The general response of the Yes2AV crowd to the No campaign ad seems to be one of derision and mockery. Some examples from my Twitter spool: Are we absolutely certain that #No2AV broadcast wasn't a spoof? This #no2av advert is intellectually offensive. This is actually wrong The #no2av advert was even more terrible than I ...
What a busy week, I'm taking part in no less than two debates on the AV referendum. Both of these debates are being hosted by local church groups in Calderdale. It's commendable that people have gone to the effort of hosting these debates. In recent weeks I've been trying to talk to a lot of people about AV, both on the doorstep and also through phone canvassing sessions I've been putting on for local volunteers. One thing is clear, not that many people at know that much about how the different voting systems at work. This isn't surprising given that ...
The report by academic banker, Sir John Vickers, that basically allows the mega banks to carry on pretty much as they were has all the hallmarks of another high profile independent review. That of Lord Browne's review of student tuition fees. On publication of that report Vince Cable said, 'The government endorses the main thrust of the report' before going on to explain these were interim proposals and that he would endeavour to make changes more in line with Lib Dem policy. Now fast forward six months and you have the sound of Nick Clegg welcoming the Vickers report this ...
Because I live in Langworthy, I'm frequently checking planning applications to see if any potential development could cause problems for my neighbours and this evening I have come across a troubling application from Tesco, in relation to the Pendleton Store. Late last year, Tesco were controversially granted planning permission for their new "eco-store" in Pendleton (despite nothing about the building being eco-anything) and to protect local Langworthy residents from noise and being disturbed in the early hours, a restriction was put in place on the times that Tesco would be allowed to deliver their produce to the store. These restrictions ...
Below is the rather bizzarre advert that No2Av ran tonight, featuring fictional MP Alan B'Stard....and the Grand National....and a classroom of confused teenagers. VN has always thought the strongest card for the No campaign to play is the fact that being ahead in the first round doesn't necessarily win you the election, as it does under FPTP, ...
Warren Bradley, the leader of Liverpool Liberal Democrats, won himself a lot of publicity today with his call for the Liberal Democrats to withdraw from its coalition with the Conservatives. That call was made in an email to Nick Clegg and other Lib Dem MPs, which somehow found its way into the hands of the media. What strikes me most about the email is its defensiveness: "The Labour and Trade Union movement are saturating the streets of Liverpool, even in our heartlands.And: Never before in 35+ years have I seen the streets of Wavertree snooing with Labour activists, never before ...
This evening's entertainment has been a theatrical adaptation of of several of Roald Dahl's macabre short stories for the stage by Jeremy Dyson. The set design was brilliant; using simple props to convey everything from a pawn shop to a science lab to a West Country Guest house (they eat their young down there, you know) and the cast were versatile and talented, taking several parts each, sometimes of multiple genders. I particularly enjoyed Nick Fletcher's gleeful licking of his meat cleaver, and Selina Griffiths' mad Devon B&B owner, but the whole thing was gloriously well-performed throughout. The story selection ...
I have been chosen as the candidate for North Hinksey and Wytham in the forthcoming district council elections, together with Debby Hallett. This is a brief biography to introuce myself. I worked for the Vale of White Horse District Council between 2002 and 2009 and I currently work for Oxford Brookes University in Botley, focusing on local government improvement and development. I have been involved in local government since 1994, I have been a parish councillor and parish clerk and I am a founding and continuing member of a committee running a very successful community shop. I am a keen ...
I've just come across a superb post by Richard Kemp written about a week ago, I think he has it spot on. Since being in Government we've too easily taken the apologetic route, saying sorry for the bad things that we are being forced to do without enough emphasis on some of the very good things we've done in Government. Richard highlights two in particular that he believes (and I agree) wouldn't have happened without Lib Dem ministers being part of the Cabinet: Increasing the personal allowance thresholds to lift a total of 1.2million people out of tax all together.Restoring ...
I was just trying to remember today when we first took Anna to the Science Festival which takes place in Edinburgh every April. I am fairly sure it was in 2003, when she would have been a couple of months shy of her fourth birthday. Over the years it's become a huge highlight of our year. She's dug for dinosaurs, mummified apples, climbed up a giant nose for a tour of the olfactory system, pollenated flowers with ribena and, through the Festival, been a junior judge for Dare to be Digital Actually, she's always had a very warm welcome at ...
