There is rightly a fuss about and upset about Post Office closures, little is said about the queues elsewhere because there are fewer post offices. We now have not post office in Eaglescliffe (there were 3 when we moved here), and never even got one in Elm Tree! I am supposed to got to Yarm to use theirs but the family parcel I was posting was too heavy to carry the distance from where I might...
David Cameron's ludicrous and unfounded allegations that a school was linked to Islamic extremism has been dismissed out of hand today by authorities. I am a child of the Enlightenment and great believer in the separation of church and state, and consequently do not think there should be faith schools within the public sector. Indeed, I moved a motion at Lib Dem conference last Spring, calling for their eventual phasing out. However, having said that I do think that while they exist, ALL faith schools should be treated equally. I thought that it was a cheap political shot by the ...
Egglescliffe war memorial, built with public subscriptions to commemorate those who died fighting in the world wars, was refurbished and brought back to a fitting state a few years ago by the Parish Council. Since then efforts have concentrated on the land next to it. This was originally bought in order to provide a memorial garden but then turned into an allotment. Some years ago it was
I took this title from one of Durham County Council's press releases. That's where I always turn when I'm in need of an unrelenting diet of upbeat good news stories. The title is actually about the Audit Commission's latest way of letting us know how well (or how badly) councils are doing. Red flags are significantly bad. Green flags, funnily enough, are really good. And no flags? The answer to that question can be deduced by this statement by the Leader of Durham County's Council: "I am extremely pleased therefore that we have been given a clean bill of health ...
I had almost forgotten about this exchange at Rhodri Morgan's last First Minister's Question Time. It was a bit cruel to remind Rhodri Glyn Thomas of his faux pas in that way: Rhodri Glyn Thomas: I, too, would like to echo the thanks for your contribution over the last decade and wish you well for the future both in the Assembly and, after that, in your retirement. Your contribution has been exceptionally important over the 10 years of devolution. As the most well-known figure in Welsh politics, will you make a commitment to play a prominent role in the referendum ...
David Ritter of Greenpeace told a meeting in the Palace of Westminster that cattle rancing was responsible for 80% of Amazonian rainforest destruction. We could eat less beef. Eleven Ahmadis have been murdered in Pakistan this year so far because of their faith. In most cases local mullahs have incited hatred against the Ahmadis. Many of these mullahs have armed guards paid for out of public funds, but no protection is afforded to the victims, and the murderers are hardly ever caught and punished. Extremist organisations such as the Khatme Nabuwwat freely incite hated against the Ahmadis and call on ...
Today's House Points from Liberal Democrat News. Not credit worthy You know what people have been saying about this government? How it has centralised everything. How it has set up far too many quangos. How it has tied everyone up in red tape. How it has been paying people at the top ridiculously high salaries. Well, it turns out that those people were right all along. The chief secretary to the treasury says so. Liam Byrne came to the Commons on Monday to make a statement on "smarter government". He promised a 20 per cent cut in civil service costs ...
On the face of it the Health Minister's decision to waive the requirement for the Welsh Ambulance Service to make efficiency savings in the next financial year is good news. However, the commitment she has made is deceptive. In actual fact the the only waiver is the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust's contribution to Health Commission Wales' efficiency savings, not their own. The requirement for the Ambulance Trust to make savings still stands. There are two needs still to be met if the ambulance service is to be put onto a sound and sustainable footing. These are to write off the ...
A correspondent from a neighbouring constituency has spotted (on this site) that Huw Irranca-Davies, MP for Ogmore and Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs made a single donation to the Royal British Legion and claimed for it twice on expenses.
I attended the Yarnfield Police Tasking meeting last night. Encouragingly it seems that anti-social behaviour, while still an issue, has declined in the estate since the last meeting. Perhaps as a result fewer residents attended than normal. The police are giving a higher priority, and more rapid response, to anti-social behaviour, and it certainly seems to be paying off. The priorities set for the coming month were: Anti social behaviour - Mayfield Road Local residents have raised concerns that a group of youths are engaging in anti social behaviour and criminal damage in this area. Inconsiderate parking - Wetherfield Road/Tyseley ...
Interview with Vince Cable One of the most popular politicians in Britain has just published his life story. Iain Dale talks to the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman and asks if he's really the sage of our economy, whether he would accept an offer of being Chancellor from another party and if he feels he overshadows ...
As a Liberal a belief in the importance of freedom has always been pretty central to my political philosophy. There are many reasons why I dislike the authoritarian instincts of Conservatives or the meddlesome top-down approach of Labour but many of these come back to the central importance of freedom in the final analysis. I'm not fundamentalist about ...
Fair play, things never get this heated in the Welsh Assembly. I will be surprised if this survives on You Tube for long. The Green Party's Paul Gogarty has released a torrent of abuse at Labour's Emmet Stagg during a Dail Budget debate. Stagg and the Green TD had been exchanging verbal blows in the chamber. But nothing prepared Stagg for the outburst. Gogarty later apologised for his language claiming it was patriotism that had fired him. WARNING: The Video attached is uncut and uncensored. It contains swearing and aggressive behaviour.
