As exclusively revealed by the Salford Star here, Salford Council's £3 million bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund has been rejected on the grounds that "a hotel within a park would impact on its character". This all relates to the fact that last year Salford Council sold the mansion to a private invester who wanted to turn it into a four-star hotel. Lib Dem Claremont Councillors fought this decision every step of the way on behalf of residents and the local community. Lib Dem Councillor Mary Ferrer, who led the opposition to the hotel, is pleased that the community's arguments ...
Jennie Rigg has the sneak preview of the July Wikio rankings for political blogs - and the Lib Dems are doing well. Congratulations to Charlotte Gore and Mark Reckons, who have leapfrogged this blog and landed in the top 30.
Tim Ireland has pointed me towards a blog post on Journalism.co.uk which suggests that Guido is making money from blogging whilst newspapers are losing money. First of all for the first report No Shit Sherlock Mr Staines you really need better things to celebrate. How can you lose money with a blog all money spent is an investment? Moving on from that Mr Staines points out that his blog costs £200 a month to host. What a clown Mr Staines clearly is. When he was on Blogger it was costing him $10 a year but no Mr Staines had to ...
Star Date: 30th June 2009 A Salford Star Exclusive REDS ROCKED BY FURTHER STADIUM SETBACK Salford City Reds new state of the art stadium has received yet another huge blow as Salford City College was refused development funding by the Learning and Skills Council yesterday...
some level of sanity in relation to ID cards at last! Why did he not voice his opinion over the cards when this issue was raised? I can have respect for people who have the courage to make statements like this when it would make a difference.This was one more of Blairs gems which stunk... [...]
Alan Duncan (a friend of mine) has reported to the Commons that the dispatches box of the Commons has been vandalised. This is not the first time it has been vandalised back in August 2008 it was reported that Mr Brown had vandalised the dispatches box with his blank marker pen. First of all I think this is the most childish thing about the opposition, if they have nothing else to say they start coming out with rubbish like this. Its a bit like the day I met Mr Duncan. After asking him if Cameron was the male version of ...
If this week's weather hasn't got you all hot 'n' bothered, then what better way of remedying that than by watching tonight's Question Time (BBC1 and online, 10.35 pm)? David Laws, the Lib Dems' children, schools and families, will be the party's representative. The QT website gives his impressive pre-Commons bio: "Before his election to Parliament in 1997, he had a career in economics and business, during which he was vice president of JP Morgan, and head of US Dollar and Sterling Treasuries at Barclays de Zoete Wedd. He left in 1994 to take up the role of economic adviser ...
Thu 2nd
22:12
Why have we lost control of Swine Flue when Britain is supposed to be "the best prepared country in ...
For years the government have said that should a pandemic flu occur, with the most likely source likely to have been or still be in the future avian H5N1 flu, that we in Britain were the "best prepared in the world". Yet the government announced today that the health authorities had effectively lost the battle after two months and that with an anticipated 100,000 infections expected each day in late August, prevention was now virtually impossible and the government's strategy was moving to treatment. So how have the government lost control in such a short amount of time ? In ...
lol June 30th, 2009 | 7:47 am I would like to know why all Salford labour members werent notified or invited to attend the meeting at the Civic centre (held approx 3wks ago) to discuss Hazels actions?As usual, the first I knew of it was when it was announced on Sky News. Its really not [...]
{Birmingham News Room logo} After years of putting up with a sub-standard city council website that's extremely difficult to navigate or find the information you require, we finally have something useful in the form of BirminghamNewsRoom.com. One intruiging aspect is the News Feed function, which displays RSS feeds from not only the local mainstream media (Post, Mail, BBC) but also Adrian Goldberg's gossip website The Stirrer. With a fair amount of articles critical of the Council it's a brave move – one I'm very pleased with. The geek in me is very excited about the site and its potential – ...
