Was I the only one who was a little gobsmacked when I heard Bootle MP Joe Benton being called in aide by Alec Salmond when he was defending his deputy Nicola Sturgeon in the Scottish Parliament this week? The issue was that she had sent a letter to a court on behalf of a convicted fraudster. The official record shows (Col 23793) Salmond saying: 'What about Joe Benton, the Labour MP for Bootle, who wrote to Liverpool Crown Court in December 2008 on behalf of Christopher Brown, a constituent who was charged with firearm offences - selling guns online'
The news that Nick Clegg has today sacked Jenny Tonge is sad news indeed. It further clouds what is and always has been a desperately clouded issue. I have read what Jenny said to the Jewish Chronicle about allegations of the IDF organ harvesting in Haiti"To prevent allegations such as these - which have already been posted on You Tube - going any further, the IDF and the Israeli Medical Association should establish an independent inquiry immediately to clear the names of the team in Haiti." Frankly, in my view, Nick has totally over reacted, which is disappointing given his ...
Not a comment on yesterdays Cabinet meeting where they bottled out of making a real decision, didn't note what people said and are forgetting there is no money for a bridge, when Stockton Council Cabinet voted unanimously to spend £40,000 for a feasiblity study on building a school on Preston Park. For a good description of that look at Maureen Rigg's blog entry for yesterday. ...
Nick Clegg has sacked Baroness Tonge as the Lib Dem Health spokeswoman in the House of Lords. I strongly endorse his actions, which make me proud to be a Liberal Democrat. The Jewish Chronicle broke the news of this sacking. Baroness Tonge had called for an inquiry into allegations that Israeli relief forces had harvested people's organs in Haiti. This grotesque conspiracy theory about Israeli organ trafficking has been commonplace among extremists for some time. It is an echo of the "blood libel" - the antisemitic myth that Jews kill non-Jewish children so as to use their blood in fiendish ...
Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by our parliamentary candidate David Watts. 1. Council Tax Tory run Greasley Parish Council have decided to raise their element of the council tax for this year by £10 per person. Given that parish councils amount for only a small element of the total council tax this represents a pretty big increase. Other town and parish councils will be announcing their council tax rises over the next few weeks, before Broxtowe and the County Council settle on their figures. 2. Vandals Target Church Thieves and vandals seem ...
Sorry that there hasn't been much on this blog recently but instead I've been editing a weekly newsletter. I'll now be posting that on here each week as well.
The BBC has the report: The Liberal Democrat leader has sacked his health spokeswoman in the House of Lords after comments she made about alleged organ trafficking in Haiti. Jenny Tonge told the Jewish Chronicle there should be an inquiry into claims that Israeli troops sent there after the earthquake were trafficking organs. Nick Clegg said the comments were "wrong, distasteful and provocative" and dismissed her from her post. He said she apologised "unreservedly" for any offence she had caused. Full story here.
Friday Update! * This morning I attended a photocall with the Community Spirit group at Logie Cemetery in Lochee Road to recognise the new cemetery plaque that Community Spirit has sponsored, with the support of the City Council. The cemetery has a fascinating history stretching back to 1243. See more at http://tinyurl.com/logiecemetery. * A meeting between opposition group leaders and the City Council's Chief Executive and Depute Chief Executive about the council budget meeting fiasco took place later in the morning. I am extremely concerned about the SNP administration's gagging of any opposition - and an updated report of the ...
A discovery from the early days of this blog, when it had few readers. Who are these two? Answer here.
As The Guardian reports: The political storm over allegations of MI5 complicity in torture escalated tonight after Alan Johnson, the home secretary, accused the media of publishing "groundless accusations" and commentators of spreading "ludicrous lies" about the Security Service. As defence lawyers prepared to challenge the government's success in suppressing severe criticism of MI5 officers made by one of Britain's most senior judges, the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, pointed the finger at the "very top of government" saying senior ministers had probably known about claims of Britain's involvement in torture but failed to take action to stop it. Here's ...
