In a previous blog, I stated that Securak, which is conducting wheel clamping operations at a car park in Cambridge Road, did not appear to be a Home Office SIA approved contractor status, while it's website states that all its employees are SIA registered. I stated that advertising as an approved contractor would constitute a criminal offence. I said that I had asked Securak for confirmation that it was operating within SIA guidelines and that I would publish his response on this blog. Securak managing director Kevin Stokes has informed me that while his firm is not an SIA approved ...
Following a very productive meeting I attended with the City Council's Environment Department and the Western Cemetery Association at the Vine this afternoon, and with thanks to all helpers, we got tomorrow's West End Community Fayre set up at Dundee West Church. All looking good for the launch for the 2011 West End Christmas Week, our 11th year ... All set up at Dundee West Church! The super artwork winners from the West End Christmas Week schools' competition, with thanks to Park Place, Ancrum Road, St Joseph's and Blackness Primary Schools
Liberal Democrat Alex Slater has won the Hazlemere South By-Election increasing the Lib Dem share of the vote by 19%. Cllr Slater said: "It hasn't sunk in yet. I will fulfil my pledges to the electorate who came out and voted for me. I will continue campaigning for a 20mph speed limit on Rose Avenue and push to solve the parking problems outside the schools in the area, you can sign my Twenty is Plenty petition here I would like to thank local residents for electing me, it is a great honour to represent you." Alex Slater and the winning ...
Returning to Old Reekie's finest punk band - the Rezillos. Here they are performing on the Peter Cook inspired Revolver ITV show from 1978. According to Wikipedia only 8 shows were ever made and the show was first moved to a graveyard slot and then dropped because of its then controversial focus on punk. Enjoy.
"On Saturday morning the English Council will debate their budget for the year ahead which, for the first time in at least ten years, will not include a rebate for Liberal Youth membership." On Liberal Democrat Voice LY Chair Tom Wood explains why he thinks this is a bad idea. Redbrick, the University of Birmingham student newspaper, reports a visit by Lembit Opik. "We are not out of the woods yet, but this could turn out to be an example of good old-fashioned Lib Dem compromise, saving the Coalition from its more ideological instincts." Writing on the Spectator website, Martin ...
This is more like it - epic Richards rather than formula Richards, with the Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria turning up in the middle of an intricate conspiracy involving imperial politics which are reminiscent of the rise of Julius Caesar, though very different in the detail. Some excellent plot twists and turns, some of which I think I saw coming and some of which blindsided me. The characterisation of the Doctor is a little off-key but I've read much worse. Enjoyable, and probably reasonably accessible for non-Who fans.
Malcolm Muggeridge once published a book called A Third Testament, but that pales into insignificance for heresy or chutzpah at the news that Michael Gove has written a foreword to the Bible. I am all in favour of children being familiar with the language of the King James Bible (though I would take its contents with a pinch of salt), but I think a compliments slip would have done, Michael.
It has been reported today that Welsh Liberal Democrats and the Welsh Government have come to an agreement on an extra £20m for the education budget to target the poorest students – the Pupil Deprivation Grant. The grant will mean that every pupil receiving free school meals will gain an extra £450 in funding. There
Amazon delivered my new netbook on Wednesday. I like the thin profile and lightness. Since I started travelling 10,000 miles a year, I'm always grateful for anything that reduces the weight of my suitcase, and the X101 is nearly 400 grams lighter than the Dell Mini. It also has much better sound than the Dell ...
Welsh Labour has just managed to agree a deal with the Welsh Liberal Democrats (BBC Report), which will allow them to get their budget through the Assembly. The negotiations have gone on for weeks; all three opposition parties set conditions for their support and the Liberal Democrats demanded more money for schools and apprenticeships, funded by the windfall which Wales is getting following the council tax freeze in England. In essence, this is an equivalent of the Pupil Premium in England (a Liberal Democrat Policy) which channels more money to those schools which have the most pupils from deprived backgrounds. ...
