This evening at a meeting of Reading Borough Council's Cabinet I posed some questions to Labour's Transport Chief, Cllr Tony Page: "The aim of bus lane fines is to deter people from driving in bus lanes.Given the sharp rise in fines- an extra 6,000 since you took over rising 3,000 per month ever since (apart from August) What are you doing to address this and reduce the number of vehicles abusing bus lanes? Or have you become so financially dependent on this income stream that you no don't care if people drive in bus lanes?"I asked these questions because of ...
Manchester Withington MP John Leech has put down the following Early Day Motion in Parliament; That this House welcomes the commitment of the Coalition Government to increase the personal allowance to £10,000 by 2015; recognises that increases in the personal allowance have already taken hundreds of thousands of the lowest paid tax payers out of paying income tax altogether and that further increases in the personal allowance will benefit all taxpayers, but benefit the poorest taxpayers more as a proportion of their income; welcomes the recent increase in the minimum wage to £6.08 for adults over 21, which translates into ...
Lynne Featherstone remembers Sir Simon Milton. Paul Tyler has argued that pressure groups should be subject to scrutiny too. Eaten by Missionaries agrees with him. "I just received this email about a school in Devon undergoing building works: 'Our two boys attend a grammar school in Devon ... where they were told in assembly that with the construction of a new block they were not to speak to any builder, and that no builder must speak to them or he will face dismissal. How can we possibly hope to build any kind of better (or 'big') society with such an ...
Love this! A little Otis Redding...
I find it very difficult to understand how a government, especially one with a Liberal Democrat heading up DECC, can suddenly pull the rug from under so many people who were planning to do their bit to boost the renewable energy generation in this country. Solar panels make a lot of sense to householders who plan to stay in their property for 10 years or more and can afford the initial outlay.
After my surgeries at Harris Academy and the Mitchell Street Centre this afternoon, I attended a lengthy series of council meetings tonight at which : * At the Housing Committee, I queried the credibility of assumed land receipts (£13.4 million between 2012 and 2015) that proposed levels of council rents in the next few years rely upon. In the past year, such receipts have amounted to only £500 000. * At the same committee, I asked questions about proposals for Amenity Housing and sought assurances for our sheltered housing tenants. * Again, at Housing Committee, I questioned the rather crude ...
I've been spending the evening working on the East of England Regional Party's website - not the most exciting of chores, I know. However, in the tidying process, I discovered something that I didn't know. This distinguished looking gentleman is Peter Welch, former Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate for Southend West, former European Parliamentary candidate, and all round decent fellow. He is also a former member of the Luxembourg national cricket team, and was part of the team that took part in the 2003 ECC Trophy in Vienna, competing against the might of Portugal, Croatia and Malta (amongst others). Alright, they ...
De ja vu. Like the mad tram plan for Ealing that Labour had, they lost the election and then changed their policy. Today Labour did the same for Heathrow. Originally for it and now against it. Shame it took them an election loss to work out why Heathrow expansion is a very bad idea. More noise, more pollution. No thanks - I would rather have clean air and an environment where children can play outside without the huge noise they suffer if they are living in Hounslow. Heathrow expansion would have meant much more of London was effected in a ...
The big south coast derby just before Christmas promises to be an exciting affair. I have been to four Pompey v Saints games in my life – two at St Mary's and two at Fratton Park. I have seen us win twice (1-0, 4-1) and lose twice (2-0, 2-1) and in none of the four games did I once fear for my own personal safety. The only time where my senses were even peaked were when Pompey fans ran down Goldsmith Ave after winning 1-0 in the league game where Yak scored and Kevin Phillips hit the post deep into ...
There's a widespread belief that County Durham is not run by its politicians, but by its officers. The CCTV decision making process is a clear example. Back in January a Freedom of Information request by a Mr Palmer extracted the information that the CCTV Service was under review and a report to Cabinet due in March 2011. In March a report to Cabinet was prepared, but never presented. Instead a decision was made by the Head of Housing under delegated powers, a decision which transfers the monitoring of all county council cameras to a single control room in the South ...
