In days of old, when Brown was bold (well, in 1992 anyway) he gave a stirring speech, as Shadow Chancellor, calling for a "powerful alternative to free-market thinking". He clearly explained why regulations and strong institutions were needed to bring the City under control. Then, five years later he was catapulted into power by the Labour landslide, becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer in Tony Blair's government. Tony Blair naively developed an undue admiration for what he romantically saw as the swashbuckling and flamboyant world of supposedly successful entrepreneurs, whose company he found flattering. Gordon, alas, similarly fell for a charm ...
This afternoon [IMG: [personal profile] ] magister and I went to see Tron Legacy in 3D. I really rather liked it. ( somewhat disjointed spoilers HO! ) Basically, it was very flawed, but it was fun. You should see this film if: You go ooooooooo at gorgeous design, because there is lots of it, even down to the glasses drinks are served inYou like Jeff BridgesYou think all geeks turn into hippies when they get old, because this affirms that viewYou're amused by really bad anti-aging CGIYou want to see a really clunky metaphor about how Microsoft are bad and ...
I'm currently writing the next three parts of the Eschatology & Escapology series (which was originally going to be seven posts, but will now be four, with the remainder dumped into other chapters of the new book) in parallel. They will be posted as they are finished, but that might not be the same order ...
Just a reminder that we have a weekly surgery, this takes place at the institute of St. Philip's Church on Frome Road 10 - 11 every Saturday.This is the only weekly surgery in Bath and North East Somerset
What, you will ask, is a very young Jools Holland doing playing the guitar here? The answer appears to be that, in a protest against not being allowed to play this song live on Top of the Pops, Squeeze mimed to it with the group members playing the wrong instruments. You can find a more conventional performance elsewhere on the net, though Holland does appear to be channelling Jimmy Saville. Up the Junction is notable for its clever lyrics. When pop songs use half-rhyme it is usually because no one can think of a proper one.
Well, since I did quite so .. lacklustre-ly .. last year, I might as well try again for 2011: The coalition will survive through the year. The "Yes" campaign will win the AV referendum. Whilst the year will start with Michael Gove looking increasingly insecure in his position, it will ultimately be Andrew Lansley whose ...
I have mixed feelings about Murdoch his newspapers along with Eddy Shah's Today newspaper broke the print unions stranglehold on newspaper production which revolutionised the print media. However the share of popular news titles and broadcast media owned by Murdoch companies is not good for democracy, such is Rupert Murdoch's influence he has no problem in accessing government, I believe shortly after the coalition was formed Murdoch was allowed in through the PM's back door at Downing Street. Anyhow it's always bothered me, that papers like the Sun, News of the World, come up with "stories" which the public swallow ...
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, 2010. The fourth most-read LDV op-ed of 2010 was by LDV co-editor Mark Pack, and originally appeared on 18th June ... The easy, progressive way to cut £44 billion without harming worthwhile public services or the least well off It may sound a challenge, cutting £44 billion from public spending. But actually, it's easy. Not only that, it can be done without hitting the least well off. Without cutting worthwhile public services. ...
If you were paying attention to my blog a year ago, I took part in the 10 for 2010 meme which was doing the rounds. So now it's all over, how did my predictions fare? Not quite so well as I'd hoped, unfortunately: My 10 Predictions: Barack Obama's approval ratings will improve, but the Democrats ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 202nd 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 (26th December 2010 -1st January 2011), 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. ...
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here's a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow. Crunchy numbers A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats. The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed ...
Our Housing Minister must be congratulated. Today's Observer carries a front page article under the heading Minister pledges to end the housing price rollercoaster. Mr Shapps acknowledges that the rapid increases in house prices we have witnessed over the last decade have caused considerable pain for those seeking to enter the owner occupied market. Effectively ...
... We'd say a big thank you to the 51,153 'absolute unique visitors'* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in December. That's a notch down on our November figure of c.59,000, but almost double the equivalent figure for December '09 of c.27,000. Incidentally, if you're wondering why we publish our readership figures — is it show-off vanity, or pedantic statophilia — I came up with a few reasons at the start of last year. The arguments still stack up, I think. The 5 top-read stories during the month were: Opinion: Richard Huzzey - "I resign" (225) by Richard Huzzey Probably the ...
