Good news on some transport issues at a meeting today. Eaglesliffe Station (near where we live) is getting a revamp, with 77 much needed new parking spaces, a ticket office and some proper facilities. Great, after years of campaigning by Lib Dem Eaglescliffe Councillors for improvements. Thornaby station is at long last gettng its horrible old bridge is going at last. Delays by Network Rail have meant that a grant has been lost, but owing to the lie of the land the ramps could have been too long anyway, so the access out of the station to Mandale Road is ...
Reading Borough Council announced today that all Council spending over £500 is now accessible via the Council's website. Visit the Council's new transparency page to view details. I have been a Councillor for over four years and it's the first time I can remember this level of detailed information being available to the public (and indeed councillors!). It definitely never happened under the previous Labour administration. I think this is a positive step and it should make everyone more aware of what public money is being spent on by the Council. I hope it will lead to better decisions and ...
Due to changes in my lifestyle (baby and new role at work) I'm getting rather behind on managing LibDemBlogs, so I'm looking for someone to help. Unlike some bloggers I'm not expecting you to ghost posts for me, just answer the 10 or so emails a month adding new blogs to the database, and removing those no longer active. Please send a short cover letter to ryancullen@libdemblogs.co.uk explaining why you would like to help out.
Together with the Parish Clerk and Cllr Alan Dean I met yesterday Dave McMurtry of the Co-op, Gary Newell from Tesco and representatives of the Colchester Parking Partnership. They are responsible for parking enforcement within Uttlesford. Both retailers present were broadly supportive of the Parish Councils proposals to relieve traffic congestion on Cambridge Road. They were particularly happy about the prospect of one hour free car parking at the Parish owned Crafton Green car park. I am meeting Uttlesford District Council officers next week to pursue this with them. The District Council is responsible for management of the car park. ...
During the General Election last year when I stood for Parliament in Reading West I was interviewed along with other parliamentary candidates for a video produced by the UK Parliament Education Service aimed at children and young people explaining how elections work. The film was good fun to make but I hadn't seen it - until now. The election campaign feels like a long time ago now but this video brought it all back!
The next Irish General Election will be on February 25th, and I'll be keeping an eye on the RTE website between now and then. My feeling's that there's a few twists left yet. Fine Gael have a weak leader in Enda Kenny, who was challenged by his own side not so long ago. There's a strong third party leader in Labour's Eamon Gilmore, and much like Labour out-performed expectations in the UK last year, I suspect Fianna Fail aren't out for the count given their long and deep history (and a pretty effective new leader in Michael Martin). But putting ...
When Robert Lacey first had the idea of writing a book about the Saudi royal family — following his successful examination of Britain's House of Windsor — Saudi Arabia was a far off country off whom most Brits knew nothing (unless they worked in the oil industry, or encountered high-spending Saudis in London). The author lived in ...
I was delighted to read of the launch yesterday of the Edinburgh Schools short film competition. This is run in partnership between the Film Festival and the Children and Families Department of the Council. I have had the pleasure of dishing out the awards at this in the past and of viewing the films in front of the young film makers and their families. The results are always great fun, often hilarious (deliberately so). Best of luck to this years crop. Who knows it may be the beginning of Oscar winning careers for some!
If there is one person I like to actively ignore it's Peter Hitchens, the well known big head who always comes at a subject due east of unreasonable. Last Sunday he caught me by surprise by appearing shortly after Andy Murray had collapsed in the Melbourne heat, heading up the comment and analysis on The Politics Show. I thought he said two things of note, much as it pains me to say it, one loud and clear, the other ignored despite obviously being close to the Hitchens heart, or at least as close as anything can get. Firstly, he made ...
Lisa Harding blogs at Spiderplant Land. I've lived in Woking for over 12 years, but its only been in the last couple of years that I have started to do some long overdue reading into the town's history. If I am going to represent the town on the borough council, I should at least know something about it right? Well it was all started by seeing a wonderful copy of John Remnant's Map of 1719 in the Lightbox in Woking at their 'story of Woking' exhibition. I love old maps and history (being an amateur genealogist) so this was right ...
For a long time my Supermarket advert dream women has been undisputed. The Sainsbury's mum has held this crowd. However now she has a rival. A couple of weeks ago I saw the husband of a couple want to stop doing the family shop and the wife responded. So now I have a decision to ...
