Even among Labour backbenchers, the MP for Edinburgh South stands out. Guido Fawkes has the story.
I don't go to the football very often, but I do vaguely follow my local team. So, as of this evening, Mister Mat can officially claim the label football widow. My brother came up to see Town play Leyton Orient, and to give me a spin in his Carver (which is AWESOME! Pictures later...) and offered to take me along to the match. Since it's our centenary this year, I thought I ought to go to at least ONE game, so I said yes. mcgillianaire posted recently about how emotional and amazing it was to be in the Kop while ...
Another triumph for the Johnson family. Boris's sister Rachel has defeated Alastair Campbell, amongst others, to win this year's Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction award. The magazine's deputy editor Tom Fleming said of her work: "It's a mixture of cliché and euphemism, but it's also very spirited - A plus for effort." If you go to the Guardian website you can judge for yourself.
I can't claim to have been especially close to Neil Trafford, but learning of his death quite upset me this evening. Neil and I were roughly the same age and the same generation politically. Our paths criss-crossed - he was involved in LDYS when I was more heavily involved in Manchester politics and he became involved in Manchester when I was more heavily involved in LDYS. I first got to know him in a meaningful way when I came up to help in the Manchester local elections in 2000. Neil always impressed me as a passionate and professional campaigner. More ...
Just a reminder that tomorrow (Wednesday) sees the West End Christmas Lights being switched on in Dundee. 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 schools. A welcome to the Concert will come from Lord Provost John Letford and the Concert will be hosted by Rev Andrew Greaves. At 7pm, the West End Christmas Lights will be switched on at Seabraes by Ally Bally of Radio Tay, ably assisted by Dame Trott and Fairy Twinkletoes from ...
From Associated Press: Armenia won its second straight gold medal at the Chess Olympiad Tuesday by defeating China 2.5-1.5 in the 11th and final round.Armenia's only win came on board four where Tigran L. Petrosian beat Li Chao. Armenia finished the tournament alone in first place with 19 points. Two points are awarded for each match win and one for a tie.Israel took silver with 18 points after beating the Netherlands 2.5-1.5.The United States took bronze on a tiebreaker after upsetting second-seed Ukraine with a 3.5-0.5 drubbing, getting wins from Gata Kamsky against Vassily Ivanchuk on board one, Alexander Onischuk ...
Many of the people I care about are mourning the sudden death of a friend who I didn't know, but was by all accounts an extraordinary force for hope and good and optimism and cheefulness in his too short life. I find this song by Kristin Chenoweth, who played Annabeth Schott in The West Wing a poignant and powerful celebration of the way friends can influence and change each other's lives. My love and sympathy go to all my friends affected by this dreadful event. LibDig This!
LDV does a good job of summing up the PBR. • VAT to be cut from 17.5% to 15% from Monday until 2010 • Top rate of income tax to rise to 45% on those earning more than £150,000 - the top 1% of earners - from 2011 • Allowances to be raised, so this will be worth £145 a year to 22 million basic-rate taxpayers • National Insurance to rise by 0.5% on all rates of national insurance from 2011 No. Not good enough Mr Darling. The government IS going to borrow far too much. The sheer scale of ...
A productive day of meetings, making phone calls and dealing with e mails ended with my last meeting as a member of the Federal Finance and Administration Committee, although next year I'll be entitled to attend all of the various committees as President. Now there's a prospect to relish. I went into the Chamber to listen to the Commons response to our amendments to the Planning Bill. There's been a running issue about the fact that the Community Infrastructure Levy was in the bill only in outline form, with all the detail being left to secondary legislation at a later ...
Over the last week, Lib Dem Voice has invited 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 party and the current state of British politics. Many thanks to the 200+ of you who completed it; we're publishing the results this week on LDV. Tonight we look at what you consider to be the most important issues facing the UK. A word of explanation about the categories that were presented as options: they were based on Mori's political ...
The Council is currently asking people for their views on dog control orders. I seem to be receiving an increasing number of complaints about dog fouling and also incidents of dog fighting - though I know this is due to the actions of a small minority of dog-owners. There's more info and a chance to give your views on the Council website. The consultation closes on Tuesday 9th December.