As one of the relatively battle-scarred veterans of the Lib Dem blogging scene, I've been linked to Lib Dem Blogs since 2005. And whilst my blog has changed a bit since then, the one consistent feature is the traffic directed to it from Lib Dem Blogs. Not only that, but Lib Dem Blogs has been a jumping-off point for some of the most successful Liberal Democrat blogs, with new names emerging, flaring brightly for a time, and then sometimes burning out. It is, if you like, a platform for new talent. As a result, I've tended to support it over ...
It's funny how Twitter starts a relationship. I sent congratulations to Nathan Sparling who announced on Twitter he had won the election to be the new NUS Scotland LGBT Officer. Nathan soon got into his new role and then got in touch asking if Tavish Scott and the Scottish Liberal Democrats would support the new NUS Scotland campaign on mental health in the LGBT community? Tavish Scott was very quick off the mark and more than happy to support the campaign and said; "One in four people in Scotland will experience a mental health problem at some point in their ...
Several years ago I read the collected sayings of the Desert Fathers (and Mothers); this is an introduction to their spirituality by an Australian theologian, who at least I suppose has some insight into deserts. I must say I have been spoiled for this sort of thing by my recent reading of Rūmī, who was able to develop profound philosophical insights while living his daily life without fleeing from society or concerning himself too much with mortification of the flesh. Again I observed that there is a certain amount of eremitical one-upmanship here, and while there are many reflections on ...
It's a slight cheat to blog this separately from Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women, because they are bound between the same covers of my Everyman edition. But they are definitely different books, written decades apart, so there you go. Mill's argument here is in favour of political equality between the sexes, in particular that woman should be allowed to vote, a proposition to which he gently demolishes all the opposing arguments. He is less passionate than Wollstonecraft but has better one-liners: Women who read, much more women who write, are, in the existing constitution of things, a ...
I spent an enjoyable evening today at Sworders Auction House in Cambridge Road, Stansted. I was invited along with other councillors by Sworders to hear about their expansion plans. They moved to their present site formerly a disused gravel pit on the outskirts of Stansted in 2008. Previously they had premises in Sworders Yard in the centre of Stansted for 13 years. What a pleasant contrast. Mr. Ward-Booth a director of the business stated that in the short time they had been at their new purpose built auction house business had increased substantially. I was interested to learn that customers ...
This turns out to be the third in a trilogy, the two previous books being The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer, neither of which I had read: it's a huge long young adult book about conflict between humans and indigenous inhabitants on a planet where telepathic projections ('Noise') are common but not universal, both among the locals and among their Earthling invaders. It's an unusual comment to make about a book, but the typography is startling - not just a different font for each viewpoint character, but also letters jumping around the page for ...
[IMG: Sanjay Samani visiting Forfar police station with Cllr David May]
Whilst my 'boy', Fonzo the bulldog, is hot on the campaign trail with me (see picture below), I listened with dismay to a report from BBC Radio Surrey this morning which reported on the cruelty inflicted on some cats in the Aldershot area. The content of the story was actually too graphic for me, as an animal lover, to be able to convey back now suffice to say that the impression is that the torture appears to have been undertaken by human hands. This of course comes on the back of a weekend when another aspect of animal cruelty was ...
The news that Warren Bradley, former Lib Dem Leader of Liverpool City Council, should - at election time - have been the author of a leaked memo which suggests that the Conservatives are not universally loved in his city is surely not that much of a surprise? Is it? Here are Nick and Warren (and Colin Eldridge) in happier times:
...certainly doesn't go to the local elections here in Sunderland, where I haven't seen a single election poster so far. But over in Canada, the election set for the same week (Canada votes on 2nd May) looks like it might be slightly more interesting. The most likely outcome appears to be another stalemate – a Conservative minority government, but it's possible the Conservatives could squeak a majority. It appears – at present – that a Liberal minority would be a stretch too far. The excellent Three Hundred Eight shows the current polling trends: What might change things? Well, tomorrow sees ...