And so I made it to Needham Market, and found myself in a small lecture theatre with a group of Parish Councillors and Clerks for a brisk runthrough of planning law. It wasn't overly technical, and focussed mostly on the basic principles to be applied in most circumstances. It was, I admit, pretty enlightening, and the three workshop exercises that followed demonstrated that, in planning terms, I'm likely to tend towards being fairly permissive. And ironically, we've just been notified of a new application bordering the parish in Stowmarket - a mere 122 homes in Cedars Park. Why couldn't it ...
[IMG: http://www.wikio.co.uk]
Renewal of Bridge over Railway Contractors are still confident that all the works will be finished by the due date for the road to be fully reopened on 19 December. Late Night Shopping in Boscombe Wednesdays up until Christmas Christmas Market! in Boscombe every day in the week leading up to Christmas Carols in the Precinct ( Boscombe) on Saturday 19th December 11 - 12. Butterflies and
Wednesday this week was the last full council meeting of this calendar year. The minutes will be published at www.liverpool.gov.uk shortly but here are a few bits of news from the evening It felt a lot better tempered than usual which has to be a good thing. Nothing wrong with lively debate but name calling and general abuse is not a good thing. We are planning to experiment with webcasting Council meetings and actually some of Wednesday's debates would have been a good case study of how this might work. Some controversial,or potentially controversial, stuff came up. Firstly we had ...
I attended the Reading Housing, Health & Community Care Scrutiny Panel in order to raise some questions after a recent comment left on this blog here. This was chaired by Redlands, Reading Lib Dem Councillor Daisy Benson, she has written a report on this meeting here. This was after the Care Quality Commission rated the South Central Ambulance Trust performance for attending calls on time as 'Weak' See Bracknell Blog story here. The South Central Ambulance trust gave a detailed presentation of why they had preformed as 'weak' in the report and explained how they were going to meet the ...
Yesterday Tavish Scott asked the First Minister Alex Salmond about the top end of health service pay in Scotland. Here are his reasons why. Here is the transcript of the exchange: 3. Tavish Scott (Shetland) (LD): To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Cabinet. The First Minister (Alex Salmond): The next meeting of Cabinet will discuss issues of importance to the people of Scotland. Tavish Scott: The sum of £11 billion in the chancellor's pre-budget report is marked down as "efficiency savings". It shows the depths of crisis brought upon this ...
What could be simpler: five categories, each with five links. And it's Friday. 5 most-read stories on LDV this week 1. Times: Tories "give up" on Cheadle with Lib Dems digging in for victory (6) by Stephen Tall 2. What makes a 'good' MP? (5) by Keith Halstead 3. What does Glenda Jackson do? (1) by Mark Pack 4. Book review: British Electoral Facts (1) by Mark Pack 5. Spelman drops Conservative pledges to abolish RDAs (8) by Mark Pack 5 active LDV Members' Forum threads Mansion tax A sustainable population policy £11bn of tax to go uncollected in one ...
[IMG: shirley_williams] I have only met Shirley Williams once, whilst working for Sir Ming Campbell, but I have always deeply admired her. So when I heard her on the radio today talking about her new book "Climbing the bookshelves" on the Simon Mayo show on Radio Five Live I had a thought. There has been much agnst in recent times about "the left" vs the "right" within the party. So why not ask her whether there is a place in this party that I love for free market liberals. (I used the term "free market liberal" because it was radio ...
Some of my friends and readers will know that i have something of a slight obsession for the US actor John Cusack. Thinking womans crumpet is the best way that i can describe him so imagine my great pleasure when my favourite actor was teamed up to star in my favourite movie genre, a disaster ...
There are said to be some 30 'contact' groups and informal working groups considering various parts of the text; it's impossible from the conference floor to keep track of them all. Many are closed to NGO representatives but I've got a pass that lets me in. I step into one where the proposed text for the section on the clean development mechanism is being considered. The chairman is of Chinese origin I think, and jollies the negotiators along with a few quips and humour; he starts with a tale about the price of his lunch and the paucity of its ...
The 30 working groups may keep the negotiators busy but what about everyone else at this conference? The media are hidden away in their own space but have a choice of 24 press briefings every day to attend, scheduled at 30 minute intervals. The President's slot will be packed, as every journalist tries to find out what is going on. I guess today's 16.30 slot - 'Delegation of Finland - Buildings and climate change' - will be more for the specialists. For everyone else there are the fringe meetings/side events, most of them held in the conference centre but a ...
RT @libdemvoice New post: The LDV Friday Five (ish): 4/12/09 http://ldv.org.uk/17072 <- with new ACT groups top 5 specially for @jamesgraham # Olly a bit insipid; Joe vv soulful – amazing voice – but Stace's giving the knockout #xfactor performance tonight. # @christopherward hmm, but what's wrong with a bit of 'amateur cabaret'? Spiced up #xfactor for me. # Danyl better than I was expecting – but why does he always perform as if he's in front of a mirror rather than an audience? #xfactor # based on those 2 performances, Olly's in trouble tonight – vv bad choices of ...
