The Good Tourist sounds like it ought to be a novel by John Le Carré, but in fact it is a fascinating and highly personal exploration of ethical tourism by the former Director of English PEN's Writers in Prison Committee, Lucy Popescu. Most books on the subject concentrate on the environmental and social impact of [...]
Rep .Of Ireland were first in banning Smoking in Public places in the British Isles. Scotland then followed, then Wales and finally England. The health benefits have been noted. Most of the time its Scotland that is the first with new laws or innovations. Then the rest of the British isles follow suit. In this case have the Republic done it again with lightbulbs? This independent article shows the Irish Environment Minister John Gormley proposing to ban all traditional lightbulbs of 75W or above. The minister said "With more energy efficient alternatives now widely available, the proposed standard is a ...
Posted with LifeCast
Liberal Democrat Voice has offered each of the three candidates for the post of Party President three platform pieces on LDV during the contest to make their case to party members. How they choose to use these platforms is entirely up to them. This is the second of Ros Scott's contributions. I am delighted that Vince [...]
Today we brought new windows. Yes we actually INVITED a double glazing salesman around to our home. He was very nice and after the sales talk and the deal done (much cheaper than other quotes I am sure you'd want to know!) our conversation turned to the events of the day. I asked if he was worried after all he was a double gazing salesman surly he was worried what will happen to sales? "no" he said "of course some companies will go to the wall..... but I've been a salesman for thirty years we will be okay" shame city ...
Or at least two of them do. The BBC reports that Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton have written and are to star in a new television comedy for BBC2: Psychoville, which has been billed as a "dark character comedy mystery featuring the weird and the wonderful", will be broadcast next year.The only worry is that Dawn French will also be in it. I do hope this is not a sign that the Gentlemen are joining the celebrity circus. But as long as they don't invite Stephen Fry and Phill Jupitus too I shall be watching.
As regular readers of this blog will know (click on headline to view more), I complained to Ofcom regarding the fact that British Telecom has decided to remove two telephone boxes in the West End without actually bothering to consult anyone first - something I consider bad practice - whatever the merits or demerits of removing the boxes. Ofcom seem to think that no consultation is OK (judging by the response below) which I view as detrimental, flying in the face of good consultative practice 10 October 2008 Dear Councillor Macpherson Thank you for your further email regarding the removal ...
Bristol's new Cabot Circus shopping development is attracting large numbers of visitors. Last Saturday the brand new 3000 vehicle car park was full, with queues at the entrances and traffic jams back up the M32 to the Inner Circuit Road junction. Why not save yourself some hassle and catch the bus? You can get off near Cabot Circus, and as you can see there's a return stop at the Spectrum Building, just opposite the new shops. Another alternative - up until 28 December - is the 984 Park and Ride on Saturdays and Sundays from the UWE car park off ...
They is an interesting post about the Conservative MP Blogger who doesn't even understand what Blogging is, you Can read the Post HERE. The Conservative MP Nadine Dorries " didn't really like blogging (apart from the way that it got her comments straight to the diarists of newspapers)" What a sleaze bag this MP is. She only blogs to try and get the media attention, otherwise she doesn't give a damn about anything else, as long as the media can give her more attention, typical Conservative! And then the Article goes on to say "and didn't really do it anyway ...
Thinking back over the past few months and piecing together events has triggered my suspicious mind into thinking that perhaps the economic meltdown is being allowed to happen on purpose. It's just so bad it defies belief. It's a strange theory, but one I've been thinking about a lot lately. Books have been written on predicting when the economy will boom and when it will bust. So why hasn't the government been reading them? A few months ago my council colleagues and I were told there was going to be a huge deficit in the budget and that cuts were ...
In case you thought Britain most dysfunctional local authority had gone quiet, here is the Ludlow Advertiser: Council tax payers in south Shropshire will have to pick up a £1,000 bill after a row over whether a member of Ludlow Town Council had resigned or not.Following an investigation led by Veronica Calderbank, head of Scrutiny and Standards at South Shropshire District Council, it has been determined that Michael Bradley did not resign.But in reaching the decision, it was necessary to take legal advice from Birmingham lawyers Eversheds - resulting in the bill for £1,000.
If you live in Haringey, you might have glanced, in your paper this morning, at long lists of councils whose money has disappeared down a black hole in Iceland this week. You might have been relieved that you didn't see Haringey listed as being exposed. If you were relieved, your faith in Haringey was entirely mistaken. It turns out that on a per capita basis, Haringey taxpayers appear to be the most exposed in Britain. Haringey's potential losses of £37 million could mean liabilities heading for £400 for each and every household. .The reason you may not have heard is ...