I notice tonight that a small number of Liberal Democrats, including colleagues both on the Federal Policy Committee and the Social Liberal Forum Council, are signing up to the 'Plan B' being touted by Compass. I am not, and this is why. (For more see and – and the one page summary at ) 1. The Compass plan involves a temporary reversal of all cuts. This manages to be both meaningless and incoherent, particularly to public bodies that have to budget for one, two or three years – what are they supposed to do, and for how ...
Tonight's the night that Google Reader (RIP) turns off all its social functions, and becomes useless. However, in the nick of time, someone's started up a Free Software clone, Hivemined, which is currently in closed beta but which will be opening up soon. You can sign up at the site to be notified. Hope this ...
The bells of Westminster Abbey pealed as the Service of Thanksgiving to celebrate the Life and Work of Sir Simon Milton came to an end. I met Simon at a banquet at the Mansion House years ago when I was a London Assembly Member on the GLA. Having looked at the seating arrangements and found who was sitting next to me – I wasn't particularly thrilled. I was not looking forward to an evening conversation with a Westminster Conservative. You are always at the mercy of who you are seated next to at these things. But more fool me! After ...
Virgin Media and Spotify have announced the details of their deal.[1] New customers who sign up to a 12 month contract for a 30Mbps or faster cable broadband service will get 6 months of Spotify Premium for free. The same offer applies to existing customers who sign a new contract for the same services. Unfortunately I have the 10Mbps broadband service and I don't want to or have a need to upgrade to 30Mbps. Virgin Mobile customers will get 3 months free and they will also get unlimited data while using Spotify in the UK. There was no concrete news ...
In the Independent, Paul Cahalan writes: ...it is understood St Paul's is open to the idea of having a tent inside the cathedral "for as long as necessary". There is a precedent for this. In the summer of 2006, the Archbishop of York moved into a tent in York Minster as part of an act of "public witness" to encourage peace in the Middle East. Archbishop of York photo credit: Some rights reserved by York Minster [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
The "What is nature for?" debate at the Battle of Ideas put me in mind of an article I wrote for Open Mind some years ago. Perhaps it was no more than an excuse to chain together some of my favourite quotations - and if I were writing it today no doubt I would be quoting Richard Louv - but I remain fond of it. Out into the sunlight and the pure wind In 1883, the writer and naturalist Richard Jefferies published The Story of My Heart, his spiritual autobiography. It begins with a rapturous account of an ascent of ...
You may remember we were promised that the new bus shelter would be done by the end of October? No sign of work on the ground, so as councillors we chased. We've now been told that the South Glos officer who was dealing with it has left. We've spoken to another officer who has a record of being able to fix problem projects. He told us that the officer who left had passed on some notes, but as far as we can establish no firm date was agreed for installation, though it's thought that "this is likely to be before ...
So the milestone of 3,000 signatures was passed earlier today with the help of shoppers in Histon, Ely and Cambridge over the weekend. There is still plenty of time to sign the petition if you haven't already by following the link below;http://www.noto25percent.comThis petition has now easily become the most successful e-Petition in the County Councils history.On a related (but slightly more amusing) note Conservative leader of the County Council, Councillor Nick Clarke, has been chosen by the Taxpayers Alliance as their "Pinhead of the Month" (for October 2011). Not quite sure he'll be happy about that (and I doubt he'll ...
Mon 31st
20:12
Michael Meadowcroft provides more reasons why the Lib Dems should stop calling for referendums on Eu...
The former Liberal MP Michael Meadowcroft emails in response to my Liberal Democrat News article saying the party should stop calling for referendums on Europe. He provides two more arguments in support of my case: The public votes in a referendum far more on its current perception of the popularity of the government or leader proposing it. That was true in the UK referendum on AV last May where it was more of a vote on whether or not one liked Nick Clegg than on the benefits or otherwise of AV. Equally the French voted "No" on the European constitution ...