RT @libdemvoice New post: The LDV Friday Five (ish): 4/12/09 http://ldv.org.uk/17072 <- with new ACT groups top 5 specially for @jamesgraham # Olly a bit insipid; Joe vv soulful – amazing voice – but Stace's giving the knockout #xfactor performance tonight. # @christopherward hmm, but what's wrong with a bit of 'amateur cabaret'? Spiced up #xfactor for me. # Danyl better than I was expecting – but why does he always perform as if he's in front of a mirror rather than an audience? #xfactor # based on those 2 performances, Olly's in trouble tonight – vv bad choices of ...
Many congratulations to Ashay Ghai (pictured right) on winning the Bearsden South by-election for the Scottish Liberal Democrats. The result was announced earlier today. Ashay took the seat from Conservatives, beating the Tories by 271 votes. Labour was knocked out in the first round of the count and the SNP was a weak third. This is the second Tory council seat the Scottish Liberal Democrats have gained this year and I agree with the comments on Jo Swinson MP who said, "There is no sign of a David Cameron bounce in Scotland." It appears the Tories can't even hold what ...
I was not particularly surprised to read earlier today that the number of people using hand-held mobile phones in cars is now higher than it was two years ago before the new legal penalties for doing this came into effect. I always thought the way that this law was configured was odd. It is illegal to use a hand-held mobile phone whilst driving. It is however legal to use one as long as you have a hands-free kit. However there is no evidence that using a hands-free kit is any safer than using a hand-held phone. It's the fact that ...
Private security guards working for Blackwater USA participated in clandestine CIA raids against suspected insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, The New York Times reported Thursday, Read yet more terrifying revelations about Erik Prince's Blackwater (Xe) here Posted in 1, General, General Rantings, Liberal Democrats, Politics
It's the weekend, time for some fun. You could have blown be over with a feather yesterday, and probably Jonathan Calder as well, for the Metro had some chess stories. Yes I did use the plural correctly. The first was saying how the youngest American to become Grandmaster, yeah even younger than Bobby Fischer was over for the return of the London Chess Classic after 25 years. Hikaru Nakamura seen in action below on the left in a 1 minute game, will be taking on some of the British GMs including Luke McShane and David Howell who I once sat ...
I can never understand why Governments are reluctant to pass legislation that forces producers and retailers to label products in a way that provides more and clearer information to consumers. Take, for example, meat products, and other foods in which animals are 'involved'. Currently, for reasons that are totally unclear, meat that is raised in ...
Last of the E, W and F week!
It seems that one time Lib Dem mayoral hopeful Chamali Fernando is trying her luck to become the Tory candidate in Cambridge. Liberal England has the full story here. Following the furore over the Conservative selection in Norfolk, I hope Conservative voters in Cambridge know how to use Google! It seems quite mad that so soon after standing to be the Lib Dem candidate in the London elections that the Tories would select Chamila to stand for them. It seems that this isn't the only controversy in the Tory Cambridge selection too as Tory Bear points out here and here. ...
I thought Bradford's ill-fated bid to become Britain's City of Culture was far-fetched and foolhardy, but looking at the latest candidate to throw its cloth cap in the ring, our own Hole In T' Ground suddenly looks like the Pompidou Centre in comparison. The only culture you'll find in Baaaaarns-leh is that which grows on outside toilet walls. At least Bratfud gave the world such cultural icons as trolleybuses, Jowett Javelins, the Karachi Restaurant, Delius, the Brontës, David Hockney, Sir Edward Appleton, Allan Holdsworth, J. B. Priestley, Billy Liar, Rita, Sue and Bob Too, and Alan Barton out of Black ...
One of the key differences between living in a big city and a countryside village is the diminished level of light pollution. On the sort of evening we had last night, cloudless and crisp, the sky over Creeting St Peter is an explosion of pin-sharp stars, and even galaxies. You can see the constellations clearly, which reminds me of one of the other pleasures of escaping the big city, the seeming ability to see things that are further away more clearly... National politics tends to be the politics of the big cities, and dominated by London. The 'choice agenda', for ...
Launceston is in Cornwall, not Devon
Tearing-haired frustration at yet another round of MPs expenses nonsense. One part of this is the utterly incompetent accounting practices so glaringly exposed, especially when it comes to claiming 'part of a set of receipts'. Here is what I do for the accounts of an annual families summer camp organised by Quakers. I get a lot of claims for various reimbursements of legitimate common costs incurred by participants. If some item on the receipt is not part of the claim the whole thing goes on the spreadsheet like this: Items to be reclaimed, if necessary itemised by nominal category. Total ...
I was asked by a new twitter acquaintance last night why I thought that the war in Afghanistan was a natural progression from the war in Iraq. My email was rather long and a little rambling in parts but I was quite pleased with what I said and thought it would make a rather good ...
Of the legal to possess substance mephedrone, Inspector Kevin Tuck of Durham police said: "In Durham police have taken a stance and anyone found with it will be arrested on suspicion of possession of a banned substance." He adds: "They will be taken to a police cell, their DNA and fingerprints taken and that arrest, depending upon enquiries, could have serious implications for example on future job applications" The Register has the full frightening story here.
