The dramatic Islington council budget meeting - and shock council tax rise from Labour - continue to make the news. There's coverage in the Islington Gazette, the Tribune, the Evening Standard, and a thoughtful analysis on Jeremy Hargreaves' blog. Meanwhile I've received this message from Council leader James Kempton: "I am writing to inform you [...]
Sorry for the lack of posts this week - I've ended up working late most days, and been too tired to write when I got in, and Holly and I have been flathunting. With some luck I'll have a post up tomorrow about the Convention on Modern Liberty, and a Cerebus post on Sunday. Meanwhile, [...]
We have already written about Giles Clarke, the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, twice this week. On Wednesday we reported his far-fetched claim that he had received 9000 supportive e-mails over the Allen Stanford affair. Yesterday we reported that the Guardian had printed a correction saying that Clarke's claim that the ECB had taken external advice from KPMG on a deal proposed by Stanford was untrue. This evening Mihir Bose writes on the BBC website: Two years ago, when I compiled a BBC Newsnight piece on cricket, I was very impressed what was being done in places ...
Tonight I was in the front row, cheering a fantastic musical evening in Finsbury Library. We had Schubert lieder, Benjamin Britten songs and show tunes from William Sauerland with Erik Dippenaar. Then an unforgettable performance from the Pink Singers, who delivered two medleys - Bond songs and Tamla Motown - with unique style. The event [...]
My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News. Reality show There are mornings when Quentin Davies forgets. He rises, shaves and enjoys the eggs and b. He congratulates himself on being MP for the beautiful town of Stamford, thinking fondly of its five Medieval churches and 600 listed buildings. If ever there were a safe seat... Then it hits him. He is no longer a Conservative. As the scream rises in his throat, he remembers that in June 2007 he crossed the floor. He recalls the statement Labour's spin doctors wrote for him. It said Gordon Brown was "a ...
Peter Hain was unequivocal on "Question Time" last night. He will vote against any privatisation of Royal Mail. However, he did not offer a solution to two major problems facing the postal system: where is the money coming from to update the Royal Mail's technology, and what is to be done about the post office network? A purely public service answer is feasible. The government could put back some of the money previous administrations have skimmed off, money which should have gone into continuous technological improvements, and replenish the pension fund, which it has forced to take contribution "holidays". (Both ...
Residents in Sandeman Street have raised with Chris Hall the need for improved recycling facilities here. Chris has taken this matter up with the Council's Waste Management Department.
Last night's meeting of Islington Full Council to set the Council Tax for the next year sounds like it was quite a lively affair. At first appearance, the Labour group seem to have been the winners. They managed to overturn the wafer-slender numerical superiority of the controlling Lib Dems (the position is currently 23 Lib Dem, 23 Labour, one independent former Lib Dem, and one Green) to get their budget proposals agreed in place of the official one proposed by the (Lib Dem) Council Executive. Such a victory has been on the cards ever since the 2006 local election results ...
I'm pleased that the Liberal Democrats are proposing the Freedom Bill - and here's a selection of the measures it incorporates: • Scrap ID cards - for everyone. • Restore the right to protest in Parliament Square. • Scrap the ContactPoint database of all children in Britain. • Remove innocent people from the DNA database. • Reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days. You can read more by clicking on the headline above. And - you can use the comment facility to give feedback on how to improve the Bill.
I spent much of today visiting Further Education Colleges in my region so that I could discuss the impact of Welsh Government cuts on them. Despite the fact that the Government's Education Department received a 5.5% uplift in its funding in the next financial year they have delivered a cut in the money they are putting into further education. There is in fact £3 million less to spend on this service in 2009-2010 than is available this year. As a result Bridgend College is having to cut £1 million from its £25 million budget, Swansea College is facing an unprecedented ...
The former United Dairies site at the corner of Baring Road and St.Mildred's Road is just outside Lee Green Ward, but I know some residents in our area have been following the various planning applications and appeals with interest. Last September, Big Yellow held an exhibition to show local residents and stakeholders some new planning proposals they had. Big Yellow's agents have now written to us with the results of that consultation. They advise that a planning application will be sumitted shortly to the Council. I've uploaded a scanned copy of the letter I've received so those interested can read ...
