Sustainable Communities Act just sounds like a bit more Government speak, but actually it could be one of the most exciting developments that Local Government has had for a very long time. Another way of putting it, as one person said today is "set your communities free". I have been invited to be a substitute for the Lib Dems for the "Selector Panel" which will work on behalf of the Local...
Writing about political diaries, Michael White praises Gyles Brandreth's diaries Breaking the Code: Brandreth spent time as a whip during the 1992-97 parliament and his diary about that period, Breaking the Code, is a gem. Clark is normally credited with having written the best political diary of modern times, but - for my money - Brandreth is better by a mile.Brandreth never seemed to receive as much recognition as he should have done for the book, perhaps because his pre-parliament career as a daytime TV presenter with a fondness for silly jumpers meant that he never had the political kudos ...
This afternoon there was an update session for councillors on this very important topic, but with not much news to update! It seems that the minister concerned, Ed Balls MP, reads every submission document personally and as he's not been in his office recently the pile has built up. Until he reads the Stockton document it can't be signed and sealed so no-one can say publicly who the potential
Please watch this...There are two kinds of people in the world.... Those who will say this is wonderful, and those who will shrug and say it's a waste of time...Well, I think it's wonderful. What's more it's SF, isn't it?By the way, the film is called World Builder and the creator is Bruce Branit. Brian Paulette and Erin McGrane play the couple.... musical score by Randy J Skach
We were given a presentation about jobs in Forest Heath tonight at full council. The last ten years have not been good for the district in job creation terms. Growth 1998-2006 (Conservative controlled the whole time) was just 2.3%, most of those gains coming in Government (bureaucracy and consultants) and leisure (Stable staff and Centre parcs), at the same time neighbouring East Cambs which was Lib Dem controlled for the same period saw 48% growth. Economic development has stagnated, we are over-reliant on horse-racing, the American air bases and Centre Parcs for employment. Average wages are over £100 per week ...
Tweet # Introducing Ferdi to the wonders of the Beastie Boys and the KLF - may take some time #
The value of good scrutiny made itself evident this week. I am party of a scrutiny committee working party looking at the council's decision to invest in Icelandic banks. The working party interviewed officers and Cllr's about their role in the decisions that led to those investments. We also looked at all the reports that have been produced to date both public and exempt. It quickly became clear that something was wrong with the way the treasury management team had followed the treasury management strategy. Quite simply they hadn't followed it and no-one had noticed for three years. In fact ...
Despite what PR Week and Labour List think, it seems that Lynne Featherstone is not planning (at least yet) to mobilie an army of bloggers. Mark Pack said she was not in a comment on my original post. Now Lynne has written about her plans on her own blog: For those who volunteered to help fill the gap in some of our coding and technical resources by filling in my survey a few weeks ago - the next event is a meetup in London later this month.My better nature writes: So are you now satisfied that there is not a ...
Welcome to the 107th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (1st-7th March 2009), together with a hand-picked quintet, mostly courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down. 1. Aberdeenshire and the Executive Committee on Ruaraidh Dobson's My Very Infrequently Updated Lib Dem Blog. The saga of the 'Aberdeenshire Three'. 2. Pollwatch: Lib Dems behind Labour as best party on the environment and third on economy and education on Neil Stockley's blog. ...
If anyone every asks me about the point of Twitter again I'll add it brings light to the occasional day like the following exchange between me and another Stephen. Just a little bit of connectivity that made a gentleman and a scholar, who does understand Twitter, titter in the mid of a little debate this evening.
Harrow: "Eileen Kinnear has been expelled by the Tories for 'a number of serious group breaches' ... Councillor Kinnear, who represents Harrow on the Hill ward, is the second Conservative to face the boot in the past six months" (Harrow Observer. And do check out the picture.) South Dorset: "Top Tory from Crossways guilty of theft and forgery ... The prosecution claims the total amount stolen is around £58,000 but the defence believes the figure to be in the region of £30,000." (Dorset Echo) Poole: "Two Conservative councillors, who were previously suspended, have been expelled from the ruling party group. ...
