there, whilst Roger Williams MP and Kirsty Williams AM, ...
Tuesday 22nd July I'm so tired As I write this to you all its 20:41 on Tuesday afternoon, although of course you wont read this for at least a few days (or maybe less if I can blag some internet access at work!!!). Anyway today I've been at the Royal Welsh Show, which for those of you who haven't heard about it (which included me until last week) is the largest agricultural show in Europe and attracts around 200,000 people over a 4 day period (although this figure is based on last year where after heavy rain, made the ...
Monday 21st July I had some free time before work started, so I took a little walk around the town centre, and found where my granddad's chemist used to be. (its the one on the left) So, work was interesting to say the least; filled with work....surprisingly. Tomorrow I'm at the Royal Welsh show, doing what I'm not exactly sure but now I'm sleepy, which is strange when you consider its only 21.10. Correction its now 21.15 and I'm not sleepy, which is strange as I've just learnt that I've got to get up at 6.30am tomorrow
Sunday 20th July Day 2, or day 1 if u wish to count that way, but that doesn't really matter, all that matter is that today has been my first full day here in Brecon. I would love to tell you that my day has been full of adventures but truth to be told I've spent the day relaxing and doing as little as possible. As I cope without the internet to constantly check on facebook, I've spend the day beginning to watch through the mountain of DVDs I've brought with me to keep me from going insane. Seriously my ...
The Brecon diaries are my experiences and thoughts whilst I'm here for 6 weeks. Unfortunately I have no full time internet access here, so instead of the standing blogging, where I would post these on the actual days I wrote them, I present you with a diary, dates and all which I will upload and update as often as I can. Saturday 19th July, 2008. I feel like I should have been nervous. Not just of the job I start on Monday but also living with my Gran. Don't get me wrong I love my family to bits, but within ...
T'other day, when compiling my listing of top ten political blogs, I could foresee that I was destined to forget certain blogs which deserve inclusion. This was indeed the case, as I soon discovered that I'd omitted the rather excellent Elephant. Today I realise that, furthermore, I forgot to include the also-excellent Hug a Hoodie blog, and this afternoon's post by Young Mr Jonny Wright demonstrates why a cleverer Julian would have included it. The value of the blogosphere, in my opinion, lies in posts in which the author is able to combine a niche area of knowledge to an ...
A brief hop across the border took us to Gresford, the home of Martin Thomas and Joan Walmsley, two of Ros's colleagues from the Lords, who hosted a campaign event for members in North Wales. Ros and I arrived in good time to help out with preparations and were put to work hulling strawberries, lots of them. Then, whilst Ros freshened up, I found my way to the entry to the drive to do gate duty
The good news is that Hazel Blears has approved LDC's Planning Application Committee's decision to permit Glyndebourne to build their wind turbine. Not only that, but as an added benefit to the environment the minister has added conditions that Glyndebourne should close their helipad (except for emergency flights), and take action to reduce the number of people arriving by car. http://www.glyndebourne.com/information/wind_turbine/ The bad news is that Network Rail have decided that reopening the Lewes to Uckfield line would be technically feasible, but not economically viable. A particular shame in view of the above decision - which would have benefited the ...
Former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, has a particularly dreadful comment piece in today's News of the World. It's about Formula One boss Max Mosley and his recent victory in court against the same newspaper. I thought I'd go through it briefly with a few comments: "A dangerous precedent has been set this week in the victory of Max Mosley over the press. The first major victim is Free Speech itself. Without public debate or democratic scrutiny the courts have created a wholly new privacy law. In itself that's bad enough." As a student about to embark on a law ...
WALL-E is a remarkable film in many ways. Every time Pixar commits something to celluloid the technology seems to leap forward. But what is really remarkable are the influences behind their latest masterpiece. Here are the ones I spotted: Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Darwinism, Stanley Kubrick, the American myth, the American Constitution, romantic comedy, musical comedy, Jean Renoir, dystopian science fiction, Samuel Beckett and E.F Schumacher. Quite something for a film that lasts 98 minutes and is aimed at children. WALL-E is a robot whose job it is to clean up the waste that human beings have left on the ...
Sun 27th
13:55
Church Street By-Election - disaster for Labour, and lessons from the May London elections.
This by-election, which took place on Thursday 24th July was notable for two reasons - firstly it was the second attempt by ex Blur drummer Dave Rowntree to get elected to Westminster Council. Secondly the Conservatives won this ward for the first time ever. The result was disappointing for the Lib Dems - 10% for a lot of effort but this was a ward that had no previous activity at all, only 3 members and had been the Tories' top target ward in the Borough. Both Labour and the Tories poured money and workers into this and we suffered a ...
