Dear Michael, The Chilcot Inquiry has brought the Iraq War back to the forefront of the nation's consciousness. As PPS to Harriet Harman and Lord Goldsmith until 7 September 2004, you obviously played your part in the provision of crucial legal advice to the Cabinet over the War. First, may I bring to your attention what seems to ...
No time to go into the details tonight, but bad news from Council Cabinet - they decided in front of a meeting packed with protestors against building in Preston Park that the site would be put onto a shortlist to look at further for a site to rebuild Egglescliffe School. Not only is that a long and worrying delay for those determined to save the Park, but it is going to cost £40,000 to do the...
Candidates who make extensive use of social media will receive a boost to their election campaigns, courtesy of Sky News's plans to feature such material in a set of special constituency pages being created for the election. Each constituency will have its own page and those pages will pull in feeds from candidates. Sky is asking for information on candidate blogs, Facebook fan pages and Twitter accounts, In addition, Sky will also pull in photos from Flickr and films from YouTube if they are tagged with the names of both the constituency and the candidate. (Let's hope Sky are remember ...
How much honesty and integrity would you have as a politician-would you "toe the party line"? Name three policies of the Libdems/things that any Libdems stand for that you disagree with? I really can't foresee any great desire to be 'a politician'. I have far more fun being a gobshite party member. That said, I'm not going to skirt the serious question.. Honesty is paramount to me. If I can't look myself in the face and know I'm ok with everything I've done and said, then I feel ill. If the party ever wanted me to lie or cover something ...
Lets manke one thing clear, I am not a great fan of the EU, the way it works, its institutions, its parliament or most of its policies. Like communism, the idea of the EU makes a lot of sense, but just like Communism, in practise it simply does not stand up to scrutiny. The EU is a club whereby members are expected to follow rules, show honesty and respect for each other and work for the greater good. the problem is, it fails on all these counts. Take Greece and her financial travails today. Each country that joined the Euro ...
This evening, after a busy surgery at Blackness Primary School, I attended a meeting of the Community Spirit group that serves the northern part of the West End Ward - Ancrum, Pentland, Cleghorn and Milnbank and surrounding streets. There was a very interesting presentation by the SACRO Youth Justice Service. This afternoon's City Council budget meeting was nothing short of dreadful - the SNP administration misused Council Standing Orders to rule an opposition motion (that was to be moved by Labour and seconded by me) that would have ensured the Dundee Employment and Aftercare Project does not lose its funding, ...
If the English Housing Minister, John Healey has his foot firmly enscounced in his mouth today then his Liberal Democrat shadow, Sarah Teather must win plainly-spoken quote of the week. Mr. Healey has got himself into trouble today for comments on BBC Radio 5 Live. He was asked why there were 46,000 repossessions last year despite the Government introducing schemes targeted at helping families to stay in their homes. He replied: "In some cases there is no way round that and in some cases it is the best thing for the people who are struggling with these mortgages." Reaction to ...
Over on the Social Liberal Forum website I've written two articles today. The first is on social care and the mess the Tories have got into attacking Labour's "plan" for what they call a "death tax". The second is about why I'm sceptical about the so-called Robin Hood Tax.
Cambridgeshire Registration Service is seeking comments from across the County on the service they provide (for the registration of births, civil partnerships, marriages and deaths) and how they can work to improve it. Registration Offices are located in Cambridge (by Shire Hall), Ely, Huntingdon and March. A limited range of services are also available at offices in Addenbrookes Hospital and Wisbech. On-line services for customers include making appointments to register births and deaths as well as ordering copy certificates is available here. Survey Forms will be available at the offices above, and an on-line Survey is available here. There is ...
Let's see how we get on without bullet points this time. *** The People's Republic of Mortimer looks at the real reason for young people's political apathy. Alix concludes, rightly I think, that politicians campaign relentlessly on public services and that healthy, childless young people have little contact with them. The issues those politicians should concentrate on instead if they want to engage with them, it seems, are money, renting and drinking. I am also reminded of a ward in leafy outer Kingston that was so affluent that a casework survey found the biggest issue was damage caused to cars ...
This takes the biscuit: Too Many Dead Terrorists Marc Thiessen, former President Bush's speechwriter and the author of Courting Disaster, now complains that President Obama is killing too many terrorists. "Today, the Obama administration is no longer attempting to capture men like these alive; it is simply killing them. This may be satisfying, but it comes at a price. With every drone strike that vaporizes a senior al Qaeda leader, actionable intelligence is vaporized along with him. Dead terrorists can't tell you their plans to strike America." Well perhaps this is one case of Obama following a Bush policy. Remember ...
