A good residents meeting tonight where we were able to sit round the table and thoroughly discuss issues around facilities for young people in Bishopsgarth from ages 0 to 19. We haven't any answers yet, but a combination on keen residents, the police, the school, us Councillors and an officer from the new Integrated Service Area must be a cocktail for progress? and none of us has a reputation...
Anthony Hook has the story.
You have, as I type, just under 10 hours to submit your predictions for the LDVUSA prediction competition: entries must be received by 9 am, Tuesday, to qualify. To find out what you need to do, and to enter your prediction, click here. Winners will receive general acclaim and a limited edition Lib Dem Voice [...]
So says a news headline on the BBC. UKIP says it has "unanimously rejected" an offer from the British National Party for an electoral pact at next year's European elections. It says ex-tennis star Buster Mottram, a UKIP member who claimed to represent the BNP, made the "astonishing offer" at a meeting in London on Monday. Under the [...]
OK, so a lot of you probably don't pay much attention to Wikio Blog Rankings. I don't myself, really. I only noticed how high my figure was for this month when I was showing my ex this blog and explaining what all the sidebar buttons were. This is a quote from the website:The position of a blog in the Wikio ranking depends on the number and weight of the incoming links from other blogs. These links are dynamic, which means that they are backlinks or links found within articles. Blogrolls are not taken into account and Wikio only counts links ...
It is day one of the Welsh Liberal Democrat Leadership campaign and already Jenny Randerson has demonstrated why it is that policy making is best left to the membership and why Leaders should not seek to impose it from above. At her formal launch today she outlined a number of new ideas she would like the party to adopt including a new form of direct democracy. She wants to give the public the chance to veto unpopular Assembly Government policies. Her plan is that initiatives such as the ban on smoking or scrapping hospital parking charges could in future be ...
Derived from official welsh statistics for 2007/2008: Authority: Neath Port Talbot Swansea Cardiff Bridgend Population female age 0-17 14,843 22,182 32,748 14,933 Looked-after females age 0-17 140 170 235 125 Looked-after girls/1,000 population 9.97 7.66 7.18 8.37
No, surely not! That can't be true, can it? John Swinney's approved Donald Trump's golf and housing development? Never! Yup, the world's least surprising political decision has been made, with the SNP government giving the go-ahead for the controversial development in Aberdeenshire. This decision was pretty much inevitable from the moment the Gnats decided to call it in after the planning committee on Aberdeenshire Council had voted, on the chairman's casting vote, to reject the application on the grounds of the potential environmental damage it would cause, especially to the sand dunes on the Menie Estate. Anyone who's heard then ...
Interesting and slightly amusing piece courtsey of the Daily Telegraph. It reports the leaking of a memo written by James O'Shaughnessy, the Conservatives' Director of Policy and Research. In the memo, leaked to the Spectator and an unnamed Sunday newspaper, O' Shaughnessy says that; "It won't have escaped your notice that the Government has been very active in announcing new policies in the last couple of weeks. As befits the return of Mandelson this is mostly spin. However, they are filling the newspapers and we need to respond. We need ensure we have a strong and steady flow of our ...
As the BBC is reporting, local people in several communities across Britain are increasingly frustrated at their powerlessness to stop lap-dancing clubs opening up in their localities. The frustration has arisen because changes in the planning laws severely limit the grounds on which councils can block lap-dancing clubs. There has to be evidence that having a club would do some sort of harm to the local community and, as police admit, the average gentleman's establishment attracts less crime and disorder than a typical pub. Claims of lap-dancing clubs being magnets for pimps, prostitutes, drug-dealers and trafficked sex-slaves might be enough ...
We'd say a big thank you to the 22,628 'absolute unique visitors'* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in October, our highest total ever, and a whopping 106% increase on a year ago. (For the record, the comparable figure for Iain Dale was 67,674). Whether you're a regular here, or an occasional 'popper-by', we're delighted you looked [...]