Councillors on the Beddington & Wallington Local Committee agree a number of improvements to the area around Wallington Station last night. The works include new dropping off arrangements outside the station, new cycle storage and planting and also provide much needed lighting improvements and a raised pedestrian crossing in Ross Parade, changes to loading and unloading bays in the town centre and a safer bus stop near Café Nerro as a result The works which will be paid for from local people's contributions to Transport for London (TfL) and will cost more than £600k. Traffic Lights Upgraded - at last ...
So, les bleus have chopped and changed their line-up this week. New faces throughout the team. Established names relegated to the bench. From the outside, it may appear that the coach doesn't know what he's doing. Certainly his future is far from secure.Recent results have been poor for les bleus, and one of their rivals have changed their coach with dramatic effect. We already know that at least
After a lot of discussion councillors agreed to give the go ahead to the Redford Avenue cycling contraflow scheme at the Beddington & Wallington Local Committee. The contraflow section will be between Link Lane and Stafford Road and the scheme which was supported by the police, cycling groups and residents at the meeting will be paid for by Transport for London. The new route is included in a new cycle network that will make cycling between Roundshaw and Wallington easier in future. Councillors were told that TfL have also agreed to fund an extension of the scheme through Mellows Park. ...
Political Blogger and Liberal Democrat Jock Coats has written a blog post about how the date of the general election could either be the 26th March 2009 or the 4th June 2009! Which are both interesting dates and I think he could be right. Brown now knows he is in trouble and needs to call a general election as the country is getting a little pissed off with him and the government and the way they have and are handling this economic hardship! So a general election is exactly what we need. Personally I think the date of the general ...
It's no big secret that one of the things political Islam rails against the west for is what they consider to be its harram banking system based on debt/usury. Abu Hamza even said on a Newsnight one night (even Jeremy didn't really pick up on it at the time from memory) that attacks then being carried out against French banks were legitimate. So, might I suggest that one way, if you really want to, to get back Sir Fred's pension and all those other bonuses would be to incarcerate them (and especially the politicians that egged them on in the ...
Ah yes, another dinner beckons, this time in Reigate. It's been a pretty enjoyable day so far, having found time to meet my father and kid brother for lunch.My father is celebrating his birthday over the weekend and, due to the difficulty in getting the family together, I grabbed the opportunity to spend a little time with him, with my brother, talking about family and stuff.Given the
Newly elected Lib Dem councillors for Downham, Duwayne Brooks and Jenni Clutten, have pledge to help raise money for two pensioners who were conned out of £1000. Read more about it here.
{AWE - logo} At the Reading Borough Council (RBC) Planning Application Meeting (PAC) to be held on the 4 March 2009, Item 21 will be an update on the AWE Burghfield application. On the same day West Berks. Council (WBC) will be holding their PAC meeting in Newbury, to discuss the same application.An observations letter has now been sent to WBC, calling for a holding objection and the escalation to a higher authority I had been requesting, and the response from West Berkshire Council was:Thank you for your letter, the contents of which have been noted. Unfortunately, this Local Planning ...
We would like to say a big congratulations to Greenvale School for its excellent Ofsted Report. - clearly the result of very hard work by students, staff and parents. Read about here in the Newsshopper.
Drowning Brown: How much longer is he going to wriggle? I've long been of the opinion that Gordon Brown, for all sorts of reasons, would wait until the last possible moment in 2010 to go to the country. I've now changed my mind. I don't think he can last another couple of months. I do not see how Darling can get a budget through that is not either going to have to be full of more lies to cover up the seriousness of the position or be honest and open and expose the farce that the various rescue attempts have ...
Rewarding senior executives for failure has become all too common in recent years. The £16 million pension awarded to Sir Fred Goodwin, former boss of RBS, may make him 'media hate person of the day' but his is only the latest in a long line of payments for destroying perfectly good companies. Gordon Brown may view it as "unacceptable" and be [...]
12.30, tonight, BBC4 - stay up, set your DVD recorder or set your alarm! There's been much to enjoy in BBC4's repeats of The New Avengers, but tonight's haunting Dead Men Are Dangerous is the one I enjoy the most. A beautiful, tragic character piece, with a thrilling opening sequence and a nail-biting conclusion, it's the best episode by a long way. The series' strangely friendly Cold War rivalries give way to the bitter, deadly rivalry of a friend. This is simply magnificent television. "The only thing that can't be replaced is the love and life of an old friend." ...
