I have been following with interest and posting about the "Please Go" petition on the Number 10 petitions website that asks Gordon Brown to resign. I have posted about it several times now. Kalvis Jansons, the person who started the petition now has a dedicated Google Group to support the petition. He also posted the following on another thread on my blog which I am happy to reproduce here: This is a 6 month petition, rather than the more normal 12 month. So, it is harder to break the record for the largest petition ever on Number 10. However, we ...
Whatever happens at the next election, one thing is certain: public spending will be cut and taxes will rise. The public finances and national debt is so dire, (with each man, woman and child owing the equivalent of £30,000), that the double whammy of spending cuts and tax increases is now inevitable. David Cameron is already preparing the public for this with his warnings about the 'age of austerity' and the need for Britain 'to live within its means.' He is absolutely right although he is unlikely to spell out the details of what a Tory Government will actually do ...
Not to be outdone by fellow Eurovisionista Cllr Fraser Macpherson of his ilk - I'm going to talk about 1981 as a follow-on from 1980 (see earlier post). The main thing to happen was the winning song was what I call a `marker` song in that it marked a line in the sand that pure pop [...]
Tomorrow's Daily Telegraph reports: In an echo of the split that led to the creation of the Social Democratic Party in the 1980s, up to a dozen Blairite MPs have discussed leaving the party.Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader, has disclosed that senior Labour members told him they were prepared to leave the party because they fear it could lurch to the Left.The paper goes on to say: Lord Ashdown - who was offered a seat in Mr Brown's Cabinet in 2007 - said: "What happens after the election if Labour loses? Very senior people in the Labour Party ...
Southend is in the news for the wrong reasons today, as the story of a local Conservatives stupid email ripples around. The Echo has the skinny. Chris Walker, who represents Eastwood Park ward, has caused quite a storm among his peers over the pictures of naked women with anti-Islamic text. The e-mail said Islamic men would have to commit suicide if they saw a woman, other than their wife, naked, and that all British women should walk the streets naked on Sunday afternoons to weed out terrorists. It was accompanied by a number of pictures of naked women, and ended ...
Nick Griffin, Chairman of the British National Party (BNP), has defended party literature which tells members that Asian Britons and black Britons "do not exist" and said that the attempt by a "liberal elite" to label such people as British amounts to a "bloodless genocide." The "BNP Language And Concepts Discipline Manual", leaked to anti-fascist group Searchlight and seen by the BBC, says that "BNP activists and writers should never refer to 'black Britons' or 'Asian Britons' etc, for the simple reason that such persons do not exist." Questioned about the leaflet's content, BNP Chairman Nick Griffin said: "In civic ...
The proposal to withdraw from Iraq has received widespread coverage, and to be honest I've been sickened by some of the commentary that somehow 'Iraq is a much better place since the invasion' Gordon Brown hailed Iraq as a 'success story' - I'm sorry I disagree! The Iraqi civilian count has been high, although its hard to be accurate because of the lack of formal record-keeping, it has reached anything between 140,000 to a million, 179 British soldiers, and over 4,200 Americans have been killed in the war. Financially, its cost the UK around £1bn a year - a huge ...
Figures from the Department of Health show alcohol-related admissions to hospitals have risen by over 50% in the last five years. Stormin' Norman Lamb attacked the Government for failing to do enough to tackle binge drinking and Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, criticised the Government's 24-hour drinking cultue. Metro reported the news with the wholly untrue headline "Number of drunks taken to hospital soars by half". According to the Daily Express "The grim reality of Britain's binge-drinking culture was laid bare". The truth is a little more complicated...and interesting. Let's go back and take a ...
Paddy Ashdown had come to Middlesbrough Town Hall for an "Evening With ......" session, so Julia and I paid our money and went in. We were distinctly unimpressed at the very difficult wheelchair access, but impressed that the bar was serving Fairtrade wines (tasting will have to be another time when I am not driving though!). Paddy gave an excellent and well presented talk based on...
At 06:39hrs on Friday 01 May 2009 Moss Side Firefighters were called out to reports of a fire involving a flat above a shop on Manchester Road in Chorlton Cum Hardy. On arrival the Fire Crews discovered a fire involving a bedroom within the first floor flat, tackling it using a Hose Reel whilst wearing Breathing Apparatus. Later a Positive Pressure Fan was used to remove smoke from the property. One female casualty received oxygen therapy for the effects of smoke from a Fire Service Trauma Technician, but declined hospital treatment.
Another first for women as Carole Ann Duffy becomes the first female Poet Laureate - and the first gay woman one at that. And a sad one as U A Fanthorpe - who could have beaten Duffy to it back in 1999 - has died. There are obituaries in the Times and Telegraph. Fanthorpe was [...]
