So, yes, my trip to London was to go to El Presidente's campaign team thanks bash. It was all (well, mostly) very civilised, and there was wine, and cats, and Brian Eno, and Lebanese food, and naked Jason Donovan. And I learned a few guilty secrets (Grace Goodlad is a SCOOTERIST!) chatted to various people (hello Helen and Susan!) and drank much wine. I managed to quash my feelings of being surrounded by My Betters for most of the time (apart from running away from Brian Eno very soon after shaking hands with him) and ended up having a really ...
Today Ed Balls told the Commons (I'll link to Hansard when the transcript is in place tomorrow: for now try here): The hon. Gentleman [Michael Gove] will know, as I wrote to him and to the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) this morning, that yesterday I endeavoured to see whether I was able to release the full, confidential, serious case review to parliamentarians, but the clear professional advice given to me was that that would be the wrong thing to do, given the ruling of the Information Commissioner and the importance of making sure that in future, serious case ...
It's been a bit of a whisky week. Let me explain. A few months ago, I set some blackberry whisky brewing. To make it, you get some blackberries and stick them in a storage jar then pour in a bottle of cheap whisky. Then add some sugar, close the jar and leave to stand for 3 months at which point strain off the liquid and bottle it. This did of course leave me with a large quantity of whisky
From the Shropshire Star: County man linked to £20 drug raidSadly, if you read the accompanying story it is clear that this is not another sign of the essential innocence of rural Shropshire. They mean £20 million.
To celebrate World Philosophy Day, here is a short film about Richard Rorty.Rorty died last year - you may also want to read his Daily Telegraph obituary.
How's this for tag lag? Lynne Featherstone tagged me with this meme 14 months ago. Better late than never - and there's nothing like a meme to get me blogging. My first political memory was probably from November 1990. (I definitely helped deliver leaflets in an election prior to 1997 but I don't know if it was 1987 or 1992 - or, I suppose, whether it was a general election at all.) I was in my first year of secondary school when Margaret Thatcher was seriously challenged for the leadership of the Conservative Party. What with her being PM - ...
To Glasgow tonight, for a mainly-Scottish edition of the BBC's Question Time (BBC1 and online, 10.35 pm GMT), where the Lib Dems' recently elected Scottish leader, Tavish Scott MSP, will appear. Joining Tavish on the panel will be: Labour's Secretary of State for Scotland, Jim Murphy; deputy first minister of Scotland the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon; shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Tory Philip Hammond; and Daily Mail columnist, the fragrant Melanie Phillips. Now let me think... which of those is most likely to annoy LDV readers? Well, remember: if you're tuning in to watch, don't get angry, get commenting. This ...
"50,000 cheap homes on way" booms tonight's Evening Standard referring to Boris Johnson's housing strategy which was launched today. We'll see. Those much closer to the action think that with the collapse of the housebuilding industry, the actual number over the next 3 years will be nearer the 20,000 mark. The Standard's Architecture Critic, Rowan Moore, described the strategy as "practical, undogmatic, avoiding the grand gesture, hard to disagree with." It certainly has a motherhood and apple pie feel to it and wouldn't be out of place in the Lib Dem policy library. But the difficult issues have been deferred. ...
Some of the last pieces of the November 4th US election are falling into place. Felonious Republican Ted Stevens has conceded the Alaska senate race to Democrat Mark Begich. Missouri has finally declared for John McCain by just over three thousand votes out of 2.5 million - a major achievement for Obama - leaving Obama with more than twice as many Electoral College Votes as McCain in the final
We took our daughter down to Priory Meadow for her first Christmas Lights this evening. There was a pleasingly large crowd to see the Peter Pan cast (the light turner-onners) from the White Rock panto and the fireworks. We've even got the Christmas decorations up at work. Only 35 days to go!
On Monday, my daughter and I spent a really wonderful couple of hours at the Parchment Trust in Nelson Road, Hastings. The Trust also has a horticultural project up on The Ridge, which I hope to visit early in the new year. The Nelson Road HQ provides the opportunity for people across a broad spectrum of learning [...]
I've been pondering which of the news stories that caught my attention over the past couple of days to blog about. Lack of time due to the by-election which I am involved in means I can't cover all of them. That means I'm keeping my counsel on John Sergeant's departure from Strictly! One of the biggest stories this week has been the publication of a "membership" list of the BNP on the internet. First things first - I have no intention on publishing where people can find the details of the BNP list, nor do I condone what the people ...