What does Barton-le-Clay (and surrounding villages come to that) offer our teenage young people? The hills are great for picnics, walking and cycling in good weather but not for our many short, dark winter days. The Youth Club is closed, but do young people want anything organised for them? Would drama facilities be most in demand (think Glee Club?) or a BMX skatepark? or perhaps just an outdoor youth shelter for friends to hang out without disturbing anyone or having to spend money? Please let me know what you think by completing the on-line survey by 28 February at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/W3BSDW7 ...
Liberal Democrats should not call for any reduction in Home/EU tuition fees, and should not support one. There, I've said it. Readers familiar with my earlier postings on the subject will perhaps not be particularly surprised by that comment. I broadly support the reforms which are being made, and I am prepared to accept higher fees as the price of those changes. There is a valid point about value for money, but that is really something that needs to be taken up with individual institutions. The point I would like to make today, however, is that the level of the ...
Today, I had an extremely useful meeting with Terry Small of the Dundee Museum of Transport. Although the museum has long-term ambitions to open at the former Maryfield Transport Depot, it has secured shorter term use of a long vacant building in Roseangle to allow the museum to open. This is an excellent project and I will be assisting the museum group in any way I can to make the museum in Roseangle a reality. Later this afternoon, I attended the latest meeting of the West End Schools Project Board that is overseeing the building of the new St Joseph's ...
I have never been one for reading self help books. Usually over Americanised and full of patronising garbage that makes my stomach turn and my eyebrows raise, I avoid them at all costs. However, one book has broken the mould ... Continue reading →
I was very saddened indeed to learn earlier this evening that Jessie Gault, who has made a real contribution to Blackness Area Residents' Association (BARA) over the years and has been a well kent and well respected resident of the Blackness area, has sadly passed away. The photo (below) from 2006 is of Jessie (second left in green) next to myself at a presentation to BARA by the Lord Provost. Jessie will be very sadly missed; a really nice lady who made a real contribution to the community.
[IMG: Newsletter screenshot] Issue number 2 of my new monthly email newsletter about the Liberal Democrats is being put together by me at the moment and will be hitting people's inboxes shortly. So if you want to be sure to receive it, sign up here now. Not sure? Take a look at issue number 1 to see the sort of thing you'll be getting (and here is my post explaining the thinking behind having this newsletter). You can unsubscribe whenever you want using the link on the bottom of all the emails, and I won't pass your email address on ...
When Labour-run Hackney withdrew an invitation to Iain Sinclair to launch a book in one of its libraries because he had been critical of the London Olympics, I was happy to report the story. I wrote that Lib Dem Islington's invitation to launch it with them instead "made me proud to be a Liberal Democrat". So I had better report a story the Sheffield Politics blog posted yesterday: Poet, broadcaster and comedian Ian McMillan has been banned from appearing at a childrens' creative writing workshop by Sheffield City Council, over fears he might make "political comments".The event was due to ...
[IMG: Government Borrowing Forecast] On the Andrew Maher Show on Sunday morning Ed Balls glibly tried to sidestep Labour's responsibility for the present fiscal deficit, emboldened into making this attempt by Maher's unfortunate use of the rather woolly phrase "structural deficit". This could apply equally to the structure of the British economy or to the way in which the government deploys revenue measures to finance its expenditure plans. Many of us have argued for a long time now that the Thatcher revolution which sacrificed British manufacturing and domestic coal and steel production to a new reliance on financial services and ...
Berkhamsted has been suffering disruption because of a collapsed building in the busy High Street - now the situation is made worse due to a burst water main. This is being tackled tomorrow, Wednesday 2nd Feb, and the advice from Dacorum Borough Council is - avoid Berkhamsted unless you can get through on foot.
From the Chelmsford Weekly News comes tidings of Bob Russell's visit to Pakistan to talk to politicians about the fight against terrorism "amid tight security and a news blackout": After travelling in convoy with armed police in front and behind, he met Pakistan's foreign secretary, the leader of the opposition and the speaker of the National Assembly, Dr Fehmida Mirza, the first woman in Asia to hold the position. Afterwards, the Lib Dem MP said: "The movement of terrorists in both directions over the long and mountainous border, which stretches for more than 1,000 miles and is extremely difficult to ...
