The official level of the winter Fuel Allowance was £200 for the over 60's and £300 for the over 80's. In 2008 the Labour government raised it temporarily to £250 and £400 for both age groups respectively. Because it was a temporary raise Labour didn't allow for it in this winter's budget. In other words, Labour intended it to end this year so they didn't put any money aside for it. In addition to that, Labour paid the increase to anyone in the appropriate age group. This led to the curious situation of ex-pat British pensioners on the Costa del ...
On the NHS: Liberal Democrats may win a key concession on the controversial Health and Social Bill before the legislation is passed, PoliticsHome has learned. Sources have indicated that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, including key rebel Baroness Williams, have struck a deal which would allow Lib Dem peers currently opposed to the legislation to secure changes to the role of the Health Secretary. They are currently concerned that the Bill will mean the Secretary of State is not responsible for ensuring that patients across the country receive the same services and standards of care. PoliticsHome understands that the responsibility ...
At Monday's Full Council a motion calling for a review of permitted development rights was passed with unanimous support from both Conservative and Lib Dem members. Cllr Hall & I had prepared the motion to highlight current borough issues in the context of calling for the current planning policy reforms to be extended to look ...
Liberal Democrats have always believed that education is the engine of social mobility; now we are delivering on this within the Coalition. Last week the Government released the final Pupil Premium figures for every English local authority, constituency and school. Lib Dem Minister Sarah Teather MP announced that every school will receive an extra £488 ...
The Swiss Ambassador's concert has become a much-loved feature of London's diplomatic calendar and it is good that H.E. Anton Thalmann has carried the tradition through to its 13th year. As usual this evening there was a generous reception at the Residence before the 300+ guests ambled through the streets of Marylebone in the balmy ...
That was the question from one child this morning during a discussion on Fairtrade and its impact on the families who benefit. Why don't we share our money with the poorer countries? was another. Very profound questions and not ones that could easily be answered. They were super children whose willingness to think about the subject really did exceed that of many adults. The school had
Tonight the Planning Committee voted to defer a decision on the application until they had more information about the position of the link road, affordable housing and the second half of the relief road, amongst other things. It took a long time and a lot of deliberation to reach that point. I spoke on the application, as did residents' representatives, someone from Winnersh Parish Council, and an Earley councillor. The next Planning Committee is in 3 weeks.
We were very priviliged to be invited to the opening of the new Trinity School Sports Hall this afternoon. It is a gob-smackingly magnificient Sports Hall, containing a vast hall, a large gymnasium, a fitness centre, superb changing rooms, a cafe, viewing gallery and classroom and computer room. It's been a long wait but seeing such a wonderful building, is worth the wait! Sir John Madejski opens the new Trinity School Sports Hall this afternoon Sir John Madesjki speaks before opening the Sports Hall The main hall The exterior of the new Sports Hall [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This ...
I've just returned from a work conference about waste management, rubbish and recycling. Delegates came from across local government - professional recycling officers, politicians of all parties and some of the most well known contractors in the field. Pickles obviously wasn't there - but his image was - and it was roundly booed. His £250 million bribe to have chicken tikka massallas thrown out on a weekly basis also received short shrift. The conference was told latest research shows that 80% of those whose rubbish is taken away every fortnight don't want to return to a weekly collection, because they ...
If someone said to you that it had been found that I had stolen some money and for this I am sorry, would you think I was sorry for stealing or sorry that I have been found out? I think that the best answer is that I was sorry that I had been found out, otherwise I could have gone for the simpler statement "I am sorry for stealing some money". Dr Fox went to the House of Commons and said "the ministerial code has been found to be breached and for this I am sorry". I could have been ...
This article looks at the issue of the status of the British constitution in light of the issue of concept of Ministerial responsibility; a timely concern. Guest contributor Edward Sainsbury on the perils of a written constitution In the last week my preparation for a seminar in Public Law focused on the British Constitution, and ...
