It's this sort of religious nuttiness which makes Celebrity Big Brother contestant look slightly norman in an American context, although still very odd by usual British standards.
A difficult scrutiny meeting looking at "Corporate" issues where questions and suggestions I was making were not well received by some members, although officers were taking in the spirit they were meant - a very strong desire to improve services and how the Council runs. We finally "signed off" the consultation review that had been done some years ago. I wasn't happy still, but saw I would get...
While we all go about our day, some of us wondering when a general election might be called or grumbling about the delays on waste collections due to bad weather (which coincidently has attracted over 350 comments on the Bath Chronicle Website), the disaster in Haiti continues. Recent figures estimate 75000 people killed, 250000 injured and 1 million left homeless. Today I did my bit and donated to Disaster Emergency Committee. I know that it's January and for some of us it's been a long month, and we are probably looking forward to pay day, however if we can all ...
No time to blog properly today after a surprising deluge of work, of the piss-taking variety, but my political antennae are currently firmly tuned to the special election for Ted Kennedy's old seat in the Senate. If a Republican manages to win, in one of the bluest states in the Union, it will spell curtains for ...
Welcome to Canncok Councillors Keith and Diane Bennett, who have switched from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats, and congratulations to Dan Roper who has been selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Broadlands. Nich Starling says of him: I am so pleased that my local Lib Dem candidate is genuinely the sort of person I would be proud to go out and campaign for. I wish him luck and will do whatever I can to help him.
The Shropshire Star has a famous guest writer today. Former Monty Python funster Michael Palin writes about the Wrexham & Shropshire railway company, which runs a sightly and very popular service between those town and London Marylebone: Perhaps it lacks the hurtling speed of a Pendolino or a TGV, but Wrexham & Shropshire makes up for this in every other way. Nothing is sacrificed for speed, and yet passenger satisfaction figures are at the top end of the scale. Which surely shows us that people rate a railway on how they're treated on the train. Wrexham & Shropshire may seem ...
That's usually a buzz phrase that ticks a box in Council agendas but today I had a really interesting meeting on the subject. I chair the Western Area Partnership Board which has places on it for community representatives. There are some real problems about how to help these representatives to feed information back to the community and to find out what the community is thinking about issues.
The announcement that the Cadbury Board have accepted the increased takeover offer from Kraft has made it a sad day - for this great British company, for Birmingham and for the Cadbury workforce. Takeovers only usually make any sense when the company being taken over has major problems that the predator company can put right. This is not the case with Cadbury, which is one of the most successful and admired companies in the World. Because of this, Kraft have had to pay over the odds for the company. While this may be good for the short-term interests of Cadbury's ...
Dan Roper has been seleted as the Lib Dem prespective parliamentary candidate for the new Broadland constituency. I attended the selection meeeing and was geniinely impressed by the passion Dan showed, his previous and recent campaign experience and his commitment to work hard at winning the seat for all the right reasons, for as long as it takes. Dan, spoke of his previous membership of the Labour Party and the shameful way they have betrayed this country and all those people who once believed in their message. It was quite amusing then to hear so many members at the meeting ...
Over the weekend, residents in Bellefield Avenue drew to my attention that the stair lighting in all the tenement flats on the east side of the street had failed. A similar situation arose some time ago on the west side of the street. The problem is that the stair lighting is linked together, so if a fuse blows in one tenement, all lighting on one side of the street blows. I contacted the City Council's Environmental Health & Trading Standards Department straight away and was pleased to receive this update yesterday : "Officers visited Bellefield Avenue this afternoon and found ...
A wonderful slideshow of street scenes by wasleso. Note how many of the buildings still look modern, whereas the cars are getting to be comically old fashioned. Thanks to @urchinette and @helenduffett on Twitter.
I know that will set off a few folk who will quite obviously feel their own guest house is the best, but I will argue the point with anyone. For those who don't know I spent twelve years in the service industry including a spell for Jarvis hotels and a couple of independents, my current job takes me around some guest houses, hotels and bed & breakfasts as well. Last Friday I was due to be at the Hawick town hall meeting where Nick Clegg and Michael Moore MP were speaking, and listening and then on the Saturday I was ...
