The first of 2011's Police Tasking meetings saw good news with reported Crime in Acocks Green down 11% in December (compared to the previous December). This compares to a rise of 2% across the West Midlands as a whole. The one type of crime that has been causing concern is burglary with many burglaries taking place during daylight hours. However several arrests have been made (including one yesterday) and the monthly figures are still relatively low. A classic mistake at this time of year is to advertise the fact that you have new electronic equipment by putting the empty boxes ...
One of the most extraordinary aspects of the Spanish colonisation of South America was the decision by 18th century Jesuits to set up a series of Missions in what are now Paraguay and Bolivia. Deliberately sited in remote areas with scattered indigenous populations, who were gathered together, these 'reductions' were settlements built around a church and a ...
22:41 You join me in the Library at Bonkers Hall. I am not holding a party with champagne and Tizer as I did for our last victory. In these days of austerity it behoves one to set an example - besides, have you seen the price of Tizer these days? The wireless is warming up, I am wearing my MCC tie and Gentlement of Rutland blazer and, so as not to be entirely alone, I have an inflatable E.W. Swanton in the chair opposite me. Sláinte (as they say at Brig o'Dread). 22:45 The Uppingham tones of Jonathan Agnew reach ...
As we prepare to enjoy the cricket from 11.30pm, I think it is appropriate for us English to do something we don't often do: brag. We have had it in the neck for many years when our cricket team has been poor. They deserve a bit of stick now. For me, this clip below, of the run-out of Watson last night, sums up the whole series. If you can't get your calling right over a simple couple of runs, then you don't deserve to be on a school team, let alone the national side of a proud cricketing nation.
Lettering.js is a jQuery plugin for "radical Web Typography" according to the developers, permitting word and character access for CSS definitions.
The Twelve Doctors of Christmas | Tor.com's excellent series All of these articles are quite good. Except the one on Ten. The least convincing article is the one in favour of the most overblown and poorly used Doctor? Quel surprise. (tags: Doctor+Who) Cicero's Songs: New Year... New Money Quoth Cicero: As I go out to spend Euro for the first time in Estonia, I reflect that the country is making decisions to promote its own prosperity and maintain its identity, and that is more or less the opposite of what the ignoramus Daily Mail journalist- who did not even know ...
Thursday Poor Clegg is a bit under the cosh at the moment, not least because of his failure to adopt the cause of Not Terribly Bright middle-class children. Even his appearance on Desert Island Discs caused controversy when he chose the odd packet of Woodbines as his luxury. (When I appeared on this show, I chose Dame Anna Neagle as mine. I had to send Roy Plomley a case of particularly fine claret to get him to agree to the idea, but I am happy to report the investment proved well worth it). I was not surprised by Clegg's choice ...
Last year was a roller coaster ride of a year for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats with its highs and lows in the polls, the decision for them to form a Coalition Government was not easy, they had no option as no one party had actually won the election. A discredited Labour government had decisively lost, leaving the country with billions of debt, a quick solution had to be found otherwise the financial problems that were arising in other European countries like Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain were likely to spread to this country, due to the impending uncertainty ...
Thu 6th
21:01
Southport Area Committee endorses Simon's Report on "Gritting Mayhem" and agrees to fund new snow pl...
My blog on yesterday's Southport area committee referred to the work done by my Birkdale Ward colleague Simon Shaw. As I have reported before, Simon really did seize the initiative over Southport's snow and gritting problems. Immediately after Christmas Simon led a team of councillors from across Southport to meet with senior Council officers to discuss widespread concerns over gritting and the clearance of snow. Subsequent to that meeting Simon has been busy preparing a report saying where he and the other councillors consider that the Council went wrong, and how it could do better in the future. Simon's report ...
On New Year's Eve Stephen Kinzer contributed an article to Comment is Free accusing human rights charities of tyring to impose Western standards and values on developing countries. He wrote: Those who have traditionally run Human Rights Watch and other western-based groups that pursue comparable goals come from societies where crucial group rights - the right not to be murdered on the street, the right not to be raped by soldiers, the right to go to school, the right to clean water, the right not to starve - have long since been guaranteed. In their societies, it makes sense to ...