My daily commuting hell is no secret to the few hundred people that follow my tweets on Twitter. Perhaps there are some out there that even thought that I was over dramatising the agony and despair I feel on a ... Continue reading →
We have seen before that Nevill Holt: is the model for Bonkers Hall;plays host to Grange Park Opera.It therefore follows that you can see Tosca at Bonkers Hall on 13 July this summer. Talk of Tosca leads irresistibly to this tale: Tosca's finale seems to be prone also to less lethal accidents. The tales are apocryphal, and you can hear them told of many theatres and productions. The most popular is the the bouncing Tosca:Tosca as usual jumps from the walls of Castel Sant'Angelo. But the stage workers had improved her security by replacing the mattress with a trampoline, so ...
Martin Brookes reports that Rutland County Council has blocked access to his blog in Oakham Library. As Martin has been known to be critical of that council's members, as well as members of the town council, I presume this is censorship for political reasons. The hard-pressed taxpayers of Rutland, who fund the library, entitled to read criticism of their elected representatives. This censorship should end at once. Besides where will it end? Lord Bonkers telephones exclusively: I heard a particularly juicy piece of gossip about the Duke of Rutland this afternoon. Apparently, he was seen emerging from... Hello? Hello? Later. ...
What I believe on a given topic in five sentences. In Spanish:* Es fácil de entender las preocupaciones de los productores que deben ser pagados por su labor artística — los que descargan música y películas ilegalmente estan, en efecto, robandoles. Los consumidores también deben preocuparse si esto significa que hay menos dinero para invertir en nuevos talentos. Sin embargo, hay evidencia de que el costo financiero de las descargas ilegales a veces se exagera — por ejemplo, nadie sugiere que las bibliotecas de préstamo están matando el libro. También es importante señalar que quienes comparten archivos ilegales gastan más ...
I think I have put my finger on what is wrong with BBC's widely trailed new comedy series Episodes. It isn't remotely funny. Having already given up on it, I caught the last five minues of last night's episode by accident. They took at least 45 minutes to pass. I suspect the writers are trying to create something after the comedy of embarrassment that made The Office so succesful. But many of us have worked in offices, so there was a large measure of recognition in that show's comedy. By contrast, very few of us have worked in American television. ...
Now here's an interesting thing. Unison have told staff that: "the trades unions have not agreed to any part of the Pay and Grading (P & G) scheme." Uniform [My underlining] Any Part? Like the bit where staff will get equal pay for equal work? I can understand why unions and their members may not like aspects of the deal, but this is a pretty categorical statement for the rejection of any aspect of it and just to be clear this is the deal that was put together by the previous Labour administration that they were too scared to implment. ...
Long-time contributing editor to Lib Dem Voice, Alex Foster, is cooking up a storm on this week's Come Dine With Me, the hit Channel 4 gourmet gameshow. And tonight, Tuesday, at 5pm is when viewers will be able to view his cooking episode, which is trailed thusly: In Nottingham, local councillor Alex Foster hopes to impress with a fancy French menu and a spot of bell ringing. Sadly, Brian likens Alex's starter to cat food, Janice tells him to tidy up his house, and Barry compares the cornichons to intimate body parts. Which must surely count as must-watch telly, yes? ...
I have been contacted by a resident about the Save Our Forests campaign which is regarding the government's plans regarding the Forestry Commission. Locally Lib Dem councillors recently voted to increase the size of the Bidston Hill site of biological importance (which is a material consideration when deciding planning applications). Also Norman Street and Upper ...
Still no details of the consultation, but Essex County Council have now published the papers for their next Cabinet meeting which will discuss reduced hours of opening for libraries and other cuts (pdf file) – including 21 staff – to save nearly £2m a year from the libraries budget. A further paper indicates how many hours will be cut from each library. Of local interest: Colchester Central Library: Currently open for 67.5 hours a week, will reduce to 59 (a reduction of 8.5) Greenstead Library: Currently 38, reducing to 34 (reduction of 4) Prettygate: Currently 47, reducing to 34 (reduction ...
The government often come under criticism for large amounts of money spent on websites that hardly anyone uses. However the new website for looking at crime statistics on a more local basis has ground to a grinding halt due to demand. I run a website that has thousands of visitors in an average day. It ...