If you are wondering what I am talking about then you need to go over to Iain Dale's blog and read his post about Adam Boulton and how he will spend the first four months of next year looking at the first 100 days of Obama. Now this is all well and good as Sky will be paying for his trip and they can definitely afford it, but I have one question: Which freelance blogger will be going to America to cover it? They probably isn't one as the problem is that we don't have the money to fly to ...
There was a sense of self-denial on the Plaid Cymru side of the Assembly chamber today as they sat there and watched their One Wales Government effectively propose the introduction of top-up tuition fees for Welsh students from 2010. Something that Plaid Cymru have fought against for years. Instead we are going to get a confused means-tested bursary system and a supposed investigation into student debt. The Government's problem is that, as in England, the bursary system will not prevent poorer debt-averse students being put off going to University by the prospect of paying £3,000 plus annual fees on top ...
It was announced today that Neil Trafford died on Sunday following a road accident. Neil was the campaigns officer for the North West region. I have known him for some years and saw him last week when he came into Cowley St. He was a first class campaigner and had made a significant contribution to the party, especially in the North West.It is a great tragedy that such a young and talented person
So says "Gender Analyzer". I regard this high praise for my writing style. There is one slight snag, however. If you vote to say whether or not they have got the gender right, you see that only 53% say yes - they got it right, against 47% saying they got it wrong. That means that whatever software they are using is only 6% better than tossing a coin.
Would someone please reassure me that the sign below is not something the Council is really wasting its time doing? {fail owned pwned pictures} see more pwn and owned pictures I mean seriously. Laminated signs with hole punches? They're not nearly sufficiently weather-proof enough for that sort of use. Makes much more sense just to remove the bench to be on the safe side.
Forget the nationalisation of the banks, what is needed to stave off economic depression is state ownership of the media. We have talked ourselves into recession. Every morning we awake to newspaper headlines and radio and TV stories of redundancies, repossessions and runs on the financial markets. Even the good news like when M&S and John Lewis run fantastic 20% off sales is reported as evidence of more doom and gloom. Imagine if all this was covered up. Imagine if you awoke this morning to news that Comrade Darling had cut VAT by 2.5% and would be investing billions in ...
There are some days when I am so busy with work and the rest of my life that I completely forget to think of anything to write on here. Thankfully it is days like this that the Lib Dem website was made for, because I can reflect on what we've been doing nationally rather than what I've been doing locally. And today... Too few men are working in childcare because of the stigma attached to men working with young children, Nick Clegg has said in a speech to the Daycare Trust.In a speech to the Daycare Trust about the vital ...
As Labour ministers go, I've often found Alan Johnson one of the more tolerable ones. He can come across as a human being, and even on occasion answers the question. So in many ways I'd rather not have heard his interview with Eddie Mair on PM earlier, where Mr Johnson was an unspeakably smug shit, far more interested in partisan point-scoring than in helping people with mental health problems. He patently just didn't give a toss about mental health, smug, dismissive and bringing up an issue which has been shamefully ignored by Labour only to attack hapless Tory Andrew Lansley. ...
"It is difficult to see how any power, any authority, on earth could have stopped them from doing what they did." The more-or-less official view from Labour, as given by Cllr Harry Lister, who seconded the motion at the full council last night defending the tragic failure of those responsible for the care of Baby P. Lynne Featherstone (and my colleague Ed Butcher) have blogged about the often farcical proceedings at Haringey council last night to debate the tragedy of Baby P. See here. I seconded a motion tabled by Lib Dem Leader Robert Gorrie calling for the resignation of ...
As you might be aware, Manor House Library will be re-opening in 2009 after major refurbishment. As well as a fully-refurbished library, there'll be a number of rooms available for hire. I've been asked by a member of the Manor House Project Board to draw this to your attention as there might be groups or individuals which might like to make use of these facilities - and if there are, it'd be great to get the building in full use from day one. The leaflet reads as follows: The Manor House in Lee reopens in 2009, after major refurbishment. This ...
As Anders Hanson has written earlier today: It's so hard to write this. As some of you may know, Neil Trafford has died in a car accident. I wasn't sure if I should write anything here so soon, but when I started writing things down I found that although it was upsetting it was also helpful. Neil was one of those amazing people who was not only a really committed Liberal Democrat and a phenomenal campaigner, but was also great fun to be with, was very outgoing and sociable and had a real normal life outside of the party. Neil ...
