Last Wednesday I went to Admiralty House in Whitehall, former 'grace and favour' residence of John Prescott. I was invited to a government seminar on tackling the problem of empty homes organised by the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG). This seminar was set up at the request of ministers as the issue of empty homes has risen up the national political agenda in recent months. Other attendees included David Ireland, Chief Executive of the campaigning charity the Empty Homes Agency, officers from Manchester City Council's private sector team, civil servants, and a small selection of councillors and officers from other councils. I was one ...
"Flats in these four tower blocks get a whole new look for just £30,000 by United House" I have just stumbled on this incredible story in Times Online, so as to be even handed I present the piece whole (everything in quotes is by the Times Author Kasia Maciejowska). This piece reads almost like a glossy advertisement by United House as a PR exercise. "Picture the upheaval involved in refurbishing one kitchen. Then multiply this by 439 and add in bathrooms, central heating, floors and windows that must also be modernised, everything being carried out to a strict budget. In ...
A late blog update following a marathon council sitting tonight! The Courier this morning covered the on-going waste management problems over public holiday arrangements and my comments about them. Click on headline to view the article - I was also interviewed on Radio Tay about the issue today. Whilst I appreciate that there is an industrial dispute that is causing the City Council difficulty in undertaking normal refuse collections on a public holiday, I was unhappy with the way this problem was managed at the April public holiday. People with a Monday collection were simply missed out completely that week ...
On friday morning I happened to have Sky News on in the background, so I was able to catch the live "announcement" by our Labour government on it's decision to allow Gurkhas, who have risked their lives fighting alongside British forces, to settle in the UK. The announcement was nothing more than a single A4 sheet of paper handed to Gurkha Justice campaigner, Joanna Lumley. She was visibly upset by the decision. Reacting to the Government announcement on the number of Gurkhas that will be allowed to settle in the UK, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg asked "Are there any ...
When I was 16 I joined the Labour Party for much the same reasons Daniel Clarke did; now the former Labour PPC for Eastleigh has joined the Liberal Democrats because he feels that our policies best advance the causes he cares passionately about, social justice, the environment and above all moving towards a Britain of 'opportunity for all'. One thing I think we still don't fully grasp in this Party is that for many people the commitment to the Labour Party is often as much emotional as intellectual. In many places voting Labour is almost a badge of identity (due ...
That seemed to be the theme of today's activities. It was even the title of the partnership meeting I attended at lunch time. Today marks the start of Walk to work week, an initiative aimed at encouraging people to walk more and enjoy it more. Unfortunately my first appointment of the day didn't finish until 1130 so walking from Eaglescliffe to Teesdale for a 1230 meeting seemed to be cutting
I accept that I was wrong when I questioned the YouGov poll in a blog post last week after reading a blog post on Conservative Home that has results of a ComRes poll. You can see the ComRes poll result below: CONSERVATIVES: 45% LABOUR: 28% LIBERAL DEMOCRATS: 17% All I can say is that I was wrong when I didn't value the YouGov poll, sorry readers and sorry YouGov for not taking you serious.
We have just one new planning application this week and that is for the erection of a new house on the end of the terrace and parking spaces at 30 Lansdown View Twerton. The application was first registered on 22nd April 2009 and has a decision date of 17th June 2009 the application reference number is 09/01179/FUL and you can view this application by following the link...
East Midlands Trains have introduced a once-a-day service from Melton Mowbray and Oakham to London and back. Trains run through Corby and Kettering and pass over the mighty Welland Viaduct. The Leicester Mercury quotes East Midlands Trains commercial director, David Horne, as saying: "We're very excited to introduce the first direct service to London from Melton and Oakham in 40 years.It is a normal peak fare and the train runs at a time to suit the business traveller."This enterprising move strengthens the impression that East Midlands Trains are making a better job of running things than their predecessors, Midland Mainline, ...
Whilst reading Liberal England I came across a blog post from the past from May 2008 when I was a new born blogger who was still figuring out how to work Blogger maybe that's why I never spotted the post at the time. You can read the blog post below, it made me laugh and now it needs to be shared with the rest of my readership! From the Burnley Citizen: Health chiefs considered taking legal action over allegations of bad management in Liberal Democrat election leaflets, it has been revealed. Acting chief executive of East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust ...
