Given this blog's interest in the family history of prominent Liberal Democrats (Nick Clegg and Matthew Taylor, for instance), I suppose I have to cover this story. Tomorrow's Mail on Sunday tells us that Lembit Opik's great uncle Oskar Opik was a member of the Estonian puppet government during the German occupation in World War II. The paper links this story with Chris Huhne's attack on David Cameron at Bournemouth: Dave's dumped the Tories' long term allies to jump into bed with the wackos and the weirdos. Never mind Britain's place in the world. Never mind the need for global ...
I went to the Pump & Tap this lunchtime. It is the pub in Duns Lane, Leicester, that is threatened with demolition, along with the Bowstring Bridge, so that De Montfort University can build a swimming pool. Fancyapint? describes it well: Pump & Tap is a down-to-earth and refreshingly normal pub a very short walk from the trendiness of the Braunstone Gate area. There are two separate bars, decorated in a shabby and accidentally mismatched style; in the smaller of the two rooms an old fireplace sits at odds with the (not very comfortable) garden chairs we sat in. The ...
Marcus Wood (no relation) writes the following in today's 'Herald Express' newspaper. It should be noted the Macus' preferred modus operandi is to mercilessly attack the Lib Dems at every opportunity, whilst coming forward with no ideas as to why to positively vote for him. Here's his latest missive with my unedited reply (as yet unpublished) PEOPLE are growing weary of gladiatorial politics and want to know that their elected representatives can work together for the common good where necessary. That is why we should celebrate that a Conservative mayor, working with a previously Lib Dem county council and a ...
I bought a copy of Standpoint today. I was pleased to find it had a chess column, but disappointed to find it was by Dominic Lawson. I know he used to be a county player, but - damn it - so did I, and you want to read someone who knows more about the game than you do. But I take it all back because it was a fascinating piece. Lawson writes about Hugh Alexander who, like Harry Golombek, was a leading British player who worked at the code-breaking station Bletchley Park during World War II. Lawson writes: After the ...
The Conservatives' new video claims history shows that they're a progressive force. If anything, it shows the opposite. Let's just look at the history of Conservatives in power...
Guess who forgot about the Mayor's sponsored walk today along the Teesdale way from the Borough boundary past Aislaby and Eaglescliffe. I met the party walking up Carnoustie Drive this afternoon. That part of the walk has to leave the banks of the Tees as the Golf Course and Teesside High School are in the way. A stroll through a housing estate and then along Yarm Rd rather takes the edge off
Does anyone have, or know where I can find, a prebuilt Linux kernel .deb with realtime scheduling suitable for Debian Squeeze/SID ? I want to do some recording of music on my laptop, but my current kernel version is not up to the task. Compiling myself isn't an option – I have various odd non-standard packages ...
Even Vince Cable now admits that his announcement during the party conference that he wants the Lib Dems to adopt a policy of levying a new tax of 0.5% on the value of properties over £1m could have been smoother. His failure to consult shadow cabinet colleagues, let alone the party's policy committee, dented even Vince's seemingly unassailable reputation. However, the process muddle is a side issue to the bigger question: is the policy right, and could the party campaign successfully on it? First, the policy, and here are two alternative, liberal views. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times has ...
Click on the TV to watch the video:
Superb - rare - video of Dusty from the 70s - "The Look of Love" is Dusty at her very best.
While I was away at conference, Islington saw the launch of the 'Bark to Bark' campaign. This is to tackle the problem of dogs being trained to attack trees and strip their bark, which is not only bad for the trees, but can hurt the dogs too. I sent this message to the launch: "Thank you for ...
em>With The Beatles, the band's second album, is a triumph of style over substance. Significantly inferior to the albums immediately preceding and following it, it has managed to remain the most highly-rated of the band's pre-Rubber Soul albums, despite being one of their worst. That it has had that success is almost certainly down to ...
This is disappointing news. Why does Labour keep doing this type of thing to hard-working people during a recession? At the moment, families receiving Local Housing Allowance (LHA) are able to keep up to £15 a week if they choose a home with a rent below the Local Housing Allowance maximum for their area. Labour ministers ...
