The Sunday Telegraph is running an opinion poll tomorrow about the levels of support for each party, commissioned from the pollster firm BPIX. It's a switch from their usual pollster, and only the second time since the 2005 general election that BPIX has been used by a paper other than the Mail on Sunday. It's therefore [...]
I've just heard the horrific news of the attack on Martin Rynja's home in Lonsdale Square. The assumption is that Martin was the target because his publishing house - Gibson Square - is to publish The Princess of the Medina a novel about Mohammed's child bride. The novel has already attracted pre-publication controversy after Random House [...]
The Daily Mail - which has the photograph - reports: Ed Balls makes great play of the fact that his Oxford contemporaries David Cameron and Boris Johnson were members of the Bullingdon Club, notorious for its rowdy drunken behaviour.Last year, 41-year-old Mr Balls declared: 'World-class education not for all, but for the privileged elite - that is Cameron Conservatism. And who is David Cameron's chosen candidate to be Mayor of London? A Bullingdon Club throwback to a bygone age.'Coming from a man who was pictured in a German officer's uniform staring at the crotch of a fellow student wearing comedy ...
A very pleasant early evening in Clerkenwell, with some of my wonderful campaign team. They work so hard all year round delivering leaflets and knocking on doors, it's great to be able to sit down over tea and cake to say thank you. The team range from mums with infants to decorators and social workers; [...]
Dominic Grieve, Tory MP for Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire with a nice majority of 15,000. And he's the reletavely new shadow Home Secretary. If you've heard him on TV he sounds the steriotypical posh englishman. You could describe his a typical tory. He is not an enthusiast for the EU, he strongly opposes gay rights and he has at least £240,000 worth of shares in companies operating in Zimbabwe! Nice. This is the new conservative party? Same old thing. He's been criticising multiculturalism. He has described how new arrivals feel alienated. And he has suggested that "long-term inhabitants" have been told ...
Russia is making extremely worrying steps towards upgrading its nuclear system. And the President is talking of wanting dominance in airspace. This is supposedly in proportion to the Missile Defense shield being developed? The Missile Defense shield is simply defence, to hit any nuclear missiles in the air before they hit the ground with catastrophic consequences. This system Russia will be developing will mean they can attack easily. Attack and Defense are two clearly different things. However to be fair, we have our Trident Missiles with the power 8 time the weapons of what hit Hiroshima, with the ability to ...
Last week I attended Labour's autumn conference as an exhibitor. These are my thoughts on how it went. By Labour's own standards, they have had a good conference - but it is a sign of how far they have fallen that those standards were so low. Simply put: the widely predicted civil war didn't happen, or at least fizzled out as soon as they had to look each other in the eye last Saturday. That the coup attempt failed quite so spectacularly suggests they didn't really know what they were doing in the first place, which in turn poses serious ...
The west must wake up to how what happens in Somalia will effect them. These arms from the Ukraine getting taken by pirates should ring alarm bells. If these kind of weapons fell into the hands of Islamic terrorists, they could do much more damage to destabilise the poverty stricken horn of Africa. That would effect the World, because potentially the horn of Africa could become a place for training terrorists, if it hasn't already. We can't send UN or Western soldiers to Somalia, however we can police the Somali waters, safely. Western nations could quite easily contribute to protecting ...
Domnic Grieve makes some comments about multi-culturalism in the Guardian today. He says: "We've done something terrible to ourselves in Britain". Breathe in....count to ten....breathe out. First of all I would say that Mr Grieve represents Beaconsfield, a town with a 4% non-white ethnic population, about a third of the national rate. So, let's just say that Mr Grieve may lack day-to-day
E-mail just received : "Loved hearing "Crazy" on your blog - one of the greatest songs of all time"
Sarah Palin performs particularly badly justifying her foreign policy experience. She spoke as if she was personally holding up the Russians in Alaska.
New MP for Glasgow East John Mason debated, among other things, the issue of ID cards with Dunfermline by-election victor Willie Rennie and Aberdeen South MP Anne Begg on Scotland at Ten. He and Willie were obviously on the same side. Now, there are very many reasons to oppose ID cards and the biometric information they hold. Put simply, they are an expensive, ineffective waste of time. It's an easy case to make. I am told that the argument advanced by John Mason was that they might be prone to forgery by the unscrupulous cutting people's eyeballs out to get ...