Liberal Democrat Voice's annual poll of its readers to determine who they think should be awarded their prestigious Liberal Voice of the Year Award (no amusing acronyms here) is now open. The twelve nominees are as follows (along with Stephen's ... Continue reading →
Nick Clegg left the Liberal Democrat party conference in September early in order to represent the UK at a meeting of the United Nations in New York. Nick must enjoy his Town Hall meetings, as he seemingly couldn't resist fitting ... Continue reading →
We must not succumb to other parties who may have all the rhetoric in the world, but are either smudging their own records/beliefs or with no real chance of achieving anything very much at all.
The Cleggmania of the 2010 general election gave some of us hopes of an end to partisan bickering and of a more constructive debate on the future of our country. Of course this was never to be the case, only a naive idealist like me could even pretend to hope for such a situation, and the fallout from that election lead to some of the most ridiculously illogical partisan posturing I've ever seen. Liberal Democrats defending Tory policies just to show we are better than Labour. Labour supporters taking mad positions on Phil Woolas, immigration, civil liberties and other such ...
Welcome to my weekly round-up of two blogging highlights from the past week: the post that I found most interesting or enjoyable to write and the post from someone else that I found most interesting or entertaining. A post from me...The Liberal Democrat challenges for 2011: defining and explaining economic fairness For Nick Clegg, "social mobility" has been the phrase of choice in recent months. It certainly is a phrase that many in policy making and government circles use but, rather like "street furniture", despite being popular in such circles it is almost never used by people outside such circles. ...
There's no prize at stake - just the opportunity to prove you're wittier than any other LDV reader... (Image by Alex Folkes/Fishnik Photography via Lib Dem Flickr photostream.) Here's the new Lib Dem party president Tim Farron side-by-side with Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg. What do you think they might be saying to, or thinking about, each other? The winner of our most recent caption competition, the "Tim Farron goes out on a wing" edition - according to The Voice's judging panel of one - was this one by Matt Downey. Got a photo of a ...
For those who think that locking increasing amounts of the nation's wealth up in bricks and mortar is a nonsense, today's news that Grant Shapps believes that we should be looking for a gradual, but sub-inflationary, increase in house prices in coming years will come as welcome news. It's also one of the first intelligent things to come out of the Conservative part of the Communities and Local Government team since the election. Combining this with reports that, without parental support to get onto the housing ladder, the age at which someone can expect to have raised the currently required ...
Here's a question that's been dwelling on my mind for a while: if it was necessary for human beings to return to the Moon as soon as possible, how long would it take? We know that there are various promises from different national space programmes to go (or return) to the moon in the next ...
"We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars" Oscar Wilde said. It was one of Rachel's favourite sayings and sums her up perfectly. I awoke this morning to the news that Rachel Smith ... Continue reading →
I am really sad to hear that Liberal Democrat blogger Rachel Olgeirsson, who was also on Twitter as @rachelolgeirsso, passed away in the early hours of yesterday. We knew that she'd been undergoing treatment for Leukaemia, which she'd faced with great bravery, raising money for charity since her diagnosis last Summer. I never met her in real life. I just got to know her over Twitter, where she was unfailingly kind and generous and very, very funny. We tweeted through lots of episodes of the Apprentice and Strictly together. When I wasn't well last year, she was always full of ...
During my self-enforced blogging purdah, something that really started to annoy me is the misrepresentation of how coalition government and compromise politics actually works. This was typified by various comments about how, because the Lib Dems had "sold out" on their manifesto commitment to abolish tuition fees, that somehow more votes for Lib Dems would lead to more of this "selling out" and the idea that more votes for Lib Dems might have made it possible for that manifesto commitment to have been held to is somehow ridiculous. I have heard this point made many times by various commentators and ...
The Guardian is reporting that the Cabinet has agreed plans to scrap the appalling system of Control Orders, which restrict the movements and communications of terrorist suspects. I hope that this is true. It's not long since it was being reported that the Government intended to keep them, something which would be completely unacceptable to most Liberal Democrats. It's not that we don't think terrorists shouldn't have their activities curtailed. Of course they should. The system of control orders, though, is the absolute antithesis to every tenet of justice and natural law that there is. It sets a very dangerous ...