As I discovered on Saturday, East Midlands Trains services are currently being diverted between Chesterfield and Sheffield because of work on Bradway Tunnel. North of Chesterfield trains take the old North Midland line towards Rotherham which, as part of George Hudson original route from Euston to York, is an early piece of line. The route from Chesterfield to Sheffield was not built until later because of the considerable engineering works required. At Beighton Junction trains leave the North Midland to join the Sheffield to Retford route. When I was a teenage rail enthusiast this line was electrified as part of ...
Mon 3rd
19:31
Official: Lib Dem voters more intelligent than Tory and Labour voters (Nationalist, BNP and UKIP vot...
At last official research has told us what most Lib Dems have known for years: our voters are more intelligent than those who vote for the Tories or Labour. Academic research published in the journal Intelligence - and given an airing in today's Guardian - compares the way people voted in the 2001 election with [...]
Late this evening (11.20 England, 11.30 Scotland, 11.50 Wales) BBC2 is showing Jake on the Box. This is a programme: Exploring the life and work of Jake Thackray, the undervalued genius famous for his biting satire and understated irony. A rare example of a British singer-songwriter in the troubadour tradition, Thackray could be darkly vicious, but was also able to write haunting and romantic songs. His words and music have influenced a generation of musicians and writers.There is more about Jake Thackray elsewhere on this blog.
Baroness Ros Scott: reassurance vs. risk [For more info on what this series of posts is about, please click here.] In contrast to her two opponents, Ros Scott seems to have no big mission for the presidency of the Liberal Democrats. In her election address, she promises simply to be "high profile and bring a professional approach to party management", "supportive [of the leader] in public, candid in private" and to not serve on the Lords team's front bench if elected. Ros Scott's manifesto contains almost no big, new ideas. Where plans are presented, they are almost all unexceptional. "Commit ...
Lembit Opik MP - the great communicator vs. "good value" [For more info on what this series of posts is about, please click here.] Lembit Opik is another man with a mission. His campaign narrative is all about improving our external communications and "building a more effective campaigning party". In his first e-mail to members, Opik promises to be "a President with vim and verve, whom everybody knows, with true commitment to spreading Liberal Democracy to the four corners of Britain". In his election address, Opik lists his top priority as to "ensure that the party projects its message clearly". ...
This was meant to be a low carbon, low budget holiday. We are currently on the ferry crossing from Tyneside to Holland for a short stay in Amsterdam. I reckon I have used up my ration of flights for the year hence the ferry instead. The low carbon attempt had a slight knock at the start. We had planned to get the bus in to Newcastle and then get the DFDS bus to the ferry port. And then I booked
When replying to Linda Jack's invitation to assess the three presidential candidates' attempts to craft a Liberal Democrat narrative, I commented that none had really done it and added that all three had been somewhat more successful in creating narratives to support their own candidacies. Linda then asked me to provide more detailed views on the latter point. Before going any further, please note that I still haven't made up my mind who to vote for (!) and will not do so until the last possible moment! Second, the observations are based on the candidates' election addresses, websites and e-mails ...
Well done Buster Mottram for handing Nigel Farage a bit of a propaganda coup: UKIP says it has "unanimously rejected" an offer from the British National Party for an electoral pact at next year's European elections. It says ex-tennis star Buster Mottram, a UKIP member who claimed to represent the BNP, made the "astonishing offer" at a meeting in London on Monday. Under the deal the BNP would fight seats in the north while UKIP would focus on the south in the elections. Who is Buster Mottram? Well according to the Observer, he's their second "worst sportsman in politics" - ...
{Women in Public Life Awards '09} Well done to Scottish Widows and Dods for coming up with what is possibly the most ridiculously patronising design for a website aimed at women in public life I've ever come across (and as one of the organisers of the Campaign for Gender Balance Awards last year I speak from experience). It isn't just the sheer pinkness of it all, it's the flower design and the sheer flowiness of it all. As one of my colleagues suggested, it looks like a tampon advert or possibly some kind of pregnancy test. Do designers really have ...
The End is Nigh Originally uploaded by Martin~ Or, why I am really a "geo-mutualist" and why I think you should be too! The revolution has begun. In fact it's been building for at least twenty years. When history looks back it will not probably be able to identify a particular date, but it could do worse than choose Christmas Day 1990, the day a humble academic computing geek communicated with his server in something nobody had really heard of called "hyper text". Finally there was something useful to do with the "internet" that would eventually draw in users from ...
