Andrew Reeves is concerned that Greenpeace demonstrators have got on to the roof of the Palace of Westminster: How many times does this need to actually happen though before the senior people in charge of the security are fired and new people brought in, because it is obvious time after time they are not able to do the job properly.But what more does Andrew want the authorities to do? We already have endless queues for members of the public who want to get in to see an MP, a glass barrier separating the Commons chamber from the public gallery and ...
We had a most intersting discussion after our Church Service this morning on restorative justice. No soft option, and a real focus on the victims, as well as better outcome all round. Here is the report I could not upload yesterday. FAIR TRADE SUPPORTERS CONFERENCEGreat reception at this conference celebrating 15 years of the Fairtrade Foundation for George Alagiah, our...
Great excitement as we arrived at Kings College for the conference celebrating 15 years of the Fairtrade Foundation and awards. It was just great to be amongst so many Fairtrade campaigners, enjoying their company, and having a lovely feeling of belonging. I've written more detail in a paper, so I'll just give the highlights. (the site is not letting me upload the paper so I'll put it...
Husbands Bosworth You can now find Hansard from 1803 online. It is fully searchable, which means you can find all sorts of interesting bits of local political history. Here is the radical Liberal MP Henry Labouchère asking a question in the Commons on 1 August 1889: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he is aware that a printed placard, announcing that a Primrose and Conservative demonstration will take place at Husbands Bosworth on 8th August, at which there there will be addresses from two Conservative Members of this House, dancing, a dinner, a donkey race, and other similar ...
Before I start, I'd just like to apologise for the lack of content for a week – work's finally calmed down, but I've essentially spent the last week asleep as a reaction to the lifting of four months' constant stress. Anyway, I've decided that to start posting again I'm going to do another hyperpost like series, ...
So this week I expected to be reading lots about the budget, but surprisingly there isn't much about the massive cut in capital funding in much every department. Apparently that isn't newsworthy. So here is what is more worthy of discussion. Oh, and advance warning that there probably won't be an update next week because it is our conference and I will be too tired/hungover to do this next Sunday. I can tell you're gutted. If anyone wants to volunteer to take my place for a week, feel free to volunteer! As pointed out by Glyn Davies, tomorrow is likely ...
Thank you to all those who attended the 'Campaign for Change' Assembly, in Whitefoot. We all agreed to campaign on two local issues that really matter: 1. The £15 fee the Council charge for collecting bulky items, like beds or sofas. We will invite Council staff from Lewisham (who charge for collection) and Southwark (who do not), to come to the next Assembly and explain their policies. 2. The 'Tiger's Head' junction We will attend a meeting with Transport for London (who are responsible for the junction), and depending on their response, then decide our next steps. The next Assembly ...
From Downing St, It's the Sale of the Week, It's Sale of the Century!!!!!! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8301787.stm
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has a right old go in The Observer today at the Tories — and especially his shadow opposite number, William Hague — for their alliance with Michal Kominski, of Poland's innocuous-sounding Law and Justice Party (PiS) and Robert Zile of the Latvian For Fatherland and Freedom party, both of which ...
Early this morning the world learnt we had lost Stephen Gately, who tragically died in Majorca while on holiday with his partner. Both Stephen Glenn and myself did blog posts on this. On the paper review on BBC1, the presenter read out Stephen's last tweet. I logged onto Twitter to see, and noted that he had 6,867 followers. At 6pm I tweeted that this had now gone up to 9,262, it is now 9pm and there are over 10,006 followers. I appreciate people will wish to pay their respects but just following Stephen on Twitter doesn't achieve that. Stephen RIP. ...
I had a wonderful little mosey around Hype Park and the Albert Hall in London today. My first photo is of the Albert memorial. I first saw this when I was about ten years old and was stunned by it. Now it has been refurbished, it is even more stunning. I notice that tourists continue to be mesmerised by it also. It is a most wonderful example of Victorian extravagance. Having watched "Young Victoria" last night, I already had the context in my head. (I should say that I have digitally altered all but the first of these photos, because ...
