It seems so long ago now, but all the way back at the end of February, I was involved with the successful campaign to get a change of direction on the Lib Dem approach to the controversial "Digital Economy Bill". One off the things I specifically called for in the spring conference motion was for an urgent policy working party to be established to look into issues around information technology and intellectual property. So it is good to see that that working party is about to be formed, headed up by one of my co-signatories to the conference motion, now ...
I *am* working on my Batman posts (and on PEP! 2 – which I had to put off slightly, because I realised that I could write an essay about Doctor Who that *also* served as an example of what a truly Liberal attitude towards copyright would look like, and tie the issue together much more ...
I am delighted to say that local newspaper "The CIrcuit" is back. A really good local newspaper that tells the good news, doesn't hyoe things up, and is a good read. John had picked ours up in the Municipal Buildings, but it can be bought for 25p and many local newsagents, and is free in local libraries. It is a refreshing read, try it.
This is Z and his friend. They are both outdoor cats who perform a useful role reducing the number of rodents around human settlement, as their ancestors have been doing for the last 4 thousand years They catch large numbers of house-mice and deer-mice. Deer-mice carry the deadly hantavirus which can be transmitted to humans. Under Edmonton city bylaws any of my neighbours is entitled to trap Z and deliver him to the city pound where I may have to pay a $100 fine plus kennel fees to get him back. The City of Edmonton would like to eradicate all ...
Words fail me. Remember the creationist 'zoo farm' that Debi and I wrote about a few years back? They've won an education award , specifically a "Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge" awarded by the Government backed Council for Learning Outside the Classroom. A Government backed charity has issued an accreditation award to a science denying establishment that's been heavily criticised in the past for its animal welfare standards, and that links heavily to www.earthhistory.org.uk, a site seeking to rewrite the science to justify young-earth creationism. They seem to want to blame Darwin for Mao, Hitler and Stalin (SRSLY). The ...
David Davis has been overheard making jokes about Clegg and Cameron at the Boot & Flogger wine bar in South London. (This is a venue where I have been overheard myself, but that is a story for another day.) Quite why this is seen as an important news story, I do not understand. But well done to Nick Clegg for handling it so capably today. What I do know is that to observe that two men like each other and work together well and then say, in effect, "hur, hur, hur, they must be gay" is cheap and ignorant. That ...
And considering I have done nothing of a social nature for a while, it was a brilliant day out and just what I needed. Lots of fantastic fast, loud aircraft, good food and sun. A perfect day. Enjoy the photos! Filed under: Spidey Says Tagged: Farnborough airshow 2010
Last year I visited to Rushton Triangular Lodge. I was back in the village again today. This is Glendon and Rushton station on the Midland mainline between Market Harborough and Kettering. It closed a few weeks before I was born. Wikipedia says the station opened in 1857 as Rushton - unsurprisingly, as it is right in the village. It was renamed 1896 to avoid confusion with the larger Rushden, which is also in in Northamptonshire.
Once upon a time, when titans trod the boards and Britain made the least worst TV in the world, much of why that came to be was not just down to that Reithian mission to "inform, educate, and entertain" but also due to the scrupulous sense of probity about how television was governed, especially with respect to impartiality and conflicts of interest. One of the great taboos, until it was swept away in the last days of High Thatcherism by the Broadcasting Act of 1990, was the ownership of television channels by newspaper publishers, and the long slippery slope from ...
The Telegraph is running a story that Ed Balls is considering quitting the Labour leadership race because Britain's biggest union, Unite has backed Ed Miliband MP. A source at Unite, which has 950,000 members who are eligible to vote in the leadership election, said: "The discussion before the vote was very much whether it should be Ed Miliband or Ed Balls. Ed Miliband won so clearly because it was thought he was the candidate best placed to be able to defeat his brother."Ed Balls had been hoping to win Unite's backing, especially given that his close ally is Charlie Whelan ...