In this post we will assume that the barmaid/barman is competent and courteous. If such is not the case, of course the customer is entitled to complain and/or take their money elsewhere, but that is not the subject of this post. The subject of this post is on how to be a good customer. Good customers, from the point of view of the barmaid, become friends. You have genuine affection for them, and worry if they don't come in at their usual times. Bad customers, though? They are feared, dreaded, and given codenames so that you can warn other barstaff ...
We're very thankful to Lib Dem councillor and blogger Joe Taylor who has produced an excellent cut-out-n-keep download'n'print guide to the American Elections for all those of us who are planning on staying up a goodly part of the night to see what the new dawn brings on the other side of the pond. Joe's guide [...]
Alix Mortimer dismays of the 'libertarians v social democrats blog war'. Charlotte Gore then goes to defend herself and feels she has blown her chances of winning the Lib Dem Blog of the Year award which Alix partially judges. Involvement in such debates should never exclude a blog from the running from this award; if anything raising challenging ideas (which, by definition will get a counterpunch) should be rewarded. I don't agree with libertarians on a wide range of issues but I would rather be in an atmosphere where there was that stimulation, debate and the moving forward that comes ...
One of my favourite US websites has been one that is not run by political anoraks (though those sites and people are great!) nor by uber-Democrats. The one I'm talking about was set up by a 16yo kid who was fed up seeing his family's Obama signs being nicked by low-level Repub swines! So he set [...]
Until the current party president vote, I have never been completely undecided in a Liberal Democrat internal election before. Normally I don't need a campaign to help me decide as I know straightaway who I want to vote for or won't under any circumstances vote for. It's like party committee elections, I always start with [...]
Nominations to succeed me as leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats close today (Nov 3), and in the morning, the first all-female leadership contest in British political history will start in earnest. Very few are the leaders who get to leave in a (mostly) dignified way, and I am grateful to my colleagues - both supporters [...]
I arrived in the US on Saturday evening. Except that it was Saturday night as far as my body clock was concerned. And the following morning the clocks went back. So I lost hours, gained an hour and went sightseeing. Today, I shall be visiting a local Democratic party HQ in Baltimore to see what their campaign office looks like. And then tonight, I shall be going to rally to hear Barack Obama speak. Looking at a lot of polling and talking to people hear, my guess is that the result will be far closer than the reports in the ...
For eager consumers of US Presidential election news, the climax is approaching: on Tuesday night, we'll get to watch the results of the epic clash between John McCain and Barack Obama. Which websites will Lib Dem Voice readers consider invaluable to following the dynamics of the election as it unfolds, or tracking House and Senate [...]
On Friday I attended the launch of the new SureStart Children's Centres, with the 'ceremony' being held at the Granville Road centre. This came after Tuesdays highly successful press launch. The centres themselves are amazing, very well equipped and genuinely focused on bringing together a range of services under one roof. In our Borough though, the real value is in the outreach work that has been the foundation of the scheme - Hinckley & Bosworth is a geographically challenging place to deliver services in, and I hope that the SureStart model will be used for other projects. As I have ...
I have submitted several questions for tomorrows council meeting. The questions (with the number from the Council papers and the answer I have received are listed below. My comments are listed after the 'answer' in bold Question 2 Can the relevant Cabinet Member please advise if works to existing roads and pavements (including street lighting) in the Borough follow the guidance set out in the DETR's Manual for Streets? Answer by Councillor Andrew Harper The Manual for Streets (MfS) publication produced jointly by the Departments for Transport and Communities & Local Government replaces Design Bulletin 32 and its companion Design ...
This week, Daniel Jones made his LDV début urging Lib Dems to go to the Climate March. We asked the Lib Dem presidential candidates how they would improve membership, and we posted three answers here: Opik, Scott and Fernando. You, dear reader, commented in spades on posts like David Allen's opinion piece Time for a New Start, [...]
