The Tories have been all macho on cutting back the deficit as fast as possible. But in the last week they've pledged to: Not implement the planned NI rise Give £1 billion to Equitable Life claimants Give out life-saving cancer drugs estimated at £1 billion (Planning to) give £1295 a year tax relief for some married couples That's as well as making "faster, deeper cuts" to public spending than Labour while ring-fencing the NHS and International development spending. Wow! How are they going to do all this? They haven't even got J.K.Rowling or Daniel Radcliffe to help them do it. ...
Only two months ago Sir Michael Scholar warned Chris Grayling MP that the way he used the figures for violent crime were "likely to mislead the public". Well, now Chris Grayling is embroiled in a homophobic row. Last month a gay couple were turned away from a B&B run by a Christian couple as reported in the Guardian, well now Conservative MP Chris Grayling has defended this and is in fact urging other B& B owners to do exactly the same, but not hotel owners! From today's Observer; The row will alarm David Cameron as he prepares for a general ...
Have you recently moved in the area? Never voted before? Not registered to vote? It's not too late to register for your vote in the general and local elections on May 6th. Simply click here and you will be taken to the excellent About My Vote website. It takes a just a few seconds to enter your details, then you can print out the form to send to Salford City Council. Don't let Labour sneak back in. Vote for a fairer Britain and a fairer Langworthy. Let's change things for the better. Vote Liberal Democrat. [IMG: Share/Bookmark]
I called at the green area where we had planted a tree and bulbs in memory of an old friend, helper, and good community person, Bill. He had bought the bulbs in the months before he died, and we planted them on the very first day of the bad winter, a week before Christmas. The snow and hail started as we were finishing, How lovely today to see the crocus coming through, the tree beginning to...
It is rare indeed that anyone, least of all of an enlightened liberal mindset, can rejoice at the violent death of another; but in this case I'll make an exception. Rot in hell, Terre'blanche. Elsewhere - there appears to have been no news, because half my flist have been watching children's programmes on tv. Bless 'em. And congratulations to Jacob Quagliozzi of St Albans, whom it appears is to advertising what Max Gogarty is to journalism. This fiasco just proves how risible Labour high command are at trying to connect with the Great British Public without resorting to knee-jerk populism; ...
The ISP Talk Talk (over whose connection I'm writing this) has made an extremely good point about the Digital Economy Bill, which is set to be debated extremely briefly in the House of Commons during the week: Clause 14 of the bill demands that customers take "reasonable steps" to prevent their network from being used by hackers for illicit purposes. TalkTalk claims that that would "presumably" be interpreted as a demand for the latest security measures, and calculates that such expense would, spread throughout just half the current number of houses connected to broadband, necessitate approximately £300 million in upgrade ...
Last November top Tory blogger Tim Montgomerie, of ConservativeHome fame said: "The Cameron effect has not reached Scotland like it has in Wales or the north of England. If the progress in Scotland is as limited as it looks like it might be, we should revisit the idea of creating a Scottish party with its own identity. It would help them break free from the Thatcher years." You can read the story here. Well, now David Cameron has admitted himself that the Conservatives will not do well in Scotland. He told a caller during a radio show call in that ...
I thought I would take a quick break from politics and talk about comedy. I was asked recently what comics I liked. As I rattled off the list, I realised that the people that make me laugh the most are ones who either make quips or are rather silly. Some even do both. So, here is the list. It is in no particular order. The Marx Brothers Monty Python Lucille Ball Woody Allen (the early years) Steve Martin Phil Silvers Garry Shandling Tina Fey Richard Pryor (although he was never that silly, he did quip and was a superb comic ...
A few days ago, Jock Coats informed his readers that he was considering resigning from the Liberal Democrats. Alix Mortimer set out the reasons why he shouldn't. This got me thinking about when someone should resign from a political party. For Jock it was over an issue that reflects the values of the party. Some people will resign over an issue, like if the party you are a member of supports a war that you don't, while others will vote if they feel the party no longer reflects the values they believe in. The two things aren't, of course, mutually ...
OK then: a. Excellent snappy dialogue. Just the sort of drama the BBC should do - where its resources allow people the space to polish the dialogue rather than muddle through with second-rate scripts. b. Loved the way the camera work and music was adapted to suit the style of the new Doctor. Very clever piece of TV making, integrating all the different skills. c. Ironic really that for all the talk about how modern the new Doctor Who is for its attitude towards gay relationships, it's still got the "let's stick a woman in skimpy clothes to please the ...
