Can't let Robert Smith's Birthday and the 30th anniversary of my first ever gig go unmarked. Thanks Bob for all these years of reminding me that there is always a more miserable ****er than myself out there somewhere and to bloody well cheer up! 21/04/81 Portsmouth Guildhall 22/04/82 Southampton Gaumont 06/05/84 Portsmouth Guildhall 11/08/90 Crystal Palace 19/01/91 Wembley Arena 13/06/93 XFM 01/06/96 Earl's Court 22/04/00 Wembley Arena 25/05/00 Dallas Starplex 09/07/02 Hyde Park 11/12/03 Islington Academy 09/07/04 Move Festival 01/03/06 RAH 20/03/08 Wembley Arena 27/02/09 O2 Highlights Picture tour. Stayed behind after school. Got to front of stage when the ...
A few weeks after the botched attempt by the NO2AV campaign* to rig a debate in Belfast on the subject of the Referendum on the voting system on May 5, it might have been better for the NO campaign if Brian Wilson had stayed at home tonight as well.
Labour leaves the Gate Open Having done a fair amount of leafleting in my time, I always felt that if the householder was kind enough to allow use of their path and letterbox for a piece of election material they probably didn't want in the first place, its only polite to make sure the garden gate, if there is one, is firmly closed behind you when you leave! Not so Labour! As the leafleters made their way round this area they seem to have ignored this little nuance of not only politeness, but also safety; after all a child could ...
Today's visit to Dale Farm was to look at the current situation, where 90 families are on notice by Basildon Council that they are to be evicted, and will be given 28 days notice of the date for the eviction in a few days' time. We were exploring possible alternatives, and particularly the idea of an alternative site or sites for the short term, pending agreement on permanent sites either in Basildon or elsewhere in Essex. Some local authorities in the county have no Traveller sites, but given time, they could be persuaded to accommodate some of the Dale Farm ...
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Todays post delivered an unexpected 'No to AV' - 'One person, One Vote' leaflet declaring that none of my taxes had been used to print it. Page 2: highlights the '£250 million' cost of AV. An attractive model in a nurse uniform highlights that sum is equivalent to 8,107 nurses; that's a lot of nurses! I'm left unsure however if that £250 million also includes the 35,885 hip replacements or if we have to choose. Do we really need £130 million worth of voting machines to make AV work? The adjacent leaf shows the winning line of a race in ...
The common political theory is that Nick Clegg spent all his political capital on the AV referendum, took power in exchange for a 'miserable little compromise', and that losing could well brake the Lib Dem bird's left wing, grounding the party for good. However, if you take step back from the hyperbole and bile that now ...
This is the Union Inn, Market Harborough. You can find it on the Leicester Road - the town's canal basin is just behind it. It is also the pub where I used to do my underage drinking. It has been closed for some time and now Brooke House College wants to take it over as boarding accommodation for its students. Brook House takes foreign students who want British school qualifications and appears to be taking over the world. It recently bought the ground of Rothwell Town a few miles away as a home for its football academy. At this rate ...
MEPs have voted to create special labels for "meat from animals slaughtered without stunning", or words to that effect. The law requires all animals to be mechanically pre-stunned. But there is an exemption for kosher and halal slaughter. Kosher slaughter (shechitah) prohibits mechanical pre-stunning. Under the rules of shechitah, the animal has to be healthy and uninjured at the point of death, and you have to kill it painlessly so that it loses consciousness instantly. Anything else is considered inhumane and so is forbidden under the rules. So religious Jews believe that mechanically pre-stunned meat is not kosher and so ...
Over at the Telegraph, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has a piece setting out some of the reasons why people should vote to switch to the alternative vote next month. It's a good attempt to move the debate back to one about the necessity for change, rather than the rather facile, negative one that has dominated in recent weeks, and, yes, remind people of the acute anger which was felt over the abuse by MPs of their expenses system, and the symptomatic nature of that issue. Here's a sample of Nick's article: When I'm explaining the problems of the current ...