This ad (below) really is the most bizarre thing. It was the rapid response from the McCain campaign after the Presidential debate last night. But for the end voice-over, I suspect it would qualify for Obama to say "I approve this message". It basically shows clips of Obama saying he agreed with Senator McCain. And that's meant to make him unqualified to be President? How bonkers is that as a
As Russia gets more aggressive, Europe and the US want countries to turn against Russia, including the last dictatorship in Europe, Belarus. Belarus was really close to Russia but this has changed slightly and Belarus even sided with the west on the Russia-Georgian conflict. So it appears that Belarus may look to the west to make new allies. And the west want Belarus as their ally, then they will have a full European front against Russia. So as elections take place tomorrow in Belarus, it looks as if the US and Europe will turn a blind eye to how undemocratic ...
s councillors we have received a letter from St James Development telling us that they are about to start consulting on The Former Bath Press Site. Lets us not pretend that this is Tesco and should be treated as such. I would suggest that any one that receives a letter consulting them over this site answers the questions carefully remembering that you are being consulted about a...
I didn't think there was a clear winner in the first of the three presidential election debates between Barack Obama and John McCain. Neither made any noticeable gaffes, but nor were there any killer lines which might have swung the debate one way or another. Nor was there much in the way of humour from either side. I felt Obama was perhaps slightly more persuasive on the questions on the economy and Afghanistan, while McCain probably edged it on the Iran question. The rest were all pretty evenly matched. I suspect that those who were leaning towards Obama beforehand will ...
At a recent council meeting of Bath & North East Somerset Council I questioned the executive member for housing about the amount of empty housing accommodation across the district and what he was doing about it. I was told by the Conservative member with responsibility for Housing that the matter was in hand, well I suppose that he meant that he did not have clue. The very fact...
Firstly, had a recent complaint that the building in Victoria Park (right) has been graffitied again - a pity as it had remained unvandalised for some time. I have contacted the Leisure & Communities Department about this and have had the following prompt reply : "Will get that dealt with ASAP" This afternoon, I attended a packed Annual General Meeting of the Friends of Balgay, which took place at the Mills Observatory. The City Council Engineer who took charge of the Balgay (or Hird) Bridge refurbishment project, gave a highly interesting and entertaining presentation about the project. You can read ...
Last week saw our first planning meeting for a "Week of Action" in the Beechwood estate area of my ward. This is a small bit of Cressington that could, in fact, be really nice but which suffers from dumping, anti social behaviour etc and which means the lives of the people there are effectively blighted. My colleagues - Peter Millea, Richard Oglethorpe - and I have been agitating for some action in that area. And on Thursday, Richard and I joined representatives from agencies and the council to draw up some plans. All being well there will be a "Week ...
Another irrelevant blog entry ... but an all time classic, from the late Patsy Cline.
So, after a miserable summer we have a great sunny day.. and I am off delivering. Today we were in part of Kensington delivering some new leaflets about action taken by our PPC Colin Eldridge. I thought I was going to have a dog free day until the final doorstep. But this time I got my fingers free in time!
The Dope smoking hippy, I mean the Conservative Leader David Cameron, I believe is not fit to run the country. Cameron the dope user has accepted openly that he used to smoke dope and this was brought up yesterday on his Sky News interview and a friend give me the tip off in the early hours of the morning. If he was PM he probably legalise Dope so him and his cronies could sit around and smoke! The Image Below is probably what him and the Tory cabinet get up to: No Wonder he is looking like this a lot ...
Hangovers suck like an industrial strength hoover. That is all.
Apologies for not having bothered to blog for a while, but I've been subject to a combination of 1. nothing interesting to say that hasn't already been said about conference season 2. blogger being inaccessible to me for large amounts of time The latter is especially irritating, since it means I can't read blogspot blogs either. Anyone got any ideas why this is? Anyway, I am going to try and
Here's my column from this week's Ham & High: Hey diddle, diddle - are we the mugs who got diddled? As one financial institution after another crashes into trouble, will it be just Northern Rock the taxpayer has to bail out, or will be end up picking up the pieces for even more blunders? Between them HSBC, RBS, Barclays and HBOS (as was) have written off $52.9 billion - without any individuals being held responsible. Imagine the outrage there would be if the government had lost even a fraction of that amount of money. At least we're not US taxpayers ...
South Gloucestershire residents are being asked to take part in anew energy saving competition. Communities will go head to head in the competition to see who can reduce their energy consumption the most over a 6 month period. Winners will be awarded an Eco Hamper for each household as well as tickets to travel to an International Awards Ceremony in Brussels. All participants will receive a variety of energy saving gadgets and eco goodies throughout the competition, including energy saving lightbulbs, eco kettles and hot water tank jackets, and will have the chance to win spot prizes of standby saver ...
