Nick Perry, the Liberal Democrat parliamentary campaigner for Hastings & Rye, has issued a stark warning following reports in the Business Section of Monday\'s Guardian that BT has become 'one of the first big name companies to scrap its graduate recruitment scheme'. Journalists David Teather and Kathryn Hopkins said that, 'BT blamed the economy on the decision ...
So what's been happening in the Liberal Democrat blogosphere while I have been wandering in the Fens? Moments of Clarity condemned Nick Clegg for saying that Al-Megrahi should not have been released on compassionate grounds. I don't think Nick should have said that either. Darrell, who writes Moments of Clarity, says Nick is jumping on a bandwagon. It seems more likely to me that someone has told him that he should sound a bit more right wing to appeal to swing voters in Lib Dem seats where the Tories are the challengers. The ALDC blog looked forward to the Liberal ...
Darling says he will be dealing with the lost generation. I doubt he'll succeed. There are young men and women graduating this year who have no jobs to go to. BT has cancelled its graduate scheme. How many more companies will follow suit? Luckily these students will not have to pay off their loans until they get a job, but those loans will continue to increase in interest. The longer they are unemployed, the heavier that debt becomes. When will the Government admit it got it wrong, with top-up fees? For Labour and Plaid there can be no excuse, unfortunately. ...
The evidence looks pretty damning, as you can see from these two screenshots of different Microsoft sites. The first is its main US site and the second is its Polish site: [IMG: Microsoft Englis and Polish websites] Screenshots taken from Microsoft's English site and Microsoft's Polish site. As you can see from the full versions on those sites, the person's hand is the same in both and it is the first (US) one that looks to be the genuine photo. Hat-tip: Engadget Related posts:Why do so many council websites get some basics wrong? A survey of local council websites I ...
With City Council committees last night lasting around 5 hours and finishing around 11pm, doing an update on the events there was not possible yesterday, but I feel it appropriate to discuss today the debate over the Significant Case Review and Independent Review into the circumstances into the tragic and terrible death of Brandon Muir - without doubt the major - and most serious - matter to be discussed by city councillors in a very long time. You can read the report to the City Council's Policy & Resources Committee by clicking on the headline above. During the debate, I ...
I'm too tired today to write the next hyperpost, but the posts for the next few days are planned out in my head, and will probably be: Tomorrow – The Kingdom, and the storytelling possibilities of Hypertime Thursday – The End Of Time – a look at Julian Barbour's book (with reference also to Deutsch's The Fabric ...
This week's Manor House Library Film Club Saturday matinee is Casino Royale. 3.30pm in the AV Room (first floor) It's absolutely FREE to attend, but please do book your place by giving the Library a call on 8852 0357.
So, Peter Mandelson is back at the heart of government and back in the press firing line; which in itself is a comment on his centrality to the Labour machine. Of course, he does somewhat leave himself open to these attacks but nonetheless he should be flattered in a way. However, his list of proposals ...
In response to the Brown press conference, William Hague said that he 'thinks' a Tory government would have acted differently regarding commenting about the release of the Lockerbie bomber:"It is a Scottish decision but I think we would have given our opinion." Well I think that you would not have gave your opinion at all. It is clear that Labour and Brown have interests in oil development and the like over in Libya, so if they do disagree with the decision to let Migrahi it is obviously hard for Brown to say anything. Whilst I am not supporting the pursuit ...
The first photograph shows an internet cafe in King's Lynn. I went there so often they were giving me free coffee by the end. The second shows the library at Crowland, where I was earlier today. It has free internet access and the Abbey ruins in the background as a bonus.
Gordon Brown has, after five days' silence, commented on the Scottish government's decision to release on compassionate grounds Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of involvement in the Lockerbie bombing. Mr Brown said he was "repulsed" by the welcome Mr al-Megrahi received on his arrival home. Ed Davey, the Lib Dems' shadow foreign secretary, is unimpressed: Gordon Brown's comments on Lockerbie are a masterclass in evasion. When a decision is made by another politician, and has such grave international consequences, the Prime Minister's refusal to say whether or not he supports it almost amounts to negligence. "It is hard to ...
