I forgot to write about this earlier in the week - forgetting to let people know about the right to petition the Council. Since September there has been legislation to allow people to not only submit a petition, but for there having to be action. There are details in the depth of the Council website but only one has been submitted so far, and there has not been a press release from a Cabient member of the Council with them being quoted how wonderful it is. I wonder why. I raised this at full Council on Wednesday, and there will ...
As I mentioned earlier today, Chris Huhne went somewhat further in his Independent on Sunday profile in making critical comments about Andy Coulson and the phone hacking allegations than the party's rather bland official statement. He's now gone further, as the FT reports: A cabinet minister has sharply criticised Scotland Yard for accepting what he called News International's "implausible" account of phone hacking at one of its tabloids, as it emerged that Gordon Brown had acted on fears that he was targeted. Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, raised the political stakes in the illegal surveillance scandal by claiming the police ...
Continuing with my Dancing on Ice commentary, tonight saw the first round of the competition proper. Tonight, this is a joint Judging effort by myself and my Alyson. But first of all, as I've done over previous weeks, we start with a vintage performance by Torvill and Dean. This time it's the 1982 World Skating Championships in Copenhagen and another of my favourite routines of theirs - 'Mack and Mable'. This is what I'm talking about... The 2011 In-Take We're now down to the final 12 contestants for the competition proper. The judge's marks now count for half so it's ...
Big Finish's output has been very, very variable recently. In the last couple of years, since they started doing 'trilogies' rather than stand-alone stories, they've become increasingly likely to do complicated continuity-twisting stories – the Sixth Doctor travelling with the Second Doctor's companion, the Sixth Doctor travelling with the *Eighth* Doctor's companion, three Celestial Toymaker ...
It's always nice to find someone else saying the same things as oneself. I note that Independent columnist Christina Patterson wrote in yesterday's paper on the case of Cornwall guest house owners Peter and Hazelmary Bull: if you have very strong feelings about other people's sexual behaviour, then you should probably choose a business that doesn't focus quite so heavily on beds. This is pleasingly in line with my conclusion that If Mr and Mrs Bull regard their guest house as an articulation of their theological outlook, rather than a service for which people pay money, then perhaps they are ...
So what's new about that?! You may ask... Well, what we didn't know until now is that it is allegedly the official policy of the Metropolitan Police. Undercover police have permission to bed activists upon whom they are spying!!. Or so say some of their 'victims', who now appear to be demanding officers should require warrants to enter their premises... "Undercover police officers routinely adopted a tactic of "promiscuity" with the blessing of senior commanders, according to a former agent who worked in a secretive unit of the Metropolitan police for four years... with women in very, very, very promiscuous ...
Whilst looking for something else online (honest, I wasn't spending a Sunday evening researching camels and legal action), I stumbled upon what I confidently predict will be the most surprising legal note I come across this year. It's from the Guardian website: [LEGAL NOTE: Any suggestion that Lembit Opik has messed around with camels is for 'comic' effect] It's hard to tell if that's further satire or a genuine legal note, especially as it is Lembit we are talking about... (who, in latest news, is daring the government to prosecute him for 'driving' a Segway). Make up your own mind ...
First there was a large rat running across the 10 Downing Street doorstep behind the BBC's Gary O'Donoghue during a live televised report. Now there's more video evidence here of the 10 Downing Street rats running back and forwards behind ITV's Lucy Manning. I suppose we should really start to get worried if they start leaving the ship of state...
The Republic of Ireland's Green Party today withdrew from Brian Cowen's Fianna Fáil led Coaltion Government, It means that an election is imminent. We're probably looking at mid-February instead of the March 11th date announced by Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Cowen yesterday. He looked secure in his position when he won a party leadership secret ballot last week but a botched Cabinet reshuffle was rejected by their then Green partners and yesterday he announced that he would step down as Fianna Fáil's leader but would remain as Taoiseach until the election. Such an untenable position is extraordinary and all of this ...