It's Friday night, so it's time to go do something wine related. I may even have a full day off tomorrow. You never know. Meanwhile I will leave you in the capable hands of Cliché Kitty, a struggling out of work Meme that deserves a second chance. Have a good weekend :)
The BBC website says that the Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott and the Tory MP Michael Fallon both warned ministers about the dangers of investing in Iceland in July: "Alarm bells were ringing all over about the Icelandic banks and the Treasury must have been blind and deaf not to hear them," said Lord Oakeshott.Incidentally, does anyone know if Matthew is related to the Conservative politcal philosopher Michael Oakeshott?
Interesting snippet on Conservative Home. Earlier in the week the grapevine was humming with talk of something of a Faustian pact between the nationalist SNP and Unionist Conservative Party. However, this week Grahame Archer tells us that he thinks; "Labour will win the Glenrothes by-election" because; "they have successfully recaptured the media narrative." If Labour really can win in Glenrothes then it will certainly change the political dynamics of the current climate and will lend alot of credence to theory that a mini-revival is well under way. However, if it is as I have said below that could pose serious ...
{Andover Guildhall} At last night's Northern Area Planning Committee the application to convert Andover's lower Guildhall into a Pizza restaurant was approved. The plans now have to be referred to the Secretary of State before the changeover can go ahead. I am disappointed with this decision. The objectors from STAG raised real questions about the validity of the application. The council's response was muddled and unconvincing. It failed to prove it had followed its own guidelines by seeking to maintain the Guildhall for community use. It could not explain the so-called financial losses cited to justify the decision and it ...
None of our biz, of course, but that shouldn't stop us poking our big yellow beak in, should it? In a time of headlines like London shares slump is worst for 21 years, Panic selling piles pressure on G7 leaders and Councils trapped in £1bn black hole (and that's just today's), the old grandees of economics [...]
I have a lot of time for Charlotte Gore. She does considered lengthy postings yet seems to have missed vital elements in her understandable obsessions regarding who's to blame for the Economic tsunami. In political terms the US is in the eye of the storm. The two tribes are gathering - the `fantasylanders` of John McCain [...]
Just before my session at the Welsh Local Government Association Conference this morning Finance Minister, Andrew Davies joined a panel to talk about local councils working together. The last question to the Minister asked what would happen if local Councils do not work together sufficiently to achieve efficiencies expected by government. Would the Assembly Government initiate another reorganisation? The Minister asserted categorically that no reorganisation of Welsh local government is planned this side of the 2011 Assembly elections. He then went on to list all the downsides of structural reorganisation, including cost, disruption and distracting the attention of staff and ...
Fortunately, as far as we know, this is the closest South Glos Council has got to the Icelandic banks crisis.
After months of ceaselessly howling at the Council's Environmental Services Department like some kind of feral dog that just won't be put down, I scored a double success today. And there was a victory for common sense over housing too, which was the cherry on top of my Council cake. Firstly, and most astoundingly, the Council finally agreed to implement the street cleaning rota sign that we've been harping on about for about the last year. After to-ing and fro-ing between officers and the Executive, and after quite a bit of me banging my head repeatedly against hard surfaces, out ...
Aided by a rather majestic looking golden eagle, Liberal Democrat candidate for Glenrothes Harry Wills launched his campaign today accompanied by Tavish "Tax Cut" Scott, Dunfermline by-election winner Willie Rennie and Dunfermline West MSP Jim Tolson. Willie's comments reminded me of the last cold and wintry Scottish by-election - his own, in Dunfermline, in February 2006. That campaign was fought in difficult circumstances, but Willie Rennie listened to local people, campaigned on the issues that mattered to them and won through because people saw that he was a hard working, genuine person who would fight tirelessly for his constituents. He ...
Mandelson made a return to the cabinet, something the Conservatives called "desperate". Now he will be getting a seat in the Lords and will become a Peer. The People I feel sorry for in this case are the Lords as they will have to sit in the same house, with a guy who was slaughtering the Labour Party in front of a Conservative a year ago and to Nick Clegg a few years ago. Tony Greaves, Ros Scott and other, I feel sorry for you guys! Read the News Release HERE.
They has been so many cases of data being lost, I have lost count of the number of cases. This is getting a little boring and out of hand. The Labour Government have lost data on so many separate occasions that you can not trust this Government any more. The thing is that you cant just point fingers at the Labour Party, the Conservatives did the same at the Crewe and Nantwich by Election when they emailed voting preferences and contact detail's of people of the area to a local radio station. These organisation's who loose data, should be heavily ...
Today the mentees from the Operation Black Vote Scheme were together, with organisers, for a day which was a sort of mix of training and sharing experiences. In the morning I was there to speak a little about the council structure (to be honest I left a lot of that to the officer there) and the nuts and bolts of actually being a councillor. In the afternoon I was back on a panel to explain about how political parties carry out their selections. What was actually most interesting though, was hearing about the experiences the mentees have had so far, ...
