I've not written for a week - blame bugs! I'll start off with a nice one though - we were at Headland's School Christmas Play at Haxby - Creepy, Crawly Christmas, where our granddaughter was one of the many bugs - but the best ladybird in the whole wide world ! We enjoyed the excellent performance put on by the school, and were reminded that none of these things can happen without a lot of...
I was sitting in Cowley St this evening, putting the finishing touches to the North East Democrat, when my colleague Jake offered to go to a local pizza shop. Did I want anything? I thought to myself: pizza or an M&S sandwich for dinner. The pizza won. After I ate it, I felt a twinge of healthy eating guilt. Perhaps I should go to M&S at Kings Cross Station to get some fruit for the journey back
Hat-tip to Alastair Carmichael for the news that my beloved HMRC have decided not to close our office in Lerwick, the only one of our offices in Shetland, after all. I'm guessing that they worked out that the excess fares they would have to pay to staff commuting to the next nearest office might bankrupt them...
Lynne Featherstone rightly earned alot of cross-party praise for her stance over the Baby P case so I was a little surprised to read this in the Daily Telegraph; Brian Coleman, the Conservative chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, laughed off accusations that his attack on Lynne Featherstone was sexist - by remarking that a man was unlikely to have acted in the same way. Mr Coleman, a Tory member of the London Assembly, accused the Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey and Wood Green in north London of wasting valuable resources and demanded that she pay for ...
No, this isn't an attack on Lembit Opik's decision to resume his column for the Daily Sport. {Screenshot from Tory email.} {Screenshot from Myxer.com} Instead it is to draw your attention to an email I've just been sent by the Conservatives. They are still jumping with joy about the fact that the pro-Euro, economically leftwing Peer Steinbruck made some critical comments about Brown's economic policy, stretching the idea of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" to breaking point. And as an added bonus, they are offering people free ringtones of Gordon Brown's "saving the world" gaffe. I followed that link. ...
Tell me, was there any disquiet at all at the BBC when the chief constable covering Dewsbury condemned Karen Matthews' neighbours, a whole class of families, because "they never go out"? Were there any complaints, or even qualms, at this outrageous piece of New Labour snobbery? I don't know. I hope so, but fear there wasn't. It's a bit late to blog about this, but we seem to be in the grip of a moral panic led by Ed Balls, which amounts to an attack on all children and their families, and mothers in particular. In the last few days, ...
The Liberal Democrats have had four MP's picked from the Private Members' Bills ballot. The four MP's being: David HeathEvan HarrisJeremy BrowneCharles KennedyLib Dem Voice is asking readers to give suggestions on what they think the Lib Dems should propose. I over at Lib Dem Voice have suggested Proportional Representation before the next general election and they are many other suggestions that you can read!
This week's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News. As I was busy with the day job, I thought I would let MPs write it for themselves. MPs Collared Michael Jabez Foster said just one constituent had raised the search of Damian Green's office with him. It was "self-indulgence", he argued, for MPs to debate it. But the people of Hastings and Rye should be more concerned with the health of parliamentary democracy. So this column is devoted to some of Monday's more enlightened contributions. Theresa May: "Constituents do not give information to their Member of Parliament on the basis ...
Boris Johnson has done a depressing u-turn on the future of Wards Corner in Seven Sisters. The party members' site Lib Dem Voice has the story here. Bojo's abandonment of residents and campaigners, after saying he would help, may not go down well with local voters in the Seven Sisters by-election on 15 January. As Lib Dem candidate David Schmitz said this week: "The Mayor cannot wash his hands of the problem simply by refusing to intervene in the planning process. "The Mayor, through London Underground Ltd, has the power, as the owner of a large part of the site, ...
Via Jennie Rigg and Jonathan Calder comes the news that four Lib Dem MPs were drawn in the top 20 for the Private Members' Bills ballot for the 2008-9 session. The lucky four were: David Heath (2nd), Evan Harris (5th), Jeremy Browne (13th) and Charles Kennedy (17th). So, then, here's a question for LDV readers to ponder: what are your suggestions for the bills which they might present to the Commons? The most famous Private Member's Bill of them all, was probably David Steel's 1967 Abortion Act, which (with the assistance of Labour's home secretary Roy Jenkins) legalised the practice ...