The Observer is reporting that Chris Grayling has told bed and breakfast owners that are totally within their rights to turn away same sex couples from their establishments. This really is turning the Tories back to the bad old days of the 80s. Also contravening the equality laws that Labour have brought in over the last 13 years. What next? Will they stop our schools protecting gay pupils from homophobic bullying? If they want to. Will they allow employers to sack people purely on the basis of their sexual orientation? If they want to. What happened to the Conservative party ...
Writing on Freedom Central, Kirsty Williams reports that the Welsh Liberal Democrats are raring to go. She doesn't mean they are keen to leave Wales: she means they are ready to fight the general election. Mark Reckons praises Nigel Farage for distancing himself from the cross-party consensus on drugs by being prepared to consider decriminalisation. The British deported the Chagossians so that it could give their home to the Americans to use as a military base. Now Another Green World is reporting that it is obstructing their return by declaring the islands a conservation reserve. "Environmentalism is the latest manifestation ...
Election Day -37 Went to the James Lovelock talk at the Queen Elizabeth Hall – as is well documented elsewhere, a lot of confusion afterwards. The message seemed to be – it's too late, but you should still do what you can. So I'll keep doing the recycling and walking/oystering whenever I can – at least ...
Labour has released a new poster attacking David Cameron. It shows him as Gene Hunt from Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, with the slogan "Don't let him take Britain back to the 1980s." But you can see that for yourself It is a very bad poster for two reasons. The first is that David Cameron is nothing like Gene Hunt. These sort of parallels work only if the two figures have something in common and you are drawing attention to that quality. If a politician is a bit of a spiv, then likening him to Arthur Daley is ...
I don't write very often on this blog. That's not because I'm not politically active, engaged with the issues at hand and all the rest of it. It's because I'm chronically idle. And being idle often seems to be the characteristic of the lowest common denominator of us "youth" block that the journalists throw us ...
This is a terrible experience. I have missed the first edition of the new Dr Who so that I can be in the office printing Focus leaflets. And they weren't even for my ward! Plus, there was a queue to use the machine when I got here. Fortunately David has recorded Dr Who so when I get back home, I will have an evening of sci-fi bliss.---Sent via BlackBerry
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 Nineteenth episode which we recorded on Tuesday 30th March 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 political bloggers on each week to discuss a few of the stories that are making waves in the blogosphere. This week we were joined ...
Sat 3rd
19:24
Madelson: Brown may not serve full term as PM - even if he wins. Do Labour want people to half-vote ...
What is Mandelson up to? This seems a totally unnecessary thing to say. A distraction. The only rationale behind this floating of a Brown non-full term is that Labour are reacting to the Tory taunt of "Do you want five more years of Brown?" by saying "Well, you might only get two years of him" (or whatever). This is a big mistake by Labour. You can't half-offer yourself to the electorate. Either you offer a full-on Prime Minister or not. Unless of course you want people to half-vote Labour? From The Times: When asked if Mr Brown might stand down ...
S's story: My story re the Whittington is that last year my two year old granddaughter started limping and it is was discovered that she had an infection in the bone in her leg. The diagnosis took a week to sort out and during that time she had to stay in the hospital and be sedated three times to have scans to try and work out what was wrong. the staff were fantastic and if she had not received the care and attention that she did she could have lost her leg. She had to be treated with intravenous antibiotics ...
My House Points column from the current Liberal Democrat News. I liveblogged the debate while I was there. Tough at the top They have fierce security at television studios these days. It's not just hard to get in: I saw Lord Bragg having trouble getting a turnstile to allow him and his swipe card to leave the building. Still, he is a Labour peer and no doubt it was all for security or health and safety, so welcome to the world you made, Melv. I was there in the green room to report Channel 4's Ask the Chancellors on my ...
Howard's cartoon from this week's Liberal Democrat News. I give my own account of the event in the same issue.
In what will possibly be the biggest advertising own goal of the election Labour has decided to mock up David Cameron as....Gene Hunt. Now I know the message is meant to be don't drag Britain backwards but....well...I mean to compare Cameron to one of TVs cult hero's of the past 5 years is, to say the least, odd. Or in the words of the great gene genie.....You say that as if its a bad thing. Of course if you are sick of red blue-blue red politics from the 80's, 90's & 00-'s you can always vote for real change with ...
