I was handed a free copy of the Sunday Telegraph today at the Royal Parks Run in London. My cup runneth over. Not only did I have the Torygraph to labour through in the afternoon while "my girls" were at Primark, but it included a free 20 track CD of Cliff Richard's best tracks. Let joy be unconfined. Any road up, during my deep trawl of the Torygraph I found this gem in an article by Patrick Hennessy and Melissa Kite: The controversial decision to "pre-announce" the child benefit decision was made 10 days ago by the key Conservative power-broking ...
Just got home from attending the opening night of Wildscreen 2010 at the Bristol Old Vic. This week hundreds of people from all over the world will descend on Bristol to take part in screenings and discussions about wildlife film, tv and photography. Bristol is the home of the BBC Natural History Unit and at ...
Churches Together in Guisborough united tonight at St Paulinus' church to celebrate Harvest Festival, and to thank God for the work done by people across the world to produce all the things we need and those which make life more pleasant and enjoyable for us. As part of the evening I was asked to talk about the impact of Fairtrade on the lives of the producers. I don't think I've ever had such
Harvest Festical time at Church, and it was so beautifully decorated, I wanted to post some pics here. Harvets festival is, to most of us nowadays, more than just decorating the Church and singing some familiar hymns. Here people were asked to bring along gifts or money for the Mary thompson Fund which supports asylum seekers on Teesside who have no other support. It was good to see how...
I had intended to write a summary of the party conferences but after having attended all three, there representing my employer, I returned to the office with lots of work to catch up on and not many free evenings. It is now rather old news but here are some random thoughts: There were not major rows at any of the conferencesThe child benefit announcement didn't seem to impact delegates at the Conservative party conference yet dominated the news agendaIn a strange sort of way everyone was taking a breath: the Lib Dems because they are now in government, Labour because ...
After a meeting of the leadership of North Korea, it was officially announced that Kim Jong-Un was responsible for the food shortages in Korea, and it was him who ate all the pies.
Under the outskirts of Great Oxendon village runs a tunnel on the former Market Harborough to Northampton railway line - now the Brampton Valley Way. It must be one of the few railway tunnels to have a website devoted to it.
As the rather erratic blogging might have implied, I've been away for a fortnight or so, to Cyprus, in fact. It appears that I should go away more often though as, in my absence, I have broken into the top 100 political blogs on Wikio. There is much to catch up on though, so I'll be reporting on the trip over the next week or so, and trying to report on the forthcoming ELDR Congress in Helsinki too. It was nice to return to sunshine though, and Suffolk looked lovely both from the air and on the ground, as Ros ...
Hat tip to Iain Dale
A long-standing complaint from Pentland area residents has been the unkempt embankment at the back of Pentland Crescent - very overgrown - and the matter was raised at last week's Community Spirit meeting. I've been in touch with Dundee Contract Services about this and have now received the following positive feedback from their Acting Land Services Manager : "The area in question was planted with azaleas a number of years ago. Due to the steep incline and due to health and sefety requirements it has not been possible to access as we previously had for maintenance purposes. However I had ...
There is a happy parallel universe where music moved straight from sixties R&B to punk. In that universe, Dr Feelgood were the leading group of the early seventies.
The Macpherson family is very happy that Mary Byrne got through tonight to the next round of X Factor - and for some bizarre reason, we cheered when Wagnor got through as well ... The finalists did well doing a Fraser Favourite - Rhythm of the Night :But there's nothing like the 90s Corona dance hit :And nothing can be compared to Motown - DeBarge - from 1985 :
Over at Dave Hill's London Blog on the Guardian website, there's a candid and in-depth interview with John Griffiths, the Lib Dems' candidate in the contest to become the directly elected Mayor of the London borough of Tower Hamlets. Here's an excerpt: ... Griffiths knows what he'd do if he won. "The main function the mayor has to perform is to be an advocate, a champion, for the borough," he says. "In the present situation, with a government of a different political hue from that of the [Labour-dominated] Council, it's critical that there's someone there who can really stand up ...