Earlier today Nick Clegg today launched another plank of the party's green economic policies for the general election, pledging to create 57,000 jobs by investing £400 million in upgrading disused shipyards so that they can produce off-shore wind turbines. It's a triple win: boost the economy, help parts of the country which have been hit the hardest and improve Britian's environmental record. The party's news release explains some of the details: Current plans to expand wind farms in the North and Irish seas could see every one of the 6,400 turbines needed brought in from abroad, as there are currently ...
it seems we are in the middle of an election campaign! i thought the uk was fairly well disciplined having a nice 6 weeks election period. Then the americans spent 18 months doing the last presidential campaign. something has rubbed off. we now have become self indulgent and have an elongated election campaign period despite the fact that the actual date has not been set in stone. a bit barking. we will now have electoral staleness by mothers day. even the best hack will be wearing thin.
According to BBC Look East this evening, Conservative run Norfolk County Council are giving serious consideration to stopping the gritting of all side roads, with just main roads to be gritted in future. This will effectively cut off large parts of Norfolk, with roads becoming impossible to drive on and people being left unable to get off side roads on to main roads. Where I live in Thorpe Marriott is not the flattest part of Norfolk. Marriotts way runs through the middle of Thorpe Marriott and and this whole valley will become a no go zone for buses and cars, ...
This is an extraordinary film from 1967. It is written by Geoffrey Fletcher, who (as Electric Sheep explains) was an illustrator and columnist for the Daily Telegraph in the 1960s who "documented the sights, sounds and scenes of a London fast vanishing beneath the grey concrete tide of redevelopment". He published several illustrated collections of these columns and I have a copy of the book that shares a title with and inspires this film. James Mason narrates it, wearing the sort of dapper cloth cap I have taken to affecting myself. He takes in the street markets (rightly treated as ...
I have recently been selected as the PPC for a Parliamentary seat which is rather exciting but one unfortunate consequence is that I will need to be a bit more circumspect in my streams of consciousness. I have therefore gone through the painful process of removing 99% of this blog and sadly I need to call time on the whole thing. It will therefore be deleted in a few days. I have had a regular band of readers, critics and commenters and I thank you for your attention and interest, even your insults. It has been an immensely enjoyable exchange ...
There is one principle that Labour politicians seem willing to test to destruction in the English courts. It is the avoidance of embarrassment principle. The Foreign Secretary has not only tried to apply that principle in court, in full public view – where he has looked increasingly ridiculous in the Binyam Mohamed case - but his legal representative has also tried to pursue the principle in private, in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to conceal his master's shame and the Government's hypocrisy. Even though the Government appeal in the Binyam Mohamed case was dismissed the Foreign Secretary told the House of ...
We've been out on the streets in all weathers and have seen how treacherous they have been at some points this winter. In the first of the two most recent cold snaps, I was being asked quite a few detailed questions by residents so I asked Lewisham just how they'd using their salt stocks day-to-day. They ...
No further comment necessary. Very NSFW.
My fellow Cornishman John Nettles has very much enjoyed being Inspector Barnaby in Midsomer Murders. "Good actors and great storylines" he says. Only good actors, you notice. Not great ones. Only great storylines. Meow. Just look at the list of actorswho appeared in the series. It includes Richard Briers, Honor Blackman, Joss Acland, Lynda Bellingham, Niamh Cusack, Nigel Davenport, Tim MacInnery, Anna Massey, Tim Piggott-Smith, Leslie Phillips, Frank Middlemass and Donald Sinden. But these are "good" actors, not great ones. So we saw the new Inspector Barnaby last night.Neil Dudgeon (photos here, biography here) plays John, cousin of Tom. I ...
Listening this morning to various reports of the snow in the East of Kent, one recurring theme from everyone outside of the county establishment was, where were the gritting lorries yesterday afternoon and early evening? BBC's South East Today, programme tonight showed us plenty of pretty pictures of snow, they even had a reporter hire a helicopter, to take a gander at this strange rarely seen phenomena (It must be two or three weeks since we last saw snow) at the end of we had two presenters smile in what looked to me similar to, the affected, self conscious silly ...
One of my favourite blogs is Heresy Corner. I know that because it quotes me as saying so in its testimonials. What I had not realised is that its writers has a second blog, Heresiarch's Dungeon. It is described as: This blog is intended for longer treatments of various subjects, for supplementary materials, and also for items which, for various reasons, aren't suitable for Heresy Corner.Or, for short, it is "where bad ideas are tortured to death."
