I watched "How to Build a Nuclear Submarine" on Sunday evening, part of a series of documentaries about significant engineering projects. This episode was about the construction of the Astute boats. I had a bit of a vested interest as I had a fair amount to do with the design of these boats when I ...
Hooray: Planned closures on the Northern Line, which would have seen Tube trains stopping early on weekday evenings through the summer, have been cancelled by Transport for London (TfL). The Bank and High Barnet branches were due to shut at about 2130 BST on Mondays to Thursdays from next week. More at the BBC.
Saturday was World Drug Day, a day intended to serve as a reminder of the need to combat the problems illicit drugs pose to society. The problems are numerous, deadly serious, and close to overwhelming to many states around the globe but the current prohibitionist approach mandated by the UN drug conventions has failed to make any significant impact upon the profits of the criminal cartels, demand for their products, and the terrible consequences of the trade for communities in the UK and beyond. The UK currently spends around £19 billion on the criminal justice system due to the criminalisation ...
The news today that the government is going to have an enquiry into the torture and rendition of terror suspects is to be welcomed. We have yet to see whether the government will be able to follow through on some of these civil liberties issues that I for one have high hopes about, but this has to be a good start at least (even if I would prefer it to be held in public). The recent complaints that people leaving prison after serving sentences for terrorism offences (not all of which are related to actually carrying out or planning terrorism) ...
The interview was the first item on this evening's Front Row.
The recent June 2010 Monthly Economic Update from Durham County Council carries a range of mixed economic messages for the region. The North East continues to have the lowest average household income in the UK. Unlike most of the UK, and the rest of the North East, the County Durham housing market remains depressed with a monthly and annual fall in house prices to January 2010. 17.5% of the working age population in County Durham are claiming key out of work benefits, the same as for the North East as a whole but significantly worse than the UK as a ...
My bins actually were collected today ( a nice change after two weeks of missed collections and failure to come back to pick up). However further down the road in Garston residents are reporting three weeks of bins not collected on the right day and then not collected in the specified time afterwards. We'll be taking all of this up with Enterprise, and more importantly with the responsible Councillors and Council officers. If your bin hasn't been collected please continue to alert Liverpool Direct but please also let me have the general details - street, number of times missed, delay ...
Today, I had the pleasure of meeting David Bruce of Blackness Road, who was recently honoured for his bravery during a break-in at his home. As the Courier put it : "David Bruce of Dundee, who was 15 when he displayed "courage and maturity beyond his years," will also be presented with a St Andrew's Award. The Dundee boy was asleep at home in October 2008 when he was disturbed by noises. Getting up to investigate, he discovered a man and woman had broken into the house and were going through his mother's things. He confronted them and grabbed the ...
My motion at todays Constitutional Issues Committee was rather overtaken by the more media friendly story of the Labour Leader's request for more pay. However I did manage to get committee members to agree to something that, if pursued properly, will give citizens in Liverpool more information about their Councillors. At the moment you can find out about how your MP voted as every vote is recorded in Hansard. You can't however do the same for your councillor in Liverpool as, unless there is a specific "card vote", which is the exception, votes are just recorded as numbers for,against and ...
This evening I attended the latest committee meeting of Friends of Magdalen Green, in my new capacity as the group's secretary. It was a very productive meeting at which we started planning our autumn coffee morning and also discussed other issues including the repainting of the play equipment at the playpark adjacent to the green at the bottom of Roseangle.
The latest spy tale in the USA is extraordinary due largely to just how useless they were as spies. The ten "alleged" spies haven't even been charged with espionage, merely failing to register as a Foreign Agents. They managed to gather a lot of information which was freely available making me wonder why they just didn't go for the Cyrillic version of Wikipedia. Less John Le Carre and more Ninotchka - the hilarious Greta Garbo cold war satire where she played an ice cool Russian agent who is seduced in Paris by Melvyn Douglas US agent. It has loads of ...
A selection of other peoples thoughts that have caught my eye and made me think today James Taylor on what the Lib Dems can learn from Apple Mark Thompson on polls Dale Bassett on the case for elected police chiefs Left foot forward on why Theresa May is right to take on ACPO Mark Pack on damages paid by police to photographers
Another breathless day without a moment to blog, but I am delighted at the prospect of an inquiry into British government complicity with torture. I had already written to William Hague offering to give evidence to any such inquiry, and suggesting to him that it is essential that all evidence is taken under oath and at risk of perjury proceedings. I understand from FCO sources that tomorrow's official announcement has now been postponed while desperate last minute efforts are being made by the security services and by the US Embassy to tighten the terms of reference. The answer to the ...