With Lancashire County Council £10 Million pound less of then it was a week ago it really is a little silly. The Prime Minister talks about how he can save the Country but can he Guarantee that Council's will get all their money back? Nope. So the officials and the residents of Lancashire wait, to see if £10 Million of the people's money hasn't gone down the sprout. If the money has gone to waste, then the PM isn't gonna have a smile on his face for much longer.
The City Council's Executive Board ( cabinet in shorthand) meets formally once a fortnight to make key decisions. These are usually based on recommendations which come from one or more of the Executive Members. Today I had my first recommendation - creation of and participation in the "Liverpool Commission". The Commission is being set up as an independent panel to hold an enquiry into various aspects of governance and involvement (like youth engagement, barriers to entry for potential councillors etc). It will spend around six or seven months working on this and then issue a report and recommendations. The recommendations ...
So, got my shiny new membership card. YAY :D....however, I now cant get into either the Liberal Democrat Voice private forums or my Liberal Democrat account which won't email my username to me because apparently there is no email address registered to the account.....GRRRRRR....OMG i got in....all of which means I have the exciting new Lib Dig toy fully at my disposal MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Earlier this week I chaired the South Liverpool Partnership Working Group which focuses on crime and environment issues - Safer Stronger Communities is the actual title. Thiw brings together partners from across our district of six local authority wards, plus councillors from those wards. Quite a heavy agenda this time but we are making some good progress. The figures on crime incidents for most of our area are below the Liverpool average although there are still some types of crime (like stealing cars) which are more common in Speke Garston than the Liverpool average. A lot of this is to ...
The Economy was lost. Mr Spitzer let his lustful thoughts get the better of him. I wonder what would have happened if he'd carried on. No doubt he'd be feted as a hero - and the Democrats would have had something really special to crow about. No doubt the present economic situation would have been the same - [...]
Somewhat refuting my post yesterday, it appears that the Government were aware of possible problems with banks in Iceland two months ago and did absolutely nothing. Who warned them? Why, those pesky Lib Dems. But what would they know about real economics? Not as much as Iron Man Brown and "don't call me" Darling, surely*. Lord Oakeshott, a former director of Warburg Investment Management, raised the alarm about possible shortfalls in the compensation funds - and the danger of an Icelandic bank collapse - more than two months ago. In a written question to the government in July, he asked: ...
If the current US polls are to be believed, the prospect of Governor Sarah Palin becoming the 45th President of the USA has receded in the month since she was unveiled as Senator John McCain's shock choice for his running-mate. But she has at least made one vital contribution to the world which (with luck) [...]
Here's some information about the Week of Action in Beechwood starting this Monday. Next week (beginning 13 October) sees a Week of Action in the Beechwood Estate area in Liverpool 19. The Week has been organised by Liverpool City Council and partners to deal with environmental problems as well as issues like anti social behaviour. The idea is to provide a focus for work by lots of organisations to help tenants and residents improve their area. The Week was organised following pressure from Lib Dem Councillors for Cressington ward and residents from properties in Beechwood. Leaflets are being distributed locally ...
McCain's campaign is obviously nervous. They've released their own advance Troopergate whitewash report. Meanwhile, the New York Times gives an enticing glimpse of what may be in the investigator's report: The Times's Serge F. Kovaleski also looked into the matter and, under an Anchorage dateline, writes: Ms. Palin has denied that anyone told Mr. Monegan to dismiss Trooper Wooten, or that the
Paris Hilton follows up her campaign launch by taking advice from a former fake president: See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die
This is a story of high hopes dashed as the UK's brave sprint to early-adopter technical superiority leaves us embarassingly heading up a blind alley as our German friends forge ahead (again). The UK was to lead the way in Digital Radio. We were to drop boring old analogue radio altogether, freeing up big chunks of the spectrum for new, exciting stuff (think Gordon Brown Radio 24x7 - hear the great leader sleep, hear him eat his dinner, hear him w....OK, perhaps not). Radio as a whole would be invigorated, other nations would tremble before us, Britannia would Rule the ...
John Hemming's weekly round-up of the by-elections confirms a fantastic night for us, with gains in Bristol and Wantage and holds in Haringey and Southwark. And yet, none of these are the most fascinating result of the night. For that, we must head north to the land of the wag, for in Knutsford there were by-elections for both the existing Cheshire County Council seat and for a seat on the shadow
We received the following from John Stevens Liberal Candidate for Cleveland in 1964: Many congratulations on a wonderful result! It set my time clock going! May I indulge myself in a little flight of memory? I became PPC for Cleveland in 1960 after helping to form Darlington Young Liberals. Cleveland Division covered Eston Redcar Guisborough Loftus and the Villages down to Hinderwell. It was fairly lonely at the Parliamentary level but I did kick off the Redcar Liberals on a pretty successful run of local Govt wins - the most surprising of the results that I recall being a very ...
