I have never been a huge fan of Big Brother. (The name of the show itself is not the kind to endear itself to a Liberal Democrat in any case). And so I never really 'got' the way that Jade Goody roared to fame. And then there was the Shilpa Shetty episode... But I have to say that [...]
Today I understand what it is like to be partially deaf. already accused of shouting by son. # Feeling poorly makes me grumpy.Left Ferdi to own devices with the watercolours and have opted for the camp classics of the scissor sisters. # Seven days of elephant strength antibiotics - Urgh!!! #
I am getting very worried about Liberal Youth. In all honesty, looking in from the outside it almost seems like most of the people involved haven't got the foggiest idea what the hell they are doing. But the thing is, that's not always a bad thing. However, I have wonder of the rank and insultingly short sighted stupidity of certain rhetoric that a certain author of a certain piece in the new .pdf magazine distributed to all those on LY's mailing list. It is this: So, let's ditch Stalin and take on board some Lenin. We might not be communists, ...
This morning I boarded the train at Leagrave - a little further North than Luton but not as far North as the arctic wastes of Bedford. Door to door when I travelled to 25 The North Colonnade from Bedford it was 61.1 miles..........now door to door, having moved to Luton, it is 40 miles exactly (courtesy of AA Route finder!). Occasionally I stay over in London with friends in North London - then it takes me exactly the same time to get to work despite being 34 miles closer! Now, courtesy of AA Route finder, I discover that if my ...
Oh dear. I think someone needs to tell the Japanese that "UK & Ireland" isn't a language.(Yeah, I know, none of the others are too)
Sometimes things happen that you just couldn't have arranged better.In the wake of the McNulty dodgy allowance business, a couple of things happened.1. Sarah Teather (Lib Dem MP for Brent East) made some hay for the Lib Dems out of the situation, tabling a Commons motion to scrap the allowance for London MPs.2. Dawn Butler (Labour MP for Brent South) found herself in the spotlight next, on the
Welcome back to The Apprentice - the reality show where you wish they could all lose. Nothing on television is real, so it is best not to take the show too seriously. But I stand by what I wrote last month: the macho view of business propagated in popular television programmes like The Apprentice and Dragons' Den is harmful. Liberals should support the establishment of more cooperative forms of organisation - as indeed we used to do.In that post I argued that macho management is harmful because it is irrational. There can be no learning from experience where people are ...
The working party looking at the Council's investments in Icelandic banks has until this evening been an example of good scrutiny. This evening the draft report was being considered by the full scrutiny committee and Tory councillors were clearly under orders to water the report down, push the blame entirely onto the officers for the failure to follow the treasury management strategy and absolve the leader and chair of the Cabinet Resources Committee from any blame what so ever. They also tried to implicate the audit committee who in fact were constitutionally unable to have been involved in the whole ...
At the City Chambers today, I participated in an initial meeting to discuss a possible West End Festival next year. Along with representatives of Friends of Magdalen Green, West End Community Council and City Councillors, it was good to see representation from other organisations such as the University of Dundee, Dundee Contemporary Arts and Dundee Rep. It is a great idea but will take time to plan - hence the June 2010 target date. Meantime, Friends of Magdalen Green is planning a one day Fun Day on the Green on Saturday 13th June (2009, that is!)
Thanks to the diligent detective work of Costigan Quist (something which perhaps we should draw a veil over), I can reveal that Lembit's Daily Sport columns are now available online (Warning: NSFW). So, given my call for him to have a blog, is this mission accomplished? Well, the very fact that I have to label it NSFW suggests that there is more work to do (if I never have to look at Jo Guest's starry chuff hole ever again it will be too soon), and it would be nice if he didn't have to bang on about the Daily Sports' ...
Welcome to the 109th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (15th-21st 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. How many BNP 'liars, buggers and thieves' are there? on John's Liberal Revolution blog. Shades of Cher here (or is that just me?). 2. 150 Lib Dem MPs......OK Guys - What's the Strategy? on Linda Jack's Lindyloo's Muse blog. Cloning? 3. Marvellous Ford ...
