The news that Andrew has died suddenly and unexpectedly, has come as a bit of a shock, really. As a bureaucrat rather than an activist, we didn't come into contact much until I became a member of the Regional Executive in London. Andrew was seen as one of those people who got things done, and didn't suffer fools gladly - luckily, he had a generous spirit in terms of foolishness. He was also very highly regarded as a campaign organiser. Much has been said already about Andrew, and Callum Leslie and Caron Lindsay have said much of it far better ...
A couple of days ago, OUSA very helpfully provided an indication of when OU students might be able to gain some clarity on what OU course fees might be in autumn 2012. I first wrote about this topic a month ago, when it looked as if it might not be until the spring of next year that any clarity would be forthcoming. At that time, Four in Ten (a campaign from the OU) said: We hope to be able to announce how much OU courses starting from September 2012 will cost by Spring 2012. The new information from OUSA suggests ...
Like most people I thoroughly enjoyed today's fine weather. I spent most of the morning attending a meeting in Bootle. I had a choice of transport: the train, the motorbike or the car. It was too hot to get the bike out and sit around in thick motorcycle clothing. The train was a possibility, but the car won. We have a convertible Smart car and I thoroughly enjoyed the drive to and from Bootle. If only I had some hair for the wind to blow through! I took time off from my paperwork this afternoon and sat in the garden ...
The decision by the Lib Dems conference committee to grant the police sweeping powers to vet representatives has been met with near universal opposition from the party's grassroots. Conference reps will need to prove their identity through a passport, driving licence or NI number and provide a passport quality photo and these details will be kept by the police indefinitely. This goes against the principle that the conference is the sovereign body of the party and local parties can send who they want to it. The reason for this police intrusion is that old canard 'security'. Chair of the conference ...
Lib Dem councillors Alistair Dow and Dave Radcliffe have announced new arrangements for advice surgeries in Selly Oak and Selly Park.From 1 June 2011 the advice surgery times for local residents are:First Monday of each month (except during August and on Bank Holidays)7pmSports Centre, Selly Park Technology College for Girls, Pershore Road entrance (Location Map)Third Monday of each month (except
From the BBC News website: West Sussex council defends decision to buy llamas
... for Dundee WestFest. At lunchtime today, I attended the photo event flyover for WestFest's Giant Tay Whale (see news release from West Fest below) - although the flight was a bit late so, having another commitment, I missed the actual flyover itself! But many thanks to WestFest for the photo sent tonight! Dundee WestFest has created at rival to the The Uffington white horse and the Cerne Abbas giant. A huge drawing of the Tay Whale covering the size of 3 football pitches has been marked out on the Riverside pitches next to the Tay and Dundee airport. The ...
...in search of capitals 26 & 27. Will let you know how I get on.
A tale of Sefton Labour Party Roy Jenkins-the best home Secretary in my lifetime-wrote a book called 'Mr Balfour's Poodle'. The poodle was a Tory in fact it was 500 of them. As Lloyd George remarked they were; '"Five hundred men, accidently chosen from among the ranks of the unemployed". They were the House of Lords. They abused their power at the behest of Mr Balfour -the Tory leader- to cling on to unwarranted privileges in the teeth of the will of the elected government. Well they were Tories and as Vince reminded us they are "ruthless, calculating and tribal" ...
Canvassing with Caroline Pidgeon and others in Harrow Something that regularly irritates me in the news and politics is when an average figure is reported and then someone adds, "... but in some areas it is even worse..." without ever mentioning that, averages being what averages are, that in other areas things are actually better than the average. However, on some occasions it's fair to point out that the average isn't really the whole picture, especially when there's a mean versus median difference or when the proportion of places that are worse than average is so high so as to ...
Well, I've been suspended from the Liberal Democrat Party following a complaint by Simon Holbrook. I can't say much more than that (obviously) as contrary to the complaints procedure I haven't been provided with a copy of the complaint. Having written that, if he is concentrating on his career in the Environment Agency he's showing ...