[IMG: Yes to Fairer Votes] The Yes to Fairer Votes campaign was represented at yesterday's Alliance Party conference by Stephen Glenn, Northern Ireland Organiser, and Laura Hawthorne. They were mingling and discussing the merits of AV with delegates, elected representatives, candidates and representatives from organisations who had stands. They were also collecting the contact details of anyone who wanted to help with the Yes to Fairer Votes campaign. Alliance Party policy is to vote Yes in the AV referendum but that doesn't mean the conference should be neglected by the NOtoAV campaign, yet they were nowhere in sight! Stephen told ...
[IMG: The new route for Smannell Road traffic] After a long delay the decision of the Secretary of State and the government inspector on the future of Smannell Road has been announced. The existing road will be closed and all traffic to and from Smannell, including heavy agricultural vehicles, will be diverted through the new housing at Augusta Park. The decision comes after a public enquiry last year when the developer's, and borough council's, proposals were opposed by Smannell Parish Council, St Mary Bourne Parish Council. I was pleased to join them at the enquiry and argue against this illogcal ...
Seasonally adjusted unemployment in the UK fell in December 2010 and now stands at 5.1%. Birmingham's seasonally adjusted rate was unchanged at 11.4%. The unadjusted rate in Birmingham fell by 229 to 45,523 and now stands at 11.2%, compared to 12.4% a year ago. This remains significantly higher than the other main cities in the UK, though we have now fallen marginally below Liverpool. This small relative improvement is probably because we have a relatively larger element of manufacturing industry in our economy, compared to other UK cities. While manufacturing slumped badly immediately after the crash in 2008, this sector ...
The Council debate in Bath over transport policy was a clash of vision and strategies on the 20th of January. The Conservatives are locked into road building solutions for commuters whilst the Liberal Democrats are campaigning for solutions based on public transport, cycling and walking. The Conservatives want to build large Park and Rides in flood plains and a 1.2m two lane super bus highway to allow commuters to save an average of 90 seconds commuting time. All of this at huge cost to the taxpayer and to the environment let alone the havoc it will wreak on residents. The ...
In the words of the Tunisians themselves, a blogger there called Wled El Banlieue commented, "After 23 years of a single political voice in Tunisia, we're now discovering plurality. Let's learn democracy." The Tunisian president, Ben Ali, who was in power since 1987 fled the country due to so much rioting. People hated him because he took away people's freedom of speech, movement and imposed a police state and he was very corrupt. It is astonishing how much Ben Ali himself and his family owned that should have belonged to the state. This is why I think the rebuilding of ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 205th 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 (16th-22nd 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. I have resigned ...
Certainly in the first fifty years of the last century these two booklets -'We can Conquer Unemployment' and 'Ownership for All'- can claim to have been the most influential Liberal pamphlets produced. Although published only about ten years apart and of similar length the price doubled which by itself tell us something of the turbulent economic times which gave rise to them. I recall in the run up to the 1979 manifesto preparation Richard Moore announcing to the Policy Committee that he joined the Liberal Party in spite of and not because of its economic policy. In so doing he ...
You don't come across that slightly touching, naive market fundamentalism quite as often now as you did a few years ago. The financial crisis and its aftermath has increased the circumspection of some market advocates, at least for the moment. One place you do sometimes come across the dogmatic view of markets is among those ...
Terri Dowty is director of ARCH - Action on Rights for Children You should have seen our high-fives back in May when the coalition agreement was published. Not just one, but three of our long-fought campaigns looked as if they would at last cross the finishing line. We were promised that Contactpoint - the central database of every child in England - was heading for the scrapheap; that the retention of children's DNA on the national DNA database would be drastically reduced, and that parental consent was to become mandatory whenever schools demand that children provide their fingerprints in exchange ...
I've been aware of Colin Tudge as a science writer and commentator on BBC Radio Four for decades, but this was the first time I'd read one of his books. I was frankly disappointed. The biggest section of the book, 150 pages of the 400, is a gazetteer of tree genera and families; it would actually have been better presented as an alphabetical encyclopedia - the narrative style doesn't really suit this sort of information (at least, not the way Tudge writes). The final section starts by insisting that humanity must return to an agrarian existence, though without any realistic ...