I'm now back from my trip to Spain. My prejudices about Spain have been truly overcome, I have a few more freckles than when I left, and have picked up a bad dose of man-flu on the way back. The journey actually went really smoothly. It's the first time we'd used Eurostar since we moved back up north, so I was a bit wary – what if our train from Newcastle was delayed, etc; but actually it was fine and obviously the fact the trains are now leaving from St Pancras means it's now just a 5 minute walk from ...
Dear Mr Miliband, I assume you are aware that Phil Woolas has recently been involved in a court case in his constituency with regard to his alleged breach of the Representation of the People Act 1983. The verdict of that ... Continue reading →
I'll be doing a book version of the Hyperposts. For those of you who weren't around last year, this was a loose sequence of posts I wrote about the concepts of 'canon', 'continuity', authorship and time, with reference to Cerebus, DC Comics, Doctor Who and quantum physics. I've got a lot more thoughts on the ...
Once again we bring you good news. My Birkdale Ward colleague Simon Shaw has updated the psephological research he carried out a month ago. That showed that, in the 57 principal council by-elections held between the General Election and the end of August, Lib Dems had made net gains of 3 seats in that period. The full story from early September is HERE Simon has continued his analysis to the end of September and the picture continues to be very encouraging. Counting the 26 city-wide elections in both Norwich and Exeter at the beginning of September, there were no fewer ...
At the end of a Pride parade the attendees generally look forward to to relaxing with an event laid on by the organisers and maybe enjoying a cocktail*. Today was the first time since 2001 that the Serbian capital was attempting to hold a Pride parade. As someone who grew up in Northern Ireland I am quite used to seeing moletov cocktails (aka petrol bombs) being used against security or police forces. However, when they used against individuals trying to carry out a peaceful demostration you know that something is not right. Today in Belgrade that is what happened. Over ...
[IMG: Winton Focus team in Suffolk Road] I have spent some time over the past few days talking to residents in this area and am amazed at the number of issues raised, particularly when local Tories claim to have solved all the problems by introducing parking restrictions. What they have failed to do, however, is to ensure that the parking bays are swept - many are full of dirt and weeds the footpaths are safe to walk on, several residents have complained about uneven surfaces not suitable for frail pedestrians or mobility scooters. Some prefer to walk in the road ...
Blimey, I can feel the clichés crowding in, what on earth possessed Ed Milliband to give Woolas a top job in the Home Offices. Like putting Herod in charge of child care? Political betting has the full story.
I decided to try B on something a bit different on our Sunday outing today; just the other side of where she lives is a significant concentration of Gallo-Roman tumuli, and I thought it would be nice to see if I could explore them with her, armed with the GPS coordinates from Francophone Wikipedia. Actually the first set is just this side of where she lives, just around the corner of the Church of Our Lady of the Stone: the Three Tumuli (or "Drie Tommen") of Grimde came fifth in a national TV contest for attractive archaeological monuments worth saving, ...
If Ed Miliband is so keen to put the worst excesses of New Labour authoritarian illiberalism behind him, why on earth has he re-appointed the hateful Phil Woolas to a shadow post at the Home Office? Regardless of whether the verdict of the election court at Uppermill goes against him or not, and as the eternal pessimist I've a feeling he'll get off scot free, his past behaviour is surely unworthy of the party of Keir Hardie and Bevan. This man should be picking up a P45, not a shadow ministerial post. The appointments there, too, of Vernon Coaker, Diana ...
From this..... HackneyAbbott Diane Abbott MP Gary Lineker has dutifully accompanied his girlfriend. who is going on Alan Titchmarsh show. He has the genuine glow of celebrity. to this.... HackneyAbbott Diane Abbott MPApologies to Gary Lineker. I don't follow celebrities. So I didn't realise the lady I saw him with yesterday was his WIFE. oops!:-)
Reading the list of who's who in the Shadow cabinet tonight on Iain Dale's blog (after being alerted on Twitter), I am stunned to see Phil Woolas has made it into the shadow cabinet in the Foreign Office. What on earth is Ed Miliband thinking appointing this man into his cabinet given the allegations currently ...
[IMG: Trident missile launching] I'm no pacifist. I have absolutely no moral objection whatsoever to nuclear weapons, or to Britain possessing nuclear weapons. I have supported our nuclear weapons system in the past, and if we still lived under Cold War conditions, I probably still would. For me, nuclear weapons are just another type of weapon, albeit a very deadly, vastly expensive one. I stood as a Lib Dem candidate in the General Election, and as such I stood on our manifesto, which promised to: Rule out the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system. At a cost of £100 ...
