The BBC reports:A new video released by demonstrators shows a police officer beating a man in the head with a riot shield at the London G20 protest earlier this month.The man is barged with a shield on the side of his head in the footage, shown on the Sunday Times website.The video is embedded below.At 4.50mins in to this clip an officer is clearly seen smacking a protestor across the head with
From tomorrow's Sunday Times: Ed Balls, the schools secretary, used Damian McBride, the disgraced spin doctor, to smear ministerial rivals and advance his own ambitions, a Downing Street whistleblower has claimed.In an explosive new twist to the e-mail affair, a No 10 insider has revealed that Balls was the mastermind behind a "dark arts" operation by McBride to undermine colleagues.He claims the education secretary is running a destabilising "shadow operation" inside Downing Street to clear his path for the party leadership if Labour loses the next election.The insider said: "There is now an operation within an operation at No 10 ...
Conservative Home has the low-down on the first poll after the McBride fiasco. As it is by a new entry into the murky world of polling, Marketing Sciences, the graphic compares the findings with the last poll of it's supposed sister, ICM. What leapt out at me was the fact that Labour's poll ratings have plummeted but the main beneficiaries are the Liberal Democrats. Rather than draw a conclusion that our silence has benefited us it makes me wonder what could be achieved if we did start weaving together a positive critique of what is going on. Spin-over-substance might be ...
John Hemming points us to this bizarre story from Channel Television: The politician arrested last week for allegedly breaking data protection laws says Jersey police have erased numbers from his mobile phone.Officers held Senator Stuart Syvret at the police station for seven hours last Monday after arresting him at his home in Grouville.Yesterday, they returned a number of documents that were seized in the arrest.But, when he tried to recall the telephone number of the UK Liberal Democrat MP, John Hemming, Senator Syvret found it had been deleted from his phone.He said he believed police had deliberately erased it in ...
When I was in Mexico last week I visited Chichen Itza. I have to admit that the name didn't mean much to me, but when I got there I realised that I had seen many, many images of it in the past. Why had the name been so unfamiliar? Perhaps it is just the sinister magic of the place. Chichen Itza is the site of the greatest Mayan remains anywhere. The ruins are...
There are two stories in tomorrow's papers that indicate that the Smeargate scandal is far from over. Iain Dale has a post quoting a News of the World story that The Labour Party General Secretary Ray Collins and Gordon Brown's fixer Charlie Whelan were present at a meeting to set up the Reg Rag website which was planned to be the conduit for the smearing stories from the original scandal that Guido brokw last weekend. Again, from Iain, and also Political Betting, the Sunday Times is reporting that Ed Balls was in charge of Downing Street's dirty tricks unit. This ...
With a homburg doff to the excellent Iain Dale, there is this quite explosive story in tomorrow's Sunday Times:ED BALLS, the schools secretary, used Damian McBride, the disgraced spin doctor, to smear ministerial rivals and advance his own ambitions, a Downing Street whistleblower has claimed.In an explosive new twist to the e-mail affair, a No 10 insider has revealed that Balls was the
Tomorrow's News of the World claims: A new email shows that Labour's General Secretary Ray Collins chaired a secret meeting to create the Red Rag website now ensnared in the Smeargate scandal.The email's existence links the dirty tricks site to the very TOP of the Labour Party.And it exposes the LIE, put out by Downing Street, and repeated by government ministers this week, that the smears were just a minor aberration cooked up by a couple of renegades acting alone-and which would never have seen light of day.Two things are worth adding. The first is that, according to a PR ...
{IMG_1618} Well, I said earlier in the week that I could feel another campaign coming on - the campaign to turn the tide on tagging in Reading (which has recently got out of control around Redlands and across Reading). In my previous posts I have outlined the fact that the so-called 'Big Clean Up' campaign has been quietly dropped by the Labour administration. As a result of this there is a clear need to refocus the attention of both the Council and the Police to tackle the tagging epidemic we are currently facing in Reading. Glenn and I kicked off the campaign proper today by walking around the ...
Oh dear. As if Alice Mahon's resignation from the Labour and the opinion polls in the Sundays wasn't enough smeargate hits a third strike courtesy of the News of the World (hat tip to Iain Dale). The latest revelation that nobody in the Labour knew nothing about the emails, the line that has been peddled by Gordon Brown and all the ministers all week appears to not be true. It appears that Labour's General Secretary Ray Collins chaired a meeting that was to set up the Red Rag website for which McBride prepared the smearing emails he sent to Derek ...