Personally I would advice any politician that I know to stay away from facebook as a user themselves as it could cause them a lot of problems. Facebook has its advantages and then it has its disadvantages and I will discuss my angel of the argument in this here post. Creating a facebook account and getting all socially networked can not help a candidate at all people will not vote you because you are on facebook, its just meant to be a way of forwarding your views to the general public using the Internet. I would advice a candidate or ...
Good to see The Independent's lead story today is the plight of the orang-utan of Borneo. Several national papers have had stories about the orang-utan in recent months, The Times, Guardian, Daily Mail and Sun amongst them. Palm trees are ...
May 1st and we are into Eurovision Month! The Eurovision Song Contest 2009 will be the 54th contest, taking place between 12th and 16th May at the Olympic Indoor Arena in Moscow. Over the next few days, I'll upload some of my favourite Eurovision winners, starting with my absolute favourite of all time from 1973 - Anne-Marie David - "Tu te reconnaîtras." See more about the 2009 contest at : http://www.eurovision.tv/page/home
An interesting election leaflets case. (Justice Eady)It is a judgment to read rather than be summarised apart from "don't use the data protection act in an attempt to get your opponents to tell you what will be in their leaflets before they print them."
Very often when launching worthy initiatives politicans are wont to say something along the lines, "If it helps even one person it will have been worth it." This is usually a rhetorical device, rather than a statistically exact prediction. But Labour has taken the idea to heart with its mortgage protection scheme - official figures show that to date just one family has benefited since it was launched by the government last autumn. Here's The Guardian: The scheme, part of a package of emergency measures rushed in last autumn after months of tumbling house prices, has been "operational across the ...
Question how long did it take the powers that be to come up with this one. 30 kids to a class and 60 in a nursery. Most of the kids struggle to get the basics. Like most of our systems that have stood the test of time they are falling apart under a Labour Government. <!–Last Updated [...]
You may have heard on the news that there is a confirmed swine flu case at Downend School. South Glos Council has issued this press release. For more information on swine flu see the Council's regularly updated information page.
Haringey's Lib Dem Leader Robert Gorrie has been on Channel 4 News tonight to say that more than ever, we need a public inquiry on Children's services in Haringey.
{clegg-gurkha.jpg} Chorlton MP, John Leech, has today slammed Manchester's Labour MPs after all four of them failed to vote in support of offering equal settlement rights to all Gurkha soldiers who have fought for the British Army. In a historic vote in the House of Commons on Wednesday, a Liberal Democrat motion calling for full settlement rights for all Gurkhas who have served in the British Army was won by 267 votes to 246. This represented a crushing blow for the Labour government who had just last week issued new guidelines on the Gurkhas' settlement rights based on them meeting ...
From the Times Higher Education supplement: A senior lecturer at a leading university has spoken out about the pressure across the sector to mark students' work leniently, detailing examples of his own marking decisions being overturned.Stuart Derbyshire, a psychologist at the University of Birmingham, described how an examiner increased the marks he had given his students and told him he had to "work harder to find the excellence" in his students' work.Looking back, I think that was what I suffered from. My teachers never worked hard enough to find the excellence in my essays.
{IMG_1626} Our campaign to tackle tagging in Reading continues to gain momentum. Officers met this week following pressure from the Lib Dems to discuss how Thames Valley Police and Reading Borough Council can work together more effectively to tackle this problem and agreed the following: Officers confirmed that there is a definite increase in graffiti across the whole borough, with a number of areas, being affected more that others. To ensure that we deal with the issues more effectively, officers agreed the need to ensure that relevant agencies have a clear idea of which areas are being affected and the tags ...
According to a German bulletin board devoted to Eric Clapton: Der Blogger Jonathan Calder ist liberal-demokratischer Politiker, sehr regierungskritisch und ein großer Fan von Steve Winwood.
See, I take a post-conference break from blogging for some application form-related torture and the Welsh blogosphere decides to set itself on fire. And while peace has broken out on some fronts (something I'm all in favour of) there's clearly some outstanding business to be attended to.So, for the wilfully ignorant and the plain stupid alike, let me restate the position in words of as few
I'm about to nip out to fleece my "friends" at poker. Sure it's all, "hello! how are you! Mwah Mwah" but really I'm only there to take their money. Business is business. Still, can't help pointing my finger in this direction whilst shouting "See? See?! See????!!!!" Yesterday the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives voted together to defeat [...]
My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News. Triumphal 10 years The first House Points appeared in this newspaper on 23 April 1999. By my calculations, that means I have been writing this column for more than 10 years. To emphasise how long ago it was, the first one dealt with a nasty incident in which Sir Edward Heath almost sat on Robert Maclennan. Since then Ted Heath has gone to a better place and Bob has gone to another place. Having a day job in Leicester means I have not been to Westminster as I often as I ...