[IMG: owen-and-steel] The good news is that the shambolic party conference has not impacted on us in the polls (yet) - the you gov poll in tomorrow's Telegraph has the LibDems on 20% (+3%), the Tories are down two points on 39% and Labour down one on 26%. But my worry was not so much that we'd crash because of a few bad headlines, but that our communications infrastructure may not be robust enough to withstand the rigours of a General Election campaign. Vince Cable's high profile and popularity should be a great asset at the next election. However, it ...
As City Councillor for the area of Dundee's railway station throughout my eight years on Dundee City Council, and as the Council's Planning & Transport Convener and Chair of TACTRAN, the regional transport partnership - both for two years - I have long campaigned for improvements to the station. The people of Dundee rightly feel that the station requires a major modernisation. During my period as TACTRAN Chair, I met with the Regional Director of Network Rail in Scotland and - in raising the need for Dundee station refurbishment - it struck me that intense negotiation was going to be ...
Sometimes I dread looking at my Inbox: 70 unread messages in less than 24 hours is not unheard of. For once though, I opened my Inbox this morning and got a really nice and totally unexpected surprise. Having sat through all the awards at our Bournemouth Conference, and cheered for the very worthy recipients, I was stunned to discover we'd won something too! Without telling us, our Agent, Martin Land, submitted our Hardwick By Election Campaign for the newly constituted ALDC Campaigner Awards 2009. Our category was for the 'Best Ward Campaign 2009'. The award was won by Kensington & ...
Chers adhérents, chers sympathisants, En cette période de G20 où il n'est une fois de plus question que de régulation, alors que le déficit public se creuse dangereusement pour atteindre 8% du PIB et que de nouvelles taxes, écologiques ou non, vienn ent grever un peu plus le pouvoir d'achat de nos concitoyens, notre pays a plus que jamais besoin qu'une voix libérale forte, cohérente et sûre d'elle-même s'exprime le plus largement possible. Cette voix, c'est Alternative Libérale. Notre jeune parti porte dans les rues, les urnes et les médias un message fort et sans concession. Porter ce message n'est ...
[IMG: Graffitti on Inderwick Road] This week I've been helping to deliver our local Stroud Green FOCUS leaflet, which is a great opportunity to spot problems that need sorting on local roads. For instance, I've reported this graffiti at the top of Inderwick Road near the junction with Ridge Road (see picture). Of course, you also see all the problems you've raised with the Council but which they've failed to take proper action on. Sticking with Inderwick Road -I've lost count of the number of times I've raised the appalling condition of the roads and pavements. Bizarrely, the Council have ...
A minor media spat broke out this week, following the announcement that Lord (Michael) Ashcroft, the Tory deputy chairman who bankrolls the party's target seats while refusing to say if he pays tax in this country, has bought a majority stake in the political news and commentary aggregator site, PoliticsHome. This triggered the resignation of the site's editor-in-chief, Andrew Rawnsley, who issued a public statement arguing that: It was essential for users of the site that they could feel absolute confidence in the political independence of PoliticsHome. I do not believe that can be compatible with being under the ownership ...
I was planning to write a nice, leisurely blog post about a) why Lib Dems should be following Lynne Featherstone's lead and resign from the Phi100 panel and b) the wider trend by the right to take control of the media agenda, but events rather got ahead of me. There I was, doing my domestic chores, ...
Rumours and comments on ConHome suggest Iain Dale is one of the six shortlisted Tories to replace Andrew Mackay in Bracknell. Only a rumour as yet. Update : In further support of this, Iain says on Twitter that he is canvassing for a local council election this morning. I note on the Bracknell Council website that they have a by-election in October.
My personal best bits from this year's Conference:Nick Clegg showing passion and commitment being interviewed by the wonderful Shami Chakrabarti at the Liberty fringe;Menzies Campbell, relaxed and affable in conversation at the Independent fringe, gleefully suggesting that those who plotted against him didn't get the new leader they wanted;Tim Farron, not just for his two platform appearances,
We all have a guilty pleasure. For some it is Strictly Come Dancing, for others it is The X Factor or The Jeremy Kyle Show. But foe me, THIS IS MY GUILTY PLEASURE. "Bring on the wall !"