A Poll by BPIX has put the Conservatives 19% ahead of the Labour party according to a blog post by Tim Montgomerie on Conservative Home. Tim compares the poll results from BPIX with YouGov and personally I think that doesn't justify anything and that should not be something that is used in an argument. BPIX is a separate pollster to YouGov and that should be the case, you can see the poll results below: CONSERVATIVES: 45% LABOUR: 26% LIBERAL DEMOCRATS: results not available but will be updated upon becoming known An aspect that needs to be remembered when making your ...
Last August, I switched on to watch the diving finals from Beijing's Water Cube to see if 14 year old Tom Daley could make history. Of course he was too far behind to make a move on the medal positions, but he was, by his own admission, completely upstaged by Australian Matthew Mitcham, Going into [...]
A ICM Poll today puts the Conservatives 17% ahead of Labour and shows that the smeargate has changed the opinions people have of Labour and yet more of the smear gate is to come according to what Guido has hinted. The Poll results from the ICM Poll are: CONSERVATIVES 43% LABOUR 26% LIBERAL DEMOCRATS 21% Now these results are interesting as the Lib Dems have increased their percentage from 18% to 21%, so maybe the Lib Dems are looking towards benefiting from Labour at the next general election. Either that or people are enjoying reading Vince Cable's book. Another Poll ...
Kevin Maguire the known Labour party member and writer for the Daily Mirror was part of the decision making to create the website the Red Rag. Another key figure in the creation of the site in a private meeting was Labour's General Secretary Ray Collins who denied knowing about the site. This news comes from the NOTW and to read Iain Dale's blog post about it follow the link. Kevin was at the meeting with a personal capacity but that doesn't change the fact that he would have linked back to the smear site on his blog and he would ...
Image from ConservativeHome The Sunday Telegraph is going to run an ICM poll which shows Labour down 3% on 26, 17% behind the Tories on 43% though that in itself means that they are down 1%. However, in the first poll post smeargate the Lib Dems we are up 3%. Maybe as Stephen Tall speculated earlier this week the decision to stay away from directly commenting on this but keeping on the wider arc of cleaning up Government and fighting for civil liberties has seen some initial benefit. While Labour get drawn into the mire and the Tories appeared like ...
The 3rd meeting of the Public Transport Users Forum this morning, and I think that all the years of campaigning for it were worthwhile. John chairs this meeting of many disgruntled bus users, and over 70 came along this morning. However it was good to note that a lot of the problems raised at previous meetings had been addressed and although most people would not be 100% happy with the result...
Half the fun of listening to classic comedy on radio 7 is the social commentary. What was and wasn't acceptable material for comedy in the 1950s? As we all know, the writers had to use all their skills to squeeze filth and depravity past the BBC censors; but it was the days before feminism and the attitudes to women weren't quite as they are these days. Take It From Here was written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden and, these days, is probably most fondly remembered for a sexy young actress by the name of June Whitfield who made Eth ...
Took a trip out of the ward today went into a labour ward with a street i would not walk down on my own. Had that feeling you know the one where the hair on the back of your neck sticks up. But the police have it marked as a hot spot raised every month [...]
I am grateful for the comments of Councillor Ian Lewis, who has pointed out that Arriva has decided to introduce a new fleet of buses which will be single decker and have access for the disabled, the elderly, and hopefully room for pushchairs for parents struggling to get to liscard, the routes 403, 413 and [...]
After a couple of hours de-spamming the blog instead of writing it, I have switched on comment moderation for a while. I hope normal unmoderated service can be resumed as and when Chinese people stop trying to sell us things...
Sat 18th
19:15
A word to the wise for The Times - be careful what you wish for, you might end up getting it...
I tend to read the financial and personal finance pages quite closely. Not necessarily because I have lots of money, because I don't, but because the information is occasionally useful in my work. I've not always been impressed with financial journalists, however, especially when they talk about tax. So I was a mite wary when I read the 'Troubleshooter' section in today's Times, written by Rebecca O'Connor, and noted a complaint by a taxpayer who had suffered from delays in receiving a repayment. Said taxpayer was annoyed because they had not received interest on their repayment, something which HM Revenue ...