It's been a hot day. A beautiful April day. Just right for donning some summer clothes. I however, have been wearing my suit - all day long! This evening, Cardigan Town Council had one of it's two annual grants evenings in the Guildhall where the Council gives out cheques to worthy local causes. It's a lovely occasion and I had the great fortune during the last municipal last year of being able to chair both occasions when I was Mayor of Cardigan. The Chains of Ceredigion It was quite apt because this morning, we had a full meeting of Ceredigion ...
Today's Leicester Mercury has the news that the Conservative candidate for Mayor of Leicester, Ross Grant, has failed to provide his artwork for the Your Vote Matters booklet, which has been sent to all 229,777 voters in the city. Both Grant and his agent declined to give the Mercury any explanation of this omission. You can download the booklet yourself from the Leicester City Council website. My sources tell me that the Conservatives' attempt to demand that Grant be included in this online version was rebuffed. If you do read the booklet you will see that Amanda Anderson, the UKIP ...
[IMG: LDV Facebook app] It can be fun to let people know when you've been campaigning - but it's also an extremely effective way to encourage more people to campaign too. If someone sees that their friends are doing campaigning, they are more likely to campaign themselves. And so the Lib Dem Voice Facebook app (kindly part-funded by Liberal Democrats Online), which makes it easy to post a Facebook status update and/or send a tweet about the campaigning you've been doing. You can find the Lib Dem Voice application here. Do take a look, give it a whirl and help ...
My new book is now out from Lulu.com . As always, I've not yet received a proof copy, so caveat emptor for a couple of days. Ebook versions will be available from Amazon (Kindle) and Smashwords (ePub) from tomorrow night. I'll update the 'my books' page then. The PDF version is currently available from Lulu. ...
The campaign to save the Shropshire village schools threatened with closure is the subject of an article in today's Independent by Jeremy Sutcliffe. It concentrates on the schools at Stiperstones and Lydbury North. Sutcliffe quotes the information officer of the National Association of Small Schools: Small schools bring significant benefits, not just in sustaining rural communities. Ministers should see small schools as assets not liabilities. They offer a family-friendly, community-based model for education which is too precious to lose."The article also reveals that the Hereford diocese of the Church of England is looking at alternatives which could mean the five ...
A great day canvassing today, really positive comments and we ran out of window posters. We usually take the posters for residents to place in their windows to demonstrate support, running out this morning was a first for us. One thing that is coming out strong on the doorstep is that people want to know where the candidates live, that was not such an issue in the parliamentary campaign. I find this fact very interesting because only 2 of the 4 candidates live in the constituency.
The Welsh Liberal Democrats will expose an example of the waste and inefficiency of Labour and Plaid Cymru in government on each day of the Welsh general election campaign A bridge too far? It was revealed last August that the Labour-Plaid government spent £190,000 on a bridge to help dormice to cross a by-pass near Pontypridd. Newport built a similar dormouse bridge for just £22,000.
BoingBoing has news that Canada is to enforce a law that bans the broadcasting of any election results before all polls in the country have closed. Canada spans several time zones and elections administrators worry that results from "earlier" zones might influence voters further west. The law, which carries penalties up to a $25,000 fine or five years in prison, was introduced to stop the broadcasting of early results on the radio. Now it is being applied to private citizens' Twitter and Facebook accounts. Kerry McCarthy is 46.
It's remarkably wonderful to read that Charles Kennedy has come on board the Coalition Express a year after abstaining in the vote on it. He explains his move in Prospect magazine here in an article entitled "I've learned to love the coalition": Plenty of commentators are busy trying to paint the Liberal Democrats into a crisis. We would be well advised to ignore them. Personally, I'm not of the meltdown mentality. Politics is a marathon, never a sprint. But there are other reasons for optimism, too. I admit that this coalition wasn't exactly my preferred option. I've always considered myself ...
