Billowing Pollen Coughing, Blocked nose, Streaming eyes A holiday ruined
Carers Partnership Board Election over, voted back in and straight back to work. We spent a good amount of time on the refresh of the Multi-Agency Carers Commissioning Strategy. We were pleased to welcome Tim Deeprose from the Sutton & Merton PCT who advised that the PCT had some additional input to make into the strategy, but were supportive. ...
The Tax Payers Alliance (TPA) has come in for criticism for its sinister and outrageous snooping attack on local councils. Under the we-know-what-you-are-all-about website name, bigbrotherwatch.org, the TPA has poked its nose into the affairs of locally subsidised authorities. It has dared to publish information seeking to discredit the local authorities for carrying out their legitimate public services, like snooping on awful people who allow their dogs to deposit do-do's all over town, and disgraceful people who trim council hedges without council's permission. In several startling cases the TPA has snooped in to discover that councils were simply trying to ...
Remember how Labour predicted with absolute confidence that the Tories would axe Sure Start centres? So the news that in fact they're protected for this year is presumably grounds for congratulating the Liberal Democrats for successfully changing Conservative policy as part of the coalition. Only thing is, I seemed to have missed those congratulations. Oh well. Perhaps Labour's talk about how important the Sure Start centres are was just for show and they don't really think they're that important after all ... [IMG: :-)]
Here it is: [IMG: New tube map]
After two busy surgeries at the Mitchell Street Centre and Harris Academy, I attended Dundee City Council committtees tonight where : * I asked a question about monitoring the changes to the October schools holidays to ensure that the City Council is able to monitor any changes - to ensure that it actually benefits pupils and parents. * In commenting on the revised scheme for the operation of community councils, I pointed out the superb work of community councils in Dundee but asked how the City Council can encourage the establishment of new community councils in the city. * I ...
I have had the No2ID badge on this blog for years and the Greenpeace Airplot badge, protesting against plans for a third runway at Heathrow, for quite a time too. When I added them I assumed both lost causes. Tonight I have taken them off because both battles appear to have been won. I hope I am not being premature in either case. I have also taken the Liberal Democrat general election manifesto down and added an England flag, at least for the duration of the World Cup. The next job is to replenish my blogroll...
Back in April, the Evening Telegraph reported the brave actions of two West End residents - students Rory Brogan and Joseph Rennucci - who confronted a knife-wielding mugger, in Seafield Lane. Following the suggestion of residents that the city recognise the selfless behaviour of Joe and Rory, I asked our Lord Provost John Letford if he would be willing to hold a civic event to mark the city's appreciation for the actions of Rory and Joe. The LP was very supportive and we met Joe and Rory at the Chambers today, where they were each presented with a civic gift. ...
I'm probably one of the few who feels a little uneasy having glanced at the News of the Worlds big story "Fergie 'sells' Andy for £500K" As I say, I glanced, not wishing to read the gory details, I work weekends, so have limited time to scan the papers but I assume if this story goes to News of the World's usual format, journalist of the highest integrity, using fake identities, will have stuffed video cameras' in some plush hotel room, whilst waving loads of wonger and encouraging the victim, sorry wrongdoer, to agree to some ludicrous proposal. I'm no ...
One little noticed point in the coalition agreement drawn up by the new government runs: We will encourage the reform of football governance rules to support the co-operative ownership of football clubs by supporters.Supporters Direct says this is part of a growing political consensus about the potential for football fans to buy out their clubs by setting up co-operatives, similar to those that already own and run clubs like FC Barcelona and Hamburg SV. The new Coalition Government has pledged to support the creation of mutually-owned clubs in its "Programme for government".And the group is organising a conference on 12 ...
After photographing Tur Langton I walked across the fields to Kibworth. I was sorry to find that the cafe that used to stand a door or two from the bookshop there had closed. But I wasn't too surprised: last time I was in there new purchasers were measuring it up for some other purpose. Anyway, it didn't matter: the owner of the bookshop made me a cup of tea instead. Browsing the shelves I came across a book I have long been intending to acquire: Unmitigated England: A Country Lost and Found by Peter Ashley. As readers will know, Peter's ...