As you will see below, Nick Clegg is doing a special evening for the Jewish community and has asked for it to be publicised so that anyone local who wants to go can reserve a place: On Monday March 16th, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg will be holding a special Question and Answer session in Westminster for the Jewish community. Hosted by the Jewish News - an article announcing the event is in this week's edition - the event is an opportunity for the audience to ask questions to Nick on any topic they choose. Anyone can attend the event, ...
Mike Smithson has managed to get £100 on at 6/1 that Fred Goodwin will give up some of his pension before the end of the year. This could be a good bet but the natural cycle of news means that this story will only last a few more days maximum before other things start to bump it down the running order. Once that happens and it is fading away, it will not be in the government's interest to do anything such as legal action or legislation to bring it back to the top of the agenda. So, I think that ...
Waitrose has now committed to build a supermarket in Chipping Sodbury, possibly opening in 2011. This is part of a larger development incorporating some housing and smaller shops. There will be a pedestrian walkway across the Frome joining the supermarket to the High Street via a current private alleyway. There is more detail in the Gazette report on Waitrose, and previous consultation documents are on Waitrose's consultants' website. Meanwhile it is now expected that building works will start on the new Tesco store in Yate later this year. Demolition of the old store should start in early autumn, with a ...
Fri 27th
17:41
Despicable act by First Choice Holidays comdemns 300 Salford workers to uncertain future
I read today that Tui, the owner of First Choice Holidays, has announced the closure of their call centre and admin office in Salford. For many years, up until 18 months ago, my wife worked for First Choice on Peel Cross Road, just a mile and a half from my home. She left just as Tui were finalising the takeover of First Choice and implementing a re-organising of the combined businesses of Thomson and First Choice. Since the time of the takeover, around 200 jobs have been lost at the Peel Cross Road site due to redundancies and relocation of ...
Just returned from a week on the road, gauging the opinion of local authority chief executives in the Midlands, to discover that my favourite bank is thriving in these troubled times. The Global Favour Bank (GFB) is the one that we all make deposits in, every time we help someone out, and it gives us credit every now and again when we need a bit of support. On my way back home, I thought I'd take a little detour and pop in to see some friends who are converting a barn. I spent a thoroughly enjoyable day and half with ...
Bury Liberal Democrats have welcomed plans to boost affordable housing and avoid home repossession. The plans, launched by the Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable MP and Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Teather MP, include: providing refurbishment loans for owners of empty homes if the homes are leased to housing associations, boosting the amount of private housing for rent including using empty commercial property temporarily as housing, bringing in a new type of secure mortgage to help boost lending to house buyers, letting councils and housing associations buy up unsold private houses and allowing them access to funds to bring their ...
This is the speech I made in support of the lIb Dem budget amendment on Wednesday night at the meeting of the Council. The amendment earmarked hundreds of thousands of pounds for extra road and pavement repairs, and for a crdie crunch relief fund. Depsite the support of the Lib Dems (obviously) and Labour, the Tories decided that Bury's priorities are elsewhere, and voted against the amendment, preferring instead their own budget which saw a 4.79% Council Tax rise as well as significant cuts. This was the speech... "I'd like to start by adding my thanks to Mr Owen and ...
The local papers said that I would be meeting the campaigners against the London Newcastle development on the site of the old Freemasons pub on Lordship Lane. And indeed they came to see me that very day. Thus proving that what you read in the papers is true! The application was for A1/A2/A3 designation on the site and Haringey had already refused planning permission. London Newcastle had appealed and that appeal was heard two weeks ago and the decision is expected next week. Three representatives of the local traders came to see me to say how worried they were that ...
This is getting really annoying. If you don't like huge pensions and senior executives getting awarded for failure, why not have a go at the people in charge who encouraged it over more than a decade - principally "light touch" Gordon. The nonsense over Sir Fred Goodwin is pure misdirection. Let's all shout at the nasty banker, taking the pension he's legally entitled to. What next? Shall we whip Sir Fred naked past the Bank of England? Boil him in oil? How about a nice lynching? For someone who, as far as I can tell, hasn't even broken the law, ...
Further to my previous post on the mysteriously disappearing articles about the Which survey on attitudes to web tracking, it seems that Phorm has indeed sent in the legal dogs. The Register article says that Phorm have refused to identify their libel lawyers but it suggests that they could be Schillings. That figures! If you're a dubious individual or company, want to silence your critics and can afford them, they really are the go to lawyers these days. I guess they are the new Carter-Ruck. Do you think they may also have a bizarre deathbed conversion to Liberal Democracy?