Today I attended a rather fascinating discussion at the Green Alliance conference on the subject of the Big Society. Paul Twivy, Chief Executive of the Big Society network, laid out in relatively clear terms the shape that the Big Society is intended to take; or at least the policy levers the Government is using to ...
Fed up with bankers? Think that everyone in the City is trying to shaft us? So did I until today went I spent most of the day with CCLA. If you have not heard of them but are connected with ... Continue reading →
Dear Sir, Melissa Kite reports (Sunday, 30 January) that some members of the Lords are unhappy at proposals to give the vote to those serving short prison terms, saying the idea has come "from nowhere". Given in fact the issue has been the subject of legal action over several years, was much debated during the last government, was the subject of a government review before the election and has featured in many political leaflets and exchanges, claiming the idea has come from nowhere says rather more about how some peers are doing their job than it says about what the ...
This is my fifth monthly round of blog figures for anyone who is remotely interested in who reads my little blog. These stats for the month of January come courstesy of google analytics. Another Record Breaking Month After the record breaking month of December, I expected things to cool down somewhat in January. But to the contrary,. I wrote a record 42 blog posts this month, up from the then record of 38 in December. So, here come the stats... In January, I had a record 2,370 absolute unique visitors to my blog - up from the 1,702 record of ...
17th January 2011: Why I suspect the Tunisian revolt will not be repeated in Egypt Such is life...
This is the current holiday advert on a billboard I walk past every day in Manchester city centre. When it was put up a couple of weeks ago I thought, "Oh, that looks nice" and "I mustn't be the only ... Continue reading →
At one point I got into the habit of posting some interesting "statporn" every month, gleaned from Google Analytics. Unfortunately, for some reason, it hasn't worked since I changed the template of the blog last Summer. That's also when my LibDig thingy and Tweetmeme thingy disappeared and I am too technically stupid to work out how to replace them. Perhaps a friendly geek might like to offer some practical support? Anyway, I'm kind of reliant on Blogger's inbuilt stats thing which isn't that great. However, it does tell me that the top ten stories of the last month were as ...
Tue 1st
15:42
PFIZER'S CLOSURE - Will it reduce East Kent to a peasant economy? 5000* Jobs on the line?
News that Pfizer pharmaceuticals are to close their research and development establishment at Sandwich in Kent, will come as a bitter blow to those of us who live in East Kent, Pfizer has for many years been seen as one of the few businesses located in our region willing or able to offer quality jobs. Over the next 18 months to 2 years, the site will be run down and closed resulting in 2400 job losses, the suggestion that staff may be offer jobs, at other sites will come as cold comfort, particularly given the fact that they are cutting ...
Speaking in the House of Commons on the Health Bill last night, I welcomed the end to a situation we had under Labour where private hospitals are given an unfair advantage over NHS hospitals when competing for patients. But I ... Continue reading →
In December I reported on a Radio 4 programme presented by Sir Tim Rice which explored the lasting appeal of British magazine Eagle and the impact of its flagship character Dan Dare. My Birkdale colleague Simon Shaw, and his wife Lyn, recently spent a few days in London. One morning they "did the museums". In what seems to be a serious case of gender-stereotyping, while Lyn visited the V&A, Simon was across the road at the Science Museum. Simon was interested to find a "Dan Dare" exhibition on the first floor of the Science Museum. This referred to Birkdale vicar ...
Well, that at least has been the rumour sweeping through the protests in Egypt's second city Alexandria this afternoon. The End of Mubarak? Live on the BBC earlier, a reporter from Alexandria in the crowd was reporting on rejoicing in the crowd at the news that the aim of the insurgency had been achieved. It is the way of such protests that rumours can spread quickly. Confusion can mount and that is clearly happening as the biggest protests have swept the country today. The Domino Effect? It began with Ben Ali in Tunisia and there have been protests also ...
Tue 1st
15:11
Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee - 31/1/2011 Part 5 - Strategic Change Programme u...
Mr. Green continued by saying the easy answer was no but he was not saying no in the future. They had built on 6-9 months of work and could move people around and possibly bring in specialists although they had very good people within the authority. When they supported people's ideas to improve the service ...