Hardly a month seems to go by without our Counties Constitution needing to be amended in some way or other.This time the changes are to reflect the shift from Scrutiny to Overview and Scrutiny - something Liberal Democrats have been in favour of and actively calling for for years.Of course there always has to be a slight sting in the tail; the stripping of opposition parties of Committee Chairs does tend to reward party loyalty at the expense of full Overview and Scrutiny (but then, as I think Cllr Clarke pointed out in when he proposed the change, it is ...
Paul Davis on a good year for a unique visitor facility in the Shropshire hills The Bog is a small village at the foothills of the Stiperstones National Nature Reserve, 1300 feet up in the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. There's not a lot here other than fantastic views, peace and tranquillity, great walks, rich natural flora and fauna, and The Bog Visitor Centre. The Bog Visitor Centre is based in an old school that opened in 1839 for the local mining community, at one stage the village had over 200 buildings and was a prosperous centre for ...
We are currently planning the Faith and Pride events that will take place in and around Belfast Pride 2012. What would you like to see happen? Or maybe you have an idea for something you would like to see happen at some other time of year. Add a comment, or let us know through the ...
The issue of international development is a subject close to my heart. So, it was a great pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to Oxfam Programme Officer, Naile Salima about the fantastic work that the charity is doing in Malawi. Malawi is a country facing many challenges. Based in the South Eastern region ... Continue reading »
Mon 31st
18:53
LDVideo: Nick Clegg visits Sheffield Forgemasters, launches £950m regional growth fund
Video also available at the Guardian website. Transcript below. Nick Clegg travelled to Sheffield today to launch a £950m regional growth fund, including a £36m government loan to Sheffield Forgemasters. From the BBC: Deputy Prime Minister and Sheffield Hallam MP Nick Clegg said it would support apprenticeships and equipment. The coalition had cancelled an £80m loan to Forgemasters to build parts for nuclear power stations as part of a review of Labour's spending decisions. Forgemasters said the newer, smaller loan would be used to prepare for future contracts. Graham Honeyman, chief executive of Sheffield Forgemasters, said: "We're putting in other ...
I've developed sponsor blindness... which is a bit of a shame for the London Film Festival which has just sent round its annual post-festival feedback survey. I couldn't identify a single one of their sponsors without prompting, which is mostly because I didn't see as many films in the festival as I usually do, but [...] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...
I received Conwy's first full quarter recycling figures today which included the new weekly collection service. I am very pleased to announce that residents in Conwy are now recycling 54% of their waste. I have to be cautious with this figure as this quarter is usually the busiest due to green garden waste. This result is up 10% from last year and looks promising to hit the statutory target of 52% by 2012/13. There is still more to do, we are working on introducing kerbside recycling in the rest of the County. Currently some rural areas do not receive this ...
My letter in this week's Liberal Democrat News: There is much I admire about Kirsty Williams's leadership of the party in Wales, which made the opening of her article in last week's Liberal Democrat News (21 October) all the more disappointing: "some Local Health Boards in Wales have been exposing patients to sub-optimal quality of care and safety". Sub-optimal quality? I hope Kirsty's usual eloquent frankness and plain speaking returns soon and the lapse into mealy-mouthed jargon can be quickly forgotten! Yours etc.
Non-fiction 3 (YTD 55) A New History of Ireland, Volume III: Early Modern Ireland 1534-1691, ed. T.W. Moody, F.X. Martin and F.J. Byrne Newman, Elgar and "The Dream of Gerontius", by Percy M. Young The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano Fiction (Non-sf) 3 (YTD 41) Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence Exit Music, by Ian Rankin The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck SF (non-Who) 9 (YTD 66) Half A Crown, by Jo Walton The Borribles, by Michael De Larrabeiti The Borribles Go For Broke, by Michael De Larrabeiti The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis, by Michael ...
