It is wrong for the Tories to say we need to tell students that doing Maths and Science is what is best for them, instead of them doing what they want to do. In proposals outlined by the Conservatives, the subjects that they decide to be more established and better for society will be the ones that get the students into better universities by offering them more points. Elite universities such as Oxbridge already hate pupils taking subjects like Media Studies, this just further singles subjects that are more academically established and stigmatises students who are more practical. We aren't ...
I find it very difficult to regard a place without a health service as a civilised nation. As far as I can see that description cannot be applied to a country that does not provide health care for its weakest and poorest inhabitants. After ...
Tory Bear is right when he says that everyone is now a Journalist, if you have information, news or even rumour and you want to spread it what better tool to use then the Internet. With the growth of twitter usage, blogs and YouTube all I can say is, get out and get reporting. If you have a mobile phone with a camera you are a journalist, you can report news as it breaks and that's what makes us different from the MSM. If the MSM want to report something, they would first have to send a photographer, then they ...
The Space @ The Royal College of Surgeons (no more 16:45 slices remaining) Well it is Saturday night, or at least early evening when I finally catch my slice of Saturday Night, by the Why Not Musical Theatre Company.. As the audience walk I'm greeted by a frozen cast tableaux one of whom has his trousers down by his ankles revelling his Union Jack boxers, only once we are all seated does the music begin and the cast all complete preparations for their night at Club a-Go-Go. But when they get going you are toe-tapping along with them intermingled with ...
The weather forecast wasn't wonderful but the residential home where my mother lives had organised a trip to Whitby so we duly packed up raincoats and set off. How wrong could the forecast be? Beautiful blue sky, little white clouds, hot sunshine. Add that to fish & chips by the sea and it was a tonic for us all, not just the residents. The gulls were disappointed - we ate all our lunch
I am in Swindon this weekend and shall be going to Coate tomorrow to pay homage to Richard Jefferies. But this mural on the end wall of a terrace of houses across the road from my hotel commemorates the town's other literary son: Alfred Williams.
A colleague at work was asking me the other day about comics – he was interested in the form, but hadn't really read anything except Watchmen (with which he'd not been vastly impressed, which makes sense for someone who'd not read anything else in the form), and wanted to know what would be good to [...]
Those of you who have read my blog for some time will know that I am a season ticket holder at Carrow Road where I follow Norwich City, and that I have, since I was seven, been an Everton fan. So after Norwich started the season last week losing 7-1, I was feeling a little bruised. Imagine how I feel today with Everton losing 6-1. So please be nice to me.
I would like to run a survey to find out what readers actually think of this blog, and I would like to ask readers to give me feedback on how I can make this blog better in this comment section. Please rate this blog(polls)
Ok, so the last digest was longer than a day ago (by a considerable margin); blushing, I am suitably penitent and return with this round-up of what has been happening in the news and blogsphere:- 1. Swinton South Liberal Democrats have a rather gloomy (from a Liberal Democrat point of view) round-up of the latest round of council by-election results. 2. Gareth Aubery calls for a 'real debate over the future of the NHS' but insists that the way the NHS is portrayed by the right and the Republicans is 'positively fraudulent'. 3. It may have been a politically turbulent ...
John Prescott has a message for the people of America about how Mr Hannan and his comments are not representative of the general public's view, and I think all readers should watch it. Getting elected as an MEP isn't hard, if you have money and support from a group of people it can be done but getting elected as an MP is a challenge. I think Mr Hannan needs to run for Parliament, then we shall find out if his comments about the NHS are called for or not. Hannan, you and the Tories will regret your comments about the ...
Bassey for Saturday. Both before and after the football photocall today, been delivering parts of the West End with FOCUS; most grateful to all who helped today. Sore feet, so chilling out watching 'Hairspray' tonight on one of the Sky movie channels - we saw Hairspray in New York last year and the film is just about as good.
