An unexpected Christmas bonus for us subscribers from Big Finish (unexpected to me at any rate, though I admit I tend to just download my own subscriptions and the occasional podcast and therefore miss a lot of the interactivity on offer). This is the original 4 CD set of the memoirs of Doctor Who's longest serving producer, read by JNT himself and originally released by Big Finish in November 2000, eighteen months before his death. I must say that my opinion of JNT as a human being has improved considerably as a result of listening through the whole set. He ...
It being a 'season'able few days where one isn't necessarily pushed to do work stuff, and not being at home for a few days, I hadn't checked that some of my services were running. I just did :-( Seems that my London gateway server's IPv4 connection is all happy and content but its IPv6 one is not. Doing the SSH thing suggests that I can't resolve it remotely as the external tunnel turns out to depend on the live state of the internal interface. Somewhat weird and unexpected behavior, but the drop in IPv6 connectivity appears to be the same ...
The end of another week with Rutland's most celebrated fictional peer. Sunday There has been a lot of nonsense written in recent weeks about 'fracking' - that is, drilling into hard shale rocks and then setting off small explosions to crack them and release the gas inside - which I have been practising here in Rutland. One local newspaper (not my own High Leicestershire Radical, I hasten to add) printed its report under the headline "IT'S FRACKING HELL SAY VILLAGERS"; I thought that was in particularly poor taste. Let me make it clear: Rutland has always been subject to earthquakes, ...
That is the moral that the John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier draws from GQ magazine's list of the 100 most influential men in Britain: The 39-year-old chief secretary to the Treasury is universally underestimated according to the upmarket men's magazine, which sells more than 76,000 copies a month. GQ writes he is derided in Westminster circles by his political detractors for coming to power despite only being a former press officer for the Cairngorm National Park, but is in a strong position supporting the chancellor. "As chief secretary, he is in direct control of the Government's deficit-reduction, and as ...
Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrat candidate for London mayor, has just produced a short video film about how he would cut crime and improve policing in London, based on his years of experience in the Metropolitan Police. The film provides a great "who I am" story when Paddick recounts his own experiences as a young police sergeant in the Brixton riots of 1981. He goes on to use four of Richard Maxwell's five elements of persuasion - passion (good delivery), a hero (guess who), an obstacle (riots in Brixton) and, crucially, a moment of awareness: I realized that what should have ...
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While I'm staying in the US, I've visited this site using a Windows machine for the first time ever, which means I'm seeing the site without NoScript or AdBlock Plus or being logged in for the first time since I've started it. It appears that WordPress' definition of 'discreet ad' is not the same as ...
My blogging has been rather light of late, but in the gap between Christmas and New Year I thought I'd try and catch up with a few posts. While it does seem a bit unpleasant to start with this in the festive season I feel I ought to start with the Luton related political news and the most significant story is the latest in the Margaret Moran saga. Something that I have been blogging about regularly here. The news broke in the middle of December that legal arguments had been heard that the disgraced former Luton South MP, who is ...
I was struck, reading the Economist's Christmas edition, just how dominated this year has been by protests. The obvious wave of protest is the Arab Spring, where one man burning himself to death in Tunisia sparked uprisings in Egypt, Libya and those being bloodily resisted in Syria. London was ablaze for one night in August, with police powerless to respond to the scale of mass public disorder. The 'Occupy' movement camped outside St Paul's Cathedral, throwing the established Church into confusion as to how it should respond. The eurozone crisis saw huge public protests in Greece and elsewhere against austerity ...
The Bakerloo line is the only tube line considered to still have spare capacity. So it could be extended. It already extends significantly to the north so a southern extension deeper into Southwark is the obvious direction and South London has very poor public transport. 1949-1952 such a southern extension was started - several ventilation shafts were built along the Walworth Road and tunnelling proceeded as far as Heygate Street. That Transport and Works Act passed by parliament in 1930 and renewed in 1947 was based on a stops at Walworth Road, Camberwell Green and interchange at Denmark Hill. Transport ...
Pete Aighton from Exeter was the winner in my prize draw for people who had newly signed up to my monthly email newsletter about the Liberal Democrats. Your copy of Ann Treneman's Dave & Nick: The Year of the Honeymoon ... and beyond is on its way to you Pete. If you aren't signed up to the newsletter, now is a good time to do so as the next edition will be out early in the new year.
If there is one thing taken for granted amongst Lib Dems it is that the House of Lords needs radical reform. In fact, most Lib Dems would go further than that. Like Cromwell, they would abolish the Lords outright, to be replaced with a Senate or not at all. But there are a substantial minority who, like me, think this is the wrong approach. In an otherwise excellent speech before Christmas Nick Clegg set out his stall as a fervent abolitionist. He used the rhetoric of Lloyd George to express his purported frustration with the, er, hereditary system which was ...