Clerkenwell councillor George Allan reports on Monday night's meeting with local residents about the impact of 24 hour licensing on their neighbourhood. With 135 assorted licensed premises in the area, residents have a lot to put up with. At one end of the scale, Fabric has a 24 hour licence and a capacity of 2,500; [...]
I have heard now a few times from senior sources in the party that if there is a hung parliament then we would discuss the possibility of a coalition with whoever wins the most seats. This seems to be an attempt to say "we will let the electorate decide" and then deal with the strongest party afterwards. However the problem is that the strongest party may not have had the most votes. As the recession bites, Labour's chances of being the largest party are fading, however let's hypothesise for a moment that the following vote shares and seats occur (derived ...
Amongst the millions of people who sadly meet their ends before their time each year (most from disease but significant numbers in wars, car crashes and the rest of it), a tiny number are killed in school shootings. Just such a tragedy happened this morning, when a seventeen year old boy armed with a gun killed fifteen people in a school in south-west Germany. I've no idea as to the background of this particular incident - you can read the media speculation as well as I can. But I will make a brief point on gun control. If this had ...
The government's latest bright idea is to say that the way to improve standards in education is to bring in a load of people with no educational experience, no previous inclination to want to teach, and get the trained in six months. What a joke. I did a PGCE to qualify to teach, a one year course, and I would argue that even that is not really quite adequate to teach, but just about covers everything briefly. However, I cannot see how bringing in so called "high flyers" and offering them a shortcut to teaching is going to actually raise ...
Wed 11th
20:05
Huhne: police officers with criminal convictions should be sacked. (Question: should they?)
Here's how the party's lead press release today, picked up by much of the media today, reports this latest crime statistic: Over a thousand serving police officers in Great Britain have criminal convictions, according to new figures revealed by the Liberal Democrats. ... • There were 1,063 serving police officers in 41 police forces across Britain who had criminal convictions • This includes five officers who were sacked by the force but reinstated by the Home Office • There are 77 serving police officers with convictions for violent offences who have kept their jobs: 59 with convictions for assault; 14 for violence against ...
It all started as a very dry discussion on the Medina, Ohio "Community Development Block grant money". A couple of emissions and a lot of laughter later, the council had to go into recess, in a bid to stem the chaos.
One is First Lady - the others are hundred-year-old war veterans.Hat-tip: BagNewsNotes
The Bath flower Show is on again this year at the Royal Victoria Park, during the Bank Holiday weekend of the 2nd to 4th May. Bath & North East Somerset Council is proud to host the Annual Bath Spring Flower Show for 2009. it is open 10.00am - 5.30pm each day the entrance charge is £7.50 for adults, £5 for OAP's and all unaccompanied children accompanied children under 16 come free...
The mood at PMQs today was subdued owing to both the killings in Northern Ireland and the recently bereaved Cameron's return to the fray. No economic points were touched on by Clegg or Cameron, and even the incendiary subject of Binyam Mohammed's torture allegations was discussed at speaking volume. The mood was such that Clegg was able to ask quite a nuanced question about France's re-entry into NATO and what possibilities for co-operation in Afghanistan it might result in. It was all so grown up that poor Tom Harris was really rather bored. Now, you'd think that I, a PMQs ...
Vince Cable has had unprecedented coverage for a Liberal Democrat spokesperson in the last year or two. His famous Gordon Brown put-down - "from Stalin to Mr Bean" - gave him instant recognition even in the red-tops, but beyond that he has become the most trusted financial guru in Parliament. So once again on Monday I joined a group of bloggers in Portcullis House for another of our...
