I was so sorry to hear last night that Allison had died. An independent Councillor in Thornaby, she has battled bravely with breast cancer for some time now, and shown an enormous amount of courage. She loved life, her family, her friends, as well as her consituents who she fought for. She was described by one of her colleagues in Thornaby as "beautiful, inside and out", I hope he does not...
I was delighted to hear about the soon demise of the Audit Commission. I'm saddened for those honest hard working public servants who will be without jobs but the organisation itself really didn't deserve to survive. My experiences of the Audit Commission was worse than that of a monopoly supplier. You had to use them for external audits of local authorities. They publicly decide how to rank you so you need to stay on their good side. Any complaints they were judge and jury.They decide the pricing. Every year they increased their pricing but spinned it cleverly. They refused to ...
Late last night when I really couldn't get to sleep, a tweet appeared linking to a blog post entitled "An open letter to the Labour Party". What i read last night was one of the most honest and empassioned blog ... Continue reading →
Picking a paragraph to quote from for this was difficult. My application for a job as a HomeopathI am a qualified doctor of Neuroscience, so am aware of many long and complex words which I often use to convince people I know what I'm talking about, when in reality I am just exploiting their ignorance for my own amusement. As such, I feel I would be an ideal candidate for the post of doctor of homeopathy.I was tempted by the bit about Richard Littlejohn, the Desperate Dan fanclub reference was tempting, and the paragraph on the Placebo effect quite good ...
Sun 15th
22:10
Gibbon Chapter XXIII: The Destruction of Paganism, and Worship of Relics and Saints by Christians
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master, who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the last extremes of injustice and oppression.
About three or four years ago I made a request that all Southwark street cleaning and rubbish vehicles have side guards. Side guards stop pedestrians and cyclists being dragged under the rear wheels during collisions and being killed or very seriously injured. This didn't prove possible for the rubbish trucks as they were about to become the responsibility of Veolia under a PFI deal. Apparently the Government dept at the time could'nt cope with such clauses in a waste PFI contract. However I was promised that the next purchases for Southwark Councils small fleet of lorries that collect rubbish from ...
If you havent heard about it already, one of the highlights of my week is the Ben and Arnie podcast. As i sit here and write this I am listening live to the podcast here (not the same link every ... Continue reading →
As a rule of thumb I normally don't like TV series' that follow on from a film (Stargate SG1 being an exception) but if this series is half as good as the film then it will be well worth watching. Also, the website for the film has some great pictures from the 1980s
When it comes to train fares, Kent commuters often say that we have the highest fares in Europe. But do we, and how do our services compare? A point to point (no onward underground or bus included) from Chatham to London costs £3068. Let us see how this compares to comparable commutes in Europe... Germany Annual season ticket for the whole of Germany (Bahncard 100) - 3800 Euros The Mobility Bahncard 100 allows unlimited travel on the entire Deutsche Bahn network and 109 local public transport networks so it covers most bus journeys and underground trips as well. It can ...
Been looking through some old copies of Liberator from the 1970s this afternoon. December 1974 particularly caught my eye as it has a piece arguing how expensive and wasteful Britain's nuclear deterrent was. All rather similar to contemporary arguments over the cost of replacing Trident, save that the cost of the then Polaris submarines was compared to the cost of ... building a new town. You could get two new towns for one Polaris submarine and still have £18 million in change apparently.
Some commentators have a problem with the appointment of Labour MP's as tsar or advisers because they believe a member of the coalition should take there place. for example Iain Dale asks if there are no Conservatives with the capability or talent to carry out these roles? see Then They Came For Alan Milburn... Others in Labour have called these MP's traitors see Labour list here or the Guardian here. Personally I don't see these appointments as a bad thing. I think its good to have inclusive government after all in the case of Alan Milburn as the social mobility ...
I happened to be looking at the General Election result in Wolverhampton South West the other day - and noticed there were 40,094 ballots issued and 40,160 votes cast.
The Gorton Heritage Biodiversity Day which was scheduled for next Sunday (the 22nd) has been postponed. However there is still a lot going on in the Gorton area. Watch this space.