Welcome to the latest in my increasingly frequent feature exposing the half-truths and untruths in local Labour literature. This entry concerns a leaflet being distributed around the ward by Noel Bayley, the Labour candidate for the local elections in this ward, who doesn't live in Prestwich. Credit to Mr Bayley for putting out a leaflet. It's a rarity to see a Labour leaflet outside of election time. Sadly, two of its articles merit inclusion in "Labour Letter Watch." The first is headed "Local campaigner slams cuts to Police in Prestwich." It says that cuts to the police budget "could mean ...
Following on from the Sowerby resonance of just over a year ago, I now find myself having just finished one book and reading two more which feature a character called Barquentine. Granted, Gormenghast is the sequel to Titus Groan so in fact it's the same character, the heir and successor of Sourdust, the Master of Ritual; but I was then startled to encounter his cousin or descendant Susan Barquentine in Dave Stone's Doctor Who novel Heart of TARDIS. Both characters are sinister and somewhat faily (Mervyn Peake's Barquentine is sinister partly because he has a wooden leg and scoliosis, the ...
I have come across a magnificent website devoted to the surprisingly gritty 1960 British thriller Hell is a City. The film starred, amongst others, Stanley Baker, Billie Whitelaw and Donald Pleasance, and you can also see familiar faces like Doris Speed and Warren Mitchell in more minor roles. Hell is a City was shot in and around Manchester, and the website has many photographs of the locations - both today and as they appeared 50 years ago. One eerie - in view of events a few years later - scene shows the villain dumping a body on what may well ...
According to the Southport FC website Liam Watson confirmed that John Paul Kissock and Karl Ledsham have committed their futures to the club. The ex Everton reserve star has signed for this and next season the story continues: Also signing on the same time period is left sided midfielder Karl Ledsham who has signed from Skelmersdale United. Both have been very impressive over the Christmas period and are in the squad for Saturday's clash with high flying Newport County It is good to see a photo of J P K in a Southport shirt
Given the recent thaw and the resultant release of some resources from winter maintenance work back to road repair and resurfacing works, the City Council has tonight advised me that : " ... we plan to re-commence the carriageway surfacing programme on Monday 10th January 2011, starting with the previously postponed works at Hillside Road. The road will not be closed. However access will be maintained although restricted and lengthy delays should be expected during excavation and surfacing operations. Works are programmed to take 5 days. Courtesy signs will be erected asap and residents notified."
Last night at the area committee held in Southport Town Hall there were a lot of angry people who had come to express their anger to those involved in the disastrous handling of the winter snows. The Chief Exec repeated her apology and her determination that lessons should be learnt. That is a good start. Reports will appear elsewhere about the meeting my intention here is to move on beyond the expression of anger and frustration to look at some of the things the council need to do differently. I should start by saying this should not be focused on ...
Earlier today, I met with Simon Mathieson, the new Director of National Express Dundee, over recent hikes in bus fares across the city. I was anxious to raise constituents' concerns about the recent bus fares increases that took effect this week, particularly about the increases in the cost of travelcards such as monthly and four weekly direct debit and the very significant increase in bus fares for passengers travelling 4 stages or more. With regard to the 4 stages or more increase to £2 from £1.45 for a single trip, I queried the need for such a hefty increase. Mr ...
I was very pleased to have been present at the launch of Ceredigion's 'Yes to Wales' campaign in Aberystwyth last night. In a launch of what will be an energetic campaign, it was great to see a full hall of some 175 or so, ready for the battle ahead. An All-Party Effort It was important for the campaign to see figures from the 4 main Welsh political parties at the launch. The evening was presided over in a measured way by the calm hand of former Labour MP, the highly respected cross-bencher Lord Elystan Morgan. We then heard from Ceredigion's ...
There are excellent events taking place at the Mills Observatory tomorrow night and next Wednesday as part of nationwide stargazing events. You can read more about the Mills Observatory events by clicking on the headline above or going to the City Council website.
The national spending review has inevitably been a tough process. The government has had to face the unavoidable truth that Labour's deficit had to be tackled. For every £4 the government spends it has to borrow £1, this is clearly unsustainable. In response the government is requiring every arm of the public sector to make substantial savings. In Hull this will amount to around £40 million (plus redundancy costs) this year. The draft budget I announced yesterday outlines the plan to balance the Councils budget whilst protecting as much spend as we can on front-line services. At the end of ...