Porter, Doner and LDYS - the three faithful friends that saw me through my first year at university. Paying a 2am trip to our local kebab shop, I can remember suggesting that doner kebab was the food Jesus would eat, were he to return to save humanity (needless to say, Jesus would demand lashings of the finest chili sauce and all the limp green stuff that in some parallel universe might actually qualify for the word salad). We were blessed with a 24 hour kebab shop and, even I with the relaxed attitude to healthy eating appropriate to a male ...
Now obviously I made a rod for my own back way back when I chickened out of moving this particular silver surfer off Hotmail and onto a proper email system, but I didn't so there it is... He is having problems printing his emails with the "new, improved" (ha!) Hotmail. Instead of printing paragraphs wrapped correctly it is just printing one long line which overruns the paper. Not using this particular tentacle of the Beast of Redmond myself, I first looked at the online help. It didn't mention printing at all (Hotmail has it's own print button)! I then used ...
This year sees the EU parliamentary elections and I'm not intending to be active at this time. Now, I am not some swivel-eyed anti-European little Englander with nasty nationalist tendencies like many in the Tory party, UKIP or the BNP. I accept a good number of EU directives have had a positive impact upon this country, but as an institution it's centralising and undemocratic nature seems contrary to liberal values. That failed and unelected British politicians like Kinnock, Mandelson and Patten have had more say in the direction of the EU than elected parliamentarians seems an absurdity to me. That ...
Tomas Venclova is a poet and was a dissident. Some would say that he was still a dissident, in that he continues to speak uncomfortable truths to his fellow countrymen in Lithuania. He was expelled from the Soviet Union and deprived of his citizenship in 1977 for daring to challenge the illegal occupation of Lithuania by Stalin and for being part of the steering committee of the Lithuanian Helsinki monitoring group. The Soviet Union signed the Helsinki Final act during the period of detente with the West and in it they made explicit promises to respect human rights. Yet although ...
I am an unashamed fan of The Apprentice. I have watched it since the first series when it was slightly hidden away on BBC2 and have always found its production values and tasks to be of the highest order. However, this does not stop the moaners and whingers in society from slagging of the show or seeking to talk it down. I heard on Five Live this morning some pillock arguing that the show was not suited to a recession and that Alan Sugar ought to change his catchphrase from "You're fired" to something more suitable for our difficult times. ...
Lib Dem Voice's Mark Pack, ConservativeHome's Jonathan Isaby and LabourList's Derek Draper discussed online campaigning in a Hansard Society event held in Parliament yesterday. The event was chaired by Dr Laura Miller from the Hansard Society eDemocracy programme. From the Society's website: This event discussed the use of online strategies and their increasing importance, encouragement of grass-roots activism and ability to enable mass mobilisation. But there is no guarantee that the cooption of online strategies will guarantee electoral success or promote healthy dialogue between politicians and citizens. You can watch the video here.
The elevation to power of a right-wing government in Israel should come as no surprise to anyone who takes a passing interest in Middle East politics.The disastrous, illegal, and failed attacks on Lebanon in 2006 and seemingly indescriminant assault on Gaza in 2009, have produced a frustration in Israel with so-called "moderate" Labor and Kadima parties, whose bungling and corruption in domestic affairs have made the solid, clear attractions of the right-wing attractive to sufficient numbers of voters to make a rightist coalition all but inevitable. Even with the Labor party - having being co-co-opted in at the last minute, ...
Apparently, those with nothing to say write a blog, and I intend to be one of those people....
Vince Cable writes about the economic crisis, the failure of the Labour policies and what road the recovery should take This article was originally published in the Guardian on 24th March 2009 We are in the early stages of a crisis of great severity and unpredictable consequences. It is now broadly recognised that, barring an improbably sudden recovery, the financial and...
With Sir Alan Sugar's The Apprentice starting tonight at 10:00 PM I thought I would blog about which candidate I am hoping will win the programme and become the Apprentice. I am going to be supporting Majid Nagra who was expelled from school but now runs his own car hire company, and works on youth projects. Just to know that someone who was expelled from School has done so much with his life and has turned it around is just a simple and yet valid reason for me supporting the candidate. To check out the programmes site follow the link ...