This morning I had the pleasure of attending a photocall at the Riverside playing fields for the Riverside Boys junior football team. This was to mark the presentation of new strips sponsored by Hamish Robbie Lettings. The team has gone from strength to strength in recent months - in fact there's now two Riverside Boys' teams -Under 9s and Under 11s and the teams are now quality marked by the SFA. The new under 9s also reached the final in a local competition - a great start. All credit to Paul Johnston, West End Community Vice Chair, who has put ...
'Tis the season for lists... All this week we've published the top 100 posts by Lib Dem bloggers, in descending order of popularity, for the last year - August 2008 to July 2009, inclusive, according to click-throughs from the Aggregator. (Profuse thanks to techno-wizard and stat-monkey Ryan Cullen for compiling this table.) And now, at last, we come to this year's Top 10: 1. The untrue story of Liberal Democrat conference (Jeremy Hargreaves) 2. Lib Dem President Elect sparks new poll! (Helen Duffett) 3. Clegg on expenses – but what should he do if Lib Dems are named and shamed? (Lib Dem Voice) ...
I have just returned from my nearly 2 weeks of camping in Ireland (beautiful country which I had only really seen when out there on business previously and would highly recommend it as a holiday destination). Although UK newspapers were readily available I tried my best to steer clear of them as much as possible. So what have I missed? In no particular order, here are a few random things I need to download from my brain at the moment. I may blog on some of them in more detail later. Gerry Ryan is a fantastic radio host (he does ...
A couple of days ago I wrote that it seems odd that tamiflu is dangerous for kids, but children will not be in the first wave of immunisations. Now the BMA are saying the same thing. I wonder of the government have noticed the correlation between infection rates dropping Scotland from early July (when their school holidays started) and in England from late July ( when English school started their holidays). It seems that children are one of the main ways in which flu spreads quickly (any idiot could tell you that but obviously the government do not know). In ...
An analysis of the latest Electoral Commission data on political donations on epolitix has concluded that Conservatives preparing to fight the next general election are ahead in the amount of cash they have raised. Top of the list was Conservative MP Chris Grayling, who declared a £40,000 non-cash donation from Denbies Wine Estate. He was closely followed by the Tory PPC for Sutton and Cheam, Philippa Stroud who declared £31,500 in cash donations, £22,500 of which was registered late. The site reports that only one Labour MP, David Lammy, received a cash donation compared with two Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg ...
Are we really meant to believe that little pipsqueak George Osborne believes in banning bank bonuses? Was this not the same person who two years ago was arguing that we needed even less regulation of the City than even Labour's light touch approach gave us? He must be having a laugh. George Osborne as slayer of bank bonuses - next they'll be saying Daniel Hannan loves the NHS. Sent from my
Dr Who fan and blogger Alex Wilcock has a blog post about the Labour MP who walked out of a Muslim wedding, and has made comments that I disagree with. The problem Alex is that you just don't understand Muslim and Pakistani culture; the separation is based on religious teachings and custom that have been in place for decades. The main reason that men and women are separated at Muslim weddings is because that is the culture of Muslim households, men and women don't sit together in homes and in homes they do it brings out the negative side of ...
Last night I was going to write about my two cents in the latest spat between Charlotte Gore and James Graham but managed to get distracted from doing that when I noticed a rather inflammatory-titled post on Liberal Vision. Of course, what you see there now isn't quite the same - or quite as inflammatory - as I saw last night. Yes, the doughty defenders of freedom and free speech have no problems with censoring themselves, refusing to admit they've done anything wrong and calling anyone who points this out a bully. It's an interesting debating tactic, but not one ...
The Herald in Scotland has this story; The latest development came on Fox News, a right-wing channel, which discussed whether the acceptance of foreign doctors and nurses into the NHS was a gateway for Muslim terrorists. It referred to the Glasgow Airport bomb plot and pointed out how eight suspects were either NHS doctors or medical staff. As [...]