Whilst the Liberal Democrats continue to make tough decision in Government in Westminster, here in Wales of course, the Welsh Liberal Democrats are in opposition. Today, led by Kirsty Williams, we proved that we can be responsible in opposition here in Wales just as we are being responsible in Government in London. Welsh Assembly Budget Last week, Labour lost a vote on its budget in Cardiff Bay. Back in May they missed out by a matter of only a few thousand votes on gaining an overall majority in the Assembly and instead came eye-wateringly short on 30 out of an ...
Fri 25th
18:50
OMG! Cameron has flipped his lid! He's sending a copy of the King James Bible to every school
1. Many have got a copy or many copies already. 2. If you are going to send a Bible anywhere, send the New International Version or similar modern translation, so young people do not think that Jesus spoke in 17th century English. Yes, The King James Bible is a great work, as are the works of Shakespeare and Chaucer and The Origin of the Species. But, for goodness sake, there are bad enough problems with communicating the faith of Christ without muddying the waters too much with idiotic "thees", "thous" and "wherearts". ....and a foreword by Michael Gove?! Is it ...
*Correction: I may have been mistaken in entitling a recent piece on LV 'Of God and Socialism', highlighting Christians who equate their faith with socialist principles. The TES have just reported that the Government allegedly plans to dispatch a copy of the King James Bible to every school in the country. Incredibly, the Bibles will also contain a foreword from that most notable of biblical scholars, Michael Gove. Quite what qualifies him for such a task God only knows. The Government's Bible-bashing surely raises the question: how much will this policy actually cost? To modify Friedman's quote, there is no ...
Sweet and sour tofu Lentil soup Sausage and lentil panfry</>
Last night at the Southfield ward forum we heard that the Council is hiring out Woodstock Road which will be used for the filming of a BBC TV Drama "Parade's End on Monday 28th November. I have complained that the Parks department has allowed for Acton Green to be used as a car park during the filming. An officer from the Council said in an email to me: "...Parks services were consulted and agreed to the use of Acton Green as a unit base for crew vehicles and displaced resident vehicles." It was this year that usage of the site ...
Look out for your new recycling calendar The Council will be delivering new waste and recycling collection calendars to homes in the borough from Friday, 18 November. The new calendars will include details about collection days for the next two years and a handy guide on which things should go in which bin. Of course, you can always check your collection days online, as well as reporting a missed collection and finding out about the assisted collection service.
The Welsh Liberal Democrats report: The Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Member for South Wales West, Peter Black has welcomed the budget deal between Labour and the Liberal Democrats that will deliver an extra £450 directly to local schools for each child on free school meals. The total package will mean that schools in Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend will have an extra £5.8 million to spend from May next year, targeted on the poorest children, who are already under-achieving. This breaks down as £2.57m for Swansea, £1.53m for Bridgend and £1.71m for Neath Port Talbot. Commenting on the outcome ...
Stockport Council is encouraging people to add festive cheer to their shopping by paying a visit to local retailers across the borough. With a wide variety of shops in the town centre and district and local centres, people will find everything they need in Stockport for the festive season. The borough is alive with fantastic events, eye-catching decorations and festive fun. The Council has given motorists a festive boost with free town centre parking in all Council-owned pay and display car parks and on-street pay and display bays on: • Wednesdays until 14th December from 4pm. • Every day from ...
The Lib Dems in Government are taking real action to tackle youth unemployment. Every young person who wants it will be guaranteed a job, training or work placement. The Youth Contract will create over 400,000 new jobs and 250,000 new work experience placements to help young people across Britain to get into work. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg MP said, "If people are out of work when they're young they bear the scars for decades. If they have a false start, they might not ever fully catch up. "This £1 billion investment will make sure our young people are earning ...
You'll forgive me if I don't join in the party line of wild applause for Our Glorious Leader's latest announcement. Youth unemployment IS important, but I think that "solving" it by dealing a double whammy to their parents is short-sighted at best. If large corporations are offered subsidies to employ school-leavers, then they are not going to employ people who cost more money, like the parents of school-leavers. And if, as rumoured, this subsidy is to paid for by a freeze on tax credits, then the very small children that Clegg has been baqnging on about being the key to ...
