Following overtures from the leadership of a larger and more successful party the BBC reports that three leading activists have switched sides as part of a specially designed campaign to encourage such switching. Spokeman, Keith Newton claimed up to 50 more defections were expected. Full report here: Is Ed Miliband really the pope?
Ed Miliband's speech to the Fabian Society conference today was intriguing. That isn't to say that I agreed with it all. But it was a fascinating step in the political game and a piece of political rhetoric worth examining. Mr Ed has come in for a bit of criticism for the low-key start to his ...
Ed Miliband takes over the leadership of the Labour Party thanks to the Union votes after the Labour MPs and members turned their back on him and he declares this the new generation Labour and that New Labour is dead. Since then he has denied the last thirteen years happened and blames the Liberal Democrats and Conservative coalition government for absolutely everything he can. Including the introduction of student tuition fees, the disgraceful 75p pension increase, the complete waste of money introducing ID Cards, the fingerprinting of children, the illegal war in Iraq, doubling the 10p basic rate of income ...
As regular followers of the Cambridgeshire County Council Liberal Democrat group will know at the end of November we lost Councillor Nichola Harrison who resigned from the group and became an independent. Speculation has been rife about exactly why she left but out of respect for her wishes I, and every other member of the Liberal Democrat group, have been quiet on the issue except for very un-specifc "pursuing her own ideas"-type messages. On Monday Nichola will be announcing a new transport policy for Cambridgeshire - "Charge and Spend". Now I've had a preview of the general idea but haven't ...
- Very good: 4/5There are eleventy million recordings of Peter and the Wolf, some of which are listed on Wikipedia. This one is from a disc called "
And so Ed Milliband has made his big speech to the Fabians, and he thinks that the labour Party should work with 'courageous' Liberal Democrats, i.e. those that agree with him. So, what did he have to say? The decision of the Liberal Democrats to join a Conservative-led government was a tragic mistake, and I hope they come to see that in time. I'm assuming that you think that going to coalition with Conservatives would always be a mistake. In which case, if we're only ever going to work with you, what would be the point of us existing as ...
One serious omission from my previous post on Oldham. Norman Lamb (in the studio) and Tim Farron (at the Count) both gave stellar performances for the Lib Dems on the night (on the BBC's by election programme). Norman has long been a trusted friend of Lib Dem leaders and has a style and personality that makes him easily likeable. That possibly makes it all to easy to forget just how effective he really is in combative situations. I am sure he has many and important tasks within the Coalition - but why he is not given a more prominent role ...
What is annoying, as you can see from the picture, the hole is next a recent patch. We have asked the Conservative Councillor in charge of highways several times, all the patching is not work, why don't just re-tarmac the road ?
We have asked for the pothole in Frome Road crossing to be repaired
Thursday and Friday the Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission held a meeting in 1 Abbey Gardens. After three years work, progress is agonisingly slow, particularly on the crucial matter of resolving the conflicting systems of land tenure in the CHT, and reaching fair solutions where the same land is claimed by different people under the two systems. But the official policy of Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League party is to imlement the 1997 Peace Accord in full before the end of the current Parliament
I've blogged before on the totally facile nature of the debate about the deficit in our politics – though that post concentrated on the wide gaps between rhetoric and reality on what different political parties planned to cut, and particularly ... Continue reading →
.....But probably not in the way they envisaged. Via Dick Puddlecoate's weekly link tank comes an article from over the pond regarding how banning sweets and snacks in schools is enabling a flourishing 'black market' well worth a read
A new course - "Just the Job" - starts this coming Thursday (20th January) at the Mitchell Street Centre - from 1pm to 3pm. It is aimed at local people looking for work, whose second language is English and who would like to learn to improve their CV, application form filling and interview skills. The course runs until 24th February and more information can be obtained from the City Council on 436415 or 435872.
Despite the best efforts of Edward Garnier and local Liberal Democrat councillors, Market Harborough Magistrates Court is one of twelve magistrates courts and six county courts to be closed in the East Midlands. So much for localism and the Big Society. Anyway, the Bigfern Guide to Market Harborough will tell you all about it: The Magistrates Court stands on the junction with Doddridge Road and Kings Road. The older section of the buildings, centre and left, were at one time time the Police Station before new premises were built in Fairfield Road. The annex on the extreme left of the ...