I always remember at the Brent East byelection. The photos next day had an afro-carribean family celebrating outside Sarah's HQ. The Brent East byelection was a seminal moment in recent political history - why? It proved the erstwhile static coalition of Labour voters (ethnic minorities, unionists, Irish Catholics and intellectual middle classes) could split from Labour [...]
'It is a year since Boris Johnson was elected Mayor' said the man on the phone from LBC. 'Last year, in the run up to the Mayoral election you wrote a post titled 'Why Boris Johnson is a really, really bad idea', do you still hold the same opinion?' 'Oh yes!!' said I! And so I'm going to be on Ken Livingstone's LBC show on Saturday morning to discuss Boris' first year. Also on is Dave Hill from the Guardian (v excited about meeting him, I love his blog) and I think Iain Dale, but maybe not, maybe another Conservative ...
Back from annual council meeting in Gateshead. The new mayor has been appointed. He is John Eagle, member for Bridges ward in central Gateshead. He was described as "one of the longest serving members of the council" by his proposer who pointed out he had been elected in 1998. Given that I was first elected in 1987, what does that make me? Part of the fixtures and fittings or a permanent feature
April was the best month since the birth of this blog nearly one year ago the number of people who uniquely passed through these doors is a total of 7,176! The Statporn for the month is: 9,868 Page views 7,176 Unique visits 1,548 returning visitors Lib Dem Voice had a unique readership in April of 31,063 so my blog got 23% of what Lib Dem Voice got what position would I take on the list of Lib Dem bloggers when weighing them out using Unique visitors? Charlotte Gore a well know Lib Dem blogger only got 14.1% of Lib Dem ...
It's one of the legacies of Paddy you know. You doubt it? Well ask yourself why any genuine Labour MP would think screaming, "We're doomed", "We're unpopular" and "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh" to the media a few weeks ahead of a big election would actually help the Labour Party? Undercover spies - you know it's the only rational explanation. Related posts:Labour's new membership leaflet shows just how unpopular even they think Gordon Brown is It's a membership leaflet from Labour. One side is covered...Political polling back to early 1990s levels The 1992 polling debacle The 1992 general election was a...What does Labour's internal ...
Many Liberal Democrats have disappointed me, you know who you are by supporting the idea of a Lib Dem-Conservative coalition. A poll out by Politics Home suggests that 70% of Lib Dems think a coalition would be a good idea and 80% of Labour think it will be a good idea for the two parties to go into coalition. I wouldn't enjoy being in a party that goes into coalition with the Tories but if the leadership do go into coalition I would then have to support their idea at a Nation level but locally would still see the Conservatives ...
The Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill has now left us and will be starting its progress through the Commons in a couple of weeks time. We have made quite a few changes in it, as follows: References are to the Bill as introduced in the Commons (Bill 86, printed 23rd April) 1. Clause 1 - General customs functions of the Secretary of State Clause 7 - Customs revenue functions of the Director The Government tabled amendments at Report to meet concerns expressed at Committee about the lack of clarity in the functions exercisable by UKBA officers. The wording of the ...
The Telegraph reports that even Gordon Brown's cabinet colleagues think that he has lost control of the Labour Party and is spiralling towards defeat at the next General Election. He has now suffered two humiliating defeats in the course of a week, being forced to back down on his ill-advised proposals on members' allowances and on the Gurkha issue: One minister close to Mr Brown told The Daily Telegraph: "We can still turn this round, but Gordon is not listening. He is lashing out and reacting to headlines. It's all so reminiscent of the last months of John Major. "If ...
Readership figures for political blogs are secret - especially the further you go into the furthest flung corners of the blogosphere. In fact, apart from the very top bloggers, everyone else is mostly silent about their readership figures. That's because the fall-off in readership from the top 2 blogs to even the 5th most popular blog [...]
Politics Home has an interesting poll which concludes that 86% of Conservative voters and 76% of Liberal Democrat voters would like to see the parties co-operate more following the Governments defeat on the Gurkha motion. Now, this is a poll you have to be extremely careful with for the simple reason that a positive response to the question was much more likely a day after the Gurkha motion won the day. Secondly, the sampling size is quite small I think at 873 adults. The desire for greater co-operation could also come from a negative rejection of this government and a ...
I still can't quite believe that the Lib Dem motion on giving fair rights to the Gurkhas defeated the Government this week. A government defeat on an Opposition motion is big enough news whatever the issue - this is the first time this has happened since the dying days of "Sunny Jim" Callaghan's hapless Labour Government in 1978! But the issue in question is more important than the politics - if Gurkhas were prepared to die for this country, we have a moral duty to let them live here. The Government cannot ignore this clear signal and I am delighted ...