Sun 15th
17:50
Is the problem that people don't want to pay for news or don't want to pay for newspapers?
Each round of newspaper circulation figures makes grim reading for anyone trying to balance the books at a newspaper. Month after month circulation is dropping away across the board. The usual explanation is that newspapers are suffering because so much free news is now available online, and there is certainly a large degree of truth in that. However, there are two important caveats to that. First, the massive lack of trust in journalists, who are regularly rated one of the least trusted professions in the UK. As I wrote last year on this topic, Isn't a major reason that people ...
No, this is nothing to do with the Labour party's leadership race, which could hardly be described as having anything to do with "socialism" let alone "manhood". No, it's been a while since I did any audiobook recordings, and I thought I'd ease myself gently back into doing them by recording the first speech/essay of Benjamin Tucker's volume "Instead of a Book: by a man too busy to write one" which is a collection of essays, letters and speeches of his that he brought together and published, for the edition I have used anyway, in 1897. He introduces the volume ...
I wonder how many activists and campaigners like me remain comfortable in the Lib Dems because Simon Hughes dares to say what many of our MPs are unwilling to say or actually have bought in to the coalition with the Tories so much, they actually don't want to say. Today Simon says we will not enter in to an electoral pact with the Tories. We will stand candidates against the Tories, and it is part of our constitution that we have to field candidates. Of course, this is not to say that the Tories will field candidates against Lib Dems, ...
Fares on Southeastern have risen to such an extent that people can no longer afford to commute by rail. In November last year, I talked to one lady who had commuted from Chatham to London Cannon Street for 20 years, working as a secretary at various banks in the City. From January 2010, unless she received in her words a 'miracle bonus', she will give up her job and look for work locally. Having not had a pay increase in three years, the new fares were the final straw and London lost yet another able Kent worker due to Southeastern's ...
Announcement from Dundee Liberal Democrats this afternoon : Well known Dundee lawyer and jazz singer Alison Burns has become the new Scottish Liberal Democrat candidate for Dundee West in advance of next year's Scottish Parliamentary elections. Alison's life, which saw her go from being the first female apprentice engineer at Timex, to a lawyer and tutor at the University of Dundee and then onto international success as a jazz singer, reflects the modern City of Dundee with its combination of industry, academia and the arts. Following the announcement of her selection as the Lib Dem candidate Alison said, "It's a ...
You join me in one of my favourite watering holes - The Stiperstones Inn. A photograph of it will appear in a day or two. This morning I got off the Shrewsbury bus at White Grit and walked here via The Bog. You don't get place names like that anywhere else. Skittles still thrives* and the pub still has its free internet scheme. It's not just a hotspot: they will hand you a laptop over the bar. The beer is good and they serve food all day, every day. In fact the place is so good and so remote that ...
The big electoral reform next year - or so everyone thinks - will be the referendum on AV. Alongside it, there will be a boring technical change to equalise constituency sizes and get rid of the present bias towards Labour. Most people assume that we won't need to worry much about the constituency size changes. Massive mistake! The change from natural to unnatural constituency boundaries, and rigidly fixed constituency sizes, will have profound and far-reaching ill effects. It will largely destroy the effective link between a local constituency and its individual MP. It could also threaten the very survival of ...
With a new job beginning tomorrow I'm in no mood to write a blog post. Instead I present a few links to articles I've liked today: An Open Letter To The Labour Party - I like. A lot. The roots of '8: The Mormon Proposition' - Mixing marriage equality and, my current obsession, Mormonism. Can't lose! "The Abominable and Detestable Crime Against Nature": A Revised History of Homosexuality & Mormonism, 1840-1980 Why gay marriage is a fundamental right - From a Tory. The times, they are a-changing. Judge us on five years, not a 100 days - Some guy called ...
Well done to the Mighty Hibernian who started their SPL campaign with a thrilling win over Motherwell. The 3-2 win away from home is definitely not to be sniffed at noting what a handful Motherwell have been for most teams in the last few seasons. Hopefully this will augur well for the rest of the season!