Conservative copy cat Jacob has made so many spelling mistakes on his website, I think copying out of the Sun newspaper was the only was for the prat to look like someone who had actually been educated and was a Tory. Mind you I can think of a few Tories from Pendle who wouldn't be able to spell but putting that aside Mr Copy went to Oxbridge and Eton! I bet this Tory isn't going to get elected at the next general election, this is someone who really has shown Labour's education system to be a shambles. They couldn't educate ...
Here's the, err, story so far. Nick Clegg worked last year to communicate this narrative: Labour have had their day and can't create a fairer Britain and the Conservatives won't but the Liberal Democrats will make it happen. It was old third party wine in twenty first century bottles, but showed promise all the same. Then, after Lehman Brothers collapsed and the economic crisis hit, the media meta-narrative took a new turn: the government's response to the recession and the short-lived "Brown bounce". Nick's story was squashed flat and the Lib Dems (as opposed to Vince Cable) struggled to tell ...
On this blog I've often talked about Cuba and how with a new Cuban President who his committed to economic reforms the US has a unique opportunity to begin to lift some trade sanctions. The US Congress has now agreed to lifting certain restrictions. However there is a lot more that needs to be done. The US needs to start to negotiate with Cuba. Certain restrictions could be lifted in return for other freedoms being granted in Cuba, such as the realising of political prisoners. The economic reforms taking place in Cuba are positive steps, but political freedom is essential, ...
Not very impressed with Boris' latest wheeze. He's reducing the pedestrian time at crossings, and proposing to console us with a countdown telling us how long we have left. First it's postmen having to trot around London, and now it's the rest of us. There are already pedestrian crossings in Islington where you have barely 5 [...]
Is it really too much to expect that some miniscule vestige of sanity might be allowed to penetrate our Laws? A certain Bank has convinced itself that in order to prevent identity theft it is better to go on sending sensitive information to an old address rather than recognise a simple but obvious change of said address. In order to remove this blockage 'verification' documents are required. Of course if these should go astray in transit an identity thief has all that is needed for instant success. Never mind. Rules is rules - clearly drafted by imbeciles. But I know ...
For some strange reason irfanahmed.org is not linking to the blog, so if you want to come to the blog please use www.irfanahmed.org. I am trying to get it fixed so please do be patient and I am sorry for the inconvenience.
Amendments to pollution legislation aimed at introducing limits on CO2 emissions from new power plants were ruled inadmissable in the Parliament. Apparently we have adopted a rule for ourselves that says we shall not explore new topics when existing legislation is being updated, as in this case. I rise to make a point of order: "The Parliament has no powers to initiate legislation so with these rules we have castrated ourselves. If our virility is to be restored they will need to be reviewed." General appreciation, but some laughing comments about my 'sexist' use of language. When the session ends ...
It's a shame that two of Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne's campaigns that I think are very worthwhile have been more or less completely ignored by the media this week. His pointing out that the government's DNA database contains some utterly outrageous entries (including the DNA record of a baby) barely got noticed. And the Freedom Bill he launched last week also barely raised a murmur anywhere outside of the Lib Dem blogging world. Both of these causes are well worth shouting about, but sadly nobody seems to want to shout about them, least of all newspaper editors. ...
Thanks to Tom Harris for bring this to our attention from the corrections and clarifications column in today's Guardian: A letter to the editor, which touched lightly on English ignorance of Welsh matters, was attributed in an early edition to Hwyl Fawry. It should have been attributed to Gill Caldwell. She signed off her letter with hwyl fawr, which translates roughly as "all the best" (March frogs, 6 March, page 35). The Guardian has obviously succumbed too
For Comic Relief I presume, thanks to Tom Harris MP, for the prompt....not that he needs traffic from my blog.
Elaine Bagshaw the current Chair of Liberal Youth who is up for election if you ask me should not get a single vote. Tory Bear has blog posts which show that Elaine doesn't even respect the Liberal Youth as an organisation as sees it as a "disgrace". When Tory Bear blogged about the leaked email from her to who ever she emailed who is staying anonymous, Elaine blocked Tory Bear of the Liberal Youth Forum. Personally I think Ali Mohammed should get the second preference on the ballot, even though he is unknown to almost everyone in Liberal Youth. I ...
