Last November I wrote about Foxton Locks and the summer I spent there working for the Liberal Party's Assembly Office. I quoted an old article of mine from the Guardian website: This being the old Liberal party, it was naturally housed in two semi-converted narrow boats moored deep in the Leicestershire countryside.I was back there today with my camera. The photograph above shows the arm at the bottom of the old inclined plane where those boats were moored. They were on the lefthand side of the canal, furthest from the camera. Understandably, the area looked less bleak this afternooon than ...
Wow! I've got my new passport and I didn't need to give any id details other than my name. I'm now the proud owner of a County of Yorkshire and its Ridings passport. I had to sign an oath of allegiance as follows: DECLARATION I, Judith C P Brooksbank being a resident of Yorkshire declare: That Yorkshire is three Ridings and the City of York, with these Boundaries of 1134 years standing; That the address of all places in these Ridings is Yorkshire; That all persons born therein or resident therein and loyal to the Ridings are Yorkshiremen and women; ...
Before the Norwich game this afternoon I saw new Norwich North MP Chloe Smith in the club shop (she looked slightly hassled so I didn't speak to her). Presumably (as many MPs do) she was going to attend the match in order to confirm her local credentials (although she may well have been a fan for years). Anyway, it occurred to me after the game that I often used to see Ian Gibson (her predecessor in Norwich North) at Carrow Road, yet as soon as a Tory gets elected Norwich get their worst home result in over 100 years of ...
{Trouble in Birmingham city centre} We'd been expecting it all week (see coverage on The Stirrer) and today trouble did indeed erupt in Birmingham City Centre. Details are sketchy at present and currently only reported via Twitter. My thanks to @adambc82 who let me reproduce his photo here, taken from his city centre apartment. He tweeted "Riots in Birmingham City Centre, right outside my flat. Smashed windows, bottles flying, riot police everywhere. No idea what's going on." It would appear the violence is in response to today's planned anti-Islamic extremism protest in the city centre. This was a follow-up to ...
Published by Hannah Wooderson for 24dash.com in Communities Friday 7th August 2009 – 4:33pm Prison population hits record high There are a record number of inmates in prisons. The population hit a record high today – passing the 84,000 mark for the first time, the Ministry of Justice said. There are now 84,150 inmates in jails in [...]
A month ago to the day I celebrated my 30th birthday. The big celebration was on the Saturday following my birthday where I held a birthday party at The Volunteer Pub in Waltham Abbey who did a great job in making sure the evening went with a bang. I was lucky to share my birthday with so many of my dear friends and family. The best part of the evening was the fact that my aunties and uncles were
Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron features in the 'Brought to book' column in the current edition of Total Politics, answering questions such as: What is your least favourite book? The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I'm a Christian, but I don't object to people criticising my faith or even trying to 'disprove' it. However, I do object to bright people like Dawkins writing uncritical and abysmally researched polemic and then parading it as a respectable work. What was the most inspiring book you have ever read and why? The Problem of Pain by CS Lewis. The book doesn't give you ...
{Burnt out car on Rickman Drive} For part of today's mammoth FOCUS delivery day, we were in Attwood Green – always a great place to be when the sun is shining. It was a shame then to discover this burnt out car on Rickman Drive, right outside the Etap hotel. Within a few seconds the local police arrived after being alerted by a hotel employee. From chatting to them it seems the car wasn't stolen, so it's likely to either belong to a local resident or someone staying at the hotel, or abandoned. As it was parked on double yellow ...
{Future site of the Kettleworks in the Jewellery Quarter} Work is underway on the new St Georges development on the fringes of the Jewellery Quarter. The mixed use development covering 2.75 hectares will be built in 5 phases, eventually resulting in new office space, apartments, retail, bars, restaurants and 2 new hotels. It will be built around the Icknield Street, Carver Street and Pope Street area, which is mostly composed of vacant warehouse and factory buildings. Preparatory work has started on the first phase, The Kettleworks, which will provide 236,176 sq ft of office space and a multi-storey car park. ...
The debate in the US over the merits of socialized medicine appears to be being successfully portrayed in the rest of the world as the great majority forces of light and twentieth century social liberal ideals of care for all against a tiny minority of the forces of darkness, right wing nut-jobs who really want an agonizing death for anyone without the savings to be able to buy a heart for transplant from some Indian street urchins. Comparisons on both sides are being made with the NHS and the Canadian systems, with the pro-Obama opinion pointing out the benefits of ...