For those who don't already know, Manydown is a large piece of land to the west of Basingstoke that was purchased jointly by the Borough and County Council (though the County haven't paid their bit yet) back in 1996 so that future development of Basingstoke could be well planned and raise enough money to fund infrastructure. Obviously this proved controversial and the local Tories have pushed
Kremlin Ups Pressure on Transnistria Leader to Quit :: Balkan Insight Is the end nearing for Smirnov? (tags: moldova russia ) The Belgian intercommunal agreement.(PDF) In Dutch. (tags: ) Nicholas Lezard pans the Tintin film But I think I will go see it anyway. #fb (tags: films belgium comics ) The Best Questions For A First Date « OkTrends Fascinating and slightly disturbing. (tags: sexandsexualityandgender ) How Victorian engineers almost built an underwater tunnel between Scotland and Ireland Plans from 1890 discovered. Four different routes proposed! (tags: ireland northernireland )
In a widely welcomed report, the Social Policies and Consumer Protection sub-committee of the European Union Select Committee of the House of Lords has sharply criticised the European Union MRPQ Directive, underpinning the mobility of healthcare professionals within Europe, for its failure to protect the public from doctors ill-equipped to carry out the duties expected of them. As a taster, here is a short video, featuring one of the Committee's members... The report, "Safety First: Mobility of Healthcare Professionals in the EU", notes that whilst employers in the United Kingdom are obliged to recognise the qualifications of health workers, including ...
You will recall that Rupert Matthews, the new Conservative MEP for the East Midlands, teaches the course Understanding Our Paranormal Universe for something called the International Metaphysical University. This video appears to be the assignment for week 1 of that course. Enjoy.
After a little break from us the weekly list of planning applications is back. Just one to report this week:for "Installation of two fascia signs and one pylon sign (all internally illuminated)." at 383 Milton Road. The online planning system now seems to allow direct links to the application, so if you need more details follow that link. 383 Milton Road is in the stretch between the Lovell Road and the bus way on that side of the road. As always in case of difficulty contact the team, and for more information see the Development Control pages of the City ...
There's an interesting article in the Derby Telegraph today concerning the city council's decision to review its service performance indicators and to revise them. Most organisations periodically review their key performance indicators (indeed, it would be pretty odd if they didn't) to ensure that they remain sensitive to the needs of their customers (or citizens). However in the case of the city council it appears that, controversially, these changes may include them no longer reporting the absolute number of complaints it receives. The quotation in the article which made me think a little more deeply about this subject is attributed ...
It is not in the class of their reconviction of Amanda Knox (complete with descriptions of the scene in court and quotes from those involved) but the Daily Mail dropped another clanger on Twitter today. Mike Hancock did not step down from the Cabinet but from the Commons defence select committee. He has never been anywhere near the Cabinet. Although I am a loyal Liberal Democrat, I can't help thinking that is rather a good thing.
Tom Gordon, in the Sunday Herald, reported that Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie "is receiving personal support from an evangelical Christian group which is opposed to...gay marriage". The first thing to point out is that the Sunday Herald does not seem to appreciate that using terms such as "gay marriage" is itself unhelpful and contributing to the polarisation of the debate on marriage equality. Like the many bishops who are keen to express their intolerance towards "gay marriage", I too am happy to put on record my opposition to the term, although not for the same short-sighted reasons. I'm ...
Here is the next part of Monday night's meeting. Filed under: Cllr Gerry Ellis, Deputy Mayor of Wirral, Mayor of Wirral, Moira McLaughlin, Wirral Council Tagged: Cllr Steve Foulkes
Reposted without Government seeks to ban legal principle which led to release of torture evidence in Binyam Mohamed case [IMG: Binyam Mohamed 2] Today the Coalition Government published a Green Paperproposing major reforms to how government and intelligence agents supply evidence to British courts. The proposals are highly dangerous in terms of how they affect the British legal system and the position of victims of torture and abuse. The reforms are a response to the Binyam Mohamed case and others like it, in which the security services fought hard to suppress evidence of torture. Despite being strongly critical of ...
Yesterday morning it had not escaped my notice that the blog had reached the milestone of having over a thousand pageviews. Now that may not seem like that big a figure, indeed compared to some of the big goliaths out there it's a drop in the ocean, but for this place it's a mini deal. I mean with just a little over a dozen posts, published intermittently at best - of varied and dubious content, this place is hardly at the top of the pile. But maybe (or maybe I'm just kidding myself here) there is the odd gem to ...
