If today's Mail on Sunday is to be believed, documents found by the new regime in Tripoli make for extremely embarrassing reading for Labour. It seems Mr Blair embraced more than just Colonel Gaddafi.
Please complete this form if you want to sign the appeal to allow conference to debate NHS reforms (see this page for more information) and/or the emergency motion on health reforms (see this page for more information) Loading...
Liberal Burblings quotes with approval the words of 38 Degrees, or at least their lawyers: The bill will remove the duty of the Secretary of State to provide or secure the provision of health services which has been a common and critical feature of all previous NHS legislation since 1946. This is the means by which Parliament ensures the NHS delivers what the public want and expect. I can see a strong case for giving the Secretary of State this duty as a means of giving people some prospect legal redress if their are gaps in the service provided. But ...
In fact I've written a look at last week's Doctor Who for the Mindless Ones. Tagged: Doctor Who, mememememe, mindless ones
Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dem group on Broxtowe Borough Council. 1. Money for Public Transport I'm starting this week with a question. Can you help the council spend a million pounds? I'm not kidding. Whenever significant new housing is built in the borough the council takes some money off the developers to pay towards improvements in public transport. At the current time we have a £1 million in the fund for this but the schemes currently proposed will only come to about £500,000. I'm ...
Below is the text of a motion on the NHS reforms that wasn't accepted for debate by Conference Committee, including two short update paragraphs. Dr. Charles West is appealing this rejection, if you'd like to support this appeal please click ... Continue reading →
Dr. Charles West is submitting an Emergency Motion on the NHS reforms. If you are a conference rep and would like to support this motion please click here to sign up. Reforming the NHS Conference notes that the March 2011 ... Continue reading →
Regardless of what one might think of Guido Fawkes, his campaign to oblige Parliament to debate the death penalty has been genuinely interesting. It did get coverage in the broader media, and it inspired a counter campaign in support of the status quo. That said, it hasn't been successful - just 18,572 people have signed it as I write this. What it has done is to act as a useful reminder that most political blogging takes place amongst a very small 'community', a rather insular one, I might suggest. After all, if the Daily Mail asked its readers to sign ...
Went Cycling with my son, out on a relaxed ride 63.286 miles and out for 5 hours 37 minutes and 6 seconds !! Lots of nice places visited. Lots of jelly babies eaten. Not too many issues with car drivers either
The footpath section of Ashfield Road (near Cheadle Library and Cheddle Lodge) has once again got a little overgrown with nettles, and with the schools going back this week we want people to be able to get down the path without being stung! This particular section is a real pain – it's not Council owned – it's unadopted. That means it's not a piece of land the Council regularly maintains, but they do cut back the nettles when requested. We've asked them to cut the nettles back, but because that might take a few days, we've gone down and spent ...
Quorn salad with cannellini beans
The Lib Dem interim report into why we lost the YES to AV campaign (by James Gurling) has been published. Who knew the report had been been released? I picked up on the fact by a small report in the Sunday Telegraph last Sunday . I did not notice any announcement on Lib Dem Voice ...did I miss it?Possibly. I did not receive an email from Tim Farron who commissioned the report. Have I been struck off the email list? Maybe. I was on holiday for a good three weeks so maybe the notifications ended up in my spam box ...
Yesterday, I blogged here about the odd circumstances that brought me into the blogging world and I commented on some of my personal favourite blog posts along the way. Today, it's the hardcore statistics. Google Analytics & Flag Counter I began blogging properly a year today, September 4th 2010. I didn't however synch up my blog to the excellent and recommended Google Analytics software (with thanks to Ali Goldsworthy for doing so!) until September 20th. So the stats I am about to unleash doesn't cover the entire year as such but for the sake of a fortnight, I'm happy for ...
A great video of the release back into the wild of the Antartic of Happy Feet, the Penguin who swam off course and ended up on a beach in New Zealand. You can read the full story here and track Happy Feet's progress in the wild here.
Hackney Liberal Democrats must be unique in London in having organised four garden parties this summer. The latest, this afternoon, was a bit unusual, in that both the host, Dave Raval, and the booked speaker, Andy May, were unable to attend because of pressing family concerns. But the show must go on and organiser Geoff ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 237th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (28 August – 3 September, 2011), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. ...