The Conservatives are once again in danger of looking all-at-sea on a major issue. Conservative Home reports that the; "Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Chris Grayling, is "uncomfortable" about Labour's intention - announced yesterday - to force single mothers to seek work once their youngest child reaches twelve months of age." We wonder if this is the same Chris Grayling that is quoted in the Independent as saying; "There is no doubt you are going to face a big rebellion on the Labour backbenches... I can assure you that Conservative votes will help these measures on to ...
This journal is now "syndicated" at libdemblogs.co.uk. So, as the young cool kids say, "yo my Liberal homies". Welcome to the festering dung-heap that is my brane.
Coming at you via the new QuickPress window in Wordpress 2.7, here's a plug for the imaginatively-titled (the last time I make a throwaway remark at a Lib Dem Voice team meeting) Tangerine Book: {Support independent publishing: buy this book on Lulu.} It's a collection of some of the best pieces from Liberal Democrat Voice. If you like to hold words in your hand, rather than see them flash up on a screen, the shop is here.
Conservative Home has now started allowing people to download "Saved the World" ringtone'. Now this is a little childish of the Conservatives and personally I think they are just taking the biscuit with the ringtone downloading. Fair enough it was a slip of the tongue, the whole Country has had its laugh and joke about it but a ringtone is stupid. Fair enough Conservative Home isn't approved by the Tory Party but it paints the picture to the ordinary person that the Tories are a group of immature babies!
Today I was one of Bury Council's reps at the Greater Manchester Transport Referendum - more commonly referred to as the Congestion Charge referendum. Unlike a normal count, this was a bit unusual: firstly, because most of the ballot papers had already been counted electronically in advance, so it was just the last few from the last few days to be counted. And secondly, because within about a minute of arriving it was obvious that it was a massive "no" vote. {Greater Manchester Congestion Charge Count Turnout} Turnout figures for Greater Manchester boroughs (what proportion of people on the electoral ...
.....to reconsider their positions? These two people have got it so spectacularly wrong - I'm wondering if their Groups will not depose them once Christmas is out of the way?
This year I'm saving all those Xmas card stamps again help save the albatross. 100,000 of these beautiful birds are killed every year on fishing hooks (one every five minutes)and they can't breed quickly enough to keep up. They are at real risk of dying out. Should you want to do something to help, you can find details and address to send all your festive stamps to here...
A long, long time ago, I worked for Paddy. I was in my gap year and he was Liberal Education Spokesman. I wanted to work in Parliament for the experience (or, as my mother put it, to do something other than lie in bed seeing as how I had taken a year off) and Olly Grender, who worked for my own MP, Matthew Taylor, managed to get me a place with a really interesting MP (I'm sure she didn't mean it as a dig against MT). As these things go, halfway through my time there, the merger happened and the ...
The people of Manchester need to be congratulated for saying No to the Congestion charges that the Government wanted to put in place. Personally I think as a resident of Lancashire this tax was a big scam on the tax payer from the start. The £3 Million pound was a bribe by Labour onto the people of Lancashire and they refused it, something that will wound this Labour Government. The turnout of the election was 52% and 1,033,000 people voted. This was the second biggest election in the UK after the London Mayor election! To read the Lancashire Telegraph article ...
Wah wah companies are evil because you have to write them a letter to complain why can't they take emails letters are so hard to write the bastards. Supermarkets sell things too cheap! We need change! Change so that supermarkets can't sell stuff so cheap! Change so that internet retailers have to receive endless, mindless email complaints! No! Come back! This stuff is, like, important! Oh, wait. It's not that I don't agree with this stuff, but c'mon, there's surely a better platform to stand on than "evil businesses are evil"?
It seems that Greater Manchester Lab cllrs rebelled against their new labour masters - for instance Cllrs Bailey and Harding of my parish voted `no` yet Ann Coffey MP voted `yes`. Perhaps they are becoming as fed up as their own voters and the rest of the electorate of the democratic deficit between the new Labour [...]