Andrew Gilligan writes that: The official in charge of the London Labour Party has been removed after saying that Ken Livingstone, Labour's candidate for the mayoralty, "cannot win" next year's election if he continues as now. Hilary Perrin, Labour's London regional director, has been moved back to her previous role overseeing all the regional directors after Ken and his chief of staff, Simon Fletcher, appealed to Ed Miliband's office."Moved back to her role overseeing all the regional directors"? That sounds to me like a promotion. In other words, for her insight in realising that Mr Livingstone cannot win, Ms Perrin ...
We should march towards the sound of gunfire. That's what our former leader Jo Grimond told the Liberal Assembly almost a half-century ago. On Europe however, sadly, not just our party but all three main parties have spent too long running from the sound of the guns. We promise - all three of us constantly promise - that the people will have their say, but they never do. At both the 2005 and 2010 general elections, the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Conservatives all committed to holding referendums on some aspect of European policy when some set of conditions or ...
At some point, I shall go off and find out what "quantum locking" is. But for a while, I'm quite enjoying the way this YouTube clip absolutely boggles my mind. It has to be CGI. Doesn't it?
Yesterday I attended a hearing of Cambridge City Council's Licensing Panel, which granted a premises licence to Sainsbury's for its new store on the Cambridge Leisure Park. The store is not trading yet, but is likely to open soon, underneath the budget hotel — and opposite Tesco's. As explained in my previous post, the Leisure Park was designated a cumulative impact zone.because of high levels of booze-fuelled crime in the Hills Road/ Cherry Hinton Road area and a high number of places selling alcohol - 17 on the Leisure Park alone, plus wine shops and off-licences nearby. This means that ...
I must thank my colleagues in Birkdale for the following information: Sign the Petition here The Boundary Commission for England have issued draft proposals to make all Parliamentary constituencies roughly equal in size. This requires Southport constituency to be expanded, which could be done in one of two ways. One way would require adding on half of Formby, splitting Formby in two for the first time in its history. Not surprisingly, the people of Formby seem generally to be unhappy with this idea. The other idea would be to rejoin Southport with its historic Lancashire hinterland - the villages to ...
We always follow with interest Baroness Williams of Crosby and today Political Home are reporting her doings: Liberal Democrats may win a key concession on the controversial Health and Social Bill before the legislation is passed, PoliticsHome has learned. Sources have indicated that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, including key rebel Baroness Williams, have struck a deal which would allow Lib Dem peers currently opposed to the legislation to secure changes to the role of the Health Secretary. They are currently concerned that the Bill will mean the Secretary of State is not responsible for ensuring that patients across the ...
A couple of weeks ago we had the official unveiling of the coal tub planters in Marley Hill, a village in my ward in Gateshead. Marley Hill is a former pit village. The pit closed in 1983. It was the last in the North East to use pit ponies. Two coal tubs from the mine were placed outside the village school and used as part of a floral display after the mine closed.The closure of the school in
[IMG: Paul Burstow visits Duke McKenzie's] At our party conference in Birmingham, I was asked the question; "what issues can we campaign on at the next general election?" Given that this was during the health Bill Q&A session, I imagine most people in the audience expected me to focus on NHS reform. Instead I talked about mental health, and in particular our party's long standing campaign for parity of esteem between mental and physical health. There are many obstacles to overcome but we are making progress through our Strategy No Health without Mental Health and our plans to provide £400million ...
The Government Gateway was supposedly built to make life easier. On-line services where citizens are able to comply with their legal requirements simply through the completion of forms. Their banner is meant to convey this sense of community well being. Happy Smiley People Using the Gateway The reality is a cold place born out of the dark recession of the human mind. The dutiful citizen trying to comply with taxation requirements is bombarded with a host of meaningless codes and numbers and forms that range from an SA1 through to a SA970. It's of these forms its own web page ...
Five years ago, back in the final throws of the Blair government, when Cameron was still hugging hoodies and Ed Miliband was just a twinkle in the unions' eyes, I worked for an organisation called Our Say. Our Say campaigned for the introduction of citizens' initiatives in the UK, referendums that can be instigated by a petition of a certain percentage of citizens in a given area. The campaign wasn't active for very long but it received cross party support, primarily from backbenchers. Overall, Conservative MPs more than Liberal Democrats or backbench Labour MPs received it better. In fact the ...
Since it was announced that there will be a debate in the House of Commons on whether to have an in/out referendum on the EU on 27th October many commentators have been suggesting that such a poll was a Lib Dem manifesto commitment. As our MPs are likely to vote against a referendum, they say, ...