The conversation that would make the relationship with the main opposition and the USA wasn't very serious according to the link above. The most humorous phrase from the conversation Cameron and Obama had on his weekend visit was Cameron saying to Obama "You should be on the beach," this was taken from Political Punch and you can visit the link on
One way to make an intrinsically unpopular service more acceptable is to appoint a respected organisation to manage it. NCP probably aren't that organisation. A while ago, I heard that Cambridge City Council use the British Legion to manage their parking scheme. I've repeated the claim a couple of times, but can't remember where I heard it. So, I decided to find out for myself. A Google search for "Cambridge parking enforcement" found this page, which refers to a contract with "Legion Parking Services". So, is this the British Legion, or has someone been misled by the name? Well, Googling ...
I walked into the newsagent's shop near my house in London this morning and was hit by a tidalwave of headlines about Brown. My view til now is that there will be no challenge and he will not be turfed out of office. I am beginning to doubt my doubts. And it wasn't just the headlines today that have started a rethink. Labour members I have spoken to are now more willing to stick in the knife. As
Chair's Briefing Beddington & Wallington Local Committee I met with officers to discuss details of how the meeting would run on Thursday. Malcolm was still waiting on some final figures for his Public Realm update, and Jo updated me on questions submitted from the public. We clarified who would be attending the meeting to present reports [...]
I really really hope that this is not a genuine Guinness advert: (hat tip andrewducker) ... because, while it's all very clever and "post ironic" to use images from porn films in advertising, equating a woman with a product which is designed to be consumed, used, and then thrown away is beyond objectification, and frankly makes me steaming furious. Perhaps I would have had more of a sense of humour about this had I not just read James Grieves' supremely patronising and patriarchalist article on on Scribo Ergo Sum. I don't think I have felt a virtual headpat so strong ...
One of the great things about the Blogger's interviews is meeting other bloggers that you feel you have at least got to know a little through their blogs. So I was really pleased to meet Alasdair on Monday when we interviewed Jo Swinson. The adorable Milly, Helen Duffett and her son George were also there. Milly and Alasdair have already covered a lot of what Jo said, so I will just pick up on a few things that particularly interested me. One of the little asides that appealed to my sense of humour was her insight into the recent MP ...
I'm a hopeless optimist. I can't quite believe what I've just read. The Local Government Association's First magazine this week runs a story with a positive headline: 'Key green role for councils - MPs' based on a survey of the honourable members of Britain's lower house. But read on to the third paragraph: of the 168 MPs surveyed 11% rejected the claim that climate change is occurring. I'm not sure whether that statistic is the most depressing or whether it's that a further 8% of our esteemed legislators ticked the box which said 'I don't know.' By my reckoning, that ...
Overall, I'm very disappointed with Lord Carey's comments on the Mosley case in today's News of the World. (If I'm honest, I'm disappointed by the fact that he has chosen to write in that particular publication at all, albeit suprisingly briefly. But I suppose he has to find a way to reach people.) I have to admit that I haven't made up my mind about the result in the case itself. On the one hand, privacy is an immensely important value. Moreover, it is increasingly under threat in modern society, even if that threat is caused by the state rather ...
The previous piece I did on whether the UK might not survive until 2012 (see below), was greeted with some interesting reactions. Jonathan Calder makes a point that many have said to me: summarised as, "Yes, the UK might not survive, and No, we don't care". Others, more sanguine, have suggested that Britain is not in immediate danger and -again to paraphrase- that "there is an awful lot of ruin in nation". I note that those most complacent about the future of our state are not Scottish. Just to make full disclosure: I am a multi-lingual European by culture, British ...
Some days more than others, I wish Morrissey had a blog. I can't help but wonder what he makes of the news that David Cardboard Cut-out Cameron, of all people, took Obama for a walk somewhere quiet and dry, and surrounded by press, and gave him a copy of The Queen Is Dead as a gift yesterday. I've said it before, albeit not on this blog, but does Cameron not realise the sickening irony of a tory leader being a Smiths fan? Are love, law and poverty the things that kill Call-me-Dave? How can he possibly identify with anything Moz ...
The controversial "Mosquito" is being used across the country to deal with "anti-social behaviour". Not only is this a civil liberties issue, it is also highly discriminatory since the Mosquito works by emitting a high pitched noise that only under 25's can hear. So presumably the assumption is that it is only young people who are anti-social. I got this forwarded to me by a fellow Facebooker who had received the request from 11 MILLION. If any of you can confirm any of the locations, or add others that aren't listed, please can you let me know either here or ...
The leader of Neath Port Talbot in a barnstorming speech to council last week, announced that the Energy Park was nearly full. This claim is notably missing from the report of the speech on the council's web site. Let us recap. BP at its peak employed over 2,300 people in Baglan Bay. In 1999, the then Secretary of State announced that the Energy Park would provide 10,000 johs. Between then and 2004, this target was scaled down to 6,000. The actual figure in 2006 was 280. Since then, according to the county borough's own press releases, no more than five ...