Up until today, I have allowed people to post comments on this blog without any moderation. I have occasionally removed comments when they are clearly selling a product. Today a comment was posted that was a combination of disturbing and odd. It certainly broke the rules of being legal, decent, honest and truthful. I have no idea who the author is and why he made the claims he did. I do not like to censor anyone but the comments, now deleted, were inappropriate. I have now instituted a moderation policy and will only post comments that I consider legal, decent, ...
You may have noticed that blogging has been a little thin on the ground recently. Well, this post will show you why. May I present, The Plants: {George} This is George, my Habanero Chili plant. ( more under the cut... ) If you click through to flickr, there's a description with each photo that gives you further details. I'm off to get ready for work (another thing which is taking up lots of time). TTFN :D This blog is proudly sponsored by {peter black sponsor logo}
Barry Stocker has written a piece on John Stuart Mill that is well worth reading. As he says, Mill is claimed by socialists and conservatives as well as liberals. Near the end of his life, Mill did say he thought of himself as a socialist and donated money to the Labour movement. But On Liberty, the subject of Stocker's post is a statement of liberalism. One can argue about what Mill meant by socialism. He favoured co-ops but then again so do some Conservatives. What he never wavered from was the importance of the individual being able to develop as ...
Following residents' complaints about the state of the shrubbery to the south and west side of the pathway that runs from the top of St Peter Street to Hawkhill (adjacent to Ryehill Health Centre), I contacted Dundee Contract Services about it. The shrubbery is greatly overgrown and protruding onto the pathway (the ground to the east and north side of the pathway is owned by NHS Tayside). Here's the response from DCS : "The shrub bed directly to the north of the church building is owned by (the City Council), which we maintain on their behalf. I have had a ...
I am halfway through Ben Wilson's excellent book, What Price Liberty? It is subtitled: How freedom was won and is being lost. Given that subtitle, you might think that it is a rant against authority but it is a considered history of British liberty and British economic and political development. What Wilson does so well is explain how liberty has been seen through the ages and why it flourished and then declined. It is a story of compromise: with authority and with competing political ideas. Wilson shows that liberty has been championed by politicians of all political parties and disregarded ...
We must create a sustainable economy, build a fairer society and clean up politics for good. Dear friend, Ever since I became leader of the Liberal Democrats I have been travelling the country, holding public meetings, listening and talking to the people I meet. The economy is in a mess, people are losing jobs and everywhere I go, people are angry at the way politicians have let them down. The two old parties don't really want to change a political system that keeps them in power or challenge the bankers who got the economy into such a terrible mess. The ...
The Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Awards, run in conjunction with Lib Dem Voice, are back for their fourth year. As usual, they'll be awarded in a budget lavish ceremony at the party's autumn conference in Bournemouth. If anyone feels like nominating my blog, amazing (and thank you), read to the bottom on how to do it, its by email so is easy, but honestly, entirely up to you. There are six categories at this year's awards and they are are as follows: * Best new Liberal Democrat blog (started since 1st September 2008) * Best blog from a ...
The recent policy paper on women received a lot of media and blog attention. It even got Jo Swinson on Channel 4 News. I must admit to not having read the paper but am reliably informed that it has more to it than a call to warn people about the perils of airbrushing adverts and posters. While some will see the story as part of the August silly season, it does give liberals an opportunity to discuss what sort of liberal society they are after. There are some in the liberal family who will say that governments should do nothing, ...
by Richard Searle, Manchester Respect The venal and loathsome Hazel Blears survived a vote of no-confidence tonight at her Labour party meeting in Salford tonight held in Swinton Town hall, by a margin of 31 votes to 13. Anger her about expense abuses has been moving between simmering and boiling over during the last few weeks. There was [...]
After two weeks in deepest France where, unlike deepest Estonia, the Internet was impossible to find and mobile signals erratic at best I have now returned to Tallinn. sifting through the silly season news stories I find that Ryanair have been insulting their passengers again. It was a failure in the Ryanair online check-in system that saw me denied boarding and forced to pay £200 to get the next flight that I needed. I swore I would never fly Ryanair again. I suspect that this latest fiasco might be a tipping point- Ryanair's Irish "gobsh*te" boss, Tony O'Leary seems to ...
