It's not really a question I've ever asked myself before to be honest. But, do you remember the HG Wells novel 'The Time Machine' - or perhaps you have seen the rather good film version of it? Well, if you haven't or you can't remember the plot ... Wells' Time Traveller journeys far into the future where he meets the Eloi, childlike adults who live in futuristic yet slowly deteriorating buildings, doing no work and lacking any curiosity or discipline. He also encounters the Morlocks who are ape like troglodytes who live underground amongst the machinery and industry that makes ...
The long running saga and stories from the failings of the Inverclyde Council Future Operating Model Project seem to continue and continue... but the taxpayers of Inverclyde are still very much in the dark and uncertain as to the true extent and damage caused. In Yesterdays Greenock Telegraph, there was a minor revelation that a (former) corporate director whom the council had initially made the decision to dismiss has, thanks to an appeal, had the decision partially overturned. I know the Inverclyde Councillors reading this blog may bluntly state "overturned", but the facts of the matter are that this individual ...
It's "I Giorni" by Ludovico Einaudi – here below on YouTube: Wonderful isn't it? – Not to be confused with "River flows in you" (From the "Twilight" soundtrack) by Yiruma, which is similar but different:
That's not just a statement of fact, it's the name of an organisation which aims to ensure that young people have a voice in tackling the issues and problems faced by young people. They aren't affiliated to any one political party but attend party conferences to ensure that the young people really do have a voice. This year at the Lib Dem conference they had two aims - to bring their
This weekend I popped back over to Guildford to attend the Guildford Lib Dems wider group meeting. I'm very glad I did because it meant I heard this fascinating news: the Tory administration on the county council has temporarily imploded. You see, the leader of the county council, and the tory group on the council, was Mr Povey - a "strong leader". He then decided it would be a very good idea to sack one Mr Hodge who was a member of the county council cabinet along with one other cabinet member. Unfortunately, half the tory councillors then rebelled against ...
The Compass campaign to identify a 'feral elite', that parallels the feral underclass, has some remarkable parallels with the campaign nearly two centuries ago by the great radical William Cobbett. This is how I put it on the new economics blog:
"Even the Shropshire Star would struggle to beat this," said the reader who sent it to me. You can see his point, though this is a sad story when you read it. Still, the Herald Sun is a clear winner of our Headline of the Day award.
[IMG: Featured on Liberal Democrat Voice] I was more than a little gobsmacked-that's is if you can have degrees of gobsmackedness-to have featured in the Top of the Blogs Golden Dozen merely for posting Charles Kennedy's review of Nick Clegg's year. Whisper if gently but he does have sort of a point -namely that the cock-ups and miscalculations have come from the higher reaches of the party. Maybe listening a tad less dismissively to the party faithfully would be a good plan B. Most of the big policy screw-ups, the Health Bill, Student fees and the inflexibility over Plan A ...
Would you like to see a Farmers' Market in Queen Edith's? Possibly outside the Wulfstan Way shops, or in the Hills Road area? A farmers' market is a market in which farmers, growers or producers from a defined local area are present in person to sell their own produce, direct to the public. All products sold should have been grown, reared, caught, brewed, pickled, baked, smoked or processed by the stallholder. For more information, see http://www.farmersmarkets.net/ Farmers' markets are a great way of bringing producers and customers from the same area together. Not only do they support the local economy, ...
[IMG: BBC interviews itself] Not often I watch the Politics Show South East, today I did, despite having some interest in politics, this programme rarely has any truly local politics and today was no different tried and tested, it follows a tired and predictable path, a subject that could cover any region and more often than not a Westminster politician or two. This week was bland approach was enhanced by that more than irritating technique in which BBC reporter ask another what they think? Who cares? I get the impression that the role of political correspondents, in the regions is ...