I had a fascinating morning yesterday on the building site of the new Churchfields Junior School in South Woodford. I love anything construction-related and it was also good to summon up the archaeology parts of my degree as I stood, up to my hard hat, in the builders' trenches! I was there as a member of the school's Governing Body and we were joined by geologist Professor Peter Doyle, who explained the layers of soil and gravel where the old playground used to be. We even found some newer objects including a 19th century glazed brick produced at Farnley Iron ...
I had already made today's choice when I heard Steve Coogan choose this as one of his Desert Island Discs. Talking Heads have always seemed to me the musical equivalent of American independent cinema: urban, intellectual, versed in Continental philosophy. Coogan saw the band as a reminder that it is as silly to stereotype Americans as anyone else. That is a good moral, but I was interested to discover that David Byrne, Talking Heads' lead singer and presiding genius, was born in Dumbarton. His family emigrated from Scotland to Canada when he was two, and moved to the United States ...
Yet again the security has been breached at the Palace of Westminster, this time by over 40 protesters from Greenpeace - BBC says more than 40 and Greenpeace say 55. I have no issue with where they are from or which organisation (as I agree with the core part of the Greenpeace message) but in this day of age Greenpeace are showing terrorist organisations how easy it is to attack our national UK Parliament. Given it was a weekend there are less staff on duty but all this will mean now is another review of security, another raft of new ...
We learned earlier this week that the Kings Tavern on Kings Road in Redlands is set to have its licence reviewed for the second time this year. This news is depressingly familiar. In the Summer a few weeks after the first licence review we expressed our fears that problems would recur at this venue. RBC officers have informed us that Thames Valley Police have instigated this latest review of the licence after the operators of the Kings Tavern were found to have sold alcohol during the period a few months ago when this venue was ordered by RBC's licensing committee to close. This follows the suspension of ...
So, on the day of a major march through Washington by gay rights protesters, Nobel Peace Prize winner President Barack Obama announces his intention to lets gays serve in the US Military and that he will scrap the "don't ask, don't tell" policy which currently exists and therefore allows gays and lesbians to serve their country. Though he has not set out any timeline for this, so I am somewhat sceptical about the timing of this announcement given the timing of the march! Mr Obama asked the audience at the lesbian and gay fundraising dinner to trust his administration. He ...
Welcome to the 138th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (4th October – 10th October 2009), together with a hand-picked quintet, partly courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget, by the way, you can now sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox – just click here – ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. Risking Ifran Ahmedisation.... ...
Sara Scarlett, of Liberal Vision fame, has posted an excellent piece on Lib Dem Voice about a potential coalition partner for the Liberal Democrats - A Co-operative Coalition.
This story in today's Observer is almost too silly to believe but it is true. Jackie Slater, a 50+ year old woman was refused when she attempted to purchase a bottle of wine in a branch of Morrisons because she was accompanied by two young women (her daughter and her niece), one of whom was 17 and neither of whom had any ID. The reasoning was that the older woman may have given the alcohol to the girls after leaving the store. I barely know where to begin with this ridiculous, illiberal nonsense. The thing is though, it's not just ...
Mark Thompson raises this question on his blog; he is quite right to 'stick his neck out' and say we should be doing better for all the reasons he cites on his blog. It is perhaps good to tackle the factors he cites in order and question why they are not benefitting us; The Financial Crisis ...
Yesterday I noted an interesting article on the BBC website about a firm setting up a 'green' server farm operation in Iceland to make use of the carbon-zero geothermal electricity alongside the lower ambient temperature to reduce the usually substantial overhead of cooling computer servers. The article went on to note that Iceland is about to substantially increase its presence on the internet backbones with the Farice , Cantat-3, and new Danice high-capacity fibre links now on stream, and that the company concerned — Verne Global — hoped to gain a substantial number of customers by the cost reductions available ...