It seems that Transport for London are already cutting back on major projects, now that Boris Johnson is in charge. The upgrade of the North London line is something local rail users have been needing for years. The line is heavily used, but has a bad record for delays and over-crowding. So the decision to [...]
A Shrewsbury graveyard at the centre of a row about tributes being left by graves has been branded with a clear message to council bosses. Visitors to the Chaffinch area of Emstrey Crematorium were left upset today after spotting the 3ft high, 12ft long message "Mean Buggers" branded on a verge bank with what appears to be weed killer.The Shropshire Star has a photograph.
The next round of Revenue Grants will run from Monday 29th September with a closing date of 3rd November. South Glos Council's website says: "Small grants are awarded to local groups to develop projects and provide activites that meet local needs" "Categories of work include art and culture, children and play, community safety, developing communities, enhancing the natural and built environment, learning activities, promoting equality and tackling poverty, sports and for supporting vulnerable people" You can apply online on the South Glos website. Select G from the A-Z then Grants, Community Grants.
The headline says it all really, so watch, enjoy and learn:
Though really I should rename this feature Obscure British TV Film of the Week You Probably Won't Have Seen That May be Better Than You Expect. A woman leavers a child in pram outside a chemist's shop and goes in. The woman behind the counter is Joan Hickson. You relax, knowing that you are in safe hands. Add to that the fact that the other customer in the shop is a teenaged Barbara Windsor, and you have one of the most appealing aspects of this film. Because Lost features an extraordinary cast of faces that are familiar from other British ...
There is and have always been concern within the Liberal Democrats that we are not as liberal as we ought to be; that our party too often looks to the State to solve problems and is willing to curb individual liberty to achieve social goals. It has long been a criticism of New Labour that they have abondoned their roots in the labour movement and spent too long playing court to big business rather than worrying about the working man. Now David Cameron has decided to steal Barak Obama's clothes and take 'Plan for Change' as his party conference theme. ...
The Times reports that Clerkenwell-based solicitors Hickman & Rose are quitting legal aid work. Hickman & Rose are one of the leading human rights and criminal justice firms. The Government's legal aid cuts - which I raised at Lib Dem Spring conference back in March - are really beginning to hit. Lib Dem MP Alan Beith, [...]
The South Gloucestershire LINk, set up to enable the whole community to have a say in local health and social care issues, is currently gathering views on local ambulance services for the Great Western Ambulance Joint Health Scrutiny Committee. You can send comments to epowell@swindon.gov.uk by the 10 October on how satisfied you are with ambulance services in your area, anything you would like to change about the ambulance services in your area and any issues that you think the committee should consider in more detail. Local MP Steve Webb challenged the Great Western Ambulance Service earlier in the year ...
Sat 27th
12:31
LDV post-conference members' survey (5): did the Lib Dem conference strengthen or weaken Nick Clegg'...
Last weekend, Lib Dem Voice emailed the members of our private forum (open to all Lib Dem members) inviting them to take part in a survey, conducted via Liberty Research, asking a number of questions arising from last week's party conference in Bournemouth. Many thanks to the 187 of you who completed it; we've publishing [...]
Dodington Council has objected to the mast application - their very detailed comments are now visible on the South Glos website, along with objections from local residents. This week Cllrs Mandy Sainsbury and Paul Hulbert met Vodafone's agents, who have promised to take another look at several sites they had previously discounted. They should be making contact again in the next few days - we'll keep you posted. In the meantime the existing application still stands, and you only have until 2nd October - that's Thursday - to get your objections in. To view or comment on the application, go ...
A short piece I wrote for Insight Public Affairs's 2008/9 guide to lobbying: I developed an aversion to lobbyists when I was a candidate for election to Parliament. Given it is the job of lobbyists to seduce actual and would-be MPs, so that they will regard their cause or client favourably, you might think something had gone wrong. It had! And it's a shame - because so many of the organisations and causes that lobbied me had views that should have found me a willing audience. What went wrong? Generally lobbyists didn't understand how and when to present their case. ...