Free speech has always posed a liberal dilemma. On the one hand, we hold dear the principle that individuals are free to speak their mind, even when it gives offence. On the other hand, there is Mill's 'harm principle' - what to do about those individuals who incite hatred and violence through their words. It was this dilemma which was at the heart yesterday's Commons debate on the Coroners and Justice Bill, which will criminalise incitement to hatred over sexual orientation. An attempt was made group of MPs, led by Labour's David Taylor, to amend the bill to insert a ...
Commenting on Government plans to monitor social networking sites such as Facebook, Tom Brake said: "This is yet more evidence of this Government's obsession with hoarding vast amounts of people's personal data." "We need complete clarity from the Government over what data they will retain and how it will be kept secure. "Will membership of Facebook groups or people listing...
Local residents in Bath and North East Somerset can get comprehensive advice about how to get through the recession thanks to new web pages launched by the Council. The web pages - which can be found at www.bathnes.gov.uk/recessionadvice - contain suggestions spanning a range of different topic areas which also contain contact details for outside organisations that might be able to...
I criticise the council a fair bit on here, because often they're rubbish. But, credit where it's due, they often provide a good service, and on occasion excel themselves. And tonight I have cause to congratulate them after we had to call on them to remove a dog which had implanted itself firmly in our lives! Tamsin rang me at work to say that she'd seen a dog dicing with death outside our house, playing "Run Me Over! I Dare You!" with a number of passing cars. She went and rescued it from its predicament, but then it wouldn't leave ...
Lib Dem MP Norman Baker has a letter published in today's Guardian demanding an immediate and full inquiry into the Iraq war, which the Government has said will happen 'as soon as possible' after 31st July: It is welcome that Carne Ross reminds us (March 20) that intelligence available to the government before the invasion of Iraq made it "very clear" that Saddam was not a threat, but it's hardly a revelation. The confidential Downing Street minute from 23 July 2002 records Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, telling the meeting of senior ministers and officials that the case for war ...
Wed 25th
18:29
CommentIsLinked@LDV: Vince Cable - The Storm ... how to survive it (and how to prevent its return)
Over at the Guardian today, there's a lengthy extract from Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable's about-to-be-published book, The Storm: The World Economic Crisis and What It Means. Here's an excerpt of the excerpt: Escaping this crisis will require a combination of approaches, and the mix will vary from country to country. In each case, however, the price for restoring stability will be a greatly increased role for the state in the banking sector. Beyond that, the challenge will be to build a regulatory regime that provides greater protection against systemic risk. After the calamities of the past year, few ...
My Select Committee ( House of Lords Communications Committee) has started a new report, this time on the state of the British film industry; and at an appropriate time given the success of UK films last year, notably in Slumdog Millionaire, Mama Mia and Quantum of Solace. It's not a subject I know much about, so its a pretty steep learning curve. We took evidence from two sets of witnesses today, the British Film Council and the trade union BECTU. The Film Council is a Quango reporting to DCMS, funded by the National Lottery and government grant, and tasked with ...
I'm having intermittent problems with comment tracking, where I click on the pushpin icon and either nothing happens, or else I get an error message. So if you reply to a comment and I seem to be ignoring you, it's because I haven't seen your reply. Sorry!
We've had two more episodes of the series Ways to Save the Planet, that I discussed earlier. And, surprisingly topical for once, the Greens' spring conference has unanimously passed a motion condemning geo-engineering.For the full text see page 30 of this pdf, but I will bring you some edited highlights.Ocean-fertilisation poses an unknown but potentially serious threat to marine biodiversity,
Could Gordon Brown not being able to sell 1.75 Billion of the Countries bonds be the only way Brown will realise that he and his government have become hopeless? This question would never have hit my mind if Mike Smithson had not blogged about it and how he raises the question that this could lead to an early general election! Mike raises the question and personally it has got me thinking and as they say great minds think alike, that is the case in this situation. I like Mike now think that Brown will be forced into calling a general ...