Unlike my distinctly unesteemed Assembly Member Brian Coleman, I am not in the business of claiming that a defenceless woman can somehow be in any way responsible for getting whacked round the legs by an armed policeman, and I can understand why Nichola Fisher may have felt the need to hire a publicist. But I can't help but feel uncomfortable having watched her interview on BBC News. It is clear that Clifford has decided to process her through his sausage factory, inside of which all his clients get a makeover so that the unaccountably all end up looking and speaking ...
John Prescott is to travel the North in a coach with European candidates of the Labour party to try and promote Labour's online campaign. John will be tweeting, vlogging and blogging his travels and will invite people to come and meet the coach and the crew. All invitations will be sent via facebook and to read more follow the link to the Times website. When John started blogging I thought it was a great idea, so far he has shown that he understands online campaigning and has become a better blogger then Dolly Draper, the question now is will John ...
I prefer not to think about how I would die. I like the idea of dying peacefully in my sleep, not knowing what had happened, and ideally at a time when I have no great plans left for the future. I don't suppose the percentage of > people who die like that is particularly high. I have made a decision not to have children, but I wonder if I will regret it from a purely self-interested point of view when I am old. For it is perhaps more likely my death will follow a pattern familier to many; increasing illness, ...
25) Joan Jacobs Brumberg, The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls (New York: Vintage, 1997, ISBN 0679735291). Brumberg traces the process by which, over the past 100-odd years, having the perfect body became a moral imperative for girls in the US, replacing more character-based goals. In that context, she looks not just at issues of external appearance, but also at menstruation, contraception, sexual activity, sexual health, etc. Much of her material is from girls' diaries, so the girls get to "speak" in their own voices. I was pleased to see that African American and Jewish girls are well-represented, ...
The image above shows Derek Draper coming back from holiday with a bag on him, in the multi colour bag Dolly Draper has a laptop yet when the smeargate was on its peak he argued whilst on the phone from holiday he didn't have a computer yet he blogging explaining his position in this whole case. Derek Draper is a liar and people should stay away from him, its people like him who destroy the name of blogging and he has done exactly that. The blogosphere was not full of lies but they are two or three people who I ...
This is magnificent — and it is true! It never happened; yet it is still true! What magic art is this? Robin Goodfellow in Sandman #19 by Neil Gaiman In The Loop was generally what I expected and hoped it would be - a hilarious, somewhat unsettling satire on how we managed to stumble into the Iraq War. But I also got a little bit more, partly due to accident and partly due to the film's reception itself. It's always weird to watch a film when recent events give it a disturbing extra resonance. I saw a preview of the ...
In its main leader article, the Guardian today provides an excellent view of the US torture issue, under the title Holding America to account, with which I wholeheartedly concur:Barack Obama did the right thing by ending the abuses within hours of taking office. He did well to publish the legal memos too. In such ways Mr Obama makes clear that his administration is making a clean break with the
I am wondering whether this excellent analysis of Smeargate by the Guardian's Lucy Mangan is an insult to 12 year olds. But it is the best summary of Smeargate that I have read (and I have read quite a few):Damian McBrideOh my God, right, yeah? There's this guy, right, and he was gonna help his mates that were, like, starting up this gossip blog for slagging off the Tories, so he emailed some bad
• Creating and retaining quality jobs and promoting our region, products and services internationally• Securing European Union support to enhance and expand high quality training and to continue to regenerate our great cities and coastal resorts, develop our rural economies and maintain our existing employment base• Building sustainable communities where every voice is heard, fighting [...]
"Unless there is a dramatic change in what [Labour] are proposing to the electorate then [losing the General Election] could be the case." Not the words of a right leaning blogger. Nor of a Tory shadow cabinet minister. These are the words of someone who'd been in the Labour party for over 50 years and served as Labour MP for Halifax for 18 years from 1987-2005 these are the words of Alice Mahon who has quit the party. She said "I can no longer be a member of a party that at the leadership level has betrayed many of the ...
Guildford Lib Dem Councillor and software developer Chris Ward explains why the 'like' button may could help win elections. In 2007 I ran for local council. I vividly recall conveying to the campaigns meeting this incredible new craze called Facebook. Much like many online innovations, Lib Dem activists tend to proceed with caution. Today, many of those people are on Facebook themselves, justifying my initial worship for the networking site. Back then I made a bit of a mistake. I believed that Facebook was enough in itself to get a substantial number of votes. I know now this isn't true ...