Over the last week, Lib Dem Voice has invited the members of our private forum (open to all Lib Dem members) inviting them to take part in a survey, conducted via Liberty Research, asking a number of questions about the party and the current state of British politics. Many thanks to the 200+ of you who completed it; we've been publishing the results on LDV over the past few days. You can catch up on the results of all our exclusive LDV members' surveys by clicking here. First up, we asked how many of you had actually attended conference. LDV ...
Mark Thompson blogged earlier under the headline: Surely the Lib Dems should be doing better than this? His answer to this question is yes, and I agree. It's difficult not to really. We've had some good polling results recently – the ComRes poll that put us level-pegging with Labour springs to mind – and our monthly averages have ...
Max Atkinson poses this question on his blog. It is an interesting one because it relates to comments I have made previously that the party lacks a social base. He blogs the comments of Liberal leader of 1959; Jo Grimond who insisted that we represent a 'new class' ; somewhere between workers and employers. ...
The BBC's Jon Sopel has produced another round-up of the best of the Sunday TV political shows (BBC and non-BBC). It includes Liam Fox on Brown's eyesight, Alan Johnson on the role of government, Chris Grayling on leadership over expenses, Alistair Darling on Conservative plans and Lord Tebbit in conversation with Frank Gardner about terrorism. You can watch it here.
I have done a link to Lenny Harper's post about Jersey and Haut de la Garenne. I haven't managed to read it yet, but the question about justice systems on smaller islands is an important one.
The new primary school for East Anton will be opening in Easter 2010 and the county council are now looking for governors for this school to work with the local authority in selecting the headteacher and making other important decisions before the school opens. They need volunteers representing the broader local community as well as representation from potential parents and someone to provide a staff perspective. If you are interested let me know. Full details on what is involved in being a school governor can be found at the following address http://www.hants.gov.uk/education/governors
You have probably heard that there are some interesting proposals for the future of Surbiton Hospital. These will affect people in South of the Borough because it means we will be able to go to Surbiton for some outpatient services rather than travel to Kingston Hospital. The concept is to bring medical services nearer to home, which means that consultants will hold clinics at Surbiton, and all sorts of procedures, such as X-rays, will also be available there. This array of services (including GP practices) all under one roof is known as a polyclinic. But NHS Kingston is taking it ...
Somehow, I'd missed this story until I saw it mentioned on Aaro and Cohen Watch – blogger Dave Osler and others have been taken to court seemingly for listing a few facts and because of someone posting a slightly insulting comment. Not being a lawyer, a judge or anyone else who can help in the legal ...
The SNP Government recently announced that it was to abandon the new rail link with Glasgow airport, something that was an integral part of the successful bid for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. This major capital project is a key part of upgrading the infrastructure around Glasgow airport, as at the moment public transport links with ...
The general consensus among today's politicos is that the dye is now cast for the next General Election. Those at the helm of all "two and a half" major parties are the leaders they assume will take them into the next General Election - the only questions now are "how big will David Cameron's majority be?" and "what will the LibDem vote share be compared to Labour's?" And then there's the 'C' word – no not that one. Not that one either... That's right: coalition! But with whom? New Labour? Arch-authoritarian, spendthrift, warmongering sycophants... no thanks. The Tories? A party ...
It looks as if the debate over the Liberal Democrats' need for a narrative - a story - might be kicking off again. [click here and here] One element we talk about too little is the leader's need to embody the party's narrative, in order to make it more real, more authentic to voters. In today's quasi-presidential politics, voters use the leaders as quick ways to assess the parties, for good or ill. If you don't believe me, look at the Newsnight pre-party conference focus groups. Media coverage of Newsnight's focus groups and quantitative research and the Populus and Ipsos ...
I don't hold much stock with opinion polls during conference season. The focus on each of the three big parties in turn causes distortions in the responses. I think it will be another week or two before the dust settles and we can see where the three parties stand. However I am going to stick my neck out here and say that when that dust does settle, the Lib Dems are likely to be roughly where we were before, around the high teens perhaps pushing 20%. Labour will be around the mid - high 20s and the Conservatives will be ...
