LibDem Blogs - Archived!

Before coming to the main point I want to make it clear that I have not read all the facts about yesterday's shooting and I am not making assumtpions about the rights and wrongs of this particular incident. However I was struck by these comments reported in The Times: Pc Norman Brennan, a campaigner for the victims of crime who has called for all officers to be routinely armed, said the shooting was an unfortunate consequence of being "at war". He said: "The long and the short of it is that this country is at war with terrorists and ...

So, it appears the man shot dead wasn't actually connected with the bombings on Thursday. This is the worst possible thing that could have happened both for the police and for us. I wrote yesterday that, given the details, police actions were entirely right. I stand by that, even now. Assuming, of course, that the circumstances that we have been told are actually true, then I don't really see what other options the police had. A man they suspected of being connected with the bombings refused to stop when asked, and, acting very suspiciously, heads straight for a Tube train. ...

More Power to the Badgers!! The Linlithgow Gazette has reported that a family of badgers will cause difficulty to a recently passed planning application on Riccarton Road. The Council's local plan does designate that this land is an open space; it is also bordered by Manse Road to the East and Laverlock Park to the North. The plan was to build one four-bedroom house on the space, with the

This week has been a bit of a disaster - my computer went into complete meltdown on Tuesday morning, and I have only just today got it functioning again. It only underlined to me how dependent I am on it for organising my life and doing my work. The problems it threw up also took up so much of my time in an already greatly overcrowded week. Before my PC died I had just put the finishing touches to my presentation to the International Symposium on Local e-Democracy in Minneapolis next week. Panic set in, but ...

The link gives a list of reports from the Office of National Statistics on GDP. Clearly there are issues about the economic and environmental sustainability of growth. It remains, however, an important factor in government planning. We are putting together a simple summary of key statistics. The key for growth at the moment is that the growth over the past 4 quarters is 1.7%. Stories such

While spending a week’s holiday in Gran Canaria, (it was a last-minute deal, we booked it the day before) my girlfriend and I noticed the preponderance of Comic Sans, a horrible font. As we noticed more and more instances of this pernicious weed (menus, shop fronts, signs, notices, posters, fliers, etc) we developed a kind of [...]

Thanks to James Graham for drawing my attention to the fact that the Westminster Parliament has stepped into the brave new world of e-democracy. A press release from the newly reconstituted Welsh Affairs Committee reveals that under the Chairmanship of Aberavon MP, Dr. Hywel Francis, the committee is to get straight down to work with a major inquiry into the Government's White Paper: Better Governance for Wales. Interested parties are invited to submit evidence to the Clerk of the Committee. The press release continues: "If possible, please supply an electronic version in MS Word or ...

I have been known to grumble that, despite the presence of Lib Dem cabinet members, the Scottish Executive often seems even keener on the more nannyish aspects of New Labour than its counterpart in London does. Alex C. at Land of the Nearly Free, by setting out the professional backgrounds of the Labour ministers at Holyrood, gives us a clue as to why this is the case. He finds a preponderance of former teachers and social workers.

I don't know about you but I am running out of new things to say about Leanne-Gate. Not so, the Western Mail, who carry a rather strange apology at the top of their letters page this morning. Under the heading "Wood fuel worries", suggesting an obsession with bio-mass rather than political intrique, the newspaper's editor steps in to apologise on behalf of Labour AM, Huw Lewis, for his rather intemperate comments yesterday:THE Western Mail apologises for certain words used in a letter from Huw Lewis AM in yesterday's edition. The Western Mail does not associate itself with such remarks. We ...

Shoot-to-kill, effective-targeting, shoot-to-protect, aim-for-the-head. I don't know whether to be shocked or relieved the police have adopted this strategy against suspected suicide bombers. Never thought the day would come when we'd see armed police in the UK.I've witnessed this happening in other parts of the world - it sure takes a strong mind to get used to it. I still get flash-backs of things I've seen - you do become hardened to it in the end.The shooting of a man at point blank range on the platform at Stockwell tube station today will undoubtedly have frightened and shocked so many ...

On the comments at Nosemonkey, it was suggested by a couple of the commenters that the nature of the shooting suggested that it wasn't police involved, it was special forces. In particular it was reminiscent of anti-IRA operations in Gibraltar (even if the circumstances were considerably different). Seems like the bloggers weren't the only ones who thought that...