In between scrawling drabbles, I thought I ought to give you someFresh Squeezings From the veins of the InternetWinning here? Buried in this fluff piece for Gordon on the BBC is the news that (at least according to Ipsos Mori) we have now overtaken the Labour party in terms of popularity. No wonder Gordon wants a head to head with CallMeDave and to freeze Cleggy out....(hat-tip Jo Swinson, [IMG: [info] ] sassyscot and many others) Interesting statistical analysis of the costs of the BBC. Radio 4 is TOTALLY worth it IMHO. Gin fuelled the industrial revolution. And it's currently fuelling ...
The speaker here is Gordon Brown. Plenty of empty seats, eh?
Jo Swinson's contributions and common sense answers were about the only things that were not dull and uninteresting with 'Dispatches: MPs, Planes and Gravy Trains'. I was hoping that the "investigation" would show how foreign trips by British representatives benefit/ don't benefit the British people. I was hoping that it would shine some light on the process of foreign visits, what they involve, how the representatives report back to the committees and why this may/ may not be worth taxpayer money, but instead they spent most of the time bitching about what the reps did outside of the official business. ...
Many of you will have seen Microsoft's achingly cringeworthy video encouraging people to hold Windows 7 launch parties. It really is jaw-droppingly awful. But wait! Don't go and watch that. I haz written a Windows 7 launch party song especially for you. And here it is. In the unlikely event that you want to play it yourself – or the more likely event that you can't make out the lyrics – you can read the chords and lyrics here.
The lastest Ipsos Mori puts Labour in 3rd place in an opinion poll for the first time since Michael Foot was leader in 1982. With the Tories on 36% down 7% on last month, the Liberal Democrats on 25% up 8% and Labour on 24% down 2%. Of course the media are going to put this down to a Lib Dem conference bounce, but don't forget this is the same media that said that the Lib Dem conference was a disaster for the leadership only last week. Maybe it is a conference bounce and if it is it shows that ...
The BBC reports that Gordon Brown will accept the proposals, forcibly proposed by Sky's Adam Boulton, for a leaders' debate... but with only partial involvement for Nick Clegg: Months ago, Conservative leader Mr Cameron called for a TV election debate to be held involving Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg as well. Sources suggest Mr Brown would rather go "head to head" with the Tory leader and is prepared to take part in a series of debates – some involving Mr Clegg and others not – in order to allow this to happen. This seems to be yet another gaffe by ...
I was just writing about polls - and along came another. The BBC report that The Ipsos Mori survey puts the Tories on 36%, Labour on 24% and the Liberal Democrats on 25%. That compares with last month's results which had the Tories 43%, Labour 26% and the Liberal Democrats 17%. It is the first time Labour have been in third place since February 1982, when they were on 33% compared to 34% for the Liberal-SDP Alliance. The last sentence is all rubbish, by the way. ICM put Labour third on one poll earlier this year (I am trying to ...
Holidays and work trips are over (well, holidays till after the general election, work trips for the time being) so it's back to the blog, and hopefully regular dishes of it until May 2010. I got back to find plenty to encourage me, including finding a letter I sent published in the Wood & Vale and ...
Mon 28th
22:10
Would an unemployed ex-drug addict convicted of sex with a child get widespread support?
It's true that Roman Polanski's conviction of, at the age of 44, having sex with a 13-year old girl, isn't quite a straight-forward case, what with the accusations over the judge's behaviour. But the conviction is one so far upheld by the American legal system, it's not one based on the defendant (Polanski) being denied access to decent legal representation and several more charges were only dropped at the request of the victim's family as they wanted to avoid the traumas of a jury trial. So if it wasn't an internationally-feted film director but, say, an unemployed ex-drug addict, who ...
Once upon a time there were some councillors who wanted to be able to do such complicated things as download and save a document to read off line later. Those same councillors wanted to be able to write letters on their laptop sititng out in the garden or waiting for visitors to their ward surgeries and then to email said letters at a suitable time later. Foolish councillors - they didn't
The government has announced that the Scrappage scheme is being extended with another £100m allocated for it. This government is so used to stealth taxes it appears to be introducing stealth subsidies. But this money could be used much more effectively to support green jobs and British jobs. The more I think through the scrappage scheme, the more I veer to the view that it is not a good thing. If you have cashed in your old banger, and I know people who have, it is surely a good idea. But my friend used this to buy a Hyundai recently ...
