Mon 26th
23:04
Debut Boo on the most important thing you've never heard of that Parliament is debating this week
In April, the Chancellor, Alistair Darling announced big reductions in future government spending to finance the paying back of the record levels of government borrowing. The impact on local government has now been calculated and for Wirral Council, this will mean between £64m and £76m of budget reductions between 2011 and 2014. To put this into context, ...
A busy day, which, along with 'day job' activities, also included : * Visits to our four West End Primary Schools (Ancrum Road, Blackness, Park Place and St Joseph's) to deliver pencil cases (a free gift to each P7 pupil from our sponsor) and drawing templates for the 'fireworks safety' colouring competition that primary 7 pupils are taking part in as part of this year's West End Christmas Week. Each P7 pupil is drawing a fireworks safety sticker and there will be one winner per class (who each win a book voucher, kindly sponsored by Borders Books) and the overall ...
I didn't report the Trafalgar Square attack where one man was killed. It's happened again though in the Stanley Street area of Liverpool. Although we've come a huge distance on LGBT issues the younger straight people I work with are completely opposite to the people who attacked James Parkes. There does seem to be a huge gulf ...
George Osborne, Conservative Shadow Chancellor, has got a revolutionary plan to deal once and for all with the reckless bonus culture of our financial institutions that helped create the mess the economy is in... Only joking. He's really got some half-baked ideas to stop cash bonuses for some in retail banks only. And it's only a short-term ...
I was amazed at how much interest there was over on my Facebook site about my cat Freda. She was nearly 21 years old when she died last week. She had a significant local following in our village of Sunniside with people regularly calling to see her. And when she died, I had loads of messages including a steady flow on Facebook. So thanks everyone.Here's Freda's picture:Meanwhile, our nephew Jay
The photograph shows the twin gaping maws of Greyfriars bus station in Northampton. You don't often get a maw these days, but Greyfriars has two of them. I wrote about the bus station a few years ago, linking to a Guardian article of the time. There is also an article about it on the BBC website, with the excellent Richard Church, a Lib Dem councillor from Northampton, making the case for its demolition and an architect offering a selection of increasingly tenuous arguments for its retention. Editor's note: Architects seldom travel by bus. In that earlier posting I wrote about ...
That's Grumpy who are now located at The Angels on Endcott Close. As part of Gorton 100, they're having an afternoon of old-fashioned fun and games on Wednesday 28th October, 12 - 4. So, it's half term so come long if you want some fun, or even if you're feeling grumpy!
Went to the launch of GFest - London's premier LGBT cross-arts festival. As Equalities spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats - this is the second year I have been asked to come and speak at the launch - and it is a great honour. GFest is a platform for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) organisations and venues to promote LGBT arts. Organised by arts charity "Wise Thoughts" which is based in my constituency. This is the third year of the festival - which each year is growing like Topsy and this year has over 100 artists from all over the world ...
Some positive news today in the fight for justice for Gary McKinnon, the Asperger's sufferer and alleged computer hacker who is facing extradition to the USA, a fate which it is believed could jeopardise his health: The Home Secretary confirmed today that he had "stopped the clock" on proceedings to extradite the British alleged hacker Gary McKinnon to the United States. Alan Johnson told MPs that he was examining new medical evidence in the case, and would allow Mr McKinnon's lawyers more time to consider medical reports and make legal representations. Mr McKinnon, from North London, is wanted by US ...
A few people have asked me if Jack Allen holdings are entitled to appeal against the planning decision last month. The answer is yes, and they have to do so by 15th March. Clearly if they take account of both the strength of feeling and the fact that the City Council has flagged up alternative sites, they will not. However predicting reactions from a distant company like this is not an easy task.
We have just had the following email from the Council's Transport Policy Manager asking people for good ideas for charging points for electric vehicles. Three are going in across Lambeth - and there is funding for more. Anybody got any good suggestions? Let us know! -------------------------------------------------- Dear Councillors, As you may be aware the Mayor of London recently launched an Electric Vehicle Plan to encourage the use of electric vehicles in London. In line with this Lambeth have been given funding to implement electric vehicle charging points in the borough. We are very close to launching three of these in ...