"Organised religion is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children." (From: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything)
Tory Chairwoman, Baroness Warsi, must now be favourite for the chop in any Cabinet reshuffle. The car crash of an interview with Sky's Adam Boulton that is doing the rounds of the interweb is so dire it is worth repetition... It's not just a one off though. Sayeeda Warsi is usually pretty dreadful when interviewed or when involved on a panel discussion even when she has strong arguments to put across. But here her material is about as thin as it can get illustrating the paucity of the NO to AV campaign's arguments. And given her job is about communicating ...
Here I am voting Yes to AV in the referendum this afternoon.It's the only referendum I have been able to vote in during my lifetime. So it's a big deal. Hence the photo. PS. I have carefully ensured that you can't see the text on the ballot paper in the photo. I know returning officers can be funny about that sort of thing....
It's barbecue weather for the Easter weekend, which is great news, especially if, like me, you intend to spend the vast majority of it outside delivering leaflets. I suspect I shall go golden brown in the kind of salmon pink way I always do, but hopefully you will receive your latest election Focus leaflet and ...
Another little soapbox incident...Theresa May MP suggested a suitable way to address (falling) antisocial behaviour levels is to remove the offenders' iPods and other items.I'm sorry? The Tories had the temerity to call Labour the creators of a nanny-state but are now proposing that the government take responsibility for punishing people through removal of personal items?!Firstly, this measure is
If one believed the right wing black top tabloids, our country is over run with immigrants, assylum seekers and other aberritions. The truth is very different. But the representation in the press is extremely misleading. Take today's eye catching headline in The Evening Standard: £1,500 a week to house immigrant family of 12 The family, 'at a cost to the taxpayer' are housed in Tower Hamlets.
From Political Wire. The bit about Lisa Murkowski must be making La Palin particularly sick. Palin sinks like a stone in Alaska A new Dittman Research poll in Alaska shows Sarah Palin's favorable rating is upside down at 36% to 61%. For comparison, the U.S. Senate candidate Palin backed, Joe Miller (R), is even worse off at 18% to 73%. And her arch nemesis, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), is at a sky high approval of 71% to 27%.
It seems the election has arrived - literally to my doorstep. Our postal votes arrived at noon today. I have done my bot for democracy, voted and the envelope is ready to go back down to the council house. One less thing to do in life! I have been busy out in Brislington. We have a wide range of literature going out to the voters. A3, letters, cards, calling leaflets. I was out pounding the streets earlier in the sun dropping off blue letters. Great weather for it. Not long to go - two more weeks. I hope Brislington does ...
I think this interview with Baroness Warsi is going to be featuring on my 'mid week collection' for about the next 10 years. It's brilliant. If you're Yes to AV, click on the link , sit back and enjoy. Hats off to Liberal Conspiracy for blogging it and Adam Boulton for doing the interview!
Sometimes one simple example summarises the wider picture rather neatly: [IMG: Geo-location graph: Emirates Stadium]
Thu 21st
17:03
NotoAv ahead by a mile but Royal bunting everywhere...is it gas oven/head insertion time?
No. But Billy Bragg made a good point earlier this week. He said that the whole country seems to be getting excited about something they can do nothing about and which will not change their lives - i.e the Royal Wedding, while they seem to be taking no interest in something which they can influence and which could make a difference to their lives for a generation – the AV referendum. Nil desperandum. It is too early to write off the good common sense of the British people. I am starting to see people waking up to the referendum and ...
Very sad to hear of the death of Tul Bahadur Pun, a former Gurkha soldier and one of the figureheads of the campaign to gain settlement rights for veterans. I was involved with the Gurkha campaign thanks to my friend Peter Carroll and took photos at many of their events. The photo shows Pun meeting Nick Clegg prior to the march on Downing Street at which Pun and a number of his colleagues gave back their medals in protest at the refusal at that stage by the Labour Government to allow them to stay in the UK.
