Depressed by today's Sunday papers, which seem to carry about as much human misery as is possible, I thought that I'd take my mind off just how grim things have become in the last year or two. A trip to the cinema, did the trick, more so than the half bottle of wine I guzzled on getting home from work on Saturday. Decided this afternoon to go see the film avatar, just to see what you get with a film costing around 200 mill to make. I have to say that nothing is left to the imagination, computer generated images ...
A walk in Preston Park this afternoon, and I realise it is the first walk for a very long time, given the awful weather. Wonderful signs of hope though - snowdrops coming through in a sheltered spot. The meeting about the future of Preston Park is on Tuesday at 6.00 pm at Trinity Methodist Church, Yarm Road, Eaglesliffe. I might see you there ? Now to the facebook site - fascinating, I didn't...
Struck by the new ads from Accenture, the consulting to outsourcing monster firm, which have replaced their "Be a Tiger" campaign. The posters show an elephant dancing delicately and the strapline is "You're never too big to be nimble". May I translate: "We're so big that we could afford to sponsor Tiger Woods [the billion-dollar sportsman] but nimble enough to drop him the moment he became embarassing".
This sounds like excellent news for parents of young children in the area, it's in Manor Lane, Lee, just outside the borders of Greater Hither Green and at a very reasonable distance from much of Lewisham Central. From this week's South London Press: Rhubarb and Custard will open its doors at the end of the month and, ...
The Liberal Democrats continue to campaign for a better deal for young people effected by the recession. The number of young people unemployed for more than six months has doubled in the past two years. Redlands councillor, Daisy Benson has spoken up about the issue several times and Nick Clegg has announced a host of measures to help young people through the recession. These include plans to cut the time it takes to provide training and education to young people on Jobseekers' Allowance. Currently, young people on Jobseekers' Allowance have to wait 12 months before they are guaranteed a job ...
We recorded the BBC Politics Programme as we have been in York over the weekend. I have only just watched it now. Well, I had about 10 seconds! A pity the BBC didn't keep in the bit I said about actually supporting 1NG, (the local development company) and the concept of the conference centre for Gateshead the issue I raised was that it is still not clear in detail how it will be paid for and if
Welcome to the 153rd of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (17th – 23rd January 2010), together with a hand-picked quintet, usually courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget, by the way, you can now sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox – just click here – ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. Lib Dem PPC resigns ...
Today's Sunday Herald revealed that Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie has been claiming large amounts in first class rail travel at taxpayers' (our!) expense, whilst calling for public sector staff on as low incomes as £18 000 a year to have their pay frozen. What a bare-faced cheek, but I suppose it is no surprise, coming from the two-faced Scottish Conservatives. With thanks to my party colleague Stephen Glenn for this funny and rather accurate picture (right). The rather useless Labour Defence Secretary, Bob Notworthawfullymuch, rather let the best kept non-secret out of the bag today. Whatever you do, I'd ...
It is getting to be a right shambles. After more infighting in the local Tories hit the press and the cock up on their candidates website now we have Central Office joining in! An email newsletter has been sent out. It is clearly part of a national mailing. It urges you to find out what is going on locally by entering your post code or searching for your local candidate. If you put in Southport you get the message shown below: 'There are no campaigns matching your search'. If you put in the post code it takes you to Blackpool, ...
I've been a member of a trade union since my first job leaving university, primarily the old Transport and General Workers' Union, then The NASUWT, and again the T&G (now Unite). So it was galling to hear Bob Crowe of the RMT saying on Any Questions that all the main parties had supported the war in Iraq. He was wrong! Alone among the main parties we Lib Dems came out firmly against what we saw as an illegal, ill-judged, and ill-founded invasion. Many of us thought the government wrong about the existence of weapons of mass destruction, but few thought ...
Let's weigh the evidence. From the Observer today: "I've worked with the BBC since I was 11."No further questions, m'lud.
Government mantra as we know. So, if the government has nothing to hide, why is keeping secret the post mortem details on David Kelly for seventy years? Norman Baker's assertion that it cannot have been suicide is looking more likely with every new turn the case takes.
