Never mind Iain Dale's Gaygate, I spotted an article about the latest series of Torchwood in which the author, John Scott Lewinski (any relation?), has this spot of wisdom: And, in case fans weren't aware, Torchwood boss Captain Jack Harkness (pictured) evidently has occasional homosexual tendencies — as does actor John Barrowman. This reporter wasn't sure if folks had picked up on that subtle plot point communicated in the show's whispered subtext during the two previous seasons. That fact seems to eclipse what has become a very good sci-fi show. Assuming this is sarcasm, WTF? The "gayness" has always been ...
Yes, I know this is too geeky for words, but it make me laugh:
Dear Michael and Amber, I was surprised and disappointed that you, nor any Labour or Conservative councillors, attended the public meeting on 15 December to discuss the future of St Mary in the Castle. I am enclosing a link to the article which I expect you have read in the paper this week. [I would have sent a link [...]
No, not the REAL Iain Dale (who sent us a very lovely Christmas card - thank you sweetie). That Tory Blogger. See, apparently, he was being interviewed for the telleh (nice work if you can get it) and some teenagers started being disruptive. This apparently involved having a burping contest. Instead of being sensible and joining in (c'mon Iain, I bet there's a nice resonant capability in that barrel chest), attempts were made to get the teenagers to shut up. There was a bit of verbal to-and-fro (in which it sounds to me like the reporter was a pompous twat) ...
Nick Perry, Lib Dem parliamentary hopeful for Hastings & Rye, has urged Hastings Borough Council to look at the experience of Brighton residents when deciding whether or not to implement proposals for communal bins in those areas which do not have Twin Bins. Speaking at the weekend, Nick said - "If you go online and tap [...]
Well, it is Christmas. Thanks to Tim Worstall for the idea.
Josh Groban
The Daily Mail reports: A LibDem peer has joined the debate following Tom Chambers's controversial Strictly Come Dancing win, calling Saturday's final a 'fiasco'. Former North Cornwall MP Lord Tyler was called on the BBC to release the voting figures for the three finalists following producers' decision to allow Chambers to progress from the semi-final, despite coming bottom of the judges leaderboard. Lord Tyler has written to BBC Director General Mark Thompson, requesting the Corporation makes the voting figures public. The story should come as no surprise on two counts, both already trailed on LDV: 1. As Paul Tyler has ...
A computer memory device containing confidential information about vulnerable children has been lost by a Neath Port Talbot council officer, according to a foster carer. The informant has voiced concerns that the youngsters whose details are on the memory stick could be put at risk. This site, and that of Cllr Frank Little, have consistently warned of the dangers of lax computer security. It seems that there has been no borough-wide policy on data security, with the result that we see today. It is unclear whether the stick was lost within the education or social care departments, though the impression ...
'Greengate' - the Metropolitan police's incomprehensibly botched arrest of Tory MP Damien Green - appears to be the row that keeps on giving. More than three weeks after the shadow immigration minister was arrested and his Parliamentary office raided, it's the turn of assistant commissioner Bob Quick to find himself in hot water for hot-headedly accusing the Tory party of being "wholly corrupt". But track-back a fortnight, and it was another authority figure who was in trouble for his unprofessional role in 'Greengate' - the failure of Michael Martin, the House of Commons Speaker, even to ask if the police ...
My broadband service has been down for ages now and I have no other link to the internet other than through my trusty BlackBerry. My thumbs won't cope with sending long messages by this route, so I'm just giving a short explanation for my.absence. I was hoping to have been back online a week ago, but [...]
I ask because I genuinely don't know! I keep reading in the Torygraph and the Mail (serves me right I hear you say!), that various councils and schools around the country are afraid of putting up Christmas lights - calling them Winter Festive Lights, and holding nativity plays, for fear of offending people of other faiths. Can I say very clearly, that having been brought up in the Muslim faith in the UK, my family never felt 'offended' or threatened in any way by Christmas! -In fact they made sure we celebrated it in our own way- I loved playing ...