David Watson was a soldier in the Royal Engineers. He was raised in Whickham, went to school there and his family still lives there. He was on active service in Afghanistan and it was whilst on duty on New Year's Eve that he tragically lost his life to a road side bomb at the age of 23. He went there to save lives and did so by making the ultimate sacrifice himself.His funeral service was held
The local news site Pits n Pots has a bit of background on David Jack, who resigned as Lib Dem PPC for Stoke North earlier today over allegations that he sent a racist email: It seems that Mr Jack has been embroiled in an email exchange with another party where racist and abusive language was allegedly used by Mr Jack. Mr Jack denies that he sent the emails. Tonight he claimed that he 'was out on the lash' with twenty other individuals at the time when the alleged emails were sent. He also claims that he is a victim of ...
I'd never thought I'd see that judgement of David Cameron this far out from election day. I most certainly didn't expect to see it in the Torygraph after 13 years of Labour rule. However, that is just what Simon Heffer has written in the Telegraph. Dave fired the starting pistol 3 weeks ago in Woodstock and he may as well have been Woodstock from the Peanuts cartoons as far as Heffer is concerned. Comments such as: "Word is coming back that the poster campaign of an airbrushed, tieless, presidential Mr Cameron has not been quite the success the party's advertising ...
We thought to let you know about some planned changes to the 46 bus route along Camden Street. TfL are planning to change the route running towards Farringdon so that it runs down St. Pancras Way instead of Camden Street. The two bus stops on Camden Street served only by the 46 will be closed ...
Some news today that's both very surprising and very welcome, to me at least. Brian Haley, a very senior (in experience, not age!) Labour councillor in Haringey has joined the Liberal Democrats. This is a real coup for Haringey Lib Dems and the wider party. I worked with Brian Haley on the North London Waste Authority ...
Channel 4 News is reporting that David Jack has resigned as Liberal Democrats candidate for Stoke North after an offensive email was sent from his official email address. The TV station says its political correspondent Cathy Newman has spoken to Mr Jack, who denies sending the email, which contains sexually offensive and racist language. Later. A bit of local background here.
I will learn to live before I die, Will learn to love and learn to try, Not to give it all away. These are the first words of the new Boyzone single Gave it All Away (due to be released 1 March). Hauntingly they are sung by Stephen Gately who takes lead vocals on this track. These are the last vocals he laid down before heading to Majorca. To be fair the shortest member of the band did seem to live life to the full. As well as the band's new record, he was working on a children's book when ...
Here in Creeting St Peter, life has its cycles. Of course, being predominantly agricultural, there are the various harvests, plantings and what have you, the splash of vivid yellow as the oil seed rape flowers, the green to gold of wheat as it ripens. We also have our local traditions, such as the Christmas Eve carol service at St Peter's Church, with readings by various members of the community. As the Parish Council, we feel that we have a role in encouraging these sorts of things, and so we resumed the tradition of laying a wreath to mark Remembrance Day ...
Following on from yesterday's post, I was informed today that one of my four questions have been answered. The Daily Mail, I am told by a Daily Mail reader, has reported that there are currently around 2,500 teachers out of a total of more than 27, 500 who attained a third class degree. This equate to roughly 9% of teachers*.It makes me wonder whether David Cameron is planning to cull 9% of the
The Labour Governmenat's welfare reforms, designed to get people off Incapacity Benefit and into work, have come under criticism in a BBC investigation. The BBC report highlighted the case of Maureen Leitch, who was summoned for a medical examination and told she was fit for work within weeks of undergoing debilitating treatment for Cancer, at a time when she was in excruciating pain. I suspect that this is not a solitary example. I expect that anyone with any experience of the benefits system whether people making the claims or workers supporting them will have similar tales to tell. They will ...
Not exactly breaking news, but a reaffirming today of the Lib Dems' backing for Crossrail, with a financial caveat: Vince Cable has told the Evening Standard that the Liberal Democrats are backing Crossrail, the east-west railway now under construction in London: The Liberal Democrats are fully committed to the Crossrail project and we certainly have no plans to scrap it. However, as with all projects involving public sector money it is critical that Crossrail stays within its agreed budget. Caroline Pidgeon, Chair of the London Assembly's Transport Committee told Lib Dem Voice: The Liberal Democrats have always been fully committed ...