When I started blogging memes were all the rage. They are not so common these days, so it is quite nostalgic to be tagged for this one by Iain Dale. First Job A Saturday job at a gents outfitters when I was in the sixth form. Soon transferred to the secondhand book trade, which was more me. First Real Job Working for Chess magazine in Sutton Coldfield after leaving university. First Role in Politics Secretary of York Liberal Students, 1979-81. First Car I have never owned a car, but I do have a licence so I am a real man. ...
In the absence of the international news media, it falls upon me to report on happenings on the Parish Council. Whilst the start of the meeting was delayed due to the late arrival of one of the councillors, the meeting was called to order by Cllr. Chris Wright, and the sole item on the agenda, consideration of a planning application to add a conservatory to one of the outlying properties, was taken. There being no objections from council members or from the public present (that would be me...), the council decided to support the application. With that, and there being ...
You can find "The Not the Budget Black Hole Edition" on The Wardman Wire.
We are officially now in the grip of a new panic. Quite how justified all this screaming and shouting about swine influenza is remains to be seen, but there is certainly a lot of secondary nonsense starting to form. My favourite thus far is the Israel government's insistence that it should be renamed "Mexican flu" on the basis that pigs are not kosher. Are we to infer from that that eating Mexicans is Okay? I've written about this strange mutation of Jewish (and Islamic) dietary law into a perverted list of "animals which must not be mentioned" before. A couple ...
For anyone who hasn't heard, we won the Totteridge by election. The following are a few thoughts on the experience which may encourage others! We went into this in third place. At the last full Council elections two years ago, we only fielded paper candidates in Totteridge. This two member ward elected one Tory and one Labour - but the Labour councillor (who was the one who had tragically died very suddenly) was popular and hard working. In other words, the Tories might have expected to take both seats had it not been for the personal vote of the Labour ...
The Daily Mail is speculating that at least one senior Lib Dem MP will be caught up in the expected criticism of MPs' expense claims, when receipts are published in July. The newspaper reports here that Nick Clegg has been asked for an assurance by a front-bencher that there will be no sackings for Lib Dems embarrassed by their published expenses; an assurance Nick apparently refused to give. Whether there is any truth to this gossip remains to be seen. Earlier today, Political Betting's Mike Smithson suggested that the Lib Dems could be winners, particularly in London, given their superior ...
The West Yorkshire police are trying to solve a serious assault that happened on the corner of Thornville Street in the early hours of Saturday morning. Please get in touch with them if you have any information.
Mon 27th
17:56
Liberal Democrats First In Salford to raise the real issues that effect you.And Tonight taken up by ...
Salford Council paid out over £,six,million pounds in sick pay. the Liberal Democrats raised this issue amongst others in the Budget. Do Labour Listen no and today we have come top in the council league tables for all the wrong things, Premier League champions in the sick pay stakes.
Peter's post seems to have caused a bit of debate. For what it's worth I agree with him, a political party can't on one hand criticise people for generating anonymous smears and then have staff permitted to do exactly the same thing in some sort of semi official capacity.We have also touched a nerve with some Plaid bloggers who feel that the attention they've received over the last week or so was
Last month I expressed my concerns about the suspicious deaths of four young soldiers at the Deepcut Barracks in Surrey. After returning from a short break yesterday, I recieved an email from Des James, Des is the father of Cheryl James, who died at Deepcut in 1995. Des explained that he had come across the [...]
I finally managed to find a picture in the Times - everyone say ahhh...
Media City Accused of Showing Its Backside To Salford As Media City begins to take shape in Salford, residents are pointing out that, while all the big fancy towers face Manchester and the Quays, all the car parks and site entrances are backing onto Salford's community... <a title="Media CityCar parks and site entrances back onto Weaste, [...]
After years as a BBC war correspondent and an environmental campaigner I really thought there was little more that could shock me when it comes to man's ability to destroy, but what I heard at last week's meeting of the Camden Council's all-party Sustainability Task Force appalled me. According to two of the country's leading experts on air quality - Prof Frank Kelly of Kings College London and Simon Birkett of the Campaign for Clean Air in London - diesel fumes are basically sending us all to an early grave and very few of us know anything about it. It's ...
I attended a meeting today in County Hall with the SABLE group set up by the energetic Mary Crofts and other local parents from the centre of St Albans aghast at the way that they have been cast adrift by the primary school allocation system. They were meeting Children Schools and Families Director John Harris, the Conservative lead member for education Keith Emsall, and county council staff. The meeting had been co-ordinated by St Albans central division LibDem county councillor Chris White and was also attended by Anne Main. Chris has been arguing for ages that St Albans needs an ...