Another visit to Rutland's most celebrated fictional peer... I am often asked what accounts for the sad demise of Lembit Opik. Having contrived to lose a seat that we Liberals had held for all but four of the last 130 years, he was last heard of filming a "reality moving television" series with Michael Barrymore, whose once-stellar career went into sharp decline after [redacted] the shallow end. I fear this will do nothing to restore his credibility (Barrymore, I mean, obviously). But what, as I say, accounts for Opik's demise? I feel Lord Acton, at whose feet I sat as ...
TweetI joined the Liberal Democrats in part because of its strong belief in civil liberties and the belief that power should be distributed not hoarded. A belief that Labours fetishisation of the collection and hoarding of data was entirely wrong. So I was somewhat surprised to see a somewhat surprising amount of information required to register for conference in Birmingham. Requiring National Insurance Number, Or Passport number or even Driving licence details, that does not go to the party, but instead to Greater Manchester Police on behalf of West Midlands Police or at least so I believe. I've always held ...
Protest has been growing at the decision of the Liberal Democrats' conference committee to allow West Midlands Police to impose new security conditions upon representatives attending the party's Annual Conference in September. Zoe O'Connell at Complicity provides a summary of the argument against this move - "We can hardly defend our position on being against ID Cards if we give in to this. We're basically admitting that the database state is required to ensure our security" - and links to some other posts on the subject. There is an online petition, which I have already signed. Liberal Democrat Voice has ...
TweetIt's been a very very very long time since I've done this. 1. @AndyReeves An inspirational man. You will be missed. Your kindness and energy drove us all on. 2. @SpideyAndMickey What can I say about Spidey? Nothing that hasn't been ... Continue reading →
I never met Andrew Reeves in person. In fact we only ever exchanged a handful of tweets and one single solitary email. That email was sent to me when I was in the deepest pit of depression last year when ... Continue reading →
I have been offline all day so I did not hear the shocking news about the death of Andrew Reeves until this evening. Read Caron's Musings for a characteristically generous to him and links to many more.
[IMG: Streamago] Streamago is the new interactive live broadcasting tool from Tiscali. So it says on the tin, but what that actually means is it's yet another example of what used to require expensive equipment now being available as a free web service - in this case the ability to run a live broadcast over the web. You can use an iPhone or iPad, or a PC's webcam, to do the filming and rather than, say, saving the footage up to YouTube for others to subsequently watch, instead you can broadcast live. You can sign up it and get viewing ...
Is it really last September since In last blogged? Well it is and sadly that was also due to a death. But I suppose blogs are good places for people to share their memories and to see how other people are feeling when something tragic happens. And that for me is what Andrew Reeves' death ...
Of all the sentences I never thought I'd write, the title of this post comes fairly near the top of the list. I knew when I saw the name of the person calling me on my phone early this morning that something bad had happened. I'm in touch with this friend in some way several times a week but we never speak on the phone. I really felt for him, raw with shock as he was, having to pass on the news that our friend and Scottish Liberal Democrat Director of Campaigns Andrew Reeves had died of a heart attack ...
I'm fast discovering the most interesting part about the Evening Standard is the Business Section. Especially for politics. Today's highlight has been a whole page ad taken out by Lloyds TSB to sell themselves as business lenders and advisors. Not only does it mask it's self as an article, it is shamelessly self congratulatory, reiterating their 'compassionate' side, emphasising their
Somebody once referred to me as "the Boris Johnson of the Liberal Democrats, but without the charm". This was back around the time when Boris Johnson was most famous for offending people and it was intended to be a terrible insult, but I thought it was a marvellous idea. I wouldn't mind having either Mr Johnson's bank balance or his record of winning elections. Anyway, I went last night to LBC's Talk London event, at which London's Mayor was grilled by members of the public on a variety of matters, a few of which even related to things that his ...
Your Itinerary British Airways booking reference: ****** Passenger(s) MISS KATIE SUTTON Flight number BA0285 From Heathrow (London) Terminal 5 To San Francisco International (CA) Depart 22 Jul 2011 11:30 Arrive 22 Jul 2011 14:20 Cabin * Operated by British Airways Flight number BA0286 From San Francisco International (CA) Terminal I To Heathrow (London) Depart 31 Jul 2011 18:55 Arrive 1 Aug 2011 13:00 Cabin * Operated by British Airways * staff and family travelling on a personal bookable concession are confirmed into a unique Staff Travel selling class indicated by an asterisk, as the cabin class above. Your card has ...