Another blow to my 'Blog of the Year' ambitions came today when the newest Judge on the panel made her displeasure felt. The amount of money I'm going to need to bribe such Lib Dem Blogging luminaries as Alix, Jonathan and 'Bruiser' James... never mind the independent judge from the Guardian. It seems like an uphill struggle! Deferred Success, however, is still mine for as long as I want it. The problem is the so-called 'Blog War' - libertarians versus Social democrats. There's no organisation behind this. There's people who are writing in response to things that other people are ...
Can't believe it is already November - but given it is - thought it might be useful to post (ha ha) the main inland postal deadlines for this Christmas: * First Class - Saturday, 20 December * Second Class - Thursday, 18 December * Special Delivery Saturday guarantee - Friday, 19 December * Special Delivery - Tuesday, 23 December
America is approaching a moment which in some ways bears alot of similarity to the moment Britain was at in 1997; that is an unpopular conservative government is about to be shown the door and then some. It is no longer a question of whether Obama will win to my mind; it is a question merely of the margin of victory. In the highly unlikely event he does fail to win the election will be equally as historic because it will very badly damage the Democrats to a point beyond belief; put simply, if they can't win now (and win ...
Charlotte Gore has a very good bloggers' interview with Our Dear Leader over on her website. This bit in particular caught my eye: Richard changes the mood a little by asking about old Twinkletoes. If Gordon Brown offered him the job of running the economy, he'd take it, yes? "I don't think there's any question of that [...]
If I had had an opportunity over the weekend, I was planning to write an essay on my view of the whole Russell Brand / Jonathan Ross episode. Having read Charlie Brooker this morning however, I now realise I don't need to: The sad, likely outcome of this pitiful gitstorm is an increase in BBC jumpiness. I have a vested interest in this, of course, because I've just started work on the next series of my BBC4 show Screen Wipe, on which we sometimes sail close to the wind. In the past, the BBC has occasionally stepped in to nix ...
OK, I have done the netcast again today. I have started to feel like I am treading over a lot of the same ground, and would like to broaden my reading list - 200 or so blogs is not a lot to pick from when you're looking for the best of the Liberal blogosphere. This is where YOU come in. If you are reading this post please comment with ONE blog that you think I should add to lcreadinglist, and tell me why. Preferably one that's not already on there, but, you know, I'd be too lazy to go and ...
Mon 3rd
11:29
Obama in push for key heartland blue-red republican workshy mississippi redneck vote as ad campaign ...
Just two days to go. Please let it end.
Of all the streets in Paris, the rue du Faubourg St.-Denis is my favourite. The photo doesn't really do it justice, as it is one of the most colourful and multicultural thoroughfares in the French capital. French delicatessens jostle with Turkish and Mauritian grocers, Indian restaurants and a whole series of Arab and African [...]
Lembit Opik's expressed his support.
A commonly repeated quote in UK politics is Roy Jenkins' description of Blair's approach to the 1997 election as being like an elderly butler carrying a Ming vase across a slippery floor from one end of a room to the other. Reading the coverage of the US elections today, this seems to be very much how the Democrats are currently feeling - excited that their precious cargo is nearly delivered yet dreading some last minute slip and crash. And as I have watched Obama over recent months, similarities with Tony Blair have struck me more and more. Putting aside any ...
On 24th October, I mentioned that overgrown shrubbery on the roundabout at Riverside Avenue/Drive was to be tackled, following my request to the City Council. Click on headline to view the earlier story. I am pleased to say the work was carried out yesterday. A constituent has since e-mailed me to say he's pleased this has happened - to quote him : "I will now be able to cycle to Tesco and see the oncoming traffic at the island."
Just back from the ELDR congress in Stockholm. Great company, great food and outstanding debate. There is something so much more grown up about European politics. A system based on the need for consensus, hasn't resulted in stalemate. The ya boo politics we have grown up with in this country, the need to "beat" the opposition, sadly even extends into the shenanigans in our party. I travelled with Paul Reynolds, an economics professor and a good friend..........but politically sitting almost diametrically from me. We had lots of debates where neither convinced the other, but we began to think about what ...
Apologies to all readers who have missed my blog over the past 16 days (and apologies to those on whose behalf I have made this false presumption!). We have just returned home from spending a week in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, followed by a week in Mauritius. It's by far the biggest holiday we've [...]
