5 buses and a trip round the world. Trip in to see Stockton's carnival parade at the Riverside Festival was difficult. 25 minutes wait for a bus that is supposed to run every 10 minutes is one thing. Lots of people being left at bus stops including people in wheelchairs is another, and so many people will not have been able to see the magnificent Community Carnival. Over 1,000 people were...
Last Saturday I wrote about Frog Island and the disappearing remain of the old Great Central railway line through Leicester, inspiring Alex Foster to discover Nottingham Arkwright Street station in the process. That station, incidentally, was built by the contractors Logan & Hemingway, in which my political hero J. W. Logan was a partner. The Great Central through Leicester returned to the headlines this week with news that the city council wants to demolish the most notable remaining structure. On Friday the Leicester Mercury reported: Leicester City Council is expected to agree plans to demolish the city's historic Bowstring Bridge ...
Sat 1st
22:55
One of the Labour councillors told me to down load this film, looked at the trailer scared me to dea...
Sat 1st
22:49This Man can't live in Salford Under New Labour, because Labour wanted to cut one of their Environme...
22:44 Breaking news which I hope to keep updated as more becomes available. Apparently a gun man opened fire in a gay club in Tel Aviv, Isreal this evening killing 2 and wounding up to 12 others. According to Sky the shootings took place outside Cafe Noir in the liberal northern Isreali city which has a thriving gay community. I'm also picking up stories that the group that was targeted may well have been a youth facility for teenagers seeking support and that one young girl and a counsellor are the two who have died. Police have ordered all the ...
The link is to a story about a court of appeal judgment that moves away from treating smacking as child abuse. That sounds good to me, but I would like to read the judgment before saying much more.
Today is the first of August and that means one thing - yes, the start of the football season is soon upon us. I've got my FourFourTwo season preview so am almost ready for the kick off. The first live TV game is on Thursday on ITV4 in a game where Fulham are already three up against some team from Lithuania - but a drought is a drought. My earlier grumble about Sky/ESPN/Setanta etc seems to have nearly reached a solution with ESPN possibly being available on Freeview. Hopefully they will sort this out before the Premiership starts. ESPN is ...
According to many commentators including the BBC, Ahmadinejad's support is supposed to come from rural areas. But the CIA Factbook and other websites say that in 2008 around 68 per cent of the Iranian population lived in cities and the proportion is increasing at about 1.7 per cent a year. This is why I find the current regime's claim that Ahmadinejad won the election in June simply incredible. (The BBC, incidentally, has been very polite about the whole subject of the disputed election, but it does not stop a thinking observer from putting two and two together.} Since the current ...
The Duck Race gets underway with Ian Swales commentating and Chris Abbott shepherding The British Legion stall. Dave Blissett (left) and Councillor Eric Howden Secretary of Yorkshire Ridings Society Nancy Hudson Glynis Abbott on the YRS Products stall The Saltburn Miniature Railway always flies the Yorkshire flag on Yorkshire Day
It's just over two months since we moved to our new redesigned home – and we are beginning to get more people visiting the site. In both June and July we came within a whisker of topping 5000 hits a month from well over 1000 users. We seem to be getting a dedicated band of regular followers who like what they read – hence why they keep coming back. I'd anticipate over August this will drop as the holiday season kicks in before picking up again in September and October as Westminster, the Assembly and Councils get back to work ...
If admitting mistakes is a crucial step in the healing and learning process then the Financial Services Authority will never heal nor learn. They are supposed to be the guardians of our financial sector but have failed to admit their part in the demise of Scotland oldest and biggest building society - the Dunfermline. There are strongly competing claims about whether the Society could have been saved earlier this year. The advocates for survival claimed that the over stringent capital adequacy requirements combined with the short sited Treasury which didn't recognise the society's importance to confidence in the 'safe' mutual ...