Online fraud is a serious problem, but that shouldn't be a reason to turn off your critical faculties when a firm that sells software to deal with online fraud issues a news release on the topic. On Monday the software firm Symantec issued a press release, which included this combination of claims: While stolen credit card numbers sell for as little as $0.10 to $25 per card, the average advertised stolen credit card limit observed by Symantec was more than $4,000. Symantec has calculated that the potential worth of all credit cards advertised during the reporting period was $5.3 billion. ...
To all those readers of this blog that don't read the Nelson Leader you can read my letter that I sent into them by following the link. The letter is about the issue that Lancashire County Council (Labour administration) want to switch the lights off on the M65!
The Conservatives are really out to get Brown and crew when they are down by asking for an emergency debate on the pre budget report. This proposition by the Conservatives and their shadow Chancellor George Osborne has been accepted and will take place tomorrow. The Conservatives in this debate will give full on power to try and put the Government down, if they succeed then this may raise the lead by the Tories in the polls. But if the Conservatives make a mess of this debate then we may see the poll gap closing in. It will be interesting to ...
Alistair Darling appears set to commit an 80 year old mistake. In his misguided attempts to control the UK economy and force businesses to conform to New Labour's agenda, he is again going to intervene between banks and their customers. He has already intervened countless times over the past year, but this latest intervention is pitifully predictable. Indeed, as was explained 80 years ago, it was inevitable that his previous interventions would have unintended consequences that would be the opposite of what he intended, and that to counter those consequences he would be obliged to intervene again and again to ...
In October, I looked at the potential role of Regional Parties in stemming the waste of candidate talent out there. Today, it's the turn of the PCA... I have, in the past, been quite scathing in my criticism of the PCA, and rightly so. An organisation whose past ineptitude its own Chair is able to freely admit, needs to do more, do it better and represent its members far more effectively than it
As many of you will be finding out that a great campaigner from the North west of England Cllr Neil Trafford has died from a car crash over the weekend. I personally didn't know Neil but I have heard about the work he has done in the past for the North West and I have to say that he will be a very, very big shot for the North west of England. and as Gill Gardiner says in the email that was send out below, "Our sympathies go out to Neil's partner, family and friends." Email from Gill Gardiner: Dear ...
Yes, I nearly forgot to mention. I am doing my more or less monthly slot on SkyNews.Com this evening looking at the 'hot' stories from the web today. In fact, I'd better go as the car will be waiting for me and I don't want to be late!! I'm in enough trouble as it is, as I double booked it with a School Governors meeting...
Having been defrauded (I don't know how) probably using the internet (new credit cards arrived this morning and it's being investigated) I am also now chasing an order I placed online about the 17th November (for classical CDs). After calling them they said `oh let's wait 2 weeks so call back on 3rd December and if [...]
I am incredibly proud that the Welsh Liberal Democrats are on the verge of electing the first female party leader in Wales. It is a significant point in Welsh political history, and one that will follow a decade of immense change in how our country is governed. I have had the privilege of being involved in that change, from the referendum campaign and the National Assembly Advisory group through to the rough and tumble of three election victories in Brecon and Radnorshire. That process of change is not about to stop and I want the Welsh Liberal Democrats to be ...
The speaker has said the Pre-Budget Report will be debated tomorrow...the debate was requested by George Osborne and will last for three hours tomorrow afternoon...full story on Sky
I've been having problems with my BlackBerry of late, culminating in the loss of the downward scroll function, making the gadget pretty useless. So, the weekend before last saw me in Ipswich, talking to an incredibly helpful young man from Carphone Warehouse who said, "Why don't you just buy yourself out of your old contract, get a new gadget, a new contract and, best of all reduce your monthly
It's so hard to write this. As some of you may know, Neil Trafford has died in a car accident. I wasn't sure if I should write anything here so soon, but when I started writing things down I found that although it was upsetting it was also helpful. Neil was one of those amazing people [...]
It might be a good idea to drop in to the Hook Centre on Saturday (29th) as there's a lot going on. The Christmas Craft Fair runs all day (from 9.30am - 4.30pm). The last Craft Fair was terrific with a huge range of superb handmade goods. Many people around here are interested in local history, so there's an open session from 10am to 12 noon, when Kingston Museum's local...