On 28 October 2007, to celebrate the fact that I had finally got broadband internet access installed at home and had then discovered Youtube, I posted a video of Rock the Casbah by Rachid Taha. I have chosen a video (almost) every week since then Before it gets too daunting to attempt the task I thought I would post a list of all the ones I have chosen. A few of them have disappeared, as is the way with Youtube. Where I have noticed this and been able to find a video of the same artist and song, I have ...
I've had a huge influx of new readers over the last few days, thanks to people being kind enough to link that NHS post, which has already been read by more people than any other post of mine, even ones that have been up a year or more. I'm not conceited enough that I think most [...]
Astoundingly, our identikit Labour machine politician local MP Jim Fitzpatrick (aka Fitzpanic) has been in the national news after years of anonymity. He and his wife went to a wedding the other day, apparently, but they walked out on being told they had to be segregated to separate rooms. To see who was being rude to whom, though, there are two questions that need answering. Obviously, given that I've been getting my news from journalists, none of them have answered those key questions - instead just framing everything in inane 'pro-or-anti-Muslim' political arguments to whip up bad feeling all round ...
Information has reached me about who the possible Conservative candidate could be for the Rochdale Constituency seat, and with that in mind I think its time I looked at the political landscape of the seat and looked at who might win. According to Wikipedia the Labour and Lib Dems have picked their candidates and the candidates are, Simon Danczuk for the Labour party and the current MP is the Lib Dem candidate, Paul Rowen. At the last general election the results for Rochdale were as followed: Liberal Democrat 16,787 Labour 16,343 Conservative 4,270 Looking at the results above I don't ...
Andrew Stephenson is the Conservative candidate for Pendle, and has previously served as a Councillor in Cheshire. Andrew doesn't have his own website, but promotes himself via the Conservative party website in Pendle.
Well, being honest that was a lucky escape for Chelsea and a lucky three points, but in football you have to take what you can. I am not a Drogba fan on the whole, don't get me wrong his football skills are amazing but unfortunately so is his diving and that is the side of him I really do not like. It doesn't just give Chelsea FC a bad name and Drogba himself obviously, but it also gives football a bad name. There is no need for it so let us hope new Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti stamps it out ...
Of all the foregone conclusions, universal health care isn't something that we're getting rid of (short of complete bankruptcy of the State forcing it). Should we even want to get rid of it though? Consider: We need health care the most when we're retired and when we're sick. We're never going to find another way for pensioners and people with chronic conditions to afford medical care without making making health insurance mandatory, spreading the cost of your life-time's medical bills through your working life. Then there's people who, through no fault of their own, will never ever be able to ...
I will break with tradition and mention the NHS in this blog. I don't do so usually as it is who I work for. But this cause is a little different. Cast your eye if you will to the front of todays's Independent. See the makeshift medical clinic in LA. Now think how crushing it must be to wait overnight for a dental check-up or to speak to a doctor. My heart goes out to the approx 50 million who have no health insurance. Yet some factions of the US republican political elite seem to be taking great pride in ...
Exponential increases in the use of resources are impossible in the really long term. Even straight line increases come to a limit.The link is to the Economist article of 6th August which spots the fact that the energy figures don't reconcile.
The link is to today's Daily Mail story about Angela Wileman.The question for "the system" to answer is how has the state intervention benefited anyone either the children or the adults.As far as I can see the state intervention in this case has been entirely damaging and the activities of the courts have been moreso to protect the interests of the system rather than protect the children.Imaging
So! Today, I'm going to devote a blog post to replying to Patrick McGuinness who made a contribution to my blog post of a couple of days ago about banning the use of the word Anglo-centric. I hope the response, whilst addressed to him, has some enjoyment to any reading it who are not Patrick. Thanks for your response, Patrick. It is a long, well-thought out post and I hope I can respond to it with the respect it deserves. I've basically put into separate paragraphs, your comment. It was a very interesting comment, which is why I am responding ...