Guy Shrubsole on Left Foot Forward talks up the economic benefits of renewable energy.Matt Wardman decides to launch his own version of Orange's digital campaign awards.Paul Waugh reports on the increasingly ridiculous behaviour of Mid-Narnia MP Nadine Dorries. Now she refuses to shake the Speaker's hand at her swearing in ceremony.Mike Smithson on Political Betting asks how long the current government can go on blaming the previous Labour government. Well, I would suggest if the previous Labour government is any yardstick looking at how long they continued to blame the previous Tory administration, at least 13 years.Cruella writes about the ...
Perhaps not something many of my current readers would expect me to be blogging about? However, before my career in politics I worked for Catering & Allied, a contract caterer based in Hounslow, London for nearly 10 years - starting at Cameron, Markby & Hewitt, moving to The Royal Society of Arts and ending up at UBS Warburg. Once Catering & Allied merged with High Table, I moved on and started as an intern with Chris Huhne, before 3 years with Vince Cable, 2 years with Simon Hughes, 1.5 years with Lynne Featherstone, 1.5 years as London Campaigns Officer and ...
The link is a story in today's telegraph based on a research project reported in the Lancet.What it finds is that the UK now has the highest child mortality in Western Europe.It is approximately twice the rate of Sweden.
After much soul searching I have compartmentalised my reaction into 3 sections. 1. The Public Good. 2. The Party Good. 3. My personal reaction. 1. The Public Good. a. Unquestionably a good thing. The public gave no one party a majority so the logical conclusion is a coalition government. b. The coalition should be a stable government provided the Tories don't stab the Liberal Democrats in the back, or front, or side, etc. c. The public want some Tory policies but not all of them (or at least didn't want Labour ones) and with a coalition the worst excesses of ...
Today's announcement of over £6 billion worth of cuts in the UK's budget will be very challenging for Wales. During the election, no-one was in any doubt that difficult decisions would need to be made in order to bring Britain's finances back under control. Today's announcement is the first step on what will be a difficult road to building a fairer economy for both Britain and Wales, but the Bank of England has responded positively saying the plans are strong and sensible. The Welsh government has known for a long time that there was going to be a dip in ...
... is the one topping this article by Alan Johnson, which apparently appeared in the Observer yesterday: "Here's how to give power back to the people". I have written extensively recently about the Labour leadership contest, and more particularly the urgent need for that party to reappraise where they stand in the wake of the Blair/Brown dynasty's demise. But it is becoming more and more clear that candidates and senior Labour figures alike are wildly underestimating how damaging the last 13 years has been to the party. Johnson's article is a case in point. Admittedly, he has been [IMG: ballot] ...
All, The last Government decided to introduce a sensible measure - if enough local people signed a petition then the Council would be forced to debate it. At a meeting last Wednesday the Conservatives proposed that the level should be set at 1000 people signing. This would mean that many communities outside of Stratford would struggle to raise the number of signatures necessary - Stretton for example, doesn't have that many people! Richard Cheney and I proposed a motion to reduce the level required to 500, or 10% of the local area if it was a small issue, and the ...
It hasn't come as a surprise: local authorities up and down the land have been preparing for budget cuts for some time. Worst case scenarios have been considered, proposals for cuts drawn up and heads scratched over how the numbers can all be made to add up. We already knew that council tax would be frozen next year. We now know that the money local authorities get from central government will fall too. As the HM Treasury press release says In addition, £1.165 bn of savings will be made in Local Government by reducing grants to Local Authorites to reflect ...
I'm on my way home to Creeting St Peter for a Parish Council meeting, where I get to meet up with my Conservative County and District Councillors. What that means is that I won't be doing Liberal Youth stuff for a few hours but, more importantly, I get to return to being a Parish Councillor for a little while. I know that, by the standards of most politicians, being a Parish Councillor barely counts. However, politics doesn't get any more basic than grass-cutting and planning consultation, and if people don't engage with regard to their own village, they're hardly likely ...