One of the oddities of a family with refugee roots is the complexity of global connections. Part of my family settled in Pittsburgh, a city for which I have bitter chocolate feelings (I like it but not as an exclusive diet) so the 250th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the western Pennsylvania city is worth a cheer here. Pittsburgh celebrates itself as a liveable city and its true its city centre (aka Downtown) is more alive than some other US places... here's a link to the history of the city on Three Rivers (the Monongahela, the Allegheny and the ...
Conservative Home carries this piece based on a Press Gazette report. It says that Ben Brogan, the Daily Mail's political editor; "comes close to saying that his newspaper has been played by Gordon Brown: Brogan said that although Tony Blair was seen by many as 'the master of spin', he believed the Gordon Brown spin machine was "even more formidable than the one attributed to Blair". When the time comes to write a record of Gordon Brown's time as chancellor, I think the record will show that Gordon Brown was phenomenally good at building strategic alliances with certain newspapers, mine ...
Ha! What a euphemism that is! Frankly, I think the fact that Peter Stringfellow has come out against lap dancing clubs being reclassified, as sexual encounter clubs rather than in the same bracket as café's, is a sure fire sign that it ought to be done. Don't get me wrong, if people want to go to lap dancing clubs it is there prerogative to do so and I wouldn't want to outlaw it (I am a liberal after all). But I do think that councils need to be able to use regulation to limit where they are. So they are ...
It's all in an interview with 5Live's Shelagh Fogarty for the December issue of Total Politics. It's more a relaxed chat than a detailed policy piece but all the more interesting for that. Among the snippets: On Lord Mandelson's recent admission that he and Gordon Brown wasted a lot of time and effort on a personal feud, Nick Clegg is clear: "I think that's a huge mistake in politics. It's not easy and it does get personal. People say tough things. I think bluntly this is where Gordon Brown went wrong. Before he was reinvented as this man donning a ...
The theme for the LGA conference for independent councillors last month gave rise to a very clear, but somewhat unkind, thought. Maggie Sullivan, head of the LGA's Independent group, said: "A constant complaint is 'how can I have more influence?', so we decided to make it this year's theme."Could I suggest joining a political party might help?
The 2.5p VAT cut will cost £12.4billion, which could have paid for 3p of the basic rate of Income Tax.
Alistair Darling has rather inconveniently made his pre-budget report not just at the start of the week (my busiest period at work) but also at the start of a week when something new is also getting rolled out. Therefore at present I'm unable to give the details of yesterday's offering my full attention, at least for now. I would recommend my readers to take a trip to Lib Dem Voice, James at the Two Doctors, Malc in the Burgh or Jonathan Calder for some diverse critiques of the PBR.
As I wasn't actually at the Haringey Full Council last night - watching via webcast instead - I asked Ed Butcher, one of the local Liberal Democrat councillors and my Head of Office, if he would write a guest blog to cover the meeting properly. Here it is: Opposition means lots of things, but one thing I hadn't fully appreciated until last night's council meeting is the physicality of being opposition. As Labour councillor after Labour councillor voted in hollow and weak voices to keep George Meehan and Liz Santry in post, not one of them was able to look ...
The election contest to lead the Welsh Liberal Democrats is well under-way: hustings are taking place throughout November, with the ballots posted out on November 21. There are two candidates, both female: Jenny Randerson, AM for Cardiff Central, and Kirsty Williams, AM for Brecon and Radnorshire. Lib Dem Voice is giving both leadership candidates the platform directly to address members in Wales, as well as the wider party. First up will be Kirsty - her leadership platform piece will be published on LDV this afternoon, at 4.45 pm. Jenny's will be published very shortly.
BBC News has a table, provided by KPMG, showing the effects of the tax and NI changes announced yesterday. The first thing that strikes me about this [1] is that in 2009/10 and 2010/11, earners on £50,000+ benefit twice as much as those on £10,000. So far, so unsurprising from this Labour Government. The second thing [2] is that in 2011/12, the pattern makes no sense whatsoever. People on £10,000 benefit by £215. People on £25,000? £140. People on £50,000? Back up to £240, outstripping those on the lowest incomes yet again. Then back down to £115 for those on ...