Interesting news from Bayern Munich today.
A juicy account on that expenses meeting from Brendan Carlin:Angry Gordon Brown shouted a 'take it or leave it' ultimatum at David Cameron over MPs' expenses during an extraordinarily bad-tempered meeting between the party leaders last week.The Prime Minister repeatedly waved his fist and stormed: 'We have to get this sorted! We have to get this sorted!'...Mr Brown's outburst came at a strictly
According to a blog post by Guido Nick Clegg and David Cameron should feel happy that they didn't get any Nokia phones, pens or printers thrown at them by the Prime Minister when they had a meeting with him over MP expenses. Brown went of on a rant and started shouting and swinging his fists around "We have to get this sorted! We have to get this sorted!". The Prime Minister also blamed Cameron for continuously bringing the issue up at Prime Ministers Questions, isn't that not the job of the opinion? To criticise the government? Personally I wont be ...
Yesterday around 2,700 people died from malaria. Around ten people died from swine flu. The last major flu pandemic, in 1968, killed around a million people. Malaria kills a million people each and every year. Even after a successful flu jab programme, over a thousand people die from ordinary flu every year in the UK. Not a single person has yet died from swine flu in the UK. Outside Mexico a number of people are believed to have caught swine flu, in New Zealand, the US, Canada and Spain. They can be treated. All appear to have recovered or be ...
Just to let you know that South Glos Council has responded to our petition and all your emails. They've agreed to subsidise the X27. Key points are: Good news: - Hourly X27 service retained from Yate via North Yate, main road past Iron Acton, Winterbourne to Bristol. - It will bypass Bristol Bus Station and continue to the Centre, which will be helpful for some people - Still run by First, so no problem with tickets if you're changing to another bus in Bristol Bad news: - Only two X27 buses before 0900, instead of five (standing room only?) - ...
I cannot put it more eloquently than Alex Tabarrok. It is a brilliant exposition of the advantages of trade. "Growth washed away the Great Depression". Remember that.
SALFORD COUNCIL LEADER HITS OUT AT SALFORD STAR YOU WON'T BE CENSORED SO WE WON'T FUND THE SALFORD STAR! Salford Council Leader, John Merry, today told Regeneration and Renewal magazine the reason why the Council blocked Salford Star's application for devolved funding from the city's Community Committees... Our spat with Salford Council goes back almost two years, [...]
Opinion Polls mean nothing if you can not hang on to your council seats. April 23rd was a bad night for the Conservatives seeing them loose seats to both the Liberal Democrats and Labour. The Results on the night were. Aberdeenshire UA, Aboyne, Upper Deeside and Donside Con 1144 (31.5; -18.3) LD Rosemary Bruce 969 (26.7; +0.6) Ind 842 (23.2;...
I saw this story in The Southern Daily Echo, EASTLEIGH'S prospective Labour parliamentary candidate Dan Clarke has dropped a political bombshell by defecting to the Liberal Democrats. please follow this link to read the full story
Having been badgered by several people about using Twitter, I have signed up. This might be a fun way of staying in touch, or it might be another thing I simply forget to do. Time will tell I guess.
Heir to sitting in a big purple and gold chair at a ridiculous ceremony Prince Charles, has sensationally revealed that he talks to a supernatural being in the sky and asks him to make mankind more "enlightened" so that we will protect the planet from "global warming", something that the supernatural being could presumably stop if he a) gave a fuck and b) existed. Speaking ahead of his meeting with a man named "Pope" who represents the aforementioned supernatural being on earth, Prince Charles explained that we have a choice between moving "towards a more enlightened age" and "plunging us ...
Alright, I didn't know either, but my attention was drawn to the fact by a small piece in the Times. This is, in fact, the second World Tapir Day, intended to draw attention to these rather shy creatures. There was a remarkably cute picture in the Times, which I can't find online, so no link I'm afraid, but there is a webcam for you to take a look at. Three tapir stories... I used to regularly visit the National Zoo in Washington DC and, just inside the entrance, was the tapir enclosure. Every time I visited, I would peer into ...
Just thought people might be interested in signing up for this new community site aimed at those who live in the Hyde Park and Headingley area. Community websites aren't always the most welcoming places for new members so this site aims to change that and encourage an ongoing dialogue between ALL the members of the community in Hyde Park and Headingley.
