From BBC News: A manhunt is under way in western Germany for a convicted drug dealer who escaped by mailing himself out of jail.The 42-year-old Turkish citizen - who was serving a seven-year sentence - had been making stationery with other prisoners destined for the shops.At the end of his shift, the inmate climbed into a cardboard box and was taken out of prison by express courier. His whereabouts are still unknown.
Next Tuesday, from about 16.00, all Livejournal powered blogs and services will be down for approximately 4 hours. You know what? That's a damn good thing. Last year, when I was considering not renewing my paid account, my principle reason was: Competing blogging platforms such as Wordpress.com and Blogger.com have a multiple redundancy system for its hosting, so that if one centre fails there are backups elsewhere; specifically, they do not trust all their data security to one location situated the wrong side of a major fault line.They're moving the servers and location that all of Livejournal is stored on ...
On Monday 10th November a Liberal Democrat Opposition Day debate was held in the Commons on a motion on the Post Office Card Account. The wording of the motion was the same as that used in Early Day Motion (EDM) 2008 from this session. The EDM was signed by 47 Labour MPs. In the vote on [...]
Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, ...
Work awful. Feel terrible for Liz, who will have worked from 9 am till 1 am without a break by the end of today, thanks to three of the four staff who were supposed to be working today not actually working today. Oh yeah, guess who number four was? And a huge bunch of lads came in at one minute to my finishing time and spent so long getting their arses in gear that I actually finished at 12 minutes PAST my finishing time. Lager drinkers, as if I need say. One of whom kicked up a fuss about getting ...
Back in September Iain Dale started a hare running by suggesting that Kenneth Clarke should replace George Osborne as shadow chancellor. Now The Mole on First Posts suggests that senior Conservatives are pressing David Cameron to make just this move. Looking back, I see that I was rather rude about Iain's attempt to suggest that his call was no reflection on George Osborne's performance. He suggested that Osborne would have made a good chancellor in normal circumstances, but that Clarke was more suited to a recession. Maybe there is something to this after all. Can one divide all politicians between ...
I am going to have one of my occasional rants about companies from which I buy goods and services. No, I'm not going to put the boot in on National Express. Tonight, it's Upper Crust, the sandwich chain.I arrived at Kings Cross to catch the 9pm train having had no meal this evening. Regular readers will know that for environmental reasons I do not eat meat or fish thrugh the week. I also try to
Developments in the Baby P case today include the news that a former Haringey employee had raised concerns about the standard of social care in the borough with ministers. Rather than listen to her the council had obtained court injunction preventing her from speaking about the matter. See the report on the Daily Telegraph site. If this is the attitude Haringey takes to criticism how will it ever learn when things are going wrong? To keep up with developments I recommend the blog written by Lynne Featherstone, the Lib Dem MP for part of Haringey. Lynne is quoted on the ...
It turns out that Ted Stevens is probably not going to be re-elected to the US Senate. He's a convicted felon, but Alaskans, such as they are, voted for him in sufficient numbers on November 4th to require careful counting of absentee ballots, questionable ballots etc. However, the counting is looking good for his opponent, the Democrat, who is Mayor of Anchorage - Mark Begich. Why is this
The Democratic Republic of Congo will now cooperate with Rwanda in fighting the FDLR (the Hutu militias that come from the Interhawe which committed genocide in Rwanda in 1994). This is very good news. Rwanda will now be able to send intelligence teams to go in and catch these rebels. This cooperation will mean Rwanda won't end up thinking it needs to intervene in Eastern Congo. It also means Nkunda may halt his deadly campaign. And it also suggests that the Congolese Government will once again focus on fighting the FDLR rather than working with them to stop the CNDP ...
Earlier this week, in my column for the New Statesman website, I wrote about the bizarre claim that Otis Ferry is being held as a political prisoner. Yesterday he hit hit the national headlines after complaining that prison is too soft. I quote, of course, the Shropshire Star's telling of the story: The joint huntmaster of the South Shropshire Hunt said: "Contrary to popular belief, prison life is not tough, and in this namby-pamby society we even get our own televisions, although I have quickly realised that watching it is quite a punishment in itself."
We were never doggy people. We have two cats. But after five years, we have finally caved in to Junior's pleadings and bought a puppy. He's called Charlie and he's a Bichon Frise. He really is the most wonderful addition to our family. He just gives and gives. So I am now fully doggy. As a side comment, I haven't been "in the market" for twenty four years now, but if anyone is looking for ways
Today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News. InVincible Last time the Liberal Democrats called a Commons debate on the economy, the treasury minister Angela Eagle was scathing. Our motion read "like the storyboard for Apocalypse Now or perhaps even Bleak House." Why, it even said Britain faced the risk of recession! "Fortunately for all of us," Eagle reassured the House, "that colourful and lurid fiction has no real bearing on the macro-economic reality." For good measure, she added: "Hysterical overreaction ... might attract a few cheap headlines ... but it is not mature or responsible." That was April. Eagle ...
