Dear Martin and James, A week last Saturday, when the sea was crashing in, I made a mental note that I wanted to drop you and your colleagues a line to say thank you for all you do for our community throughout the year. On behalf of local Liberal Democrats, I wish you all a very Merry [...]
More Time Lords than ever this year, with one even joining the Doctor on his travels as he begins his quest for the Key To Time. There's wit, playfulness and a kind of magic as the series hits its most fairy-tale and fun. There are false gods and fabulous female villains, and the best story could easily be Bob Holmes' Copernican caper The Ribos Operation or Douglas Adams' first television, the witty, inventive, brilliantly structured The Pirate Planet, but for me it's this swashbuckling tale from David Fisher: The Androids of Tara "Next time, I shall not be so lenient!" ...
I went to the Farmer's Market on The Stade on Thursday morning to get the Christmas veg in and to see if there were any last minute gift options that sprung out at me. I have to say that I think the quality of the produce from the Community Fruit & Veg Project is outstanding. If [...]
This week two key factors emerged in relation to our car industry. Firstly the EU have passed new targets that will reduce CO2 emissions by 20% in 2020 including new targets for vehicle emissions. Secondly it appears at least one UK maker will be cap in hand to the Treasury looking for a bail out to keep in in business over the coming months. Now let me make it clear I without hesitation
That's my prediction. Bruce Forsyth is a national treasure but I think he should be quietly reitired as co-presenter of Strictly Come Dancing. Last night's final demonstrated the retirement case. He got ratty with the floor manager for trying to speed him up. It wasn't funny. Then during the melee following the announcement of the winner, you could hear him shouting: "Oh my God - who was that?!"
Earlier this week I came across a paper by a psychologist called Simon Smith and I have been thinking of this song ever since. We last saw Alan Price as the keyboard player with The Animals, a band which was formed as The Alan Price Rhythm and Blues Combo. He left them in 1965 (the reasons are discussed on Price's own website) to form The Alan Price Set. This song reached number 4 in 1967, and I just about remember it from the time. It was written by Randy Newman - Youtube has a video of him performing the song ...
Look, I was tired, I was ill, I couldn't get out of the flat... Oh, all right, I'm a gutbucket, Thorntons were doing a 25% off discount online and I just wanted to cheer myself up. Then, as well as my usual Viennese Truffles and luxury double cream mints, I saw this. {Posted by Picasa} Hey, it's a server made of chocolates! What's not to love? Well, OK, it's still overpriced even at 25% off, and it's smaller than it looks in the photos, but it's cool. And that's without even eating any yet. If you want the 25% off, ...
It has long been rumoured that the Conservatives running Wycombe District Council were planning a series of cuts to the grants provided to local organisations and community groups however the cuts they are proposing are extremely severe and are much larger than even we could have imagined. Make no mistake these cuts will put at risk a number of local groups who rely on this funding to survive. Our Liberal Democrat group of councillors are currently studying the figures and will look for sensible solutions to this financial mess. Save Our Pool {poola} High Wycombe's Open Air Swimming Pool is ...
One newcomer writes mad messiah murder mystery The Robots of Death and the series' finest ghost story, Image of the Fendahl; others include the woman in the leather bikini and the tin dog, who with the bloke in the scarf become Doctor Who's most iconic silhouettes... I learn to read on books like The Dalek Invasion of Earth and the horror-and-ellipses-packed The Ark In Space... While in Victorian London... The Talons of Weng-Chiang "On my oath! You wouldn't want that served with onions - never seen anything like it in all my puff. Urrhh, make an 'orse sick, that would. ...
The BBC has the story: There's an increasingly organised group of senior figures, ex-cabinet ministers and possible future Speakers of the Commons. They meet in distant committee rooms for dry sounding seminars about constitutional reform, and grumble about the wavering of Gordon Brown's commitment to giving parliament more power. In a hung parliament they might seize their moment....it's certainly being discussed behind the scenes, and Lord Paul Tyler, a former Liberal Democrat Shadow Leader of the Commons, is one of the unlikely Che Guevaras in a sort of Parliamentary Liberation Army...its demands would include the a Commons vote to confirm ...