You have until Friday to vote on the results of the quarter-finals - and just to make it interesting, I've broadened out the questions a bit. View Poll: #1585706Scores in the 56 matches so far: seven 0-0 draws, including today's Paraguay-Japan match; six 1-1 draws; two 2-2 draws; fourteen 1-0 wins; ten 2-1 wins; six 2-0 wins; three 3-0 wins; three 3-1 wins; two 4-1 wins; and one each for 3-2, 4-0 and 7-0. All four of the matches yesterday and today saw victory for the more widely tipped team; for once I myself called all four of them correctly, ...
The story of the day has been Lembit Opik's launch of a website to further his ambition to be the next Liberal Democrat London mayoral candidate. "I can see why people are keen on me to consider standing"says the site. The grammar is shaky and it doesn't say who these people are. But at the same time Opik has been telling this blog's favourite newspaper a rather different story. The Shropshire Star reports: Former Montgomery MP Lembit Opik is considering a sensational return to politics by taking on the man who defeated him in the General Election. Mr Opik lost ...
Stagecoach have announced service changes for the 26th July. These changes affect the Citi 2 to 7 (amongst others) so are probably worth checking out if you use any of those services. The Citi 1 service is unaffected. I've attached the file from Stagecoach with the details of all the changes here.
Chapter 2: The Chain In the last chapter, our hero & heroine confronted the heroine's rather wet brother on the matter of replacing the Rio Norte railroad, using metal bought from a company owned by a chap called Rearden. This is no ordinary metal, rather something as superior to steel as steel is to iron. ...
Here's a fascinating example of how the coalition's much touted 'big society' could look. It is a membership scheme in Southwark which encourages volunteering and allows older people to link up with neighbours and get help with a whole range of tasks. The scheme is predicted to break even in its third year, which is not something you can say of many public services. A key aspect of this model is that it encourages participation by anyone interested and it removes the need for people with needs to jump through hoops to qualify for help, thus perhaps encouraging them to ...
There has been a much retweeted post on Twitter today. "23 overpaid, overrated englishmen, landed at one airport today, 7 underpaid, underrated englishmen landed at another. RIP THE REAL HEROES." The tweet which I did retweet is not entirely accurate. 1 of the 7 brought back to the UK today was Welsh. However the sentiment of the tweet is correct. Whether you believe our forces should be in Afghanistan (I don't) or not, these brave men and women from all over the United Kingdom are out there, in harms way, representing our country and serving with distinction. They deserve our ...
WOW an excellent non political analysis of new Labours failure H/T Old Holborn
I'm simultaneously trying to complete an assignment for my course (due in by Monday) and get through a release at work. Even *BEFORE* this I was practically dead from exhaustion.
This evening I've been at a meeting organised by the Town Council to discuss parking in the town. The meeting was called following the deputation at the last full meeting led by Karl Hockridge and a group of town centre traders. The traders want the council to take action to boost footfall in the town. They would like to see the Town Council introduce a cheap initial parking scheme (such as 10p for the first 20 minutes) in the multi-storey car park. They also propose a barrier system to prevent ticket abuse which they say is common and which is ...
Good news from Mr S at KIng's! He managed to book the echo and CPX appointments for July 7, the day before I'm due to see Mr R the vascular surgeon for him to explain the two operations. The first is to unblock the artery serving my right kidney, and the second to deal with the Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm. I gather it is the intention to do endovascular surgery, though one reference says that "Not all aneurysms can be fixed in this manner and there may not be a long-term benefit to this type of surgery. Though the post-operative ...
Tomorrow sees the end of the first full month of the coalition, so how has it been? Overall I am more optimistic than I thought I would be. Yes, we have already had some low points - David Laws! And we have had a painful introduction to the disappointments and difficult decisions of government - the VAT rise! We are also, however, seeing some movement on key Liberal Democrat election manifesto pledges - constitutional reform, taking the poorest out of income taxes & fairer deal for pensioners to name but three. As a party activist I understand that we will ...
