{newsshopper} You might have read in the Newsshopper that two ladies in their late 80's from Downham let a man into their home after he showed them a police warrant card and badge. He asked various questions about their security and managed - with the help of an accomplice - to steal a £1,000 from the bedroom. It was money saved to pay for their funerals. My councillor colleagues in Downham ward want to help these ladies and are organising a Quiz Night and Raffle at The Downham Tavern this Thursday (19th) to raise some money to help reimburse them. ...
As I mentioned yesterday, I spent this morning at the launch of Jury Team. You can read my livetweeting of the event here. There are a few points I'd like to emphasise: Firstly, it is now clear that Jury Team is not another Your Party. It's strength is the simplicity of the concept. In essence, anyone can put themselves forward as long as they sign a statement declaring that they will not discriminate against people on the basis of sex, race, age, sexual orientation, religion, etc. and sign up to the "Nolan principles." I will credit them with the fact ...
Following conference I have suddenly realised that I have never actually looked at the full constitution of the party. I am now doing so. Or about to, as coffee has now arrived. I should note that the federal website has a wonderful amount of information to paw through which I intend to do over the next [...]
In November of last year I complained that British newspapers had ignored the publication of the Howard League report on youth justice in Jersey: It seems that if there are no cellars or shackles in the story the press does now want to know.I also asked, back in March 2008, why so many children had been in care there. So respect to Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy for returning to the subject in a Guardian article last Saturday: The alarm had been raised in 1979, following the death of a two-year-old at the hands of a foster parent. Two years ...
Nothing exciting today but quite a pain. The disabled couple who badly needed a boiler replacing, had been without for 6 weeks and were going to have to wait for undefined weeks for the right boiler to come, ( Warmfront contractors having ordered the wrong one) tell me they could not wait. Their illnesses mean that they need warmth, so they have had to find £1,200 to pay for it themselves - and...
I am astonished. News from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) that equal pay is too much to hope for in the midst of a recession is one of the most depressing comments that I've heard for a long time. There is no doubt that the legal process that claimants have to get through in order to assert their legitimate right to equal treatrment before the law is labyrinthine. However, to soft pedal the requirement for companies to hold equal pay reviews is an admission akin to saying that the 17% pay gap between men and women is a ...
For the last fortnight the children and staff of Durham Lane Primary School have been studying Africa. The whole school has been enjoying stories, art, music, dance, drama, reading, writing, maths, gardening and a host of other activities. This afternoon the school doors opened to let governors and parents see some of the results. Yet again the school exceeded my expectations. The standard of
Here's my latest Ham & High column: A woman came to see me recently to tell me of the appalling state of Haringey's mental health services. Her husband is bi-polar and sometimes suicidal. From time to time he has to be admitted to the acute ward at St Ann's - our local mental health facility. She says the ward is enough to make you want to kill yourself. It is a ward with psychotic and highly disturbed patients. If you or I were placed in such a ward - we would be frightened - as was my constituent's partner. He ...
Many thanks to Jonathan Calder for giving me the opportunity to do this...
Eastenders apparently prides itself on getting its facts right on issues. So what do they get it so wrong when it comes to politics ? When it came to mark Fowler getting HIV, they spoke to people from the Terrence Higgins Trust, they spoke to people in the NHS, the spoke to real people who had HIV/AIDS. When they dealt with Diana Butcher running away from home they spoke to groups who deal with the homeless like Shelter, they spoke to charities who help children with problems like Childline. In fact, on every social issue the BBC and Eastenders make ...
The original Tory logo generator no longer works, but Blackburn Labour Party have set up one of their own. They also have printed their top 10 Tory logos. The one above (which would be more grammatical if one were allowed more characters) does not feature in it.
This is the start proper of a new feature for this blog, where I'll create a 50-song spotify playlist and share it along with my comments. This week's one is quite simple - I just took the fifty songs I've played most this week according to last.fm , taking into account that I only want [...]
