I have just been watching the leading item on the BBC's ten o' clock news which is about David Cameron and how he would fight for the nation's interest on Thursday and Friday when the EU summit will be looking at changing the way EU works. The challenge from Tory MPs was "do the nation proud...and show some bulldog spirit", and "seize the moment" (to see off the threat of further EU integration). The main issue should not be about the British role in Europe but how to resolve the problems in the Eurozone, as Nick Robinson put it, "we ...
Ben Patterson, former Tory MEP and EU Parliament official, this evening at Europe House, Westminster, launched his new book, The Conservative Party and Europe (John Harper Publishing, £20), which I will be reviewing elsewhere. The timing could not have been more perfect, nor the author more qualified to remind us all that it was the Conservatives (under ...
The news today that Barbara Orbison, the wife and manager of the iconic rock star Roy, has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of just 60 is awfully sad. The fact theat she died yesterday on the 23rd anniversary of her husband's death makes it that much more poigniant. Barbara and Roy Orbison Source: BBC News They met in 1968 when she was 17 and he was 32 and they married 9 months later. He divorced his first wife Claudette (yes, THE Claudette) before re-marrying her but she was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1966. Whilst touring England ...
... had two BIG lumps of fresh ginger in it today :) So I am pondering this starter (because we got carrots too) and this accompaniment to a main (because we got cooking apples and we always have onion) and this pudding. Mmmmmmm gingery... Also lots of oranges, so have made Nigella's flourless clementine cake and am now waiting very impatiently for it to cool. [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Attached is the Word document with the Written Question (and answers) from todays County Council. The question I asked (relating to fraud) is first, the other questions are listed after it;"Question from Councillor A Pellew to the Cabinet Member for Resources and Performance, Councillor S CountHow much money has been lost to fraud by Cambridgeshire County Council? I am particularly thinking of the figure published on the BBC Website - "The East of England managed to lose £21.5m (up 67% from the previous year)" - and would like to know what figure, if any, Cambridgeshire contributed to this figure. A ...
"As a local resident, parent and school governor I am very concerned about road safety, especially for parents taking their children to school." These are not my words, but those of Chorlton Councillor Sheila Newman when she was seeking election in 2008. Following such a declaration most people would think that she was an advocate of School Crossing Patrols, the surest guarantor of our children's safety, and would put the issue before party ideology. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case. Today, at Manchester Town Hall, Chorlton Liberal Democrat Councillor Victor Chamberlain pleaded with Sheila and her New Labour ...
Today's prize goes to the Evening Standard: Hunt for man who slammed door on Zinzan the abseiling police dog
Here is the text of the oral question I asked at todays full Council;"A local resident in my division has raised the issue of the gritting of cycle routes. Given that a full 25% of all journeys to work in Cambridge are by bike and the benefits to local businesses of people travelling to work in a way other than by car are substantial can I ask for the priority of the gritting of cycle routes to be raised?"The question was answered by Cllr Criswell who has responsibility for these things. His answer was that it was possible to add ...
Very odd news from Islington Council's finances. In tough times you'd expect the story to be about not having enough money, making cuts and so on. But in fact, the council is on course to under-spend its capital budget by £35 million this year. As the Islington Liberal Democrats press release says: This represents almost 20% of the planned overall capital budget. This funding is used to build new housing, improve the borough's schools and roads and provide local jobs... Islington Liberal Democrat Finance Spokesperson, councillor John Gilbert, said: "We are in the middle of a recession and the work ...
Well it was the last Full Council meeting before Christmas and everyone was in a fairly festive mood and, considering it was the Full Council after the allowances fiasco, remarkably well tempered. It was also pretty light on business, really the only thing we needed to do was to view the monitoring officers report, deal with the SEVEN motions (that's a pretty large number) and then Oral Questions.The agenda (along with reports) is published on the County Councils seems to be a new interface and actually seems to work quite well.The first issue, after the Chairmans announcements, was a ...