In the light of the recommendation from the Organ Donation Task Force to reject the idea of 'presumed consent' - meaning that unless people opted out of the register or family members objected, hospitals would be allowed to use their organs for transplants - Lib Dem Voice last week our readers the question:Do you think it would be right to introduce presumed consent for organ donations? Our poll swayed back and forth during the week, but in the end a narrow majority of you voted in favour of 'presumed consent'. Here's what you told us: • Yes, I do - ...
Now that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has had his moment and initiated the fiscal stimulus he promised it is left to the Welsh Assembly to spend the £140 million capital funding that will acrue to us under the Barnett Formula. The Secretary of State for Wales has already made his view known. He says that the money can be used this year and next on road building and social housing. Perhaps he has not realised that the decision as to what this money is spent on is not his but the Welsh Government's. Personally, I would prefer a substantial ...
There has been quite a lot of talk that VAT could only be reduced a little bit because of EU rules, this is true but is bonkers and doesn't have to be this way.
Following on from my weekend post about an example of how Ordnance Survey's business model holds back innovative use of public data, yesterday's Pre-Budget Report included this: The HM Treasury/Shareholder Executive assessment of trading funds has considered the potential for innovation and growth from increasing commercial and other use of public sector information. It will shortly publish some key principles for the re-use of this information, consider how these currently apply in each of the trading funds and how they might apply in the future, and the role of the Office of Public Sector Information in ensuring that Government policy ...
The latest Calder's Comfort Farm is up on the New Statesman website:Because everyone should challenge the Guardian's pieties. When I was at a loose end in London I used to hide in the bushes outside the newspaper's offices. As the journalists walked passed I would whisper things like "Bright working-class kids did better when their were grammar schools" or "Polly Toynbee supported David Owen's Continuing SDP".It was great fun. I made Simon Hoggart cry once.
Cllr Debra Storr who was expelled from the Aberdeenshire Council Lib Dem Group after what she claims was a witch hunt is seeking to appeal that decision. She has written to the Scottish Party President Malcolm Bruce asking for the case to be reviewed by the party's internal appeal process. However, this does require agreement from the group that has expelled her. The leader of the Group, Anne Robertson has already said that she did not think there was any merit in "continued dialogue" of matters no connected to the council's future aims adding: "The Liberal Democrat administration would prefer ...
Dizzy appears to have scooped the news that Jthe Governmet intends the Secretary of State to have the power to 'permit or require the sharing of personal information between particular specified persons'. It's one of the things slipped out under the net yesterday. This new power means, completely irrespective of the Data Protection Laws, Jack Straw will be able to gift whatever information he likes to whomever he likes. Compel ISPs to release personal information about their users to the Record Industry? To the Police? Compel Google to give it's records to the Government? Join up all the databases of ...
Haringey Labour can no longer distinguish between right and wrong. I watched some of Haringey Full Council's meeting last night on their webcast and spoke to one of the councillors afterwards. The first thing I saw was them misleading the Council by suggesting that the Lib Dem Group couldn't ask questions as their Leader Robert Gorrie and Gail Engert (Schools and Children's spokesperson for the opposition) had had sight of the full serious case review. They hadn't - and stood up to say so - correct the record. Then the Council said that the MP had been given a copy. ...
From Politics Home... "Mr Clegg said the banks had to begin lending again, and if they don't the government must develop a Plan B, involving either writing off bad debts or directly lending into the economy. He said the banks have to start lending, and if they fail to do so, the government must now work on Plan B on how to get money back into the hands of businesses. The government has got to get really tough with the bankers. It was part of the deal. They have to be forced to do so. If that doesn't work we ...
Last Friday saw me visiting Taking Liberties the latest exhibition put on by the British Library. The exhibition is stuffed full of some of the most important documents of British history. It is full of reminders of how our liberties, our democratic society, came about through struggle and sacrifice across the generations. It begins with a copy of the Magna Carta and an exploration of the rule
Back in 2004 when I used to enjoy reading DailyKos, there was always desperate talk that Bush's 'secret plan' was to effectively bankrupt the American economy so that it they had no choice but to remove all social spending altogether. So, I remembered this today reading all the various blogs and news stories about the gargantuan, epic scale of public debt (officially a trillion, but unofficially closer to double that with public sector pension liabilities taken into account) we're going to be left with after just a few years. This scale of borrowing is terrifying to me. I cannot believe ...
