Various organisations are collating information about the incidence of the Coalition's programme of spending cuts as it emerges. Following the publication of the local government settlement, attention has recently switched to the impact on services provided by local authorities. A recent article posted at Guardian Society provides some insight into how local authorities are dealing ...
Penultimate volume of this tremendously entertaining series. The next two evil ex-boyfriends turn out to be very tall Japanese twin brothers. (They appear on page 11 so this is hardly a spoiler.) But what of Scott's relationship with Ramona, with her cat, and indeed with reality? I guess we will find out in the next and final book.
This shopfront took my fancy when I was in Camden for the Steve Winwood concert at the Roundhouse a couple of months ago. The building is now occupied by a cafe, but a Camden News article from 2008 describes Palmers in its heyday: George Palmer set up the shop in 1918 and counted famous faces among his customers. When Winston Churchill wanted a cat to prowl the corridors of Number 10, he popped into Palmers and went back to Whitehall with a ginger kitten. Mr Palmer was given a cigar and a signed copy of the PM's autobiography as a ...
Shop of the Week this week is Warrior Warehouses in Chapel Road, Tuckingmill. It's reassuring to have a shop that has survived since my childhood in Camborne (especially as these are becoming worryingly fewer in number). Growing up in Dolcoath, a trip to Warriors with my parents or grandparents seemed to take the whole afternoon to wander round the household emporium. Now I'm a bit bigger, thankfully, it doesn't take quite as long! Warriors stocks pretty much anything and everything you could need for the house and home - from fire grates to cheese graters! Today it was some sink ...
Throughout the festive season, LDV is offering our readers another chance to read the 12 most popular opinion articles which have appeared on the blog since 1st January, 20109. The tenth most-read LDV op-ed of 2010 was by party member Mat Smith, and originally appeared on 15th November ... Opinion: Clegg has not betrayed us! Many left-leaning liberals in the media are outraged at what they consider to be broken pledges on the part of Nick Clegg. Johann Hari writes in The Independent, "In just a few days after the election, he cleared a space in his swanky new ministerial ...
A nice little surprise for Christmas!! My wife bought us tickets for Vinopolis in London for my birthday weekend, really looking forward to this. Below is an extract from their website. We have booked the Celebration Tour. http://www.vinopolis.co.uk/winetours/celebrationtour.php The Vinopolis Celebration self guided tour is our premium wine tour, designed for those with a thirst for fizz and a taste for the luxurious. After taking part in a tutored 'How to Taste Wine' to brush up on your tasting technique you can sample 6 regular wines and a variety of premium wines from around the world, 2 whiskies in our ...
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After a triumphant first series from Steven Moffat, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, Who fans across the country waited with fevered anxiety to see what the Christmas Special would bring. Could the high standard of writing and characterisation which culminated in stories as diverse as Vincent and the Doctor, The Eleventh Hour and The Pandorica Opens possibly be continued? The unqualified answer to that question has to be no. It was actually surpassed. An hour long assault on our emotions ended with the at least partial redemption of the baddie, and a potentially hopeful new future for the world he ...
A few days ago the Guardian seized upon an opinion poll: David Cameron looks set for an uphill challenge in making his vision of a "big society" a reality as new poll findings suggest people in Britain are more willing to give their money than their time to good causes. A Harris poll for the Financial Times shows that the British public are more ready than most to make financial donations, but less happy about being asked to volunteer to deliver public services. The findings raise doubts about the prime minister's aims of boosting "mutual responsibility" by supporting a new ...
Following constituents' concerns about the timetable reliability of 73 Tayway services recently, I raised this matter with Stagecoach's Operations Director for East Scotland, who has responded as follows : "We have had problems adhering to the timetables on all services due to the weather conditions of the last few weeks. Whilst most of the main roads are now clear and easily passable there are still a number of side roads which are in a less acceptable condition. Very few services are contained purely to main roads meaning that there is a knock-on effect on timetables." The Courier today covered the ...
With thanks to Angela Mehlert, a rather superb photograph of ice on the River Tay, by the rail bridge - taken on Christmas Eve.