Well done Peter Black AM. This is all.
After ten months of living in my house, the other day I finally worked out how to properly work the shower. I had been stood underneath a luke warm trickle every day since January, and after hundreds of these disappointing moistenings, I discovered on Monday that the bit that protrudes from the side of the dial isn't just there for show. It is actually the key to a secret world of heat and pressure that I never knew existed. And frankly, dear blog, it is little shy of a revelation. It is a miracle that I have left my soaking ...
After Mark debunked the American election turnout myth, Hywel points out some harsh realities about voter turnout in reality shows. An often cited reason for gimmicks like online, text and phone voting in public elections is that more people vote when voting is easier. Any security concerns are often waved away with claims that "more people vote in Big Brother etc" than in public elections, particularly local elections. If such claims are to be used as the basis for significant changes to elections then their basis needs examining closely Take Saturday's X Factor semi-final. If you regard the electorate as ...
Wards Corner in Tottenham is the site of one of those markets, deeply rooted in the local community and highly distinctive, that add so much to its surrounding area. This gem of a market, with a strong Latin American flavour, is not that well known, and as a result the plans to demolish it haven't got as wide regional attention as they would have for its more famous cousins around London. (You can, though. watch a BBC TV report here.) However, that may now change with a dramatic u-turn from London Mayor Boris Johnson, dropping his previous support for opponents ...
So the votes are in and all ten boroughs voted no to the Congestion Charge. The real point here is that Greater Mancunians are sick to the back teeth of doffing caps to both London and new Labour masters at Manchester Town Hall. This was just seen, in a time of recession, not just a wrong-headed cumbersome [...]
Peer Steinbrück, Germany's finance minister, has received uncharacteristic attention in the British press for his claim that Gordon Brown has been "crass" in abandoning fiscal prudence (BBC). In the UK, the Tories have been entirely characteristic in jumping on the bandwagon. I suspect that Gordon Brown is not too far off the mark when he claims that this is just "internal German politics". However, Mr. Steinbrück's criticism probably has more to do with Eurozone politics. At the moment the Euro is balanced on the Franco-German fulcrum of President Sarkozy's newly minted Keynesianism and Chancellor Merkel's fiscal restraint. The decline of ...
I was on Radio Tay news this morning welcoming the Closure Order on a flat in Peddie Street, following complaints from residents about anti-social behaviour. I am very pleased residents will get some respite from the ant-social behaviour during the festive period.
The jury's verdict in the inquest of Jean Charles de Menezes is about as damning for the Police as it is possible to get. Not only have they returned an Open verdict (as opposed to one of lawful killing) but their answers to the 12 specific questions posed by the Coroner are (with a single exception) utterly damning of the Met Police and their methods. In simple terms, I think it is quite clear from this verdict and the answers given that the Coroner was wrong to rule out the option of unlawful killing. No one can say that this ...
The Guardian reports on the controversy outside the Welsh Assembly yesterday, as 250 Christian activists demonstrated against a reading of poems they described as blasphemous: Patrick Jones was asked to read from his collection, Darkness Is Where the Stars Are, by Liberal Democrat assembly member Peter Black, after Christian activists prevented Jones from launching the book at Waterstone's Cardiff branch last month. "I felt very strongly that no organisation should be able to intimidate and force the cancellation of a reading of this sort," said Black after the event today. "This is a democratic society, with freedom of speech and ...
Reader, it is appalling. Utterly appalling. I am appalled. Of course, there are more serious happenings to be appalled by in this crazy world of ours, yet a recent line of Winterval advertisements have caught my typically wandering attention with their absurdity. In short, their depiction of women is at best dated, and at worst overtly patronisingly sexist. Let me introduce them: The KitKat One Pictured, simply featuring the slogan "Goodwill to all Women. 165 Calories" The Pizza Hut One Three women occupied with domestic tasks give up, and go to Pizza Hut instead. The Boots One All the women ...
The referendum in Manchester to introduce a congestion charge has failed.