By John Ingham ASSASSIN: Hazel Blears sensationally quit yesterday SIMPERING assassin Hazel Blears reveals all that is wrong with New Labour. And the impact of her resignation shows just how deep is the hole in which the Tartan Tax Collector finds himself. In any other walk of life the decision of a nonentity like Blears [...]
The river Irwell is cited to become the UK's next Riviera district as regeneration plans move into action. To increase the area's appeal will be Ask Developments Exchange Greengates scheme, which is expected to start being constructed early next year plus Network Rail's £4.5m regeneration of Salford Central Station. Salford's Urban Regeneration Company will be [...]
Finally, I have found an article that has been wrote in support of Harriet Harman, in The Guardian by Tanya Gold. I am not suggesting this is the only article that has been written in Harman's defence, but it is amongst the few that have been. I have written extensively on this issue in recent blog posts, so I apologise for repeats. However, I believe that the way in which the majority of columnists and political figures have responded(or not responded) to Harman is crucial to assess, as it helps highlight the ways in which males dominate the political culture. ...
Sat 8th
13:38
On the basis of the council elections in England, the Conservatives would win a general election but...
ahead of an election expected next summer. It is also lower proportion than they have been achieving in opinion polls, which is surprising given that they should fare best of all in the shires where Thursday's contests took place. The electoral arithmetic works against the Tories (and the Lib Dems) because they are strong in [...]
One of the best Doctor Who stories ever made, and one of the most atypical - unusually long, highly political (even highly liberal), with not even a mention of the TARDIS and refusing to side with the 'humans' against the 'monsters', I've often said this was the story that turned me into a Liberal. For the new producer at the time, though, Doctor Who and the Silurians was even more significant, as a technological breakthrough forty years ago this week demonstrated... "There's a wealth of scientific knowledge down here, Brigadier - and I can't wait to get started on it." ...
As of 1st April 2009 the total annual remuneration of the Prime Minister was £197,689. The boss of RBS gets an annual salary of £1.2 million just for turning up to work and millions more if he does anything useful. Way down the pecking order from the boss, annual financial sector bonuses exceed the Prime Ministers salary. Whatever ones view of Gordon Brown there is surely something wrong here. Why does Gordon (or anyone else) want the job? Could it be that power is more important than money? I wonder if we capped ALL financial sector remuneration at £200000 p.a. ...
Remember when the Tories appeared to be in favour of reforming the House of Lords, and even electing it? Well, looks like that's been sacrificed on the altar of their all-consuming hatred of Peter Mandelson. Yes, the very idea that Mandelson might be allowed to - like almost anyone else in a free society - resign from one position to seek another is just so anathema to the Tories that they'll attempt to stop it from happening. The fact that this just prolongs the absurdity of the existence of the House of Lords (where, let's remember, Jeffrey Archer is still ...
Sat 8th
12:25How the reality of Ronnie Bigg's 46 years on the run is so different to the glamorous image he presn...
The fugitive who made British police look like the Keystone Kops as he swanned around Rio surrounded by beautiful women. Newspapers were full of pictures of the Great Train Robber raising a glass of bubbly on a beach, cocking a snook at British authorities. The good life. It was an image Biggs, with his cigars and parties, [...]
The Guardian reports on the allegations that the Kremlin was behind the 'cyber-assualt' that yesterday brought Twitter, Facebook and LiveJournal to a grinding halt. The target was allegedly a 34 year old economics teacher/blogger critical of Russian policy in the Caucuses and especially of it's conduct in South Osseita. Georgy, better known to his online [...]
On Sunday this blog will again be hosting the Britblog Roundup. If over the next week you see a posting on a British blog that you think particularly find, please send the URL to britblog [AT] gmail [DOT] com and I shall include it in the roundup. Nominating a posting for the Britiblog Roundup is a good way of promoting a blog that you think deserves more readers. And you are welcome to nominate a posting on your own blog too. All nominations by Sunday lunchtime please.
Sat 8th
12:13Thanks to who ever sent this,but i do believe there are better graphics packages on the market
New labour policy wheel
MP, Adrian Sanders, who sits on the House of Commons Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport, has praised the Salford Star for "shedding light on local decision-making and holding people to account for their actions"... Writing in Devon's Herald Express, the Lib Dem MP for Torbay uses the example of the Star's coverage of Urban [...]
<!–Last Updated – 7th August 2009 at 02:43 PM –> An 19-year-old man who stabbed a private hire taxi driver after a row over an £8 fare, has today, Friday 7 July 2009, been sentenced to 10 years detention at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court. An 19-year-old man who stabbed a private hire taxi driver [...]