Tonight's latest BBC news report on the continuing terrible situation facing the people of Haiti could not fail to move everyone. The video above is Tavish Scott's comments last week on the subject. You can help the Haiti appeal by going to https://www.donate.bt.com/dec_form_haiti.html
You wouldn't have thought this lot were in marketing would you? Thanks once again to mydavidcameron.com for showing us how duplicitous the Tories are being, but having fun with it at the same time. Enjoy! [IMG: torytombstone. ]
It was an honour to be asked to write a guest contribution on this blog. Its owner, Amy, brings real promise and hope to our town one which has constantly seen the backhand of Labour. I am sure that I am not the only person that feels let down and annoyed by the failings labour have issued to our town. One key mistake made by Labour over the past few years can only be described as disgraceful. The Ffos-y-Fran project has degraded the beauty of the hills near Dowlais top leaving a black mark not only on the hills but ...
My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News. You may recognise it as a distillation of an earlier effort at live blogging PMQs. Brown conversion Useless. However much you fiddle with it, it just doesn't work. It might as well not be there at all. Not this government, but my central heating last week. Which is why I found myself at home last Wednesday, waiting for the repair man to call. At least it gave me the chance to watch prime minister's questions on televison. David Cameron was sharp. He referred to evidence given to the Chilcot Inquiry that ...
This blog has occasionally crossed the path of Martin Brookes from Oakham over important matters like the town's station cat. Martin tells me will be elected as a town councillor for Oakham North West next week as he is the only candidate nominated to fill a vacancy. Congratulations!
Writing on the Jewish Chronicle website, Martin Bright reports: Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has sacked controversial peer Jenny Tonge as the party's health spokesperson in the Lords over her demands for an investigation into allegations of body parts harvesting by the Israeli Defence force in Haiti. Her remarks followed an article making the accusations in the online journal Palestine Telegraph, of which Baroness Tonge is a patron. I cannot find the article on the Palestine Telegraph website, but I presume it relates to this clip on Youtube. Surely the corneas have been sent to Haiti, not harvested there? Bright ...
Still evaluating where the agitators efforts have assisted the Party's media's exposure. We DO now have the Party mentioned on most bulletins. We are still stereotyped and pigeon-holed on issues that are chosen to cover. There are still holes in policy exposure. More on that in a later posting.
My friend Stephen Tall, published the following story earlier this week on his blog about the uselessness of Tory policies in general and their ...
Stumbling about on YouTube, as you do, I found this wonderful colour clip from the 1955 British film "John and Julie". I saw the film on the telly years ago and my main interest in it was the theme music – a wonderful piece by Eddie Calvert - "the man with the golden trumpet". In the clip are dear old Wilfred Hyde-White and a very young Sid James. The film is all about a little girl called Julie who persuades her young friend, John, to take her to London to see the Queen at the Coronation. You can see the ...
@NickThornsby You young bastard! It was 15 years ago for some of us [IMG: :(] in reply to NickThornsby # Join the debate -> RT @libdemvoice The Saturday debate: Let's just admit it – our society actually is broken http://ldv.org.uk/17825 # Fab @nick_clegg quote "I have no idea why David Cameron wants to be PM. Except that he's ambitious, and it's his turn." http://bit.ly/aTvr8m # Lots of great lines from @nick_clegg -> RT @libdemvoice New post: LibLink: The eminently quotable Nick Clegg http://ldv.org.uk/17848 # typical lily-livered liberal compromise [IMG: :)] RT @markpack "May confuse things by making a late push ...
After last week's slow start to the month, February's electoral schedule gathered pace with a total of seven principal council by-elections and a pair of Town Council results reported to ALDC this week. Four of the seven were retained by their incumbent parties, and of the remaining three Labour and the Tories exchanged two, with the final being a Conservative gain at the expense of an Independent. The pick of the results was our successful defence of Aylesbury Central ward of Aylesbury Vale District Council, in the Speaker's constituency of Buckingham. The campaign of Graham Webster polled more than 50% ...
It's Friday. It's five o'clock. Here's a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week: 5 most-read stories on LDV this week 1. What happened to the 19 Conservative MPs who voted to keep MPs' expenses secret? (8) by Mark Pack. 2. +++ Exclusive general election prediction: too close to call (8) by Mark Pack. 3. The 14 non-Lib Dem MPs who backed the Single Transferable Vote (9) by Stephen Tall. 4. FT: Tories face "tough battle" to oust Chris Huhne in Eastleigh (5) by Stephen Tall. 5. How can we sell the Single Transferable Vote to the public? ...