Like most people I was so chuffed that Nick Clegg took David Cameron's place for Prime Ministers Questions last week. I also loved the complete overreaction to Nick's comments about the "illegal war in Iraq". The media went absolutely bonkers and the Civil Servants seemed to be as crazy too. The Civil Servants really need to start accepting that a Coalition Government is not the same old style of Government that they are used to and they need to start chilling out a little bit. It was quite obvious to anyone outside the slightly odd world of Westminster that what ...
Sky News is reporting the breaking news that former world champion snooker star Alex Hurricane Higgins has died. A sad day for the world of snooker, I was brought up on snooker, football, tennis and cricket and the hurrican Higgins was one of the key snooker stars at that time, a real character who will be sorely missed. Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins He was 61 and had suffered ill health for some time. Belfast-born Higgins, who won the world title in 1972 and 1982, was suffering from throat cancer. His biographer and friend Sean Boru told Sky News: "Everyone knew this ...
I remember once about 10 years passing a rake of a man on a street in Belfast. Initially I didn't pay him much attention until up close I realised it was two time World Snooker Champion Alex Higgins. Sadly the image to the left was similar to the only time I actually saw the man in the flesh. Even back then the people of Northern Ireland were never sure which of their failed sporting heroes would last longest. The two geniuses of Irish sport Higgins and George Best had both had their battle with alcohol but also for Alex there ...
At the Technology Park, there's a hugely overgrown strip of grass on the north side of Riverside Avenue just east of the Swallow roundabout. Residents have complained to me about the state of it - it is a really bad advertisement for the city as its the first part of the city you encounter by road travelling from the south towards the City Centre. I contacted Scottish Enterprise Tayside (SET) about the matter and have had a prompt response as follows : "I'm not surprised that there have been complaints because I agree that it is a mess. Actually Scottish ...
I have recently had complaints from residents in Pentland Crescent about potholes on the road and I raised this matter with the City Development Department of Dundee City Council. The road surface is in poor shape and particularly potholed at its junction with Saggar Street - see photo (right). The City Council has updated me that the Area Inspector has raised an Order for repair (dated 16th July) and the work should be undertaken within 28 days of that date.
I was at Tatton today and I have to say that our staff have done our beautiful County proud. The amount of leaflets that visitors were taking was incredible and I hope that this will result in many visitors coming to Conwy, I actually overheard two couples saying that it was their intention to visit Conwy in September. I hope also that the publicity in the national press and media will help attract people. Peter Barton-Price is the genius behind this creation which is celebrating the Honey Bee and all the work that it does whilst pollinating all our plants. ...
Aside from repeating the rather dubious 'Brokeback' joke at his lunch meeting with his Tate & Lyle chums David Davis' outburst about the Coalition Government reveals just how deep-seated his resentment towards David Cameron goes. Davis has never come to terms at having lost the Conservative party leadership in 2005. If anybody should be ...
Duncan Hames, the Lib Dem MP for Chippenham is the second of our newbie MPs to take part in a viral video campaign called 'Mpinions'. Here's the spiel from its creators: Mpinions is allowing new MPs to properly introduce themselves to you and all in a few easily-digestible minutes! Consider it the speed dating of the political world! The video campaign itself will be running until the end of August and is being sponsored by The Electoral Reform Society and supported and promoted online by the Hansard Society, Operation Black Vote, Dod's Parliamentary Communications and The British Youth Council. Videos ...
Slamannan (point on map) isn't the centre of the universe, however today the village at the western end of the Linlithgow and East Falkirk constituency is at the centre of the media's attention for very unfortunate reasons. A 32-year-old mother of two children (named locally as Lisa White) who pulled out of her wedding at the last minute yesterday is currently fighting for her life in Glasgow's Southern General Hospital, having had her throat slashed. The incident happened at around 10 am this morning. The news just in is that a man of 37 has been arrested in Newcastle. He ...