I promise myself I will stop writing about Britain most dysfunctional local authority. But as long as it keeps producing stories like this one from the Ludlow & Tenbury Wells Advertiser... Police are investigating alleged financial irregularities at Ludlow Town Council.In a statement, West Mercia Police confirmed it had received a complaint and was looking into it.Town councillors Michael Bradley and Tony Pound have said that they went to police to report their concerns. "We had tried to get the matter investigated internally. We felt that there was no option but to take the matter to the police," said Councillor ...
Full marks with a cherry on top to Peter Black AM, who has organised a poetry reading at the Welsh Assembly for Patrick Jones. I don't blame Waterstones for cancelling a poetry reading at the last minute when they realised that they would be inundated by protesters from "Christian Voice". They probably didn't have sufficient security in place to cope with that eventuality. To give Waterstones
In the run up to the next election, Labour are going to lay a number of charges against the Liberal Democrats, some of which will attempt to paint our Party as being 'soft' on issues of safety and security. Labour has consistently tried to push this, and at the forefront of their strategy will be [...]
I was interviewed on STV news tonight about residents' complaints about the noise from Dundee Airport, caused by bird scaring activity. The Courier featured the story this morning (click on headline above to read this article). I have spoken with the airport manager about the issue and he has assured me that the bird hazard control at Dundee Airport will be carried out so as to cause the minimum disturbance as possible. He e-mailed me as follows: Bird Hazard Control at Dundee Airport As part of our commitment to be a good neighbour I am writing to advise you of ...
Fri 14th
18:38
CommentIsLinked@LDV: Bridget Fox - 'Labour is ditching its policies through panic not principle'
The latest blog of Bridget Fox, Lib Dem PPC for Islington South and Finsbury, is now live over at The Guardian's website, with thoughts on Remembrance Sunday and Government climbdowns. Read it in full here, but here's a powerful section on the pernicious ID cards scheme: In a particularly nasty move, the government is starting compulsory [...]
It's that time of the year again - the Christmas lights have been duly switched on by the Mayor in Malden Rushett and Chessington North Parade (as in picture). Tolworth lights will be switched on, with some ceremony and fun family activities, next Wednesday from 5pm onwards.
Slightly late but here are a few of the photos from the Whickham Remembrance Day parade on Sunday in Whickham. A full set of photos is available at
Today has been a sitting Friday - although we don't use these for legislative work, they're a useful slot for debates, especially on select committee reports. Today's debates were on two EU select committee reports published recently, on organ donation and migration. I managed to get into the chamber for some of the first debate and am pleased that there doesn't seem to be much support for presumed donation. The state is telling us what to do through most of our lives, and it's a bit much if they start telling us what to do when we're dead. Diary planning ...
This is rather unfortunate to say the least. Conservative Home reports that; "Councillor Andrew Cornwell has resigned as Execetive Member for Finance from the Lib Dem administration in Islington. In a damning resignation letter to the Council leader he says: "The Council remains characterised by waste and inefficiency in too many areas. Excessive spending on refreshments, conference venues, travel costs and consultants. The number of highly paid managers has grown and unacceptable redundancy payments have been made to departing senior officers. You know I have attempted to challenge all these practises but without your full support it has not been ...
Boston BC, Fenside BNP 279 (42.6; +42.6) Boston Bypass Independents 141 (21.5; -21.8) Con 119 (18.2; -0.1) Lab 69 (10.5; -13.2) UKIP 24 (3.7; -11.0) Majority 138 Turnout 22.1% BNP gain from Boston Bypass Independents Percentage change is since May 2007 Darlington UA, North Road LD Anne-Marie Curry 561 (50.8; -4.1) Lab 262 (23.7; 0.0) Con 115 (10.4; -1.0) BNP 106 (9.6; -0.3) Ind 60 (5.4; +5.4)
The Conservative-run Cabinet of Bath and North East Somerset Council has become complacent about recycling and waste policies, according to opposition politicians. As the first Council to adopt a zero waste policy, under Liberal Democrat leadership, Bath & North East Somerset Council was seen as a trailblazer on recycling. However since the new Administration took over however the...