Monday, 31st October 2011, is '7 billion Day', the day chosen by the UN to represent symbolically the world's human population reaching 7,000,000,000. In 1800, the world's population was approximately 1 billion. We 'achieved' 2 billion in 1927, 3 billion in 1960, by 1999 it had doubled to 6 billion, and it has taken 12 years to reach 7 billion. By the middle of the century the best estimates are that it will be around 10 billion. (You can find the UN's figures here.) Medical advances and public health measures have led to much lower infant mortality and much greater ...
Mon 31st
16:53
Both the Occupy London protesters and the St Paul's authorities are making a laughing stock of thems...
I blogged last Friday with the title: "It's "Occupy London Stock Exchange" not "Occupy St Paul's Cathedral forecourt" ". Now I repeat the point. The Occupy London protesters are being perceived (whether they intend it or not) to be having a battle with the St Paul's Cathedral authorities. They appear to be pursuing this battle with great vigour and tenacity. Meanwhile, complaints about the excesses of the financial world are getting drowned out by the anti-frockocracy noise. The resignation of the Dean has confirmed what a crazy situation this is. Giles Fraser wasn't a maverick after all. The Dean's resignation ...
Social enterprise Big White Wall (BWW) was set up in 2007 in partneship with the Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust. BWW has set up a secure social networking zone for people with psychological or emotional problems. They can talk, share their feelings, benefit from clinically designed interventions and use therapeutic techniques to improve wellbeing – all the time within a safe, secure environment where they can remain anonymous. Tavistock & Portman's psychiatrists and other clinicians helped design the interventions and therapeutic techniques and train and supervise BWW's staff. A team of "wall guides" works 24 hours a day to ensure ...
I've written a few times now about the strategic problem the Liberal Democrats currently face: The message is basically this: look at the four polices on the front page of the 2010 Lib Dem manifesto and how they are now being implemented (along with many other Liberal Democrat policies). Then look at what the Conservatives said they would do if given an overall majority and look at the list of things they've had to drop. In other words - for a party with far fewer MPs than Labour or the Tories, the Liberal Democrats did a good job getting policies ...
Liberal Democrats have long called for reform to local government finance. No matter what alternative systems we've proposed, the key element has always been that the revenue was raised locally, and decisions about how to spend that money were taken locally. As you would expect of a Government with a Liberal Democrat influence, the Coalition is adopting that same approach. The consultation on the relocalisation of Business Rates has just ended, and today's announcement by DCLG of the Technical Consultation on Council Tax contains a number of positive news stories for Liberal Democrats. Take second homes for instance. You ask ...
This week there is one planning application in the ward to report. It is from the City Council and concerns "installation of of 9.88kwp solar photovoltaic panels to approximately 67m2 of the south-west facing roof slope" of the City Homes North office on Arbury Road. The reference number is 11/1227/FUL and you can see the detailed documents online too. As normal you can get more information from the City Council website, and in case of difficulty contact the team.In case you wonder why we didn't have a planning post last week: there weren't any applications in King's Hedges.
It is worth buying Reassessing New Labour just to read James Purnell's short preface. New Labour's would-be philosopher king pretty much disappeared from view after Labour chose the wrong Miliband as leader. Purnell's piece highlights perfectly the challenge Labour faces in coming to terms with its 2010 election defeat. It is brilliantly lucid in assessing why Labour lost. It is extremely limited in its analysis of how to recover. In particular it completely ignores the 500lb gorilla in the corner - the economy. I'll come back to this in a moment. Diamond and Kenny's book brings together a range of ...
I've always taken the view that to talk or blog about councillors' allowances is a real turnoff that's never going to get people particularly interested. But before you drop off, can I have a couple of minutes of your time to highlight a local development that is actually worth stifling the yawns for? How would you feel if you discovered that some of your taxes were going to pay people whose jobs weren't defined? People who might do some work, but you don't know what they're doing, or whether they've done what they're supposed to because no-one has set out ...