Devel::CheckLib has grown a new feature. As well as checking that libraries and headers exist, it can now also check that particular functions exist in a library and check their return values. This will be particularly useful if you need to check that a particular version of a library is available.It works if you have a Unixish toolchain. I need to wait for the CPAN-testers reports to see if I managed not to break anything on Windows. Unfortunately, even though the lovely Mr. Alias has worked hard to make Windows machines available to developers, I found it to be just ...
Posted by Chris: As if the rain wasn't enough! To add insult to injury BBC Tees refused to report that today was Yorkshire Day and totally snubbed the big events that were taking place in Saltburn, Redcar, Thornaby and Whitby. Clearly the powers that be in the Tees Valley quangos have been whispering again in the Wig and Pen about promoting that nonsense area instead of our real County. It is time they realised Tees Valley is NOT a county and never will be. It is a name made up by unelected quangocrats for an organisation of five unitary authorities ...
The wet weather has put a real dampener on this summer's outdoor events (not withstanding the success of last weekend's Sheffield Music City), as shown with this sorry sight that greated me as I walked up The Moor in Sheffield earlier today: Coupled with the indoor sand pit the usual summer activities in the city look [...]
In the wake of Ferrari's Felipe Massa's horrid accident last weekend, Sky Sports rounded up his 19 fellow drivers and asked them to record a short message of support for him. It's now up on You Tube, so I thought I'd post it here in case you hadn't seen it. All of the drivers are clearly concerned for Felipe, although Kimi in typical fashion gets his message into as few words as possible. Some of the drivers are clearly uncomfortable in front of the camera and having to think up a message, often not in their first language on the ...
I love the Grauniad dearly, sad liberal that I am, but it surprisingly rarely that I think the opinion pieces are all good. Today appears to be an exception. First up we have Paul Kingsnorth. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty impressed by an environmentalist committed enough to change their surname to match a controversial coal and gas fired power station. He points out the way environmentalists see wind-farms as an unquestioned good thing is a little odd. How would you imagine an environmentalist would react when presented with the following proposition? A power company plans to build ...
Posted by Chris: You wait years for Yorkshire Day (1st August) to fall on a Saturday, organise a bigger event than usual event and it rains! The miserable weather kept the crowds away from our Summer Fayre and Duck Race and even some of the stall holders stayed at home. Prospective Lib Dem MP for Redcar, Ian Swales and Councillor Eric Howden started the day off in Redcar High Street where Eric promoted the sale of white roses by the ladies of Redcar Ladies Lifeboat Guild, in aid of Redcar lifeboat and Ian read the Yorkshire Declaration of Integrity. In ...
I was pleased to be advised by the City Council's Waste Management Department this week of progress towards implementing a litter protocol for schoolchildren in the city. Having received complaints from residents over past months about litter left at lunchtimes in the Perth Road area, I have been in touch with both Harris Academy and the Waste Management Department about this. The school has been very proactive in following up complaints and has put staff resource in to tackle it. Being aware that this is not just an issue in the West End, I had asked the Waste Management Department ...
The headline article in today's Guardian talks about the unpaid interns that work in Westminster and how MPs are using free labour. Whilst I have some sympathy with the argument, it fails to acknowledge what is really happening. To a Member of Parliament, an intern is an opportunity to have an extra member of staff for [...]
Sat 1st
17:30
CommentIsLinked@LDV... Nick Clegg: If they drag McKinnon to America, he will never come back
Over at the Daily Mail, Nick Clegg mounts an impassioned attack against the decision to allow Gary McKinnon – the man with Asperger's Syndrome who has admitted to being an amateur computer-hacker – to be extradited to the USA. Here's an excerpt: If he boards the plane to the U.S., it is almost certain he will never set foot on British soil again, doomed to pass out the rest of his days in shackles on a foreign shore. This is nothing short of a disgrace – and yet there is still one tiny glimmer of hope. Even now the courts ...