Following my earlier post, residents living near the route of the Birmingham Half Marathon on Sunday 11 October should now be receiving their second letter about the marathon and the road closures. (Although I do know that some residents (including me) have not received the first mailing, the second one is being sent by post.)Roads along the route will be closed between approximately 7am and 4pm
The following sentence, published as the lead to a story on the BBC web site, seems wrong on so many levels, I don't know where to start: A leading Egyptian scholar has demanded that people caught importing a female virginity-faking device into the country should face the death penalty.
Enough of polls. Lets get back to basics. The original idea of this blog was to record what I did on the campaign trail. Here is what happened after Conference. Wednesday evening I got back too late to do anything except open the post. There was quite a lot of this. One piece written in green ink, some very interesting points about things happening around town (parking proposals, the pier, etc) and several offers to deliver leaflets and/or display posters. Always good to get these! On Thursday morning I went to visit a local school and children's centre. It was ...
Sorry there's no real content here for the last few days... I'm utterly, utterly exhausted by work stuff at the moment. I've started three posts (one on Darkseid, one on Big Finish, and a playlist) but not had anything like the energy to put what I want to say down. Hopefully that'll change soon, but ...
Angela Knight - chief executive of the British Bankers' Association - has a piece on Comment is Free today arguing against the capping of bankers' bonuses: Banking is after all a global business and the brightest can - and will - move to where the best deals are found.Liberal England replies: Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
In the years before Labour came power in 1997 they made much of the concept of "antisocial behaviour". Many people worried that this concept would see the police concerning themselves low-level nuisance behaviour by children and teenagers - the sort of thing a healthy community deals with informally. In fact, whenever "antisocial behaviour" was described by Labour politicians, it turned out to include elements of quite serious criminality - vandalism, aggressive begging and so on. Superintendent Steve Harrod, head of criminal justice for Leicestershire Police, told the inquest into the deaths of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter that: "I'm not ...
Mon 28th
21:03
Classical liberalism, hung Parliaments and coalition government...is Germany a glimpse of our future...
[IMG: ZRE_Westerwelle.indd] The LibDems' sister party in Germany - the free market, socially libertarian Free Democrats - are the real winners of their country's general election. Their all-time high vote of 15% - secured on a platform of low tax, less regulation and more personal freedom - has propelled them back into power. Although Merkel's Christian Democrats slipped backwards slightly in the polls, the FDP's strong showing allows her to remove the dead hand of the left-leaning Social Democrats (who were slaughtered) from the federal government. Liberal leader Guido Westerwelle and his colleagues stand on the brink of wielding real ...
The Beeb is reporting that the "US government is expected to relax control over how the internet is run when it signs an accord with net regulator Icann on Wednesday." Earlier this year, the EU called on the US to relinquish its control and Icann to become "universally accountable". "The US government is the only body to have had formal oversight of Icann's policies and activities since its inception in 1998," it said."The Commission believes that Icann should become universally accountable, not just to one government but to the global internet community."This is particularly relevant given that the next billion ...
We don't usually do individual polls on The Voice, relying instead on Stephen's monthly round-ups. But we do make exceptions when there's something particularly striking or interesting about them and one of the recent YouGov questions falls into this category. With the usual caveats about it a poll that is carried out in the middle of one party's conference and that policy proposals can look different once they've been subject to constructive debate frequent attack from other parties, here it is: The Liberal Democrats have proposed a new tax on the most expensive houses. Householders would pay an annual tax ...
This morning's Daily Telegraph carried new of yet another government database: All dogs in Britain will be fitted with microchips which contain their owner's details, under cross party plans designed to track family pets. Owners will be forced to install the microchip containing a barcode that can store their pet's name, breed, age and health along with their own address and phone number. The barcode's details would then be stored on a national database which local councils could access in a bid to easily identify an owner's pet ... If an owner failed to insert a chip, at an estimated ...
I've just finished watching the movie "Milk" and I'm wondering where the junkie rights movement is. Addicts don't choose to be addicts. They are just people who were sad, bored or ignorant at one point in their lives, made a really bad decision and found themselves imprisoned in an addiction from which they find it impossible to escape. Homosexuality is nothing to be ashamed of, but addiction is. There's no way you can imagine a crowd marching down the street singing "Say it loud, I'm a junkie and I'm proud." Heroin and crack are illegal for starters, but I suspect ...