Bristol UA, St George West Haringey LBC, Alexandra Southwark LBC, Rotherhithe Isle of Wight UA, Mount Joy Kent CC, Herne Bay Stroud TC, Central East Hampshire DC, Holybourne and Froyle Cheshire CC, Knutsford Cheshire East UA, Knutsford West Lindsey DC, Middle Rasen Wantage TC, Segsbury
Expressions of interest are now invited for Stage 2 of the G8 Grants for the 2009 elections - this is for campaign activity in the first four months of 2009. There's no time for delay - the deadline for applications for Stage 2 is 1 December 2009 and all applications must be with ALDC by this date. Grants are available to local parties who have local elections in 2009 (English County Councils and some Unitary Councils). Grants are awarded to pay for extra campaigning in your target wards/ divisions - places where we aim to gain a seat or those ...
Jeffrey House Visit Together with other Health & Well Being Scrutiny Committee members I visited Jeffrey House in Cheam which is a set of flats specifically designed for adults with learning disabilities who are being moved from the Orchard Hill facility. The flats will allow a number of adults to live independently but with 24 hour [...]
Douglas Carswell, writing on Comment is Free ahead of the publication of "The Plan: Twelve months to renew Britain" argues that the Conservatives should become the "true progressive party", and advocate massive decentralisation of power. Nice to see someone on the right finally coming to the same conclusions that the Liberal Democrats came to decades ago, but I do feel his piece is quite fanciful. Save the proposal for directly elected sheriffs (which by the way, Lib Dems by and large disagree with), none of his specific proposals are on the Tories radar at the moment, and you get the ...
...this is going to be a bit of a rant so please excuse me. As some people reading this may know I am not particularly well and, gently urged along by my loving partner, decided today might be a good day to register at a doctors and try and get things sorted. Little did I know I would end up chasing my NHS number, something I never knew I had, and having to chase precisely which practice's catchment area I was in; all a bit of a nightmare when the next breath is proving a little challenging. It has come ...
Redcar and Cleveland Safer Communities Partnership is launching an action-packed week of activities in Redcar's Newcomen ward from Monday, 13th October - with help from police horses, police motorcyclists and the Fire Service. The 'Not in My Neighbourhood Week' event involves the Council and its partners in a range of activities, including a Bring Out Your Dross (BOYD) invitation as part of a clean-up operation, multi agency patch walks and high visibility patrols from the Council's Community Protection Officers and Police. The BOYD takes place on 13th October and residents in the following locations can place bulky waste out for ...
Saturday 11 October 2008, sees the public launch of the Oliver's Battery Greening Campaign in the presence of the Deputy Mayor of Winchester. Come along to Oliver's Battery School at 2pm for entertainment, music, information and a free greening bag. Find us on FaceBook too!
Bankers. Don't you just love 'em? Not content with creating a crisis in their own industry by mispricing risk on doubtful derivative instruments and accumulating them to the point of near destruction, they have the temerity to wonder whether the taxpayer is 'doing enough' to bail them out of the mess. Moreover, after a helpful and well coordinated move by the central banks to cut interest rates as an assistance to them - not taxpayers and savers, by the way - they have the further effrontery to say that they 'might not pass the benefit on' to mortgage borrowers. Yet ...
Carers Partnership Board Meeting There were a lot of updates and feedback for this meeting. Lorraine Backshall provided some figures for public health data on Sutton carers which had been requested. A discussion followed about the need to obtain a breakdown of any health figures to show the true effect for Sutton. Generally the information obtained [...]
An EU report prepared by a Deutsche Bank economist studies the economic effects of not halting the loss of ecosystems and species and states that the financial cost of such loss dwarfs financial market losses. (But it isn't grabbing headlines because it isn't sudden but continues year after year.) The argument is that as forests decline, nature stops providing resources and services that it used to provide for nothing - you know, little things like food, water, getting rid of excess CO2, stuff like that - and there is a financial cost to either having to do without, or provide ...
How do our councils compare with other Councils on this issue? I wonder if stats should be done?
When I heard the news from Asia* on this morning's World Business Report on BBC1 at 5:30 this morning I was wondering and fearing just how the European stock markets would respond. Well currently all are at over 8% down on yesterday's close, with the FTSE 100 dipping below 4,000 for the first time in over 5 years. Although it did rally slightly after a sharp drop to a low of 3,955 on opening it has trended downwards again since about 8:30. It appears that we are heading for recession, no matter what the Governemnts of the world seem to ...