Fri 25th
17:07
Cabinet (Wirral Council) 24/11/2011 Part 4 Housing Money, Gas disruption (Leasowe and Moreton)
Cllr Steve Foulkes said they would move to the letter about the grant. Cllr George Davies said he was very pleased, that their application for transitional funding of £3 million had been accepted. They had brough in the Chief Executive of the Homes and Community Agency, the four Wirral MPs who had sent a cross-party ...
On Saturday morning the English Council will debate their budget for the year ahead which, for the first time in at least ten years, will not include a rebate for Liberal Youth membership. The English party is the Youth party's single largest source of funding. Immediately cutting off this funding with such short notice will leave our organisations unable to meet its most basic operating costs and permanently cripple our youth party. I know, like everyone else, these are tough times financially for our party; however Liberal Youth performs a vital role for young people and for the party as ...
Chris Hyams continued that they had liaised with their partner agencies and there would be disruption to travel. The Mersey Ferries would close, so would the Mersey Tunnels. However Wirral Council did have a letter that allowed them to bring critical employees only through the Mersey Tunnel, but they would have to keep such travel ...
Fri 25th
16:40Cabinet (Wirral Council) 24/11/2011 Part 2, Minutes (3/11/2011) Strike arrangements for 30th Novembe...
The minutes of the Cabinet meeting held on the 3rd November 2011 were agreed. Cllr Steve Foulkes asked for an officer to give an update on the first item of Any Other Business. Chris Hyams said they had received notification of a twenty-four hour strike on the 30th November due to change to pension arrangements. ...
Over at Cif today Grant Shapps makes another attempt to make the case for the policy of criminalising all squatting of residential buildings. He makes the connection to homelessness support and rightly points out that there is more money going in to homelessness services, which may compensate for some of the homelessness generated by changing the law on squatting. But it seems that Mr Shapps is not happy. He's not happy with the response his proposals have received in some quarters. In particular he starts his piece by arguing that: The fact some academics in their ivory towers and lawyers ...
It is that moment, where you find yourself alone with a glass of wine, looking out over the azure sea, when you almost feel as though you are on holiday, rather than debating war and peace, feast or famine, life or death. I tend to the view that this is a good thing, a reminder that perspective is precious, that we are not consumed with our own importance.This morning, we have been occupied with an ELDR Council meeting, most of which was quite dull, and a debate on various resolutions. Astonishing though it might seem to Liberal Democrats, we got ...
Present: Cllr Steve Foulkes (Chair) (Finance and Best Value) Cllr Chris Meaden (Culture, Tourism and Leisure) Cllr Harry Smith (Streetscene & Transport Services) Cllr Ann McLachlan (Children's Services & Lifelong Learning) Cllr Anne McArdle (Social Care & Inclusion) Cllr Jean Stapleton (Community & Customer Engagement) Cllr Adrian Jones (Corporate Resources) Cllr Phil Davies (Regeneration & ...
Yesterday was the 48th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. This track was US left wing folk singer Phil Ochs tribute to him. Ochs said that his communist friends were less than sympathetic about Kennedy's death and that that was one reason he wasn't a communist!
I just love this - and I love how natural Obama is with these people. I love all the details about how he spends his days, too. The other thing is, watching the West Wing, you get the idea that the senior White House staff are never out of the President's bedroom, bringing him news all night long. It's surprising that that hasn't happened since the Fukushima tsunami in March. Obama sometimes gets a reputation for being a bit aloof, but he comes over as warm and open in this. Enjoy.
Ahead of every recent budget and autumn statement, the right-of-centre think tanks have come out with a set of recommendations that support the broad thrust of government policy and argue for more of the same. True to form, earlier this week Reform made the case for sticking to Plan A on deficit reduction, abolishing the 50p tax rate and cutting workers' employment rights. But, with the economy having grown by just 0.5 per cent over the last year, and the Prime Minister hinting in a recent speech to the CBI that the government's deficit reduction plan is being blown off ...