Tue 1st
15:03Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee - 31/1/2011 Part 4 - Strategic Change Programme u...
There were one or two projects that had been initiated as a result of the Wirral's Future – Be a Part of It in relation to fees. He said there could be scrutiny by the overview and scrutiny committees regarding emerging ideas. Regarding resource implications, a lot could be contained within existing resources. The board ...
Steve Richards in the Independent offers a useful consideration of the Iraq Inquiry and the lessons it might hold for the situation in Egypt. Most importantly, he concludes with a note about 'imperialist swagger', the assumption clearly held by one of our recent Prime Ministers that one can go in and change a country for the better by bombing its citizens to freedom. The situation in Egypt is fascinating so far because this is a developed country with a long history and quite simply no one knows what is going to happen. Even the legendary Robert Fisk was wrong when ...
Back in October we highlighted the issue of the islanders of Rathlin being told that they would have to travel by ferry to the mainland of Northern Ireland to cast their vote. I am pleased to say that the Electoral Office of Northern Ireland have listened to the the many people who objected to this. ...
Tue 1st
14:54Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee - 31/1/2011 Part 3 - Strategic Change Programme u...
He outlined the cautious approach referring to section 4.5 of the report in relative to savings in 2011/2012. The savings were agreed by Chief Officers, Mr. Green, the project managers and the Director of Finance (Ian Coleman). The program could be accelerated, but they didn't want to overstate the benefits. They had made sure there ...
The Press Gazette reports on FT editor Lionel Barber's Cudlipp lecture last night: ...citing the Daily Telegraph's December story in which two journalists posed undercover as constituents to interview Vince Cable and other Lib Dem ministers he said that it "falls into a very different category than its earlier scoop on MPs expenses". Barber said: "The latter story, though acquired for money and deeply damaging to the standing of the Westminster class, clearly met the public interest test; the first did not. It was nothing more than entrapment journalism."
Tue 1st
14:46Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee - 31/1/2011 Part 2 - Strategic Change Programme u...
Cllr Green joked that the chair "doesn't want to do that", Cllr Gilchrist pointed out that this item had been before us several times and there were revisions to the report in the supplementary agenda. He said that councillors were anxious to see the meat on a lot of projects and were well disposed towards ...
'God Particle' Supercollider Experiment may open doors to other dimensions Top CERN Boffin admits. IT news site - The Register reported this afternoon that Scientists believe there is a serious chance that dimension portal events will soon be generated by the Large Hadron Collider. CERN's Dr Bertolucci previously briefed the Register on the Theory of Supersymmetry, which suggests that space-time actually has up to ten dimension. Bertolucci explained that the LHC might cause a "door" to "an extra dimension" to open up admitting "Out of this door might come something, or we might send something through it". The Register did ...
Present at the start of the meeting was Cllr Meaden (as a deputy for Cllr McArdle), Cllr Brighouse (Vice-Chair), Cllr Stapleton, Cllr Kenny, Cllr Davies (Phil), Cllr Gilchrist (Chair), Cllr Keeley, Cllr McCubbin and Cllr Williams. In addition the following Cabinet members (who aren't part of the committee but their presence can be requested by ...
In common with many Liberal Democrats, I have opposed the Digital Economy Act since its introduction as a Bill during the dog-days of the Labour government. Along with Bridget Fox, Obhi Chatterjee and an army of activists online and offline, I helped to get an emergency motion passed almost unanimously at Spring Conference last year that condemned the Bill, in particular for its provisions on website-blocking. The motion also called for a working group to be created to draw up policy papers on information technology and intellectual property. I now act as chair of that working group, and you can ...
Mercifully, this was my first 'Transfer Deadline Day' for some years which remained untouched by the hype and breathless speculation of Sky Sports News (I cancelled my subscription some months ago). As it turned out there was probably no need for that particular network's passion for sensationalism, as another day of extraordinary gambling in the ...
As a non-driver, I know how valuable a service our local buses provide, especially out here in the Fens. Like many other residents, I rely on them to go shopping, to the hospital, to leisure events (even though they stop too early in the evenings and I have to get a cab back - not cheap!) and for all the other aspects of life that we take for granted. I was on a bus yesterday to get to March and back for a meeting. I'll need a bus to get to my Body Balance class in Ely later this week, ...