High profile Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik has joining the Liberal Democrat campaign in Wednesfield.
A very rough and ready guide: Freddie Mac was a Government Sponsored Enterprise. It bought mortgages from other lenders, bundled them and sold them on. It was created for this purpose. This system was created as a means of increasing the availability of credit, to make it home loans available to people who otherwise would have been refused. This was needed because of the Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA, which was a US law designed to make credit available to sub-prime borrowers, setting targets for Banks for lending in specific areas and to particular demographics. They were afraid that poor ...
So it seems that Haringey Council has invested £37 million in Icelandic banks - and the Chancellor (in his statement earlier this week) made it pretty clear that councils - who he called 'informed corporate investors' - could go swing. I immediately contacted Alistair Darling to ask that he not let Haringey residents suffer as a result. I am concerned that no information as to details of what is included in the investments is being allowed to me or Robert Gorrie (Liberal Democrat Council Group leader). All the Chief Exec will say that the problem is 'manageable' and that the ...
Lib Dem Voice-reading habitués of the online Telegraph and fans of novelist Alexander McCall Smith may well have been asking themselves this question already. For the uninitiated, Mr McCall Smith is "writing his first ever online novel Corduroy Mansions exclusively for Telegraph.co.uk", and one of the characters is named Oedipus Snark. Here's his CV: Name: Oedipus [...]
...then try being on the mailing list for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. I signed up to Barack Obama's email list to see what sort of things they send out to supporters and nearly every day there is some form of request for money. They vary in style. Sometimes they are a blatant request for money (usually [...]
The Lib Dem leader was speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today Programme this morning amidst the news of continuing market turmoil. You can hear the interview in full here. And PoliticsHome has a brief transcript here: The short-term need is for the G7 to show they can work together on the international level, we need global [...]
Bristol UA, St George West LD Tony Potter 923 (34.0; +9.1) Lab 816 (30.1; -8.2) Con 509 (18.8; -18.1) Ind 257 (9.5; +9.5) Green 116 (4.3; +4.3) English Democrats 93 (3.4; +3.4) Majority 107 Turnout 32.9% LD gain from Lab Percentage change is since May 2007 Cheshire CC, Knutsford Con 1647 (58.7; +11.4) LD Caroline Aldhouse 818 (29.1; -2.0) Lab 342 (12.2; -9.4) Majority 829 Turnout 28% Con hold
Ryan Cullen, the genius behind LibDemBlogs, has launched a new website, LibDig.co.uk. Party members can vote for their favourite blog posts, news items, events or videos to recommend them for others who visit LibDig. I am, of course, desperate for the traffic, so I've put the LibDig button on each post (if you're on Wordpress, its [...]
Great that Nigel Scott romped home in the Alexandra ward by-election with around 50% of the vote - fantastic! I've known him for many years and he'll be a great councillor. It was an interesting by-election in that both Labour and Tories really threw everything they had at it in a way they haven't done for a while. I guess for the Tories they were trying to see if there was any resurrection possible - they don't have any councillors anywhere in Haringey - and their answer was no. And Labour were probably both desperate not to come third and ...
Wednesday: Let me see: twenty-four billion pounds will buy you Barclays Bank; another fifteen will get you the Royal Bank of Scotland. Add on fourteen billion for Lloyds TSB and chuck in five billion pounds for HBoS. At today's fire-sale everything-must-go oh-it-already-has prices, that's only* fifty-eight billion to buy the lot. So if you're going to spend fifty billion anyway... why NOT just buy them all? Well, the obvious answer is because that is NOT where you want the money to GO. Buying the EXISTING shares puts billions into the pockets of shareholders but leaves the banks no better off. ...
55) Mary Frances Coady, With Bound Hands: A Jesuit in Nazi Germany (Loyola Press: Chicago, 2003, ISBN 082941794X). This is a brief biography, with edited prison correspondence, of Fr. Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest who was hanged in 1945 for his membership in a resistance group which was trying to develop a democratic constitution for Germany, to be used in the event of a coup or military defeat. The authorities initially thought (probably wrongly) that he had been involved in the 20 July plot, and merely planning for the aftermath of a defeat was considered treasonous in any case, but ...
Gordon Brown has gone from Stalin to Mr Bean and now he seems to be mutating into John Rambo. The government's demands for the Icelandic government to guarantee the investments of UK individuals and local authorities, along with the freezing of Icelandic bank assets in the UK is clearly striking a chord with the tabloid reader within us all but there must surely be someone in the government with the wit and common sense to recognise that effectively declaring economic war on a near neighbour is not sensible or practical and takes no account of where we are in the ...
