Scottish Premier League football club Hearts face a fight for their existence as owner Vladimir Romanov vows to put the club - along with two other East European teams - up for sale. With the club mired in more than £30 million debt and the players failing to be paid on time for the second month in a row it is clear major cash flow problems exist in the Romanov empire. The prospects of a quick sale look remote and with Romanov desperate to maximuise whatever return he can on his investment Hearts fans ought to be very concerned for ...
Thu 17th
22:52
Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Wirral Council) 17th November 2011 Early Volunta...
Chris Hyams introduced the report (agenda item 16) on Early Voluntary Retirement/Voluntary Redundancy and Organisational Change. She talked about the changes and remodelling as well as the Early Voluntary Retirement/Voluntary Severance process. Chris Hyams referred to the savings and number of employees as well as the £2 million for remodelling. She said that the £2 ...
It did not snow until 11th November, a record for Alberta, but now we will probably be smothered in whiteness until April. There is nothing on TV worth watching to relieve the boredom, except Modern Family, which is only half an hour on Wednesdays at 10 pm, which is not when I really need TV. ...
A while ago I started on what has turned out to be the long process of making everything I do available via IPv6. This evening I'm as far as I can go! My initial problem was in getting a working IPv6 connection to my servers. I purchased a Cisco 1721 via eBay, and upgraded it with extra RAM and an interface card for ADSL. That, though, turned out to be the easy part of the process. Cisco routers like the 1721 use Cisco IOS as their operating system and though there are a number of sites online which have information ...
Thu 17th
22:29Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Wirral Council) 17th November 2011, Declarations...
Present: Cllr Phil Gilchrist (Lib Dem) (Chair) Cllr Ron Abbey (Labour) Cllr Darren Dodd (Labour) Cllr Chris Jones (Labour) Cllr James Keeley (Conservative) Cllr John Hale (Conservative) Cllr Steve Williams (Conservative) Cllr Wendy Clements (Conservative) deputy for Cllr Tony Cox (Conservative) LATE: Cllr Paul Doughty (Labour) (missed declarations of interest (item 1) (all) & minutes ...
I've just got back from this year's fantastic Chorlton U Decide event. The event allowed Chorlton residents the opportunity to award £7500 of funding (upto £750 each) to local community groups and initiatives. Very well done to the 11 successful Projects: Chorlton Big Green Festival - £750 for workshops, sound system, toilets, staging Cracking Good Food - £450 for group cooking sessions for affordable and healthy food C4 (Chorlton Central Community Centre) Café Club - £700 for hall hire, workshops, mini-bus for cooking workshops for young people to cook for elderly Digital Arts & Music - £750 for digital artworks ...
It's not good enough for Obama to have been the most successful Foreign policy US President for decades. Right-winger John Bolton wants him to take on freaking Iran and Syria. What bovine scatology.... [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
Your results: You are Mr. Sulu Mr. Sulu 80% Will Riker 75% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 70% Mr. Scott 70% Chekov 65% Worf 65% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 65% Spock 60% Jean-Luc Picard 60% Beverly Crusher 60% Deanna Troi 60% James T. Kirk (Captain) 55% Uhura 55% Geordi LaForge 55% Data 48% You are able to master many skills such as swords, plants and martial arts. [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
It's been a month since my last post, and no it's not just you political folks I'm ignoring. I've suddenly gone off blogging across the board. It happens, I've been blogging for over ten years and there are times when one just cannot be bothered, and other times of frenzied activity. I no longer worry too much about it, but apologise for being away! Don't expect this to be my come back either... Whilst the British marriage equality fight is currently in a "consolidate the forces" phase as the Holyrood and Westminister consultations begin to get going, in California the ...
Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat MP for East Dunbartonshire, has contributed a chapter to the New Economics Foundation paper The Practical Politics of Well-being. She writes: The 1974 Liberal Manifesto contained a Quality of Life section, which contained prescient observations that, "To the extent that growth has been achieved, it has not increased human happiness" and that, "...we must now abandon the policy adopted by past Governments, based, almost entirely, on the crude maximisation of Gross National Product."
I know people think I have downer on local authorities, and local government "officers" and God knows we've seen some extremes locally at both district and county level but blimey, it's looks like Oxford city council have elevated themselves to a new high in terms of well, either righteous regulation, stupidity or contempt for privacy and civil liberties. In the unlikely event that this hasn't cropped up on your news radar, Oxford's city council, has decided to insist that all taxis must be fitted with CCTV or what most of us would view as spy cameras recording, what would otherwise ...