Rant time. I am not sure how this one passed me by. It's a tad out of date as the story actually came out late last week - but it's so bad I cannot let it go by without comment as it has to be one of the most outrageous Government scams to fleece of us of our money yet. New regulations set to come into force later this month, will see motorists forced to cough up court costs - even when they are found not guilty or acquitted of the motoring offence concerned. As it stands today, if you ...
The EDP reports that Elizabeth Truss, the Tory A lister selected for the safe Tory seat of South West Norfolk might be deselected within days of being selected after revelations of her affair with a Tory MP were published by a national newspaper. I thought it odd that South West Norfolk again did not choose a local person for the area after the clear success of having local woman Gillian Shephard as their MP for so many years. Still, it after the awful Christopher Fraser, the invisible man of Norfolk politics, surely anyone would be an improvement.
Warning - this is mildly technical! I've mentioned before that I developed this site using Drupal, which is an open source content management system. I've used Drupal on a number of sites in the last year or so including www.edwarddavey.co.uk and www.stpaulschurchhook.org.uk Now it seems the White House is following suit, and has ditched its previous system in favour of Drupal, citing its flexibility and reliability. Some of us have been saying for a long time that government websites should move towards open source software; maybe parts of the UK government will wake up to its strengths?
Earlier today Malc published my guest post. Find out what one Parliamentarian for Abderdeenshire and Kincardinshire had to say about Scottish looking after its own affairs, and not the usual suspects you may guess. Plus see how that leads into events coming up this weekend.
One hundred and fifty years ago, in 1859, the great Liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill published his most important and enduring work, On Liberty. Used today as the symbol of office of the President of the Liberal Democrats, On Liberty emphatically vindicated individual moral autonomy and celebrated the importance of originality and dissent. It set out the principle, still acknowledged as universal and valid today, that only the threat of harm to others can justify interfering with an individual's liberty of action. Mill himself was not only a philosopher, but also an economist, journalist, political writer, social reformer, and, briefly, ...
Here's a good story I forgot to tell. This summer we put a green roof on Camden Town Hall. I believe it's the first to go on a listed town hall in this country - narrowly before the one that's due to go on Islington Town Hall! The green roof was suggested by Cllr Rebecca Hossack, a Conservative who I had great hopes for as a fellow eco warrior until she flew to the US to run the New York Marathon to raise money for...planting trees over here! Still, the green roof on the Town Hall idea was a good ...
Kirsty Williams speech from Wrexham conference.
See Kirsty Williams video here.
This week's roundup can be found at Philobiblon.
Come along to the sixth annual Fairtrade Fair at Stockport College, 10.30am - 3.30pm Saturday November 14th at Stockport College on the A6. poster-2009-v3.pdf
Congratulations to Mark Littlewood - does this mean that a Liberal Democrat is now in charge of the most famous free market think tank of all?
Iain Dale has posted an article on his Blog here about his thoughts on candidate selection after his experience at Bracknell's primary. Katy Lindsay also applied for Woking and Sleaford (conservative Majority over 6000). Rory Stewart applied and won selection for PPC in Penrith (a very safe seat with a majority of over 10,000). The discussion on a local or non local candidate is just one of the issues. I prefer a local candidate but I do understand that this is not always possible and if the quality of candidates is not there locally then not always the best option. ...
I joined local activists to deliver leaflets in Birtley yesterday. A great day and a lot of literature put out. Birtley is a great place but a lot of residents there don't realise they are in Blaydon constituency - clearly both my opponent and I need to do more work! I don't do commercials for estate agents but I had to feel sorry for the guy who set up the firm on the pictured board. It's hard enough selling houses at the best of times but even harder when you might be confused with the architect of the current downturn! ...
Mark Littlewood, the party's former Head of Media and director the libertarian Liberal Vision group, has been appointed Director General of the "free-market think tank" IEA (Institute for Economic Affairs). The press release relating his appointment states that Mark has resigned from the Liberal Democrats in order to maintain the IEA's non-partisan stance.