A decent enough Seventh Doctor, Ace and Benny story, with human colonists wandering into an existing struggle between two alien entities. I didn't think Bulis quite got Benny in this one but he has an excellent Ace and good Doctor. A really good ending which would have made great TV especially for New Who, as the Bad Alien Entity is put out of action by an innovative use of a solar sail. Would be an OK book for Who fans who don't know the New Adventures, less useful for non-Who fans wanting to experiment.
A new local party for the Liberal Democrats has been created. The first committee meeting of the Angus and Mearns Liberal Democrats was held last week. The new local party covers the two new Scottish Parliament constituencies of Angus South and Angus North and Mearns. The new local party boasts 6 Councillors and a brand new Executive, determined and energised to build up campaigns on local issues. From Moniefieth to Stonehaven and from Lintrathen to Arbroath, local Lib Dems will be campaigning all year round in the interests of residents, businesses and farms. Click here for the new Angus and ...
During the week, the Federal Executive elected the following: Deputy Chair, Federal Executive – Alison Goldsworthy Chair, Federal Finance and Administration Committee – Duncan Greenland Treasurer – Richard Duncalf Chair, Campaigns & Communications Committee- James Gurling Chair, International Relations Committee – Robert Woodthorpe-Browne Chair, Campaign for Gender Balance – Ros Gordon
Sun 23rd
16:16
Elton John's smile on the front of OK magazine - the adjective "cheesy" seems hopelessly inadequate ...
The full OK Magazine story is here.
Today's Independent on Sunday has a long profile of Chris Huhne and his work as a Cabinet minister and including some hints of criticism of Andy Coulson: The one time he appears to choose his words carefully is when discussing Andy Coulson. On a biting Friday morning, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change does not yet know that the chill wind blowing along Downing Street will signal the resignation within hours of the coalition's director of communications. "I have no reason to doubt his position," he says precisely, when asked if he was happy with Mr Coulson ...
G.K. Chesterton's novel The Man Who Was Thursday involves an anarchist cell, every one of whose members is revealed to be an undercover policeman. I have been thinking of it in recent days, as the number of undercover police officers involved in environmental pressure groups has become clear. Because it seems to me that the police are in danger of turning their worst nightmares into concrete reality. First they convince themselves that essentially herbivorous groups like Plane Stupid or Reclaim the Streets are plotting to disrupt the nation. So they send undercover officers to join those groups and take the ...
[IMG: Enda Kenny TD] Enda Kenny TD, leader Fine Gael, was guest speaker at the 41st Alliance Party Conference Yesterday the 41st Alliance Party conference took place at the Dunadry Hotel, Co Antrim. The atmosphere was upbeat as you would expect after the events of the previous year. Naomi Long became the Alliance Party's first elected MP and David Ford was elected by the NI Assembly to be Northern Ireland's first Minister of Justice since 1972, when the Northern Ireland Parliament was suspended. The day started with the Welcome from the Alliance Party President followed by speeches from candidates in ...
The state of roads in the city has been a hot topic recently, with both constituents and in the local press. As always, I continue to raise with the City Council any concerns highlighted by constituents about roads condition in the West End. I have now asked from the City Engineer details as to how the City Council is tackling the situation across the city, given the deterioration in the condition of many roads as a result of the recent snow and ice across the city. It is important that this is tackled promptly and in a way that ensures ...
If you can remember Ginger Baker's Airforce then you probably weren't in it. So it is just as well that there is an introduction to the band's history on Ginger Baker's website. This loose group was put together by Baker after Eric Clapton walked out on Blind Faith. It issued two LPs in 1970, but few people played on both. This song is taken from the first LP, which was live and involved, among others, performers plucked from wreckage of Blind Faith and Traffic. As far as I can discover, there are three saxophonists playing here: Graham Bond, Chris Wood ...