The AV referendum, it seems, has been another perfect opportunity for Baroness Warsi to tour the country talking absolute claptrap about an issue she patently does not understand – not to mention the irony of an unelected member of the ... Continue reading →
I chaired a meeting last night of Stansted Parish Council at which we welcomed Nick Barton, Managing Director of Stansted Airport Ltd. Relations between local councils and BAA had been soured because of their advocacy of a second runway at the airport. The Coalition Government has ruled out this out. I sensed that Mr. Barton who has been in charge at the airport for the last six months wanted to build bridges with the local community. He wanted the airport to be 'a source of pride for local residents not a source of fear.' Passenger throughput has been in decline ...
The Audit Review I requested on the town centre refurbishment works has been completed and is now a public document. The report doesn't make comfortable reading as it exposes mistakes made by the council. However I believe that a full and comprehensive review was necessary to fully understand why the project experienced the difficulties it ...
Back in the 90s, I can recall reading a review of one of the novels in Wingrove's Chung Kuo series and thinking that it sounded like an interesting read. Over the years, I've seen copies of different books in the series in various shops and thought 'ah yes, one day I'll find the first one and start reading that'. Of course, since then, the books have drifted out of print and sightings have become rarer and rarer, but someone out there has clearly been thinking of people like me, as they've now returned. In fact, they've returned bigger than before ...
NB: this post is in response to a person I consider a friend. I hope I can still say that after she's read it... I can understand people who hate the Tories. I'm from Yorkshire. I can understand the disquiet of lots of members of my party at being in coalition with the Tories; I share it. What I don't understand is what people who claim not to be Labour supporters hope to achieve by continually bashing the Lib Dems when what they are actually objecting to is Conservative party policy which we are actively trying to restrain. What do ...
As you will see from here and other places online, the YES! campaign in Northern Ireland has been the length and breadth of the province - from Enniskillen, to Armagh, Belfast, Londonderry/Derry, Coleraine, Portrush as well as making the trip to Rathlin Island. Today the campaign is out and about in South Belfast connecting with [...]
Here's a $64,000 question: how can we possibly expect decent digital policy to be made when too many of our politicians are technologically illiterate, and when our main political institution itself refuses to change with the times? I do not mean, of course, that most MPs are incapable of using a computer or sending an email. In fact, a survey in 2009 found, perhaps surprisingly, that 92% of MPs use email, while 83% have a personal website of some kind. (Perhaps we should be wary of how much even that means, given what some of these sites look like!) However, ...
Recycling rebate – £637k coming back to Stockport Where council residents do especially well with recycling, the Council gets a rebate on the waste levy (the amount Stockport, and the other nine councils, pay to the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority). Thanks to excellent recycling performance from Stockport residents, since the introduction of the improved recycling service, Stockport is set to receive the biggest rebate on the 2010/11 waste levy. Stockport is set to get £637k back from the WDA. Only two other Greater Manchester councils have qualified for rebates this year Oldham are due to get £338k back and ...
Leader of the Liberal Democrats in Local Government, Cllr Richard Kemp, has welcomed the move today by two leading Liberal Democrat peers, Baroness Hamwee and Lord Bradshaw, for Police Commissioners to be piloted in certain areas before it is rolled ... Continue reading →
There's an article of mine over on Lib Dem Voice "Digital local government". A quick quote: Liberal Democrats believe in community politics; we believe that the best decisions are made when citizens are empowered and work with their elected representatives to find solutions to problems. We now need to translate these beliefs into rights and entitlements that make sense in our digital world. Read the whole article.
It is ironic that the party which has a long reputation for distrusting its leaders, and is most democratic about letting members choose its policies, should also be the one where there is so little debate about its recent activities. Over the last year there has been much for party members to discuss but in the excitement of government this all seems to have been forgotten. For example, the 2010 general election was a failure for us. We had a great bounce with the debates and a lot of interest in our policies, but we were unable to deal with ...