And so, the Roman Catholic Church has finally offered a home to those Anglican priests who oppose the ordination of women and gay men. Let's be honest here, such an offer was always on the cards, and it will be interesting to see how many take up the opportunity and, for that matter, how many parishioners do the same. What I find most astonishing though is Lord Carey's complaint over the lack of consultation before the Pope's offer. Pardon me but, aren't the two Churches in dispute over doctrine? This is religion, based on belief, not some sort of cosy ...
Following the firey debut on Question Time of Nick Griffin and the subsequent poll spike quite a debate has emerged on who exactly is to blame for the rising support levels for the British National Party? Iain Dale lays the blame squarely at the door of the Labour Party citing the list of natural Labour ...
Myself and Stuart Sharpe of the Sharpe's Opinion political blog are doing a series of political podcasts called "House of Comments". The website for the podcasts is here and the second episode which we recorded yesterday is now live and available to download via this page here (raw mp3 file here if you prefer). You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes here. The format is to invite one or two other political bloggers each week and discuss a few of the stories that are making waves in the blogosphere. This week, we were joined by leading Lib Dem blogger ...
The GDP figures are occasion for some overreaction: but don't expect exports to drag us out of this one any time soon - if you look at academic papers on this.
According to this mornings Metro newspaper, "Fayed: I'm ready to be president". So I just assumed President of Harrods or some other nonsense title, but actually how wrong I was. Mohamed Al Fayed in fact wishes to be President of Scotland, yes you read that right he wants to be President of Scotland. There is a couple of caveats - one is that has to be an independent Scotland, and that the Scots have to abandon the Royal family. The only thing that made sense in this weird pitch to be President is that Mohamed Al Fayed dislikes Alex Salmond, ...
One of the first tweets that I read this morning was this one. For those without the inclination to follow the link it is from Mirror political journalist Kevin Maguire and reads: "Turned down Sky. Wanted hack backing Tony Blair for Euro President. The money-grabbing Iraq war criminal doesn't deserve it." A little OTT maybe, but I ...
News reaches the Voice about a demo planned for next Saturday. British Muslims for Secular Democracy today announces the launch of its plans to organise a demonstration on Saturday 31st October to counter a demonstration by Al Muhajiroun, at which they will call for the abolition of democracy in Britain and the imposition of Shariah Law on all. That demonstration has been called by Islam 4 UK – a successor organisation to Al Muhajiroun. British Muslims for Secular Democracy are organising the counter demonstration, bringing together a number of religious and non-religious groups. Shaaz Mahboob, vice-chair of British Muslims for ...
I'm pursuing my complaint with the BBC regarding the fact that they linked the words `Liberal Democrat Peer` to Lord Carlile while reporting on his views as a neutral Government adviser on anti-terrorism issues. Interestingly on `You and yours` today they didn't mention the word `Liberal Democrat Cllr` when introducing Richard Kemp on their item about ...
Last night we finished the day by watching my favourite comedian on telly - no, not Nick Griffin - Shapi Khorsandi. She really is a tonic.
They're not even back in power yet but already the Tories are starting to look like the sleazy, discredited political thugs we turfed out in 1997. There's an air of arrogance about them at the moment (even more than usual) which suggests that they feel the country's twelve year aberration is over and soon they will ...
Not so long ago a large upright freezer of ours finally ground to a complete halt and, as it was not at all efficient any more, we decided to let it go to freezer recycling heaven in the care of Bradford Council. We had nowhere to put it other than ...
Great news for plant lovers everywhere, as well as those who enjoy taking their eyes off the road to look at exciting floral displays on roundabouts - Bury has won "Best Large Town" at the North West in Bloom awards for the sixth year in succession. We beat those upstarts from Chorley into second place. In your face Chorley! We were also successful in two other awards - the Heritage Award, which was given to us for Gallipoli Gardens, and the Local Roots Award for our town centre displays. Loads of people - Council staff, businesses and volunteers - have ...
Former Redcar & Cleveland Council Leader Eric Empson has today announced his resignation from the council. Eric, who will be 85 next month, has represented Ormesby on the Council since 1989, initially on Cleveland County Council and later the borough council. He led the council from 2003 to 2007, when the Council achieved a 4-star rating. But Eric feels the time is right to step back now. Eric said: "After discussions with my doctor I feel my health will not allow me to continue to represent the people of Ormesby and Nunthorpe to the full. "I was proud to serve ...