[IMG: Don't be a Littera by Adam Brown] I had a great morning on Wednesday visiting two of the three schools involved in an environment project with the Benfieldside, Blackhill, Bridgehill, and Shotley Bridge Partnership, alongside two councillor colleagues and organisers of the partnership. Under the guidance and prompting of the partnership Year 5 pupils at St Mary's, Benfieldside and Shotley Bridge schools had each taken one aspect of the environment to consider, and produced materials for a leaflet they will be distributing during the next school year. Saint Mary's had taken the theme of Green Spaces, and written a ...
Just got back from the Q&A with Nick Clegg. I'm told on Twitter by Mark Reckons that this was on Sky News unfortunately I didn't know this. So I'm not going to blog all the Q&A like I normally do because I wanted to talk the whole event in without thinking about the event like a reporter. First thing that struck me was that there was no registration as there was when I attended the Cameron Direct in Reading. I could just turn up, show my picture and walk in. I'm not even sure why photo ID was required. It ...
There's a load of community events coming up over the Summer. There's a big event in Tesco Car Park on Sunday 25th July and Debdale Festival on Sunday 1st August. There will be more events later in the Summer. All welcome.
Nick Clegg has hit back at attacks on the coalition and media suggestions that he 'gaffed' by terming the Iraq war illegal during Prime Minister's Questions this week. In an interview for Channel 4 News following his 'Nick Clegg meets' session in Oxfordshire this afternoon, Nick comments on the coalition: ... when you do something new, in politics as much as in any other walk of life, of course people are going to react against it and say: 'I prefer the old way, I think this isn't going to work'. And of course you get that in both parties, Conservative ...
The Government consultation on the future of civil partnerships, where I hope marriage equality will be on the agenda, looks set to begin consultation with relevant groups meeting on Tuesday 27th July. Whilst I'm never pleased at seeing Government consulting with unelected, non-representative private groups, I suppose this can be said to be a step forward in the debate. Changing Attitude, an Anglican LGBT group, report: Changing Attitude, LGCM, Stonewall, LGB Consortium, Lesbian and Gay Foundation and Outrage have been invited by Lynne Featherstone MP, the Minister for Equalities, to a discussion at the Home Office on Tuesday 27th July. ...
Just a quickie, for me at least... On Friday night, in the ten minutes to nine slot on Radio 4 after Any Questions, thee was someone talking about British Somaliland and its place at the start of the main batch of decolonisation of the British Empire. And it got me thinking; change, and change on a big scale at that, can be achieved much more quickly than people generally perceive of. In the fifty years following the end of World War Two the greatest empire the world has ever seen was rapidly dismantled. Seventy-odd countries were carved out of the ...
Sat 24th
16:45
LDV TwtPoll - right or wrong to deny Nick Griffin entry to the Buckingham Palace garden party?
A couple of days ago, Lib Dem Voice tweeted an instant poll asking the question, "Was it right or wrong for BNP leader Nick Griffin to be denied entry to the Buckingham Palace garden party?" The poll's still open, and you can vote here – here's how voting currently stands: All in all, pretty close, with 39% saying it was right, 33% saying it was wrong to deny him entry, and 26% saying he shoudn't have been invited in the first place.
Councillor Nigel Howells has been selected as the prospective Liberal Democrat Candidate for the Welsh Assembly election in Cardiff Central next May. The Liberal Democrat Councillor for Adamsdown currently holds the sport, leisure and culture portfolio for Cardiff Council. If elected he will take the place of longstanding Assembly Member and former Minster, Jenny Randerson as the Lib Dem AM for the seat.
Sat 24th
16:24
Coalition has done more for Equitable Life victims in 10 weeks than Labour did in 10 years
The coalition government has introduced a Bill to compensate Equitable Life policyholders Liberal Democrat Treasury Policy Committee, Stephen Williams said: "The Labour Government had 10 years to help the those who had their lives ruined by the collapse of Equitable Life and did nothing. In just 10 weeks the Coalition Government has taken real action to ensure that those who saw their pensions and life savings hit hard get the compensation they deserve. full article, please click here
Thanet Pride as successful if not more so than earlier years and the entertainment is as good as ever. Will add more photos later.