It's Friday. It's five o'clock. Here's a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week: 5 most-read stories on LDV this week Opinion: The need for a radical manifesto (43 comments) by George Potter Lib Dems appoint three senior Campaigns heads (15 comments) by Helen Duffett Chris Huhne's election expenses: once again, nothing to see here, move along (59 comments) by Mark Pack Better news for Chris Huhne; more bad news for Guido (15 comments) by Nick Thornsby What Guido Fawkes didn't tell you about the Eastleigh meeting last night (38 comments) by Mark Pack 5 sample LDV Members' ...
I'm not sure why but my week is going to be summed up by some little Danish people and no I don't mean Sandi Toksvig. First up of course we lost Jeff Conaway who played Kenickie in Grease so here is Summer Loving, I believe it is now officially summer, so where is the loving? Then of course there were announcements about The Hobbit films titles part will be The Unexpected Journey while part two will be There and Back Again. If you can't wait here is a little sneak peek of the filming going on somewhere in New Legoland. ...
Stonewall use the Twitter name stonewalluk however this is a misnomer. They only operate in England, Wales and Scotland. I thought I'd take their sexual health survey and only got so far when I got this page when I couldn't answer with one of the four countries of the UK (only the three listed above were available). Yup you guessed it another UK wide organisation that doesn't want to include Northern Irish data in its reporting. Which if they are presenting this data to Parliament ends ups being misleading, as it is not inclusive.
Twitter has announced that it will soon open up a native photo sharing service. Rather than using an external service like Embed.ly to retrieve thumbnails, all the data is embedded within Twitter Entities. So, if you request a status using "include_entities=true", you will be able to grab the image and display the thumbnail using the following code. function twitter_get_media($status) { if($status->entities->media) { $url = $width = $height = $media_html = "<a href=\"" . $url . "\" target='_blank'>"; $media_html .= "<img src=\"" . $url . ":thumb\" width=\"" . $width . "\" height=\"" . $height . "\" />"; $media_html ...
Anyone who follows Liberal Democrat users of twitter will have found out today about the death of Andrew Reeves at the tragically young age of 43. Well liked and respected across the UK he would have been amused to see that he was trending on Twitter for a large part of the day. There are already many online tributes to Andy (two of my favourites are here and here), all from people who knew him personally and loved him. I find myself in the rather strange emotional place of losing contact with someone I liked yet never actually met in ...
Murder in Samarkand by craig-murray Back to the Disgruntled Radical's birthday party because some of you have asked about Craig Murray's book 'Murder in Samarkand' which was the chosen book for erstwhile Merseyside Euro MP Richard Corbett and Farnborough Rd old boy. Well for those of you who missed the events I have put a link (above) to the radio play that the BBC made based on Craig's book. It was written by David Hare who so annoyed another guest Jonathon Calder last week. Craig is played by David Tennant . I see in Craig's posting reporting the party that ...
TweetAndrew Wiseman to his credit has given a fairly lengthy response to the criticisms being raised about the new security arrangements for Autumn Conference in Birmingham, however in my view this is insufficient. 1. These security check requirements should have ... Continue reading →
May's local elections witnessed the election of the country's youngest councillor as a Liberal Democrat in Ashfield. Councillor Tom Hollis got involved with the party during Jason Zadrozny's very nearly successful general election campaign last year and, by the sounds of things, worked extremely hard to get himself elected in May. The Mansfield and Ashfield Chad has an interview with Tom over on their website – here's an excerpt: After joining the Lib Dems, Tom helped the party deliver leaflets before Coun Zadrozny put him forward as an election candidate. Describing the gruelling campaign, Tom says: "I would get up ...