Yesterday, the Telegraph's "Communities Editor" Shane Richmond poked an hornets nest with a stick when he stooped to mock veteran satirical/news magazine Private Eye. The celebrated organ, according to Richmond increasingly resembles an embarrassing dad at a disco, moaning that he can't hear the words and the music is just a noise before launching into a lecture on how they had proper pop stars in his day. As a decade-long subscriber to the rag, with piles and piles of the magazines still knocking around my house and the Eye's way of looking at the world firmly lodged in my subconscious, ...
The Council are holding a free dog microchipping day in Whitefoot on Tuesday 12th May from midday until 4pm at John Henry Housing Office on Verdant Lane. The Council says... " Free Dog Microchipping Day Lewisham Council, in conjunction with the south east London branch of the RSPCA, Battersea Cats & Dogs Home and Lewisham's Safer Neighbourhood Teams will be holding a free microchipping event for dogs owned by Lewisham residents.Microchipping is a safe, permanent form of ID that can help to reunite owners with their dogs should they become lost or stolen.The microchipping session will be on Tuesday 12 ...
Congratulations to John Roberts who has been selected as the Lib Dem Candidate in the Princes Ward by-election, which borders onto Oval Ward at Kennington Lane, Kennington Road and Kennington Park Road (John is pictured above with local Lib Dem Parliamentary Campaigner and London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon). We are backing John to win, he has lived locally for 20 years and has worked hard for the local community, for instance his hard work to support the Vauxhall City Farm, which is loved and valued by many people, including many Oval Ward residents. You can read more about the by-election ...
Monday Attended a very useful meeting at the Foreign Office with Mark Malloch-Brown to discuss the persecution of Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan, organised by Justine Greening, the MP who represents Putney where the world headquarters of the Ahmadis is based. The situation is getting even worse, as the extremists become ever bolder, and the forces of law and order are unable or unwilling to cope. Then, a visit from journalist Masooda Bhatti to talk about Bangladesh. Tuesday Shadia Syed to lunch, discussion on Bangladesh. Baroness Ward had a question about polygamous marriage in the UK (not lawful). I asked what ...
On Wednesday I met with the Council's Traffic Management Road Safety Officer who covers Prestwich to look at the "Chicane" on the run-up to Parrenthorn and St Margaret's School on Heywood Road. The scheme was put in place around two years ago to enable the stretch of road outside the schools to be 20mph. At the time we are very supportive of the scheme, as Heywood Road is a very straight road in the approach to the schools, there had been a number of accidents including a serious one involving a school student. I promised the schools that we would ...
Reading has a significant number of Gurkha ex-servicemen and their families, and Reading Liberal Democrats have joined some politicians from other parties, including retiring Reading West Labour MP Martin Salter, and the current Mayor of Reading Cllr Peter Beard, in campaigning for Gurkha justice and better welfare for Gurkha families. Yesterday was an historic day for the Ghurkas. Nick Clegg's motion to grant these brave soldiers the right to live in Britain passed by 267 votes to 246. It was a victory for justice. Clegg was absolutely right to press Gordon Brown on the moral principle at stake during PMQs- ...
{iraq-memorial.jpg} So 6 years of British involvement in Iraq has all but ended with the tranfer of authority in Basra to US forces. Commentators and Government spokesmen were last night telling us we've done a good job. So why don't I feel the slightest bit elated? I feel relieved that (hopefully) there will be no more British casualties, no more widows and grieving families from the conflict. I feel proud that our service men and women have done a first rate job in often hostile or difficult circumstances. But I still feel anger that we invaded without the backing of ...
{burglary.jpg} As anybody in Chorlton can tell you, crime in Chorlton is up. The past three months have been horrendous but I feel the police have turned the corner now. Between 28/1 and 22/4 this year: There were 82 burglaries There were 69 theft from vehicles. 34 cases of criminal damage (often related to theft from vehicles) Bike crime was up significantly. Estimates say 40% of crime in chorlton has a root in bike crime. The bicycle theives are then responsible for many other crimes whilst using that bike and said bikes are used as 'currency' between criminals. New Chief ...
... We'd say a big thank you to the 31,063 'absolute unique visitors'* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in April, our second highest total ever. That's up by almost one-fifth on last month's figure, and a whopping 88% increase on a year ago. This brings our absolute unique visitor readership for the last year to date (1 May 2008 - 30 April 2009) to 250,339, an increase of 120% on the equivalent figure for 2007-08 of 113,846. The 5 top-read stories during the month were: 1. Damian McBride, Derek Draper and the smears against Tories 2. Gurkhas win court case ...