Yesterday was International Human Rights Day and as I walked across Trafalgar Square at luncthime from the pomp and ceremony of the Vin d'Honneur for the new South African High Commissioner at South Africa House to a similar event for the new Czech Ambassador at the Athenaeum in Pall Mall, I passed by two human rights ...
Toby Ziegler is, by far, the best character in The West Wing. No question. Here's a fantastic line from him: "I don't know what kind of salad it is. I'm eating a salad, okay? I'm doing it. Do I have to know the names? There's no difference between them. It's a bowl of weeds. Some of ...
This really is terrific – from Question Time last night. Well done Paddy! It's not often you see a senior recently ex-military figure being given such a searing public dressing down from another former-military type. Marvellous stuff!
Fri 11th
14:54
'There's been a missile attack at Heathrow you'll have to do the Today Programme!' - The Press Offic...
Leader's visits are the highlight of any election campaign. The 1997 General Election was no exception. Paddy Ashdown was due to fly into Plymouth airport, twenty minutes from his first visit of the day at Saltash Community School in South East Cornwall, where I was the agent. Colin Breed was to meet the leader at the ...
Keighley's Civic Carol Service will be at Church Green, next to St Andrew's Shared Church, at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday 13th December.
You can't keep a good dog down for long and Nadine Dorries (follow if you dare!) has shown her true colours once again with her prejudicial posterings on her foray into 'real' society for a Channel 4 documentary to be broadcast sometime in February 2010. Rather than formulate a response to her blog post as ...
Campaigners for the use of Southport Market Hall as a temporary home for Southport's Library are aiming to collect 1000 more signatures on their petition this Saturday (12th December). They will be out again in the centre of Chapel Street from 11.30 to 2.30 seeking to add to the 5443 signatures they have collected so far, but which were clearly not enough to persuade this week's meeting of Sefton's Overview and Scrutiny Committee to refer the matter back the Council' ruling Cabinet. Birkdale Lib Dem Councillor Richard Hands (pictured to rear on left) is one of those behind the Campaign ...
Bedford BC, Kingsbrook LD Andrew Gerard 661 (49.4; +3.1)Lab 370 (27.6; +3.5)Con 150 (11.2; -9.2)Others Ind 85 / Ind 73 (11.8; +11.8)[Green (0.0; -9.2)]Majority 291Turnout 13%LD holdPercentage change is since June 2009.East Dunbartonshire UA, (Ward number 3) Bearsden SouthLD Ashay Ghai 1110 (29.4; +3.0)Con 1261 (33.4; +9.0)SNP 783 (20.7; +1.6)Lab 626 (16.6; -2.7)[Green (0.0; -5.1)][Others (0.0; -
The City Forum, which performs the function of parish council in the city centre area in St Albans, has agreed that residential roads should be made into 20 mph zones - and that even some parts of main roads (eg the High Street) should go the same way. The Forum did not agree with the gradualist approach of Herts County Council - involving piloting and gradual roll out. Members were attracted by the example of Liberal Democrat controlled Portsmouth which introduced 20 mph limits in all its residential streets in one single go. Chris (who chairs the City Forum) comments: ...
I have been talking to a few friends over the last few months on my limited knowledge of VAT and my feeling that the Cahncellor of the Exchequor would not simply be satisfied with putting the rate of VAT back up to 17.5% in January and that i had my suspicions that the Chancellor woluld ...
From the BBC: Ex-Army chief Gen Sir Richard Dannatt has been accused of a "terrifying misjudgement" in agreeing while still in service to be a Tory adviser. Former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown told BBC Question Time the appointment had broken the convention that the military should be independent of politics... Lord Ashdown said the UK had to face up to the fact that it would be engaged in Afghanistan for "decades", while stressing that this did not mean troops would be based there indefinitely. "It takes a lot of time to build peace after war," he said. Full story ...
A look back at the last few days of news and comment in the National newspapers, by former Fleet Street News Editor (and former Editor of Liberal News), Philip Young... including a few clippings you may have missed. Sunday Times, 6.12.09: "A Tory peer has been caught using someone else's home address to claim tens of thousands of pounds in expenses. Lord Taylor of Warwick, a 57-year-old former barrister, told the House of Lords that his main home was a terrace house in Oxford, which he neither owned nor lived in. Taylor has lived in his family home in Ealing ...
Yesterday saw two by-elections in the West Midlands - in Wyre Forest and Nuneaton and Bedworth. Labour won both, sadly the Liberal Democrats stood in neither. I am sure both Wyre Forest and Nuneaton and Bedworth Liberal Democrats feel they have good reasons for not contesting these elections, but wherever possible the Liberal Democrats really ought to be standing a candidate.