Danny Finkelstein wrote a Times piece this morning where he suggested that David Cameron could use a change in the electoral system to AV to his advantage. Because of the paywall, there's little point in me linking to The Fink's piece directly but James Forsyth on the Spectator blog has summarised his idea: So Danny Finkelstein's blog this morning suggesting that 'AV might provide the answer to the otherwise impossible question - if the parties stay together, how can they fight the election apart?' has caused quite a stir. The argument is that the Tories would urge their voters to ...
[IMG: Changing lives website] BathNES council has produced a 'changing lives' website detailing the social services available improve people's quality of lives. Says the council: "A new webpage was recently placed on the Council website that provides a much different and very personal way of raising public awareness of the services the Council provides and how residents can access those services quickly and conveniently. "The webpage tells the real-life stories of people - told by the people themselves to video camera - whose lives have been changed by the Council and the local organisations we work with. Many of those ...
Whatever weather was thrown at us earlier this year, it has resulted in this being the most marvellous summer for roses. Spotted these on Saturday while doing councillors advice surgeries and visits on Templar House Estate (the "Pear Tree Garden" looked lovely too) and on Westcroft Close on Westbere Road (that's the red ones below) I usually think West Hampstead's gardens look best in the Spring but this year the Summer is a winner!
Which nation's international football record does England's most resemble – Sweden or Germany? (Answer under the cut, so if you don't want to know the score and are reading this in some manner that doesn't allow for the cut, look away now) The correct answer is, of course, Sweden – pretty regular qualifiers for the World Cup, ...
English football as I see it has been declining for years. Of course this type of crisis does happen in other English sports to a minor extent in Rugby and Cricket and to a greater extend in British Tennis. What we lack is strength in depth and I believe we need a fundamental change to English football. I also think that all the UK nations have been suffering from a lack of good quality young players. The problems 1. England has approximately 2700 UEFA certified coaches. Germany has 35000, Italy 29500, Spain 24000 etc see here. 2. The FA have ...
Tue 29th
18:00
Trivia quiz - three music folks seemingly unconnected, and a two times British PM with no mandate
One politics, one music question. Will Howells will get both straight away. 1. Politics Which British Prime Minister was in Number Ten (as PM) for two full terms but never received the majority mandate of the British electorate? 2. Music What do the rock band C.C.S, Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy and tune meister Paul Hardcastle have in common? Please try answers in the comments. Then I'll confirm the answers at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for your involvement!
Non-fiction 4 (YTD 30) Fiction (non-sf) 2 (YTD 28) sf (non-Who or comics) 5 (YTD 45) Doctor Who (non-comics) 4 (YTD 32) Comics 3 (YTD 8) 5/18 (YTD 34/143) by women (Harrison, Delinsky, Valente, Mirrlees, Foglio) 0/18 (YTD 11/143) by PoC (as far as I know) 6/18 owned for more than a year (Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Mother of Plenty, The Portadown News, The Provinces of the Roman Empire, Option Lock, Twilight Whispers, Wetworld) No rereads, though I was familiar with a lot of the Portadown News from the website. (YTD rereads 11/143) ~5,300 pages (YTD 42,400)
"Rape seems to be the only crime where it's seen as ok to put the victim on trial." That quote is from Natasha on the front page of the Not Ever campaign website run by Rape Crisis Scotland. I'm not sure that I entirely agree with her. It seems to me that our culture is very good at blaming women for virtually everything, not least when they are the victims of any sort of violence, but I wholeheartedly support this campaign. It seeks to get the message across that there is no justification for rape, and no women ever asks ...
There are plenty of political parties hanging on to their ideological purity, where all the members pretty much agree on all the key issues. They're easy to spot: they're the ones that always lose. The big parties are compromises – broad churches – people who work together because they agree a bit more with each other than with the rest, or simply because it's the tribe they're in. Broad church parties are necessary in our electoral system. Under First Past the Post, you need to get to a certain size to have any real chance of success, and there simply ...
The coalition government is making many of the right noises when it comes to civil liberties in the UK. Unpicking the authoritarian streak that Labour exhibited during its years in power is a worthwhile task that shouldn't be trivialised, but the debate surrounding civil liberties is still defined by the rigid limits set out by those who enjoy many of the greatest privileges. The list of areas to be targeted describes a largely positive direction of travel. ID cards and biometric passports are to be scrapped; the fingerprinting of children at schools is to be curtailed. Government databases are to ...