29) Ammini Ramachandran, Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts: Recipes and Remembrances of a Vegetarian Legacy (Bloomington: iUniverse, 2008, 9781605280165). Ramachandran introduces the dishes of her Keralan childhood in a vegetarian Hindu household. The recipes are great, and I'm looking forward to trying some of them, but I didn't find the accompanying explanations as engaging as I'd hoped. There was a lot of repetition, and the style was rather flat. I think perhaps quite a lot of the book may have been cut-and-pasted from her blog. I did find it interesting to read about what constitutes seasonal food in Kerala, where ...
Harlow DC, Staple TyeLD John Strachan 604 (39.1; +6.0)Con 544 (35.3; -15.3)Lab 329 (21.3; +5.1)UKIP 66 (4.3; +4.3)Majority 60Turnout 30%LD gain from ConPercentage change is since May 2008Party defending seat: (Elected as a Conservative but subsequently sat as Independent). Cause: Disqualification.Stirling UA, BannockburnFirst Preference VotesLab 1131 (39.9; -11.1)SNP 1067 (37.6; +4.4)Ind 229/89/
It would be easy to portray the latest controversy about cuts in the Welsh budget as yet another split in Plaid Cymru, however that is not my intention here. On the one hand we have the party's principle economic advisor, Dr Eurfyl ap Gwilym, arguing that efficiency savings are not enough to cope with the sort of cuts in the Assembly block grant expected over the next few years. He says that there will have to be job losses beyond natural wastage to make ends meet, even in areas like health and education. On the other hand, the Deputy First ...
More photos at ripplestone garden
{diary.JPG} 8th Official Launch of Prestwich Festival 13th Annual Meeting of Council - Bury Town Hall. The ceremony to appoint the new mayor for 2009/10 - Cllr Sheila Magnall and the Annual State speech from the Leader of the Council followed by the State of the Borough debate. 14th Prestwich Local Area Partnership - Heaton Park School, Cuckoo lane, from 6.30pm 16th Polefield TRA / Holyrood Councillors Surgery - Heaton Park School 2-4pm. Informal surgery with cakes and refreshments, why not drop in for a cake and a chat! 17th Prestwich Clough day www.prestwichclough.co.uk The opening event of Prestwich Festival. ...
According to a blog post by Guido Fawkes a golf course is offering people the chance to hit Gordon Brown's picture with Golf Balls and personally I think its a great idea. Maybe a trip needs to be organised to go and hit Gordon but then again that might just be a bad idea because most of the country would turn up to give the Prime Minister what he deserves. Would Brown get actual Golf Balls shot at him for charity if he would count me in I will be their!
Last night, representatives from many local Lib Dem constituency parties across the region went to Newcastle Civic Centre for a seminar about finding local council candidates. This is an initiative from the Government which is funding programmes like this in all the mainstream political parties. ALDC are enabling this within our party.The intention is to broaden the base of people willing to
Yesterday I wrote about how Iain Dale thought Charles Clarke could be someone who was thinking of challenging Brown to a leadership election. This thought kept me up all night thinking about it and in the early hours of this morning I decided that Clarke would make a great leader of the Labour party and I think he should call upon Brown to resign and call a leadership election. First of all I think Clarke needs to get a leadership election to take place inside the Labour party, upon winning this Clarke needs to call a general election and if ...
Ken Livingston the beast that made Labour in London and might just break it, has made comments that suggest he knows Labour are to lose the next general election. Ken Livingston made the following comments to the Evening Standard and they have been blogged about by Paul Waugh the Standard's setter of high standards! "I wouldn't bet my own money on Labour winning..." Now that should be worrying for Brown personally, when Labour didn't make him their candidate he stood Independently, why? Because he is a politician with balls who has lost because of Labour. If Livingston had fought the ...
You have to admire Boris Johnson's press team. At 5pm on Wednesday, the GLA issued a very dull press release entitled "Mayor sets out 20 year vision to make London the envy of the world" to launch a document on the Mayor's progress in revising Ken Livingstone's London Plan. I thought this was slightly odd. Why publish this document, which is a sort of draft of a draft, and why publish it at 5pm on a Wednesday? What is more, the press release was dull and the 94 page document itself didn't even have an executive summary. Planning is probably ...
Northavon MP Steve Webb will use a debate in Parliament next week to challenge the Government over what he will call the 'shambles' of public transport in Bristol and South Gloucestershire. The MP will lead a 30 minute debate on Tuesday (May 5th) on the 'regulation of local bus services'. The Lib Dem MP has called for the debate in the light of the decision by First Bus to withdraw the X27 service with no consultation and a minimum of notice. Speaking ahead of the debate, Steve Webb said: "The way public transport is run in our area is a ...
And I spent it talking residents in a fairly leisurely fashion. A couple of the people I met were people who had usually voted for other parties, but were already coming to the conclusion that they really had more in common with the Liberal Democrats. The Gurkha vote came up quite frequently, and someone also told me that they generally voted Liberal Democrat because they supported PR. This doesn't happen everyday! And a couple of people volunteering to do some delivery - perhaps it is the sunny weather that does it!