This morning I joined councillors Peter Craig and Jonathan Wallace for a street surgery on Oakfields Road in Whickham. There is a proposal to turn an unused shop into a NISA convenience store. Residents have two main objections. The first is about the light pollution from a proposed illuminated sign. The second is that the applicants have sought an alcohol licence until 9.30, after withdrawing an early application for even later hours. We were there to listen to local residents, the first duty of politicians. The overwhelming view was that residents didn't object to the new shop but wanted it ...
I have spoken to many people on this issue, and ex Conservative voters think the localism factor that Afzal Anwar has will help him and will increase his votes and get him elected. All I can say is, get ready for the greatest general election fought in Pendle in past years, all three parties are going to give the election everything they can. The Lib Dem candidate has a smaller budget compared to the other political parties and the only way he will be campaigning is by meeting people in Pendle. Afzal has tricks up his sleeve, which he will ...
20,Million big ones of rate payers money and they have to busk. Funny thing is for 20 Million not seen a lot of them around salford. Do they really exist or was it a labour ploy to stick all that money on to the residents community charge bills?
Just when Cameron thought he had got away with it another Tory MEP has waded in to back Daniel Hannan in his rather appalling views of the National Health Service. This time it is Roger Helmer, who told the BBC: "Now we all love the NHS, but I think we all know in our hearts that it is no longer the envy of the world. If the Americans came to me and said, 'Would you recommend us taking up a system just like the British NHS?', I think I would have to say 'No'." The question we now have to ...
Earlier this week Jess the Dog an ex-RAF officer turned blogger highlighted the fact that our service men and women on active service are currently effectively disenfranchised under current election laws. As he points out that under the current voting system there are only 11 days, inclusive of weekends, from the point at which candidates' names are confirmed, to printing in the UK, delivery of papers and posting to the overseas destination and back to the chosen constituency. Quite simply this does not work for those serving overseas. He would be glad to know that on the 21st September this ...
In Scotland there aren't enough Lib Dem bloggers as of this point in time, however what we lack in quantity we well make up for in quality. So, a well deserved congratulations goes to Councillor Fraser MacPherson of Dundee City Council who is the leading Liberal Democrat on the Total Politics/Iain Dale's list of the top 30 blogging Councillors in the UK. Fraser held his own and maintained the honourable 16th place he first secured last year. Fraser is about to start themed weeks on his blog, and it is well worth going and having a look.
POOR Hillary Clinton made world news for getting ratty in the heart of the Congo this week. A male student asked, through a translator, what her husband thought about the Chinese giving a loan to the Congo. She wasn't, er, too happy about this question. In fact, it's fair to say she reminded everyone that SHE was in charge now, not her hubby. The amount of interest it generated made it sound like she'd declared war on Africa! In truth, it was mildly amusing. But it was also unfair for the global media to focus on it so much because ...
Godwin's law strikes again: What is more worrying, however, is that an appendage of the state is now a matter of national pride. Daniel Hannan has been called a "traitor". This, ladies and gentlemen, is what national socialism looks like. Sara goes on to insist that by "national socialism" she was not, of course, referring to Nazism. Surely any rational person would assume she was referring to all the other ideologies that espouse national socialism. You know, the ones which we refer to as "neo-Nazis." So, not invoking Godwin's law at all then, clearly. UPDATE: I should make it clear ...
The Conservatives trauma's over the remarks Daniel Hannan made to Fox TV look set to continue into the weekend The Spectator has joined the fray; directly contradicting the claims that health spending will be ring-fenced by an incoming Conservative government. Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph gets to the heart of what all the fuss is about; "Opinion [...]
Iain Dale has started publishing his top bloggers' lists from his recent poll. Today was the turn of Councillor bloggers to come under the spotlight. The top Lib Dem in the list is none other than the Scottish Blogosphere's Fraser MacPherson from Dundee, whose blog is one of my favourite reads. As well as loads of local information for the people in his ward, Fraser also discusses Scottish and UK wide politics from a Lib Dem perspective as well as his favourite music - it's Shirley Bassey week this week. Congratulations to Fraser on a well deserved achievement.