The Cameron bounce doesn't exist in Scotland in the same way as it appears to in England. Yesterday the voters went to the polls in the Bearsden South by-election to select a Councillor to replace the Conservative who had resigned. Bearsden South ward is in the Westminster constituency of East Dunbartonshire where Jo Swinson is the MP. Cameron's Conservatives threw everything plus the kitchen sink at this by-election and saw this as a way of "getting rid of Swinson" according to one email forwarded to me. There were four candidates, Ashay Ghai for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Rachel Higgins for ...
Earlier this week there was a public meeting about the future of the Leeds Girls High School site. The site has now been empty for a couple of years and the community is becoming (rightly) fed up with the inaction of the school and its constant desire to shaft the community and build houses on the playing fields. There is a good account of the meeting on Bill McKinnon's website, one of the few posts on his website that I've agreed with! Both Greg Mulholland MP and Cllr Martin Hamilton (Lib Dem, Headingley) attended the meeting with Martin chairing part ...
Liberal Democrat peer, Tim Clement-Jones has tabled an amendment to the Digital Economy Bill to delete controversial Clause 17 which would allow the Government to change copyright law in the future without further debate or scrutiny. Lord Clement-Jones said: "This clause would give the Government carte-blanche to change all copyright law relating to the internet as and when they please. "Such powers are unnecessary and over-reaching and we have tabled an amendment to delete Clause 17."
The UN secretariat calls an informal meeting of the parties (the national negotiators) to present them with proposed draft text on "long term cooperative action under the Convention." In fact it is the outline of the core agreement that may be confirmed next week. Its 7 pages propose the targets of limiting the increase in global temperatures to 2 deg or 1.5 deg, to reduce global emissions by 2050 by 50, 85 or 95 per cent, with developed countries reducing their emissions by 75-85, at least 80-95, or more than 95 per cent. The issue of financing is covered only ...
A ComRes/Daily Politics poll asked: Putting your party allegiance aside, who do you most trust to steer Britain's economy through the current downturn? When they last asked this question in April, the results were as follows: Brown/Darling- 34% Cameron/Osborne- 31% Clegg/Cable- 10% When they asked it this week, the results were: Brown/Darling- 26% Cameron/Osborne- 33% Clegg/Cable- 16% That's a six percentage point increase for ...
35,000 people are registered to attend the Copenhagen event, but the Bella Centre is only certified for use by 15,000 at any one time. People come and go (I leave on Sunday), but capacity has already been reached and higher numbers are expected next week. It is said that 21,000 of the people registered are affiliated to one kind of non-governmental organisation or another, from business groups to environmental lobbyists. A limited number of 'secondary badges' are going to be issued to the NGOs and they will then have to decide which of their people get in and which do ...
The PBR has not got the market reaction it needed - and it blew the chance Labour had to influence the grand fiscal consolidation.
The calmest demonstration of the day must have been that organised by 'Wake up to Climate Change!' Seven young women, in pyjamas and clutching teddy bears, posed for the cameras asleep on the floor.
Tales of the Lib Dem implosion as expressed in recent times by SNP Tactical Voting and others appears to be somewhat premature. Ashay Ghai has won the Bearsden South by election for East Dunbartonshire Council from the Conservatives with 1770 votes to 1499. The Conservatives were defending the seat as a result of the resignation of Simon Hutchison who couldn't juggle his demands as a solicitor with his council work. He was the convenor of the planning committee on the Labour/Conservative coalition run council. Local MP Jo Swinson said: "I'm delighted Ashay Ghai has won this by-election. There is no ...
Sent out on behalf of Hertfordshire Police Authority Dear Colleague As is usual for this time of year, the Police Authority has started to review its policing priorities and to consider the level of Council Tax that it will set next year in order to deliver them. However, this year, the decisions and choices that we face are such that we have decided to consult more widely and using an online survey to make it easier to give feedback. The Policing Pledge will continue to feature in the Plan and initial considerations indicate that we need to continue our focus ...
Congratulations to new Councillor Ashay Ghai and the fabulous East Dunbartonshire team. Details to follow! ------------------ Well, that was posted much earlier. I was outside the school waiting for the bell to ring in the freezing cold when I saw that brilliant result come through from East Dunbartonshire. I blogged that brief headline from my blackberry. What a clever geek I am, indeed. I spent a fair amount of time in Bearsden (and Bishopbriggs and Milngavie for that matter)in the run up to the 2005 election delivering leaflets in all weathers for Jo Swinson. I also spent a lot of ...
I was invited to be the guest on John Pienaar's weekly political review podcast this week. We discussed the pre-Budget report and the continuing saga of MPs' expenses. You can download the podcast from here. You can also subscribe to it on iTunes via this link here.
[IMG: RBH parking pic 2009] Last September I blogged about parking problems around the Royal Berks Hospital on London Road. Residents living in streets around the edge of the Hospital struggle to park in their own road - this is because there are simply not enough parking spaces at the Hospital to accomodate staff and visitors Roads such as Addington Road bear the brunt of overspill paring connected to the RBH. The local parking situation is bad enough for residents in the area as it is with the University nearby and the fact that Redlands is very close to Town so is ...
Now this is very clever: (Also on YouTube here.)
