Roy Keane: "Clinton headed it at knee height. If you're a defender and he heads it that low you take his head off." [Just sack him, please.] # Paypal adds new fees with no notice http://bit.ly/U3N8Z #paypalfail # Had acupuncture for the first time today. Deeply unpleasant but stunningly effective. # Unbelievable piece of Facebook stupidity, via Wendi http://bit.ly/UCNgm Do try to remember when you've friended your boss, folks. # Appear to have got on an Amex junk mail list. Am looking for UK invoicing address so I can bill them for wasted time processing the letter. # Right. Have ...
I discovered the Subterranea Britannia site when I was writing my post about the Redditch rail tunnel the other week and intended to browse some more through it, but had forgotten until reading Jonathan Calder's post today about disused railway stations. While it's interesting to just browse through some of the old station names - and wonder if anyone in the years when they were opened travelled between Hope High Level and The Dyke - I noticed a mention of the Stour Valley Line, and discovered that not only did there used to be a line running from Cambridge to ...
Sun 16th
23:11
A bureaucrat, a Group Leader, the Party President and a computer - it takes a village to produce a F...
So, with Irfan's encouragement ringing in my ears, I ventured to Capel St Mary, where I was to receive an introductory course on PagePlus, and produce a Focus leaflet, courtesy of Kathy Pollard, our Group Leader on Suffolk County Council. Kathy has been incredibly supportive of my attempts to get involved with campaigning here in Suffolk and today was fascinating, as she demonstrated the basics of what PagePlus can do, and even had a photo taken of the two of us for one of the articles for the leaflet. Ros, who has been pretty inspirational in keeping me focussed, was ...
Here in the north it was a murky morning followed by a barmy summery afternoon so here, just in case you missed it is the best of the blogsphere and the mainstream media you may well have missed if you were having a BBQ or making the most of the sunshine in another way:- 1. Vince Cable has a busy media day calling for the 'rich to be reined in' on pages of The Guardian and also using his Mail On Sunday column to critique the surveillance state. 2. Peter Black questions the Conservatives green credentials and also details another ...
We have been out with the hit squad this weekend (!) – delivering a 'Thank You!' Focus for Derek Greenup - our candidate for the recent County Council election in Brede Valley & Marsham wards. This was also an opportunity for me to give another big welcome to all those residents of Brede Valley ward, who will [...]
Rye residents gave Radio 4's 'Any Questions?' programme a thunderous round of applause as the show finished just before nine o'clock on Friday night at Rye College. Locals had been treated to an entertaining debate with a wide range of questions: from the first, about the American Right and the NHS, to John Izod's final question [...]
Today I went out to Reigate for the day, to have lunch with my fellow biographer Michael Bloch at Mount Pleasant, a retreat for people involved in the creative industries (disconcertingly described as an 'artists' rest home' in most directories of charitable organisations) which enables writers, potters, architects and the like to stay at an [...]
Local residents in ———————will face another year of rising bills after Salford's Labour Council pushed through yet another increase in Council Tax. Salford's Council Tax has now risen by a shocking 86% since 1997. Conservatives proposed a freeze on Council Tax but this was rejected by Labour Councillors and not supported by the Liberal Democrats. Conservatives recognize [...]
Today, despite suffering my latest babysitting injury (who babysits the babysitters I ask?) I hobbled on my crutches down to Love Luton Hate Racism in St Georges' Square. Blessed with glorious weather, the point of the refurbishment of the square (courtesy of the former Lib Dem administration it has to be said) was clear. A fantastic community space in the middle of town useful in order to cock a snoop at the racists who have tried to hijack our town for their own nefarious ends. A great turn out, a fabulous atmosphere and a succession of excellent music. I was ...
keep then coming gives me a laugh, a prize for the best.
Well i no there is no yellow bit but perhaps a few Tories would like to comment
Yesterday, "Total Politics" announced the UK's Best 30 councillors' blogs and I am rather flattered that www.dundeewestend.com is the top LibDem councillor blog and 16th overall. For the record, here's the result : 1(1) Luke Akehurst LA2 Bickerstaffe Record LA3 Richard Willis CO4 (3) Paul Scully CO5 Steve Tierney CO6 (5) Bob Piper LA7 (4) James Cleverly MLA CO8 (29) Gwilym Euros Roberts NA9 Stuart Syvret NA10 (26) Dave Luckett CO11 Cllr Tim Blog LA12 (15) Fair Deal Phil LA13 Kerron Cross LA14 (9) Iain Lindley CO15 Lightwater CO16 (16) Fraser Macpherson LD17 (22) City Hall (Roger Evans) CO18 Emma ...