As reported in today's Courier and Evening Telegraph, I have queried with the City Council's Chief Executive the astonishingly high number of mobile phones used by Dundee City Council. Dundee City Council has amongst the highest number of mobile phones handed to employees in the country - some 34% of the workforce have council owned phones, costing over £460 000 in the period 2008-10. Of course there are staff who need to use mobile phones during their working day - particularly staff who do visiting as part of their work, but the fact that over a third of all employees ...
Well, seeing as I had a go at Nick Clegg last week for citing inaccurate and misleading statistics to damn Oxbridge, I'd better be even-handed... Prime Minister David Cameron has followed his deputy's lead, and (in headline-speak) 'slammed' Oxford for its "disgraceful" (his term) failure to admit more black students. I won't go into the details. There's no need: the University (my employer) comprehensively refuted the claims when rent-a-quote Labour MP David Lammy first decided to fashion a bandwagon he could get moving and leap on last December. As Oxford pointed out then: school attainment is the single biggest barrier ...
Last week I wrote about Ashley Waterhouse, a Tory candidate in Derby City Council's Normanton ward, rang the city's BBC local radio station under a false name to take part in a phone in on honesty in politics. Today a reader kindly sent me a link to a story about a Labour candidate in the same ward who has admitted that he was once jailed for a drug offence. That story is in the Derby Telegraph and you can also here the Labour candidate, Balbir Sandhu, interviewed on BBC Radio Derby (at about 7:15 a.m.) I suspect that reader intended ...
West End Community Council meets tomorrow night (Tuesday 11th April at 7pm at Logie St John's (Cross) Church Hall. I have today published my Update to the Community Council for April, covering : Blot on the landscape ... : A new large-style utility box at the west end of Blackness Road at the roundabout with Glamis Road and Glamis Drive Disabled Parking Bays - Union Place car park No 5 bus service Grit on local pavements Seymour Avenue pavements Pedestrian Safety - Hawkhill You can download a copy of the Update by clicking on the headline above or by going ...
VN was just browsing around the politics page of the BBC News website, and was interested in their sidebar section on the AV Referendum Notice anything funny about it? Yes, Tim Farron's explanation of a Yes vote is shoved right at the end, and everyone knows the further down a a website your link is ...
I was talking with a friend on the phone yesterday and telling her that I've worked out what my mind sometimes gets up to when I'm not really looking: It suffers its own form of DDOS attack. Superego v id, perhaps. In the computer world, a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) occurs when lots of activity from multiple systems floods the bandwidth or resources of a targeted system. Usually that means one or more web servers — when you hear on the news of a website being 'forced down' this is what has often happened — and it takes ...
I'm always hearing about wage slavery from the left, which is their definition for people who are forced to work. Taking a deeper look at the definition of slave, we see that it refers to a person "whose person and services are wholly under the control of another". Well, this doesn't sound much like a working contract, which is the product of an agreement between two people. The fallacious argument that people are forced to work, in a country where it's entirely possible to live on benefits, does not make working for a wage sound anything like slavery. [IMG: Chain ...
Via the BBC: UK banks' retail operations should be "ring-fenced" from their investment banking arms, the Independent Commission on Banking has recommended. However, in its interim report the commission stopped short of recommending the two should operate as separate entities. It said more competition was needed in retail banking, including the sell-off of more Lloyds branches. The commission's final recommendations will be published in September. Robert Peston adds, The big banks will claim that putting their retail banks into subsidiaries would impose significant extra costs on them – because it would force them to raise and retain more capital (which ...
It was a while ago that I was knocking about on Google Analytics, and noticed that I was getting a number of hits from Google search term "Being Human Playlist", whch was, understandably, hitting this livejournal post. The BBC show Being Human had and continues to have, an outstanding soundtrack in the very best American Werewolf in London tradition ; for any given scene, the soundtrack gives us an accompaniment of the most appropriate song ever. This includes Johnny Cash's Hurt, in case we weren't sure that Mitchell's condition was an analogy of addiction; and even less subtle offerings like ...
Finally, it seems, the Lib Dems are starting to give the Tories serious headaches on Andrew Lansley's ill-conceived health reforms. It's about time. Quite why Lansley's been allowed to take the government down this particular cul-de-sac only Cameron and Clegg know. My guess is that the level of public hostility to the proposals was completely unanticipated - and that ministers didn't give the detail of Lansley's plans sufficient consideration. Whatever the truth, Lansley no finds himself under the cosh from the Liberal Democrats as well as one or two of his own backbenchers. And rightly, too. Not only are his ...