What is this sub "Tonight with Trevor MacDonald" sh*t that's supposedly about MPs abusing tax payers money? This is really quite pathetic. Parliamentary trips should be transparent Some should be justified YES Some MPs tack on Family holidays to business trips (that happens all the time in the private sector) and don't cost the taxpayer anymore. MPs have to sit through dull local entertainment put on by the local Government and sometimes take part. Er, what am I missing? Is this it? I'm off to watch the second Corrie, let me know if it gets any better.
This is the video of Charles Kennedy speaking at the rally at the start of Bournemouth Conference last week.
A week ago, Lib Dem Voice asked our readers the question on everyone's lips at conference: Do you think Nick Clegg was right to say that the Lib Dems need to be "quite bold, or even savage, on current spending"? I was clear on my view: I cannot see how the talk of "savage" cuts is helpful - quite simply, it's not the language of Lib Dems. Just as importantly, it's not backed up by policy proposals. Even Vince Cable has so far come up with some £14 billion of potential savings, while estimating that a total of £112 billion ...
There has been a flutter of speculation about the future of Wood Green police station. I have asked our local commander - Dave Grant - to give a horse's mouth briefing of what he understands to be the case. Rumours have included the police station not being rebuilt; the front counter moving down the road; no police station there, etc etc. This is what Dave Grant says is the case following enquiries he has made. He has asked the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) about what steps are being taken. The only activity at the moment is between Local Authority officers ...
It is easy to be snobbish about polls, but politicos both love them - and take them with a pinch of salt. Polls aren't very good at telling us the absolute level of support for a party. At least, they can't all be very good at it, because they tend to show different levels of support with some regularity. ICM, for example, is often the poll showing the highest level of support for the Liberal Democrats (but has fairly wild mood swings every now and again). Since February, the lowest Liberal Democrat share of the vote on ICM has been ...
[IMG: [info - personal] ] matgb has taken an elite gang of stealth leafletters out, and I am at home minding the map and co-ordinating and supposedly doing the washing up. So, I have planted out the garlic and ginger, and tended to my poorly violet, and watered all the things that didn't get rained on... And the washing up is staring at me accusingly. This blog is proudly sponsored by Andrew Hickey, who will get a pretty logo when I have time to arse about with the graphics prog.
One Sunday morning back in the 70s, I was watching television and saw a programme that appeared to be some new kids' thing that I'd not heard of. I'd missed the very start, but they seemed to be having all sorts of fun playing a version of Cowboys and Indians around a farm: Apaches from Hadamar ...
I recently put questions to Nick Clegg on behalf of the LDEG, the party's pro-European campaign group. In it, Nick makes clear the importance he attaches to the role of MEPs, responding to a question about whether the party appreciates MEPs: individual MEPs have far, far more opportunity to actually get laws changed and improved than MPs." He very modestly avoided agreeing with me that he had a role in leading Britain's pro-Europeans, although that is a role he sees for the party as a whole. He described Sharon Bowles MEP's appointment as Chair of the Parliament's Economics Committee as ...
Well done Colonel Jonathan Calder-Smith, who helps run the army unit responsible for recruitment.
You have probably seen the notices appearing on your digital TV (Freeview) channels saying that you will have to retune your TVs etc after midday this Wednesday, 30 September. It's not just TVs - set-top boxes, digital hard disk recorders and digital videos will need retuning too. Not sure how to do it? Lost the instructions? No problem, look at the TV Retune website and select your product. This is all connected to the transfer to digital TV - the old analogue channels will be switched off in a few months time. If you ONLY use cable TV or satellite ...
What has happened to the great regeneration plans for Bracknell Town? Following years of delay Councillor Bettison has said to the local press that 'Any such development must be demand led'. So what does demand led mean? This means that the town centre redevelopment will only happen on an adhoc basis will be a very slow in happening. It will look nothing like the plans here . Bracknell town centre is looking outdated and there are now a number of empty shops and buildings. Although some of these empty buildings are due to the recession some are also due ...