One of the most important voices of the Liberal Movement was silenced today. In the small hours of 3rd June a heart attack robbed, at the brutally young age of 43, our party and our world of a campaigning Svengali, a gritty realist and one of the most genuine people I have ever met. Without Andrew Reeves in our ranks, the rebuilding of the Liberal Democrats has suddenly become that much harder. A pioneer of the Liberal enclave of the blogsphere and twitter-feed, Andrew Reeves is one of the reasons that I and dozens of other Lib Dem activists and ...
Earlier this week, I blogged that some people were too stupid to use QR codes. I concluded, by saying You're not too stupid to understand how to make effective use of QR codes. The "commandments" are mostly just common sense. Use QR codes wherever they seem appropriate - but make sure that they're scannable, work for everyone who scans them, and lead somewhere useful. Y'see – I don't think people are too thick to use QR codes. Most of the time... My Isle Of Wight There's a new campaign to encourage people to visit the Isle of Wight. A laudable ...
I have recently received complaints about foul smelling water flowing down Ninewells Avenue from beside the former Wimberley flats. Scottish Water advised me earlier this week that : "I can confirm our leakage detection team has attended and confirmed the source of water is coming from a blocked drain at the flats opposite. We have now arranged for our squad to attend to clear the blockage." I am pleased to advise that the drain blockage is now attended to and a clean up of the area has been undertaken.
It came as a great shock this morning to get a phone call from Scottish Liberal Democrat HQ to let me know that Andrew Reeves, our Director of Campaigns, died last night following a heart attack, aged just 43. Andy was not just a wholly professional and helpful party organiser and agent, he was immensely likeable and had a great sense of humour. I know from the huge number of e-mails from colleagues around Scotland and further afield (Andy worked for Vince Cable in Twickenham and Lynne Featherstone in Hornsey & Wood Green before coming to Scotland) that he will ...
The new Labour administration of the Council has finally got round to publishing their priorities for the coming year. Below is the somewhat rambling preamble drafted by the Leader of the Council, Cllr Jo Lovelock: "During the recent election campaign we were very clear to the public that the financial situation we find ourselves in will mean that we will have to make difficult choices. The Conservative-led coalition Government has not only imposed severe and front loaded cuts in local government grant, but has also introduce a new way of allocating grant which disadvantages urban councils like Reading with high ...
About 30 children have to date been killed in Syria during the demonstrations. The most memorable death is of the 13 year old boy called Hamza Al-Khatib who was tortured to death by the police. Today has been named as 'Children's Friday' by the Syrian Revolution Facebook page group who are dismayed by the torture of children. Unicef says that most of the 30 children killed were shot by security forces. In the previous uprisings like in Tunisia there has always been a death of one person that has united the freedom seekers and I think this 13 year old ...
Fri 3rd
13:37
Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, nothing to worry yourself over, citizen, so move on and don't make...
Yesterday, I learnt something I didn't know before about British politics – the police claim the right to pre-emptively veto people attending the conferences of political parties. I probably wasn't go to go to Liberal Democrat Conference this year, as various other commitments and the hassle of getting to Birmingham and back likely outweighed the benefit I could get from it. So, I didn't really notice the email about booking for it being opened and the new security arrangements that had been put in place until they created a large storm of concern amongst Liberal Democrat twitterers and bloggers. If ...
One of the most common objections made to an elected House of Lords (here and here for example) is that it will exclude those with specialist knowledge or experience (including former government ministers and the like) who may not wish to stand for election but whose insight is invaluable to the working's of parliament. It's an argument that is not often directly challenged. Yet I have never been convinced by this myth of independent expertise. Success in one walk of life is rarely a guarantee of effectiveness in another. One doesn't need to think too hard to cite examples of ...
Is it possible to sum up a man in just 10 blog posts, all his passion, vigour, emotions and concerns? No of course not and I'm not even going to say I will. However, what I have done below is put together a collection of ten of Andrew Reeves's blog posts that show the depth of the man, he wasn't all politics and campaigning. Many of us who knew Andrew always heard of Roger, his husband since January 28th and partner for many years before, but very few of us ever got to met Roger. I even canvassed for Kevin ...