As I mentioned the other day, I'm now the owner of a Kindle, which prompted me to take a look at Project Gutenberg to find some good public domain books to read. One name that jumped out at me as worth taking a look at was Richard Jefferies' 1885 work After London, or Wild England, which is one of those books that often gets mentioned as a work of early or proto-SF, especially the post-apocalyptic genre. So, one of the first things I read with my piece of 21st century technology was something written and published in a much earlier ...
today i had an indian head masage for the first time. bizarre. normally, i have an aromatherapy massage on neck and shoulders once per month - but wanted to try something new. an indian head massage it seems involves keeping your clothes on and the practitioner massages and uses manipulations through the t-shirt. There is some movement of joints as well as massage and conventional strokes. some pummelling occured at one point. I opened my eyes towards the end and noticed her hand hovering in front of my face. not sure what to make of it all but i think ...
"Waste not, want not" is not entirely true as a piece of syllogistic logic of course - but we all get the drift. If we are more careful about what we buy, and if we make full use of our purchases then our money will go further. This is especially true when it comes to food. Did you know that the UK leads the world in wasting food? At 31% of all food wasted we even beat USA's 30% figure. Did you know that the average domestic bin contains nearly a stone of food waste worth nearly £10? Or that ...
Belatedly, the agenda papers for next Wednesday's Cabinet debate on new parking charges have been published (click on Supplementary Agenda Pack 2). And, despite a vague hope that the Tories would listen to reason on the effects of the proposed price rises, the recommendations have not changed. And so parking charges in Launceston will rise by an average of 42% and season ticket costs will go up from £195 per year to £600. As I have blogged before, the likely impact will be devastating on our town's local economy. It won't just be the case in Launceston. Towns across East ...
The latest offering from the No2AV camp is their 3 Countries Leaflet (the relevant section of which is alongside), outlining the reasons why our current First Past the Post (FPTP) system works, and why we should keep it. Firstly, it is pleasing to note that the campaign has finally dispelled the myth that they support a change in the voting system other than AV; from this leaflet we can clearly see they are Yes2FPTP and nothing else. click to embiggen Well why does FPTP work? According to No2AV: 1. It creates strong governments. - But so does AV? Let's get ...
I attended the public consultation event for the Colwyn Bay Watersports Hotspot Design Competition today at The Leisure Centre in Colwyn Bay. I was pleased with the turn out with over 300 people attending as of 4.30pm and the event continues until 8pm tonight, we have also had a positive response via the Web. This event is an opportunity for people to have their say regarding the Promenade. You can see the 6 entries here.
Picture via The Telegraph With England on the verge of victory in Australia, Paul Collingwood has decided to end his test career. The man has been a consistent presence in the England team for many years, and praised for his selfless approach to the sport. Even ignoring his frequently important contributions with the bat, Colly helped English cricketers take the skill of fielding seriously, his catching some of the best in the world. He is also a master of Twenty20 and one day cricket, and is a key component of the team that are world champions in that form of ...
It has been reported today that the Coalition are looking at how fuel tax is calculated and charged with a review to reviewing it to make it fairer and more stable. At present there is a set levy imposed by the Government which is reviewed at the budget every March, however motorists and businesses reliant on transport are having to cope with a volatile oil market which has seen rapid rises and falls and (currently) rises again in the price of oil which of course has a knock on affect on petrol prices. It is reported that the Coalition Government ...
Wallington Integrated Transport Package - Steering Group Meeting The Steering Group is made up of Wallington North and Wallington South Ward Councillors, representatives from Wallington resident associations and groups, and local businesses. Its purpose is to make decisions on matters relating to the implementation of the Wallington Integrated Transport Package (WITP) and be kept informed ...
It is with regret that we announce that Councillor John Warman has chosen to leave the Liberal Democrats on Neath Port Talbot council and join the Labour group. Councillor Des Sparkes assures electors in the Cimla ward that he will continue to serve them to the best of his ability as their Liberal Democrat member. We wish to make clear that, contrary to insinuations by Welsh Labour leader Carwyn Jones, the local party has lost no activists and the membership has remained steady since its rise during the 2010 General Election.
