When Gisela Stuart, the somewhat Euro-sceptic Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, wrote a column in last week's Sunday Telegraph, criticising the forthcoming European elections because voters can only put their cross by a party, not an individual candidate, the implication was that this is yet another sahortcoming of the European Union. But as I said [...]
I read Karin Robinson's article on LDV with interest, coming to it late having been away this weekend. We all know, however uncomfortable, it is always essential to listen to how outsiders see us. Cosy consensus is an inevitable default position when we only ever talk to ourselves. I found it particularly pertinent as I have driven back from the South West today mulling over the challenge we face if we are truly to make the breakthrough we all yearn for in British politics. Nick Clegg took over the leadership with a vision for 150 Lib Dem MP's - Karin ...
In some ways I find it amusing that the BNP have a website called this because using their words: A favourite trick of liberal-leftwing interviewers when losing an argument with BNP spokesmen is to start banging on about "BNP criminals." So here is a list of Tory, Lib Dem and Labour criminals. Err, the problem with [...]
Research undertaken by the Liberal Democrats has revealed that in 2007-8, East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust was one of the highest charging Trusts in respect of average fee per hour for patient/visitor parking. Nick Perry, Lib Dem parliamentary campaigner for Hastings & Rye, with help from the office of Norman Lamb MP (Lib Dem Health Spokesperson), [...]
Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg MP, has challenged his party to knock on one million doors before the County and European elections on 4 June. Local Lib Dems have been to out in Farley Bank, Hastings this weekend, to do their bit. County Council candidate for Old Hastings & Tressell, Stuart Murphy, said, "We need to [...]
As some are probably aware, us councillors try anything to communicate with our residents. Many would be familiar with the Liberal Democrat's "Focus" newsletter, which is great and every now and then to spend some time delivering pieces of paper door to door is very worthwhile. However over recent years and with the increasing use of the internet and the advent of Web 2.0 and the use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter many Councillors have turned to the web for help. The only problem has been that as councillors we start something and very quickly move ...
Welcome to the 108th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (8th-14th 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. Quite simply, the best headline in a Labour leaflet - ever on Lib Dem Voice. There's no answer to that headline. 2. Emily Thornberry's acid drops on John's Liberal Revolution blog. Actually, I think her acid is rising. 3. BNP in agony after ...
Well the BNP certainly seem to have taken a shine to this blog. The man who runs the Salford BNP website/blog, which cropped up just prior to the by-election, is busy filling the spam queue with insults and attempts to intimidate me - all the while pretending to be more than one poster. What I [...]
"press n. (Scots) a large cupboard, usually built into a recess in the wall" I'm back from a wonderful weekend in Perth at the Scottish Liberal Democrat's Spring Conference. The Concert Hall in Perth is a magnificent venue and I am so relieved that after 3 years at Aviemore which I couldn't afford, getting to and staying in Harrogate was cheaper one year so I took that option, we were back in Perth. There is so much that I wanted to blog at the time. So much more I could have Tweeted if there had been phone signal in the ...
This weekend I have been away from Prestwich, visiting some friends of our's in Newcastle. One of the two of them (the wife, unsurprisingly) is pregnant. As my friends and I get older, we embark on various life events which I have hitherto not experienced at close quarters. First it was weddings, and now more and more of us are getting involved with babies. It bothers me that we're getting older, obviously. But it bothers me more that it's not only legal but completely acceptable for people like us, grinning buffoons tumbling through life's challenges without the foggiest idea how ...
With Youtube threatening to block UK access to its music videos, it is time to stop following tangents like Matt Monro and Carla Bruni. Back to serious music. This grainy video of a live performance captures Elvis in his psychotic bank clerk, two-minute-single period. (For something more sophisticated try Man Out of Time or the recent When I was Cruel.) Back in 1978 Elvis certainly was cruel. It his music and that of The Jam that reminds me most of my university years. Is it just me, or is the reputation of The Clash higher now than it was at ...