In the midst of all the rather silly behaviour on Twitter that ultimately lead some people to resort to out and out name calling of a rather offensive nature and caused some to spend hours of their time posting spam comments to this blog, it also appears that other weirder forces are at play. As ...
Changes to bus services caused considerable controversy earlier this year. At the time your Lib Dem Councillors, particularly Cllr Iain Bowen, who now sits on the West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority, worked hard to get the No. 40 introduced to cover the worst of the gaps caused by the changes. We also called for a full review of the bus network. This is something that really should have happened before the changes, given their significance. However given that it didn't, we asked for it to happen at the next opportunity. This is now happening with a full review of the ...
The Coalition Government has had its fair share of tensions over major policy areas, including most notably and most recently welfare reform and the future of Trident. Despite being a coalition, the tensions have not been between the two parties in coalition; rather, they have been along shifting lines that cut-across parties. On welfare, for example, it was IDS, backed up by Nick Clegg and Oliver Letwin, arguing against George Osborne for sufficient funding to make radical welfare reform a genuine reform rather than a glorified word for cuts. On Trident, Osborne and Clegg have been on the same side, ...
Today is 10/10/10, and naturally the 10:10 campaign made a big deal of that. I pledged to meet the 10:10 objectives, and more importantly supported Lewes District Council's pledge.I think I've met my commitment, and this is how I did it.First, some cheap and easy stuff, that'll pay for itself quite quickly.I was already buying my electricity from Ecotricity, because they invest more of their
Out cycling with mum's local CTC group (South Manchester) today, from Cheadle out to Henbury, Congleton and later, back through Pott Shrigley). It's the day of the club's annual hillclimb and freewheel competitions, and I figured I didn't have much of a chance but I'd give it a go anyway. I'm not a climber. Never have been. I can do either very short sprints, or long distance; I have speed and stamina, exclusively. So, understandably, I did badly in the hillclimb. It took me 5m42s to climb a tenth of a mile up Bosley Cloud. It was tough, and I ...
Stephen Tall on this site last week queried why it was that so many Liberal Democrats sounded 'conservative' on public sector reform. Supporting local democratic bodies (ie, councils) was likened to Conservative support of business and Labour support of unions— both sectional interests. I think this is a flawed analysis. Liberal Democratic attitudes follow not from any sectional interest but a belief in democratic accountability. Opposition to many alleged reforms in public services hinge on a conviction that they are a poor substitute for it. To understand what's going on I have learned from Mafia films you must 'follow the ...
41) Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight (London: Doubleday, 2010, ISBN 9780385611077). This is the latest in the series of Tiffany Aching books, which are my favourite Pratchetts. I was not disappointed. As she deals with an epidemic of anti-witchcraft paranoia, Tiffany is still growing into her identity as a witch - but she continues to be the one I want to be when I grow up, and Pratchett's understanding of magic continues to be the best I've come across in fantasy writing. 40) Deborah Tannen, The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words (New York: Ballantine, 1998, ISBN 0345407512). ...
The link is to the story in today's mirror about the attempt to get justice by approaching international courts.Hundreds of heartbroken parents who claim social services "stole" their children have launched a legal bid to win them back.The 500 mums and dads say it is impossible to get justice in the UK and have turned to an international court.Families argue they are the victims of social workers
'Conservative spending cuts are worse than Thatcher's, says Alan Johnson' shouts today's Observer, reporting the paper's interview with Labour's incoming shadow chancellor. If the election had turned out differently — if Labour had won, rather than suffering one of the worst defeats in its history — the headline could have read a little different... Imagine this headline: Alistair Darling: we will cut deeper than Margaret Thatcher But wait, we don't have to imagine that headline: it already exists, and was used by the Observer's stablemate The Guardian back in March when reporting the then Labour chancellor's realistic appraisal of the ...
Very pleased with how the light falls on her, and the bubble is visibly emerging as she concentrates.