Councillor Alan Smith, Labour Ettingshall, passed away at the weekend.
Writing on The Daily Beast, Peter Beinart suggests that anti-intellectualism - first deployed by Richard Nixon and perfected by Ronald Reagan - may no longer be a powerful weapon for the Republicans: But if Reagan burnished the anti-intellectual brand, Bush has now wrecked it. Sometime between the catastrophe in Iraq, the catastrophe in New Orleans and the catastrophe on Wall Street, Americans decided that people who didn't know much about government weren't likely to run it very well. Back in 2000, when Bush stumbled and fumbled his way through interviews and debates, his approval ratings stayed high. When Sarah Palin ...
Not content with knowing about an election with 3 million voters with only handfuls of votes seperating the two front-runners it looks like it's going to go Franken's way too. Of course when it's the Democrats winning the GOP say they've `stolen the election` - every other possibility is them `making every vote count` [...]
SARAH! We've all heard of one puffed up queen in Tunbridge Wells Now here's another.... Apparently this other old queen thinks that it would have been better if she'd had been given MORE access to the media! ROFLMAO - yeh that's right Sarah, you go girl - your whole purpose is to provide ENTERTAINMENT - and we want [...]
A new regime begins with massive changes to the series' visual and musical style and script editor Christopher H Bidmead's vision of scientific fairy tales. The Leisure Hive's stunning look and score introduces it with a boom, while the more sombre feel finds an echo in sting-in-the-tail comic strips like The Star Beast or Alan Moore and David Lloyd's Business As Usual. But for sheer passion... Full Circle "Why can't people be nice to one other? Just for a change? I mean, I'm an alien and you don't want to drag me into a swamp, do you? [Pause] You do." ...
As Ehud Olmert is preparing to leave office he has spoken more boldly on the need for peace. He's warned against making bold statements against the Palestinians, compared Jews attacking Palestinians in the West Bank with Jewish persecution in Europe and has said in response to the collapse of the ceasefire with Hamas "Israel will know how to give the proper response at the right time in the right way, responsibly". Unfortunately he appears to be getting ignored. Both leading candidates for becoming the new Prime Minister have said they will topple Hamas. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, leader of Kadima ...
For all its ludicrous 'New' prefix, Labour remains a corporatist political Party: a believer in Big and On Message and hubris-fuelled promises that quickly become a hostage to fortune. It likes One Size Fits all and universal largesse - both of which reflect the movement's fundamental inability since 1997 to recognise the difference between the deserving and the desultory. It is this lack of discernment which lies at the heart of its abject failure to deal with the current fiscal, economic and human crisis. The Party which belatedly dumped Clause Four clings still to the principle of No Means Testing. ...
I don't regularly stumble onto Iain Dale's Diary. If he links to me, I do. And when I finally stop disappearing up my own exhaust pipe at work I will no doubt have an extravagance of time sufficient to read it occasionally again. So many thanks to A Lanson Boy for flagging up a priceless moment from the life in the political twilight zone that is the life of the great Dalester. He (the Dalester
There is a Facebook group The word "gay" is not a synonym for "stupid". The aim of the group is to disassociate the current trend among young people for saying something is a bit gay to mean either uncool, untrendy or stupid. The side affect of this of course is that those friends of such people who are gay feel the knock on effect of the word being used in this way. Therefore you can imagine my shock that to retaliate to group of rowdy and disruptive teenagers prominent blogger, erudite broadcaster, prominent homosexual and former parliamentary candidate Iain Dale ...
Yes you all know who you are; Mark Pack, Ryan Cullen and the rest of you. Even I fall into the category, but putting that aside I have a blog that I think all Teck Geek's will enjoy. The blog goes by the name of Scobleizer and is written by American blogger Robert Scorble! I shall be adding a link to the side for you all to read!