Tweetthe Liberal Democrats are in a difficult position. The papers are full of economic gloom and Labour is relishing the argument that the coalition has cut too fast, too far. This is the achieving time the Liberal Democrat backbenchers to keep reiterating the compromise message. Or better still, get Vince cable Simon Hughes on it. ...
We had a meeting today with Holly's teacher. Holly's teacher thinks she is somewhere on The Spectrum, towards the high-functioning aspie end, and wanted to get our permission to put her forward to the SEN lady. The examples that Kelly gave of stuff that Holly does which are aspie-ish were stuff that I do, and mostly that my dad does too, which I thought of as harmless eccentricities or personality quirks. Anyway, permission was gladly given, and (me being me) I came home and googled and started reading up on female-presenting autism spectrum disorders. And I saw myself. Over and ...
Fifty-one volunteers from Midland Cave Rescue, police and ambulance crews rescued a caver who had become trapped in a disused lead mine at Snailbeach in Shropshire in a six-hour operation, the Shropshire Star reports. The newspaper also links to an audio report of the rescue by a local radio station. The woman, who was brought to the surface at 3.30 this morning, had suffered an epileptic fit and fallen. You can discover more about Snailbeach Lead Mine on a website maintained by the Shropshire Mines Trust.
University graduates are among the 1 Million young people who are out of work in UK. I know a few of these young people and it is so sad to see them having to downgrade their ambitions. When they first went to University they had dreams and hopes and now they are sending applications off for jobs that they didn't need to go to university for. They worry about paying off their student debt eventhough they aren't eligible yet to pay it off. Nobody wants debts. But if these students aren't paying off their debts and are having to claim ...
TweetThe student protest last week was peaceful and went off with only minor skirmishes. The press were, in short, disappointed. The largest problem with youth activism is a lack of empiricism. They are quick to judge the present no acquired knowledge of the world at large. The behaviour is adolescent; a pushing of boundaries and ...
TweetThere is still a lot of confusion around Theresa May and the UK borders. David Cameron said in Prime Minister's question time that he backed May 100%, too, as the Metro reports; "authorise a pilot scheme of targeted checks". Theresa May says, definitively, she did not authorise the relaxation of border checks. The truth is ...
Now that the smoking in cars media circus is moving on the BMA has quietly withdrawn their "evidence" to ban smoking in cars. Thanks to a lack of any credible journalism around this yesterday it's now job done as the statistic will be well and truly in the public consciousness. Chris Snowdon has the full story
Prison can work – but it doesn't work very well. Some prisons sadly have 70% of their discharged prisoners re-offending. Anything that reduces such re-offending rates needs to be tried. It's obviously better for the criminals themselves, it saves the community a huge amount of money and it will contributesto a slow improvement of our society. But rehabilitation ex-prisoners is difficult without a bank account. And opening a bank account is not easy these days. Utility bill? Driving licence? Passport? Where's your ID? Even when ex-prisoners are set up with jobs or training grants or housing the lack of a ...
The internal row in the Labour Party on Tyneside burst out for all to see earlier this week at the North East hearings on the Boundary Commissions proposals for new constituencies. Labour MPs are openly arguing for the retention of their own constituencies with the knock on effect that they inadvertently (or arguably deliberately) dump all over their colleagues. Our regional newspaper, the
After last year's success, I am pleased to say that I am once again raising money for Movember by once again growing a moustache. Last year some people thought I'd grown it as a fashion statement so this ... Continue reading →
Quite a lot of work going on around my Ward at the moment and this is connected to The Llandudno Junction Regeneration Project. The photo of the new bin, which are being replaced throughout Junction is down by the New Asda, this area was overgrown and attracted litter, now re-turfed and looking a lot better. Llandudno Junction is also having some new road signs, some of our pavement area's are being renewed, new street lights down by the Weekly News Roundabout and we have replaced the old galvanised railings in that area with new green powder coated ones. Opposite Asda ...
I got this off Bookmooch several years ago, and have now got around to reading it. I was raelly a bit disappointed. It was published in 1985, and rather shows its age. While there is a lot of useful detail, the system of two to six page essays with (unnumbered and confusingly referenced) notes placed in the middle gutter is not in fact very clearly structured. To get a sense of the full sequence and significance of crucial political developments, your eye has to dart back and forth across the columns. Norman Davies succeeded with the much bolder step of ...