The government is about to spend sizeable amounts of money trying to persuade people in Greater Manchester to take up the "offer" of an ID card. Having failed to persuade people that this is a good idea, there are plans to sweeten the pill with lots of push polling and general suggestions that having a card will make life so much easier. This needs to be resisted as it is clear "thin end of the wedge" marketing. Here is the link to the No 2 ID Campaign group website. Interestingly we tried to get this piloting in the North West ...
Let me tell you about two wonderful women in my life. They've recently got to know each other and become good friends. They will know who they are. Both are in their mid 30s (and one of them is, I bet, thanking me for my generous definition of "mid"), both are trained nurses and both are fantastic mothers who share a lot of my parenting values. I know them both extremely well and would trust them not just with my life, but, more importantly, with my child's. My daughter is happy in the company of both of these women. I ...
Just read a story that "Blue-mouthed" David Cameron is not to be censured by Ofcom. You may remember that back in July he very cleverly (!) said "The trouble with Twitter, the instantness of it - too many twits might make a tw*t". As if that ...
So the British navy have just intercepted a fishing vessel carrying £240m worth of cocaine and have handed the stash over to the US http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8277483.stm Woops. An excerpt from Drug Crazy by Mike Gray: "Crack cocaine, of course, is an unparalleled menace, but the prohibitionists hardly have clean hands on this issue. Crack is a creation of the black market. The only reason for its existence is economic. It's cheap. Unfortunately you get what you pay for. The high lasts only seconds before the bottom drops out, but low cost makes it available to the blue-collar market. There are few ...
As usual, I spent a fair bit of time in the hall at the Liberal Democrat conference. I enjoy policy debates. Also, I was looking out for examples of people using stories to support their arguments and policy ideas. It was lean pickings I'm afraid, but one speech hit me right between the eyes: the speech by Katy Gordon, ppc for Glasgow North, in the debate on the Real Women policy paper. She was defending the paper's most controversial proposal, to ban the use of digital retouching technology in advertisements aimed at under 16s and to work with industry professionals ...
"The Home Office is to spend over £500,000 this year on a marketing campaign for the identity card which features cartoon fingerprints" : News from Kable about the Home Office starting it's "public information campaign" in the north west. ...beca... Read and post comments | Send to a friend
I don't know exactly why it is today, but from today, gay and unmarried couples in Scotland will now be able to adopt and also have exactly the same adoption rights as married couples. This finally brings Scotland into line with England and Wales. Gay people have always been able to adopt but only as individuals but the new law that comes into force today under the Adoption & Children (Scotland) Act 2007 will give legal rights to both partners. This piece of legislation is from the days of the Labour/Liberal Democrats administration. Predictably the Church of Scotland has criticised ...
I am currently watching Peter Mandelson giving his speech to the Labour Conference. I am on record as liking Peter Mandelson. His skills have to be admired. He turned Labour from the unelectable bunch of dinosaurs into a great election winning machine (a quality Labour now appears to have lost). Anyone who could achieve that must have impressive skills. He is also something of a comeback kid.
10 years ago I lived in an old farm house in Holland. The insulation was non existent and we had no central heating - but we were used to wearing layers of jumpers and taking exercise to warm up. To be fair we did have a gas fire in the living room and a tiny heater on the wall of the bathroom which coughed out enough heat to prevent frostbite when bathing small children. In fact my son, who was four when we moved back to England, was thrilled at the sight of radiators on the wall in our house ...
Last week Poland hit the headlines, after its parliament approved a law forcing convicted paedophiles and perpetrators of incest to undergo chemical castration before their release from prison. The move brought criticism from human rights groups, including the Helsinki Foundation of Human Rights, who stated that 'Introducing any mandatory treatment raises doubts as such a requirement ...
Mon 28th
14:25
CommentIsLinked@LDV ... Vince Cable: I stirred up a hornets' nest, but my Mansion Tax is fair
The debate has raged now for a week, ever since Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable announced his wish that the Lib Dems adopt the so-called 'mansion tax', a levy of 0.5% on households living in homes worth more than £1m. (You can vote on the issue over at LDV's current poll). Was he right, or was he wrong? Well, Vince has heard both sides of the argument now – including from his Lib Dem shadow cabinet colleagues – and has come out fighting in favour of his 'mansion tax', using his regular column in the Daily Mail to make ...