It's #bbcqt day and as usual the Live Chat on this blog will start tonight at 10:30pm. Coming from Belfast, the panel are the Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward MP, Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly, Northern Ireland's finance minister and DUP member Sammy Wilson, the former Northern Ireland First Minister Lord Trimble and Jim Allister of the TUV. Join us from 10:30pm below: BBC Question Time - 11th February 2010
Last week I recorded an interview with FutureGov the highly-creative people behind TweetyHall the excellent website which aims to bring local councillors closer to the local people they represent throught the medium of Twitter. If you visit the website you can find out if your local councillor is on Twitter. Tweetminister does the same for MPs and PPCs. I am passionate about using social media tools in my role as local councillor, campaigner and PPC and think that innovative ideas like TweetyHall should be encouraged as they help break down barriers and to improve the relationship between government and the ...
Not for a long time have I felt the need to quote Harold Wilson's' maxim of a week is a long time in politics - and it to be so appropriate. At the start of this week I was going to blog about John Healy being made a minister for pubs ( now there is a job!) Due to my absolutely hectic diary I just never found the time. I got to know John fairly well in the aftermath of the floods in 2007. I found him to be a conscientious minister who was always willing to listen before acting. ...
It's a good job they never kernackered it.
Every so often one gets a glimpse of one's own mortality. Such occasions recently included the death of Stephen Gately with whom I shared my two given names. Today it happened again with the passing of Lee Alexander McQueen, better known by his second name as the top British fashion designer. He was just over 6 months older than me. Born at almost totally the oposite end of the lunar circuit. So here are a few glimpses at the genius of the man. Here is a look at that 1999 Wierd Science show in more detail Finally what better way ...
[IMG: Robin Hood Tax logo] I want to support the new campaign for a "Robin Hood Tax" – really I do. I understand the logic behind the Tobin Tax and have a lot of sympathy for the idea. But there's something about this campaign... Actually, there are four problems I have with it: Firstly, the name "Robin Hood Tax". On LabourList, Sarah Hayward has already suggested that inviting comparisons with your tax and thievery may not exactly be a great idea. But more to the point, it just isn't accurate. This isn't a case of robbing from the rich to ...
Whilst the Conservatives have not allowed the recent poll hiccups to destroy their sense of electoral superiority over Labour, it appears that they do not feel so confident where they are taking on the LibDems in our marginals. Never was this clearer than this afternoon. A poll at Political Betting was entitled: AR [pollsters Angus Reid] finds ...
Update: It has come to my attention (via the Social Liberal Forum's signposting towards a blog by the Robin Hood Tax campaigners) that a Tobin Tax and a Robin Hood Tax are not the same thing in terms of their end objective. However, even though the taxes sets out to achieve different things, the actual way of ...
The controversy over who discovered the mammoth skeleton at Condover in 1986 may have been settled, reports the Shropshire Star: Andy Edwards, of Baschurch, says that the real finder was an unidentified contractor who kept his mouth shut for fear of getting into troubleA trade union rep writes: Is there a clause in your contract that bars you from discovering prehistoric remains at work? It's worth checking.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, a grey haired leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party said: "You turn if you want to. The Lady's not for turning." What would Baroness Thatcher make of this? Before 12:30 during First Minister's questions Annabel Goldie told the First Minister: "Many questions need to be answered and must be answered if Miss Sturgeon is to retain the confidence of this Parliament." Yet within a couple of hours when an emergency meeting of the Bureau met to discuss the possibility of an emergency statement, the SNP said no and when it went ...
In Holyrood today the Scottish Conservatives have performed a spectacular two hour turn around to save their regular bedfellows, the SNP. During First Minister's Questions, Annabel Goldie called for a statement from Nicola Sturgeon because of Nicola Sturgeon's letter of support for a convicted fraudster. Two hours later there was then an emergency meeting of the Bureau to discuss the possibility of an emergency statement, however the SNP refused to give a statement today and it was then pushed to a vote. The Liberal Democrats and Labour voted for the statement, but Annabel Goldie's Tories bizarrely supported the SNP therefore ...
I'm in the middle of a complaint letter to Arriva. I have seen repeated incidents now of drivers saying they don't have change when people get on and try to buy bus tickets. Sometimes we are talking about change from £2 for a 1 70 ticket. At other times we are talking about £5-00 being used to pay for a £3 30 ticket. Either way these are small amounts which should present no problem if there is a float. What happens is if a driver can't give change people either end up having to pay over the odds or they ...
We now have the date for the Public Enquiry. It will start on 15th June. It is likely to last for four days. The venue isn't confirmed yet but venues in Liverpool are being looked at. The documents for this appeal so far are huge and some people have been having trouble getting access on line. Here is another link.