Cross-posted from Liberal Democrat Voice As usual, questions to the Deputy Prime Minister this week covered a large variety of subjects. Nick Clegg was on passionate form on several issues. Harriet Harman asked if he would "admit that he urgently needs to take further action to help the young unemployed?". Refreshingly, Nick Clegg did admit this, adding: ...it would be a real dereliction of duty if we did not do more to try to make sure that young people are given a real pathway into training, further and higher education or the labour market. As the right hon. and learned ...
Please look away now if your a sensitive soul who has "conservative" views on the pomp and circumstance surrounding the tricky etiquette of death, for myself I have a view that the whole business of leaving this world and entering the next, is all a bit fussy and flippin expensive. Myself I'd be quite happy to be collected up on bin day and carted off with the rest of the household waste, then recycled by the council, however they see fit, still that's not going to happen, and when viewing the subject from the point of view of a grieving ...
[IMG: Veolia's fence in Stationers Park] Residents living in roads around Stationers Park are jubilant after the Council's waste contractor agreed to remove an ugly street-sweeping depot from the park at a public meeting this week. This victory followed a 6 month campaign by local residents, supported by councillors, to get the Veolia depot's 9ft metal fence removed or disguised. As I posted back in May, the Council allowed Veolia to build the depot for its street-sweeping trolleys without consulting with local residents, councillors or the very active Friends of Stationers Park group. Unsurprisingly, there was then an outcry when, ...
Thu 17th
16:08Corporate Governance Committee 17/11/2011 (Wirral Council) Part 2 Work Program, Progress and Associa...
The committee considered item 3 Work Program, Progress and Associated Issues. However Cllr Jeff Green went back to agenda item 2 (Minutes). He said as part of the minutes, the list of committee meetings was not agreed. Bill Norman said there had been some confusion in the briefing. There had been discussion with each political ...
Thu 17th
15:49Corporate Governance Committee (Wirral Council) 17th November 2011 Part 1, Declarations of Interest,...
Corporate Governance Committee Chair (Cllr Steve Foulkes) Cllr Phil Davies Cllr Adrian Jones Cllr Anne McArdle Cllr Ann McLachlan In attendance (right to speak, not to vote or make decisions) Cllr Jeff Green Cllr Tom Harney Officers Ian Coleman, Director of Finance/Deputy Chief Executive Jim Wilkie, Chief Executive Bill Norman, Director of Law, HR & ...
A 19 year old from Poundswick was arrested last Thursday morning (10th November) on Gatley Road, Cheadle whilst threatening a 21 year old male and attempting to steal his mobile phone. A member of the public realising what was going on intervened and detained the male until police arrived. He remains in custody and has been charged with four crimes. There have been no further incidents of robberies in the area since.
I can't believe the findings that Sheffield Hallam University have come up with today. In its study Tackling Homophobia and Transphobia In Settings Supporting Young People it found that LGBT young people in more than one school across Yorkshire were being asked to change for sports and PE in a separate room or toilet and not in the changing rooms with other students. It made me think back to the article I wrote about the stupidity and homophobia of the American Family Association on just such an issue early last year. I never thought I'd be taking up keyboard about ...
This is the text of a letter I have just sent to the Manchester Evening News. Dear Editor, The Lib Dems have fought successfully in Government to introduce the Pupil Premium. This is a cash payment of £488 for every school pupil in receipt of free school meals that goes directly to support pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. We know that many young children from disadvantaged backgrounds can fall behind their better off classmates almost as soon as they start school. Many never catch up, falling further and further behind. Schools are already devoting money to helping the most disadvantaged children, ...
Thu 17th
14:55
Youth unemployment figures highlight need for more college places - support Willie Rennie's campaign
Hardly a day goes by at the moment without me hearing about some friend or family member's job being in danger. Knowing what I know about the welfare system in this country, I am fully aware that it doesn't provide nearly enough of a safety net for people and losing an income can be absolutely catastrophic. We've been there ourselves - Bob was made redundant in 1994 and we had to live on what I was bringing in. We didn't even have children then, but it was quite a scary time, especially as it was implied to Bob that at ...
Cornwall Council's Strategic Planning Committee today voted by 14 votes to 4 to approve an application for outline permission for a 10,000 seater stadium and hotel. To be honest, from what I heard, they could hardly have refused. So many of the details - including the crucial question of how people will get there and where they will park if they drive - have been 'reserved' to the detailed application that there was little to discuss this time. Those who voted against the application appear to have done so because they wanted more details on these matters, not because they ...