There has never been a better moment to stand before the court of public opinion for a job in parliament. Patrick Barkham guides you through eight steps of how to become an independent MP Former Independent MP Martin Bell at the launch of the European election campaign by the Jury Team movement for independent candidates [...]
{Birmingham New Street redesign} The Network Rail website has a flythrough video of the exterior concept of the redesigned Birmingham New Street station. (Hat-tip Birmingham Central blog)
Writing on Comment is Free today, Vince Cable argues: There is now a compelling case for a high pay commission to measure the claims of top earners that their rewards are justified and necessary, even if they offend natural justice and our sense of fairness. Britain increasingly resembles one of those developing countries whose economy and society are dominated by internationally mobile business managers and a pampered local elite. Most of the natives, outside the prosperous enclaves, count themselves lucky to have a job. There is nothing intrinsically offensive to most people about talented inventors, entrepreneurs, performers or sports stars ...
How far would you go to win an election? I don't think anyone I know in any party would ever betray women in the way that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has done. In order to get the support of Shia men in the forthcoming Presidential election in Afghanistan, he has quietly allowed the enactment of this law. Incredibly, it states that men can starve their wives if they refuse to have sex with them. This is supposed somehow to be better than the original law which Karzai shelved in April which removed the requirement to consent within marriage and stated ...
Great news talking to residents tonight, at last the investment is starting to leak through. Once it's finished we should see houses we are proud of.
Today I visited the Richard Jefferies Museum on the outskirts of Swindon. I also walked around Coate Water, which Jefferies immortalised in his work. It was my third attempt to visit the reservoir. The first time I was with a friend and we were young and stupid and baffled by Swindon's road system. The second time I got to the water's edge, but it was so foggy that it was impossible to see anything - indeed, today I could not decide where it was I had been standing that second time. But today I made it.
Daniel Hannan thinks its OK to attack the NHS and say that he wouldn't wish it on anybody and then come out with a post called "my final word" but not even mention the wishing part. Daniel Hannan not only insulted NHS staff, he insulted the hard working people in Britain, the old, the students, and people from third world countries. Offer an NHS to a child in Africa and you will get a thank you that not even your own flesh and blood would give you, the people of Africa and third world countries pray for services like the ...
I walked down to Whickham this morning to print 500 petition forms in our office and then deliver them with Neil Bradbury, our candidate for Blaydon. The petition opposes the decision by Labour to remove some of the flower beds in the area. Labour in Gateshead are the party of cuts though if you listen to their sanctimonious drivel, you could be conned into thinking otherwise. I have just been
Welcome to the 130th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (9th August – 15th August 2009), together with a hand-picked quintet, partly courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget, by the way, you can now sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox – just click here – ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. Day 3148: Pillock's ...
Peter Mandelson recently said that the Labour party are now the underdogs. He certainly set out to prove that in a Today programme interview where he attacked Conservative party proposals on the economy, without saying what his party would do. This is the sort of tactic that an opposition party employs and not one for the governing party. Ministers' who have been on television talking about the financial crisis have been making the point that things would be even worse if David Cameron was Prime Minister. The Labour narrative seems to be: yes things are tough now and we might ...
A few days ago I blogged on the case of Marjorie Eyton-Jones from Benllech, Anglesey, whose family recovered more than £165,000 in nursing fees which were wrongly paid. I suggested that the judgement was a landmark case that could have wide-ranging ramifications for the National Health Service and hopefully beneficial implications for families in the same situation as those of Mrs Eyton-Jones. However, I have now been contacted by her family's solicitor who has pointed out that the decision was not made by the court, therefore no judgement was made. This was not clear from the news reports and I ...
I realise I am a bit late to the party but I have been on holiday so have only just had the chance to do a post in response to last weekend's Lib Dem Voice meme regarding the blog posts from our own site that we wish to self nominate for the imminent Lib Dem BOTY awards. So here are a few plucked from my blog: Democracy Diner: I did this satirical sketch last month imagining what it would be like if restaurants treated its customers in the same way as the electoral system treats its voters. It was fairly ...