Sat 1st
17:19Travelers have a look at the figures and tell me is there a Problem In Oldham.Stockport,and Tameside...
travelers
This is a post by Mark Pack on Liberal Democrat Voice. It needs wider circulation and thus I believe it is worthy of re-posting in its entirety: The Voice has covered various stories about people being questioned by the police for taking photos. So here's the guidance from the National Policing Improvement Agency* from their 2008 guide, Stop and Search in Relation to Terrorism: The Terrorism Act 2000 does not prohibit people from taking photographs or digital images in an area where an authority under section 44 is in place. Officers should not prevent people taking photographs unless they are ...
Commenting on the High Court decision not to overrule the extradition of Gary McKinnon, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said: "Today's judgement is a hammer blow to a vulnerable man and his long suffering supporters. "The succession of ministers who have let this sorry saga drag on for seven long years should hang their heads in shame. ...
Today, mixed in with the other mail on my doormat, there was a religious magazine called "Good News". I'm not sure why it's called that, as there was nothing in there about me getting pots of cash, or about the government getting the hell out of consenting adults' private lives, or the Olympics being cancelled, or the murderous government of Burma being overthrown. Perhaps the good news was more subtle.And I've found what it is. There's a letters page in the magazine! One of their readers wrote:" Whether this present depression and downturn signal's Jesus Christ's return, no one knows. ...
It turns out my July stats are virtually identical to June, with 5,314 unique visitors to the Cafe - love you all (though in some cases in the way a long-suffering parent loves their crack-head son). Sadly I can't do all the extra stuff like my top posts, because the free version of StatCounter only saves the last 500 page loads for the detailed stat stuff. Probably ought to switch to Google Analytics. Then again, probably lots of things I ought to do. August, I can confidently predict, will be a light month both for my posts and for visitors. ...
From the London Paper: Commuters on the first route to get rid of the controversial bendy buses today declared: "Bring them back." Passengers on the 507 complained that the single-decker replacements were overcrowded and failed to provide enough seating. One told of chaotic scenes when around 100 people crammed on to a Waterloo to Victoria bus during rush-hour. Another, Andrew Cooper, 39, of Westminster, said: "There are hardly any seats. I'm not sure why they got rid of the bendy." Maureen Pullen, 48, of Winchester, said: "The bendy buses' three doors allowed people to board much faster and brought down ...
My stats for July are a bit down on the previous month again. However I blogged less due to work commitments ramping up to my holiday in the next couple of weeks and as Stephen on LDV has suggested I think interest has been a bit lower generally in political blogs after the excitement of May (expenses) and June (expenses and elections/cabinet resignations etc.) has subsided. I had 8,771 Pageviews from 7,151 Visits and a total of 4,942 Absolute Unique Visitors. My top 5 blog posts were: 1) Fascinating research into public perception of the drugs issue2) Sarah Palin scandal?3) ...
We tend not to be too poll-obsessed here at LDV - of course we look at them, as do all other politico-geeks, but viewed in isolation no one poll will tell you very much beyond what you want to read into it. Looked at over a reasonable time-span and, if there are enough polls, you can see some trends. Here, in chronological order, are the results of the nine polls published in July: Tories 39%, Labour 26%, Lib Dems 19% - YouGov/Fabians (unpublished, 1st July) Tories 41%, Labour 27%, Lib Dems 20% - ICM/Guardian (14th July) Tories 42%, Labour 25%, ...
I've lost count now of the amount of people I've had this row with. Someone will tell me again that it's good for the environment to incentivise drivers to scrap their old cars and buy brand new ones, so I might as well say what I have to say on the matter here so I can just wearily point at it. This is not an environmental policy, it's an economic one. It's meant to kickstart the auto trade, not save the planet. Just stop and think about it for a minute and you'll see... I would love to have the ...
Thanks to Green Liberal Democrats for putting us on to the demonstration house put up in Westminster by the Great British Refurb campaign.
... We'd say a big thank you to the 22,117 'absolute unique visitors'* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in July. This is our lowest readership figure of the year to date, down about one-third on last month's 38,000 – which either means we've been rubbish this month, or else that the political excitements of MPs' expenses and the local/Euro elections, which spiked our figures in May and June, have subsided. Or a bit of both. For the record, July's 22k is still more than 50% up compared with the same month last year (14k). This brings our absolute unique visitor ...