I was very pleased to attend the official opening of the new toddlers' playground at Bruntwood Park this afternoon, along with Cllr John Smith – Exec member for Leisure. Yes, it was cold but at least it wasn't raining or hailing, and the youngsters certainly enjoyed it. Thanks to senior ranger Jane Bardsley for all the organising – I'm sure the new facility will be a real asset to for the park.
Back in October I attended a Conference organised by Lib Dem MEP for our area, Catherine Bearder, on the subject of human trafficking. It included some truly shocking presentations about trafficking and the impact it is having on children and adults from countries around the world. Before I attended the conference I'm happy to admit I did not have a good understanding of the issue of human trafficking nor the fact that it could be a serious issue in Reading. For this reason I'm really grateful to Catherine for making me aware of the issue and for choosing to hold ...
From the Daily Mirror: A Liberal Democrat MP was forced to deny he was releasing a Christmas single today after local journalists failed to spot a press release he issued was a spoof. Don Foster, the party spokesman for culture, media and sport, sent out an email to reporters entitled "Bath MP plots late charge for Christmas No 1", claiming the North Somerset MP was "releasing his first solo record in an attempt to gain the coveted top spot in the singles chart this Christmas" It went on to claim the MP would release a number showing off his skills ...
The Lib Dems in Government are taking real action to tackleyouth unemployment. Every young personwho wants it will be guaranteed a job, training or work placement. The Youth Contract will create over 400,000 new jobs and250,000 new work experience placements to help young people across Britain toget into work. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg MP said, "If people are outof work when they're young they bear the scars for decades. If they have afalse start, they might not ever fully catch up. "This £1 billion investment will make sure our youngpeople are earning and learning again, before long-term damage is ...
Merseyside Police have a new number to ring for all non-emergency calls - 101 You should still ring 999 if it's a genuine emergency, like a robbery in progress. For all other police matters ring 101. The Police website explains: You should call 101 to report less urgent crime and disorderor to speak to your local officers. For example, you should call 101 if: your car has beenstolen your property hasbeen damaged you suspect druguse or dealing in your neighbourhood report a minortraffic collision give the police information about crime inyour area speak to thepolice about a general enquiry You ...
18 cement lorries were reported to us today. Clarence Road is not a suitable road for heavy vehicles and they were clearly operating in breach of planning permission. There were so many that it was possible for both a resident and a highways official to follow them – and found that they were indeed going to the building site by the station. Thanks to both! The district council has been informed and we anticipate that enforcement action will now be taken. If you see a cement lorry on Clarence Road – or on any non-main road – get in touch! ...
Wed 7th
18:53
Baroness Liz Barker writes: Liberal Democrat peers working to secure an NHS fit for the future
After five weeks of detailed, intensive scrutiny the House of Lords is about to start discussing Part 3 of the Health and Social Care Bill. This is the part which deals with the role of Monitor and EU competition law. Building on the work of Nick Clegg in June this year following the listening exercise, Liberal Democrat peers are working hard to ensure that the legislation fully reflects our policy that competition should be strictly limited to those areas of commissioning and provision where there is evidence that it improves patient outcomes. We will continue to argue that there should ...
One part of me feels rather nauseated. Another part of me feels as though I am intruding into private grief by watching the latest spasms of Tory inter-necine strife over Europe. My view is quite simple. Let the 17 Euro-zone countries get on with it. Move along now. There's nothing to see here. In the meantime, real life rumbles on... Boris Johnson photo credit: Some rights reserved by UCL Conservative Society [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
Well Christmas in recent years has meant a new stand alone episode of Doctor Who so will 2011 be any different? Of course not! Judging by the name of the episode and clips I have seen there may even be a little cross over with one of Belfast's favourite sons Clive Staples Lewis. So here is the prequel to The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe
In a bid to attract a diverse range of people to stand for election to Cambridgeshire County Council, the Liberal Democrats are calling for some meetings to be held in the evenings. They want to see a shift away from meetings being held exclusively in the daytime which are often difficult to attend for those in full-time work. And they believe holding some in the early evening would give more people the chance to stand for election as councillors. A motion calling for support for the idea will be proposed to Cambridgeshire County Council members on December 7 by Councillor ...