In answer to US journalist Charlie Rose, about the phone hacking scandal, James Murdoch said at a public relations seminar in New York last Friday: You talk about a reputation crisis – actually the business is doing really well. It shows what we were able to do is really put this problem in a box. That's really one of my favourite quotes of this year. I have a feeling it will come back to haunt James Murdoch. A wiser person would not have shown such arrogance in public. As News International apologise to an extent for the scandal, he is ...
Mon 11th
17:17
Wirral Council's Faith Champion, funding and grant application help for the voluntary, community and...
I had an enquiry today from a Bidston & St. James ward resident and I racked my brains trying to remember who Wirral Council's Faith Champion is. For those as in the dark as I was, it's a Conservative councillor from Clatterbridge Cllr. Peter Kearney. I did remember reading it on his name badge whilst ...
Marriage Visas: Pre-Entry English Requirements for Spouses.
Much has been made about Cameron's Big Society. I've never known what to make of it, until now. Some people have failed to understand what Cameron means by the Big Society & everytime i would think of his big society, i would think of a local partnership of business men & women in Ayr banding
[IMG: http://www.wikio.co.uk] Frankly, all this scaremongering from Reading Labour is very telling. Reading Labour clearly have no ideas and if they did they would have produced an alternative budget. WHICH THEY DIDN'T! Instead they've bitched and moaned about cuts, which THEY caused. Unfortunately, it's far easier to be critical than than to offer alternatives. But the question to ask has to be: What libraries would Labour close? How many staff would Labour sack? How many services would Labour cut? How much would Labour put UP council tax? You just couldn't make it up, unless you're Reading Labour Apparently, Labour say ...
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...If that's hypocrisy, let's have plenty more of it please [IMG: Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister] It's a popular story in the media today that Nick Clegg is a hypocrite for having benefited from a cosy internship arrangement of the sort that he now wants to end. Well, if wanting to change something you've benefited from, or stop something you've ...
Hull City Council has secured £83 million of government funding for three Extra Care sites, providing a mixture of general, respite and dementia care, combined with a primarily residential development of seven centres for elderly people (including dementia care), and people with learning or other mental disability, totalling about 200 beds. The apartments will be built on Hawthorn Avenue, Homethorpe on Orchard Park and Leads Road. It will include communal health facilities including treatment rooms that can be used by visiting healthcare professionals to support the care of those with long-term conditions; for District Nurses to use as a base, ...
Over the years, human achievement has been measured in many different fields. One of these is in the sporting arena. The sporting colossus' of our time stand high above their peers as exemplars of the highest levels of skill, perseverance, nerve and raw talent known to us all. The names Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Ayrton Senna, Phil Taylor, Nadia Comaneci, Muhammed Ali, Martina Navratilova, Pele, Don Bradman, Ryan Giggs and Steve Redgrave to name but a few, will stand the test of time. But for many a sporting hero and for many a historic sporting moment, you need a keen ...
Chris spoke on fisheries and sharks at the most recent session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Tweet
What a glorious weekend it was, weather-wise. The smell of barbecues and cut grass wafting through the ward as I tramped all over it delivering the latest election Focus leaflet. I even had time to enjoy a bit of barbecue action myself, slumped on the ground at the end of a day in which I ...
Batteries are expensive and use toxic chemicals to make them. A really encouraging technology to replace them called Vanadium flow batteries hasn't fulfilled its early promise. I've been following this technology for about a decade. Some tiny changes to the acid used – adding 7 parts HCL to 2.5 parts sulphuric acid – seems to revolutionise the performance. Both in terms of adding 70% more power density and increasing the operating temperature range from previous 10 to 40 C to -5 to 50 degrees C. This should make this battery type hugely more cost effective as they'll no longer need ...
The latest bout of problems for the Euro zone has been greeted by the latest bout of self congratulatory nonsense from the usual suspects: those people who think about the Euro with their guts, not their brains. The rescue of Portugal, and before that of Ireland, and before that of Greece has not come about because these countries use the Euro. The crisis for those countries, as for the UK itself, which does not use the Euro, is rooted in the fact that their governments (and many of their populations) spend more than they earn. They have structural deficits which ...