I have not been impressed by the recent Newspaper stings of No1 snooker player, John Higgins ,Lord Triesman chairman of the 2018 World Cup bid sting and the Sarah Ferguson Access to Prince Andrew sting. Are these attempts to make news rather than properly investigate corruption. Where's the investigative journalism of actually corruption found within the system. Where is the investigation into what Lord Triesman claimed for example, why not investigate corruption (if any) within football itself. I wonder how many failed sting attempts have been conducted before these stings came off. Is this just lazy journalism?
The news today that Dr Andrew Wakefield (the doctor who suggested there was a link between the MMR triple-jab and autism) has been struck off the medical register having been found guilty of serious professional misconduct will be welcomed by many people who value a proper evidence base for medical decisions. His research was hopelessly flawed in a number of ways and the consequences that have flowed from it in terms of unneccessary (sometimes very severe) measles cases and loss of herd immunity in some areas are still reverberating now. However Dr Wakefield is not the only one who is ...
During the election campaign, all three parties were united in their agreement that big public sector cuts were needed to tackling our record deficit. Figures of around £70 billion were spoken of, and commentators criticised the parties for only identfying a fraction of those. There was one area of disagreement. The Conservatives wanted to make £6 billion of cuts immediately, whilst the Lib Dems and Labour argued that would risk pushing the country back into a double-dip recession. I'll be honest – I've not got the faintest idea who's right on that one. I genuinely don't have a clue whether ...
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Mon 24th
16:39
Liberal Youth: eats, shoots and leaves - yes, it's another round of corrections and amendments!
Oh yes, the tidal wave of 'general stuff' continues, which is I suppose what happens when a whole bunch of enthusiastic people are let loose on an organisation. And yes, that's a good thing... So, here are the most recent changes; Chris Richards is not a candidate for Vice Chair Communications Jason Alecock is an additional candidate for the position of General Executive Member Charlotte Harris is an additional candidate for the International Committee, and is duly elected. There is still one last query, I think, but we'll see how that ends up...
A police spokesman has told the Gazette: "A 33-year-old man was taken to hospital with serious injuries, where he remains in a serious condition" "Anyone who witnessed the incident is asked to call the police collision investigation unit on 0845 456 7000" Full Gazette Rodford Way story here The Rodford Way traffic situation is already due to be discussed at the Yate Safer Stronger Community Group meeting at Poole Court on 3 June, starting at 7pm. At this meeting South Glos Council is due to report on the result of a second pedestrian survey at the site of the previous ...
Ward Name: Haverstock Local Council: Camden Electoral Region: London Last Contested: May 2006 Result (Emboldened designates Elected) Fraser, Jill E. LD 1,417 Hoque, Syed M. LAB 1,118 Shaw, Roy E. LAB 1,106 Miles, Dudley R.A. LD 1,085 Horvat-Marcovic, Simon E. LD 1,058 Katz, Michael D. LAB 1,034 Stally, Joan CON 362 Charlesworth, Sue GRE 351 Bahns, Robert GRE 347 Frost, Timothy CON 338 McGregor, Ross A. CON 337 Milford, Edward M. GRE 244 Constituency Name: Thirsk and Malton Electoral Region: Yorkshire and the Humber Last Contested: May 2005 Result (Emboldened designates Elected) Conservatives 25,702 (51.88%) Labour 11,585 (23.39%) Liberal Democrats ...
Oops. Just discovered today that I'd forgotten to put in the automated notices of Castle NAP meetings for the rest of the year, but I have now rectified that, and there should be an automated announcement for each of the rest of this year's meetings around a week before they happen.
George Osborne and David Laws today have announced £6.24 billion in spending cuts to be implemented imminently. The cuts cover: • £1.15bn in "discretionary" areas such as consultancy and travel costs• £95m through savings in IT spending• £1.7bn will be saved in delaying or stopping government contracts and projects• Reductions in property costs will save £170m• More than £120m expected to be found through a freeze in civil service recruitment• £600m by cutting the cost of quangos• £520m will be saved through other low-value spending Our deficit this year is £167 billion or around a quarter of government spending so ...