Okay will people remember this speech in 40 years time? no. But arguably the motion it supported could make a huge impact on our natural environment over the next 40 years. After a number of routine matters the Council meeting got on to the motions. I proposed the Liberal Democrat motion* to act now to save our rivers. During many housing debates, rivers have been mentioned as a barrier to
A surprising announcement on Foxnews (which many of its audience thought was abhorrent)
Last week the Council held an open meeting inviting feedback from residents on plans to make changes to planning rules affecting houses of multiple occupation. I attended the event and spoke to the small number of residents who attended. We know from talking to residents on the doorstep that the issue of HMOs in the University area is of concern to more than just the handful of residents who attended the meeting last week. We would like as many residents as possible to have their say on this important issue so we have set up an online survey. We will pass on all comments on ...
Endorsing and responding to this and this. Do not throw at me the policies and structures of the EU. I want the EU to have better, more liberal policies and better, more democratic structures. This is the same as what I want for the UK. The reason the EU doesn't have these things is because it is dominated by socialist and conservative politics; the same as the UK. And yet I will not cry and take my ball home, and demand secession from the UK and the EU. Our interests lie in engaging with the politics of both and working ...
Lewes District Tories run the only council in Sussex to pay their own members for a cabinet role without portfolio. Actually, there are three of them. Until May 2011, Lewes District Council had a cabinet with nine members, six from the majority group (Liberal Democrats) and three from the minority group (Conservatives). Apart from Hastings, Lewes was the only local authority in Sussex to have a
That's the headline on a dramatic report in the Telegraph about the falling out in the Labour Party over Ken Livingstone's bid to become Mayor of London again:"The official in charge of the London Labour Party has been removed after saying that Ken Livingstone, Labour's candidate for the mayoralty, "cannot win" next year's election if he continues as now."Hilary Perrin, Labour's London regional director, has been moved back to her previous role overseeing all the regional directors after Ken and his chief of staff, Simon Fletcher, appealed to Ed Miliband's office. Another London Labour official, Paul Harrington, has also left ...
Interviewed by Dom this morning in Midsomer Norton at Somer Valley FM 97.5 and on the web at www.somervalleyfm.co.uk also on Facebook and Twitter. A great Community Radio station. The My Pod format is similar to Desert Island Discs and you chooses a selction of music and talk about your life and music choices. My selection:- Pink Floyd – Another Brick in the Wall Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil Bhundu Boys – Tsvumbo Howlin Wolf – Smokestack Lighting Eva Cassidy – Fields of Gold Roberta Flack – First Time I saw your Face Fela Kuti – I.T.T.
Last night at full Council Cllr Bet Tickner, Labour Lead Councillor Health tabled the following motion: "This Council notes that: Through the Health and Social Care Bill, the Government is currently pushing through the biggest and most disruptive reorganisation in the history of the NHS, at a cost of £2bn. The Bill removes the fundamental responsibility of the Secretary of State for Health to provide a health service free at the point of need. Despite the "listening exercise" over this last summer the bill will still put decisions about the future of the NHS in the hands of EU competition ...
Mike Hancock MP As the enquiry into Mike Hancock's affair with suspected Russian Spy Ekaterina Zatuliveter continues it hit the headlines of a few newspapers today. The Metro's headline read; THE MP AND THE "SPY" WHO LOVED HIM The story goes on to detail how Ms Zatuliveter is fighting deportation due to espionage charges and that Jonathan Glasson, who was the Government official at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission stated: [Ms Zatuliveter] reporting from Londongrad [and she had] eyes and ears in the House of Commons. Dear God! If this was forty years ago it would be a ...
Last night the Council agreed two important motions calling for justice and action to support two vulnerable groups in our community: Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender people and Reading Gurkhas and their families. I was delighted to support both. In the same meeting I spoke up for another group of unsung heroes: carers. Over the past couple of years I have actively campaigned to raise the profile of issues facing carers and improve the lives of carers in Reading. The carers I have met here have been some of the most selfless people I have ever encountered. I am grateful ...