This email has just landed in my inbox: Dear Alex, Today I have launched the Youth Contract, a £1bn programme to get every unemployed young person earning or learning again before long-term damage is done. We cannot afford to lose the skills and talent of our young people - right when we need them most. We need the next generation to help us build a new economy. Across the UK, youth unemployment has risen to 21.9% and in Cornwall, there are currently 2985 young people claiming Job Seekers Allowance. We owe it to them to make sure that even in ...
Here is my manifesto for Liberal Youth Wales Convenor. I am eager to see IR Cymru re-established as soon as possible and look forward to the possibility of being able engage with other young Liberals and political activists in Wales. IRCymru Manifesto Dyma fy maniffesto ar gyfer Cydlynydd Cymru, Ieuenctid Rhyddfrydol Cymru. Yr wyf yn
Fri 25th
15:09
Cabinet Member proposes charging taxpayers £7.2 million more next year with 3% amendment
Despite the insistence from Cornwall Council Leader Alec Robertson that the decision over council tax levels should wait until February, it seems that two distinct options will be debated by councillors next Tuesday. As I've blogged before, the Lib Dems are proposing that Cornwall accepts the Government's offer of a grant equivalent to a 2.5% rise in council tax in return for freezing the amount we charge residents. Today it has been announced that Indie cabinet member Julian German is proposing an amendment to raise council tax by 3%. Such a move would raise an extra £1.2 million to provide ...
This just arrived: I think it says everything you'd want it to say. More of this please!! Dear Richard, Today I have launched the Youth Contract, a £1bn programme to get every unemployed young person earning or learning again before long-term damage is done. We cannot afford to lose the skills and talent of our young people - right when we need them most. We need the next generation to help us build a new economy. Across the UK, youth unemployment has risen to 21.9% and in Richmond upon Thames, there are currently 415 young people claiming Job Seekers Allowance. ...
In amongst the debate over individual electoral registration, one question has been whether it should remain a legal obligation to complete registration forms sent out by the local council. But how meaningful is the current legal obligation? Part of the answer to that has come in a recent Parliamentary Question, giving details of how many prosecutions have been commenced under the existing system: 2008 183 2009 67 2010 144 These data are collected by voluntary survey of electoral registration officers (EROs). The Electoral Commission does not have the power to collect this information and it is therefore not compulsory for ...
After 18 months of complaining that the coalition is cutting "too far, too fast" we now have the Labour Leader complaining that by 2015 there'll still be a huge deficit and the Government should do more to get rid of it. Of course, by 2015 the deficit will only be down to 2008 levels, at which time both of the Eds were firmly in charge of economic policy for the Labour Government. So seriously, if Labour really do agree that the deficit is too high and want it cutting even further than planned, but do not want any spending cuts ...
In the last election (2011), the Lib Dem candidate came third in Hazelmere South, in last night's by-election, they leapt to first place and UKIP managed to push the Tories to third. I think that the Conservatives are in for a beating from both UKIP and Lib Dems who they seem to be ceding ground to. There were other by-elections last night, a Labour gain from Lib Dem, a Plaid Cymru gain from Independent and a couple of holds.
Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg has announced a £1 billion pound Youth Contract to tackle youth unemployment, which aims to ensure that all jobless young people are earning or learning again before long-term damage is done. In Swansea, 1,905 18-24 year olds are currently in receipt of Jobseeker's Allowance and would stand to benefit from the Youth Contract. The figure for Neath Port Talbot is 1,305 whilst in Bridgend 1,265 18-24 year olds receive JSA and could potentially benefit from this initiative. Starting next April, the Youth Contract will provide at least 410,000 new work places ...
Last night's meeting on the issue of whether or not we have a directly elected mayor was an interesting experience.In the week beforehand I had expressed concern that there were too many speakers and it was unbalanced. I thought that having equal numbers of speakers from each side of the argument was good practice.The initial proposal was 7 speakers in favour (plus the chair also being a
Ok. We're all over the news. With good news. 1. There's a new scheme to help solve the terrible problem of Youth Unemployment. 2. Nick has taken ownership of the initiative 3. Everyone - in principle - seems to think that it's a good thing. What's more - Labour's alternative would create just 100 000 new jobs (compared to the 400 000 this scheme will create) and David Cameron (let's be generous here team, he made a great observation in PMQ's on Weds) pointed out that Labour's funding for the scheme - bankers bonuses - looked a bit flaky. Here's ...