The much awaited Budget has finally arrived. The Coalition has been left with the task of tacking the huge deficit left by Labour (which amounts to £20,400 for every woman, man and child in the country). The scale of the task is enormous. It is no wonder that Labour ran away from dealing with the ...
From Mark Hunter: [IMG: Mark Hunter and family with Heald Green Cub and Beaver leaders at 2010 Heald Green Festival] Last Saturday 26th June local MP Mark Hunter joined residents at this year's Heald Green Festival, held on the playing field behind the Village Hall on Outwood Road. Held in the blazing sunshine, the day was a great success and was attended by record numbers of local people. Dozens of local organisations had a stall at the event and the fairground and other sideshows provided a variety of the entertainment for young and old alike. The Mayor of Stockport, Cllr ...
At least one Labour Assembly Member has already raised the Observer story on the briefing from Tim Horton of the Fabian Society and Howard Reed from Landman Economics in the chamber. But as Ed Long on Liberal Democrat Voice points out, you should be very careful about believing everything you read in newspapers. This report from the Fabian Society and a supposed economic expert is neither. It performs a numerical magic trick in order to draw a graph that can be superficially labelled 'regressive'. Real questions can and should be asked about welfare reforms when the exact breakdown of the ...
H/t to Unity for exposing how Health Select Committee member and serial trougher David Tredinnick (Con, Bosworth) has already put forward no less than FOUR EDMs claiming that homeopathy may be "viable" as a treatment for such ailments as breast cancer, clinical depression, and insomnia. Thank, er, Evan for new Cambridge MP and research scientist Julian Huppert hitting the ground running in tabling amendments to cancel out such dangerous nonsense, and already shaping up as the main man to pick up where the good Dr Harris left off after his Parliamentary career was so rudely interrupted. What with not just ...
Yesterday, whist stuck in a traffic jam on the M60 caused by a lorry fire, I was forced to listen to the tennis on the radio for far longer than I actually wanted to (which was about three seconds). The game moves far too quickly for radio, rendering the commentary nothing more than a rapid-fire shout-a-thon punctuated by the whoops of 15,000 delirious Brits apparently unaware of Andy Murray's impending semi-final defeat. Until listening to it yesterday I was unaware that doublefistedtopspinbackhandsmashdowntheline was actually one word. Apparently it is. I don't mind playing tennis, even though listening to it is ...
Today Ed Miliband has come out and said that the Liberal Democrats have forefited their right to call themselves progressive. Whilst we could go into all the different progressive elements in the budget and the coalition agreement and how that makes the Liberal Democrats still intitled to call themseleves progressive, as some very good writers ...
Just in case anybody thought Lembit Öpik is not serious about being the Liberal Democrat nominee for Mayor of London he has got an embryonic campaign team in place and a website here. This is already a much improved approach to that he took for his Presidential campaign, which consisted largely of a series of poor jokes and a segway. His website says that the former MP is a good liberal with a lot of political experience plus the celebrity factor that is needed for a mayoral campaign: Lembit himself has said "I can see why people are keen on ...
The contents of the emergency budget have been a bitter pill for many Lib Dem activists to swallow. I have to admit that my support for the Liberal Democrats has been mostly on the basis of their commitment to civil liberties, their scientific literacy (Evan Harris is greatly missed!) and their hard work in my local area. I can make no claims about being educated in economics but I like to think my Maths degree qualifies me as basically numerate. Recently I read The Observer story on the briefing from Tim Horton (of Fabian Society, not doughnut, fame) and Howard ...
Nearly 26 years ago, the Bhopal plant of an Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide, a massive US corporation, suffered a catastrophic malfunction. The storage containers of the plant – which produced industrial pesticides – leaked highly toxic gas during the night, exposing over 500,000 people to the poisonous fumes. Estimates into the effects vary – the Indian government confirmed nearly two and a half thousand deaths immediately after the leak, and fatalities related to the incident have swelled to over 15,000 since then. The company continues to insist that the disaster was the result of sabotage, but successive studies have ...