Last night's City Council meetings lasted around two and a half hours and there was a substantial amount of important business discussed, including : * The HMIE inspection report on child protection services in Dundee and the Council's proposed improvement plan was debated, aimed at swiftly improving services to protect children and young people in the city. The HMIE report is of great concern and, having met with the inspectors earlier yesterday along with other council group leaders and spokespersons, it is clear that the City Council must act promptly and comprehensively to address all issues. At the Policy & ...
I have just watched Gordon Brown's interview with Gary Gibbon on Channel 4 News with incredulity. He claimed that he never done personal criticism of opponents. I audibly gasped. Gordon Brown has built his career and climbed the greasy pole by using smear and innuendo against his opponents. It might not have been him directly but his accolytes have been at it for years, nay decades. The Smeargate scandal exposed the dark heart of Brown's operation and although they (eventually) got rid of Damian McBride he is just a symptom of the problem. The problem is Brown himself. I asked ...
The Washington Post reports that Saddam Hussein's interrogations by the FBI have been released, under US Freedom of Information laws, to the 'National Security Archive', an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University. The NSA's website has "Twenty Interviews and Five Conversations with "High Value Detainee # 1", should anyone still be interested. Fortunately, the Post has done the hard work for us. There is of course the usual, now unsurprising, confirmation that Saddam had no link to, nor even any sympathy with, Al Qaeda: Piro raised bin Laden in his last conversation with Hussein, ...
It's BBC Question Time day again and the Live Chat on this blog will start at 10:30pm. The panel will include Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the House of Commons Harriet Harman MP, the former leader of the Conservative party Iain Duncan Smith MP, the Liberal Democrat MP David Laws, the musician and songwriter Jarvis Cocker, and the journalist and columnist Peter Hitchens. You can also follow people's comments on Twitter via the #bbcqt hashtag (you can also follow me here on Twitter by the way). Liberal Democrat Voice also always have an open thread for ...
Just realising via friends on Twitter and Facebook that Nottinghamshire Police have killed 2 of their dogs by allowing them to boil to death in effect.Left in a police car with no ventilation!I will be wrirting to the Chief Constable to urge the officer or officers concerned to be arrested and charged with animal neglect and cruelty.We must all act to ensure there is no cover up - this is absolutely bloody appalling.Shame on them! ------------------
{dscf4180} I spent Tuesday night on the other side of the South Circular in Grove Park Ward. I was there with the Housing Select Committee looking at the former council homes there. Like residents in Lee Green, tenants in Grove Park decided they'd had enough of Lewisham Council as their landlord, and voted to transfer their homes to L&Q - a not for profit housing association. The whole committee was really impressed with the work that's taking place at Grove Park. You can see in the picture above the choice (and standard) of kitchen residents are entitled to under the ...
{Ming Speech} Commenting on the tragic accident involving a Tornado F3 that resulted in the death of two airmen from RAF Leuchars, in his North East Fife constituency, senior Liberal Democrat MP Sir Menzies Campbell said: "This tragic accident is yet another reminder of the risks which our service men and women have to face every day. "The professionalism of the Royal Air Force is only assured by their constant training and preparation for combat. "The sympathy of the whole North East Fife community will be with the family and friends of the crew of this aircraft." ENDS
I've never done a motorbike post before, so variety is the spice of life and all that... I was strolling through a car park the other day and saw this exceptionally beautiful motorbike. It's a Harley, but, for a Harley, it's remarkably sleek and simple. The Liberal Burblings' "Man in the leather jacket" (live from Torpoint) adds: ...it's a Harley Davidson 1200cc "Sportster Dark", a new model which had a delayed UK launch due to the Dept of Transport needing to approve the rear light assembly which incorporates lights, brake lights and indicators all in a new style. I'd add ...
{leahurst-gate} Residents on Leahurst Road had complained to me about a fly-tipping hostpot in an alley to the rear of houses on Manor Lane. There was some delay in clearing this as the council first wanted to attempt to trace the owner of the land. Having been unable to do so, I'm pleased to say the Council has finally cleared this and arranged for a gate to be erected to stop any repetition.