Writing in today's Observer, Liberal Democrat peer Shirley Williams says: As the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill has ground on, the doubts and questions that accompany it have become ever more difficult to address. This is a bill that has been subjected to a listening exercise, extensive consultation and a report by Steve Field, chairman of the Future Forum, redrafting by Parliament, more than 100 hours of debate, and dedicated efforts by the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, and the Liberal Democrat minister of state for social care, Paul Burstow, to amend it to meet the worries ...
The Daily Telegraph write Why power is shifting to the Lib Dems today in which they highlight some strengths in Nick Clegg which are worth reading: Nick Clegg has worked out how to use the Government machine – and that's bad news for the Right Is Lib Dem influence on the rise within government? Indeed ...
Congratulations to Brian Paddick, who will be the Liberal Democrat candidate for London mayor in 2012. He is being re-used as a candidate, despite his poor campaign in 2008, whe n Paddick's slogan, "a policeman, not a politician", turned out to be all too true. Now, in winning the Lib Dem nomination, Paddick has performed an epic feat in political storytelling. Announcing his candidacy back in June, Paddick gave us this carefully crafted mea culpa: The 2008 campaign was a bitter and bruising experience. I had just left the police over the shooting by armed officers of the innocent Brazilian, ...
Sun 4th
17:25
LDVideo | Party political broadcasts from the 1960s: Bonham Carter, Thorpe, Grimond & friends
Round 2 of our trip down PPB memory lane. Yesterday we trawled the 1950s, and today it's time for the 1960s to take centre-stage... Liberal Party election broadcast 1964 (with Frank Byers, Mark Bonham Carter, Jeremy Thorpe and Margaret Wingfield — alas, with some sound issues) (Available on YouTube here.) Liberal Party election broadcast 1964 (bookended by Jo Grimond, with Alan Talfun Davies, Richard Wainwright, David Steel, John Pardoe, Meddon Bruton, and Arthur Holt) (Available on YouTube here.)
This morning's 10.30 service at Trinity Church, Cheadle saw a warm welcome for Stuart Ratcliffe, new Children and Youth Families Worker for the church. The appointment, which has been made possible by a generous bequest, will allow Stuart to work with minister Geoffrey Thomas and expand the work the church is able to do. Iain and Pam were very happy to be invited to the service to meet Stuart – and grateful for the warm welcome extended by everyone there.
London's mayoral election next year will be a contest between Brian Paddick, Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone after the former Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner was selected as the Liberal Democrats' candidate for the second time. Brian Paddick has thanked Liberal Democrat members "who placed their trust and confidence in me to be their candidate for mayor of London - I won't let you down". Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister, said Paddick provided Londoners with a "real, credible alternative" to Johnson and Livingstone. "Brian's experience is exactly what London needs right now. Whether dealing with ...
So, yet another high ranking member of the previous Labour administration comes out and says he didn't like Gordon Brown and that they never got on. Were there characters to be so vilified after coming out of government than Gordon Brown ...
I have been watching the Wigan versus Warrington match this afternoon. The match is almost finished but Gareth Hock for Wigan has decided that there is still plenty to play for. So much so that Gareth thought it was worthwhile putting his fingers in the eyes of Ben Harrison the Warrington prop. Then Gareth followed it up with a push/punch with his left arm and an attempted upper cut with his right. For this misdemeanor he is placed on report. I don't know if all of this was seen by the referee, but I had two thoughts on this incident. ...
This is not a commentary on either the NHS as it stands or on the reform package as such. It is a commentary on the debate around that reform package. Many people have made comparisons with the United States system. I can count Hamish Meldrum and Shirley Williams amongst their number. What I have not seen, however, is any justification of this. The American system is totally different from the NHS, with or without the reforms proposed. Indeed, one could go much further and turn the NHS into an insurance-based system, possibly partially scrapping the "free at the point of ...