I am a huge fan of Jo Swinson. It isn't a secret. I think she has it in her to become a very important player not only within our party but in terms of national politics and cabinet politics. Today she tweeted out from Prime Ministers Questions and summed up something that I have been banging on about for ages. [IMG: Jo Swinson Twitter ] Jo Swinson on Twitter today PMQs is out of touch. I watch most weeks if I remember but it is like a giant case of school yard politics with both sides leering and jeering at ...
There's a big row going on at County Hall at the moment on the subject of public toilets. A report prepared for the Environment Scrutiny Committee is proposing the closure of up to 114 (out of 247) public conveniences across Cornwall. This story also has a Launceston connection as the town council is in discussions with County Hall about taking over a number of services including toilets. The headline is this - Cornwall Council wants to save about £1.35 million from its budget for public toilets. The decision to make cuts was agreed by the Council back in November last ...
Well, phew. I have just heard on the radio that, fresh from stopping all dangerous driving and near misses with cyclists across the county and having reduced road deaths in Oxfordshire to zero, Thames Valley Police are going to be clamping down on cyclists in Oxford without lights. At least the police have their priorities right. I tend to go out with more lights than a well-stocked Christmas tree, as well as a jacket visible from nearby planets it is so bright so I have no sympathy with these miscreants. Of course, I go to such lengths to avoid finding ...
My main sporting passion is cricket, I know many people don't 'get it' but for those of us who enjoy it it really is the king of sports. My passion extends to all forms of the game, throughout the summer my boss (Somerset fan) and myself (Warwickshire fan - for no logical reason other than I chose them at a young age) will be discussing cricket throughout the working day, much to the annoyance of our three female colleagues. It doesn't matter whether it's a championship game, the Twenty20 or pro 40 we'll still be following it. The pinnacle is ...
My regular column in the Prestwich Advertiser. There's been a lot in the new in the last few weeks about the rising cost of domestic fuel (our gas and electric bills). All of us know how much these have gone up in the last year, and the energy companies know too - only last week the BBC reported on their 800% average increase in profits in the last year. For me this goes further than the cost of our gas and electric bills: Britain has one of the worst winter death 'increases; in Europe (ie the number of people who ...
Funnily enough, having given up Facebook and Twitter a few months ago, I haven't terribly missed them. They can be a dreadful distraction from real life, and the introduction by Facebook of a means to add your friends to groups without their being asked was an utter nuisance. And, by the way, I still don't care about virtual chickens and the like. However, I do see the value of an opt-in system like Twitter, so I've... opted-in again. So, look out for the @honladymark tag (my continued satire of the inequality of treatment of aristocratic spouses), and I'll try to ...
People on Job Seekers Allowance are normally limited with the number of hours they can volunteer; the rationale is that if you are doing too much voluntary work you won't have time to hunt for jobs. For the long-term unemployed this rationale can it seems be thrown out of the window. Claimants can now be forced into compulsory work experience schemes. Once on such a scheme these people are made to work what are essentially full-time hours in return for their meagre benefits. Perhaps unsurprisingly the government's workfare scheme is attracting a degree of ire from the left, but It ...
99% are angry. Well, actually, we don't know how they feel but a minuscule percentage of them are giving up their weekends to vent what they claim is the anger of the rest of us. They're angry about greed – the greed of the bankers and the policy makers they are blaming for this long economic storm. The last time the global economy seemed so dire, it was the greed of the investors and manufacturers that was blamed for it all. So what are the protesters trying to say? 1% of us are greedy and the other 99% aren't? After ...
Stockport Council is currently consulting on something called the "allocations policy". That's a bit of jargon for looking at different bits of land across the Borough and saying what – if anything – we think should be built there. For example, we might think one plot of land would be suitable for housing, whilst another wouldn't be, but would be ideal for leisure or retail. The Council's come up with its views on what should go where and now we want you to have your say. Go to the Council website and put in your views – closing date for ...
[IMG: Chester Conklin, Charles Chaplin in Modern Times] Why don't organisations and systems work? Well, they do, of course - and our own experience confirms why they work and why they don't. We know perfectly well that any human systems that work have as my friend Pat Brown put it, "a personality behind them". We have seen the efforts of individuals in schools and hospitals transforming the lives of those around them. We know from our personal experience that if you employ imaginative and effective people, especially on the frontline, and give them the freedom to innovate, they will succeed. ...