You have an astounding number of views of your YouTube jibe at Brown, people start talking about you as a future leader, of corse that would play on your mind when deciding whether to go to the USA and attack our NHS as a colossal waste of money. With the news that Dan Hannon has gone to the USA saying that our NHS should not be copied over there, it is important to take a rather cynical view to his attitude in terms of their hidden meaning. There is no way that anything that he has said about the NHS ...
Tom Freeman has an excellent blog post Where the record deficit came from, which is particularly worth reading for his graphs on how government income never hit the levels Gordon Brown kept on predicting, and on the relative role of higher spending and lower income in creating the current massive budget deficit. There is one comment though that doesn't persuade me: To run a modest deficit year after year during a period of decent growth and high employment - as the period before was not - is risky. You can get away with it for a while, especially if you've ...
David Spender writes:-The summer is a relatively quiet time for city council business with only the Planning Development Control Committee meeting during August. Not that the weather has provided much opportunity to enjoy the time off!One thing that does continue all through the year is ward work, attempting to deal with issues, problems and questions raised by residents. So I thought I'd use
{A sample of social networks. Photo credit: M. Keefe on Flickr} First social media was the next big thing. And we've got Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the crowd, with large and fast growing numbers of users. Then linking together your social media activity across different sites was the next big thing. And we've got repeated options to post content to more than one place, send notifications from one service to another and make at least partial use of your friends network from one service on another. Then real time search was the next big thing. And we've got ...
The formation of UK version of the Pirate Party could turn out to be a political development of more than passing interest, both because it may appeal to a section of heavy internet users who are willing to put considerable efforts in to promoting it and its policies, and also because its very existence may help shift the terms of political debate on some issues. The Telegraph has a good interview with its the Pirate Party's leader, Andrew Robinson, both covering him and his views at more than soundbite length but also throwing in some scepticism. It also has this ...
So the NHS has had quite a week, between Graham Linehan's defence of it and Peripheral Vision's attempt to get rid of it (or is it Liberal Vision's attempt? I've read through both websites and I still can't see any reason for the distinction beyond Mark Littlewood trying to become Darth Vision by establishing a Stelios-like grip on the word...) For those of us who have been watching the progress
Total politics have released the top 30 councillor's blogs and I'd like to congratulate my Lib Dem colleague Fraser MacPherson for coming in at number 16. This makes his top Lib Dem ahead of Brain Robson, Anders Hanson and the councillor for my old ward from University days Mary Reid at 28, 28 and 30 respectively. He is also if my reckoning is right top Scottish Councillor Blog ahead of Andrew Burns {Link} at 19 and Ewan Aitkens* at 21. So no right wing councillor blog for us north of the Border in the So well done to one the ...
A new party in the UK has been launched, the Pirate Party that already operates in Sweden has come to the UK and personally I am starting to agree with it. I personally don't see them as being a sort of political party, more a pressure group who put people up for election and with that in mind I think they are doing a good job. The Pirate Party UK want to remove the copyright on certain things and legalise Internet file sharing, for example the copyright on happy birthday so it can be sung in public. Many reading this, ...
Sat 15th
09:13
Just got my new passport photographs do you think i have aged working for Salford Council?
The other day I posted the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that Liberal Democrat Voice is devouring the rest of the Lib Dem blogosphere. There has been some enlightening debate in the comments since then, so let me make a few comments on those comments here. The suggestion that people who want to promote their own blogs should write something for Lib Dem Voice does nothing to soothe my original fears. I do agree with those who say that Lib Dem Voice should have a blogroll or at the very least a prominent button taking you to Ryan Cullen's LibDemBlogs aggregator. If we ...