Subrosa has tagged me in a meme where you are supposed to post a picture of where you blog. Well, I would normally have pretended I hadn't seen it, because the kitchen table, where I normally type, is usually a tip. I expect Stephen and others who know me well, will be shocked at the photo I'm about to post. I was determined that we'd eat our Christmas Dinner around it, so I had a good clear out before the holidays. The kitchen, to me, is the heart of the house and I'd much rather be down here than shut ...
Picture via The Daily Mail At the moment Labour should be entitled Her Majesty's Opportunism, not Her Majesty's Opposition. On issue after issue they have played politics, fudged issues, and gone for a cheap headline. Today Shadow Home Secretary Ed Balls has waded into the control orders debate on his blog. A perfectly reasonable issue for someone is his role to be speaking on you might think. Yes, but his attempts to drive a wedge in the coalition, and try and personalise the issue to Nick Clegg once again are pathetic. Read the piece, for Ed Balls to try and ...
It's a perrenial debate, and every time we discuss poverty, and the question of whether the solution is to share the wealth more equally or to increase the overall amount of wealth, a pie metaphor emerges. So hat-tip to Chapman University student Joy Buchanan at Economnomnomics for this humorous and informative cartoon. [IMG: economicpie2] Of course, this graph may be more to the taste of the traditionalist. [IMG: gdpspikesm] But personally, when it comes to taste, I prefer a big bit of pie.
This post today on Labour Uncut is very critical of Lib Dem Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election candidate Elwyn Watkins and some comments he made on Newsnight about tuition fees. LU seem to find it hilarious that he could have a view on tuition fees (that they should be ideally abolished) and yet still would have voted in accordance with the coalition agreement had he been an MP. How can you campaign one way but vote another? How would he have campaigned against himself? Picketing his own office? Shouting at himself? Sending himself furious letters? Distributing leaflets saying "Do not ...
More on the Eagle comic following on from the Radio 4 programme Lancashire life has done a feature complete with a video narrated by Tom Baker of Dr Who fame. The video starts with some shots of Birkdale beach.
There are possibly historical analogies one can draw that compare to the rise of the Tea Party movement in the US, but there are some you might want to think twice about. For instance, while there are parallels possible between the US and the Roman Republic (though they tend to fall down under too much scrutiny) it's worth noting that the Republic spent the best part of a century falling apart before whatever passed for democracy became just a figleaf for an Imperial military-dominated dictatorship, and one of the points often regarded as marking the beginning of the end of ...
You do not solve any issues, or exert any kind of meaningful influence, by flouncing out of the party and saying you'll only come back when things change.
I won't be joining the huge number of Liberal Democrats from all over the country who are flocking in ever increasing numbers to Oldham East and Saddleworth - and I'm absolutely heartbroken about it. In 1995, the last time there was a by-election in the area, I spent a substantial part of the campaign there - we even had our Summer holiday staying in a wee farmhouse bed and breakfast somewhere between Shaw and Delph, I think. I was trying to find it the other day with no success. Anyway, we had a marvellous time there and totally fell in ...
Southport based Pontins looks set to be sold as a going concern despite debts of £47m. the full story in this morning's Liverpool Post
I looked, and lo, the internet did provide these morsels of interest: Save the Sea Otter Pups from No2AV flippancy – Beneath the jokes about dead wildlife, Duncan Stott asks an important question about why the No2AV campaigners think a military dictatorship is a good advert for their cause. 6 Real People With Secret Identities That No One Saw Coming – there's a reason I love Cracked.com, and articles like this are part of it. The story of Hal Turner, for instance, reads like Vonnegut's Mother Night being enacted in real life. 10 Reasons Poms Won't Win – Yes, it's ...
Here are the Liberal Democrat entries in the top 100 political blogs as ranked by Wikio: 1 (9) Liberal Democrat Voice Down 2 2 (22) Jack of Kent Up 18 3 (48) Caron's Musings Up 8 4 (52) Liberal England Up 5 5 (57) Lynne Featherstone Up 42 6 (59) Mark Pack Up 3 7 (62) Liberal Vision Up 11 8 (68) Mark Thompson New 9 (71) Craig Murray Down 20 10 (79) Miss S B Up 9 11 (80) Liberal Burblings Up 2 12 (81) Andrew Reeves's Running Blog Up 4 13 (82) Peter Black Up 15 14 (84) ...