I had to go into Gateshead this morning for a meeting of Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums Committee. As I was waiting at the bus stop, residents started to quiz me about various local issues. It turned out to be something of a mini public meeting for enough people as could be crammed into a bus shelter.Meanwhile, over to the archives and museums committee. I am one of Gateshead's three reps on
I have just read this post by Jules Mattsson, a student who is a freelance photographer in his spare time. In it he describes how he was detained and questioned by police officers when he was trying to take photographs of an Armed Forces Day parade in Romford on Saturday. There is a YouTube here which contains some of the pictures taken and an audio recording of much of the incident: The officers appear to try a number of different tacks to argue that he should not be taking photographs. They begin by insisting that he needs parental permission to ...
Breaking News from the Year 2030:Scientists and police forces have today announced the deployment of an electronic device designed to keep public spaces clear of all black people. They say the discovery two years ago of a gene, a variant of which is found exclusively in black populations, enabled the development of their device - which during testing was found to effectively disperse crowds of
Surely I can't be the only one who is dismayed by the prosecution of Shirley Brown in Bristol for "racial harassment"? She was rude, crude and (important this) rapidly apologised, but it's hard to see how her nasty "coconut" remark could be interpreted as leaving the target of it sufficiently distressed as to cause a person "harassment, alarm or distress". There is a world of difference between an insult thrown in a debating chamber at somebody surrounded by colleagues, who are all more than willing to assist to defend her (if she felt unable to defend herself) and the day ...
I don't want you to think that I've spent the last week glued to the Budget debate in the House of Commons, but I thought I'd share with you another couple of moments from the proceedings from the bits I have seen and some other speeches I've read about in Hansard. Firstly, I have to say that it gave me the proper creeps when Iain Duncan Smith referred to Simon Hughes as "my honourable friend" yesterday afternoon. We may be in coalition with the Tories but that does not mean I have to like them. IDS is, I'm sure, a ...
Saturday: Once upon a time there was a story about stories. You've written yourself into a box. Cracks in the plot. That's just a fairy tale. Who isn't? A man is the sum of his memories; a Time Lord even more so. I hate repeats. And then she woke up. And you were there and you were there... Remember this because it's important, I am most definitely a madman with a box. Did I tell you I stole it? You're "Father Christmas", "The Wizard of Oz" and "Scooby Doo". He's my imaginary friend. Who is real. Let. There. Be. Light. ...
There has been a rise in the number of bogus calls in the area. As a result Bury Council has created the 'rip off register'. Details are fed in from Bury's Trading Standards department so it is legitimate information. Below is a list of all the current scams which can also be found on http://news.bury.gov.uk/Rip-off+register.htm Scam reported June 19: Bogus tradesmen Two men have been approaching homes in Prestwich offering to pressure-wash driveways for cash. The men aged 20 and 50 both had Welsh accents and were wearing high visibility jackets and hard hats. They appeared very eager to get ...
It's time. In fact it's long overdue. The Church of England and the Presbyterian Church in Scotland have been part of our social and political establishment for far too long. Not only is this unfair upon all the other denominations and religions in this country (of which there are a great many), it is also unfair upon the large population of secularists (i.e. those of faith and without who don't attend organised religious meetings) and atheists that live in this country. For the sake of fairness, we must end the privileged relationship of the state with the Church. For the ...
[IMG: http://www.wikio.co.uk] [IMG: Heathrow] This may be old new to some, but I thought I should mention it... Under the Lib Dem and Conservative coalition gov't there will be no third runway expansion at Heathrow and the plans have been formally cancelled! Both the Conservative and Lib Dem manifestos had pledges to scrap the third runway, while Labour fully supported the scheme. In addition, any further runway expansions at Gatwick and Stansted have been refused. Also the Air Passenger Duty will be replacement of with a per flight duty - as per the Liberal Democrat manifesto. This should have a ...
The cabinet have decamped today to Bradford to hold the cabinet meeting. This is the sort of thing that started to happen under the previous government. I thought it was a gimmicky waste of time and money then and I think the same now. Indeed many Tory MPs used to think so too (as does Iain Dale today). Apparently once the cost of security etc. is added in, previous trips like this have cost up to £200,000 a time. This won't even factor in the loss of productivity in having ministers unneccessarily travelling for several hours (apparently most of them ...