The Mayor of London, who is in charge of the capital's planning issues, was told to remove a wooden summer house at his Islington home because it was built without planning permission. From the Times: Council officers ordered Boris Johnson to remove the shed from a balcony at his home, a Grade II listed building in a conservation area of Islington, North London. Islington Council wrote to Mr Johnson to tell him that the shed required planning permission because it was within the curtilage of a listed building. "Planning enforcement officers advised Mr Johnson that the shed did not have ...
Since 1 September last year there have been 692 posts on this blog, this will make it 693, all are therefore eligible for the Lib Dem blog of the Year Blog Post of the Year. Not all of them are worthy for consideration I will humbly hasten to add, but as Charlotte has tagged the lot of us* to pick out our own gems for consideration I'm going to present the following selection box. First of all there are the ones that actually made the Golden Dozen, which means you've liked them once before, in the last 11 months. Why ...
Ronnie Biggs is a criminal, not a hero 14 hours ago My answer do you feel Three prison officers to guard a man who can't walk or talk a good use of resources?
I have a review of David Melding AM's book "Will Britain survive beyond 2020?" on Wales Home today. In it, I draw the following conclusions: "Melding's central point is that the best future for both Wales and the United Kingdom is to establish a full Welsh Parliament in a federal UK, as a means to prevent increasing tension between the home nations." "These ideas are not new but the development of the debate about the necessity of federalism is spreading into different ideological territory, and that is why this book is important." "A useful addition to this discussion would be ...
CRB. I dread those letters. Not, I hasten to add, because I have anything to hide. Just because they are a massive pain to arrange (okay, on the sale of Government bureaucracies they are not a pain really, but the waiting is beyond the timescales of most other waiting times). And that your jobs/voluntary work relies on your having one processed. Absolutely. There is no doubt. Without a CRB, you cannot work with children. Which sounds wonderful, in theory. Interesting fact, though: more child abuse is suffered within a family or friendship circle, than by strangers. In fact for a ...
The Lib Dem blog awards are with us again - and one of the categories is 'Best posting on a Liberal Democrat blog (since 1st September 2008)'. This is actually my favourite award for the simple reason that it recognises writing talent, pure and simple. By which I don't mean that the prose has to be worthy of a Booker nomination; rather that the article has to attract, engage and provoke readers - elevate our thinking, if you like. All of which musing prompted me to ask my LDV colleagues - and myself - to self-nominate the favourite articles we've ...
Dr Sarah Wollaston has won the Open Primary the Conservatives held in Totnes in a ground-breaking move in how political parties select candidates.
Two stories in today's [8th August] Financial Times. On the front page, Stephen Hester of RBS bewailing the continued criticism of the bank(s) saying that the numbers of top performing staff leaving had doubled in the first six months of 2009 after the bank agreed with the government to place restrictions on future bonus payments. The fact that all Mr Hester has to do is to get the banks share price to 70p in three years to earn himself £9.6million, does, I'm sure, not influence his view of the role of the bank for the public good. I had no ...
With Parliament being on recess blogging is awfully quiet; there isn't anything I can really blog about as MPs are not cocking up and except for Harman and maybe Lord Mandelson who seem to be running the country, no one is active. The next couple of weeks and months up until Parliament comes back after recess are interesting for the Labour party, the next conference is either going to break Brown or create him. If Labour activists don't sack him then they will have to back him it's that simple. Labour is going through a difficult time but if the ...
A saga of inefficiency labelled as choice:A problem with a creaky shoulder becomes more acute so eventually hubby makes an appointment to see a doctor. He waits a week for an appointment, very willingly, because he wants to see a particular doctor for whom he has a great deal of respect but who happens to be on holiday. Doctor looks at shoulder and discusses options, deciding eventually to
Cross-posted from the Mandate blog: Being active on social networks has become more popular than reading blogs amongst the active internet users in the UK. That's the result from the latest Universal McCann international survey of internet usage. Looking at those people who use the internet every day or every other day, the survey found that 64% spend time managing their social network profile compared to 58% who spend time reading blogs. This is the first time blog reading has slipped behind using social networks. Watching video online is even more popular, with 79% of regular internet users having done ...