We have reported more pot holes in Wansdyke Road and Barrow Road
Last week's Daily Telegraph article attacking YouGov's polling raises some disturbing issues about the quality of political debate as we fast approach the general election. Firstly, the article's authors seem to have no understanding about how polls should be conducted. They complain that the raw data in one large aggregated survey "were...'weighted' using an undisclosed YouGov formula which reduced the lead to sex per cent [from 12 percentage points in the raw data]." But all reputable pollsters know that their sample will not usually be representative of the population, for example by having too few women or too many Guardian ...
What with the new series starting IN LESS THAN AN HOUR I thought I should write something Doctor Who themed today. Bit stream of consciousness this list: First new TV story I saw: possibly Time and the Rani (I think can remember the giant brain) but if not then certainly something from season 25 First novelisation I read: The Daemons First VHS I saw: probably Death to the Daleks (with Pyramids of Mars and Spearhead from Space around the same time) First new TV story I saw as a self-defined fan: Dimensions in Time. Ho hum. First novelisation I read: ...
Sat 3rd
17:17
Nice to be out and about without having to wear my winter coat. Very positive responses
Nice to be out and about without having to wear my winter coat. Very positive responses
Birkdale Focus has reported earlier the forced de-selection of Eric Storey by the Sefton Tory leadership despite the unanimous vote of his local party. This is the latest in a long line of Tory 'cock ups' since the leadership of Porter-Parry took over. One former Tory Leader got so brassed off with the infighting that he joined the Labour Party, the constituency chair was removed by London, the Southport Tory PPC's chief cheer leader published a book slagging off leading Tories including former leader Sir Ron Watson, Tom Glover, another former leader, has been suspended and now Eric having been ...
A couple of updates : * Following my raising residents' complaints about the potholed road surface in Perth Road at the Hazel Avenue junction, I have received the following feedback from the City Council : "The potholes you reported have been checked and an order for the repair of a number of potholes in the area has been raised. The timescale for repair is approximately one week." * I also raised a resident's complaint about a trip hazard on the road at the junction of Glamis Terrace and Glamis Road and have had the following response from the council's City ...
Yesterday, Pollwatch looked at the state of the parties in March; today it's the turn of the party leaders. As with all polls, what follows comes with caveats. Only three polling companies - YouGov, Angus RS and Mori - this past month asked questions specifically to find out the public's views of the three main party leaders. And each asks variants on the basic question - do you think Clegg/Brown/Cameron are doing a good job - to come up with their figures, so comparison ain't easy. But, still, we don't indulge in polls often, so here goes ... Here, in ...
Some weeks ago, I reported that the works to improve the south footway of Elliot Road had commenced. These are now completed and a considerable improvement on the old footways. Above : The new pavement on the south side. Above : The old north footway (damaged by tree roots) has been removed to protect the trees.
So how do you stop yourself dying of scurvy during an election campaign? Well 'Graze' boxes are the way I am! They deliver a box of goodies to your office or wherever else and they taste lovely! If you're going to get one it would be great if you could use my code: Q31JCQB . And you get your first box free.
I listened to this week's Any Questions on Radio 4 earlier today and the question of the resignation of Eric Carlin from the ACMD (that I blogged about yesterday) came up. Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage made a brave and very sensible contribution where he said that current policy is clearly not working, advocated a Royal Commission on drugs and said that all options including potential decriminalisation should be on the table. All the other panelists (Peter Hain, Nick Herbert and Susan Kramer) dismissed the idea that decriminalisation should be considered. I was particularly disgusted with Hain's response. He said ...
Ian Swales campaign to win Redcar constituency at the General Election was boosted by a visit from Baroness Ros Scott, President of the Liberal Democrats. Ros, who was accompanied by fellow blogger, Mark Valladares Liberal Bureaucracy, met up with campaigners in the 9'0 Club in West Dyke Road, Redcar, before visiting Redcar town centre and helping to collect signatures in support of our campaign for a proper pier. She congratulated Redcar Lib Dems for their "outstanding" series of by-election victories over the past twelve months and spoke of the party's hopes for success at the General Election. Former Newcomen Ward ...