2011 is the centenary of the passing of the 1911 Parliament Act, which curtailed the power of the House of Lords to delay money bills passed by the House of Commons. It was part of a concerted attempt to assert the powers of the democratic part of the Parliament over the undemocratic element of it by the radical Liberal Government of the early 20th Century that brought us the state pension, properly funded state schools and National Insurance. This change came at a considerable price to the government of the time and since then people have not been very keen ...
In what is fast becoming a pre-New Year tradition as eagerly anticipated as 'the biggest ever DFS sale', Lib Dem Voice is publishing its list of 10 key questions, the answers to which we think might well help shape 2011 for the party. You can read last year's list here; and our answers to those questions here (Part I) and here (Part II). Here below, then, are my top 10 questions for the coming year in Lib Demmery: 1. The biggest question of all: will the Lib Dem / Conservative Coalition Government last the year? Plenty have predicted its demise ...
Happy New Year to everyone. May 2011 bring you and your family happiness. I would like to thank everyone for their support since being chosen to fight Stockwood for the Liberal Democrats last May. We achieved an excellent vote, more than quadrupling the previous admittedly low vote, but it just shows what can be done when you have an active, local candidate and a forward looking team. Thanks to all those who voted for me last May, for the help and assistance from our team of deliverers and fellow Lib Dems. Although not confirmed yet I hope to stand again ...
The Voice is only a success because of the interest and support from our readers. For many people just lurking and reading the site is all they want to do – and that's fine, we're grateful for people taking the time to read the site. You can though help us continue to produce interesting content for a growing audience. Here are three simple ways: 1. Let us have your tips for stories. Perhaps there's something outrageous going on in your local council? Or you're an expert in a particular area and have spotted a story other people have missed? Or ...
Lambeth Council will again be offering a free Christmas Tree recycling service throughout the borough. If you live in a property with kerbside collection, you can leave your tree next to your bin on your normal collection day in the week of January 10th - 14th. If you don't have a kerbside collection, or are in a Lambeth Living property, you will need to take your tree to one of the following collection points, on any day between January 10th and 14th: - Clapham Common, Windmill Drive, SW4 - Streatham Common, Streatham High Road, SW16 - Kennington Park, Kennington Park ...
Thirty teams out of one hundred and six made it into the third round, and with a mere 524,258 barriers between them and glory, Liberal Democrats were doing a bit better than expected. It wasn't to last... So, here are some of the highlights from the third round; Easiest victories Ian Wallace's 'The Red n Blue Army' cruised past 'FC Riviera Luzern', winning 58 - 34, an excellent result against a team ranked 167,515 places higher at kick-off. Patrick Fancett's 'Winch United', faced a wild card, 'Vaginas Are Cool' (where do people come up with these names), whose late arrival ...
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here's a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is on fire!. Crunchy numbers A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,000 times in 2010. That's about ...
Lib Dem Manifesto p.23 "If you choose micro-generation, you will be able to sell the energy back to the National Grid at a profit, with a more attractive feed-in tariff than under current government plans." Feed-in tariffs were protected under the spending review. Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Chris Huhne has announced that the Renewable Heat Incentive, which pays for every kilowatt hour of heat produced, will go ahead in 2011. Lib Dem Manifesto p.58 "Begin a ten-year programme of home insulation, offering a home energy improvement package of up to £10,000 per home, paid for by ...
I have today expressed considerable concern over Scottish Government moves towards merging Scotland's eight police forces into one single force for the whole of Scotland, pointing out that this could lead to a diminution of local policing, centralisation focussing on the central belt and a loss of local police officers. I am very concerned at the SNP Scottish Government's apparent support for such a move - there must be concerns that a single force would be dominated by Strathclyde and the central belt, to the detriment of the rest of Scotland. One size does not fit all when it comes ...
OK, so it's hardly the return of the Futility Monster, here, but two posts in two days does mark something of a minor miracle. Even so, it's unlikely to be repeated. Maybe I will try and write something at least semi-frequently. Maybe once a month or something. But for now, more to get it down ...
Sun 2nd
10:55
Opinion: Brown was deceived by his "friends" - let's hope the Coalition is more careful!