I was settling down to watch 'The Fourth Protocol' the other evening, having watched for about an hour, and been interrupted by the phone, to discover that my dad was an East German agent! This as you can imagine came as quite a surprise. He has always given the impression of being more left wing than most, ...
This morning Shadow Chancellor George Osborne announced that a £2,000 limit should be placed on bonuses paid to bank employees. He said that this was something he'd thought for a long time and that the policy was simply 'common sense. Yet two years ago, in a speech to the centre-right think tank Policy Exchange, Osborne told ...
For many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century abolitionists, slavery was easily defined as the ownership of one human being by another. But any technical definition of enslavement is problematic, given the messy realities of coercion in practice. Forced labour exists on a spectrum from slavery to freedom, with debt labour often very similar to slavery. The BBC reports that Anti-Slavery International and Liberty are hoping the House of Lords will pass an amendment on indentured servitude later today, with the support of Lib Dem peers: The campaign groups argue existing employment laws and legislation covering offences such as false imprisonment are inadequate. ...
Andrew Neather's comments in the Evening Standard on Friday have unsurprisingly been wildly distorted by the right-wing press. Neather responded today to counteract the distortions.I would like to look at how they chose to misrepresent Neather. There are two lines of attack:Labour chose an open-borders policy to engineer a more multicultural society.They did this as part of a cynical attempt to
Commenting on today's GDP figures, which show the economy shrank by 0.4% between July and September, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable said: "For all the hopes of a quick recovery, these figures make it clear we are still in the longest and what could yet become the deepest recession on record."For all that has been thrown at the economy to try and stimulate a recovery it is clear that massive structural problems remain, particularly in the banking sector. "This news adds to serious concerns over the realism of Government plans to deal with the burgeoning public debt. It is ...
Just listening to someone moaning about too much Street Furniture (apparently it's a campaign got up by Prince Charles). His answer: More laws! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! One of the main negative things that we can pin the blame on new Labour is this idea that problems would be solved if only there were more regulations and rules from the ...
Friday: Well, I know: freedom of speech. But FACTS are FACTS. Surely freedom of speech is freedom to voice OPINIONS, where there are different ideas about things where there is NOT a known answer, like politics or who makes the best sticky buns. It's not the freedom to make unfounded assertions that contradict known evidence. And yes, I know some people say that there are NO facts at all, only points of view, but that's just a RUBBISH idea. Look, I am nine: some things are RIGHT and some are WRONG. And telling lies is WRONG. So, Ms Jan Moir. ...
Is this maybe the reason that the Labour Party focuses so intently on the Conservatives European travails? The Guardian reports; David Cameron could be denied up to 50 MPs at the next election because of the United Kingdom Independence party (Ukip) splitting the Conservative vote, Labour party analysis suggests. It would certainly therefore make some sense for ...
The Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform website has been launched today by Ewan Hoyle the founder of the group. As a member of LDDPR, I look forward to seeing how this develops and hope to attend future events. Ewan organised an excellent inaugural fringe event on drugs policy which inclued Danny Kushlick of Transform Drugs Policy Foundation as one of the speakers. He has already seeded a few threads in the forum which looks like it could be a good place to get discussion about aspects and consequences of drugs policies going. You can also follow Ewan on Twitter ...
We asked you what you thought about banning cars from St Peter's Street. Respondents split 3 to 2 in favour. Interestingly, however, those who were strongly in favour outnumbered those strongly against by 3 to 1. Thanks you to all who participated. Please use our latest on line survey on this page as well as telling us what you think about county services.
So it is decision day for Eleanor Laing. Will the girl who Cameron refused to sack although she earned the most out of any of the Conservatives live to fight another day? Or will Di Collins get her way for second time and make a space for her son to be adopted in a winnable seat?