Kent council may have lost £50 million in Iceland, we may be in the midst of a big recession, massive public spending cuts, Kents finance boss may be on "gardening leave "the reasons we are not told but fear not, money it would seem is just a technicality! News that the government will not be giving £38 million to Kent county council, to build a massive lorry park in the middle of the countryside, has been greeted it seems as just a trifling matter, conservative leader Paul Carter talking on BBC this morning said "this is a small technical issue"* ...
My Delicio.us posting skipped a beat yesterday but seems to be back on form today. These were the links it should have posted: What, child? What child? - treize64 comments on Upcoming Edition of Huckleberry Finn to Have N-word Removed and Replaced with Slave. "While I can smile at the intentions here, the method turns my stomach to the point of vomiting...the word "nigger" is a fact of American history and the current cultural fabric and every attempt to run away from the problem of its existence only buttresses the negative forces of ignorance powering it." Because I'm Clever - ...
It's clear that Ed Milliband has decided to take Coalition accusations of Labour's economic incompetence head-on. He's recognised this incompetence (sorry, perceived incompetence) is his party's biggest challenge. And so, he's claimed that the Coalition is promulgating a deceit: "What is this deceit? It is that the deficit was caused by chronic overspending rather than ...
Interesting research from ExactTarget (an email marketing company that the Liberal Democrats used for a while whilst I was working for the party): So why are Twitter power users so influential online. 72 percent publish blog posts at least monthly70 percent comment on blogs61 percent write at least one product review monthly61 percent comment on news sitesDaily Twitter users are 6 times more likely to publish articlesFive times more likely to post blogsSeven times more likely to post to WikisThree times more likely to post product reviews at least monthly compared to non-Twitter usersMore here.
Pay yer Taxes ....Mr Chancellor!!!!!
The Scottish Government are in a mess over the closure of Noranside Prison. SNP Finance Minister, John Swinney MSP has promised to fight the closure, criticising the decision of his own cabinet colleague, Kenny Macaskill MSP. The SNP need to get their story straight on Noranside. On the one hand you have the Justice Minister deciding to close the prison and on the other, you have the Finance Minister and colleagues saying it should stay open. The decision to close the prison makes no sense given the good work done by the prison and the impact on local jobs and ...
The life of a vegetarian isn't always an easy one. I'm aware that I'm lucky enough to live in a society which is broadly accepting of my dietary preferences – which is what makes it all the more annoying when a company which should know better cocks up. Twice. This has been sent to Virgin Atlantic's complaints team. Dear Sir, I realise that it's a standing joke to complain about the quality of airline food – but I wish to convey my distress at the vegetarian meals provided on the last two flights I took with you. On flight VS069 ...
The passing of wood through glass is a remarkable feat. There are those who believe that royalty can perform miracles - there is a well developed cult around the vain and vicious Charles I, for example. It now appears that the presence of the future Charles III also has the ability to suspend the laws of physics. The police have now issued extensive CCTV footage of the attack on the vehicle of Charles and Camilla on the fringes of the anti-tuition fee demonstrations, and the media have been replete with more nonsense about Camilla being poked with a stick. Yet ...
If, for some reason - maybe you've been on the streets in Oldham East and Saddleworth, in which case you have an excuse - you've missed the BBC's excellent Stargazing Live, broadcast over the last 3 nights, then don't miss the chance to catch up with it on iPlayer. If the aim is to make all this geeky sciency stuff mainstream, then I'm probably the target audience. It is a huge challenge for anyone to explain anything to do with Physics in particular in a way that my brain can understand. I really enjoyed Chemistry at school and got an ...
ConservativeHome is an odd place to find positive things written about the Lib Dems but they have highlighted an interesting result in a survey in Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg's constituencies: Liberal Democrat MPs often enjoy a significant local following that is not always reflected in polls asking the standard voting intention question: "if there ...