Last month I blogged about some of the findings from the British Social Attitudes survey, showing how the British public think the income gap in our society is too large but there is only minority support for the government directly redistributing income. Today the latest British Social Attitudes survey is out and its findings paint a similar picture. To quote from the news release: While 75 per cent agree that the income gap between rich and poor is too large, only just over a third (35%) believe government should redistribute more to solve the problem. There is continued concern that ...
Continuing my advent calendar of Youtube treats there are of course some advents that really seem to sparkle with the season and some that don't. I think this one from Marks and Spencer in 2007 hit the right balance.
At full Council today, I was taken aback by Labour's amendment which called upon the government to "scrap the sham pupil premium". Now there is only one pupil premium which this year has delivered over £10 million to Manchester's schools targeted at those in most need and which will be doubled next year to over £20 million. That's money which is per pupil who is in need, i.e. those receiving free school meals (as there is a clear link between families in financial need and those pupils needing extra assistance) and children in care. I know that in Gorton and ...
Our Bracknell MP has written in the Bracknell Standard to inform them that he welcomes plans to increase the number of carriages on train services in and out of London Paddington from Reading. Adding that "This is great news for rail passengers in the Bracknell constituency." Actually it's not great news for Bracknell at all. Thing is the Bracknell line is from Reading to Waterloo not Paddington. It won't make any difference because users in Reading don't use this line for speed (Paddington line is much faster) but because they need to go to Waterloo. The line from Maidenhead where ...
A couple of nights ago I was chatting to someone who had just lost her job. Like so many other people she worked as a professional in the public sector. Her department was being reorganised and jobs redefined. Professional posts were being regraded downwards, and people were being invited to apply for posts below their qualification and experience. Understandably, she felt angry; the jobs still needed doing, her skills would become out of date unless she got a new job fairly soon and their household income would suffer a severe cut. She was also angry that so many of the ...
The Daily Mail has the full SP.
Just announced by Norman Baker, the Lib Dem Rail minister at the Department for Transport: West Hampstead Overground station will have disabled lifts installed with a £1 million investment as part of the government's Access for All programme. Here is the DfT's press release; and here is the list of the winners. Also on the same line Hampstead Heath and Kensal Rise are also set to get similar improvements. The most important thing about this announcement is the impact the station improvements will have on Ballymore's West End Square proposals (see previous post). If the developers and Overground don't get ...
The top story on the BBC Today programme this morning was about the expansion of so called "payday loans", drawing attention to the shockingly high interest rates such loans entail (1,700% APR is typical). This was hooked onto some research by insolvency group R3, which thereby got massive free publicity (Christmas came early for some PR person); the BBC web story is here. Even the sober Financial Times runs the headline "'Legal loan sharks' target urban poor". This coverage makes me very uncomfortable. Time and again middle-class do-gooders and commentators fail to understand the grim economics of being poor – ...
This is an email to the company that a spambot in the Potter Blogger's comment threads recently linked to: To support@laws.com Dear Sir/Madam, Is the blogspot profile CPSL (http://www.blogger.com/profile/07428876147362609952) anything to do with you? As far as I can tell it appears to be a spam bot which has been leaving links to your website in the comment threads on my blog (http://thepotterblogger.blogspot.com/). Here is an example of the kind of messages it has been leaving: CPSL said... Attorney and Law Firm Information and Directory. Find Legal Information, Laws and local Attorneys. legal advice If this spam bot is anything ...
It's been quite some time since I've been able to update this blog (one of my New Year's resolutions is to do so more often). One of the reasons for my absence is that I've been very busy working on my new book, Exit Stage Left. It's a temporary departure from the Knight & Culverhouse series, instead focusing on amateur sleuth Kempston Hardwick and his attempts to uncover the mystery behind the death of former Saturday-night television star Charlie Sparks. The book is due for release on Amazon Kindle and other eBook platforms next week. As I'm an independent publisher, ...