Today's congestion charge result was a staggering rejection of the TIF proposals. That voters in all ten districts rejected the proposals, and by such an overwhelming margin, is a vindication of the "No" campaign's argument that these proposals were simply unfair, unwise, and not the right way to tackle congestion. Across every one of Greater Manchester's ten districts the result was a clear "no." Turnout was very high compared to most non-general elections - 53.2% overall and no less than 45% anywhere. 78.8% of those who cast their vote said "no." I am glad, of course, that I share my ...
Results are in - every single Greater Manchester council has voted against TIF. Ratio of about 4:1 against. The recriminations have begun and Lord Peter Smith, Labour leader of Wigan and AGMA Chair has already said that there will be no public transport improvements as a result. The public, he says, have voted against public transport [...]
As a follow up to my post yesterday about the difficulties faced by postmen, it is a useful coincidence that I spotted this video today on the BBC website about a road in Bewdley in Worcestershire with some very odd numbering where the numbers are not only out of sequence but also some are repeated. [...]
I first decided I was a Liberal at the age of eleven in 1959, when I saw Jo Grimond explaining why worker-shareholders in British business would get us out of the Union strike turmoil. He seemed to be the only bloke in Parliament suggesting this excellent idea, and although the Liberals had just eight seats at the time, my instincts were drawn to the obvious sense of it. The main thing it did, of course, was to continue the tradition set by Grimond of creative policy in the face of a changing society. In 2008, Nick Clegg and the Liberal ...
Via NewsWales.co.uk: New Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Kirsty Williams today announced her team for the Welsh Assembly . She said, "The Welsh Liberal Democrat team is the most experienced in the Assembly, and we will be bringing that accumulated knowledge to the table on all our committee work and in the chamber." The Shadow Cabinet: Kirsty Williams: Leader, Shadow Minister for Finance, Children and Young People. Peter Black: Business manager, Shadow Minister for Health and Wellbeing and Local Government (including housing). Assembly Commissioner. Jenny Randerson: Shadow Minister for Enterprise, Transport and Education. Mick Bates: Chair of Committee for Sustainability, Shadow ...
An email pings into the Voice's inbox alerting us to thew news that The deadline to enter the Orwell Prize, Britain's pre-eminent prize for political writing, is fast approaching: 14 th January 2009. Submissions are invited for work published between 1st January 2008 and 31st December 2008 (inclusive). Of special interest, perhaps, to Lib Dem bloggers is the new Blog Prize: In the year that we have made George Orwell a blogger, the Orwell Prize is delighted to announce a Special Prize for Blogs in 2009. Running alongside the Book Prize and Journalism Prize this year, submissions will open on ...
The last thing you need in December is a parish council by-election, but these things have to be won, so I'm pretty pleased to report the result and give some background. Bradfield Parish Council, Stannington Ward Katie Condliffe (Lib Dem) 762 79.2% Matt Dixon (Con) 200 20.8% Lib Dem hold. Turnout 21.8% The Liberal Democrats have all 13 parish councillors [...]
At last, an opportunity to get out on record some of the issue around the health team's part in the Baby P tragedy. The health issues involved in Baby P are huge and in my view the health side has got off lightly thus far. I have previously posted some bits about the Baby P health issues on my blog, but so far this aspect has got relatively little attention from the media. Therefore for the health and education debate on the Queen's Speech this week - I briefed Norman Lamb on a few of the key issues which he ...
It can't just be me who, on seeing the headline 'Star Wars to become stage spectacle', had visions of Star Wars: The Musical with a chorus line of dancing stormtroopers and vogueing Wookies? Of course, if they were to do that, it'd be the first Star Wars-branded entertainment in about ten years I'd have any desire to go and see.
Research from the Tax Payer's Alliance on the amount of money councils spend on publicity is widely reported today (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7778773.stm ). According to the TPA the average council now spends nearly a million pounds on publicity and spending has risen sharply since Labour came to power. The top twenty big spenders include councils run [...]