Liberal Vision's Mark Littlewood has been appointed as the IEA's next Director General. The IEA's press release is below: MARK LITTLEWOOD APPOINTED DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE IEA The Institute of Economic Affairs has appointed Mark Littlewood as its next Director General. Littlewood, 37, takes on the role from 1st December 2009. Mark Littlewood said: "This is an enormously exciting opportunity. But it is also an awesome responsibility. The IEA has made an incredible contribution to the understanding of the importance of free markets over the past five decades. I am determined to ensure that the Institute builds on its rich ...
I was going to blog in indignation about Patrick Mercer saying of a (possibly bad-taste) joke by Jimmy Carr (the famous...er...bad taste comedian) that it: "should be the end of Carr's career" but then I find my moral high-ground being shot out from under me by friendly fire. Nick Harvey is displaying Sandra Gidley-levels of opportunistic illiberalism here! When will we learn?
[IMG: Web browser icons] Cross-posted from the Mandate blog: The latest Ofcom survey of internet usage is packed full of useful statistics and - even more helpfully - they are based on (a) proper research and (b) people in the UK. Many of the figures quoted are American - or American masquerading as global - and not infrequently are from selective sources of data. Ofcom's series of reports are therefore particularly welcome, with the latest one based on a quantitative survey that involved 812 in-home interviews with adults aged 16 and over from April to May 2009. So what does ...
Mon 26th
10:50
David Lammy and Quentin Davies provoke warning from Treasury over ministerial behaviour
Rapid criticism of Public Accounts Committee reports from Quentin Davies (defence minister) and David Lammy (higher education minister) have resulted in the Treasury issuing a memo warning that such behaviour can result in ministers being censured. As the November edition of Public Servant reports: An attack by two ministers on parliamentary reports revealing waste and incompetence in their departments has provoked the Treasury to warn that ministers will face public censure if they make immediate statements to the media on future reports. Statements by defence minister Quentin Davies and higher education minister David Lammy have led to a new Whitehall ...
According to research, the key to a happy marriage is for a man to marry a woman who is five years younger than him and who is smarter than him. Given that my wife is five year, three months younger than me and better qualified than me, it seems that the research might be correct. She doesn't read my blog so at least she won't know that I think she is smarter than me. I'll carry on giving the impression that I am the brains of the partnership !
Mon 26th
10:35
The fight for the Welsh Labour Party - Huey Lewis, the Prisoner of Zenda and The Charmer!
The contest for the leadership of Welsh Labour might not immediately strike you as being something that should interest someone who lives and works in politics in Scotland. But, I used to work in Wales, in the National Assembly for the Liberal Democrats, and stood against one of the leadership candidates in Merthyr Tydfil in ...
Regular readers had better sit down before reading further. Are you sitting comfortably? I'm going to agree with Jim Devine. Not on everything you understand, but he has said today that employers who do not pay their staff the national minimum wage should be named and shamed. He goes on to tell of one 18-year-old constituent who has worked six 12-hour shifts per week as trainee hairdresser for £20 a week. At the £4.77 rate for an 18-21 year old this should have been £343.44 (if the hours stated were all payable), even if the employee had only done the ...
Mon 26th
09:46
Is Caroline Righton, The Conservative Candidate for St Austell & Newquay, telling fibs about her...
Work it out for yourself HERE. One thing is for certain, she is showing an enormous amount of distain to constituents in Newquay and St Austell by not bothering to check her facts before making statements about her opponents. Update : Reading on Twitter, despite being asked to apologise and retract what she said, Caroline Righton has still refused to do so. Speaks volumes about her as a person. I suggest the Lib Dems in Cornwall visit the solicitors.
There has been plenty written about Thursday night's 'Question Time', and I did wonder if I should add to that. However, given what happened, and the fact that I went to the trouble of watching it, it would be a pity not to. Firstly, for all the protestation that the programme followed its normal tack, with questions springing spontaneously(ish) from the audience, I can't help feeling that the whole atmosphere was distorted by Nick Griffin's presence. I rarely recall an edition where so much of the debate was focussed on one member of the panel, on his ground. Yes, from ...
The Conservatives held on to the Sutton New Hall ward in last week's Birmingham City Council Election.
