LibDem Blogs - Archived!

Watching the images and hearing the reports of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina has been heart-rendering. It's been announced tonight that the British army is sending in some of it's troops. My nephew Matthew told me at the weekend he is going but I had to keep my mouth shut until it was official. It takes a strong mind to face such a situation to help even for a soldier. What I find hard to

West Country MP and all round git Dr Liam Fox will tommorow announce he will run for Leader of the Conservative Party. I am delighted. This is the man with all the charisma of a urine sample, who famously described hearing about poverty as "boring for Conservative Members". He is also the man who allegedly threw a strop at a barman for allowing a Natalie Imbruglia song to be played; and who, having been succesfully sued for libel by a Labour MP last year, can legitimately be called a liar. While push-polling and unremitting negativity generally saw Tory swings from ...

Further to James comment, I've now opened a shop with SpreadShirt who provide goods in the UK. They have a larger range of nicer T-Shirts, however not all designs work with them. Most orders should be dispached within 2 days, so order now and they should arrive before conference.

Charlie Whitaker on perfect.co.uk contrasts the American authorities' slow reaction to the New Orleans hurricane with the way they coped with earlier disasters 100 years ago. He looks at the response to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and to the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. Then he goes on to wonder what this obvious decline in the efficiency of government tells us about modern American society and politics. Incidentally, the BBC Suffolk pages have eyewitness accounts of Britain's worst natural disaster of the last century, the East Coast floods of 1953.

At the end of July I posted an account of a nineteenth-century suicide bombing at Greenwich, and went on to discuss the novel it inspired: Conrad's The Secret Agent. I have now found a description of the funeral of the perpetrator, Martial Bourdin: On February 29 on the removal of Bourdin's remains from an undertaker's shop in Chapel Street near Lisson Grove, for interment at St Pancras Cemetery at Finchley, Londoners gave free vent to their anti-Anarchist sentiments. Just before the little funeral procession, composed of a hearse and a mourning coach, started on its journey a body of ...

A UK Passport Service press release sets out some of the new regulations on passport photos: Applicants must submit two identical photos, which have been taken in the last month. The photos should be printed on normal photographic paper and should be 45 mm x 35 mm in size. The photo should show a close up of the applicant's head and shoulders so that their face covers 65-75% of the photo. It should be taken against an off-white, cream or light grey plain background so that the applicant's features are clearly distinguishable against the background. The photo must be ...

There is a planning application for an ASDA (Walmart to you Americans) supermarket on the outskirts of our town. It happens to be in the council ward that I represent. The Rayleigh Chamber of Trade are very concerned about the impact this would have on existing shops. Residents living near the proposed site are worried about traffic. Some other residents would welcome an extra shop to go to. I'm

http://dancingwithkatrina.blogspot.com/ .

People have been ringing me asking why they haven't been sent a polling card, so I rang electoral services this morning to find out. The parish council decided not to send out polling cards. As a result a lot of people won't know that they have a vote or where to vote. I'm told that it is only compulsory to send out polling cards at district council level or above. The polling booth is at Cheddleton Community Centre (the old school) in Hollow Lane. It opens at 8 am on Thursday 8th September and closes at 9 pm. You ...

The linked story from 2004 shows how big the Silent Calls problem tends to be Kitchens Direct may have reduced the number of Silent Calls (and started using CLI), but that does not remove the concerns. They were doing millions of Silent Calls. This, of course, is partially a symptom of the reduction in the cost of telecommunications which also affects international cold calling. I have just

The morning that was a thick fog hanging over the Almond Valley. Waking at 7 o'clock looked like I was up at about 5:30 instead it was so dark. So the journey into work was a murky affiar. However, as the fog was lifting a different fog descended on Livingston. Yes! UKIP have named their candidate. At least I think he know's that Blackburn is a town largely within the constituency and not soley a

As if my distant connections to Tony Benn weren’t incriminating enough, here’s a relation by marriage sure to get me on to Joe McCarthy’s little list. John Edward Emile (Von) Holtorp (aka Emile Holtorp, aka Citizen Holtorp), is described on Marxists.org thus: Holtorp, Emile — Polish émigré in London; member of the General Council of the International [...]

Bands for all seasons - Observer reviews of the Pixies, Razorlight and Franz Ferdinand. Franz Ferdinand, meanwhile, reaffirmed their reputation as the most exciting band in Britain, announcing their arrival with the thunderous spookatronics of the Dr Who theme tune then serving up whammy after whammy with indecent ease, as though writing hideously catchy pop songs [...]

I confess that I watched England's last 20 runs in their final innings of the fourth test through my fingers. It was a very tense moment, and although I knew in my heart that England should win it from that position, it was never a foregone conclusion. I may have less time to watch the fifth test, which starts on Thursday but I will feel obligated to create some space in my diary in the early evening, especially if England look like regaining the Ashes. What I, and many others, are less happy about is the fact that this week ...

I avoided commenting on this article yesterday as I did not think that I could offer anything new. However, when I stumbled across it again on the Western Mail's website today it occurred to me that the Wales on Sunday had missed a rather important point.There will always be differing opinions on the cost of appropriately furnishing an iconic building of course, but the one point of principle that the Assembly has sought to be faithful to throughout this and the associated contracts is that the new building will feature the best of Wales. At every stage efforts have ...

"There are things I will not tolerate: students loitering on campus after school, horrible murders with hearts being removed… and also smoking." As the Government’s confused partial smoking ban trundles closer, it seems that the number of exempt pubs could rise by a third as they stop serving food to escape the new restrictions. The proposal [...]