I have just watched Tory MEP Daniel Hannan's shredding of Gordon Brown in the European Parliament which is tearing through the blogosphere at the moment. I have to take my hat off to him - he was clear, concise and most importantly spot on. The best thing is that Brown had to sit there and take it. Hannan's view that the country is broke appears to have been vindicated further by the news today that the latest government bond auction has failed (see here and here). Hannan is now even being talked of as potentially the next Tory leader. His ...
A new poll by Politics Home suggests that people don't trust their MP's when it comes to allowances as you can see from the results by following the link as they show: 86% of the public believe MPs expenses and pay packages are too generous 68% think that at least half of all MPs submit "dishonest" expense claims And on the question of scrapping allowances and increasing MP's salaries the results are: 47% back the idea, as opposed to 39% against Personally I think that is interesting at many levels, first of all it shows that people don't trust MP's ...
The Labour Government has always acted as if announcements change the real world while tawdry things like money and delivery are left to those of us who live in it. We've had twelve years of Labour Ministers announcing fixes and pouring scorn on anyone with the temerity to ask where the actual results are. But this last week has shown more urgently than most the appalling gap between Labour's words and actions, with rhetoric about education and a "Green New Deal" collapsing into Labour's cancelling funding for 144 colleges in mid-building work and closing schools funding for solar photovoltaic energy. ...
Liberal Democrats have slammed the Conservative MP for Wycombe after a Private Members' Bill to tackle fuel poverty, officially supported by his party, fell because too few Conservative MPs turned up to vote the bill through. The Fuel Poverty Bill, introduced by Liberal Democrat MP David Heath, proposed steps to make homes more energy-efficient. The Bill would have forced energy companies to offer their lowest tariffs to the most vulnerable households, but was rejected in its second reading in the House of Commons this afternoon. It received 89 votes for and two votes against - but needed 100 votes to ...
Local Liberal Democrat councillors in Norwood Ward, Southport, are holding an advice surgery on Saturday 28th March. You can meet Lib Dem councillors David Sumner, Ronnie Fearn and Brian Rimmer. No appointment is necessary.
The Liberal Democrats Spring Conference took place in Harrogate earlier this month. In his third conference speech as Leader, Nick Clegg laid the blame for Britain's economic crisis squarely at the door of both Labour and the Conservatives.
The Liberal Democrats Spring Conference took place in Harrogate earlier this month. One of the undoubted highlights was the speech given by Vince Cable.
Jones explained: It [the satnav] kept insisting the path was a road, even as it was getting narrower and steeper. I just trusted it. You don't expect to be taken nearly off a cliff. "I rely on my satnav. I couldn't do without it for my job, and this is the first time anything like this has ever happened. I guess I'm just lucky the car didn't slip all the way over the edge but it's been a bit of a nightmare." This is why maps were made, folks! Learn to read a map — preferably one from the Ordnance ...
I can't believe that the Government thinks its argument against an immediate inquiry into the Iraq war has a shred of credibility. It's two years since the USA undertook their Baker-Hamilton inquiry and a year since our Prime Minister promised one - in the future. I've just left the debate on the subject in the Chamber. The Foreign Secretary praised our brave and professional troops but then proceeded to inform the House that they would be distracted by an inquiry. Indeed they are professional and wouldn't be so easily distracted. Something to hide? I think so.
The Liberal Democrats Spring Conference took place in Harrogate earlier this month. Here are some of the highlights (see separate stories for the speeches from Nick Clegg and Vince Cable):
This morning I spoke to Lindsay Mullaney, one of the prime movers behind the campaign to save the School of Continuing Education, to offer her the full support of the Lib Dems on Reading Borough Council. I blogged last week about the threat to the School following cuts by the Labour government to higher education budgets. Cllr Gareth Epps and Cllr Kirsten Bayes have already spoken out strongly against the plans. The loss of this facility would be a huge blow to the many local people who currently attend courses and the timing of the closure - in the middle of a ...