With Brown in Kabul speaking beside President Hamid Karzai, time perhaps to revisit the thoughts of Paddy Ashdown a year ago after his prospective post as UN Special Envoy to Afghanistan was vetoed by the Kabul Government. Paddy noted amongst other things that anyone working for positive change in Afghanistan had : a dilemma. According to its constitution, Afghanistan is a centralised state. But on the ground it is a highly decentralised one. Which end of the pipeline of governance should we start with? The answer is start at the bottom and work with the grain of the Afghan tribal ...
The play offs for the Conference North have now been settled. Southport are to play Gateshead in the semi finals. The first leg is at Haig Ave on Wednesday and the second leg at Gateshead on Sunday.The Haydn Preece from the club was asking for help in distributing posters advertising Wednesday's game so Cllr Hands and I did our bit around Birkdale. The picture shows Rachel (who claims to be camera shy) Richard and I at the Lib Dem office in Shakespeare St.Thanks to all those who took posters including:Robert Tear (butcher)Dave Whyte (cycle shop)Birkdale LibraryFour Season's Garden CentreDavid Smallwood ...
Now here is a job that would be hard to explain to someone at a party... I...I...I...erm... I rub cream onto...erm... rat's... erm...well... erm Erm...I..erm... stimulate... erm.. well.. rat's... erm... well... er.. to arouse... erm... Look I give rats hard-ons. Now leave me alone.
Yesterday I was the speaker at another of the Liverpool Citizenship Ceremonies. These ceremonies are run by the Registrars bit of the City Council. They are done on behalf of the Home Office but have their own flavour and have been developed really well by the registrars team. Each ceremony has a "dignitary" which yesterday was me. The role is to do a short speech and hand out the certificates and gifts (in our case a Liverpool medal). It's a great thing to do but brings its frustrations too. Yesterday there were people who had been born in Iraq, Afghanistan, ...
I have just been reading Labour List (its been a while since I did that) to realise that they have a blog post that suggests the Conservatives had selected a candidate for this years local elections in Blackburn who was one of the North West's notorious BNP campaigners. Nick Holt a man who stood against Jack Straw in 2005 as a BNP candidate was to stand as a Tory candidate. The man had stood against the Conservatives in elections in the past yet Tory HQ claims they didn't know about his connections with the BNP. All I can say to ...
Back in January 2009 I blogged about how Lord Greaves was getting into the spirit of becoming a blogger. I can give you more information today which is the blog will be born very soon and all people in the blogosphere need to do is await the blog with excitement. I don't know what Tony's blog will be like and how he will write it but if its got any resemblance of his Lancashire Telegraph column then I can safely say its gonna be a great blog to read!
The Observer yesterday ran a big piece against drugs that elicit a so-called legal high. Just when more and more people are recognising that the war on drugs has been a complete failure, the newspaper seems keen to compound the problems by making these herbal highs illegal too. Just making someone happy hopefully isn't a sufficiently good reason to ban something (Gordon's working on it), so where's the evidence of harm? It's all rather vague. The toxicologist talks about unknown risks, tablets possibly interfering with medication or contraception and unpleasant side-effects. The main article mentions one teenaged boy in the ...
Interesting article in this morning's Western Mail, which picks up on my point in another place that the Prime Minister does not understand the Barnett Formula. Chief Reporter, Martin Shipton's other point is interesting:In his conference speech on Saturday, Rhodri Morgan allowed his enthusiasm for attacking Plaid Cymru's launch of a website advocating independence to propel him into a position
{Lynne Featherstone, Lyn Weber and Jo Durie at the opening of new tennis courts in Highgate} Started gorgeous Sunday at 6am - too much to do - too little time to do it. Highlight of the day was the opening of the new tennis courts at Highgate Tennis and Cricket Club. After years of neglect to courts belonging to Highgate Wood School, the club - with the help of Cllr Lyn Weber - finally persuaded the school and Haringey Council that renovating the courts would be good for all. Now these sparkling courts will be used by the school, the ...
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin have developed a way for people with disabilities to access social networks using a "brain-computer interface". Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook were preferred by users, rather than email, because they are a simpler and quicker way to communicate. The ability to be instantly in touch with a whole community, on the same terms as everyone else, is vital for people with physical injury. From Wired: Early on the afternoon of April 1, Adam Wilson posted a message to Twitter. But instead of using his hands to type, the University of Wisconsin biomedical ...