What have the good people of Luton South done to deserve Esther Rantzen? They're suffering enough having to live in Luton, without it being compounded by that publicity-hungry concern troll; any tiny vestige of credibility about her standing in Margaret Moran's seat on a Martin Bell-style "anti-corruption" ticket has surely been snuffed out by this interview in the Manc Evening News in which she lavishes praise on, of all people, Hazel sodding Blears, whom you'll remember had her snout (do red squirrels have snouts?) far deeper in the trough than poor old Ian Gibson, and who got away scot-free while ...
Two inspiring photos - the first is a green wall in Westminster (Palace Street). It provides insulation, cooling, biodiversity value and space for food growing. This is where we in London will get most of our new green space - by growing vertically. I'm trying to persuade our Housing Dept to green one of our estates like this. Below is an project by artist Fritz Haeg. He turned some perfectly manicured lawns in the US suburbs into mini-farms and watched the reaction of neighbours. "What? You can get food from a garden?! I thought food was something that came wrapped ...
My attention was drawn to an advert in Lib Dem News which I want to publicise in the blogosphere. Former leader Ming Campbell has been asked by Nick Clegg to review alternatives to the Government's plans to replace Trident. As the ad says: "The review will consider Britain's options for its nuclear posture beyond Trident and seek to balance national security needs with the part's long-standing commitment toa world free of nuclear weapons. Together with Liberal Democrat shadow Defence Secretary Nick Harvey, MP, Menzies Campbell will consider evidence and input from specialists, academics and party members. Please send any written ...
IWe arrived in North Wales on Thursday evening. Yesterday we went over to Llonagllen to walk over the Telford Aqueduct. Look out for the inevitable YouTube video next week! I've just been to Bangor and Anglesey to photograph the Menai Bridge. Watch out for material going onto Flickr soon. This afternoon I will be at an 18th birthday. Oh joy. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
It is the first day of August and officially the start of the silly season for newspapers, though some of them have been struggling to find newsworthy stories for some weeks. Predictably the Western Mail has decided to kick off the trivia-fest with an article on where Assembly Members will be spending recess. Presumably, a similar article for MPs, who have a longer recess will follow in due course. I am not expecting one on journalists' holidays or those of their editors. Surprisingly, only 23 AMs seem to have responded to the reporter's e-mail asking for details and most of ...
How would you like to receive a daily digest of the previous day's Lib Dem Voice postings direct to your email inbox? If your answer is, "I'd absolutely love to receive a daily digest of the previous day's Lib Dem Voice postings direct to my email inbox as long as it's quick and simple – please tell me more", then read on. You may have noticed some rather natty icons in the top right-hand corner of the screen, one of which is an envelope. This is the icon to click on if you want to sign-up to Lib Dem Voice's ...
{Pizza Express, Langham Place} There's a touch of the airport terminal hallway about the Langham Place Pizza Express. You almost expect to look up and see people wheeling trollies past you a few tables away. In fine Pizza Express tradition, despite recently changing their Chocolate Glory recipe and dropping the Double Chocolate Glory, they still didn't have all the ingredients. Good thing I've become a convert to Banoffe Pie. That's one down, 127 to go. Related posts:Facebook users know what matters in life: chocolate Two of the top ten Facebook fan pages are for...The first time chocolate was eaten on ...
There was a very interesting article by Christina Patterson in The Independent today, which highlights how little has changed regarding the pressure for women to 'look good', to get anywhere in society. As well as highlighting the unequal pay divisions for women in society, which I have commented on before, she also refers to the problems around the pressure for women to make sure that their appearance is what the men want. Whilst men do not really promote women in the workplace in general, if you are hot, young and wear a short skirt, you are more likely to be ...
