A message reaches me from the Liberal Democrat European Group... The Liberal Democrats are still short of sufficent delegates to activate all of our votes at the ELDR Congress this autumn. It is in Helsinki on Thursday and Friday October 14th-15th, with a reception the night before. Direct flights on BA from Heathrow and Easyjet from Manchester. Contact Natalie Darby in the Lib Dem International Office for details at Lib Dem HQ on 0207 222 7999. The deadline to confirm names on our delegation list is August 13th.
Just what is the "Big Society" was the question we discussed at our "Talk at Two" meeting after Church today. A real meeting of thoughts on the role or state, ourselves and the Church. "ourselves" being central to what does happen - people are very used to expecting all to be done for them, but should it be always the case, and protection of the vulnerable and those in need must be central too....
Stephen Williams is the Lib Dem vice-chair of the Treasury select committee, and he has just weighed into the argument about RBS profits and the shortage of lending to small business. "There is no excuse for RBS not to loan to good British companies that are struggling to get credit," he said. "We cannot simply allow banks to go back to business as usual while viable British firms are suffering." He might be right in this second sentence, but he is wrong in the first. In fact, the party is heading up a blind alley with this constant hand-wringing about ...
I am convinced that some political journalists know nowt about political parties and how they operate internally and on the ground. The latest evidence for this is in the Independent on Sunday. It contains yet another allegation that the Coalition is about to blow itself apart, this time because the Lib Dems will hold a conference debate on gay marriage. I have no problem about the press
This thought-provoking and rather eerie animation shows every nuclear explosion from 1945 up to 1998.It begins slowly, but there's a sort of flash flood of detonations in the 1950s.....Before you watch it, see if you can answer this question - where did the first nuclear explosion take place in Africa? (that's not including the natural nuclear reactions that took place in what is now Gabon, 2
I'll wait while regular readers are picking their jaws up off their keyboards as have in fact just awarded the irregularly presented Quote of the Day on this blog to the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland. For this: "In many states - more than half - they kill the perpetrators of horrible crimes, by lethal injection or even firing squad - I say that is a culture of vengeance. "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth - that is not our culture in Scotland and I would like to think that the US ...
Finally something to blog about. A friend of mine posed the question whether the project of the Islamic Cultural Centre to be built near Ground Zero should go ahead. Caldwell on the FT made the point of the location of the mosque being insensitive to the victims of 9/11. Of course, Islam should not be seen as responsible for 9/11, but as the atrocities were committed in the name of Islam, it
I was delighted when Nick Clegg announced that the refereundum on Alternative Votes would be held 11 May next year and even the exact wording. To make this happen an act is before parliament. It also includes reducing the number of MP's by 50 ensuring a work equitable size in terms of voters in each parliamentary constituency. This should'nt affect Southwark as we now have pretty average constituencies. I'm amazed Labour are planning to vote against this. Clearly not a decision based on principle. AV will result in fewer safe seats. Their was a broad correlation between how safe a ...
Now this is getting ridiculous. What is next? Tenby? Felinheli, perhaps? Or maybe even Builth Wells? I dare anybody to find a rhyme for Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch which at least has a railway station. Still, fair play, this video spoof set to Bachman-Turner Overdrive's 70s classic, 'Ain't Seen Nothing Yet', done DGJ style is actually quite funny
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As I wind down after another weekend of relaxation and recreation, I'm looking forward to this weeks episode of Sherlock Holmes. Brilliant dialogue, quite faithful to the original (I loved the way that modern Holmes deduces Watson is an Afghanistan veteran, almost exactly like the original), even if the plots are a little thin. ...
Leading anti-badger cull activist, Derek Hector from Cardiff, has sent me details of an exchange of correspondence with Private Eye and his battle to get them to publish an alternative point of view to that of their agricultural correspondent: This is the letter I wrote to Private Eye in response to a pathetic rant supporting the dairy Industry and insulting Brian May ( The Agri Brigade Eye 1267) I would be pleased if you would publish this letter to balance The Agri Brigade column (Private Eye No 1267). In the first quarter of 2010 there has been a 64% drop ...