From Lewisham Council.... Compost Awareness Week Compost Awareness Week runs from 3 May to 9 May and aims to encourage more people to recognise the benefits of home composting as well as the great results that can be achieved by using peat-free compost containing recycled material. The theme for this year's Compost Awareness Week is "food for thought". To mark Compost Awareness Week, Lewisham Council is holding a drop in session at Manor House, Beckenham Place Park on Saturday 9 May, between 12 midday and 4pm. Up to 100 residents can claim a free compost bin, courtesy of Lewisham Council, ...
Last week (and I can't believe it is actually that long ago) the PR students at Edge Hill University organised an event at the Valley Community Theatre. For the uninitiated this is an organisation in Netherley. It works with young people "at risk", it is home to a thriving youth theatre and it plays host to touring companies which means that people in that part of Liverpool can see theatre without having to journey into town. The students had two PR briefs - one to raise the profile of the youth theatre and one to look at getting more organisations ...
Green Liberal Democrats quote the sustainable transport pressure group as describing Budget 2009 as a series of missed opportunities. Jason Torrance, Sustrans' Policy Manager, said: 'The measures announced in the budget will deepen the nation's reliance on car travel, and do nothing to improve local environments, health, road safety or travel choice.'The scrappage scheme is a catastrophic knee-jerk reaction to the recession, which ignores congestion and climate change and could amount to nothing more than a large hand-out to car manufacturers overseas. Sustrans has already suggested alternative ways for the scrappage money to be spent that would bring about substantial, ...
The Surrey Comet has once again spoilt a perfectly good news item with an inaccurate headline. The story is about Councillor Liz Green, who is taking over as Deputy Leader of the Council, now that Councillor Barry O'Mahony has decided to step down from the role. (Congratulations, Liz!) She talks about primary school places and recycling as her top priorities. It also...
Last weekend saw the culmination of the conference season here in Wales. As we all know, conferences are an opportunity to showcase who you are and what you stand for as a party. From what I saw and the feedback I received of the other conferences I think it's fair to say that the press did get a good feel of where the parties are in Wales at the moment.It started with the Welsh Conservatives
In print, on television and radio, online, in lecture theatres and in town squares up and down the country, we are seeing a resurgence of an ailing art; public debate is back, and this time it's polemic. How to recalibrate capitalism in the wake of recession; how to ensure whatever emerges has less impact on the environment; how a lasting peace can be achieved in the Middle East; these issues and more are being pored over with a renewed vigour. To that end we should be proud to live in a country that leaves us free to express our opinions; ...
{MX-2700N_20090501_104109_001} A local resident has passed us this comment from Angela Epstein writing in the Evening News - its a couple of weeks ago on 16 April. "Where is the sence in carving up this unique piece of open parkland when there must be vast tracts of derelict wasteland that could easily be used for the proposed sports project? And wouldn't many inner city sites and children from deprived areas benefit in particular from the addition of a supervised and subsidised sports complex close to their homes?" Read the whole article here.
In response to a comment on this post, I had a brief scout round the internet to see if I could find any evidence of an organised campaign against the proposed new blasphemy law. I couldn't find anything much on the "old" internet but was encouraged to see that in all the letters published today in the Irish Times, not one was in favour of the new law. In fact, some were suggesting that it made a good smokescreen from the unemployment figures. You would certainly have thought that the Irish Government had bigger battles to fight at the moment ...
A report to the Supporting the Vulnerable in our Community Overview & Scrutiny Committee highlights the problems being faced by Barnet community transport. BCT is a not for profit membership organisation that provides affordable and accessible transport to many groups including the elderly and people with disabilities. It is also the lead partner in providing the Rolling base bus which provides activities and support for community youth work. The problem BCT has is funding. Much of its previous funding came from charitable grants and the lottery. According to the report Barnet Council provides in kind financing i.e. office and parking ...
Councillor John Warmisham's blog was the last place I expected to see confirmation that Labour have completely failed the people of Salford and, further, that voters are now turning away from them in droves. This screen-grab of his blog today, contains comments from the Councillor on Twitter, in which he confirms that members of CAMRA (campaign for real ale) will not be voting for Labour due to yet another increase in tax on beer. They are also unhappy that pubs are closing - the same pubs that provide for communities to get together, socialise and in a lot of pubs, ...
Launceston Lib Dems have launched our campaign for 10p first hour car parking in the town. We believe that such a scheme will help local businesses and revitalise the town centre. The campaign is part of the wider Cornwall Liberal Democrat pledge to introduce 10p first hour parking in all towns in the County following the hugely successful pilot in Lib Dem run Caradon. Local shops and businesses are suffering during the recession in Launceston as everywhere else. There are a number of empty properties at the moment including the former Deli Paradiso and Briggs Shoe Shop which closed recently ...