When Doctor Beaching wielded his famous axe that cut away all the unnecessary railway lines in the country there were some dubious losses and survivors. One such survivor is the Medway Valley line which runs from Strood to Paddock Wood. It is a beautiful line, no doubts there, that runs through the heart of rural Kent and stops at beautiful Victorian stations like East Farleigh, Maidstone West and Yalding. The only reason that the line probably survived the axe was that it is the only way to connect North Kent lines with the Mid-Kent lines through Maidstone short of travellers ...
For those of you who are interested, I am today recording an appearance (discussing issues to do with Israel and the Palestinians) on The World This Week on the Islam Channel, a channel that can be watched in the UK on Sky channel 813, Freesat channel 693 and live on the internet. This is presumably for the edition of the programme that goes out at 22.00 tonight (Thursday) and again at 07.00 on Saturday. If it is available online afterwards, I'll post a link to that. The Islam Channel is not beyond criticism, but I believe in appearing (unpaid, in ...
Thursday: Oh very fluffy dear. You MAY remember from the DISTANT past that Daddies Alex and Richard were going to watch the sensational Sixties Spy Serial "The Prisoner" all the way through. That didn't ENTIRELY work out. So they tried again... And last year's attempt at a revival didn't really come to much, either. Much like ITV's attempt at a revival, really. But we can never escape! So we return to the Village once more... information Almost certainly the quintessential Prisoner episode, this may even be the first I ever watched, and it captures everything that makes "The Prisoner" iconic, ...
Red Line Quaker moth This November has thrown up all sorts of challenges for the garden, not least the arrival of a monstrous layer of mist and cloud that has swallowed the sky for weeks. There are the odd days of sunshine and bright skies, where the slow autumnal tints burnish deeper red and yellow. But mostly the garden is dripping with mist and lost in a dank, dull greyness that leaches the enthusiasm out of even the most cheerful of gardener. The unseasonabaly warm temperatures have caused mayhem in the flowerbeds and a ballooning of funghi in the long, ...
I was recently reading Cllr Tristan Osborne's blog post on Boundary reform and frankly I was vexed he beat me to the punch! Indeed, I also find the Conservative line put forward by Rehman Chishti to be confusing and contradictory to local Party politics. Locally Medway Conservatives (and Labour) are pushing for the Medway Towns to become the glorious City of Medway, they plug this as the next logical step and the best thing to happen to the towns in decades. At the same time, at the Boundary Commission's hearings they are arguing that changing the titles of the constituencies ...
The meeting about the new 'West End Square' development took place last week and some strong opinions were voiced about the 12 storey tower that is being proposed in the middle of the development. The location is the strip of land running between the Jubilee Line and Overground lines stretching west of West End Lane. No planning application has yet been submitted - and it will be interesting to see if any changes are made to the planning application following the meeting. The height of the buildings was certainly of concern to those present on the evening. For those who ...
This is one of my series of lunchtime blogposts. WARNING: This blogpost will contain swear words in the last paragraph. As regular readers of this blog will know, I've spent the past three months taking quite an interest in disability welfare issues. Specifically, I wrote a motion which was passed at Lib Dem conference, becoming party policy, and which called for the government to scrap their planned arbitrary time limit on how long disabled people could receive benefits for and for the government to fix the utterly broken assessment system that was bequeathed to them by the last government. One ...
The debate and petitions calling for the for planned increases in fuel duty to be scrapped is hiding the real debate, which would otherwise be the subject of decreasing the duty on fuel prices. I suspect the government has kept Labours planned increases in duty simply because the chancellor always intended to not increase the duty but can use this debate to fed of any debate on a decrease in fuel duty. I also remember that Labour did not always increase the price of duty on fuel to be fair to them. But the chancellor wants to use this opportunity ...
Having finally received a definitive "look elsewhere" email from the OU a couple of weeks ago, I'm slowly working my way through the options there are for distance learning masters courses in psychology and related subjects. As October 2012 is the earliest entry date for all of the options I've investigated so far, I've plenty of time to consider things before I need to apply. So far, I've talked to Derby University, Birkbeck and I've just sent off for a Leicester University prospectus too (thanks for the prod in their direction Cecilia!) As I'd be studying for fun personal development ...