Look I know a week is a long time in politics but wasn't it just about 48 hours ago that the Nats were still saying they promised to axe the Council Tax? Indeed it is still on their party's website. Only for this morning's Scotland on Sunday to declare that they are to ditch Local Income Tax (LIT) one of their key election pledges of only last May. It brings us to have to look at who is to blame
It is very obvious to anyone reading the Sunday papers this morning that the Labour Party is in total panic after its loss of the Glasgow East by-election and discontent within Labour is being focussed on the failings of Gordon Brown as Labour Leader and Prime Minister. I don't think anyone can deny that Gordon Brown's performance as PM has been incredibly poor but I personally believe that the problems facing the Labour Westminster Government go much deeper than an unpopular party leader. Labour's announcement on further welfare "reform" announced a few days before the Glasgow East by-election sums up ...
So I've been reading Recasting Egalitarianism, one of the Real Utopias Project books, over the last few days. It's pretty interesting, although I buy the central premise - redestribution of assets rather than income as an egalitarian exercise that can be done without compromising economic efficiency - rather less than the premise of Redesigning Distribution, though the premise of that is the notion of a basic income scheme being A Good Thing. Anyway, in a nutshell the authors are effectively proposing proper incentive alignment under the cover of egalitarianism. For example: tenants have no stake in the value of the ...
A slightly wounded bureaucrat (back trouble - old war wound) rolled gently into Cheshire on Friday evening to resume the 'Campaign for a Real President' at an event hosted by Paul and Vera Roberts at their lovely home in Farndon, on the Welsh border south of Chester. The local elections were not kind to Liberal Democrats across Cheshire, but they're resilient in the North West, and the
I am official. Linked to from Lib Dem blogs - the criteria was it didn't have to be a politics-only blog, but just that I needed to be a member and a blogger! So here I am. But also linked to from my friend, Catherine aka bluecowmoo, a blog which has a focus on knitting. Wonder if that's a first for many Lib Dem readers. So back from a day in London yesterday at English Council Executive, and a nice meal with baby brother Peter, who's just moved to Chelmsford. A train ride later and the drive took me past ...
Someone once told me that when someone begins to blink very rapidy during conversation it means they are either not completely confident about what they are saying or they are simply lying. It's not something you can control and apparently you are not conscious of it happening. Harriet Harman began to do this during her interview on the Andrew Marr show this morning. I couldn't hear what she was saying as the washing machine was going full pelt busily cleaning my socks but my god she started blinking! I may even look on iPlayer just out of interest. Also, whilst ...
David Cameron's bike has been returned to him minus a wheel (the one on eBay must have been a fake - shock! horror!). The Mirror has a photo of Cameron when he realised his bike had gone. The irony of the recovery is that it was found after just an hour's searching by a couple of local community types called Ernest Theophile, a strong Labour supporter, and his Rasta friend "KJ". Ernest said:
The Speaker ordered a porrait of himself to be re-painted because he thought the nose was too big. Gérard Depardieu is 59.
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It seems that any visitation by the "persons in flat caps" to Brown may be stymied by the "buying off" of the Chief Whip, Geoff Hoon. It seems he is lined up to be a EU Comissioner upon the departure of Peter Mandelson. This may cool his adour in leading any Palace coup against Brown. Presumably Hoon has either been told or assumes that his loyalty "will be appropriately rewarded." Labour
19 out of 29 Conservative Shadow Cabinet ministers are millionaires. Just thought you'd like to know. Does it matter? It shouldn't. I would have thought it was more important that they are Tories and Tories behave like Tories, in the end, no matter what spin they manage to contrive to get people to vote for them.
Having read Sara's post opposing age banding for children's books, I am wondering whether the idea could actually be extended further. For example - cars. I'm 49, I drive a Vauxhall Astra. It's probably the right car for me - but how about having a discreet age banding included in the model name - like, say, "Astra GT 1500 45-49?" Wouldn't that make my big car-choosing decisions so much easier
ALDC (the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors) apologises for mycouncillor web sites, including that for Cadoxton, being unavailable since Thursday last. They say: "This is a problem with the Webspace company, NativeSpace, who have apprently experienced a major problem with one of their servers which has affected a wide variety of sites which they host. "We understand the server has been reloaded at NativeSpace, and we will be seeing a return to normal service this morning. "Apologies from us, and we will be taking this up with the NativeSpace when its all finished."
I pass this church more often than I can recall and have been fascinated by it - it's a great location (esp. with St Stephen's opposite) and so thought it was time to complete the local picture. For those that don't know it is on the corner of Lyndhurst Road and Rosslyn Hill, just up from the Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead. It was completed in 1884 and was the main congregational church in north london. It is designed by Alfred Waterhouse (which explains the Waterhouse Close behind the church). The building is known as Lyndhurst Hall and is ...