I went to see Christopher Nolan's Inception this afternoon. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, this is set in a world where the US military has developed a technology for sharing dreams. Initially this meant that service personnel could engage in close combat without concern of death as while pain in dreams is real - death would only cause the subject to wake up. This technology has been adapted outside the military and is being used for, amongst other things, industrial sabotage. DiCaprio plays a former "architect" - the term given to those who create the dream worlds to be utilised - who ...
Another tasting at The Whisky Exchange, another spirit I didn't know much about. My gin drinking to date has been almost entirely in the form of gin and tonic, with occasional cocktails. This evening was a tasting of eight different gins, plus some cocktails.Interestingly, while you usually get much the same crowd of people at TWE's tastings - they're mostly whisky drinkers, but plenty of them also came along to the armagnac and rum tastings and some to the tequila tasting - I didn't recognise anyone at this gin tasting. They missed out on a good evening. What's more, it ...
Talking of defunct brewery liveries, this rather lovely tile is on the front of a house (and presumably former pub) in Jericho.
At the last full council meeting in Gateshead, Labour put in a motion about the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme. BSF was launched with a great fanfare by the Labour government with the aim of rebuilding or renovating most secondary schools in the country. And whilst some great school buildings were constructed, the programme turned out to be slow, vastly bureaucratic
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 181st weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (1st – 7th August, 2010), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox – just click here – ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. Floella ...
Gao Xingjian won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2000, which was the year this, his best known novel, was published in English; most of his work had been available in Swedish since the early 1990s, which may explain why the Nobel committee got to him before much of the English-speaking world did. Soul Mountain is a story of an unnamed narrator exploring China, in search of the mythical mountain of the title, also telling himself the story of a pair of lovers ("you" and "she") on a similar journey. It rather lacks a plot; it's a series of vignettes ...
North West Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies reports on his battle for fuel efficiency. Even when you think you must be onto a sure-fire winner, a combination of commercial vested interests and short- sighted politicians can line up to defeat you. But in the battle for more fuel efficient vans, we're not beaten yet! The European Commission has proposed a regulation intended to reduce CO2 emissions from new vans and light commercial vehicles by 33% (to 135gCO2/km by 2020). I strongly support this. I'm confident that affordable technology exists to make it possible. The protests from the vehicle manufacturers began ...
Like most of you, I'm sure, I've tried tequila in the past, and not liked it. But then I'd only had it while drunk, so when the opportunity came up to try a few different tequilas at another of The Whisky Exchange's tastings at Vinopolis a coupla months ago, I thought I'd give the drink another go ... Tapatio blanco: "blanco" tequilas are unaged - or at most allowed to sit for a few days. I was surprised that this was pretty drinkable for what is basically a raw spirit that's been watered down to 40%, with lots of flavour. ...
As I prepare my Whoniversary posts, I've been noting the dates of broadcast of Doctor Who stories over the years. Not very surprisingly, they are distributed very unevenly around the calendar. Month Old Who episodes New Who episodes (inc specials) Others (1996, Torchwood, SJA, Comic Relief since 2005) Total January 107 1 6 114 February 95 0 5 100 March 90 2 5 97 April 52 21 1 74 May 51 20 1 72 June 36 20 1 56 July 11 2 6 19 August 11 0 0 11 September 55 0 2 57 October 61 0 18 79 November ...
I'm a terrible slacker, I went to this tasting back in February and have only just now got round to writing up my notes. BAD ME.It's largely due to Glenfiddich's marketing back in the 1970s and onwards that single malt whisky is now so popular. Unfortunately, while their standard bottling may have been interesting back then compared to the crappy blended whiskies that dominated the shelves at the time, it's rubbish by modern standards, but it kept selling mostly because it was cheap. I believe that they've discontinued it. It certainly wasn't part of this tasting, at which we sampled ...
Welcome to a series where old posts are revived for a second outing for reasons such as their subject has become topical again, they have aged well but were first posted when the site's readership was only a tenth or less of what it is currently or they got published and the site crashed, hiding the finest words of wisdom behind an incomprehensible error message. I've slightly updated some information to keep it current. It's fairly cheap and easy to produce videos and make them available to the world via YouTube these days. But how do you get people to ...