First have given advance notification of significant cuts in bus services affecting Chipping Sodbury, Yate, Iron Acton, Winterbourne and Coalpit Heath. From 10 May 2009 they say that: Service X27 will no longer be operated Service X42 will run at peak times only and be replaced at off peak times by Service 342 Service 327 and Service 329 (evening service subsidised by South Gloucestershire Council) will continue to run. They say - "We recognise that it is not long since we made alterations to services in this area, but the worsening economic climate has meant we have had to bring ...
The eagle-eyed amongst our readers may have seen me on Meridian TV last week talking about the problem of empty homes in Reading. If you want to you can watch the very short clip here. I have David Ireland, Chief Executive of the campaigning charity the Empty Homes Agency ,to thank for this piece as he recommended me to the producer of the news programme. It was also David who called and left a message on my answerphone all those years ago (in 2006) alerting me to the scale of the problem in Reading. This was the prompt I needed to get stuck into this issue. I am ...
The Muslim Protesters who kicked up a fuss at a home-coming parade, were in my opinion only there to get their 15minutes of fame. They absolutely did wrong, and if they did want to protest they should priests against the government or lobby their MPs. The Army personnel are only doing their job, they have to follow order from Hoon & Co and that is it. No ifs no buts... In a similar situation the Army were carrying out military operations in Bajur in Pakistan against their own people, at the order of President Zardari. SO the soldiers are not ...
The Laming findings on how his recommendations following the Victoria Climbie tragedy have been implemented will be reported tomorrow. I have had some qualms about Lord Laming looking at his own recommendations as I have been afraid he might not want to find fault. However, he takes the issue of child protection extremely seriously and is the wise old owl who realised that the leadership was key to changing the way a department works - hence the Children's Act 2004 which made clear where individual responsibility should rest - and so ultimately was why Sharon Shoesmith and Liz Santry were ...
First and foremost i condemn the terrorist attacks in Northern Ireland as they incurred the loss of Innocent lives. Next i label the attacks as cowardly and an attempt to break up the peace within Northern Ireland. Next i am some what surprised as the media has stated that the attacks were made by the Real IRA and the C.IRA. Why not Catholic or Christian terrorists?? This for me shows the bias and prejudice of the media as they brand terrorists who happen to be Muslims as Muslim terrorists and Muslim extremists but they do not brand terrorists who happen ...
I was fortunate enough to attend the spring conference at Harrogate, and listen to speeches from Howard Dean, Vince Cable and others. The most inspirational speech for me was from Governor Dean, who reiterated the importance of door to door campaign. Something that we Lib Dems are very good at, we should carry on the campaigns and beat Labour and the Tories and make this our true point of difference. In essence it was a good conference some very important policies were debated and the most important for me was the Education policy, with particular emphasis to the amendments made ...
I've asked for a discussion about food at council meetings to be put on our next month's agenda. I think we either should pay for the food ourselves or not have food. Food is only available at full council meetings, not committee meetings, but the cost comes to about £2,000 a year. I'm not sure it should be paid by council tax payers.
At the Watch & Transport meeting this week I got a proposal passed to put up signs at either side of Keighley Centre for the Blind to let motorists know there may be people with sight problems crossing the road. It now has to be agreed by full ...