Thu 20th
20:53
Andover's new Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) opens at 8:00am on Wednesday 3 December 2008
Andover's new Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) located in Scott Close, on the Walworth Industrial Estate, will open to the public at 8:00am on Wednesday 3 December 2008. The existing Household Waste Recycling Centre at Shepherds Spring Lane will close permanently at 4:00pm on Tuesday 2 December 2008. Diversion signs will be in use to redirect users from the old HWRC to the new site once it is up and running. The new centre's opening hours will remain the same as those of the existing facility. County Councillor Robin Hughes said, "After several years of waiting, a bigger and better ...
Am home from London. Met many cool people, had good time, would have liked to stay longer, if only to point and laugh at Hopalong Ball a bit more. Ros and Mark incredibly gracious hosts, cats very cool. Longer post in a bit when I've had something to eat and a bath and read my 84 emails...
This is fantastic scheme run by a literacy charity. They give every Year seven child a free book after giving them information on a choice of a dozen books.
We're learning a lot about Brian Paddick during our annual extended jungle fix. Tonight we learnt that he loves Blue and has two of their videos on his iPod. He was chatting to two of the gals about Simon Webbe and we heard him express admiration for...er.....the product of the man's workouts. We've also seen a decent side to Brian. He was seething about Robert Kilroy-Silk (or "Silksie", as Joe
The most depressing thing I have read today is the contribution of Dr Ray Jones to a brief Guardian symposium on the baby Peter case. He is professor of social work at Kingston University and St. Georges University of London and a former director of social services. Jones writes: When the media and public bigots, zealots and hypocrites are out on their witch hunts is probably not the best time for measured reflection about child protection. But there is a danger that politicians, afraid of their own public lynching, will give in to the mob.No doubt there have been reactions ...
Thank you to the kind people at Birkdale Focus for drawing my attention to Paula Parry, the leader of the Conservative group on Sefton council. According to the Southport Visiter, she said of the disgraced Tory MEP Den Dover: "I'm sure he's not broken the law, but possibly been creative with his expenses."
I'm still recovering from yesterday's marathon council session. I had to leave early to be at Moorside primary's school governor's meeting, but nevertheless I was at the council from 7.30am (for a 9.30 start) until 6pm. Council was a powerful example of how pointless the scrutiny process is. The scrutiny process, which is supposed to provide [...]
The forums are currently closed whilst some maintenance is done, as soon as they are back up this post will be updated. 20:01 The forums are now back up. You might have noticed that the URL has now changed to forum.libdemvoice.org. You should be automatically redirected by your browser when using your bookmarks, however you will need to re-enter your username and password as the cookies have changed.
Christmas Park and Ride has been operating for two weeks already, and it will carry on through the January Sales until 17th Jan. The idea is simple. You can park for free at Chessington World of Adventures, then take the special non-stop bus to the centre of Kingston. The buses run every 10 minutes and the return fare is £1.50 (free, of course, for under 16s), so it's much cheaper and...
I have been involved in two debates this week which have drawn together broadly similar themes. One was over on Liberal Democrat Voice on it's popular thread reporting on the Baby P case and the second one has been on Liberal Conspiracy in response to the leaked British National Party membership lists. Let's start with the 'naming and shaming' of the parents of Baby P. Of course, what these people did does make them 'cruel viel killers' but, as David Osler rightly points out on his blog; "reporting restrictions in court cases are usually imposed for good reasons, including the ...
It is looking more and more certain that the new US administration will make a big push on health reform in 2009. This will be a huge domestic debate in the USA that will have big international repercussions. Our own dear NHS will certainly figure in this debate as an inspiration or bogey as participants choose. So it might be well worth our while to keep in touch with what is going on. Who know we might learn something - pick up ideas for change or perhaps even learn to appreciate more what we have got. According to the Boston ...
Nick Clegg's proposal yesterday for the government to lend directly to companies through the Post Office, local authorities or even by creating an entirely new bank triggered a vigorous debate here on Lib Dem Voice. One group which has given it a very warm welcome is the Federation of Small Businesses - witness this report from myfinances.co.uk: Spokesperson for the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), Stephen Alambritis, said: "We support the intervention of the Liberal Democrats leader. The banks are not coming up with the goods despite the bank recapitalisation. We agree small businesses should have more alternatives." The FSB ...