Sadly, only for making partisan political points it seems. A theme of foreign policy debates recently has been: 'where did the anti-war movement go?'. The protests and venom aimed at George W. Bush's foreign policy have all but nearly disappeared. The anti-war movement was political motivated, however, just because an action is politically motivated doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong. ReasonTV makes an interesting point:
Many of us think we know Stephen Fry. He states this himself in the blurb on the dust jacket of his most recent book, The Fry Chronicles. People think of him, he states, as "Confident. Establishment. Self-assured. In charge." He, however, believes himself to have a "sense of failure" and a feeling that he has "betrayed, abused or neglected" his considerable talent. This is, in this writer's opinion, Fry being rather harsh on himself. Yet it is also indicative of what defines Chronicles - a refreshing honesty, an awareness of one's own limitations, a consideration of the mistakes we all ...
Peter Hitchens on the Andrew Marr show today [23rd Jan] made a passing remark about Andy Coulson where I think he said there was a growing tendency for top people to quit before they had been proved guilty of any wrongdoing. If I heard him correctly then how indeed things have changed. When I became an adult in the 1950's I feel sure I remember top people just accepting responsibility for what went on in the organisations for which they were responsible and just resigned as the right & proper thing to do. Nowadays, apparently, if you don't hang on ...
In the last three days, we've had two tabloid newspaper "exposes" of extra marital affairs - today it's Tom Strathclyde, leader of the Tories in the House of Lords, the other day it was Laura Johnson, wife of former Shadow Chancellor Alan who has supposedly had an affair with her bodyguard. I don't think there's any public interest in Strathclyde's case, and there certainly isn't in Johnson's - she is accountable to none of us. What strikes me is that both of these people have young children, not far off the age of my daughter. How awful must it be ...
In recent months, LDV has been bringing its readers copies of our new MPs' and Peers' first words in Parliament, so that we can read what is being said and respond. You can find all of the speeches in this category with this link. On Friday, Baroness Doocey made her maiden speech in the House of Lords during a debate on the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Bill [HL]. Her words are reproduced below. Baroness Susan Kramer also made her maiden speech in the Lords during the same debate; we featured it yesterday. My Lords, I also begin by saying that ...
In this news story, Michael Rawlinson, some panjandrum in a video game makers' association, says that big budget video games aren't overpriced. "These big games, you get 20 to 50 hours game play, which is tremendous value for money". This is for games that have a typical retail price of £55, so you pay between £2.75 and £1 for each hour of entertainment.If Rawlinson really cared about value for money and not simply about milking his gullible customers for every penny he can, then he'd agree with the pirates who say that such games are poor value for money. The ...
Sun 23rd
12:41
Nick Clegg on Andrew Marr - gorging bankers, Ed's dinosaurs, Coulson, VAT and disproving prophets of...
I can't imagine politicians actually like spending 25 minutes being grilled by Andrew Marr while the rest of us are in our pjs on our sofas sipping Earl Grey, but they do make the Sunday mornings of political junkies. This morning it was the turn of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. My thoughts went back to almost exactly a year go when I wrote up his first Marr interview of 2010. How had Government changed him? Well, I think he looks a bit tireder, and a bit older, maybe, but he's still the same open, plain speaking, genuine guy I've ...
Iain Roberts writes on Liberal Democrat Voicc: For all of the noise Labour's making about the EMA, you might not realise that it was their idea to scrap it. Before he was an ex shadow chancellor, Alan Johnson was Secretary of State for Education and in April 2007 he made it clear that Labour was planning to scrap the EMA. "An incentive scheme that rewards 16- to 18-year-olds for staying in education post-16 will be abolished when the leaving age is increased to 18. "The Secretary of State for Education said last week that education maintenance allowances (EMAs) would no ...