As I return from the Liberal Democrat Conference 2011,I thought I share some thoughts with you. I have been a Liberal for a long time and was a member of the Liberal Party (in fact I was a member of the Conservative Party, briefly in the very early 80s). I have seen Liberalism change in the party that bears its name, firstly through our merger with the SDP and then as we moved to the Social Liberal hegemony of the liberal left during the Paddy, Kennedy and Ming years. Then, the party new young guns became the engine of the ...
Having whined last week about the recent "Lost Stories" of the Seventh Doctor released by Big Finish, I'm glad to report that this month's two plays in the regular sequence, both featuring the Seventh Doctor with no companions, are a bit better. The Doomsday Quatrain, by Emma Beeby and Gordon Rennie (who I think are new writers for the Whoniverse), sees the Doctor apparently encountering Nostradamus in sixteenth century Florence; but as so often, all is not what it seems, and David Schofield is particularly good as the seer trying to make sense of a universe, and a life, which ...
Hain gave this speech to Labour conference. At the end, he brought up Nick Clegg's apparent attack on Trade Unionism. This is what Hain said: And let me say this to Nick Clegg who last week attacked our Party's link with 3 million trade unionists just as his Tory master David Cameron will do next
There's a fascinating story in today's Independent on Sunday about the discovery of a long-lost manuscript of one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's early novels, The Narrative of John Smith. The book is being published by The British Library, having ... Continue reading →
Paul Richardson All, Last Saturday saw the first public meeting for the Design Statement for Shipston on Stour. Led by local architect Paul Richardson, the Town Council is aiming to produce a document for the planners at Stratford and for developers to let them know what we in Shipston think are the types of design and overall style we would like to see in any future development. The Design Statement doesn't support or oppose such development. We've been working on the project for a while now – and on Saturday groups of people went out around Shipston taking photographs af ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 240th 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 (18-24 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. I've been a ...
It's a little over three hours since Mark Cavendish became the first Brit cyclist to win at the road race World Championships for 46 years and where does this feature in the Radio 5 news and sports round-up? Nowhere in the news section and at the bottom of the sports section. Rated even lower than the result of this afternoon's QPR match. At least this time he made it to the Sky News front page (one better than that day in 2009), even if buried two-thirds of the way down and not even the most prominent sports story. That goes ...
The bounce back at our conference from the defeats of the local elections and electoral reform vote was phenomenal. We are the Jack-in-the-Box pop up political party. The sense of unity and optimism was astounding but I still think that we are struggling about being in Government. Take my personal experience as an example. On Saturday when I got to the ICC there were two armoured cars. Someone had told me that George Osbourne was at the conference so I immediately assumed that the cars were his. A few minutes later I realised that it was Nick Clegg's cars. Him ...
In my review of last week's Liberal Democrat conference, I drew attention to the positivity of the party, the belief that Liberal Democrats can and are making a positive difference at the heart of government and the determination of minsters to distinguish themselves from their Conservative partners All that is true as anyone attending conference could testify. But there was another key characteristic of conference that has not been sufficiently explored: this was a conference of missed opportunities. Let's start with Nick Clegg's speech, which was well-delivered and equally well-received by most delegates in the hall. The big surprise was ...
Liam Byrne gave this speech to conference today. In his speech, he says this: Our challenge now is to change and move in and say once more the centre-ground is our home-ground, and this is where we fight. In other words, Labour have no ideology, they'll just say what we want to hear until they
Olly Grender says farewell to blogging (for now) on the New Statesman site as she takes up her position at Downing Street as the government's Deputy Director of Communications on a maternity cover. Incidentally, I had a dream last night in which both Olly and Lembit Opik featured - in separate scenes, I hasten to add. Edd Bauer, an elected sabbatical officer at Birmingham University, is spending his second weekend on remand after being charged with hanging a banner from an over bridge in the city during the recent Liberal Democrat Conference. Gareth Epps says: "we should be speaking out ...