Oh dear - it seems that the lingering bitterness caused by the aftermath of the Trump affair is continuing to cause ructions. I really don't like criticising Lib Dem colleagues in public, but this whole sorry affair is causing damage to the party. And that damage could cost us seats, in Aberdeenshire itself at the next council elections, and possibly parliamentary seats as well. Now, I'm looking at things from the outside and I don't know all the ins and outs of what's been going on in Aberdeenshire. But I do know that Debra Storr and the other Lib Dems ...
The local Guardian newspaper has the full story of an anoymous dirty tricks campaign targeting the Lib Dems: A BY-ELECTION campaign has taken a disturbing twist with a sinister leaflet claiming Liberal Democrats want to legalise paedophilia being pushed through voters' doors. The alarming development threatens to mar the Hale End & Highams Park poll, which is expected to be a close race between the Lib Dems and Conservatives. The leaflets, which have been delivered to homes across the ward including homes in Beacontree Avenue, Hill Crest Road and Beech Hall, contain a message claiming to be written by disgraced ...
There's no shortage of "what we can learn from Obama" lessons at the moment. It won't be long till all the "the making of the president" type books come out, full of interviews with insiders and profound polls and focus group findings. For now, if you only read one article, make it this one from Drew Westen, author of The Political Brain. Drew Westen reminds us that Obama didn't win by peppering voters with facts, figures, and policy positions and assuming voters would make a rational choice between bundles of plans. He de feated Hilary Clinton and then John McCain ...
A fortnight ago, Lib Dem Voice published the unconfirmed results of our competition to predict the electoral college outcome of the race to be the next President of the USA. At the time of writing, we assumed Missouri's 11 votes would end up in Senator McCain's Republican column; and that's now been confirmed. (Bang goes the Big Mo's 'bellweather' status for predicting Presidential winners). However, in the interim, President-elect Obama picked up one of Nevada's electoral votes. All of which to-ing and fro-ing gives a final electoral college tot-up of Obama 365, McCain 173. But none of which changes the ...
Thursday nights in October. With the quistlets packed off to bed and Mrs Quist out enjoying herself, I'd settle down to watch Never Mind the Buzzcocks - intellectual viewing at its finest. Here's the stupid bit coming up, so watch carefully. Blink and you'll miss it. After Never Mind the Buzzcocks, I started seeing opening credits for a programme called Beautiful People. "Oh", I thought to myself, cunningly making my mind up in just a few seconds, "that must be some reality TV show or fly-on-the-wall thing about celebs". "How dull", I thought. "Let's turn over". It took a stuffed ...
Nick Clegg is calling for the millions of pounds that the government spends on it's 'Train to Gain' scheme should be redirected to save apprenticeships during the recession. Government funding for the programme is set to leap £130 million to £925 million next year. Clegg said; "The economic climate means it's not just inefficient to continue with Train to Gain, it's downright perverse You cannot focus resources on employer-centred training when people are losing their jobs by the thousand. It's the people who are out of work who need the most help. It is now clear that many people are ...
Questions about Nick Clegg's various internet presences regularly come my way, so here's a handy quick list of the key resources: www.nickclegg.com - Nick Clegg's site for his job as leader of the Liberal Democrats, including his latest stories (which you can comment on), full text of speeches and details of his forthcoming public meetings. www.nickclegg.org.uk - Nick Clegg's site for his job as MP for Sheffield Hallam. Facebook page - where you can sign up as fan of Nick Clegg and follow his work via Facebook. Nick also has a profile, though generally people are encouraged to sign up ...
Richard Webster's blog inlcudes an interesting discussion of the treatment of the 'murder inquiry that wasn't' in last week's press. He pertinently points out that ...the invocation of evil is too often used to justify all manner of shortcomings on the part of those who crusade against it. Because, in our own culture, we seem to have adopted child abuse as our ultimate evil, the assumption is frequently made that actions which are less than entirely scrupulous can be justified so long as they are aimed at defeating this evil. While the conspiracy theorists are letting rip about cover-ups and ...
Missouri has finally been declared, for McCain. McCain won by just 3,632 votes.
The leader of Barnet Council Cllr Mike Freer (also Tory PPC for Finchley and Golders Green) has a chequered career when it comes to blogging. His first attempt was in a blog on the Hendon Times Group website. This was free and presumably reached a wide audience. However Cllr Freer withdrew from that blog when a shiny new blog started up with its own domain name 'leaderlistens.com'. At the last council meeting I asked a number of questions about his new blog. Why? Because it is costing the council tax payers of Barnet £400. Not a huge sum of money ...