The vote on Any Questions on Friday night, broadcast from Newcastle, suggested that at least half the chattering classes are in favour of the protests in so many cities now against the disastrous financial status quo - including the one next to St Paul's Cathedral in London. I certainly am, despite the pompous dismissal of them by both the Labour and Lib Dem representatives on the Any Questions panel (sorry, Jeremy, but you were). That doesn't mean that I am somehow against the Church of England or the cathedral authorities, who - sticking to the terrible advice they have been ...
I am grateful to my friend Neil for encouraging me to write more often. My problem at the moment is not lack of things to write about, on the contrary: there is just too much to choose from. So I'm going to roll my sleeves up and plunge in with our old friend, the EU. My local MP (and electoral rival) Steve Baker was one of the rebels on the recent EU Referendum vote. This prompted an outpouring of support on the comments pages of our local newspaper. At least two commenters were sufficiently impressed that they pledged to join ...
Mon 31st
14:23LibLink: Paddy Ashdown - 'I used to think the party of Gladstone would end with Ashdown'
Today's Telegraph has an interview with Paddy Ashdown, timed to promote his new TV documentary The Most Courageous Raid of WWII. From the BBC: Lord Ashdown, a former special forces commando, tells the story of the 'Cockleshell Heroes', who led one of the most daring and audacious commando raids of World War II... Lord Ashdown recreates parts of the raid and explains how this experience was used in preparing for one of the greatest land invasions in history, D-day. As well as the documentary, Lord Ashdown's Telegraph interview covers Europe, the Liberal Democrats and the art of compromise: When Ashdown ...
I can't claim any great expertise (or even knowledge) on the subject of adoption, but instinct and logic incline me to be very sceptical of the government's latest exercise in council-bashing. Take, for instance, David Cameron's statement that "It is shocking that of the 3,600 children under the age of one in care, only 60 were adopted last year - this is clearly not good enough." This takes it as read that the more children in care under 12 months old who are adopted the better. But is this a reasonable view? Unless parents have explicitly given up their children ...
In all fairness, whatever one's views for or against the debates in the Welsh Assembly about the need for a badger cull have been fairly measured. That does not appear to be the case in Parliament where, according to the latest Badger Trust press release, wild exaggeration is the order of the day: The Badger Trust is astonished that a Member of Parliament should claim in a debate that a farmer in his constituency "saw what he thought were 30 to 40 badgers, full of TB, staggering around and unable to stand up" under a yard light. For Mr James ...
At the end of my post on the Federal Executive's decision that the Liberal Democrats should (mostly) not fight police commissioner elections, a decision at odds with the views of party members we surveyed, I made reference to the fact that the details of such votes are not published and usually remain confidential. Sometimes news of who voted which way seeps out but, for example, you're not officially meant to know that three members of the FE voted against that decision or who the three were. There are arguments in favour of this, such as the idea that the committees ...
Mon 31st
12:53Great news for cat fans! Beauty the kitten in the Hemming love triangle is alive and well!
...And that simple title involved quite a lot of self-restraint. This subject is a goldmine of double entendres. But I won't go there..... Beauty, the kitten involved in the Hemming love triangle case, is alive and well! Wonderful news! She may also have had kittens of her own! [IMG: Noncommercial] Some rights reserved by Bjørnli Foto [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
When the fortnightly bin collection was brought in earlier this year, the Labour-controlled Council in Manchester made it clear was nothing to do with cost-cutting. Indeed, the change was cost-neutral. This was about the environment. Well, now that environment is filling up with refuse and the communal black bins have not been popular (to say the least). However the Government is offering Councils a share of £250 million to switch back to weekly black bin collections. Now such an offer usually comes with strings, but it would be good to know what those strings are and for us to decide ...