I just thought I'd go through some of my favourite election related Facebook fan pages and invite you to take a look if you hadn't already done so. First of all, there's Tavish Scott's which is being regularly updated with news from the campaign trail. I know he's off to the Science Festival in Edinburgh today with Alex Cole Hamilton so hopefully there will be some news on that later. Then there's Willie Rennie for the Scottish Parliament. The former MP for Dunfermline is hoping to become a list MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife. If you take a look, ...
The news broke over the weekend that an announcement is imminent on the policy surrounding the lifetime ban on donating blood for any man who has ever had sex with another man. The writing on the wall appears to be that gay men who have not had sex for a decade might in future be allowed to give blood. This decision was the likely outcome of the scientific review into blood donation, when I researched the issue for an op-ed slot on Pod Delusion live. It was one of the things I mocked in front of a live pub audience. ...
There are times when attacking your political rivals seems like the 'easy' thing to do.After all, you want the job that they, or their colleague, has. It is too easy to forget that, whilst you may not agree with their politics, they probably entered the political arena in an attempt to serve the people they represent, or have responsibility for. This week, I have taken my campaign for better bus links for Stowupland a stage further. Rather than just bemoan the loss of the Sunday bus service for Stowupland and Cedars Park, I wrote to Guy McGregor, the portfolio holder ...
Over on Political Betting, Mike Smithson discusses the latest Angus Reid poll on AV and notes: Another trend is that those Lib Dem voters from the general election who have switched to Labour appear to have helped boost YES. Amongst current Labour voters YES has a comfortable lead while amongst those who voted for Brown's party last May NO is ahead. It makes me wonder about the durability of the swing from the Liberal Democrats to Labour.
We seem to be stuck in a warp of niceties at the moment. In the bad old days the Tory party was the nasty party. Thatcher flexed her muscles and in a previous downturn we all had to get on our bikes. Yet today we seem to get a different flavour of conservatism? Its all big society, low interest rates and a penny off of the fuel duty. What is going on? I'll let you into a secret. The lib Dems may have a little something to do with this. We seem to be the dose of sanity that government ...
Tavish Scott, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats today participated in an hour long webchat for the Scotsman online newspaper. He answered a range of questions from police, pensioners, education & Scotland's constitutional future. One question asked by Pauline in Aberdeen was particularly interesting: "My children are being put off applying to university because of
As local government elections (not to mention a referendum) are rapidly approaching, I want to briefly say why these elections matter much more than they have in the past. The Localism Bill currently before parliament changes the balance of power between Whitehall and local government: It devolves significant new powers to councils, giving councils more freedom and flexibility It establishes powerful new rights for local people and communities to, for example, buy assets such as libraries, pubs and shops It radically reforms planning, restoring democratic and local control It returns decision-making powers on housing to local councils and communities It ...
As readers of Lib Dem Voice will know, it has long been our party's aim to create a transport system in this country that moves people towards low carbon options, including modal shift to public transport. This is not only crucial to achieve our environmental goals, but is also important to move away from our reliance on oil from, in particular, politically unstable countries. So how do we do this at a time of austerity, when the Department for Transport has had to reduce its budget by £638million? We need to be smarter. We need to look at intelligent and ...
The BBC is asking a variety of people to give their view on the 5 May referendum on reforming the voting system. Today it's Liberal Democrat party president Tim Farron's turn: Did you know that most of us have an MP that we voted against? That our elections are decided by a small number of voters in marginal seats? That the worst expenses scandals occurred in safe seats, many of which hadn't changed party since the Second World War? Our current voting system, first-past-the- post, isn't fit for purpose anymore and is failing us. It means that most people's votes ...
[IMG: Zuffar Haq in Pakistan] Zuffar Haq in Pakistan Amongst the reasons I'm really glad to see Zuffar Haq is the Liberal Democrat candidate in the Leicester South by-election is not only that he's a really friendly and positive person but also that he's got a good record of campaigning in the best sense - getting out and helping communities in ways that leaflets on their own can never achieve. A good example is his help for flood victims in Pakistan, as you can see from this video (about 1 minute 30 seconds in and also 7 minutes in): For ...
