Nick Clegg filled the Arena Hall at SCOLA in Sutton for one of his 'town hall meetings' this evening, though at times he must have felt he was in the lion's den. One of the earliest questions was from a lady who basically asked why Vince Cable was doing so brilliantly whereas Nick was out [...]
{Neighbourhood Day image} Stroud Green Neighbourhood Day is this Saturday (24th) 2pm-4.30pm. It takes place in the area on top of the hill near the Library - Mount View Road, Granville Road, Stapleton Hall Road - and the streets in between. I was away for the last one, so I will be attending for the first time. But I'm told its quite fun and eclectic, with residents putting out stalls on the street and at the church hall with bits and peices to buy - and there are free refreshments. A tour of Granville Road Spinney is planned at 2.45pm ...
A month ago someone emailed me to offer me an e-Cig starter kit in return for a plug on a blog post I'd written on the subject many moons ago. I actually didn't accept that offer, because the e-Cig technology, whilst being very promising, still has some kinks to be worked out - the batteries [...]
Today's announcement about a new generation of coal-fired power stations reminds me of an old House Points column from October 2005: Suddenly everyone is talking about coal. On Wednesday last week two of New Labour's brightest young things - Ed Balls and Edward Milliband - took part in a Westminster Hall debate on the future of the industry. So did Paddy Tipping, but he sounds like a practice favoured by unscrupulous Victorian mine owners.Interesting that we were still calling Ed Miliband "Edward" in those days. And embarrassing that I couldn't spell "Miliband". You can find the full debate in Hansard. ...
Not only is the BBC's Question Time back tonight after its Easter break (BBC1 and online, 10.35 pm GMT), but it's back with none other than Lib Dem economic megastar Vince Cable. What more could we hope or wish for? Vince will doubtless be able to dispense his sage counsel on this week's lamentable Labour budget. He'll be joined on the panel by Labour's Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills John Denham (the only cabinet member to vote against the Iraq war), Tory shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Philip Hammond, historian and broadcaster (not necessarily in that ...
This is 'Oliver Cromwell' passing through Mellis in mid-Suffolk last year. It was just as lovely a day today when it passed through again...
John O'Grady, who stood against Peter Tatchell as the "Real Bermondsey Labour" candidate in the 1983 by-election died earlier this month, reports the South London Press. Most of the anti-Tatchell smears in the campaign came from O'Grady - rather than from Simon Hughes, as is often claimed. Back in 2006 there was some discussion on this blog of the extent to which there was Liberal involvement in his campaign.
Thanks to those who attended. The chat is now closed. I am planning to do live chats for BBC Question Time as often as possible from now on so please feel free to stop by on Thursday evenings.
That I dear readers were born on a day that has a long history, especially the event of the take over of the Grand Mosque in Makka by a group of terrorists.
The actions of a desperate government. If you are in debt - stop borrowing, stop public spending on non-essential works, curtail recruitment for non-jobs. This guy Darling has been watching too many adverts for debt management. It's back to old labour except some of the old labourites had a modicum of integrity and common sense. [...]
Thursday 10 December 2009. Election day. Make a note of it in your diary. You are probably thinking I've lost the plot. Why would Gordon Brown choose December as an election date? It'll be hard enough getting Labour voters out at the best of times - on a cold, dark winter's night, it will be near impossible. That's all very true but it pre-supposes that Labour will get to choose the date of the next election and that it will be Gordon Brown's decision. Could events, dear boy, get in the way? The political calendar looks ominous for Labour: June: ...
Written by Colum McCormack.Denbighshire County Council is again cutting services and increasing parking charges in Rhyl. The fiasco over parking and loading bays goes on; this can't be the best way forward for the regeneration of our town. Summer's here and on Sunday mornings when thousands of people visit the car boot sale near Sainsbury's the stores in the adjacent shopping centre benefit greatly from the influx of customers who come for the car boot sale. In the meantime Rhyl Town Centre and its businesses are suffering from a lack of visitors while our Councillors do nothing, even though it ...
It's the eve of the Liberal Youth Scotland AGM, so I thought it would be an ideal time to post my own personal answers to Ruaraidh Dobson's 10 questions that he posed to all the candidates of the Federal Liberal Youth Elections. So without further ado or fanfare here goes. 1. How long have you been a member of - and involved in - the party? I first joined the party at the Social and Liberal Democrats stall at the freshers fayre at Kingston (then Polytechnic) University. This was the first freshers intake after the merger of the Liberal and ...