According to a blog post by Chris Davies MEP a Lib Dem voter arrived at Blackburn Royal Hospital in a body bag when he wasn't even dead. That is just an example of the service provided by the hospital which is in the constituency of Jack Straw MP. Yet the Labour authorities have taken away the A&E from Burnley General Hospital. If thats what Ambulance drivers under a Labour run NHS think of Lib Dem voters, imagine what the Tories would do to Lib Dems!
Brussels was quiet this week, with the European Parliament mostly in recess. One or two committees met, extraordinarily, to deal with business they need to clear up before we rise in nine weeks' time for the elections; and members who do not seek to return in July formed the bulk of the delegations we despatched abroad for discussions with parliaments elsewhere. The Foreign Ministers and European Affairs Ministers met in Brussels on Monday. The Foreign Ministers agreed to double the human resources of the 200-strong, 17 nation police mission in Afghanistan which seeks to train Afghani police officers in law ...
The Monkey is out of hospital and has been blogging about GBFMYC the campaign Give Back Our Fucking Money You Cunts, which basically is a group of campaigners outside RBS HQ asking members of staff from the bank to donate money to them. A video of the campaigners can be seen by following the link and personally I think its funny that they are people who will express the voice of the general public by campaigning like that. Many people including myself have had enough with the bankers and their dodgy ways of creating big pensions for themselves and making ...
It appears I rattled a few cages amongst the ruling Labour Group earlier this week when I proposed a motion on how grant aid is allocated by Reading Borough Council (which was discussed on Tuesday evening). In case you were not aware, the amount of money handed over by Reading Borough Council to voluntary sector and community groups this year currently stands at over £2.5m. And yet, If you asked me to come up with two words to describe the current process the Council goes through to allocate this substantial some of money the words 'open' and 'transparent' would not spring to mind. Don't get me ...
Following news today that Ryanair are investigating the possibility of charging people £1 to go to the toilet on Ryanair flights, Ryanair are keeping quiet over concerns that they might in future turn of the air systems in the planes and instead charge people to use oxygen masks instead. A senior Irish self publicist said on TV at every possible opportunity between repeating lies that Ryanair are the best airline in the world that "if we can get away with charging people for a call of nature when they have no alternative but to use aircraft toilets then why shouldn't ...
There's a line of green thought - or perhaps a green way of thinking - that sees CO2 emissions as a trump card. We can have discussions about what's right, but once the CO2 card's been played, it's game over. Want to build a new road? Drive a few more miles? Buy a new TV? Won't someone think of the carbon dioxide! Which is nonsense. CO2 is not in itself a terrible thing. It's quite handy to have some of the stuff around. Even if we've got a bit too much at the moment, the odd tonne here and there ...
Broxtowe BC, Greasley (Giltbrook and Newthorpe)Con 1125 (49.1; +0.5)Lab 600 (26.2; +1.6)BNP 301 (13.1; -2.5)LD Gwen Robb 232 (10.1; -0.9)UKIP 31 (1.4; +1.4)Majority 525Turnout 46%Con holdPercentage change is since 2007East Devon DC, Honiton St MichaelsLD Marion Olive 636 (51.1; +51.1)Con 609 (48.9; -20.9)[Lab (0.0; -30.2)]Majority 27Turnout 23.7%LD gain from ConPercentage change is since
In a posting today on LabourList, David Lammy has talked up the popularity of the BNP by misquoting and misinterpreting evidence about how many people visit their website. The MP for Tottenham wrote: [The BNP] it attracts more than half of all internet traffic to political party sites, according to the online monitoring firm Hitwise. But that's not true. I think what has happened here is that the popularity of the bnp.org.uk domain compared with conservatives.com, labour.org.uk, libdems.org.uk and so on has been confused with "all internet traffic to political party sites". (Thanks to Hitwise for confirming to me that ...
As I've mentioned before, my Lib Dem colleagues in the Lords are a convivial bunch and we are a pretty close knit group. Despite this, we don't get a lot of time together socially unless we make a particular effort, which is something we do from time to time to mark some special occasion. Last evening we had a dinner to celebrate four of our colleagues who have reached their 80th birthdays - Eric Avebury, Geoff Tordoff, Bill Rodgers and Dick Taverne. With partners, plus our lovely Whip's Office staff, we totalled around 80 people, although I think that was ...