You maybe aware that there has been a lack of gritting on main roads through Smannell so as a result Lib Dem Parish Councillor Nigel Gooding has raised the matter with Hampshire County after a spate of accidents during the last cold snap. Councillor Gooding said: " I personally grit hill at Little London, but had to beg Hampshire Highways for more grit and sand, during the cold snap I have had 3 accidents reported to me and a pedestrian fall over and break some bones....I have written today with a view to ensuring Smannell is on the gritting lorry ...
On November 10th I flagged up the brilliant "There's no one as Irish as Barack Obama" record by Hardy Drew and the Nancy boys. I'm delighted to say that this song has taken off. The Corrigan Brothers, who are Hardy Drew and the Nancy boys, played out Sunday AM this morning and have signed up with Universal, and are now featured on iTunes etc for downloading. They seem to be billed as the "
A story that emerged today had me incensed. The Government is apparently considering replacing current interest-free social fund loans with interest rates of up to 2% per month - which is about the rate you'd pay on a dodgy store card. The alleged reason for this is that some people are taking advantage of the system by taking out loans that they don't need. As a result they are going to charge penal interest rates to people who do need loans! One aspect of this story that is not well understood is that these loans have to be paid back ...
Sun 21st
19:59
When was the last time three versions of the same song were in the charts at the same time?
I never thought I'd live to see the day that a Leonard Cohen song was in the chart - let alone the Christmas number one with two other versions at number 2 (Jeff Buckley) and 36 (Cohen himself). This threesome, of course, sets off the question: "When was the last time three versions of the same song were in the chart at the same time?" Having multiple versions of the same song in the charts was
Sarah Teather MP has said that the government should do more to protect families from repossession (LibDems). Some caution is necessary. This doesn't seem to be a specific policy proposal. But the idea seems to be to tighten up the law to make it harder for lenders to repossess homes (there's a lot of reading between the lines here). This is probably cheap in terms of public money but someone will have to bear the cost of any eventual policy. Banks are a convenient scapegoat. There are two problems with a purely legal solution. Repossession is generally a last resort ...
Barely undisturbed by wider social reality, the Damian Green affair rumbles on. The latest development in the saga is chronicled for us by Iain Dale. The only real interest value left in this whole story is to see how dazzlingly high the levels of Conservative hypocrisy can fly; my guess is quite high. Iain reports on the remarks by Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick who told the BBC that; "The Tory machinery and their press friends are mobilised against this investigation. "I think it is a very spiteful act, possibly to intimidate me away from investigating Mr Green, and I feel ...
I am writing this on a train at Euston about to start on my way back to Wolverhampton, having been at my parents for Christmas.
Adrian Mitchell, author of some of my favourite poems, has died. Back In The Playground Blues I dreamed I was back in the playground, I was about four feet high Yes dreamed I was back in the playground, standing about four feet high Well the playground was three miles long and the playground was five miles wide It was broken black tarmac with a high wire fence all around Broken black dusty tarmac with a high wire fence running all around And it had a special name to it, they called it The Killing Ground Got a mother and a ...
Benedict Brogan has ruled out an early general election as he knows of a interview with the Prime Minister that is to be published today. In the interview the Prime Minister has said he will not go to the polls anytime in February, March, April, May or even June. Benedict believes the Prime Minister and is still positive the general election shall be in 2010. I personally think this is all part of Brown's plan and he will go to the polls in June 2009, why you may ask? It's because the 2007 rumoured general election only made him look ...
Welcome to the 95th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (14th-20th December), together with a hand-picked quintet, mostly courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. 'Tis the season of tradition, so let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down. 1. Are Lib Dems 'down in the dumps'? on Darrell Goodliffe's Moments of Clarity blog. According to PoliticsHome.com's PH100 panel we are. Speaking as a member of the PH100, I really wouldn't take their word for it. 2. Lembit Opik: real men hate ...
A few days ago I was mugged by a flu bug. It knocked me to the ground, kicked me in the throat and chest and proceeded to trample all over my body. It then repeated this daily for the rest of the week. Nice. So please forgive me if I am now towards the grumpy end of the spectrum as I recover enough to watch non-specific daytime TV. A trigger for spluttering today was an advertisement for a service called 0800 Reverse. The advert shows a young man needing to ring home to ask his mum if he can stay ...