The Guardian carries a report by the London School of Economics and Institute for Education which draws some interesting conclusions about faith schools; specifically, faith secondaries. It tracked 550,000 children in state secondaries in 2005, looking at their school type poverty indicators and exam results and will be presented to the Royal Economic Society annual conference next week. The study rather reinforces the view that good exam results in faith schools are not actually down to their superiority but the fact that they select on other criteria; the study found that those attending faith schools had good test results at ...
In her latest diatribe, see here, Conservative PPC for Wallasey Leah Fraser writes Liberal Democrats are switching. Intrigued, I read on throughout the whole 11 lines of her fascinating blog, anticipating a bombshell of revelations, sadly, and as usual for the Conservatives there were none. She went on to describe the decline of the Wirral [...]
The linked story is a bit odd. The Jersey police on returning Senator Stuart Syvret his mobile phone had erased my phone number.It is all a bit weird. There will be an emergency meeting of the Jersey Parliament on Tuesday.I wonder, however, what the police had to benefit from by deleting my phone number.It is worth listening to the interview on the link about this.
The news that Ian Tomlinson now most likely died of internal bleeding has once again thrown the spotlight on the Police and their tactics during the G20 protests. Indeed the Metropolitan Police Comissioner has now launched a review of police tactics which I welcome. I particularly welcome the public statement that officers should always wear their identification. It seemed a bit sinister to me that some officers involved in the G20 protests had either not worn them, or they were covered up or otherwise obscured. I am a big supporter of the Police. I know they do a very difficult ...
The Labour party is having trouble finding itself a candidate for the Constituency of Erith and Thamesmead as has been reported by Labourhome. Labourhome has reported: Labourhome has learned that the E&T Ballot Box with the broken seal was in fact being stored in a cupboard at Labour's Victoria Street HQ at the time. Furthermore, the ballot papers inside were torn up. With both an active, high-level, Georgia Gould campaign and an active Unite campaign led by Charlie Whelan, operating against Gould, it will be almost impossible to nail down a likely culprit for this vandalism. However, whoever committed this ...
I have realised, now, more than ever, that being ill sucks, the programs on dave are actually repeated weekly, and the programs on yesterday, are the same all week, so I have been very bored. Just a quick one really, I'm pointing people to Spotify which is an amazing thing, it allows almost unlimited listening with very few adverts between songs. The quality is quite good, and the range of artists is enough to entertain my eclectic mix of stuff from Pearl Jam, to Philip Glass! There is no Metallica, or Tool but I can understand that Metallica dont see ...
The Guardian is reporting Alice Mahon, the Labour MP for Halifax 1987-2005 has quit the Labour Party and accused it of betraying the values and principles that inspired her to join..
I am going to keep this person anonymous but they break the damn Internet connection, if you are wondering how that is possible, then I am in the same boat as you wondering. This person uses the Internet connection on a computer, after they have used it and logged off the computer the Internet doesn't work. This can be the case for a few minutes and can lead to a day or even two and then the Internet connection starts working itself again. This guy is a Internet breaking animal not a human, or is he? I can't describe this ...
There have been some shenanigans going on with the selection for Labour's candidate in the fairly safe seat of Erith and Thamesmead in south-east London. After tampering with a ballot box and allegations flying around, the process has been suspended. One of the candidates to become the PPC is Georgia Gould who is the 22 year old daughter of Philip Gould, Tony Blair's longstanding pollster. There are quotes from local activists that they feel the process is being stitched up in her favour by the central party. I don't particularly want to dwell on the ins and outs of this ...
Living on the Isle of Dogs for the last fourteen and a bit years, my MP has been identikit Labour machine politician Jim Fitzpatrick. I assume. Of course, being an identikit Labour machine politician in an apparently safe Labour seat, I've never seen him, nor heard from any of his minions outside of election time. So imagine my surprise when our buzzer went this afternoon, and the person trying to get into the flats introduced himself as Jim Fitzpatrick, our local Member of Parliament. Shame he instantly gave away the reason for his shock appearance with the words "George Galloway". ...
I have now been blogging for nearly a year so I think I am at a level in my blogging life to write a guide to how someone can start blogging about what ever subject or hobby they have. The Basics When starting of a blog the writer must be determined to blog because without wanting to with a whole heart blogging can be a difficult task. When you want to start blogging you have to be able to put the time in and write blog posts and you should enjoy writing blog posts and use passion in every single ...