I have noticed on a number of blogs today (including Iain Dale and Dizzy) that there is discussion that the TV debates might be in jeopardy because of the demands of Brown and Cameron about the make-up of the audience. Brown apparently wants the audience weighted by number of Commons seats (ridiculous given that Labour only got 36% of the vote but 55% of the seats) and Cameron apparently wants them weighted by current opinion polls. Back in July last year I suggested that a broadcaster should announce that a debate will take place and empty chair any leader who ...
Walcot seems to have been hit really badly by poor refuse and recycling services. While I appreciate that the bouts of bad weather has not helped. Many areas of the ward have not seen a single collection since before Christmas. Despite numerous emails and calls and promises that action will take place, not a lot seems to have happened. Surely there must be some form of prioritisation of streets which have not seen a collection for the longest period? How are resident's supposed to take Bath and North East Somerset Council seriously on waste and recycling when we continue to ...
I am pleased to say that I have received assurances from the City Council that the sheltered housing bus shoppers' service - the "Friendly Bus" - will not end "in the short term" despite the Dundee Partnership withdrawing £21 000 of Fairer Scotland Funding that has helped subsidise the service until now. I have spoken to many elderly constituents in the West End who have heard about the funding difficulties facing the service and were worried that the service would be threatened by the loss of one of its two sources of funding. The bus service is described by Dundee ...
I'm not calling for Bernanke to go. But the debate about his reappointment reminds us just how much a single appointment can change financial conditions, on day one.
We last saw Gabriel with long hair and a silly hat as the lead singer with Genesis on I Know What I Like in Your Wardrobe. That was 1974. By 1979 he had left the band and issued a couple of solo albums. Like the better known Solsbury Hill, this song comes from the first of them. And it is certainly better than the later Don't Give Up, which all you hear from him on the radio these days. Here Comes the Flood has an apocalyptic feel to it, though a page about the song suggests it was inspired by ...
During the recent very wintry spell, a resident in Hillside Drive asked me if the City Council would provide a grit bin at the top end of the street. The City Engineer has now responded positively to my request as follows : "Your constituent's request for a grit bin at the top end of Hillside Drive has been assessed by Road Maintenance and as this location meets the necessary criteria it is proposed that a grit bin be set out at a suitable location as soon as this can be arranged." Also, at the request of residents in Pleasance Court, ...
Whilst I don't always agree with most of the comments of my Conservative friends, I am drawn to admit that their comments that society in Britain is broken in some ways is actually more accurate than some of us would like to admit. The recent case of the two boys who were recently sentenced for ...
A lot more detail about East Sussex's proposal to dump land raise sites around Ringmer and the Weald can be found at: No To Land Raise and the No To Land Raise blog. The blog includes a report of the meeting held at Hailsham on January 23rd. And an illuminating post about zero waste alternatives. The answer is no, they've just stuck us with an incinerator and the possibility of artificial hills all around, slowly subsiding as they release methane and who knows what into the atmosphere.
Over the last few days, I've been spending an inordinate amount of time trying to understand the Church's objections to Schedule 9, Paragraph 2, subsection 8 of the Equality Bill. The House of Lords will debate several amendments to this tomorrow. I was forwarded an email from someone called David Skinner asking me to sign a petition about this (I didn't). The email was, it's fair to say, apocalyptic in its tone. One priceless sentence was "By not signing the petition you are inviting your own oppression." Then I became aware of a You Tube video (comments disabled) by something ...
I was pleased today to attend our local service for National Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD). My maternal grandparents were German Jews who came to Britain as refugees from Nazi opression in the 1930s, and members of my family were among those killed in the Holocaust, so this event means a lot to me. HMD commemorates not only the Holocaust, but also other more recent genocides; indeed, today's local event included a moving speech by Denise Affonco, who survived appalling treatment in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Nazi Germany sprang from the heart of the Western civilisation of which Britain is ...
The Labour Party have chosen their prospective candidate for the General Election whenever it comes. She is Pat Glass from Lanchester. I congratulate Mrs Glass on her selection, and welcome the fact that we can now begin to debate the issues that matter for North West Durham. There are plenty of them, ranging from unemployment which continues to rise in this constituency despite a small decline nationally, to more localised issues like the provision of broadband in Weardale or the siting of the academy in Consett. I very much hope that the next election can be fought on more than ...
