As the out going Chair of Sue Hannant summed up the last year the more I began to future our party in Medway, this was echoed by comments from Maureen Ruparel the out going secretary; We'd lost several Councillors, including Cathy Sutton and Stephen Kearney and the replacements for those who had stood down and we recorded the lowest votes in a long long time. In fact we had been set back to the 1980's! In 2015 there would be no point in running an MP in the General election and that we would be lucky to hold on to ...
Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dems on Broxtowe Borough Council. A special welcome to the new readers that we have this week. Sorry that there was no enews last week but I was away for the weekend and didn't want to publicise the fact, especially after we had been the victims of crime so recently in any event. 1. Constituency Boundary Review The public consultation on new electoral boundaries closes on 5th December. In Broxtowe the proposal is that we keep the existing boundaries but ...
Alfred East was born in Kettering in 1844 and studied painting in Glasgow and Paris. Though he is little remembered today, he became one of the leading landscape artists of 19th century England. When he died in London in 1913 and his coffin was brought back to Kettering to lie in state in the art gallery which he had presented to the town along with many of his paintings. That Alfred East Art Gallery survives and I visited it today. There are rooms: one is devoted to the permanent collectiion - today there were some attractive John Pipers as well ...
Today, for the first time in six years, I made a trip to the midlands to watch a Coventry Rugby Club home match - this one against National Division One leaders Ealing Trailfinders. Coventry is my birthplace and I have supported the city's rugby team since childhood. Until the 1980s they were one of the big beasts of English rugby, up there with Leicester, Gloucester and the leading Welsh club sides. The first game I ever watched was the great David Duckham's last home match in a Cov shirt. Until a few years ago, I would generally get to a ...
...So runs the Mail on Sunday front page. I seem to remember the link between those two organisations being raised previously, perhaps at the last LibDem conference. So, I don't think this is the first time such a connection has been raised in the public domain. From the front page snapshot available, I can't quite read all the text, but the story is along the lines that Nick Clegg is terribly worried that no-one knows what the LibDems stand for....(continued on page 97) [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
Lord Bonkers (new readers begin here and particularly here) lives, of course, at Bonkers Hall in Rutland. And we have seen that most literary scholars now accept that the model for Bonkers Hall is Nevill Holt, even though it stands just over the border in Leicestershire. And we have seen that, before it was a prep school and then the home of Carphone Warehouse tycoon David Ross, was the home of the Cunard family. And in the Edwardian era it was the home of Sir Bache Cunard, which means that Sir Bache's wife Maud (often known as Emerald) is arguably ...
We had a superb start to this year's West End Christmas Week today with a really enjoyable Community Fayre at Dundee West Church's community facilities. I'm most grateful to the Lord Provost for performing the official opening and visiting the community groups' stands as well as the Church Guild's Christmas Coffee Morning. Here's a few pictures from today! Lord Provost John Letford opens the West End Community Fayre The LP purchases some of the excellent baking at the Dundee West Church Guild Coffee Morning Rev Andrew Greaves shows the Lord Provost the stunning Afghanistan photography exhibition at Roseangle Cafe Arts ...
Under the headline Lobster mobster The Sun reports: Police swooped on a shopper after he wrote on Facebook about a plot to "murder" — unaware his intended victims were two LOBSTERS. Officers handcuffed the terrified suspect outside a fishmonger's. They had been tipped off by a worried web user who read of the man's plan to go into town "to kill" and "stab something in the neck". The cops grilled him for 20 minutes before he convinced them it was just a misunderstanding. The man had earlier ordered the lobsters by phone from Martin Hobbs fishmonger's in Market Harborough.The Daily ...
This is another radio programme which looks at the wrongful abduction of children in England done by the state.It is, however, mainly in French. (including one of my interviews talking about constitutional procedures). It does include a recording of an arrest with french translation.
... according to the Beeb at least:
What presents are you looking forward to giving or receiving this year? That's the question LDV posed to a group of Lib Dem bloggers. All this week we're revealing what they told us, with link-throughs to Amazon for your shopping convenience (and 'cos the referral fees help support LibDemVoice: so get clicking and ordering). Part I is available here, and Part II here. In part three, our third trio of bloggers - Paul Walter, Jennie Rigg, and Richard Flowers - give us the low-down on their Xmas faves... Paul Walter iPad 2 (or any other tablet) It allows a quite ...
Cllr Fower has also requested slabbing the gap between an existing bench and the footpath At a recent Peterborough North Area Committee meeting, elected members from this area, North Werrington and Paston voted in favour of spending hundreds of pounds of their annual budget on installing new benches to Werrington Meadow. During the meeting, local LIB DEM ward councillor Darren Fower asked where they were going to be installed? The Tory councillor who had argued for the installation, admitted he had no idea! Therefore, in order to ensure local residents get a say, on where the new benches might go, ...