The Independent's expose of the tactics used by the lobbying firm Bell Pottinger to impress potential clients shines the spotlight again on the lobbying industry. A team from Bell Pottinger was filmed pitching to journalists posing as representatives of the Uzbekistan Government, a regime which, as Amnesty's 2011 report shows, has an atrocious human rights record. The lobbyists boasted of virtually instant access to the Prime Minister and other members of the Cabinet. If I were James Dyson, I would not be happy that my PR company were citing access to the Prime Minister on my behalf as part of ...
This is one of my series of lunchtime blogposts. Idle speculation and day dreaming is one of my favourite ways of wasting time. And, lucky you, you're about to be introduced to a piece of my groundless, out-of-thin-air, speculation about the new planet recently discovered by astronomers. Courtesy of the BBC Kepler22-b or, as I will henceforth refer to it, lizardworld, is nearly two and a half times the size of the Earth, has liquid water on the surface and has an average temperature of 22C. Now, you might be wondering why I've decided to name it lizardworld. Well, that's ...
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Yes, a new European treaty that will enforce effective fiscal union may save the euro - and save our economies for a while. Certainly the alternative is a frightening prospect. But the consequences of tightening the euro screw in the euro zone may also be terrifying and far-reaching, because - although a common European currency is a civilised and importat idea - a single currency was always a flawed concept:
TRANSPORT For London is reviewing its bad plans for changing some of the worst junctions on the Euston Road after a spate of accidents. We have a chance to get a more radical re-think, not just small tweaks that'll make no difference - or even, where Euston Road meets York Way, make things worse. So ...
English English is viewed as the best English around. Australian English is ridiculed mainly because of people's view of the accent rather than its content (which due to geography, we tend not to really analyse the Oz brand of English). American English is ridiculed because...erm...well...I'm not actually sure it goes beyond the fact that it's not our English, therefore it's somehow inferior. If we spelled colour without a 'u', like the Americans, that would make sense. If used gotten like the Americans, that would make sense too - we have forget, forgot, forgotten, then get got and...I have/I did have ...
Wed 7th
12:30
Labour Backbencher: We stuck with Gordon, we stuck with Michael Foot and we'll continue with Ed Mili...
I think this quote says it all for the ailing Labour leader. "Of course we should be further ahead," said one Labour backbencher. "But there will be no change in leadership. We stuck with Gordon, we stuck with Michael Foot and we'll continue with Ed Miliband."
The weak and obfuscating position on tar sands being taken by the Coalition Government is an embarrassment to every Liberal Democrat who wants to believe that having our representatives in office will advance the environmental agenda. It may stem from ... Continue reading →
This morning, I have had many calls from constituents about icy roads and pavements across the West End and I have taken these up with the City Council,requesting urgent action. I'm particularly concerned that access around sheltered housing areas is difficult and the Tullideph Sheltered Lounge has had to cancel today's activities as the path down to the lounge and neighbouring streets' pavements are in a very icy condition. I have asked the City Engineer if Tayside Contracts can give areas like this urgent attention. The City Engineer advised me at about 11am : "The priority carriageway routes within Dundee ...
I was saddened to read that big money appears to have stomped all over another aspect of representative democracy. I recently sat on the main Southwark Council planning committee which heard the Eileen House planning application. After a long session hearing evidence for and against this scheme the committee voted 5 against with the chair abstaining. The reasons for refusal were many (I've added the parentheses for clarity): "The proposed development is contrary to strategic policy 10, saved policies 3.20 (Protection of Amenity), 4.2 (Quality of Residential Development), 4.4 (Affordable Housing) of the Southwark plan, strategic policies 5 (Providing new ...