This week Liberal Democrat Voice is running a series of articles from Tim Leunig about the economy - how we got here and what we should do next. Yesterday was bank bailouts, and today... Bank lending It is important not to resume borrowing levels of two years ago. Indeed, we can calculate the optimal level of mortgage lending. Net lending should equal the value of new houses built, minus deposits on those houses, plus the same for houses bought by newly-formed households, and those moving to larger houses, minus regular capital repayments on the existing mortgage stock. Housebuilding rates are ...
Paul Waugh flags up the Blairite Tory health spokesperson Andrew Lansley's comment on the nauseatingly mundane 'blue blog' that "recession can be good for us." On inspection he meant that we'll eat and drink less rubbish, unlike Andrew Mitchell last month who simply said recession was "an incredibly good moment for us" (the Tory party, politically!). I suppose he's forgotten some people will actually have worse diets as actually have to budget for their food bills, and even those with a little more to spare will cut back on healthier luxuries, free range, organics, etc. Another Tory drops the "feel ...
So says Tory shadow cabinet member Andrew Lansley, according to this quote in the Evening Standard. All politicians say stupid things from time to time, but this is particularly unhelpful for Lansley's party, which is trying to shake off the charges that it would 'do nothing' about the recession. I don't think those charges are strictly true, but they are a potentially potent weapon against them. It's particularly dim to say one benefit of a recession is that 'people stay at home with their families' more. I suppose that's one way of describing unemployment, or being so broke you can't ...
The burning question about this most leaked budget must be will it work? Will it tempt people back out into spending and borrowing and pretending like it's 1999 again? The answer for a lot of people is probably no. Because if you have bought a house in the last five years, with a 100% plus mortgage, changed your job in the last couple of years or work part time and have little chance of a decent redundancy deal, if you are maxed out on your credit card limits or nursing big loans and only paying back interest every month, if ...
I don't see eye to eye with That Tory Blogger on very many things, but one thing I do know is that we both love our doggies. Part of the reason I have been so touchy over the last couple of days is that I was nervous about my two going in for their MOT+booster today. Byron was very blasé about it, because he knows it's just his yearly turn at being told what a gorgeous dog he is by everyone in the vets, but Roxy was a bit nervous, because last time she got taken to the vets, she ...
{Nick at the canal crossing} Your local councillors have presented their petition for a zebra crossing to the Full Council. The meeting took place on the week before the Bathwick Hill Tesco opened for the first time. The council Highways Department took over a year to paint on the loading bay needed by the shop following the government planning inspector's ruling. The council had argued that loading at the shop would be unsafe and the loading bay remains controversial. Following objections from local residents and your Lib Dem councillors, the loading bay has been reduced in length and the road ...
Spare a thought for John Humprhys. On Today, he has to play devil's advocate. He has to earn his salt. It's not his fault that he ends up sounding like a whining school boy who's had his sweets taken away from him. It's not his fault he ends up making Alastair Darling sound reasonable. This morning he asked Darling "exactly" when growth would restart. What a damned stupid question. Who does
Polly Toynbee really has excelled herself in today's Guardian. She has always been known as something of a Brown loyalist but her glorious trumpeting of the 'end of the New Labour era' and a 'return to social democracy' today really do ring hollow. They ring hollow for anybody who has woken up this morning who has been taken out of National Insurance Contributions (in 2011, of course) only to be hammered on the return pass by hikes on petrol, alcohol and tobacco (tax rises that are disproportionately more likely to hit people on lower incomes). Of course, a significant proportion ...
{Lynne Featherstone with Louisa Owen at St Aidan's Pimrary School} Nicest job of the year yesterday - going to the school to meet the winner of my Christmas Card competition. The theme was 'I'm Dreaming of a Green Christmas'. This year the winner is Louisa Owen (pictured) who is only 6 yers old, and from St Aidan's Primary School Stroud Green. Louisa's design will be on the front of my Christmas Card and she received a certificate, some chocolates and book tokens. The runners up will have their pictures on the back and they are: Raheam Watts, Nightingale Primary; Pasha ...
The leader of the Lib Dem group on Barnet Council Jack Cohen now has a blog too.
