*We hope otherwise. The Lib Dem blogosphere has got award-happy lately, what with Mr Dale's Compleat Almanack of Most Excellente Torie Bloggers (And Some Scurvie Leftie Scumme, Regrettablie), our own Lib Dem Blog of the Year Awards, now in their fourth year, Alex Wilcock's Tons More Fun™ self-gratification meme and, of course, SB's Very Prestigious (And [...]
I don't usually do polls, but I see that a new one has just come up on the Times site, and I thought I would this time around. The figures are Tories on 45% (-2), Labour on 25% (no change) Liberal Democrats on 18% (+ 2). 18% is about the the top of the range for Liberal Democrats with YouGov. They are usually the just about the worst pollster for us (and usually generous to "others". We hit 18% for three polls in a row around the time of the local elections, and then faded (perhaps because the Tories had ...
{Img_1288} We held our regular Surgery this morning on Hexham Road and we rounded off the morning with a walkabout around the estate to pick up any issues. It was disappointing to find another vandalised alley gate on Stanhope Road. This was something we campaigned on back in April. I've reported this to the Council for action. Ultimately, I think Council needs to bring in a more effective type of gates which are harder to vandalise. {Img_1286} {Img_1278} {Img_1291} Other issues we identified included large amounts of graffiti on Burdett Court, flytipping on Stanhope Road,and damaged garages on Bede Walk. ...
It is my opinion that young people should be given the opportunity to turn out and use their vote at 16. The voting age was last reduced in 1969. Since then, there have been major changes in society's expectations of young people, and in young people's contribution to their local communities and wider society. Currently, 16 and 17 year-olds can work, pay taxes, get married and join the armed forces - but they are not allowed to elect those who govern them. As a result, according to a recent British Social Attitudes survey, where a decade ago 38 per cent ...
One lesson I think that Lib Dems could learn from the US is that you can't win a campaign unless you can fund it. We ask very different things of our candidates to what they are expected to do in the US. Especially for elections to big regional lists - such as the London Assembly and Europe our attention should turn to getting candidates in place early and getting them raising funds. So this
I suppose it's a salutary lesson. Earlier this week I suggested that given my ignorance of a subject, Jonathan Calder's more informed view would be a good guide to my own reaction. Today I find myself in the unlikely position of agreeing with an article by leftist Guardianista Seumas Milne that is branded 'disgraceful' by Jonathan on the Liberal England blog. (Memo to self - don't form opinions by proxy, you'll find yourself disagreeing with everyone sometimes). The issue is the Russo-Georgian conflict over South Ossetia. Last week I cited with approved the Guardian article by Mark Almond, which warned ...
Ever since I started watching DIVX / XVID versions of my favourite TV shows from the States I've always wanted to run them through my TV, instead of watching them on my PC. Media Centre PC's have been available for some time, plus streaming set-top boxes that read the files from over the Wifi. However these require extra money. I had noticed that my DVD player would play DIVX files from disc, however only from a CD and not a DVD which meant only 2 episodes per disc, and I had no choice over which one it picked first. However ...
In between an attempt to make a purple felt pincushion in the shape of a hand (don't ask - it didn't work and looks like part of a dismembered voodoo doll) and watching the Olympics, I have, in classic Jo-fashion, been doing a bit of pondering. Why do bloggers blog? What are their aims and do they achieve them? I came up with ten reasons why I blog: 1. To stay connected to the Lib Dem party in some way. 2. To raise my profile just in case I might want to stand. (Current estimate is about the age of ...
Um, somehow: {I've been nominated in SB's Very Prestigious Blog of the Year Awards} Which is a bit weird as I don't really do that much politics on here (well, actually everything I write about is political but that's because everything is political, especially if it involves more than one person). Also, um: {I've been nominated in SB's Very Prestigious Blog of the Year Awards} By more than one person, some of whom the feelings definitely mutual. Weird. Nominations close tonight at midnight, mine are here, but I'm repeating them below so I can add links in for SB tomorrow, ...
There is a good article on Comment is Free about the situation in Georgia. It is written by Alan Johnson. It begins: Finlandisation is back. During the cold war the term described those states which had a formal independence but existed in barely disguised servitude to Moscow. Finland, Jean-Francois Revel noted in his 1983 book. How Democracies Perish, "preserved the inviolability of its territory, what was left of it, and the right to live privately in a non-totalitarian society" but was forbidden to accept Marshall Plan aid, join the EEC or sign trade agreements with Europe. It took its orders ...