The website Outside Edges is absolutely right in suggesting that anything I should say or think about the Pope's previous lack of action to deal with child abusers in the Catholic Church will have no impact whatsoever on future church policy. However that does not prevent me noting that the Catholic Church continues to do itself no favours on this issue. Indeed, it seems that the Vatican has little or no idea of the level of public outrage this affair has generated nor the extent to which they themselves are caught up in the controversy. A further sign of this ...
... because I won't be able to watch Doctor Who and I want to give the new boy a fairt chance without being coloured by other people's views. Just so you all knowv ;)
Without tempting fate too much, I have noticed recently it has become more and more like spring, and a longtime coming.Travelling through Epping Forest every morning to get to work, the trees have remain bare and the late flowering of many daffodils. And with reports on the news this week reporting further snow fall a lot of people are wondering whether winter is truly over.But waking up this
With our intelligence and enterpreneurship we create micro-chips and send crafts into space, but the creation of jobs for the disadvantaged seems out of reach. The rich countries in the world still have a huge pool of unemployment and poverty at the bottom of society. A close analysis gives the insight that we actually create unemployment and poverty ourselves. The following table gives the legal minimum wage in the US (dollars), in the UK (pounds) and in Holland (euros) as key examples for the rich world. The table is best understood from the principle of "don't tax sweat". That is, ...
Let's make 2010 a truly historic year.
The current Conservative group on Kingston Council consists of 2 women and 19 men. Now you might have thought they would be trying to redress that imbalance in the future. But a Conservative leaflet that has gone out across the borough gives photos of all their candidates for the local elections on May 6th. Out of 48 candidates, only 12 are female. And some of these are standing in unwinnable wards. Of course, the actual outcome lies in the hands of the voters, but my prediction is that however many seats they gain overall, the next Conservative group will have, ...
Writing my last blog post reminded me of the bar chart we have carried on our last 3 or 4 Focus leaflets that have been delivered across the Langworthy ward during the last few months. Here's whats printed on the top right hand corner of each one: As you can see, Langworthy Lib Dem councillor Lynn Drake won an impressive victory at our last local elections, proving that if you live locally you're more likely to care about our area. Both Lynn and I live in the heart of the ward, unlike Labour's man who couldn't care less about Langworthy. ...
Preparations for the General Election in Wales are really hotting-up. This week we had a visit from Nick Clegg to a nursery school in Newport. There we saw firsthand the excellent work that nursery teachers are doing to make sure that our children get the best start in life. Our candidates are in place and are raring to go. We are fighting our strongest campaigns yet across a whole range of seats, and it is a pleasure to see the activists picking up leaflets, stuffing envelopes and preparing canvassing packs in campaign offices all across Wales. I think the excitement ...
It's been strange this past week being away from all means of electronic communication in some of the more obscure parts of Eritrea, researching some lectures and looking at how a country whose population is split more or less 50:50 between Christians and Muslims — spread amongst numerous tribes — manages its own brand of ...
Charlie Whelan's recent interview with Left Foot Forward confirmed what's been widely reported elsewhere, namely that Unite are running a phone canvassing operation where they are asking their members how they are intending to vote: We've talked to tens of thousands, almost hundreds of thousands of people in the last couple of years and there are a proportion of Unite members who are Tories. But the current telephone canvassing we've been doing of Unite members shows that it's only 8.5%. I expected it to be higher than that. However, if you are asking people their voting intentions and then recording ...
In February 2008, it was announced that the daily Welsh-language newspaper, Y Byd, part of the all-Wales Agreement, had been abandoned. The project's backers, Dyddiol Cyf, blamed "insufficient" Government support (no more than £200,000). An independent review commissioned by the Welsh Language Board for the Assembly Government had concluded Y Byd would need £600,000 a year and substantial public sector advertising to remain afloat. [Wales Online, 2008-02-16] This week, Jenny Randerson revealed that the annual cost of running "Ieuan Air" topped £1m - a £900,000 subsidy to Highland Airways (now in administration) plus a large part of the £400,000 needed ...
I don't normally read the Guardian (or often frequent it's website), but I happened across this article today, which was published yesterday on the Guardian's website. It seems that following Vince Cable's superb performance on the "Ask the Chancellor" Channel 4 debate, Liberal Democrat support is up at the cost of Tory and Labour support. This does not surprise me. Most Labour and Tory supporters agree that Vince Cable would make a far better chancellor than Osbourne and, clearly, anybody could do a better job than Darling (going off his Channel 4 performance, alone.) We Liberal Democrats are fans of ...