I posted the video below yesterday without watching it (due to a "no add-ons enabled" tedium with which I need not detain you). I've now watched it. It's "There's no one as Irish as Barack Obama" performed on Irish Television RTE's Late Late Show. This is more an institution than a television programme. For 37 years it was presented by Gay Byrne, who, during his tenure, took on the sort of
Many thanks indeed to Sharon Bowles MEP for sending three very attractive and heavy-gauge Christmas cards to our household (one for each loyal member of the party therein). There are five (count them - one, two, three, four, five!) excellent Libby Demmy things about these cards: 1. They were bought in a very good cause - The Childhood Eye Cancer Trust. Well done Sharon! 2. The board was
The Council is not a Scrooge and doesn't expect the binmen to work on Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year's Day (although they do work all the other bank holidays in the year). OK, so my recycling is collected on Tuesdays and 'm expecting them tomorrow as usual. The following week the collection will be a day late because of the backlog from Christmas Day and Boxing...
The leader of West Lothian Council, Peter Johnston is facing calls for his resignation following a police investigation being called to look at a conflict in an £8m planning application involving Action to Save St John's Hospital (ATSSJH) Councillor Gordon Beurskens. The case had been referred to Lothian and Borders police by the chief executive Alex Linkston. The application faced objections from the local authority's planning officers, but Cllr Beurskens who serves on the council's development control committee also acted as a consultant for the Aftondale application at Whiterigg, Whitburn close to the Robert Wiseman dairy to the east of ...
This is worth a listen - it's an episode of Radio Four's Beyond Belief about Christmas and paganism. I caught it this afternoon when I was, as usual, escaping from Steve Wright (it's that pathetic clapping by three people that drives me homicidal towards the twit) and then found out it was actually Aled Jones I was escaping from.
I found the interview with Jacqui Smith regarding Bob Quick, the man in charge of the police investigation into the Damian Greene fiasco, rather jaded and cliches. How many more estuary accented ministers are going to talk about people `getting on with the job` ie not answering the question. To cap it all someone suggested that [...]
TACTRAN, the Regional Transport Partnership for Tayside and Stirling, which I chair, today issued a news release about the publication of its Regional Transport Strategy - I reproduce this below : "The Tayside and Central Scotland Transport Partnership (TACTRAN) has published its Regional Transport Strategy for the period 2008 - 2023. The Strategy covers the Angus, Dundee City, Perth & Kinross and Stirling Council areas. TACTRAN Chair, Councillor Fraser Macpherson commented "The publication of our Regional Transport Strategy is the culmination of a huge amount of work by the Partnership over the past two years. Along with our partner Councils, ...
A beautiful winter's morning at Magdalen Green today.
I've been invited to pay a visit to Orpington this evening, to stuff envelopes in support of Grace Goodlad's campaign for East Wickham and, as I'm in London overnight, I thought that I might drop in. It's my first solo engagement, so wish me luck...
Iain Dale has a post about having to deal with some thirteen year olds who were trying to disrupt a TV interview he was recording in a park in Tunbridge Wells. Iain says that the reporter told the kids to go away because they were a disgrace for burping while he was trying to record. As Iain says, perhaps not the wisest move. But what really struck me about the blog were two things: - Iain felt that because the 13 year olds were happy to engage in a shouting match with the reporter (reporter called them a disgrace, they ...
The attached is another case where a child was put into care because the child was "poisoned" against a parent. In this case the Court of Appeal has behaved sensibly and allowed the child to return to a parent rather than being in care.
Hands-up all those out there from the Liberal Democrat blogsphere who read Sunny Hundal's Liberal Conspiracy? As I suspected a few but not many; so the next question why don't more of you?? You may even wonder why this is worth a whole posting; well, it is one of the top five political blogs in this country and the only one of the top five that actually has a 'liberal-left' mission statement. So, it's the only one likely to challenge the Conservative domination of the blogsphere (Mike Smithson's Political Betting is a neutral site to my mind despite Mike's personal ...
.. is not to persist in delivering Xmas cards in the rain!
What on earth was the government doing at the weekend? First we are told the people getting crisis loans are going to have to pay interest. Then we are told this is somehow protecting them from loan sharks. Then we are told it is just out to consultation and might not happen. Then we are told the government aren't going to do it anyway. It's clear to me that there is/was a plan to get social fund crisis loans paid back with interest. Its also clear that there was such a revolt against this that some poor Junior Minister had ...