Ruaraidh Dobson Tweeted early on Sunday: "I'm looking forward to the lys blood ban motion debate this morning, even if it is in the dead slot!" Just for the record Jenni Lang the conference convener said to me later: "There is no such thing as a dead slot, we put interesting debates on first thing on Saturday and Sunday. Plus starting at 10am rather than 9 or 9:30 also helps." Well no matter what view point the debate on To Investigate the "Blood Ban" proved to be anything but a dead slot, so maybe Ruaraidh was dead wrong. It had ...
Twenty years ago a political advert appeared on billboards around the UK which went on — allegedly — to win the election a year later for the Conservatives. Now, the BBC and others are reporting that accountants BDO Story Hayward have done some research for the TUC and reckon that one in every 56 UK businesses will fail this year, a 59% rise on 2008. Further, the British Chambers of Commerce last week suggested that UK unemployment could reach 3.2 million — or just over 10% of the workforce — by the second half of next year. I can't help ...
Scottish conference concluded, as usual, with the leader's speech. Tavish Scott gave us a powerful and passionate speech which was largely focused on the economy. I thought it was a pretty decent effort, with strong denunciations of Labour's failures and of the Gnats for their sole focus on promoting independence rather than trying to get the economy sorted. There were several good lines and a few decent jokes as well, which seemed to go down well with the conference-goers. Tavish got the loudest applause for his demand that the Gnats should drop their demand for an independence referendum, although I ...
One feature of Scottish Lib Dem conferences is that there are often small but important debates on a range of policies. One such came on Sunday morning at Perth with a motion from Liberal Youth Scotland calling for an investigation into whether it's still appropriate for gay and bisexual men to be banned for life from giving blood. This was a good motion which focused on whether advances in technology mean that a lifetime ban is needed any more. Conference recognised that the most important thing is the security of the blood supply, but that the relevant authorities do need ...
One of the things about any conference is that there are usually a few things going on at the same time. Thus it was that while the conference in Perth debated giving more powers to the Scottish Parliament, I was in a training session. So I can't give you a blow-by-blow account of the debate, although the first couple of speeches were good. But I am delighted with the policy that conference passed in my absence. It is a radical vision of a powerful Scottish Parliament within a federal Britain. There are new powers proposed for the Scottish Parliament to ...
A public exhibition is to take place on Tuesday 24 March 2009 at the Farm Centre in Heaton Park to show local people the proposed plans for a proposed new sports facilities in Heaton Park (in the area nearest to Bury Old Road / St Margaret's Road). The proposal is for a "purpose built all-weather centre, which would include: - 13 small-sided football pitches - 2 multi-use games areas - new pavillion with shower and changing facilities, meeting rooms and sports cafe - climbing wall - cage soccer - skate park" The facility is proposed to be built and operated ...
{Picture 1} The Spring edition of "News from Six", the new of Six Town Housing (Bury's "Arms Length" housing organisation) is now available to download.
How many pieces of silver did Peter Mandelson give the Equality and Human Rights Commission to come out in the media this morning basically saying that equality was too expensive during a recession? Nicola Brewer (Chief Exec of the EHRC) was quoted in The Guardian this morning saying that this was no time to make companies carry out and publish pay audits that would demonstrate the disparity in men and women's wages. Mandelson has been sending smoke signals through the trade and right wing press for some weeks now - vilifying any part of the Equalities Bill which might be ...
Don't understand why Haringey Council is not taking urgent action to improve safety around Rokesley School. The history of incidents, accidents and near misses etc is pretty poor. There is no zebra crossing for children - only a brave lollypop lady; poor or no signing in most directions; no traffic calming or flashing slow down signs; and poor road markings. Rokesley - for those who don't know it - is the widest of three roads that come off Middle Lane. Traffic therefore uses it as a rat run - as you get stuck quite badly in the other two. Buses ...