Today the winter Olympics kick off so how about a little look at some of those Olympic sports just not at they would be able to perform in that competition. Of course we need that thing of beauty the BBC ident to kick us all off. First up there is this video of Alexei Yagudin in 2005. I'm sure Wendy Fraser and Caron Lindsay with both appreciate the gratuitous shirt removal half way. So moving on to the pairs and here we have the odd couple in 1993 at the World's gold medalist Kurt Browning and silver medalist Elvis Stojko ...
Just as the General Synod seemed to be talking some sense on the issues of women, gay clergy and science, along comes Revd Mark Oden to spoil things. The curate at St Nicholas Church, Sevenoaks used last Sunday's sermon to call on wives to be quiet and demure, and blamed modern women for the breakdown ...
or, more to the point, my attempt to point out the errors in their piffle. This very day I have had the post about the spending splurge put on LibCon, yet this very day Fraser Nelson and his SpeakYourBranes crew express their typical determination to ignore commonsense.
Ishbel Brown and Claudette Hewitt have joined the local Liberal Democrat team in Oval Ward. They have been working hard with the three of us as local councillors and with Caroline Pidgeon, Parliamentary Campaigner and London Assembly member. They both live locally in Oval Ward - Ishbel in Heyford Avenue and Claudette on the Ashmole Estate, just off Meadow Road. As part of the local Lib Dem team, they have been braving the cold weather and knocking on doors to find out how they can help people and to hear what concerns people have - most recently on the Ashmole ...
Comparing us to Greece is boneheaded
Last week Malcand me were both 100% on the results but he has the edge on points difference. For Ireland v Italy he was 7 points away to my 14, England v Wales 8 to my 10 but for Scotland v France I was only 8 points off, edging his 9. Those are cumulative differences from the actual scores of both teams giving him a 24 to 32 lead. So on with this week. France 20 -24 Ireland Wales 21-10 Scotland Italy 13-34 England Game one is in Paris and may well be seen as the Championship decider. Ireland are ...
The issue was the so-called SWIFT agreement between the EU governments and the USA. (If this sounds dull stay with me for another paragraph or two). Initially made on a 'temporary' basis, it has given the American authorities access to the confidential bank records of millions of European citizens. Allegedly it helps identify transactions that might suggest terrorist sources of funding. But it's outrageously one-sided - the Americans have been able to see our details but not the other way around. Critics of the agreement say that it does not provide proper protection for personal privacy, has done nothing in ...
The Budget Report has been approved by the Mayor, I'm reading it and will eventually comment as I digest it. This paragraph caught my attention immediately though: 5.20 The Council owns two properties, Ladywell Playtower and Beckenham Place Park Mansion House and stable block, that appear on the English Heritage 'at risk' register. Neither of the these ...
Two articles by broadsheet columnists on the prospect of a hung parliament bookended this week. In their contrasting ways, both made a convincing pitch for the attractions of neither Labour nor Tories ending up with an overall majority at the next general election. First up is Martin Wolf from the Financial Times, writing today that Britain can love hung parliaments: The bogeyman of a hung parliament is being used to terrify British voters. What is needed, it is argued, is a government with a strong majority, to rescue the UK from the threat of national bankruptcy. This is nonsense. The ...
I have been campaigning in Owlsmoor for 3 weeks now following my selection as a candidate to fight for the borough and town council seats for the Liberal Democrats. I have done plenty of door-knocking and canvassing in the past both in the Bracknell constituency and also more widely in surrounding areas but this is the first time that I have been the candidate too. It has been an enjoyable experience so far. I have been pleasantly surprised at how many people are willing to talk to me about issues. Although I have tried to make sure they understand that ...