According to today's Evening Standard, the Labour Party have made a secret approach to Sir Alan Sugar to see if he would be willing to be their candidate for Mayor of London in 2012. Indeed, so secret is it now that most of London is either aware of it, or haven't left their offices yet.Now I have no personal axe to grind against Sir Alan (although I'm guessing that Arsenal fans probably do...)
The Daily Telegraph today has its regular monthly YouGov poll. They've headlined their report: Immigration is top issue for both Labour and Tory voters, YouGov poll shows They go on to say: A Daily Telegraph/YouGov survey shows that it is the top concern that people want an incoming Conservative government to deal with. Problem is, that isn't really what the poll says. One of the plus points of the paper using a polling firm that is a member of the British Polling Council is that we can get ready access to much fuller information than that in the report. If ...
Just ordered my pack.. will you be walking for water?
A little Friday afternoon quiz for my two-legged friends. How do you think the following, published in yesterday's Guardian, was completed: "The unrelenting force of evolution is about to take an unexpected toll on the English language by forcing some of our favourite words into extinction. The word 'dirty' is in most danger of going the way of the dodo, and could vanish from use completely within..." a) 7 days b) 7 weeks c) 7 years d) 70 years e) 700 years f) 750 years The answer, of course, is (f). I am impressed at the confidence in their predictions ...
On WAO just now the Treasury Select Committee Chairman (apart from trying to re-establish the last leg of the Labour narrative stool) basically said that the Treasury wasn't fit for purpose and that the sheepishness of the HMT officials and Myners was holding back a recovery. Even staunch labour people are finding they have no option [...]
Jonathan Ford, writing for Reuters, thinks he knows:Royal Bank of Scotland practices (sic) the highest standards of corporate governance - or so its shareholders were told when the bank published its 2007 annual report. Now is the chance to prove it. The near-8 million pound increase in Sir Fred's pension pot must have been sanctioned by the non-executives on the remuneration committee. These are the people to ask.True only one remuneration committee member continues to sit on the RBS board - former UBS investment banker, Colin Buchan. But the others can still be held to account. They include former chairman ...
So now we know. As soon as they get the chance, Labour jack up our taxes. Last night's budget meeting in Islington was always going to be dramatic. With equal numbers of Labour and Lib Dem councillors, plus one independent and one Green, I hoped that a sensible majority would back the Lib Dem proposal to freeze [...]
Where were you when you heard she was going? Is a question being asked by the New Statesman and they have answers from some political figures and its worth a read especially Paddy Ashdown's account. My answer to the question is that I wasn't even born when Thatcher resigned!
Apparently, Baroness Prof. Susan Greenfield and Dr Aric Sigman think that social networks like twitter and facebook are harming children's brains. This wild claim is based on no real evidence at all just a bit of speculation, and yet the media have lapped it up as always. Ben Goldacre puts the rational side of the argument on his site, complete with peer-reviewed references. In my opinion, technology changes, cultures adapt, we evolve...
...reports the Currant Bun. No, really. Take a butcher's... I love tabloids.
In March last year The Sun ran a story painting a bus driver, Arunas Raulynaitis, as a Muslim fanatic. The story claimed: 1. That he ordered his passengers off the bus so that he could pray 2. That passengers saw a rucksack and feared he was a fanatic* 3. That therefore passengers then refused to get back on the bus The paper has just lost a libel case following this report, because as it turns out: 1. No passengers were ordered off 2. There was no rucksack 3. No-one refused to get back on the bus So far, just another ...
Yesterday night I spend one hour and fifty minutes of my time watching a drama called Margaret about how the Tory Prime Minister was challenged by members of her party to a leadership election. Personally I enjoyed the drama as it painted the picture of how she got to where she was and how she was then forced out of her job. Personally I was born after Thatcher's resignation and don't know a lot about her and her time as prime minister but the drama has taught me a lot. The drama paints the great image of John Major and ...
Dog behaviourists and trainers denounce them; scientific research shows that they can cause severe interference and pain; and new research shows that dogs trained using confrontational methods will continue to be aggressive - so why are electric training devices still legal?The Kennel Club is alerting the public to the imminent launch of the Welsh Assembly Government's second consultation to ban
For the Debate at North Leamington school this morning, I had a little homework to do. I was asked to speak for 3 minutes outlining what the Liberal Democrats stand for. How do I describe what the Liberal Democrats stand for in just 3 minutes. Well I would like to start by reading what it says on the back of my party card. "The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of Liberty, equality and community and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ...