I have sent a complaint to the BBC regarding their wholly biased programme about Nick Griffin and the NW European elections. The whole narrative of the programme was `It's Labour or the BNP for white working class communities in the NW`. They interspersed interviews with local people who support the BNP (note: not ones that don't) [...]
Readers might remember seeing her comment on my blog regarding Harry Cohen and his expenses. I maintain my innocence and continue to fight to clear my name. Once I do I shall be seeking a retraction from you and the removal of my name from this article. Best wishes. Miranda Grell As Mark Pack has already shown [...]
I recently ran a poll on the blog asking 'Do you vote in local elections?' which ran for 10 days. Well unfortunately, only 5 people voted, and a resounding 100% of respondants said they always vote in local elections. If only that was reflected in reality. I will run another one now, and leave it running for a month. If anyone has any ideas for the next poll, feel free to share your ideas in the Comments.
I was struck by something the folk musician Eliza Carthy said in today's Guardian. She was quoted in an article about the free folk festival in Trafalgar Square on Saturday as saying: "Nobody likes a Tory mayor."Presumably some people must like a Tory mayor or Boris would never have been elected. What Carthy means, of course, is that no one in the circles in which she moves would dare admit to voting Conservative . It reminds me of an interview with Martin Amis reprinted in Nick Cohen's recent collection Waiting for the Etonians: A passage from the opening of his ...
I saved up the best part of two weeks worth of Hell's Kitchen shows to watch while tackling the ironing mountain..(this was not a good idea as I actually managed to iron over one of my little fingers as I was so engrossed in the show)and I'm completely hooked and horrified in equal measures. Claudia's fabulous pink dress, 'Granthea',the pasta-nicker, Marco's 'Heathcliffe with a meat cleaver' impression, live eels, dead eels, guts,entrails, blood, blisters, walk outs, tears, toast, toast, toast...not to mention the most bizarrely styled interior yet for the restaurant. (I thought the 80's were fashionable again, shouldn't it ...
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 (12th-18th 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. Dear Mark... on Irfan Ahmed's blog. The pen-pals' good-natured correspondence continues... 2. On politics and those e-mails on Peter Black AM's blog. "I am sad this morning that we have become embroiled instead in a frenzied blood-letting that achieves nothing and undermines that ...
The heads of twitter, Google and Youtube have been sent to Iraq by the USA government to go and help make technology better in the Country and personally I am looking at it from a different angel but have some thoughts to share with readers. Citizen Journalism is growing in the UK with people reporting news as it breaks via twitter and blogging. Bloggers are growing and people are increasingly reading them more. If that was to happened in Iraq then maybe the truth would come out of the Country. Iraq is a country that has been damaged by the ...
Asked for by Salford Liberal democrats! but not taken on board by labour. This is not a problem it's an epidemic,
Communities Secretary Hazel Blears and Housing Minister Margaret Beckett have outlined how the Budget will put councils centre-stage in paving the way towards economic recovery and provide a major new stimulus to the housing industry. Ms Blears said that the multi-billion pound funding settlement combined with new devolved powers will allow councils to lead and support [...]
David Sumner has launched a petition to have the rail link from Southport to Preston/Ormskirk restored. Full details on the Birkdale website. Please sign up
24dash.com Sharp rise in domestic burglaries The number of house break-ins rose sharply in the final months of last year, official figures revealed today. Recorded crime figures from police forces in England and Wales showed a 4% rise in domestic burglaries between October and December. Figures from the British Crime Survey showed a 25% rise in thefts. The [...]
Police officers who conceal their Force Identification Numbers "will face the sack" according to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson. He said it is "totally unacceptable" for officers not to wear their shoulder numbers. From the BBC: His comments follow allegation against several officers at the G20 protests - including the man who pushed newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson before he died. New footage has emerged of the moments leading up to his death, as a third post-mortem examination was held. Mr Tomlinson, 47, died minutes after he was pushed over during the demonstrations in central London. The officer at the ...
You can also watch it on YouTube here.
When your car insurance is about to run out, you get a reminder. When your car tax is about to run out, you get a reminder. So why can't we have a reminder when our MOT is about to run out? It's all on a computer database, after all.