Not that I ever search online for myself you understand... (though hitting Google to find yourself always strikes me as a better form of mid-life crisis than crossing the Sahara; you don't have a problem with your chocolate supply melting for a start). But here's the thesis I've discovered one of my namesakes has written: Solutions to unanswerable questions At only 12 pages it looks like he found those unanswerable questions rather easy to crack. Impressive stuff. Not of course to be confused with my own thesis.
This is a post about tuition fees. I've had a week to think about it and I've changed my mind. I've blogged before that I believe that the answer to the hole we are in over tuition fees is less to do with getting people to understand the facts and more to do with behavioural economics - people react more to the 'fact' that we broke our promise on fees than whether the new deal is a better one for students. Then I got asked the other day how I would have done things differently. And I did have an ...
No taboos exist for liberalism. For Liberals, any state of affairs is open for discussion and any opinion worthy of dispute. Liberalism therefore automatically desanctifies any subject which people with vested interests try to keep out of the general debate with spurious arguments.Any political and social progress starts with a deviation from established wisdom. In the eyes of Liberals, anyone who bans deviating ideas and persecutes the critical denial of the established wisdom as heresy hampers social and political progress. Karl-Hermann Flach: Noch eine Chance fur die Liberalen ("Still A Chance for the Liberals"), Frankfurt a.M. 1971
The Independent on Sunday has come out with a veritable mound of shocking documents having appeared to work with the Human Rights Watch campaign organisation in starting the diligent and timely process of sorting through the newly captured office of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Libya; Moussa Koussa with all his communications and correspondence documents up for the taking. It appears that fiction has become fact - Welcome to Spooks! They appear to spell out the details we already knew; that Blair and Bush were pushing the international community to accept Gaddafi as the 'Great North African Reformer' ...
A personal assessment of what I believe the Liberal Democrats position to be: Believing in doing the right thing, Compassion and fiscal competence. The problem is that there is rarely an obvious "right" decision, usually there is a compromise based on weighing up a massive number of competing factors and the situational assessment of how this will work out. Thought through mature, evidence based policies that consider the big picture in the pursuit of objectives held with some passion which relate to the benefit of the people. Being prepared to face up to the awful realities of the deficit but ...
Thrill-of-the-grill couscous. Note to regular readers: I'm going to start linking my Snake Soup posts here for the benefit of anyone following my posts via the Kitchen Reader feed. If you're not interested in cooking or already a member of Snake Soup, please just scroll past - after this one, they will just be one-line posts.
Sun 4th
14:23
A Liberal invented the NHS and now, here we are, within a gnat's todger of destroying it
First, it was Andrew George raising a red flag about the NHS proposals. Now, this morning Shirley Williams writes in the Observer on similar lines. It seems that the renewed furore stems from legal work funded by 38 Degrees. They've had lawyers studying the proposals in detail over the summer. You can read their legal verdict in full here. The whole thing is shocking. 38 Degrees identify two main areas where the reforms are fatally flawed: 1. REMOVING THE SECRETARY OF STATE'S DUTY TO PROVIDE What our lawyers have identified within the Health and Social Care Bill: The bill will ...
For the lover of British rhythm and blues from the 1960s there remains a nagging question. Isn't there something slightly ridiculous about urban middle-class white boys singing the music of poor blacks from the rural South? Or as the Bonzos put it: "Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?"
Peter Black: Lib Dems flex muscles to thwart Dorries' anti-abortion amendment Huppmeister J being awesome again, I see. (tags: libdemmery feminism) THE PETER CUSHING PUB WHITSTABLE INTERIOR IMAGES Regular readers will know of my visceral loathing for JD Wetherspoon PLC and all their works. None the less, I approve of this. (tags: pubs) The Math Gender Gap: Nurture Trumps Nature (tags: feminism) Quick hit: the science front of nymwars | Geek Feminism Blog Something I have never understood about big groups of people: they see another group cocking up and causing all sorts of strife and they think "hey, we ...
"A double whammy of Cabinet ministers heading north". That was how the BBC's Isabel Fraser described Mike Moore and Danny Alexander's comments on independence on Thursday's Newsnight Scotland. Actually, they weren't just "heading north", they were heading home. They live up here. They are Scottish MPs. They go to London because that's where the Parliament is that they sit in. They don't come more Scottish than Mike and Danny. Their comments on the dangers of independence, and lack of detail from the SNP on what it means are part of a much more rounded strategy by the Scottish Liberal Democrats, ...