The Eastern Daily Press has produced an intriguing analysis of last month's local elections results, attempting to estimate how voting then might map across to the Norwich North by-election to be held later this month: Calculating party support ahead of the by-election is difficult due to division boundaries overlapping constituency ones. An approximation would give a line-up based on the June 4 results of: Conservatives 10,656 (40.1pc); Labour 4,953 (18.6pc); Lib Dem 4,371 (16.5pc); Green 4,251 (16.0pc); Ukip – standing in only four seats – 2,106 (7.9pc); BNP 228 (0.9pc). ... Labour, Lib Dems and Greens will be seeking to ...
Dan Dan the Wikio Man has been in touch with me again, and he's letting me have the sneak preview of this month's charts :D For those of you who don't know what this is about, Wikio ranks blogs by authority, rather than pageviews or visitors. You go up in the rankings the more people link to you, so it's a measure of how much people are paying attention to what you're saying - although not necessarily agreeing with you (I firmly believe that That Tory Blogger keeps his top spot due to the number of people who link to ...
How is Lembit's media career progressing? I hear you ask. The Shropshire Star (as ever) has the answer: The Montgomeryshire MP earned up to £30,000 from TV appearances, writing articles and advising the Caravan Club of Great Britain during the 2008/09 financial year. This is in addition to his annual salary of £64,766 as an MP.
Iain Dale has written the Commons Confidential column in this week's New Statesman. I don't know what the magazine's readers will make of his mundane Tory views, but after Kevin Maguire anyone would read like Proust. There is one oddity. Iain positions himself as an arbiter of political morality - in Norwich North particularly: I was up in my old stomping ground of Norwich at the weekend, sniffing the by-election air. The Lib Dems had achieved the remarkable feat on the same day of writing to the Tory candidate, Chloe Smith, saying they wanted a good clean campaign and, in ...
Help is on hand in the Bullring this weekend for local families struggling to cope with the recession. Birmingham City Council set up the Financial Inclusion Partnership to assist struggling families to access help from organisations such as the Citizens Advice Bureau, Consumer Credit Counselling Service, Trading Standards, Job Centre Plus, Credit Unions, Banks and Utilities. Experts from the Partnership will be on hand in Edgbaston Street on Saturday from 10am to 3pm. View Larger Map
Here are the allegations, as summarised in a Lib Dem press release issued this afternoon: George Osborne used his second homes allowance on a London property and then switched it to a large farmhouse in his Cheshire constituency of Tatton. He bought the Cheshire residence ten months before he won his Tatton seat in 2001. Instead of taking out a mortgage on the farmhouse he increased the mortgage on the London property which he bought for £700,000 in 1998. He designated the London house his second home, even though it was his main residence, so he could claim mortgage interest ...
WAH! Forgot to set up Facebook and Flock Together in all the excitement over new phone! Rest assured, Liberal Drinks is still happening at 7.30 tonight in the Old Ship and all are welcome!
I have noticed that a lot of Labour candidates at the last local and European elections didn't push the message "Vote Labour" instead pushed the message "Vote Candidate X" and I think this is due to many factors. Labour candidates created "Vote Candidate X" posters and used them instead of Labour ones and some even customised rosettes to push the candidate forward instead of the Labour party and this is due to may factors. Everyone dislikes Labour, everyone you meet has either seen the weaknesses of Labour, think Cameron is attractive (clearly not the case) or have taken in by ...
Seven out of ten voters asked thought former Speaker Michael Martin shouldn't get a peerage. That's OK - everyone's entitled to their opinion. But the whole point of the Lords is to be an unelected chamber. You don't get there through a popularity contest. You get there because you're a CofE Bishop, a long-serving public servant or a large donor to the Labour party. It doesn't matter one jot whether everyone hates you or not. That's what unelected means. Or have we entered some twilight world where people think it's actually a sensible way to run politics that people being ...
Thu 2nd
16:40
LOTTERY REJECTS BUILE HILL PARK Salford council as not seen the report? perhaps they sould read the ...
We await the report from the HLF, on the specific detail as to why the decision has been taken. We understand that this detail will be received from our case officer, who is on leave this week. As soon as we are in receipt of the detail, it will be shared with all Councillors.? Somethings going wrong somewhere..... A Salford [...]