The Government has scrapped plans to build a national database of all internet browsing, emails, phone calls and social networking activity.
There are just five car club spaces in Belsize - four of them on the southern edge of the ward. That's one car club space for every 1,660 residents and a long walk to get to a car club vehicle for most of us. It's not enough. Car club spaces take up to ten private cars off the road. Residents who don't use their car every day would be financially better off if they simply rented a car club vehicle on an occasional basis rather than owning a car. Being a car club member also takes away the stress of ...
Staple Tye ward, Harlow District Council Thursday 30 April 2009 LD 604 (+ 48) 39.145% (+ 5.971%) John Strachan ELECTED Con 544 (-304) 35.256% (-15.341%) Lab 329 (+ 57) 21.322% (+ 5.093%) UKIP 66 (+ 66) 4.277% (+ 4.277%) Turnout 30% (-2.26%) 133 less valid votes LIB DEM GAIN (from Con) - MAJ 60 Local activist Lorna Spenceley points to a massive drop in the Tory vote: a huge blow to the party in one of its very top national target parliamentary seats. Also significant is the poor showing of UKIP.
I spent £43.50 on "parking" attending the first Manchester Liberal Drinks - a sort of protozoan Liberal Club, organised through facebook. First we went into the wrong car-park, too far away from the venue. That cost me £3.00 to get out. I was reminded of Fargo, where Steve Buscemi's character shoots the car-parking attendant for demanding payment [...]
The IFS have produced an analysis that is long-overdue, IMHO: re-estimating the economic cycle and therefore questioning whether we really were having a bust without a boom (as is asserted in some government circles). If you can remember back to the halcyon days of Brown's last few budgets, he would always confidently claim that "the golden rule will be met". This meant that the current budget (e.g. without investment) was balanced over the economic cycle. But this required estimating what was and was not "normal" economic growth. The Treasury cut down a few forests working on this one (see e.g. ...
EVERYONE REMAIN CALM. THERE IS NO NEED TO PANIC ABOUT THIS DISEASE WHICH IS GOING TO KILL US ALL. THE GOVERNMENT IS FULLY IN CONTROL OF THE SITUATION... WAIT, DID THAT MAKE IT WORSE? Seriously, swine flu is getting really annoying. Apparently, there's going to be a pandemic and, as anyone who's ever had the misfortune [...]
Exactly one year ago the local elections showed a sign of bad news for Brown and party when their total outcome was lower then the Lib Dems in the share of the vote they received. One of Labour's high flying politicians Ken Livingston lost his seat to the comedian of politics that is Boris Johnson. Will Labour recover from this is the question being asked by some from this downturn in the eyes of the general public they are going through? Probably not is the answer or the best reply because it isn't looking good. When most commentators pointing the ...
May's edition of Total Politics carries part one of a two part series from me about how people in politics can get the most out of Facebook. Liberal Democrat Voice has covered many aspects of Facebook in the past, including tips for keeping on top of your notifications and Steve Webb's innovative Facebook surgery, but what are the basics you should get right? And if you think I've missed out something crucial, the comments thread awaits... How to make the most of Facebook Finding out what's going on, communicating and getting feedback are essential parts of the job of any ...
The World Health Organisation (WHO) is reportedly no longer using the term 'swine flu'. Instead, it will call the virus influenza A (H1N1) as it is unfair to blame little piggies now that it is being transmitted from human to human. Somehow, I don't think the new name will catch on.
"The hour of his greatest triumph may seem an eccentric time to suggest this, but this is the perfect moment for Nick Clegg to hand Vince Cable his job," says Indy columnist Matthew Norman. (Eccentric doesn't cover it, Matthew, but let's hear you out:) It is through no fault of his own that his party is poised to squander a second successive breakthrough opportunity (the last drowned in the dregs of Charlie Kennedy's Glenlivet after a woefully lacklustre campaign). A likable, intelligent and evidently sincere chap, and a gifted communicator, Mr Clegg can't help looking like the centre picture in ...
On BBC Question Time last night, during the inevitable question about MPs expenses, the subject of MPs doing other jobs came up. Andrew Lansley, Shadow Health Secretary admitted he has a second job as a non-executive director of a company and rather commendably also said how much he gets paid for it and how much work he actually does for them (£24,000 per year and 11 or 12 days - nice work if you can get it). Frank Skinner (who was very good and incisive all night I thought) was incredulous that any MP could afford the time to do ...