THE ORIGINAL (1987) Jim Hacker: "Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers": * The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; * The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; * The Times is read by people who actually do run the country; * The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; * The Financial Times is read by people who own the country; * The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ...
We know that Sarah Palin put out a video complaining about a "blood libel" in connection with the Tucson shootings. But who exactly did "blame" Sarah Palin for the tragedy in the first place? You can read a list in the Online National Review . If you take out the ones who commented after the video, it's 4 pundits, one US Representative, one county sheriff, a New York Daily News headline writer and Jane Fonda on Twitter. Given that Gabby Giffords was listed on the Palin Facebook page with a "Cross hairs" over her district in connection with healthcare reform, ...
I listened to Radio 4's Book at Bedtime: Snowdrops by AD Miller. It's a very bleak novel. I've read reviews that compare the book to Chandler's crime novels, but actually Chandler was a lot more positive about human nature. Chandler's hero is endowed with the values of a British public school, Miller's only has the opportunist amoral greed of the Thatcher/Blair generation. According to Miller, snowdrops is the word Muscovites use for the bodies found under the snow after the spring melt. That happens here in Edmonton too, bodies under the snow, murdered prostitutes and homeless people who didn't make ...
The West End Community Council elections take place this month. The Community Council has been in existence since the 1970s and is a real voice for the Community Council area - the area includes much of the West End Ward from the Logie Estate southwards - to Marketgait in the east and Clovis Duveau Drive/West Loan at the far west end of Perth Road in the west. The current Community Council members have worked very hard for the area and local councillors including myself work well with the Community Council on local issues. Some of the long-serving Community Councillors will ...
My mindfulness was tested to the max today. I went to a kids playcentre called Playspace in St Phillips Bristol. Its one of these places that has a kids soft play, adventure zone and plastic balls to throw around. Adults have a central area with access to a coffee bar and junk food dressed up as home baked and real food. Anyway, what I found disappointing was the baby zone of the soft play. Basically it is a space 1.5m by 1m with a few of the coloured balls, a slide and a couple of soft stuffed square things. You ...
Casework to be done and correspondence answered. One of the items was an invitation to the official launch of "Stockton Wall" on Tuesday. I won't be able to go, but have looked at the video here, and you can too. Now to switch off and relax with some friends - courtesy of a succesful bid at the Justice First Auction last year. We paid up, and someone is about to bring some nice food to the door. yum.
This week there's been much discussion of Miriam O'Reilly's successful age discrimination case against the BBC. I find these sorts of cases really interesting. Not only is there the question of whether age discrimination is more common for women, but there's also the question of what age is the 'right' age? Ultimately, I suppose it depends on the field you are working in as to whether people want older or younger people. But there is a danger that the 'right' age becomes so narrow that there are only a few years left. I remember in the first year as a ...
After work by residents and Nigel and Steve, it was good to see the roads done. A little work in places needs to be done on the pavements, but at least a start. We don't look that pleased, but it was cold !
The internal politics of the Labour group that runs Leicester City Council are bloody and obscure. I once commissioned a Liberator article on the subject, but still wouldn't claim to be an expert. Bur I know enough to have realised that when the council voted to have an elected mayor for Leicester - without allowing the people of the city a referendum on the matter - the contest to be Labour's candidate would provide good entertainment. That battle will be concluded later this month. The best candidate, at least in terms of appealing to people who are not habitual Labour ...
10) Kent Haruf, Plainsong (New York: Vintage, 1999, ISBN 0375705856). Tells the story of seven lonely people in a small American town struggling to make a good life for themselves and do the right thing in difficult circumstances, and makes it seem beautiful in its ordinariness. The sparse writing style is very much to my taste, and I loved the way the power of chosen family comes through without any overt preaching. 9) Melissie Clemmons Rumizen, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Knowledge Management (Indianapolis: Alpha, 2002, eISBN 9781440694226). A re-read, which since my promotion is considerably more relevant to my ...
Freedom of speech is a topic I talked about at last year's Spring Conference (and got a few laughs for doing so). The Trafigura / Carter-Ruck episode showed how gagging orders on the press are used to suppress embarrassing information. After writing recently about the local Labour Party, I have found myself threatened in a similar way by a PR company (who strangely are paid for out of taxes). My local authority sold its housing stock to a limited company (let's call this Company A) which is tens of thousand of properties in the Borough. This company now receives about ...