More sad news. This week I learned of the death of Becky Harvey. Becky was someone who I met and worked with during the early days of Liberal Democrats Online. She was a vital figure within LDO and played a critical role in getting the Liberal Democrats to wake up to the importance of the Internet. I didn't know Becky particularly well, and I didn't have much contact with her after my involvement with LDO declined, but I do have some fond memories from that time of a funny, energetic, and very striking woman. It seems appropriate to blog about ...
Apparently the Police are "allowed" to have sex with activists if they are undercover. The Guardian reports; "Sex was a tool to help officers blend in, the officer claimed, and was widely used as a technique to glean intelligence."Espionage by Police Officers is a popular topic as demonstrations and activism is on the rise. However, this can constitute criminal offences. Rape is sexual
The park on the new development on Woodhead Drive and George Nuttall Close has had more opening dates than any other I have been aware of, so I am wary to celebrate yet but it looks like we may be there at last. On Friday I received an email from the officer at the City Council who has been working to get this open with some very good news. The land has now been transferred from the developer to the City Council and can now be opened! However... the developers are the ones who will be taking down the boards. ...
There I knew that headline would get your attention! It's true that I can with undue modesty claim that I am one of the most forthright critics of Ollie and Stanley but even I recognise that even a broken clock ... Continue reading →
The No campaign for the March 3rd referendum on increasing the powers of the Welsh Assembly, True Wales, has decided not to seek official designation, thereby depriving both the Yes and No sides of public funding. Referendum legislation makes funding available to both sides in a referendum if there is an officially designated campaign on both sides. As a result of the No campaign declining to seek official designation, this funding – £70,000 in cash, a free mailshot and TV broadcasts – along with higher spending limits, will not be available to either side. The No campaign has explained its ...
When I read Jonathan Coe's What a carve up! back in the 1990s it was as a satire on the deep unpleasantness of the Thatcher government. The rapaciousness of some of the characters was slightly cartoonish but none the less disturbing. Yet, the more I think about it the more it appears a work with ...
Sun 23rd
10:45
Health Reforms and the Lib Dems: We need to argue for a bigger role of patients' voices
Reform of the NHS is always on top of the agenda for government. This government has come up against a lot of resistance and criticism of the plans and many believe it to be a high risk strategy. With the Lib Dems in government they will be seen as putting these reforms in place and ...
Part of my studies at the moment is to look at social policy. I am rading about security and insecurity. This is a fascinating area. As residents we have a whole range of security issues: financial, emotional, physical and health. Children have more delicate issues involving families and the wider society. An interesting area of debate is how children have been become seen as a risk and risky themselves. For example, ther are risks to children of abuse, neglect etc. Yet children, particularly tennagers are seen as risks often to more vulnerable members of society such as the elderly. This ...
Fascinating article by Peter Preston in today's Observer newspaper. He highlights that right wing newspapers boost circulation when a Labour government they're criticising. Stated for example The Daily Mail boosted by a million copies a day since the 60's when Labour in Power and lost half a million when tories in power and not able to criticise them. Flip side example of Daily Mirror's decline being twice the rate when Labour in power who they largely support. He then points out the risk that all newspapers might be defending their market share by feeling able to criticise big time a ...
When they're doing what they're supposed to do, in the right place, at the right time, for the right reason, mainly making a success of it, but being properly accountable for things that go wrong, we're great supporters of HM Constabulary. Being Liberals, 'credit where credit's due' is naturally one of our mottos, and we try to apply it to HMC as often as possible, especially when they're getting a bad press for doing good things. But, there seem to have been rather more than a few little local difficulties of late; in fact, a pattern's emerging of rather large ...
The events around the Glorious Revolution and the replacement of James II with William III as King of England is an area of history I find fascinating. Perhaps because of my interest in alternate history, it always appears to be as one of those key eras in history where things could have gone off in wildly different directions and completely changed the world we live in now. So, a book that takes a snapshot of the world in 1688 was always going to be of interest to me. 1688: A Global History isn't an in depth study of the year, ...