Plans for an ice rink for Bath have been approved, at last one might think? Hold on though, the Conservative run cabinet have once again demonstrated their total lack of udnerstanding about our beautiful city and decided to hide it away behind the Bath Sports and Leisure Centre. What's the point in that? No visitor to Bath will bother to venture down there to go ice skating. This is just another ploy for the Council to say, we tried to help but no one wanted it - no one will know it's there! Why not put it in the town ...
This is not necessarily a comprehensive list of by-election results from yesterday but these are the results that have crossed my desk this morning (2 holds, one gain from Labour, one gain from Tories): LD GAIN from Lab in St George West (Bristol City Council) Tony Potter (Liberal Democrat): 923 Labour: 816 Conservative: 509 Independent: 257 Green: 116 English Democrat: 93 Rotherhithe Ward,
Sky have this handy list of councils in hock to the Icelandic banks: Barnet £27m:: Bassettlaw District Council £8m:: Bolton Council £6m:: Braintree District Council £5m:: Breckland District Council £12m:: Brent £15m:: Bridgnorth District Council £1m:: Brighton and Hove City Council said it suspended transactions:: Bristol City £8m:: Bromley £5m:: Buckinghamshire has £5m:: Burnley Borough Council
Two articles caught my eye in the Financial Times. To me they show much the terms of debate have shifted over the last few weeks. Paul De Grauwe calls for the temporary taking of the banks into 'full state control'. He points to lack of confidence and 'coordination' which has brought us to the brink of a 'depression'. As far as he sees it there is 'only one solution'; "The governments of the big countries (US, UK, the eurozone, possibly Japan) must take over their banking systems (or at least the significant banks). Governments are the only institutions that can ...
Now his career as Shadow Chancellor is over, I wondered if I could think if 101 uses for a George Osborne: 1. One half of a comedy double act based on a schoolboy and his dad. Clitheroe Osborne, anyone? 2. Model for Action Man dolls 3. American Vice-Presidential Candidate. Sarah Palin - George Osborne? Well, I can see it 4. Star of 'Just William' Revival at the RSC 5. Stunt double for Ant or Dec 6. Voice of faceless bureaucrat on radio commercials Any more contributions would be gratefully received UPDATES FROM COLLEAGUES: 7. Labour Peer 8. Mine Clearance Assistant ...
Yesterday evening the 2006-7 National DNA Database Annual Report was published. Those up to date with their surveillance-state-bashing will know that serious questions have been raised about this database - the largest in the world with nearly four million people's records held on it. Would the report, I wondered, give us more information to make sensible judgements on these critical questions? Let's remind ourselves of the issue. DNA profiling is a valuable tool in the crime-fighter's arsenal. Few people have a problem with the idea of someone's DNA being held in a central database once they've been convicted of a ...
Commenting on the situation facing councils that have money invested in Icelandic banks, Liberal Democrat Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary, Julia Goldsworthy said: "The first priority has to be that the Government supports councils to recover as much of their money as possible. It must also look at the potential for the capitalisation of any remaining debts to avoid service cuts or immediate Council Tax rises at all costs. "We need to know the extent of the risk and under what circumstance councils made these commitments. Some councils that deliberately avoided taking these risks should have their prudence acknowledged. ...
This is what I call thinking big: Barack Obama has purchased a half-hour of primetime television on CBS and NBC, sources confirm. The Obama campaign is producing a nationwide pitch to voters that will air on at least two broadcast networks. The ad will run Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 8 p.m. -- less than a week before the general election. The direct purchase of such a large block of national airtime
well done tony potter! he is the new lib dem coucnillor for st george west. with a notable swing from labour and tories we made it. out on the doorsteps there was a warm reception until polling day. i am now a bit fitter from the deliveries - st george has a few hills! roll on the next elections next spring.
I have been quite keen to read more about Chandila. Why he is standing? What he is standing for? He had a holding website for a while, then a countdown on the new site which was reset. Now he has a site which has a wonderful glamour shot and says 'Click here'..... but you click here and nothing happens... Is it just me?
At the start of the week, 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 about the current state of British politics, especially as they affect the Lib Dems. Many thanks [...]
Peter Grant the SNP candidate for the Glenrothes by election who was/is leader of the SNP group on SNP-led Fife council is contradicting the council's director of finance and resources, Barrie Lawrie, on the possibility of delivering free school meals to primary 1-3 pupils across the county. While Mr Lawrie says "the current budget does not include costs associated with the introduction of free school meals", Mr Grant stoically is saying that the policy will be delivered. How? With what money? Is this just a candidate toeing the party line while seeking election at a time when many councils including ...
As evidenced here, he's come out reluctantly for Obama. Damn him, I was going to write a piece entitled "When will Iain Dale come off the fence?". Just goes to show that you should strike when the inspiration iron is hot! I'm used to his blind partisan (and in election periods, too shrill to read) posts on UK politics but I never quite understood why he was applying his same "style" to the US elections. Especially his repeated dogged defence of the clearly unsuitable Sarah Palin, picking up and blindly running with every Republican defence line (rabidly posted in the ...