Labservatives is a great new media campaign launched by the Lib Dems. It chimes with the overwhelming feeling in this country at the moment - nothing ever changes. The Lib Dems are trying to grab the change label and from what I'm hearing on the doorsteps of Leeds, it's working. People just don't trust the tories and they're fed up with Labour. They're looking to the Lib Dems to provide something new. It's great to see the Lib Dems taking new media advertising seriously and spending a bit of money on it too. I really hope this campaign takes off ...
[IMG: Labservatives] For 65 years the government of our country has been handed from Labour to the Conservatives and back again like a game of pass the parcel. Red-blue, blue-red politics - and look what it has got us: corrupt politics, recession, inequality, time and again. They just take turns at making the same mistakes. It has to end. The old politics is not good enough any more. It is time for something different. If you want real change, you have to vote for a party that is different. All you will get from the old parties is more of ...
Extract from a leaked BNP email bulletin: For several months the party's internal security team has been running an extensive and long-running investigation. This was initially tasked to investigate: Alleged financial irregularities and 'scamming' concerning the procurement of print, especially large election print run, leaflets and regular publications including Identity magazine. The leaking onto the internet of sensitive party information. The ongoing, co-ordinated and sustained hate campaign, feeding lies to certain anti-BNP blog sites. More recently, its focus has moved on to the catalogue of recurring and seemingly inexplicable 'gaffes' being made at various stages in our preparations for the ...
A few blog posts ago I wrote the television programme I watched about called the 'People's Politician'. I commented that politicians who are not used to be campaigning all year round were hard to convince to change their practice.There was also another part to programme where retiring MPs had their chance to blame everyone apart from themselves for their failures. Once such MP was Mark Oaten,
There's another drop-in session at Gorton Market today. 12 noon in the seating area, do come along, all welcome.
Welcome to this latest LDVideo instalment, and today as a special holiday treat we're highlighting three political video clips showing Lib Dem leaders on top form at Prime Minister's Questions. First up, is Ming Campbell. Now Ming didn't always have the happiest time at PMQs, but there were times when he hit his stride perfectly, and this was one such occasion, on 24th January 2007, when shaming Tony Blair's failure to debate in the Commons whether troops should be withdrawn from Iraq: (Also available on YouTube here). Secondly, how could we forget Vince Cable's starring turn as acting leader? Certainly ...
On Thursday Baroness Ros Scott, President of the Lib Dems, was out canvassing with a decent sized team in Leeds North West. Ros is really great and her committment to the party is amazing at the moment. She'd already been to 4 other target constituencies by the time she joined us. I suppose things were far easier when the Liberals only had 6 MPs!
The day before Easter Sunday last year I was in a bit of a frenzy of excitement. There was Dr Who, sunshine and family and David Tennant and Catherine Tate on the radio. This year not much has changed - no David and Catherine but we have the new Doctor Who series starting this evening and there's a Grand Prix as well to throw into the mix. Malaysia is usually an exciting race because Bernie Ecclestone, in his wisdom, has timed both qualifying and the race for the time of day when you can rely on cloudbursts at the Sepang ...
This from the website of UKIP's Yorkshire MEP, Godfrey Bloom: "Foreign MEPs, i.e. the vast majority, like the EU Commissioners, over half of whom are communists..." Note to ALL 13 UKIP MEPs, there are 736 Members of the European Parliament, of whom 72 represent the UK. 736-72 = 654 Therefore, the vast majority of MEPs (representing the other 26 countries of the EU) are by definition going to be "foreign". As yet, there's no crime in being "foreign". It puts me in mind of that wonderful Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch where a police constable is reproved for repeatedly ...
"We all know how the SNP Government picks endless fights with London - it's all the party exists for." So says Richard Thomson the SNP PPC for Gordon, if that is all the party exists for then they really are not a political party but a prize boxer. I entered politics to make a positive change for the people around me. I entered politics to bring fairness to all. I believe in proportional voting systems which means that you cannot fight all the time but you would most often have to work together with others to achieve your goals. The ...
[IMG: Google logos etc.] Google (and advertisers who use Google) can target adverts at you based on what content you've looked at online. It's done via a cookie - a small file placed on your computer - that then lets Google record the sorts of sites you visit. Google has various privacy and security rules in place (e.g. it records the category of site, such as local news, rather than the specific site) but even so some people find this degree of tracking creepy. Even if you don't find it creepy - and indeed may welcome anything that makes the ...