There will no doubt be much soul-searching at this week's Labour party conference. There will no doubt continue to be subtle – and not so subtle – attempts to distance the party from the legacy of the Brown government and its cataclysmic electoral implosion. Without, of course, suggesting that it is therefore inappropriate for some ...
Ed Miliband announced yesterday that if he were to win a general election tomorrow that he would reduce tuition fees to £6k p.a. from the proposed £9k. His proposals don't actually affect the repayment scheme so people from less well-off backgrounds will end up paying the same as they do under the government's new scheme.
There's no prize at stake - just the opportunity to prove you're wittier than any other LDV reader... Here's rising star Dr Julian Huppert, Lib Dem MP for Cambridge, flanked by Reading councillor Daisy Benson and LibDemVoice's own Mark Pack at a conference fringe event. What do you think they might be saying or thinking? And the winner of our last caption comp is... Some fantastic entries for our most recent caption competition, Hugh Grant and Nick Clegg "one for the family album" Edition. The winner, according to The Voice's judging panel of one, was this one by Tony Dawson, ...
There has been for quite a few years a big gap between talk of Community Politics in the Liberal Democrats when it comes to booklets or conference debates and the actual operation of the party and its members. That was the theme of my speech at the Community Politics debate at party conference, where I summated on the amendment from Kingston Liberal Democrats and others: The book I mentioned, Campaigning In Your Community, can be purchased from ALDC as can several other publications related to Community Politics. Mary Reid moved the amendment and you can read her speech here.
Thanks to a successful campaign by your Wallington South ward councillors; Jayne, Colin and Monica, bus stop Countdowns have been reinstalled in the new bus shelters. We said that it wasn't fair to make our residents wait until February for them, and we are very pleased that London Buses delivered on their promise to bring forward their installation to September. ...
A Seventh Doctor novel set between Survival and the start of the New Adventures, following sequentially from Matrix by the same authors. Having just listened to the Big Finish "Lost Stories" set in the same chronological gap, I am struck by how much better both this book and its predecessor are. From the story point of view, it is a basic alien invasion of a future human colony; but there is a lot of very pleasing homage to hard sf classics, particularly the intelligent dolphins of David Brin's Uplift series, and monsters reminiscent of the various works of Larry Niven. ...
Sun 25th
16:23
'I know Evan has dim views on the Deity, but he actually does a passable imitation of an omnipresent...
Forget the slap stick knock about of some of our leaders-and let us draw a veil over Ms Teather's embarrassing efforts- we in this neck of the woods were taken with the gentle humour of Southport MP John Pugh in the health discussion at conference on Wednesday. Nobody reviewing the struggle to improve the Health Bill could have ignored the contribution of Evan Harris and John paid tribute to Evan's high energy efforts before going on to remark: 'I know Evan has dim views on the Deity, but he actually does a passable imitation of an omnipresent being.' To put ...
Pa-pa-papa-paaa....Now it's time for icecream, or maybe some nuts...I'll be your dog.... If you're over about 45 you'll remember all this. First the 1970s Pearl and Dean intro and then a few minutes of intermission advert nostalgia from the 70s and 80s:
Sun 25th
15:53
Please exercise your right to comment on the government's plans for House of Lords reform
[IMG: The Houses Of Parliament By The Thames, Westminster - London.] [IMG: Creative Commons License] photo credit: Jim Linwood You've got until 12th October to feed your four pennethworth into the government's proposals for House of Lords reform. That's the deadline for the official Parliamentary consultation into the future of the House of Lords. A good level of responses will ensure that public apetite for democratic reform is demonstrated. Please feed your views into the process. It's easy to do. Unlock Democracy have a nifty little form here. All you have to do is fill it in, express you own ...
My IT skills are very very limited. In advance of the events I could go to the LibDem & Conservative Party websites & readily find the content of their forthcoming Conferences. Not so Labour. Even now that their Conference has started I can't find out the timetable from the main Labour Party website. I can see an advert for a free app for a choice of devices non of which I have. So recent is this that when you click on it it says "This app is to complement the Labour Party Conference. It will be made available very soon. ...