Last night I went to the Cheltenham Literature Festival to hear Vince Cable speak. I had expected the talk to be about his book on the credit crunch, "The Storm" , but it turned out to be more about his memoir, "Free Radical", to be published on 1 November. This sounds like a must-read. He had spoken earlier in the evening as one of a panel (along with Stephanie Flanders from the BBC and John Micklethwait of The Economist), so didn't go into as much detail on the banking crisis as some in the audience would have liked to hear. ...
I'm in favour of college courses teaching skills such as brick laying, plumbing and electrical wiring. I believe crafts such as these are just as valid as any other kind of work. I believe that Conservative and Labour governments have made a big mistake in denigrating practical courses, which has happened through assuming that the only valid education is gained from a university degree course. In my opinion trying to get everyone into university is a kind of snobbery. What's wrong with good, honest skills? I do wish, however, that the Learning and Skills Council wasn't so fixated on vocational ...
RIP Stephen Gately, the singer who rose to fame thanks to Boyzone, and who has died aged just 33. His solo career was not the soaring success he might have hoped when the Irish band split up – though three Top 20 singles is more than most of the rest of us will manage. Indeed, it's likely that Lib Dems will be among those most familiar with his work, for his debut solo track, New beginning, was adopted by the party as its theme tune for the 2001 general election (and used subsequently at many party conferences). Lib Dem blogger ...
I wanted to do a quick blog on a comment I read by Alan Johnson about Gordon Brown and how he should ignore focus groups and polls: "If you try and follow focus groups and you try and follow the opinion polls you'll get nowhere," Well how hypocritical is that. What was one of the key methods ...
It has been a hot topic of conversation in Scotland over recent months that Alex Salmond has been saying he wants to be involved in debates in Scotland ahead of the general election. He has even threatened legal action if he is not allowed into the Prime Ministerial debates. Well if looks like he has refused to answer a challenge from the Scottish leaders Labour's Iain Gray, Lib Dem Tavish Scott and Tory Annabel Goldie to a debate. Indeed let's also invite Patrick Harvie of the Greens and if Alex doesn't show empty seat him. I've since the first ramifications ...
Martin Kettle of the Guardian thinks Cameron 'unsealed the deal' and John Rentoul in the Independent on Sunday agrees but Matthew D'Ancona writes in the Sunday Telegraph that Cameron is more radical than any of us realise. What this tells us is that depending where you sit on the political divide will determine what you thought of the speech. Watching it on television, the speech didn't seem to gel. Cameron's main proposition was that all our problems are down to 'big government' but when he talked about particular issues or policies the narrative shifted. There was praise for some Labour ...
This afternoon's Politics Show reports that Wales' four MEPs fear that the country could lose out on more than £1bn of European funding, leading to jobs and services to be cut. They fear that with the enlargement of the European Union and the inclusion of countries like Bulgaria and Romania, Wales is no longer among the very poorest regions and is likely to miss out on the next round of so-called convergence funding. Labour MEP, Derek Vaughan said losing the funding would have terrible consequences. "The worst case scenario is that Wales gets nothing at all and therefore we will ...
I have today launched my October 2009 update to West End Community Council. Subjects covered include : * School "lollipop" patrols * Graffiti * Rail Bridge on Riverside Drive * Perth Road west of Harris Academy * West End Christmas Week 2009 The Community Council meets this coming Tuesday (13th October) at Logie St John's (Cross) Church Hall at 7pm. You can download a copy of my update by clicking on the headline above or by going to http://tinyurl.com/weccoct09.
Today's 'Sunday Times' (see http://tinyurl.com/snptory) : "Alex Salmond: I'd back Tories at Westminster Alex Salmond has been accused of betraying Scotland after revealing he is willing to support a Conservative government in the event of a hung parliament at Westminster. The first minister said he would co-operate with a David Cameron-led administration on key legislation ... Last week, George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, announced £7 billion of annual savings, including a pay freeze at Whitehall departments and quangos. Holyrood would face a corresponding cut of up to £520m a year, or about £2 billion over four years."