On 26th Jan the Labour group used the council press office to issue a spin-filled press release about the council tax level - proposed at 0% (not including fire and police costs, which will probably bring it up to +.75%) - for the next year. They then waited until the absolute limit of the permitted ...
At last - Bradford Council more or less concede that Wastefield is never going to be built on the Hole In The Ground site, and will proceed with the only remotely sensible thing to do with that land. All well and good, though some questions arise here; Why didn't they go ahead with this BEFORE wasting £24 million on the "Park at the Heart" at the other end of town? Why, instead of just buying some topsoil and grass seed and getting on with it, are they throwing more council taxpayers' money at the usual gang of useless community arts ...
You know that when nef advocate an idea, then it is likely to be weak and badly thought-through
It has been reported that Andrew Mackay, Bracknell's current (and soon to be former) Conservative MP has accepted a position with political lobbying firm Burston-Marstellar. The Times reports that: The chief executive of BursonMarsteller is Matt Carter, who was Labour's general secretary during the cash-for-honours affair. Mr Carter issued a press release on the appointment shortly after he was approached for a comment when The Times learnt that the lobbyists had been holding secret negotiations with the Tory MP. The company said that it had announced the appointment in ad- vance "in the interests of transparency and so there can ...
So reports a news release from Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris: An amendment to the Government's resolutions on reform of parliament following the report of the Wright Committee due to be debated on the 22nd of February, which calls for the establishment of a House Business Committee has attracted widespread support, including that of Sir George Young, its backers announced today. The Select Committee on Reform of Parliament (the Wright Committee) was set up in July 2009 as a response to the expenses scandal to bring forward recommendations on how Parliament could be reformed to carry out its functions better. ...
The Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Member for South Wales East, Michael German used a short debate in the Assembly yesterday to make the case for a new road link between the M48 and a Gwent 'Parkway' station at Severn Tunnel Junction near Caldicot. He said that with the cancellation of the M4 relief road there is an urgent need to come up with alternative methods of relieving congestion with new funds are available from the aborted M4 relief road scheme. "This plan would revitalise the economy of south east Wales by providing high speed rail and motorway access to existing ...
The news that the set-up costs for the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) will amount to £6.6 million in the first year, and that eighty staff are being recruited to run it, is possibly the final act in the farce that has been MP expenses. Whilst a few MPs have behaved fraudulently (allegedly), most of the 'offences' highlighted by the Legg Inquiry were retrospective in nature, approved by the Fees Office at the time, and only subsequently decided to be unreasonable. Whilst there is no doubt that the expenses regime in the House of Commons was poorly run, poorly ...
[IMG: spoof Tory poster] We can only speculate what the Tory campaigns department were thinkin when they launched the now much-spoofed "R.I.P. OFF" poster. In a nutshell it demonstrates all that is wrong with David Cameron's Conservatives: naive and focused on the wrong priorities. The campaign is rooted in the fact that the Labour government is considering a charge on the estates of people after death to pay for social care. While we would obviously want to interrogate the £20,000 figure quoted, the fact that social care has to be paid for somehow is not – surely – in dispute. ...
This fascinating article from Sheila Lawson in yesterday's Guardian may be about the English Higher Education Sector but it applies equally to Wales where the Labour Plaid Cymru Government have cut funding to Universities in real terms: Departments have been cut as vice chancellors and governing teams wield the axe in line with the preferences of the Whitehall pay - or policy masters. Administrators are seizing the talk of "cuts" to "rationalise", removing small departments and subjects that are expensive, even if academically well-respected. Physics has suffered in the last decade and about 20 institutions have closed physics departments. Now ...
There are times when Assembly question times go a bit off-beam and others when our eccentricities show through. Most of the latter occasions are due to the erudite and highly articulate David Melding. Yesterday was no exception: Q10 David Melding: Will the Minister make a statement on the production and marketing of leeks? OAQ(3)0937(RAF) Elin Jones: The Welsh Government is committed to supporting the promotion and production of food in Wales, including leeks. David Melding: Cortinas, Goliaths and the King Richard—you will know that these are all varieties of leek. Do you realise that leeks are now being written about ...
Recent weeks have seen a great deal of controversy surrounding the role of religious institutions and symbols in public life - from the Papal criticism of Britain's equality laws, to the carrying of the Sikh kirpan in schools, via Cherie Booth's apparent display of leniency for a man of faith. As a committed humanist that still observes many cultural aspects of my religious background these
It seems strange that anyone should have to write a post explaining why, in a democracy, everyone's vote should count, but it appears that the media's favourite to be the next Prime Minister doesn't agree. David Cameron is opposed to any form of proportional representation and this week spoke out against Gordon Brown's (admittedly pretty ...