The line up for this year's series of Strictly Come Dancing. Don't worry, I'm not going to go through it all on here. I know that I'm already trying the patience of some of you with my copious postings on Formula 1, and I fear that you'd just lose the will to live if you were subjected to Strictly as well, so I've given my Strictly blog the kiss of life. I am going to think seriously about doing a dedicated F1 blog for next year, but I really want to keep all this season's stuff in one place, so ...
I've been receiving calls this week from constituents concerned about plans to convert a hotel on Kendrick Road in to an house of multiple occupation (HMO). Residents are concerned about the impact that this change will have on the unique character of the Kendrick Road Conservation area. Increasing numbers of private properties being turned into HMOs is a major issue in Redlands. Residents associate it with the decline of the neighbourhood and many feel powerless to stop this deterioration from happening. It also angers residents that development in Conservation areas (like the one on Kendrick Road) is not more tightly controlled by the Council. In other boroughs such as Lib-Dem ...
Catching up on what happened in British domestic politics while I was sojourning on the continent, I came across Vince Cable's Guardian article, The rich must be reined in, in which our deputy leader advocated the establishment of 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.' It seems to have evaded the LDV Collective's radar (tsk, I go away for two weeks, see what happens), so here's an excerpt: There is nothing intrinsically offensive to most people about talented ...
I have been following the political fallout from Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill MSP decision to grant an early release to terminally-ill Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi both here and in the USA. I wanted to examine three particular points of the whole episode. 1.MSP reaction I cant help but feel that the attacks by the MSP's on the Kenny MacAskill SNP decision are from a purely political stand point and are simply political point scoring. When asked on a BBC Radio Five Live report if they would of come to the same decision during yesterdays Scottish parliament meeting, in general the ...
I'm in agreement with Anton Vowl on this: I'm a libertarian at heart. By which I don't mean "I'm one of those people who calls himself a libertarian to mask and justify his inherent racism", or "I'm one of those people who calls himself a libertarian because 'extremely right wing' doesn't sound as good" or anything like that. No, I mean libertarian in the sense that it used to be used before the so-called politically incorrect brigade turned it into a confusing term that can just as easily mean "free thinker" or "total arsehole": essentially, that adults should be allowed, ...
What's cost the taxpayer £82m over the last five years? Answer: compensation claims against county councils and unitary authorities by members of the public who have tripped on pavements. The figures from 90 local authorities were obtained by the Lib Dems under Freedom of Information requests; there are still 10,000 claims unsettled. Here's what the Lib Dems' shadow transport secretary Norman Baker had to say: With council and household budgets under more pressure than ever, the last thing the local taxpayer needs is to be paying massive compensation claims for injuries caused by dangerous pavements. This is money that could ...
And while I am talking about dates.. a reminder that the deadline for anyone wanting to comment about the application for the off license on Garston Old Road is this Friday (28th). I can pass things on if you e mail me at paula.keaveney@liverpool.gov.uk but please make sure your name and address are on the message.
That provisional date of 15th September for the committee is looking a lot more solid. I should know for sure next week and so will post again to confirm.
I love reading and so it's great when I discover a new author (well new to me) and realise he or she has written a few already. Browsing among the crime novels, I have just discovered Stephen Booth - whose two main protagonists are police officers in the Peak District. Read the first one, loved it, and so am now on another - Blind to the Bones. If you like crime novels I can really recommend this author. I'll be giving him a big mention when I do the Radio Merseyside book review this weekend.
Superior Court Judge William Camarata of New Jersey, USA, has made the — to my mind completely amazing and crazy — decision to refuse a couple the right to adopt a second child. Why? Because "no person shall be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshipping Almighty God" and the would-be parents are atheists. John and Cynthia Burke of Newark had already adopted a son, David, from a local (state) agency and two years later adopted a little girl, Eleanor. From the same agency. The first adoption went fine but the court has proclaimed that because the parents do not ...