I recently read an article by Jenny Willot MP on Lib Dem Voice where she claps herself and the government on the back for obeying the motion we passed at conference by implementing the recommendations of the second Harrington report. Unfortunately, the motion was about the time limit to ESA, not the Harrington reports. So what Jenny's said is, not to put too fine a point on it, a load of cow dung. In fact, by ignoring the main point of the motion, Jenny's betraying the trust that was placed in her by members of our party when they selected ...
Over at the Huffington Post, the Voice's Mark Pack has a post examining some interesting – and surprising – polling data, complete with a graph (don't say Mark doesn't spoil you). Here's Mark explaining what the graph shows: 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 the public's interest in politics has been pretty consistent, at a high level. (You can get ...
For the past year or so, there has been an elephant in the room – youth unemployment. It had largely been ignored by the Coalition Government, not because of desire, but because no money was left to alleviate the problem. However, after last week's news that youth unemployment rose to 1 million, it was clear something needed to be done. I'm glad that the Government will now be investing a whopping £1billion in training and incentives for young people to get employed. In a recession, those who don't have experience and/or training (who tend to be young people) are those ...
I was alerted this morning, via an @IainDale tweet, to Ann Widdecombe's "If I ruled the world" article in Prospect magazine. As Iain tweeted, we may think it is hilarious, but she is deadly serious. Here's a taster: All magazines with a young readership would have to use adverbs, adjectives and subordinate clauses in their stories so that the young would be exposed to the beauty rather than just the functionality of language. Latin would be compulsory from 11 till 16 and classical Greek once more widely available. All television companies would be obliged to put on at intervals of ...
I guess you probably wouldn't, however reading this report on the Sun's website, it appears that Sun journalist who just like their former colleagues at the News of the World have bills to pay, have struck lucky finding someone who seems to hold an honest belief that celebrities have hijacked the Leveson Inquiry into the press which focuses in part on some of the criminality of the popular press. Certainly casual observers like myself of the inquiry, so far, would have noted the appearance of celebrities, but then equally powerful images, have been those of the mother of Milly Dowler, ...
Egyptians have risked, and continue to risk, so much for their future. Back in February, there was jubilation in Tahrir Square, at the ousting of President Mubarak after forty years of autocratic rule. There was hope for a more democratic future. Nine months on, they are back in Tahrir facing military and police brutality, asking why the ruling military council is denying the people that future. These are the most sustained protests since Mubarak was ousted. Nearly 40 people have been killed. It is thought that many have been shot dead by the security forces. Many hundreds are injured. There ...
Kirsty Williams, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, writes: "we came to an agreement with the Welsh government to start the funding for a Pupil Deprivation Grant - the Welsh equivalent of the Pupil Premium, one of the key Welsh Liberal Democrat manifesto pledges. We have also managed to convince the government to introduce an economic stimulus package worth £38.9 million. "Like the Pupil Premium in England, we are assigning funding using the Free School Meals indicator - because it targets pupils directly and because of the strong link between Free School Meals and low attainment. This means that from ...
I am currently on the bus heading to Gateshead to catch the Metro to Tynemouth. Today is a history day for me, in which my gardening, food production and political campaigning activities take a back seat. Every few weeks I meet up with fellow historians for lunch. We invariably discuss local history and forthcoming holidays that involve visiting historic sites. I've just booked a tour of WW2
I went back to Kosovo last weekend, for the first time in over a year (and first extended visit for much longer). This was for an excellent conference jointly organised by the European Council on Foreign Relations and its local partners, opened formally by the President and the Prime Minister, and with three visiting foreign ministers to add colour to proceedings. (For me the most exotic participants were a couple of Tory MPs, for one of whom I managed to negotiate a pizza in the airport as we left.) Generally good level of debate with one or two memorable one-liners: ...
Sat 26th
10:18
Cardigan's Primary & Secondary Schools will get £71,100 of Welsh Pupil Premium funding
Yesterday I blogged here about the Welsh Assembly budget deal between Welsh Labour and the Welsh Liberal Democrats. The budget is to be officially voted upon on December 6th but once it has been passed, it will give Welsh schools an extra £34,299,900. As a share of that, Ceredigion pupils who are classifed as being on free school meals will benefit to the tune of £450 each - a county total of £511,200. In a small authority such as ours, these are significant amounts of monies to our schools. Here in Cardigan town, we will benefit from a combined total ...
It has been reported this week that 591,000 people migrated into the UK with fewer people leaving the UK has resulted in a record high of 252,000 net migration into the UK. To make matters more challenging this migration will be concentrated into the south east. I have to say I feel uncomfortable talking about immigration. It conjures up all sorts of concerns from why is it being discussed and peoples motives. But this feels crazy. We either need proper policies to provide public services for such dramatic net increases in population or we need to curb it. Currently we ...