This Thursday, UKUncut will protest outside the Daily Mail's headquarters against the paper's "long history of abusing and defaming benefit claimants". VN doesn't dispute the fact that the Mail frequently resort to hyperbolic and offensive language to cover such issues, but is unconvinced that this is what has actually prompted action from UKUncut. The real reason ...
Back on the 17th. Do peruse a few old posts while you're here. cheers
Over on his work's blog, The Voice's co-editor Mark Pack has been giving seven reasons why he expects the Coalition Government will last the distance. His list includes, 5. The Labour Party is not acting like a party that is seriously trying to get back into power before the next general election. Ed Miliband's call for a widespread policy review is a sensible move for a party voted out after such a long period in power, but it also is based on an assumption that Labour does not need to have a program for government for a good few years ...
One of the problems routinely flagged up by local residents that affects people's quality of life is the issue of dog fouling. The Lib Dem/Tory Cabinet have made the dog fouling enforcement team permanent allocated £120,000 towards it. These enforcement officers don't just deal with dogs, but also flytipping, graffiti, criminal damage and other problems ...
[IMG: Electoral registration form] There are still a few days left to get a vote for this May's elections and AV referendum. The referendum is being held across the UK, and in many parts of the country there are also other elections on the same day - such as for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and many English local councils. In order to vote, you must be on the electoral register. The last day to get on the electoral register is 14 April (except in Scotland where it is 15 April). You can step through getting the right form at ...
Wednesday afternoon saw primary school children from Prestwich and Whitefield having a go at touch rugby league as the sport makes continued strides in the local area. The festivals are promoted as part of the 'Try It' campaign that encourages anyone and everyone to give rugby league a try. The Festival at Parrenthorn High School had teams from Ribble Drive, Sedgley Park, Park View, St Margaret's, St Hilda's and Hollins Grundy primary schools take part and all of the kids enjoyed the day. Next week, Unsworth, Whitefield, Sunnybank, St Andrews, Chapelfield, Butterstile, Higher Lane and Cam's Lane will take part ...
Oh dear. Take 4 party leaders, put them side by side without any structure to their interactions and you're going to get a rammy. And if you had 5, with the addition of Patrick Harvie, I reckon it would just have got angrier sooner. That's what happened on the Politics Show Scotland yesterday. All of them were guilty of talking over each other. It didn't look great, but if they'd all been polite and waited for each other, some would never have got a word in. They were damned whatever they did under those circumstances. I think if you are ...
Over to the excellent C. G. P. Grey:
Here we go again. As Barack Obama hits the online campaign trail for his 2012 re-election campaign, expect a trickle, then a steady flow and finally a flood of posts about how Obama's online campaigning should be copied by everyone from your pet cat to your grandparents. On past form, many will gloss over the big differences between US and UK politics and the differences between a campaign headed up by the first non-white President and one aiming to make people buy your brand of shirts. But as the BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones, one of the more perceptive commentators on Obama ...
I spent much of yesterday out in the sun campaigning for a Yes vote in the 5 May referendum, first leafleting in Brick Lane in my home borough of Tower Hamlets and later in Paul Burstow's constituency of Sutton and Cheam. With no local elections taking place in London next month — unlike almost the ...
Camden Council have overturned a decision to allow a republican street party entitled 'Not the royal wedding' street party in Earlham Street, Covent Garden. From my understanding, there was no objections from the local police or community; it faced zero ... Continue reading →
Another thing that I wanted to write about that was in the news at the end of last month was something that demonstrated the impact that the Liberal Democrats are having in the coalition and something with direct consequences for Luton. Immigration is one of the hottest political issues. Polls consistently show it as being one of the top concerns of the British public. So it was no surprise that a major part of the Conservatives pitch to the voters at the General Election last year was a pledge to reduce the number of new immigrants entering the UK. The ...
Mon 11th
09:35
Norman Lamb-the big question not why he would resign, but why he wasn't a Health Minister in the fir...
Norman Lamb is clearly Secretary of State material, he shadowed the Health portfolio in the last parliament and yet when it came to handing out the Health jobs he didn't get one. Why? Had he been there might we have avoided this mess? Did his expertise and knowledge of the Lansley thinking exclude him?