Shocking new figures obtained by the BBC show that Salford's housing shortage has reached crisis point. The corporation reveals that 19,700 people are on the social housing list in Salford, but there are only 177 available homes. The decision to demolish thousands of homes in Broughton and Langworthy as well as elsewhere across the city have done nothing but bring misery and uncertainty to Salfordians, who should expect at the very least to have a roof over their heads. The housing shortage has further been acerbated by the introduction of the Conservative 'right to buy' scheme introduced in the 1980s, ...
From a recent party mailing : Monday 21st September (morning) - Crime Policy: Panel including Chris Huhne MP (Shadow Home Secretary), Jan Berry (Independent Reducing Bureaucracy Advocate), Juliet Lyon (Director, Prison Reform Trust) and Professor... Read and post comments | Send to a friend
This email detailing fab' ways to get involved in Conference in Bournemouth just dropped into my inbox. It's well worthy of wider circulation. Here at Freedom Central we are looking for people who want to tell us about their experiences at Federal Conference by blogging or recording it on Flip's. If you would like to be one of those people get in touch. You can get full details of the Federal Conference agenda, including when Kirsty is set to speak here. Even if you can't join us at our conference in Bournemouth, you can still take part. The conference features ...
Cabinet government is dead, in the sense that hip hop is dead, or Elvis. That is, there's something resembling cabinet government still knocking about, but for all intents and purposes, the cabinet government of the 20th century is dead. This may come as a shock to some people, as it appeared to shock the Guardian, who printed it on their front page yesterday after several former cabinet secretaries gave a damning criticism of the Blair-Brown years and their presidential style of governing. But to anyone who studied AS level Politics last year, this judgement won't come as a surprise at ...
Two committee meetings in one night last night, as Strategic Overview and Scrutiny Panel was followed by the first meeting of Colchester's Crime and Disorder Committee. This is a new committee we've been required to create by the Government to scutinise the work of our local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership. Rather than set up an entirely new committee to do this, we decided to make it part of the SOS Panel's work - technically, it's a separate committe, but it has the same membership as the SOS Panel, and meets after that meeting is finished. So, we got to ...
I'm no great fan of CCTV. But neither am I a great fan of sloppy reporting or sloppy debate. We are told that CCTV cameras are an expensive waste of time because they don't help solve crime - except in one case per thousand cameras. There are two things wrong with this analysis, if I can call it that. The first is that the evidence reported suggests it's not the cameras themselves that are failing, but the way they're being used. If the cameras don't take pictures, as is reported, and if they're being examined by untrained people (though I ...
Tue 25th
15:14
What do you get if you put a dictator, a movie mogul and Lord Mandelson in the same room?
Answer: Pretty much anything they want - it would seem. [IMG: unelected Business Secretary] The latest loony suggestion from the Government, announced today, is to FORCE Internet Service Providers to suspend access to those internet users who illegally download music and films. It's a stupid suggestion - forcing ISPs to take action on offenders. If piracy is illegal its surely a police matter - not a matter for business. And who exactly is going to police the ISPs to ensure that they do as instructed, another quango? And in any event who's to say that those most adept at piracy ...
Southport's MP, Lib Dem John Pugh, has warned that we could be 'sleepwalking into trouble' with the announcement that 18 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) will be lost from Sefton's streets. Time-limited funding for PCSOs is scheduled to run out in 2010.
Monday: "This isn't about JUSTICE; it's about COMPASSION. It's not SUPPOSED to make SENSE."* Let's be clear about one thing: regardless of any doubts about whether he actually did it or not, the release of the man convicted of exploding flight Pan-Am 103 was nothing to do with JUSTICE. "Justice" seems to mean "people getting what they deserve". You don't need to believe in Mr God to recognise that in THIS world that's QUITE DIFFICULT to achieve. No one, for example, "deserves" to be exploded. But there's NO WAY of setting it right again; you cannot ever have true "justice". ...