The UK Government decided a while ago that one of the measures they would use in order to help get the UK out of recession would be Quantitative Easing (a.k.a. printing money). At the time, some people pointed out that one of the problems with printing money was that it would spark inflation (an extreme example of what can happen is Zimbabwe). Lo and behold, a few months later, inflation jumps by the biggest amount for ages. Ok, so there is a little more to it than that, but the fact remains that the UK is one of the last ...
Councillor Brian Haley, one of the country's most senior black Labour councillors, resigned from the Labour party today and joined the Liberal Democrats. He had been a Labour member for 16 years. His move comes after Haringey was rated one of the worst councils in the country. This brings the number of Liberal Democrat Councillors in Haringey to 26 – well on course to take control of the council in May – while Labour now have 30. Councillor Brian Haley, of St Ann's Ward said: Over the last few months it has become ever clearer that Labour has absolutely no ...
From Monday 25 January ALL collections (including black and green wheeled bins and green box recycling) will revert to the normal published days. If all the confusion caused by Christmas and the bad weather has left you wondering which week you're on, you can check your collection dates online. Where collections have been delayed, SITA will collect reasonable amounts of side waste. For this week (18 January - 22 January), green bin collections are still suspended and SITA is running approximately one week late on black bin and recycling collections. The advice for this week is still to put your ...
Guido got hold of an email today from Conservative Central Office, see CCHQ Drops "David Cameron's Conservatives". The fact that the Tory party even considered calling their party 'David Camerons Conservatives' on the ballot paper makes me wonder if he is going to be a party leader or a president. Frankly I'm really fed up of spin and I do not want another president Blair. We have a parliamentary system not a presidential one, please can we keep it that way.
Martin Shapland has an informative post on who he thinks will be running for chair of Liberal Youth over the next few weeks. I haven't made up my mind who I will be supporting (if anyone at all) yet. Someone also seems to be trying to start a rumour that Alexa Sage is running. No idea why this is. Seems like a load of nonsense really.
Liberal Democrat members in Cambridge met last Friday evening to select the person to succeed David Howarth – as candidate, and we hope, as the city's MP at the next election. Julian Huppert was the winner, and we invited him to introduce himself to LDV's readers ... Being selected to stand for Parliament is always an honour. Being selected for Cambridge is especially so for me; it's where I grew up, went to school and university, and still live. And, of course, it's a seat we hold, and have great hopes of continuing to hold. This is in no small ...
No, not grim humour, but a local event organised by some friends to raise funds for disaster relief in Haiti. It's this Saturday at The Rubicon bar at 97, Maple Road, Surbiton. You pay a £10 donation to get in and will be treated to cupcakes and a drink, then you can stay to enjoy the great atmosphere there. You can also read the details on Facebook.
The voice of Rugby, especially Scottish Rugby, but the Five/Six Nations as well Bill McLaren has passed away aged 86. From 1953 when he first commentated on Rugby Union on the Radio through the migration to television 6 years later until he retired in 2002 he was the voice that many people associate with Rugby Union in the same way that Eddie Waning's was with Rugby League. He is the only non-player to have been invested into Rugby's Hall of Fame and there is good reason for that. Of course he was famous anytime a Scot performed a particularly spectacular ...
David Cameron's explanation of the Conservative Party's policy on tax breaks for married people is rapidly assuming the coherence and clarity of Charles Kennedy's exposition on local income tax at the last General Election. The difference is that the local income tax policy stacks up despite its poor championing whereas the Tories are standing in a large hole and digging furiously. We are now being told that an incoming Tory Government cannot introduce this tax change straight away and that they do not yet know how the policy would be implemented. That is fine. It is a difficult economic situation ...
At the start of today's council meeting I asked a question about the protection of children and young people who come to Cornwall for exchange trips and to visit language schools, surf academies and outdoor activity centres. I worry that there is a disaster waiting to happen with an unchecked organisation placing a young person in circumstances where they may come to harm. My fear is that there is no one who will take responsibility. I got the best answer I could reasonably hope for - a promise to look into the problem. Cabinet Member Sally Bain confirmed that the ...
I must admit I am feeling a bit smug: I anticipated that the UK inflation numbers would be worse than expected and as a result delayed transferring my cash off shore. The numbers are so bad though, that my long position in Sterling may be only needed for a few months. Some may ask themselves why such bad news would cause the Pound to go up. The answer is all about interest rates. The market is increasingly anticipating that the Bank of England will have to raise interest rates substantially in order to deal with an inflation rate that is ...