I've been approached by a couple of people asking about an incident at the Woodvale site. I have been unable to tell them much. But last night I got an email from the police which explains what went on: 10th October 2009 Dear Councillor I write to keep you informed of an incident involving the force helicopter based at Woodvale.. Just before 10.30pm on the evening of 9th October 2009 officers on duty at RAF Woodvale prevented a number of offenders from causing serious damage to the force helicopter. Other officers quickly arrived on the scene and the offenders left ...
I belong to the cock-up school of history, not the conspiracy one. I believe events are not pre-ordained. They happen by chance. Nothing is inevitable. But.....The story of Gordon Brown's eye problem is leaving me with the feeling that the ground is being prepared and an escape route is being created. In the soap opera of politics, has the excuse for his departure been set?The fightback at Labour
The debate over the Conservative Party's allies in its new European Fruitcake Alliance has generated more heat than light. But Craig Murray has a notably fair and informative post on the background of Michal Kaminski and Polish society in general. Writing of his four years based in Poland, he says: It would be a lie to say that I encountered casual anti-semitism every day. But I did so often enough to be severely worried - and often from very nice people who did not otherwise have weird opinions. Anti-semitism was absolutely endemic in the Polish Catholic Church, and still is. ...
After sustained pressure from my Lib Dem colleagues on the County Council, the management summary of a report presented to the Conservative Cabinet in July, based on which it decided to consult on the closure plan have been made public. The Tory Cabinet initially refused to make this document public in spite of freedom of information requests by Lib-Dems. Yesterday however following sustained pressure from Lib-Dem county councillors, Warwickshire County Council agreed to release the Executive Summary of the consultants' report on which the recommendations to Cabinet had been based, and today they have gone further and agreed to release ...
The Independent on Sunday report on a rift growing within the Cabinet about how to best tackle the BNP, following the decision by BBC Question Time to invite Nick Griffin onto their programme: Peter Hain is to make a formal complaint to the BBC Trust over the appearance of the British National Party leader, Nick Griffin, on BBC1's Question Time next week. This follows what insiders described as a "robust" meeting between the Secretary of State for Wales and the show's executive producer, Ric Bailey, during the Labour Party conference. Mr Hain said yesterday: "I fundamentally disagree with the BBC's ...
Max Atkinson has Jo Grimond's answer to this question - or at least who the Liberal Party represented - in the 1959 general election campaign. Grimond saw the Liberals as representing an emerging new class - neither employer nor employee. Max Atkinson asks: Now that the Liberal Democrats have 10 times more MPs than 50 years ago, does this mean that Grimond's 'new class' has indeed grown - only much more slowly than he was hoping for?I suspect the part of the answer is that the other parties have managed to reinvent themselves in less class-bound terms.
I had the BBC News on this morning in the absence of Match of the Day, as I woke up a little later than normal and wasn't really listening while mooching around making coffee when I heard the paper review and Stephen Gately had died. I couldn't believe it, he was way too young, exactly how I felt last year when I was told of Neil Trafford's tragic death last year. I then sat and listened and it appears that after a night in Majorca where Stephen and his partner Andrew were on holiday, they returned home and he never ...
Something struck me steming from a piece in the Daily Mail of all papers; no matter how much the hard right would have us try, the lot of the poor and the governments policies to improve their lot is still a central issue for alot of people. Society still judges itself (and consequentially it's government) ...
When looking fairly randomly through some articles on wikipedia, I was struck by this sentence about William Hague in relation to the former Tory MP Shaun Woodward. "he was a front-bench spokesman on London for the Conservative opposition under William Hague until 1999, when he was sacked for supporting the repeal of Section 28,[2] a regulation which prevented the "promotion" of homosexuality in schools." It says all I need to know about William Hague's values.