This is a collection of 50 short stories by Anton Chekhov, dating from the 1881-1886 period before he hit the big time, none of them apparently published in English before 1999. I have not read any Chekhov (I tried one of the plays as a teenager, but bounced off the dramatis personæ) so this was fairly new territory. The stories are all very short - the total length of the book is only 234 pages; even so they are interesting enough, reflecting contemporary Russian urban lifestyles, especially if you happen to be a young doctor. A number of them take ...
The real problem with Ed Milliband's approach to Lib Dems is that it ignores those aspects of the coalition policy which are simply a rational approach to reality with him trying to pretend they are ideological.There is no uncertainty about the underlying need to reduce the size of the structural deficit. This can easily be quantified and we now also have the Office of Budget Responsibility to
So Mr. Milliband Junior has been suggesting that dissident Lib Dems should work with Labour. So far so good. I'm a dissident Lib Dem (I've been one for years actually) and I am very content to work with Labour at ... Continue reading →
The first North Area Committee of 2011 is coming up soon. As far as I know there is no planning so the meeting will be starting at 7.30pm at the Manor School on Arbury Road. As well as the Open Forum, a chance for you to raise any issue you wish with your local councillors, it looks likely that we will have items on... Local police prioritiesWe hope someone from Tesco to talk about issues related to their storesInformation about the UK census, which is this yearA regular item on community grants.We will also be looking at how we can ...
"We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory". "But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted". Labour used new tactics and spread fear with a coordinated attack by the Labour run Greater Manchester Council, the day before polling, planning to sacrifice the lives of some 2000 employees and sowing the seeds of fear amongst 1000's more, as if they were mere pawns, to boost the Labour turn-out by deflecting the cause of the redundancies to the coalition. Today, Ed Miliband delivered his Fabian Society speech, unchanged as if ...
After all the anticipation and build-up, yesterday's Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election was a bit of a damp squib. Labour retained the seat with a decent and improved majority, as would be expected of the only major opposition party. The Lib Dems held our own, Elwyn Watkins nudging up the share of the vote he received in May 2010, but not surprisingly proving unable to break the 30-year run of governing parties not gaining at by-elections. And the Conservative vote collapsed after a half-hearted campaign, provoking a few squeals from activists and a shrug of indifference from their party leader. ...
The one about Banker's Bonuses? Anytime now would be good! Even the 'successful' banks like Barclays wouldn't have survived without the massive public interventions that were made into the banking industry and economy. By all means continue to take risks and pay yourselves huge bonuses for taking those risks but no bank must be too big to fail and the failure of many banks must not then lead to public money being pumped into the sector to keep it, and thus the economy, alive. Banks must stand on their own two feet and live or die by their own actions, ...
Ed Miliband has launched a fresh attempt to woo Liberal Democrats. Pushing new frontiers of nausea, he has declared that many Lib Dems "now see Labour as the main vehicle for their hopes in the future". My immediate reaction is to wonder which Labour party he is talking about. Is this the Labour party which launched an illegal war in Iraq, which has caused in the region of one hundred thousand documented civilian casualties, as well as the deaths of many British (and other) service personnel? Is it the Labour party which, not content with that, declined to investigate reports ...
Sat 15th
12:44
Electoral reform news: peers don't like democracy, but Labour candidate who lost on vote transfers b...
From The Independent: Clegg: peers are holding Government hostage... In acrimonious clashes, they warned the Deputy Prime Minister that they would fight his proposals every step of the way... The show-down - described by one participant as "Daniel in the lion's den" - came at a meeting between Clegg and members of a cross-party group campaigning against the plans. More than 50 peers from all major parties were present, including the former Liberal leader Lord Steel of Aikwood. Shock news there, that peers who are against elections are against plans to introduce elections – though the presence of David Steel ...
7) Jennifer Forest, Jane Austen's Sewing Box: Craft Projects & Stories from Jane Austen's Novels. I thought this was a charming idea for a book, and it's quite well executed. Each chapter centres on a particular object or type of craft mentioned in Austen's novels or letters; it quotes the sources, explains what the object or craft is and what was its social significance in Austen's lifetime, and then gives instructions on how to make similar objects today. The accompanying photographs are beautiful, although I wish more of them were of the craft projects in progress rather than of unrelated ...