There are a couple of interesting titbits from the latest Sunday Times / YouGov poll, published at the weekend, and published in full here. For years, opposition parties have levelled the charge at Lib Dems that our supporters are chiefly a 'neither of the above' option, that the party is merely a repository for disenchanted protest votes. For years, Lib Dems have refuted the charge, arguing that the party is the only one which has continued to stand by its founding ideology, liberalism. So I always take a close look at detailed opinion poll data to see if there are ...
et on Saturday with the local campaigners from Crouch End who are motivated to take up arms against the application for a 'gentlemen's club' (i.e. lap dancing) at the Music Palace - and after listening to them I don't blame them. As a liberal I don't knee-jerk against the varying tastes and occupations of folk - unless they do harm to others. On this one I have to agree that the potential for harm, nuisance, noise and detrimental impact is high. Plonking such an establishment in a local buzzing busy high street means that it is not 'out of the ...
I have set up an urgent meeting with the mental health trust following the publication of an independent investigation into the dreadful case of a paranoid schizophrenic who killed one and seriously injured four others in 2004. The report by NHS London into the care provided to Ismail Dogan shows gross failings - both in community mental health care and an inability on the part of the Trust to make sure lessons were learnt. It is another appalling tale of inadequacy and incompetence and worse in Haringey. Baby P was failed by Haringey Council and Haringey Primary Care Trust (PCT), ...
The Center for American Progress website has a 40 questions test on how progressive/conservative you are. I score 304/400 which makes me "extremely progressive". It says the average American scores 209.5 (the lower the score the more conservative you are). You can take the test here. Posted in Uncategorized
You just have to hand it to Jennie for enlivening the internet - and don't just think it's the twitterverse, she's got Facebook and the Blogosphere working on this too - with a perfect quest for a boring Monday afternoon. I'm not feeling particularly well today and it cheered me up. Anyway, Scotland being what it is in terms of scientific and medical research and advancement, I thought I'd widen the net to see if anyone has some, er, hard info that they would like to share. LibDig This!
It's on the blog Mick Fealty writes for the Daily Telegraph. As the late Ron Pickering used to say: "Ooh, it's enormous!"
The BBC reports: Almost three quarters of British people believe there should be a public inquiry into the invasion of Iraq, an opinion poll suggests. The BBC Radio 5 Live poll also found almost two thirds are not convinced UK soldiers should be kept in Afghanistan. ... The survey, conducted by ComRes for the BBC, found 72% of those questioned believe there should be an official inquiry into the UK's role in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. This figure increases to 81% in the 18-24 age group. Just last week, Lib Dem shadow foreign secretary Ed Davey repeated the ...
I like number 45 - Ross Perot!From the Buisness Insider:How big is the Twitter hype?Google News tells us that in the hour before we published this post, there were 40,820 news stories published that used the company's name.Last we heard from anybody official, micro-blogging service Twitter had about 6 million unique visitors per month.That's pretty big for a a relatively new startup. But let's be
We spent yesterday with friend and their three primary-age children. Since we last saw them their school has been rebuilt under a PFI scheme so one of the first questions was about how they like it. "It's boring - there are no pictures" said the youngest, age six. His mother explained that teachers are not allowed to [...]
Remember the film "What women want". It turned out they wanted Mel Gibson, but only when he could read their minds. Kind of tough to compete against that. On the same day that the Mail revealed to a thrilled nation that Gibson (possibly without the mentalist skills) was snapped frolicking in the sea with a bikini-clad women who apparently isn't his wife, but doubtless shares his conservative Christian and anti-semitic beliefs, we're also treated to a wonderful bit of sexist clap-trap from Lucy Cavendish, plugging her new book in the progress. Lucy, bless her, has had a revelation. It's completely ...