A week ago, Damian McBride was still the Prime Minister's chief media advisor, and LabourList's Derek Draper was attempting to laugh off as blokeish banter the emails which implicated Number 10 in smears against senior Tories. But, then, we know what they say about a week in politics. Paul Staines, sole author of the Guido Fawkes' blog, has had a good week, given ample, respectable print space to repeat a central point he's been making for years: that those political journalists who are part of the 'lobby' system have failed democracy: Though the fourth estate may not have a formal ...
"Alice? Alice? Who the **** is Alice?"
So the Westminster Bubble is all still wittering on about smeargate, despite the fact that we now know that Ian Tomlinson died of abdominal bleeding and there are lot of other important things in the news. Still, smeargate has had one welcome effect. Alice Mahon, one of the wonderful and principled people who was still suckered into supporting the Labour party, has seen the light. Come to the Lib Dem side, Alice. We have cookies (homemade by my own dear wife).
Costigan Quist rightly complains about this ludicrous image from the government's "Change4Life" (do you see what they've done there?) anti-obesity campaign. Personally, I find that cake pleasingly old fashioned. White icing, with a cherry on top. It's the sort of cake children scheme to win in the Beano and the Dandy. When we worry about what children eat these days, we do not worry about home baking. We worry about things like crisps and fizzy drinks. So why does this poster show a home-made cake? Easy. One of the sponsors of the campaign is PepsiCo, who make Pepsi Cola and ...
Sat 18th
13:00
Everything you need to know about about the current state of political blogging in the UK
....in a smidgeon over a minuteA priceless musical animation from the excellent Tim Ireland.
From the file marked, "You couldn't make it up," the Guardian has this story about two Teacher's Unions - The NUT and the other one, whatever they're called, threatening to strike if the other union gets their way. The NUTters... actually, you know what, let's not call them nutters. Talk about leaving myself open for merciless [...]
Here's a confession for you - I once voted for Alice Mahon, the veteran former Labour MP who has today announced her resignation of her party membership after 50 years. It was back in the mid-1990s, when I was a youthful Labour member, who had taken too much to heart George Bernard Shaw's adage that anyone who isn't a socialist by the age of 25 has no heart (I've also lived up to the mirror half of the quote: "if one is over 25 and still a socialist he has no head"). Alice was standing for Labour's ruling National Executive ...
Labour ballot box 'tampered with' BBCPollster Gould's daughter embroiled in row over Labour selection The TimesLabour Poll Axed After Ballot Box Tampering SkyLabour axes fix row poll The MirrorTony Blair's supporters in vote rigging row TelegraphLabour calls off hustings amid 'irregularities' The GuardianLabour investigates vote-rigging claims Independent The story that has been raging locally,
I was saddened yesterday to hear that the Royal Mail have closed five of the seven remaining postbus routes in the Highlands following a failure to agree a subsidy from the local authority. More than twenty years ago, when I applied to join the Civil Service through their trainee accountant scheme, they had clearly read my application form and, noting my declared interest in transport, asked me about Highland postbuses. Naturally, being a Londoner, I knew virtually nothing on the subject, except that they were, presumably, a good thing. It wasn't a great interview, culminating in the question, "So why ...
"In The Loop" Director Armando Iannucci (@aIannucci), Genre... Horror. The clips and trailers doing the rounds on the Internet promise hilarious swearing, and hilarious swearing is delivered, but at the end of the film Armando punches you 'in the cock' and demands the question: Why was I laughing at this? It's not like 'Be Kind Rewind' - where [...]
The News Shopper has a story on how the local police in "Brampton, Christchurch, Barnehurst and St Mary's", that is Bexleyheath and Bexley Village to you and me, are being issued with kits to test whether drinks contain alcohol.Bexley cabinet member for community affairs Councillor Katie Perrior (she was Boris's election PR person) is quoted as saying:"We know that some young people like to meet
Peter has some videos on his blog from last nights Q and A session with Nick Clegg and Kirsty Williams.It was the first time the party has tried this new format. It seemd to work really well with people appreciating the interactive element and the chance to put questions direct. The two were quizzed on a good range of subjects including young people, care support, MPs' expenses and the right to
Local Liberal Democrats are unhappy at the way that this has been dealt with. Please see the comments of our Westmoreland Councillors at www.readmyday.co.uk/westmoreland
Today's children are healthier than ever before, and predicted to live longer than any previous generation. Surely reason to celebrate. Not if you're the Government, Cancer Research UK, Diabetes UK or the British Heart Foundation. If you're one of those groups, you see only an opportunity to pile more stigma and fear onto our young people. Over the years we've become used to the increasingly dire warnings on cigarette packets. Fair enough, perhaps: the evidence supports them and it's targetted at adults. But I'm genuinely shocked at this new campaign that effectively puts those "Smoking can kill" style messages in ...