If you've ever considered renting some appliance, a word of advice: unless you intend to keep it for ever, don't hire it from Boxclever. I mentioned the other day that we'd bought a big new telly (working fine, and very happy with it) to replace the TV we'd been hiring, so the next step was to return the old one. Well, I rang Boxclever and said that, though it's still working fine, we'd like them to take the telly back as we'd got ourselves a new one. They asked a few questions, they tried to persuade me... Then the stunner. ...
{ebay.jpg} In days of high inflation, recession, and gloom a bride and groom have managed to 'Turn Back Time', and have a wedding on the cheap. Furthermore, they are celebrating their special day - without the worry of being thousands of pounds in debt. Odette Fenwick, 19, and 21-year-old Chris May spent a grand total of £480 on their wedding day in North Devon; this compares to the £25,000, which is considered to be the average price for the full wedding package. Wearing a £52 dress bought on eBay, the radiant bride looked a million dollars and said she felt ...
Many thanks to all of the LibDem team who helped me largely complete delivery today (only 200 to go now!) of FOCUS Edition 65. Issues covered in this edition of FOCUS include : * Bus service 72 - route saved * Airport - noise issues * Speed limit on western part of Perth Road to be reviewed * Pathway at Seymour Lodge - resurfacing imminent * Logie - grounds/garden maintenance * Pathway on Perth Road at Riverside Place/River Crescent You can download page 1 of FOCUS by clicking on the headline above and page 2 by clicking on the headline ...
Click on headline to view page 2
{jo-swinson.jpg} Interestingly the Labour Party have started to get interested in lowering the voting age to 16. I could be bitchy and suggest that they have actually come to terms with losing the next General Election. There is an argument that why should we bother giving votes to young people at 16 when turnout is already low amongst young people aged 18 - 25. I would argue that they study citizenship within our local secondary schools and within many areas there are active schools councils. In North East Lincolnshire we have a very active Council for Young People and they ...
Coffee House reports that the Labour government is considering a major 're-branding' exercise; "Labour might drop its "new Labour for Britain" slogan and replace it with "Your Labour, Your Britain". The thinking is that this would emphasise the 'on your side' fairness agenda that will underpin Brown's attempt at an autumn fight-back. It also suggests that Labour is planning a more populist strategy in an attempt to try and stoke up its base which as recent elections have shown is thoroughly disillusioned with the party. Dropping the 'new Labour' tag that Blair introduced would attract considerable comment. But Labour must ...
Sat 16th
16:08
I have just watched Usain Bolt shatter the World Record in 9.69 seconds on my computer!
{usain-bolt.jpg} I have just watched an amazing sporting event on my computer, and the fact that I was able to watch it while my wife Carol was sat behind watching the TV - just proves how times are moving on! I watched Usain Bolt (Jamaica), thrash the World Record, 100 metres record in 9.69 seconds. It was a tremendous achievement and he appeared as though he was strolling near the finish. It was truly remarkable! Also I have to forget about politics on this day, and congratulate all of our sportsmen and women. So far, they are doing well; but ...
Sat 16th
16:03
Stream of consciousness wittering by overexcited conference bunny who has her final agenda .pdfs
Well, that's going to be a limited amount of fun... just checked out the floorplan for the exhibition at Bournemouth. DELGA (the LGBT concerned association within the party, for which I have volunteered my stall-manning services) is sandwiched between the Citizen's Advice Bureau and the Federation of Small Businesses, facing the wall, at just about the furthest point possible from the auditorium. Mind, it is also close enough to the Campaign for Gender Balance that I will have opportunities to fangirl at Jo Swinson if she makes an appearance there. One of my DELGA-mates has just pointed out - "I ...
The Iraqi Government have said that one day they will hold the Olympics. They have said that they are going to have a more robust team by London 2010. If the Iraqi's can have a more robust team by London 2010 that can take a few medals then i do think that this country that was once a great country when it was the head of the Muslim Empire can hold the Olympics. We Wait to see what they achieve at the next Olympics.