In the last few days I have been listening to the first few episodes of "The Pod Delusion", a collaborative podcast about "interesting things". There have been some good contributions so far on subjects as diverse as Can you be a Formula 1 fan and still green?, a review of the first UK "Amazing Meeting" and what should young children be taught? Lib Dem Will Howells is one of the semi-regular contributors and something he said in his review on Gordon Brown's recent conference speech has raised an interesting question for me. He talked about how all the people on ...
The celebrity website eleven reports: He's never been known for his politically correct sense of humour, but comedian Jimmy Carr has incited the rage of MPs over a joke about wounded soldiers. ... Audible gasps could be heard [at the Manchester Apollo on Friday night] when Carr quipped: "Say what you like about the servicemen amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan, we are going to have a f**king good Paralympics team in 2012." ... ... Lib-Dem Nick Harvey exclaimed: "Most people will think it in completely poor taste to try to extract humour from what are catastrophes." A smart-arse quip too ...
Even though the latest bank bonus payments have been greeted with predictable outrage in the usual quarters, in this case the "usual suspects" have a point. The concern about the financial industry for some time has been that the owners of bank capital have had their returns hijacked by bank staff. Certainly even before the crisis, the return on capital of banks over the past decade- mostly in single figures after bonuses- looked pretty anaemic. By contrast the payments to staff at banks have been substantially higher than investor returns. In the end, as we now know, the return on ...
As opposition spokesperson on housing, I attended the Haringey Leaseholders Assoociation AGM last Thursday. When the Chair Sue Brown opened the meeting, there was, unsurprisingly, a lot of talk about the digital aerials fiasco I gave the background to in my last post. The HLA's agreed motion called for an individual opt-out, block-by-block consultation and a cap at the London average, which must be retrospective. For me, the two parts of that which will make the biggest difference to leaseholders are the opt-out and the cap - but as Haringey are now offering block-by-block consultation, that is of course an ...
This week The Voice is running a four part series from the Centre for Cities, a think tank that works on analysis and policy to boost city economies. They launched their 'Cities Manifesto' at the Bournemouth Lib Dem Conference and this series looks in more detail at its main planks. You can also find out more at http://www.citiesmanifesto.org. At party conference last month, I was struck by just how many of the UK's biggest cities are run by the Lib Dems. You now control virtually every big city outside London - that means that, taken together, 25 million people now ...
This morning's "Coming up in the next hour" special for why you should shortly switch off the Today Programme: Lord Owen is to talk about Britain's 1970s nuclear secrets. My beloved, on his way to the shower after we exchanged exciting fifteenth anniversary presents: "Is it to be revealed that Lord Owen split the atom?" This is one of the many reasons why I love Richard.
I have received a message from Trading Standards which told me that one of the Trading Standards Officers has advised complainants with a disability who are blue badge holders that they may have grounds to appeal the parking ticket, since the BPA code of practice encourages members to be sympathetic to parkers in this category. I understand that a charge has successfully been waived in such circumstances. If you're planning to challenge one of these charges the advice is as follows: Any residents who need advice on the options open to them should they choose to challenge a parking notice ...
[IMG: http://www.wikio.co.uk] [IMG: torystrike.jpg] Somerset County Council turned blue in June, but already there seems to be cracks in the new administration as one Tory councillor defects to the Lib Dems. He slammed the new administration saying, Everything the Conservatives seem to touch is falling apart. Things have gone disastrously wrong very quickly. The defector also attacked what he claimed were possible cuts in county council funding for PCSOs - Tory's so tough on crime then!
If you live in Haringey then you will probably be well aware of the ongoing saga of the Council's exorbitant charges to leaseholders for installing digital aerials on their blocks - it's been a regular feature in the papers for months now. You can get the general gist from just a few of the press releases here, here and here. And we have a petition you can sign too. But, in a nutshell, the Council chose to install a very high spec digital aerial system (they do have an obligation to provide at least a basic digital aerial) and the ...
It's February 1992: Mr. Skinner To ask the Minister for the Civil Service how many civil servants in employment at the latest date are (a) men or (b) women. Mr. Renton All of them. Liked this story? Find other gems from Hansard on my archive page for this series of posts.