A new report by the Electoral Commission has revealed that police were called in to investigate dozens of allegations of fraud at the last general election following a catalogue of alleged offences, ranging from postal-vote fraud to false leaflets and bogus voting. According to the Independent on Sunday, Police sources have said that more than 80 allegations of criminal behaviour, including tampering with ballot papers, were received following the election, and that at least 25 of them resulted in formal complaints and police investigations: The list of allegations included one in the constituency of the Secretary of State for Justice, ...
Much has been made of the recent case in the media of a gay couple who won damages against the owners of a B&B. The couple were extreme Christians applying a personal interpretation of Christian values to their guest-house. Their views are far from normal, even among Christians. Actually even among the sub-set of Christians ...
I posted a short piece under this title over at The Corridor yesterday evening.
A bustling week continued with the fist meeting of the year of the Corstorphine Community Council. Local resident chewed over a number of issues ranging from planning applications to local policing. Kings of Leon bound for Murrayfield Thursday saw me attending one of the occasional meeting between residents and the Scottish Rugby Union at Murrayfield Stadium. The main issue here was the two concerts , Bon Jovi and the Kings of Leon, planned for June. There is always real nervousness on the part of the residents and local councillors regarding concerts at the stadium after two visits by Oasis in ...
Adam Boulton and Joey Jones, the authors of Hung Together: The 2010 Election and the Coalition Government, have produced a book of the sort that, after previous general elections, would have been deserving of praise and interest. Their bad luck for the 2010 election is that there are several high quality alternatives available, in particular the revitalised Nuffield general election series in the form of The British General Election of 2010 and David Laws's 22 Days in May, not to mention the Nick Robinson BBC documentary. Compared to those this lively book is a little lightweight. It does not have ...
[IMG: US Capitol Building] [IMG: Creative Commons License] photo credit: bclinesmith CBS News has a fascinating article and video report on US Representatives who sleep in their offices in Washington. The report, by Phil Hirschkorn & Wyatt Andrews, says 21 male members of the House of Representatives do this. Before drawing parallels with our Parliament, however, I should note that the article says that US congressmen and congresswomen do not receive expenses for second homes in Washington DC. They do, however, receive a salary of around £110,000 and other perks listed here. So, the congressmen are saving money for themselves ...
i) births and deaths 23 January 1921: as noted yesterday, birth of Kevin Stoney, who played Mavic Chen in The Daleks' Master Plan (1965-66), Tobias Vaughn in The Invasion (1968), and Tyrum in Revenge of the Cybermen (1975). ii) broadcast anniversaries 23 January 1965: broadcast of "All Roads Lead to Rome", second episode of the story we now call The Romans. The Doctor and Vicki meet Nero, the Doctor pretending to be the murdered musician Petullian. Barbara is sold as a handmaiden to the Empress, Ian is shipwrecked. 23 January 1971: broadcast of fourth episode of Terror of the Autons. ...
Op-Ed Contributor Why Parents Fear the Needle (and the gene) : Tomorrow's Table
Hardly a day goes by in these febrile times than somebody sets fire to themselves in an act of protest or desperation, sometimes fatally, sometimes not. Either way, it's a drastic step to take. In the case of Mohammed Bouazizi, the youth from Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia, who set himself alight after police stopped him ...
Imagine you are the owner of a transport business. Let's say you have a dozen lorries and on average ten are used every day. Now let's say that every journey out of the area costs £10 more because you are not sited near the motorway. Finally 80% of your journeys are totally out of area. What this means is that £80 per day is going down the drain because of the site of your business. If you are setting up a new business then there is no doubt that you will set it up near the motorway. If you have ...
Tuesday 21 January 1667/68 (Pepys' Diary) A sad story with a mildly uplifting ending: Pepys' cousin is dying by his own hand, and his estate would therefore be forfeit to the Crown; Pepys personally appeals to the King, who assures him he will let the widow and children inherit. (tags: pepys) English Russia » Look Out! Soviet Bloody Posters! Some of these are very gruesome, but some are also funny; bonus pictures from a children's book about robots. (tags: art)