We'll update this post as new info comes in. [IMG: Bearsden South's new Councillor Ashay Ghai with Jo Swinson MP] East Dunbartonshire Council, Bearsden South Lib Dem gain from Conservatives The results of this STV election in full: Stage 1: LD 1110 Con 1261 SNP 783 Lab 626 Stage 2: LD 1306 Con 1381 SNP 972 Stage 3: LD 1770 Con 1499 Scottish Lib Dems Director of Campaigns Andrew Reeves said, It's a bad day for the Labour government coming fourth and a bad day for the Scottish government coming third. David Cameron continues to have no mandate in Scotland, ...
With expenses on the front pages of all the papers, it seems apt to relay the story of Cornwall Council's own expenses mystery. Yesterday there was a public meeting held in Penzance to discuss the proposed harbour developments and plan to locate both passenger and freight service for Scilly there. This meeting was organised by the Council and all members of the Strategic Planning Committee attended so that they could listen to the views of residents and see the scheme for themselves before the decision making meeting on Monday. As usual, councillors made every effort to cut travel costs by ...
As is usual with this Government the devil is in the detail. With the pleadges to protect services and the fairly minimal increases in taxation combined to a pledge to half the country's borrowing, if anything was clear it was that the sums didn't quite add up. Now thanks to the Institute of Fiscal Studies we have expert examination that confirms what many feared , that "unprotected" services will face cuts of £36 Billion over the next 3 years. To put this into context the Armed Forces budget is £38 Bn. Whilst that is a worry to put it mildly, ...
Amazing who owns what.
The link which is also here is to my expenses claimed up to and including Q1 2009-10.There is an error in the 2008-9 papers where some documents have been scanned more than once, but that is obvious if you compare the pages and the document reference numbers.People will be able to note that the last time I made a claim for anything relating to my second home in London was on 31st March 2009.As
David "Dave" Cameron and other senior members of the shadow Cabinet are keeping quiet about their public school backgrounds on the official Conservative Party website. Only three of the 17 Tory shadow ministers who went to private school disclose ...
If you could choose up to three items for your Christmas stocking, what would they be? That was the question LDV posed to a group of Lib Dem bloggers. All this week we're revealing what they told us, with all their choices added to the Amazon carousel widget featured on our home-page, referral fees from which will help support Lib Dem Voice: so get clicking and ordering. You can read Part I here and Part II here. In the final part, three more bloggers – Mark Thompson, Mark Valladares and, erm, me – give us the low-down on their Xmas ...
The Homewatch coordinators have been advised that five Contractors' passes have been stolen from a police station in Greater Manchester. Although these do not state that the bearer is a Police Officer, they do have the Greater Manchester Police crest on them and there is concern that people might try to use them to con their way into peoples' homes. If you know of any vulnerable people in your vicinity who might potentially be a victim of this sort of fraud, please warn them that all ID should be taken with a pinch of salt and double checked. No genuine ...
I'm a big admirer of the people at MySociety and think the Fix My Street website is a brilliant example of how web 2.0 can be utilised by the public sector to provide people with a better service. So when I saw the Austrlian version of the website I was really happy that the ideas are spreading across the world. Love the name too! H/T Mack Pack (via Twitter)
Lib Dem Parliamentary spokesman for Redcar Ian Swales has called for clarification on what will happen to the carbon emission allowances allocated free to Teesside Cast Products. Responding to a statement from Corus, Mr Swales said: "I have never wished to imply that Corus were motivated to profit from unused carbon allowances. But the situation remains very unclear. "It is vital that the Government and Corus come forward now with a clear statement about what is going to happen to the 7 million tonnes of annual CO2 allowances. "Clarity on this issue goes hand in hand with supporting the efforts ...
It's that time again. Time to consider whether the world of polling has delivered anything spectacular over the last month... Conservatives: 40% (N/C) Lib Dems: 23% (N/C) Labour: 22% (-1%) The answer, of course, is no. There was a lot of fuss in the past few weeks about how, apparently, Labour were surging, and a couple of polls had put ...
To complete a wonderful year of enjoying the best of Prestwich a Community Carol Service will be held at St Mary's Parish Church, Church Lane at 7.00pm on Monday 21 December. Organisers Rev Bryan Hackett from Churches Together, along with Councillor Mary D'Albert, David Curtis and Local Area Partnership Manager Carran O'Grady have planned a beautiful service of Readings and Carols for this special community event. Rev. Bryan Hackett said "The Eccles Singers and Bury Music Service will be performing at our very first Community Carol Service. It promises to be a very special event for a very special Prestwich ...
They seem to be opposing for the sake of it
KEEP FIGHTING FOR OUR HERITAGE SAY NO TO FORTRESS FOOTBALL SAY YES TO JUMPERS FOR GOAL POSTS For the second time in three months Goals Soccer Centres have been forced to withdraw their planning application to build a sports centre in Heaton Park. When will they get the message that a huge number of people do not want their park fenced in and covered with concrete and astroturf. As a result the Planning Committee Meeting to be held at Manchester Town Hall on the 17th December 2009 has been cancelled. Goals need to realise we are against their plans to ...