I have been asked to do posts on how life is like for a Muslim in Britain so i will only write from my experience. I will do this post and if it is read and enjoyed they will be many more. I am a 16 year old from Pendle in Lancashire which has a fair bit of Asian Muslims living their. I was brought up as a Muslim and i have a link with Pakistan through my ethnicity. Pendle is a great place to live with most people accepting each other for who they are and they isn't a ...
I still think this is one of the most inventive songs...it was taken from a graduation day speech. I was looking through my blog trying to find the motivation to copy and paste all the urls for my best posting list, but kind of got distracted...Watch this and you'll see why!
Interesting piece in The Economist looking at the Conservatives recent attempts to re-brand themselves. It points to recent "unmistakable stirrings of social conservatism from the Tories" and asks whether this is a decisive shift and whether they will be able to chime with a largely still liberal electorate. This blog and others have often highlighted the contradiction between what has been said by the Conservative leadership and what is done either by it or most of it's MP's in the division lobbies especially. I think very much this is a case of 'true colours shining through' and more needs to ...
Streetcar, who run Islington's car club, are looking for more bays to expand their service (which now includes vans). They currently have a mix of off-street bays, bays at public amenities (Highbury Fields, Islington Town Hall) and many in quiet side streets (like the bay in Yeate Street near my home). As it's reckoned each [...]
A great day for our Olympians in China. Lots of medals adding to our tally. Maybe we are getting better at supporting our athletes or maybe it is the aspirational hopes that have been raised due to London hosting the next games. At the end of the day our Olympians continue to make us proud. One thing that does disappoint me, and I hope a song sheet will be passed around in 2012, is the lack of
You would expect the Downing Street Website to be cheap as it is using Word press to run but that's not what i have heard. Whilst reading the Blog Yorkshire Gob i come across a post that said the template for the website of downing street costed 100 000 pounds. Well now that is silly that shouldn't have even costed a couple of hundreds of pounds it is so easy to get a template for word press much easier then blogger the Government are so stupid they could have got a free template instead of paying 100 000 pounds for ...
All three main Political Parties have spoken out about the situation and the bullying Russia is doing to Georgia but i ask one question is anyone listening? If anyone was watching Sky News yesterday at 11 30 the Political Editor's on their said this was leading to another cold war. Which if you look at the situation it is exactly where it is leading. The Problem is that Russia are not listening they are listening to what is being said but the fighting still continues on the ground and the Russians are in the wrong. Russia has to much control ...
When will the people learn that the conservatives aren't all what they make out to be and Cameron is only hot air and if he was Prime Minister he would make a bigger mess than Brown has. Brown was always the shadow of UK Politics until he became PM but now i wonder if he would have been better as a shadow then actually as the PM. But when Cameron comes into Downing Street that's if the people of the UK are silly enough to elect the conservatives then this country has had it. The Country will most likely be ...
{keith-weller.jpg} {george-best.jpg} Keith Weller (Leicester) and George Best (Manchester United) This weekend sees the first matches of the Barclays Premier League and also if you're interested in sport, it's going to be a great weekend! Nowadays, I don't watch a great deal of sport, in reality I just don't get the time; over time my tastes have changed - in the 1960's and 70's I was only interested in football and cricket. However, I will watch anything providing its quality. In the early the 1970's I use to go all over the country to support my two favourite teams Grimsby ...
The Downing Street website that we all thought was great because it was a Wordpress install, and must therefore have been veryveryvery cheap? Cost £100,000. ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS. For fuck's sake! I could do it at home for nothing and all I would need is a computer, and internet connection, and a small aubergine...! Now, yes, that IS cheaper than other government websites, but it's also fucking ridiculous for something on free software with a ripped-off theme. When is this government going to get even a tiny clue about how the intertubes work? There must be at least one ...
Although I am not a big fan of Big Brother, there are others in my household who are. As such I have spent a number of evenings each week working on my laptop with the programme on in the background. Inevitably, some of the more dramatic moments have grabbed my attention and, I have to say, I am truly appalled. Let me be clear, I am not appalled by the programme, its concept or its production values. My disgust lies with the behaviour of some of the contestants and in particular, Rex. Channel Four quite rightly felt it necessary to ...