Between Boxing day and New years eve I shall release the names of people and the awards they have won. The awards will be given by me to the people who I think deserve them. The awards are: Liberal Democrats blog of the year Not Liberal Democrats blog of the year Politician of the year Best resignation of the year Commenter of the year Best election of the year If you would like to bring someone to my attention and why they deserve any of these awards please leave a comment otherwise check back for the results!
James Graham reminded me about this. How did I do with my 8 hopes for the year? 1, That my wedding goes off without a hitch, and that I remain as blissfully and vomit-inducingly happy with my wonderful matgb as I am now.A qualified success - we haven't got round to getting wed yet, but we're still vomit-inducingly happy. 2, That everyone I love is alive and healthy by the end of the year, or at least in no worse state than they are right now at the beginning.There was never really a hope of this coming off, was there? ...
Matt Wardman has reviewed our book over on The Wardman Wire: I enjoyed reading the pieces - there was a good mix and nothing too obscure that would be lost on a non-Lib Dem audience. I was left wanting a touch more - particularly one or two more "meaty" pieces, as I explain below. And a Gold Star for having spent the time and space to include a decent index. You can read the full review here. One of the points he picks up is how the book is rather light on Scottish and Welsh content. That's a fair point, ...
I shall be happy when happy week is over. Lack of outlet for ranting is causing all sorts of issues. I am increasingly grumpy and frustrated in everything. Still, I am happy today that I finally managed to get to sleep at dawn, and that I don't have to go to work as dead as I am. I am also happy that Mat and the Shrub are having nice conversations with each other.
A little under a year ago, I took part in an Iain Dale-initiated meme to make eight predictions for 2008. Here they are again, together with an assessment of how accurate they proved to be: 1. Clegg to learn to trust his instincts, distrust his yes men and subsequently the Lib Dems to get back up to the low twenties in the opinion polls and to make steady progress over the year. That's a yes, a no and a no. A year on I'm a little more ambivalent about his instincts as well. 2. After another period of stagnation, and ...
Back to London this morning, courtesy of National Express East Anglia (NXEA), but this time on the 08:29. It would appear that, over the Christmas period, NXEA don't run a restaurant car service anyway, so I wasn't strictly missing out on my pork-dominated treat. However, it still leaves me feeling as though a small piece of my life is just that little bit less perfect. On the other hand, there
The Daily Telegraph has this report of Chris Huhne's comments regarding the lack of use of non-custodial sentences against young offenders. Before sentencing, judges and magistrates must obtain a pre-sentence report from the local youth offending team (YOT). Figures from the Ministry of Justice showed a 'wide-variation' in the responses to these reports. In some areas custodial sentences were only handed-down when recommended but in others the report was ignored and the offender jailed in any case. Huhne said; "We are schooling too many children in crime at the public's expense. Britain incarcerates far more children than any other European ...
Bury Council is closed on 25 and 26 December 2008, and again on 1 and 2 January 2009. During these times there is an emergency number to contact which is 0161 253 6606.
Welcome to Christmas catchup in the week party leader Nick Clegg celebrated his first anniversary in post. We covered that here on the voice with articles from our editor at large Stephen Tall, Cambridgeshire campaigner and activist Martin Land, and Mark Littlewood from Progressive Vision. Clegg penned an article for us himself, and also put up a Youtube video. And Alison Holmes also wrote a considered review of the year. As well as slightly introspective views of his leadership year, Nick Clegg also gave a major speech to Demos, covering the big subject of liberalism. Stephen wrote a summary of ...
My first question about the New Local Government Network's report on 'naming things after famous people' (I am sure there is a better title for it, but that's the best I could come up with) is why did they bother? I don't disagree with some of their findings, but my question is does it really [...]
I want one! I want one! I want one!