At the Council House in Bristol last night, it was declared that Liberal Democrat Tony Potter had pulled off a stunning victory in St George West, after a hard fought campaign on local issues. In his acceptance speech, Tony Potter declared that: "no longer will St George West be the backwater of Bristol." Liberal Democrat leader on Bristol City Council Barbara Janke...
Tickets for England's sold-out World Cup Qualifier with Kazakhstan on Saturday are being sold for over four times their face value by unscrupulous touts, the Liberal Democrats have revealed today. Tickets are available online for as much as £260, despite Government promises to get tough with ticket touts earlier this year. Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Culture,...
Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg has urged the Prime Minister to take steps to remove the senior banking executives who were involved in the excessive risk-taking which contributing to the current crisis. In a letter to Gordon Brown today, Nick Clegg proposes that board members of banks should be barred from taking bonuses, to stop them following distorted...
Commenting on the situation facing councils that have money invested in Icelandic banks, Liberal Democrat Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary, Julia Goldsworthy said: "The first priority has to be that the Government supports councils to recover as much of their money as possible. It must also look at the potential for the capitalisation of any remaining debts to avoid service cuts...
Responding to Andy Burnham's announcement today of a modernisation review of England's public library service, Liberal Democrat Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, Don Foster said: "I welcome a review of how libraries can be improved but I'm concerned that this is just a thinly veiled attempt to make further cuts to our fast-disappearing library services." Don...
At the Council House in Bristol last night, it was declared that Liberal Democrat Tony Potter had pulled off a stunning victory in St George West, after a hard fought campaign on local issues. In his acceptance speech, Tony Potter declared that: "no longer will St George West be the backwater of Bristol." Liberal Democrat leader on Bristol City Council Barbara Janke...
Well, it's not the most obvious topic but here in north west London it's underfoot down virtually every single street. COAL HOLES! Yep, I have noticed them for a while and just how closed, sealed and secure they look - the very idea that they were used most weeks/days seems so add as to be almost peverse... Yet I was struck by two things really. The first was the nature of the cast 'manhole' - many of which are made localy in Camden and second was the whopping piece of york (?) stone into which they are set. The other ...
So now we know. Secretary of State for Wales, Paul Murphy said yesterday that plans for a referendum on extra powers for the Assembly should take a back seat while politicians deal with the economic crisis. For Plaid Cymru, Hywel Williams MP said the economic crisis shouldn't detract from the case for greater devolution but he conceded there was little purpose in a holding a referendum that would lead to a "no" vote. "There's no reason to jump off a cliff if you haven't got any wings," he said. Both seem happy to let the Convention continue its work of ...
Congratulations to Nigel Scott, our new Lib Dem councillor for Alexandra ward. Full by-election result 09.10.08: Nigel Scott 1460 Labour 772 Conservative 443 Green 221 BNP 27 Nigel has already been working hard for the community for many years and will make an excellent councillor.
I've been a member of my Regional Candidates Committee since 2005. It's been, for the most part, fairly quiet in terms of problems between candidates and Local Parties, probably by good fortune rather than by design. In that time, my colleagues and I have reviewed the performance of candidates in the 2005 General Election, and found little in the way of problems. There were a few instances where
When ever the Panel on Question Time has Chris Huhne on it, its always an interesting show to watch. Today the Question Time Panel will include the following panelists: John DenhamKen ClarkeChris HuhneThe Bishop of RochesterRuth LeaI will write a Post about it tomorrow, that's if they is something that catches my interest!Update:I didn't think they was a point me writing another Post about Question Time, It was a monster of a show, but one comment made by a man in the audience really hit my mind. When the gentleman started referring to Business people (I think) as "Fat Cats".He ...
I had the pleasure this week of spending Monday in my constituency, showing the EU's Energy Commissioner (Andris Piebalgs, a Latvian LibDem) the opportunities for renewable energy generation on the Severn estuary. We were briefed first by Regen South West, then by the Regional Development Agency, on current renewable energy generation in the region and potential future development: then we took the Commissioner to the top of the hill above Uphill (Weston-super-Mare) to see where one of the possible barrage schemes might make landfall. We took him therafter to Bristol Port to discuss the impact a barrage or tidal fence ...
Fri 10th
07:55
Day 2837: Senator Oven-Chip, if you want to know the moment you lost the Presidency... it was "that ...