I have been campaigning in Owlsmoor for 3 weeks now following my selection as a candidate to fight for the borough and town council seats for the Liberal Democrats I have done plenty of door-knocking and canvassing in the past both in the Bracknell constituency and also more widely in surrounding areas but this is the first time that I have been the candidate too. It has been an enjoyable experience so far. I have been pleasantly surprised at how many people are willing to talk to me about issues. Although I have tried to make sure they understand that ...
The future of local community grants is in doubt again after Conservative Cabinet Member Jim Currie told a members' briefing that the community chest pot would rely on being able to make savings in grants to other groups. That statement caused a certain amount of panic in officer circles and Cllr Currie had to scuttle from the room to check his facts. When he returned it was to say that grants were in the budget after all, but that the money to fund them had yet to be found. The community chest grants are still therefore in doubt although I ...
Whilst Iain Dale has been concentrating on the alleged breakdown of the relationship between the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, John Denham, and his Permanent Secretary, I'm rather more exercised by an excerpt of the letter from Peter Housden to John Denham, in which he writes; "However, you currently share the Boundary Committee's view that a single unitary Suffolk meets all the criteria, and if you were to implement it, over the same period (to 2014/15) there would be estimated net savings of some £26m, involving transitional costs of £42m and gross savings of £68m; annual on-going ...
At first, it may seem unsurprising that the head of MI5, Director General Jonathan Evans, has vehemently defended the actions of his organisation. That he has taken to writing a column in a national newspaper is unusual, but terms in which he has defended MI5 are of the greatest long-term significance. That is because he has firmly put MI5 in public on the (small l) liberal side of the debate over how to deal with terrorism: Both the Government and the Opposition in the House of Commons on Wednesday underlined how important it is that Britain lives up to its ...
David Cameron has laid out where he sees the relationship with Scotland going while speaking in Perth for the Scottish Conservative conference. According to the BBC he will say: "We must repair the relationship between the British government and the Scottish government," he will say. "It's a disgrace that during one of the worst economic crises in our modern history, when the foundations of the Scottish economy were rocked, Gordon Brown didn't meet Alex Salmond for almost a year. "And it's shameful that during one of the most emotionally-charged moments in our recent history, when the Lockerbie bomber was released ...
There will be more photographs of Gordon Brown in Liberal Democrat election leaflets than in Labour election leaflets.
Over my first term in Parliament I've been nominated for many awards: Woman Politician of the year, Chanel 4 Rising Star, Stonewall's Politician of the Year, numerous blog and website awards - and in all cases have failed to top the poll! Always the bridesmaid - never the bride. Until now! And which accolade finally comes my way - Sky's most fanciable MP! Thank you Sky - you've made an old woman very happy!
I mentioned that we had used the high speed train to Ashford from St Pancras International, and very impressive it is too. The first impressions are not good though. The service is operated by Southeastern, and because it is fairly recent, signposting is not great. Indeed, on arrival, I headed instinctively for the East Midlands Trains platforms, signposted 'National Rail services', only to discover at the top of the escalator that there was now a sign for Southeastern pointing me back down. So, if you're looking for the Southeastern services, head to platforms 11-13. To find them, head along the ...
Friday: Writing in this morning's Tell-lie-graph, we hear from Mr Jonathan "good" 'Eavens, the head of MFI, the British Self-Assembly Security Service, who says: "We did not practise mistreatment or torture then and do not do so now, nor do we collude in torture or encourage others to torture on our behalf." Perhaps not. But we DID try to COVER IT UP. It's, surely, UNDENIABLE that the Government DID go to Court to try to prevent the publication of the secret US documents which reveal that the treatment of British resident Mr Binyam Mohamed had been "CRUEL, INHUMAN and DEGRADING". ...
Last night's adventure took me to St Pancras International for the journey to Ashford, Kent, using the new high speed service introduced last December. On arrival in Ashford, we were met by Chris Took, our enthusiastic yet realistic PPC for the constituency, and several inches of snow. Despite the almost total absence of white stuff in London, East Kent had been hit hard, with train delays, treacherous road conditions, and pavements like sheet ice. Luckily, it wasn't far to the venue, so we were quickly warmed up and ready to meet local members for dinner. Ashford is not exactly fertile ...