The 'golden age' of home ownership is ending, trumpets the Observer on its front page, as if this is a tragedy of huge importance. 'Young people face a lifetime of renting instead', the article wails. But let's look at the facts, as well as my own personal experience. When I came down from university, I ...
Alun Davies, who represents the Mid and West Wales Region in the Welsh Assembly on behalf of the Labour Party, took the invective being directed against the Liberal Democrats for joining a coalition government, to a new level this morning, when he tweeted that he believes members of the party are 'Quislings'. Referring to the proposal to increase the recommended membership fee of the Liberal Democrats to £60, Mr. Davies wrote: It costs £60 to be a Quisling?! Wikipedia says of the word: Quisling is a term used to describe traitors and collaborators. The term was most commonly used for ...
Riddles in Mathematics: A Book of Paradoxes is a popular mathematics book written in 1944, revised in 1961. I purchased a 1975 reprint at Hay, and finally got round to reading it on holiday. It is good fun, if a little dry and could be accused of being a little like a text book: there is a discussion, and couple of examples and then some paradoxes for you to resolve (or exercises). To get the most out of the book you do need to engage with the maths: you'll need pencil and paper and a willingness to get your algebra ...
Sun 15th
13:56
Apply now for school place if your child is going into year 6 or born Sep 2006 - Aug 2008
From the Council: Stockport Council is encouraging parents/carers to apply for school places online. The online process for admissions is now open for nursery, primary and secondary schools for September 2011. Parents can apply online at www.stockport.gov.uk/schooladmissions It's quick and simple and available 24 hours a day 7 days a week up until the following closing dates: · The closing date for secondary school places starting in September 2011 for children born between 1st September 1999 - 31st August 2000 is 31st October. · The closing date for primary school places starting in September 2011 for children born between 1st ...
On Friday at lunchtime, Dundee City Council sneaked out a press release about budget cuts and its proposed way forward ("Estimated savings of 40 million needed over three years"), together with a report that will go before the Council's Policy & Resources Committee a week tomorrow. I say "sneaked out" because the timing of the release to the media was done in such a way that no opposition councillor could have possibly had the opportunity to read it before the inevitable calls from the media asking for a response. If the SNP administration is serious about working in a cross-party ...
Public meetings have convinced Nick Clegg that all politics is personal as well as local. Engaging people at a local level is therefore a priority and all political parties could improve on engaging the public. So how do we achieve purposeful engagement with people and make the Liberal Democrat strategy a powerful tool? If the ...
"tough to follow his shoes" Good punditry there, Gary! #motd #fb # Everton's shirts are making my eyes hurt! #motd #fb # Powered by Twitter Tools
Summer has descended upon us again after what seems like weeks of showers. I spent a bit of yesterday morning attending and speaking at the celebrations of the revamp of Balerno Main Street. This project was part of the Urban Centres Program which is aimed at improving local shopping areas by making them cleaner, safer and more attractive thus adding to their sustainability. A City wide pot of cash of £1.2 Million is available for the Program and Balerno received £100K of this which was then matched by £150K of roads and carriageway funds making the grant total of £250k. ...
++++++ An update on this - the answer is no! David Blunkett has published a statement on his website which says that he will not get involved. Interesting that he was approached by the CSJ though. ++++++ My original post: According to a report in the Daily Fail Mail (and others), David Blunkett is in talks with the Coalition Government to work at the Centre for Social Justice, set up by Ian Duncan Smith. (h/t to @tiggertherese who tweeted this this morning). I was interested in this for many reasons. One being how Mr Blunkett can justify joining the Coalition ...
Attempts to plan the housing of the future are turning into a farce as the administration put together their list of potential housing sites known as the shlaa. After 100's of hours of officer time, councillor time, public consultations and half a rainforest of reports and versions of the SHLAA, this is what the Conservative administration have established; Sites included in the shlaa document may or may not be developed in the future and development, that may or may not happen, may or may not be for housing. Sites not included in the shlaa may or may not be developed ...