At the last council meeting, Labour proposed the following amendment: After recommendation 2.3 add additional recommendation as follows: 2.4 That when the further proposals referred to in 1.6 of this report are brought to the Cabinet in February 2011, the Chief Executive is instructed to include proposals to provide Council services to a broader market of both other public agencies and also possibly private sector organisations in order to increase revenues as an alternative to cuts to services. The coalition fully agreed with this proposal and added it to the report, largely on the basis that it's exactly what we've ...
I have mixed views about the new Police website that enables us find out what crimes are committed in the street in which we live. On the one hand it is always useful to have information, on the other hand there is a real danger it will impact on house prices. One of the first victims of bad publicity from this site is Swansea, whose Wind Street area has been classed as one of the most violent in Britain on the basis of last December's figures. So much for the vision of a café quarter when the then Labour Council ...
I just found a piece of paper in the pocket of my SJA trousers which says "I was so doped up on zopiclone last night that you could have driven a herd of elephants through the house and I wouldn't have noticed... and I don't know where you'd get a herd of elephants but if you did, that'd be really cute." I don't even know.
News of another high profile resignation from Southport Tories and details of a very sorry saga over candidate in Dukes ward have been confirmed today. Firstly the resignation; Lady Lesley Watson we understand has handed in her membership. Like the others in this mess she is a loyal and longtime Tory who comes of a loyal and longterm Tory family and what is more I guess she would be more than capable of explaining what a Tory believes in-which some would say sets her apart from some. I now understand that the executive intervened heavy handedly and imposed on the ...
New Police powers have come into force enabling the Police to take out injunctions against gangs.Gang injunctions can be used to ban people from certain places or from walking aggressive dogs. The powers are similar to anti-social behaviour orders. It is expected that the injunctions should not replace prosecutions of gang members involved in violent crime. I understand that Police and local councils can seek gang injunctions in the county courts against adults who they believe are involved in gang-related violence and crime. The Police or Council will be able to prohibit the wearing of gang "colours" and the use ...
Who is going to have the decisive say as to which parties form the next Welsh Government? Well, if this e-mail from the office of the Shadow Wales Office Minister regarding the AV referendum is anything to go by then it seems that the Labour negotiating team will be driven by MPs: "I am a keen supporter of electoral reform and, in particular, proportional representation. However, I'm very concerned at the way in which the AV issue has been attached to the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill, which will see a disproportionate reduction in the number of Welsh MPs and is essentially ...
Now www.police.uk doesn't sound very exciting, but it is a very welcome new resource that was launched today. Enter a postcode, or the name of a place, and it will display an interactive map showing crime figures at street level. Or so they claim. I imagine it was overloaded after today's publicity and I keep getting an inappropriate error message "Sorry, we couldn't find a policing area that matched your search." Hmm....
Well, would you believe it: the party which at the end of every Assembly used to sing: The land, the land, 'Twas God who made the land, The land, the land, The ground on which we stand, Why should we be beggars With a ballot in our hand? God gave the land to the people is now part of a government which proposes to sell off to private developers what bit of our land actually does belong to the people. Fortunately this proposal has raised the ire of the Tory shires as well as we wild radicals, and there is ...
Or number 10000, if you're using binary. I for one salute our new machine overlords. To: Steve Hilton (an open letter) – Tim Ireland's finally had enough (and with the pressures he's been under, most people would have cracked long before) and is taking the fight back to his tormentors Coalition FAQ – Joe Otten gathers a few points together in an easy-to-digest form The Failure of Realism: Diagnosis Without Any Prescription – I don't normally look at the Spectator that much, but is a very good deconstruction of Melanie Phillips pushing the 'dictators or Islamists' line Fukuyama, f*** yeah ...
I think we should start pressurising them over this it's outrageous Redbridge hospital to charge blue badge drivers - Travel - Ilford Recorder
The latest County Durham Economic Assessment (CDEA) makes largely grim reading locally and nationally. Numbers on Jobseekers allowance - up. Inflation - up. House prices - down. As always, there are also some glimmers of optimism too. Vacancies in County are up (wheras nationally they are down) and the number of business start-ups has also risen when compared with last year. These headlines are backed up by a wealth of additional data and information, and if anyone wants a copy of the January edition please email me. I did look on the county website at but unfortunately there was ...