The new Commission was voted into office by MEPs on Tuesday. They will serve until October 2014 as the leaders of Europe's executive body. Liberals have 8 out of the 27 portfolios, a very strong share for us. Tory disarray grows in Brussels : now Tory councillors also isolated Last year, Cameron pulled his MEPs out of the big centre-right alliance in the European Parliament - a stupid move which damages Britain's ability to win votes. Now Cameron has made matters worse - by forcing his Tory councillors to pull out of their alliance in the Committee of the Regions ...
Ah, the question the media loves, and Lib Dems hate: just who would the party back if there were a hung parliament? Now we've asked this question before in an attempt to get the media to understand the position of Lib Dem members (despite the wilful attempts of BBC2's The Daily Politics to mislead viewers with flawed polls). But we're going to try it again to see if this time the media will listen to what LDV's sample of Lib Dem members actually think about what the party should do in the event of a hung parliament. Some 200 members ...
Devon and Cornwall Police have announced that they will cut officer numbers by 5% over the next three years - 180 officers in total. In addition they will be cutting 100 back office staff and will be raising their element of the Council tax by about 5% every year - about double the current rate of inflation. Most of our area has a very low level of crime. That's not to say that individual events are not shocking and deeply affecting for individuals and communities, but we do not have the same problems as many cities. Whilst a 5% cut ...
Fri 12th
11:28
More Articles about the proposed closure of Accident and Emergency services at King Georges Hospital
Latest article from the Ilford Recorder increasing the pressure to keep King Georges Hospital.
I'm worried that we're not feisty enough. I'm worried that we are still not psychologically allowing ourselves to knock `em dead with killer arguments. We need to be using much more audacious and starker language against the other two parties. In places where we are fighting Tories the message should surely be `Only the Lib Dems will ...
Cornwall Council's Chief Executive today gave councillors a review of the first year of the new authority - albeit after 8 months rather than the full year. Overall, I thought the presentation he gave was a fair one. He explained where the council had been judged to be failing - on adult care, children's safeguarding, fire and rescue and housing - and explained what the Council had done to address the problems. On all except housing, he said the Council had taken the judgement on the chin and vowed to improve. On housing, he compared Cornwall with a London council ...
As a family we used to love this show – particularly these opening credits (below). It ran in the late sixties. Buddy Ebsen was brilliant in the series. The theme song was "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" written by country music gods Flatt and Scruggs. Jerry Scoggins did the vocals for the show. Many versions of the song/tune are available on Spotify. And on YouTube everybody wants to get in on the act. But noone ever did it finer than old Scoggins...
You'll remember last week Bignews Margate covered Cllr. Paul Carters rather passionate condemnation of a reporter er reporting on council business or how taxpayers money gets redistributed to deserving officers like Chief Executive Peter Gilroy. I'm not sure why but it seems that his blog posting on the subject has now disappeared from KCC's website, perhaps Camerons boy's are smoothing things out before the election. Anyway my posting still exists as does KM ONLINE's report but the link to Paul Carters blog is dead.
Labour will announce their candidate for Wansbeck constituency in Northumberland on Monday where they are defending a majority of 10,000. Favourite to win the nomination is National Union of Miners boss Ian Lavery. Given Mr Lavery's background, the Blairites must be turning, indeed spinning, in their graves. Mr Lavery, it turns out, has convictions for football hooliganism, according to the Mail
Now that one of my favourite drivers of all time, Rubens Barrichello has gone to Williams F1, I'm going to have to at least try to learn to love the team against which I have some deeply held mainly DC and Damon Hill related grudges. I'm not a fan of Frank Williams' attitude towards his drivers - ironically when Rubens had his wee moment in Germany last season, Frank was on the Red Button Forum saying he'd have sacked him. Anyway, I have to take this project seriously. One of the things I'm planning to do is read Maurice Hamilton's ...
"In some cases [repossession] is the best thing for the people who are struggling with these mortgages." This from John Healey the Labour Housing Minister in response to eviction figures being at their highest in 14 years, 46,000 householders lost their homes last year. His subsidied London flat he sold last year for £88,000 profit. He added: "Sometimes it is impossible for people to maintain the mortgage commitments they've got... it may be the best thing in those circumstances." Best response of the day "These comments are grossly insensitive to families booted out of their home. If this is John ...