There are several drop off points for real Xmas trees so they can be "recycled". These run from 4 January and include Garston Park (also described as Long Lane Rec). The list of sites is available here
Tue 27th
13:39
Please Vote one more time in the Channel Four News poll for 'who changed the world in 2011'
Mohammad Al Bouazizi has now featured heavily in 2 "Person of the Year' awards - through Time Magazine and the Financial Times. Channel Four News will announce the results if their poll of who changed the world the most in 2011 - please read here why Mohamed Al Bouazizi should win this poll, and then vote for him here Thanks
I've been reading After the Coalition by a mixture of Conservative MPs and it has made me think about what we're going to do after the Coalition. What are the Lib Dems to do?After all there are two inescapable facts: 1:) We haven't agreed with all the policies implemented by the Conservative led Government. 2:) We have to differentiate ourselves from our partners so that the Public can see who we are. It is true that we have not always agreed with our Coalition partners, it is to be expected as we aren't the same party or have the same ...
Many thanks to @robblackie who let me know that the Financial Times 'Person of the Year' is the angry Arab protestor, led by Mohamed Al Bouazizi. The FT paywall prevents me making the link directly, but if you are a subscriber, do pay them a visit to read the excellent piece.
Local residents have expressed concern about the safety of three of the crossings on Verulam Road (those by Church Crescent, Britton Avenue and Upper Dagnall Street). There have been a number of 'near misses' due to motorists not being able to see the crossings until they are virtually on top of them. It is clear that the belisha beacons are either obscured or not working. Road markings are also less than clear. Chris has asked highways officials to have a closer look at some simple measures to make them more visible – and thus safer.
A while back I posted "Blogging in the Dark", talking about the information I could get on visits to the blog and the questions it raised but didn't answer. For example, I was intrigued and slightly puzzled by acquiring a Russian and a Latvian readership and encouraged the Russians and Latvians to talk back. They didn't, but I do have a theory about the Latvians: suddenly all at once I had 26 hits from Latvia and thereafter only one repeated, so I wonder if this might have been a computer-savvy English-language class looking through English-language blogs. The Russians, though, gradually ...
Tue 27th
11:55
Recovery in Clegg's ratings amongst party members confirmed but not back to 2010 levels
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 564 party members responded, and we are publishing the full results here over several days. As 2011 comes to an end, Liberal Democrat party members surveyed by Lib Dem Voice continue to back Nick Clegg, being in coalition and the government's overall record. Support has generally increased a little during the year, but is still well below its levels in the second half of last year before tuition fees dominated the ...
The nuclear tragedy at Fukushima continues to provide fall out with contamination polluting the seas and putting at risk fish stocks and the livelihood of local fishermen. Who on earth would be crazy enough to think building nuclear power stations next to an ocean is a good idea? Well apart from Japan several countries – including a rebuild at Hinckley point on the cards rather than closing it down. The lessons from Japan and the consequences for our oceans need to be properly learnt. good YOUTUBE click here
New legislation being discussed in the USA is potentially ab threat to the freedom of the internet. The proposal for DNS takedown is potentially not a good way forward and the excuse on protecting Intellectual Copyright seems a bit thin. a Good YOU TUBE posting onm the subject can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYrFUSFff-k
This is Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader Willie Rennie's Christmas message, released last Friday. I put it up on Lib Dem Voice then, but thought I'd let you have another chance to see it here. "As we gather with friends and family this Christmas, it is important that we, both individually and collectively, look back, take stock and reflect on the last year. "There is no doubt it has been an extremely testing time for political leaders with falling budgets, economic turbulence, growing unemployment and social problems that threaten to rip the fabric of society. "Making decisions when there are no ...
Of course, we now have two British Liberal leaders, one here, and one in Europe. And, for your delectation and delight, Liberal Democrat Voice presents, courtesy of the European Liberal Democrats (ELDR), the New Year message of Graham Watson, recently elected as its President...
This video - reproduced by kind permission of the young (human) stars dad - definitely beats the Pandas for the "Ahhh Factor" and this one actually moves! The toddler is my nephew Hamish in Tasmania and this is what happens to you when your mum get a Ph.D in Zoology! It was I am assured a rescue Wombat being looked after by a neighbour! Not sure what the UK suburban equivalent of these are.
Tue 27th
09:25Get your skates on and submit a motion to Liberal Democrat conference about wealth taxes
Nick Clegg's recent 'open society' speech confirmed that increases taxes on wealth in some form is very much on the political agenda. However, the default party policy option – a mansion tax – was highly controversial in the party when it was introduced (which is rather a polite term for the rolling lesson in how to bungle a policy launch, annoy MPs, irritate party members and feed negative stories to the media all in one fell swoop). In other words – now is a very good time for the party to be debating what form of wealth taxes it favours, ...
Today's Telegraph reveals a previously unheralded subsidy for wind farms that not many people knew about. Opponents of turbines often complain that their output is unpredictable and that they cannot be relied on to generate electricity when it is most needed. However, it transpires that the opposite is also true. The paper says that 17 operators were paid nearly £7 million for shutting down their farms on almost 40 occasions between January and mid-September. They add that continuing to make payments at that rate would lead to householders shelling out £9.9 million in 2011 for operators to disconnect their turbines from the ...
Brian Selway's excellent blog - a look at life in Scotland through photographs and comment - highlighted the charm of Strawberrybank earlier this year. You can see the item at http://tinyurl.com/strawberrybank.
The only sensible view, in my opinion, is for us to be flexible. For us to point out the good and bad policies of both of our potential Coalition partners.