Recommended reading for Lib Dem councillors and local campaigners from the last seven days: There's been some discussion recently about how the party moves on from the recent local election results. Rob Hayward has given his analysis on the Liberal Democrat performance in the council elections on Conservative Home, which gives you an idea of the take of someone in another party. However, as part of the internal discussion, Bill Le Breton has written about how he thinks community politics can reform the coalition's prospects. ALDC members can download a PDF of the original "The Theory and Practice of Community ...
Chair of the Federal Conference CCommittee, Andrew Wiseman has today responded to complaints from party members over the new registration process for those wishing to attend the Liberal Democrat Conference in Birmingham later this year. You can read his response ... Continue reading →
Our Committee's report on the EU's internal security strategy is published today, see
We didn't get to meet the President, not having had the foresight to sit on the aisle in Westminster Hall
Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allowed the police to stop and search anyone. Without suspicion. In July 2010, the government restricted and removed section 44 under its Freedom Bill proposal. However, as Liberty discovered these powers can be ... Continue reading →
We have just announced arrangements for registering for our autumn conference, including some new security arrangements which will apply for the first time this year. Some concerns have been raised about them so I wanted to set out what exactly the new arrangements are, and why the Federal Conference Committee has decided that it is necessary this year to increase security – something that we have been very reluctant to do. Firstly I want to restate the basic point that we as Liberal Democrats are in control of our own conference – not the police, or the Conservative party, not ...
A resident has just 'phoned to tell me that black (household waste) bins have not been collected again this week on Foxhill Road. Bins were supposed to be collected earlier this week. The resident told me she reported it twice to the Council who reportedly told them they had tried 3-4 times to access the road but couldn't due to parked cars (or vans). I have tabled a question to the Lead Member for Environment & Sustainability on the issue to be answered at the next Council meeting. As the Evening Post has reported, it's not just bin lorries that are finding it almost ...
[IMG: House of Lords. House of Lords. Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament] Earlier in the week I did this guest post for Left Foot Forward: The voters have cast their verdict and an MP is out of office. What should happen to them next? Most people's answers to that are somewhere on the spectrum from the polite (let them tidy up their affairs and see their staff properly treated as their contracts end) through to answers best not to be repeated before the watershed. But our political system has a remarkable answer.For a lucky group, ...
Recently married himself, Michael ponders the news that Andrew Reeves has passed away, and thinks of Andy's family and friends, as he wonders how he would feel in early September.
[IMG: Parked cars on Nelson Road] On Tuesday evening I met with the Haringey Council Cabinet Member in charge of parking, and with parking officers, to put the case for residents of roads north Ridge Road to be consulted on parking problems. I had previously written to the Council demanding a consultation - and residents had held a public meeting in the Hornsey Vale Community Centre to demand action from the Council (see previous post). Residents' fear parking problems caused by new Controlled Parking Zone (CPZs) nearby. The Council had previous said that a consultation was a possibility in January ...
Yesterday afternoon the Corporate Resource Overview and Scrutiny Committee (or 'Oversight and Scrutiny' as the BBC's Graham Smith aptly Freudian-slipped it) met to discuss the recent credit/debit/corporate procurement/spending card row. My colleague Alex Folkes had submitted a list of questions on the affair a few days ahead to give the Council time to find the ...
I was very shocked to hear of the sudden death of Andrew Reeves. My sincere condolences to Roger, and Andrew and Roger's family and friends. Andrew ran one of the most energetic LibDem blogs: "Andrew Reeves' Running blog". His last post was on Wednesday. When I guest edited Liberal Democrat Voice in April, I approached Andrew to write an article. He was very busy working on the Scottish campaign at the time. But he found the time to write a really sweet article, which I republish here below as a tribute to Andrew: The biggest news story in Scotland When ...
Fri 3rd
11:55
Legal action may bar council leader from office - and raise questions about the Electoral Commission...
North West Leicestershire District Council leader Conservative Richard Blunt is facing High Court action from a defeated opponent over whether or not he was actually qualified to stand. Blunt appears to have qualified to stand under the provision that he owned property in the area. However the wording of the law is unclear, talking about "occupying as owner" with the possible implication that therefore you also have to actually be living or otherwise have use of the property. In Blunt's case, though, the property was rented out to others – leading the defeated independent candidate Colin Roberts to argue that ...