Nick's filmed a piece replying to questions that people had posted up on Facebook over the Budget: You can rate the film and comment about it on YouTube here.
Oh dear. Don't get me started.The BNP's Language and Concepts Discipline Manual (the very title makes your skin crawl) says that the term used for black and Asian people in this country should be "racial foreigners".BNP leader Nick Griffin added to the BBC:"....in civic terms they are British, British also has a meaning as an ethnic description. These people are 'black residents' of the UK etc,
Writing in the Daily Telegraph Vince Cable explains his take on the Budget he begins: 'Yesterday's Budget brought home with brutal clarity the central dilemma in economic policy: rapidly rising unemployment in a deep recession calls for government intervention and investment. But the scale of the Government's budget deficit means that there are severe constraints on what can be done. I had hoped that at the very least we should have some honest numbers....................................
Great post from Guido today on politician's attitude to drugs. He is spot on with his view that the drug laws in this country are a mess and there is huge hypocrisy from our politicians. Most of them simply refuse to engage with a sensible debate and instead fall back on appealing to emotion failing to grasp that the current system leaves our children exposed to a massive criminal network of dealers who cut the drugs with god knows what. He also rightly identifies that drugs are a public health issue, not a criminal justice issue, a point that Transform ...
I have wrote blog posts in the past about how Boris Johnson wants to become the leader of the Conservative party and become Prime Minister one day. The comedian of British politics (a title that can also be given to Lembit Opik) wants to become the Prime Minister but a blog post from Paul Waugh has got me thinking about it even more. Boris is capable of being a Prime Minister, he has the C.V but does he have what it actually takes. He was an MP but as many would say not the best MP a constituency could ask ...
Temple Newsam was mentioned a lot in full council yesterday. A bit of political points scoring on both sides with a great performance from the Lib Dem deputy leader, Stewart Golton. One thing that did strike me as interesting though was something pointed out by the Labour Party. Why is it that the Tories were saying that it was the 'Lib Dem budget' on their leaflets when in fact they proposed the budget and we are in the administration together. The fact is they were just scaremongering in the same way the Labour Party were on their leaflets. After the ...
Local residents in the Blackfriars and Trinity Riverside are up in arms over a recent decision taken by local Labour councillors. Labour has rubber-stamped the relocation of the Salford Youth Offending Service (YOS) to the former Blackfriars Housing Office on St. Simon Street. Local residents say that: Labour has refused to consult or inform the community. The facility should be located centrally where it can better benefit it's users. The proposed building is wanted by the local community that could cater for all people in the neighbourhood. The police have indicated they could station up to 5 police officers/PCSOs in ...
Whilst my Scots, Welsh and Irish colleagues tend to take their patron saint's day rather more seriously than the English do, nevertheless I had an experience this afternoon which was quintessentially English, and I thought that I should share it with you. On the platform at Stowmarket, I noticed a small sign which explained the presence of a man with a good camera on the platform. You see, the 'Oliver Cromwell' was due to steam through the station, and he was clearly there to get some action shots. The sun was shining over mid-Suffolk and it was clear that word ...
Following our previous post on the news that the US embassy are developing plans for their new site at Nine Elms, we see that they have set up a website giving more details, and a map of the plans can be found here. As before, we have concerns over traffic and the ability of the local transport system to cope - Vauxhall tube station is very busy at the moment! But we will keep an eye on the plans as they develop. The website gives you the chance to comment on this application.
As many of you will know Tory Bear does a weekly thing since last week called Researcher of the week and last weeks winner was Jenny Dorries who was also my pick of the week and this week my pick is Victoria Parker who is running for winning TB's competition. With this in mind I am starting my pick of the week, I will use the candidates that Tory Bear has and advice you on who to vote based on my opinion. Update: Due to a comment thinking this is sexist I am going to just advice who to vote ...
Thu 23rd
14:20
The Independent View: It is our politicians - not the public - who need convincing of the need for s...
Yesterday's Budget was a stalling tactic. The Chancellor put off having to make the tough decisions needed to regain control of the public finances and gave no plan to move the UK back to black. David Cameron in his response promised that his Party would make these tough choices, but he failed to say how. There is a real opportunity for the Liberal Democrats, if Vince Cable can continue to lead the way as the only politician brave enough to say that the answer lies in tackling the big areas of public spending. In Reform's Pre-Budget analysis last November we ...