Full Council There were four motions to be debated at this meeting of the full council. The first to be debated was the motion of no confidence in the Executive Member for Children, Young People and Learning Services brought by Independent Councillor David Theobald. Everyone was aware that Cllr. Theobald had brought this motion because of [...]
I don't really know what to say about the meeting of the Resources, performance etc committee other than can I have two hours of my life back please. The first part of the meeting consisted of looking at various performance indicators. A third of these indicators have no data and many of the rest are linked with the performance of other agencies, so there was very little to comment on. We then talked about setting up a working party to look at the events surrounding the potential loss of £27.4 million pounds that Barnet invested in Icelandic banks. Working parties ...
I thought my fellow Lib Dems might find this rather hilarious. A Conservative blaming the media for their message 'not getting across'. Shadow Treasury spokesperson, Justine Greening, told the Daily Politics show that; "Because it's being very packed in the media we haven't had the opportunity to get our message across. There's no whispering campaign against George Osborne." So, it appears we are not the only party with problems in this area. It also appears Greening doesn't read many papers because she seems to have missed the various Tories calling for Osborne's replacement. She also doesn't seem to take much ...
This is actually quite funny. It is however getting sillier and sillier. Hat Tip: Dizzy Thinks
Christmas shopping is looming... and more of us are doing it online. Looking for green and ethical gifts? Nigel's Eco Store has lots of green gadgets and toys - including 'London in a bag'. The Natural Collection proves that being green doesn't mean a hair shirt approach: gifts include a chocolate hamper... Sites where you [...]
Research published in summer shows that Wales has the highest level of teenage drinking in Europe. Last month, figures were released which showed worrying rates of under-age sexual activity. In giving a cautious welcome to the proposal by Karen Jones, Head of Change Management for the County Borough, put before the Social Care Health and Housing scrutiny committee and cabinet board last week, to hold scrutiny-driven workshops to look at aspects of social care and health starting in the New Year, Liberal Democrat Councillor Frank Little stressed the need for a multi-disciplinary approach. He instanced the impact on health of ...
Two very different meetings this week. On Tuesday I, and other councillors, went to a meeting for Regulation 33 visitors. This is basically a regulation involving montly unannounced visits to children's homes. They are done by elected members who then write a report. It's part of making sure we provide a good service to our looked after children. I used to do this a few years ago and stopped for a while, but am re starting now and will be visiting Prescot Drive (which provides short breaks for disabled children) again. A good meeting I felt - lots of useful ...
Tuesday: First Mr Balloon warns of the Labour's Tax Bombshell... catchy, now where've I heard THAT before? ...and then he ditches another promise. Sigh. It's not as though they have THAT many policies TO abandon! Hopefully that's the end of all that "the cupboard is bare" nonsense, now that Mr Balloon has discovered the ACTUAL cupboard stuffed full of juicy spending commitments. But he's opened himself up to death-by-salami-tactics again; now that Conservatory Cuts are back on, Mr Frown will be doing the REVERSE-PRIME-MONSTER'S-QUESTIONS again with tricky one like: "So, uhh, are you going to be cutting the NHS, then?" ...
The Fitzjohn's Avenue Sustainable Streetscape Project seems to me to be progressing extremely well. Some of you may remember that the Fitzjohn's Blue Skies Group, as it became known, brought together members of the Sustainability Task Force (who also happened to be ward members affected by the School Run), the Fitzjohn's Residents Association, STAG (the parents group) and the Camden Cycling Campaign. The Blue Skies Group developed out of a meeting of the School Run Review Body, which I was invited to address, and was an attempt to move on from the acrimonious row over parking permits. We met a ...
It may be less than two weeks since the count, but I've been so busy, that it already seems like a long time ago. But the campaign isn't over until you've had a Party, and last night was it. So many people have helped me during the campaign, some putting in an astonishing amount of work , that a Party almost feels inadequate as a way of saying thank you. Holding an event in central London was the only practical thing to to, and I'm sorry that meant that many of the people who helped out couldn't make it. But ...