Regardless of whether or not Marr should have asked the question, I would have loved it if Brown had said yes, I am taking SSRIs. Lots of people do, you know. One in four people have some sort of mental health issue. It doesn't make us monsters. It doesn't make me unfit for office to be taking anti-depressants, it helps to stop me from being unfit for office. Or even No, I'm not taking anti-depressants, but even if I was the only effect on my ability to do my job would be a positive one, and I resent your implication ...
Trying to be thematic here: Views on Brown's latest fiscal wheeze are insufficiently good-tempered to be on this site, so are on the other one A letter to the FT perfectly summarises my views on the Tobin Tax. Mr Steinbrück's proposal does not attempt to address the cause of the current crisis and is simply a destabilising revenue-raising exercise. He argues that the tax would yield a staggering $690bn a year. Yet in the next sentence he claims that this would not unduly burden financial market participants. No industry can pay an additional three quarters of a trillion dollars in ...
According to the Total Bollocks Guide to Blogging this year, our top lib dem blogger is a girly, and seven of the top thirty lib dem bloggers identify as female. But look at all the Lib Dems who were asked to contribute articles. Every last one of them penis-bearers. Where are all the female bloggers? Being ignored by the boys again. Fail, Mr Dale. Epic fail. This blog is proudly sponsored by Andrew Hickey, who will get a pretty logo when I have time to arse about with the graphics prog.
According to the Flora Heart Age calculator, my heart age is 1 year less than my actual age. Which I suppose is encouraging. Cue that terrible old joke – she has the body of a younger woman, and they want it back.... But it does make me wonder about the rest of the package. ...
[IMG: Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging book cover] The 2009 edition is out, including a chapter from myself on the future of British political blogging and also a chapter from my Lib Dem Voice colleague Stephen Tall on the state of the Liberal Democrat blogosphere. Liberal Democrat bloggers Mark Thompson and Stephen Glenn also have their own pieces. It includes extensive listings of political blogs broken down into different political categories. Although some of the individual ratings inevitably raise eyebrows, flicking through the lists is a good way of stumbling across blogs that are new to you - and ...
A message arrives from the Conference people asking for our feedback on all matters Conference. Conference is important to the Liberal Democrats. Your input, debates and votes are vital in shaping the Party's policies and campaigns, and ensuring that we remain the only truly democratic party in British politics. So we want to make sure you come back! Your views are important to us, as they help us improve conference year after year. If you attended autumn conference this year, please take the time to give us your feedback. By clicking on the link below and filling out our online ...
Stephen Tall wrote an impassioned piece yesterday on Lib Dem Voice arguing that Andrew Marr was "wrong, wrong, wrong" to ask Gordon Brown whether or not he was taking pills yesterday on his morning TV show. Stephen does make some good points, for example he suggests that if this was a Tory Prime Minister then the reaction of the right-wing blogosphere would likely be very different and the"scarcely contained glee" of some of the blogs at the question having been asked is certainly not edifying. He also asks what Marr's sources are for asking the question in the first place ...
Further to the reports in the press over the weekend, if you click on the audio download below, you can hear the early morning news on Wave 102, in which I made the point that we required urgent clarity on the funding of buildings improvements at Harris Academy. See also the article in today's "Courier" - http://tinyurl.com/harriscourier. The good news that Scottish Government is to include Harris Academy in its secondary schools capital investment programme came at 9.30am with the following news release from government. It is excellent that Harris Academy is being included in the programme and clarification will ...
[IMG: clegg_conference] Liberal Democrats have reaffirmed their commitment to civil liberties, embedding the principles of the Freedom Bill in party policy. At the Liberal Democrat party conference in Bournemouth this week, the party backed a civil liberties motion inspired by the Freedom Bill, as well as calling for an end to aggressive tactics used by police at a number of protests. The motion 'Standing up for civil liberties,' gave rise to a lively debate amid resounding condemnation of the other parties' records on individual freedoms. Delegates voiced their support for the Bill as well as proposing ways to improve it, ...
There – didn't think I'd hear myself say it even though I straddle both wings of this Party. Our tax proposals are our most important policy. Although I disagree with her generalist sentiments regarding tax ie that cuts of it are always per se a good thing (surely having a health insurance policy only without an ...