Education has always been particularly important to Liberals. Wales has always prioritised education but this great tradition has been left to slide. Alarm bells rang when last summer, our GCSE and A level results fell behind England for the first time. Now, two recent reports have exposed just how badly Labour and Plaid Cymru have mismanaged the Welsh education system. Firstly, an international assessment of performance (PISA, run by the OECD) has shown that Wales is the lowest achieving nation of the UK and falling behind many European countries. Welsh students have fallen behind in reading, mathematics and science. In ...
I don' think it is too cynical to say that many, if not most, politicians sometimes misrepresent themselves. They try to deny things which they know may be true and they try to make their ideas or policies sound like more than they are. Spin and hype are the stock-in-trade of the political huckster. So far, so unsurprising. Recently, however, it has become clear that many politicians are not merely twisting the facts, they are actually totally ignorant of the facts. Over the past few weeks I have heard politicians suggest that the deficit and the the national debt are ...
Why are you in coalition with the Conservatives rather than Labour? Throughout the election campaign, we said that in the event of a hung parliament that we would talk first to the party with more votes and seats, and we spelt out our four policy priorities on fair taxes, schools, the economy and political reform. It was also clear that the country would need a stable government willing to take the tough decisions to tackle the deficit. The Conservatives won more votes and seats than Labour, they were more willing than Labour to support our policy priorities, and they were ...
Over the past few months, I have had a number of concerns expressed to me by constituents about situations where the communal lights on the stairwells of tenements fail. This plunges the stairwell into darkness with obvious health and safety implications. Just before Christmas, most of the lights on one side of Bellefield Avenue failed together as the wiring is communal and it was very concerning that a number of blocks of flats had no stair lights until that particular fault was detected and sorted. There have been other examples of the stair lights failing in blocks in the West ...
The Welsh Liberal Democrat Housing Spokesperson, Peter Black, has called on the Welsh Government to rationalise the pay of Housing Association Chief Executives, following the publication of salary data that shows that monies received bear no relation to responsibility. Research from Social Housing magazine show that the amount paid to Chief Executives per unit of social housing stock varies from £11.41 per unit to £61.71. Welsh 'traditional' chief executives also receive the highest rate of pay per unit compared to their Scottish, English and Northern Irish counterparts at £26.54 per unit. "I was surprised to read that the amount of ...
Tue 1st
11:03
One million under-age Facebook users in the UK - are we breeding a generation of habitual liars?
ITV's Daybreak today featured a report saying one million under-13s use Facebook. To use Facebook you have to enter your date of birth. So we're talking about one million children or parents who have falsified a date of birth to get onto Facebook. Problem? Well, someone once said that we all lie many times a day. That especially applies to the internet. How many times have we all clicked "yes" to "I have read these terms and conditions and agree to them" without reading them? But I just happen to believe that one of the first experiences for many children ...
Local councillors have welcomed the news that South Gloucestershire Council has pulled back from major cuts to youth services in Yate. Youth clubs had been told that funding to St Nicholas Youth Centre at Abbotswood would be cut by 65%, together with significant cuts to Brimsham Green Youth Centre. After concerted lobbying from local councillors South Gloucestershire has now guaranteed funding for another year. Dodington Parish Councillor Paul Hulbert said "South Glos seemed to think that because the Youth Café will be open in a few months time, local services could automatically be scaled back. The Youth Café was never ...
East Grinstead is a low crime area and we are all very glad about that. If you are interested in the crime that does occur, you can take a look at the new police.uk website. Search by post code and you can see crime figures for your area. A word of warning. The website uses a process whereby crimes of a particular type are added together and displayed at a random spot in the area. The fact that a number of crimes are noted at recognisable spot doesn't mean all the crime occurred in that place, just in that area. ...
Avner Offer's The Challenge of Affluence starts with certainty and ends with doubt. "Affluence breeds impatience, and impatience undermines well-being", states Offer at the start of Chapter 1. That theme runs through the book to his conclusion, but the lessons he draws from it are not as simple or confidently stated: "Well-being is more than having more. It is a balance between our own needs, and those of others, on whose goodwill and approbation our own well-being depends ... I present these findings in the hope that they will make our choices appear not simpler and easier, but as complicated ...