Tuesday: From Star Wars Lego Advent Calendar Day 6: Laugh it up, furball
Who could have seen this coming six weeks ago? The Thorpe Bay Billy No Mates looked like toast. After a stunning first week massacre of the Goat belief was high in the camp but then a run of only one win from six led to a 2-5 record and the only hope of making the playoffs was to win out. Don't know what I'm talking about? Well that makes you in the majority – a heavy majority. The Thorpe Bay Billy No Mates are my fantasy NFL team in the ESPN league 'Twitter Tw@ats'. My draft was awful in retrospect. ...
The main form of financial support for the long term sick and disabled is the Employment Support Allowance (ESA). Once upon a time, cancer patients undergoing radio or chemotherapy intravenously were placed in the support group of ESA where they received unconditional support. However, those receiving radio or chemotherapy orally were placed in the Work Related Activity Group of ESA where they were forced to attend work related interviews and complete other work related activity or face having part or all of their support withdrawn. My mother died of cancer. A large part of her treatment consisted of oral chemotherapy. ...
With the discussions over the future of the Eurozone at a critical phase, David Cameron yesterday started to make helpful noises about exercising a veto if British interests were not protected. And when he says British interests, it seems he primarily means protecting the status of the City of London as the pre-eminent financial centre in Europe. It is, of course, no great surprise that the Conservatives seek to protect the interests of the financial elite who are, after all, their major financial backers. But we need to hold on to the idea that it wasn't so long ago that ...
The 2011 Annual Congress of the European Liberal Democratic and Reform (ELDR) parties passed a resolution, proposed by UK Liberal Democrats, against military involvement or action against Iran. So, that settles it then? No, far from it. Vietnam syndrome is polluting the mindset of some intelligent individuals, who think the Iranian regime is pretty darn ...
It's December which means for those who have them, it's time to get out those chocolate advent calendars! But for those of you who, like me, don't do such things anymore (and indeed for those of you who still do!), I thought I'd give my own unique little twist on this festive time of year with my Musical Advent Calendar countdown of my Top 25 favourite Christmas songs! I'm blogging a song a day, culminating with my favourite on Christmas Eve. So let's continue on our seasonal countdown... Cole's Musical Christmas Advent Calendar - Day 7! Today we have a ...
Wed 7th
10:25Evan Harris writes... Lynne Featherstone delivers on Lib Dem equality pledge - a response to Peter T...
"It's a Coalition, innit!" No one would accuse me - I hope – of a lack of commitment to LGBT equality. Nor would anyone - I fear – of being a cheer-leader for the Government, nor indeed of slavish support for Liberal Democrats in Government. But I can not accept my friend Peter's criticism of Lynne Featherstone set out in his article. I doubt many readers of Lib Dem Voice would do so either, because his failure to distinguish between "Liberal Democrat policy" and "Government policy" is schoolboy-obvious, and his attack thus falls as flat as a pancake that's been ...
Councillor Jarrett Before I start I'm just going to be straight with you and say that I am not just writing this as a Liberal Democrat but also as a concerned resident, tax payer and family man who has to pay the bills with a shrinking income and enlarging bills. So please don't mistake my criticisms as a member of an opposition party and thus baseless or just mindless spin. They are also the very real concerns of a simple man trying to make his way through life with his young family. In the Medway Messenger on 5th December (page ...
It's disappointing, but sadly no surprise, that GPs are stepping down from the new clinical commissioning groups set up as part of the health reforms. As a result the bureaucrats will be taking over and one of the key points of the reforms will be lost. One of the major planks of the reforms are for the abolition of primary care trusts - the local(ish) level of bureaucracy which commissions services from GPs and local and general hospitals as well as other health providers. In their place will come local commissioning groups which were meant to be led by GPs. ...
The Blyth Town Council calendar goes on sale at the end of this week. Published with the best entries in the photograph competition, all photos on tne calendar are of Blyth, by the people of Blyth. It will be on sale from Friday in, among others, Arriva offices at Blyth Bus Station, Dolly Dimples cafe, and at Ebor House, the Blyth Town Council Offices. It will cost £4 , which should cover the costs of production. I saw an early copy last night, and have to say that the standard of the photographs is excellent. The standard of the printing ...