I see that my colleague, Duncan Borrowman, has been having a bit of trouble with the English Democrats. I don't intend to involve myself in that, apart from to associate myself with his response to them. However, I note that the South East Area Chairman of the English Democrats has seen fit to write to representatives of each of the 'British' (his word, not mine) political parties, complaining
I've penned three reviews for January's Total Politics, which hit the newsstands last Friday. Here are the links so you can read them if you're into that kind of thing: BlackBerry Bold and Political Machine reviews David Hare's Gethsemane (a genuine disappointment - the play, not the review) PS. And December's leader was quite good wasn't it?
All credit to Gordon Brown who has, politically, played a blinder in convincing a large chunk of the electorate that our current economic woes are in no way his fault and our eventual salvation will be by his blessed hand. But whither the Conservative Party? I mentioned the Conservatives' problems last week, but it wasn't especially inciteful stuff. More interesting are the articles by Jennie Rigg and Martin Land. Jennie wonders why parts of the Tory press are suddenly being unusually nice to the Lib Dems and speculates that, with the Tory star waning, they may see a strong Lib ...
Almost 250 people in Bath have signed a Liberal Democrat petition calling for 20mph speed limits on the most residential streets in Bath & North East Somerset. Doctors in the British Medical Association backed the 20mph limits earlier this year and residents city-wide are worried about the speed of traffic on the most residential roads. Bath MP Don Foster, who is...
It is beginning to get to the situation whereby we do not know what the One Wales Government have promised anymore in relation to a referendum for further powers. Allegedly, it is meant to be held before the Assembly elections on 2011, but the Electoral Commission has quite rightly ruled out holding it on the same day as that poll. However, at a time when key services are being cut back all across Wales the Assembly Government is spending £1 million of taxpayers money to fund a talking shop under Sir Emyr Jones Parry, which is supposed to advise whether ...
I love mocking things. Really and truly, I do. And frequently I offend people as a consequence of doing so. In my eyes, nothing is ever so sacred that it should not be mocked; offense-giving notwithstanding, it is an important part of a free society that such mocking is permitted. This is because the unmockable [...]
Mon 22nd
10:54
Green plans will boost jobs and homes in Bath and North East Somerset - Liberal Democrats
Liberal Democrats in Bath and North East Somerset have given their backing to plans for investment in green schemes that will make homes warmer, cut energy bills and improve public transport. The plans, called Green Road out of Recession, were announced on 18th December by Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg MP. The plans will cost £12.5bn, which would be paid for...
Sound silly doesn't it. But it's not. I think future historians will see 2008 as the year in which the Conservative Party entered into terminal decline. My regular readers will have noted my absence over the last two months. A series of by elections have taken up my time and that of my colleagues. Here in Cambridgeshire, a Tory fortress, they have simply failed to perform. They have lost a District and a County seat, and received a bloody nose as we moved from fifth to second in one of their strongholds. And, on Thursday, we successfully defended a seat ...
Jennie Rigg has an interesting article on Liberal Conspiracy. She looks at the recent favourable coverage that the Liberal Democrats have been getting in the Conservative press. Specifically, she talks about Quentin Lett's in the Daily Mail. She could also have mentioned a recent editorial in The Times which was also glowing about Nick Clegg in particular. I think Jennie is absolutely right about the motivation behind this 'love-bombing'; namely that the polls are getting tighter for the Conservatives and a hung-parliament is at the moment a very real prospect. Tactically, they want us to be able to unseat Labour ...
It's a real shame that the release of the latest figures on knife crime have been dogged by controversy over the way in which they were released rather than the story that they tell. As Alix Mortimer reported on this blog on 13th December the UK Statistics Authority has accused the government of releasing "premature, irregular and selective" figures which appeared to prove that knife crime in the UK was falling. The National Statistics Code of Practice is there for a reason and of course due processes should be in place to make sure that the figures are not being ...
The BNP have a page on their website that links to leaflets to attack every political party or group! They are sum really childish leaflets and you can view them by clicking HERE.
Now let me get this straight, I don't give a flying fig about your opinion. But, if one assumes that your legal advice is right, you should note that MatGB's comment makes no reference to the word "English" in your party name. I suggest you actually read it before getting all worked up and excitable.