It's too early to say, but thank goodness I finally have an excuse, albeit a wafer thin one, to use that title. I've waited two years to do it! McCain needed to win the first debate clearly, given that it was on his strong subject of national security, and he is behind in the polls. He needed a "game changer" but didn't get it. CBS did a poll of 500 uncommitted voters straight after last
This story made me smile. Dutch footballer Michel Kuipers has long been reported to be a former army cook. But now Kuipers has revealed it was a joke by a former team-mate. In fact he was in the Dutch equivalent of the SAS. Kuipers, who had to sign the Dutch official secrets act, said: "When I [...]
I'm occasionally asked for advice by Liberal Democrat bloggers, particularly those just starting up, on how they should approach comments. Should they allow them all? Or moderate just those that are libellous? But what about abusive ones? Or ones that might not be from who they say they are? Or comments from political opponents? And [...]
Over the past three months or so I have received at least a dozen letters at work from The Performing Right Society Ltd. Every letter tells me I must pay for a licence if I want to play recorded music either to my customers or to my staff - even if it's just in the staff room or kitchen. The thing is - I don't! I looked into this a while ago and for a small business like mine it would have
Went to the theatre last night to see a play directed (and co-produced) by a constituent - Robert Wolstenholme. One Minute (Courtyard Theatre) is the story of the disappearance of a young girl who goes missing in the middle of a crowded West End. The only witness isn't sure of what she saw. It is completely brilliantly acted and directed and very, very cleverly staged. The set was really ingenious. So - nice break from campaigning for Nigel Scott in the Alexandra by-election - but it was back to the campaign trail first thing this morning - as you can ...
World leaders have been in New York this week, discussing progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The sad fact is that there is no way that many poor countries are going to reach their targets by 2015. Moreover, with a few notable exceptions, including Britain I'm pleased to say, rich countries have failed to [...]
This morning's Western Mail reports on a significant gaffe by Welsh Conservative Finance Spokesperson, Angela Burns and makes one of its own by illustrating its story with a picture of former Labour AM, Christine Gwyther, who Angela beat in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire and who will not be amused at being mistaken for her successor by the paper's picture editor. In an exclusive interview with Welsh Liberal Democrat blogger, Bob Innes, Angela Burns demands "more powers to keep money in Wales for Wales". She also says that she would like to "levy a small charge on some of the ...
Ouch.
The Lib Dem team in Haringey was out at 630 this morning in Alexandra, delivering a 'Good Morning' leaflet (see pic) for candidate Nigel Scott The 'Good Morning' team was also out in Hampstead on Thursday, where Lib Dem Linda Chung scored a dramatic victory, gaining a seat from the Tories. I'm sure it wasn't the Haringey Lib Dems what won it, but the arrival of our team usually bodes well in north London by-elections. Many congratulations to Linda and Camden Lib Dems....
Liberal Democrat Voice reports four Lib Dem local by-election victories in key constituencies. Hurrah! Jennie Rigg has an article at Liberal Conspiracy asking how its readers can bring themselves to vote Labour. And James Graham asks some tough questions of Lembit Opik over on Comment is Free.
Congratulations to Islington for reaching the Gold standard, in this year's London in Bloom awards. Last year Islington hosted the launch of the awards, and reached the Silver Gilt standard. This year we've gone one better. One nice touch are the flowers the council has supplied to transform the ugly railings down the middle of the [...]
The next meeting of Prestwich Local Area Partnership is at 6.30pm on Thur 2 October 2008 at Sedgley Park School, Kings Road, Prestwich. This is the group that brings together your local Councillors and partners from the police, NHS, voluntary sector and community groups. Members of the public are very welcome to attend. One of the items for discussion is skateboarding: Prestwich Skateboards and BMX group have set themselves up to campaign for support for a Skateboard and BMX site somewhere in Prestwich. The group made up mainly of teenagers are asking Prestwich LAP to listen to their plans and ...
There's thick mist over the park across the road. And over the flats at the back. Yesterday there was a robin on the fence. Start looking for the leaves to turn...
Whoops! Posted this before I finished....... I haven't had much time to blog, look forward to a belated conference round up sometime this millennium........but having now returned from Labour Party Conference and a couple of days in Belfast a quick personal update. On Wednesday I went with my mum to my sister's case conference. Before the meeting she was worrying about staying in the unit, she hated it, she found it frightening. But as we sat there nearly everyone in the room came up to tell us how special she was, how she looked after everyone, especially moving was hearing ...
I don't know what happened to Andrew Sullivan's site - I hope the McSame campaign didn't threaten him. Anyway, the last link in my posting `Moose, see headlights!` referred to his website on which there was an embedded video regarding a pastor she is close to. So I put some vids on here for you to [...]