The Birmingham Post reports that Stuart Syvret, the Jersey senator, is staying at the London flat of the Lib Dem MP John Hemming and is planning to ask the British government for asylum and "protection from harassment" from the Jersey authorities. The newspaper says Syvret: is facing prison after leaking a police report into an aborted investigation surrounding the conduct of a male nurse on the island. Mr Syvret will ask the British Government for legal asylum and "protection from harassment" from the Jersey authorities. He says he fears that he will not get a fair trial for the alleged ...
2 Big Stories Miliband backs Blair as EU President Well, here's a turn-up for the books – the man who was Tony Blair's head of policy is now backing his former boss for the new post of President of the European Union. Who'd have thunk it? The BBC reports: David Miliband has ruled himself out of taking a senior role within the EU, while endorsing Tony Blair for the new post of European president. ... it would be "good for Britain and good for Europe" if Mr Blair became the president of the European Council. Although Mr Blair is seen ...
Staying on the playing dirty theme (see previous blog post) I have been really pleased to see one of our major supermarkets doing a voucher scheme that gets children outdoors and learning. Don't get me wrong Tesco's computers for schools voucher scheme is good but it only achieves one thing, more computers. Morrisons Let's Grow achieves so much more, it gets children learning where food comes from and makes growing food fun, it provides understanding of our entire eco-system and is actually exciting. Apparently they ran this last year, unfortunately I didn't notice the advertising then, but certainly have this ...
I've got a big leaflet (A2 fold-out) from Stockport Art Gallery with details of lots of events between now and February. Far too much to detail here, but it includes: Creative writing workshops and competition Poetry workshops "Who do we think we are" exhibition including art workshops, dance performances, "trace your family history" and dance workshops.
There's a little problem in schools throughout the country. It's not a problem unique to schools, in fact most organisations have it at some point. It's the question of how to let somebody go. Gracefully, if necessary, but with a firm kick if all earlier efforts fail. But there's something about schools that makes this problem ...
One politician has been called by a derogatory term. It was not Caroline Righton the Conservative PPC for St. Austell and Newquay. The word that is not present here was however used by the man who has volunteered to be the first President of an Independent Scotland. What is surprising is the word was used against the man who is currently the First Minister and the man who wants to pave the way so that the other man may be able to fill that role. Let's get it clear though the man who has spoken is Mohammed Al Fayed. Speaking ...
Will be back posting regularly in November.
As we await the publication of the report of the All Wales Convention on Wednesday 18th November the one thing that is clear is that the predicted firm recommendation that a referendum should be held in a year's time on whether we can dismantle the timewasting and costly LCO system and allow the Assembly to assume all the powers granted to it in the Government of Wales Act 2006, is going to highlight tensions within the ruling coalition. As Media Wales reported at the weekend it is already the case that the attitude of the three candidates for First Minister ...
A lovely story in the Telegraph about Nick Griffin's mother-in-law tearing a strip off of him. Muriel Cook has described him as a "work-shy pretender", and said that her daughter did everything while Nick "played at his silly politics" but never really contributed financially. She further damned him by saying that, "He pretends to be a man of the people, but... hasn't done an honest day's work in his life. My daughter... has always had a full-time job... working 12-hour shifts even when their children were babies". Funny really, given their attitude to "spongers"!
The words above are the epitaph of Nikos Kazantzakis, who died on this day in 1967. His most famous books are Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ. I have just been re-reading the latter which tells the life of Christ from his ...
This is James Jennings, who is also running for Council for Lewisham Central for the Libdems at next elections. Me and James were out leafleting last Saturday, here he is on Hither Green Lane, standing in front of the famous forgotten billboard. I can actually remember the poster when it was new, but that was ...
Is traffic a problem everywhere? I drove to the other side of Lancaster today (Sunday 25th October) and many routes were impassable. I was reminded of one person who told me that he thought the traffic between Morecambe and Lancaster was as bad as anywhere outside London. However since the congestion charge he reckoned our traffic was the worst anywhere. Today I was very lucky and the route that I took only added ten minutes to my journey. Others were stuck for a lot longer. This problem is not unusual here as it occurs every single day at rush hour ...