The King's Lynn incinerator is a sufficiently controversial subject that I would imagine that most people in West Norfolk have formed some opinion about whether it should be built or not. 65,516 have made their views very clear indeed. Don't ... Continue reading →
Unlike most of the 'Comment is Free' contributors (do you get a pitchfork and a burning torch when you submit your first comment?), I'm rather more tolerant of Ed Milliband's suggestion that they would cap tuition fees at £6,000 per annum. That is not to say that I support it particularly. It is at least an acknowledgement that the future funding of our universities cannot rely solely on government, especially if you want to provide a world class education to as many people as might want it. Labour's drive over thirteen years to massively increase the number of young people ...
Team HTC-High Road may be extinct at the end of this season. But the podium in their final year at the World Road Race Championships ending with three sprinters who have worn their colours on the podium. André Griepel of course had to go elsewhere, to Omega Phrama Lotto, to get out of the shadow of Mark Cavendish. Matt Goss was happy to stay and help or take the honours when he could. So the three of them were a mark of just how strong the High Road set up has been down the years. But the other mark of ...
Enough time has now passed to reflect on the summers riots. Some commentators have suggested hypocrisy of politicians who have condemned rioters yet those same politicians took part in organised bashes a la Bullingdon club. It does look like pots calling kettles, etc. For a very long time its become ever more apparent of high levels of tax evasion and avoidance amongst the very rich. I can sympathise that rioters snatching goods and high income tax evaders have similar world views – greed. A plague on both their houses. How can we stop and deter both? I was glad to ...
Very odd news from the Merton and Wandsworth London Assembly constituency, where members will shortly be voting to select the Liberal Democrat candidate for next May's elections. The candidates have been told that they are banned from calling on party members at home during the selection contest. They have also been given extremely tight restrictions on what else they can do – just one leaflet, one email and one phone conversation. As regular readers will know, I'm a strong advocate for more campaigning to be allowed in internal party contests – and the party has made some significant progress on ...
O Jesus, life of my soul, make me rise each day to a new life of charity and fervor. The ...Continue reading »
Sun 25th
14:45
Disagreeing with Andrew Rawnsley: I'm sorry, but Ed Miliband is the very definition of cautious
Ever since Alan Watkins' death, the political commentator to whom I turn first and whose opinion I value most is Andrew Rawnsley. But that doesn't mean I always agree with him, and today is a case in point. Here's the conclusion to his profile of Labour leader Ed Miliband: ... those of his critics who describe Ed Miliband as timid, unimaginative or directionless are not correct. The Labour leader does have a strategy and it is really rather breathtaking in the boldness with which it challenges both conventional wisdom and historical experience. Successfully moving Britain to the left, doing so ...
The aspect of Conference I most value is the opportunity to hear first hand from Ministers, MPs and Lords the thought processes and details of what we are doing in Government and to see them listen to the feedback from those who are delivering the relevant services on the ground. A fringe debate on the NHS I attended this week was a great example of that – an open, constructive, intelligent exchange of differing views which left a clear sense that our party in government is listening and acting and has a plan. Contrast that with the fringe meeting convened ...
A short chapter, in which the restored Byzantine empire staggers on, the emperors buffeted internally by the Church and externally by the militant and powerful trader cities of Genoa and Venice. Notes on meditation and a couple of points of translation.
I was interested this morning to come across these few lines, attributed of all people to Calvin Coolidge: Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; there is nothing more uncommon than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. They seem to sum up to me what we as a society basically do respect more than anything: hard work. If someone is talented but lazy then we certainly criticise them for ...
HAT TIP : I saw this over on Dick Puddlecote's brilliant website and, though I am a great fan of LearnLiberty, (the guys who commissioned this video) but I somehow missed this one. It is quite brilliant... Dick's description of it takes some beating so I'll just let him explain the video for you ... "In this concise and subtly amusing 3 minute video, the IEA's Stephen Davies points out some absurd historical reasons for banning drugs. Except that they're not really historical, are they?"