As this week I am on holiday - despite the amount of work that I am doing and that needs doing, which actually means I am not really on holiday, I'm just not in the office - we are going to have an odd day out. So, today following a morning on the laptop and telephone doing some work stuff we then headed out to Edinburgh Zoo, we are both Members as we were of London Zoo. We also saw a first today, well a first for Roger not me, was seeing a peacock butterfly, in fact on the bush ...
The Lib Dem campaign for a proper consultation on plans to build an 114-bed student dormitory next to the protected St George's Gardens has received a boost. The developer behind the proposals, the Passion Group, has now agreed to allow more time for consultation, and to hold an exhibition on the proposals during September. The ...
Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire: A new studyof MPs on Facebook shows widespread use of the social network by Parliamentarians, but also a range of curious choices about how to use the medium which may in part reflect a failure to change default settings. The study, carried out by Woodnewton Associates and based on evidence gathered in May this year, found that: 26% of MPs have a Facebook presence (a page or profile). Liberal Democrat MPs lead the way in Facebook usage, with 65% being on Facebook. 25% of Labour MPs and 21% of Conservative MPs are on Facebook. Whilst ...
This month's MyCouncillor featured site comes from Cllr Karen Chilvers of Brentwood in Essex. Karen has had a site now since May 2008, and she has been posting regular updates throughout that period - always important if you want people to keep coming back and checking for the latest news. Karen's site is a fascinating mix of council news, requests for feedback on things happening in the ward, updates on local planning applications, as well as general musings and comments about her life outside of the council. Karen has also created a number of static pages that she uses to ...
Tue 25th
13:52
Can a country with the death penalty and with 300 year prison sentences be a role model?
The legal system of the United States of America, with the death penalty in some states and ludicrous 300 year jail sentences in others, is surely not the model for more advanced civilisations such as the United Kingdom to follow. I wonder how many innocent people have been executed in the US. I wonder if anyone has worked out whether the number would be greater or smaller than those who have, tragically, died in terrorist attacks against that country. When America has a more sensible penal system we could maybe take guidance from there.
The PM will take part in a press conference later today in which he is expected to finally face questions over the Megrahi affair. Prior to the release of the convicted Libyan terrorist Brown could have, and in many minds should have, intervened either himself or with Jack Straw and David Miliband to prevent it happening. However, had he done that Holyrood would have been up in arms. The idea of a Westminster politician strolling in and exerting power would not appeal. So, once Megrahi had been released there were three options open to Brown: 1) He could support the ...
I am pleased to see that the 10 most recent posts from the Lib Dem blogs aggregator have been restored to the front page of Liberal Democrat Voice. You've all done very well.
David Nikel over at Liberal Ladywood http://www.davidnikel.org.uk/ has highlighted that the West Midlands Bus Services are under investigation.
You have to feel a little sorry for Gordon Brown (well, you don't have too but you get my point), battered from pillar to post whatever he does (if he endorses the England cricket team he is cursing them, if he doesn't congratulate them he's being too stoic) and now he has to meet Benjamin ...
A few weeks ago, my girlfriend and I were watching TV at home when the advert for Sugar Puffs appeared on our screen. I had seen the ad before and not thought anything of it. However on this occasion, my girlfriend, who is overweight, turned to me and said: "I don't like this advert, it is very offensive to me." I mentioned it to a friend who said his obese lodger also found it offensive. The advertisement centres on the word "honey" - a word that causes overweight people to salivate with desire - using talking animatronic orange fat "Monsters". ...