I've spent much of the last few days getting to grips with Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga, the series of books detailing the love story between a teenager in a small, rainy north western US town, Bella Swan, and her vampire boyfriend Edward Cullen. Thrown into the mix is a vampire family that's much more functional than any of the human relationships in the book, werewolves (one of whom is Bella's best friend), some really nasty, murderous villains. You get all the perils and dilemmas of first love combined with added horrors. I've meant to read these books for a while, ...
I have blogged in the past about how the BBC can sometimes be its own worst enemy and I have seen some further evidence of this recently. Last year I enjoyed watching all six episodes of a new comedy show "Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle". It was a 30 minute show that showcased the stand-up comedy of the critically acclaimed Stewart Lee interspersed with sketches to illustrate the topics he was talking about on stage. I loved the stand-up portions of it although some of the sketch bits were not as good. Lee's stand-up style sometimes verges on performing art. He ...
A couple of hours this afternoon strolling around parts of North Road ward with Fred and Anne-Marie. Spotted one particular patch of grass outside Bob Harrison Court, near the new school, clearly used as a dog toilet. Six fresh deposits in a 6ft by 4ft patch of grass, now captured for ever in digital colour. John Herdman will be hearing about this on Monday morning.The main problem we found was
Its been a busy few weeks so apologies for lack of post. I am actually taking a well deserved holiday in sunny climates but before I do an update on the Health Proposal on the plans to close Accident and Emergency at Kings George Hospital. Redbridge Council is being urged to refer controversial health proposal to the Secretary of state. The authorities health scrutiny committee made the recommendations about North East London (health4nel) at its meeting on the 14th January. The plans would see the A&E department at Kings George Hospital moved to Queens Hospital and the Maternity Ward closed ...
Enough votes having now been cast to ensure that the result can be clearly determined, it gives me great pleasure to announce that Patrick Elsdon has been selected for co-option. Paddy will perform the duties of Vice Chair Membership Development until elections take place to fill the position for the unexpired part of the current term, these being scheduled to take place next month. My commiserations go to Thomas Hemsley who, on this occasion, was unsuccessful.
Four blogs have recently joined Ryan's Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator: Brent Martin - http://thedailyzeitgeist.com (Including some word counting in the Bible) Chris Wiggin - http://chriswiggin.blogspot.com (Strap line: I'm young. I live in York. I'm a Liberal Democrat. I run my own business. I finish too many sentences with exclamation marks!) Philip Peake - http://upinforesthill.wordpress.com (Great example of how a local councillor can use a blog to campaign whilst also providing useful local information.) Tony Flaig - http://bignewsmargate.blogspot.com (This blog has been going since 2006, but he rejoined the party earlier this month.) Good luck to all the new bloggers, and ...
The next meeting of the Yardley Constituency Committee will be this coming Thursday, 28th January, at Acocks Green Library. The meeting starts at 6.30pm. The main items on the agenda are: An update on the Constituency Budget for 2009/10 The Constituency Parks and Open Space Action Plan, with Pat Terry, Parks Manager attending An update on Section 106 agreements in the Constituency The Town Centre Management Delivery Plan for Acocks Green, with Melinda Brown, Town Centre Manager, attending The report on School Admissions & Appeals that was to have gone to Acocks Green Ward Committee, at the meeting cancelled earlier ...
Here's my latest column for the Ham & High: In the twelve years I have been a local politician, other than in the cases of Victoria Climbie and Baby P, I have not seen such a tidal wave of outrage as erupted when the news of the threat to the Whittington Hospital's A&E was revealed. The rate of sign up to the petition I launched to object to closure or reduction to the Whittington A&E service, outstripped by some distance, all of the petitions I have launched over that 12 years. (I will be presenting the petition in the next ...
Sun 24th
15:30
LibLink ... Norman Baker: Hutton was farcical, feeble and amateurish... so we MUST be told the truth...
Over at the Mail, Lib Dem MP Norman Baker writes about the imminent appearance of Tony Blair in front of the Chilcot Inquiry into the war in Iraq – and makes a plea for the Hutton Inquiry's inadequate questioning of how government scientist and former UN weapons inspector Dr David Kelly really died. Here's an excerpt: ... the fact that we, the British people, have had to wait seven long years for justice is a disgrace, and much of the blame can be firmly laid at the door of one man: Lord Brian Hutton. ... when Lord Hutton finally reported ...