The latest Shenanigans in the Aberdeenshire post-Trumpgate witch hunt is a motion to exclude a representative of the Demoratic Independent Group (Paul Johnstone, Debra Storr, Martin Ford and Sam Coull) from the group leaders' meetings. Mark Cullen one of the Independent councillors (who ironically band together and have a representative in those meetings) has pointed out the double standards in doing so. While the current motion harks back to an informal agreement in 1995, disbarring groups with less than 10% from attending, between 2003 and 2007 the Independents with only 3 representatives had a representative. Cullen has said that "personal ...
The Lib Dems (and the divine and by no means equine Chris Huhne) yesterday launched their new Freedom Bill. The successor to Clegg's Great Repeal Act, the Bill would roll back 20 of the most insidious and authoritarian pieces of New Labour and Conservative legislation, including ID cards, control orders and the worst elements of [...]
I spent this morning taking part in a question time style debate with sixth formers from North Leamington and Myton Schools. I enjoy taking part in these events and there was a broad range of questions covering subjects such as the Environment, the Economy, the 3rd Runway at Heathrow to Reform of the House of Lords. One question that resonated with the audience was Free Bus Travel for Students. Ben Wesson who was previously the member of the Youth Parliament said that it cost £5.40 to get from Southam to Leamington. I wonder why we can have free bus travel ...
Worrying news has been highlighted on the Save UK internet privacy - reject ISPs that use Phorm facebook group. For those who don't facebook (and for those who do, join the group and spread the word!), Phorm is an advertising company that wants to track our web habits so they can then personalise the adverts we see on the web. There are obvious privacy implications here. BT and Phorm famously ran secret and allegedly illegal internet monitoring trials in 2006 and 2007 using this technology. People have told the government how this breached UK law but the government is refusing ...
So National Express is bleating that it is not making money on its East Coast Main Line rail franchise and that it actually loses money on its onboard catering. I'm a big fan of comedian Karen Taylor and I think her comments best sum my response up. So to paraphrase her, what National Express is saying is that they were happy to take on this rail franchise in a time of plenty but as soon as the recession comes along, they realise they won't make quite as much money. What I'm hearing is 'Nyah nyah nyah, we're not making squillions ...
The Times reports remarks by the Information Commissioner complaining that laws that allow officials to monitor the behaviour of millions of Britons risk "hardwiring surveillance" into the British way of life. Richard Thomas believes that "creeping surveillance" in the public and private sectors has gone "too far, too fast" and risks undermining democracy. He has warned that proposals to allow widespread data sharing between Whitehall and the private sector are too far-reaching and that plans to create a giant database of every telephone call, e-mail and text message risk turning everyone into a suspect: "In the last 10 or 15 ...
I somehow feel that I am not the only person in Britain that would like to kick George Pascoe-Watson in the groin. I cannot stand his newspaper, I cannot stand his political views and he as a person reminds me of all the worst aspects of the media hackery. When he was on Question Time last night, I became one of those people that needlessly shouted at the TV. One of those arguements I had with the TV on QT last night was the discussion about Royal Mail, with the Plaid MP making the point that Royal Mail made a ...
{A ball and chain} The DNA profiles of nearly 1.1 milllion children are being stored on the national DNA database - and will remain there until the children's 100th birthday, whether or not criminal proceedings follow. The figures were obtained by the Liberal Democrats in a Parliamentary question, and show that genetic information of 1.09 children under 18 is being held, 337,000 of whom are under 16. The campaign group Genewatch has calculated that around half of the children whose details are held on the database are innocent. Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, said: "We already know that ...
I have, from time to time, touched on the wonderfully collegiate feeling amongst the Parliamentary Party in the Lords, and last night was one of those occasions that brings a bit of a lump to the throat.To mark the eightieth birthdays of four of our Peers, a party was thrown to mark the occasion. Naturally, given the difficulty of pinning everyone down to a date, it evidently took a little while
Ooh, how wonderful, a continuing tale of incompetence, and accusations of lying from and against the people who run our country over multi-million pound sums of money paid to millionaire bankers who lost billions of pounds of public money.