What a jolly wheeze - I seem to have had the honour (I think) of being nominated for the position of Minister for Drugs (Legalization, Regulation and Taxation thereof) in Mark Wadsworth's Bloggers Cabinet. It's been a while since I wrote anything substantial on the subject of drugs, probably but uncharacteristically cowed by my opponents' disgraceful use of my previous writings on the subject in May's local elections. Anyway, it's an interesting coincidence that I've just had a bit of a spat with someone on our local Headington & Marston Neighbourhood Forum about this very subject. Someone whose naive response ...
It was reported earlier in the day that government would seek to start charging interest on emergency loans of upto 27%. This wouldn't make such loans very competitive and to be fair seems to have been moved to the back-burner after a glut of criticism. Kitty Ussher, the work and pensions minister, told The Independent that the Government was "absolutely not" proposing charging interest on loans from the social fund: "She said that ministers were considering involving credit unions in the distribution of the loans. But while credit unions are permitted to charge interest of up to 2% a month ...
The appalling injustices inflicted on Colin Stagg by the Metropolitan Police and the fantasyland of fraud underpinning the Madoff pyramid scheme have some common underlying factors. Not least the dangers of the 'satisficing mode' of investigation, castigated by ex-CIA officer Richards Heuer in his 2004 book 'The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis'. Basically he looks at the way that intelligence analysts can be: fooled into assembling the case that appears most likely rather than challenging the evidence to find out what is actually true ... Equipped with vast technical resources, satellite imaging, hugely sophisticated listening devices and computer programmes to winnow ...
30 Rock has been running on British terrestial television for a while now. I managed to miss every episode that was broadcast so, after having heard how good it was, went out and bought seasons one and two on DVD. I began watching it a few weeks ago but there is nothing like a winter cold to force you to sit in front of the television and watch hours of comedy. The show was created by Tina Fey, perhaps better known to some as VP Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. Fey plays Liz Lemon, head writer, single woman and ...
This week was the special Haringey Council meeting called by the Lib Dems to debate the findings from Ed Ball's 'urgent investigation' into Haringey following the death of Baby P. It saw an astonishing outburst from the person we all saw apologise (finally) on behalf of the Labour Council - Liz Santry - Labour Member for Children's Services as was. With the media's attention having moved on, at this meeting I am told she lashed out blaming others. But that's it you know - that's the real issue in Haringey - that Labour always turn it all around and instead ...
On the Saturday before Pan Am flight 103 blew up and the debris landed on Lockerbie and its environs I was being driven up the then A74 towards Glasgow for the night en route to Northern Ireland for the Christmas holidays. The time was approximately the same as when 4 days the name of the small Dumfrieshire town became ingrained on the consciousness of the world. It may not of been the first time that a plane was blown up for terrorist purposes but it had the most impact because the plane and majority of its passengers were American. Sadly ...
Linda Jack blogged yesterday: News comes to me from a very reliable source that one [Conservative] Cllr Peter Hand, lately of Nadine Dorries office, has resigned as a councillor on both the County and Borough. Not only that, but he has set in motion a domino effect. Two more candidates have resigned and others are due to follow. Jonathan Isaby on ConservativeHome added to the story: Over the last three weeks or so, I understand that no fewer than ten of the party's 22 councillors or selected council candidates for next June's elections have decided not to stand after all. ...
A new Judge Dredd film has been given the go-ahead. The potentially good news is that it is to be produced by DNA Films, the UK outfit behind 28 Weeks Later and Sunshine. io9.com have seen fit to justfy an entirely unsubstantiated rumour that Danny Boyle will direct. Harry Knowles wants Judge Death in it. Personally, I'm still waiting to see if these rumours prove more substantive than the ones about 6 years ago about two Dredd films being filmed back-to-back. Do I actually want another Judge Dredd film? The first one was a pretty good example of the 90s ...
When I was first properly internet active, I hung around a lot in Harry Potter fandom. My username was (still is, in lots of places) SnapesBabe. I recall several occasions on which some newb would pop up with a name like snapesbabe01, and be rounded on by the community. Or the time when I got barred by the WB for talking about being pregnant (because that's not an appropriate subject for people under the age of 13, apparently), and forty-odd people registered variants of the name and posted relentlessly in my support till I was reinstated. Happy, happy memories. What ...