The Voice has covered various stories about people being questioned by the police for taking photos. So here's the guidance from the National Policing Improvement Agency* from their 2008 guide, Stop and Search in Relation to Terrorism: The Terrorism Act 2000 does not prohibit people from taking photographs or digital images in an area where an authority under section 44 is in place. Officers should not prevent people taking photographs unless they are in an area where photography is prevented by other legislation. If officers reasonably suspect that photographs are being taken as part of hostile terrorist reconnaissance, a search ...
Yes, just a few hours until it's my turn to ascend onto the Trafalgar Square plinth and be gawped at by random strangers and/or rained on with unusual ferocity for August. So, I'm on between 5 and 6 this afternoon, so feel free to wander down to central London to see me, or you can catch the whole thing on the One And Other website. I'll try and Twitter some updates while I'm there if I can too.
Liberty has a new fun little film about why the Government's plans for a national identity database are a bad idea: Related posts:Brazil: a film that seems as new now as it did 25 years ago It's not often that you sit down to watch a...Why would watching someone swim fast inspire you to mow your lawn? I'm all for encouraging gardening. More gardening can make people...Colouring private calendar items in Outlook 2003 How do you make Private items in your Outlook 2003...
Yesterday I popped in to the monthly produce market at Brindley Place to stock up on fresh bread, vegetables and other goodies. I got chatting to Martin from Halfpenny Green Vineyards in South Staffordshire. They diversified from farming into wine when I was just two years old and now have a thriving vineyard and craft centre, selling their wines from their shop and at farmers' markets across the Midlands. I am now the proud owner of a rather lovely bottle of raspberry wine and they are now the proud owners of lots of information about 24 Carrots – the Jewellery ...
No tory coalition, let us fight under our own policies, what ever the outcome, let's all go out to win.
Sat 1st
09:40Don't let the same happen to Salford Council what the people of Putney ,Roehampton & Southfields...
The Swansea Council meeting on Thursday was in many ways typical of the genre. On the one hand there were a number of positive moments, including an award being presented to the officers responsible for remodelling the Kingsway amongst many other awards and an excellent and enlightening presentation from the Gower Society on the beautiful landscape that we, as Councillors have some responsibility for. There was also a good scrutiny of respite care proposals. On the downside however, there was a pointless thirty minutes of questions in which opposition members focussed on imaginary external influences on the administration, accused a ...
Last one of these round-ups for a few weeks due to holiday commitments: Saturday 25th July Coben Commented that Labour are heading for electoral meltdown. Sunday 26th July James Graham analysed the "trouble with Rennardism". He thinks it is tactics over strategy. Costigan came up with an interesting strategy to achieve a fair electoral system, basically by making it difficult for Gordon Brown not to go for STV. The Daily (Maybe) asked if open primaries are all they are cracked up to be. Monday 27th July Wit and Wisdom thought that we Lib Dems need to focus on a few ...
The way in which Bath is riding the retail recession better than most was highlighted in figures released yesterday. To read the full story follow the link HERE
Sat 1st
09:18From a Labour MP who as my deepest respect,perhaps the last remains of blairs regime should listen t...
Darkness at the Heart of the Labour Party Harold Wilson asserted that the Labour party was a moral crusade or it was nothing. The McBride affair has left Labour members looking at nothing. That is the reality check that McBride has wrought on the party. The whole of the government's energy should be spent on governing now [...]
I found THIS from a few days ago on the every excellent City Unslicker/Capitalists at Work blog. They do sound somewhat similar, although someone suggest on a comment to my blog that Chloe looks like Ant from "Ant and Dec", but with a fringe instead of a forehead. She actually looks better in the flesh than she appears on TV and in pictures, although she is painfully thin.
The Lib Dem leader has an article in this morning's Daily Mail on the failure of the British government to prevent the extradition of Gary McKinnon to America. After a little purple prose - "doomed to pass out the rest of his days in shackles on a foreign shore" - and a good nationalistic point: You can be sure that if the situation was reversed, American politicians would be moving hell and high water to protect one of their citizens from such a gross injustice.It is an affront to British justice that no one in the Labour Party has the ...