At last month's Full Council Budget Meeting I pointed out some of what I thought were unnecessary costs the Council incurs in supporting Councillors. For instance, virtually everyone has a computer with internet access these days before they're elected to the Council, so why does the Council give us a brand new laptop and pay for a separate phone line to be installed and maintained? I've given my
With the title 'Ere Fletch they've only gone and listed the Scrubs: HMP Wormwood officially one Britain's finest buildings today's Daily Mail announces that Wormwood Scrubs Prison has been given Grade II listed status. There is a picture of Ronnie Barker and the caption The London prison was made famous as the entrance to HMP Slade in the BBC series Porridge starring Ronnie Barker. The Daily Telegraph website carries a similar story. The trouble is that as any Albanian knows it was the former St Albans prison which provided the backdrop. Can you believe anything you read in the press ...
Park Wood, a woodland in my ward was threatened by a proposal for a by-pass which, as shown on Bradford Council's own map, would have gone slap bang through the wood. Park Wood is unusual in being very close to the town of Keighley. In fact ...
Sing the title to the tune of "My Favourite Things". We've heard a lot about MPs expenses over the past couple of years. And people are angry, raging at the system that creates corrupt and money-grabbing MPs. Nick Robinson is extremely moral in covering these stories fully and without much offering of an alternative view. Now, don't get me wrong. MPs claiming ridiculous expenses is wrong. They're there to serve us, not to be served a platter. But what about the BBC? As a publicly owned body, have journalists ever asked for details on what expenses the journalists claim? What ...
Today's PMQs took on a somber note. While in recent times the PM has normally started reading the names of fallen soldiers today they had not occurred in Helmand or Iraq but in constituencies represented by members of the House. With the exception of Dennis Skinner this wasn't a time for Punch and Judy politics. Even when David Cameron moved off Northern Ireland it was unto another heavy issue, Iraq and rendition flights. However, both David Simpson who was Officer Stephen Caroll's DUP MP in Upper Bann and Paul Durken the leader of the SDLP representing the two side of ...
I have been occupied with a variety of things this morning, none of which are hugely exciting, but all of which combine to fill up this blog. Which is handy. Firstly, I have spent some time preparing for tomorrow's meeting of the Resource and Performance Scrutiny commission. The most interesting part of the agenda relates to Local Area Partnerships, a review of which will be discussed tomorrow. The report is one of the most frustrating I've ever read (and that's saying something, given that most Council reports make my eyes bleed). Its relentlessly cheery tone is at odds with some ...
Is the debate over planning permission for lap-dancing clubs being used by some groups to have a totally different debate: whether they should exist at all? That's what I suggested a month ago when the Fawcett Society expressed concern that the new rules wouldn't do enough to stamp out these clubs. The problem? Local councils (shock! horror!) will actually being allowed to decide for themselves whether to impose the tougher rules and answer to the electorate for the decision they come to. They're also worried the new rules will allow pubs (2,000 of which have closed down since the 2008 ...
Here's my latest column for the Highgate Handbook and Muswell Hill Flyer: A tiger stared out at me from the pages of a Sunday newspaper recently. 'What will you do after I have gone?' was the line printed over the appeal to adopt a tiger. Malu Lothi is the name of 'my' tiger. I couldn't bare the idea that these beautiful, beautiful animals might die out and any grandchildren of mine would never have the opportunity to see such magnificent creatures. However, we have a looming disaster right here on our own doorsteps - because our bird population is dwindling ...
Carers Partnership Board Meeting Two of the main speakers at this meeting had to cancel so the main item remaining was the establishment of a Sutton Transition Partnership. Toby Price lead for the transition of disabled young people from children's to adult services attended to update us on this matter. We were aware of concerns raised [...]
Bath MP Don Foster has slammed the Government after discovering that Avon and Somerset Constabulary is losing out on £12m of funding per year - the equivalent of around 300 new police officers. Each year the Government calculates how much funding each force should receive, then applies dampening mechanisms which effectively remove millions of pounds from some areas. Avon and Somerset...
Bath MP Don Foster has slammed the Government after discovering that Avon and Somerset Constabulary is losing out on £12m of funding per year - the equivalent of around 300 new police officers. Each year the Government calculates how much funding each force should receive, then applies dampening mechanisms which effectively remove millions of pounds from some areas. Avon and Somerset...