04:30 saw me tossing and turning, thinking of all the things I have to do over the next 48 hours. Adrenaline continues to buzz even in the wee small hours. This is the first time that I've stood in a Local Government election and it has been a very steep learning curve - very quickly! I've been blessed with an army of foot soldiers who've turned out to deliver what at times has seen like an army of election literature - often in truly foul weather. Thermals have been out in force over the weekend. But we have managed each ...
Well, that was underwhelming, maybe because of the widespread leaking. Worse though was the sheer size of the wasted opportunity (or maybe even worse that this wasn't in any way suprising). Whilst obviously I'd have liked them to adopt LibDem tax policies in full, I just wish they'd done something useful and good. I think this was a 1997-type moment when they got have got away with anything progressive but just didn't bother. I can't see how the temporary VAT cut will make any significant difference to anything and the rise in NI ( a b*stard mix of income tax ...
Tue 25th
08:50
Which country bans election candidates from updating homepages and blogs during an election campaign...
It's been a democracy for over 50 years. 60% of its population has access to high speed broadband. More blogs are written in its native language than in any other language. And the country is ... Japan, where: Once an official campaign has started, candidates are barred from updating their home pages, launching or amending blogs—podcasts are allowed because the law applies only to text or images—posting political statements or sending text messages to mobile phones. Additional regulations prohibit donors from using credit cards online to support candidates, effectively preventing online fundraising. But things are starting to change: Politicians have ...
Who'd be a local journalist? Pay that has them gazing enviously at newly-qualified teachers. Their papers' main revenue streams falling as advertising drops. Growing competition from the Internet. And now Harriet Harman is seeking to put the boot in too. Government minister Harriet Harman has asked the WI to scan their local newspapers for "sleazy adverts", then bombard editors with missives demanding their removal. As usual, the project is well-meaning in that sweet, slightly confused way that Labour seems to specialise in with social issues. You know Labour sort of mean well, but illiberal instincts together with an apparent inability ...
Liberal Conspiracy carries this letter from an Afghan feminist, Orzala Ashraf Nemat. Addressed to Barack Obama, it highlights some of the problems of continuing to think this conflict can be solved by military means or by a 'surge'. For example she says; "An increase in foreign military troops worries us - we are concerned that it just means more house raids and more bombing of civilians." Moving on she talks about the problems of even the existing forces being in Afghanistan; "The militarization of development aid has jeopardized the work of civilian humanitarian assistance organizations, and as a result, hundreds ...
So, I tried this Gender Analyser thing, and it says that my blog is 83% likely to be written by a man. Empress Jessica writes a chunk of the blog, so I suppose that it's not far away from the truth...
So, having joined the network of a new Facebook friend[1], I thought I'd check out my page. Still got 8 'fans' and not verified as me. But there's a new widget (see sidebar) that can auto confirm it's me and give a direct link to it for new readers. Probably worth it, I thinks. So, having installed it, verified myself, and everything, I follow the link to the website they've set up to support it, NetworkedBlogs.com. Not bad, and possibly a useful resource (need to explore a lot more). But, as is always the case, the 'similar blogs' category throws ...
Massive increases to borrowing and tax, obfuscated to give headline of, "20bn Giveaway" for lazy journalists who cannot admit they've been bamboozled again.
I have teething problems with Blogger at work. It tends to stop working part way through blog postings. Perhaps I should find better ways to spend my lunch break... Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, here's the second anonymous comment... "There is a hidden assumption that local party members are actually local. This is not always the case. A large number of members can have their membership
The agenda for the Selly Oak Constituency Committee meeting on Tuesday 25 November 2008 is available online. The meeting will be held at 7pm at Christ Church, 953 Pershore Road, Selly Park. Items on the agenda include: September's flooding in the Selly Park and Stirchley areas;an update on the consultation on draft planning guidance for the Selly Oak Hospital site;Birmingham's Draft Parking
Creatures out of time strain to pull Doctor Who out of the 'exiled to Earth' format, with time-travelling Daleks in a dystopian future, Sea Devils rising from the waves and their long sleep and a distinctly anti-colonial look at Earth's future Empire. The Doctor even manages several limited trips in the TARDIS again, the most entertaining (and topical) of which takes him to a future monarchist backwater hoping to join a distinctly un-Star Trek Federation in which aliens abound... The Curse of Peladon "I would rather be a cave-dweller, and free." "Free? With your people imprisoned by ritual and superstition?" ...