I've been very critival of the Catholic Church over issues such as shielding child abusers from arrest and standing in the way of equal opportunities, but it is nice to heap praise in them for the words spoken today by the Roman Catholic leader in Scotland. Cardinal Keith O'Brien has spoken out against the USA for their line of attack over the Al Megrahi release and accused the Americans of keeping bad company in their liove of the death penalty (keeping them more in line with Saidi Arabia and Iran then with free democratic states), but the bit I liked ...
Part 10 of blogging my way through my first reading of Atlas Shrugged. You can find the first part here. Chapter 10: Wyatt's Torch Dagny's now spending her time trying to find the man who invented the static engine, as well as what happened to the factory. She meets all manner of disagreeable socialists – ...
It's back! After two months of wallowing in World Cup disappointment we have football back on our TV screens. I'm hoping to get down to the Lane to see Spurs more often this season, which should be easier now that I'm ... Continue reading →
I would imagine Liberals throughout the country breathed a collective sigh of relief this past week when they opened their newspapers or turned on their computers to find the intrusive ContactPoint database was to be switched off at noon on 6th August. 28th February 2010 was the beginning of the end for ContactPoint. On this day, an emergency motion submitted to Liberal Youth Spring Conference found its way through the ballot and ended up for debate on the final day of our conference. During the debate, we acknowledged the good points of ContactPoint and, whilst we understood its flaws and ...
The last day I was in Algeria, a local friend drove me up into the Djudjura National Park, the physical and spiritual centre of Kabylie, the Berber region about two hours drive east of Algiers. The Kabyles built their settlements on hill tops, partly as a defensive formation but also because they like to be ...
Re-watching the first series of Armando Iannucci's brilliant The Thick of It, I was struck by how tragic Hugh Abbot's character is. On the surface, Abbot is a man out of his depths struggling to cope but a second viewing makes you realise that the Westminster machine works against the people in it. In one episode, Abbot goes without sleep for days because by the time he gets home it is time to leave again. How can anyone make decisions in a state of constant sleep deprivation? When it is revealed he has a flat in London that he doesn't ...
My break from blogging continues. I have not been posting in or reading the comments sections. I am told some people have been worried by some posts there purporting to be from me. They are not from me, I am in good health and have not discovered any "bugs" or phone taps - someone is posting nonsense comments in my name. Anyway here is a photo of my bed, to help explain why I am taking a break. [IMG: 004.jpg] And here are some pictures of the rest of the house, which had been illegally converted to bedsits and substantially ...
I was wandering the pleasant streets North Oxford this morning looking for the house where J.R.R. Tolkien used to live. I found it - and will show it to you sometime - but in the process I found something far more interesting. This is St Andrew's church. According to Wikipedia it was consecrated in 1907, which is a little later than I had guessed. It is not particularly distinguished as a building, but what interested me was the identity of the vicar. For it is Andrew Wingfield-Digby, a stalwart of the Oxford University cricket team in the 1970s. All told ...
Did @rubarrichello just ask the public to call #Schumacher a prick? I'm up for some of that! #f1 #fb # Feeling positive regarding today's interview. #in #fb # Forget Dr. Who or Sherlock. Am watching Moffat's best work: Coupling – Series 1! #fb # Spurs will go further in Europe than Arsenal? Defoe is delusional! #FOYS #fb # Powered by Twitter Tools
I cannot believe what I have just witnessed in a video taken by police during a pursuit of a disabled pensioner motorist who they suspected of not wearing a seatbelt last September in South Wales. You can watch it below: Here are some of the details from the Telegraph article in which I read the story: Footage captured on a police dashboard camera shows one officer striking the driver's seat window with a baton up to 15 times and another officer jumping on the bonnet of the car and kicking the windscreen in an apparent attempt to crack it. Police ...
32) Edwige Danticat, Krik? Krak! (New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1995, ISBN 067976657X). A collection of short stories set in the fictional town of Ville Rose, Haiti or amongst its former residents who have become refugees in the US. Beautifully written and very moving. I had trouble reading the first few stories because they were just too painful, too much like the real-life accounts of refugees whose stories cross my desk at work; but the later stories weren't quite so graphic. I will definitely read more of Danticat's work. This entry was cross-posted from Dreamwidth, where there are currently [IMG: comment ...