So, following on from trying to explain to fellow liberals why they should not misunderstand, and fear, the idea of "markets in everything" there's another demon that often accompanies phrases containing "markets" that needs slaying: "profit". For very many social liberals in the modern Liberal Democrats "profit" and its ability to incentivise choices and actions, a.k.a the "profit motive", is as dirty a phrase as "free market". It is another off those words/phrases that conjure up in many something to do with exploitation, greed, and for those of us of a certain age, again, the seeming obsession with material wealth ...
Well we now know where the Tour de France was won. It wasn't beating the man it was man on the point of being beating taken advantage of the opponent he swerved around on the Port de Bales. Without the 39 seconds that Alberto Contador gained from that incident Andy Schleck would have gone into this time trail still 31 seconds ahead and not 8 behind. In the end the gap that Alberto Contador picked up off Andy Schleck in today's time trial was 31", without Port de Bales they would have been tied on time.
In good economic times I am sure there are many who just walk in to jobs straight from school or university who never have to seek advice from anyone before joining the working population. In hard times, many people, but especially school leavers need to know they are getting the right advice. That is why it is beyond comprehsnion that Norfolk County Council Tories are to half the Connexions career service in a mass cull of jobs. The EDP has more about the Tory cuts HERE. We know the County has to make cuts, but why not start with cutting ...
Sat 24th
15:25Williams: Coalition has done more for Equitable Life victims in 10 weeks than Labour did in 10 years
Here's an important story that Lib Dem Voice omitted to give the space it deserves this week: Commenting on the Coalition Government's announcement that it has introduced a Bill to compensate Equitable Life policyholders, Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Treasury Policy Committee, Stephen Williams said: "The Labour Government had 10 years to help the those who had their lives ruined by the collapse of Equitable Life and did nothing. In just 10 weeks the Coalition Government has taken real action to ensure that those who saw their pensions and life savings hit hard get the compensation they deserve. "Liberal Democrats ...
29) Bart D. Ehrman, God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question - Why We Suffer (Mobipocket edition, 2006, ISBN 9780061578335). Ehrman is a New Testament scholar who used to be a conservative Christian, but is now an agnostic, having lost his faith largely over the very question he considers in this book. He gives a good account of the various attitudes to suffering that are found in the Bible and eventually concludes that the approach of Ecclesiastes is the most realistic: the world makes no sense, and the best we can do is to enjoy ...
Many thanks to Mark Valladares, who this week was the first in a series of guest editors. They will be running this site for a day each over the next few months. As Mark demonstrated so well, having a guest editor can give the site something new; in his case a very pertinent theme for the day and a range of new contributors. If anyone else would like to be a guest editor for the day, please drop an email to voice - voice.hat.libdemvoice.org.spam.com (this is spam bot hidden email address, replace .hat. with @ and remove .spam.com for the ...
I don't usually do military, but I always make an exception for the Territorial Army, and particularly for Kingston's own TA unit. They are the 256 (City of London) Field Hospital Volunteers - all medics who, amazingly, volunteer their services on top of their demanding professional lives as doctors, surgeons, nurses, physios etc. Last year they were deployed to the field hospital at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. That is a tough placement for anyone, so I am full of admiration for them all. Back in March 2009 a special meeting of the Council was called to agree to confer the ...
In just over an hour's time, at 2pm, the Lib Dem leader is holding the first of his 'Nick Clegg meets ...' open question-and-answer sessions outside of his own constituency. This isn't a party event: this is a chance for voters to question the Deputy Prime Minister, and will be broadcast live on TV. It's being billed as follows: An opportunity to ask the Deputy Prime Minister anything you like... - What will the coalition government's programme mean for me? - How will the current spending review impact Abingdon ? - What are the DPM's plans to change politics? But ...
The 10th July is an anniversary I forgot to mark here on Lib Dem Voice. For it was two years ago, on that day, that David Davis won the Haltemprice and Howden by-election he had himself forced as a self-declared referendum on civil liberties. At the time, I was fairly sympathetic to the impact of Mr Davis's stance, arguing "it would be churlish to deny that a significant number of folk chose to have their say", and that this afforded the former Tory shadow home secretary "a commanding personal mandate". In truth, I was over-generous to Mr Davis: Jonathan Calder, ...