From: Steve Uncles [StevenUncles@EngDem.org] Sent: 22 December 2008 02:12 To: duncan@borrowman.org.uk Cc: RobinTilbrook@aol.com; Bexley@EngDem.org Subject: FW: Liberal Democrats - Web Site in Contravention to the 1976 Race Relactions Act - Duncan Borrowman Dear Duncan I am sorry but this sort of behaviour will no longer be tolerated. Do you do the same sort of thing when campaigning
From: Steve Uncles [StevenUncles@EngDem.org] Sent: 22 December 2008 02:00 To: duncan@borrowman.org.uk Cc: Bexley@EngDem.org Subject: 20081221 East Wickham Letter - Bexley & Dartford Parties. 1976 Race Relactions Act Attachments: 20081221 East Wickham Letter - Bexley & Dartford Parties.doc Bexley British Labour Party 31 Sidcup Hill Sidcup
Please remove this comment from your blog MatGB 16 December 2008 11:17 The word 'English' as a title isn't racist. The official position of the EDs isn't racist. The BNP deny being racist as well. Officially, the EDs aren't racist. Shame about a lot of their members. They appear to have changed stance a little—they used to exist solely to campaign for an English Parliament, and would
Mon 22nd
09:50
Labour government wants to allow Bailiffs to use force, break in to homes to recover consumer debt
That's pretty shocking Money collection is pretty heavily regulated, particularly when it comes to actual enforcement with bailiffs, having dealt with debt collectors and bailiffs, I certainly wouldn't want them to have more power than they alrea... Read and post comments | Send to a friend
Happy Hanukkah to those who are celebrating it.
140 years after Gladstone helped reunite the Liberal Party around the issue of disestablishing the Anglican Church of Ireland, the issue of the link between Church and State has once again reared its head. The Telegraph yesterday reported that the Government is considering a report being drawn up in Downing Street on ways to reform a key element of the established Church, the 1701 Act of Settlement, which bars a Catholic from ascending to the throne. David Cairns, a former Roman Catholic priest who resigned as a minister at the Scotland Office two months ago in protest at Gordon Brown's ...
"Zimbabwe is mine" says Robert Mugabe. Doesn't that sum up the whole sorry mess? He doesn't say Zimbabwe belongs to Zimbabweans. It's his, he says. It would remind me of Dawn French in those chocolate orange adverts ("This isn't Terry's it's mine") if it wasn't so tragic.
History is repeating itself, though whether as tragedy or farce awaits to be seen. As our economy enters another of its periodic recessions, caused as ever by government meddling in the economy, politicians race to solve the problem with further doses of the same poison. Sadly, in an age where politicians fear differentiating themselves from one another and parties squabble over a consensus they disingenuously call the middle ground, there seems to be no real debate over how best to ensure that the recession that we are now in is as brief as possible. Just as President Hoover's failed interventions ...
The Doctor starts the year and ends a quest by upsetting Black, White and Mr Brown in prizing dossing about over knuckling down. Douglas Adams becomes script editor for imaginative, literate, often funny stories: free-trade fable The Creature From the Pit; space holiday disaster Nightmare of Eden; the gloriously tuneful City of Death. Doctor Who Weekly brings terrific comic strips such as (Judge Death and New Labour precursor) City of the Damned, and of course... The Iron Legion "Put your gas-masks on, citizens! It's your favourite and mine... The Ectoslime! Will the Doctor be its CXXIV victim of the season? ...
It's been a weekend for catching up on the paperwork - I had to clear some space on the kitchen table somehow..... Anyway, I opened my mobile phone bill yesterday to find a letter from them saying they were switching me to online billing. All well and good, until I got to the bottom of the sheaf of paper they'd sent me and found another letter, addressed to somebody else, giving the same information. This letter contained this person's name, address, mobile phone number and log-in details for their account on T-Mobile's website. Had I been of criminal mind, I ...