17 year old Sogelau Tuvalu from American Samoa went to Korea to take part in the shot put world championships. He didn't qualify so, due to a loop hole in the rules, took part in the 100 metres heats instead. This is the result. Still, he did it in 15'66" which is quicker than I could do it.
My love for Baroness Shirley Williams knows absolutely no bounds right now being as she is Saint Shirley of the NHS and its true defender (along with Dr Evan Harris of course who has also been heading up the sainthood ...
Documents found by Amnesty International in the offices of Gaddaffi's former foreign minister and head of Libyan intelligence. Moussa Koussa, have revealed that, under the last Labour government, MI6 provided Gaddaffi's regime with details of Libyan dissidents living in the UK. Now this was a regime which was known for torturing and murdering anyone even suspected of opposing the regime. This was a regime which was perfectly happy to target the family members of people they couldn't get directly - such as people living beyond their reach in the UK. On top of this, MI6 actually wrote a speech for ...
This is the tenth of my "Random Thoughts" posts. Since I started doing these back in March they have been less regular and more, well, 'random' than I had intended. But I do think they have added something to the blog. The main purpose of recording things that I find interesting but haven't the time or the inclination to write a full blog post about is being fulfilled. So I think they will continue. This edition has links to various bits of quality writing by people I vaguely know and an opportunity to indulge in a quality pleasure. First we ...
Last night's Doctor Who was great. A great premise, well executed, well-written and well-acted, and with some lovely little touches. Daniel Mays is so good at wide-eyed sincerity, and the hug at the end had me in tears. And yet... Why does it always have to be father-son in Mark Gatiss's stories? Why can't it be mother-daughter or mother-son or father-daughter? I love his writing but a bit more variety would be lovely. Still, kudos to the person choosing the music for the confidential, which was awesome. There should be more Hole on mainstream telly. [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments ...
See what I did there? OK, well I thought it was funny anyway. What is about Nadine Dorries that makes me and others so mad whenever we even see the mere mention of her name or her latest blog post ...
Further to my recent item about the potholes residents had brought to my attention at the south end of Paton's Lane, I am pleased to be advised by the council's Roads Maintenance Partnership that : "An order has been raised for the repair of some small potholes near the Servite Housing in Paton's Lane with a timescale for completion of twenty eight days." I have also received complaints from the residents from nearby sheltered housing about the uneven roadway at the top of Union Place, where they cross to visit shops on Perth Road. Having raised this with the council, ...
The next meeting of the Blackness Library Reading Group will take place at the library on Thursday 29th September at 12 noon. At this meeting the book under discussion will be "The Hare With Amber Eyes" by Edmund de Waal. The reading group welcomes new members and further details are available from the library on 435936.
I've had a number of comments from people this past week about the issues surrounding my application for accreditation to the Liberal Democrat Conference in a few weeks time. Most people have been wholly supportive of the somewhat complicated situation ...
From today's Observer: Nick Clegg has thwarted plans by the education secretary, Michael Gove, to allow the new generation of "free schools" to make profits in the state sector after a massive ideological battle over the coalition's education policy... Clegg's aides say he has also persuaded Gove to amend the admissions code from 2013 to allow free schools and academies to give priority to pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds (those on free school meals). Free schools and academies will be expected to do all they can to ensure that, as a minimum, they have the same amount of pupils on free ...
The idea that local councils could be allowed to apply a local tax to alcohol pricing in pubs and bars in their areas has caused something of a heated debate. It's not a new idea by any means. America does this ...
The Doctor Who News Page: Target reprints reach North America I was able to leaf through these in a bookshop last month, and they are all brilliant - particularly the introductions. (tags: doctorwho books) james_nicoll: Not related to previous post James asks, "Who's been saying the Hugo process is corrupt?" I think the answer to the question is, nobody - apart from the voices in some people's heads. See much slapfighting in comments. (tags: sf)
I spent a good chunk of yesterday afternoon at Reading Pride, which just get bigger and better every year. The Lib Dem stand was principally promoting a petition on ending the blood ban (the absolute prohibition on gay men giving blood, imposed without evidence or reason). A motion to our Party Conference is likely to bring the Party behind calls for ending this absurd ban. All credit to putting the Lib Dem presence together goes to Jamie Wake, who has been involved in Pride for several years. I helped Jamie in putting everything together. Thanks also to the Lib Dems ...