Those of you waiting with bated breath for my report of the Ros Scott interview will have to wait a little longer, as I'm not going to get it finished before I go to work. But what I AM going to do is clear down some of the tabs I have open as "interesting stuff to link to":Star Trek Perfume. Is anyone else really disappointed that they didn't get BPAL to do these? The Gallileoscope! $15 for a working replica of Gallileo's telescope? Hot damn! This International Year of Astronomy isn't half throwing up some interestingness. Fellow Calderdale Lib Dem ...
Arriving at Portcullis House, I managed to blink as the security people took a picture to hang round my neck. I staggered, bewildered into the atrium, looking around for people who looked like bloggers. I got it right first go - well, the elephant was a dead giveaway - and we loitered until joined by more bloggers. Lady Mark was already ensconced on the other side of the glass barriers - the
Whilst preparing for my previous blog post I was poking around at the Message Space website when I started reading their blog and was interested by this blog post. In the blog post Message Space writes about how much monthly their bloggers make for putting up adverts for Message Space and they are some interesting figures. The most paid blogger who ever that is, my guess is its Guido or Mike Smithson is getting paid an average of £3,872 per month, now that's not bad for someone like Mike or Guido, which ever one it is as both as far ...
As you may have read in the Leicester Mercury, Daily Mail or Daily Telegraph, Leicestershire County Council are spending £6,000 on fitting satellite navigation to their lawnmowers, apparently because they keep getting lost and nobody is sure which bits of grass have been cut. Pleasingly, I got a quote into all three of the above papers, along with the Taxpayers Alliance, and the Leicestershire branch of the Allotment and Leisure Gardners - all expressing the view that it is an astonishing waste of money, especially with the economy the way it is. I wonder whether sat nav monitoring has been ...
This is the second in a regular, and now named, series of articles by Scottish-based bloggers giving their thoughts about developments in Scottish politics. On Friday evening I'd just completed a long week at the office in one sense wishing I was in Harrogate with my fellow Lib Dems - but at the same time too exhausted for a full weekend of Conference, having squeezed one full extra day into the week that would go without payment as a result of a freeze on overtime. But as I walked to the bus through Edinburgh Park I saw that lights were ...
The judgement of the little known Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments in the House of Parliament that the veto given to the Secretary of State for Wales in the Government's Housing LCO could be illegal is a huge embarrassment for the Labour and Plaid Cymru.Yesterday in the Assembly Plenary Session the Counsel General, wearing his Leader of the House hat thought that there was not a problem.
Wed 11th
10:28Somehow I think that if this was a Lib Dem council, there would be a whole load of Tory bloggers hur...
From the Daily Mail: They're never going to have to deal with a difficult route across country, or conquer the maze of an inner city. In fact, the trickiest test of navigation they are likely to face is getting from one side of a field to the other. But that hasn't stopped council chiefs buying a set of sophisticated satnavs - for their fleet of lawnmowers. They spent £6,000 hooking up the devices to 14 mowers because gardeners claimed they kept getting lost in long grass... Launching the system this week, David Parsons, leader of the Tory-led council, said wet ...
It was with some dismay that I read in the Manchester Evening News that Christie's Hospital in Manchester has lost it's appeal to recover the £6.5m that was lost in the Icelandic banking crash. Sadly, the hospital's attempt to claim the charity money back through the Financial Compensation Scheme has been unsuccessful, as their claim was rejected. It seems the claim was rejected on the basis that the scheme only protects individuals and small companies. As an outpatient of Christie's Hospital for many years, I am today backing the Manchester Evening News' campaign to help Christies get back their donated ...