We've covered before the campaign by Jo Swinson and others to change the antiquated Parliamentary rules which ban MPs (and in theory other people too) from placing footage from Parliament on YouTube. Here's the latest from Jo Swinson about the campaign (via an update sent to fans of the campaign on Facebook): In my last update I announced that the House of Commons authorities are now allowing MPs to post clips of Parliament on YouTube, however they are still not allowing members of the public to share the clips on their own websites. As you may have seen, the BBC ...
[IMG: ban-on-vending-machines] At last, a tobacco manufacturer sticks its head over the parapet and says to government enough is enough. Imperial Tobacco has issued a statement stating that its subsidiary will challenge the government plans to ban vending machines. And why not? There are - as stated on this site before - many ways that the children can be prevented from purchasing cigarettes, mostly obviously by ensuring that "tokens" must be issued over the counter to use the machines. Anyone under age will not be sold a token and so be unable to use the machines. (There are other systems, ...
[IMG: Lib Dems launch green jobs pledge] by clicking here to go to the Liberal Democrat website.
No, not the actual blog, given that when Jeff was born, we didn't have the internet. In fact, I don't think we even had video recorders, or home PCs, I seem to remember both coming into our house in around 1982-83. I can't quite remember whether we had a microwave or not. February 1980 was all about this man for me: Anyway, happy birthday to Jeff and hope you enjoy your 30s.
The news that Dermot O'Leary is to host a "First Time Voters' Question Time" for BBC3 is hardly likely to shatter barriers and make the youth motivated to vote... But, nevertheless, it is something. It is important to remember that politics is not supposed to be for the old duffers. True, there are plenty of young ...
This morning's Western Mail contains a familar front page story. Will a reasonably secure Labour seat in the South Wales Valleys have an all-women shortlist imposed on it, alienating half the activists and putting it at risk or will it be allowed to go its own way and choose the candidate it wants? The current MP, Kim Howells is reported to have had a stand-up row with Labour's Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman in a House of Commons dining room on this issue. He denies this incident ever happened. Nevertheless there is no denying his strong view that Pontrypridd should be ...
One of the more dramatic areas of Liberal Democrat advance against Labour in the last few years has been in Ashfield, where Jason Zadrozny is fighting to gain the seat from Labour. His campaign has received a boost with the news that Labour MP Geoff Hoon is standing down at the general election, a decision made so late in the day that it will deprive the new Labour candidate of much time to establish themselves against Jason's record of campaigning over the years. The BBC reports: The Labour MP, who tried to organise a vote on Gordon Brown's leadership last ...
Thanks to the hard work of the Yardley and Hall Green Liberal Democrat teams there is to be a new bus service, No 40, to replace the 41 service which has been withdrawn by National Express. We will provide more details of exactly what the route is at a later stage.A lot of effort has been put into this by your local Liberal Democrat councillors and MP. It has involved attempts by Labour MPs to
Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg today set out a manifesto pledge to create 57,000 jobs by investing £400million upgrading disused shipyards to enable the production of off-shore wind turbines. Nick Clegg launched this latest plank of the Liberal Democrats' economic stimulus and job creation package. The proposals would enable firms to manufacture off-shore wind turbines in the UK, instead of seeing them built abroad due to out-of-date facilities. 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 no turbine manufacturers ...
Inspired by this comment on Brian Taylor's blog but I don't think we'll see this letter on Holyrood headed paper anytime at all. Mr James Devine I refer to my above named constituent and the case brought against his for theft by false accounting. I have been aware of Mr Devine's case since May 2009 when he sought assistance from me after a publication of his shelving requirements was published in the Daily Telegraph. It was clear at the time that he recognised the serious nature of the matter he was facing and that it would be necessary to report ...
The sky is blue, the sun is shining (which means it's baltic, but who cares) and Anna's off school. I am really looking forward to having some fun with her - although unfortunately I feel like hell. It's not been a good week healthwise for me and has been the busiest for a while. Last Friday I helped out at Anna's school's Valentine's Disco. That's enough to completely exhaust the fit and healthy, but it was fun to see the kids enjoying themselves. On Saturday my lovely friend Elspeth came to see me for coffee and chocolate. Sunday saw us ...