In days of old, when Brown was bold (well, in 1992 anyway) he gave a stirring speech, as Shadow Chancellor, calling for a "powerful alternative to free-market thinking". He clearly explained why regulations and strong institutions were needed to bring the City under control. Then, five years later he was catapulted into power by the Labour landslide, becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer in Tony Blair's government. Tony Blair naively developed an undue admiration for what he romantically saw as the swashbuckling and flamboyant world of supposedly successful entrepreneurs, whose company he found flattering. Gordon, alas, similarly fell for a charm ...
We live in a problem focused culture. We seem to like bad news stories and we seem to like people pointing out problems. Just look at the most read articles in The Telegraph The stunning decline of Barack Obama Rahm Emanuel expected to quit White House With the US trapped in depression, this really is ...
Happy New Year everybody. Remarkably, KLM delivered my lost luggage, including my laptop, at 9.30 pm on New Year's Eve. At that time a pretty lively party was already in full swing,much improved by the presence of a great many beautiful young women, mostly from Latvia. I am not sure why; my life as ever consists of a bewildering succession of chance encounters with really nice people. I am in the fortunate position of being able to say that Nadira was the most lovely of all, without indulging in dutiful hyperbole. It was an extremely happy Christmas. Having my mum, ...
X-Factor-haters look away now. There's nothing for you here. Cher Lloyd was the true star of X-Factor for me, no matter that she finished fourth. (Jade Goody, it may be remembered, finished in the same position in Big Brother 3: can you remember the names of the three contestants who beat her? Me either.) From the moment she strutted her tiny, fragile frame through Turn My Swag On at the auditions, you could tell she had something: incredible poise and presence, a pitch-perfect and original voice, and no-nonsense sassiness. I loved her performance, and I loved her. That her undoubted ...
[IMG: Old Rascal Cider] [IMG: Creative Commons License] photo credit: Smabs Sputzer After thirty odd years, I'm re-acquiring a taste for cider. I had a couple of traumatic cider drinking experiences in my adolescence. One was called "Bulmer's Sweet Cider" and the other was called "The real stuff" (i.e "Scrumpy). The latter was experienced in The Anchor pub in South Molton and in a pub in some backwater south of Minehead. But having cleared my palate of the sweetness of Bulmer's and the roughness of "Scrumpy", I have tasted the following four bottled ciders recently. I've ranked them in order ...
It is amazing what can be found on YouTube!
I had been expecting a consolidated set of conclusions as to what we have learned from three volumes and 38 chapters; but less than half of this short essay consists of Gibbon's brief (though penetrating) general observations on what has happened so far. Gibbon the diverges from his usual topic to apply the experience of the Roman Empire to contemporary Europe. I found this absolutely fascinating, partly because I am interested in Gibbon's very English and Enlightenment articulation of the early stages of the European ideal as it has developed, partly also because he is a useful reality-based antidote, even ...
I've been researching screen materials and came across these great links which I simply had to share. For inspiration, try http://www.rdalland.com/ and for purchase in the UK try http://bit.ly/fCqngW (handy for loads of other fabrics too).
[IMG: Blue State Digital logo] Clickz reports the news that advertising and marketing giant WPP has purchased Blue State Digital, most famous for its key role in Barack Obama's 2008 campaign: The firm comes into the WPP fold without one of its key online advertising execs who worked on the Obama team. BSD's former director of advertising and promotion, a member of Obama's online ad team, left the firm earlier this month. Since gaining acclaim during the 2008 presidential election through its Obama campaign work, the integrated digital marketing agency has veered away from political candidate campaigns and broadened its ...
diggerdydum: The Most Important Question Of 2011 Of earth-shattering importance, this question demands an answer (tags: doctorwho) Happy Who Year! Cool new year Doctor Who macro (tags: doctorwho) Love and Liberty: Shirley Williams Wishes Millennium Dome, Elephant A Happy Birthday <3 happy birthday Millennium (tags: blogging) Jeeves And The Singularity Andrew writes a fabulous Jeeves and Wooster fic. You should read it. (tags: fiction funny)
I have no idea if Christopher Jefferies had anything to do with the death of Joanna Yeates. He has been released on police bail today after 3 days of questioning. The problem is that some of the media coverage of the last few days would make you think that he has already been tried, convicted and is on his way to the gallows. Mark Wallace wrote an excellent blogpost a couple of days back which highlighted how the "fact" that Mr Jefferies was a posh loner seems to have been enough in the minds of most of the press to ...