As a resident of Halifax, I know only too well how well respected Alice Mahon was as MP. A habitual rebel, she somehow created the impression that you were somehow voting against the Government by voting for her. From a campaigning point of view then, Alice was a nightmare. Nothing Labour did could be pinned on [...]
Re: Jump on the bandwagon To climb/jump on the bandwagon is to join in something that looks as if it will be a success, often with a view to gaining some sort of personal benefit. This goes back to the southern USA custom of bands playing on a wagon in front of a religious or political [...]
Welcome to the 112th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (5th-11th April 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. The best and worst MPs on Duncan Borrowman's blog. Putting Derek Conway in his place. 2. Moston by election results. BNP COME IN SECOND PLACE GOD HELP US. on the Swinton South Liberal Democrats' blog. Further proof of the need for Lib Dems ...
I joined "The other taxpayers alliance" on Facebook recently - a useful opposition force to that motley collection of very rich people in the Taxpayers Alliance who dont want to pay any tax. They directed me to a meeting at the TUC congress house which I went to on Thursday. It was organised by Compass, the left of centre pressure group within the Labour party who are supporting John Cruddas, MP for Dagenham and their main hope for rescuing the party from it's dead end neoliberal trajectory. This was a significant meeting as Angela Eagle - a cabinet minister was ...
A worrying fortnight in terms of stories about the power and role of the state. We have a policeman assaulting a man, and today learn that it appears he died of internal bleeding, rather than a heart attack as previously thought, the Cabinet continue to fiddle their expenses, Dame Green's emails were searched through in a blatant snooping exercise, and the Government finally admits that its' counter-terrorism laws are being abused by local councils and civil servants.
It's not all bad news this week, though. Local councils' use of surveillance powers, which have been notoriously misused to investigate offences like dog-fouling and lying about your school catchment area, must now be sanctioned by elected councillors "or senior officials". This is being headlined by some as a "ban" on snooping, but that's not what it is. It's at best a hopeful sign of increased accountability. My joy is guarded partly owing to the "senior officials" rider, and partly because the whole idea falls short of the Lib Dem proposal to require a magistrate's consent before surveillance takes place, ...
I was very concerned by the fire at a derelict garage in Benvie Road on Wednesday, particularly as it was so close to the Tullideph Care Home and other residential properties in Benvie Road. I have been concerned about this site for some time and have had a number of residents' concerns about its poor state and the graffiti that was on it. I have had various discussions in the past with the police about the state of the former garage. The fire incident, so close to the care home and other housing, is worrying and I therefore contacted council ...
Because I follow Pendle Today on twitter I get all the news stories on my twitter home page so the news that William Hague had been in Pendle was a surprise. The Conservatives are calling in Tories from across the UK to Pendle but why are they not holding any public meetings? The Lib Dems held a public meeting when Nick Clegg came to the Borough and they did the same only a few weeks ago when Chris Davies MEP came to Pendle, but why don't the Tories do that? The Conservatives did hold a Q&A at the local College ...
From a recent column of Gill's: As far as I can tell, which isn't very far, all children's television is now policed by committees of single-parent lesbians, nursery assistants, social workers, outreach-policy face communicators and possibly Esther Rantzen.Everything is made to inculcate simple, short messages about honesty, kindness, inclusivity, cosiness and sensible eating of organic, unprocessed food. The fun is merely there as a coating for the message; the entertainment quality is pretty remedial ...Kids' TV now isn't about good and evil, it's about constructing the image of a world where there is no evil at all, no sharp edges, ...