I am supporting Amnesty International's call for action to avert the continuing crisis facing the DR Congo. That means welcoming the commitment that Gordon Brown has made to support a request put to the UN Security Council by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to add a further 3,000 soldiers to the 17,000 strong force currently stationed in the DRC. It also means urging the UK to encourage other members of the UN Security Council to also offer their support by the time they next meet to discuss the deployment of peacekeepers later this month. In particular it means urging the UK ...
Earlier this week, Nick Clegg called for urgent action to make more funds available for businesses and mortgages, saying that, "We need to do something and do something fast. We have to look at ways to get money back into the real economy". Robert Peston has blogged today about some of the issues behind this problem: The primary motive of the £400bn of additional taxpayer support provided last month by the Treasury was to prevent the collapse of the banking system (and really it wasn't such a bad thing to prevent a meltdown of most of our banks). Or to ...
From the BBC: Eight out of 10 social workers who responded to a poll think new managers should be brought in at Haringey Council in the wake of Baby P's death. The Community Care website survey also found 86% of 250 respondents felt that the case of Baby P reflected wider childcare protection problems... Community Care is a website and magazine for people working in the social care sector, at all levels of seniority. Its readers' poll found that 79% of respondents felt new managers should be brought in at Haringey Council following the Baby P case... Deputy editor Emma ...
The Gazette reports that disabled children in Cape Town have been given 140 wheelchairs after a fundraising drive by Chipping Sodbury Rotary Club.
So, a week ago I said blogging might be light as I needed to recharge my brain. Turns out it wasn't just my brain. A few days after writing that post I discovered the cause of my malaise: Something I like to call a "Sinus Lemming" has crawled into my left maxillary sinus (that's 'cheek') and promptly commited suicide. Its rotting corpse is swollen and bloated to a size that is, in effect, larger than the available space in my pesky skull cavity, causing rather excruciating toothache and headaches. In the Victorian era, people would, in desperation, turn to denists ...
From The Stupid Times: Party leader Nick Griffin has called for the British people to show tolerance and understanding of his fellow racists amid reports that those named in the leaked document have received threatening and abusive phone calls and emails. Griffin, a self proclaimed white supremacist who has spent his life spreading fear and terror [...]
Today the Government is announcing a review of the points system for speeding. Also being considered are measures to reduce drink-driving and drug-driving and, of course, the use of speed cameras is rarely out of the news. These may all be good things, but there is a problem - a trap that all the political parties fall into. The trap is to measure success by the number of deaths and injuries on the roads: the lower the number, the better we're doing. When it goes down, everyone cheers and says "but we need to do even better". When it goes ...
To Celebrate the 10th Anniversary of User Friendly, Mickey Mouse's 80th Birthday and Noddy's upcoming 60th Birthday celebrations (will if he'll abondon driving his car once he's eleigible for a bus pass) I've deciding to lighten up a little bit. Thus like all good news outlets I've added my own comic section with links to daily updates of my favourite current running cartoons. This criteria means that Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts repeats miss the cut, at least for now.
This year's West End Christmas Week takes place next week and will be launched this Saturday (22nd November) with a West End Community Safety Event, taking place at Blackness Fire Station on Blackness Road between 11am and 3pm. This family safety event is hosted by the West End Community Council and Community Spirit Action Group and all local residents are invited to come along. Next Wednesday, 26th November, at 6.15pm in Dundee West Church, this year's West End Christmas Concert - "Lights On at Dundee West" - takes place. There will be musical contributions from all local primary and secondary ...
Two events this week have exposed the problems with data protection in the internet age. On the one hand we had the widespread publication of the identities of the parents of Baby P despite a court injunction. Now we have the widespread publication of the leaked BNP membership lists which are still widely available despite a court injunction. I have made no bones about the fact that I think the publication of both things was wrong. In the case of Baby P's parents it moved beyond the question of whether people could be trusted and into the realms of whether ...
The time story reports Ofsted's report into child deaths from abuse. This figure gives around 200 a year rather than the government's 100 a year (80+). The report is available here. Quoting from the report Since April 2007, Ofsted has been responsible for receiving notifications of serious incidents involving children and for evaluating the quality of serious case reviews. Between 1 April 2007
The latest comments from Norman Quirk of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce on Local Income Tax have drawn two different responses from the Labour Blogosphere. His comments that it would be "the wrong tax at the wrong time" and further and more disturbingly that it would be a "tax on labour" I'll deal with in a bit but first the Labour responses. First there is former Railways Minister Tom Harris, who churns out yet again the old Labour line that LIT is people paying more income tax. Sad but true that Labour have for the last 11 years thought that ...