Today I had a rather horrible experience. On my commute to work, I popped into a newsagents to buy a muffin (I forgot to have breakfast). But in there, I had the misfortune to glance at the headline of the Daily Mail: What this story is about is the apparent intent by the Church of England to threaten Internet Service Providers to withdraw its multi million pound investment in the industry unless they clamp down on internet pornography. Now, aside from the fact that it seems odd for an organisation to be planning to end multi million pound (out of ...
Great news from the Birmingham Post: Beauty the cat has been found alive and well, and appears to have been living happily in Sparkhill for the past year.Not only that: she appears to have become a mother. When a kitten herself, Beauty was at the centre of a catnapping row involving John Hemming MP, his wife and mistress. It ended in a recent court case and a suspended sentence. Anyway, John, the Lib Dem MP for Birmingham Yardley, told the Post: "I went to see the cat last night and indeed it was Beauty. We, however, think that she is ...
The former Australian prime minister, Paul Keating, recently gave a must-read newspaper interview. There were many interesting insights, but the media picked up on his observation that Australia's current Labor government lacks a narrative."The failure of the Rudd and Gillard administrations is the lack of an over-arching story, the lack of a compelling story . . ."I'm happy that Labor took us through this dreadful financial crisis so competently. But they are not in the business of teaching. And governments, to succeed with change, must be in the business of educating the community."Our Labor governments have failed to conceptualise the ...
Today's Guardian has a big page one splash on revelations that the Prince of Wales gets formally consulted (and given the chance to veto) various pieces of legislation. Well, I say revelations and the story is written that way - complete with references to correspondence seen by the Guardian and a freedom of information request. Except ... take a look at Hansard: each time the Prince of Wales has been consulted, it's been reported in public to Parliament in a debate which then has its full transcript published online and free for anyone to read. (The process of consultation is ...
In Stockport we're proud of our children's services and our record on adoption. Today's Government figures show Stockport coming out best in Greater Manchester with 85%. We work with other authorities across Greater Manchester and the whole of the north west to attract foster carers – it can be a difficult area and there are always issues to be tackled. Authority % Bolton 78 Rochdale 72 Oldham 62 Trafford 77 Tameside 71 Wigan 68 Stockport 85 Salford 67 Manchester 73 Bury 78 It should also be noted that the time it takes to get a child fostered can be out ...
An application's come in for a coffee shop on Garston Old Road at number 77 (on a small parade of shops) You can see the details on the Council's website here
One of the first acts of the Coalition was to scrap plans for a third runway at Heathrow, whilst Boris Johnson's plans for a new airport on an artifical island in the Thames Estuary have not been going anywhere much. So what next for the region's airports? This is what the BBC had to report: What's your view?
On the front page of the Guardian today there is a big story about the Prince of Wales exercising a 'secretive constitutional veto' over government legislation. Mark Pack has already demonstrated that the hysterical tone of the story is somewhat unwarranted. Via a simple Hansard search he found that every time the Prince of Wales is asked for Consent it is reported openly to Parliament and recorded in Hansard, which is, of course, a public document readily available to journalists. I thought I would follow in his footsteps. A simple Google search revealed this page on the 'Consent of the ...
A record number of affordable homes have been approved for construction this year by the City of Edinburgh Council. In total 1,558 homes have been rubber-stamped for building which will lead to £296m of direct and indirect investment and support 2,180 jobs in the construction and related industries and services in Edinburgh. The figures have been revealed in a new report - Strategic Housing Investment Plan 2012-17 - which sets out the Council's affordable homes strategy for the next five years. This is the first time that the number of approvals for affordable housing has almost matched the 1,660 homes ...
If there is one thing clear about this story which reveals that since 2005, ministers from six departments have sought the Prince of Wales' consent to draft bills on everything from road safety to gambling and the London Olympics, it is that it is not as secretive as the Guardian suggests. Nor does it appear that the Prince of Wales has actually vetoed anything. On each occasion the Prince's consent has been reported to Parliament in open session. It is a process that is well known to those who follow the intricacies of government legislation, though almost certainly not widely ...