I thought it was worth preserving this for posterity. Apart from anything else it kills the canard that Twitter is all about "having a cocoa"..."going to the toilet".... Tweets of particular comedic value are bolded. See James Graham's Twitter page here. The Jury Team website is here.At the launch where I plan to live tweetSeem to be one of the youngest people here maybe 5 peeps under 35?Just
-The FTSE's up 2.69% today.-Wall Street is seeing its fifth successive positive day with regards to the Dow. Barclays report a "strong start" to 2009. -I was talking to some friends yesterday and they report that a couple of local handymen say they had a terrible January, particularly during the snowy period, but that things are picking up in February.-I saw someone buying a newspaper yesterday.-
Two frogs engaged in the time-honoured and happy state of amplexus in our garden pond yesterday. There is nothing that gives me a deeper sense of primeval wellbeing than observing activity in our pond. When I saw two newts in there last year I could hardly contain myself. P.S. We did have quite a family debate about whether they are frogs or toads but came to the conclusion they are frogs
It was great to see so many of you at the opening of this year's must-see climate change film "The Age Of Stupid" at the Finchley Road VUE last night. As I understand it we made it into the Guinness Book of Records as part of the biggest live film premiere ever. We were one of dozens of Peoples' Premieres going on in cinemas all over the country. All of them were plugged in live to the main event in Leicester Square where leading actor Pete Postlethwaite (see photo below) made the Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband squirm. "The Age ...
18) Timothy Radcliffe, Why Go To Church? The Drama of the Eucharist (London: Continuum, 2008, ISBN 978082649956). This was commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury as his Lent Book for 2009. Those of you who have been reading my journal for a while may recall that I always read the Archbishop's Lent Book as part of my Lenten observance. In recent years I've sometimes found this a bit of a trial, but this one is an absolute gem. Radcliffe explains what he thinks the Eucharist is all about, linking it to the virtues of faith, hope and love from the ...
Iain Dale is currently linking to this US quiz called How Progressive are you? Interestingly, Iain retitles it "How Conservative are you?" Maybe this adds something to the debate about whether Tories can in any way live up to the progressiveness (progressivity? progressivitationalism?) espoused by their leader. In any case, I scored 348 out of 400, which is apparently "extremely progressive."
Mon 16th
16:11
There's nothing wrong with alcohol... in moderation. So why can't I be left to decide what 'moderati...
At least the Government has chosen to kick the latest proposal from the health police into touch. The idea of a minimum charge per unit of alcohol for retail sales is a seductive one, especially given the incidence of binge drinking amongst the young. Yet it managed to provoke James Parnell, not usually a friend of this blog, to say that he didn't think that everyone should suffer for the behaviour of a minority. Good. I admit that I enjoy a drink from time to time, although not as much as I used to when I was younger. My capacity, ...
One of the issue we were discussing at the Governance working party this morning was area committees-Southport, Formby, Crosby etc could be given more control over the services in their communities. In order to achieve this we would need to make a transparent apportionment of the budget. Personally I welcome that especially as it would stop such whinging nonsense as we got from Bootle. The recent minutes of St Oswald and Netherton and Orrell Area Committee state re the 09-10 Highway Maintenance Programme: "Of the 34 schemes highlighted in the footway reconstruction programme, 27 were in the Southport and Maghull ...
Welcome to Catchup, bringing you the tastiest nuggets of LDV from the last fortnight, apart from Conference, which we caught up here. We started the period with a debate about fairtrade. Good? John Pugh MP thought so; Julian Harris wasn't so sure. We learned where thousands of Lib Dems will be trekking to conference over the coming years. We learned the Government had caved on individual voter registration - and Mark Pack explained why that was a good thing. Our peers came out top. Ros Scott unleashed hell. Bob Russell MP campaigned to save pubs. Guest contributors included Hywel Morgan, ...
So, estimating the weight of the human penis. I appear to have got half of the Twitterverse doing it now... Mwahahahahahahahahaha! Daddy's guesstimate, as a biology teacher, was that it is about 10-20g, not including fluid. He said that water displacement method wouldn't work because some of it is inside the body cavity, and the only thing to do would be to find a friendly medical student with a male cadaver... Of course, an ERECT penis would weight much more because it's inflated with lots of heavy blood... If any of you know of any actual data on this I'd ...