The Welsh Liberal Democrat Housing Spokesperson, Peter Black, has today called on the Welsh Assembly Government to follow the example set by the English Government and to support Liberal Democrat policies of providing grants to owners of empty properties so as to bring them back into use. The English Liberal Democrats have recently announced a policy that will see £1 billion invested in grants to put empty properties back into use as affordable homes within the social sector. The Westminster Government has announced that £1 million will be given to 17 councils in Britain to invest in bringing empty properties ...
Viktor Yanukovych won the Ukraine Presidential Election by a margin of just 2.9% (after 98.8% of the votes counted) over Yulia Tymoshenko. Tymoshenko has refused to accept the result and wants to challenge the result in court after claims of widespread fraud.
Ukraine was not on our agenda this week, but the MEPs who observed the presidential elections there believe them to have been free and fair and hope that prime minister Julia Timoshenko, the losing candidate, will accept the result and step down. Many Liberals would prefer the victors of the orange revolution to have been returned to power, but we must accept the verdict of the electorate. Greece was on our agenda and - more importantly - on the agenda of the heads of state and government at yesterday's European Council meeting who may decide to provide guarantees against the ...
As well as the appalling racist cartoon, the Daily Mail has also used their more usual tactic of a screaming, outraged headline to grab readers' attention today. Labour's legacy: Marriage rates plummet to the lowest level since 1862 As Gordon Brown's Labour government faced mounting claims it has failed to support the institution, it emerged that religious ...
After the Today programme's interview with Andrew Lansley this morning, James Naughtie commented,"Rather an interesting interview". Actually it barely kept me awake, but it did illustrate the two worst problems with British politics and British media. The story is how spokesmen of three parties tried and failed to reach concensus on care for the elderly. The politics problem is a classic
Cross-posted from the Mandate blog: [IMG: A pile of magazines] The future for journalism is much debated in the context of declining newspaper sales and the question of whether their online operations can bring in sufficient income, whether by advertising, pay walls or other business models. But the latest ABC figures for magazine circulation shows that there are sectors of printed journalism which are managing to grow, despite the competition from content freely available online. Looking at the total average net circulation figures in the "News & current affairs" category of the ABC figures, the changes year on year are: ...
[IMG: grit bin image] Unbelievably, according to Haringey Council it takes 8 months to buy a grit bin and install it on our streets. As I reported in a previous post, in January I passed on to the Council a pile of requests from local residents for more grit bins on Stroud Green's hilly streets. The Council's website says "suggestions for new sites are welcome". However, I have now got a reply back saying they will decide whether to get the bins in March and then, if they are approved, install them in October. I don't see why such a ...
It is really good to see the Social Liberal Forum become active again. In one day they have posted the best variation on the Tory Tombstone poster, and the best punning title and startoff on Robin Hood tax (here). But for the best dingdong battle on this last topic read LibCon starting here between Luis ...
The swings have been removed at the Gatley Recreation Ground. Unfortunately, it seems they were getting regularly broken - I'm told at least in part by someone using them to train a pit bull (quite how that works, I don't know). Every time the swings get broken, replacing them costs money so, for now, it's been decided to leave them out of action. Hopefully this can be revisited in the spring.
The apparent suicide of fashion designer Alexander MacQueen is a private tragedy. The combination of over work, grief for the recent death of friends and on the eve of the funeral of his mother, the designer seems to- sadly- have decided that he could not go on. The reaction to this private tragedy amongst the fashionistas was so excessive, so narcissistic, so overblown, that I found myself struggling to hold back a profound anger. Even the Today programme on BBC Radio 4- which I can listen to here in Estonia via the Internet- devoted nearly ten minutes of the prime ...