As the non-governmental organisations and policy advisers gathered in Copenhagen for the impressive array of meetings and briefings which precede next week's arrival of the government ministers, climate change also dominated this week's European Council (summit) meeting in Brussels. Heads of state or government of the 27 EU countries met on Thursday afternoon and spent long hours overnight trying to reach agreement on how much money the EU will put on the table to help poorer nations cope with the effects of climate change. As I write this morning, they are about to resume: no deal has been reached yet. ...
Today bankers are breathing a sigh of relief. they are faced with a one-off tax they can easily avoid, while many people are facing a permanent tax increase. In his pre-budget report, chancellor Alistair Darling, had the chance to clamp down on bankers and set out realistic plans to guide the country out of recession. Instead all he set out was a weak party manifesto full of gimmicks and empty gestures. Never before has the British government run up a deficit like this. we need a sensible and coherent plan for dealing with what is, in effect, a national crisis. ...
ITN film crew is stopped by police whilst filming in central London's financial district, the City. So much, so usual as far as "police stop innocent, legitimate use of cameras" stories go. But in a touch of genius, it turns out that the ITN crew was filming a story ... about someone who had three cars and a van of anti-terrorism police descend on him after taking photos of a church near a bank. I hope this circularity isn't making you dizzy. Oh, and he was wearing an "I'm a photographer not a terrorist" badge, just to add to the ...
[IMG: Happy Hanukkah] Happy Hanukkah to all my Jewish readers. I always enjoy seeing the candles lighting up over the week (and even listening to the odd Hanukkah tune). Anyone interested in finding out more about Hanukkah could start by visiting this site.
I am currently heading to Euston from my house in Crystal Palace to go to a conference on climate change. The conference is headlined "Hotter and drier summers" and is being put on by the Local Government Information Unit and DEFRA, the government department for environment, food etc. I was invited as a result of my blog! I think the post that caught the attention of LGIU was the one about the
[IMG: YouTube logo] Comments posted on YouTube films are notoriously poor. Some of the films are pretty poor too, but whilst for films there is a range from the great to the awful, with the bizarre, inspired and just weird along the way, comments on them are overall of a very low standard. So low in fact that there's a YouTube Comment Snob extension for Firefox: You can choose to have any of the following rules mark a comment for removal: More than # spelling mistakes: The number of mistakes is customizable, and the extension uses Firefox's built-in spell checker. ...
If you're struggling for a Christmas presents (and have already bought a Save Fortis Green Allotments calendar) then here's a great idea for you.At www.adoptaword.com you can do just that - adopt a word. I visited this site when Stephen Fry tweeted about it (he adopted "wordy") and it is for a great cause. The money raised from adoptions goes to I CAN, the children's communication charity. As the I CAN website explains, one in ten children has a communication difficulty - almost three in every UK classroom - impacting on all aspects of children's lives. You can choose a ...
The last week has seen a whole slew of economic figures, but much of this was drowned out by the failure of the pre-budget report to address the growing fiscal crisis in the UK. However this crisis is just one of the problems that now beset the British economy. We have seen an increase in the gap between the value of what Britain exports and what it imports. This reflects the fact that import costs have increased as a result of weaker Sterling. Meanwhile there was the announcement that British industrial production has stagnated. Yet, this stagnation is despite the ...
I recently raised with the City Council the condition of the pavements in Seafield Road (see http://tinyurl.com/pvtsseafield) and have now had the following feedback. "The area inspector checked Seafield Road footways following your email and as a result of his inspection identified three damaged dropped kerbs which he proposed be removed and made safe. In addition he noted eight actionable defects on the footway and raised an order for the repair of these with a timescale of twenty eight days (this work should now have been carried out). Other than these items he did not note any other actionable defects. ...
Yesterday, the Director of Education advised me that Scottish Government has approved the City Council's application for deregulation in respect of the proposal to build two new primary schools and a nursery to replace the current Park Place and St Joseph's Primary Schools buildings and Park Place Nursery, on a shared campus on the site of the former Logie secondary school. As reported in today's "Courier" I have made the point that the Scottish Government decision has taken some time to be made. Some time ago the Director of Education gave me an assurance that he would call an initial ...
You'll know that while I've been exasperated at the lack of transparency in the MPs' expenses system and the unholy conspiracy between Labour and Tory MPs over the years to keep information secret, I generally think that MPs are mostly good people who work hard to serve their constituents. While yesterday's publication of MPs' Additional Costs Allowance, covering their accommodation claims for the year 2008-2009 sent the tabloids into a frenzy about a few cases, the vast majority of the money spent was absolutely necessary to enable MPs to do their jobs. It would be unfair to say that most ...
Thanks to our new Area Conditions Officer Julie Henshall, who's told me that the graffiti covering the walls on the underpass of the Cheadle Royal roundabout has all been cleared off. The is the roundabout over the A34 by Cheadle Royal. Because it's both isolated and a common route for school kids, it's always going to be an attractive target for graffiti, but we can discourage it by making sure it never lasts long.