The other day I had the distinction of being the first person to vote in a Lib Dem Voice poll. It asked:"Do you think Radio 4's Thought for the Day should be opened up to secularists and humanists?"Yes, open it upNo, keep it for religionJust scrap Thought for the DayI voted to scrap it, confident that I would be in the majority. Not a bit of it. Yesterday Liberal Democrat Voice published the results of the poll. The results were:Yes 384No 122Scrap it 134.I have never been entirely sure what a humanist is, but for a secularists to demand to ...
It's kinda funny that, when talk turns to awards, there is a debate as to whether the blogosphere should pander to them or not. So, as someone unlikely to win an award, although I've been nominated for one in the past (for metaphorically slashing my wrists in public), I thought that I should contribute my thoughts. There are those who take it all far too seriously, I accept. In blogging, as in life, there are those who are seeking attention, those in need of some external validation. If it wasn't blogging, it would be something else that would provide a ...
Perhaps it's a positive thing, but since the Twitter outage, I've been unable to make any tweets. I've tried from the web interfaces and by text. The automated thingy that tweets my blog posts doesn't seem to be working either. I can however, see everyone else tweeting merrily away and change my settings, search and all the rest of it. Surely some fiendish plot is afoot. (Update: have managed one tweet from Mrs Quist's PC. After rebooting, deleting cache and history from mine I managed to send a direct manage (was also hanging before) but still can't tweet.)
It's one of the curiosities of YouTube that, because it's only four years old, even fairly recent events and people of prominence are sometimes almost absent. Search for 'nick clegg', elected leader of the Lib Dems 18 months ago, and you'll find 520 videos; search for 'charles kennedy', who led the party from 1999 to 2006, and there are fewer than a hundred, many of them relating directly to his resignation. Here are three of the clips I found, and dusted down for your viewing delectation: First up, and seven years before Charles was elected party leader, he was one ...
Leicester City Council plans to get rid off the Bowstring Bridge with unseemly haste. The feeling that it regards the city's industrial past as a dirty secret is hard to resist. According to the Leicester Mercury yesterday, demolition is planned to begin on 21 September: The only obstacle left is an application made by Leicester Civic Society to have the bridge listed, which would block the demolition. A decision on that is imminent.The photograph shows the neighbouring Pump and Tap pub, which is scheduled for demolition by De Monfort University.
We have all become obsessed with it and it was only when we didn't have it on Thursday/Friday we all realised it - although I have UberTwitter back, Twitter itself is still not quite right. What was funny for me was not only the realisation that I had sort of become addicted to it but watching the volumes of folk rush back to Facebook to realise that Facebook had also been buggered. I have to be honest initially I signed up and wasn't really that bothered but now I use, Tweetburner, UberTwitter, Tweetdeck, Twitter, TwitterBerry etc etc I actually quite ...
Well you can slap me down with a kipper. I never expected Percy Faith's Orchestra's Theme from a Summer Place to resurface. And here it is in a very punchy (literally) slow-mo trailer for the newly ballsed-up Bill. You can see a wonderful film below from You Tube which actually shows dear old Percy conducting his orchestra playing said tune. Marvellous! Talking of which, I never expected an old Gilbert O'Sullivan track Alone again, Naturally to be unearthed for Ice Age 3, but it was. Sometimes it is a bit of a burden actually remembering these tracks the first time ...
It is unlikely that even the Tories can afford to repeat the Totnes open primary experiment too often. The cost was estimated to be about £50,000. However, there is no doubt that the exercise gave the eventual winner a head start in contesting what is effectively a marginal seat at the next General Election. That does not mean though that other parties should rule out doing something similar in the future. Indeed the challenge is finding a form of selection that is much more inclusive and representative than the present party-based method whilst, at the same time, being affordable. David ...
Lembit Öpik has an article in the Western Mail responding to David Babbs of the campaign group 38 Degrees, who believes that the public have a right to know what MPs were doing on their summer break. Lembit rehearses the usual arguments that MPs use recess to work in their constituencies and then concludes that politicians need protection from people like Mr. Babbs. In particular he advocates a privacy law for MPs: Despite the dangers of censorship which accompany such a measure, this may be the only way we preserve enough private space in the parliamentary - and public - ...
I'm sure that I was not the only schoolboy who was fascinated by reading a copy of Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft in the school library. I was fascinated by Thor Heyerdahl's account of his 7,000 kilometre journey across the Pacific to Tuamotu in a balsa wood raft to prove that pre-historic peoples could have travelled from South America. That and the paintings of Paul Gaugin started my fascination with the cultures of the Pacific.