Over the last few days there has been a little bit of noise over the new coalition government's pledge to provide anonymity to the defendant in Rape cases. Certainly, there is, in my mind some credence to this call, rape ... Continue reading →
Apologies for laziness. Audio available here, but be warned: it reads better than it sounds. ========================================================== Prayer (Matthew 6:5-15) We meet here every week to pray. We pray on Sundays. We pray in our homes, before meals, perhaps before we go to sleep, or before we go to work. But why do we pray? Prayer is supposed to be at the heart of the Christian life. It is a great privilege. Hebrews 4:16 suggests that when we confidently 'draw near to the throne of grace' 'we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.' Surely prayer ...
Welcome to the second in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here. The section on civil liberties is, with one exception, a straight forward listing of many policies the Liberal Democrats have long argued for. Whether by principle or pragmatism, David Cameron has taken the chance of a hung Parliament to firmly put the Conservatives on the liberal side of the liberal versus authoritarian divide. There certainly are some in his party who would rather be on the other side, but they have been sidelined by ...
This new world of political realism may not be all good, clearly the note left by one departing minister making a swift exit from government shows the depth of the continuing crisis which went something like "the moneys all been ****ed up the wall, enjoy !" Apparently one of the new governments ideas is to give more power down to local authorities like our very own Kent council, and if the Kent on Sundays report is anything to go by Paul Carter KCC's Tory leader is looking forward to the prospect. One method by which KCC will gain more power ...
A number of public spending cuts have been announced today. What is absolutely certain is that the UK Government has to cut the deficit reasonably quickly.Germany is paying around 2.633% on its government debt. The UK is paying 3.516 on government bonds and Greece 7.8%.This is all based upon how risky investors perceive the debt. If we don't show a commitment to bringing the deficit really
Today, the coalition Government started to announce what cuts would be made to pull us out of Labour's black hole of a deficit. Some of the list made grim reading, as expected, other bits made you wonder why they hadn't done things like that before. I particularly want to focus on the Child Trust Fund, something which is trending on Twitter at the moment. Of course, Labour told people that both parties from the coalition wanted to cut it, and now they have. I'm actually pleased that they have, and this is why. When it comes to something as precious ...
Listening to the radio last night I was reminded of something I was taught when I first worked in the theatre industry. The news announcer at 1am started off with "The time is 1am ... good morning" yet, I suspect, few of us would consider the middle of the night to be 'morning'. Indeed if you switch across to the television services operated by the same broadcaster you will hear "Good evening" and "good night" well into the small hours as they consider the post-midnight hours as art of the day before rather than the start of the oncoming day. ...
The new coalition government – in the joint personage of Conservative Chancellor George Osborne and Lib Dem Treasury Chief Secretary David Laws – took its first steps today to begin bringing down the huge national deficit, announcing £6.2 billion public spending cuts for 2010-11. The BBC has a brief summary of the proposals here: • £1.15bn in "discretionary" areas such as consultancy and travel costs • £95m through savings in IT spending • £1.7bn will be saved in delaying or stopping government contracts and projects • Reductions in property costs will save £170m • More than £120m expected to be ...
The National Secular Society is currently carrying out a piece of work examining the link between local councils and the inclusion of prayers as an item of business on their agendas. In some areas this has become an issue of some controversy, while in many other places most people would wonder what the fuss is ...
I have not asked for Steve's permission - something I'll get round to shortly. But this blog is a short tribute to Steve Jones, Chair of the Liberal Democrat Ripon Branch. I rejoined the party about eighteen months ago as the story of Harry Willcock ripping up his ID card in the fifties in front of the National Liberal Club inspired me to try to do something about the pernicious habit of New Labour to force us all onto databases. I went to my first Branch meeting and it consisted of Steve and me at his house. Steve was our ...
A society which ringfences its defence budget while cutting its universities, is reducing the value of its stock of civilisation.
I'm excited about the coalition. I think it's necessary, and I think it's what the voters want. But it's going to hurt. When the coalition was announced, my heart was in my mouth. I was mentally prepared for the defection of hundreds of councillors. So far, we've come through remarkably unscathed. But it's only the first stage. June will see £6 billion of cuts and an emergency budget. We'll survive that, but a much bigger test comes this autumn: the announcement of a programme of cuts that'll make six billion seem like pocket change. David Laws will try to ease ...