Freedom of expression is under threat in Britain thanks to a raft of new laws brought in by the Labour government on the pretext of combatting terrorism, according to a report from the United Nations. The UN Human Rights Committee in particular calls for changes to the UK's libel laws, which it says have given [...]
This morning's Western Mail quite rightly reports on fears of a growing homeless crisis in the face of Wales' position as having the second highest rise in repossessions over the past year. The paper reports that unsustainable levels of debt and economic gloom have sent the housing market spiralling downwards. John Puzey, director of housing charity Shelter Cymru, points to the fact that high house prices and low incomes in Wales has forced those struggling to get on the housing ladder to turn to expensive sub-prime lenders who are quicker to take defaulters to court and less willing to renegotiate ...
Amid all the Olympic coverage, I came across this fascinating reference to the first time Britain won 5 gold medals in a day. That was 100 years ago, at the 1908 London Olympics - and the medals were for boxing. Most interesting to me, the venue was the Northampton Institute in Clerkenwell, which became City [...]
I have just finished reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.
...I don't agree with one of our green policies. A couple of weeks ago I wrote on the Transport Paper being debated at autumn conference. I think the green policies outlined in it are a great idea, theoretically, but in practice, will tax those who can least afford a car in the higher bands. Taxing the poor under the guise of taxing those who are least 'environmentally sound' seems quite shocking to me. I am as green as I possibly can be on my income, never leaving electrical appliances on standby (I didn't know you could even do that until ...
It seems that while the rest of us have been living our lives, happy in the knowledge that the Cold War was behind us, Russia has been looking back with a sense of nostalgia. It look very likely that the Georgians are now under occupation and that the Russians will not withdraw from much of [...]
'Tis the season for lists... All this week we've published the top 100 posts by Lib Dem bloggers, in descending order of popularity, for the last year - August 2007 to July 2008, inclusive, according to click-throughs from the Aggregator. (Profuse thanks to techno-wizard and stat-monkey Ryan Cullen, who runs the Aggregator, for compiling this table.) And [...]
It's something that I haven't done enough as a School Governor of but at the end of the last School term I managed to get to some of the art shows and displays at Hampstead School to see the pupils' work. Now I should be very clear at the start - I'm not creatively artistic, I enjoy art, galleries, museums, I can pick out what I like, but I can't do the application of paint to canvass or its' equivalents. Which considering that my Father is a high quality artist and my sister has a really strong creative and artistic ...
Totally irrelevant distraction ... haven't heard this for ages. Came on the radio a few days ago ... on the strength of it, bought a Dusty Springfield Greatest Hits CD. Superb.
As a competitive swimmer in my youth, albeit of a much lower standard, I've stayed up to watch Becky Adlington win her second gold medal in the 800 metre freestyle. Just superb! Not only did she finish a long way ahead of the silver medallist, she also took more than two seconds off the oldest world record in women's swimming. Her friend Cassie Patten, also in the final, said afterwards that she hoped the Queen was watching, because she was looking for Dame Becky Adlington. Well, if it's good enough for double gold medallist Dame Kelly Holmes ... Hopefully the ...
It's over two years now since we moved home. Just a few hundred yards away - in fact you can still see our old home from the new one. The new owners have made a few alterations, but you can still see the good bones and listed building structure of our former abode from the new place. I've now got used to turning right when I leave the station, rather than left and things have changed a little since a couple of old friends moved away: one to Barcelona, a couple to Italy and the old madman from the sticks, ...
Alix and James are discussing that War on Terror board game cos it's been on the news. Meanwhile, the rest of my f-list is talking about sex. And other Lib Dem Bloggers wonder why I stick to EllJay... Here are links to the best of the public sexy posts for all you lonely folks out there on platforms like Blogger. You'll just have to imagine what is under the mysterious friends locks... andrewducker wants to define sex. I understand his discomfort: there doesn't seem to be a definition that would be acceptable to all... I thought we could help him ...
Greedy power firms are raking in an £11BILLION windfall from a scheme meant to curb greenhouse gases. Figures uncovered by The People's fuel campaign show The Big Six energy giants are ripping off consumers over permits. The permits, which tell the firms how much fossil fuel they are allowed to burn, are given to them by the Government FREE. But they pass on a CHARGE of £9 a unit to electricity users which is what they reckon the value of the permits will be in five years when they will have to pay for them. If the scam was ended ...