{torystrike.jpg} Roger Helmer the Tory MEP for East Midlands, described climate change as a media driven frenzy The Guardian commented over a year ago that sections of the Tory are sceptical that global warming is a real phenomena, clearly their views haven't changed. I would suggest that Mr Helmer actually look at several scientific papers on the subject. Facts are that 'high levels' of carbon dioxide and methane in a planetary atmosphere causes surface temperatures to rise. Levels of greenhouse gasses on Earth are usually in balance - when this changes, so does the global climate. It's not a difficult ...
Better late than never. I promised I would post about Liberal Democrat Spring Conference last Monday, but it's only now that I've got around to posting anything. I know it will have been a difficult week for the one reader of this blog who was looking forward to it, but at least you've had the [...]
more at ripplestone garden..
Lib Dems are calling for measures to pay for 10,000 more police within our communities. The party is calling on the government to scrap its costly plans for huge 'Titan' prisons, currently estimated at between £1.7bn and £2.3bn. New evidence shows that smaller prisons are more effective at rehabilitating prisoners, meaning far fewer commit crimes when they are eventually released. The Liberal Democrats say that better policing and improved detection are more effective in cutting crime than 'posturing over penalties'. Money saved from scrapping ID cards would provide an extra 10,000 police officers.
Meeting with Director of London Wildcare Centre I met with Ted Burden, the director of the Wildcare Centre to discuss funding issues the centre was currently facing. Ted also showed me the barn he was keen to convert into a visitors' centre with the focus on attracting schoolchildren and teaching them about conservation. I also looked [...]
The UK has by far the largest DNA database in the world, with 4.5 million people registered. Now, innocent children are having their DNA taken and it is being held on the database for ever. Holding innocent people's information on the database contradicts one of the fundamental tenets of British democracy: 'innocent until proven guilty'. It is particularly worrying that information on 700,000 children who have never been convicted, cautioned or charged with any offence are on the database. Some of the most bizarre examples include that of the three children who climbed a cherry tree to build a tree ...
After a couple of hours this morning at a Governance working party I retired to a coffee shop to read the papers and take on some much needed caffeine. One gem from the letters page of the Guardian is worth recording: It's hardly surprising that police cameras focus on journalists in demonstrations (Report, 11 March); they focus on politicians, too. Last summer my wife and I stopped at RAF Menwith Hill to support the weekly demonstration by the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases. In the middle of a conversation outside the gates with a MoD policeman, filmed by ...
{Lib Dem Bird} On Monday we had our group meeting - which I wont bore you with the details here. I then fell ill and to send my apologies to Safer Reading Forum East. Made it to the Civic board meeting, which I've already discussed. Obviously, this is going to become quite a sensitive meeting so don't expect me to divulge to many details in future. Rest of the week was a bit of a write off because of flu {:(}
"And what is that?", I hear you ask. It isn't a huge sacrifice, unless you're a vegetarian, but you might make a difference. You see, it is Bacon Connoisseurs Week and so, to mark the occasion, you are asked to make yourself a bacon sandwich. If you don't fancy making one, you can always visit your local cafe, who'll doubtless be happy to do it for you. Now I admit, I do enjoy a good bacon sandwich. I'm a brown sauce man for preference, but with good bacon, the sauce is somewhat unnecessary. And, of course, spending my weekends in ...
Danny Finkelstein at The Times's Comment Central pays tribute to Ron Silver, known to West Wing fans everywhere as political strategist Bruno Gianelli, who has died: Ron was one of the most committed political figures in Hollywood, but not in the usual way. A brilliant debater and public speaker, he had been the actor's union leader for a decade and a well known advocate of abortion rights. And then, in 2004 he took one of the biggest political steps in his life. He endorsed George Bush for President. Meeting him in New York after he had addressed the Republican Convention, ...
Loved RND this year on tv, particularly the skit with the England football team but the highlight surely has to be the Lets dance.. contest with Robert Webb as winner on Saturday night. If you missed his Flashdance routine you can catch it here. Welding will never be the same. If you don't know who Robert Webb is, he is half of comedy duo Mitchell and Webb. (David Mitchell was on the panel last week of Question Time.)