NASA's latest astronaut recruitment drive is talking about sending people to Mars. They are looking for people with advanced degrees in engineering, maths, biology or the physical sciences. You can't be shorter than 5'2" or taller than 6'3". Pilots with more than 1,000 hours of flight time are desired; so are educators. And of course you'll need a sense of daring! But let's forget all that and think instead about the more whimsical idea of who we'd like to send a few million miles away. The only rules are: stick to celebrities and public figures and don't get too personal! ...
There has been a distinctively festive air at the ELDR Congress in Palermo, Sicily, over the past few days, not because the eurozone's crisis has markedly eased — it hasn't — but because the Italians are feeling a sense of huge relief at getting rid of Silvio Berlusconi. Our hosts have been Italia dei Valori, ...
Remember Rupert Matthews? The lecturer with the International Metaphysical University who believes EU Panzers could invade Britain and is about to become one of the MEPs for the East Midlands? I have turned up another interview with him and it gives us further insight into his views: "The evidence for UFOs and for the humanoid creatures linked to them is pretty compelling. However, most of the evidence that suggests some sort of global threat is a lot less convincing. It rests on dubious testimony or simply does not mesh with the mass of evidence about UFOs available elsewhere."
Two things. First off. All those reports that you can swear at police officers now with impunity? Quite wrong. And, as this rather excellent post explains, not what the judge ruled at all. It's a fascinating read. H/t to @davidallengreen for pointing me in that direction. Secondly. Swearing generally. The police really don't like it. My Mum and Dad are fairly quiet souls and are both in their 70's. The other week they were parked in their local Tesco car park when another car backed in to them. The other driver leapt out and was immediately very aggressive. Point blank ...
Simon Henig, Leader of DCC exchanges views with John Shaw of the Derwent Valley Partnership. Question to Cabinet from John Shaw, Public rep on the DVP: Could Councillor Henig please explain what he meant when he said that the Derwent Valley AAP caused them problems, and why had he chosen to make such a statement at a Cabinet meeting rather than at either the recent Countywide AAP event or face to face with the DVP Board? Response from Councillor Henig, Leader of the Council: The remit of AAPs is very clear, namely engagement, empowerment, local action and performance. This remit ...
At one stage in my career as an economics teacher I stressed that we should always refer to "unemployed people" rather then "the unemployed" or the even move impersonal "unemployment": a reminder that we are discussing "people like us", in this case boys and girls, with aspirations like ours, for a decent lifestyle, respect, relationships and a purpose in life, and not just an abstract economic concept. The £1bn aid package announced by Nick Clegg yesterday to help half the million unemployed young people into meaningful work is to be welcomed. The coalition has been accused of a "U" turn, ...
From the Financial Times: Fears that the 50p rate of tax would hinder recruitment of top executives have been allayed, according to a survey of 50 large companies that will relieve pressure on George Osborne to accelerate plans to abolish the controversial levy in next week's autumn statement. Only 13 per cent reported that the 50p rate for those earning more than £150,000 a year was proving a barrier to attracting senior managers to Britain, according to KPMG, the professional services group, in what it said was a "dramatic change of sentiment" since 2009 when over 80 per cent of ...
My eye was caught by a tweet from SF author David Brin, linking to a map of political shifts in European governments generated by the Guardian during the summer. Brin's comment was that it showed a "Solid shift to the right", no doubt struck by the preponderance of blue on the map at the end of the timeline with only four countries - Denmark, Austria, Slovenia and Cyprus - out of 27 marked in red. (Note for American readers - for most of the world, blue means right-wing and red means left-wing, rather than the other way round.) While it's ...
The Welsh Assembly has striven to be paper-free but it seems they still have a lot to learn the Dutch Senate. According to this article they have decided to distribute meeting documents to its 75 Senators by tablet computer: At the start of the first session after the summer recess, the Senators each received an iPad with an application (App) designed especially for the Senate. The Members of the Senate can use this modern communication tool to consult and manage the complete information flow of calendars, legislative bills, parliamentary correspondence and other meeting documents. Perhaps we need to get the ...
Sat 26th
02:41
For years, Liberal Youth has succeeded against all odds. To reach its potential it needs more fundin...
I first got involved in Liberal Youth almost three years ago at the age of 16. The Liberal Youth I saw then didn't seem like a pleasant place to be at the time, so I left and haven't come back until recently. The Liberal Youth I see now is one I'm proud of. It is ...
[IMG: [personal profile] ] magister and [IMG: [personal profile] ] matgb All the time I got to spend with my dad as a kid watching 60s sci-fi while my mum was watching the news. All the friends I made through HP fandom, who supported me through pregnancy and leaving Ian and much much more. The fact that once a year, every year, I get to see Horror Express on the big screen and chorus "Monster? But we're British!" with a few hundred other seriously disturbed people. My sexy Davros picture (don't ask) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