I am beginning to wonder how Gordon Brown got to be Prime Minister. It was certainly not for his political skills if this latest episode in the MPs' expenses saga is any judge. He is now officially standing in a hole and digging furiously. The situation as I see it is that desperate to seize the initiative on this issue (and possibly to distract attention from his dire budget) the Prime Minister went onto YouTube in advance of a meeting with the other party leaders to set out his stall on expenses as a done deal in the hope that ...
There is a problem in your kitchen. Your pipes are leaking and you need somebody to solve the problem before it gets worse. Therefore you hire a plumber. You would expect that this plumber would commit 100% of their efforts to solving your problem without hesitation or question. It would be outrageous if your plumber stopped halfway through their job (with your kitchen all over the floor, your pipes hanging out still leaking) to take up another paid opportunity somewhere else. The people of West Dorset collectively hired a "plumber" at a rate of £63,291 per year with expenses over ...
As the scale of the economic crisis for Britain sinks in, it is becoming ever clearer that there is no area of public or private expenditure that can escape scrutiny. No area, in fact, unless you are Harriet Harman where you instead try to create massive new costs by imposing a legal duty to implement the intellectually incoherent nonsense of Labour's Diversity Police. Meanwhile back on the real world, there is growing recognition that the Ministry of Defence has not escaped the decline into wasteful incoherence that has characterised the rest of government. The natural tendency of military bureaucrats to ...
I've been reflecting on Ed Miliband's declaration that no new coal power stations will be authorised in Britain unless they include an element of carbon capture technology. The climate change secretary didn't go far enough, of course, and ideally we should not be permitting any new coal fired generation, but credit where credit is due; it puts the UK at the fore of CCS development and will have a significant impact on thinking in the boardrooms of power companies. Almost unnoticed by the media was Miliband's call for consultation on the idea of introducing emissions performance standards, limiting the amount ...
The organised crime gangs often deal in drugs Police are failing to tackle the rising threat of criminal gangs in England and Wales, a report has warned. The scale of organised crime is much higher than previously thought, with some 2,800 gangs active, said the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary report. The report, Getting Organised, called [...]
Inequalities in health between rich and poor areas of Britain widened in the 1980s and 1990s, and the current government has repeatedly expressed its intention to reduce these inequalities. In this article, however, the authors report that inequalities in life expectancy have continued to widen, alongside widening inequalities in income and wealth, and argue that [...]
A leaked copy of Labour's internal June elections briefing document show just how limited Labour's hopes for the elections are. In a slide listing "Labour priorities", the party's ambitions for the elections are given as: Maximise Labour vote in Euro election Stop BNP gaining Euro seat Hold 4 Labour County Councils North Tyneside and Doncaster Mayoral races "Maximise vote" is telling as the alternatives would be "gain seats" or "hold seats". "Maximise vote" is polite shorthand for "lose as few seats as possible". Whilst stopping the BNP would be on many party's equivalent lists, for county councils Labour's ambitions are ...
The campaign trail took me to Borden on Friday evening. Canvassing is a new experience, but after some shadowing, off I went. Many people out (as one should be on a Friday evening) and quite a few 'haven't decided yet' - with one 'what election?'. And one small dog who found the Focus leaflet delicious. One lady was quite ferocious. 'I will vote for you if you can get that Scottish idiot out of Number 10. And that daft woman - we are paying for her husband to watch filthy videos' and much more along the same line. I never ...
After hearing the news that Norsheen Bhatti has defected to the Conservatives personally I am saddened and I think she has made a mistake that she will regret. The seat that she was a candidate for the Lib Dems in, the seat of Chelsea and Fulham is a seat of interest to me and had been for a while because my blogger friend Alex Hilton is the Labour party candidate in the seat. Norsheen made the following comments to Nick Clegg in a letter upon defecting: "When I heard you speak at the Operation Black vote event in the House ...
Just out of sight in fact just a few miles over the next ridge from here lies Airdrie. In an isolation ward at Monklands hospital two Scots recently returned from Mexico who took ill on their return are under observation for the possibility of swine flu. Friends and family of the couple are also under observation and will be isolated if they show any flu like symptoms. There is a similar case of man in Stanwick, Northamptonshire who is also currently in isolation. Medical experts are saying that it could be several months before an effective vaccine is available for ...