I was thinking of replacing Labour with Liberal any thoughts?
As we have seen, Market Harborough's very own Mosleyite, Noel Symington was a scion of the soup branch of the family. It is, for literary reasons, a great shame he did not hale from the corsetry side of the Symingtons. Any reader of P.G. Wodehouse will be familiar with Roderick Spode, Earl of Sidcup and leader of the Black Shorts. And that reader will know that Spode once made a living as the founder and proprietor of Eulalie Soeurs", a famed designer of ladies' lingerie. Wikipedia takes up the story: Spode had long attempted to keep his ownership of the ...
I'm as appalled as everyone else by the failure of our Government to protect Gary McKinnon from extradition to the US to face charges for hacking into Pentagon and NASA computers in search of information on UFOs. Of course, it's highly embarrassing to the US Government that A N Hacker could manage to access such supposedly confidential information so they want to throw the book at him and make an example of him in the US, where he could face penalties which mean he'd spend the rest of his life in prison. There are very clear compassionate grounds for Gary ...
Sat 1st
08:33where we stand with the conservatives.take a look read it very carefully and ask the Tory Leader how...
Advancing Opportunity Nurturing Responsibility Protecting Security Where we stand Business Community Relations Countryside Climate Change and Energy Crime and Justice Culture, Media and Sport Defence Democracy Economy Environment Europe Family Foreign Affairs Health Housing Immigration International Development Local Government National Security Schools Transport Universities and Skills Voluntary Sector Welfare and Pensions Women What you will see over the coming months are a Party that will offer the Moon but with no idea on how we get there. Their policies will not effect the Rich [...]
It's sad I know, but I get really excited when I find little gems like this... It's a locally made and branded manhole cover! Regular readers will know that we have sort of been here before But when I think of Holly Hill, which I know pretty well, the idea of visualising a foundry making manhole covers is pretty unlikely. Now it's a very pleasant, prosperous residential area with Junior boys School and is the main access to The Holly Bush Pub and Fenton House. So finding this just in the street, is West Hampstead was really ...
If the SDP had lived on*, 2009 would have marked its ** 28th birthday - which spurious segue is all the excuse we need to dust off three video clips tracing its rise and fall. Let's begin at the beginning, with the explosion of the 'Gang of Four' - Roy, David, Shirley and Bill - onto the scene, here holding their first press conference in March 1981: For a year or more it really did seem as if the SDP might truly break the mould of British politics. But the party was shattered by the results of the June 1983 ...
Happy Yorkshire Day everyone (even including you in Lancashire).
I love to travel. I'm still hopelessly romantic about the concept of going to far-flung, quirky places to do the unexpected. I've fed the national treasures of Nara, gone clubbing in Bogota, discovered my own beach in Mauritius and risked death by post office in Tanna. The direct route is the one less travelled - I've done London to Quito via Washington, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and Bogota and Luxembourg City to Ho Chi Minh City via Frankfurt and Mumbai. Armed with a decent sense of geography, an worryingly encyclopaedic knowledge of airline hubs and enough imagination for a firm ...
Does anyone say that anymore? White rabbits on the first of the month? Ho, hum. Well August is here, and our Focus is nearly ready to go out over the next couple of weeks, we'll be pounding the streets of Keighley with my colleague Cllr Judith Brooksbank, and others to let the good folk know what we've been up to and canvass for support. I love August there are so many anniversaries to remember and commemorate, one in particular is that in 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella drove the Jews out of Spain, which I would argue was to be disastrous ...
Ok for all those who really want to know here is my top ten blogs as sent to total politics. My criteria were a combination of ones that grab my attention whenever they post, frequency and consistency of blogging and depth of knowledge and personality displayed over the whole 12 months. So as is traditional in reverse order. 10. Liberal Burblings -Sadly having excluded Subrosa (who would have been 8th) who excluded herself from the voting I voted for Paul Walter's excellent blog before he too made himself, made himself illegible for the vote. I could of course have lied ...