The decision by the Welsh Liberal Democrats to challenge the provision in the Housing Legislative Competence Order that gives a veto to the Secretary of State for Wales on whether the Assembly can draw down powers to abolish the right to buy continues to attract support.Welsh Liberal Democrats are concerned that the veto provision is unconstitutional and will set a precedent for other more
Tuesday 17 March08:30 Subordinate Legislation Committee (Committee Room 3)Consideration of the Business Rate Supplements Bill: Delegated Powers memorandum09:15 Petitions Committee (Committee Room 1)Evidence session - Petition P-03-197 Save the Vulcan09:30 Legislation Committee No.5 (Committee Room 3)Currently considering: National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Welsh Language) Order
Take a map. Take a compass. Walk out your front door. Wander round for a bit. Make sure you are not looking north. Get the map out and look at it to see how to get back home. If you look at the map with north at the top, you are 80% likely to be a man. If you look at the map with the direction you are facing at the top, you are 80% likely to be a woman. (Honest.) PS Got a friend and not sure if they are a man or woman? You can use this technique ...
Our family were staying with us and the sun was shining so anxious to make the most of the day we left the piles of papers and headed for Thorpe Perrow Arboretum. What a lovely day and we so enjoyed the snowdrops, daffodils, primroses and many other wild flowers. The photo was taken by granddaughter Heidi. It is less than an hour's drive away if you want to visit. many people see the North...
The String Quartet play 'How To Save A Life"
I have greedily grasped sufficient solar ray minutes today to now go through Andreas Whittam-Smith's article in the Independent. James Graham has written an excellent deconstruction of the myth of the independent here. I'll save the blushes of several councils I know which have been dominated by so called "independents" for many years. One at least has been a total nightmare for years with the
Well done to Tavish Scott for having a sense of humour and the guts to participate in Red Nose Day 2009.Tavish climbed the tallest tree which is in Perth and you can sponsor him still http://www.justgiving.com/scotlibdems ------------------
Due to a complex system of subsidies, Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council will be forced to send £4.8 million of housing rent income back to the treasury. Go to SouthWalesLibDems for further information and a Liberal Democrat response.
The NHS are holding health fairs during March and April to talk to people about plans to make changes to stroke and major injury care in the capital. Apparently, the plan is to develop new world-class trauma networks and specialist stroke services to save lives and reduce disability. The Lewisham health fair is on March 16th from 9am until 4pm at University Hospital Lewisham. Local healthcare and ambulance staff will be on hand to talk to you about the consultation. There are more details about the consultation on this website and details of the helath fairs can be found here. ...
Here we go again. Andreas Whittam-Smith has written an eye-wateringly hyperbolic piece about Jury Team, which is launching tomorrow. I plan to be at their launch and it remains to be seen how exactly they intend to organise, but when people use stock phrases like "harness the power of the internet" I tend to assume they are going to fail before they begin. Apparently we are to regard Sir Paul Judge as the UK's Barack Obama. The anti-sleaze champion who is to turn this all around needs money, lots of it, something which he would have had £200,000 more of ...
"Paying through our nose to lose our freedoms" was the line of our Scottish conference in Perth. Tavish, of course, was referring to the introduction of the government's ID card scheme which is a waste of money especially during a recession. His 'up and at 'em' approach to politics was in abundance during his first leader's speech to the main conference. We had a buoyant weekend as we celebrated our coming of age. Twenty years since the merger it's hard to believe how far we have come. It was great to hear from Bob Maclellan, our joint party leader in ...
Last night I was at the Londra Gazette Ball at the Regency Ballroom in Bruce Grove. The Londra Gazette is rightly proud of its unique role as the Turkish community newspaper for London, published in both Turkish and English. The ball was a joyful event, with family groups as well as VIPs, and we all enjoyed [...]
The Mail on Sunday reports on the embarrassing time Harriet Harman and Labour General Secretary Ray Collins had at the Scottish Labour Conference. Apparently, after several vain attempts by Ms Harman to make head or tail of what one of the Glaswegian delegates was saying, Mr Collins asked a Scottish party official to join them [...]