There has been a Twitter war this week over the NHS. The level of debate on both sides of the Atlantic appeared to be more knee-jerk reactions that thought out positions. Then again, Drew Weston made the point in his book The Political Brain, that politics is about emotion and we certainly saw a huge about of outpouring for and against the National Health Service and reform of the US health care system. It strikes me that there is no reason why one cannot admire something like the NHS as well as wanting to see another system. After all, there ...
As I was writing the title to this, it dawned on me that it sounded like some sort of Union slogan against Tory spending cuts. They must have used it at some point. They get it right sometimes! As I said before, I'm a big fan of the NHS. It's not perfect, and there's room for improvement, but the principle of universal healthcare free at the point of need is an absolutely brilliant one. I would fight tooth and nail to preserve that principle and the last thing I want to see is the Tories dismantling it as I fear ...
In the care of Charles Crawford.
The reform of the US health care system has hit the UK headlines this week. On our TV screens, very angry Americans have been attacking Democrats about the proposals. Not being in the USA, it is hard to know exactly what is going on. After all, the Republicans agree with Obama: the way America needs to do health care has to change. Obama decided to avoid imposing a scheme on Congress but instead asked them to develop a policy that had cross-party support. Are some Republicans playing politics? Or are grassroots conservative groups whipping up the frenzy? Perhaps people are ...
I am seriously considering putting an end to Lib Demmery, and getting into the military as an IT geek. Why not? You get a nice wage, the thrill of serving Queen and County and you get to enjoy a hobbie as a job. But the problem is do I have the balls to do it? Sorry for the term ladies, but in reality that is the first question that I need to ask myself. Do I have what it takes to get a job in the military? Will I be able to risk life for Queen and Country? It's an ...
After yesterdays campaigning I decided to move into a different part of the constituency, well to the neighbouring estate on the Broadway in Whickham anyway! A good reception and a good response to our survey. It was interesting to read two things in the newspapers, both about the (distant) third party in Blaydon - the Conservatives. It was interesting to see their solution to widespread discontent to the current league table system to schools, tweaking the league tables! (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8203673.stm). They intend to award more university points for "harder" subjects and less for "soft" subjects. It's easy for the Tories to ...
In brief: by trying to turn the defence of the NHS against American attacks into a political stick with which to beat the Conservatives, Labour has given David Cameron and other senior Conservatives plenty of airtime to make the case, "Look, we're not like previous Tories. We like the NHS - and to prove it, we're going to criticise a fellow Tory." It's just like Tony Blair showing that he and Labour had changed by bashing his own party; giving Cameron and co. the opportunity to be in the media bashing their own party helps Cameron achieve his strategic objective. ...
For the past week Leith Harbour has been the home of billionaire plaything Le Grand Bleu, a stunning yacht with heli pad and helicopter, sailing yacht and speedboat all part of the deal. Le Grand Bleu is one of the largest private yachts in the world, measuring a massive 370 feet, weighing 5,500 tonnes and is said to be worth about £150 million. This picture isn't the best, it was from my phone http://mypict.me/mpQk The yacht was built in Bremenand and launched back in 2000 with a crew of 50, it costs around £6 million a year to operate and ...
The final line in the Mail on Sunday's coverage of Riam Dean's victory over Abercrombie and Fitch for unfair dismissal: She may not be one of the 'cool kids' who belong in Abercrombie's twisted looks-based culture, but Riam is doing all the better for it. Meanwhile, the top stories linked to on that page are about how thin Victoria Beckham is, how Britney Spears and Jennifer Love Hewitt look in bikinis and how you can get a non-surgical nose job for under £300.
The nice people at AntibodyMX said they'd de-spamify my email for me for free provided I wrote a review. They didn't say it had to be a good review :-) so I took them up on it.I've previously been rather sceptical about such services. There are obvious concerns about privacy from having all your mail go through someone elses systems instead of going - as far as is possible - straight from the sender to you. If you use TLS (and you should) then even if your mail transits someone elses network, they won't be able to read it. With ...