Derren Brown's second show in his The Experiments series raises even more questions than the 'Assassin'. In 'Gameshow', Brown explores what happens when individuals merge into a mob. To test the theory that when individuals lose their sense of self they also lose their morals, he sets up an audience to think that they are taking part in a new gameshow that he is hosting called 'Remote Control'. To participate they must don masks to ensure their anonymity. The audience is asked to decide the fate of a young man who is spending Friday night out with his mates. The ...
As somebody who has always been concerned about the growth of the surveillance state, I am aware that no matter how friendly a government is to civil liberties, new technology will always outstrip new legislation in its ability to intrude on people's lives. This seems to have been confirmed by this story which suggests that Britain's largest police force is operating covert surveillance technology that can masquerade as a mobile phone network, transmitting a signal that allows authorities to shut off phones remotely, intercept communications and gather data about thousands of users in a targeted area. They say that the ...
"We are all in it together" is the most cynical sick joke of this decade. A report in the Scotsman says: The effective tax rate paid by Britain's biggest companies has dropped by almost a third over the last two years, but many are still considering moving their headquarters abroad. In 2009, FTSE 100 companies on average paid tax equivalent to 35.8% of their annual profits. But new research by UHY Hacker Young, a national group of accounting firms, shows that figure has fallen to just 26% in 2011, even though profits are higher. For Aileen Scott, tax partner at ...
Since the creation of the Duchy of Cornwall in 1337 the Prince of Wales's consent has been sought on laws that affect the estate; from 2005, several ministerial departments have sought his permission regarding numerous bills. That's the beauty of a hereditary dictatorship – laws can be interpreted to benefit the oligarchy and not the ...
As we begin to look at the elections coming up in May, many will be looking to start or expand on local campaigns to help improve our chances of winning seats in the election. Organisation of the campaign is key to ensuring that it achieves what it sets out to. The problem with organising a ...
We (local residents, Pinkham Way Alliance, the three local MPs: Theresa Villiers, David Burrowes and myself, Liberal Democrats on Haringey Council (ably led by Cllr Juliet Solomon) and others are all fighting against plans to build a giant waste processing plant at Pinkham Way. Haringey Council were found (as we all had been saying) not to have consulted properly on the Haringey Core Strategy and have been forced to go back and consult again – properly. I am posting here the Liberal Democrat response to this consultation – the Core Strategy Fundamental Changes (Core Document CSSD-03) and the Sustainability Appraisal ...
When doing away with our yearly ritual of moving the clocks forward and back is condemned because a change would mean we'd be using "German" time I think we know we're in trouble. When Conservative MPs like Julian Lewis feel able to go on record to criticise senior civil servants representing the UK in Europe ...
Ask many people what they think of the Lib Dems' approach to law and order, and you'll be told - erroneously - that we're a soft touch. Our approach, traditionally evidence-based and less punitive than the populist authoritarian policies of Labour and the Tories, takes longer to explain. When we fail to do so, we risk being seen as the party that panders to criminals. Of course, that isn't the case. We believe in policy that actually works to reduce crime and recidivism, using all possible means to rehabilitate those who resort to illegality, while reiterating the importance of the ...
I'm writing this introductory material on the night of the thirtieth of October. If all goes well, I should be receiving my copy of The Smile Sessions tomorrow morning, the thirty-first. I'm going to hit 'post' on this introductory section at 8:30 AM, and then as soon as the box set arrives I'm going to ...
Shop of the Week this week is a real stalwart of Camborne's high street – Polladras Pet Supplies. I used to visit this shop to buy food for my hamster when I was at school, so that gives some indication of how long Polladras has been serving the public in our town! Having recently inherited a friend's cat while he works abroad for a while, Polladras Pet Supplies has become a regular feature on my weekly shop once more. Even several years after my first visit, it's still a fun Aladdin's Cave of treats for all different kinds of pet, ...