It is often the topic of banter between ourselves and the English, but for me the fact you have to pay to enter South Wales on the M4 is no laughing matter. And Mike German, the the Liberal Democrat Assembly Member for South Wales East, which includes the constituency of Blaenau Gwent, would certainly agree. On the 20th January Mr German led a short debate in the Senedd in which he put forward that the tolls on the Severn Bridge were a barrier to economic development. And I have to say that I agree with him. Let say, for argument's ...
Just to report that yesterday evening we gave planning permission for 6 flats to be built on the St Mary's Church Hall site in Church Lane. This is the old building between the British Legion and St Mary's School. The church has now taken over the old Youth Club premises between the British Legion and the church itself, and has renamed it the St Mary's Centre. The old hall is now no longer needed, and is not in good shape anyway, so the development will help to fund the new school building and the St Mary's Centre.
When I first got into politics back in the 1970s the buzz word among Liberals (as we then were) was 'pavement politics'. This cleverly referred both to the issues we should be concentrating on, and our method of campaigning. Indeed, Focus was born back then, and was a radical approach to doing politics on a micro-local scale. I mention that because at South of the Borough Neighbourhood last night we were talking about - pavements. The Committee had just £104,900 to spend in 2010-2011 on relaying roads and pavements across the whole Neighbourhood. That amount does not go far. Road ...
I'm glad to see that injured service personnel are to get more help with finances and health treatment. About time too. But I heard it was not going to be backdated, seemingly on the grounds that it could mean the measure would have to go back to the Crimean War, or something. It is not acceptable not to support properly troops who have been invalided out of the forces during the present government's tenure, in my opinion. Flipping mean!
The big Southport Lib Dem dinner on Saturday night will commemorate the first of the two 1910 elections and our eminent speaker will concentrate on the campaign in Southport. Over the last few weeks I've tried to fill in a bit of the back ground and the national context. It is time to sum up The Liberal History Group has some excellent stuff on it's website and I reprint some below but I do urge you all to visit their site for more information. Here is the first snippet: 'The Liberal government of 1906-15, under Prime Ministers Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith, ...
I have been meaning to write about this for a while, but keep not getting around to it. The Conservatives announced that there wanted to introduce a tax break for married couples, this later seemed to be married couples with children and at one point people with children. I am not entirely sure of their policy anymore, but that's almost irrelevant, the question I am posing is if it is fair to give tax breaks for marriage (and the same could be argued for having children as both are by and large a lifestyle choice).
As one would have guessed the story of the morning on Scottish blogs revolves around Nicola Sturgeon. One thing you can trust about the internet, bloggers and their commentators is that is some knowledge, sane opinions and comments amongst all the detritus. Jeff at SNP Tactical Voting launches into a defence of the SNP Deputy First Minister ignoring one key fact, this is not the man's first offence. Yes he is now willing to sell the property that for 5 years he forgot he owned to pay any fine and pay back the amount he had defrauded. But he'd been ...
That's one of the questions posed to internet pundit and author of What Would Google Do? Jeff Jarvis: (Also available here.)
Brief Encounter Sunday 14th February 6 pm the Station Pub Staplehurst Road SE13 Hither Green Cinema returns this Sunday with the first of a series of fortnightly cinematic appointments celebrating the very reason Hither Green exists as we know it: the railway. And being Valentine's day it's all about railways and love. The 1945 classic adaptation of Noel Coward's play ...
Former Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon has announced he is standing down at the forthcoming election. Geoff Hoon recently failed in his attempt with Patricia Hewit to oust Gordon Brown in a bizarre coup. The Ashfield seat is also a Lib Dem target seat and I suspect Geoff Hoon is jumping before the formidable Jason Zadrozny ejected him.
Happy to be able to tell you that I have been re-selected as a Lib Dem candidate for Fortis Green at this May's local elections. In 1998, Lynne Featherstone, Julia Glenn and June Anderson were elected as the first three Lib Dems on Haringey Council and immediately became the official opposition. I was elected to represent Fortis Green for the first time in 2002, as part of a massively increased opposition group of 15, then re-elected in 2006, with our group growing to 27. So, this May, I am hoping that the voters of Fortis Green will re-elect me again ...
I'm watching a PMQs which has been dominated by the issue of Nicola Sturgeon's letter asking for a non custodial sentence for benefits fraudster Abdul Rauf. As I understand it, she asked the Court not to jail him because he suffered ill health and had 2 young children. I don't see how this can be seen as condoning the crime in any way. She was not asking for him to get off, but for the Court to take certain circumstances into consideration when deciding how Mr Rauf should be punished. The crime of which he was convicted was a serious ...