Responding to claims in the weekend papers that the campaign to stop MP Lembit Öpik becoming President of the Liberal Democrats "has turned nasty," Lembit said: "I think we need to calm down a bit here. It seems some fellow Lib Dems have mixed up which Presidential election this is. Well, I'm not running for the Whitehouse! We're talking about the Presidency of the Liberal Democrats which is important, but it's not about the leadership of the free world. In that spirit, I wish Mr Obama every success, and I'd like to think that, if he wasn't so busy at ...
This is the dancing at the Eid Party background on Eid you might want to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_ul-FitrOnce again, thanks to the organisers...
I've seen various reports that some councils are banning latin terms from council communications with the public - something that's predictably come in for criticism from some quarters. It seems very simple to me: the task at hand is to communicate with people. If you use words and phrases that a significant number of people don't understand, that damages communication. That's what plain english is all about. It isn't the job of councils to educate people to speak latin. I genuinely don't know which phrases the good people of Bournemouth, Salisbury and Fife do understand. I'd expect nearly everyone to ...
Cllr Susette Palmer now has a blog. You can read it here.
Wednesday The telephone is brought to me and the voice at the other end says: "Hello this is Nick Clegg. I am ringing to tell you about the Liberal Democrats' exciting policies." "I know it's you, man," I reply, "and we were talking about party policy only this morning. I was about to call you myself to ask if you had had time to think about my idea of extorting money from the Estonian Government by threatening to send back...." Clegg, however, talks over me in the most boorish fashion and our conversation ends with my bidding him a brisk ...
Having spent a the bulk of my waking hours over the weekend up in Glenrothes. I'm in my paid work today for a one day week, need to get the weekly stats done by 9am New York Time today. Then I'll be blogging light, if at all for the bulk of the rest of the week. On Saturday we had a meeting of Linlithgow luminaries on the campaign trail. Out in Pitcoudie I ran into the Education Minister Fiona Hyslop and the SNP Westminster PPC for Linlithgow and Falkirk East Tam Smith. Unlike certain campaigners I met the other week ...
Yesterday's Sunday Times reports the view of the Prime Minister that government cannot promise the safety of personal data entrusted to it by the public: The Prime Minister was speaking hours after it emerged that a memory stick containing the passwords to a government website used to submit online tax returns had been lost. Speaking on the second day of his trip to the Gulf, the Prime Minister said it was caused by "mistakes" which were "human". He also sought to clear government officials of blame, stressing that a private company - Atos Origin, a computer management firm - had ...
I'm intending to liveblog the American election results on Tuesday night, so if anyone fancies joining me for a virtual election night party, you're more than welcome. I'll be turning off comment moderation for the occasion so anyone who wants to have their say as Obama cruises to victory (Complacency? What complacency?) can do so.
I have mentioned my brother before on this blog. He's a reet lad, even though he moved away from God's Own County and lost his natural accent. He's not done bad for himself; he started from nowt, and built himself up by hard work, a bit of luck, and sheer bloody-mindedness. He's my brother, and I love him. Being a proud Yorksher lass, though, my affection for him is generally shown in the form of ribbing - calling him grandad and teasing him about his expanding waistline (He's bloody heavy, he's my brotheeeerrrrrr....), for example. I tell you all this ...
Having had my tuppence worth as much as anyone, I'm starting to find this libertarians v social democrats blogging "debate", seen in its latest incarnation here, just a little bit crushingly depressing. I try not to write about meta-blogging matters, but this is all getting a bit daft, isn't it? Not a week seems to go [...]
This is it. My question to Nick. Is Obama's success, whether he wins or not, a vindication of Social Democracy or Populism? Is there any future for anything other than populism in mainstream Western Democracies? Nick isn't amused. "If you're saying that Obama's been a populist, I think that's unfair. I do." I regret my question instantly. Nick, who had been mirroring Joe's body language, suddenly begins shuffling. "Populism runs like a thread through politics, of course... how do you define populism?" More changing of posture, but he continues: "The worst form of populism is appealing to prejudice or popular ...
ALDC's Kickstart Weekend will be running from 28th November 2008 to 30th November 2008 in Birmingham.