One of the great things about having a new born baby is discovering all the late night TV you didn't know existed. One program which was on the parliament channel last night was the intelligence squared event debating the motion 'An elected House of Lords will be bad for British democracy'. This is with Vernon Bogdanor, Shami Chakrabarti and Simon Jenkins speaking for the motion, and Lord Adonis, Polly Toynbee and Billy Bragg speaking against it. Broadcast on 23rd November. The coalition agreement clearly outlines a provision for a wholly or mainly elected second chamber using proportional representation. As an ...
There is a lot of confusion about the issues behind the industrial action by Refuse Collectors in Birmingham.What is clear is that there have been problems collecting the rubbish.The background to the issue is Single Status and the Pay and Grading Review. Most of the pain in this process arose from the need to cut some people's pay to fit the overall pay scale.Initially the Refuse Collectors
Today's Independent carries an op-ed piece by Steve Richards which ostensibly focuses on the concerns of the Tory right about the prospect of an electoral pact with the Lib Dems. Richards argues that such concerns are unfounded. The basis for the argument appears to be that an electoral pact would undermine the Lib Dem commitment ...
From the British Medical Journal this week: the paper was in fact an elaborate fraud... not one of the 12 cases reported in the 1998 Lancet paper was free of misrepresentation or undisclosed alteration, and that in no single case could the medical records be fully reconciled with the descriptions, diagnoses, or histories published in the journal... A great deal of thought and effort must have gone into drafting the paper to achieve the results he [Wakefield] wanted: the discrepancies all led in one direction... Wakefield has been given ample opportunity either to replicate the paper's findings, or to say ...
Back in September I wrote here about my love of Aston Villa and how I will always be a Villain. I was doing so on the appointment of Gerard Houllier as the new manager at Villa Park. Now, at the end of that blog post, I happened to mention my pessimism for the season ahead with the loss of Martin O'Neill at the helm. I happened to conclude by saying that whatever happens, be it Champions League qualification, mid-season obscurity or relegation, I would still be a Claret & Blue come what may. Relegation Zone Well, I could surely not ...
RSS Is Dying Being Ignored, and You Should Be Very Worried Interesting rant which turns into a discussion with someone from Firefox. Basically, the disappearance of the RSS button is rather like bad spelling; only about 5% of people care, but those who care REALLY care. (tags: rss firefox) Joan Smith: How about telling men, not women, to stay indoors? - Joan Smith, Commentators - The Independent OMG a proper feminist argument in the mainstream press!!!! (tags: feminism media) Leading article: Compromise is inevitable, but it exacts a heavy toll - Leading Articles, Opinion - The Independent The Indy is ...
i) births and deaths 6 January 1955: birth of Rowan Atkinson, who played the Ninth Doctor in The Curse of Fatal Death. 6 January 2009: death of John Scott Martin, Dalek operator and player of many parts in Old Who. ii) broadcast anniversaries 6 January 1968: broadcast of third episode of The Enemy of the World. The one surviving episode of the story, with Denes kept prisoner in a corridor (!), Victoria working in the kitchen, and Salamander realising that something is up. 6 January 1973: broadcast of second episode of The Three Doctors. The Second Doctor, the Brigadier, Benton ...
...make sure you recycle your Christmas cards and Christmas tree. Recycle your Christmas cards this January in special bins in TK Maxx, Marks & Spencer and HomeSense stores (click on the store name to find your nearest store) and those stores will donate money to the Woodland Trust which we will use for planting trees through our More Trees, More Good campaign. Once you have recycled them at one of your local stores, then visit the Woodland Trust website, enter your name, address, email address (you can opt in for updates) postcode and vote for more trees to be planted ...
The Metropolitan Police Service (Met) are consulting across London to gather views on the overall strategy of neighbourhood policing. You can find the questionnaire at http://www.keysurvey.co.uk/survey/339166/19e4/ The consultation closes on the 21st January. This is an opportunity for everyone to put directly to the Met their view on what the neighbourhood policing needs of their particular ward are. At the moment – every ward (ie Alexandra, Muswell Hill, Woodside, Noel Park, Crouch End, Highgate, Fortis Green, Bounds Green, Stroud Green and Hornsey) have a Safer Neighbourhood Team of usually six uniformed police personal – a combination of police officers and ...