Today was the Birmingham St Patrick's Day Parade. It was the best weather for some time (probably since 2003 when the route was different).As usual I paraded with the Birmingham Tipperary County Association which is led by Bromsgrove Independent Councillor David McGrath. Often there are quite a few acoustic musicians, but I was the only one this time.The song we sing (A long way to tipperary)
Well I've posted off the prizes for the raffle we held at the Liberal Democrat Conference at Harrogate. Rather nice prizes too: a voucher for two West End theatre tickets, a Russian hand painted tray and a voucher for a well known chemist's shop that sounds as though you wear it on your feet. Ho, no product placements here. This isn't ITV. Dash, just did it! I got Nick Clegg to sign the vouchers so the winners could flog them off on ebay.
Like many Londoners on a sunny Sunday, this morning I hopped on the tube and headed off to a picturesque pub. The Green Man is a half-timbered pub, with cherry blossom in the garden. Outside there's a traditional red letter box and across the road, the village green has daffodils in flower. The nearby field has [...]
Thanks to Norfolk Blogger for picking up on this story about the police stopping two young black men in the leafy Cheshire town of Knutsford (at the heart of George Osborne's Tatton constituency) and cuffing one, for the exceptionally dubious behaviour of looking in a jeweller's window. One of these men, 20 year old Victor Anichebe, happened to be both a Premiership striker, playing for Everton, and on crutches at the time. His companion was cuffed by police, apparently for failing to admit his guilt (a bit of a catch 22, you might think). What struck me about this is ...
"You have 48 hours and then you are off the case". The line, or something like it, has featured in many American films and some TV cop shows. It is hard to say when it was first used but by the eighties it had become a cliché. The line was said by an angry lieutenant or captain to the maverick cop. This cop was unconventional, rebellious and always right. Sometimes there were two mavericks: Starsky and Hutch. But generally it was one cop against the system - Dirty Harry, Serpico, 48 Hours and on they go. Another trend in the ...
Chris Hall and Maryfield Liberal Democrats would like to thank everyone who supported Chris at Thursday's by-election. We are very grateful to all 354 residents who gave Chris their first preference vote - it is greatly appreciated.
The blog has been quiet the past few days because of intense activity at the Maryfield Ward by-election. On Friday morning, along with hundreds of others, I attended the funeral of Julie Sturrock, our former council leader. Eight years ago, when I was first elected to the City Council, Julie was Council Leader, and I found her both warm and very welcoming. Julie's door was always open and her advice was as friendly as it was sound. Her untimely death was a great shock to everyone, but the huge attendance at her funeral was testimony to Julie's huge contribution to ...
Congratulations to Rafael Behr for writing what is possibly the most complacent, ahistorical article I've read thus far in 2009. It's not that any of the facts he alludes to are particularly wrong, its that he completely misses the point. Can the era we currently live in be legitimately described as a "golden age of liberty"? In as much as any era can be described as a golden age, certainly. We don't ban plays (even if certain individuals do manage to get them shut down from time to time), we no longer reserve social opprobrium for gay people or children ...
Out leafleting in the lovely sunshine today and I came across a torn-up Tory leaflet on the street. Nearby was the torn fragment of a ten pound note. I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation! Suggest me a (non-libellous) scenario that might account for this mystery!
A few quick links here. Our home net access will be fixed tomorrow morning, so normal service will resume then... Eddie Campbell has his daughter Hayley Campbell's review of the film of Watchmen, along with a few comments of his own, especially on Dr Manhattan's circumcision as it relates to Leonardo. Meanwhile Caleb has more on [...]
What lessons does the past offer for the future? If there is one thing history teaches us it's that the Liberals invariably face a challenging time at the polls following a period of Labour government. Indeed, taken together, the evidence from a string of post-Labour government 20th century elections makes for depressing reading. That said, recent electoral history does offer a glimmer of hope. This downward trend in Liberal support began with the election of the first - minority - Labour government of 1923, when Ramsay MacDonald became prime minister with Liberal support. The Liberals came within a whisker of ...