Mon 11th
09:33
Success in politics: How we can measure whether the Lib Dems have been successful in government
Why didn't members of the Lib Dems call for Nick Clegg to stand down following the general election? He had said that success for him was to double the number of MPs in two parliaments and the party, under his leadership, had not only failed to increase the number of MPs but had actually lost ...
Cllr Claire Young (right) with Cllr Linda Boon and her dog Cocoa Back in December, Claire Young won the backing of South Glos Council for an investigation into whether a Green Dog Walkers scheme or similar could work in South Gloucestershire. When Claire asked recently about progress on the scheme, she was disappointed with the apparent lack of enthusiasm shown by the Conservative Cabinet Member responsible for Community Services for progressing the idea. Claire said, "Parish Councils might well be interested in taking up the idea. However for the scheme to work people across the area need to recognise the ...
What a wonderful thing it is to be in Financial Services. After being charged with securities fraud by the US Securities & Exchange Commission Goldman Sachs settled by paying a penalty of $550m. About as big a penalty as an ordinary mortal being fined 5p. They are not alone in pulling off this kind of 'punishment'. Nice work if you can get it.
The unelected President of the World is doing it again. Senior Lib Dems, Tories & Labour are all lining up to say that the News of The World scandal has no bearing on News Corp getting the rest of BSkyB. Some millions are to be paid, a few minions hung out to dry and all is well. Vince Cable stupidly spoke out against Murdoch & was thus 'unobjective' and had to have the decision taken away from him. Jeremy Hunt, who has spoken in favour of Murdoch, is given the decision. Editors of the Oxford English Dictionary take note. There ...
I know this is a bit late, but I'd completely forgotten to tell you about this before. My second foray into the world of F1 podcasting is now available. Ok, it's two weeks old, but it's worth listening to because in light of yesterday's events in Malaysia, yours truly's views on Nick Heidfeld seem to have been vindicated. Neal Brown is away this week, so Callum and I, hopefully with special guest, will be doing our review of yesterday's race in Malaysia. Topics I hope we will be discussing include the Nando/Lewis incident, will KERS be Red Bull's achilles heel, ...
I took this photograph in June 2009 a few months after construction began of the new Willow Tree Primary School on Greenland Street in Langworthy. As you can see from the state of the road, contractors heavy goods vehicles that delivered and removed building materials completed wrecked the road. We were promised this would be "looked into" by Urban Vision and the state of the road has regularly been reported to Community Committee with a view to insisting the building contractor return the road to the condition it was before they started their work. Today the condition of the road ...
Remember this — the unofficial Facebook Lib Dem fan group, We got Rage Against the Machine to #1, we can get the Lib Dems into office!, the internet election sensation? (Still going strong with over 146,000 members, by the way.) Well, the same guys are also behind an unofficial Yes campaign Facebook page also: YES to Alternative Vote on 5th May, with over 3,000 fans to date. The page is replete with links, photos and videos — serious, and erm not so serious — which you can share with your friends' network on Facebook. The group has managed to upset ...
Someone asked me: "Do you think that the Liberal Democrats are being drawn into things they do not want but have to accept in order to continue to have a say in what is being proposed. Are they being sucked so far in that they will disappear?"The difference between government and opposition is this. In opposition as the third party we could only propose amendments to proposals by the government.
Mon 11th
08:27
Public back Scottish Liberal Democrats' position on national police force and reject independence #s...
The BBC has gone and asked some voters what they think of 25 of the pledges in the various parties' manifestos and it seems that it's the Liberal Democrats who are most in tune with what people want on the issue of the Police. It does seem a little strange that they have done it before the SNP has published theirs, but they have included known SNP priorities. The idea of a single, national police force comes third from bottom, while maintaining the number of officers on the beat came second highest. The costs of creating a national force are ...
The interim report on the structure of the banks is long overdue and very welcome and I hope that the Government implements it in full. One important side effect though has been a confession by former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown that he got it wrong on the banks. According to the Daily Telegraph Mr. Brown has now claimed he had not understood how "entangled" the world's financial institutions had become: Mr Brown said: "We set up the FSA believing the problem would come from the failure of an individual institution. That was the big mistake. We didn't understand just how ...