It seems that one or two readers of my blog have illogically come to the conclusion that calling for the Bangladesh war crimes trials to be held under legislation that conforms with modern international standards means that I have no sympathy for the three million who were killed and 200,000 rape victims of the 1971 liberation war. On the contrary, I want the convictions and sentences of the perpetrators to be legally unchallengeable. The government of Bangladesh did not amend the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973 in accordance with the advice given by the International Bar Association, reinforced by similar ...
The Koran says: O you who believe, you shall be absolutely equitable, and observe Allah, when you serve as witnesses, even against yourselves, or your parents, or your relatives. Whether the accused is rich or poor, Allah takes care of both. Therefore, do not be biased by your personal wishes. If you deviate or disregard (this commandment), then Allah is fully Cognizant of everything you do. Sura 4:135 Therefore the latest case to emerge from Iran, allegedly based on religious teachings must taken in light of what else the holy book is teaching the Islamic Republic. That latest story involves ...
We know what the Guardian thinks of the Coalition's spending cuts. But how does it report the news when we decide to spend more on something? Try this report by Patrick Wintour in yesterday's paper: David Cameron plans to press ahead with an expensive shift in treatment for drug addicts, towards residential programmes and away from the use of methadone as a substitute licensed drug."Expensive." Isn't he sweet?
The Independent today reports on the proposals, to be debated at the upcoming Liberal Democrat conference, (as reported by me here) to make marriage equality party policy. They suggest that it might "highlight the divisions between the members of the coalition". Hmm.. is that really the case? I mean, we are DIFFERENT parties with DIFFERENT policies so how it will highlight, any further than now, that we are DIFFERENT I really don't know. Is it me or are the media totally obsessed by fictional Coalition wobbles? Anyway, I'm (as you can imagine) very much in favour of the proposals although ...
Ah, opinion polls. Love 'em or hate 'em, you just can't ignore 'em. Today's Telegraph reports a typically anti-Lib Dem story, Voters fail to recognise 'invisible' Lib Dem ministers. It claims to show that "Liberal Democrat cabinet ministers are far less likely to be recognised by ordinary voters than their Conservative counterparts". However, the real clue to its accuracy is in the next few words, "a survey by The Sunday Telegraph has revealed". So how did the Telegraph commission its survey, you might ask. Did they pay a beyond-reproach polling firm (or even YouGov) to talk to a representative sample ...
From Stockport Council: The Marketing team at Solutions SK, Stockport Council's wholly owned company, has won a Local Catering Association's (LACA) Education Marketing Award for the school meals service. Over 700 people from the UK's catering and hospitality industries attended the LACA awards and conference event which recognises the best performers and their successes over the last year. In providing a schools meals service, the team involves the whole school, working with children, parents, employees, suppliers, and local sports personalities such as Stockport County footballers. The many successes in the last 12 months included a High School Meal Deal Pilot ...
I'm not completely sure what I think yet about the governments proposals to allow a referendum once council tax is raised above a certain threshold. On the one hand is far better than the current inflexible cap of 5% that was brought in by the last government. This fixed cap took absolutely no account of local circumstances and big local projects at all and was extremely unfair on councils who would probably have had the support of their residents to raise taxes. But on the other hand this isn't real localism. In order for local councils to have more power ...
My MP, Andrew Selous, is apparently upset that Luton Borough Council won't give him contract details of the contract between them and BAM to build a £90 million busway between Luton and Houghton Regis. If foul play is suspected over the timing of the signing of contracts, then I think Andrew Selous is right to pursue the issue. If the purpose is to get the contract cancelled in the hope that money saved will be directly shifted to constructing the A5-M1 link road, then I think the hope is naive. Given that the busway construction has been funded, and is ...
We got back last night from a wonderful week at a holiday cottage on the Black Isle, just north of Inverness. I'm not sure I want to tell you where it is cos you'll all want to go there and we want to book for next year, but I probably will. Our week away had everything we wanted: family, particularly seeing my Auntie Anne and Uncle Dons for the first time since Anna was a baby, and having lots of quality time with my sister, brother in law, nieces and nephew; fun, frolics and mermaids on beaches; poignant moments in ...
The last time the Labour Party were in opposition, they were in opposition for a long time. When Tony Blair and Gordon Brown came to lead the party they took the time to develop their ideas through training and learning, and learning from past mistakes (some of which was discussed in their 2005 election broadcast). ...