For the last few months I've been using git for my version control system. It's better than CVS because it can handle offline commits. So if I'm using my laptop on a train, I can still use version control without having to have a notwork connection.And to give a pretty web front-end to it for other people to read code without having to check it out of the repository, I use cgit, which I mostly chose because it's a dead simple CGI and not a huge fancy application.One problem with cgit is that by default it doesn't do code highlighting. ...
Custodial sentences for young offenders are being used inconsistently, MPs have warned. The Commons justice committee said there was no "common understanding" of what was meant by "last resort" and warned of regional variations across England and Wales. The law states children aged 14 and under should not be sent to custody unless they have [...]
Isn't our English language wonderful? We are always coming up with new terms and phrases. One I like is 'Have a go Hero'. I believe in general we are not involved enough in our local communities and perhaps do not intervene when we should because we are scared and believe that it is none of our business. There are also plenty of examples where people do not intervene when someone is attacked and passers by just look on or pass. However there have also been plenty of reports where having a go has resulted in that person being attacked themselves. ...
Trying to work out how much someone would pay you to buy a blog is a very interesting topic; I have three valuations on this blog, one from cubestat.com, the second one from statswebsites.com and the third valuation from websiteoutlook.com. The valuations are as followed: $2934.6 USD Website Outlook $113846.0 USD Stats Website $1,386.27 USD Cubestat Now I want to sell the blog for the stats website valuation, but what would you actually pay for this blog?
No, not that Brown, sadly the country stays upon his leisure in the sense that he gets to decide within reason when he goes. I am, of course, referring to Michael Brown, the convicted fraudster who sadly for us chose to make the Liberal Democrats one of the beneficiaries of his largess. Today's Observer carries [...]
After a week of George Osborne attempting to claim the mantle of "progress" whilst defending the NHS, and an organisation called "Progressive Vision" calling for the NHS to be scrapped, PoliticsHome have published a poll which suggests that a) A third of people think that no political party is 'progressive' and that Labour is less progressive than the Tories, Lib Dems and the Greens; and that b) most people think that 'progress' means 'reforming' and 'modernising.' I'm sure that what PoliticsHome would like us to infer from these findings is that Labour is a busted flush, and it is hard ...
That wasn't the title you would have expected on my blog was it readers? I have just been sat supping coffee while reading this weeks Scotland on Sunday newspaper plus all of the different inserts. What caught my eye this week wasn't that a Tory toff MEP doesn't like the NHS (hardly a surprise given their desire to charge you for operations etc etc), nor Gordon Brown twittering that #welovetheNHS but it was in the property section of the atHome magazine. For sale; Mull of Kintyre, Argyll A wonderful private island with a 5 bedroom farmhouse, 3 homestead cottages, 3 ...
The BBC reports on the detention at Newark-New Jersey Airport of a Bollywood film star for two hours, apparently because he has a Muslim name. This comes as no surprise to me from my experience of that airport. In 2006 we returned to the UK from Mexico via New-New Jersey Airport, and the way passengers were treated in the name of security was preposterous. When we were going through security to get back in to departures, having reclaimed our luggage from our connection, we were stood behind a white American man who was ordered, by security staff, to remove his ...
In the days of yore, when I was a student, if I strayed too far into normal pubs and away from the usual student hangouts, I was looked upon with great suspicion if I tried to order a pint. I remember being told at least once that they didn't serve pints to women. Needless to say, I left. Even when we lived in Nottinghamshire, ordering a pint of real ale and being female had its incompatibilities. Anyway, I was amused to see this story which suggests that moderate consumption of beer can actually protect women from Osteoporosis. However, you get ...
Who said money couldn't buy power? Apparently the Prime Minister to be, David Cameron has been taking flights for free on the private plane of a millionaire, in return for allowing him to have a say in policy making. Now, a political party is meant to have policy that is for the good of the general public, but it seems that the Tories are creating policy for the good of big business. The Conservatives can try as hard as they want to become the nice party, but everyone knows that in reality they are a bunch of middle class people ...
Is it the epic historical film from last year? Do you see a triangular number and a pair of twin primes (149 and 151)? Or do you recall how Jo Shaw, the Lib Dem PPC for Holburn and St Pancras revealed in the Telegraph last week that that's how many children are added to the UK's DNA database each and every day. Almost 1.1 million youngsters aged between ten and 17 have had their profiles recorded by the police since 2000, with a large proportion aged under 15, the Daily Telegraph can disclose. And around one in six are likely ...