My anthem through these last few difficult months and at the moment has been: Gotta be somebody by Nickelback Lyrics: This time I wonder what it feels like To find the one in this life The one we all dream of But dreams just aren't enough So I´ll be waiting for the real thing. I'll know it by the feeling. The moment when [...]
I watched with some discomfit Nick Clegg and Vince Cable's Harrogate conference speeches. Discomfit because, whilst there was rhetoric a-plenty about how the economic crisis affords us an opportunity to, indeed demands that we must, build a new order from the very foundations, I can't help feeling that our policy makers have not even got the keys to the JCBs yet. Banker-bashing is all very well, and seemed popular at least in the conference hall. Yet just strengthening the new building with high-tensile regulations and restricting openings for excess while leaving the old foundations will miss the biggest opportunity of ...
The Welsh Liberal Democrat MP for Cardiff Central, Jenny Willott has released figures which show that South Wales Police is the most consistently underfunded police force in the UK.The figures uncovered in a Parliamentary Question from Miss Willott, show central government funding for each police force since 2000 and reveal that:· South Wales Police received just £97.25m in 2008-09 in
Downing Streets Spin tactics are not working according to them because of bloggers from the Lobby at Parliament who blog about "bogus scoops" which undermines their spin! This comes from a blog post by Iain Dale and I think its very strange. First of all Downing Street need to smell the custard, the world has moved on and its an era of blogs and you can not keep blogging journalists out of the Lobby. Secondly more Bloggers should be invited into the Lobby as blogging is the new medium to which people are turning for political news, commentary and opinion! ...
Spending a couple of days in Perth was a real pleasure, and I sense that the Scottish Liberal Democrats are in the best shape that I have seen them for years: just as well since in 2009 we have a tough fight to keep a Scottish Liberal Democrat MEP, in 2010 the British general election will take place and in 2011 the next Scottish Parliamentary elections will also provide some interesting fights. Tavish Scott has certainly steadied the ship, and I was impressed also with the way that Jeremy Purvis- who I must admit I did not know before his ...
Attacks by adult strangers on children are thankfully rare. For example, in 2002/3 just 68 children were successfully abducted by strangers - the chance of your child being successfully abducted by a stranger is similar to your chance of winning the Lottery jackpot. There are many other forms of crime committed against children. Overall, our kids are probably safer than we think they are but not as safe as we'd like them to be. So there's been an ongoing debate for several years about whether the names of sex offenders should be made public, so parents can protect their children. ...
The latest Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties (Volume 19, Number 1) has some interesting research into how many votes people cast in English local elections where this is more than one vacancy to be filled at once, e.g. a three member ward with all the seats up for election at once: 7-15% of total potential votes are unused ... Unused votes occur when electors have a restricted choice of candidates, principally when parties fail to field as many candidates as there an available seats ... [and] unused votes stem from a misunderstanding of the electoral procedure ... even ...
Guido Fawkes has finally moved his blog to Wordpress.org two months later then expected at the time when he announced he was going to be moving. The new blog is not very different to the old one except for a few factors like the comment section. Guido I think has made a bad move going to Wordpress because now his blog can be brought down. All someone needs to do is find out how much bandwidth he has and get so many readers going to his blog that it all gets taken up and his blog breaks! I bet Guido ...
The Independent has a regular feature in which readers send in questions for celebs and politicians. This week it is Eric Pickles and anyone seeking subtle clues about a future Tory government need look no further. Apparently the mastermind of the Tory Euro campaign plans to 'bring about much needed change'. So that's a whole election to a body which makes and amends British law dealt with in a sentence - and not a very good one. I wonder if the 'much needed change' will include a craven acknowledgement that the Tories took us into Europe, that the Tories signed ...