A festive edition of the Voice's occasional round-up of political videos, with three Lib Dem politicians showing, erm, quirkier sides of their personalities. M'colleague Helen Duffett has already brought you the delights of Vince's turn on the Strictly Come Dancing floor. But he's by no means the first Liberal politician to hit the mainstream — here's Sir Cyril 'Nice One' Smith's famous Access ad from the 1980s: (Also on YouTube here.) Meanwhile, Lib Dem leader of Sheffield City Council Paul Scriven shows off his 'Perfect' singing skills in the service of a hotel's internal training video. It's attracted the ire ...
Well done, Qing Jing Mao. According to the Leicester Mercury, he: lost more than £70,000 after spending up to 10 hours a day in a casino while studying economics at the University of Leicester.
This morning, I had the pleasure of attending the studio tour of the Wave 102 studios arranged for the winners of the P3 and P4 Christmas Decorations Competition at our local primary schools during the recent West End Christmas Week. Wave 102 presenter Jon Quipp was a great host and I'm very grateful to him and Wave 102 for their generosity and help with Christmas Week. Here's Jon photographed above in the studio with Yusra Vindhani of Blackness Primary School (left) and Josh O'Brien of Ancrum Road Primary School (right).
Helen Duffet on Liberal Democrat Voice has the video of Vince Cable's appearance on the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special. "You had total control and leadership. I thought it was really, really good. However, you have a tendency to lean slightly to the right," said that cheeky monkey Craig Revel-Horwood. The Browser interviews the Lib Dem peer Alex Carlile about ethics in public life. Conservative councillor Chris Whiteside praises Chris Mullin's second volume of diaries Decline and Fall. It is now mathematically impossible to pay off the US national debt, argues The Economic Collapse. Ianvisits spent Christmas Day at a ...
This is a lovely lovely book about two women who live together yet separately, work separately but together, and discuss (or don't discuss) the deep and meaningful things of life with each other, and with friends, relatives and strangers, in that laconic, efficient and profound way that the Finns have. The romantic reader will want to believe that Mari and Jonna in the book are basically Tove Jansson herself and her partner Tuulikki Pietilä, be that as it may, you will reach the last page cheering for any long-term relationship or marriage as intimate and successful as the one depicted ...
Those nice people at Scottish Roundup have let me take on a second stint as Admin Editor (ie sorting out the paperclips and organising the tea rota) for the next couple of months. We were going to leave the Christmas week, but with my love of Christmas sparkle and kitsch, and Mr Sheridan's wee spot of bother, I thought I'd do one for posterity and you can find it here. We ask people to send in their nominations each week but everyone clearly had better things to do in the run up to Christmas because we'd had three in total. ...
Birkdale's Councillor Simon Shaw, together with fellow Southport councillors, are meeting senior Council officers this Wednesday. They plan to get answers from the Council as to why there has been such poor performance locally in clearing main roads and town centre pavements of snow and ice. "The absolute priority throughout has been trying to get effective Council action on the ground," explains Simon. "The last thing we wanted to do was to divert key officers from doing their job in the run-up to Christmas by having a Town Hall meeting too soon." "That's why we have delayed having this crucial ...
Chris has 'called in' the latest development application on the Oaklands site so as to be heard by councillors in public rather than be decided by officials. The plan is to: 'Change of use of Block D to include retention of block and all external elements (windows and structural columns); insertion of floor and subdivision of the block to provide sixteen studio units and four, one bedroom units at Block D.' Chris said: 'I am anxious to make sure that there is no further impact on local parking or on traffic.' The plan reference is 5/2010/2739. Planning applications can be ...
Causal chains can be very long, with surprising connections between initiating events and final outcomes. Severe violence between protesters and police on the streets of London resulted from the debacle over student fees, broken pledges, and continuing double talk as to whether this is a coalition compromise, or has now somehow magically become best policy. But it has its roots further back in a faulted policy making process in the Lib Dem party. How did an intelligent political party get such policy so wrong less than a year ago, when it already knew all the current economic issues? To understand ...
I don't know what I have done in the past to deserve the love that is being shown to and freely given to me at the moment. I'm not feeling well at the moment - think I'm going to have to head up to the Accident & Emergency Department of the Royal Victoria Hospital in ...