Howard Dean got a standing ovation from the Liberal Democrat conference on Saturday morning. Yet it seemed to me that it was President Obama that the audience were in large part applauding. The 'Obama Effect' was a major theme of the 2009 Spring Conference and the sense of relief amongst Lib Dems that George Bush is no longer in the White House was most clearly felt during Dean's speech.I was
The UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs meets in Vienna to determine its next 10 year 'strategy'. I have used the opportunity to make one of my ritual attacks on the utter failure of the "war" on drugs - a "war" which has enriched criminals and led to the promotion of drugs use. I have called (again) for legalisation of most illegal drugs to destroy the profit incentive that drives forward their sale. They should be available through government regulated outlets while health warnings about their use are stepped up. I assume I will get coverage in the north west regional ...
The two days since my return from Harrogate have been a blur of meetings, and after 3 consecutive working weekends, I must admit that the energy levels are beginning to flag! So I didn't have particularly high expectations of a meeting scheduled at the request of the Electoral Commission, to meet the new Chief Executive, Jenny Watson, and to be briefed on the Political Parties and Elections Bill which is just about to wend its way through the Lords. But in the event, the meeting was both informative and constructive. Reform of the Electoral Commission is a major part of ...
When Draper was protesting against Iain Dale and Guido and their allegedly "racist" comments he asked his cronies to write to the companies that sponsor through Message Space these blogs by advertising on them. This got Mike Smithson a little worked up and he wrote a blog post about how Derek Draper was trying to kill the blogosphere Mike Smithson argued that if Derek Draper's little plan worked then companies would cut advertisement via Message Space. This would lead to companies like Message Space cutting back on the blogs they advertise on and the adverts. This could seriously put people ...
Yesterday I joined Ann Cryer, MP for Keighley and Ilkley, in calling for a a reduction in the charges imposed on building societies by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Because of the failure of Northern Rock and other high risk banks, the scheme has increased its charges to cover the cost of their failure. But because building societies, like the Dunfermline Building Society, have a lot of savers they have been charged a disproportionate fee. The scheme puts far too much weight on the value of the deposits than on the risk nature of the organisation. My mother and father, ...
I recently sent Geoff Hoon an email concerning his statement to the House of Commons on the third Heathrow runway. Whilst I was asking him a rather obscure and pedantic point relating to the language he used, the reply I got is rather revealing. To that end [deciding about the third runway], the Secretary of State reached his decision on the basis of a transparent and objective analysis of the evidence available as a result of the consultation that has taken place. He alone had the necessary knowledge of all the facts and issues that required consideration. It would not ...
When our troops were on their way home from Iraq and had a home coming parade, a group of silly Muslim extremists started protesting and showing signs that called the Soldiers "Baby Killers" among many things. This got the white community a little worked up with them and made them turn against them by shouting "FU** OFF" at the Muslim protesters. The video of the protest can be seen below: I have some concerns about this protest, first of all I think its the mistake of the police for allowing the Muslim extremist group to protest at a wrong time, ...
As much as I would like to say Yes We Can sadly I think it is not to be.
Bricket Wood has always had a very powerful sense of its own identity. So it was no surprise to see such a large attendance at the 50th AGM of the Bricket Wood Residents' Association last night in St Luke's hall. I counted around 60 in the audience, and they have 1800 members covering 80 percent of households. My friend Aislinn Lee was there of course as the county councillor for the division. The reports and discussion were a fascinating snapshot of the pressures bearing down on the south of the district, with the threat of the Radlett freight terminal and ...
So - what else do I do? County Meetings County Councillors have a full day Council meeting once every 6 weeks at Shire Hall. A few days before that we also have a day where County Officers will brief us in the morning of any new things coming up (such as the budget last month, and information of Autism Services this month) and then an afternoon of Policy Planning within our own political groups. We are all VERY thankful for the tea and coffee provided! All Councillors also sit on a committee and I sit on the Health, Adult and ...