Conservative activists from Brierfield and Nelson North thought it was funny to put 13 leaflets through my door yesterday but I think its just sad. The Conservatives need to find something other then posting more then one leaflet in peoples homes as a hobby because they really are sad and lonely people who have noting better to do. If the Conservatives in Pendle want their leaflets back they can email me by 6:00pm today or I shall put the leaflets to their only valued use and wipe my ass with them!
The Spring Conference season continues, so this weekend I made the trip up to Perth for the Scottish Conference, my first trip to Scotland since taking office on January 1st. I take the federal part of my job very seriously, so rather than just look in briefly and clear off, I stayed for the whole weekend. The Federal Party was well represented: not only did the sage of Twickenham make a barnstorming speech on Saturday, as I posted afterwards, but Chief Executive Chris Rennard and Duncan Brack, Chair of Federal Conference Committee, were there too, as well as Campaigns guru ...
I doubt if social workers would deny the truth of the headline to this posting but what is completely UNACCEPTABLE is that such accountability is applied to poorly paid, poorly trained & overworked people & not universally, - especially not to politicians, media, financial types & all the others who see personal accountability for the misery & damage they inflict as an excellent requirement on everybody but themselves. About 25yrs ago I was at a conference attended largely by publishers, journalists & media types. There had recently been a big engineering disaster with loss of life - the Piper Alpha ...
Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer of 15th March reports a meeting between the new Tory 'stars' & veteran former heads of the Civil Service Lords Butler, Wilson & Turnbull to be advised of the virtues of Cabinet Government. We know that under Blair & Brown Cabinet meetings were & are considered an irritating waste of leaders valuable time but different under the Tories? Older folk will recall a sketch from the fabulous 'Spitting Image' in which Thatcher had taken the Cabinet out to dinner. When asked what she would have she replied steak. 'And the vegetables?' asked the waiter. 'They'll ...
Government ministers have spent the last 24 hours distancing themselves from the proposal of chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson to establish a minimum price for alcohol which would see the doubling of the price of many beers and spirits. Today's Guardian reports: Plans to charge a minimum of 50p per unit of alcohol are to be put forward by Sir Liam Donaldson today. The Scottish government is planning to introduce minimum prices for alcohol and these could come into force by the end of the year. It would make Scotland the first country in Europe to introduce minimum pricing, ...
Last Tuesday was a not untypical day at the Gaza checkpoints. A total of 110 truckloads of merchandise (2,134 tons), mainly basic foodstuffs but also some cooking oil and some hygiene products, were allowed through from Israel, together with some heavy diesel oil for electricity production. The volumes were small given that UNRWA says that 500 truckloads of goods are needed every day. The Israelis allowed no items into Gaza that could be of use to business or industry. No paper for the schools passed the checkpoints, no household goods, no electrical equipment, no concrete, steel, timber or building materials ...
The BBC reports: The cost of housing prison inmates in police cells is double the amount previously thought, the Lib Dems claim. The Ministry of Justice says it costs £385 a night to detain an inmate in a police station when prisons are full. But the Lib Dems say the true cost of 'Operation Safeguard' is £853 a night - a figure disputed by the government. The article quotes Lib Dem justice spokesperson Paul Holmes: For this amount of money, you could stay in the Ritz. ... The government's incompetence in managing our prison system is staggering and has left ...
The graffiti situation in Prestwich shows no signs of getting any better. Whilst the Council continue to dither and do nothing, despite the howls of protest from just about everyone who cares about the area, local vandals are taking advantage of the easy pickings by tagging every surface they can see. So this weekend there's going to be a community graffiti clean up. It's on Sunday morning, meeting at 10.30 for an 11am start. We'll be cleaning the graffiti for a couple of hours before going to the Church Inn for a well-earned lunch. It's a fairly sad state of ...
Daily collection of links and thoughts that weren't worth a whole post. 12:39 wonders if @jamesgraham is actually the person he knows, or if the whole world has gone mad #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.