Two things have come together to contribute to these ramblings about Christmas. The first is an article in this month's BBC History Magazine which tells me that Christmas was abolished by Christians in England in the 1640s. In a speech ... Continue reading →
In November 2009, Joshua, the lovely 14 week old son of my friends Nicola and Stephen, passed away not long after he was diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder, Pontocerebellar Hypoplasia Type 1. They set up the Joshua Deeth Foundation in his memory and since then have raised thousands of pounds to go towards research into this condition and for information and support to families affected by all six types of Pontocerebellar Hypoplasia. For their Christmas Appeal, they are asking people to donate £2 by texting TJDF99 £2 to 70070. Please give if you can - and please help me ...
Keith Holloway and the Lib Dems believe Gatley and Cheadle should each have its own neighbourhood plan, written by local people to meet local needs and aspirations. The Coalition Government's Localism Act gives communities the ability to write their own neighbourhood plans, saying what sort of development should be allowed in different places – houses, shops, businesses – and what it should look like (with some restrictions). Through the plans, residents will be able to have their say on controversial issues such as travellers' sites. Let us know if you agree with giving local people the power to write plans ...
Wed 7th
09:13
A Liberal Vision for Education: There's no point reforming our broken system. This is a new educatio...
Mark Pack recently looked at the attitudes towards income inequality between '87 – '09. The interesting thing in this data is the fact that almost a consistent 80% of people for over 20 years have said that the gap between the rich and poor is too large. While there has been no change in attitudes ...
This morning's Cornish Guardian carries a story about the loss of clinics from our local hospitals at Launceston and Liskeard. Over the past couple of years a couple of clinics have been lost from Launceston and six have gone from Liskeard. The clinics lost provide a very wide range of services including ear, nose and throat; rheumatology, dermatology and orthopaedics. If these services aren't available locally then patients have to travel to Derriford or Treliske to get them. I have to give credit to Callington Town Council for digging up this information because the changes seem to happen with almost ...
Yesterday's Indy carried a story by Andrew Grice about a "confidential" Lib Dem report from Annette Brooke MP attacking the government's planning proposals. "Confidential" is an interesting (that's polite speak) word to use. Because what is in the report? Well, it is actually a collection of views already expressed in public, in Parliament and recorded in Hansard, by Liberal Democrat Parliamentarians which her and Lord Graham Tope have drawn on. Moreover, as a submission to a consultation, far from being "confidential" not only are its contents culled from what is already in the public domain but it too will be ...
Metal theft has been a problem for many years. British Transport Police and others have shown a link between metal commodity prices and levels of theft – higher metals prices more theft. It has reached the stage where on a typical month £1M of metals are stolen from church roofs every month. Even war memorials are being stolen and melted down for scrap. With the eurozone crisis metal demand in Europe has seen a temporary downward blip but in Spring 2012 it is expected to surge again with Chinese house building causing demand to rise. You can only harden targets ...
The blunt political reality is that Vladimir Putin needed to cheat, even just to get the "sharply reduced majority" that is the official result of the Russian Parliamentary election. When we blow away the fog of the 99.9% results in some parts of the country, it is quite clear that United Russia lost the election. The problem now is, what comes next? There have been the largest street protests for many years in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and - as usual, these have been broken up by the thuggish internal security service. The future of Russia is not likely, in ...
This week the OECD published its latest analysis of inequality in the UK, including (another) graph in which 1997 is not a turning point but rather this time 2005: With inequality having been rising since 2005 there is so far not enough data in their set to show if the current government is doing much differently to that trend than Gordon Brown's government, but some of their conclusions about what happened under previous governments are very relevant to current policy making: Transfers and taxes became less redistributive. Between the the late 1970s and mid 1980s, the tax-benefit system in the ...