Thanks to comment re Bat Trust - have contacted them and they are finding a bat carer in area.
Five blogs have recently joined Ryan's Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator: Alasdair Wood - http://alasdair-wood.blogspot.com/ Chris Jerrey - http://chrisjerrey.blogspot.com/ Katie Sutton - http://tajasel.org/ Peter Flynn - http://www.peteflynn.com/ Victoria Lubbock - http://lubbock1884.blogspot.com/ Good luck to all the new bloggers, and why not take a moment to pop over to their blogs, take a read and post a comment? Whether you are a new or experience blogger yourself, you may also find our compilation of "how to blog" posts useful:
Following a typically baseless story in The Sun a couple of weeks ago that a local authority in London was advising pubs to ban football supporters wearing England shirts during the World Cup, reports have been coming in to councillors in Darlington of people on the street being threatened with a £30 fine for wearing an England shirt in public, and of a pub being told by the local police that
On the EuroMess, Stephanie: those North European powerhouses have been running up huge trade surpluses, while the Southern Europeans have run bigger and bigger trade deficits. Whenever Germany tells you how much the Greeks are costing them, remember this: German exports to Greece have risen by 133% since the single currency started. Greek exports to ...
I can often be found muttering to myself about what passes for news nowadays and today was no exception. The source of my frustration was this article in today's Western Mail. In it Plaid Cymru MP, Hywel Williams accuses the Westminster coalition Government of failing to understand and respect devolution following the suspension of Home Information Packs (HIPs). He claims that Ministers have a duty to consult the Welsh Government about matters concerning residential accommodation in Wales and had failed to do so. Really? What may have escaped Mr. Williams' notice is that this particular aspect of housing legislation is ...
Anybody would think that there was no real news. All the Welsh media has talked about for the last week has been the impact of the £6 billion of cuts announced today on Wales. This morning is no exception. It is of course an important issue but we should not forget some key facts. Firstly, the claim that £6 billion equals £250 million off the Welsh block grant is pure speculation. That would only be the case if fully Barnetised areas of expenditure such as education, housing and health were cut. In fact the impact on Wales depends on where ...
Welcome to the first in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here. For all the importance and controversy associated with banking reform, it is also one of the areas where cross-party agreement is easiest – because once you've decided that major reform is necessary, the differences of approach are essentially ones of pragmatic detail rather than principle. Some at the free-market or state control fringes may beg to differ, but it's a debate about what will or won't work rather than what political philosophers do or ...
Just playing with the technology of my new gizmo phone
Article 9.4 of the Liberal Youth Federal Constitution states; "Elections for positions under 6.1 a) - e) above shall include RON as a candidate. If RON is elected, the Returning Officer shall call a by-election by all member ballot within 28 days of the previous election." I therefore believe that, in the absence of RON (these are positions under 7.5 d) and 7.7 d)), those nominated for the Conference and International Committees are deemed to be elected. I congratulate the successful candidates; Conference Committee Alan Belmore Ramon Chiratheep Sarah Harding International Committee Harriet Ainscough Callum Leslie Jack Stephens That's two ...
Little businesses have a hard job surviving business rates, red tape and parking restrictions - let alone the extra challenges of the recession. So - very good to see a glimmer of common sense on a local parking issue on which I have been corresponding with Transport for London for some time! Archway Road - a fantastic road, beautiful houses, jolly interesting little shops - always fighting the volume of traffic as a main arterial road. Not surprisingly (and rightly) this is a red route. But even on a red route - between 10am and 4pm there is one hour ...
An airport that Easyjet don't travel to. Although if you want peace and quiet, consider a visit.
Last month - whilst I was away, Tom Flanagan, Cornwall Council's chief officer in charge of economic development, highways and transport, gave a presentation to the Cabinet on the challenges facing East Cornwall. I've complained for a while that Cornwall Council was focusing too much on mid and West Cornwall and was neglecting the East. It was therefore very good to see that the problems we face in the East were being recognised at Cabinet level. On the back of this presentation, I asked Tom if he could help with one of the particular challenges in Launceston - that of ...