I've now heard from officers and been given more details about what is happening regarding the University Area Parking study. See below: 'I have spoken to Cllr Tony Page and asked for an early meeting of the Hospital and University Study group (of which you are a member) and that group will be discussing the more sensitive topics around parking in the area, especially as the Hospital and University are both pushing for the council to take action as soon as possible. No further reports taking these forward will be progressed without the involvement of the steering group. This is good news. ...
This morning I had a highly encouraging meeting with Ray Tovey, the new Cornwall Council Cabinet Member for Localism. Ray has been highly respected across the political divide throughout the two-year life of Cornwall Council and personally I was very pleased at his elevation from the backbenches. While I can't necessarily go into the details ...
In the heat of the moment yesterday, I did not explain the issue well so here's the story. If you already know the issues, scroll down and there's a list of things you can do to help! West Midlands Police have imposed a "security vetting" procedure on attendees of the Liberal Democrat Autumn conference this year, which the Federal Conference Committee have (After some wrangling with WMP, it appears) agreed to. This is new and hasn't been in place before and there has been no reason given for the increased security measures or what threat they are designed to deal ...
I have been debating whether to count this as an entire book for the purposes of numbering as it's quite short, but deciding on including it if only to stop things from getting too complicated. However, it also says something about the story itself – Pullman has an interesting idea here, that Jesus and Christ were twins who history later conflated, but the depth and complexity of an idea like that isn't addressed in the way you'd expect a novel to do so. In that way, it's much more of a novella, and for me it suffers a bit from ...
Cross posted with Stephen's Liberal Journal I woke up this morning to hear the tragic news that the man who changed the course of my life 7 months ago had tragically passed away. It was Andrew Reeves, the Director of Campaigns for the Scottish Lib Dems, who when asked did he know of any good ...
I woke up this morning to hear the tragic news that the man who changed the course of my life 7 months ago had tragically passed away. It was Andrew Reeves who when asked did he know of any good campaigners who could front up the Yes! to Fairer Votes campaign in Northern Ireland immediately thought of me and told me to apply. Of course in the three all too short years that I have really gotten to know Andrew much of that time was spent on the campaign trail, it was his job after all and my passion (until ...
Fri 3rd
11:12
The (il)Liberal Democrat Conference? (No-one has used that title in the past two days have they? Oh ...
Oh boy. Nothing like a bit of something not that important that us crazy liberal's don't like for our fingers to go crazy on the keyboards. Twitter has been awash with criticism of the new 'draconian' and 'illiberal' measures that people will have to submit to if they want to go to the Liberal Deference Conference in September. There have been several good blog posts on this so I won't go into the in's and out's and the con's as they are widely available at Caron's Musings, Zadok Day (Zadok need to get a catchier title dude) or in the ...
I am very sad to hear today of the tragic death of Andy Reeves - the Deputy Director of Campaigns for the LibDems in Scotland. Loosing people is always sad but far more so when they go before their time. He was far, far too young to die. By all accounts he was extremely well loved and highly respected as a campaigner by LibDem activists all over the UK. I did not have the privilege of getting to to know him well personally but had found him to be a helpful, highly approachable and hardworking campaign manager and erstwhile blogger. ...
Many Liberal Democrats are in mourning this morning after the sudden death of a long-time colleague and friend, Andrew Reeves. He died of a heart attack last night. Andrew had a long career in the party, including working for Vince Cable in Twickenham and Lynne Featherstone in Hornsey & Wood Green and stewarding at party conferences, before becoming the party's Deputy Director for Scotland. Andrew was always one of the happiest and kindest people on the campaigns I worked with him on, and never let the occasional inevitable moments of stress or tension sour personal friendships. He had also in ...
President Obama desires a two state solution based on the pre-1967 borders; prior to the war in the region. The European Union have actively held this position for decades and it is a welcome for the United States to final ... Continue reading →
I had the pleasure of attending the Disgruntled Radical's birthday celebration last weekend. As part of his preparation to move house he was giving away some of his precious books. Each one was carefully chosen for the recipient. The creator of Vote Clegg get Clegg got Samuel Smiles 'Self Help' and a Labour politician Craig Murray's Murder in Samarkand. I was lucky enough to be given Elliot Doods 'Lets try Liberalism'. I began to ponder where I first came across Elliot Dodds. I well remember a book launch at a party Assembly in the 1970s when Russell Johnson was the ...