This morning I saw a large fly trying to escape my room here. As all the windows were locked and it would be a complex route to find a way out for a fly then I, without any real forethought, squashed it. Then I started wondering about the possible consequences. Maybe this fly was going to mutate and create a race of superior flies which would destroy humankind and take over the world, in which case I had done a great thing. But maybe it was going to fly into a car driving along the road and make the driver ...
From the Cambridge Daily News of 1909: A gramophone meeting was held at Fen Ditton in support of the Government's budget. Some delay was caused by the gramophone having gone wrong but Mr S. Mallyon lent his machine. First a musical selection was rendered and then recordings of speeches by the Prime Minister (H.H. Asquith), Chancellor of the Exchequer (Lloyd George) and President of the Board of Trade (Mr Winston Churchill) were heard. Thanks to Colin Rosenstiel for this example of Liberal high tech.
You've probably heard about the BNP's cunning stunt with one of their members raising funds for the British Legion. The British Legion are still thinking about whether to accept this cash, and say that they won't. According to their Head of Media, "The legion would accept any donation only if it decided that the gift had not been exploited for party political purposes". This blatantly has been. I've been thinking for a while about adding the British Legion to the (small) list of charities I support. So, I though, why not use this as a chance to show that sensible ...
On Sat morning as part of the 'biggest coffee morning' fundraising for Mc Millan Cancer, John Pugh put on an event held in St Lukes Church Hall
I'm taking off my cynical, iconoclastic libertarian hat and replacing it with my rather dusty and unloved, "get the Lib Dems elected" hat for a minute. Lib Dems have one killer policy: Set the threshold for Income Tax and National Insurance contributions at £10,000 a year (or roughly minimum wage). It's so good Labour activists want their party to steal it. I wouldn't be surprised if similar pressure is being put on David Cameron to do the same, although he won't (tax cuts are for 'Same Old Tories' not modern, Compassionate With Your Money Conservatives) Now, I'll be honest, I ...
[IMG: David Lammy's second home claims] London MP, with a constituency only 28 minutes away by Tube from Parliament, claims £12,041 for a second home. Sounds a straight-forward case in the long line of London MPs who had their expense claims widely publicised and heavily criticised during earlier this year? Except this time, there's one difference. The expense claim was published back in October 2004, got a bit of local media coverage and that was that. Lucky man, that David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham. From the Haringey Advertiser, 27 October 2004: HARINGEY taxpayers have been forking out for Tottenham ...
Paddy thought he'd told this story for 15 years on the trot. For those of you who haven't here is the concluding bit of the tale about two tribes who go to war and the outcome when one of them seeks the advice of a sage...........
And finally for conference videos Paddy at the Glee Club coming on after the lads from the Arts Alliance and demonstrating his 'softer' leadership skills
One to file in the "Thank goodness I didn't do that" category. Whilst AP meant to send out a news story about the arrest in Switzerland of Roman Polanski, instead they sent out notes of their journalists discussing the story: Swiss arrest Polanski on US request in sex case Associated Press, 09.27.09, 10:41 AM EDT OK, can you do some more probing? New York will want to know frank's out today. i checked already, and so did zurich. they say the question is irrelevant. he answered me with the quote i used, about we knew when he was coming this ...
When some ghastly crime against children, such as the Soham or Baby P murders, clobbers the nation's conscience, the first guilty reaction is to bring in new regulations. The problem with trying to legislate against evil is that it can also legislate against good. The response to the Victoria Climbie case in 2000, was, as I've said before, one of the most humane government reports that I have seen - 'Every Child Matters'. It called for agencies that support children to work together. Obvious, really. In parallel, the Criminal Records Bureau was set up in 2002, amid growing concern and ...
RWFTW - Fees Shared via AddThis A lot has been and shall be said regarding tuition fees and the position of Liberal Youth. What came from conference was the clear message that the executive of Liberal Youth have been turned away from committing to a fair deal for students to making vague statements about aiming to get rid of fees, vacillating over whether to toe the line and cosying up to the leadership of the Liberal Democrats as a whole. Is that really our position? Are we mere clients, mere subjects to Nick Clegg's will? The executive would have you ...