Back in the early 1990s I used to regularly watch a discussion show on late night ITV called "Whale On" hosted by James Whale. A regular guest was a Tory MP Jerry Hayes. That is the first time I came across him and he regularly commentated about issues on the programme from a political perspective. I hadn't really heard of him again (he lost his seat in 1997) until I noticed him popping up on Twitter recently as @JerryHayes1. He seems like a nice chap with some views I agree with. He is clearly on the moderate wing of the ...
Four blogs have recently joined my Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator: Rocky Lorusso – http://rockylorusso.wordpress.com/ Rachel Olgeirsson – http://rachelolgeirsson.blogspot.com/ Dave Smithson – http://davesmithson.mycouncillor.org.uk/ Ian Gaskin – http://letzterkunstgriff.wordpress.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? Do you know of a blog by a LibDem which isn't listed? Why not get them to add it as well? Whether you are one of these new bloggers or someone who has been on the aggregator for rather longer, why not add you blog to the Wikio ...
Sat 24th
11:37
Note to Lib Dem Parliamentarians: We Are Not Stupid. Please stop treating us like we are.
As is my wont on a Saturday morning, I am listening to The Week in Westminster. One of the items they have had on it was about rumblings of discontent in the party that we are not having enough influence on the coalition. Stephen Gilbert, of the whip's office, tried to counter this by listing policies which we have had influence on which are currently being enacted... and the first one he came up with was also a Tory policy. HOW FUCKING STUPID DO YOU THINK WE ARE? The thing about being a Lib Dem is that you have to ...
Sat 24th
11:20Opinion: Motorway tolls - a step on the road to a progressive, green and Liberal Britain
Privatisation and progressive politics are not always natural bedfellows, so Tory veteran Tim Yeo's suggestion that motorways could be privatised and tolls erected in the interests of the fight against climate change was always likely to be greeted with a mixture of suspicion and scepticism by Lib Dems. But like most privatisations – if done correctly – Mr Yeo's proposals could lead to a fairer, greener and more Liberal Britain. The existing tax on road usage is road tax, which is essentially regressive as it doesn't take income and amount of usage of the road network into account. While road ...
Live from the land of the free and the home of the brave – or "Barry's Place", as I call it. After 30 odd years of working (broadly) in business and having studied businesses (a tiny bit) and taken an interest in them for a long time, it was a pleasure yesterday to experience what I think is as near to the perfect business as you'll get. I'll let you guess which one it is. But the whole experience of booking with them and then receiving their service has been a great pleasure. Above all, you get the over-whelming impression ...
The male voice from Lib Dem HQ was frank and assertive. There have been redundancies and there will be more. The problem is the coalition, for now that we are no longer an opposition party - our funding has been cut circa £1.8 million. By donating, I can help save these precious jobs (and presumably his too). Of course I'll take a look at my bank account and realising that there isn't really sufficient in there - I'll donate some anyway, it always seems to happen so. So talking of (being) 'Short Money', named as it was after Edward Short ...
As you can see I have changed the design of Bracknell Blog. I will also be adding in more links and will be updating them so I can provide my readers with a better service. Hope you like it.
[IMG: diplomaciasuja.jpg] My last post did not signal a return to blogging but rather explained why I need a few days' break. But I have to share with you my joy at the release of the Brazilian edition of Murder in Samarkand, translated from the US edition and entitled Diplomacia Suja. This is the first foreign language edition and I am childishly excited to hold it in my hands. I was actually jumping up and down a few minutes ago. There seems something magical about seeing your work in a tongue which is mysterious to you. Many thanks to Companhia ...
Following on from the news this week that the CPS will not be pursuing any charges against the police with respect to the death of Ian Tomlinson who died after being struck by a policeman during the G20 protests, his family has launched a campaign and are raising funds to help support their fight for justice. I blogged about this utter travesty here. The blogpost from the Tomlinson family site is here. Here are the details: Many have asked if there is anything more they can do and today, we are launching a Campaign Fighting Fund. There is still long ...