Oh, bless him, John Prescott clearly sees himself as the knight in shining armour rushing to the side of a beleagered Barack Obama. He's been tweeting his You Tube video decrying the preposterous claims about the NHS made by Daniel Hannan to various official US Government sources and media networks. I know he means well, but I'm not sure if he's really thought through what he's saying and his audience. I think he could have done a much better defence of the NHS - surely to goodness Labour have some party election broadcast footage inside NHS health facilities that they ...
Daniel Hannan is a national disgrace by Jamie Sport August 13, 2009 at 4:16 pm Only the most cold-hearted of cynics could expess disdain for the many extraordinary achievments made in Britain throughout history. Those who have struggled for freedom and justice have shaped a country safe and civilised, without fear of oppression, tyranny, death [...]
I mentioned Pakistan's formation yesterday, and of course today is the day that modern India came into being. As I quoted the Pakistani National Poet Muhammad Iqbal yesterday, I suppose I can only match it by some of the finest and most stirring words ever written in English. Jawaharlal Nehru leader of the Indian National Congress and the first Prime Minister of India gave a speech on the eve of independence which beautifully captures the exultation of the end of the century-long struggle against the Raj in India. With your indulgence, I'd like to quote the first paragraph: "Long years ...
Could this be the future for local politics? are people sick and tired of the same old stuff thats pumped put. Perhaps this is the time for change, maybe there will be some shocks in 2010. Tories and Lib Dems suffer in latest council by-elections Tories and Liberal Democrats suffered at the hands of independent and minor [...]
One more call from a resident last night over anti social behavior. I have been to a few Pact meetings over the past month, and the police say we are looking into what sort of policing you want.In reality it's rubbish we still do not have the man power to cope. Four calls no response [...]
Some of that investment is starting to flow, and i am greedy for more, we need good housing stock in the best conditions, these people pay top dollar on the rent stakes. I need to talk with residents over the coming months to see if they are happy or have concerns, I am meeting with [...]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FS0YrTHaEI Hope you liked it as much as i did..
Sat 15th
06:25Incapacity claimants 'should exercise more'? one thing that amazes me with the remarks below is one ...
<!–Last Updated – 14th August 2009 at 11:24 AM –> Individuals on incapacity benefit should do more exercise to help them get back into work, the health secretary has said. Andy Burnham said that millions of pounds could be saved if just one per cent of those on benefits were to become more active and find [...]
A Welsh born MP has joined his Conservative colleague Alan Duncan in making insensitive remarks on tape. Nigel Evans, who represents Ribble Valley was caught on camera complaining that he cannot live on his £64,766 a year salary and that he needs a second job in order to make ends meet. The unguarded comments, which come in the wake of the MPs' expenses scandal, were caught by the same video journalist who recorded shadow Commons leader Alan Duncan saying that MPs live on "rations" and were treated like "sh*t". Activist Heydon Prowse, of Don't Panic magazine, captured the comments when ...
Speaking personally, I can't wait to see the next but one series of polls to see whether the weeks shenanigans have effected their poll ratings. Gordon Brown must be able to scarcely believe his luck; following Norwich North it looked like the Labour Party was going to spend the next year dragging out it's slow [...]
Have you driven on motorways and seen those adverts in farmers' fields? I am told that it is very distracting for drivers if they are on motorways and suddenly they see an advert. However it isn't a distraction if that advert is on private land and placed on something that is mobile like the side of a van. Now you are probably thinking like me, that it makes no difference whether the advert is permanent or temporary, they are both distracting. There is a loophole in the law which means that drivers may have their attention diverted and accidents may ...
Saturday: Well yes, my goodness it HAS been a bit of a while hasn't it. We have a great big pile of the Doctor Woo DVD Files on the floor next to my sofa now, because Daddy Richard and Daddy Alex have been spending all their time watching silly rubbish like "The Wire"! Anyway, Daddy Richard has FLU, so I've been able to wrestle the remote control out of his sweaty paw and put on some proper telly instead. And it didn't half make him feel BETTER! Here, between coughs and gurgles, is what he has to say about it: ...