There are a number of scheduled routine tree works coming up in the west of the ward (broadly speaking the area is northwest of Campkin Road, but also includes Arbury Court). Details can be found on the tree part of the City Council website. People living nearby ought to have been written to, so that they can comment. Let us know if this hasn't happeed, and the details are linked from the schedules page. The locations affected by removals are: Albemarle WayAugustus CloseBuchan StreetCallender CloseCraister CourtLegion CourtTurpyn CourtThe removed trees will be replaced. See the links above for more details. ...
The last two weeks have been very busy with election training courses and producing my next leaflet. This is the leaflet that will test my delivery network. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all that are helping and to those who have offered to help, we will be contacting you soon regarding the delivery of this leaflet. We now have a telephone canvassing team in place, or as they are now called - Voter Identifiers. We are also holding weekly team meetings in order to plan ahead. I was part of a Question Time type of debate ...
If it is true that the author of the Ugandan Parliamentary Bill is to attend a prayer breakfast with Obama then that would be a real shame. Obama is more than just an individual, he is a symbol. He is the leader of the free world and if he were to attend a prayer breakfast with this Ugandan MP it would have the effect of legitimising the MPs views. I hope Obama thinks twice and refuses to pray with this extremely un-Christian Ugandan MP.
Tuesday's Local Assembly went really well – with a big turnout (about 100, I'd say) which was really good for a cold, dark January evening! Manor Park I explained that the £22,500 we allocated to the park at our September meeting has now been supplemented with a further £32,500 from the Parks Department, meaning £55,000 will be invested to bring the disused building in the park back into use. Work will take place from April, and should be completed by September. This will deliver: A base for 2-3 members of staff from the parks contractor A meeting venue for use ...
A few weeks ago, I blogged about RU Lib Dems Bulmershe bus campaign. I was happy to read in the latest edition of Spark* that Reading Buses, Universtiy Services Department and RUSU had agreed on a reduced fare for the new 19 service which links the Whiteknights Campus with Bulmershe. A single fare will cost £1.20. I have not heard if there will be a reduced return fare (I presume not) and the service is only running hourly. If Bulmershe Students have any feedback on the new service please email RU Lib Dems – rulibdem@hotmail.com. RU Lib Dem Campaigns Officer, ...
Over at the Mail, Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable writes about Kraft's takeover of Cadbury, arguing that government policy has failed in three ways: by ignoring the damage mergers do to the economy; by refusing to curb the company voting rights of short-term speculators; and by letting a state-owned bank lend the money which sealed the deal. Here's an excerpt: I feel for the Cadbury workers, but that alone is not enough explanation for the anger over the deal and the significance of the takeover. Nor is the fact that Kraft is American. Britain has long been open to ...
I read with incredulity this weekend that according to Cllr Bibby, leader of Bury Council, that the only reason Bury Tories didn't carry out proposals to make the Longfield Centre and other Civic venues more successful back in 2007 was because there was a "hung council" and they couldn't get anything done!!!! Lets be clear here for the sake of clarity, transparency and a bit of honesty - The Lib Dem group held the balance of power in 2007 and on no occasion did we hold up any plans for improving the lot of our civic suites, on no occasion ...
I await the first Tory to step forward and defend the leader of the Scottish Tories for THIS.* *With thanks to Stephen Glenn.
As Dizzy comments HERE, it seems increasingly likely that any election debates will be rather sterile affairs due to the rather stupid and deliberately unreasonalbe requests of both David Cameron and Gordon Brown. So what are they scared of ? The only person not being accused of making silly demands is Nick Clegg, which makes sense, because Nick is neither scared of public scrutiny of himself or his policies, and he also knows that such debates provide the Lib Dems with an amazing opportunity to break the current two party stranglehold on politics. Perhaps this answers my first questions as ...