Fri 25th
13:06
As a public service I present a ten word description of 'The Grapes of Wrath' to save you reading it...
There's a lot of talk about 'The Grapes of Wrath' right now. I think the BBC4 are having a bit of a season. Anyway, I keep hearing people are reading it... Call me shallow - I know you will - but I can't stand 'The Grapes of Wrath' and always describe it as my least favourite book. Ever. I am not denying its fine writing. Its important themes. Its interesting analogies with today, in its depiction of greedy immoral bankers crushing the poor underfoot. You can find out all the reaons why its a great book in Melvyn Bragg's piece ...
Congratulations go to Syria for securing election to not one, but two committees of UNESCO (http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/42656). As the Arab League stands poised to finally act on Syrian human rights abuses (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15887364), UNESCO has just elected Syria to its human rights committee. At a time when Syria has never been condemned more by a range of NGOs, UNESCO has elected Assad's country to its committee for NGO relations.You may say that all countries get to have a go on these committees and that it doesn't matter. In that case, I would say that we might as well stop pretending that such ...
As next week's Autumn Statement fast approaches, the siren calls for the Chancellor to "do something" to revive growth are growing louder. Yet George Osborne must resist the 10-point plans and shopping lists of eye-catching initiatives that promise instant economic alleviation and instead hold his nerve in the face of weaker-than-expected growth. As Reform's new report, The long game, argues, the economic recovery was always going to be difficult. All of the evidence shows that fiscal crises originating from financial crises are protracted and severe. The levels of debt in the economy prior to the recession had reached unsustainable proportions, ...
Remember the Rev Snuggs who cut down a tree for spurious health and safety reasons. Well, bach, he has a cousin in Gwynedd, isn't it ? Tywyn beach now has this sign saying "Don't climb on the rocks". It says it in Welsh too so no minorities will be offended (perhaps English is the minority language there ?). Reminds me of a sign I know in Cornwall which says "Warning. Cliff Edge" and another
There were five principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 24th November. We gained a seat off the Tories but lost one to Labour. Mebyon Kernow gained one seat from Independents and there were two Labour holds. There was one parish or town council by-election result reported to ALDC, an Independent hold. [IMG: The Hazelmere team] Hazelmere South, is part of a large, largely 70's overspill estate around Hazelmere village that effectively merges into the wider Wycombe conurbation, in Buckinghamshire. Over the year despite being briefly held by both Labour and the Liberal Democrats the area has been solidly Conservative. ...
Take a look at this graph. Whatever it shows (and I'll tell you in a moment), it doesn't look exciting, does it? Something has been pretty much static for the last forty years, with no major sustained swing up or down. All rather flat and uninteresting... Except for what it is a graph of. It comes from polling carried out by MORI, asking the same question over the years: "How interested would you say you are in politics?" The graph shows how many people gave one of the two positive answers ("very" or "fairly") – and so also shows how ...
It was good to wake up this morning to see Nick Clegg on tv talking about the Coalition Government's new Youth Contract, which aims to reduce youth unemployment which, at over a million, is at an unacceptable level. Nick has always got how important it is to make sure young people were properly supported. In 2009, he launched his "Lifeboat for a lost generation" when Labour were failing to do anything sensible about youth unemployment. It was really disheartening to see Ed Miliband and David Cameron bandying statistics around at Prime Minister's Questions the other day. Neither of them gave ...
Cross-posted from Liberal Democrat Voice The focus of the Cameron v Miliband this week exchange was the new figure of one million unemployed young people. It started with a battle between the government's Work Programme versus Labour's Future Jobs Fund. Miliband blamed the Work Programme for increasing Youth Unemployment: ...in June, when the Work programme was introduced, 85,000 young people had been unemployed for more than six months; now, there are 133,000—a massive increase since he introduced the Work programme. But Cameron countered with figures saying that: The Work programme is helping 50% more people than the future jobs fund: ...