Tory Bear has the post about how the Greens are offering the job of co-ordinator for the Young Greens with a salary of £17,000+(pro rata). I am personally impressed by the amount the Greens are offering to pay a co-ordinator, and if I wasn't a Lib Dem I would have applied for the job. Working on a campaign is becoming a nice job for many; the Greens are now offering £17,000 for a one-day a week job, which if you ask me is excellent. After the next general election many student politicos will be looking for jobs, some will look ...
[IMG: met_police_radio_203x1521] An internal report released by the Metropolitan Police under Freedom of Information laws has revealed that fewer than one crime is solved by every 1,000 closed circuit television cameras per year. Thats a lot of cameras for not very much. And yes its a pretty shocking waste of money that could have been spent better elsewhere (or better still been in our own pockets). And yes we are way too spied upon, with 1% of the world population and 20% of all cctvs. And yes its laughable that the Home Office have defended the use of CCTV's, saying ...
[IMG: cable] It is said that you can judge a person by the company they keep. In that case, Vince Cable's halo has slipped a bit. His decision to give his support to Compass in its campaign for a High Pay Commission to curb "excessive" pay is bad politically, economically and morally. Compass is an avowedly socialist campaign group, the primary focus of which is the Labour Party. It is a partisan body that has for some time sought to make Labour even more interventionist, statist and illiberal. Vince Cable should not be giving it intellectual succour. In addition, the ...
This is the speculation in the Independent this morning. The suggestion is that Brown has been under pressure from Chancellor Darling to change the tone on public spending or risk letting the Tories win the argument on how much the government should spend. One of the suggestions, and it reads more as an Indie rather than government one, is that the new Trident subs will either be delayed or
Okay, so I promise I'll be spacing these out a bit more, but I wanted to show exactly why I love Freedom Central. I'll be doing this for more blogs over the next few weeks, to show those I love reading. It would be wrong though, to start the long trawl through my favourite blogs, without mentioning one of the newest (and dare I say, coolest) blogs in town. Freedom Central. Yes, its the slightly cheesy (did I say slightly?) almost American name for the Welsh Lib Dem headquarters. Its one of those names which I feel a little embarassed ...
A Labour Councillor who is also running for Parliament has bought a full page ad in a local paper, to reveal his expenses to the electorate and I think that is an excellent move. The PPC has also written about the ad, and why he has bought it over at LabourList. . The problem is that people don't trust MPs lo longer, people are starting to believe that even Councillors have two homes paid for my the tax payer, which is untrue at so many levels. To gain trust of the general public PPC's need to start working with the ...
There go the Tories again, making out that people such as Karen Matthews are a typical example of our 'broken society' as Chris Grayling compares our society to that of a USA T.V drama, The Wire. A huge generalisation, and highly unhelpful. There are problems with gang crime, drug crime, etc. but there is in every society, and to demonise our society like this is wrong. Furthermore, he is focusing too much on stigmatisation and failing to wholly recognise the reasons and causes for why they undertake this behaviour. He refers to a 'culture of deprivation', which anyone familiar to ...
I've paid a visit to the car scrapyard in Inverkeithing - UPULLIT which is owned by Copart I visited them to discuss issues surrounding the implementation of the government's car scrappage scheme and also how they are contributing to the reduction of waste to landfill through their operations at the site. With hundreds of cars for sale in parts or whole this is a significant business for West Fife and makes a valued contribution to the reduction of waste which has an impact on the environment. I was impressed by the strict health and safety measures and the dedication to ...
The Guradian seems to be doing allot of searching of its progressive soul and in that vein David Edgar has an article in Comment is Free arguing that 'progressives will start fighting the poor'. Edgar has obviously lost some bearing, because, for me the term progress and progressive has no meaning if it is not ...
The Tories announcements on crime seem to get stranger and stranger as time goes on. First they said they wanted to hug a hoody, then they wanted to take his phone off him. Now the advice is give him a wide berth because he'll probably put 'a cap in yo ass' (or something like that). Apparently, Chris Grayling MP, the Shadow Home Secretary, thinks that parts of Britain are now like hit US TV show "The Wire". Which leads me to one of two conclusions: Chris Grayling has never actually watched "The Wire". Chris Grayling is an idiot. Please note ...