When Liberal Conspiracy was formed, I was deeply suspicious. After all, given that its founding parents were predominantly members and supporters of the Labour Party, it looked like another attempt to recruit Liberal Democrats, Greens and others to some grand coalition of progressive forces against the Tories. I had no fundamental objection to the concept, just to the use of the word 'liberal'. Recently, as noted by the likes of Andrew Hickey and Jennie Rigg, there has emerged the sense that, whilst at the outset there was at least a show of inclusivity, the true colours of 'Liberal Conspiracy' have ...
I have just watched Dan Hannan's speech at the Tory Spring conference from yesterday. It is being linked to by right wing bloggers and bigged up like with his recent European Parliament speech where he eviscerated Brown. This latest speech is certainly very good and is peppered with literary references and he shows genuine passion and humour which is so often lacking in speeches by politicians. I would be amazed if he is not in the House of Commons within the next few years. However, as DK has pointed out his speech is dishonest. If you believe the thrust of ...
I keep meaning to blog about the policing of the G20 protests and keep not, I even though about blogging after Ashes to Ashes last week but didn't and then saw Alex Wilcock had at http://loveandliberty.blogspot.com/
Where is the rain when you need it? For the past month, ever since we fitted water butts on the allotment, we have had next to no rain. The result is we have had to bring water over from the house, some of it recycled grey water, but the rest from the mains. Pouring water suitable to drink ourselves all over the ground is a bad use of a resource and is unsustainable environmentally. So collecting
The story so far. Orwell award-winning blogging policeman Nightjack attacks the "evil poor" - the lager swilling lads swaggering around our council estates, tooled up and demanding "respect" which, for them, means little more than fear. Feminist blogger Penny Laurie attacks Nightjack on Liberal Conspiracy. Penny says the so-called evil poor are, in reality, victims of poverty. Penny refers to Nightjack's writings as "the barely-literate frothings of the paranoid authorities". Then Charlotte Gore weighs in (at 3am! I can barely spell my name at 3am, never mind write decent blog posts). Charlotte signs up to team-Nightjack, recalling her seven years ...
I was rather struck by the lead story in the Journal this morning. It was about Northern Rock. There is a suggestion doing the rounds that the government will sell it off by the end of the year, possibly to Sandander or Virgin. The explanation was that the sale may be needed as the government's finances are in such a dire state.Whilst I don't think the possibility of a sale can be ruled out, I
Crying All the Way to the Chip Shop remembers Jack Cardiff, the great cinematographer and director who died last week. See his IMDB entry for details of his extraordinary career. He appeared in his first film as a child actor in 1918.
We're not actually going to be able to STOP swine flu, are we? Surely it would be better to LET it spread, get it over with, and then we would have herd immunity? Why are we prolonging the agony? It's not like the world isn't over-populated anyway... Why yes, I AM feeling particularly grumpy today. I suspect it is something to do with having woken up at half past five in the frigging morning. Still, at least I have heard News Briefing and Farming Today for the first time ever. This entry was originally posted at http://miss-s-b.dreamwidth.org/883162.html. Please comment there ...
Lib Dem blogger Andrew Hickey has been to hear the Zombies play their classic album.
POLICE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR SPEEDING MOTORISTS ON GUILDFORD ROAD The first in a series of police speed traps in the Birkdale area was in place this Saturday morning, 25th April, on Guildford Road. A concerned local resident discussed worries about speeding vehicles on Guildford Road and other roads, with Birkdale Ward Lib Dem councillor Simon Shaw and local Police Inspector McLoughlin at the recent Southport Area Committee meeting. Inspector McLoughlin has agreed to operate regular speed traps so as to deter speeding in the area. "I am very grateful that the police have been able to take effective action ...
Lib Dem London Assembly member, Caroline Pigeon, has launched a great campaign for a 'one hour' bus ticket. Caroline, who is transport spokesperson on the assembly, rightly says it's a bit ridiculous that you can change Tube trains with the same single ticket, but not buses. A one our ticket would largely solve this problem. There's a petition you can sign here.
Update - I of course take full responsibility for what I write, but I really need to avoid ever writing posts after midnight. This was one of many such mistakes: Laurie Penny seems to be a well respected blogger in the Red blogosphere, yet this piece in Liberal Conspiracy slapped me so hard I decided to [...]