A Guardian editorial today praises the Liberal Democrat peer, Lord Lester: On a day when lawyers have been brought into shameful disrepute over miners' compensation, the profession should cherish its shining luminaries. Foremost among them is the Liberal Democrat peer Anthony Lester ... Decades have passed since Lord Lester helped to shape the ground-breaking anti-race discrimination laws of the 60s and 70s. As aide to the then home secretary Roy Jenkins, he also - in Lord Jenkins' own opinion - argued decisively in favour of protecting individual freedoms even in the face of the IRA terrorist threat. Human rights aside, ...
At any given time in the last quarter, there were about 1.82 million unemployed people and 589,000 job vacancies in Britain, according to the Office for National Statistics. So what is Gordon Brown's grand plan to create more jobs? Because if there isn't one, all his benefit plans will do is shift unemployment around a bit. Oh, and make the experience a lot more stressful for claimants, but I suspect he stopped caring about that a long time ago. We can't go on pretending that intervening in individual job searches is going to solve the problem. There is no lack ...
There are times when Plaid Cymru's Parliamentary Leader, Elfyn Llwyd is beyond parody. Diplomacy is not his strong point (but then who am I to complain about that?). In his effort to get the three Plaid Cymru nominees into the House of Lords, Mr. Llwyd has run to the Western Mail once more to cry foul. Apparently, it is all the Prime Minister's fault. The allegation is that Gordon Brown has personally blocked the appointment of Dafydd Wigley to the House of Lords. The government say that Mr. Llwyd has not followed the correct procedure. It seems that Plaid needed ...
When Welsh consultant neurosurgeons signed a letter to the Chief Medical Officer for Wales arguing for a single neurosurgical centre I was prepared to listen. The Health Minister's preference is for a single service on two sites so as to retain a service in Swansea. However, there is a danger that this will not be sustainable in the long term and may wither on the vine. In particular there needs to be a critical mass of operations to maintain clinical safety and the service will need the capacity to deliver a fully staffed 24 hours, seven days a week emergency ...
I did live twitter yesterdays Question Time and I have to say Lembit was on form and really made the programme worth watching. If you would like to read the twittering that I did then head over to my twitter page www.twitter.com/irfanahmed
There's been a lot about Fairtrade in my diary this week, but the highlight was a visit to the Tristar Carbon Savers' meeting. Along with their commitment to saving on carbon emissions at work and at home they are interested in other ethical and environmental issues including Fairtrade. So along I went to tell them a bit about the work in the Borough and suggest ways they might get involved.
My Liberal Democrat colleague David Schmitz has been selected to fight the Seven Sisters ward by-election, caused by the sad death of long-serving councillor Fred Knight. David is also the Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesperson for Tottenham and a seasoned campaigner. He's a barrister - which can come in handy - like in the case of the Wards Corner development where he has been giving free legal advice to members of the Wards Corner Community Coalition who are fighting to save the Latin American Market and building. David is also campaigning on holding Labour-run Haringey Council to account over the hideous ...
What is it with the Bible and having two versions of the same story? Right from the start of Genesis we get totally different creation myths to choose from (the seven days one and the Adam and Eve one). Things get really wacky with Noah. Not satisfied with putting two versions after each other, the story of Noah just mixes them together seemingly at random. Did the flood last for 40 days or 150? How many animals were on the ark? Buggered if I know. But it's only in the New Testament that the Biblical compilers really hit their stride. ...
One of the most unsettling things about returning to Bangkok after an absence of nearly four decades is that most parts of the city are completely unrecognisable. The Thai capital was an essentially low-rise conglomeration in the late 1960s, whereas now it is full of skyscrapers and the (very efficient) Skytrain dominates several major arteries. [...]
Why do they not release DVDs? The swines! One of the shows that Small Person loves is Robotboy. I approve of this - it's sci-fi; it is liberal-leaning without being po-faced; it's a British/French coproduction and therefore fosters international relations; it's very very silly; and it has a bad guy in it that reminds me of Karate from Batfink and gives me a warm nostalgic glow. Can you get a DVD of it? Or books? Or Games? Can you buggery! You can get a poster, or a heejusly expensive (and probably phlate-filled) toy off some dodgy geezer on ebay, and ...