I followed the launch of Google's Street View with mild interest, however at today's ward meeting my eyes were opened to its extreme usefulness to local councillors. Councillor Bailey & I were discussing a recently submitted planning application for development above a shop in Wallington high street. We were debating which shop it related to [...]
A planning application has been submitted for thr regeneration and redevelopment of existing PRC dwellings at Pennyquick View, Hinton Close and Newton Road and to provide 56 new dwellings following demolition of existing dwellings. This is a joint application by Somer Housing and Lovell Partnerships Ltd, the application was first registeted on 18th...
I've used the 'f' word on a couple of my blog entries and used it with the appropriate asterisks on a couple of other occasions. The last time I used it in full, Mrs Cobden was not impressed and has asked me to refrain from such crude activity. She is probably right. So imagine when she emailed me yesterday, saying "Have you seen this blog from the Devil's Kitchen, it's great!" She particularly enjoyed his rant against Tony McNulty. Yes, I responded, it is one of the links from my own blog, which goes to show how much attention she ...
News comes to me from Doctor Who composer Mark Ayres of Short Circuit - The Radiophonic Workshop - Live. Peter Howell - Paddy Kingsland - Roger Limb - Dick Mills - Mark Ayres. The Roundhouse, Sun 17th May 2009The Radiophonic Workshop get together again to explore Radiophonics past, present, and future. Old and new innovative electronica for a large arena combines with live performance and
I have, in the past, been critical of Dawn Butler's claim to a second home allowance given the location of her Brent South constituency. I had assumed that her primary residence was some way away from both the constituency and Westminster, so you can imagine my surprise when it was revealed that she lives in Stratford, in East London, courtesy of Liberal Democrat Voice. It is twenty-four minutes from Stratford to Westminster, and thirty-two from Wembley to Westminster. It is forty minutes by train from Stratford to Willesden Junction, in the heart of her constituency, using the Overground. These are ...
Take a look here. Let's hope they've noticed a few other things have changed. Like we're not at war with Germany. And we no longer rule India.
Following the news about Dawn Butler's controversial expense claims, including a rather daming BBC report, a statement briefly appeared on her website which has now been pulled. Doubtless due to the poor quality writing. But it does all rather have the whiff of panic about it don't you think? {Dawn Butler expenses statement}
Tuesday: Lovely Sarah Teather or Ms Dawn Butler, Ms Dawn Butler or Lovely Sarah Teather. Both MPs are in the HEADLINES this week: In Bent East, Millennium-Elephant-sized Liberal Democrat Sarah is demanding that London MPs Second Home Allowance must be ABOLISHED. Meanwhile Bent South electors find Ms Dawn Butler MP, under fire over her expense claims. Like Minister McNumpty, SCOURGE of all BENEFIT CHEATS, she's been, er, BENEFITING from the Second Home Allowance, and costing her constituents an extra £37,245 over the last two years*! So, who is BETTER? There's only one way to decide... FIIIIIGH... Hold a GENERAL ELECTION! ...
A couple of days ago I heard that the people of Branksome Avenue in the ward had been living in a trench-ridden mire for three months. The light-replacement work commenced after Christmas had been finished save for one bulb, but nobody had bothered filling in the quite substantial holes left behind. As a result of this sparkling display of public service excellence, doing anything on the street like parking or walking was rendered fairly difficult. But, there is now light at the end of the tunnel and, indeed, lights at the end of Branksome Avenue. I have been told that ...
We have been working with local residents on Brixton Road and nearby Handforth and Crewdson Roads to ensure they have a right to a decent night's sleep. Local Lib Dem Councillors supported residents in getting the council to review the hours of a bar which had been the cause of persistent anti-social behaviour at No.62 Brixton Road. The council agreed to reduce the hours the premises can sell alcohol and play music to midnight on Friday and Saturday nights and to 11pm on other nights. And another application for a new licence was submitted to the council for No 48 ...