Thu 23rd
14:20
Budget 2009: Pick and mix Budget fails on all counts taken from the Liberal Democrat mainsite.
Wed, 22 Apr 2009 Nick Clegg has described today's Budget as "a pick and mix Budget of recycled announcements from a government skilled in raising people's hopes but incompetent at actually delivering help." Responding to Alistair Darling's Budget, Nick Clegg said: "Today we got a pick and mix Budget of recycled announcements from a government skilled [...]
Health & Well Being Scrutiny Committee At this committee the main items discussed were GP Provision, Aggression and safeguarding of Staff & Clients, and a briefing on the Sutton & Merton PCT Annual Plan. Paul Burstow, MP for Sutton & Cheam had been invited to give anecdotal evidence from his postbag about GP Provision in the area. [...]
yaI have had a couple of conversations off-blog about how potentially split the Conservatives are already even before they enter government. Yesterday, Boris Johnson was straight into bat calling for the Tories to oppose the new 50p tax-band. Today, The Guardian carries comments from George Osborne suggesting repealing the 50p tax will not be the first priority. Instead, and rightly in my eyes, he says that the priority will be to repeal the increase in National Insurance. However, will Boris Johnson and Iain Dale et el be entirely pleased with that? Johnson has today indicated he has his eyes on ...
Yes the Royal Charter for the OU was granted on St George's Day 1969. The one innovation of the Wilson era Labour government that has really survived and thrived (apart from the liberalising Home Office reforms and those were due to the influence of one R. Jenkins, later of This Parish...) The press release includes this note: The Open University continuing to lead the education revolution • In 2008, the OU was the first UK University to join iTunesU, the area of Apple's iTunes store that offers downloadable educational content. • Also in 2008, the OU launched its own online ...
Please tell me this is another prank from Chris Morris, right?
Paul Burgin over on the Mars Hill blog invited me to participate in his "20 Questions to a Fellow Blogger" feature. All the stuff I can never justify talking about here can be found over there! Quote of the day: "I'm not a creative. I manage creatives" - Heard on the radio, taken from The Apprentice, [...]
or so a sharp young academic seems to have found. More seriously, his article makes clear how important it is that China's massive foreign currency reserves are managed cooperatively: in other words, with some some attention paid to the monumental consequences for other countries of a disorderly liquidation of their holdings. Once again, divided we fall?
Thu 23rd
13:20
Is the sight of John McCririck really going to encourage people to celebrate St George's Day?
Happy St George's Day! I am delighted to celebrate this day. After seeing John McCririck on BBC Breakfast encouraging people to celebrate this occasion, I would like to place on record that I do not need him to remind me or cajole me into celebrating it. Indeed, it is hard to imagine anyone more likely to put people off the whole idea!
Leading businesswoman Beverley Nielsen, a former Conservative A-List candidate has defected to the Liberal Democrats in West Worcestershire.
Given that the A4 is one of the main routes into London, it really is quite extraordinary that it was closed for a full nine hours due to a minor accident. Boris should be put on the spot about this.
{Ming Speech} Sir Menzies Campbell has written to the Ministry of Defence asking it to secure the future of the famous 43 Squadron stationed at RAF Leuchars. The squadron is to be disbanded in September when the number of Tornado F3 aircraft at the base is reduced and eventually replaced by three Eurofighter Typhoon squadrons. Commenting Sir Menzies said: "43 squadron must not be added to the long list of totemic Scottish military units lost in recent years. "Three squadrons of Eurofighter Typhoon will replace the Tornado F3 aircraft currently deployed at RAF Leuchars. I am calling on the Ministry ...
Thu 23rd
12:48Why is Labour accepting the help of someone "willing to use homophobia to get elected"?
The choice of helpers in a council by-election isn't normally of wider interest, but Labour in Redbridge, London are showing very poor judgement in their choice of helpers today. For out campaigning for Labour today is Miranda Grell, the Labour councillor who was booted off the council after she was convicted of smearing her Liberal Democrat opponent. As the Labour Campaign for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights put it: We are furious that a Labour candidate, Miranda Grell, was willing to use homophobia to get elected. Discussing the sexuality of her opponent and spreading innuendo about his relationship was ...