Cuts cuts and more Bloody cuts David Cameron urged the Government today to start making budget savings now to ease the pain of what he said were inevitable deep spending cuts later. The Tory leader said: "I do think that one of the ways to avoid very deep cuts in the future is to make a start [...]
SO, after all the rhetoric, the volatile protests, the minor voice of support and a lot of hand wringing, the government has thrown in the towel and declared that ID cards will never become compulsory.
So, the Government have nationalised something else, the East Coast mainline, and David Milliband is this afternoon trying out the new Government service, on the 15.00 service from Kings Cross. Here is the statement in an email just received from National Express themselves, with my comments <in brackets> East Coast customer statement: Dear Andrew, Following recent announcements by National Express and the Department for Transport regarding the East Coast rail franchise, please be advised that our service to customers remains unaffected. <God help us all then> National Express East Coast will continue to operate all its current services on the ...
After writing my blog post about the media hack who is attacking Obama because of some phone calls between Obama and Co. and the blogger I read a comment by Morus which really showed the whole situation and brought more thought to mind so I am going to go into more detail on this issue. Morus writes about how the Huffington Post blogger who was called to the Whitehouse was called after he had lead the way on reporting the Iran elections. After the Obama administration realised this they phoned him up to ask him to come and ask question. ...
Annual Council This is the mayor making council meeting and Councillor Margaret Court was duly appointed the Mayor of Sutton for 2009/10 with Councillor John Leach as her Deputy Mayor. This meeting also dealt with the appointment of members to committees for the forthcoming year.
Many people see Dreamwidth as a blogging platform that is good and some even call it great but personally I think its more amature then Blogger. There I have said it Dreamwidth is more amature then Blogger because of the weird looking layout and template that people are using it makes you wonder how people can make out its something special when clearly it isn't. Just look at this for example: The blog screen print above is from a site that I don't know much about its just a random site that I went to and personally it doesn't look ...
The narrow cabal of four KGB officers that controls Russia under Vladimir Putin has a brutally Manichean view of power. They do not believe in mutually beneficial negotiations, but only in the effective wielding of control. Thus they are a dangerous factor in the international community since any success for the West, by definition, must imply a loss for Russia. Even worse, Putin has a grievance against the current world order: he explicitly laments the fall of the USSR and intends to reconstruct the old power relationships whether using the power of Russian resources and money or- as in Georgia ...
Just spotted this gem of nonsense from Fox's mad media monster anchor Glenn Beck. If you have heard Beck speak before you might assume you know what you're in for. I advise you to fasten your seatbelts all the same. He actually argues, get this, that if he was Osama Bin Laden he would avoid instigating a terrorist attack on America at the moment, because, wait for it, this event would be the only thing that could force America to prevent a terrorist attack... Thereby preventing the end to which he had already secured... no wait... THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. ...
While in Leeds on a BBC Radio show Gordon Brown got phoned up by someone bemoaning the lack of government help for small family businesses. Gordon said someone would get in touch and then decided to visit the fish stall himself. This is clever stuff and it demonstrates to me that the Prime Minister is going to be no pushover at the next election. As usual it wil be for the government to lose the next election, not for the opposition to win, and Gordon Brown is no fool. I think the next election is going to be a humdinger! ...
Tony Blair said in 1996: "Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards, let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local community." But Tony and New Labour, drunk on the power of electoral conquest soon thought that the complete opposite would outflank the Conservatives and Lib Dems on the right. But sterling campaign work from the likes of No2ID, the Lib Dems and (somewhat hypocritically since they first proposed them), the Conservatives, gradually ground down publix support for the scheme. So when Alan Johnson announced that the government was dropping ...
It was lunch at the LGA conference in Harrogate and the delegates were all talking about the Cable/Cameron session-more of which later-when I met Jack Colbert. He and I were heading for the teas and coffees when we spied a third Sefton Councillor , Ron Watson. I was a tad surprised to see him at the Euro stand-but recalled that he does have some important role concerning Europe within the LGA. Jack and I were just about to say hello when Ron left carrying a striking blue and yellow plastic bag emblazoned with the logo of the European Union. He ...