There is no-one in the country who does not believe that children placed in care should be adopted as quickly as possible if that is the right way forward for them. Going into care is good for no child and ... Continue reading →
Mon 31st
07:57
What would David Cameron have answered on women if it hadn't been for the Liberal Democrats?
When Labour MP for Ashfield and former GMTV political correspondent Gloria de Piero asked David Cameron at PMQs last week why women were "significantly more negative about the Government than men", the PM gave this reply. When you are making difficult spending decisions and have a difficult economic situation, and household budgets are under huge pressure from things like petrol prices, food prices and inflation, clearly, that impacts women. The Government want to do everything they can to help women and that is why we have lifted 1 million people out of tax, the majority of whom are women, and ...
I'm not an expert in this area, so there's one thing that really puzzles me about the Guardian's splash about the "secretive" process by which the Prince of Wales is asked to approve certain legislation: it doesn't seem to me to be anything new. Obscure perhaps, but not new. Which is why I took a look at Hansard and found this - that looks to me like regular reporting in public of the occasions when the Prince of Wales or the Queen has been formally consulted over legislation because it might affect their private interests (the mechanism involved). So is ...
The weekend is often over in the blink of an eye, and come Monday morning it's off to work for the masses. The daily commute, whether it be by any means of transport, is often chaotic, crowded and frankly rather unpleasant for many. It is a self - evident truth that our transport network is overcrowded. Even now with unemployment rates not seen for a generation, many of us will struggle for hours every day to travel to our respective workplaces. Can the government help? The government could assist by offering business rate reductions for employers willing to facilitate their ...
[IMG: funny pictures - WHAT YEAR IS IT?] see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!
On Wednesday 2nd November, the Friends of Wighton are teaming up with Live Music Now Scotland, for this month's Wednesday lunchtime concert in the Wighton Centre, upstairs in Dundee Central Library. The performers for November's event are the trumpet and piano duo of Tom Poulson and Chris Baxter. The concert will start at 1.15pm and will run for about half an hour. Admission is free.
The Autumn 2011 Cheadle Civic Society newsletter has arrived and, as always, it's well worth a read, with updates on local issues and longer articles on local history, policing in Cheadle, the Cheadle soliders who died in the Somme in the First World War and a selection of historical photographs from the sadly-missed Heather Clarke (with more on the website). Membership of the Civic Society is only £5 a year per househole (details here) which always seems like excellent value for the twice-yearly newsletter alone.
I offer his plot gratuitously to any author writing for Radio 4's Afternoon Theatre. Scene 1: Heaven. God notes with approval the work of St Paul's Institute in debating and producing reports on a "more excellent" New World Order, but fears few people are listening. He calls on His advisers, and they decide to inspire groups of young, trendy and attractive activists, good communicators all and with similar aims, to hold demonstrations. Scene 2: major cities in the World. Activists get together, not necessarily recognising that they are being inspired by God. They decide to take on the principalities and ...
[IMG: Iranian women joining the Occupy Wall Street Protest] Iranian women joining the Occupy Wall Street protest I saw this picture making the rounds on Facebook yesterday, and what struck me was the odd combination of conflicting iconographies. Let me explain: political imagery often uses specific visual cues to get across its message. They might be symbols of power, expressions of popularity or closeness to 'the common people'; demonstrations of anger, but also images of powerlessness can become powerful weapons of protest. [IMG: Occupy Antarctica] Occupy Antarctica! The 99% (Occupy Wall Street) protest is beginning to have its own visual ...
New county council rules mean that Chris White now has £90,000 to allocate on local highways works from 1 April. While this is only 15% of the total amount of your money spent on roads, it does give the opportunity for a greater local say over which roads and pavements matter most. Chris's initial suggestions are set out in alphabetical order here. If you would like to suggest alternatives, please let us know. Albert Street/Sopwell Lane traffic calming Alexandra Road – resurfacing Alma Cut/Black Cut – street light improvements Bardwell Road – resurfacing and/or footway works Breakspear Avenue – resurfacing ...