Vanessa Carlton - A Thousand Miles Uploaded by Vanessa-Carlton
This article first appeared in a special edition of the Journal of Liberal History (Issue 33) on Liberals and Ireland. The repeal of Poynings' Law in 1782 brought about a short-lived period of real devolved power for the Irish Parliament that lasted until the 1801 Act of Union which, despite its name, was in effect a restoration of English power over Ireland. Poynings' Law was named after Sir Edward Poyning (1459-1521), a support of Henry VII who was sent to Ireland on his behalf in 1494. He summoned a parliament in Drogheda, which passed a variety of laws strengthening the ...
These were all taken this time last last year, according to my camera. All are in the garden, except the poppies (top right), which were in the beautifully manicured Welwyn Garden City centre.
I'll be posting a larger thing tonight, probably this week's music post, and I would have been doing a comics post but Jess Nevins lies! However, in the meantime, here's a few links to show I aten't dead yet. (There was no post last night incidentally because it was the first Manchester Liberal Drinks. Which [...]
The profile of James McQuillan on The Apprentice website describes him as a "former child chess champion". I don't remember his name, and he is old enough to have been around in the days when I devoured chess magazines. Nor can The Streatham & Brixton Chess Blog or the English Chess Forum find any evidence for this claim, though one poster on the latter says McQuillan used to play for Thornbury in the Bristol League. Always remember: nothing on television is true.
So a Scottish couple who caught swine flu "feared they might die" did they? What a surprise. How could they think otherwise, with every media outlet in the world shouting doom. This is the really scary thing. "The last thing anyone would want is panic" says Today programme reporter this morning. So stop fucking running headline stories telling us everyone in the world is going to die, then. I rarely disagree with Ben Goldacre, but I have to take issue with a piece he wrote in the Guardian yesterday. Ben's take on swine flu is that we just don't know. ...
Fri 1st
07:10
Government's Mortgage Rescue Scheme 'has helped just one household' I hope the Swinton South Labour ...
Government's Mortgage Rescue Scheme 'has helped just one household' A Government scheme to help families avoid losing their home has helped just one household since it was launched in January, figures showed today. The £200 million Mortgage Rescue Scheme aims to prevent the most vulnerable people from having their home repossessed by enabling them to sell all [...]
>> >> >> >> >> 'Today >> we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, >> who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure >> how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost >> in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having >> cultivated such valuable lessons as: >> >> Knowing [...]
Islington Liberal Democrats filled committee rooms 5 and 6 in Islington Town Hall last night, to launch the borough's Euro-election campaign. The sitting MEP, Sarah Ludford, is 'home grown' (though actually I first came across her when we were both living and working in Brussels) and both she and I rallied the troops, before a [...]
So, SB gets home from Liberal Drinks (Manchester), several sheets to the wind and craving biscuits. So I baked biscuits. Loosely based on a recipe for Ginger Nuts from Delia (for USians, if you've not heard of her, she's Alton Brown in a twin set. Who runs a football team as a hobby. Also, they're a type of biscuit. Which is sort of like a cookie, but not. And yes, we get the 'nuts' joke). 2 oz Self Raising Flour 1 (large) teaspoon of ground Cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda 1 oz granulated sugar 1 oz butter/margerine 1 tablespoon ...
Some of these reviews can also be found on Amazon.In April 2009, I read the following books: 1. Alamein to Zem Zem, by Keith Douglas This first-hand account of the battle of El Alamein by a tank commander who was also a well-regarded poet is well worth reading. While it is rather more gung-ho, the closest parallel I can think of is some of Wilfred Owen's poetry from the Western Front of the previous round of Unpleasantness. I was particularly struck by something that is very common in real military memoirs but almost entirely absent from fictional ones: that soldiers ...
I spent three hours this morning knocking up in Staple Tye. Harlow had a very tight result in the last General Election, and both Labour and the Tories are putting a lot of resources into the seat. So congratulations to our local team (there is a great team of activists in Harlow) for a great victory: UKIP 66 (+66) LAB 329 (+57) CON 544 (-304) LIB DEM 604 (+48) LIB DEM GAIN (from Con) - MAJ 60 New COUNCIL Con 18(-1), LibDem 9(+1), Lab 6. Conservative Maj 3 (down2) John Strachan will make a great councillor for Staple Tye. The ...
Let us move on a bit from the euphoria of what must have been the first Liberal party led parliamentary motion to have defeated the government since, oh, probably 1922 or something. Yes, it was a sweet moment, but I've been on duty in halls tonight and went, so I thought, to "celebrate" with my ex-Gurkha security guards. There really is very little to celebrate as it turns out. This resettlement stuff is the tip of a very large, a truly Sagarmathan sized, saga of discrimination and outright deception wielded against the Gurkhas for decades - generations indeed - which, ...
I have recently had lots of graffiti complaints and the mess on the rail bridge pillars on Riverside Drive and surrounding area in the ownership of Network Rail is a prime example of this. I have this week been in touch with Network Rail requesting a graffiti clean up.