Today I'm going to go through the next batch of new number one issues from DC's 'new 52′. And like last time, I'm going to read each comic straight through once, then blog my immediate reaction, rather than a more considered one. As always, I'm only buying those comics which I think have at least ...
O Jesus, life of my soul, make me rise each day to a new life of charity and fervor. In ...Continue reading »
Sat, 20:43: Wikipedia translates "Henricus Mirabilis" as "Henry the Admirable", but Gibbon calls him "Henry the Wonderful" - I prefer Gibbon! #fb Sat, 20:51: And Henry the Wonderful's father-in-law was Albert the Degenerate. The mind boggles. #fb Sat, 21:27: Social media, black humour and professionals... http://t.co/aDAHf001 @amcunningham queries the use of derogatory language in public spaces. Sat, 21:27: The Beauty of The Kalevala | Tor.com http://t.co/aw5HveBm The great Finnish epic. Sat, 22:20: A Niche in the Library of Babel http://t.co/PtPL66sk Sun, 12:14: @amcunningham Jeepers, what a poisonous little man @maxpemberton is!!!
I have rarely been prouder of my party than I was late last Sunday afternoon when we passed new policy, championed by Glasgow's Ewan Hoyle, calling for the consideration of the Portuguese system whereby people arrested for possession of drugs aren't put through the criminal justice system, but helped with the issues that led them to drugs in the first place, whether that be mental health, poverty, poor housing, or family problems. I published Ewan's speech in full the other day, but he's now put it on You Tube. Please can you circulate this far and wide - it's so ...
Ed Miliband has just promised that a Laboru government would cap university tuition fees at £6,000. It's very interesting to see this new policy though I'm not sure how Labour arrived at it - my guess is they plucked a nice round figure out of thin air. But, just in order to give some context to Ed's new policy promise, here is a brief history of Labour party tuition fees policy. 1997 - Labour manifesto promises not to introduce fees. 1998 - Labour introduces tuition fees. 2001 - Labour manifesto promises not to increase fees. 2003 - Labour more than ...
Today's announcement by Ed Miliband that Labour would double, not treble, tuition fees from the current £3k pa has prompted much vigorous discussion already. But what would be the actual impact for different income groups of the change in policy? To find out, I fed different figures into Martin Lewis's Student Finance Calculator. I made one assumption: that all students would need to take out the maximum maintenance loan to live on while studying. Here's what the figures show... Who pays nothing? With fees at £6k... ... anyone whose salary doesn't exceed £15,600 in today's money. With fees at £9k... ...
OK, I have managed to add ONE person on Diaspora (Hi, [IMG: [personal profile] ] nanila!), so it appears that it just takes some time when new people create an account on another pod for the ability to friend them to work its way through the intertubes. So yes, very much still in alpha, but significantly less evil than facebook or Google+. If you want to add me (if you can) I'm here. My next ambition is to add Andrew Hickey LOL. [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Marketing group EMR have recently conducted some research among other marketing professionals on their opinions of the main three parties' logos. Of course, the cartoon that goes next to your party's name isn't the same as your leader, your policies or your politics but I think the quality of the logo sets the tone for your party's image thus it is important to have something aesthetically pleasing. Here is the graph of the percentage of the marketing professionals that rated each party's logo with approval, disapproval or neutrality: As you can see, the Liberal Democrat logo, the yellow bird with ...