The Government has done a U-turn on the Post Office Card Account and will now allow the Post Office to keep the 'POCA' contract until at least 2015. The contract had previously been put out to tender, risking the loss of 3,000 Post Offices if a private firm won the contract. To cheers in the House of Commons yesterday, Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell announced...
Shane Greer argues in a blog post on his telegraph blog that George Osborne should not be kicked out of the Cameron crew but I disagree with him. George Osborne and all his mingling with Mandelson and Russian business men just paints a picture to the voters that all politicians are like that and it will damage the Conservatives in a long run, so if I was Cameron I would say "good bye" to Osborne. Secondly the Conservatives are recently sacking a few people from their party, first a PPC who harassed Lib Dems and recently Den Dover for hiring ...
Image from Shane Greer! George Bush showing his true colours in this picture with two other men!
Apologies if you tried to reach this blog in the last 24 hours or so and got redirected to UK2.net. I have now transferred the maryreid.org.uk domain to Office Network Systems (thanks, Rob), so it should be OK from now on.
Because they have so few members, every member gets a profile on their members page!
63) Dave Stone, The Slow Empire (London: BBC Worldwide, 2001, ISBN 056353835X). Features Eight, Anji and Fitz. I hadn't read anything involving Eight before (to my shame, really, because sgloomi wrote this not long after we got together, but I was still protesting that I wasn't a Who fan back then). I tended to find myself visualising him as Seven for most of it, which is no criticism of the writing; it's just been so long since I watched the movie that I don't have a clear mental image of what Eight looked or sounded like. I had fun reading ...
Nick Clegg appeared on the Daily Politics show today, talking about Liberal Democrat tax cut plans and how the party is ahead of the curve. You can watch the piece here.
A postal referendum is currently taking place on proposals for a Manchester congestion charge, with the ballot closing on 11 December. The campaign has reached YouTube as this clip shows (and it's a typical sign of the times that people's reaction to the events in the clip is to whip out their mobile phones to [...]
Or at least so says Labour Councillor Nick Wallis. "any kind of debate between the parties has been drowned out by the usual LibDem Sturm und Drang" That's his words not mine. Sounds like the words of a sore loser to me. Following on the SSCUP candidate in Glenrothes complaining that the parteis started to campaign too early, though after John McDougall was buried and the media had started to ramp up the by election process. I've had enough of people who don't engage in a particualr way complaining about others who do in a different way maybe but within ...
What does a Barack Obama victory mean for Torbay? It's a question I pondered on the train home last weekend. While we have all seen the overwhelmingly positive response to the wind of change he ...
Of all the things that happened to me growing up, this little nugget seems to bother me even now. I don't know why. My mum pulling out a huge kitchen knife and shouting, "come here!" is another one, but this one... this one bothers me more. I'm weird like that. I used to have a hobby. I think I must have been about 13. I liked to make books - where you bind the pages together, and using a cardboard and glue you make a little hardback cover. I wanted to write and illustrate books for children. So I'd spent ...
From the BBC2 Newsnight page: Parliamentarian of the Year Peter Mandelson with George Osborne. You couldn't make it up.But they did make it up. Parliamentarian of the Year went to Vince Cable. You would think that, what with all the money it has saved by suspending Jonathan Ross, the BBC would be able to afford some competent journalism. Later. It is nearly eight in the evening and the faulty caption is still in place. Today's Guardian deserves an honourable mention in this category. It claimed to be showing us a photograph of John Maynard Keynes at the Bretton Woods conference ...
Last Night I was at a Forest Heath Overview and Scrutiny meeting where we recieved a report on the performance of King's Forest Housing. King's Forest is the arms length housing association that runs Forest Heath's old council house stock and helps provide the majority of the social housing needs for the district. One of Kings Forests first actions was to build a plush new office complex in Mildenhall. Meanwhile whilst all this was happening it transpires that 1 in 12 routine repairs are not considered satisfactory - a more than doubling of the level since it took over. Virtually ...
Today's Evening Standard: GOVERNMENT inspectors gave Haringey's social services a clean bill of health just weeks after the death of Baby P, the Standard can reveal. The council's children and young people's services chief Sharon Shoesmith received a glowing report from Ofsted in a report written by an inspector who had been a senior Haringey official. Inspectors led by Juliet Winstanley, who worked under Ms Shoesmith, congratulated her former boss's department on providing "a good service for children" and working well with police to tackle domestic violence. The praise came despite accusations that Haringey failed to pass on all relevant ...