The PM in PMQs is off being fawned on by the Wall Street Journal, so today Harman and Hague reprise Brown and Cameron's usual do-nothing-party versus do-everything-badly-party routine. Points of interest: - Hague highlights the fact that the small company loan guarantee scheme, which was set to begin on 1 March, is still not working (he mentioned it last time he deputised) - Jacqui Smith, sitting by Harman, appears at certain points in the proceedings to be chewing a frog. - Is Harman embarrassed to mention the VAT cut, Hague goads when she misses it out of a list of ...
I'll start by saying that I think it is quite reasonable for MPs who represent constituencies away from London to be able to claim sufficient allowances to enable them to stay in reasonable accomodation in London during the week. There are issues with how they do that, but some allowance for it is reasonable. But the idea that an MP representing Brent, a few stops up the Jubilee Line from Westminster, can claim for a second home while also owning a family home in Stratford, beggars belief. And as my old mate Hywel Morgan has found out, the comparison between ...
Richard Clein has an important item in this weeks Formby Times about the increase in noise caused by the army. The interesting point to note is that residents haven't complained until the MoD (without any public consultation) closed other bases and transfered their operations to a residential area!
Kerron Cross the Labour blogger has wrote a blog post about an issue that I addressed yesterday which is about how the BBC can use bloggers in their election coverages and personally I think he is talking the whole thing a little serious. Kerron is complaining about how the BBC used Luke Akehurst over him on election night 2008 and personally I think the BBC made the right decision. Luke Akehurst might dream of being the chief whip in Labour 8th term but before they get their at least he updates his blog regularly and personally I think he is ...
The government want to now monitor social networking sites like facebook under new plans that have been brought to the attention of the public thanks to the Independent and personally I think its disgraceful. The government want to store on another massive database everything we do on social networking sites, all the groups we join and all the conversations to try and stop terrorism. Personally I am sickened by this idea of watching everyone in the state and saying its for National Security. Personally everyone knows who these proposals are going to be aimed at, they will be aimed at ...
My professional speciality is tax, and I like to keep up to date with business news accordingly. It is, to my mind, important to have an understanding of the issues facing the predominantly small and medium-sized enterprises I work with. In my reading though, one trend appears to be emerging, in that those businesses at what one might delicately refer to as the raunchier end of the leisure market seem to be outperforming the economy as a whole. This week, Agent Provocateur announced that profits were up 8% , and last month, the Times reported on the increasing sales of ...
The "Save Our Bus Services" petition is still open - please click here to sign the petition - and ask your friends to do the same. Here is another selection of your comments - you can read the latest ones on the petition web page. I am a 17 year old female and i live in Iron Acton i rely on the bus to travel to Yate as my school and friends are based there. When i herd about the bus being stoped i was very worried as too how i would travel to Yate. I live with my grandmother ...
In exposing the actions Tony McNulty the Mail on Sunday produced an interesting table of the claims of Additional Cost Allowances made by MPs in outer London and the South East. It makes interesting comparision when you compare the claims of MPs in neighbouring seats. The following MPs all represent seats that are a broadly comparable distance from Westminster. Yet the amounts they claim are vastly different. MP Constituency ACA claim in the last 5 years+ Claims London Supplement? Sarah Teather* (LD) Brent East £0 Yes Dawn Butler** (LAB) Brent South £37,245 Rudi Vis (LAB) Finchley and Golders Green £32,211 ...
When it comes to the capacity of the Labour Government to undermine our basic rights by extending its reach to our private lives, nothing will surprise me anymore. Thus the suggestion today that those using social networking sites such as Facebook could soon have their every move monitored by the Government and saved on a "Big Brother" database is entirely predictable. That does not make it right of course. As Liberal Democrat MP, Tom Brake says: "Plans to monitor our phone and email records threaten to be the most expensive snooper's charter in history. It is deeply worrying that they ...
There were lots of stories & comments in last Saturdays FT about the US politicians proposal for a 90% rate of tax on excessive earnings. I have argued in earlier posts that this is the kind of measure that should be applied. It can be cut back after a few years once it is clear that the message has been absorbed. The message is a simple one. Why on earth should financial services people be exempt from the pain that everyone else is suffering as a direct result of financial services actions? There is, as yet, very little sign that ...