Is it just me or is Lord Greaves a little old fashioned: A lot of noble Lords have talked about modern communication. I very much applaud the Lords of the Blog, the most interesting being the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and my noble friend Lord Tyler, but that is because I am interested in the same sort of things, which is why I am taking part in this debate. I do not go on Facebook or YouTube and I hope that I will never need to. I know that Twitter exists, but that can stay where it is. However, I ...
The link is to the story in the Sunday Telegraph today about a mother who was "on the run" with two children having been persecuted by the Family Courts in England and Wales. She (ARW) is not on the run any more. She has decided to "stand and fight". Her 6 year old son (L) is settled in school in the Republic of Ireland. Her baby son Marco is very well. The local Social Workers came to see
Over the last year, the online presence of Haringey Liberal Democrats has steadily been growing and expanding. Five of my local colleagues now have their own sites / blogs: Matt Davies - Fortis Green councillor Fiyaz Mughal - Noel Park councillor David Schimtz - Tottenham Parliamentary spokesman and Seven Sisters candidate Neil Williams - Highgate councillor Richard Wilson - Stroud Green councillor Haringey Liberal Democrats are also on Facebook, including information about our forthcoming events, or - if you're not a Facebooker - you can also instead out about our events via the main party website. Oh, and don't forget ...
No cake, no candles, no singing but just a YouTube film to mark his first birthday:
Total Politics asks "What's in store for us in 2009?" and in the absence of a crystal ball, offers a few lists: (if you'd rather it were a surprise, look away now) The view from the village - politicians and pundits' predictions, including Chris Huhne's: The recession will be deeper and longer than most people think because big booms are always followed by big busts, and the UK housing market was the most overvalued and over-borrowed in the developed world. We will be doubly hit because of our reliance on financial services. The Political Faces of 2009, with Lynne Featherstone ...
This morning's Wales on Sunday continues their campaign to unseat Nick Bourne as leader of the Welsh Conservatives. The latest protagonist is former Welsh Conservative leader, Rod Richards. Unsurprisingly, he does not give Nick Bourne long and even argues that he should resign now for the good of the party. This is the sort of opinion that could have been solicited from Mr. Richards at any time in the last eight years. There is no denying that the former Welsh Office Minister is value for money. Asking him to condemn Nick Bourne is roughly akin to requesting Senator Joseph McCarthy ...
The Telegraph newspaper names Lib Dem MP Vince Cable as one of its Heroes of the year. Quite rght too. Although as others have observed it is rare for the Torygraph to give Lib Dems credit for ...
Dizzy picks-up on the debate in the latest issue of Total Politics between Douglas Murray, from the Centre for Social Cohesion, and Sunny Hundal from Liberal Conspiracy. Dizzy rightly finds aspects of Murray's case compelling; especially when he insists that "Mankind needs ideology to orient itself." Ideology is what gives our thoughts coherence and structure and binds together how we view completely unrelated topics into something approaching a coherent world-view. In politics, an element of that is unquestionably needed not least because in able for people to want you to govern they generally expect some kind of coherence and sense ...
It really is quite depressing. As if we have not lost enough of our long-standing high street retailers the Sunday Telegraph reports new signs of desperation with thousands of supermarkets, department stores and independent shops making plans to open up on Boxing Day for the first time. This is despite the fact that shoppers were out in force yesterday, attracted by the huge discounts on offer. Similar scenes are expected today as retailers predict that sales will total £6 billion for the weekend. Fiona Wilkinson, from credit card company Visa Europe, told the paper that sales peaked at 12.15pm yesterday ...
The first three webisodes
Happy Yule, Solstice, Alban Arthuan etc, to those who are celebrating.
As the credit crunch continues to bite and becomes a deep recession the impact on the welfare state will be immense. The cost of paying more benefits, emergency loans and mortgage support will grow exponentially and place a strain on the Treasury and the Government's ability to repay the extra loans they have taken out to reduce the impact of the recession. The first signs that Ministers are thinking about this and how to tackle it are evident from the plans announced in the Queen's Speech to put more pressure on claimants to find work. There is also the article ...