We are due what will be undoubtedly be a hard general election in 2015, and Liberal Democrats are already lagging behind the other main parties by not planning our post-coalition policy. The economy, of course, is the most obvious issue - an elephant in the room that, this time around, everyone will be fully aware of! Falling back into second place, if not further, is the comparative whale in the fishtank: the EU, and Britain's place in it. Few would deny the time for debate is close. As the nation watches what looks like the slow-motion collapse of the Euro, ...
We've had a wee glimpse of what life would be like if Tom Harris won the leadership of Scottish Labour over the last couple of weeks - and it isn't a pretty sight. The debate on the future of our nation, which should be full of vision and detail, currently has neither. If it's left to Labour and the SNP, or more specifically Harris and Salmond, all we're going to have for the next five years is sterile, macho posturing in a series of manufactured squabbles. It makes me want to run into the middle and shout "STOP!" The independence ...
Yet another tax catastrophe is unveiled by the incompetents who control Her Majesty' Revenue and Customs service: over seven million people are paying the wrong level of tax. Though the story is reported as though it is a good thing that 4 million will get a repayment, the fact is the cost of fixing the problem will be in the millions. The British taxation system is totally broken. As I have noted before, it is now 11,250 pages of mostly contradictory regulations. This is five times longer than the German tax code. I is incredibly expensive to administer, and the ...
Everyone in the Lib Dems knows how much of a difficult job we have in comparison to the other parties. They have more than twice as many members, more supporters, voters, sympathisers, volunteers, and more importantly, more money. If you want to win in your local area then you need more boots on the ground ...
One of the great benefits of our membership of the European Union is the ability to work anywhere within it, a benefit which has allowed British professionals to take their skills to places where they are needed and valued. However, it does occasionally present problems. A management consultant is, if they get something wrong, unlikely to kill you. On the other hand, a healthcare professional might. The recent incident where a German locum doctor accidentally killed a patient by multiplying the correct dosage of the prescribed drug by a factor of ten, highlighted this risk. The Mutual Recognition of Professional ...
... and another rule for everybody else. In one corner, the government plans to remove benefit from claimants with a spare room. They will lose up to £11 a week in housing benefit. In the other corner, there is a proposal to give tax breaks to older people to downsize their housing. The government's response is given by housing minister Grant Shapps: "Whilst this report makes interesting reading, we do not agree that people should be taxed or bullied out of their homes." Perhaps he should talk to Lord Freud, who is pushing through the housing benefit plan. I'd also ...
To those who fear the future marching over the horizon, this must feel suspiciously like enemy occupation. Liberal Democrats, with their new and sinister continental ways, have seized power. If conservative opinion believed it had the measure of Labour, it can't quite get to grips with Britain's newest rulers. For not only are Liberal Democrats in office for the first time, they have given us an apparently foreign form of government, a coalition. Traditionalists have to trawl back more than a century for the homely comfort of precise precedent. Such has been the opposition to peacetime partnership, where two united ...
Chris has been contacted because young people attempting to take the UNO bus from Fleetville to the Oaklands campus have been left at the roadside for lengthy periods because the buses are full. While the county council no longer controls buses, as a result of 'reforms' in the Thatcher era, it can try and influence events. If you have experienced problems please get in touch.
Wed 19th
09:21
A local Liberal hero who knew why Liberals still banded together to continue the struggle
'The truth is that Liberalism is the only hope of a world in which dictators still rule; in which preparation for war is the only insurance against chaos; in which men can be victimised because of their colour or creed; in which there is one law for weak and another for the strong. It is because we know this that we Liberals are still banded together to continue the struggle.' David Bentliff January 1952 In those difficult days for Liberalism Southport Liberals still commanded significant support in the town. Local newspapers described 'the old world part of the town (Churchtown ...
And one will stick on the ceiling! Somehow this picture, taken of the ceiling at the Derwent Manor Hotel during a Clinical Commissioning Group stakeholder meeting, seemed emblematic of what is happening within the National Health Service, the subject matter of the meeting. Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) are the GP led organisations which will "commission" (or buy) your healthcare from Hospitals, drug companies and other providers. They will replace the Primary Care Trust (PCT) which has done the job in recent years. It's a job you may not even know was being done – though it was being done in ...