A thought occurred to me about the deportation of Sehar Shabaz and her baby, Wania, which I wrote about on Saturday. Sehar's husband, whose violence towards her forced her to flee from him last November, is not a UK national. On the UK Borders Agency website, it quite clearly says that: During your stay it is your responsibility to obey the law It doesn't seem fair to me that a man who has been violent to his wife to the extent that the Police have been involved on two occasions should be allowed to stay in this country while the ...
This year we return to Tatton and are entering our parks department in the Council flowerbed competition. The picture above is our entry in 2008, that won gold medal and best in show, later in the year it also won the Wiggan cup, which is best out of all the RHS shows, basically best in Britain. This year our team will be joined by our tourism and marketing colleagues who will be giving out Conwy tourism information to the 100K visitors. I have argued that lots of Tatton visitors can be our Conwy short stay visitors. I feel we have ...
Happy Monday morning, everyone, and welcome to the second full week of Lib Dem / Conservative coalition government. Ironically, or not, today marks the 22nd anniversary of the Tories' homophobic Section 28 being enacted as part of the 1988 Local Government Act ... how far we've al come since then. 1 Big Story Normally the Daily View features 2 Big Stories from the news – but today we can only afford one. Not even Lib Dem Voice is immune to the age of austerity. This isn't a U-tun, by the way, we're just responding to events. The UK embarks on ...
The contest to become next Mayor of London has suddenly become a lot more interesting with Oona King's announcement that she intends to run for the Labour nomination. The former MP for Bethnal Green & Bow — famously ousted by George Galloway at the 2005 General Election — has obviously decided that she misses frontline ...
Tonight is the Annual Council of West Lindsey District Council, this is the meeting where the roles and responsibilities are given for the next twelve months. However, as we found out in the last civic year it can all change as the Tories went through 3 leaders. Rather careless some might say. It is expected that Cllr Owen Bierley (Yarborough) is to be the new chair of council after serving the last 12 months as deputy to Cllr Jessie Milne (Lea). It also expected that Cllr Burt Keimach (Market Rasen) will be elected as the council leader for the next ...
Ah yes, committees (puts on that voice that Homer Simpson uses when he's thinking about beer), the things that either make things happen, or stop them, depending on your taste and level of cynicism. My role as Returning Officer is to organise the election of four members of each of three committees, Conference, International and Policy. As it stands at the moment, with one outstanding query, the successfully nominated candidates are; Conference Committee Alan Belmore Ramon Chiratheep Sarah Harding International CommitteeHarriet Ainscough Charlotte Harris Callum Leslie Jack Stephens Policy CommitteeDuncan Crowe Sarah Harding Richard Morgan-Ash James Nelson Stephen Rule I ...
Throughout the election, Nick Clegg and the Lib Dem cast were very much opposed to cutting spending in this financial year. They attacked the Conservatives' plan to do so. It was not appropriate at this point. Now they're all for it. In fact, they're so for it that our new DPM did the tour of ...
Amoing the many, and far more serious cuts, that are likely to be announced today I have a particularly warm feeling about the squeeze on expenses for civil servants. When I chaired the Local e-Democracy National Project most of the members of the Board worked in local government or were councillors. But we did have a handful of senior civil servants from the (then) Officer of the Deputy Prime Minister and Cabinet Office. We used to meet in Leicester, and after the meetings would walk back together to the station. Those of us travelling back to London would wait for ...
Mike Smithson has a good post on Political Betting this morning where he highlights the final 12 polls of the election campaign (you know, the ones that all massively overstated the final support for the Lib Dems). In the post, Mike suggests that the Lib Dem vote may have "melted away" as large numbers of people changed their mind on the day itself. This would suggest that the polls may not have actually been wrong. Many of them did pick up on this volalitity in the underlying data and I recall being worried about it myself as to how soft ...