I was in the Assembly for some meetings yesterday when it was drawn to my attention that a small group of protestors had travelled down to Cardiff Bay from Pembrokeshire to make their opposition known to the proposed badger cull in their community. As I had a gap in my diary I went down to join them. The group of thirty or so protestors included farmers from North Pembrokeshire and were carrying placards and dressed as badgers. They staged a small theatrical event for the BBC camera in which somebody dressed as a badger was put in a cage and ...
Although The Observer headlined on questions over the legality of Lord Ashcroft's donations to the Conservative Party, the news about the BNP is also of significance: It has emerged that the Electoral Commission is to review the accounts of the British National party. The BNP submitted a revised set of accounts earlier this month, following concerns that the original set it had given to the commission had not been approved. Following an assessment of the revised accounts, the commission decided that it is "reasonable to assume" a breach of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act has occurred. The development ...
[IMG: coffee] According to its website: "The EU provides over half of worldwide aid for development. It has committed to increasing this amount and ensuring it is efficient and effective." This all sounds very well and good, and certainly attempts to justify why the EU spends an amount equivalent to the total GDP of Croatia on aid every year. However, the Commission fails to document the many harmful measures it imposes on developing nations which perpetuate the impoverishment in the first place. Two of the more egregious examples I've come across this week: Tariff escalation means that the more processed ...
Durham County Council invites photographers young and old to submit photographs which show what residents are proud of in County Durham. This is part of an initiative called "Pride in County Durham". The competition will be judged by Matt Baker from Country File at the launch event in March 2010, and all entries have to be in by February 26th. Please send them to Street Scene North, Neighbourhood Services, DCC, Morrison Busty Depot, Anfield Plain, Stanley, DH9 7RX or email them to Helen.Douglas@durham.gov.uk One local photography group got in touch with me to let me know that they had applied ...
Icy weather has a nasty habit of creating new potholes in our roads, so Cllr Pam King and I have decided to try to visit every road in the ward and check for potholes, to catch them early. Today I cycled around a sixth of Cheadle & Gatley ward (took a couple of hours, including a few stops to chat to people). From that, I got this list of potholes below, some of which are new and some older: Some potholes around Cheadle (plus the first, which is in Gatley) Broken tarmac around grid, between 167 and 169 Gatley Road, ...
Retired firefighters living in the sheltered housing in Littlehampton are facing eviction by their own charity. They have done nothing apart from serve their communities for years, and hoped to be housed and loked after in their old age. Now in their 70's, 80's, and older in some cases they are to be thrown out to fend for thenselves. Join the Facebook group. Sign the No 10 petition. Write to
Cornwall Council has voted to freeze allowances, but - in what I think looks like a cynical ploy by the Conservatives - the freeze will only apply for a year. The debate went along party lines and, in the end, just nine councillors voted in favour of higher allowances. Those nine were independents and included cabinet members Julian German, Neil Burden, Mark Kaczmarek and Graeme Hicks. But the Lib Dem amendment to freeze allowances for the full term of the council (in line with our manifesto pledge) was defeated by a combination of Conservatives and Independents. To me, that seems ...
Statistics uncovered by the Welsh Liberal Democrats have shown that patients are being harmed due to infrastructure failings within the Welsh NHS. Six patients have even died as a result. Figures released by the National Patient Safety Agency show that between July 2008 and June 2009, six people died as a result of incidents with infrastructure within the NHS, which includes staffing, facilities and environment. There were a further 172 incidents of severe harm, and the total number of infrastructure incidents total 3,620, which does include incidents where harm was prevented. These statistics follow a report which shows that there ...
Conservative Party Chairman Eric Pickles MP is getting more than a little stick for his comments that the former LibDem leader Paddy Ashdown is now 'frail and confused'. Those of us who have seen Paddy recently would know that he is matching neither of those qualities and still looks and sounds as fit and sharp as ...
This week we can report three defections to the Liberal Democrats in key councils around the country. The first is the decision by Cllr Brian Haley, the Labour Cabinet Member for the Environment in the London Borough of Haringey, to quit his post and join the Liberal Democrats. Haringey is a key council for the Liberal Democrats with Lynne Featherstone as one of the MPs in the area and with Labour holding a tiny overall majority on the council. To attract such a senior councillor is a real coup for the party in the area. The second and third defections ...