I couldn't let it lie. Having recorded my Large Hadron Collider Song the other day, I wondered if I could take advantage of my lovely Zoom H2 recorder to up the production values a bit. Separating singing and playing the ukulele also meant I could do the latter marginally better – my inability to multitask different rhythms is why I could never be a pianist. So, with nothing better to do this morning, I re-recorded the song with a more syncopated ukulele track. I added in some vocals – 12 rather than 40 voices – and then decided to fill ...
OK, so I'm just back from Liberal Democrat conference (with a nasty cold - so much for the alleged properties of seaside air!). Did we have a good conference? Yes we did! It was great to see so much consensus about who we were, where we were going and what we wanted to do when we get there. But did the media coverage reflect that? No it didn't. Time after time the interviewers were picking and poking, trying to turn any small disagreement into a full blown row, any mild comment into an attack on the leadership. Granted, there were ...
The League Against Cruel Sports (www.league.org.uk) is compiling a database of the position of parliamentary candidates of all main parties in relation to repeal of the Hunting Act. They emailed me today asking whether if elected to parliament and the opportunity arose, I would vote in favour of repeal of the Hunting Act? By reply I explained that despite being a pescatarian and aspiring vegetarian (ie not pro consuming meat for ethical and environmental reasons), I am very doubtful about the enforceability of the Hunting Act. It has always struck me that a far better focus for improving animal rights ...
Yeah you may have watched all the BBC Parliament converage and wondered just where was my speech. Well I did have a couple of speaker cards in for debates, but I never got called. Mark Valladares however does have the historic footage of my only speech made in Bournemouth this year. As Millennium says it is actually me (mostly) not being Mr Slugger O'Toole.
Conference started with the debate on Real Women and, in particular, on a policy proposal to force the details of any airbrushing of photos of adults to be listed with the photo. Conference ended with a perfect example of why this policy is rubbish. As Nick Clegg and his wife Miriam left the auditorium there was the usual mad scrum of photographers wanting photos of the couple. Unfortunately, Miriam's bra strap slipped. It happens and no one really cares but it looks slightly embarrassing for Miriam. Most press photographers would not make a big deal of it. They would quickly ...
I think I've just successfully installed a mobile version of the blog, so you can now read it from miniature work avoidance device without too much kerfuffle. Please let me know if it causes any problems or just doesn't work.
Am I the only T-Mobile customer getting sick of seeing adverts with great deals for pay as you go customers? Free laptops was an older one but now they are offering free texts for life if you top up with £10 per month. My bill averages over £110 each month so where's my bloody freebies and loyalty gifts? My contract costs me way more than that and what do I get? Sweet FA. I have had no laptop, no free sim cards, no free dongles etc etc Okay, I get a great discount on my blackberry but then pay a ...
The 8th of October is approaching quicker than expected and election day is almost upon us. Speaking with many local residents its clear that the Liberal Democrats have a chance of winning this election therefore making me the district councillor for the Grange Hill Ward. However my fear is that the Tories will spin the same old lies and make the same old promises which will never be fulfilled. The words that come to mind right now are those of Nick Clegg in is key note speech.''If you want things to be different, really different, choose the party that is ...
Today, I have been looking at: Wowzio Channel News Asia found this news channel on cable when in Thailand - interesting content and perspective on world news - worth a look! Khon Kaen Homes Where is a professional real estate agent in Khon Kaen? This is a common question among many visitors and families in Khon Kaen who ...
Today is a day in which I am being plagued by frustrations.I have lots and lots of things which need to be done, but none of them can be started until I have done other things, and the other things need yet OTHER things doing before I can start them, and it's all just a great big vicious circle of paralysingness Byron is being very clingy, and panting lots even though he's not warm. This is a sign of poorly, but he can't tell me what's wrong The usual financial frustrations are surfacing with a vengeance today. It's little things, ...
Does anyone know where I can find the report/summary of the annual conference please? Thanks
Interesting piece in this morning's Western Mail in which the Deputy Minister for Skills, John Griffiths talks about his own experiences in the educatoin system: The 52-year-old grandfather-of-three said he had full sympathy for children whose experiences at school have been disastrous. He said: "I'm afraid I hated secondary school and I really didn't go as often as I should, I must confess. I didn't take any exams at all in secondary school." These experiences, he said, give him credibility when he tells young people not in education or employment that they can change their lives. He said: "You can ...