Have you ever wondered what senior MPs like Nick Clegg and Vince Cable do while the other parties have their conferences? Well, I can tell you: they don't sit at home watching them on the television, instead they take the chance to get out of Westminster and visit our teams in key constituencies around the country. Today it was our turn, when they both came to the Chippenham constituency here in Wiltshire. Parliamentary candidates, like me, are always delighted to get a visit from well known Lib Dem MPs. It opens doors in the constituency, interests the local media, and ...
This morning's Independent on Sunday poses the question as to whether Tory donor and tax-exile, Lord Ashcroft has been buying up online influence in a bid to "shore up" his own position with David Cameron's party and ensure that he is not frozen out once the Conservatives are installed at No 10. Lord Ashcroft has recently purchased PoliticsHome and ConservativeHome causing some high profile resignations from the former's expert "political panel", which releases opinion surveys. Amongst the resignees are Andrew Rawnsley, a columnist for The Observer, who quit as editor-in-chief, claiming that the site's editorial independence was incompatible with Lord ...
When someone says 1812 do you think Tchaikovsky or Tufte*? * Yes, I know the map is by Minard, but it is Tufte who made it famous.
[IMG: The trees on Denton Road] Ever since I saw the notices on the condemned trees at the bottom of Denton Road (see previous post), I've been pressing the Council about what is happening and why. These are beautiful mature Acacia trees and it would be a shame to lose so many of them at once. The Council have assured me that the trees will be replaced with new trees in similar locations – 4 planted this winter and 4 next winter. I've asked if any can be saved – but they seem pretty determined to remove them all because ...
I accompanied Dad yesterday to another event to help celebrate 100 years of Girl Guiding. This time it was held at the Walthamstow Town Hall. After a lot of pressure, the local council allowed the two divisions that make up Waltham Forest to have a garden bed each to plant rose bushes to help commentate the year.Kay Bibbey and her team did another great job organising the event. Each section was
Having shown you Christine's Book Cabin I thought I would also photograph Quinns, the town's independent bookseller. It opened on the High Street in the early 1980s and later moved to Three Crowns Yard. Despite the arrival of Waterstone's on The Square, it is still going strong.
The papers, radio and TV have been filled with stories about Gordon Brown's eyesight. Brown has sight in one eye and is likely to eventually go blind in the other at some stage: and the media has made it clear that his political rivals in the Tories and within the Labour party have been using ...
It is always a tragedy when somebody dies suddenly, when it happens to someone young who was looking forward to getting back to what made them famous even more so. Last night Boyzone singer Stephen Gately who was on Majorca with his long time partner Andy Cowles, they had a civil partnership ceremony in 2006, went out for a few drinks. When he returned to his accommodation he fell asleep and never woke up. He's been born on St. Patrick's day in 1976 (he shared both my given names*, much as Morrissey also does, as a result). Indeed his last ...
It's Sunday. It's 7am. It's time for the Daily View, today with an science fiction meets ukulele musical extra. 2 Big Stories English Defence League takes to streets, violence follows Perhaps someone should tell the English Defence League that the best way for them to defend the values they claim to stand up for would be to wind themselves up given how little of that traditional English value of tolerance its members display. But in the meantime, here's the latest news: More than 40 people have been arrested during two political demonstrations in Manchester city centre. At least 2,000 people ...
"When we don't speak, we become unbearable, and when we do we make fools of ourselves". I read this from The Land of Green Plums by Hertha Mueller when I was in Slovakia in the mid-1990s when a Hungarian-born student of mine gave me a copy. It's a fantastic book, and well worth reading. What's fabulous is that she completes a hat-trick of women Laureates winning the Literature Prize coming after Doris Lessing last year and -Marie Gustave Le Clezio.
I want to make something quite clear at the start of this post; I think the Conservative Parties choice of new European allies is deplorable. Despite lame efforts to defend them I think that alot of what is said against them and the likes of Michal Kaminski is absolutely true; I want this to be ...