I was at full council yesterday and they had a brilliant display organised by Councillor Penny Ewens of the artwork from City of Leeds school GCSE classes. The display was right outside the chamber which meant all the councillors saw it as they were walking in and out. It's really good that these young people are getting the recognition they deserve for their work.
The Galaxy Song is one of my favourite Python songs and this reworking of it for the budget is quite good. Whilst I don't wholeheartedly agree with the final sentiment (to be expected from a Tory Blogger), it made me chuckle. Credit where credit's due. No pun intended!
Keith Moffitt is the Liberal Democrat leader of Camden Council. Lib Dem Voice has quizzed him about why he's in politics, what he's achieved and how being a Liberal Democrat means he does things differently from other parties. And if you're hoping to get elected to a council for the first time in June, read to the end for his top tip for new councillors. 1. What made you get involved in politics originally? I'd always been a Liberal voter, but became active because I was impressed by what the Liberals (as they then were) were doing locally in West ...
I have linked to Bailli on this. I am having another go within the UK to demonstrate why the decision of the Court of Appeal in RP v Nottingham and also HP v Birmingham was wrong.Both of these cases are now in Strasbourg as well.
Have to admit that turning on my computer this morning this made me giggle. Yeah goggle.co.uk decided to rewrite mythology for St. George's day. Which this scene from St. George and Juliet to mark St. George's day and Shakespeare's birthday. St. Geroge's wooing of the dragon. O St. George, St. George! wherefore art thou St. George? Deny thy calling and refuse thy sword; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a fire, breathing pest.
On Wednesday night, the council debated whether they would go to 'All Out Elections'. I voted against this change, for the moment, as I don't think that it's the best route. Elections each year 'keeps it real', as can be seen from the 17 years of Tory rule and 12 years of Labour at the Westminster the Politicians lose touch with the population. They know that whatever happens they don't have to
Are these the future of the Conservative party? If so we might as well move abroad now! Foolish campaigns like this will not help the Tories as commuters are busy trying to get home not take leaflets from the Cameron Patrol!
The right wing newspapers aren't impressed. Not impressed at all. Unsurprisingly, they think Darling's budget isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. But the tack they take is worth paying attention to - especially if you're a Lib Dem. The Daily Mail says: "Alistair Darling has gambled Britain's future on a 1970s-style tax raid against the rich and a wildly-optimistic forecast of economic recovery. The Chancellor drove a stake through the heart of New Labour yesterday by stinging top earners with a new 50p tax rate."The Daily Express warns: "LABOUR'S punitive 50 per cent income tax raid on top earners ...
There can't be a single Labour activist that would delight in campaigning now and say that all is well in the world of New Labour. In fact it's so bad that in National terms Labour are finished for a generation. So much squandered trust, money and hope. I have to take my hat off to [...]
"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing..." A poll in the Guardian caught my eye this week. Readers who were changing parties were asked their reasons for doing so. Some extracts: Switching from Labour in 2005 to Conservative now • The economy is going down, people have no jobs, they are unemployed and they've got family and children to feed • Because I am not happy with Labour's performance - that's it • Because Labour is changing the rules and laws and made a mess of everything • Because of the Conservatives' policies Lib Dem in ...
Well - with the measures Alistair announced in the Budget - it is the country's doom and Gordon will be dust! OK - so I'm never going to get employment as a sun headline writer - never mind. This was an opportunity for the Government to have rebalanced the tax system - not by the 50p rate of tax (which is not going to bring in enough income) but by raising the threshold and taking £700 of the vast majority of people's tax bills. And this would be paid for by really closing the tax loopholes and clamping down on ...
Last night, in a 6 hour meeting ending at 1 a.m., Winchester City Council agreed the Core Strategy Preferred Options paper for the Local Development Framework (LDF). This now goes to "Pre-Submission Consultation" (a curious stage at which consultations have to be carried out but, apparently, no substantive changes can be made to the document). The current plan calls for the LDF to be submitted to
I haven't blogged for a while, mainly because I'm busy with the preparation for the European elections on 4th June. I liked the headline in the METRO today - "Till debt us do part", and it's true. The Labour Government have got us into debt a total of around the equivalent of £23,000 for each person in the UK. The current economic crisis is global so the blame can't all be dumped on the doorstep of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the Labour Party. However, the mis-management of it can. I was listening to George Osborne yesterday and today, he's ...