Yes, dear readers, your blogger me, myself and I is 17 years old today and still wont be able to vote in the June coming elections. I will be able to drive from today onwards but not express my voice as a citizen using the ballot. At least I have the blog to voice my opinions!
I recently reported that my Liberal Democrat News column House Points has developed a curse. Both Jonathan Ross and George Osborne have been struck down by it. Now it has claimed a third victim: Anne Moffat, the Labour MP for East Lothian. Back in April I wrote: I know what's wrong with the Labour Party these days. It's called Anne Moffat and sits in the House of Commons for East Lothian.Her crime? Attacking the saintly Norman Baker, that's what. Now J. Arthur McNumpty reports that she has fallen foul of her local party: when discussions started regarding her re-selection, it ...
Anatole Kaletsky writes in The Times: The Tories have chosen this moment to self-destruct, leaving no plausible alternative to Labour, and nobody, apart from the redoubtable Vince Cable, to challenge Mr Brown's delusions of grandeur - or potential economic misjudgments. Talleyrand's famous remark about the House of Bourbon - that they had "learnt nothing and forgotten nothing" - seems to apply with equal force to David Cameron's Conservatives after their repeated decapitations since 1992. Last week George Osborne showed that he had learnt nothing, by foolishly identifying the recent weakness of sterling with the alleged weakness of the British economy ...
A Carolyn Davison from Carmarthen takes issue with my views on freedom of speech in today's Western Mail. She is entitled to her opinion. She asks what example I am setting to 'our youth' by inviting Patrick Jones into the National Assembly: Surely promoting responsibility and a caring attitude towards others should be a priority rather than putting others down to make oneself feel better! If this man is a Christian, as he claims he is, then he should be putting others' thoughts, feelings and beliefs before himself. Christian Voice did not consider the feelings of others when they sought ...
The BBC report that veteran Republican Senator, Ted Stevens has finally lost his bid for a seventh term in office after a knife-edge race against Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. The Democratic candidate led the Senate's longest-serving Republican by 3,724 after Tuesday's count, with only 2,500 overseas votes to be tallied. It is the first time Alaska has elected a Democrat to the Senate for 30 years. Mr. Begich's election also means that a possible route for Sarah Palin to get to Washington DC has been closed down. Mr Stevens was convicted last month of lying about gifts he had received ...
The snow has come to Tallinn, and after a rather warm and not very snowy winter last year, the Estonians are hoping that this year will revert to the traditional cold, snowy and crisp season that allows people to ski most of the time. This year we have even seen early snow in London. So, despite the undoubted issue of Carbon Dioxide emissions, we could still be in for a colder than average winter across Europe. Indeed, the global slowdown will certainly reduce the emission both of CO2 and heat into the atmosphere- and thus, as in the recession year ...
After the first step of Westminster freeing up the process from any possible referral to the monopolies and mergers commission yesterday the shareholders of Lloyds-TSB voted overwhelmingly to go ahead with the proposed acquisition of HBoS. The vote was backed by 95.98% at a meeting in Glasgow yesterday, which drew two groups of protestors - the Scottish Liberal Democrats, who want HBOS to remain independent, and the Unite union, who want job stability for employees of both banks. No showing by the SNP who's leader has already vowed to do anything he can to stop this takeover, except of course ...
For those of you who don't know me, I really dislike the way the majority of people involved in student politics behave. The movement often seems to be run by juvenile people only interested in their future career or making their narrow political point. It also doesn't help that most of them are members of the Labour party! Saying all that, I attended NUS extraordinary conference in
For those who don't know, the full UK membership list for the BNP was published online on Sunday evening. After the BNP called in the lawyers the list was removed but it is now effectively public knowledge and I still know places on the internet where I could find and download it now. I have to admit that when I first saw this story I was pretty amazed. For a brief moment I felt sorry for the
Sunday: So Mr Frown struts the world stage, master of all he surveys, and brings us a world summit pledge to "restore growth" (also, presumably, cure Cancer, achieve World Peace and above all resurrect the Golden Goose returning things to normal). All jolly good as far as it goes. The only problem being it hasn't actually GONE anywhere yet; all of this TALK is JUST TALK. The summit HASN'T arrived at any agreement. The economic indicators are still all set to BLEAK. And the bankers are still paying themselves BONUSES while foreclosing on businesses and homeowners. This ain't over yet! ...