The Welsh Assembly has already made attempts to run a paperless Government, with varying success. All the agendas come to us electronically and we print them off for committee meetings. Having said that though, I believe we do generate less paper than we could do if we did not have this reliance (some would say over-reliance) on ICT. Now it seems that the UK Government is trying to follow suit, though I do not expect to see computers on the benches of the House of Commons anytime soon. According to the Telegraph the days of ministers lugging round heavy Red ...
Apparently, our capitalist system is to blame for our ills. High executive pay, prices, practices and overall behaviour have been damaging to us. Of course, politicians don't mention the unproductive public sector, which you and I pay for its unjustified high wages, pensions and funding. I'm more concerned about the pay structure in the public ...
As some of you already know, on Monday I started a new job with Northamptonshire Association for the Blind! I am their Volunteer Fundraising Coordinator and this is the first event I am organising! I will write more about it when I have time but come along skating with us if you like and wish ...
There will be an extra consultation drop-in session on proposals to cut back on pumping stations near Southport. The consultation session is organised by the Environment Agency and will be at St Cuthberts, Churchtown (PR9 7NA) on Thursday 24th November and you can drop in at any time between 2 pm and 7.15 pm. The Environment Agency is preparing a plan for future flood risk management within the Lower Alt with Crossens pumped drainage catchment area. This includes a proposal to cut back on pumping at some or all ofthe 13 pumping stations draining the low lying areas around Southport. ...
If, as Einstein once said, common sense is the aggregate of prejudices an individual has acquired by the age of 18, it begs the question whether the common law is simply the aggregate of prejudices acquired over centuries.
Last week's announcement that the management of Hinchingbrooke Hospital would be transferred to Circle Healthcare was always going to be controversial – a hospital with debts approaching £40million, whose situation had become so perilous that it had to be rescued by an external provider. Both Labour and Unison quickly exclaimed against this as 'privatisation,' despite the fact that the Labour Government had initiated the tendering process. Circle is a 49% employee-owned organisation, different from the traditional private company. It makes them a part-mutual organisation run in the same manner as John Lewis. Put simply, they are part-owned and part-run by ...
A few weeks ago, after lunch on a Saturday, I embarked on a random walk. Shortly after starting out, I realised I was near Bristol's Arnos Vale cemetery. Like many people, I like the peace and tranquillity of graveyards and cemeteries. As someone who enjoys spending time alone and loves to go on urban walks with just his iPod Shuffle for company they offer a space for reflection quite unlike anywhere else. There is a reverence about them which comes as much from a proper respect for their place in society as much as from any supposed consecration of the ...
The Burd has posted about continuing, ignominious gender fail at the BBC. The culprit this time is Newsnight Scotland, affectionately tagged #newsnicht on Twitter - again. Female panellists are as rare as hens' teeth on that programme, a source of great annoyance to me, as you can imagine. To be honest, though, I hardly ever watch it - it's on way past my bedtime. I tend to get equally irate about Question Time, which hardly ever has a balanced panel, politically or in terms of gender. Politics Scotland is also a persistent offender. I've seen shows, like yesterday's, where all ...
Local residents have been venting their frustration over the failure of either the county or district council to clear away the vegetation on the corner of Beaumont Avenue and Hatfield Road: this path is well nigh unusable for people in wheelchairs or with pushchairs. Local Lib Dem councillors have been taking up the issue and are being promised action – but nothing has happened yet.
The writer, editor and publisher Peter Burton, who died suddenly of a heart attack. aged 66, on 7 November, made an enormous contribution to the promotion and then mainstreaming of LGBT literature in the UK. He was also an extremely kind friend, a generous host at his ramshackle little house in Brighton and a mentor for ...
(Any excuse for this picture) Sepp Blatter has put his foot in it again. Amidst the fact Luis Suarez has been charged with racially abusing Patrice Evra and the ongoing John Terry/Anton Ferdinand incident in an interview to CNN the president of FIFA has said the following: "There is no racism [on the field], but maybe there is a word or gesture that is not correct. The one affected by this should say this is a game and shake hands." Then in a subsequent attempt to justify his comments he released a statement that included the following: "My comments have ...
This must be my favourite bit of casework so far this year. It all started when I reported getting a missing sign post for Norcroft Gardens replaced. I was contacted by a resident from Dulwich Rise Gardens asking if they could have a sign post. I then realised they'd also made several complaints about poor Royal Mail deliveries. Then enquiring about the address I couldn't think where the they lived – Dulwich Rise Gardens. This isn't an East Dulwich ward road. I asked for a description of where it was as I physically hadn't been able to find it. It ...