News that the Scottish Conservative party may rebrand itself has had eyebrows waggling, but there's a far more important question for the Lib Dems hiding beneath the issue - should we do the same? Looking at recent election results and the ... Continue reading →
In which the Fourth Crusade, having conquered Constantinople, installs a series of French and Belgian rulers whose state eventually collapses.
By far the most concerning news to emerge today has nothing to do with Alistair Darling. It is the revelations regarding the previous Labour Government's relationship with Gaddafi's Libya. The Mail on Sunday publishes details of secret documents found in the British Ambassador's residence, which show the extent to which Labour misled us over the controversial release of the Lockerbie bomber. They say that whilst in public senior Ministers from the last Labour Government and the Scottish First Minister insisted that the terminally ill Abdelbaset Al Megrahi was freed on compassionate grounds in a decision taken by Scottish Ministers alone, ...
Alistair Darling is all over the media this morning with his revelations of life behind the scenes of Gordon Brown's Government. There are a lot choice anecdootes, many of which have already been aired in Andrew Rawnsley's excellent book: 'The end of the party'. However, the most damning admission in interviews today is that Labour did not have a credible economic policy in 2010. The clear implication is that this is still the case. Given the political evisceration of Ed Balls in the book and his position as Shadow Chancellor, one gets the impression that Darling's opinion will remain unchanged ...
From the 1935 film "A Night at the Opera".
Is it possible to trust Evan Harris a bit too much? Usually when I retweet stuff, I've read any links first just to check them out. Last night the Doctor who took on Dorries on her appalling abortion amendments tweeted this: I retweeted it automatically, without even thinking about it. Of course, when I went back to check it out, I totally agreed with the amendment he's trying to attract support for - which would strengthen the rights to free expression online and would oppose any attempt to shut down social networks as was mooted at the time of the ...
Thanks to Stephen Tall for drawing my attention to some old Liberal (not Liberal Democrat as YouTube says)Party Political Broadcasts. I particularly like Frank Byers and John Arlott answering questions from a businessman and a housewife in 1955. Unscripted, polite political dialogue unknown to us today. 56 years later we are still waiting for the spread of co-ownership and profit-sharing (
As a loud-mouthed attention-seeking media tart, Jeremy Clarkson is rivalled by only a handful of so-called celebrities. Today's Wales on Sunday report on his latest prnouncement is true to form. According to the paper he has come under fire for appearing to call for the abolition of the Welsh language. They quote an article he wrote lambasting the Welsh language, saying it provides a "maypole around which a bunch of hotheads can get all nationalistic". No doubt this will produce yet another round of condemnations, and I do not blame those who wish to respond in this way. The comment ...
The Voice is only a success because of the interest and support from our readers. For many people just lurking and reading the site is all they want to do – and that's fine, we're grateful for people taking the time to read the site. You can though help us continue to produce interesting content for a growing audience. Here are four simple ways: 1. Let us have your tips for stories. Perhaps there's something outrageous going on in your local council? Or you're an expert in a particular area and have spotted a story other people have missed? Or ...
I was looking through some of my old Guardian articles yesterday evening when I came across this passage from The Rules of Attraction, written in December 2005: In the long run, Liberal Democrat eyes may turn to another candidate. For David Cameron was not the only personable former public school boy without embarrassing political baggage who signed on as a Guardian Unlimited columnist in spring 2001. At that time Nick Clegg was an MEP, having already shown his political acumen by realising that the traditional Liberal desert of the East Midlands would yield the party a European seat under the ...
Well, this is an unusual twist as the changes in Libya reveal documents about relations between foreign governments and Colonel Gaddafi: The documents claim that MI6 supplied its counterparts in Libya with details on exiled opponents living in the UK, and chart how the CIA abducted several suspected militants before handing them over to Tripoli. They also contain communications between British and Libyan security officials ahead of Tony Blair's visit in 2004, and show that British officials helped write a draft speech for Gaddafi when he was being encouraged to give up his weapons programme. The discovery was made by ...