So, for me, the campaign is underway. And despite the less than entirely cooperative weather, cold, wet and windy, it's gone well so far. I beat Ros to Harrogate by about fifty minutes, and used the time profitably, buying a couple of sweaters in Gap (mid-season sale, got a bargain) and then found the suit I need for a wedding later this month. But there was work to do, and once Ros arrived, we were taken to the campaign HQ by Claire Kelley, our PPC who hopes to succeed Phil Willis. We met with some of the local members and ...
Every election, websites like Vote Match spring up. They're a fun way to try to make the election more interesting for those of us who spend most of our time on the web. But for a lot of the people who try them, they don't like the results. Mine appears on the right... The problem with ...
The clock I look after for future generations is coming home today, all mended and striking the hour and everything. How nice! It belonged to my father who inherited it from his father. I think it was in turn from his parents, possibly. The Keighley man who has mended it keeps a very low profile with most of his work being for museums, but he thought my clock worthy of his handiwork. [IMG: Waiting for Easter]
Labour have launched a new poster campaign to commemorate the return of the popular BBC series, Ashes to Ashes in which they depict David Cameron as politically-incorrect copper Gene Hunt, perched on top of the famous Quattro. Labour party officials say that they hope it will remind young voters of the Tory record in the 1980s when youth unemployment hit record heights. However, the unanimous view of all those who I have seen comment on the poster is that it is a massive own goal. The problem is that the message contradicts the image. If they wanted to portray the ...
Tribune is reporting speculation that a dozen more Labour MPs may stand down at the general election. The newspaper says: The party's ruling National Executive Committee has decided to attempt where possible to avoid having to directly impose candidates after announcement of the election. But there are doubts over how much involvement there will be for constituency parties whose MP leaves it very late to reveal their intentions.Which will be very convenient for Gordon Brown and his close circle. This sort of thing happens before every election, but there are already record numbers of MPs standing down.
The Voice is only a success because of the interest and support from our readers. For many people just lurking and reading the site is all they want to do – and that's fine, we're grateful for people taking the time to read the site. You can though help us continue to produce interesting content for a growing audience. Here are three simple ways: 1. Let us have your tips for stories. Perhaps there's something outrageous going on in your local council? Or you're an expert in a particular area and have spotted a story other people have missed? Or ...
A fascinating entry in Wikipedia: On October 10, 1933, a Boeing 247 propliner operated by United Air Lines and registered as NC13304, crashed near Chesterton, Indiana. The transcontinental flight, carrying three crew and four passengers, had originated in Newark, New Jersey, with its final destination in Oakland, California. It had already landed in Cleveland and was headed to its next stop in Chicago, but exploded en route. All aboard died in the crash, which was proven to have been deliberately caused by an on-board explosive device. ... Investigators who combed through the debris were confronted with unusual evidence: The toilet ...
[IMG: The Old Rugged Cross] [IMG: Creative Commons License] photo credit: abcdz2000 Once again I have given up alcohol for Lent. There's been a happy coincidence this year, as my abstinence happened at the same time as the need to let a rather delicate tummy calm down a bit. So, I now find myself, as I have done in previous years (and then forgotten the answer) googling "When does Lent end?"...the words "Drink!" not being far from my mind. The consensus is today, Easter Saturday, although it varies by denomination. Another question occurred to me: When is it OK to ...
That was the subject of a piece on Radio 4's World at One which included a clip from an interview with, er..., me. Rory Cellan-Jones rounded up a good batch of pieces from across the political spectrum all on the theme of how parties are looking to get people talking to other people as part of their campaigning - "peer to peer politics". This sort of campaigning is not new, but the novelty this time comes from using social media to encourage and organise more of it. The clip of me includes one of my favourite points, namely that the ...
www.labservative.com
Sat 3rd
08:45
An Independent View from the IEA: Enterprise needs liberalism - but are the Liberal Democrats libera...
The Liberal Democrats should be applauded for focusing on business in their new policy paper, Enterprise in a fair society. In the context of the current economic crisis, the document reminds us that businesses produce the wealth that not only raises living standards, but also funds health, education and so on - a lesson arguably ignored by New Labour as they burdened firms with more and more taxation and red tape. There are some excellent ideas. Of particular note is a proposal to incorporate a sunset clause into each new business regulation so that it is time limited. This could ...