I'm sure I'm not the only Lib Dem blogger still trying to work out whether the coalition is going to be good, bad or ugly.For now, I have my doubts, but I'm prepared to give it a chance to work. I shudder when I read about the possibility of nature reserves being sold off, but nod in agreement when I see that the Audit Commission is being abolished.The Guardian has now come up with a little
This is genius, I defy you not to smile! Andrew
I know I'm going to get into trouble for this, but I have a lot of time for Princess Anne, who's celebrating her 60th birthday today. If I was designing a constitution for Britain, you can bet your life that a hereditary monarchy would not be part of it, but we have one, and the majority of people want to keep it, so it's not going to change any time soon. I like Anne so much because she isn't the stereotypical Princess. As a young woman, she went out there and made a name for herself as a top horsewoman ...
The Mail is getting worked up that people attending a black tie dinner at the House of Commons may later, having left those hallowed halls, enjoy some form of sexual activity. The newspaper is upset that Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell has sponsored the black tie event in the Commons, after which attendees will go onto what the Mail says is an 'After Party' on a nearby boat where entertainment includes 'pole dancing, burlesque and erotic performances'. Needless to say, this is an outrage – the Mail even tracked down an unnamed MP to comment 'This smutty event is below the ...
Residents from the Ancrum Place/Morven Terrace sheltered housing last week highlighted in the Evening Telegraph the absolutely shocking state of the road and car park to the rear of the complex - at the back of Ancrum Place. I completely share their concerns. As reported in Friday's Tele, following residents' complaints to me about the state of the car park and road, I contacted the Area Housing Manager in June 2009 about it (the Housing Department own the ground). He advised that costings had been requested for repair. Fourteen months later and we appear to be no further forward. I ...
Sun 15th
10:54
Philip Green is stinking rich, ergo he can justify sacking lots of public servants, can't he?
It's a typical Tory move. Sir Philip Green is stinking rich. He turned around BHS. He has a yacht, for goodness sake. He was knighted for services to upholstering his own midriff. Ergo, he must be able to make just decisions about sacking lots of public sector workers on comparatively measly wages. It's a no-brainer isn't it? Gordon Bennett. At least Andrew George (whose constituency I am currently enjoying in (buckets and) spades) and Mike Hancock are revolting against the move. Here's the Independent's report: Liberal Democrats who campaigned on a manifesto promising a clampdown on the super-rich have expressed ...
The world is, at times, divided into optimists and pessimists. There are the Pangloss of the situation (those I call 'shallow liberals') who believe that everything will be for the better as long as we are 'free'. On the other side, there are the Scrooges of the radical left who see the world as a fight between oppressed and oppressor where freedom is a smokescreen for the powerful to rule. The
There has been talk of minimum alcohol pricing for some time and the impetus is usually good. It is aimed at protecting small shops, people's livers and public disorder issues. The pilot for the scheme is likely to take place in Greater Manchester as early as October. My stockport colleague Iain Roberts has blogged a few times on this. It seems Stockport is unhappy that this scheme would be only Gtr Manchester wide and with some good reason. The average Chorltonian will have to drive to find cheaper booze, but for much of Stockport the lower prices are in easy ...
Written by Mike Nesmith of the Monkees and sung by Linda Rondstadt, this was a US hit in 1967.
The possibility that Alan Milburn might be appointed as the UK Coalition Government's "social mobility tsar" has really got the tribalists out in force, in both the Labour and the Conservative Party. That is a shame as irrespective of what I may think of the man, it is important that all those who have something to offer should work together for the best interests of the country. That certainly falls within the spirit of the coalition. Thank goodness there are at least some in the Labour Party who recognise that. The vast majority of Labour members seem to be more ...
Sun 15th
09:54Choosing the right school for one's child - Do Ofsted reports and league tables actually matter?
One you may have missed – from November 10th 2007 One of the biggest decisions any parent makes is choosing a secondary school for their child. We've just been through that particular mill. It was a process which lasted well over a year, involved over a dozen visits to four schools and three hours of one-on-three time with three separate headteachers. At several points in this nerve-jangling process, I had to remind myself and my loved ones that we are lucky to have the choice of four (or even, if you extend the parameters a bit, six) excellent state schools. ...
Let me be clear – I'd prefer people standing for election saying more clearly what they think. The sectarian BNP (who are currently in chaos) had a message and I think it's one that deserved to be heard and subsequently rejected. I've no problem with hard campaigns that starkly reveal policies – what I think is ...