I was thinking of doing an ironic/funny piece about this but have decided against that. Is there something wrong with the police these days? Would an old style copper of the Dixon of Dock Green-type have arrested a bagpipe player, handcuffed him and taken him down to the police station for an hour? The police said the chap was causing "distress". But the bagpipe busker in Bridport, Dorset had
The Register is reporting that a corrupt policeman with access to the criminal database blackmailed sex offenders and drug dealers.PC Amerdeep Singh Johal, 29, was arrested by anti-corruption cops from Scotland Yard in July 2007. Johal was employed in checking names and address on the police database, called Crimint, on behalf of beat cops. He abused the role to contact 11 convicted offenders and threaten to spill the beans on their crimes unless he was given "hush money". Johal requested between £29,000 and £31,000 for his silence, threatening to tell work colleagues or neighbours of convicted sex offenders about their ...
Well, I have to say thank you to Tavish Scott for inviting me to set up a standing order to make monthly donations to the Euro campaign recently. It's a good cause, certainly - George Lyon, a farmer from Argyll and Bute and former deputy finance minister, is a credible and dynamic choice to send to Brussels. The current Scottish Lib Dem MEP, Elspeth Atwooll is retiring in June and will be very much missed in the Scottish party. She has been unfailingly generous with her time and support of local campaigns and a star in encouraging women candidates. I ...
It's now some 6 weeks since that Saturday afternoon when I came over all funny while watching tv, signalling the start of a vicious virus from which I still haven't fully recovered. I was off work for a whole two weeks and since my return have managed to do not much more than get to the office, do my hours and come home and collapse in a heap. I feel like I have a wee bit more energy now to devote to this blogging lark and hope to be back up to speed in the New Year. My Christmas preparations ...
This week with Amused Cynicism.
{Christmas tree} Here's my Christmas message for the Haringey Independent: Christmas approaches - and we are all wondering how much the recession will affect us. But first let's think about the good things that have happened this year. We got a Climate Change Bill that has some rigour. 42 days detention without charge was defeated. Our neighbourhood police have had some success in bringing local crime stats down. And having been to many Christmas Shows and concerts by local children and some not so young local people - there are a wealth of good people out there doing good things. ...
Nick Cohen in yesterday's Observer pours scorn on the "psychobabble" that led to the police targetting Colin Stagg for Rachel Nickell's murder, leaving the read murderer was free to kill again. He's quite right. Then as now, police are often far too eager to jump on the cool quick-fix. Cohen talks about the complete confidence of a senior police officer that the psychological profiling had led them to the right man and Stagg was guilty, even after his conviction was overturned. The police have always been influenced by crime drama, and it wouldn't surprise me if fictional shows like Cracker, ...
Whilst us consumers have been enjoying reductions in prices on the run up to Christmas it is a sign according to Nick Hood, a partner at Begbies Traynor, that 10 or more national or regional chains will follow Woolies and MFI to the wall. PricewaterhouseCoopers where showing that 82% of stores were discounting their products on the weekend before Christmas over the last 2 days. This discounting to move the Christmas stock at what is normally the profit making time for retailers may lead to many struggling to restock in the new year. pay their VAT bills, and survive through ...
... and you've already discussed Belgian politics with your also-insomniac other half? Why, you look up on the internet the actor who was in the thing you watched on telly, to see why he looked so familiar... The thing we watched was the first disc of season 2 of Life on Mars (still prefer Ashes, sorry). The character was Harry Woolf and we watched the credits for long enough to get the actor's name, so I fired up the laptop and looked at IMDB. Kevin McNally. The reason he looks familiar is that he's been in EVERYTHING. People who have ...
Warning: this post contains pedantry. Normally I'm very forgiving of the odd typo here and there, even in the "professional press". We all hit the wrong button sometimes. Not everyone has a solid education in the classics (I sure don't). There are probably typos in this very post. But the story I'm about to blog about is so rubbish that I'm afraid I'm going to pick out a couple number of examples that should have been subbed away to reinforce what a poor article it is. I should also warn you that this post, unlikely almost every other post in ...