And whilst we are on the Tories, today's Observer has cast further doubt on the ability of David Cameron to distance himself from Daniel Hannan and his anti-NHS rhetoric. They say that several key Tory shadow cabinet members put their names to a manifesto criticising the NHS and calling for it in effect to be dismantled: The Observer can reveal that leading Tory MPs - who include Cameron's close ally Michael Gove - are listed alongside controversial MEP Daniel Hannan as co-authors of a book, Direct Democracy, which says the NHS "fails to meet public expectations" and is "no longer ...
We have already seen the spectacle of David Cameron, the cyclist, being followed to the House of Commons by a car carrying all his stuff, now we have further evidence that the greenness of the new cuddly Tory party is just skin deep. Questions are also raised about how donors are kept at arms length from the policy making process in the Conservatives. The Independent On Sunday report that one of the 10 multi-millionaire businessmen regularly funding David Cameron's private flights has boasted of how he helped to shape the Conservative Party's energy policy. They say that the Tory leader ...
A controversial appointment by Local Government Minister, Brian Gibbons has become more problematic with the revelation that the man he sent in to sort out the Council in Ynys Mon, was suspended from his last job as chairman of the United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust (ULHT) pending a review of the way the trust had been run. NHS East Midlands, which oversees local health care, said a series of inquiries were looking into patient care at the trust. David Bowles' appointment as the troubleshooter brought in to run Anglesey council after a series of arguments between Councillors and a damning report ...
Two 1960's tower blocks fell today in Netherfields, Middlesbrough and this blog was there to see it. Unfortunately it happened so fast we were not quick enough to get a picture of them coming down. The two 16 storey blocks, Fulbeck House and Glentworth House, were demolished with plastic explosive at 12 noon and we took our 5 years old grandson, Daniel, to watch. Chris, who has in the past done electrical work in both blocks, was poised to take a picture of them falling and expected to hear a siren before they fell but it happened all of a ...
Last week was one of the best for TV programmes for ages as far as I'm concerned. On Thursday a prom concert with the first performance of a lovely cello concerto by a Korean woman called Unsuk Chin; On Friday a charming and moving comedy drama film about allotments (yes!) called "Grow Your Own"; On Saturday another prom concert, this time with my favourite choir, The Sixteen and The Orchestra of the Sixteen and their wonderful conductor, Harry Christophers performing an evening of Handel and finishing up with that terrific sing, "Zadok the Priest"; A Dr Who repeat with David ...
Cabaret Bar, Zoo Southside 19:15 So what makes a corporate speaker become a stand up at the Fringe? The influence of Dave Gorman? No. Copious amounts of alcohol and an open mike? Well possibly but not in this case. A bet for £1? Could be! Yeah Marc Hogan himself persuaded me in the Fringe Box Office queue to go and see his show. He wasn't speaking directly to me but to he people stood behind me. But it was enough for me, even if a PowerPoint presentation based comedy show is a bit of a busman's holiday. But hey I ...
Despite the problems that me and Mark have had in the past, I think I should write this blog post as a bit of advice to Mark, following his recent blog post about how he is launching an active campaign and wants to learn how to write leaflets using PagePlus. Mark, PagePlus is easy to use if you know how, as I am someone who has been using it since I was 11, I can pretty much use the software with my eyes closed. Many Lib Dem agents and leaflet writers still don't use PagePlus so if you find an ...
So, yesterday I did a blog about the Tories educational reform proposals. They stigmatise the more vocational and practical A-levels and GSCE's at the expense of traditional science and maths, which they believe we all should be amazing at to have a sustainable living. As I said in my blog yesterday, I disagree totally with what they are saying, as there are many students who do pick their studies due to their desire and want to study the subject, not because they see it as an 'easy ride'. It is wrong to say that the less traditional subjects should be ...
Vince Cable's latest column for the Mail on Sunday is out and this time it's about civil liberties: A quarter of a century has passed since 1984, the titular year of George Orwell's novel which described a world constantly spied upon by an all-powerful dictator, the fearsome Big Brother. It never happened. Orwell's nightmarish vision was realised, for a while, in communist Eastern Europe but the Stasi and similar agencies have now gone. And yet in a quiet, insidious way our own democratic society is producing a surveillance state that Big Brother would have been proud to call his own. ...