I want to use my blog to invite anyone who lives in the South of the Borough Neighbourhood to a meeting next week. Would you like to be more involved in deciding what are the most important issues in the area? If so, do come along to Chessington Community College at 7.30pm on Wednesday 1st April. The meeting will bring together key people who provide local public services...
One cannot condone the vandalising of Sir Fred Goodwin's property, despite ongoing frustration about the rewards for failure & the 'vandalism' he & his kind have inflicted upon the lives of ordinary people. However it was reported on the news that the RBS is still picking up the tab for the cost of his security. If true this really is pushing things beyond any kind of acceptability & it is something that could, & should, be stopped forthwith if not sooner. It is not as if he can't afford to pay for it himself. What next I wonder? Is RBS ...
In my past I have had a KGB, Securitate and Stazzi file. Some of them must have been an interesting read. The KGB file must have mentioned my visits to a youth detention centre, a prison, several hospitals, the local fire station, orphanages and my association with non-state registered Christians and giving two red guards a lift in our team minibus. The Securitate file may well detail all the contents of my suitcase that was forced open at Bucharest airport on the way to a school ski trip, the Sunday Times article on Nicolae Caucescu I'd avidly read on the ...
Yesterday's statement by the Rural Affair's Minister that she is to instigate a cull of badgers in North Pembrokeshire so as to reduce the incidence of bovine TB has led to predictable and entirely justified opposition from wildlife groups. I have written in more detail on this issue here and continue to hold these views. What the Minister did not explain yesterday was how she came to a different conclusion to the English Rural Affairs Minister on the same evidence. It leads one to the conclusion that it was not the arguments for a cull that prevailed in this case ...
The mutual building societies have always been seen as safe and sometime boring institutions. Yet the government and its regulator seem intent on treating them the same as the more risky banks. For example, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme is a finance industry scheme to compensate customers in the event of an institution becoming insolvent. Because of the difficulties at the London Scottish, Bradford and Bingley and the Icelandic banks - all banks - the mutual building societies have been required to stump up £millions. Dunfermline Building Society's share is £7.2m. This is not an insignificant sum especially during the ...
I haven't blogged lately, partly because of a lack of time and partly because other things on my mind. But, Jacqui Smith MP and her fellow cronies can keep her nose out of my Facebook messages - she hasn't asked to be one of my Facebook friends and until she does she can keep out of my affairs. I post messages that I think my Friends and colleagues might find amusing, I will send them messages of smut, innuendo and useless questions but I certainly do not give the government permission to read them. I think Jacqui Smith MP has ...
Don't forget to enter my competition to win one of three copies of Eamonn Butler's The Rotten State of Britain. The book has been reviewed by Stumbling and Mumbling: The Rotten State of Britain aspires to be The State We're In for the 00s. It's not - and not just because it is a much easier read than Hutton's tome.Whereas his was a narrative about our economy and society, most of The Rotten State of Britain is a series of attacks upon New Labour's failures, with chapters such as "spin", "snoopers" and "nannies". Naturally, some of these hit their targets ...
Click the picture and enjoy. Thanks to a tweet from James Graham.
Conservative MEP Christopher Beazley has taken full membership of the EPP (European People's Party) just as the Conservative Party prepare to leave and form their own right-wing euro-sceptic group.
Oh dear me. The BBC need to find out what the difference between "an index" and "a change in an index" is.Yesterday, their bulletins were routinely announcing that the Retail Price Index is at its "lowest ever".Similarly, BBC Online stated:But a sharp fall in mortgage repayments caused the Retail Prices Index (RPI), which includes housing costs, to fall to zero for the first time in 49 years.Well
The lead story in the Luton News this morning is reactions to the welcome life sentence given to the murderer of PC Jon Henry who was stabbed to death in Luton town centre while on duty in June 2007.The murderer, Tennyson Obih, is a paranoid schizoprhenic.It is a reminder that so often at the centre of the most shocking and senseless of violent crimes is someone who suffers from a severe mental
Printing off the whole of Wikipedia doesn't make you wise or knowledgeable . Visiting every football ground in the country doesn't make you a top professional player. And, if you're the Government, gathering data on every Facebook, Myspace and Bebo communication doesn't mean you've suddenly got all those terrorists and criminals banged to rights. But let's not be too negative. Let's start by looking at the plus side of new Government plans to monitor the contacts people make on social networking sites. It could work proactively: a computer system could start off with a known list of suspects, churn through ...