I'm sitting in the Rootes bar drinking coffee, trying to wake up in time for the final part of the DD307 weekend. On days like these, with the skies grey and overcast and a fine drizzle in the air that soaks everyone it touches, this place really does start to feel like an airport. Even the queue for breakfast felt like the rush for the aeroplane when boarding is called. It's been a really useful weekend. But more than that, it's made the course enjoyable again. I feel quite motivated to revise now. Part of that has been the lectures ...
My, my, how a few weeks, even in a parliamentary recess, seems a long time in politics! I had intended to comment on Guido Fawkes promotion of one of these vacuous e-petitions in favour of reinstating the death penalty for some crimes (remember that - it was before Tottenham and Croydon went up in flames, before Libya fell, and before David Cameron got off on his most recent holiday). And now, with an almost supernaturally sinister symmetry, we have a full blown row about that other beta noir of many on the "right", abortion, so I am now able to ...
At the AGM of the Electoral Reform Society yesterday Katie Ghose (Chief Exec of the ERS ) was asked if she had approved the (dreadful) Yes literature. She said she had seen some of it but that responsibility in the campaign for signing off all literature was with the Campaign Director, Lord Sharkey. ...
A veritable army of worthy groups, made up of regiments from the likes of the Council for the Protection of Rural England, the National Trust, Friends of the Earth, the Theatres Trust (why?) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and their well-heeled and erudite patrons and luminaries, is leading an attack on government planning proposals in the "National Planning Policy Framework" document. One can only conclude that they love poor people so much that they wish there were far more of them. Thirteen years ago, as a new and enthusiastic city councillor, I was clambering over colleagues ...
It's been a bit of a struggle, but I've finally got there. So, without further ado, here they are... The East of England Region of theLiberal Democrats is determined that elections for regional posts shallconducted in a manner that is democratic, accountable, inclusive, fair, robustand manageable. Appointment and powers of the ReturningOfficer The ReturningOfficer shall be appointed by the Regional Executive and shall administer the elections using his or her discretion, applyingthe core principles stated above, subject only tothe Rules as laid out below, the requirements of the Constitution and naturaljustice. Guidance will be provided in written form to the ...
Peter Black: Lib Dems flex muscles to thwart Dorries' anti-abortion amendment Huppmeister J being awesome again, I see. (tags: libdemmery feminism) THE PETER CUSHING PUB WHITSTABLE INTERIOR IMAGES Regular readers will know of my visceral loathing for JD Wetherspoon PLC and all their works. None the less, I approve of this. (tags: pubs) The Math Gender Gap: Nurture Trumps Nature (tags: feminism) Quick hit: the science front of nymwars | Geek Feminism Blog Something I have never understood about big groups of people: they see another group cocking up and causing all sorts of strife and they think "hey, we ...
The Doctor Who News Page: Target reprints reach North America I was able to leaf through these in a bookshop last month, and they are all brilliant - particularly the introductions. (tags: doctorwho books) james_nicoll: Not related to previous post James asks, "Who's been saying the Hugo process is corrupt?" I think the answer to the question is, nobody - apart from the voices in some people's heads. See much slapfighting in comments. (tags: sf)
TweetToday, Mark Pack published a blog post in which he asked Andrew Wiseman how many people had been rejected from attending conference. The answer Andrew gave to Mark was "zero". However that doesn't address a large issue. Many people for various ... Continue reading →
With thanks to Stephen Glenn's blog I am delighted to report a YouGov survey shows Lib Dem supporters really don't care care who snogs who on the tellybox. However Conservatives seem rather more keen on girl on girl action than a bit of man love, whereas the less said about Labour supporter's social attitudes the better...
Since the tuition fees debacle, the one policy area that has been giving Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government most grief has been the whole area of Health Service reforms. Andrew Lansley, the Conservative Secretary of State, unveiled a set of radical proposals which were not in the Coalition agreement and which sent alarm bells ...