The closing date has now gone for people wanting to send in objections to and comments about the planning application from Jack Allen Holdings to build a waste site at Garston Docks. There are a good two boxes full of objections. The planning department say that anything coming in late will be added to the total up until the report goes to the planning committee, so if you are sitting on an unsent objection it is still worth putting it in the post. The planning committee date isn't known yet but it is more likely to be next month than ...
... in Kingston with a terrific program of performances, shows and workshops. It kicks of with 'Youth TakeOver' in the main theatre at the Rose. Other acts can be seen at the Rose, Arthur Cotterell Theatre at Kingston College, the Performing Arts Centre at Kingston Grammar School, plus other venues including the Market Place. Photo of Ubu Roi, 5pm Monday 6th...
Quite a lot of nonsense has been written about the recent announcement that the Government has stripped National Express of its franchise to run the East Coast mainline. Something which is going to cost us a lot of money. So lets be clear . THIS IS THE GOVERNMENT's FAULT. plain and simple. 1. GREED- the Government wanted to raise some cash (for the next potty plan up its sleeve no doubt) and cut its own cash input into the railways. So it set up a sealed bidding process that blindly awarded rail contracts to the highest bidder. There was no ...
There are currently 68.4m analogue radios, in use in the UK, including 22.5m in cars, the Liberal Democrats have revealed. These radios will lose all national stations once the digital switchover is complete in 2015. If all these radios were to be replaced with digital ones, it would cost around £3bn. Commenting, Lib Dem Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, Don...
The NHS is great if you are a student, don't earn enough or are old as you get a lot of free benefits from it that in other countries you would have had to pay for. That's why many people argue that their isn't any place like the UK but the Tories would cut spending in the NHS according to a blog post by John Prescott and I shall look at how I believe that is a negative move. First of all the NHS is now relied upon by so many and with the money spend in the NHS cut ...
Well, despite Network Rail's best efforts I managed to make it to HHCC Scrutiny Panel (which I was chairing) not quite on time but near enough last night. How typical that train problems occur the day after the public meeting on the subject! The meeting lasted several hours but I think most people who attended would agree our scrutiny of these important issues is becoming increasingly effective as we focus on the important issues of the day and receive less information reports. If you would like to read any of the reports we discussed last night please visit the Council's website where most of them ...
According to a blog post by Iain Dale Obama and Administration have got on the wrong side of a media hack who has attacked back at the Obama and Co. with the following: Thomas said she was especially concerned about the arrangement between the Obama Administration and a writer from the liberal Huffington Post Web site. The writer was invited by the White House to President Obama's press conference last week on the understanding that he would ask Obama a question about Iran from among questions that had been sent to him by people in Iran. "When you call the ...
John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, today told the House that his new deputy speakers should be elected by MPs. From the BBC: In a statement, he told MPs he wanted two deputy speakers from the government side and one from the opposition side. He is believed to be concerned that following his own election by secret ballot last month the three deputies should also be elected. Mr Bercow indicated he had consulted party whips, who normally appoint the deputy speakers, about the plan. It is thought that Mr Bercow is looking to implement the changes – ...
I got my first ever season ticket today for Oxford United. I went in with my jar of 5p coins and coppers to the receptionist, a snooty bitch who sent me outside to the ticket booths. These were all closed so I had to go back in and get said snooty bitch to raise herself from her seat and waddle off to 'find someone'. I was then sent back out. After that it was much nicer. I filled my forms in and I was taken out to be shown a selection of seats in the family area. I've got a ...
As I commented last week, Christine Romer, key Obama advisor, has defended deficits in a recession and warns against consolidating too soon. You may also be familiar with the work of Greg Mankiw, a conservative economist, now frequently warning in his mildmannered way against public healthcare, but also on the lookout for dangerous fiscal deficits, and sceptical about their ability to boost economic growth. Mark Thoma finds a speech from the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President, which defends running a deficit when there are strong economic headwinds:Of course, the expansionary effects ... will be offset ...