Happy Solstice to all my paganny-inclined friends. It's nice to live in a time and place where people of all religions and none can find some degree of tolerance from the majority of the populace. I wish this was a real book, and not an hilarious mock-up. I suspect that makes me incredibly geeky, but I don't care. Geekiness is fun.
The Scottish Government's zero-tolerance policy towards medical staff who don't wash their hands is a strange beast. A bit like the Haggis, which has three legs, two long ones on the downhill side and one short one on the up-hill side.Because it doesn't appear to be zero-tolerance at all, as people will be warned several times that they're being naughty before being "disciplined". Ooh, nurse, discipline please! In any case, the policy appears to be largely unnecessary. The previous target was easily met significantly ahead of schedule, demonstrating that there wasn't a major problem in the first place. So it ...
A two-man official Qatari delegation sailed into the small port of Gaza City at the weekend, on board a boat from Cyprus, to bring a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip, but more importantly to make a political point. As one of the pair, Aa'id Al Kahtani, of the government-funded Qatar Authority [...]
It is not my intention that this becomes a blog about Twitter so I'll let this be my third and final post on the subject for the time being (the next will be a small rant on a different subject). But I wanted to draw attention to Twitter's appearances in Parliament on Thursday, and in particular Jo Swinson's contribution to the Christmas adjournment debate. As well as being the youngest MP, Jo is one of Parliament's few twitterers, as she mentions: I want to talk about the possibility of speeding up Parliament's entry into the 21st century. I know that ...
Why is it that when someone dies who was not quite in step with its editorial line the Guardian feels the need to trash them? It isn't big and it isn't clever and merely makes the liberal left look every bit as nasty and mean-spirited as the right. The most notorious case was Polly Toynbee's attack on Auberon Waugh, which however wrong-headed of itself, at least had the merit of appearing heartfelt and reflecting a genuine clash between opposing styles of journalism. There is rather less excuse for setting tabloid bruiser Roy Greenslade (editor of the Mirror under Maxwell and ...
Whilst watching the Andrew Marr show I was entertained by the 7 minutes roundup by Rory Bremner of 2008 politically. I have just been scouting around the BBC politics page and have found it. Its worth watching, click HERE to watch the video!
News on Friday from the BBC that "Radio 'could go digital in 2017'" indicated that : "Radio listeners could have just nine years to switch to digital sets, a government-backed report has said. The Digital Radio Working Group (DRWG) says that by 2015, less than half of all radio listening could be via traditional FM or AM sets. It says that if DAB broadcasts reach enough of the country by then, a switch to digital would be possible by 2017." (You can click on headline above to view more of the BBC news report on this). The fundamental issue is ...
The heading above is on one side of a recent Conservative leaflet going out in East Wickham. At the bottom of the leaflet it says that East Wickham "needs a local person to represent it, not someone from the other side of Bexley ... it needs someone like Stephen Hall" Now that is an interesting pitch for the Tories to make. Because where does East Wickham Conservative councillor James Hunt (
Various blogs have picked on the News of the World story reporting a decline in membership for the Conservatives (illustrated graphically on your right). As I have said before I think the Tories should find this slightly worrying because it suggests a lack of popular enthusiasm for the brand of opposition they are providing as well as the obvious implications for infrastructure and activist base. So, it was with some interest that I turned to Conservative Home to see what medicine it prescribed. The causes it cites are interesting because they should give us some hope that alothough the Lib ...
After all the hype about how hard the government are working to help the poor during these hard times we now find out that ministers are considering charging the rules on emergency loans for those in dire straits. There's a £500 million pound government fund that people in desperate need of help can apply to [...]
So, this recession we're in, this is the economy attempting to rebalance itself in line with the current availability of money. Industries with customers dependent on Finance are being squeezed. This is the housing market (causing a fall in house prices), Furniture and DIY retailers, the Car industry and to a lesser extent electrical retailers. It also seems that companies heavily dependent on overdrafts to keep their wages bill paid while they're waiting for invoices to clear are also in great danger. Barclays are talking about another 2 years before Banks will be in a position to resume lending at ...