Back in February, I last reported progress with the planned improvements that will hopefully allow the proposed Riverside Nature Park to be available for public access in the future. The City Development Department of Dundee City Council has now given me a further update as follows : "The Riverside Nature Park proposal has advanced significantly in recent months and we are now in the process of finalising the necessary approvals to enable work to start on site during the summer. A programme for the works is currently being developed and it is hoped to let the contract shortly. There is ...
Following the numerous further concerns about the review of older people services at NHS Tayside, the threatened closure of Ward 6 at Royal Victoria Hospital and the failure of the Public Health Minister to intervene, I have now written to Professor Tony Wells, Chief Executive of NHS Tayside, in the following terms: "Further to your letter of 11th May to me, I have continued to receive numerous concerns from constituents about the proposals relative to Ward 6 at Royal Victoria Hospital and these concerns have clearly been recognised by the senior clinicians who I understand have written to you to ...
"There is no-one in charge. We need to have someone who is in charge of the Conservative party in Scotland, preferably elected by the membership. "The membership and the constituencies have been allowed to atrophy. The branches have disappeared. There's no real link between the voluntary side of the party and the MSPs." So said former conservative Scottish Secretary Lord Forsyth yesterday, which won't be good news for Annabel Goldie with less than a year until the Scottish elections. Although some party insiders said it was the "memory of Lord Forsyth in government" that was affecting Tory performance at elections ...
It is becoming a tradition in this country that at some stage in a general election campaign some newspaper will dress somebody up as a giant animal or bird (normally a chicken) and then send them to follow one of the poliical leaders around the country. Sometimes the perpetrator is one of the other political parties. It can be an effective tactic as Republican candidate, Sue Lowden has found out to her cost in Nevada. According to this site she suggested that people who are too poor for medical care could offer chickens to their doctors in lieu of payment. ...
Since both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos contained proposals to reduce the number of MPs to 400 there is a real danger that this measure will go ahead. From the Liberal Democrat point of view this is a great mistake. One of the few disadvantages of the Single Transferable Vote method of PR, our preferred option, is that the multi-member constitutes can be very large in sparsely populated areas such as the north of Scotland. This problem will be exacerbated if the number of MPs is reduced. Clearly there was a lack of "joined up thinking" here by Liberal ...
I had been wondering about my role in connection with the position of English Convenor. And, at 1.47 a.m. this morning, I have come to a conclusion... As best as I can tell, Liberal Youth England must elect at least a Convenor and a number of members of the Party's English Council. Having not seen a copy of any constitution that Liberal Youth England might have, I can ascertain no more than that. So, if someone can demonstrate that they have any authority in this area, and can provide me with a copy of their constitution, I might be able ...
I'm going to try to keep a rough schedule for the next few months: Weekends – comics posts. Mondays I'm going to start reviewing every 'classic' Doctor Who story in order, starting with An Unearthly Child tomorrow, until I get bored (probably somewhere in series 2). Tuesdays will be Spotify playlists. Fridays will be book ...
Mon 24th
01:19Liberal Youth: checking, and double checking, pays dividends. Yes, there are more candidates!
I've been going back through the mounds of e-mail to double check my lists. And lo, there are some more names to add; Kieren Moss is a candidate for Vice Chair Membership Development Nicholas Doropoulos is a candidate for General Executive Member It might not be over yet, I've still got one or two late breaking stories to resolve...
Mon 24th
01:03
The Hero's Journey (BATMAN! for those who've given up on me doing comics blogging again...)
So, after that semi-enforced break, I'm here to talk about Batman. I've promised that I'll review every Batman title Grant Morrison writes until the end of the Return Of Bruce Wayne storyline, but in truth RoBW #1 gives rather little for a writing-focussed reviewer such as myself (I simply don't have the critical vocabulary to ...
The basis of a deterrent is that you stop someone doing something because the consequences for that person would be too great if they decided to go ahead and do it anyway. If you were inclined to mugging then you wouldn't choose Mike Tyson. Fort Knox may not be the easiest place to steal from. When it comes to the country's defence, the bigger the army the less chance of being attacked. Then nuclear weapons came along. The cold war reaction to these weapons was to use them as a deterrent. The opposition would not use them because we would ...