The problem with the internet and sites like Twitter is that when people get an idea into their head there is no shaking them back to a more rational point of view. That is true of the newspapers as well of course, but at least you can use them to wrap up your fish and chips. Thus the spin about Vince Cable's e-mail to party members yesterday was not just over-the-top but downright judgemental about something that has not been decided on and was not even in the e-mail. In his missive, Vince explains why he is not considering a ...
Ah, the Daily Mail and its stable-mate the Mail on Sunday: bastions of enlightened reason and liberal decency. Or something. Today, the paper takes it upon itself to scream 'Hypocrisy' at Nick Clegg. Not on grounds of policy, but because of the options Miriam and he are considering for their eldest child's school, including a voluntary-aided Catholic school in London, the Oratory: as the Mail so subtly fulminates, 'Nick Clegg is an atheist whose party doesn't believe in school selection. So where does he want to send his sons... the same exclusive Catholic school as the Blairs'. You can gauge ...
Having written about moving to collaborative governance and the new movement in public service/administration, I have been looking at how this could be achieved. The RSA has a Citizen Power programme which has come up with some good ideas in how to achieve this. Part of their programme advocates for a Citizen's Contract. The Citizen's ...
I have today launched my October Update to West End Community Council. Topics covered include : • Roundabout tidy-up • Corner Peddie Street/Annfield Street • Sports and Environment Project Meeting • School Crossing Patroller at Kelso Steps on Blackness Road • Safer crossings at Perth Road and at Hawkhill • Playparks • Water leakage - Seymour Street/Perth Road junction The Community Council meets on Tuesday night (12th October) at Logie St John's (Cross) Church Hall at 7pm. You can download a copy of the update by going to http://tiny.cc/weccOct2010.
A new millennium and some interesting results in Stockport. A turnout of just 16.7% in Brinnington, Brian Millard (who went on to lead the council) won in Cheadle for the Lib Dems, Pam King (now a councillor in Cheadle & Gatley) missed out in East Bramhall by just 20 votes and Mark Hunter, now MP for Cheadle, secured 60% of the vote in Marple North. The Lib Dems, who took control of the council in 1999, lost it again this year with Stockport slipping back into no overall control. 04/05/00 2000 Stockport Bredbury (11763) @ 1 vote share Wilson M.* ...
The union of the Roman empire was dissolved; its genius was humbled in the dust; and armies of unknown barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of the North, had established their victorious reign over the fairest provinces of Europe and Africa.
Surrey County Council has come off rather badly (again) in the National Highways and Transport public satisfaction survey showing that only 20% of people questioned were satisfied with the speed of repair to damaged roads and pavements. Since the snow and bad weather earlier this year, many people in Woking have been complaining quite vehemently about the ...
The Scottish Liberal Democrats have launched the party's Pre-Manifesto in the run up to next May's Scottish Parliamentary Elections. The Liberal Democrats will focus on creating jobs, reforming public services and restoring Scotland's reputation for excellence in education. Scottish LibDem Leader Tavish Scott said, "We are focusing on three big themes. They are connected and will all contribute to a future for Scotland that is fair and more prosperous than we have known before. "Our plans will rebuild employment, support the creation of new businesses and jobs and equip every person with the skills, the drive and power they need ...
Facebook's ability to import from an RSS feed into the Notes application (so that, for example, your blog posts automatically appear as notes on your personal profile) breaks often enough to be annoying but not so often that I remember where the special page is for reporting this sort of problem. So for my future reference, and possibly your benefit too, here it is:
I had been fervently looking forward this weekend to going up to London this evening to see Jean Michel Jarre in concert at the o2 with my friend Charlie. It would seem that South West Trains have other ideas. After checking the website and seeing that their were 'planned' engineering works on the line, I ...
Johnson warns of coalition's "worse than Thatcher" cuts, but didn't Labour promise the same?
Alan Johnson has given his first big interview as Shadow Chancellor, and I am disappointed in what I see. The headline revalation is that Mr Johnson believes that the cuts will be worse than under Margaret Thatcher. I know that people have short memories when it comes to politics, but it worries me greatly that people seem to have forgotten that this was commonly understood by all the major parties in the general election campaign. Alistair Darling, the Labour Chancellor at the time, said that if Labour were to be re-elected, the cuts that they would implement would be "worse ...