Liberal Democrats on Cornwall Council are calling on the authority accept the offer from central government to pay the rise in council tax next year so Cornish taxpayers don't have to. The group is calling on the Conservative led administration to back their amendment which would freeze council tax for Cornish taxpayers and guarantee to protect front-line services from further cuts. The coalition government has offered a grant equivalent to the normal 2.5% council tax rise to any council which does not raise tax levels. Cornwall can freeze council tax for residents without cutting any services thanks to this grant. ...
As usual, questions to the Deputy Prime Minister this week covered a large variety of subjects. Nick Clegg was on passionate form on several issues. Harriet Harman asked if he would "admit that he urgently needs to take further action to help the young unemployed?". Refreshingly, Nick Clegg did admit this, adding: ...it would be a real dereliction of duty if we did not do more to try to make sure that young people are given a real pathway into training, further and higher education or the labour market. As the right hon. and learned Lady will know, youth unemployment ...
Back in 1970, seven people met to re-found North Buckinghamshire Liberals. The association had collapsed at the General Election of that year. One of this gallant band was Ilsa Greig, who has just died a few days short of her 89th birthday. Liberalism in the UK owes a huge debt to a handful of people who refused to be pushed aside and fought for liberal principles against all odds. Ilsa was an inspirer and motivator for many people over the decades - many will remember her networking at national conferences, bringing people together and encouraging their Liberal careers. As a ...
Southwark secondary schools are now all academies and not directly reporting to Southwark Council but well done on the recently announced GCSE results. Overall they've achieved 57.3% of pupils obtaining 5+ A*-C GCSE's with English and Maths. Another solid year of improvement. This places Southwark 23rd out of London's 32 boroughs. This is still some way behind the best London borough Sutton with 74.4% but not so far behind the mean average for London of 61.0%. What's especially clever about these results is it comes at a time when 69.9% of Southwark secondary school kids come from ethnic minorities. Many ...
What is the current Lib Dem education policy and how does it differ from the other parties? Is it so distinctive that people would vote for it or is it only slightly different in the eyes of the public that they probably won't know the difference? There is a saying – the difference that makes ...
Next week sees the annual Congress of ELDR, the European Liberal Democrats, which takes place in the Sicilian city of Palermo from 23-25 November. Apart from the debates on the current economic crisis and the 2014-20 EU budget, there will be elections for the President and four Vice-Presidents. At the time of writing, there is only one declared candidate to succeed Annemie Neyts, whose three terms as President have seen ELDR grow and flourish — Sir Graham Watson, MEP for South West England and Gibraltar. You can read his manifesto here. Graham has been a Member of the European Parliament ...
Next in line of the series of books exploring the process by which Tolkien created TLotR. The most interesting point for me was that Frodo and Sam's path to Mordor, and even back to the Shire, emerged in Tolkien's thinking much earlier than the story of the others after the death of Boromir. He seems to almost make up the tale of Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn as he goes along, and I must admit it's not the most satisfying part of the book (and was the most messed around with by Peter Jackson for the film). In the middle of ...
Last night was the regular meeting of Prestwich Township Forum. This is the (relatively new format) meeting of Coucnillors and other community reps at a local level in Prestwich. Chair, Vice-Chair and Advisory Board We elected my colleagues Cllr Vic D'Albert and Cllr Donal O'Hanlon as Chair and Vice-Chair respectively of the Township Forum for the current municipal year. Vic was chair of the old Prestwich Local Area Partnership throughout its existence so it seems like a logical choice. We also welcomed three new members of the public as members of the 'advisory group' to the Forum. Plan for Change ...
The intertwined topics of the economy and Europe has continued to dominate the political scene this week. But as Europhobic Tories continue to froth at the thought of the UK's retreat from its neighbours, Nick Clegg has maintained a decidedly mainstream approach, and attempted to shift the focus back from constitutional niceties to economic reality. Here's how The Guardian reports Nick's words: Nick Clegg has clashed with David Cameron over Europe as he warned that only "populists, chauvinists and demagogues" would gain from protracted negotiations on treaty change. The Liberal Democrat deputy hit out the day after Cameron used his ...