Plaid Cymru MP, Hywel Williams has really got his knickers in a twist today over an amendment tabled by the Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, due to be debated next week. He alleges that proposals by the Liberal Democrats to reduce the number of MPs would 'slash Welsh representation in Westminster by 30 per cent – much more than any other part of the UK'. He continues: "This is a very dangerous plan to be bandied about and shows immense disregard for the effect on the Government of Wales Act. "The ...
The Lib Dems are going to be following NUS in 2012 by using the Gateshaed Sage centre to hold Spring Conference. I've never been to Gateshead and The Sage centre is supposed to be pretty amazing so I'm quite looking forward to it. via Aaron Porter
Redcar & Cleveland Liberal Democrats have paid tribute to former Borough Councillor Keith Blott, who died last week aged 83. Keith served as councillor for the West Dyke ward between 1999 and 2007. Outside of politics, Keith was a local football referee and worked with young offenders. He loved travelling and visited Australia, Africa and Canada. Group Leader Chris Abbott said: "Keith was a well respected, hard-working councillor. He was always cheerful and ready with a joke or two. He will be sadly missed."
Last July I reported that two Conservative Councillors had been arrested - see previous post Wolverhampton's Watergate
The government has belatedly reacted to the long-running scandal of the supermarkets' treatment of their suppliers by announcing that it will establish an ombudsman to enforce a new code of practice. Unfortunately, it misses the point, is the wrong solution and won't work. The Lib Dem plan is little better. Something certainly needs to be done; the ...
Leaving aside the resignation of the Labour Cabinet Member for the Environment to join the Lib Dems, there were things of greater significance to local residents discussed at Full Council last night. Key among those was next year's council tax. The council tax and budget setting meetings are actually next month, but in this time of recession residents are no doubt even more worried than usual about what horror lies in store for them when council tax bills drop onto their doormats later in the year. So, following a well-presented deputation from a resident about just that, we had a ...
This Thursday evening it's the first meeting of Prestwich Local Area Partnership of 2010. This is the body which brings together all the "partners" involved in delivering local public services, such as your elected Councillors and all the other unelected people involved, like the NHS, Police, Fire, and voluntary groups. As well as presentations on key local issues (this time a road safety scheme) there is a general update from the Local Area Partnership Manager, and your chance to ask the Partnership members anything you want in the open forum. There's also the chance for 1-1 chats with your local ...
Yesterday I blogged about the campaign from a group of bloggers for a 5 point plan to improve the Press Complaints Commission and the Code of Practice for editors. Now the campaign has its own video, complete with jaunty music and some guest space invaders. Take a look here and don't forget to sign the petition here.
The full council meeting today is dominated by a discussion about allowances. The debate has gone on for so long that we have broken for lunch and will reconvene at 1.15. Personally, I think it is wrong that we should be spending hours debating our own money when we have not even spent a minute in silent tribute to Captain Read whose body has been flown back to the UK today. I'll blog more fully later about the allowances debate but put simply, the Lib Dems have stuck to our manifesto pledge to freeze allowances for the four years of ...
The Conservatives recent announcement of tax breaks for married couples if they win the General Election may sound appealing but it is little more than another Tory tax bribe. Even if we put aside the big big question about how they would pay for such an expensive bribe whilst arguing the need for public service cuts everywhere because the country's "bankrupt" , it just boils down to being blatantly unfair to millions - many of the poorest in society - and just a little patronising. Giving tax breaks to married couples where one person can afford to stay at home, ...
I find it sad that the Cadbury takeover has now been agreed. This was cleared by the EU early this month. Hence we can now say that things have changed.There are obviously concerns about employment in Birmingham. However, we now need to look to the future. I would have preferred that Cadbury had remained independent. I am worried about what has been happening with private sector employment
Full council last night was even spicier than usual - the Labour Cabinet Member for the Environment Brian Haley resigned his Labour party membership, quit his cabinet post and joined the Lib Dem group. The news story in the Haringey Independent quotes Brian: Over the last few months it has become clearer and clearer that Labour has absolutely no vision of how to lift Haringey out of its current mess. It is for this reason I have taken the difficult decision to leave Labour and join the only party that has the ideas and ability to turn things around. Haringey ...