There's little I can add to the revelations around MI5's complicity in torture, other than a curious incident that occurred when I went for a job interview at an anonymous MI6 office in South London. The interviewer, a bearded chap, asked me this question: "Say we've caught a team of suspected Islamic terrorists attempting to enter ...
I was working at my computer this morning and, as is often the case, had Radio 5Live on in the background. Victoria Derbyshire was interviewing Housing Minister John Healey and was discussing the new repossession figures announced today. I couldn't believe it when I heard Healey say: "For some people home repossession can be the best option." Obviously ...
At the start of the week, Lib Dem Voice invited the members of our private discussion forum (open to all Lib Dem members) inviting them to take part in a survey, conducted via Liberty Research, asking a number of questions about the party and the current state of British politics. Many thanks to the 200 of you who completed it; we're publishing the results on LDV over the next few days. It's four months since we last asked party members how they felt Nick Cleg was doing as Lib Dem leader – the last time was in the wake of ...
(Blogging this for my own convenience so I can easily find the information, but it may be of use to others too...) ComRes polled 151 MPs in April and May 2009 asking, amongst other questions, which bloggers they most respect: Conservative MPs: ConservativeHome Guido Fawkes Iain Dale Political Betting Daniel Hannan Labour MPs: Iain Dale Tom Harris Nick Robinson Guardian Guido Fawkes Liberal Democrat MPs: Political Betting Lib Dem Voice Lynne Featherstone (Because of small sample size for Liberal Democrat MPs, only top three given by ComRes)
Not so long ago, the imminent arrival of our latest family member prompted me to buy a bigger car (my little Yaris suddenly had one too few seats). Not being terribly happy about purchasing a great big 7-seater car I looked at ways of minimising its environmental impact and made sure to buy a diesel ...
Vince Cable MP, Shadow Chancellor and Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader, is today visiting Luton South to learn more about green technology and discuss the impact the recession and banking crisis has had on local business. Vince's visit once again demonstrates the commitment of the Liberal Democrats to represent and learn from the people of Luton South. More information to follow soon. What a busy week!
The perennial question Who will you go to bed with?` argument. There are only two answers dependent on where the questioner is coming from. The most difficult is if it's from a sincere floating voter. The only answer is `it's up to the electorate, it's not a voting system we favour and there are no deals. ...
The last 24 hours' focus on voting systems – surely every Lib Dem's dream come true? – have highlighted just how hard it will be to gain acceptance for the party's preferred proportional voting system, the single transferable vote. It's no surprise that almost all MPs from the two establishment parties, Labour and the Tories, are desperate to hold onto the electoral system that secures their cosy hold on power: just five Labour/Tory MPs voted to include STV in any referendum on voting reform. But it will also be the case that a significant portion of the country will need ...
A long standing and respected local chair of a constituency is removed by the Tory high command after falling out with the candidate. An everyday story of the Conservative party as the tight knit central command of the Conservatives sweep away local autonomy.It is interesting that the methods used appear to be different. In the case of Southport the chair was just removed and an outsider imposed. In Westminster North (is that the home of Lady Porter?) an emergency meeting was held. Judging by the local journalist who gained entry Pickles was throwing his weight around. Is this another case ...
If Labour want to win the next election, they have to do one thing, and they need to do it extraordinarily well. Lie. Everyone knows the economy is in the shitter. Everyone knows Labour have been in power for 13 years, and have to take some responsibility for our current circumstances. So what they need to do is ...
I read the news of our complicity in torture and cover-up - not believing what I was reading. How can we have come to this terrible place? I am so ashamed of our Goverment. And because we know that this is a Government that misleads us when it suits them - how can we have any confidence in the Foreign Office's denial of involvement in rendition and torture of terror suspects? As Ed Davey (LibDem Shadow Foreign Secretary) said: "With allegations of complicity in torture coming on top of the Iraq Inquiry's revelations, it is painfully clear that Labour has ...
Here in Thanet we are apparently experiencing a mass hallucination, those like myself who thought they were driving on ice, must be delusional since if you happened to listen to BBC Radio Kent this morning County Councillor Nick Chard seemed to be claiming that all major roads had been treated, which had that been the case, would have helped keep our roads safe for driving on last night. John Warnett (BBC Radio) could have just clarified the issue by asking Cllr Chard, exactly when did you grit these roads? Anyway if anyone actually saw one of Kent's gritting lorries yesterday ...