The savage irony of being a character from the one show in the Trek franchise I didn't like is not lost on me.... Your result for the Which Starship Captain Are You? test... You are the Emissary of the Prophets, Benjamin Lafayette Sisko!46% Benjamin_Sisko, 21% Kathryn_Janeway, 4% Jean-Luc_Picard, 13% Johnathan_Archer, 14% William_Adama and 27% James_T_Kirk!As far as this test is concerned, you got the best result. This man was my favorite captain, and by far. There is no one else out there capable of as much. The man was a great father, a noble religious icon (and one worth his ...
Ros Scott and Mark Valladares are full of the fact that a Halifax survey has found that Mid Suffolk has the best quality of life in rural Britain. Well, I'll have them know that the same survey found that Market Harborough is the best place to live outside the south east of England (the Leicester Mercury obviously interprets that concept broadly). At which point I could go all provincial and point out that some of us like living here because it is not in the south east.
I spent much of yesterday in the small Cambridgeshire Market Town of Littleport. And very nice it is too. The Co-op are planning to build a bigger store soon and it certainly has a strong offering on the fast food front. Complete with it's justly famous Harley-Davidson statue, it really is rather pleasing. Sad to say getting back by bus involves going through Cambridge. Am I alone in finding this one of the scruffiest, nastiest little towns in England? Take away the colleges and their lawns and you are left with some poor Victorian Architecture and some poorer 1920's - ...
To be found at Amused Cynicism.
Anthony Hill went on about how impressed he was with the new leader of the Welsh Lib Dems when we met at the Birkdale Ward meal at Tyndall's that I thought I ought to check it out. He was right-she is impressive-and she mentioned the Yellow Book! Kirsty Williams AM speaks to spring federal conference 2009 Uploaded by libdem
Cabalmat @ Amused Cynicism has the skinny this week. As ever, if anyone out there is interested in compiling it one week, email me at modernliberty *at* quaequamblog.net. Ta!
Here's the video I shot at Harrogate. See if you're in it!
I'm sure that Gordon Brown has made many speeches denouncing tax havens since he became Chancellor in 1997. I've no doubt he's spoken out against the way the world's wealthiest people and companies squirrel their money away in places like Switzerland, Jersey, the Cayman Islands and Belize. I've no problem with the way Gordon has spent the last twelve years working to ensure that the UK's poor, as well as those in the developing world, get their fair share of that money. The only problem is that I must have missed all those speeches and all that hard work because, ...
Fascinating to hear Alex Salmond on the Andrew Marr show arguing just now that if Scotland had been independent for the last 10yrs it would have built up a reserve from RBS & HBOS taxes which would have been retained in Scotland over that time rather than being remitted to London. This reserve would have allowed Scotland to rescue its' own banks. Since there is not a shred of evidence that these taxes would have been so retained one must admire Mr Salmonds capacity for spin. Indeed , given that most of the leaders of the failed banks were Scots, ...
The Sunday Times reports on a report by the House of Commons' health select committee, which has accused Ministers of spending vast sums of money on "ineffective and possibly damaging" interventions which they hope will force lifestyle changes on the public, without carrying out elementary research to see if the programmes make any difference. The paper quotes Labour committee chairman Kevin Barron as saying that MPs were shocked by the Government's failure to collect any meaningful evidence about whether dozens of schemes to promote healthy habits made any difference before they were introduced across the nation: The inquiry says projects ...
Vince Cable pointed out at the Lib Dems Scottish conference that whilst the Tories might be apologising now for calling for less scrutiny of banks and the City of London and for not seeing the current financial crisis coming, there is something the Tories don't want people to know. Speaking about "Call me Dave" Cameron, Vince said "It would have been rather bigger of him if he had also admitted that the Liberal Democrats did see this coming, and we did warn about it," Indeed I seem to recall the Tories attempting to ridicule Vince Cable for what he was ...