A lot of people still aren't sure how AV works and this isn't helped by the Yes campaign not explaining it and the No campaign lying about it. So here's a simple explanation that doesn't take ages to read: Under AV you get the same ballot paper you do at the moment but instead of putting a cross next to your favourite candidate you instead rank the candidates in order of preference. You put a 1 by the candidate you genuinely like best; 2 by your second preference, and so on. You can even just mark your ballot paper with ...
If so, then sign up to my free monthly newsletter here. I think you'll like it, which you might expect me to say, but it's also getting consistently by far the best open rates on any email list I've run - which suggests other people like it a lot too. All the usual small print applies - you can leave the list at any time, I won't sell your data to anyone else, it's all kept private and secure and so on.
The Welsh Liberal Democrats have today highlighted the policies that they believe will be necessary to address and turn around Wales' underperformance in schooling. Successive reports from Estyn and PISA have been highly critical of educational standards in Wales and GCSE and A level results in Wales have fallen behind England for the first time. Under Labour and Plaid Cymru, Wales spends £604 less per pupil on education than in England. Welsh Liberal Democrats are promoting carefully costed plans to attack the spending gap, providing more money for schools by targeting additional money at pupils who need it the most ...
I'm sure many have seen the news that Apple tracks where you go. Actually, it's not new and Apple aren't tracking you – your iPhone knows where you are but doesn't send out the data. A Bad Guy™ would still need to get their hands on your iPhone (Or PC/Mac, with a backup on) to get the data. And if they can gain access to either of those, well, they could just as easily install their own application that will track far more than just location – such as contacts, recent calls and SMSes. Actually, it's really not that hard ...
"What to do about copyright?" In many ways this is a tired, fraught, complex and frustrating debate. It involves lawyers, economists, policy makers, campaigners of varying stripes, international legislation and huge corporate interests. It has been raging for hundreds of years. Change can be painfully slow. That means every so often it is important to revisit your principles. Organisations such as Open Rights Group believe in the astonishing potential of the internet to expand our creative, economic and democratic horizons. And we believe that this potential is partly dependent on a flexible system of copyright that facilitates the reuse of ...
I rather like this video from the Electoral Commission explaining how the alternative vote and first past the post - the two options available in the May 5th referendum - work:
The Yes campaign in the AV referendum has been far too civilised for its own good. In a referendum campaign that is founded on relatively low levels of awareness of the issue people will be voting on, there is a vacuum, as I have been finding out on the doorstep; and as ever where there is a vacuum in politics, into it steps the politics of ignorance, bigotry and fear. This is a point not lost on the assortment of far-Right nutjobs, past-it Labour dinosaurs and sleaze-merchants fronting the NO campaign. Their campaign has been fought squarely in the gutter. ...
The Welsh Liberal Democrats are the only party to have published a full set of costings as a part of their election manifesto. The costings set out in detail how the Welsh Liberal Democrats would fund key policies, including: · Creating jobs and improving our economy by offering new companies £2,000 for staff training if they provide jobs to unemployed young people. · Tackling the spending gap, providing more money for schools by targeting additional money at the 80,000 pupils who need it the most so that schools can afford to invest in the things that really matter, such as ...
Good Friday and the crucifixion of Jesus in modern day would be a debate about crime and punishment. Jesus was punished for something he did not do and was nailed to the cross to remove him from society so that he would not be a threat to other people. Now we have people who are imprisoned to remove them from society but most of them have actually done something criminal. Our prisons are overcrowded and many young people are being put away for what is said to be too long a period. This was the debate at the Spring Conference ...
Sorry if this sounds like I'm turning into Emily Post, but I wish the media would stop illustrating the story about David Cameron and his apparent vacillations over what to wear to the Royal Wedding with the wrong images. The debate is whether the Prime minister should wear a lounge suit (a business suit in modern parlance) or morning dress. The trouble is that media outlets such as the BBC and Conservative Home as well as others are insisting on using pictures of white tie and tails to illustrate the morning suit option. At the top of this post is ...