We've finally made it into the 1990s in our journey through Stockport's local election results from 1974 onwards, and the number of familiar names is growing. Among the victors in 1990 still sitting in council chamber are Sheila Bailey, Peter Burns, Tom McGee, Kevin Hogg, Tom Foster, Bryan Leck and Dave Goddard. Patsy Calton, who of course went on to become Cheadle's first Lib Dem MP in 2001, stood unsuccessfully in West Bramhall - we'll see Patsy join the Council before too long. 03/05/90 1990 Stockport Bredbury (11685) @ 1 vote share Humphries D. Ms.* SLD 3156 47.9 Woodrow J. ...
I was recently lucky enough to be asked to take part in the 'What does Bracknell Think' opinion section of The Bracknell Standard. The question was 'Would you want to eat meat and milk from cloned animals'? My full response (edited version in the paper) was; "I would not be too concerned about eating meat from a cloned cow. Personally I'm more concerned about cross contamination in the natural world from genetically modified food. I do think that this episode shows a fundamental problem in our farming industry, Which is the reliance on foreign imports where regulations are different. In ...
A quick update on our previous coverage of the court case over more than £350,000 of impermissible donations accepted by UKIP. Last month the Supreme Court ruled in UKIP's favour, reducing the amount UKIP has to repay to just under £15,00o. Although on a strict narrow literal reading of the legislation wording all impermissible donations have to be forfeit, by a 4-3 ruling the Supreme Court decided that the word "forfeit" is used in an usual way in the wording of the legislation and that the wider context shows that the total of impermissible donations is the maximum that needs ...
Yesterday "tongue in cheek" on Facebook I asked for The Sun and said "If not for me then please for my Tomatoes" Well at a charity football match yesterday I saw the sun for half an hour or so. Today I woke up with a bright red burnt face!! So the lesson for today is "Be careful for what you ask for in life----You might just get it.!!
Don't you just love it when the tabloids and broad sheets get pulled up for a naff story. Tabloid Watch - 'blogging about bad journalism' is compulsive reading with the flip-side on daily examples of everything we love to hate about the hack trade and the self appointed highbrows of journalism. There's the plain old 'untrue' such as Wayne Rooney's supposed £10k of underfloor heating for his dog kennels. The Sun apologised, admitting there were no kennels at his home. Then there's the rather shocking example from Richard Littlejohn (of course) trying to mock our health & safety culture in ...
We went to Tyrella beach yesterday, and I remembered that it is practically within spitting distance of Ballynoe Stone Circle, County Down's rather modest answer to Stonehenge and Avebury. F not too deterred by the bovine guardians of the stones: His mother and grandmother coming to see: Mysterious cupmarks in one of the stones: Nobody else there except the cows - and it is easy to find.
Best wishes to everyone with links to India on their Independence Day!
i) births and deaths None that grabbed me. ii) broadcast anniversary 15th August 1964: broadcast of "Guests of Madame Guillotine", the second episode of the story we now call The Reign of Terror. The Doctor narrowly escapes both the burning barn and a forced labour gang; Ian, Susan and Barbara are imprisoned in the Coniergerie, and, as the epsiode ends, Susan and Barbara are taken off for the chop... iii) date specified in canon 15th August 2003: The Seventh Doctor, Ace and Bernice Summerfield visit the Pinehill Crest Hotel in Kent which is hosting three very different events: a cross-stitch ...
I am a left-winger. I went to an anti-poll tax protest, by myself, when I was (I think) eight (I had to go home early because it went past my bedtime). I think that the two greatest governments of the last seventy years were the Atlee government and the first Wilson government. I've been a ...
There is an advert on TV asking for donations for Cancer Research UK. It seems that if we give just (new voice comes in as if the price will be different next month) £2 per month then "together we will beat cancer". I don't know how many people have to donate to make this dream come true or how long they have to give, but let's presume the advert is true. In a world without cancer we will have to die of something else. Will it be coronary heart disease or will the British Heart Foundation stop us getting ill ...