The Labour government is making plans to monitor people's Facebook traffic, in its latest move to turn Britain into an Orwellian society. The Home Office has told the BBC this surveillance is necessary to tackle criminal gangs and terrorists who might use Facebook and other social networking sites for their own nefarious ends. Our phone [...]
As the fuss continues about the images captured on Google Earth cameras I was shocked to discover that my street is not featured at all. I am considering starting a Facebook group.
In the lastest twist in the attempts by the government to monitor every aspect of our lives, we now learn that they want to force social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to reveal who peoples' friends are. As well as wanting access to all our e-mails and phone records, the Home Office has indicated it would find it useful to be able to get lists of peoples' contacts on the internet. However, we are 'assured' that the Government would not be interested in monitoring the content of any communications between people (yeah, right!). Some people would say "if you've ...
A short excerpt from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (with thanks to a Private Eye, a Private Eye reader called Colin Knox - and an unnamed chronicler): A.D. 1125. In this year sent the King Henry, before Christmas, from Normandy to England, and bade that all the mint-men that were in England should be mutilated in their limbs; that was, that they should lose each of them the right hand, and their testicles beneath. This was because the man that had a pound could not lay out a penny at a market. And the Bishop Roger of Salisbury sent over all England, ...
Thanks to Lib Dem Voice: Tony McNulty, Minister of State of Employment and Welfare Reform, said: "Benefit thieves have to understand that they will not get away with it. Working together with local authorities and the police we have a range of powers to investigate and with the support of the public we bring benefit thieves to justice."Liberal England says: Give us our money back, Tone.
Well I can't believe the sensationalism in this headline in today's Scotsman: Now it would appear that this is a sensation. A novelty. That for the first time we are being denied the right to know the results of our votes until Sunday 7th June. Actually back in 2004 on the Sunday after polling in the last European election I hopped on a bus and turned up at Bathgate Academy for the counting of the West Lothian ballots in the European Election.It's not news!It has happened at least for the last two Euro Elections and that is just from memory. ...
I've passed this virtually every day but it was taken me a little while to do so with the camera... It's the on-station post-box - now sealed up - for staff letters! Yep, that's right - on West Hampstead (jubilee line) station platform there is a room currently used as the waiting room (pic left below) and in the wall is a brass letter box - nice patination! - for STAFF LETTERS. I noticed another since which if I recall correctly was on either Finchley Road or Kilburn platforms too. It just struck me as quite quaint really - I ...
And you get a cup of tea thrown in too. Or coffee. You may have heard Gordon Brown boasting that, Tens of thousands of men and women throughout Britain - from security guards to store managers - have now been trained and equipped to deal with an incident and know what to watch for as people go about their daily business in crowded places such as stations, airports, shopping centres and sports grounds. Good news hey? Even if some of their time may have been spent on learning that people who prefer tofu to meat are indulging in just the ...
I heard on the news this morning that the Government wants to snoop on more areas of our private lives.In addition to wanting access to our emails and records of our phone calls and internet use, the...
{Sculpted surface water cover} Reading Liberal Democrat Voice recently about the man arrested for taking photos of drain covers; I though that this is certainly an intrustion to civil liberty, but a very odd one. Who takes photos of drains? What makes them terrorist suspects? However, visiting German at the weekend, I was struck by the above example of considered street scene. The drain cover is a carefully curved segment to fit into the cobble (technically 'setts') pattern. Bath has a long way to go before it reaches Dusseldorf's level of public-realm perfection. However, I did appreciate the quick and ...