Along with Lord Levene's statement on `You and yours` yesterday saying that `it won't be better than 1929` I'm worried. I know that it's no good talking up a recession - but facts are facts. Is there anyone that can say that these things won't happen? I mean Buiter was right on Iceland? If it did happen of [...]
A madly busy day again today - so a bit of a blog cheat to point you at the PoliticsHome write-up of my BBC appearance:Ms Feathstone called for the injunction preventing Nevres Kemal [the Haringey whistleblower whose lawyer wrote to four ministers] from speaking about her warnings over Haringey social care to be lifted. "She must be unmuzzled. She has to say what she knows and that has to feed in to the investigation," she said. The injunction she said was part of a "culture of closing ranks" which had caused some of the problems in care at the council. ...
Lambeth council have announced a series of consultation meetings on the future of the Vauxhall (ranging from Sainsbury's on the Wandsworth Road to the Albert Embankment) to hear what people think about future development in the area. The resulting publication will help guide planners when considering future applications and is known in "council speak" as a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD). But we are concerned that not enough notice has been given of these events, that much of Oval ward is being ignored in terms of consultation sessions, and have complained to the Labour run council about it. The sessions where ...
Continuing our series this week of interesting findings from the Committee on Standards in Public Life's third report into public attitudes towards standards of conduct in public life, today it's the popularity of political websites: Usage of websites which focus on politics is much less common [than TV or radio for getting political news]: only 4 [...]
I spotted this little nugget and can't resist the temptation to share it with the world. The Lib Dems comfortably held the North Road ward by-election in Darlington yesterday, taking 51% of the vote. Labour however seem to have been a bit upset by the quantity of Lib Dem literature. Labour Councillor Nick Wallis, who is also Labour Euro candidate for the North East, on the day before the
My earlier posting on New River Walk prompted one reader to contact me asking for more information on Islington's leisure walks. The New River walk is just one of the guides available: the Council has also produced attractive guides to walks in Tufnell Park, Highbury, Angel, Clerkenwell and Finsbury. The guides are available online here (you [...]
For 37 years, The Photgraphers' Gallery has been based on a split site on Great Newport Street on the edge of Soho (technically, Covent Garden), pulling in half a million visitors per annum — a figure many larger museums and art institutions cannot match. This morning I joined a small group of journalists from [...]
Here's Jon Craig on Sky's Boulton & Co blog: Only one person emerges from the Baby P tragedy with credit: the Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone. Throughout this tawdry affair, in which the conduct of Haringey Council - Labour-run since 1971 - has been scandalous and the Government's response sluggish until after the Brown-Cameron clash, she [...]
My latest Guardian blog - with thoughts on Remembrance Sunday and Government climbdowns - is now online.
So the Chancellor thinks the recession will be over by 2010.... ... that's certainly what Labour will be hoping, given the likely date of the next General Election. Meanwhile the Governor of the Bank of England told the BBC it's "very difficult to know precisely how long we'll be in recession." [...]
I see the atheist bus ad idea has now taken off in the US, too. Their slogan is less amusing, albeit probably more effective.
Camilla Cavendish has a truly dreadful piece in The Times which is an eloquent testimony to the right's politicisation of the Baby P death; "We have always had an underclass. We have never tried so hard before to help people out of it. Yet our efforts have backfired." "In my bleaker moments I feel that the welfare state has pulled off a truly brilliant stunt: not only has it managed to institutionalise shamelessness among people who might once have been forced to take heed of social taboos." "I recently bumped into a man I know who grew up in care. ...
Hat-tip to Ampersand for this hilarious memo. Having had a secretary who had concerns of this type, I'm inclined to believe that a company might well decide to respond to this kind of thing, although it's difficult to be sure; there's no mention of the issue on the Recognition Systems website. The memo was previously read on Michael Feldman's What D'Ya Know? show in 2004, as part of a regular segment called "Thanks for the Memos", which the Interweb seems to think are generally real memos contributed by listeners. Google also brings up quite a few sites that confirm the ...
I'm not going to get into the in and outs or Harringay's dubious role in this (Lynne Featherstone provides good coverage of this). One thing got my goat though. Yesterday I was in London, so got the Evening Standard and the front page had a big picture of the Sharon Shoesmith, the head of Childrens' Services at Harringay at Ascot, "Weeks after boy's death she enjoys day at the races". This was last year. It also [sarcasm]shockingly reveals[/sarcasm] that she "enjoyed a holiday with her own children in New York and Los Angeles"! This awful journalism makes me so angry! ...