In 2006, Tony Blair refused to immediately call for a ceasefire in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict against the feeling of many in his own cabinet. Some think that the unrest this inaction provoked within the Labour party was the catalyst for the so called "Curry Coup" that a few weeks later led to the resignation of a number of junior members of the government and forced Blair to bring forward his retirement announcement. The reason I am highlighting this point of history is that it is telling that many of Blair's cabinet were urging him to come up with a ...
It's that time of the year again for the launch of Liberal Youth's Freshers' Campaign. The aim is to attract new members to the party - the next generation of activists - as well as campaigning for young people on the issues that matter to them. Liberal Youth are are running campaigns as varied as student debt, civil liberties, and climate change. It is also very important that studen branches have ordered their Freshers' Pack in time for the start of the university year. Packs can be ordered here: http://tinyurl.com/klmm4c No youth branch in your local party? You can still ...
The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will receive his Israeli counterpart, Binyamin Netanyahu, at 10 Downing Street this afternoon. Behind the diplomatic courtesies, some hard truths need to be conveyed, namely that there will never be peace in the Middle East unless the Israeli government changes its policies towards the Palestinians, and that a viable, ...
It is pleasing to know that Brown has finally realised that you cannot escape the recession without making cuts in some areas. However, it will be interesting to see what is on his list for cutting, and whether their status will be one of postponing or abandoning it all together. I am particularly interested after reading this from The Telegraph: The first signs of the new approach may emerge at next month's TUC conference in Liverpool, when Mr Brown and the Chancellor will call for pay restraint among top earners in the public sector, calling on them to match the ...
Apparently there's an abundant harvest of British plums this year. According to `Farming Today` though supermarkets aren't interested in selling them. http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=49403 I'll be going round to Somerfield today to check as the BBC have asked people to check. I think it's greedy of the supermarkets to deny the British public the choice of buying British plums ...
As the BBC reports: Retailers who sell violent video games and 18-rated DVDs to children cannot be prosecuted because of a legal blunder 25 years ago. Dozens of prosecutions under a 1984 Act have been dropped because the government of the day failed to notify the European Commission about the law. But previous prosecutions will stand, according to the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS). Lib Dem shadow culture, media and sport secretary Don Foster was quick to react to the news: The Conservative's incompetence when they were in Government has made laws designed to prevent video piracy and ...
So, Chris Grayling has declared that parts of Britain are 'like The Wire'. Interestingly, BBC Two are now showing series 5 of that, where we see that a smooth-talking politician who was elected on a promise of change and a 'new day' turns out to have no answers to a crippling financial crisis other than cuts, cuts and more cuts. In the same spirit, I'd say Chris Grayling is like Party Animals - poorly researched and unconvincing. UPDATE: It turns out that Grayling has only seen a few episodes from the first series, so he may in fact not own ...
Quick question for all you party rules aficionados. Can a LibDem member stand as an Independent in a local election and stay in the party? This isn't for me (!) but I've been asked about this by someone and I said that I thought it was probably okay as long as you're not standing against an official party candidate. Is this the correct position?
Remember Church Langton? Home of William Hanbury and scene of a famous performance of Handel's Messiah? There' s more to it than that. The Leicester Mercury reports: A Church Langton resident said her husband saw a big cat in The Causeway early one morning. She said: "My husband saw one at about 5.30am on Sunday a week ago. It was in the road and then went through a hedge. "It was black and the size of a big dog."
You may have read on this and other blogs a couple of weeks ago about the cancellation of one of the Green Party's own internal elections. There is a new twist to the story the ERO who suspended the election has resigned; he isn't giving much away on his blog, but there is clearly an under-current. On a more positive note from the Greens, Derek Wall has praised our own blogging peer and all-round good egg Eric Avebury.