On Friday 22nd January I watched the Mark Thomas Manifesto (Remember the Mark Thomas Product on Channel 4) at 21 South Street Arts Centre in Reading after reading about it on the Green Reading Blog (Mark Thomas endorses the Green Party). The Manifesto show is about asking the audience what they would want in a People's Manifesto. A number of ideas are offered on the night and these are voted on. For the life of me I cannot remember which policy won the Reading show, total fail. Once 50 policies are chosen (tour has now finished) then these will be ...
One of the main arguments that opponents of electoral reform to a proportional system use is that some forms of PR create two classes of MP. Now firstly, this is not true for Single Transferable Vote with multi-member constituencies, the system that the Lib Dems and most electoral reformers favour. However it is true for systems like Alternative Vote Plus or Additional Member System. Those systems have a "top-up element" to allow proportionality but that does generally mean that some MPs have constituencies and others don't. In other words some MPs have constituents to answer to and others from the ...
In the summer of 1888, the Tory Prime Minister, Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury was probably oblivious to the fact that a gruesome murder in Whitechapel in London's East End was the first of a number of killings that were to be linked to Britain's most famous serial killer of all time. No-one at ...
I, of course, am just as clever.
Football Hooliganism Old School as reported by the Daily Express on 29th January 1909, 101 years ago. The Preston North End team, which played a drawn game with Sheffield Wednesday at Owlerton on Saturday were violently treated at the conclusion of the match by a crowd of spectators who were dissatisfied with the result. Councillor Houghton, who was in charge of the Preston team gave an Express representative the following account of what took place: "We delayed our departure from Owlerton on account of the hostile attitude of the crowd which gathered around the dressing-tents. "Immediately we left in a ...
Sad news of the death of Jean Simmonds. It was only a few days ago that I was watching a Miss Marple repeat with her as the star. To my parents, she'll always be Estella in Great Expectations. I've been reading the obituaries, and they all agree she was born in London; but where exactly? ...
This site has been surprisingly quiet on Plaid Cymru's pledge to use the proceeds from scrapping the Trident nuclear missile system to fund an extra £20bn a year on providing a "living pension". This was met with derision across the political spectrum as being unrealistic and unaffordable in the current economic circumstances. And of course the other point that was made very forcefully was that Plaid would never be in a position to put such a policy into place so they could afford to indulge themselves with unattainable pledges. This is the thrust of Matt Withers' column in today's Wales ...
Here are a few words about what I believe to be the most important idea to come out of the POWER 2010. The concept of proportional voting has been a hot topic in the UK for many years and it seems to always rise to prominence when the prospect of hung parliament looms. We shouldn't just talk about PR when it suits the political parties. We should be pushing for PR constantly. For example, in the last general election the Liberal Democrats received 22% of the vote but only 10% of the seats in Parliament. That means almost one in ...
Enough votes having now been cast to ensure that the result can be clearly determined, it gives me great pleasure to announce that Joe Rinaldi-Johnson has been selected for co-option. Joe will perform the duties of Vice Chair Communications until elections take place to fill the position for the unexpired part of the current term, these being scheduled to take place next month. My commiserations go to Rich Wilson who, on this occasion, was unsuccessful.
Forget data sets, interquartile ranges and margin of error. The Guardian recently reported the collective wisdom of the wet-fingers-in-the-air of the UK's pollsters, who met this past week "to refine their methods ahead of the election, and ended with off-the-cuff predictions for the final result." And here's what they came up with: Statisticians from most of Britain's main polling companies attended the session, organised jointly by the British Polling Council and the National Centre for Research Methods. Four of them were brave enough to come up with predicted vote shares for the main parties. Put together they average a shade ...
Just as it seemed that the English health service were about to follow Wales once more and introduce free prescriptions it seems that the Prime Minister has backed down, for now. Today's Observer says that Gordon Brown is facing a backlash from charities representing up to 15 million people with long-term health conditions after it emerged a promise to give them all free prescriptions is likely to be shelved until after the general election. They point out that the prime minister made the pledge to people with conditions such as asthma, heart disease, diabetes and depression in his speech at the ...
The application for Sainsbury's has been passed, there is no right of appeal.It was disappointing that the Tories on the committee voted in favour of the application, the change in the 20A?C bus is not going to stop the problems of traffic at peak times.However, having been passed we will work with Sainsbury's to make the disruption from building phase as little as possible.