Clare Short, in her book, An Honourable Deception?, talks about religious fanaticism. She makes the point that the Iraqi body count website calculates that between the 9/11 bombings and February 2004, there were roughly 3,500 deaths resulting from Islamic extremist attacks on Western targets. In comparison she points out that over 13,000 non-combatant civilians died as a result of the Iraq war, as well as another 3,000 in Afghanistan, and 3,000 Palestinian civilians. Looking at these figures – and acknowledging that many more Muslims have died in violence in the Balkans, Pakistan, Chechnya – it is easy to see why ...
Look! Not only nice t-shirts but also keepsafe angel mugs too, click on link in sidebar to go to shop...
The Guardian reports that David Cameron has embarked on another major step in the modernisation of the Conservative party by offering a public apology for section 28, the notorious legislation which banned the "promotion" of homosexuality in schools. In a gesture designed to stretch credibility the Tory Leader condemned section 28 as "offensive to gay people" and predicted that a Conservative would become Britain's first openly gay prime minister. How much of a journey this has been for Mr. Cameron is indicated by the fact that he voted against the repeal of section 28 as recently as 2003. The real ...
The internet is affecting politics more than some governments may care to admit. All around the world people have been watching footage of the way the repressive and regressive regime in Iran has been misbehaving. Power to the people! Long may it continue.
Last week I wrote about the Digital Britain report. Proposals included broadband for all (funded by a small flat tax on phone lines), tackling internet piracy in some ineffective way and switching off the FM broadcasts for the bigger national and local radio stations. It looks like the media has finally spotted the real issue: all the FM radios that won't be usable any more. Have they appreciated the scope, though? Commentators and interviewees have spoken about the cost of expanding the DAB network (itself outdated) compared to maintaining the FM network. That's a bit odd since, according to the ...
This week, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation produced a new report on 'What is needed to end Child Poverty in Wales'. The report is a welcome effort to re-start the debate over child poverty, not least because Labour's strategy for eradicating child poverty by 2020 is looking tired, bereft of ideas and defeatist. There is no quick fix solution to ending child poverty. But the government's efforts to date have primarily focused on pushing those easiest to help and nearest to the poverty line out of poverty through tax credits. This has been pretty much exhausted as an option and of ...
There is a campaign that started recently called "Scrap Early Day Motions" (website/blog here). They are campaigning to get rid of the House of Commons device for registering MPs feelings about issues altogether. They say: They serve no purpose bar perhaps generating a little local publicity - but if you can't generate publicity without some costly parliamentary motion you really aren't doing your job are you! So come on... who will get behind the call to get rid of Early Day Motions. At the time of writing there are 1757 EDMs (not counting amendments). If they due really cost circa ...
Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable today delivered a speech on localism to the Local Government Association annual conference in Harrogate. In his speech, he discussed the ways in which local government can be harnessed to avoid the boom and bust of recession. He said that councils should be given greater powers over their own funding with the ability to...
Ever since we went to the circus, {[info - personal]} amazing_holly has been scared of flushing the loo. This is because the toilets at the circus were blocked and overflowing and NASTY. She thinks if she flushes the loo it will overflow. All attempts to persuade her that the opposite of this is the case have failed. Any ideas, oh wise and powerful f-list?
You're rather brought down by the sad passing of the Queen of the Purple, Pink, Auburn, Green and Blue Rinse - and not by the "King of Pop". Mollie Sugden's Mrs Slocombe was a magnificent comic creation, always fighting her corner in Grace Brothers with a mixture of her usual assumed haughty grandeur and cutting asides in her real accent, and always vying with John Inman to steal the show in Are You Being Served? "Before we go any further, Mr Rumbold, Miss Brahms and I would like to complain about the state of our drawers. They're a positive disgrace." ...