As a life-long Liberal I can not say that I share Tim Farron's professed need for therapy about the coalition. I am not a Conservative, I have never been a Conservative and I am not going to become a Conservative because of the coalition. Yet it is precisely because I am not a Conservative that I don't need therapy. For the first time in my life time, and indeed my parents lifetimes, Liberalism has a leading place in government. We have senior Liberal Democrat ministers who are leading the debate in this country, and more to the point are enacting ...
Bruce Springstein fanously sang "We switched 'round and 'round 'til half-past dawn/There was fifty-seven channels and nothin' on", but even he could not have envisaged the sheer inanity of the annual party political budget broadcasts here in the UK. Now the Telegraph tells us that we are to be spared the future torture of searching for the remote control so as to switch over before our brains freeze up. They say that the BBC Trust are proposing to end the system of UK-wide broadcasts by the Chancellor and opposition parties on the annual financial statement to MPs, which it believes ...
The latest of the Big Finish "Lost Stories", based on a storyline by Peter Ling and Hazel Adair, and turned into an audio drama by Paul Finch. Given that Ling wrote the amazing Second Doctor story "The Mind Robber" back in 1968, and that Finch wrote Leviathan, the best of the series of Sixth Doctor lost stories produced by Big Finish a couple of years ago, my expectations were high. And I am glad to say that they were largely met; the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa, finding that an old friend of Tegan's (played by Toby Hadoke) has been abducted ...
This post originally appeared on 4th November 2011 on the Huffington Post UK: Young people are suffering. Youth unemployment is nearing a million. Young people cannot afford to buy or now even rent homes. This won't be helped by this week's news that last year house building was at its lowest level since records began, in the 1920s. Whilst monthly tuition fee repayments are set to fall and will be written off if not totally repaid after a period of time (thanks to Lib Dem pressure), young people still face a higer bill for their university tuition, and Labour's alternative ...
Back in August, I met with Shaftesbury Place residents and a member of the City Development Department of the City Council regarding the extremely poor condition of the unadopted Shaftesbury Place's combined road/footway. Since then, I have been in correspondence with the council's legal officers to ascertain what might be possible by way of getting this extremely poor conditioned road/footway upgraded and adopted by the local authority. However, another aspect has been the poor condition of the lighting and I am pleased to report some progress with that. The City Engineer has advised me as follows : "The Street Lighting ...
The latest proposal (11/01704/FUL) for use of land for one extended gypsy family composed of 2 static caravans and 1 touring caravan, at the end of Hurn Road, has again, been turned down by the City Council's planning committee. The idea of introducing caravans to this site, has proved controversial for well over a year and a half, and the latest decision came after a 5 hour planning committee meeting at the Town Hall, attended by Hurn Road residents and your local LIB DEM ward councillor Darren Fower. Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Fower said: "This is not a new ...
One of my ISPs, entanet have posed the question "Which of the following issues will most greatly affect the Internet market in 2012?" Options range from Ofcom's latest plans to abort net neutrality and BT's PIA pricing announcement for duct and pole access, through The DEA - three strikes rule, website blocking plans, etc and one close to my heart, The lack of adoption of IPv6, but the top one, in my view, is The court order to force BT to block Newzbin2. Each of those issues is important, but I'd suggest that it is the court blocking of a ...
Wed 7th
00:00
Day 3992: Tobin or Not Tobin: Why Paddy Ashdown is Wrong and We Need a Robin Hood Tax like an Arrow ...
Tuesday: Time to take a leaf out of Daddy Alex's book - and take my life in my fluffy feet - by picking a fight with Lord Paddy! Look, for starters Robbing Hoodie ROBBED the taxman; he didn't work for him! A "Robin Hood Tax" is a CONTRADICTION IN TERMS! People say "it's an itty bitty little fraction of a percent but it raises oodles of dosh." Well, it's either one or the other. If it raises a lot of money then that's got to come from SOMEWHERE. And here's the real kicker: it comes from YOUR pensions and insurance. ...