There's not a vacancy, of course. And nobody's talking about a vacancy. We're all backing Nick. Some of us still dust down the "I agree with Nick" banners, T-shirts and badges. They bring a tear to the eye. They remind us of those dreamy days when, with just a couple of weeks to go to polling day, the LibDems were at over 30% in a cluster of opinion polls. Much has changed since then, of course. If a week's a long time in politics, a year is, in rough terms, about 52 times as long. But, most likely, if you ...
This morning's Western Mail has the first of a series of articles by the main parties' health spokesperson explaining their health pledges. To start off they have opted for Helen Mary Jones of Plaid Cymru whose piece is full of a rather predictable repetition: Plaid in government will roll out our programme of community wellbeing centres, with a cross-section of different health and care professionals directly employed by health boards, providing a range of services tailored to meet that particular community's needs. Plaid in government will offer all adults an annual health check to aid early detection and to support ...
It's coming up to the end of Mike Norris's term as Mayor of Needham Market, and as an old friend of Ros's - he now holds the Mid Suffolk District Council seat that Ros won in 1991 - we were invited to a charity lunch to raise funds for the Mayoral charity, Needham Market Community First Responders. I did feel rather underdressed, as a number of civic leaders were there, many wearing the chains of office. Sadly, Creeting St Peter doesn't have any chains of office, not even a lapel pin, but we were surrounded by friends and acquaintances (mostly ...
A special report from Reuters, not normally exactly a hotbed of anti-capitalism propoganda, brings some provocative research findings about Britain's financial sector: Research by Reuters shows ... the impact of any big bank departures on the economy, government finances and the City of London's pre-eminence as a financial centre would be extremely limited... In terms of taxes alone, Commercial Secretary to the Treasury and former banker James Sassoon told members of the House of Lords in February that large banking groups were expected to contribute around 20 billion pounds ($30 billion) in tax for the 2010-11 tax year. Crucially, though, ...
This question was asked in yesterday's Sunday Herald. Or, more accurately, was asked by Mr Leslie Strathearn of Glasgow and reported by The Sunday Herald. However, the paper obviously found his question to be of such monumental importance that it actually used it as a headline - in spite of the fact that it seems most readers' questions were concerned with more serious matters than making puerile jokes at the expense of the Liberal Democrats. Obviously The Herald is no longer synonymous with responsible journalism, but it is a shame it plumbs to these depths and treats its readers with ...
The two silliest reactions to the scandal of MPs' expenses were to reduce the number of MPs and to institute a recall system if their electorates felt that their MPs were not doing what they, their electorates,wanted. The first is, I believe, already law, and I suppose it won't do too much harm as, with modern communications, constituencies can afford to be somewhat larger than in the 18th century. Unfortunately it does seriously reduce the number of MPs available to subject the government to effective scrutiny, which is their real job.This is particularly serious now that so many MPs on ...
i) births and deaths 11 April 1940: birth of Sheila Dunn, who played Blossom Lefavre in The Daleks' Master Plan (1965), the computer voice of the Electromatic company in The Invasion (1968), and Petra Williams in Inferno (1970). She was married to television director Douglas Camfield 11 April 2005: death of John Bennett, who played General Finch in Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974) and Li H'sen Chang in The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977). ii) broadcast anniversaries 11 April 1964: broadcast of "The Sea of Death", first episode of the story we now call The Keys of Marinus. Arbitan, Keeper of ...
I don't mind who comes up with a good idea. I don't mind if it comes from those in power or those in opposition. When Any Questions came from Morecambe Lembit Opik told the Labour MP for Barrow, John Hutton that not only did the Liberal Democrats have policies on benefit fraud but the minister could take any he wanted to use. Just prior to this comment John Hutton had decided to throw a cheap insult about Liberal Democrats not having a policy on this subject. Strangely, when I checked the main manifestos, the Liberal Democrats were the only party ...
There's a slightly convoluted story that explains how I came to read this book, though not quite as convoluted as the story in the book itself. Ian Hocking originally wrote this book and self-published it a few years ago, then – despite good reviews – gave up on his writing career in the face of poor sales. Then recently, he decided to make this book available on Kindle for the rather bargain price of 70p and Ken MacLeod – who'd reviewed and enjoyed it when it was originally published – wrote a post about it, which tempted me to buy ...