Peter Black pulls together analysis of the LAbour announcement on tuition fees (tags: politics) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
This was used in last night's BBC documentary about the Festival of Britain, but I have had it in mind for some time. London is the Place for Me was also used as the title track for a collection of Trinidadian calypsos that was issued some years ago.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Labour has a policy. Party leader Ed Miliband has vowed that, if Labour were in government now, they would double tuition fees to £6k from the current £3k level set by the last Labour government with immediate effect. In other words, they would undercut the Coalition's £9k fees by £3k. Here are some early thoughts: 1) The principle of cutting fees from £9k to £6k The reality is the cut from £9k to £6k makes no difference to the monthly repayments that poorer students will repay once they've graduated and earning more than £21k. Don't take my word ...
Ever heard of Charles Percy? Me neither but back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was apparently the US Republicans answer to JFK. He died in the past week and Rupert Cornwell the excellent Independent journalist that covers American politics, wrote an obituary for him last Thursday which can be read here. Arab/Israeli Tensions in 1984 A moderate Republican, he was, so says Cornwell, sizing up a Presidential bid in 1976 but the demise of Nixon and the coming of Ford blew his chances out of the water. He continued however as a respected politician of the American ...
Gareth Epps tells how student Edd Bauer has spent the last week in prison for the unfurling of a banner decrying us for being traitors at our Conference in Birmingham last weekend. Now, unfurling banners doesn't actually hurt anybody. If Mr Bauer had been released on bail and unfurled a banner every day of our Conference, the worst that would have happened is that Conference attendees would have looked up and thought "what a prat". He has a track record for doing this sort of thing - but he hasn't as far as I know, ever harmed anyone. It was ...
Peter Black, Welsh Liberal Democrat AM, has posted a blog article regarding Labour's recent Tuition Fees policy, a u-turn by the party having completely opposed the Coalition Government's policy to raise fees during the student protests. You can read the article here. Filed under: Politics, UK Tagged: Coalition government, Labour, Peter Black, Tuition Fees
There are two coffee mornings in Gatley to raise money for Macmillan (if you know of any others in Gatley, Cheadle or nearby, please let us know – we're happy to publicise them). 30th September Friday morning, 30 September at The Curtain Agency on Church Road . 1st October Saturday morning, 10am, 1st October at BossCo, Gatley Road Coaching Buddies Circle and BOSSco invite you to join us to help make some money for Macmillan. All coaches and trainers and everyone interested in coaching and training are invited to join us for coffee, cake and chat. You will find out ...
Yesterday, I paid a visit to the UK National Archives in Kew. Their amazing educational team have recently completed a stunning QRpedia installation. [IMG: National Archives QRpedia Domesday Book] The Domesday Book From their press-release: As part of this project to increase digital engagement we have used the QRpedia service to link some of our museum exhibits to articles on Wikipedia. In the on site museum at Kew, visitors can use their smartphones to scan QR (quick response) codes next to the exhibits. QR codes are barcodes that can be read by smartphones to link physical and virtual documents. The ...
After lining up behind student protests against the UK Government's increase in university tuition fees and making much political capital out of it, Ed Miliband and the Labour Party finally came up with their own policy last night. Effectively it amounts to 'you were right to raise fees, but just not by that much.' It is a slogan designed to get students back onto the streets, except they may not look so kindly on the Labour Party this time. What is worse is that the badly thought-through compromise by the Labour leader does nothing for poorer students but, in fact ...
The Independent has a few things to say about the Lib Dem conference which are worth highlighting in terms of looking at Lib Dem strengths: But there are signs they are learning... suggests that the grassroots are getting used to the idea of being a serious party of government. (here) But unlike in Liverpool last ...
TweetThe Sun poll on Labour is nothing short of fascinating. Of course the entire article is shaped to squeeze Labour to within an inch of it's life, but the results of the YouGov survey reveals far more than they inform you. The results the paper choses to write about are the delightful 'only six percent ...
When I first decided to go to Liberal Democrat Conference last autumn, I have to admit I was a little swayed by it being in my home town, but being a Federal Conference First Timer I did have concerns about not knowing anyone. Luckily, a friend who is also a conference veteran (at both LibDem and Labour I must add) took me under his wing and even humored me when going to training sessions. I also met up with some people in both Liverpool and Glasgow and managed to bend their ears about issues, as well as adding new and ...