I am indebted to local resident Tony Price for drawing my attention to a piece in yesterday's The Register, an online running commentary on the IT industry and an old sparring partner when I worked for BT. They in turn are indebted to their reader Paul Smith for alerting drivers to ongoing and rather prolonged roadworks in Hertfordshire, albeit with "slight" impact on traffic flow. They publish a screen grab of the ELGIN (electronic local government information network) website showing planned roadworks - you can see it here. Readers will be pleased to know that according the the ELGIN site ...
I went to the Haringey Strategic Partnership meeting last night particularly to have the opportunity to raise some of my ongoing concerns over the plans for child protection post Baby P. Peter Lewis, who took on the role after Sharon Shoesmith's sacking, will present Haringey Council's response / action plan to the hideously damning Joint Area Review report by OFSTED commissioned by Ed Balls. The action plan is pages and pages of issues, identified leads and objectives and so on and so forth. As I said to the meeting - and the meeting is all the key players in Haringey, ...
I've been doing a bit of number crunching. In the three weeks before the departure of editor Veronica Wadley from the Evening Standard the paper's stories about Boris Johnson broke down as 61% positive, 27% neutral and 12% negative. And in the three weeks after her departure? They were 43% positive (down 18%), 22% neutral (down 5%) and 35% negative (up 23%). Isn't it amazing what a change of editor can do? P.S. Dave Hill reports that further staff changes are being made at the Standard.
Over on Liberal England, Jonathan Calder identifies the key challenge for liberal philosophy. "there are certain things we all want government to do. We want government, for instance, to select methods of education, to sponsor culture, and to do much else that looks, on the surface, like endorsing one set of personal values against another and therefore contradicting liberalism.It is very important for liberals to develop a theory that would make a distinction here between enriching the choices available to people and enforcing a choice upon people."I don't have an answer, but I do have a direction of travel. Whether ...
If Mike Smithson on Political Betting is correct today then the terrible press that the government has received today (see here, here and here for examples) about Fred (The Shred) Goodwin's £650,000 pension is entirely their own fault. Apparently the government leaked the information in order to divert attention from the ostensibly bigger story about the £24 billion loss that the Lloyds group has made. Unfortunately for the government, the story actually has synergy with the loss one and they obviously did not realise just how dreadful it appears for an ex CEO of a bank to get a pension ...
As a life sciences student at the University of Manchester the way I was assessed in almost all modules I studied was through exams, and only exams. Yesterday, in my capacity as Academic Affairs Officer, I had the opportunity to talk to course representatives from life sciences and one of the topics we spent a fair amount of time on was whether exams are really the right way to test someone's understanding of the subject matter, and if not, how they as representatives could go about changing the assessment system so they do test understanding. I've already got strong opinions ...
£693,000 a year is what Sir Fred Goodwin is getting from his RBS pension.* That works out at a shade over £13,300 each week. By comparison, Blackpool Council has just advertised for an administrator to work in their social services department (a pretty important role to my mind given how often it turns out administration has gone wrong when a tragic case comes to light). It will be paying around the same with only two small differences. What Sir Fred gets each week, the administrator gets a year - and Sir Fred doesn't have to do anything for his money. ...
My council agenda papers are always covered in doodles. Flowers, hearts, stars, spiders' webs, faces, animals, cannons (think about it!). Now I hear that it is good for me. Jackie Andrade, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Plymouth, carried out research demonstrating that doodlers retain more information than those who appear to be concentrating more. Andrade [...]
The International Forum for Rural Transport Development had its Executive Committee in London yesterday - strange choice of venue, but there you go. A friend of mine, Roma Thomas, is a transport professional who joined the Board of IFRTD last year, and it was at her invitation that I went along to St James last evening to met the rest of her colleagues. The Chair is from Indonesia and other attendees came along from Mexico, Uganda and Burkina Faso. A recurrent theme was how, in developing countries, emphasis on transport development goes predominantly onto major projects like highways and airports, ...
Fri 27th
08:22
A question for the Daily Mail: second generation Englishman or fourth generation Nazi appeaser, whic...
I'll be honest, when it comes to the Daily Vile, I yield to no one in my revulsion for a newspaper whose core readership is people who think that they're smart enough to have an opinion of their own yet believe everything they read in it. And so, when they announce that, if one of your parents is a immigrant, you aren't really British, it really is time to put the boot in.Unlike the 1st Viscount
It's Fair Trade fortnight at the moment. Yesterday I went to the Town Hall for an event to celebrate and promote Fair Trade work. Hopefully there'll be some good pictures of the children from some of our Fair Trade schools. Liverpool got Fair Trade City status in 2004 - I was the lead councillor on it at the time - but there is still loads more we can do to encourage this ethical purchasing. Encouragingly and increasing number of shops stock Fair Trade goods and actually pricewise they can be a good bargain.