Extremely shocked and upset by news this morning of the untimely death of Andrew Reeves from a heart attack. Was rung first thing this morning and told the tragic news. Andrew was so young – and just recently married his long term partner. Andrew came to be my Head of Office when I was elected to Parliament in 2005. He was a warm, lovely guy – a very kind person and great character. Liberal Democrats will all be very sad to hear of his death.
Parliament has been in recess since my last post, and returns next Monday, June 6. Last Sunday I travelled up to the Forest Hermitage from Marylebone in a bus hired by Thai supporters, for the celebration of Visakha Puja (Buddha Day). It was an impressive feat of organisation and all went off smoothly, including a Thai meal provided by the supporters. I chatted to some of the students from Warwick University including two from China. It was Lindsay's birthday last Thursday, and JW accompanied us to a fairly new tapas restaurant in Camberwell. She got 12 birthday cards; are people ...
At the moment we have a communication problem. Every one of us knows that we've done brilliant things in government and have had a positive influence in almost every area. But tell people that and they don't believe you. The problem is that, whilst we're getting stuff done in government, we've generally been pretty poor at letting the public know that. Our 2010 manifesto was put across to people rather effectively, and I'm fairly sure that we'll be able to do the same in our 2015 manifesto – but that doesn't help us in the meantime. In the past, we've ...
Fri 3rd
10:13
Lib Dems making serious mistakes with use of language: How to get the language right to recover
There is a fight going on under the surface more deadly than any Lib Dem fully realises and the party is currently losing this fight - and it could be fatal if we are not aware of it and start to do something about it. Mark Pack has cottoned on but I fear it is ...
Keep the Liberal in Liberal Democrat Conference (tags: libdemmery)
With the opening of registration for the Autumn Liberal Democrat conference this week, the first details have emerged of registrants needing to provide information to the police for "security checks". Looking at the Lib Dem blogosphere this morning, it's clear that people are deeply unhappy with the requirements. I'm going to try to explain what the problem is, how it's come about and what we might do about it. What Information Is Required? The pass application guidelines make it clear what is needed. First off, an up-to-date photo compliant with the new passport guidelines (which exist to make automated facial ...
RT @markpack Elect Commissn rejects expenses complaint against Huhne http://bit.ly/mE3HVI < good work exposing @guidofawkes fishing ego-trip # Hedgehogs trump foxes? >> The history of spin bowling: Cricket's revolutionaries http://econ.st/ljJtgH via @theeconomist # Bagehot: Britain's feral press: a plan http://econ.st/ji4sp8 via @theeconomist < everyone wants to be Sweden # RT @GuidoFawkes: @stephentall Do you think @ChrisHuhne is innocent? « Until proven guilty, yes. What justice system do you believe in? # @jerryhayes1 And what do points mean? Prizes! in reply to jerryhayes1 # RT @GuidoFawkes: @stephentall I'm making a "I believe Huhne is innocent" list. I've added you. Thanks. « ...
As a Liberal Democrat I have had to put up with a lot of abuse from Labour over benefit reform and the attempt by the Coalition Government to put right their mess and get the economy on track. In some cases, such as with disability benefits there are valid criticisms that need to be addressed, but in many other ways proposed changes are just continuations of policies started under Labour or have broad support from the opposition parties. However, this story in today's Telegraph throws new light on the crocodile tears shed by the Labour Party. They say that Office ...
According to this morning's Daily Telegraph, the Government is planning to save up to £10 billion by rationalising its procurement policies, particularly in the area of office supplies. Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude, has claimed that improvements have already saved £1 billion in 2010/11. He estimates that another £2 billion of savings will be made this year and next. In 2013/14 and the following year, savings will reach £3 billion meaning that total savings in the current four-year spending round would be around £10 billion. Public bodies have been paying as little as £350 and as much as £2,000 for ...