Economist and economic historian Nicholas Crafts is back in the public eye with a new pamphlet for CentreForum. Those with long memories of his previous controversial stances won't be surprised to know this pamphlet does not take a mainstream approach to economic history or economic policy, instead praising part of the 1930s and calling for more inflation. The two are linked because he splits Britain's economic record in the 1930s in two, arguing that in the second half of the 1930s higher prices helped fuel a strong economic recovery: Over fiscal years 1932/33 and 1933/34 the structural budget deficit was ...
The charity Children 1st aims to improve the lives of Scotland's children by providing services to help them and speaking out for them to law and policy makers. The Scottish blogosphere's Kate Higgins, who writes for Better Nation and her own blog A Burdz Eye View works for Children 1st. She's come up with a cracking idea for Christmas - raising money to buy books for vulnerable kids. As she says herself: Books were a constant companion in my childhood - they still are. They've opened up worlds, ideas, knowledge and adventures. They've made me laugh, cry, tremble and learn ...
In software development, it is sometimes said that the lazy developer is the best developer. She knows when to code longer in order to reduce future work – making systems that fix themselves, at slightly larger initial cost, saves her time (and therefore money) in the long run. It also reduces "firefighting," or sloppy fixes made in a rush when a system is noticed to be down at a critical time. She avoids the effort, and the stress, for her future self: future her is lazy, so present her must be proactive. This is the very definition of sustainability; building ...
Having risen steadily since 2004, the number of unemployed young people hit the one million mark this month. One million. One in five 16-24 year olds not in education, training or work, not because they are lazy or feckless, but because of factors well beyond their control. It's not good enough. Youth unemployment is an economic waste and a slow-burn social disaster. We can't afford to leave our young men and women on the scrap heap. We need the next generation to help us build a new economy. When we chose to form this Coalition Government, Liberal Democrats knew that ...
Labour's back-of-a-fag-packet policies were debated yesterday in Gateshead Council when a Labour motion, copied and pasted from their national website, was debated. I've already discussed the section of the motion which referred to their magically regenerating bank bonus tax which they are able to spend 3 or 4 times over. What I didn't mention is that many Labour members also claim that the bank
To be honest I thought that we had moved on from the mindset that top-down state intervention could solve every problem, however it seems that Plaid Cymru continue to live in the 1970s and so it is no surprise that one of their AMs has written a piece for Wales Home today calling for the Welsh Government to take over the Western Mail newspaper. I think we should be clear, there is nothing radical about a state buy-out. That sort of lazy politics should lie some distance behind us. These types of solutions defer decisions, they do not resolve anything. ...
We're used to seeing Captain Jack Harkness getting himself into scrapes and fights as he saves the earth as leader of the intrepid Torchwood organisation. We associate the actor who plays him with fluffy Saturday night entertaining and the occasional Well, it appears that art met reality the other night in a Glasgow hotel where Barrowman rugby tackled a young thief who'd been helping himself to the contents of a fellow guest's room. The Daily Record has the story. The striking thing for me is that Barrowman's attitude is not to lock the thief up and throw the key away, ...
Congratulations to Loveday Jenkin who has won the Wendron by-election for Cornwall Council. The seat was previously held by the late Mike Clayton and it represents a gain for Mebyon Kernow from the Independents. The full results were: Loveday Jenkin (MK) - 427 (36.4% – up 16.5%) John Martin (Lib Dem) - 262 (22.3% – ...
GreenN8 has put together a clip with Stroud Green's residents and LibDem politicians explaining why the Boundary Commission should leave Stroud Green in the Hornsey & Wood Green constituency and not move it into Tottenham. Here is the film marvellously put together by Ofer: http://www.youtube.com/GreenN8TV
The focus of the Cameron v Miliband this week exchange was the new figure of one million unemployed young people. It started with a battle between the government's Work Programme versus Labour's Future Jobs Fund. Miliband blamed the Work Programme for increasing Youth Unemployment: ...in June, when the Work programme was introduced, 85,000 young people had been unemployed for more than six months; now, there are 133,000—a massive increase since he introduced the Work programme. But Cameron countered with figures saying that: The Work programme is helping 50% more people than the future jobs fund: it will help 120,000 young ...