Sat 15th
12:22
Lib Dem Cllr Christopher Townsend slams DBC Housing Repairs Contract as "Multi-Million Pound Fiasco"
[IMG: Christopher Townsend] At a Dacorum Council Meeting last Wednesday, Cllr Christopher Townsend said, "The yearly bill Dacorum pays Mitie for responsive housing repairs has gone from around £4.2 million to over £5 million. Over the last three years we have paid between £2 million and £3.4 million more than we did when the service was in-house. I call that waste. We originally voted against this contract because the report at the time stated that cost savings were not proven". Cllr Townsend asked Portfolio Holder for Resources: 1. Can you really say that the quality or volume of repairs during ...
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 email the party could have sent to members and supporters This week I returned to my theme of how party members and supporters should be seen as a campaigning resource that can help ministers achieve their aims in government, rather than as passive spectators awaiting the next piece of news about what has been agreed in talks with the ...
As the historic first Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is erected, I ask for prayers for those who are its first members, Fathers Andrew Burnham, John Broadhurst, and Keith Newton.
Here are my PAD photos for this week: Saturday Snowing again:-( Sunday My lovely little Fluffball enjoys a hamster treat. Monday Finally, as the snow disappears, we acquire a snow shovel. Tuesday Cosy domesticity - teaching Anna how to make a curry out of last night's roast chicken and stock for soup out of the bones. Wednesday I will not be beaten by the World of Fail that is STV. They didn't show this in Scotland, but I'm going to watch it, without ad breaks. Thursday This is a super photograph, taken by my friend Charles Dundas recently. To get ...
Imagine you were new to Southport and were thinking about joining the Conservatives. Your first move may well be to put 'Southport Conservatives' into Google. A few of us were chatting last night and I mentioned that if you put Southport Conservatives into Google you came up with a load of entries about their feuding and last week our blog was top of the list! At 11.00am today it looked like this :
Following persistent emails from previously unk
I'm afraid I was simply not convinced by Titus Alone. In fact, I was bored and confused by it. Titus, having run away from his home, finds himself in the neighbouring industrialised countryside (where people have never actually heard of Gormenghast, despite its absolute domination of its own hinterland). He becomes the object of obsession - in particular of the two women, Juno, with whom he has a love affair, and Cheeta, who rejects him and then develops a bizarrely elaborate plan to humiliate him by throwing a party at which various aspects of Gormenghast are satirically brought to life, ...
A camel is a horse designed by committee goes the old maxim that ranks firm leadership by one strong individual as superior to a group working to reach a common agreement. I know which animal I'd rather have in the desert, but is the saying true? The four hundredth anniversary of the King James Bible suggests the truth might be a little more complex. The King James, which spawned many turns of phrase we still use today such as "salt of the earth " and "skin of the teeth" came about as a result of a political compromise and was ...
Just a slight difference in emphasis between various news bulletins. Al-Jazeera is leading on the theme that the events in Tunisia are the first ever overthrow of an Arab regime by popular insurrection and how interested people in other Arab countries are in this example. Also that the Tunisian opposition is meeting with the interim President to discuss elections. The BBC is big on British tourists ending their holidays. No doubt coverage will even out shortly.
Hey There Cthulhu "No-one corrupts the way you do" LOL (tags: funny) Fourth Plinth * snerk * Funny. Go read. Will take five seconds. Go. Click. Now. (tags: funny) The Wrong Kind of Story Resist the tl;dr urge and read this all the way through. It's worth it. (tags: elefunk politics thought) Women less interested than men in jobs where individual competition determines wages Apparently the idea that women don't apply for jobs with dog-eat-dog competitive pay scales BECAUSE THEY KNOW MEN GENERALLY WIN THOSE COMPETITIONS hasn't occurred to these people. Honestly, all they have to do is ASK SOME ...
Here's your starter for ten in our Saturday slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate... The tragic killing of six and injuries to thirteen others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, have received heavy coverage in the UK media, not only in response to the shooting itself but also following up the story subsequently. Yet other recent political deaths from countries around the world have received, at most, very little media coverage in the UK. There are partial explanations – such as the murdered Nigerian politician being a local government figure rather than a national figure and the ...
Today in parliament has picked up on the issue of Bullying of Constituents. It is about 10 minutes in here.