Baroness Warsi was a high flying A lister in 2005 but ended up being appointed to the Houses of Lords but why? I have a conspiracy that Baroness Warsi was appointed to the Lords for a reason and that is David Cameron was terrified of Baroness Warsi. Baroness Warsi is known for her big mouth that she uses when she wants to bulldoze her way through something, I think that was something that was on David Cameron's mind and he made the decision of getting her in the Lords so she couldn't make it into the Commons and mess things ...
Labour's having a rough time of it, but considering real long term public opinion typically lags about a year behind, the worst is yet to come. The longer Brown stays in, the more permenant and engrained the hostility towards Labour will become. Tony Blair, for all his trickery and deceit, made Labour electable 3 times in [...]
The budget looks like an attempt to hold things together until the General Election in the vain hope that something will turn up.A few years ago I got a copy of the Treasury Economic Model programmes. However, without the data that the Treasury put into the model the model cannot be properly scrutinised. The treasury refused to provide the figures.I would presume that the government have "
I am planning to hold a live chat using CoverItLive tonight for BBC's Question Time. The panel are John Denham, Phillip Hammond, Vince Cable, David Starkey and Claire Fox so it should be a good edition. Denham has always impressed me in the past and it will be interesting to see him try to defend the government following yesterday's depressing budget. Vince should be excellent value as usual and Starkey and Fox are no shrinking violets. All are welcome to stop by from 10:30pm onwards and hopefully we can have a lively discussion in real time. UPDATE: The thread is ...
And all you need to do is keep them on file and change Labour to Conservative in Five Years Time. I hope people don't forget the Thatcher legacy.I remember no jobs,strikes, riots, the rich -poor gap, it great to see things don't really change that much.
This new film, staring Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck is an adaptation of the widely-praised BBC six part drama of the same name from 2003. The story is essentially the same - journalist investigating political scandal swirling around a politician who is also an old friend - but transplanted to the US, with the Iraq war as the backdrop with a veneer of blogging added. {State of Play: poster} Crowe plays the part of the experienced, cynical journalist - a role he landed after Brad Pitt dropped out following script disagreements. The contrast between the unkempt, unglamorous, unfit Crowe and ...
Watching Nicks Clegg's budget response, you see and hear the usual appalling parliamentary behaviour in the background. The emptied out chamber, the hubbub of other MPs talking and the views of other MPs ignoring Nick's speech completely. What Tories are left are busy discussing strategy and writing notes (not on Nick's speech!). I often wonder whether the speaker can do anything to stop this but I know this is part of the establishment game to belittle us in the eyes if the public. However, I really think our own MPs should at least be seen to be paying attention and ...
After reading this comment by "Ian B" in reply to another post, I fired off an email asking him if he'd mind, ever so much, if I could reproduce it in a blog post of it's own, such was the level of, "Yes! Yes!" I felt. This explains so much: I am, perhaps, primarily interested in social [...]
Interesting follow-up to Plaid Cymru's top-up fees debacle in this morning's Western Mail. Having effectively expelled student, Arianwen Caiach-Taylor for protesting to Ieuan Wyn Jones that he had sold out the party's principles by agreeing to a u-turn on fees, the Party Chair is now turning his attention to her mother:John Dixon, who is Plaid's most senior lay official, has called on chief
As is the way with the budget, opposition politicians have little option but to give their instant pre-recorded response to a budget speech that itself is a summary of several hundred pages spread across numerous documents. To relive all the excitement of yesterday, you can read Darling's speech here. The more gruelling in-depth stuff (defined as "the bits I didn't really understand") are here. I guess I could have weighed in with my opinion on the budget but since I'm not very good at the economics stuff and certainly don't understand the detail, I can't imagine that would add a ...
A combination of illness and holiday have kept me away from blogging for a while, though avoiding the Internet is probably a good thing a lot of the time to be honest. Still, Darling's budget has spurred me back into action. I've no intention of devoting masses of space to this - there are plenty of [...]
I am slowly coming to terms with Twitter and in particular its ability to provide a platform for late night sound-bites that do not look so clever in the light of day. Thus I was not really surprised to see a couple of messages come through last night from Plaid Cymru's Chief Executive, Gwenllian Lansdowne in response to the budget. Her view was that the Chancellor's actions had endorsed the need for Plaid Cymru's proposal that billions of pounds extra need to be invested in Wales, though she expressed it in a more personal way: Was it Kirsty Williams who ...