Holy Cross College in Bury are holding a fundraining event this week. The event is an 'East meets West' charity fashion show, aiming to bring cultures together and to raise money for the NSPCC (the children's charity). Other entertainment will include live music and there will also be food available. Tickets are £5 for adults and £3 for children. The event will be held at Bethesda Church on Parkhills Road, not far from the college. So, if you're free on Thursday and want to have an interesting evening whilst raising money for a good cause, head down to the fashion ...
Yesterday a lot of politics was brought into the Milaad celebrations in Nelson which I was disgusted by but never the less it was interesting. The stars of the event were Andrew Stephenson (Tory PPC for Pendle), Councillor Faraz Bhatti (Defector to the Tories) and Sajjad Karim (he doesn't need an introduction you know who he is). Then we move onto talking about the spoons, they were three Spoons, one who was paid to be a spoon by one of the stars and two who were just doing their hobby which is Spooning! The two Spoons who were just doing ...
Another useful tool spotted by Stephen Abrams. This one converts .pdf to .doc without losing the formatting. Hallelujah!
Arguments about education are a real pain. We all went to school, many of us have children at school now or in the recent past and we all know, or quite possibly are, school teachers or governors. So, from our own years of personal experience, we think we know best. And perhaps we do. Our own experience isn't wrong, but each of us is just one person among millions. There's one education debate (I won't say which) that I never get involved in, simply because my own personal experience is so strong, it colours my views completely and it's sufficiently ...
Oh, the irony! The Telegraph reports that if he is to claim his £31,000-a-year pension as a former European Commissioner, then Peter Mandelson must maintain a "duty of loyalty to the Communities". In other words the paper believes that the Business Secretary could be unable to stand up for British interests in disputes with Brussels. The Taxpayer's Alliance, who unearthed this clause go further. They argue that Peter Mandelson is effectively being paid to support the Euro and the Lisbon Treaty. As usual with pronouncements from this body this is a two dimensional conclusion. No organisation could impose such a ...
I know winter is more or less behind us when I get up on a Monday morning at 6.40am to catch the 7.40am train to London and it is day light outside. And so it was this morning, not that that made me want to get up. I only got at bed at 1am, having spent an age looking for a set of video clips on my pc, only to realise that I hadn't uploaded them from the video tape! They are of the Port of Tyne
The closure of shops around Haringey as the recession bits has also seen a burst of fly-posting, blighting our high streets. Our councillors in Crouch End have been particularly active on the issue - meeting with police and council enforcement officials, as you can read in the story on my website. If you spot any fly-posting, you can report it on 020 8489 1000.
He calls it Nevill Holt, but I think we all know what he means.
Cllr Pattisson and myself recently attended the Whitefoot Ward Safer Neighbourhood Panel meeting at Catford Police Station. This is the meeting where residents and Police discuss local policing matters, and set policing priorities on Whitefoot Ward. Following feedback from local residents, we have included dealing with dog fouling as one of our priorities. The next meeting is on Wednesday 8th July at Catford Police Station at 7.15pm. - tea and biscuits provided! A sad piece of news from the meeting is that PC Mark Hopkins will be leaving Lewisham, and heading off to sunny Cornwall! Mark has spent the last ...
News that the Government is ignoring its own experts regarding the minimum price per unit of alcohol, supported by the Lib Dems, come as no suprise. Dedicated to spinning, but never actually taking the tough decisions that benefit the country pretty much sums up New Labour.
It feels like a bingo roll call with an "eyes down and away we go" but here is what I have been up to in the Ward since elected Caldecote and Childerley I've visited and surveyed residents about the village's needs for the re-introduction of the No 2 bus Service, and I'm lobbying for the removal of the infamous speed thumps - not to remove traffic calming from the village - but to enable the Parish Council to put in effective speed calming measures that slow down traffic whilst minimising damage to cars. Hardwick I'm working closely with the Parish ...
I'm afraid I completely failed to post between Friday and now, for a few reasons. Lots of things to do, nowhere to plug in a laptop and windows mobile IE refusing to let me into wordpress among them. Conference went smashingly, both LYS motions passed, blood ban with both amendments. Having only vaguely heard about reference [...]