I found these at the Earls Court CAMRA Great British beer festival yesterday I put this picture on twitter. It was Re-Tweeted many times yesterday. This picture is from the back of the pants; This pants can be brought at Twisted Twee here
We continue our effort for more allotments in the borough. I was particularly pleased with the news that the may be expansion on the Town Lane site. Soil samples have been sent away and we are awaiting results which are due soon.In the meantime a little photo of two heads of garlic grown by me on the Birkdale Irrigation site. It is that time of year when plot holders have lots of crops /surpluses to give away. Garlic is a very easy crop to grow and with so many varieties suited to the English climate now available it is well ...
The Department for Health today decided that it was going to release an annoucement that it was withdrawing free school milk in a policy that instantly reminded me of the Margaret Thatcher adminstration of the 70′s/80′s I instantly tweeted that ... Continue reading →
Today's Independent reports: The Liberal Democrats are to use their first party conference in government to adopt a radical new policy calling for gay marriage. The paper points out the tensions such a policy could spark with the socially conservative right-wing among the Tories. However, I'm intrigued by the paper's suggestions that it also "risks causing deep divisions with ... the traditional Methodist wing of the Lib Dems". As a nonconformist myself (albeit not Methodist), I'd never realised that defined me as being part of a clique within the Lib Dems. Nor that my religious views would prevent me from ...
This morning's Wales on Sunday refers to an interesting Freedom of Information release that raises further questions about the £121 per passenger public subsidy on the Anglesey to Cardiff air service, run by Manx2 and dubbed Ieuan Air by it detractors because it serves the Deputy First Minister's constituency. The question was how many times ministerial cars were travelling between Cardiff and Anglesey without a passenger (that missing passenger being, presumably, Deputy First Minister and Anglesey AM Ieuan Wyn Jones. The answer: 32 times in the past two years: 13 times in 2008, 17 times last year and twice so ...
The UN figure for people affected by the floods in Pakistan is at least 4.2 million. Flooding has also affected India. Oxfam, Medicine Sans Frontieres and other organisations are collecting money to provide help. Don't forget to give!
Sun 8th
10:42
Miss SB's Very Prestigious and Entirely Serious Blog Awards - Category Four: Wittiest Blog
[IMG: [personal profile] ] nanaya Quizzlestick Richard Herring Victoria Coren Please take a look at them, assess them, and then vote. The vote is anonymous, and you don't have to have a Dreamwidth account to vote - instructions on logging in with open ID are here. Do feel free to pimp it out to your readers if you've been nominated. The poll will remain open for a week, and the next category will go up tomorrow. View Poll: Wittiest Blog Other Categories: Best Political Blog - 3 days left to voteBest Fandom Blog - 3 days left to voteBest Feminist ...
From today (Sunday 8th August), First Bus are increasing all single and return fares in the Bristol Area by 10p for adults and 5p for children, except for longer distance peak returns (those costing over £4 for adults or £3 for children). The First Day ticket in Bristol remains unchanged at £4 for adults.
Yesterday's Daily Telegraph has a detailed and interesting interview with Vince Cable in which he lays out his intention to replace tuition fees with a progressive graduate tax and restates his commitment to fairness: This mantra of fairness is central to his beliefs. He is often cited as the Lib Dem most likely to quit the cabinet on a policy issue, so what are his "red line" issues that might provoke such an exit? "I worked for some years to get us committed in our party to what we call fair taxes, lifting low-paid people out of tax, we got ...
The latest in my publication of Stockport local election results from 1974. 1988 was the year after Maggie Thatcher's last election victory, and also the year after the SDP/Liberal Alliance merged into the clumsily named Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD). In the wake of the merger, a small rump of SDP and Liberal members decided to go it alone. The SDP folded after a few years, but the Liberals are still out there with a few councillors (though not in Stockport). Look through these results and you'll see that fallout, with several seats being contested by both SLD (i.e. Lib ...
I recently wrote to the City Council as follows : "An elderly sheltered tenant of Abbotsford Place has contacted me following a bad fall when she fell trying to negotiate the kerbing near her home (using a zimmer) to get to the sheltered lounge. There seems to be a lack of any dropped kerbing in the street and I was wondering if this could be looked into. Aa resident in Corso Street nearby has made a similar complaint - getting from Corso Street along to Annfield Street (across Peddie Street). For an area with sheltered housing the area seems to ...