Which is better? If I was asked the question, I now would have to shout twitter. Recently I have become a twitter addict, and with the welcoming I got into the twitterati, I like twitter over Facebook for a number of reasons that I shall outline below. Facebook is great for sharing pictures, chatting with friends and viewing their profiles but the problem is that you can do all that now with twitter. You can share pics with friends with twitpic, you can talk to friends via @replies or direct messages and you can view each others twitter profiles. With ...
Sun 16th
12:42
Read the comments from Blears and look at the Date, i nearly wet my self. i wonder if she as any tho...
Blears: This is the fight of our lives Hazel Blears admits Labour facing tough fight Monday, 22, Sep 2008 12:00 Labour is facing the "fight of its life" to stay in power, communities secretary Hazel Blears has admitted. At a packed rally hosted by the Progress thinktank, Ms Blears also renewed her implicit criticism of Gordon [...]
Green technology. Yuck, right? I mean, Greener rarely means 'better' - it usually means worse, not as good as, not quite as awesome but in return you use less energy, contributing something impossibly tiny to the global efforts to cope with what is, in fact, the limit of existing means of generating energy. The abundance of usable energy is intimately linked to success for life on this planet - food, light and heat for example. The same is true for humanity - the cheaper our energy, the richer we all become. This is because cheap energy frees up resources for ...
South Glos has reached the stage with the housing scheme where they want a name for it, and as usual they have asked the Town Council for ideas. If you have any suggestions (no doubt local residents can think of some rude ones....) please let us know as soon as possible, and we'll pass them on. Yate Town Council tends to try to use old field names, but in this case, if anyone can think of something that commemorates the fact we used to have a green there that people played on, that would be even better.
Poltics Home has this poll which I find somewhat fascinating because it doesn't just ask which party is progressive but tries to narrow people down to defining words. It shows that only 12% of people think that the Labour Party is progressive which is behind 17% who think that the Greens are [...]
Alright, I confess that, in the past, I've not always been keen on 'retail politics'. Happy to help, deliver leaflets, canvass (a bit), do the odd residents survey, but somebody else can be the candidate. It's all a bit aggressive, urban campaigning. However, now that I've got a feel for how politics is done here in our rural idyll, I've changed my mind. This rather more gentle politics is more my speed. It's no less important, but there is less overt unpleasantness. So, I've sought an opportunity to be a candidate in 2011 with the intention of actually having a ...
Fury as moaning Tory Alan Duncan flies business class to Bali for a break EXCLUSIVE by Vincent Moss, Political Editor 16/08/2009 Senior Tory jets to luxury holiday in Asia after whining 'MPs are living on rations' Top Tory Alan Duncan is enjoying a luxury holiday in Bali with his partner – days after he bleated about how [...]
Blue Square Premiership. Hmmm... isn't it nice that such small things bring joy? P.S. Condolences to Norfolk Blogger. It's not easy...
Tomorrow the Quins Bloodgate hearing takes place. Just a few weeks before the start of the new season.With Dean Richards gone, the club that end of last season was riding a massive high is now on the brink of total devastation.Yesterday's Daily Telegraph carried the story "revealing" that Tom Williams was cut with a scalpel, though those of us who are members of Rucku have been aware of this for
Well as usual when I go away for a few days there is a big story that I have come back to and have had to properly catch up with. This time it is the whole NHS debate kicked off by Obama's attempts to get healthcare reform proposals on the table in the US and brought into sharp focus in the UK by Daniel Hannan's disparaging comments about the NHS on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News (see below for embedded version) combined with the "#WeLoveTheNHS" Twitter campaign. Allied to this and coincidentally, as part of my holiday reading I ...
Yet another by-election, this time on Oswestry Town Council.
The Lib Dems have always selected their candidates by "one member one vote" (OMOV). It has always seemed the most logical and transparently fair system, and it is certainly better than having candidates hand-picked by an inner cabal. It still does a fairly good job at selecting candidates for the House of Commons, although as membership levels drop that is becoming less true. But it has been quite inadequate for selecting candidates for larger constituencies, particularly for the European Parliament and London Assembly. Here's the fundamental problem: a significant proportion of our members are concentrated in our held and target ...