In case you haven't seen it elsewhere, this is the result of the Wendron by-election: Loveday Jenkin (MK) - 427 - 36.4% (+16.4%) John Martin (LD) - 262 - 22.3% (+12.3%) Conservative 227 - 19.4% (+3.4%) Independent 177 - 15.1% (-16.9%) Labour 80 - 6.8% (+3.8%) A great result for the Lib Dems jumping from fifth in 2009 to second this time. This was down to a brilliant candidate in John Martin and a fantastic campaign. Obviously congratulations are due to Loveday Jenkin who came second last time and gained it this time. The Lib Dems leapfrogged the Tories (third ...
As regular readers know, I am very sceptical about the stability of the Russian government. The supposedly large poll leads that Vladimir Putin's United Russia has held always seemed to me to be suspect, given the political history of the country. Although dissent was not open, it was always there. I pointed out that the decision of Vladimir Putin to return to the Presidency was a critical mistake that would not strengthen, but weaken the regime. So it is proving to be. Inside Russia, the "September 24th coup" is now seen as such a blatant disregard of democracy, that even ...
One great thing about 5am starts: 7am on a Sat feels like an indulgent lie-in. # Today's Indy http://t.co/s1qyrj6a picking up on @libdemvoice's story y'day that David Laws is only 100% Coalition loyal b/bench Lib Dem MP. # Here is that original David Laws story btw: http://t.co/2eTD6B3l. No accreditation from Indy of course. # Whisky Galore author Compton Mackenzie's banned spy memoirs to be published (at last) http://t.co/uQy56RmD # Excited! Not one but TWO sequels to Hilary Mantel's Booker-winning Wolf Hall http://t.co/0pqMaXkW *applauds* # "I have to have my jumper back. I need my jumper back." http://t.co/CceKMmvA Countdown to #forbrydelsen2 ...
"Follow the money". It's a cliché of investigative journalism for a very good reason. If you want to get to the heart of what is really going on, knowing who has paid what to whom frequently exposes the real action being hidden away behind warm words, evasive statements and muttered "no comments". It is also at the heart of many a public inquiry. Want to know why something happened? Who pays whom is again right at the centre of the story. Whether it is understanding drugs policy and the economics of the illegal market or looking at problems of rail ...
Yesterday I was looking across Morecambe Bay from Heysham towards Barrow and thinking about the debate over whether we should have a bridge. It is around 55 miles to get from Heysham to Barrow by road and if you take the direct route it is around 15 miles. If you drive across a bridge you could save at least 40 minutes by driving at national speed limits. If you know the area then savings could easily be an hour on each trip. It is easy to see the benefits to the transport system. There are also benefits to the local ...
I'm delighted that Consett North is one of the six county council wards chosen to trial a county council initiative to provide salt to the areas most affected by winter weather in the county. The plan is to put five one tonne "dumpy bags" of salt in badly affected roads/estates where local people can both keep an eye on them to prevent theft, and also use them to good effect if we get another winter like the last two. And it's only in conditions like that that that the salt will be provided. Obviously, with only five bags available per ...
So far 76 schools have indicated that they will be partially or wholly closed. It is expected that this number will rise steeply over the next few days. Given that other public sector workers will also be on strike, communications on the day will be difficult. Parents are advised to contact the school for more detailed information. List of schools closed by strikes
The internet sensation that is badly behaved labrador Fenton/Benton has spawned a number of spin-offs. This one is one of the best...
I've written about An Unearthly Child over at the Mindless site, as part of a new series I'm doing for them covering one Who story per year for 1963 through 2012. I've written about this story before, of course, and I even re-used a couple of paragraphs from one of those posts here, but this ...
Thought I would pen something about what happened at the ward forum that tonight took place in the Scout hut in Rugby Road, W4. A great venue - small enough so everyone can hear each other and gets in about 50 people maximum. The main item tonight was having the Head of Southfield's Primary School. He gave a good presentation for about twenty minutes about what was going on in the school and their approach to teaching our children and how they integrate with us in Chiswick. He then answered questions for about 25 minutes and I think in my ...