I hope everybody had a lovely Christmas, got where they were going safely, and had an enjoyable time. If Santa brought you presents I hope they made you happy, and I hope the spirit of peace at Christmas continues into the new year. In the post-Carol Concert giddiness of the other night I foolishly agreed to take an entire box full of Focus leaflets to deliver over the Christmas holidays. This morning I spent four hours delivering them, along Rectory Lane and across much of the Clifton Road / Mountside Crescent areas. Of the many fun things I hope to ...
The Scottish Labour Party are often the first to attack other parties for sneaking out news on quiet days so is anyone surprised to learn that John Park MSP is no longer the candidate for the Dunfermline constituency in next years elections? Have Labour conceded that Jim Tolson, the sitting Lib Dem MSP is going to hold his seat and they are running scared so have pulled John Park and are allowing him to just run as a regional candidate and avoid the hassle of a hard fought campaign and the embarrassment of losing? We know John Park MSP has ...
View Poll: Moffat's "sexism" Thanks for all the birthday wishes, by the way. ♥ [IMG: Dreamwidth] [IMG: Livejournal] [IMG: Blogger] [IMG: Facebook] [IMG: Tweet this] [IMG: Delicious] [IMG: Flattr this] [IMG: LibDig] [IMG: Bit/ly] [IMG: StumbleUpon]
For the first time in 15 years of being a parent I had to deal with the NHS on Christmas Day. I must admit I came away thinking that something seriously has to change with how patients at home are dealt with. My youngest daughter was taken ill on Christmas Eve. Weird viral bug with very high temperatures. She was actually asleep on Christmas Eve by 7pm, even with the excitement of Santa coming. Christmas morning she woke up cheerful but obviously still unwell, her temperature was soaring. As the day progressed we kept her temperature down with medicine and ...
Hooray. The ice on the pavement on my street seems to be melting away . But the forecasters say there could be a lot more cold weather to come. We all know people who've slipped and fallen in this lot of bad weather and uncleared pavements. And we all know people who've had journeys messed up. Some problems are inevitable, and I am not one of those who thinks that weather should have no effect at all. But it seems to me that again we have lessons to learn about how we have coped in Liverpool so far (things we've ...
Taken at the Flood, Agatha Christie Reading for pleasure has taken a bit of a back seat in the last couple of months (see here for why) — so I've found myself drawn to comfort easy-reading. And for me Agatha Christie is the book equivalent of buttered crumpets and hot chocolate. Two things struck me afresh reading an Hercule Poirot novel that was new to me. First, the simple elegance of Christie's style. Because I first fell in love with the books as a kid, they'd become associated in my mind with 'childish things' — yet they have a beguiling ...
Over the last week I've had a series of posts about the main Liberal Democrat challenges for 2011. In case you've missed any of them over the Christmas festivities, here is a quick recap: The economy – get this right, or little else matters Winning elections – for a political party winning votes is key to success Making progress on core beliefs – the coalition needs not only to be a success but a liberal government Showing the difference Liberal Democrats make – we mustn't become the party equivalent of a speech writer, making lots of improvements but no-one knowing ...
I didn't see the TV series that this book accompanies (a four-part drama-documentary filmed in Romania) but it's a good read anyway, framing the 1950's and 1960's competition between the USA and USSR as essentially a competition between two men, Wernher von Braun and Sergei Korolev, who never met but sent each other (and their countries) effective messages by rocket. The Wikipedia page objects that Cadbury is too harsh about Korolev's internal rival Glushko, but otherwise it seems to me an admirable piece of historical reconstruction, paring down the wealth of material available on the American side to match the ...
Lib Dem Manifesto p.18 "We will increase the income tax threshold to £10,000" In June's emergency budget, we raised the tax threshold by £1,000, lifting 880,000 low earners out of tax completely. This will increase each year of the coalition government until it reaches £10,000, which will lift an additional 3 million people out of tax altogether. Lib Dem Manifesto p.14 "We will tackle tax avoidance and evasion, with new powers for HMRC" In September, Danny Alexander announced a £900m crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion, expected to raise billions each year by 2014/15 from those who currently avoid paying ...