Sauntering down Oxford Street, Mauricio Reyes spotted Nokia's secret Android plans. [IMG: Nokia phones "running" Android] Nokia phones "running" Android Is this just a hapless Photoshop mistake – or a sign of things to come?!?!?!?! It's a daft graphic designer – obviously. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't take the possibility of Nokia devices running Android seriously. Oh, don't get me wrong, Nokia will never ship and Android powered phone – they've invested too much in Symbian and MeeGo for that. But Nokia devices will run Android. A few years ago, I coaxed my Nokia N810 into running a prototype ...
For some time, every council has opened up its accounts - down the the last receipt and invoice - for any member of the public to inspect. This happens for one month a year and your opportunity to view Stockport's finances in detail ends next Friday, 30th July. From the Council: A notice has now been published advising that until Friday, 30 July "any person interested, on application initially to Business Services Directorate, Stopford House, Piccadilly, Stockport, SK1 3XE, telephone 0161 480 4949, ext 4124, may at the appropriate offices of the Council inspect and make copies of the accounts ...
We are always told that the British economy needs graduates to survive. It does. But those who advocate such a line typically gloss over the fine details. When you put degrees under the microscope, and the fact that in each year that passes the number of overall graduates continues to soar, the equation no longer ...
One of my favourite Bill Bailey stand up shows was "Part Troll". In that, he made this memorable remark: There's this one celebrity, Rosie O'Donnell, a talk show host, and she said this: "I don't know anything about Afghanistan, but I know it's full of terrorists, speaking as a mother." So what is this "speaking as a mother" then? Is that a euphemism for "talking out of my arse"? "Suspending rational thought for a moment"? As a rational human being, Al-Qaeda are a loose association of psychopathic zealots who could be rounded up with a sustained police investigation. But speaking ...
My blog is now renamed Agent Orange. It was an obvious choice surprised no one else got there first!
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how I'd developed a huge interest in the Tour De France and since then, my interest has been enhanced by what has been a thrilling race. The highlights for me have been: Mark Cavendish's struggle to find early form and his return to win 4 stages despite the loss of his main lead out man Mark Renshaw.Renshaw's disqualification for headbutting one opponent and blocking another - which, to be honest, seemed a little harsh in the circumstances.Watching Lance Armstrong in his final Tour and reliving the moment when he ended up riding ...
[IMG: David Bouchier leaflet - Camden LibDems] During the week I went over to help David Bouchier and his team in a council by-election in Camden. When knocking-up on the day, the most common query from people was 'Do I need my poll card to vote?' and that's often the experience of people who go door-knocking on polling day. I've written before about just how awful poll cards look: Poll cards look dull, uninviting and give you no reason to get interested in, or excited by, the prospect of voting ... It looks like a boring official document. It hardly ...
Samuel Pepys is not often associated with Nigerian internet scams, yet there is an uncanny echo of modern problems in his own forgery of 1661. In August of that year the famous diarist recorded that he "counterfeited a letter to Sir W. Pen, as from the thiefe that stole his tankard lately". A follow up letter offered to return the tankard in return for 30 shillings, a trick than William Penn fell for. Pepys retired to a pub to spend the 30 shillings drinking with his friends, where they were joined by the poor Penn who was - perhaps thankfully ...
A written answer this week confirmed that Britain's quota of MEPs is about to increase by one:
There are some F1 drivers, who would not only be a bit put out if they were ejected from their car in the way that Hispania Racing's Karun Chandhok has been but would not have hidden their fury from the world. Toys, dummies, you name it, they would be flying. Karun, however, has remained true to himself as the essence of politeness, courtesy and good humour. Rather than sulk this weekend when he's not racing, his Twitter feed this morning shows that he's using the chance to increase his knowledge and become a better driver. These tweets show how: cold ...