"I think most opinion in Scotland is in favour of the decision to release him [Megrahi] on compassionate grounds."Now that is the sort of considered, public listened to response I would expect from a Liberal Democrat leader. Unfortunately they were the words of Lord David Steel our former leader and not those of Tavish Scott who asked in the chamber: "Doesn't Kenny MacAskill's comment on the need for Scottish compassion mean that no prisoner - however bad their crime - will ever have a request turned down?" Although Kenny MacAskill's response to cite Jim Wallace's situation which was due to ...
n recent days there have been a number of stories bubbling in the background regarding MPs' submissions to Sir Christopher Kelly's inquiry into the MPs' expenses system and general issue of pay. This morning there's another one. A piece of "analysis" from The Times suggests that many MPs are using the inquiry as a long awaited ...
In the third of our previews of some of the motions that have been submitted to the Welsh Liberal Democrat Spring Conference we are looking today at proposals to generate power from the Severn estuary. The genesis of this motion is unique. It is the product of a series of cross-Severn policy seminars involving Parliamentarians from the South West of England and from Wales. The other unique feature of this motion is that it has been tabled simultaneously for consideration by both Federal and Welsh Conferences. It is the sort of cross border co-operation that the Assembly may wish to ...
A new poll by ICM brings up some interesting results and you can see them below: Tories 41% Labour 25% Lib Dems 19% Now the Lib Dems result at this time in a Parliamentary campaign year is bad, many think the party can still do better but I am starting to lose hope. The Lib Dem general election campaign team need to sit down with Nick Clegg, the FE and other high profile Lib Dems and do some work on how the party can get better in the polls. Even if Nokia's get thrown around, many like my wont mind ...
This will be another year in which I've failed to grow my own food. Like many previous years, I've not really gotten around to sowing seeds in February and March when I should have done – indeed, I was down for raising seedlings for the Lib Dem stall at the Green Fest this year, and ended up providing something with a much shorter lead-in time. Anyway, at the Green Fest, I snapped up the stall's leftover sunflower seedlings, nurtured them in the conservatory for a wee while, then planted them to the huge flowerbed P dug last year that hopefully ...
[IMG: OUT OF TICKETS: The ticket machine at Hornsey this morning] A few days ago I got an email from public transport watchdog London TravelWatch to say that they had managed to persuade First Capital Connect to reduce their proposals to cut ticket office hours at local stations. Our MP Lynne Featherstone helped organise a big campaign against the cuts, which I mentioned in a previous post. I also proposed a motion condemning the cuts to a full meeting of Haringey Council, which was passed with cross-party support (post here). First Capital Connect had proposed to cut the ticket office ...
Letters from a Tory has an excellent letter regarding the Tories "back door" means of legalising Fox Hunting again after the next general election. I am unimpressed, as it A. Tory, but I wonder how impressed the electorate will be. Imagine a Tory government coming to power. They have serious financial problems to deal with and have pledged to rid the country of needless QUANGOs. Then, by means of getting Fox Hunting within a legal framework they give teeth (and money) to a new QUANGO to oversee hunting (wasting more money) and are seen by the electorate as being more ...
...for the first time since my politicisation! (It sounds painful, but it really just involves taking the important step in the life of any Lib Dem activist' relative - the step where folding Focus stops being something you are told to do by your father for pocket money, to become something you ask your father to do... for free) It was quite a wrench, to disagree for maybe the first time, but I just can't support the motion that will be coming to Welsh Conference in October. It calls for our party not to reintroduce prescription charges. Now, of course ...
I am afraid that I have to admit that I haven't heard of The Equality and Human Rights Commission. I don't know where they are based. I don't know who is in charge. I am guessing but I think they are involved with issues of equality and human rights. They are taking legal action against the BNP for their membership restrictions for those with an ethnic background. I have heard about the race relations act and I have found it surprising that nobody has questioned the BNP's policy before. So now this commission have started proceedings against the BNP leader. ...