As regular readers will now from the 2009 Total Politics until the announcement of this year's results, this blog counted in binary. It does help being a maths geek when you come 11, 11 and 101 respectively. Well today is another day when binary rules, ultimately across the galaxy and through life. Why? Let me explain. Today's date in 10/10/10 or just plain old 101010. It works in Europe or America or Asia. We all get it the same way round no confusion. In binary that is 1x2 plus 1x8 plus 1x32. Or 2+8+32=42. As all well travelled and read ...
Over 500 Lib Dem candidates at the General Election signed a pledge to the NUS to vote against any increase in fees for students. Now, in power, surely the Lib Dems will have no greater opportunity to show that having Lib Dems in power really means something. It is easy for the Nick Clegg to argue that those of us who oppose the coalition deal with the Tories to claim we are oppositionalists, scared of power, but the reverse argument is true also. It can be argued that there is little point in holding power if you vote against your ...
The avalanche of cuts that are due to be announced later this month could decide the fate of the government, perhaps even of the country. Most Liberal Democrats I know are extremely nervous about, and they are right to be. But beyond the arguments about the deficit and the national debt, there are other reasons why some cuts - the right cuts - might be a welcome opportunity. I believe this, I suppose, because of William Cobbett. Cobbett was the great radical campaigner, as much of an influence on the future Liberal Party as Cobden or Bright, and he used ...
Next in the New Adventures series, reuniting the Doctor and Benny with a confident and sexy Ace, for whom a couple of years have passed, and bringing in as a guest character none other than Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer, from the old Dalek annuals, along with a fake medieval planet and a pool of disembodied brains. It's a decent novel, but is particularly interesting for the author's afterward, where he reflects on i) writing a book in a range for which you are also the editor and ii) the reception and future of the New Adventures at that point - ...
I received my e-mail from Uncle Vince yesterday evening. Its written out in full on Lib Dem Voice, together with Stephen Tall's take on what it actually means! I can't work out whether this is an example of good communication or just getting the Lib Dems to prepare for the worst. I will say I prefer to be forewarned of Government announcements before they happen, and this seems to be typical of how the Coalition Government (on the whole) is working. My knee jerk reaction was to think the worst, but having had time to 'digest the message' its a ...
Labour's new shadow chancellor Alan Johnson has lost no time laying into the government over its economic plans: "Conservative spending cuts are worse than Thatcher's", screams a headline in the Guardian (where else?). In March, two months before the election, of course, Labour chancellor Alistair Darling accepted that if Labour won, a Labour government's cuts would be deeper and tougher than Mrs Thatcher's: "They will be deeper and tougher - where we make the precise comparison, I think, is secondary to the fact that there is an acknowledgement that these reductions will be tough". And he was backed up by ...
Lured to this venue by discussion of acoustics and carpets (see here, including comment) I can but report - there are not as many carpets on the walls as I expected in the Pizza Express, Strand: [IMG: Walls at Pizza Express, Strand] Even worse, the chocolate glories have shrunk - though perhaps this will put an end to the various running out of ingredients and improvising with a different combination each time pattern that has become a regular feature of the Pizza Express experience? It is a mostly underground Pizza Express with roughly 50 seats on the ground floor but ...
I'm fed up. Fed up with my bad English. My English is terrible. I failed English at school in part due to bad behaviour I think caused in part by my then stammer and dyslexia. I only got an 'F' in GCSE English and had to retake it at Bracknell and Wokingham college, doing an extra year there. I still only managed a very low mark in English but the college kindly let me take a national diploma course as they saw my potential in other areas. I love them for that. I also blame myself for not improving. Why ...
From Stockport Council: Stockport residents are urged to take up the offer of discounted loft and cavity wall insulation to help them save money and reduce their carbon footprint. The Council's CarbON-CarbOFF initiative has been launched to help everyone in Stockport do their bit for the environment by cutting their carbon emissions; and by teaming up with the Energy Saving Trust big savings are on offer. One of the simplest ways to reduce carbon emissions at home and save money on energy bills is to get loft and cavity wall insulation. To help all residents do this, the Council has ...