Alyson needs a holiday and in fact, so do I. Indeed, unless I leave these British shores before the end of the year, 2011 will be the first year in which I have not had a foreign holiday since 2004. Ever since that first holiday in this series to North America in 2005, I've caught the travel bug. There's a big old world out there with new experiences and things to see and learn. Expanding our horizons to learn of other cultures and traditions from those of our own is one of the most fulfilling things that I have ever ...
Wed 19th
08:25
Libel reform campaign welcomes Parliament's call to strengthendraft Defamation Bill, calls for ...
A Joint Scrutiny Committee of both Houses of Parliament has reviewed the Government's draft Defamation Bill and recommended it be strengthened in key areas to provide a more robust defence of free speech. Campaigners seeking to reform the illiberal English and Welsh libel laws have welcomed the Joint Committee's findings as the changes they put forward would bring the Bill's provisions further into lines with the aims of the Libel Reform Campaign. The Campaign previously welcomed the draft Bill as 'a step in the right direction;' in welcoming the Joint Committee's report is as a significant positive development en route ...
A simple quiz question for you: courtesy of some Freedom of Information requests we know which newspapers are delivered to Ministers' offices each day. Two of them have the Daily Star on their daily order list. Which two? (Answer after the jump) And the two are... Ken Clarke and Eric Pickles. Hat-tip: David Mills, whose post has the full details of the Ministerial newspaper orders.
Friday sees the Committee Stage in the Lords of the House of Lords Reform Bill. No, not that one, the Private Members Bill introduced by David Steel or, as one should refer to him, Baron Steel of Aikwood. Whilst he has indicated his opposition to the outline proposals currently being debated by the joint pre-legislation scrutiny committee, he is calling for some desperately need reforms. For example, the Bill calls forthe abolition of by-elections for hereditary Peersthe removal from the House of any Peer found guilty of a serious criminal offence and sentenced to more than a year in prisonthe ...
Nobody can deny that the current controversy around the moderation of University of Wales degrees in overseas universities and the visa scam exposed by BBC Wales at Rayat College London has exposed some serious shortcomings, which need addressing. It is certainly the case that the appointment of a new Vice Chancellor for the University of Wales should be accompanied by the replacement of the Chair of the Council as well so as to enable the institution to make a fresh start. However, do these problems justify calls by some for the disbandment of a 118 year old institution and brand ...
Latest Friends of Wighton update : Simon Chadwick On Saturday, October 22nd, the Friends of Wighton's monthly cappuccino concert will be performed by historical harp specialist, Simon Chadwick. In the bright and atmospheric surrounds of Dundee Central Library's Wighton Heritage Centre, the event starts at 10.30am with complimentary coffee and newspapers. Then, from 11am to 12 noon, Simon will perform a selection of rare and beautiful old harp tunes, using a very special replica of the famous medieval Scottish Queen Mary harp. Simon is the regular tutor of the Friends of Wighton harp class, held every Saturday afternoon in the ...
Pentland, viewed from City Road Yesterday, along with council officers and a ward colleague, I took part in a "walkabout" around the Pentland area to look at issues in the estate. The substantive issue discussed was about improving grass maintenance in the area, and we also looked at a number of other issues including parking and road condition. On the latter matter, it is good that streets in the area will be resurfaced early next year, as I reported last month.
I finished the draft of the Monkees book yesterday, and sent it out to my proof-readers, so I've not posted much here for a few days because I've been working on that. To celebrate completing it, and to show I know better than all those important record producers, I thought I'd do what every Monkees ...
Can it be true that protesters are inspired to wear Guy Fawkes masks by the truly awful film of V for Vendetta? How can that film inspire anyone to do anything other than go to the cinema less often? I adore the original graphic novel, which could have made a brilliant film - but the film that was made was diabolically bad. Much nonsense online about the story ending with thousands of protesters converging on Parliament dressed as V - that surely only happens in the film, and not in the original? I have read it several times since 1988. ...
It could well be. It is certainly very curious. Http://t.co/Coh1NMXF [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
I ask, because the question has been raised by our noble friend, Lord Greaves, who suggests that it should include more coverage of events from the red benches and their environs. As someone who has taken more interest in the activities of our (occasionally) ermine clad friends and colleagues, and written on the subject sometimes, I have to say that it is quite hard work. Some of the best work is done in meetings with ministers, through the 'usual channels' and by means of seemingly harmless, but actually quite significant questions. It isn't glamorous, but it is important. The problem ...
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