Tonight is the third Bury Liberal Democrats Annual Dinner, at the Woodthorpe Hotel in Prestwich. The guest of honour will be Greg Mulholland, the MP for Leeds North West and our Shadow Health and Older People's spokesman. It's always great to have a visiting MP in our midst, and Mr Mulholland is no exception. This promises to be the biggest annual dinner ever, as we have sold more tickets this time than ever before. It will be a great evening I'm sure, and fantastic to see so many local supporters and activists. After the dinner itself, whilst the obligatory profiteroles ...
At Spiked online and on his own blog, Richard Webster points out that the conclusions of Jersey police's recent statement 'could in fact have been reached by any journalist who had sceptically studied the evidence about Haut de la Garenne already in the public domain'. Webster was of course responsible for exposing the falsehood of the police's original claim that a child's skull had been found at the former children's home. I hope to post at greater length on this issue (when I get around to it, as the saying is), but suffice to say for now that given the ...
Back in June I described the Labour Government's latest threat to the Post Offices of this country. I know that some of you sent in postcards as part of the campaign. On Monday of this week the Liberal Democrats led an Opposition Day debate on the future of the Post Office Card Account. An Early Day Motion calling on the government to support the Post Offices by keeping the card account with
One of Islington's most unusual spaces, and one of my favourites, is the New River Walk in Canonbury. It follows the route of the New River, a canal branching from the River Lea that brought fresh water into Islington and Finsbury from Hertfordshire, passing through Canonbury, then on via Duncan Terrace to Sadlers Wells. [...]
The Conservatives have expelled Den Dover, the Conservative former Chief Whip in the European parliament, after the Strasbourg authorities ruled that he had breached its rules and demanded that he pay back just over £500,000.
This EDM is at the nub of the issue recent deteriorations in child protection practise. The government is proposing to look at how well the changes have been implemented. We need to look as to whether the changes were the right thing to do. I would not go about reorganising local authorities again. I would, however, move away from ticking boxes towards visiting people.
The last few days have seen the conviction of those responsible for the terrible death of baby P, along with the death of two young children in Manchester, apparently stabbed in the stomach by their mentally unstable mother. Suddenly, and understandably, people who normally complain about too much state interference in people's lives are now concerned that there's too little. There will be lessons to be learned and improvements to be made. But, as always, we need to be very careful in jumping to the conclusion that the state, and we as a society, has failed if a single child ...
There are many - so many - questions about the death of Baby P rattling about in my mind. About how on earth any fellow human being could inflict those cruelties on him. About how safety net after safety net could fail to protect him. Increasingly there is one question looking to me as key to understanding what went wrong - it's around the four plus months gap between a decision that Baby P needed to be seen be a paediatrician and that actually happening. Haringey's report own report tells us: "From March, a main element of the child protection ...
Chinese authorities have arrested the founder of the New Democracy Party (New People's Party) Guo Quan in Nanjing on charges of subversion of state power. He has been arrested several times in the past since founding the party last year but the charge of subversion is one the Chinese authorities often use to imprisons dissidents for years. He is a well known blogger, though now removed, and he is accused of being 'too radical' he radicalness in recent days has been for blogging about the need for democratic change in the world's most populous nation. He had also threatened to ...
I was most probably a bit harsh on Waterstones yesterday. After all it was not their fault that a group of fundamentalist Christians were poised to descend on their store and disrupt a poetry reading. I can understand that they would not want their staff and their premises subjected to the sort of disruption that this fringe group were threatening. Christian Voice's actions on the other hand amount to the sort of moral bullying and censorship that has no place in a democratic society. Stephen Green and his supporters have every right to object to the contents of Patrick Jones' ...
When I wrote my first blog posting about the issue of Baby P I really didn't want too because I could all too quickly see it getting out of hand. Part of my anger about what David Cameron did was that I felt it was deeply reckless and deeply irresponsible for a leader who wants to be Prime Minister to 'fan the flames'. What is more while it is true that Gordon Brown does have a tin ear I am beginning to feel this issue is becoming far too emotive. So, naturally when people like Guido slammed Brown for being ...
Every so often the editorial team at LDV towers inadvertantly posts something that ordinary people actually find interesting. Unaccountably, this is never about Land Value Tax, proportional representation or Trident. The stats graph buckles and the thread concerned fills with - usually - anger of some kind. This first happened way before my time with the thread about social workers breaking [...]
13th November 2008 A wonderful evening attending the open evening at Stockton Sixth Form College. Lots of really interesting subject to do; brilliant displays; keen and eager prospective students as well as existing one's and staff. Gives me some hope for the future, but I was reluctant to leave and would happily have spent the night in the library (or the more modern word...