London's Metropolitan Policy Authority had £30m deposited with Landsbanki, the Icelandic bank which collapsed in late 2008. Combing through some of the latest financial information from the MPA, it's clear that the MPA is now expecting (at best) to get 83% of that back, leaving the police with a £5.1m loss. Ouch. Though not so ouch as to have stopped the £2m a year spent on chauffeur-driven cars for senior Met officers who don't have a security need for one. (To put these numbers in some context: the annual cost of a police constable is c.£60,000.)
Yesterday I added my name to the following motion to Liberal Democrat Conference to "Say No to Trident". If you area Liberal Democrat Conference representative you can add you name to the Nuclear Weapons and the Financial Crisis motion by emailing David Grace at david.grace131@btinternet.com with your name, constituency and membership number.
I am loving the Russian response to the allegations of Deep undercover spying in America. They haven't denied the fact or even that they have spy's instead they have merely said that the US hasn't revealed any details to them of the allegations.
Iain Dale brings us news that the Labour party has a number of select committee vacancies to fill.. still. The Welsh Select committe has more vaccancies of any committe for them to fill, 5. Rushing to stand up for Wales, that's what Labour are doing right?
I have asked the Council to deal with the graffiti swastikas that have appeared on Ridgegrove Lane. One has appeared on the wall at the junction of Ridgegrove Lane and Dutson Road (pictured) and another is sprayed on the road surface along the Lane. If you know of any other graffiti in the area, please get in touch and I will ask the council to remove it as soon as possible. If you know who is responsible for this graffiti, please let me know. I will pass on information received to the Police to they can take action, but am ...
[IMG: Abingdon] There were three principal council by-elections and six by-elections out in the towns. Of the three main events, two Labour seats and one Tory ward were all successfully defended, with very little change in the vote tallies. We ran candidates in two of the three, Bedford and Braintree, but to no avail. The third by-election, in Conwy, saw Labour gain 11% in vote-share, mostly through the absence of a Plaid Cymru candidate who took 12% last time the seat was contested. Three of the five Town Council seats up were Lib Dem defences, and a 100% retention rate ...
Being a constituent and a member of the Lib Dems in Portsmouth. I have to say how proud I am of Mike Hancock in not letting principles cloud the Lib Dems grasp for power in this matter. Mike is a very 'social' liberal, whilst he understands the need for measured cuts and budgets, he correctly sees the increase in VAT as very regressive and 'nasty', affecting those on lower incomes more than others. This doesn't address however, our appalling status now in the polls nor the opinion with many activists and the 'quiet' MPs that we are heading into political ...
The anti-skid surfaces at the bottom of Dutson Road outside the Spar shop have become detached and are in a very dangerous state. These surfaces (a large red patch and a smaller grey patch, pictured) were put down by the Council just over a year ago to help drivers if they approach the mini-roundabout outside Spar too quickly. The idea is that they stop a car from skidding and help drivers keep control. Unfortunately, the surfaces are crumbling in many areas and, much worse, are coming away in huge sheets in places. You can see some of the surface that ...
Today The BMA Voting in a large majority to cut NHS support for homeopathy backing the vote that was passed by the last labour government. It isn't too much of a suprise that in a time of austerity the BMA should decided that it should focus funding on medicine that has been proven to be ...
When I first began studying economics in the 1950s it was a commonplace that the British labourforce was relatively geographically immobile, and that one of the obstacles to greater mobility was the problem of council house tenants finding another house in the areas where the work was. In those days there was a shortage of council houses and councils had long waiting lists which normally gave priority to local people. The shortage of social housing, as it is now called, still persists, the shortage still acts as an obstacle to mobility, and Ian Duncan Smith has now realised this and ...
MPs are being called upon to get behind a campaign to urge FIFA to reconsider the use of technology in football.
As regular readers may remember, I have a passion for street trees - I think they can change how a road looks and feels for residents, help the environment and create a great impression for visitors. So I find myself continually speaking to the Trees and Woodlands Team trying to find the best way of ensuring we maintain our street tree cover both for now and for future generations. I believe that residents need to be involved in the decisions regarding which trees should be planted on their road and so I am delighted that the Council are allowing residents ...
A political party is nothing more than an idea. Ideas that spread are more likely to succeed than not. People often mistakenly think Apple is a technology company, it's not, it's a design company that makes technology. Its primary purpose is to create designs that are stylish, easy to use and cool while this manifests ...