Last night was the long-awaited tenth anniversary celebration of the founding of First Stop, the organisation which cares for the homeless in Darlington. It was also, as Steve Rose said, the first time the three main Parliamentary Candidates for the town had gathered together under one roof. I had a nice chat with Jenny, but sadly Edward dashed away as soon as the formal part of the evening ended
Social media's impact on politics: where to find the big impact http://bit.ly/buW7nn # @jamescrabtree Interesting q. about relatively likelihoods of Lab leadership election vs hung Parliament in reply to jamescrabtree # @RosalynPalmer Thanks for the RT in reply to RosalynPalmer # .@markreckons gets fact checked by Channel 4 - and survives. Well done Mark! http://ow.ly/149vT # Good to see @julianhuppert (Lib Dem candidate for Cambridge) joining Twitter # RT @martinstabe: Aha! A first picture of the London Weekly via @jenniferesque: http://bit.ly/bg8lb4 # How did the media do at reporting opinion polls in January? http://ldv.org.uk/17814 <- All the reports in Jan ...
Conservative Mayor of London Boris Johnson has this week slashed £16million from the capital's police budget. This was despite opposition from the Lib Dem members of the GLA - who put forward costed, alternative budget proposals which avoided cutting police numbers. The effect of Boris Johnson's massive cuts to police funding will be a reduction of 455 police officers. Dee Doocey, the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Policing Spokesperson and member of the Metropolitan Police Authority said about the Mayor's statement that "the asset the police has could be put to better use": ... I entirely agree. However, he has failed ...
Friday already! And only twelve Action Weekends away from the General Election (we're guessing)... 2 Must-Read Blog Posts What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that caught my eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator: Electoral marathon Emma Bagley is pacing (and bracing) herself for the next twelve weeks. Another one bites the dust Andy Crick of Wit and Wisdom changes gear (and blog) for the campaign ahead. Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren't on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all. 2 Big ...
Jonathan Thomas, forward for the Ospreys has now taken down his Twitter profile, I suspect because a load of people are screaming abuse at him for his innocent gay banter. As an out gay man, I do say there has to be a line between banter and abuse. It is okay for people to jump on someone for making a comment as Jonathan did but if you read it in the context of the group being friends including Nigel Owens himself, who was the butt of the joke, excuse the pun then it is just that, banter amongst friends. Jonathan ...
When I was a student we still only had the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System. But being the great fan of Sci-fi that I was my dissertation looked to the future and a European currency, I pointed out that the real test for such unity wouldn't come in the good times but would come in the bad, then I said it would depend how Germany, France, Italy and the UK (yeah I was an optimist) reacted when times were tough and part of the zone needed help. Well it may be almost twenty years later but such ...
It's rare for Presidents in the democratic world to have a film made out of a book about them while they are still in office: the genre smacks more of North Korea. Yet in cinemas around Brazil, the film 'Lula: O Filho do Brasil' (Lula: Brazil's Son) is playing. Not to packed audiences, I have ...
Here in Redlands we work hard to keep in touch with our constituents, residents and supporters all year round. In recent years we have been using Facebook, Twitter and blogs to supplement our traditional output of Focus leaflets and streetletters to campaign on a range of local issues. I've been shortlisted for two awards for my use of social media over the past year. On the back of this I was interviewed by the people behind TweetyHall, a website which connects tweeting councillors with the public last week. Check out the video here
Amidst all this discussion of a "Robin Hood Tax" it occurred to me that collectively we seem to have seemed to have forgotten the story of Robin Hood. Robin Hood famously "stole from the rich and gave to the poor". But before socialists claim him I'd just like to point out one little detail. The poor were poor because of hugely punitive taxes. They were imposed by Prince John to fund the statesman's extravagant lifestyle. A factor in turn augmented by an already heightened level of taxation due to his brother's (King Richard's) costly middle eastern conflict (the Crusades). You ...
Today is Red Hand Day, which seeks to draw attention to the fates of child soldiers, children who are forced to serve as soldiers in wars and armed conflicts. The aim is to call for action against this vile practice, and to support children who suffer ...
Have you seen it all before or do new things develop by revolution or evolution? I was on a course recently and part of the agenda was about managing change. I also managed to get to the theatre and see a Chekhov play. This is a play set in pre-television days and two of the characters had a debate. How often do you see that nowadays? The debate was about change and one argument went along the lines that nothing changes. Just watch the birds fly south. They do this every year. There are definitely climatic cycles and similar human ...