Tuesday: With the Replutocrats tanking in the polls, things are starting to get DIRTY in the campaign to be President of Americaland. While, Ms Sarah Pain steps up her efforts to replace the Monkey-in-Chief as VICE-President (making her a sort of Monkey-in-Lipstick, you might say), not to mention whipping up a potential race riot by calling Barry O all SORTS of names (and no doubt she'd say "he smells" too), the Superannuated Senator supposedly at the top of the ticket has been chuckling and wheezing and calling everyone "miii frynds" but cannot even bring himself to use his opponent's NAME. ...
I love the internet. A search turns up the Alphabet of Illustrators site, which has scans of the whole of The Map That Came to Life.
Nick Clegg spoke in Chelmsford yesterday - and I managed to get there. I was curious about this unscripted, town hall format, and came away pretty impressed. I don't know how many of the audience were floating voters and how many convinced lib dems, but the flaters must have gone away thinking that they had had a top politician listening and speaking like anyone else. I'm a sucker for "hard truth" answers, and on that basis I particularly enjoyed Nick's answers on "postcodes lotteries" in the NHS, and on whether the government should be intervening to prop up house prices. ...
The UK's FTSE 100 share market over the decade since Labour came to power is looking increasingly page-three-like. E-cup... great cleavage...we'll airbrush out the bad acne. I spy an opportunity: FTSE100 sponsored by Wonderbra.
Well my post yesterday about plot, some would say Tory treason to the Union has certainly lit the touchpaper on a gunpowder keg prior to events on the 6th of November in Glenrothes. The fact that a normally confident Scottish Tory Boy starts of the comments thread in the vain hope that it was rumour rather than truth. Then the CyberNats got going with a whole range of deflection and distraction tactics and quite plan stupid comments: "Voting for Harry Wills will not get him elected " Of course that depends just how many people do vote for Harry Wills ...
LibertyCat responded to James Graham's post about class. He wrote:The reason why meritocracy doesn't work is that the social problems of poverty are caused by some poor people being lazy and feckless. There is no reason for someone who cares about their future to smoke. There are not many reasons for them to eat junk-food daily. The story of how Jake turned bad is quite long, but only once was
Chandila Fernando, to his credit, is at least campaigning for some radical ideas in his campaign for Lib Dem President. He wants the Lib Dems to "become the first mainstream political party to move away from the tired concept of card-carrying membership" replacing it with "a system of registered supporters." Fernando's website has currently been replaced by a holding page (is it me or does that big beaming face scream "over-exposed"?) so we cannot penetrate the words of wisdom within. However Mark Littlewood, in his role as Head Fernando Cheerleader, expanded this idea on Lib Dem Voice as follows: 1. ...
I finally get it! I've been racking my brains as to why Obama is doing better than McSame. Yes it's the horrendous Economic outlook, yes it's healthcare and education. It's also to do with what is becoming a disastrous choice of Sarah Palin as the VP pick. Though it's really about two things: 1. The most carefully and surefooted [...]
Whatever thoughts crossed my mind that weren't worth a whole post. 15:35 Is on the X6 through Bradford, depressed by the centre, as usual. # 17:05 Is glad he panic checked where the Megabus stop is. Why have they moved it across town? Still, on bus now London bound # 21:28 Is boiling on the coach. Why do they put the heaters in stupid places? Still, Baker St, almost there. # 23:00 is watching question time with Millenium and his daddies. Utterly knackered... #Microblogging using LoudTwitter and Twitter. matgb_twitter is there if you're mad enough.
I'm a BT Broadband customer, but I've not been invited to take part in their Webwise trial. Not that I'm complaining - if the Open Rights Group is correct, it's an offer you definitely can afford to refuse.
Lucky Rhetoric was taken tonight by an attractive lady (role reversal!) to the Ballet to see Romeo and Juliet. The first twenty minutes I was almost asleep . But a good old swordfight (being male) caught my interest and this sparked my eyes to keep open for the rest of the show. The show at Carmarthen's Lyric Theatre was performed by Independent ballet Wales Before the show I was expecting a little Prokovief with his haunting Montagues and Capulets. There was none of this . The only real criticism of the night was the choice of sound. The four Ballerina's ...
Fri 10th
00:00Day 2836: THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES: The Last Sontaran (give or take a few billion off planet)
Monday: "Grand Moff" Steven has made it quite clear that in his world Doctor Who is a CHILDREN'S PROGRAMME. This is a GREAT RELIEF! It means it's going to be much like the VERY EXCELLENT scary horror-drama "Sarah Jane Wood" and not slushy soap-with-swear-words "The Captain Jack Adventures". Yes, Sarah Jane is BACK. And for those of you at the back not paying attention, this means effectively an extra SIX Doctor Who adventures! Hooray! As the sixth televised* Sontaran adventure, this is quite definitely the best, taking aspects from all of its Doctor Who predecessors and finally getting them right. ...