From the Council: A turf cutting ceremony was held recently to mark the start of the construction of a new state-of-the-art education facility in Reddish. Work has now begun for Reddish North Primary School, Children's Centre and Fir Tree Nursery School which will transform primary and early years education in the area. The high quality new school will accommodate pupils from the current North Reddish Infants and Junior Schools and Fir Tree Primary Schools and will be fit for the 21st century. The new school will have places for over 500 children and is due to open in September 2011. ...
Yesterday's outburst and hurried, yet seemingly insincere, apology from Jeremy Hunthas reminded me once more that to a sizable minority of the party that my party is in coalition with I am nothing better than scum. Whilst the Tories may be continuing to love-bomb the Lib Dems and Nick Clegg seems firmly in position as Dave's ...
I took the opportunity this morning of taking a walk in Hesketh Park and once again I was delighted to see how beautiful the park looked in full growth. I was lucky to walk after a rain shower and the whole park had a wonderful clean and fresh smell. The Rose Garden looked spectacular as the rose bushes are coming into bloom. I was very upset to hear that vandals had recently removed two standard roses from the beds here and so was pleased to read that the police have targeted the park as one of their priority areas for ...
Earlier today Liam Byrnes was spotted buying a coffee by eyespymp. One has to wonder if he received a note saying "there's no coffee left, sorry." [it has been brought to my attention that running out of coffee is not a laughing matter and to make a joke about someone running out of coffee is ...
With an AV referendum coming (most likely in the spring), there is plenty that local parties can already be doing to help win the referendum. I've already talked about the importance of fielding more local election candidates, so today's post is about starting to ask questions of the public. It's never too early to start gathering voting intention data, even if you don't yet know the exact candidate line-up, and likewise it's never too early to start gathering referendum voting intentions, even if we don't yet know the exact question. When it comes to electoral reform, opinion polls show us ...
In recent times we've been told that cuts would be "compassionate" – if that even means anything. The idea behind it being that cuts would be very careful, and avoid damaging the front-line. Then the government unveiled its Spending Challenge, hoping to crowd-source ideas for saving money by asking six million public sector workers who ...
The news that Lembit is interested in running for Mayor has produced a flurry of comment online from Liberal Democrats (such as Andrew Reeves's piece) so over to you: what do you think?
When Derviş Eroğlu was elected President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in April, he had to resign his seat in the TRNC's parliament. His daughter Resmiye Canaltay ran as his party's candidate in the by-election held last Sunday, and lost by an agonising two-vote margin. Eroğlu, his wife and his bodyguard did not vote in the election as they were travelling to New York! (Further confusion was caused when the electoral authorities mixed up the tallies for the candidates and declared that Canaltay had been elected, then checked the figures and realised that Hüseyin Angolemli had actually got ...
There have been a number of polls out recently that have shown Lib Dem support starting to slide. We were on 18% with ComRes yesterday and ICM and YouGov have both had us as low as 16% in recent days. This on the surface looks like a drop of between a quarter and a third of the support we had on election day (24%). I suppose the first thing to say is that these polls always have a margin of error so it is possible that the real figures are not quite as bad as indicated. But more importantly this ...
Another campaign has come and gone. We looked forward to it, we sung the usual range of songs, we waved our flags, we booked our seats in the pub, and we watched as another England performance ended in despair. The usual recriminations are coming out - 'the players are not good enough, the manager has failed, the tactics are wrong, our season has too many games and the youth coaching is inadequate'. I copied that quote from when we failed to qualify for the 1994 world cup. I expect we'll be saying the same in 2034. Blaming the manager is ...
I recently found myself searching Hansard for something and I found this little episode: Sir, the hon. Member who has just sat down must recollect that those who meet him in debate do not meet him on equal terms. He never makes any mistakes; he is not subject to any human infirmity; he knows what a man can deny, and what not; and when he asserts that my right hon. Friend cannot deny a certain statement, and when my right hon. Friend does deny it, the hon. Member continues with unabated confidence to assert that my right hon. Friend had ...