Here's the latest about Wood Green police station. Cllr Robert Gorrie and I met Dave Grant (local Commander) at the brand, spanking newly kitted out police front counter in the 'Fishmongers Arms' next to the Civic Centre in Wood Green. (Also on YouTube here)
Yesterday I reported that the International Bobsleigh and Tobogganing Federation (FIBT) had made a faux pax over their own qualification criteria for the Vancouver Olmypics. The decision of the Court of Arbitration in Sport (Cas) was that Australia should have made the 20 starters for the competition starting on the 23rd, ahead of 20th ranked Ireland. Well last night the IOC and local organising committee Vanoc have announced that they have accepted the Cas suggestion that the event be expanding to 21 teams to allow the erroneously instructed Irish to still compete as they had been preparing to do. So ...
The quote "Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen" is widely attributed by climate change sceptics to scientist Sir John Houghton, a man who played a key role in founding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC). If the quote were true, then it would be a pretty damning one. But it isn't - as The Independent has demonstrated. Almost everyone using this "quote" is simply recycling the quote from others, and when the newspaper tried to track down its original source they found that the quote doesn't exist anywhere in the book claimed. It's also notable in The ...
It's a favourite quote amongst Conservatives who are opposed to electoral reform wheeled out to suggest that there's something fundamentally alien to this country about coalition government "England does not love coalitions". But what did Disraeli really mean when he said it on 15 December 1852? The words were uttered during a debate on the Conservative budget, which was under attack for proposing a deficit. What's more, the day before he had tried to get the group of Radical MPs to agree to back him and eventually join the Cabinet. In other words, it was more a matter of "England ...
It's hard to believe that it's 20 years since we saw Nelson Mandela's epic walk to freedom. Or rather since those of us watching in the UK at the time saw the BBC2 ident (known as the logo in those days) whilst the continuity announcer wittered endlessly on about forthcoming events, such as snooker and darts for an agonising age followed by the switch to South Africa just in time to see a fleet of cars head off into the distance while the commentator assured us that we'd just seen one of the iconic images of the 20th Century. Oh ...
The latest "House of Comments" podcast with myself and Stuart Sharpe of the Sharpe's Opinion political blog is now live. The website for the podcasts is here and the thirteenth episode which we recorded on Tuesday 9th Feb is available to download via this page here (raw mp3 file here if you prefer). You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes here. Or you can listen to it right now here: The format is to invite one or two other political bloggers each week and discuss a few of the stories that are making waves in the blogosphere. This week ...
I have a Gmail account. I also use Google Reader. Google have now introduced something called 'Google Buzz' which connects these two together, along with a load of 'social networking' crap. (I recently actually got a Facebook account to see what they're like. They're scary. I don't want the rest of the internet to turn ...
Last week I made my debut on the web site of Derek Wyatt MP. 'Keith Nevols is the Lib Dem candidate for the next election; as yet he has no web site or iPhone application. He lives locally and this is his first attempt to win a seat; he has never been a local councillor either'. Brief and to the point. And indeed all true. Our MP is very proud of his iPhone application (it often appears in the local press) so his looking down on those who don't have one is not surprising. Yes, I have not been much ...
I'm putting the Beatles post off til Friday, to address a point that came up more than any other in the (shockingly positive) comments to my last post. I said: a highlight of the first half of this first year will be the redemption of Lex Luthor - in a forty-page story, set in one room, ...
Well, let's see. First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. Then it was February 11th and time for Daily View, on this, Canadian actor Leslie Nielson's birthday. He shares the date with the Beast of Bolsover, Dennis Skinner, and Caribou Barbie, the Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Other notable occurrences today include the death of Sylvia Plath in 1963 and the début of Julia Child's US TV show The French Chef in 1963. If you've never seen it before, go see ...
There's an "ad" running at present on the Beeb showing a series of vignettes with various people glued to their telly/radio watching/listening transfixed as the relevant commentary intones things like, President Kennedy being shot, Man on the moon, etc., the tagline being, "where were you when you heard the news". Well twenty years ago today I was in Manchester watching the box, waiting for the release of Nelson Mandela, it was running about an hour late. When it did happen, it still seemed very surreal, but utterly awe-inspiring. After nearly three decaded in prison, the man whom most people acnowledge ...
12 years ago Hector Sants was my boss. Strictly speaking, my direct boss was his deputy, but across the football field size of the UBS equity trading floor at 100 Liverpool St. everyone knew that this tall, solid figure was the Boss. He was not -in the manner of many City Bosses- a flamboyant, loud or bullying figure. He was measured, he was intensely intelligent, he was very, very competent. In short he still stands out today as someone who understood the business of the City with forensic clarity. His slow voice, with just a trace of the West of ...