The FT's budget summary runs to 4377 pages, weighs 6kg and if the words were strung together, would run half way to the Moon and back. Or that's how it feels - like a plot to stop any public economist starting his work before 12pm. I will not highlight too many articles from here, because Budget fatigue must be widespread and it might actually have a measurable effect on GDP. So here are my favourites. The unsung Norma Cohen illustrates nicely the paradox of thrift- that a rush to savings, even though we are greatly overleveraged, will do damage to ...
{Flag St George LH} This would be a good day to enjoy Unmitigated England, English Buildings and Common Ground.
On the 16th February this year, it became illegal to take pictures of police "engaged in anti-terrorist measures" - a legal move widely seen as a prohibition on photographing the police at all, and a power that the police have already taken advantage of to the fullest extent (see, for example, this report in The Guardian). Notwithstanding this ban, I bravely picked up my camera and set off on April 1st to the various G20 demos, to act as an observer and legal adviser if needed. I was not alone! Lib Dem MP Tom Brake was there (you can watch ...
One of the slightly unlikely elements of the camp at Bergen-Belsen was the number of Russian prisoners held there. And so these pictures record the Russian cemetery and the Belarus Ambassador to Germany (?) leading the tributes (below - suited). This was essentially due to it's being used as a prisoner of war camp initially. It's only later that it was used for Jewish and civillian prisoners and then subsequently as a concentration camp. So it is that over 50,000 Russians lie buried here... a truly awful number of people. And of course being so far removed from Russia, in ...
I have today again added my voice in complaint about the state of Dundee rail station. As the then chair of the regional transport body TACTRAN, I met with Ron McAuley, Network Rail's Director in Scotland, just before Christmas and made clear the real need for Network Rail to buy into a partnership approach to get our railway station fully upgraded to cater for the passengers of the 21st century. The current infrastructure is, bluntly, very poor. The Network Rail Director subsequently addressed a meeting of the full TACTRAN Board and the issue of Dundee Rail Station was again raised. ...
Why? Because it voted with the dreaded tories for a 10p increase in bus fares for children. Why to balance a budget, Makes more sense than what Labour are doing.
In a way it is tempting to discount the significance of the British Budget. The fantasy economic forecasts and unconvincing explanations that were offered yesterday are just not going to be relevant. Deep in our bones we know that the situation is not a shallow recession followed by an early recovery. The collapse of the financial system has taken away entirely a significant percentage of UK wealth creating capacity. Everything afterwards is set to be slower and smaller. Perhaps it is appropriate that the rather sepulchral figure of Alistair Darling should have read the last rites over the coffin of ...
The below is exactly what Alistair Darling said about economic growth in his Budget speech yesterday. I make no apologies for quoting it at length as the whole point I wish to draw out of it is one of contextualisation. I've added parenthesis to draw out the key elements. "Mr Deputy Speaker, the UK went into this global recession with employment at an all-time high, inflation, public debt and interest rates at low levels. But no country can insulate itself from this worldwide downturn. The position here, as in every country, deteriorated in the autumn. In the last few months, ...
Following the announcement yesterday that the government will tax anybody earning over £150,000 at a rate of 50%, I have been reviewing their manifesto from 2005. It explicitly states towards the bottom of page 16: "We will not raise the basic or top rates of income tax in the next Parliament." There are no caveats or hedging. This is not open to interpretation of what the top rate of income tax means like Labour tried to argue when they abandoned their pledge to hold a referendum on the European Constitution. If Labour go to the country before 6th April 2010 ...
In the Time Budget supplement Ben Webster points out the mythologies of the benefit to a car owner of the car-scrap scheme policy from the Darling budget. The headline figure was that it would be worth £2000 per car or van aged over 10 years scrapped between 1 May 2009 and 1 March 2010 and replaced with a new car. However, only £1000 of that is coming from the Government the other thousand will be matched by the industry at the floor court. Thing is to try and encourage such sales most retailers are already offering at least that level ...
This post will be of no interest to anyone who is not hugely interested in the minutiae of British political blogging, and the wankery that goes on therein... I hate writing posts like this, and I hate contaminating my own blog with them, but i can't really see anything else to do. I would post [...]