Obviously this headline has no truth in it (but then the no campaign is built exclusively on made up stuff). But if you use the first past the post system, the Cup belongs to Leyton Orient. They won it fair and square. Throughout the competition every team has played at least one game. Back in December, in the Tuesday night replay Orient put 8 goals past Droylesden. From what I can see,
Kate Bermingham of Chorlton Beerfest has been in touch to remind me that the next Chorlton Beerfest is at St Clements on July 7th & 8th. Its usually a good event and one of those rare occasions I drink bitter. Not sure why I don't search these pints out again...
Lib Dem Voice have launched a new Facebook app to make it easy for you to let your friends on Facebook and Twitter know what campaigning you've been doing. This is a great way of building up a buzz around our campaigning - and the more someone sees their friends have been campaigning, the more likely they are to join in. You get a list of actions - select one and publish it to your newsfeed. Some actions are of the simple "I have done" variety whilst others have the option to add a quantity, such as the number of ...
Yate's annual Easter Egg Hunt takes place on Easter Monday (25 April) from 10 am to 12 noon in Kingsgate Park. You have to complete the Treasure Hunt to win a chocolate Easter Egg. It's open to all children aged 12 and under, with a special section for children aged 5 and under. Come along with an Easter Bonnet to win a prize!
The devolution of powers and responsibilities from central to local government – a major commitment of the Coalition – has long been an aspiration of Liberal Democrats. Centrally-driven, over-prescriptive bureaucracy is bad for democracy. But there is a danger that devolution could result in disenfranchising people if their democratic entitlements are not defined, recognised and upheld. Before we go any further we need to distinguish between two ways in which residents relate to their local council: Residents are consumers (or users) of local council services. Residents are citizens. They have the right to vote in elections, of course. Beyond that, ...
We're trying something a little different today – three much longer posts than usual, all on the same policy theme. As the party currently has an Information Technology and Intellectual Policy Working Group at work, we've picked the same topic for today's theme. Today's trio of posts are going to be: Mary Reid on Digital local government The Independent View: Jim Killock and Peter Bradwell of the Open Rights Group on How to legislate for the digital economy Julian Huppert writes... Digital Policy in a Coalition Government For more about the Policy Working Group's work, see the original consultation paper ...
It's campaign time, so I have been knocking on doors a lot recently. The most disaffected group of people I have spoken to have been Labour voters who tactically voted Lib Dem at the general election. Disaffected because they got the exact opposite of what they voted for. I can't say I blame them. They had no hope of getting a Labour candidate elected and the Lib Dem vote backfired. So I would say to this group, vote Yes To AV. AV allows you to genuinely rate the candidates in order of preference and tactical voting really doesn't work under ...
Except they're not listening to me. In fact they are not listening to any of us. That's why the AV turnout is going to be disturbingly low... I've blogged previously about my frustrations at getting anyone to pay attention to the good things the Lib Dems are doing; it's basically because so many people have lost their faith in us (thanks to both real and perceived u-turns) that while we may be doing an awful lot right, no-one is willing to engage. I'm afraid much the same is true about the AV referendum. My friend Peter - who is a ...
Cornwall will no longer be taking part in a key pilot scheme to make sure people are registered to vote as a result of the Government cutting funding for the project. Despite being judged to have made the best bid of any authority, the Government said they were prepared to give Cornwall only £70,000 of the £280,000 it would have cost to run the pilot. The scheme in question was to be a data matching exercise which would have allowed Cornwall Council to have the data of a range of other public bodies such as the DVLA and Revenue and ...
Are the wheels finally beginning to come off? It would seem that others are belatedly beginning to pick up on the financial mismanagement of the council budget by the previous administration. That there was is not in doubt and in my experience it was pretty widespread. The only question to be answered is, was it because of fiscal incompetence or deliberate and calculated disregard of the law? The latest news to leak out is how the Labour administration took Section 106 money and used it like raiding a child's piggy bank (and in the case of Bugs Bottom literally) to ...