The police's problems with mistreating photographers just go on and on. Yesterday Helen reported on the latest incident – including the damning comment from a policeman who, when asked under what law he was demanding a photographer's details, simply said "I don't have to have any law". But also we have the recent news that the police are paying compensation after an incident outside the Greek Embassy in 2008 when they stopped two photojournalists taking photographs. As the Press Gazette reported, Vallée had his camera pulled away from his face and the lens of Parkinson's video camera was covered by ...
As I've written before,I can see the fairness the Liberal Democrats have added to the Budget - a rise in the personal tax allowance and Capital Gains Tax, the restoration of the earnings link to the State Pension, the banking levy, the flat rate public sector pay rise for the lowest earners. There are also bits of it that make me shudder - the VAT rise for a start, although I suspect the Liberal Democrats were influential in ensuring that the tax did not extend its scope by including things like basic foodstuffs, books and children's clothing, and also the ...
If you want to see what was said and how it was said, the BBC have a clip of the remark.
It has been a good while since a Lib Dem Councillor held a surgery in Ainsdale -that is until Saturday when Haydn Preece opened up the Ainsdale Library for business. Haydn was accompanied by MP John Pugh and Cllr Simon Shaw. The surgery had been trailed in the local media and an encouraging number of folk turned up.
I am famously uninterested in football but I can't help noting the casual xenophobia following England's departure from the World Cup. Never mind the English players, fire the Italian !
Some good sense from Chris White on Liberal Democrat Voice: "Clearly FPC, the elected policy arm of the Party, must continue to draft policy for Conference to determine. It must not be a loyalist claque. Equally, however, it will serve no useful purpose in being a disloyalist claque. Some of the interventions this week have been purist self-indulgence." Andrew Reeves' Running Blog has the unwelcome news that the police are still harassing people for taking photographs in a public place. Personally, the only trouble I have had is at Cowley Street, but there you go. A reminder of Nick Clegg's ...
[IMG: Inderwick Road is signposted as part of London's cycle network] A few weeks ago I was contacted by a woman cyclist who spent two days in hospital with a fractured skull and broken collar bone after hitting a pothole on a local road in Stroud Green. She was an experienced cyclist and was wearing a helmet, but was knocked unconscious after hitting a pothole under the Parkland Walk bridge on Mount Pleasant Villas. This story has made me re-double my efforts to make our local roads safer. Top of my list is of concerns is Inderwick Road, which is ...
The Guardian: The coalition faced its first rebellion last night when two Liberal Democrat MPs voted against a budget proposal to increase VAT to 20%. Bob Russell and Mike Hancock voted with Labour to oppose the increase, which has alarmed many Lib Dems who warned during the election of a Tory VAT "bombshell". To shouts of "shame" from the Labour benches, the 2.5% increase in VAT from January was backed by 346 to 270, majority 76. Russell, MP for Colchester, and Hancock, MP for Porstmouth South, had earlier supported a backbench Lib Dem motion demanding a Treasury investigation into the ...
The Guardian newspaper ran a piece this last week criticising local authority publications as being propaganda organs for the incumbent party running the local council, which also take valued revenue away from local papers. They are quite right of course. That said, I'd feel more sympathetic to local papers if ever they were to field a reporter to attend the odd Council meeting or some Overview and Scrutiny ones. There's never been one at the press desk in my year in office, which is a pity as there have been a couple of humdingers this year. Firstly, when we Liberal ...
We were discussing England's exit from the World Cup over breakfast, and my wife hit on the reason for Germany's success: "they practice beforehand, which ruins the fun."
Nick Clegg has joined David Cameron in writing to public sector workers asking for ideas on how to cut public spending. This is at least a long-overdue recognition of the fact that it is the people now fashionably known as 'frontline workers' who are most likely to know where the excesses are to be found. It is, however, hard to be optimistic about the results, for one very simple reason. All the signs are that the responsibility for implementing any changes is going to be given to the same people that have allowed waste to flourish. The public sector includes ...
Jeremy Hunt has had to apologise after commenting that the terrible problems of "Heysel and Hillsborough in the 1980s seem now to be behind us". He was referring to the behaviour of the English fans at the World Cup, so the inference was that Liverpool fans were not behaving well. As bad behaviour played no part at Hillsborough it was natural that the relatives of those who were killed and those who were injured should feel insulted. I do not think any insult was intended. He remembered footballing disasters and related it to the the English fans in South Africa. ...