"There is a great deal of ruin in a nation"- Adam Smith Returning to the UK, I see the familiar streets subtly changed by the passing of the seasons. The electoral season is, of course almost with us- the general assumption being- hopefully- that Mr. Brown will go to the Queen to request a dissolution on Tuesday, for a general election on May 6th. The past week has seem a slew of improving economic numbers: in particular a sharp recovery in manufacturing, exports and GDP growth. Some of these numbers are more in line with what expectations were in November, ...
I had missed Jennie unveiling her new sponsor - but is all what it seems? Alix on misinterpretation and Mephedrone. . Great to see that she's done 2 posts recently. The lovely Mr Dr Chocaholic points out that many troops will miss out on the election and suggests that perhaps the Government might not have done enough to encourage them to register to vote. Andrew asks if pupils should be on the interviewing panel for teachers. Why not? James has a few words to say about Labour's latest ad campaign. At Easter, the Peat Worrier has an interesting reflection on ...
The Teachers' Union, the NASUWT are meeting this weekend in Birmingham for their annual conference. One of the main concerns of the Union this weekend is the involvement of students or pupils in the running of the school, in fact they are so concerned that they are considering industrial action! A dossier being discussed at the NASUWT conference suggests steps to improve the student voice within some schools have gone too far and have over 200 cases to prove it. The paper reveals that schools are using pupils to answer questions about teachers' competence and to help interview them for ...
Labour and Conservatives, Conservatives and Labour: same difference, as the Lib Dems' rather fabulous Labservative website points out. Here are just three examples from the past 12 months of ways in w...
Once again council casework stats show Lib Dem councillors working harder than their Labour and Conservative counterparts. Five out of the top ten councillors in terms of casework reported are Lib Dems. Two of which are also Parliamentary candidates Gareth Epps (Reading East) and Daisy Bension (Reading West) Despite being a group of only 8 councillors, the Lib Dems are far better at helping local people than the other two parties. This is a consistent trend which holds from quarter-to-quarter.
I am not usually one to comment on the polls as they dip and peak like a rollercoaster. However when its good news... [IMG: :)] Possibly a consquence of Vince's great performance in the Chancellors debtate.
I didn't come into Politics to get shouted down from top floor windows whilst delivering Residents Surveys. I didn't get into Politics to be a career Politician or own a duck house. I didn't get into Politics for the power. I did it for my principles and because I was fed up with how my local town was being run, and how my country was being run. 65 years of Labour and Tory rule with a safe seats system they have pinned us down with and they expect to keep this charade going for another 65 years. Time for change ...
Its not often the Lib Dems get to cheer about its famous supporters but recently a host seem to have come our way. The following "celebs" are backing the Lib Dems at the general election- - Daniel Radcliff – "I rather like Nick Clegg. At the next election I will almost certainly vote Lib Dem. If all the people who liked them voted for them you could change politics overnight and we could have a proper three-party system." - Colin Firth - "When I look for compassionate and intellectually rigorous politics I keep coming back to them". - Craig Murray ...
Sat 3rd
01:17Poll surge for Liberal Democrats as Labour and Conservative support dips http://www.guardian.co.uk/p...
Poll surge for Liberal Democrats as Labour and Conservative support dips Poll surge for Liberal Democrats as Labour and Conservative support dips | Politics | The Guardian www.guardian.co.uk Latest Guardian/ICM poll puts Labour on 29%, the Conservatives on 38% and the Lib Dems on 23%Follow each party's polling position month by month since 2005
Today one of the most remarkable politicians of our age turns an incredible 85. Despite being in different parties, and disagreeing with some of his policies, notably his assessment of the EEC (now EU), I have never doubted Tony Benn's sincerity and ...
So some of you will have noticed the relative lack of discussion of things like comics and Doctor Who in recent weeks – it's been all politics and links, partly because the election coming up has made things seem a little more urgent. That's going to change – I'm starting a second series of posts like ...
Here's a coincidence. Yesterday's blog was about the distribution of wealth here is one of the latest wave of Tory posters talking about the same subject. On the left you will see the original image. This time the Tories don't give any references but let's presume they are right. Well if your backers include fairly wealthy* workers who are supported by strong unions then it may be their duty to increase the gap between rich and poor. I'm not going to argue with what they have written. My concern is that a Tory government is much more likely to want ...