Conservative controlled West Lindsey District Council have not exactly adopted the 'Dragons Den' approach to sending out the ballot papers to postal voters. There was a printing delay for the 9 contested parish /town council elections, which has resulted in ... Continue reading →
Lord Bonkers tackles his readers' problems. I am currently caught on the horns of a particularly thorny dilemma. ALDC tells me leaflets have to look just so. However, our local riso wrangler tells me there is "too much black". Which of these party institutions is correct? - Anxious of Notts. The Association of Liberal Councillors, as I still like to think of it, is in many ways a victim of its own success. Once a bastion of sturdy provincials with a healthy disrespect for the party's nobs and bigwigs (its very name was enough to make little Steel gibber), it ...
Reporting period:- 09/03/2011- 11/04/2011 Number of calls for area:- 200 Number of community related calls:- 37 Alcohol seizures:- 3 There have been 3 seizures from underage youths on the Town Centre. The locations are as follows, The Telescopes, Wesley Street/John St from the same youths and Genesis way. Dwelling Burglaries:- 0 Burglary (other):- 0 Bogus callers for the whole of the Consett area:- 0 Anti- social Behaviour and motorcycle incidents:- 15 Anti Social Behaviour Personal: 10. Please note these figures are from the start of April as the codes have now changed for Rowdy Nuisance/ASB. These incidents relate to all ...
In a piece for Prospect magazine, published today, former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy gives his backing to the coalition government. Though Kennedy didn't vote in favour of the coalition last May, abstaining instead, he now backs it: I admit that this coalition wasn't exactly my preferred option. I've always considered myself in the reforming, centre-left tradition, so a centre-right arrangement puts my compass in a spin ... But those of us who genuinely wanted to explore other routes—from a rainbow coalition to a minority tory administration— were sunk when figures like David Blunkett and John Reid were so against ...
The cross benchers are revolting. Well that is the distinct impression we get from today's Independent, which highlights complaints from the convener of the crossbenchers in the Lords, Baroness D'Souza that the House of Lords is full-up. She says that the upper house has been over-run by an "avalanche of not-so-distinguished peers" which has turned the chamber into a "very unpleasant place" to be. Her main objection appears to be towards the political appointees who she says have brought "yah-boo" politics into the Lords. The paper says that David Cameron has created 117 new peers since last May, an unprecedented ...
Oh good. The Metro reports today that babies who persistently cry, or have trouble sleeping or eating are more likely to develop behaviour problems (ADHD).Rather than promoting sensible parenting and controlling children, I can suppose we will now see children being excused further from bad behaviour as a result.'Little Johnny always had behaviour problems, even as a child, that's why he stabbed
I have just received a leaflet from the "No to AV" campaign. It is a four-fold A5 size, hence containing four times as much information (or misinformation) as the flimsy single sheet A5 leaflets I've been distributing for the "Yes" campaign, in full colour on very good quality paper. It puts some superficially convincing argument, which do not, of course, bear serious scrutiny, but then, most recipients won't give it serious scrutiny. That, I presume, is the trick of propaganda. It came through through the post rather than being distributed by volunteers. This, and the quality of the leaflet, means ...
Yesterday, along with one of my councillor ward colleagues, I participated in the second "walkabout" of the week - this time round the Logie Estate, with council officers from the Housing Department, Dundee Contract Services and the Waste Management Department. We noted a number of issues but were also pleased with progress on matters raised at the previous walkabout late last year. I also participated in a lengthy City Council Scrutiny Committee meeting yesterday. There were many very positive reports on recent inspections - in the West End, Harris Academy, community learning in the Harris Academy Cluster Area, the Whitetop ...
i) births and deaths 21 April 1927: birth of Gerald Flood, who played Kamelion in 1983 and 1984, and also King John in The King's Demons (1983). 21 April 1935: birth of Anthony Read, script editor of Doctor Who from Underworld (1978) to The Armageddon Factor (1979), co-writer of The Invasion of Time (1978) and writer of The Horns of Nimon (1979-80). 21 April 2002: death of Terry Walsh, stuntman and actor in many Old Who stories. ii) broadcast anniversaries 21 April 1973: broadcast of third episode of Planet of the Daleks. The Doctor and the Thals escape from the ...