The BBC report that the national chair of Plaid Cymru has handed in his resignation citing personal and "significant political" reasons. Writing on his blog Mr. Dixon cited personal and "significant political" reasons for his decision: But it isn't as simple as just the personal and it would be dishonest of me to pretend that it is; there are some significant political reasons as well. There are a number of ways in which I feel that the party has moved, or is moving, in a direction which I cannot support, but being a national office-holder has fettered my freedom to ...
Amid the recriminations over the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi and the rumours of BP's involvement, we should not lose sight of the central question. Was al-Megrahi guilty? This essay by Gareth Peirce from last year's London Review of Books presents an eloquent statement of the reasons why we might conclude that he was not.
...OR why they are right to refuse... ...OR how America still thinks the West must be won So Kenny MacAskill and Jack Straw have both said no to the US Senate enquiry on Megrahi. Tony Blair had apparently been invited and indeed his airfare would have been covered, although the Senate are saying this was a draft letter which had been leaked to the press. However, when you look at the USA's record on implementing International Laws the fact that they are looking to have a hearing into a criminal tried under Scottish Law and released under Scottish jurisdiction on ...
There is a fascinating article in yesterday's Independent by Johann Hari setting out clearly the influence of BP over the previous Labour Government and how their financial interests drove the decisions that eventually led to the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi. Of course, none of this is new, I blogged on it back in August 2009 following an article in the Sunday Times, which made similar allegations. They reported then that a prisoner transfer deal with Libya was explicitly linked to a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal involving BP. Johann Hari does not pull any punches: The ...
Mike German's departure for the House of Lords has seen his replacement by Veronica German and as a result the Welsh Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet has had a re-shuffle: Kirsty Williams: Group Leader and Spokesperson for Environment and Rural Affairs, Chair of the Sustainability Committee Peter Black: Spokesperson for Housing and Finance, Assembly Commissioner and Business Manager Eleanor Burnham: Spokesperson for Communities, Culture and Social Justice and European Affairs Veronica German: Spokesperson for Health & Local Government and Equal Opportunities. Jenny Randerson: Spokesperson for the Economy and Education, Chair of Legislation Committee No.4
Anyone with15 minutes to spare and a serious interest in the world economic crisis should read this article by Paul Krugman and Robin Wells in The New York Review, 13th May, 2010. Here are a few quotations as tasters: ...too much debt is always dangerous. ...the Depression looks much more like the product of excessive private sector debt than like the government failure of monetarist legend ...the aftermath of financial crises tends to be nasty, brutish and long. ...the long term cost of financial crises is less when countries respond with strong stimulus policies, which means that failure to do ...
i) births and deaths 24 July 2009: death of Harry Towb, who gets killed off by the Ice Warriors as Osgood in The Seeds of Death (1969) and by the Master as McDermott in Terror of the Autons (1971). He would normally fall below my threshold for prominent contributors to Doctor Who except that as McDermott he uses the best Ulster accent ever heard on the show. I posted a tribute to him last year. ii) broadcast anniversaries 24 July 1965 - broadcast of 'Checkmate', the fourth episode of the story we now call The Time Meddler, ending the original ...
At 625 numbered pages, this is another very long volume of the Bloody Sunday report - not really because of the number of casualties (eight, compared to seven from each of the previous two volumes) let alone the number of soldiers involved (only four, compared to six in Volume V and eight in Volumes III and IV) but because the evidence of the perpetrators and survivors is unusually confusing. Of the four soldiers (Corporal E, Lance Corporal F, Private G and Private H), two are now dead, and all four appear to have attempted to coordinate their stories rather more ...
I was travelling from Morecambe to Windermere two days ago, and as soon as I drove onto the motorway at junction 35 I could see standing traffic. The radio report told me that two lanes were closed around the next service station due to a lorry shedding its load of plastic bottles. When I passed the services 2 miles and 40 minutes later I could see some cans being cleared up. I could also see some spray coming from newly punctured cans. Fortunately I had given myself enough extra time to get to Windermere on time. It looks like many ...