Lord Myners appears to have hit the wrong end of things when calling on Sir Fred Goodwin to make a gesture of giving up part of his pension. The former head of the Royal Bank of Scotland wrote back to the Treasury minister once it became clear to his surprise that his pension plans had been leaked to the BBC's Robert Preston. He wrote back (letters available at The Times) saying he had no objection to his response being made public, before as the Times tell us he made it available himself. The outcome is that he sees that gestures ...
A piece of old Kilburn has been unveiled unexpectedly this week. It's HARRIS FURNISHINGS - on the High Road a whole swathe of shops on the Camden side have been cleared (just opposite the Golden Egg/Priory Park Road) ready for the redevelopment and down have come the current set of signs... Hidden underneath is the paint transfer of the previous occupant... Does anyone out there remember the store and can help with a date? Judging by the fotn style it's prob 80's, but looking for leads and clues. Ed
One intriquing theory about the sacking of Jonathan Morgan as Welsh Conservative Health Spokesperson is that it was his gaff in advocating a single adult neurosurgery in Cardiff that forced Nick Bourne to act.Morgan's advocacy of Cardiff caused a lot of anger in South West Wales, many of who are content with the shared site solution being imposed by Health Minister, Edwina Hart in defiance of the
Paul Murphy heralds the start of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee's scrutiny of the Welsh Language LCO by calling for the biggest public debate on the future of the language:"I want to see the biggest public debate on the Welsh language in recent years and to hear from all sectors of society in Wales ... to ensure that the draft order meets the need of the people of Wales."He continued: "I
I hadn't been expecting to write about tonight's budget meeting; after all, the proceedings do look rather different when your party is leading the ruling coalition. But after what happened tonight and in view of the level of coverage it's likely to receive, there should be a record of what actually went on.At the start of the budget debate, the Lord Mayor went through, in some detail, the
The events of the past few days might give the impression that politics in Reading is a non-serious pursuit. Preparing for a joint scrutiny meeting this evening into children's health in Reading reminded me why I first got involved in political life here, and it wasn't to trade insults or listen to empty promises from politicians from other parties. Reading is a deeply unequal place: you only have to walk around Redlands to get a snapshot of how polarised the town is. Certainly this makes politics interesting, but, fundamentally, it is this lack of equality and fairness that drives me to get up every morning ...
If there's one thing where the SNP and Labour are united, it's in sharing a nannying approach to subjects such as smoking and drinking. The latest example of this came yesterday when the Scottish Government published its anti-smoking bill, which contains proposals to ban cigarette vending machines and prevent the display of tobacco-related products in shops. I've blogged about this subject before when the Labour government came up with similar proposals to implement at Westminster and I stand by the comments I made then. Banning the display of tobacco products and vending machines will not make much difference to the ...
Tonight was the annual Special Council Meeting called to approve the Cabinet's budget. It was a strange meeting: less confrontational than last year, as all three party groups acknowledged the severe economic and financial pressures the Council is working under. Charles Johnson, leading for the Tories, speaking quietly but forcefully, praised Labour for producing a Conservative budget. Alan
The Right-wing think tank, Reform, has published a new report on law and order. It's not what you would expect from an organisation on the so-called Right. There is no call for a return to hang'em and flog'em. There is no mention about locking up criminals and throwing away the key. Instead, Chief Constables are accused of operating ineffective and costly personal fiefdoms. The Association of Chief Police Officers is described as a 'self-perpetuating oligarchy of senior police officers'. This is quite extraordinary language to use against the Police and not what you would expect from traditional conservatives. For the ...
The guy defending torture is fucking reprehensible. Diane has amazing self-control; she's managing to remain civil to him, but look at her hands... Portillo isn't comfortable either; he's twisting his hands and swallowing lots... Using coercion to "gain information" doesn't work. People will say anything just to make the torture stop, and the fact that you are willing to sink to torture is a recruiting sergeant for whoever you are fighting against. And even if it DID work, it would still be unacceptable to treat another human being like that. Any defence of torture is despicable. Full stop.