Daily collection of links and thoughts that weren't worth a whole post. 15:47 eating chip butty. And pondering baking more bread. Only made this one yesterday, it's all gone. I blame SB. # 00:43 When SB says "I haven't had cake for at least a week" this is only because I really messed up tonights attempt at cooking one :-( #Microblogging using LoudTwitter and Twitter. matgb_twitter is there if you're mad enough. Hopefully I've fixed the recursion problem, and if you'd rather this was cut, then editing your LJ code to do so is easy.
Sun 15th
08:51
Only 1 in 50 Haringey residents facing repossession to get help from government scheme
Labour's attempt to support struggling home owners through the 'Mortgage Rescue Scheme' will only help two percent of Haringey home owners threatened by repossession according to figures I'd dug up with my colleagues. The idea to go in and directly help home owners on the brink of repossession is a good one, but looking at the hard numbers, this seems like another Labour PR stunt with little real substance. You can read more about the story on my website.
Photographed this week inside a London City Hall lift: a barchart showing how good or bad different GLA departments have been at replying to a survey. {City Hall survey response rates} The worst performer by some margin? The Mayor's Office. Ah well, nothing like leading by example from the top is there?
Congratulations to the Mail on Sunday for printing details of the serious case review into Baby P's death. Haringey Council has refused to publish it, and Ed Balls has supported its decision on the grounds that doing so might deter people from investigating into similar cases in future. These grounds sounds spurious. Social services staff are always telling us how professional they are, yet this argument is predicated on the assumption that they will not behave professionally when things go wrong. And if we adopt Ed Balls' logic then we will never publish the results of any inquiry into anything. ...
News has reached me in a variety of forms this week that Loughton Town Council has nominated a BNP councillor to become a governor at a local primary school.Schools need good governors from a cross section of the community to help provide a 'critical' friend for the headteacher. If I was head I would be very uncomfortable in accepting a nomination from a BNP councillor/campaigner. Their views
I'll read and possibly dissect this later. But from a quick scan this is an exceptional example of a journalist having their head rammed well and truly up their nether regions. I particularly liked this bit:It is better to concentrate on improving the quality of the people who go into Parliament rather than on reforming the constitution.And this, he suggests, will be done by using text
I am not an Apple fan. The company's obsession with seemingly making their technology not work with other manufacturers equipment is something that I find hard to fathom in the modern digital world whilst those who would buy a dog turn if it had an Apple badge on it also turn me off their range. And to prove just how biased the world is in favour of Apple, look at THIS article on the BBC website which hails the new Ipod shuffle which "tells you what song is playing". Every MP3 player I have had since 2004 has told me ...
And so the end is near. Last day of the Scottish Lib Dem Conference for this Spring. So one last time here is the live feed of the #sldconf hashtag. Highlights 10:oo To Invetigate the 'blood ban'10:45 Policies for the Future11:45 Organ Donation12:30 Emergency Motion13:10 Speech by Tavish Scott MPS Scottish Lib Dem Conference Day 3
Blogging will be next to nothing today with only this blog post that has been scheduled to appear on the blog today but was written yesterday. Today Nelson celebrates the Birthday of the Holy Prophet Muhammed Peace Be Upon Him by having a long and peaceful march around the town followed by a gathering at the mosque. This is going to keep me busy all day, so no blogging folks!
Eeeeeee! strangefrontier did her first stand-up gig recently and she's on t'YouTube! Witness her be skience-geeky AND pick on readers of the Daily Fail! Now you must all go and worship her awesomeness. Go! Fly my pretties!
Seems I wasn't far wrong in my last post about the insincerity of Sara Scarlett's apology. She has just issued a retraction statement which says; "As a matter of conscience I feel like I can no longer stand by the apology I made five days ago.The words were not my own and they do not reflect how I actually feel." So, she doesn't quite appear to know her own mind. Something which really should cast doubt on her demagogic allegations about the 'corporate incompetence' of Cowley Street. She says; "To place the sole responsibility of all recruitment, campaign literature and ...