Fortunately, most services seem to be getting back to normal after the big freeze. If anybody doesn't find that their recycling restarts this week, please let me know. Schools came under a lot of criticism by the Leader of the Council for closing during the worst of it, however Headteachers couldn't win either way. With pavements not being gritted, in most of the City there was no safe way for kids to get to school. Many teachers were themselves stranded in their homes and even if pupils arrived safely at the school gate, it was the weekend before the council ...
Last weekend, the Fabian Society held their New Year conference, entitled 'Causes to fight for'. I was fortunate to attend the conference on behalf of Liberal Democrat Voice, at the invitation of the Fabians. Over the next week, I will share with readers of LDV some of my thoughts and observations from the day. Today: the keynote speech from Gordon Brown. Just over 30 months ago, Tony Blair made an over-emotional and stage-managed resignation speech. But as Brown's long march to his inevitable anointment as party leader began, behind the scenes at Labour HQ a more rapid changeover took place, ...
A new survey by ConservativeHome has show what political priorities the party's potential new MPs are likely to have. The survey interviewed 250 candidates from the Conservative party's most winnable seats. The results are telling and perhaps show up the dividing line between the two parties more starkly than anything else Whilst Liberal Democrats might not disagree that "reducing the budget deficit" should be a top priority, it is the items that were placed at the bottom of the list that are the most interesting. In bottom position with just eight candidates saying it is a top priority is reducing ...
St Albans City and District Council has worked hard to catch up on refuse and green waste collections following heavy snowfalls in the early part of January. The waste collection service was put under severe pressure when treacherous weather conditions over a prolonged period left roads and pavements too icy to navigate safely by heavy waste collection vehicles and waste collection crews. The conditions were so bad that the Council was forced to temporarily suspend the service for three working days until it was resumed on 11 January 2010. In the last week the waste collection team has been working ...
Join Nick Clegg's online forum tomorrow direct from Keighley to ask about issues affecting young people - especially if you are a young person yourself. Click on this link to find out how to join: Nick Clegg Forum:
Tue 19th
11:30
The Labour Party & Scottish Devolution, 1967-79: a case study in British political expediency .....
As trailed here, over the next few weeks I'm publishing 'The Labour Party & Scottish Devolution, 1967-79: a case study in British political expediency', the thesis I wrote as an undergraduate some 12 years ago. You can catch up with what's been published to date here. 'Beginning to be converted to the least possible': devolution launched Hamilton and the SNP upsurge Scottish demands for home rule did not originate in 1967; but it was from this date they once more gained Parliamentary momentum. It was in 1928 that the National Party of Scotland emerged from the cross-party Scottish Home Rule ...
Tue 19th
11:20
If you want to understand modern government, understand the Office of the Public Guardian
The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) neatly encapsulates much of how modern government is run, its weaknesses and the problems our democratic systems face in trying to control or improve bureaucracy. The Office of the Public Guardian was created for the best of reasons following the 2005 Mental Capacity Act in order to administer a new Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) process by which people can lay down what should happen to them and who can make decisions for them if they lose the ability to decide for themselves. The OPG is, in theory, an accountable public body with ...
I attended the Special Health and Well-being Scrutiny Committee meeting in the Town Hall this morning. The topic under debate was the future of acute stroke service provision in Darlington, following the leaking to the press of a document last week which suggested that the stroke unit at Darlington Memorial was to close. In the debate at Scrutiny it became clear to me, having listened to local
Over on Liberal Democrat Voice, Mark Pack has posted about a bloggers' campaign to propose five changes to the Press Complaints Commission's Editors' Code of Practice. The Commission is currently reviewing its code - so let's all strike while the iron is hot. You can read the post here with all the details of the five proposed changes to the code and links to sign up to the petition.
[IMG: Dignity in Care] Dignity in Care programme
Hurrah! A good news story. Having nagged for months about better opening hours and the future of Wood Green police station - news reached me last night that the local Commander, Mr Grant, has agreed to open the police station front counter there 24/7. Last week I posted this, and in September I posted this. However, the good news has a caveat. The Commander has said that he will be monitoring visits to the station front counter and times of visits and then he will review the need or otherwise for these opening hours. I spoke to Mr Grant (Commander) ...