Mr Quist has a thoughtful post up about the Conservative and Labour approaches to internet campaigning – thoughtful as much for his assessment of the Guardian's "analysis" as anything else. He concludes thusly: It can be done, though. You can have excellent local websites in those constituencies. You can use the Internet as an additional tool to [...]
Followers of Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone's blog can't have failed to notice her latest campaign - to bring in mandatory anonymous job applications "to end the subliminal discrimination that creeps in with some applications being discarded because of the names on them." Specifically Lynne wants employers to remove names and replace them with a number on application letters/forms – otherwise "we end up with people not being discarded from the first sift of applications because their name shows they are black, female or old". Lynne explained further: ... initial findings [from research by the Department of Work & Pensions] ...
I had my parents up at the weekend and what a jam-packed weekend it was - and i have only just got around to writing about it!
On Sunday I complained about the `Westminster Hour` and its final feature on `Dave's friends in the North` which featured the Lib Dems and their bid for seats in the North. You would have thought that a BBC programme of this niche listening would have known that both Newcastle and Sheffield Councils had Lib Dem [...]
A story arrives from the Bristol Evening Post: Outside Bristol Zoo is the car park, with spaces for 150 cars and 8 coaches. It has been manned 6 days a week for 23 years by the same charming and very polite car park attendant with the ticket machine. The charges are £1. per car and £5. per coach. On Monday 1 June, he did not turn up for work. Bristol Zoo management phoned Bristol City Council to ask them to send a replacement parking attendant. The Council said "That car park is your responsibility." The Zoo said "The attendant was ...
I'm pleased to report more progress in getting the brothel on Worsley Road shut. The place has been making local residents' lives hell for years and it's been a real struggle to deal with the problem - partly because the folks running the place have intimidated many of those who might have been willing to [...]
2 Big Stories The news has a state vs public ownership flavour at the moment: Passengers to pay price for crisis on the railways "A series of big projects are in grave doubt after the collapse of the highest-earning franchise exposed a deepening hole in the rail budget. National Express East Coast is to be renationalised after the parent company refused to honour a pledge to pay the Department for Transport £1.4 billion in the years to 2015. The DfT will have to accept a much lower sum when it puts the franchise back out to tender and is likely ...
Many politicians think its silly getting people together on a regular basis and talking campaigns and getting them prepared to get out campaigning but I think that is the downfall of those candidates. Candidates need to create communities of volunteers who are happy to campaign for the candidate and personally I think that is the best way to win an election. At a Parliamentary level candidates need to liaise with campaigners and the best way in my opinion is by socialising with campaigners via Liberal Drinks type events. I call on all Lib Dem candidates at the next general election ...
Claims by the Deputy Housing Minister, Jocelyn Davies, that she is on track to achieve her target of 6,500 new affordable homes have been challenged by the Welsh Liberal Democrat Shadow Minister for Housing, Peter Black. He has said that the claim that over 3,500 new homes have been built since April 2007 is misleading: "The One Wales agreement is clear that the government would not just build 6,500 homes, but would increase the supply of affordable homes by this amount," he said. "Only counting what has been built but ignoring what has been lost isn't a measure of her ...
I have been reading a thread on a forum and a person has started a petition to get an organisations building extended but for some reason doesn't have a good strong campaign and neither is the man and his organisation organised. So in this post I shall identify key campaign methods that people need to follow through to make a campaign successful. 1.Get a petition on the Streets not on the Number 10 website. A petition of the Downing St website will not help the campaign the slightest but a petition signed by the people who use the organisation/think it ...
The Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader, Kirsty Williams has called on the Government to publish details of all Ministerial expenses in the same way as those of AMs are made available on-line. She pointed out that many Ministers are able to shift travel and subsistence costs to ministerial budgets so as to appear whiter than white when it comes to comparisons with other Assembly Members. Because these are not published then there is a fog over an important aspect of public expenditure. Ms. Williams pointed out that mileage for Ministerial cars increased from 138,291 miles in 2007-08 to 260,989 in the ...