As many of you know, I worked for Vodafone for nearly 7 years. I left shortly before the "entirely legal and justified tax avoidance" scandal came to light. I didn't know anything about the tax issues while I was working there – other than the fact I had some colleagues working in Luxembourg – otherwise (I like to think) I may have raised the matter internally. Not that the accountants would have listened to me... Since leaving Vodafone, I haven't felt able to criticise it too harshly. Partly because many of my friends still work there, partly because I still ...
Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats are optimistic that the franchise deal for Huntingdon's struggling Hinchingbrooke Hospital will bring security for patients and staff. They believe the move to allow private provider, CIRCLE, to run the hospital was the only way to guarantee its future. Geoff Heathcock, Cambridgeshire County Council Shadow Cabinet Member for Health welcomed the news saying: "I hope now that we can see this hospital turned around to give security to both staff and patients. "But patients and staff need re-assurance through full details of the financial arrangements so that they can see exactly how CIRCLE will find the £40 ...
This morning Cornwall's Strategic Planning Committee will consider the outline application to build a 10,000 seater stadium at Langarth Farm near Threemilestone. There are two distinct aspects to the stadium process. The first (this one) is all about planning. Is this the right place for such a building and associated activities including the traffic, parking and influx of people on matchdays? There are very strict rules as to what can be considered relevant and, should councillors vote yes today having heard all the evidence, it doesn't automatically mean that it will go ahead, it just means that, in principle, they ...
The economic crisis that began in 2007, became a banking crisis in 2008, a sovereign debt crisis in 2009, a Euro crisis in 2010 has now become a political crisis in 2011. All of the deficit countries in the Eurozone, the so-called PIIGS: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain have now seen their governments replaced (in Spain, that will actually take place after the election this weekend, though the result is not in doubt). Germany seems to have won the argument that harsh economic discipline is the only solution to the protracted restructuring that seems to be required. The stereotypes ...
For those who've not yet seen it, here for your enjoyment is Baroness Trumpington's candidly digital response to her Tory colleague Lord King's accidentally ungallant reference to "the survivors of World War II [who are] started to look pretty old": (Also available to watch on the BBC site here.) 'Who is Baroness Trumpington?', you ask. The Telegraph fills us in: Lady Trumpington - affectionately known by her colleagues as Trumpers - served as a code breaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. She was once Mayor of Cambridge and between 1989 to 1992 was a minister of state ...
David Cameron promised us "the greenest government ever" so I hope his response to the current campaign for the government to abandon the 3p increase in fuel duty next January is more robust than that of the Blair/Brown government in 2000. We cannot be serious about ameliorating climate change and conserving the earth's scarce resources if we cave in to every squeak of protest when sensible and modest measures to achieve these aims are implemented. I believe Monday's debate in parliament was laced with hyperbolic references to struggling motorists. Yes, I own a car, and yes, I have noted that ...
On behalf of local residents, I recently requested from the City Council an additional grit bin at the east end of Abbotsford Street, in advance of the wintry weather. I am pleased to advise that the City Engineer has responded positively as follows : "With reference to the request for a grit bin in Abbotsford Street, an assessment has been carried out by a Road Maintenance Partnership inspector against the current grit bin criteria. I am pleased to advise that a grit bin is to be set out on in Abbotsford Street on the path next to the electricity sub ...
Earlier this year, the City Council agreed to supporting the idea of a Food Train in Dundee. The Food Train is a Scottish charity providing a vital grocery delivery service to older people. This service is run by volunteers and it is now recruiting for volunteers to come forward to help.
Berlusconi has resigned. That won't be news to many... What I can't quite understand is why it took quite so long?! I believe strongly that this is a good step for the future of Italy's political scene getting rid of a politician who only seemed to attract scandal after scandal – ranging from Bung-Bunga parties, ... Read more
Today's shocking figures show over a million unemployed young people, that's 1 in 5. The two graphs above show how a spike in the birth rate 20 years ago has combined with a recession and rising unemployment to produce increased demand for university places despite the impact of tuition fees and the burden of paying back loans. A BIS research paper on the impact of university finance on
Terrance Dicks has had a huge impact on Doctor Who, both as lead writer during Jon Pertwee's time as the Doctor and then in writing many more Doctor Who novels than anyone else. I grew to love his work on tales like this, his novelisation of Carnival of Monsters - a story which I first saw on TV thirty years ago tonight, repeated in BBC2's The Five Faces of Doctor Who season. And for me this tale of thrills, comedy, posh trippers and Tories eaten by dragons is still one of the most entertaining, on DVD or on the page. ...