A strange feeling of deja vu - it is a Monday morning and I am on a National Express train. No, I'm not heading to London. Actually the reverse, I am heading out of London to Newcastle and home to Sunniside. Amazingly, the train is not cancelled! Stranger things have happened.I caught the Independent poll on GMTV this morning. Labour and Lib Dems both on 23%. I hoped to pick up a copy of the
Four of my work colleagues at the Local Government Ombudsman , all investigators, leave on Wednesday. It's always sad to see colleagues go (although they never appear sad themselves) but there should be a good party on Wednesday night. I myself have applied for an investigator position three times but instead they recruited people who left within a year or two. I'm not bitter, of course. But I digress. Always good to have a party and a few beers and wish our colleagues well. The other event this week is my wedding anniversary on Friday. Seven years! I am now ...
Courtesy of the German Federal Government site (these Germans really are SO efficient!):
I am joining the growing number of people impressed with Peter Mandelson for his sheer verve and ability. He was on the Today programme this morning and Rambling Jim Naughtie did his best to interrupt, distract and generally wrong-foot Mandelson but he calmly batted away all of Naughtie's crude forays and provided some useful insight into what his party is thinking and doing - which you would assume is the point of a radio interview. This put into sharp focus the modus operandum of Rambling Jim. He is simply trying to put his interviewers off and to get them to ...
2 Big Stories Germany elects new centre-right government to be led by Angela Merkel The Financial Times reports: Germany is on course for its first centre-right government in 11 years after voters gave chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and her Free Democratic allies a majority in parliament. The victory of the conservative-liberal alliance - which had campaigned for tax cuts and a return to nuclear energy, but also social justice and tougher rules for finance - in Sunday's poll ends four years of awkward co-operation between the CDU and its rival Social Democratic party in a grand coalition. ... ...
At tonights exec meeting I will be the oldest present, 10 years ago I used to be the youngest. On Saturday, my daughter went to Uni, I'm an empty nester. At the BOTYs, I represented the old guard, the first LDO. Man, I feel old.
Iran has tested a long range missile AND it has told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it is building a second nuclear enrichment facility inside a mountain near Qom. This has caused international 'consternation' and a call from Israel for an 'unequivocal response' (translation: 'fire up the F16s, boys') but it raises some questions with me which I doubt will be answered soon. Can anyone help? 1. Why, if Iran has declared that it is building this site to international monitors, is this a bad thing? Does this not demonstrate (i) that international monitoring works (ii) that Iran is ...
In what might be a good idea (and if it is I'll keep doing it), I'm going to start rounding up what's making the Wikio Top 100 blogs the most excited today. I can do this by finding out which blogs and stories in the news are attracting the most interest from political bloggers, then linking to them. This is actually a bad day to start this, the Blogosphere's pretty quiet at the moment with the biggest story generating only 4 links. #4 Cable and Clegg Quit Politics Home Panel He make think I'm out to get him, but James ...
Scotash is a vibrant and growing company in West Fife that takes ash from Longannet Power Station and turns it into cements and grouts saving on quarrying, cement energy costs and landfill for the ash. It's won so many awards for innovation and the environment that I can't keep count. They are such a hit that the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office has decided to promote Scotash on all its 167 websites throughout the world. The only others to receive this special treatment are Bodyshop, Unilever , BAe Systems and the Co-op. By way of example, the Botswana link attached ...
The decision of the Speaker of the House of Commons to abandon the hunt for the person who leaked details of MPs' expenses is an important symbolic act. It sends out a message that it is not the leak that is important but the reform of an unjustifiable system. As Mr. Bercow says: "A witch-hunt of this kind is wrong in principle and offers the impression that MPs, not taxpayers, are the victims in this expenses affair, a view that is manifestly mistaken." He is absolutely right. We still have to await the outcome of the House of Commons' own ...
This extract from Hansard of January 1989 is sufficiently clear, it hardly needs further explanation: Lord Morris My Lords, I share my noble friend's concern or indeed apparent affection for a good potato salad, but does the question compare like with like? Baroness Trumpington No, my Lords. Lord Bethell My Lords, surely my noble friend would agree that an egg is an egg. They were debating London transport by the way. Liked this story? Find other gems from Hansard on my archive page for this series of posts. Related posts:Hansard gems: Roundabout safety The government never sleeps, or so it ...