Some diversions that may interest you: The ultimate overachiever – Cricinfo's Rob Steen on the career of Paul Collingwood In praise of the sci-fi corridor – SF films seem to spend a lot of time in corridors, and this article looks at some of the best designed ones. Not featured: Space Mutiny. Star 1973 – Looking like something from a bizarre parallel Chris Morris universe, but apparently real, a magazine from 1973 aimed at teenage girls who want to be rock band groupies. The European Union and British Sovereignty – Excellent article from Nosemonkey on what the EU Bill actually ...
I was having a chat with Tom and Richard in Aberystwyth a few days ago and on discussing a myriad of topics, we fell upon the Falklands War - in the year of my birth. I happened to mention how it was a controversial decision made in the midst of that war, the sinking of the Belgrano, that led to one of THE televisual duels of that decade. One of the few times that I can recall seeing Margaret Thatcher really flustered on TV was not at loggerheads with a David Frost or a Robin Day, but with a housewsife ...
Yesterday's Independent contains the rather interesting claim that Liberal Democrat MPs believe that Mr Cameron, rather than the Chancellor, George Osborne, has emerged as the main obstacle to tough action against the bankers. The paper says that MPs are furious that Downing Street signalled a climbdown this week while talks continued with the big banks on a new settlement covering bonuses and lending to small businesses and first-time buyers. The paper's source appears to be Lord Oakeshott, who is quoted extensively and who, I believe, also acts as a Special Advisor to Vince Cable: Lord Oakeshott, a former City fund ...
Sat 15th
04:52
Whoniversaries 15 January: Daleks' Master Plan #9, Day of the Daleks #3, Face of Evil #3
broadcast anniversaries 15 January 1966: broadcast of "Escape Switch", tenth episode of the story we now call The Daleks' Master Plan. The Daleks take Steven and Sara hostage and force the Doctor to hand over the taranium core. But the Doctor steals the directional unit from the Monk's Tardis. 15 January 1972: broadcast of third episode of Day of the Daleks. The Doctor travels to the future, is captured by the controller and the Daleks, and subjected to mind analysis (summoning images of the First Doctor and Second Doctor). 15 January 1979: broadcast of third episode of The Face of ...
I was going to post about Steve Harley and the fact that his 1975 Cockney Rebel song 'Come up and see me (make me smile)' is my favourite of all time, but my mind wandered back to a posting about cover versions and I found this one on YouTube which apart from the instrumental dancy bit in the middle is actually quite good - almost exclusively as a result of Andy Bell's wonderful voice: Not a bad effort But this is the version I want at my funeral (I particularly like the obscure Dutch TV version). Oh - and there ...
The Maltings Arts Theatre in St Albans is to be transformed into a high tech cinema with digital and 3D capability as part of a makeover that will see it retain the ability to include live performance in the new programme. The aim of the refurbishment and new programming mix is to bring the Maltings Arts Theatre up to date and to extend the arts base that will help turn it into a self-financing venue. St Albans City and District Council currently subsidises the venue at the rate of £100,000 to £150,000 per annum, with each live theatre performance costing ...
It looks like most candidates in the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election can claim some success or at the very least suggest that they could have done worse if it were not for their robust campaign. How do you stand for the abolition of gravity and manage to win 145 votes? The trouble with everyone claiming success is that there is only one winner and all the other candidates lost, but that's the nature of the first-past-the-post system. For this reason it is impossible to be forthright when it comes to explaining how the electorate has spoken. All parties will ...
The Way the Future Blogs, an online memoir by science fiction writer Frederik Pohl » Blog Archive » Chip Delany, Part 2: The Miracle of Dhalgren "Since Dhalgren's publishing history still elicits minimal interest, let me try to straighten some of it out. Fred, you came to see us in our three-room second-floor Paddington Street flat in London, twice, once when we weren't in and our upstairs neighbor was baby-sitting for not-quite-year-old Iva; then you came back, a second time, when Marilyn and I were both there. That's when I told you about Dhalgren—and probably exaggerated the number of times ...
If you want to know why my blog has been a bit quiet in recent weeks, this video is part of the explanation. I've been touring Syria and Lebanon, visiting Phoenician, Roman and Crusader sites, plus brief tours around Damascus and Beirut. The video covers most of the sites visited.