Bury Council is consulting on their new Affordable Housing Strategy. The strategy highlights the reasons for the shortage of affordable housing in Bury and outlines the mechanisms and partnerships we will embrace to maximise provision and respond to demand. They would particularly like your views on the following: Do you think that we are heading in the right direction with this strategy in terms of responding to housing need and meeting demand? What areas do you consider to be the greatest priority for affordable housing development? Do you have any further ideas on how we can increase the supply of ...
soniclipstick: Sarah Jane Field Report - 20th April 2011 - the Tribute Edition, part 1 Big list of tributes - the ones that caught my eye listed separately. (tags: elisabethsladen) YouTube - Elisabeth Sladen has died. Russell T Davies speaks (BBC News, 19.4.11) BBC / Russell T Davies tribute (tags: elisabethsladen) iainjcoleman: Elisabeth Sladen Iain Coleman's tribute (tags: elisabethsladen) rarelylynne: Thank you, Elisabeth Sladen Lynne Thomas' tribute. (tags: elisabethsladen) The Doctor Who News Page: Doctors Pay Tribute to Elisabeth Sladen The Doctors' tributes. (tags: elisabethsladen) Tom Baker Newsletter | Latest news | Lis Sladen | Sarah Jane Tom Baker's tribute. ...
Prestwich Methodist Youth Association, the volutnary group which runs the "Phoenix Centre" – Prestwich's youth centre in St Mary's Park – needs your support to help in it succeed in its application for funding to support some of its youth activities. At the Co-operative' "Join the Revolution" site you can 'vote' for the PMYA application. Prestwich Methodist Youth Association have been working for several years to develop youth provision with young people within the Prestwich Area. The ROC iniative provides young people with safe, fun, enjoyable and positive activities over two nights per week, one of them being a Friday ...
Who then were these gods that pushed men about like robots and sang epics through their lips? They were voices whose speech and directions could be as distinctly heard by the Iliadic heroes as voices are heard today by certain epileptic and schizophrenic patients, or just as Joan of Arc heard her voices. Julian Jaynes: ...
I was considering the question of the current jobs market and the issue of unemployment. Edinburgh, where I live, has many high grade jobs paying well with many benefits. Professional services, the banks, and insurance companies all offer many high paid jobs. There is some ridiculous stat that over half the houses worth more than £500,000 in this city are owned by someone who works for one of the banks! But the jobs market is changing. There is an underclass developing of workers on short term contracts or relatively low paid staff working for small businesses in outsourced jobs - ...
Copied from the Times website. The poll of those certain to vote on May 5 shows that on the constituency vote for Holyrood, the SNP is on 45 per cent, with Labour on 34, the Conservatives on 10 and the Liberal Democrats on 9. On the regional list vote, the SNP is on 42 per cent, Labour is on 32 per cent, the Conservatives on 10, the Liberal Democrats on 8 and the Scottish Greens on 6. According to a seat projection by Professor John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, if repeated on May 5 the SNP would have 61 MSPs, ...
I am standing in the elections for Morecambe Town Council and for Lancaster City Council so I have been out knocking on doors and delivering leaflets. Yesterday morning I was placing one of our leaflets with a small photo of Nick Clegg on top of some No to AV leaflets with a big photo of Nick Clegg which is basically just an insult. A few hours later I mentioned this to someone and they replied "so Nick Clegg doesn't want AV?" I did explain how important I (and Nick) thought it was to vote yes to AV but it made ...