The Town Council's Yorkshire Day Tea on the Green went very well and attendance was pretty good in spite of fine drizzle most of the afternoon. The only disappointment was that the children's rides (my part of the arrangements) did not ...
Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable is interviewed in the Sunday Telegraph ("in open-neck pink shirt and slippers", intriguingly). The paper chooses to headline it, Vince Cable: 'I'm not having fun in government', trying to feed into the narrative that Vince is a semi-detached member of the coalition government, though he's certainly loyal in all his utterances. Incidentally, the headline quote set in context reads rather more uncontroversially: "People sometimes ask me 'are you having fun?' " he says. " No! It's hard work and it's tough, but it's important." The paper largely ignores what seems to me a far ...
Sun 8th
09:54
Africans starve, Glaciers melt but Berkshire people are supposedly worried about offending dinner no...
One you may have missed from April 30th 2008 The grandly-named "Morality panel" at BBC Radio Berkshire was in my diary, and that of my good lady wife, today. Nicki Whiteman, who hosts the 1pm-4pm show on our local Oracle, is an exquisite broadcaster who ought to have a show on Radio 2 (Cheques payable to P.Walter....). The questions which came up were, as usual, quixotic: Should prisoners get a pay rise ? ....Er.... yes. Should Page Three continue ? ....Er.... yes. Is it OK to ask for a pay rise ? ....Er....yes. What should we do if we can't ...
This is the first of many opinion pieces to improve the blog (hopefully). Obviously, subjects will vary from local to national, but today I start with national. I wake up to news that the government wants to take free milk of under fives. I do a quick mental check that Sarah Teather Milk Snatcher doesn't scan, only to find it is one of many signs of Cameron bluster. In a hurry We have two parties in a hurry in coalition. The LibDems have been out of power for 80 years, but the 13 years of Tory wilderness almost feels as ...
Lloyds TSB announced an unexpected profit of £1.6 billion for the first half of 2010 this week. Given that the government owns a substantial chunk of the bank this is very good news for taxpayers. In fact the current stock price is over 73p per share which is way above the 63p per share break even price for the government. If they were to sell their stake now they would make a handsome profit. Although this should be caveated by the fact that if they were to try and unload all their shares right now that could have a distorting ...
The four authorities that used to be Avon have been developing a Joint Waste Core Strategy (JWCS) setting out where new waste processing sites should go. On 30th July 2010 they submitted the JWCS Submission Document to the Secretary of State for independent examination. The Secretary of State will appoint a Planning Inspector to examine the 'soundness' of the Core Strategy, considering the representations received. As part of the examination, the Inspector is likely to hold a public hearing. This is currently expected to take place in November 2010, but will be subject to confirmation from the Planning Inspectorate. The ...
Mostly about Theodosius: "capital punishment was inflicted on the Audians, or Quartodecimans, who should dare to perpetrate the atrocious crime of celebrating on an improper day the festival of Easter."
i) births and deaths 8th August 1930: birth of Terry Nation, creator of the Daleks, writer of The Daleks (1963-64), The Keys of Marinus (1964), The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964), The Chase (1965), Mission to the Unknown (1965), The Daleks' Master Plan (1965-66, with Dennis Spooner who always claimed to have done most of the work), Planet of the Daleks (1973), Death to the Daleks (1974), Genesis of the Daleks (1975), The Android Invasion (1976) and Destiny of the Daleks (1979), as well as the Peter Cushing films Doctor Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks - Invasion Earth ...
Coert Visser who runs the Solution Focused Change Website wrote the following post: Matt Gibson asked me the following in a comment to a previous post: "So do you think that a solution focused approach to politics can work? I am looking at how this can be applied at the moment but this book seems ...
Following on from yesterday's blog about theatre prices I was thinking about entrance charges for art galleries and museums. I thought that it was now free to go to them but whenever I go it seems that I have to pay. Art galleries and museums are closely related to libraries in that one of their purposes is to educate. I suppose they entertain as well but if we are to do anything to alleviate the differences between rich and poor then we have to give access to a good education, to museums and to the arts. There are other matters ...