Here is one of our favourite photos from the day! Outside the Registry Office
The Independent reports that John Prescott has launched an an outspoken attack on Harriet Harman and blamed a lack of talent for Labour's failure to communicate a clear message to the public: He warned that Gordon Brown was being poorly advised and that Lord Mandelson was the only major figure left organising the Labour fight behind the scenes. "There is no direction in campaigning - we are drifting," he said. "You ask yourself, why did we get in the Gurkhas situation? That would never have happened before. So there's a feeling in the party that, somehow, we're not getting a ...
A report published by the University of Plymouth and Bournemouth University concludes: Research has revealed that nearly 67% of all tweeting MPs belong to Labour ahead of 18% for the Liberal Democrats, with the Tories relegated into third place with just 12%. When you factor in the proportion of MPs that each party boasts, it is clear that the Lib Dems are leading the way when it comes to embracing the popular social media site. And yet overall, just 51 of our 645 MPs are classed as regular Twitter users... MPs tend to use Twitter as a means of promoting ...
As an aficionado of The West Wing I was fascinated to read this morning that Gordon Brown is going to use his conference speech to promise patients cancer tests within one week of referral. He is going to pledge to divert £1 billion over five years from building new hospitals to buying diagnostic treatments that will guarantee a patient's right to a test and results within seven days. Anyone who does not get the test and results in seven days would be entitled to go to a private provider free. In the 55th episode of The West Wing, President Bartlett ...
I happened to walk past a small protest the other day occurring before the steps of a local town hall. The subject was climate change, and one protestor apparently had the wit to write 'Gordon Green, not Gordon Brown' on a large piece of paper. In total, I would guess there were 15-20 people - a local affair in which the protagonists' children made up some 30-or-so per cent (I'm presuming present to symbolise that the issue is of protecting future generations, as opposed to implying they too believe in the cause). But wait a moment; who are these people ...
This was always going to be a disastrous conference. We have spent our annual opportunity to reach out to people by communicating a confused image. When the country needed hope, vision and leadership we offered it the 'straight talk of progressive austerity'. This disaster was foreseeable. It was made from a dangerous mixture of a wrong political strategy (based on a wrong economic strategy) added to a leadership and a communications team which had very, very little political experience. Ming Campbell and Vince Cable when they came to conference as leaders had to be stabilisers with a reassuring role. Before ...
Sat 26th
09:58
Shocking Radio 1 ageism - they put on Greg James (23) but no sign of Tony Brandon (76) in the schedu...
A confession first. I first listened to Radio 1 when Tony Brandon did the "bit in the middle" lunch time slot. Now, that is going back a bit. Along with occasional flits round Radio 2, 4, Absolute (the radio not the vodka - which hasn't go an 'e' anyway), XFM, Heart etc, I still do listen to Radio 1, mainly because I am seduced into it by my offspring. Chris Moyles? A great talk show. Scott Mills? Very funny. But I do like Nihal and his 3.15 fact machine which often isn't a fact machine ("Walt Disney has the third ...
Last Saturday I wrote about the key political concept of legitimacy: what it means, where it comes from, and what happens to it. The goal of any political reform must always be to enhance legitimacy. That is obvious from common sense: no democrat would argue for a reform that would damage the legitimacy of a system. ...
I'm still catching up with my post-conference mail, on top of writing up notes from conference itself. But my mail backlog is nothing compared to that reported to be building up following the recent spate of Royal Mail strikes in London and elsewhere. This is particularly bad news for small businesses, depending on orders and ...
Cross-posted from the Mandate blog: The power and importance of MPs is a factor not only of the posts they hold and their behind-the-scenes influence but also their media savvy. So how did the members of the Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet do during their conference week at gathering media coverage? Mandate has crunched the numbers, looking at coverage secured in the print media and their online versions over the Lib Dem cobference, and here are the top 15 in order of volume of coverage: 1. Nick Clegg 2. Vince Cable 3. Chris Huhne 4. Steve Webb 5. Danny Alexander 6. ...