Thanks to "Norfolk Blogger" for this post about how the Labour Party either can't or won't obey the law they themselves brought in outlawing automatic telephone dialling (those nasty silent calls). ...
It is one thing for the Scottish Justice Minister to visit in jail an terminally ill man who is seeking parole from his sentence, it is quite another when the Deputy First Minister writes to a Sheriff and suggests what sentencing he should carry out on the case of a convicted fraudster. Of course Nicola Sturgeon is entitled to write a letter of support for her constituents. She is quite entitled to write laying out any circumstances she feels the judge should take into consideration when making his judgement of sentence. However, she should really rely on research she is ...
Thu 11th
07:29
All that pain, and for what? Local Government Review for Suffolk runs into the sand...
Just when you think that this Government's ineptitude peaks, they manage to find new heights. After more than three years of consultation, debate and operational paralysis, an announcement has finally been made on the future of local government in Suffolk. The report from the Boundary Commission offered three options; A unitary authority covering the entire county (the preferred option) A unitary authority covering Ipswich, Felixstowe and the surrounding area, with a second authority 'Rural Suffolk', covering the rest of the county. Accepting the bid for unitary status from Ipswich Borough Council. What nobody had considered was a fourth option, "we ...
Radio 4's Today Programme has revealed the cost of the new parliamentary body to police MPs' expenses: around £6.5 million a year, with 80 staff and a boss pulling in £100k. Nice work if you can get it, but surely it raises serious questions about the new system. The total amount current and former MPs are being asked to repay, covering claims over several years, is a touch over a million pounds. That means the new cost of checking those expenses and ruling whether they're legitimate is many times higher than the amount the public purse was previously losing where ...
On Tuesday I blogged a simple message with a link to Conservative Home, that Joanne Cash, the Tory candidate for Westminster North had resigned. Well, now apparently everyone's toys are all back in the respective prams and she is the candidate again. On Joanne Cash's Twitter page, some toys are obviously still out of the pram, there is a line in her biog, for all to see, RIP dinosaurs - that's so grown up and clearly what local people will want from their MP isn't it? No, it clearly isn't, reading this from the Daily Mail: 'She [Joanne Cash] lost ...
Posting from phone because laptop battery is dead having spent all night on it looking for ways to stop Holly's eczema flaring up after swimming, because she loves swimming so much and it's tearing me up that she has to suffer for it. Have been in a horrible mood all day. Nothing has gone right, from being stinking furious for no apparent reason when I woke up, through horrendous day at work involving me bursting into tears all over poor Nicki when she arrived to let me go home, to utter lack of ability to do anything constructive in the ...
Over at Lib Dem voice there's a guest post proffering an alternative response to the Digital Economy Bill currently going through parliament. The "people's party" has expressly committed itself to attacking the people's rights in response to incessant bleating from the Intellectual Property Farming Industry by proposing some form of mandatory cutting off of people's internet connections if they are discovered downloading or sharing copyrighted material. The guest author, Jim Killock of the "Open Rights Group", a body campaigning against these aspects of the bill, argues from the basis that ISPs will be forced into "collective punishment" by disconnecting people ...
As the United States is preparing a new Resolution to submit to the UN Security Council regarding Iran's nuclear programme, the government in Tehran has announced that it has begun 20% enrichment of uranium at the plant in Natanz, under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Last Sunday, the Iranian President, Mahmoud ...
Some unexpected good news was announced in Full Council today by Cabinet Member for Transport, Ian Lake, regarding the status of the school special bus services which were about to be axed. Because of concerns expressed by Lib Dem Councillors, local head teachers and parents, these services have been given a temporary reprieve until September 2011 to allow more time for consultation. [IMG: bus-stop.jpg] I am pleased to see the leadership have taken our comments on board and although this doesn't mean services will not be cut next year, the review should now include the expensive contract coach services that ...
I got back from London yesterday evening so I now have experienced their traffic. I have seen Hammersmith during the rush hour and I have also walked through a lot of central London and I can now tell you that Morecambe traffic is - a lot worse! Maybe Hammersmith does not have the worst traffic in London and there are many areas that are worse but when I got back to Lancaster and caught the bus to Morecambe my memories of standing traffic came flooding back. Link this blog with that of the 30th January when I first compared our ...
A report by the House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee, "Decision Making and Appeals in the Benefits System", has found that overpayments due to error had soared from £400 million in 2000 to £800 million by the end of the decade. Liberal Democrat Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Steve Webb commented: "The Government's failure to get to grips with the over-complex benefits system is appalling, especially when so much is down to official error. "It is staggeringly unfair that the taxpayer is forced to stump up almost £1bn just because officials are unable to administer a system of ...