Scientists investigating the behaviour of monkeys have discovered the primates have a system of fluctuating prices and varying trade in goods and services. {monkey} The New Scientist journal reports the findings in an article entitled: Monkey "stock market" prone to fluctuations too Monkeys, they found, have a flourishing market consisting of grooming services, food, and much to the shock of the conservative press, sex. The value in these goods and services alters according to variations in supply and demand. So while bananas are abundant, one banana might equal half an hour's grooming. But if there's a shortage of bananas, then ...
I am delighted that the Royal United Hospital has been able to put up the extra cash to enable the new Special care baby unit to be built this year. My eldest son needed the old unit 28 years ago and I have given this new project my full support for some time now. The appeal still needs to raise another £1.5 million but this is a huge step forward. To read the full story...
Cross-posted from the Mandate blog: The issue of digital exclusion - and its close correlation with wider social exclusion - has been steadily moving up the public policy agenda over the last few years. Last year the Government published a detailed report into digital exclusion for example. But what do the latest internet access statistics tell us? The 2009 Oxford Internet Survey was released last week and it paints a picture of continued, steady growth in internet take up. It provides good grounds to believe that this growth will continue - but there are some sharp social divides. In 2003, ...
Even more than many other fields, web campaigning is open to spin. The same strategy can seem drab and old-fashioned or upbeat and exciting - just depends how you describe it. The Guardian believes the two big parties are "poles apart" on their web strategies, but are they really? So the Conservatives tell us about their super election strategy "it's going to be something pretty amazing from the Conservative party. It's not only about the top-down messaging but the relaxed nature in which we will let community activists ... respond on local news sites, mabe taking video footage of events. ...
Formula One drivers Rubens Barrichello and Nelson Piquet Jr have recently joined Twitter - and they are the real deal as it's on both their official websites. They are not to be confused with @fakerubens and @fakepiquetjr who are both funnier than the real things, especially when they tweet during the races. Over the last day or so, the two genuine articles have got involved in a bidding war for our affections, offering such goodies as racing gloves, helmet visors and even their racing suits for particular milestones of followers. Much as I love young Piquet, the prize I particularly ...
So the East Coast Main Line rail franchise has collapsed. In other news, after their exhaustive review into toilet provision bears have announced a ten-year extension of their contract to use the woods for their defecatory needs...What's surprising is that it took until the late bulletins to catch up with the fundamental point that all this has happened before. If AA's definition of insanity is
Plaid Cymru AM, Bethan Jenkins staged a short debate yesterday on the use of Twitter. The Assembly Commission is of course on Twitter but it was only whilst preparing for the debate that I discovered it had a Twitter policy. Naturally I asked them to condense it down to 140 characters or less: Using twitter to publish news atm, in future will use it to channel info,answer questions,inform public & engage them in democratic process
Yesterday West Lothian Council started court proceeding to get the back rent from Angelo Massone the chairman of Livingston Football Club. The day before the club failed to gain its safety certificate, that is galling and can only be a manpower issue as the stadium itself was still structurally sound last time I was in it. These Italians came to Livingston's rescue last summer after Pearse Flynn admitted he was at the bottom of his pocket. The fact that the ex-chairman has managed to win his only court case concerning the football club last season while suing us for money ...
I'm potentially blowing my chance at more freebies (I'm still reading "When the Lights Went Out"), but when organisations get in touch with me I tend to blog about the fact they've got in touch rather than covering the story straight. I don't think this blog's readers would care if I got paid to talk about something, but I know they'd rather I was upfront about it, and I think parroting press releases whoever they're from is the last thing people want. I don't sell advertising space either. The simple reason for that is that the content is the product, ...
The other week both The Speaker wrote in disgust of how the Eastenders storyline where Syed Masood starts an affair with Christian Clarke in his own words that the BBC were using what 'frowned upon within [Islam]' and South Asian culture and 'exploiting that is totally wrong'. While it may be frowned upon it is not, as one recent Gallop poll declared, that 0% of British Muslims believed that homosexuality was morally wrong. This month's Attitude magazine looks at the story from the side of those looked down upon not just from the Islamophobia that has sprung out of 9/11 ...