You can't stop the snow, but you can be prepared. East Grinstead Town Centre have bought a pavement sized snow plough to tackle icy footpaths. http://bit.ly/e4L8RU A machine like this can clear a much greater area than workers with shovels. Once cleared, the footpath can be gritted and will be much safer to walk on. I was contacted during the last snow episode by people concerned about the slippery condition of paths. Hopefully things will be much better next time round thanks to this timely investment.
One of the prime reasons that Iain Dale gave up blogging was, he stated, "I hate the backbiting that goes along with it. I hate the character assassination that is permanently present" I am afraid that the symptoms that Iain rails against are part of a larger and more serious disease that is poisoning the whole of British politics. The fact is that it is increasingly impossible to conduct any political discussion without violent accusations of bad faith, treachery or greed. The "politics of envy" has morphed into some kind of twisted "envy of politics". It is shown in a ...
I seemed to receive a rather large number of Christmas cards this year featuring pillar boxes or post boxes, and assumed this was some sort of subliminal protest against their privatisation. However, in the end the robins outnumbered the post and pillar boxes by eight to five. I expect I am not alone in thinking that the Post Office and the Royal Mail are one and the same organisation, but apparently they are separate. The Post Office is to be "mutualised" and it is the Royal Mail which is to be pivatised. As far as I know our local Post ...
The next Transition Town Group meeting takes place later this month - full details below - all welcome!
Last night, I attended an interesting meeting of Community Spirit - the community group for the "north" part of West End Ward, covering Tullideph, Ancrum, Pentland and the Cleghorn area - at which the speaker was from the City Council's Waste Management Department. The discussion was about reducing, reusing and recycling waste and there was a very informative presentation about the City Council's initiatives in tackling the recycling of waste, reducing waste and reuse of waste items. The most recent advertising campaign on recycling in Scotland was highlighted - this can be viewed below :
Mark Pack on Liberal Democrat Voice points out that the Government's Bank levy comes into force with the new year. He says that that it is a 0.05 per cent levy on bank balance sheets, but rises to 0.075 per cent in 2012. It is designed to encourage banks to rely on more stable sources of funding in the future: Expected to bring in £2.5 billion a year, the revenue is pretty small compared to the estimated costs of the financial crisis overall (even if future sales of the government's bank shareholdings are factored in). However, at a time when ...
The BBC report that Neath Liberal Democrat Councillor, John Warman has rejoined the Labour Party after 30 years. His move prompted the First Minister to urge disaffected Liberal Democrats and activists to join his party. He did not explain however, why good liberals would want to join such a centralist and illiberal party. Betsan Powys makes the point that Councillor Warman always very much felt and sounded like a Labour politician anyway and his is hardly the high profile defection Labour might have hoped for. The response of the Welsh Liberal Democrats is more sorrowful than angry: "It's very sad ...
The Guardian reports on Nick Clegg's visit to the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election and his robust defence of the UK Coalition's tuition fee policy: On a flying visit to the Lancashire three-way marginal, which has been won by all three parties in the past 20 years, the deputy prime minister combined a positive message about the coalition's help for children, students and pensioners with repeated attacks on Labour's record under Gordon Brown and "under the duvet" evasion since Ed Miliband became leader. Admitting it is proving hard to get the tuition fees message across after last month's student protests, ...
Image is really important in politics. It matters how you look and how you dress. I know you can think of some ugly politicians but it does matter how you look. Don't get me wrong, as for me what people say is much more important than their image. In 1985 I was an OU student when they won University Challenge. In their (our) team was a driver's mate, not even a driver, who won the competition almost single-handedly. He had an obvious stutter but the main thing for me was that he was a great role model. It doesn't matter ...
First Past the Post: a damning report on a system that 'fails the fairness test' | openDemocracy "FPTP fails on its own terms" (tags: ukpolitics) Chatham House - Publications - The World Today - Archive - View Article "Conspiracy theories are often used to justify political actions. This is especially true in Russia where the 1990s are regularly portrayed as the decade when the West set out deliberately to 'weaken and humiliate' Russia... But when it comes to western motives and policy, there is one problem with the Putin and Karaganov line of argument. It just does not accord with ...