The Myth Behind Drinking 8 Glasses of Water a Day Via Boxcarwilly, an interesting item about food police myths (tags: food health myths water) Role models: someone to look up to | Life and style | The Guardian (tags: feminism media) ukca.pdf (application/pdf Object) Best smackdown EVER (.pdf) (tags: education academicfreedom thought) Butch Bakery | New York OK, this whole "men are sidelined these days" bollocks is going a little bit too far now... (tags: funny sexism) the family gathering and the Doctor Who special Penny's review of the Christmas Who special throws up some more interesting ideas than my ...
In the new year Mark Valladares, of Liberal Bureaucracy and a sometime contributor to this site, will be starting up a regular fortnightly guest piece for The Voice concentrating on letting members know what party bodies are getting up to in their name and how they can influence their decisions. If there's any particular topic you'd like Mark to cover, just pop up a comment below...
This morning's Independent suggests that David Cameron may well be privately encouraging moves for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to fight on a joint ticket at the next general election. They say that Tory traditionalists are planning to stir up a rebellion among Tory MPs and grassroots members against the idea, accusing a "defeatist" Prime Minister of planning for another hung parliament and insisting that the Tories can win an overall majority at the next general election. Personally, I think that this is a storm in a teacup. Neither Cameron nor Clegg could get such a pact through their respective ...
This morning's Western Mail says that a new UK Government report suggests Wales will see little benefit from the 2012 Olympic Games. They point out that Department for Culture, Media and Sport's plans for the Legacy from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games makes no specific mention of Wales. The report states how almost 100 Scottish companies have won more than 120 London 2012 contracts. It also describes a disability sports challenge being delivered in primary schools in Northern Ireland and contains a number of references to initiatives being delivered by Sport England, but does not make it clear how ...
i) births and deaths 27 December 1916: birth of Noel Johnson who played King Thous in The Underwater Menace (1967) and Sir Charles Grover in Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974) 27 December 1934: birth of Christopher Benjamin, who played Sir Keith Gold in Inferno (1970), Henry Gordon Jago in The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977) and the Big Finish Jago and Litefoot stories since 2009, and Colonel Hugh Curbishley in The Unicorn and the Wasp (2008) as well as Tardelli in the 2008 Eighth Doctor audio Grand Theft Cosmos. ii) broadcast anniversaries None. This is the last such day in the ...
This Conservative leaflet from the February 1974 General election in Cheadle constituency would hardly look out of place today. It's a good quality glossy leaflet stressing the local credentials of the sitting MP: he lives in the constituency, comes home every weekend and deals with thousands of pieces of casework. Normanton first won the seat in 1970 when a boundary reorganisation had made it safe for the Conservatives (at that time the constituency included Wilmslow). He stood down in 1987. Tom Normanton leaflet page 1 Tom Normanton leaflet page 2
After a few months of blogging holiday this blog is back. Obviously the focus will change, we're not anymore in electoral period, and thanks for that. There will be politics discussed though, and in case you were wondering I'm not anymore a member of any party and this because I don't feel that there is ...
It's with immense pleasure that I can report that on 15th December in a written reply to Caroline Pidgeon AM the Mayor of London Boris Johnson outlined the timetable for a green man crossing at Courthill Road. Courthill Road junction Question No: 3876 / 2010 Caroline Pidgeon In answer to a previous question on Courthill ...
The First Doctor of Christmas | Tor.com | Science fiction and fantasy | Blog posts George Mann's take on William Hartnell (tags: doctorwho) Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV News and Rumors Another review (tags: doctorwho) Come along, Ponds - And a Happy Eleventymas to all of you at home! Calapine's review of Who Xmas special (tags: doctorwho) A Modern Woman's Guide to Classic Who: THE FIRST DOCTOR YEARS (1963-1966) first in a series on Who (tags: doctorwho) YouTube - Annie Lennox - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen Lots of people ...
Tactical voting is when you don't vote for the person or party that you want to win, but you vote for someone else in order that your least favourite candidate doesn't get in. You only find this type of voting when you have a first-past-the-post system. If there is a two-horse race then if you prefer the third of even fourth placed party you are going to waste your vote. In fact there is a strong argument that says if you vote for anyone other than the winner then your vote is wasted. On this basis most people will waste ...