Two damning pieces of news this morning. The first comes from Erith and Thamesmead, where the already controversial Labour selection process has just taken a turn for the sinister. The BBC reports: A London Labour spokesman said: "It was discovered that the seal on a ballot box containing previously received ballot papers for the selection of Labour's parliamentary candidate for Erith and Thamesmead was broken. "In order to maintain the integrity of the process, [Saturday's] hustings meeting has been immediately postponed and a new date will be fixed." The candidates include Georgia Gould, the 22-year-old daughter of Lord Gould, a ...
Going in to see "In the Loop" at The Gate, Newcastle, last night, I bumped into a group of the bright young things from the Durham and Newcastle Lib Dems coming out of the previous showing. "You'll love it", they said, and they were right.Most of the favourites from the tv series were there, as foul mouthed as ever, though these days, knowing what type of people our Prime Minister surrounds
Tim Ireland has a website that he has created that smears Derek Draper, Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes and if you want to watch the video on the website then follow the link. The video is just one reason that has put me off Tim and his childish blogging techiques that are destroying the relationship between bloggers in the blogosphere. Draper came into the blogosphere and started destroying relationships with other bloggers something Tim had been doing for a while. They both are two peas from a pod and I personally would ask everyone and anyone to stay away from ...
We have been trying for the last week or two to get clarification of this weekend's arrangements for the closure to vehicles & pedestrians. The latest news is:Owing to the length of the diversion undertaken between Hartburn Interchange and Yarm (via the A66 and Yarm Road), the Saturday daytimeArriva Service 20 will be unable to serve Orchard Estate - the nearest alternative stops will be at
Maybe the choice of the first family's dog having the word 'water' was more than a coincidence as Peter Brookes suggests above from today's Times. Of course the alternative did have the word 'poodle' in it so no matter what he'd gone for the half hearted use of the memos he has released would probably have led to a dog themed cartoon. What is startling as the details of the legal positions on those memos is investigated is the detailed lengths to which the 'victims' can or cannot be exposed to these measures without it constituting torture. By the way ...
I was one of the contributors to Great Liberal Speeches. Here is my introduction to the selected speech from Charles James Fox speech, followed by the speech itself. Charles James Fox, 1749-1806, was one of the leading orators of his generation, easily able to hold his own against other such talents and opponents such as the Tory Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. He was born into the political establishment with a mother who was the great-granddaughter of Charles II and a father who had served Walpole for many years. From an early age he mixed an aptitude for hard ...
From the Question and answer session at the Welsh Liberal Democrat Conference on 17 April 2009
From the Question and answer session at the Welsh Liberal Democrat Conference on 17 April 2009
From the Question and answer session at the Welsh Liberal Democrat Conference on 17 April 2009
Today's Times reports that the Police who arrested the Conservative frontbencher Damian Green trawled his private e-mails looking for information on Britain's leading civil liberties campaigner, Shami Chakrabarti: Police who arrested the Conservative frontbencher Damian Green trawled his private e-mails looking for information on Britain's leading civil liberties campaigner. Officers from Scotland Yard's anti-terror squad searched the computer seized from his parliamentary office using the key words "Shami Chakrabarti" - even though the Liberty director had nothing to do with the leaking of Home Office documents that prompted the investigation. The paper continues: Ms Chakrabarti said she had never been ...
Congratulations to Prince Philip who is now our nation's longest ever serving royal consort. At 57 years and 70 days, he beats Queen Caroline, wife of every American's favourite king, George III. Americans should, of course, be praising George III for being the spark that lit the fire of independence and started them on the road to where they are today - where would the USA be today if Britain's rulers had been more conciliatary? Prince Philip also gets a pretty raw deal. He's made the occasional, often exaggerated, faux pas but who wouldn't? Which of us could really say ...
From the Question and answer session at the Welsh Liberal Democrat Conference on 17 April 2009
But it's not a fluffy kitten story. [Well it is really - Ed].Cat Stevens. I mention him for no other reason than the fact that I have been listening to Oh Very Young and Peace Train regularly on my iPod recently (and before you start guffawing and saying 'he must be nearly fifty' I would say that I am nearly fifty and I also have on my iPod: Amy Winehouse, Biffy Clyro, Belle and Sebastian,
Today's (Saturday's) hustings to choose the prospective Labour Party candidate for the London parliamentary constituency of Erith and Thamesmead has been postponed, after it was discovered that the seal on the ballot box containing postal ballots received from constituency party members had apparently been tampered with. The sitting Labour MP, John Austin. who is standing [...]