I do love a bit of vintage fashion, whether it's in Camden Passage or online at sites like Couture Allure. It's the chicest kind of recycling. This weekend there's a new vintage fashion event (if that's not a contradiction in terms) up at Archway. It's taking place at The Byam Shaw School of Art in ...
Here's a positive blogging story for you. An intrepid blogger reads a story in the paper (or 'the MSM', as I believe the cool kids refer to it) and then does some research and investigation into it which reveals that the whole thing has been manufactured in an attempt to create a scandal. The whole thing leads to lots of coverage across the media and the newspaper in question admitting that their entire article was based on lies. The investigations also revealed that the people behind the scam were supplying similarly unreliable information to an MP's office, and so the ...
So says the United Nations General Assembly President Ali Abdussalam Treki, Libya's Secretary (Minister) of African Union Affairs, who as the Assembly President, the equivalent of the Presiding Officer in Holyrood or the Speaker in the House of Commons, does hold a position of power. I am utterly appalled and I appreciate you need to read his whole piece to get the full context, but it clearly shows a level of ignorance from very senior people within many organisations. This all came about at a press conference to start the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly where one ...
Conference is over, and it's time to escape the sunshine of Suffolk for something a little more exotic. And so, here I am in Istanbul. It was a pretty easy journey, the flight went smoothly, and the light rail and tram journey to the hotel worked out pretty well (my luggage is resting at the airport). Today, I am having lunch with an contributor to the 'Axis of Evil' (as I lovingly call 'Liberal Vision'), Barry Stocker, who teaches at one of the city's universities. I may also try a little pampering - I'm worth it, after all. More news ...
If the Lib Dems are going to be able to take people earning under £10,000 out of tax altogether then savage cuts are going to have to be made to the tax loopholes the very wealthy enjoy. If the party...
An opinion poll commissioned by Politics Home has concluded that the Liberal Democrats have chosen correctly in adopting a strategy of targeting Labour supporters and non-aligned voters instead of competing for natural Tory votes: In a new question designed to indicate underlying attitudes to the Lib Dem brand, PoliticsHome asked a sample of 1,235 UK voters, weighted by party identification to reflect the UK population, whether they would vote for the Liberal Democrats if they thought they had a serious chance of winning in their constituency. A surprising forty three per cent of natural Labour supporters and fifty per cent ...
Anyone who watches conference on the telly might have, quite understandably, got the impression that conference is all about sitting in an auditorium watching stuffed suits make long speeches about arcane bits of political geeky stuff. Now, that is a part of conference, to be sure, but it's not a large part. El Presidente mentioned at one point (I think at the "new to conference?" event) that she'd been to a couple of conferences in the past and not managed to make it into the hall once. This came as no surprise. Obviously, apart from the debates and things in ...
Another day and another story of the uselessness of the Tory Party and its rather smug leader, DC. Cocky David Cameron told right-wingers at the Carlton Club that, "This is it". Just because Labour are in freefall, and the Tories have a lead of 15 points, Cameron is beginning to act like the cat that got the cream and look preternaturally triumphalist. But the Tory plans, what little we know of them, and DC's posturing remind me of a poem by Roger McGough, it's called, I wanna be the leader. I wanna be the leader I wanna be the leader ...
So that's the conference done then and the media have had their cheap jokes about Nick not been known and Vince has had dropped his conference bombshell on super rich homeowners (hummmm haven't we been against taxes based on home values) and we now all wait for the labours get together in Brighton. For at last the MP's are back (kind of) and silly stories about kittens lost in suitcases and big brother (yep apparently it's over) are at an end. We can now start the big build up to the election. Yet we all know it doesn't really matter, ...
If you live in an area with grammar schools then you may think of this as a wonderful option. It allows for streaming and a better use of resources where like-minded individuals will gather to the improvement of all. You may take an alternative view that grammar schools limit streaming. Selection takes the flexibility out of streaming. Those who struggle at the grammar school cannot join a lower stream. In all the other schools the higher achievers cannot stream upwards. The biggest criticism is that most children may be labelled as failures at the age of 11. If you are ...