Bogus Caller Kenilworth Warwickshire Trading Standards has received a report from a consumer about a potential bogus caller in the Kenilworth area. The caller asked the householder if she was 'on electric'. She then asked to read the meter and the householder agreed to meet her at her side gate. When the householder did so the caller had disappeared. The caller did not leave a name or show a badge. The email alert system is a quick, simple and cost effective means by which Warwickshire Trading Standards can alert interested individuals, community organisations, businesses, charities and others to the latest ...
Courtesy of YouTube, a musical trip down memory lane:
Birmingham City Council has made the decision to outsource one part of their IT department to India. Trade Unions are right to dispute the move, which breaches section 90 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and would fall under unfair redundancy. The act is shaped to prevent people from being made redundant when their role is to be performed by someone else. However, there appears to be some
Overtly sexualised videos on the web? How about challenging overtly sexualised images everywhere else? While I'm delighted that there is a campaign to limit sexualised content on the internet, I also think the reason, the message has been lost. We should, bilaterally, be teaching children and young adults what is wrong with sexualised images of people, predominately women. This isn't sexist,
TweetGo on, admit it, you've sneered at the Daily Mail, you've chided it for its cancer obsession, laughed at its immigrant line, or you know laughed at the very funny Dan and Dan Song. In fact I've heard it from most Liberal Democrats, and quite a few progressives. It's too much of an easy target to take the mickey out off. And we often do, we sneer at its readers and pretend that they don't matter; we can appeal to the guardian reading intelligentsia. But now a party of government, we must take ourselves seriously. It's time to stop sneering ...
There's a County Durham and Darlington NHS website designed specifically to give local groups which encourage people to take more care of their health and opportunity to promote what they are doing. If your organisation provides a non-medical service that you think would help improve the health of people in County Durham and Darlington you can register on IMPACT. Once registered your organisation will be able to submit activities to IMPACT. Sadly there's next to nothing on it from Consett. Why not register your organisation and let everyone know what you're doing that could help to improve their health.
So, with Gerard Houllier only days out of a job at Villa Park, it looks as if his replacement may already be assured. Houllier was relived of his position on Wednesday due to his poor health and whilst I have blogged in the past of my lack of enthusiasm for his selection as manager last autumn, I wish him the best for his future. He is a good man and has proved himself in his career to be a fine manager but I never felt that he was the right man for the moment in the Villa Park hotseat. But ...
Cambridgeshire County Council's Highways Department are currently proposing (plant and weather permitting) to perform some surface dressing of some of the more badly damaged roads across Cambridgeshire. I've attached the County-wide details here (PDF). Of particular interest to residents in King's Hedges will be the work starting on the 4th June to fix up Northfield Avenue between Campkin Road and King's Hedges Road. As you can see in this picture taken just before the last election the previous round of street repairs have left the road in a far better technical condition (some of the potholes were beginning to be ...
i) births and deaths 3 June 1927: birth of Kit Pedler, who co-wrote The Tenth Planet (1966), The Moonbase (1967) and The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967). 3 June 1946: birth of Penelope Wilton, who played Prime Minister Harriet Jones in several stories between 2005 and 2008. ii) broadcast anniversaries 3 June 1967: broadcast of third episode of Evil of the Daleks. The Doctor agrees to test Jamie in order to isolate the 'huma factor'. 3 June 1971: broadcast of third episode of The Time Monster. The Master, having summoned Krasis via the time crystal, launches a series of time-crossing ...
Richard Laming has an intersting blog looking at the 3 families of reason Yes lost.Its a thoughtful and intelligent piece which I enjoyed. and the reference to Tolstoy is to Anna Karenina
The Winterbourne View exposure demonstrates that the private sector MUST NOT be allowed to penetrate the NHS and indeed if the NHS is to be "reformed" those private sector habits that have already been introduced over the years must be subject to intense scrutiny & change. After the shocking Panorama programme relating to abuse at Castlebeck's home the company made a comprehensive & welcome statement of contrition saying " As soon as senior Management were made aware of these allegations 12th May 2011 we etc etc". They went on to say " two managers have separately been suspended" and add ...