Visited Friends of the Earth stall on Muswell Hill Broadway on Saturday to support their campaign for sustainable farming. FoE always have great props for these occasions. Today it was cow masks – except they wouldn't let me wear one (no sarky comments please) as it would render me invisible and thus negate the point of the photos they were taking. This is all about a Private Member's Bill that was presented to Parliament on 30 June 2010 – the Sustainable Livestock Bill and will be on the Order Paper for a Second Reading debate on 12 November 2010. This ...
This is an article I wrote for the Edinburgh Reporter egarding the new Dementia strategy and the services we in Edinburgh are providing.
No sooner had I posted my response on line yesterday morning (remember I did post the actual letter a week ago), did I return home last night to have received another letter from Charles Kennedy. You can view the letter by enlarging the image.Now I don't know why Charles is wasting so much time over this. After all I have no influence over party members at all and my badly written blog is not
When I read brendan_moody's review of the recent Big Finish Companion Chrionicle starring Katy Manning as both Jo Grant and Irish Wildthyme, I thought of posting a comment on his livejournal saying that I felt he had shared, in considerable and spoiler-free detail, my own reasons for feeling that this could have been a better story - in particular, his first description of it as "a rambling, intermittently charming story" sums up my reaction to it completely. Paul Magrs was upset by this review when he read it, and said so on Twitter, describing it as "shitty" and "miserable". brendan_moody, ...
Welsh Government Climate Change Strategy lacks detail on data, delivery and accountability
On the surface, the Welsh Government Climate Change Strategy contains welcome targets, such as the aim to reduce carbon emissions by 3% per annum and the target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2020. It gives welcome recognition of the importance of taking action to tackle climate change. However, on closer inspection it is clear that the devil is in the detail, as the truth behind the targets is not quite what it seems when it comes to real action. Despite the One Wales commitment to achieve 'annual carbon reduction-equivalent emissions reductions of 3% per year by 2011 ...
OK, so after a mammoth final push at proofreading, cover design, file conversion etc, I have now finally (mere hours late for John Lennon's seventieth birthday) completed my magnificent octopus, The Beatles In Mono. It's 203 pages in hardback, for £22.50 or 141 in paperback for £10.00, but both contain the same text (55,737 words ...
On Saturday I made a speech to Scottish Liberal Democrat conference on the issue of the Intercity Express Programme. I was especially speaking on lines 11-13 of the motion. 1 Conference notes that that the UK Government is due to take a decision on whether to 2 proceed with the Intercity Express Programme, intended to provide 882 new carriages 3 for a series of intercity routes, following the completion of the comprehensive spending 4 review in October 2010. 5 Conference welcomes the environmental, social and economic benefits of an efficient 6 and accessible public transport service, and supports the long-term ...
Stayin' Alive in the Wall Bee Gees meet Pink Floyd - superb mashup. (tags: video music) The Straight Dope: Did loose lips actually sink any ships? Actually, not as far as we can tell. (tags: war) Caught Spying on Student, FBI Demands GPS Tracker Back | Threat Level | Wired.com Interesting legal question - if someone attaches something to your car, is it still theirs? (tags: waronterror) Mario Vargas Llosa: Five essential novels | Books | guardian.co.uk In case you were wondering what to read by him. (tags: nobel)
It is a truism, but in a free society, like the one we aim for, the freedoms of one group of people may sometimes infringe on the freedoms of another group. Balancing these conflicting freedoms is a complex task. For example, I believe the following things. People should be allowed to express their religion People ...
[IMG: Tim Farron MP] I will vote for Tim Farron to be the next President of the Liberal Democrats, and I'm backing him for three reasons. Number 1: He's a brilliant public speaker. I heard him when he was the warm-up act for Nick Clegg at last year's conference, and he was wonderful. And that's not just my experience; so many people rave about his performances. And this is important. One of the President's big jobs is to get around the country and gee up the party's footsoldiers; an inspirational speaker is just the ticket. Number 2: He's been in ...
There has been much talk of the crowds at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. How can it be so badly organised? Our athletes, those that have made the journey and not been put off by any threat to health, better offers from other games or lack of facilities, need the crowds to spur them to greater things. And then I thought of our Commonwealth Games in Manchester. I was really pleased by the volunteers. They opened doors for the spectators, gave directions and had other roles too numerous to mention. There was one problem with the two events that I ...