So it turns out that Alistair Darling and the Treasury wanted to go much further in terms of steps to control the deficit in Wednesday's pre-Budget report but Gordon Brown (with more than a little help from Ed Balls) overruled him. Now of course we don't know the full story here. It could be that Brown had actually wanted an even more profligate PBR and that Darling managed to win a few skirmishes to get us to where we are but frankly he could have and should have done much better. Let's just have a quick look at the political ...
Welcome to December 11th – only 20 days to go until the end of the year. Four years ago today the top story was the fire at the Buncefield oil depot which injured 43 people and was said to have been the biggest fire of its kind in peacetime Europe. 2 Must-Read Blog Posts What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator: Empowering Voices Online Mary Reid highlights a positive blogging project: I've run a number of blogging workshops in the past, mainly for councillors, but ...
"Could I have another one of those delicious pastries please?"
Ah, that's what a TV should look like http://flic.kr/p/7kqcEj # For the record, I am of course utterly outraged at this wholly inaccurate T-shirt: http://bit.ly/7Wrn54 # Google UK boss: We don't steal stories, we're a newsagent - Press Gazette - http://bit.ly/4x8biM # Dear Boots: Nice to know Stefano Pessina grateful for feedback but be better if website gave the format for phone numbers before typing # Is Ashcroft resident in the UK for tax purposes - yes or no? http://bit.ly/8vjDZj asks @ChrisHuhne (via @libdempress) # Nearly two thirds of Islington residents who responded to consultation back a 20mph limit on ...
Just over a week ago I had a go at guessing who might end up in Carwyn Jones' cabinet. Some I got wrong but by and large I was not far off the mark. The two significant differences were over Jane Hutt and Huw Lewis. I was of the view that Jane Hutt would be dropped. She has not been a huge success in either of the two portfolios she has held of health and education, amongst other instances presiding over a huge rise in waiting times in the first administration and failing to fund the Foundation Phase properly whilst ...
Maybe we should let the Chancellor off when we say he created a pre-election budget. It appears the title for that role goes to the man who claimed he had done away with 'boom and bust'. Yes it appears that Darling's predecessor the Prime Minister put a stop to some of the tax increases that he had intended to eat into the deficit before the general election. There is also speculation that Brown is in denial about the depth of cuts that will be needed to claw back the borrowing that the Government has undertaken to keep the ship afloat. ...
I've been listening to a Daphne du Maurier drama on Radio 7, from a novel published in 1969. The hero and heroine are upper middle class as evidenced by the heroine flying with her children from New York to London, something only the wealthy could do in the sixties. Yet, after dinner, the same character spends the evening mending her husband's torn trousers. When, I wondered, did we stop mending things? I still have a pair of socks that I darned in 1981, but I can't remember darning a sock since, although I still make occasional small repairs to other ...
News reaches me of the result of the Loughton Town Council by-election in Loughton Broadway, where the BNP were trying to defend a council seat following the resignation of one of their members: Loughton Residents' Association - 257 votes (33%) ELECTED BNP - 234 (30%) Labour - 204 (26%) Con - 75 (10%) (No Lib Dem candidate this time) [IMG: Loughton Town Council Broadway election result (10 December 2009)] Turnout: 22.2% Loughton Residents' Association gain from BNP This is a significant reverse for the BNP in what was their strongest ward in Epping Forest. The defeat comes despite the reported ...
One of the issues that affect many residents of Lewisham Central and users of Ladywell Pool is the devilish pedestrian crossing at the bottom of Courthill Road at the junction with Lewisham High Street. Recently a very serious accident took place there and a woman was run over by a car, she was badly ...
As most of you will know, last week saw Robert Key MP announce that he would not be standing at the next General Election in Salisbury. This announcement was made to the public on Wednesday - or so it seemed. The press release was sent to journalists at 10:50 on the morning of Wednesday 2 December. I thought was strange at the time because it missed the Journal's print deadline. After some digging it turned out that he had actually spoken to the Journal on the Monday (before the deadline), thereby guaranteeing coverage in that week's paper, but most importantly ...
[IMG: Newly elected Councillor Andy Gerard] Andy Gerard has been elected the new Councillor for Kingsbrook ward in Bedford. (Pictured above with Councillor Anita Gerard, Bedford Mayor Dave Hodgson and PPC for Bedford and Kempston, Henry Vann.) The results in full: Lib Dems 660; Labour 370; Con 150; Ind1 85; Ind2 73 Turnout: 18.4% Previous councillors in Kingsbrook ward include Dan Rogerson MP and the Mayor of Bedford, Dave Hodgson. Henry Vann, PPC for Bedford and Kempston said, Two government ministers visited during the campaign – including their "election guru" Douglas Alexander. This is an abysmal result for Labour and ...
When I was at school I used to play rugby on Saturday mornings and watch Sale rugby club every other week when they were at home. I mention this because the news yesterday was that Sale are thinking about their response to the news that Wasps are not to blame for the late late cancellation of their match two weeks ago. It is not good for fans to go to a match and have it cancelled. It is much worse for the away fans but for the players times have changed. The professionals may need to protect themselves more and ...