We're at 104 Finchley Road at one of the main junction points and yet this pub is almost lost in the noise maelstrom of the modern traffic flow of the Finchley Road. The North Star was built in 1850 - one of the many watering holes that appeared as the route became more popular (from the 1830's onwards) - an alternative from either Watling Street (Kilburn High Road) or the windy routes up and through Hampstead. It's a strong and dominant architecture but of course is now aligned with the route of the Metropolitan line which apparently runs a mere ...
A number of factors have come together to create a delaye in postings and comments and content. For which apologies. Poor timing for a blog that features as number 21 in the top Lib Dem Blogs really - sorry about that - let normal services resume... I should just add that there has been a sustained thread throughout this blog about the local community, especially it's history and past and capturing the current festivals and images that i sense may never be caught again. However, there is a stark thread of comments from some that says that this lacks edge ...
I don't always listen to 'Thought For The Day' religiously. In fact, at one time, the start of TFTD literally set me running from the house: the signal I was late to catch my train to work. But last Friday I did catch the Thought, and it really made an impression on me. The Chief ...
Bizarre Welsh news story of the day has to belong to Community Pharmacy Wales and their claim that free prescriptions will be abolished in Wales if a carrier bag tax of 15p is introduced. They believe that patients will be charged for the bags their medicines are dispensed in if Environment Minister Jane Davidson's proposals become law in Wales. Ian Cowan, chair of CPW, said: "The Welsh Assembly Government is understandably proud of its flagship policy of free prescriptions for the people of Wales and CPW would not wish to see this diluted by a levy created by another Assembly ...
As I predicted some time ago, the Free Democrats: the German Liberal Party, has seen a dramatic increase in its vote at the Federal elections. It has been dramatic progress, a nearly a third increase in the FDP vote, to give them 15% and the near certainty of forming a coalition with the Conservative CDU/CSU, under the Chancellorship of Angela Merkel. The previous "Grand coalition" of the CDU/CSU with the Social Democrats can now be replaced with a far more radical free market led government. Profound congratulations to Guy Westerwelle and all of the FDP team. The pan European trend ...
They only last month the SNP were claiming that we had a compassionate, human justice system. Yet now they are looking to close a 'loophole' in the capture of DNA of offenders. Up until now only the DNA of those convicted of a crime could be taken and kept on the Government data base. However, if the person chose to take a direct measure, such as a fine, as an alternative to being prosecuted in court then their DNA could not be kept. The SNP are saying this is a loophole that must be closed. One does have to ask ...
Over on Lib Dem Voice there was a thread a few days ago bemoaning the "disaster" that was the recent Lib Dem Conference. The only problem with the crux of the article is that, since conference has ended, there have been no fewer than four polls putting us up between two to five points. I'm not going ...
As a Republican and an avowed hater of men who go anywhere near a bottle of hair dye, I suppose I could have been nasty and written a title like "McCartney the Royal Toady". But that would have been uncalled for. Paul McCartney, when all's said and dyed, has, it seems, retained a wide-eyed innocence from his childhood. A laudatory essay on the Queen which he wrote when he was 10 years old has been unearthed. It has interesting echoes with a tiny track on Abbey Road. Abbey Road has got a few interesting, very short tracks on it. One ...
Still there is something very cathartic about skimming through one's rants tag (I was looking for a particular post to link someone to, not just randomly thinking Ooh, I wonder what I posted under rants!). I swear a lot, don't I? Even those of you who can't see the f-locked posts can see much swearage. My mummy always told me that was a sign of poor vocabulary... In case any of you are wondering, BTW, the plan to get rascally drunk was an unmitigated success ;) This blog is proudly sponsored by Andrew Hickey, who will get a pretty logo ...
Having been too busy to write up my thoughts from conference yet, I have cheated and attached a photo of me and Vince Cable pending a fuller article! [IMG: Peter and Vince Cable]
Should we debate with the BNP? The Labour Party decided that they should not share a platform with them. They don't want the BNP to have the oxygen of publicity. We don't have to be specific and talk about the BNP as it could be any group or individual whose opinions we don't agree with. Even if their opinions are abhorrent, how do you persuade others that they are loathsome? Option A, just say they inspire loathing and hope people believe you. Option B, debate the issues in public. Jack Straw has now gone for option B. On the 22nd ...