After a recent analysis of the funding from the New Deal for Communities (NDC) which was designed to regenerate Tottenham, my Liberal Democrat collegues on Haringey Council have expressed caution that funding to help the area following the riots should be part of a coherent, long-term programme with the local residents of the area at its heart. Quite right in my view. Liberal Democrats have calculated that nearly one pound on every six spent as part of the £77million NDC programme was spent on consultants, plans, studies, project management and controversial projects such as Wards Corner which was subject to ...
Last year in the run up to his election for Labour leader Ed Miliband said: I've been interested to see that the government is giving serious thought to introducing a Graduate Tax, rather than raising Tuition Fees. The issue is coming to a head as Lord Browne is due to report on University funding in the autumn — and it's possible that he could recommend that fees rise to £7,000 or even £10,000. But the Graduate Tax is a fairer alternative, and one I've been arguing for for some time. This is an important matter of principle. The supremacy of ...
Chairing the two Liberal Democrat Voice fringe meetings at Lib Dem conference, I threw in a fun final question at both: "If Nick Clegg were an animal, what sort of animal would he be...?" The answers were: Chris Bowers (Nick Clegg's biographer): a rhinoDavid Hall Matthews (Social Liberal Forum): a pantherMatt Chorley (The Independent): a tortoiseJulian Glover (The Guardian): a horse
In the course of reprising a Rupert Holmes song, Fraser Macpherson recalls: I go back far enough to remember Steve Wright on Radio 1! Now he's started me off. This is a bit like the Monty Python Three Northerners sketch. I not only remember Steve Wright on Radio Luxembourg, before he was on Radio 1; but I remember him before that when he did the Radio 210 breakfast show in Reading. Interestingly, that breakfast show on Radio 210 was one of the most exciting radio programmes I have ever listened to. He used to have the most amazing collection of ...
A couple of years ago, research commissioned by the Liberal Democrats at Holyrood showed that the net effect of Alex Salmond's Council Tax Freeze was actually to give more to rich people than to poor people. Then leader Tavish Scott talked about this in his speech to the Liberal Democrat Conference then: Research I am publishing today shows that - over four years - the SNP will have spent £950m on a set of distorted priorities and hand-outs that give more to the rich than to the poor. Because this is what you find: If you have two children and ...
Information about the upcoming Friends of Magdalen Green Coffee Morning :
The latest poll (by BPIX) on the state of the parties, commissioned by The Mail on Sunday, shows Ed Miliband in more than a spot of bother. Voters think he is the wrong leader and that Labour has been rubbish in opposition....No wonder he has resorted to putting his children in front of the cameras... do politicians never learn?.... What is surprising it that Labour is still ahead in the polls... Our vote still looks poor.. but consider the combined vote of the Lib Dem and Tory parties.... that makes for a healthier proposition... If that is not enough... then ...
I spent part of last week in Telford at my Institute's Annual Conference. A long car journey was much improved by the pure entertainment provided by Radio 2's Steve Wright in the Afternoon. I go back far enough to remember Steve Wright on Radio 1! And on came an old favourite from 1980 ...
Many years ago, in the days when Dr Who made some sense and was played by the masterful (sic) talents of David Tennant, my daughter was the proud owner of a two foot high remote control Dalek. As it moved menacingly down the landing it would repeat a number of phrases, the most frequent of ...
A personal view of Conference 2011: I walked away from conference on Wednesday with that bloody annoying mobile phone company's strap-line in my head. I certainly didn't expect that when I headed out on Saturday. In fact to be frank, for the first couple of days of conference I confess that I thought it was more grey than orange. Dreary grey Brummie clouds hung menacingly over a huge ugly grey conference building that seemed packed to the rafters with earnest young men and women in grey suits. I have never seen so many corporates at a Lib Dem conference. Welcome ...