She wants public sector workers who earn over £18,000 to have their pay frozen. She wants government agencies to cut back on "non-essential" spending. Yet she has been claiming £10,000 in first class travel between Edinburgh and Bishopton in Renfrewshire Of course she doesn't really care what you think saying that David Cameron can get by without support in Scotland. Step forward Annabel Goldfingers.
As this is a Welsh blog I thought it might be worth repeating an article that came to my attention in the latest edition of Private Eye. They write about barrister Gareth Hughes, the Conservative candidate for Wrexham, which is 200 miles from his London office. They say that he is a man who relishes long odds, which might explain why he is fighting Wrexham for the Tories: As his profile on Conservatives.com says: "Since 2002 he has been with Messrs Jeffrey Green Russell in Soho practising in these fields of law [licensing, gambling and planning]. Clients include those in ...
It's Sunday. It's 9am. It's time for one of Microsoft's best adverts (no, really) and the bicycle lane of the week but first the news. 2 Must-Read Blog Posts What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here's are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator: Really interesting health discussion: Sandy Walkington doesn't got for hyperbole in his description of a public meeting addressed by Norman Lamb but do read through to the end – which has an excellent account of the problems facing anyone trying to come up with policy for the NHS. Snow ...
Earlier in the week I went to Alex's Restaurant Cafe Bar in Compton. Alex's specialising in Mediterranean food, Arabic and Middle Eastern food, and it was great!
Just settling down to watch the weekly Andrew Marr show when I was made to sit up and take notice of the BBC News item talking about Charlie Simpson, a 7 year old who had watched the coverage of the Haiti earthquake and wanted to help. Charlie was so moved watching the orphans in Haiti then decided to do something to raise money for the children of Haiti, so through Unicef decided to do a 5 mile bike ride round his local park and set himself a target of £500. The latest total on Charlie's fundraising page was £17,628.oo - ...
With all of the clamour to build new houses, it is a shame that there are so many empty houses.The council has compulsory purchase powers to bring empty houses back into use, we have been bring all the houses we know about in Odd Down, such as Burnt House Cottages to the council's attention.
Let's get active! That's the message to all Stockport residents from some of the borough's biggest sporting stars. With 2010 here, local people are being encouraged to make a fresh start for the New Year by getting fitter, healthier and more active. To help everyone keep their New Year's resolutions, the Council and Stockport Sports Trust have re-launched the Active Stockport campaign to help people fit more physical activity into their daily lives. As part of the Stockport Boost programme, Active Stockport aims to help people of all ages improve their fitness levels and do the five, 30 minute sessions ...
Campaign group I'm a photographer not a terrorist held a Mass Photo Gathering in Trafalgar Square yesterday, in defence of street photography. Thousands of photographers came together to assert their rights and to protest against the misuse of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Section 44 allows uniformed police officers to stop and search people in designated areas if it is considered "expedient for the prevention of acts of terrorism." I met Grant Smith, who was stopped under Section 44 by police in December. Sarah Ludford, Lib Dem MEP for London, had written a letter to the Independent in ...
Polling is now well under way for the three Liberal Youth Vice Chair co-options, and tension is mounting in anticipation of the results. Interested parties should note that, following resignations, the 'electorate' consists of ten voters, and once any candidate reaches six votes, or less if abstentions arise, I will be announcing the result.
Any of the political parties in the UK that decides to try to ape Obama's "Change we need", "Change we can believe in" mantra from last year in their campaigns deserves to suffer the apparent fate in terms of popular disappointment their would be mentor is currently suffering. Because people don't like liars. And claiming you represent "change", or at least anything I would consider "change we need", whilst continuing to pursue those positions of power least capable, on incontrovertible historical evidence, of delivering anything like "change" will be lying. There can be no "change" whilst the wheels of State ...
I read in yesterday's Lancashire Evening Post that a second public inquiry is to be held into the Morecambe link road to the M6. The plans for this road have been dragging on for years but recently we have become the priority for Lancashire County Council. I am not surprised about this as I certainly agree with a comment that I heard a couple of years ago that traffic between Morecambe and Lancaster must be the worst outside London. However, since the congestion charge came in then we must have the worst traffic. I hope that this inquiry is just ...