On this day in 1966, Indira Ghandi was elected as the first woman Prime Minister of India, whilst 20 years ago today, the rebel English cricket team, led by Mike Gatting, landed at Johannesburg airport. Today we wish a happy 30th birthday to world champion Jenson Button and also commemorate the 132nd anniversary of the birth of former Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman. Voters go to the polls today in Massachusetts, to elect a Senator for the seat left vacant by the death of Edward Kennedy. 2 Big Stories Cadbury agrees Kraft takeover bid It seems that UK confectioner Cadbury has ...
Today there will be a special election in the US state of Massachusetts to elect a new Senator to represent the state after Ted Kennedy's death last year. And boy, are the stakes high for this one. Nominally an extremely safe seat for the Democrats, the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley should be a shoe-in. And yet Republican former centrefold star Scott Brown, once voted by Cosmo as America's Sexiest Man (the link is fairly safe for work, but does contain a tastefully cropped naked man) has been closing the gap in the polls, and in some cases even taken a ...
I spent part of yesterday morning listening to Michael Gove outline the latest Conservative policy on teacher training. Luckily, my morning cup of tea was drained, otherwise I might well have spluttered most of it over the eiderdown. In one sense, I see nothing wrong with the notion that teachers should be selected from the best candidates available, and that to aspire to the ideal that all teachers will have, at least, a 2:2 degree is fairly laudable. However, the idea that young people with good degrees are going to flock to the classroom because Conservative Party policy will make ...
(photo from the facebook groupPut a windfarm in my backyard if you like, because I'm not an idiot.) Turbines for Bournemouth Tesco get go-ahead (From Thisisdorset) http://bit.ly/5oqBkY I am no fan of Tesco and suspect that as the turbines, which have been described by Tesco as potentially becoming local landmarks and inspiring people to 'thinkgreen' that this might be more realistically
The president of Mongolia is trying to abolish the countries death penalty. The BBC has the story here. This is a really great step forward and every country that abandons the outdated death penalty desevers a shed load of praise!
The NHS has always boasted of caring for people from cradle to grave – but cremation is clearly different. None of us is at our best at a time of bereavement – we're certainly not looking at the small print. So I share LibDem MP Norman Lamb's astonishment that doctors working in hospitals earned almost £15m last year in so called 'ash cash' payments made by grieving families. The payment is made to doctors to sign a form releasing a body for cremation. In our West Hertfordshire Hospital Trust area, families paid out £148,218 in 2008/9 alone to get their ...
Yesterday we announced that Peter Tatchell had won LDV's annual Liberal Voice of the Year award (open only to non-Lib Dems) in recognition of his fearless campaigning work for international human rights. We emailed Peter to let him know the news, and here's the message he sent to all LDV readers ... Wow! What an honour. I'm chuffed. Thanks to everyone who voted for me. What a surprise too. A socialist Green wins Liberal Voice of the Year. It shows that your readers are non-sectarian and inclusive, putting values and principles above party politics, which is how it should be. ...
Paul Burstow MP (Sutton & Cheam) has presented an EDM calling for FCC's franchise to be terminated. It is also worth noting that as of this morning 3,286 people have signed the No 10 petition calling for FCC's franchise to be terminated. http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/FirstCC/
Kay Ure left her husband in the lighthouse they live in and cafe they run on December 19th to head into town to fetch the Christmas turkey, cranberry sauce, a jar of coffee, dog food and some last minute presents. However the weather come down heavily while she was out and she never did quite make it back to Cape Wrath Britain's most north-westerly point. For the last 4 weeks she has been living 11 miles away at Durness in a friend's caravan. Well her husband John had yesterday finally made the 11 mile trip in his 4x4 to pick ...
Message from Norman Baker, MP for Lewes: 'I have today tabled a PQ asking for the earliest date the FCC franchise can end'.
Cameron's admission he didn't think carefully on Iraq shows unfitness for government said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Foreign Secretary.
There are some great examples of early uses of augmented reality applications going round at the moment, such as this one from Lego: (Hat tip: Josh Feldberg) All good fun for kids and adults alike and it is a pretty safe bet that augmented reality games will grow to be popular and profitable. The ability to take an object and augment it with extra information in different formats (3D graphics, animated) also has uses beyond entertainment. We've seen a bit of that already with examples such as this one to help you find the nearest tube station in London. One ...