The Western Mail is absolutely right today in saying that the £14,000 a year supplement to Labour MP, Don Touhig's salary to chair a committee looking into future changes to MPs' expenses is not the main issue. They say it is time for a consensual change to bring MPs' salaries and expenses into the twenty first century. They want to see more transparency and accountability as well a better sense of proportion in terms of what MPs can claim. That is something the Welsh Assembly is leading on and we can expect further changes to our expenses regime later this ...
The latest Wikio lists are out and some of the biggest {Link} climbers are Lib Dem Ladies. Charlotte Gore climbs 23 to 55 and Alix Mortimer shots up 16 to 44. Jenny Rigg also goes up 7 to almost tickle James Graham in the back at 49 and Caron debuts at 97. Not to be out done Mr Costigan Quist soars into the top 70 up 22 to 69. The full Lib Dem listings in the top 100. 8. Lib Dem Voice +1 31. Peter Black AM -4 44. People's Republic of Mortimer +16 2008 Lib Dem Blogger of the ...
John Barrett, Lib Dem MP for Edinburgh West, is leading the fight against illegal copyright violation. He recently led a Westminster Hall debate on the subject and has written about it on Epolitix (the fairly relaxed approach to the use of spaces in the article may not be his fault). The problem is, I'm not convinced John has done his research well enough. It sounds like he's bought the industry line and looked no further. For example, he writes What many might think as a relatively harmless purchase of a film forthe children could in fact be funding other illegal ...
The Financial Times reports that Labour strategists believe the party could lose control of all of Britain's county councils at the local elections this summer for the first time since 1977. They say that losses on this scale would be a bitter blow to Gordon Brown and would be comparable to the Tory slump in 1993 when it was left with only one county council - Buckinghamshire. Although this could well prove to be correct and will represent a new nadir for Gordon Brown it is worth pointing out that there are no council elections in Scotland and Wales in ...
I receive a fair few phone calls from people wanting to sell the Liberal Democrats the latest / neweset / best technology. So I thought I'd share some tips on how to ring me. Alas, all of these are based on actual events. The worst sales call I can recall managed six of these in one nine minute call of pure joy. 1. If you're ringing an organisation, it's a good idea to get its name right. And no, I don't work for "The Democratic Party". (If you've got any doubts on the importance of this, try ringing M+S to ...
Ok today I am waiting for my annual Landlord's Gas Boiler Inspection so for fun I Tweeted this at 7am. So here is the current book:Sarabian 13:48Linda Harvey aka Beatrice to H2G2 friends 13:55James Graham 14:30Hannah 15:30Sub Rosa 16:30Caron Not todayGlad to see I have so many optomistic friends with such faith in Scottish Gas. More guesses are welcome up until the time of arrival. There is only the prize of being the most right.Update: Well you are all wildly off 9:03 buzzer went.
The SNP wanted to sneak in their alcohol minimum pricing policy, and other alcohol related laws, in as an amendment to the 2005 Licencing Bill. However, with the far reaching ramifications of it in European law and to Scottish industry in distilling and brewing the business committee has quite correctly in my opinion said it should be presented as primary legislation. The differences are that as a piece of Primary legislation these proposals will get the parliamentary time and scrutiny they deserve. The legal ramifications can be fully looked into, something that the SNP may well have been trying to ...
On several long drives over the last few weeks I have had a best of Squeeze CD playing in the car. I've seen them a few times over the years, from early 1977 locally in Deptford, to when I worked on the stage at the 1994 Phoenix Festival. They are an all time favourite band of mine.The compilation CD contains nothing form the first Squeeze record I heard, the "Packet of Three" EP of July '77.
Pipex or whoever they are owned by nowadays (I suspect Tiscali) are really doing my head in at the moment. I'm an night owl and use the interwebby thing more later in the day than in the morning or early afternoon. It does not matter what time of day when I fire up the laptop but around midnight I get the internet explorer saying "sorry we cannot connect you to this page". Now I'm perfectly aware that we have our phone line and "narrow band" via BT and, that living 4+ miles from the local town we don't have undergrounded ...