Blackwood's Magazine (November 1833) decried the impact of the Great Reform Act on British politics, saying it had brought forth MPs who spent too much time giving speeches: The Reform Bill ... has augmented two-fold that class of orators who spend their breath and not their money in securing their places [i.e. constituencies], and whose seat is held by the most precarious of all tenures, that of pleasing a giddy and inconstant multitude. Others might call it democracy, but never mind... Every man can judge of the length of a speech; not one in ten can form an opinion either ...
Well, I'm back home after my staycation (the most zeitgeisty word flying around). I've repeated it three times in this title not only because everyone is using it at the mo, but also because if I'm ever to be a politician proper, I need to use this 'trio' phasing to the max. Cornwall was our staycatination [...]
Reviewing Tinchy Stryder new album in the Guardian on Friday, Alex Petridis suggested that his rise to fame "had the makings of a certain kind of undemanding British comedy": Two clueless middle-class kids (Rupert Grint, Nicholas Hoult from Skins) set up their own rap promotions company in Norfolk. They alight upon an unsigned east London rapper, funding his career with contributions from their grand-parents (Leslie Phillips and June Whitfield) and the local Catholic priest (Rowan Atkinson). One half of the promotions team also taps a loan from his parents, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Norfolk (Jim Broadbent) and his ...
Whilst talking to Kerry McCarthy yesterday, I learnt that Azhar Ali is looking for a Parliamentary seat to fight, this is probably the first most reading this who know of Azhar have heard on the matter. As Craig Murray pointed out in a blog post that he wrote in 2006, Azhar has had allegations put forward against him claiming he took part in vote rigging. Moving on from the allegations that until today haven't been proved right, I personally think Labour should use Azhar Ali as the Labour PPC in 2015. Everyone knows, Mr Prentice is most likely going to ...
Today in 1962, Pete Best was replaced by Ringo Starr as the drummer for The Beatles, which reminds me of my favourite joke to do with the Fab Four. When asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world, John Lennon quipped that, "He's not even the ...
Subterranea Britannica has a magnificent and growing index of disused railway stations, with photographs showing them in their heyday and on their last legs. The photograph above shows the once-noble Crystal Palace High Level in South London in the early 1950s, shortly before it closed. The netting is to prevent debris falling on the waiting passengers.
The rest of The Voice's Daily View team may have decided to have a lie in each morning during August, but we're made of sterner stuff here on the Sunday slot (for the moment). And as it's a Sunday, it's also time for another bonus musical extra. Big Stories UK death toll in Afghanistan reaches 200 A British soldier has died from wounds suffered in Afghanistan, taking the number of UK troops killed since operations began in 2001 to 200. The soldier, from the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh, died in hospital in Birmingham. Family have been informed. (BBC) Britain ...
I had originally written this as a comment to Andrew Hickey's Beginner's Guide to Comics, but I thought I would add it here instead. First go away and read his article and then come back to this: Andrew's is a good list which I would broadly agree with. Jaka's Story was one of those strips which was being hailed during the "Pow! Comics Grow Up!" period of the late 80s. I'd like my older self to give it a read – I certainly remember the ending being very powerful. But as he recognises there is that Dave Sim "ick" factor ...
Two opinion polls have been published tonight which, broadly speaking, have shown no change in the political picture. ICM's headline figures show the Conservatives on 43%, Labour on 26% and Liberal Democrats on 19%. Since these changes are all within the margin of error it maybe that the interest here will be in the results [...]
There is a widespread feeling that parents should hand down their inheritance to their children. Napoleon questioned this because he wanted to break up the French aristocracy and the French to this day can't pass everything to one child. I have previously written that if children need the money they will waste it and if they don't need it then it is a good opportunity to raise taxes. The dead can't complain. I would like to see an increase in inheritance tax. However most people will still want to leave something to their children. Ideally the children would make good ...
My mother was born on 14 August 1903, so yesterday was the 106th anniversary of her birth. In her own way she was quite modern. She was a teacher when many women did not go to work, she rode a motorbike as a young woman and drove a car later ...
Well hello my darling's and welcome back to Miss Scarlett's Seven on Sunday- this week's a health edition... Jock Coats kicked off the week in style before the hysteria set in: 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 ...