How did this squeeze in under the radar? Walking to work this morning, the signs have finally been erected outside the shop conversion work which has been going on in Duke Street since Christmas in what used to be Sanderson's Estate Agents and before that, Golf World. It's to be a new Sainsbury's Local.The small grocery, newsagents and confectionery shop on the corner of Larchfield Street
The TV Cream page on Top of the Form says: Grammar-school only institution, with singular absence of "new" comprehensive representatives. Prize was simply "taking part", the swines.This cannot be true, as the photograph on the page has Holland Park (a deeply fashionable comprehensive in the 1960s) as one of the two schools taking part. Now go to that page, click on the photograph to get a larger version and see who is second from the left in the Holland Park team.
David Cameron has been promising to give tax breaks to married couples, you may have picked up on this. What you won't have missed is how he is intending to pay for this, because he hasn't told us. Today the Guardian has looked at the options and just how unfair or untruthful David Cameron is likely to have been with his pledge. Firstly the most obvious thing is to allow transferable tax allowances between couples. According to treasury figures this would cost a total of £4.9 billion, which in or current climate, especially with the Tories promising to accelerate spending ...
Did you miss me? Over the last few days I've been upgrading the server kit I use to run my websites and API services on. The main server moved up from a dual 2.4GHz Xeon to dual 2.8Ghx Xeons, and from 2Gb of RAM tripled to 6Gb. I think that should cope with almost anything that gets thrown at it. (It is presently running around 50 websites and 3 million rows of MySQL data). I also hived off my public NTP and DNS functions on to a separate box, and after reading some time back about how FreeBSD is a ...
... I requested Ripley/McKay slash from [IMG: [livejournal.com profile] ] strangefrontier. This means I have to repost the meme. Like SF, I can't remember the last time I managed to finish a writing gift for someone, and when I offer drabbles I get stuck in one request expanding far beyond 100 words and then forget about all the others. Let's see if I can stick to the plan this time too! The first TEN people to comment in this post get to request that I write a drabble of any pairing/character of their choosing. In return, they have to post ...
I have written a piece for later today on LibDemVoice.org about the senatorial by election in the US state of Massachusetts. There will be helpful and proper discussion of the issues later on LDV, but there are a few less sensible things that occurred to me while writing. Firstly – the Dem candidate is called Martha Coakley. Probably best not to refer to the former state Attorney General as Martha "Hokey" Coakley. Secondly the Republican opponent. Was once a Cosmo centrefold, and is certainly a potential rival to Congressman Studly. Has certainly aged well. So, this is entirely fluff and ...
We all know that with this being election year lots of groups are being targeted by political parties, well the Tories are trying to court the pink vote, or LGBT voters. Well now the "shameful" Tory record on voting for gay rights issues is clear for all to see, and they aren't quite as gay friendly as you may think! A quarter of David Cameron's shadow cabinet have previously voted against gay rights legislation in the House of Commons. The research by the Liberal Democrats looked at issues including Section 28, adoption and the age of consent. It lists the ...
With all my political and media activities, I don't always get to the Comments pages of my daily paper every day, but today I was glad to pick up on Cherie Blair's article on the Baha'i in Iran in a recent back issue of The Guardian. On 12 January the trial began of the so-called ...
If you are talking to a professional and you mention things that are personal to you then you expect them to keep this information confidential. I don't think anyone would be interested in my medical records but I would not expect them to be made public. I read in The Sunday Times that a leading cancer specialist had diagnosed Mo Mowlam's brain tumour as malignant. According to the paper he has 'decided to break his silence for a Channel 4 drama'. I don't know how and when a doctor may break confidentiality. I presume the law changes if someone is ...
Tue 19th
00:00
Day 3305: the Naked Truth - How Scottish Justice wastes HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of POUNDS on LITERALLY...
Monday: So it's 2010 and the VICTORIAN ERA is still well and truly in full complete-lack-of-swing here in ye Olde Grande Britannia, as Mr Stephen Gough, aka the Naked Rambler, is released from Prison only to be re-arrested six paces later. Again. Because he's still NUDE! Apparently he could spend the rest of his LIFE in and out of jail (well, "out-for-a-matter-of-minutes") as this cycle goes on forever! And it COSTS a bleedin' FORTUNE to keep him (in the buff) in chokey. Yet the Sherriff has the NAKED CHUTZPAH to accuse HIM of having no concern for the public purse! ...