Over the past couple of days, we've seen the Torygraph and then the Fail try to establish in our minds that our Deputy Prime Minister is in some way workshy because of a leaked note which revealed that his ministerial red boxes are closed to new routine business at 3 pm. Olly Grender turned sketchwriter in a brilliant satire on the journalists' motives which will make you laugh. What needs to be spelled out loud and clear, though, is that items for the box received after 3pm don't just evaporate into thin air. They get put in the next day. ...
EUobserver.com reports that a collapsed ceiling in Strasbourg forced the European Parliament to stay in Brussels for a part-session and thereby saved €1.7 million. The Telegraph's Europhobe and MEP, Daniel Hannan, wants to have no parliament at all.. Last November Hannan actually blamed the EP for not voting to stop moving about. He knows this is disingenuous, in fact dishonest. They can't. The
Interesting article from LibDem Voice about the tax changes coming in. We have heard a lot about the poorest being hit hardest, but analysis says different. Policies including the LibDem commitment to raise the tax threshold will benefit the poor most. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says the richest tenth of the population will lose 3% of their net income from April, with the national average at 1%. The rich will still be rich, but it will be fairer.
One key part of the proposal from the government about Forests that causes concern is the proposal to allow charities and trusts to own the Heritage Forests.In Acocks Green we recently had the 10 year anniversary of creating the Westley Vale Millennium Green. This was an interesting ceremony with wassailing and the local pagan group blessing the Green.Given that I have been a trustee of this for
From the BBC: Tory and Labour peers have reached a deal ending the deadlock which threatened to block a 5 May referendum on changing the Westminster voting system, Lords leader Lord Strathclyde has said... The government accepted in principle an amendment tabled by the convenor of crossbench peers, Baroness D'Souza, which reinstates public inquiries in the boundary review process in certain circumstances. The crossbench peers' amendment would allow, but not compel, the Boundary Commission to hold a local inquiry where an objection raised "substantive issues". Inquiries would take no more than six months... Lady D'Souza withdrew her amendment, telling peers ...
The Government has started a consultation on the future of England's forests. The Woodland Trust is one of many organisations that has come forward with grave concerns about the privatisation of the existing forests - they have started a "Save England's Ancient Forests" campaign. I'm not quite sure that the Governments proposals will cause the level of damage that the Woodland Trust seems to be concerned about but I do share some of their concerns about the right of public access, and government funding for charities to take these forests on to name just two areas! I'd encourage you to ...
i) births and deaths 1 February 1948: birth of Elisabeth Sladen, who plays Sarah Jane Smith (companion to Third and Fourth Doctors, 1973-76; various appearances since then culminating in her own series since 2007). Happy Birthday, Lis! ii) broadcast anniversaries 1 February 1964: broadcast of "The Rescue", seventh episode of the story we now call The Daleks (and nothing to do with the story we now call The Rescue). Ian, Barbara and the Thals destroy the Daleks' power source, defeating them, and rescue the Doctor and Susan. 1 February 1969: broadcast of second episode of The Seeds of Death. The ...
It's the news all fans of the liberal centre-ground have been waiting for. According to the latest YouGov study... Labour have gone left (-39), the Conservatives right (+47), and the Liberal Democrats are finally recognised once again as a centre-party (+1). The problem though, as the UK polling report notes, it is not a very big party, more an expression of support from a centrist rump. It is though a good footnote to the progressive coalition debate. It is harder to argue the party is a more natural fit with Labour, easier to highlight a distinct position on the map, ...
So in the cliched world of football the transfer window has 'slammed shut'. My team - Hibs - have made a few interesting signings which will hopefully be enough to keep us in the Scottish top flight, but as we've lost the last seven games and not scored a goal this year - it's going to be a tough fight. But the transfer goings on south of the border - with the usual eye popping amounts being spent - particularly for the less than special Andy Carroll make no sense in a time of austerity. The fact that a truly ...
I have started to read Al Murray's book of British Common Sense. I am writing about it here as there is so much to agree with. It really doesn't matter where you get your ideas but I didn't expect to get motivation for a political blog from his book. I'll share a couple of his ideas with you. The first one is his response to the notion that no one should win in running races at school as someone may get upset. For every winner there is a loser and in most cases there is a whole league of losers. ...