Even I would concede that 100,000 maltesers would be quite a large number, but what about when it comes to signatures on a petition? The fear that all sorts of humorous and trivial ideas could get 100,000 verified signatures from people on the electoral register is one of the reasons some people have given for criticising the government's plans to give proposals that get 100,000 signatures some debating time in Parliament. I think those criticisms are misplaced because, as I said previously, "The usual tiny number of votes deliberate joke candidates get at election time (unless there is a serious ...
1) Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (London: Penguin, 1956/2006, ISBN 9780141188416). Lovely, impressionistic first-person tale of a loose network of black Caribbean men trying to survive in 1950s London, with its still largely-unexamined racism (portrayed in a matter-of-fact, understated way, with neither sentimentality nor anger) and an economy not quite thriving enough to absorb them easily. It is written entirely in a version of Jamaican patois, which was ground-breaking at the time for a book set and published in England and makes it the ancestor of some of my favourite contemporary novels, particularly Alex Wheatle's East of Acre Lane and ...
Sun 2nd
07:55
Whoniversaries 2 January: Deborah Watling, John Woodnutt, Rescue #1, Terror of the Autons #1
i) births and deaths 2 January 1948: birth of Deborah Watling, who played the Second Doctor's companion Victoria in 1967-68. 2 January 2006: death of John Woodnutt, who played George Hibbert in Spearhead from Space (1970), the Draconian Emperor in Frontier in Space (1973), Broton and the Duke of Forgill in Terror of the Zygons (1976), and Seron in The Keeper of Traken (1981). ii) broadcast anniversaries 2 January 1965: broadcast of "The Powerful Enemy", first episode of the story we now call The Rescue, introducing Maureen O'Brien as new companion Vicki. The Tardis, now without Susan, lands on the ...
Now that the UK Coalition Government has quite rightly fulfilled its promise to abolish ID cards details are now emerging of the fiasco that was the trial that Labour ran in Greater Manchester. According to the Manchester Evening News, civil servants were urged to sign up their own families for ID cards in an effort to stop the controversial scheme flopping. They say: Senior Whitehall officials were urged to email friends and relatives encouraging them to buy cards because of fears about the level of demand; UK and overseas border guards refused to recognise the cards - with one traveller ...
The Liberal Democrats have published a list of 67 manifesto commitments delivered or on their way to be delivered in eight months of government. Below and in subsequent posts we reproduce that list: Lib Dem Manifesto p.44 – "We will maintain free entry to national museums and galleries and open up the Government Art Collection for greater public use." We have maintained free entry to national museums and galleries, and Government Art Collection works are to be shown in a public gallery for the first time. Lib Dem Manifesto p.46 – "Use cash in dormant betting accounts to set up ...
(I've had really limited Internet access for just over a week, and haven't been reading blogs, etc. I hit "Mark all read" in Google Reader to start afresh, and I'm not attempting to start reading my dreamroll - if there's anything I should know, please comment :) Returning to your regular programming... now:) *yawn* Spent Christmas Day at [IMG: [personal profile] ] dunharrow's flat in New Cross enjoying a wild mix of traditional UK, European and US seasonal food/drink and watching Eddie Izzard and Peep Show, then had an early night. It was lazy and relaxing and quite fun. The ...
If you want to know how to come to a decision then you may be forthright and have an answer yourself but you may be wrong. The best answers come from people who know the questions well and that isn't necessarily the person who makes the decisions. However, on Wednesday I wrote that you can't trust the general public all the time. There are many reasons for this. A decision may be easy to take if you don't have to bear the responsibility for that decision. Even academic groups may only have knowledge in one particular area and they may ...
Sam Harris: A New Year's Resolution for the Rich Excellent piece (tags: ushealth usa) The Tea is Getting Cold | Tor.com | Science fiction and fantasy | Blog posts Seanan Maguire on the Seventh Doctor (tags: doctorwho) A Modern Woman's Guide to Classic Who: THE SEVENTH DOCTOR YEARS: 1987-1989 Tansy reaches the end of Old Who (tags: doctorwho)