In view of the credit crunch, Ros and I have taken the view that it is more important then ever to support local businesses and producers. It satisfies my vague sense that I can do something to 'save the planet', encourages small companies to continue their efforts, and almost certainly improves the quality of our diet. Alder Carr Farm was the site of the first Farmers Market in the East of
Last night Chris and I went to Folkestone to Tim and Season's housewarming - even though somehow we went via Dover...
Two Conservative AM's for Wales have had to pay back money they claimed for their iPod's. "Leader of the Welsh Conservatives Nick Bourne and his Tory colleague Alun Cairns claimed a total of £398 in office costs."Now since when did an iPod become an office cost, I have worked in the office of Sajjad Karim MEP and let me assure you they was no iPod's their as far as I could see. Who were the iPod's for exactly themselves or the office? This is just an example of the Tories on the gravy train, in this past year the Conservatives ...
The Independent reports that unemployment is rising fastest in those seats that Labour is most vulnerable in; "Scores of Labour marginals have suffered the fastest-rising unemployment levels over the past 12 months". The vulnerable include 18 out of 23 Cabinet ministers; including the Prime Minister. Some of the worst hit areas are in the Midlands and the south. Of course, on one level this data isn't surprising as unemployment is rising across the board and Labour is the party that has the most MP's; ipso facto Labour MP's constituents are bound to suffer and they are bound to be in ...
Okay, so he's one of nine listed, alongside The Metric Martyrs, John Sergeant and Boris Johnson (this is the Telegraph, after all) - but still when was the last time a Liberal Democrat earned such an accolade from the paper? VINCE CABLE Dubbed "Dr Doom" for his (accurate, as it turned out) predictions of economic meltdown, the man the Lib Dems saw as too old, bald and boring to be their leader, has had the best year of any British politician. Oracle-like, Vince, 65, warned us of the mounting problems at Northern Rock, that the nation's "ticking timebomb of debt" ...
Brian Coleman, a Conservative member of the London Assembly and Barnet councillor, is known for three things: his huge taxi bills claimed on expenses, his frequent controversial outbursts (such as here, here and here) and his dislike of road humps and other road safety measures. The first two get most of the attention, but how does his approach to road safety stack up? First up: Partingdale Lane, where I'll let Wikipedia do the talking as its piece (at the time of writing) has the detailed, sourced story: Coleman takes great pride in his campaign to re-open Partingdale Lane, a narrow ...
Nick Harvey, Lib Dem shadow defence secretary, and the party's deputy leader, Vince Cable, have condemned the decision of the Government to sell its last remaining shares in the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment in Berkshire to an American company - without telling Parliament. The BBC reports: The move means Britain no longer has any stake in the production of its Trident nuclear warheads. ... The fee paid by California-based Jacobs Engineering has not been disclosed. The sale of British Nuclear Fuels' stake means Jacobs has control of one third of Aldermaston's operating company, AWE Management. The other two thirds were ...
Via the News of the World: Secret party documents show 40,000 supporters have left since David Cameron took over as leader three years ago. And the slump has ACCELERATED over the past year with the constituencies of Shadow Cabinet members among the worst hit. The ageing membership is dying off and the party is failing to attract youngsters. Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has lost an incredible 240 members in the last three years. Osborne—rocked by the Yachtgate scandal over his alleged talks with a Russian billionaire about a possible party donation—lost 69 constituency members in the past year. Also badly ...
A quick update on the very popular market at Wards Corner, and the controversial development that threatens it, as I know the issue of interest to people across Haringey. Before the Mayor elections: Boris Johnson says he's backing local campaigners against the development. After the Mayor elections: Boris Johnson says he won't use his planning power to block the development nor will he use Transport for London's ownership of the key part of the site to block it either. Hmm ... not impressed Boris! This man is for turning! Liberal Democrat Voice has more details on Wards Corner.
Norm Coleman should be worried: Nate Silver has proclaimed as much. I do hope it continues to go well for Franken, I genuinely think he would make a better Senator than Coleman. Apart from that, while I'm here, I might as well note that the Minnesota recount business has been interesting from a spin point of view; with the benefit of the hindsight applied to the Florida recount in 2000, both
Rumour reached me this weekend that SEVEN tory candidates have resigned in Bedford! As always this can be open to the usual speculation but the sources seem realistic. Now it seems it is between Henry Vann and Patrick Hall... No Tory in sight...
