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I did not watch Question Time last night, but I am told this poem by Richard Lovelace is still appropriate: O thou that swing'st upon the waving hairOf some well-fillèd oaten beard,Drunk every night with a delicious tearDropt thee from heaven, where thou wert rear'd! I should point out that Barry's Beef posted this verse before me, but I came across it independently a while ago.

Wonder who thought up this policy - it's just plain daft - can't think of any other words to describe it. Ghost squads of parking attendants are patrolling Islington's streets in the middle of the night - 'Ghost squad' tickets car at 3.54am - it's ludicrous. Many residents can't find parking space in the tiny roads overnight so park them where they can and move them before 8.30am. Why not - it's just common sense. What a waste of public funds (wages - wear & tear on vehicles etc) just to slap stickers on a few cars. ...

Last night I was the guest speaker at the Radstock Residents Association. After a brief speech on roles and responsibilities it was question time. All the questions were about the future of Norton Radstock, the regeneration project and possible impact of the Government Inspectors comments on our local plan, employment, schools, Victoria Hall. It was a very good question and answer session with...

The Independent is a strange newspaper. Its front pages are strident and opinionated: its leaders are bland and rather timid. Today's front page is more informative than usual. It deals with declining social mobility in Britain and a is worth quoting at some length: The research, published by the Sutton Trust education charity, shows that of the leading 100 media opinion-formers, 54 per cent came from private schools, compared with 49 per cent 20 years ago. Thirty-three per cent of the remainder came from selective grammar schools and only 14 per cent were from comprehensive schools, which cater for ...

It's four weeks to the day since I was elected to Oxford City Council's Lib Dem-run Executive Board as portfolio holder for Better Finances. What do I think of it so far? Bloody knackering. I'd spent the previous two years chairing the City's Finance Scrutiny Committee during a minority Labour administration. In a No-Overall-Control council, scrutiny committees can be influential and have to be taken seriously by the Executive - so most of the issues are pretty familiar to me. What I wasn't prepared for was the unremitting e-mails needing to be dealt ...

The trade union Amicus has been criticised for advising members on how to take time off on the sick to watch the World Cup. To me this is typical of the patronising, top-down attitudes of the Labour movement. British workers are perfectly capable of skiving off without this sort of advice, thank you very much.

Following Bono's editing of the Independent, the indefatigable Kirk Elder from Peebles has been holding a poll on which pop singer should fill the vacant editor's chair at the Scotsman. The top three in the voting were: Lulu - 28% Sheena Easton - 26% Alex Kapranos - 24%

... my 'proper' website, www.stephentall.org.uk, has made the final four of the New Statesman's New Media Awards 2006 in the Elected Representative category. It's up against three MPs' websites: David Miliband (Labour) Derek Wyatt (Labour), and Jo Swinson (Lib Dem) You can see all the runners and riders in the various different categories at the Staggers' site here. That, and a 2-0 win - for

Jenni Russell takes the debate further in the Guardian today: Tony Blair's official spokesman gave a rather prim soundbite, saying: "We have never encouraged people to be vigilantes, and never would do so." It seems the debate was shut down even before it had begun. We are back to the status quo, where public safety is assumed to be the responsibility of the agencies of the state, and any individual who gets involved can be described as a vigilante. The idea that complex, liberal societies like ours can actually function on this basis is simply absurd. We can't have ...

Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones has just been selected to lose for the Tories in a deeply unwinnable seat (for them) in Wiltshire. He is a farmer and produces sausages in Wiltshire. Congratulatons to him. However, on the web site of Diverse productions, producers of a television programme featuring Mr Emmanuel-Jones, its says that he "claims to be the UK’s only black farmer". Indeed, this claim has been given the seal of approval of none other than Mrs Dale's Diary. Madame Dale treats it as "gospel" and writes, while obviously hyperventilating in a shocking fashion: "Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, Britain's only black ...

Payment by Results Q:To ask the Secretary of State for Health what formula is used for calculating payments to a hospital under payment by results. (John Hemming) A:Under payment by results, hospitals are paid according to the number and complexity of cases treated and on the basis of the national tariff. The national tariff paid to individual providers is adjusted for market forces factor (MFF),

Will Eleanor Burnham have to apologise to the Presiding Officer for using inappropriate language in the chamber? Nine days ago the Welsh Liberal Democrat MP for Brecon and Radnorshire, Roger Williams, demanded that Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Wales Office, Nick Ainger, "cut through the crap" and ensure that Miners get the compensation that they deserve. Given the huge injustice being experienced by miners on this issue his emotive language was well-justified, however he was pulled up on it by the Speaker and later wrote a letter of apology about the way he conducted himself. Yesterday in the chamber, ...

Sometimes one has to conclude that the First Minister cannot help himself. Having been late to meet the Queen at the Royal Welsh Show last year he was able to joke about it in front of her at the official opening of the Senedd on 1st March. Now he has done it again. He was due to join the monarch and 2,000 guests from around the World in St. Paul's Cathedral today to celebrate the Queen's 8oth Birthday. Unfortunately, he was late again and had to sneak into the back of the Cathedral just before HRH. They will be ...

Locally, the most significant event in the last couple of weeks has been the public consultation process for the Southern Park & Ride. Charlotte Bailey (our LibDem County Cllr), Brian Collin and I organised delivery to as much of the Ward as possible of a leaflet giving details of the consultation process. I’m pleased to say that the exhibition at Badger Farm Community Centre was very well attended and seemed full of people on both Friday and Saturday. Since then, I've heard reports that there were good turnouts at the other venues as well. The serious options seem to ...

I leave the West Country for five minutes and this happens. I'm disappointed, I thought we as a people were now better than that. On the Liberal Democrat front, I was saddened to see that one of my former local Councillors, who was a great help in the General Election, has defected... for reasons which aren’t entirely clear to me. I’m coming to the end of my first week in a new job and heading off to Bromley this weekend, but I promise to address my terminal neglect of this blog in the coming weeks. Honest.

I originally blogged on the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi when the news first broke and details were scarce. Now, more information about the implications of his death have come to light. The BBC is reporting comments from the Iraqi national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, that the death of Zarqawi marks the "beginning of the end" for his organisation, Al-Qaeda in Iraq. This judgement appears to be based on the recovery of important documents from the scene of Zarqawi's death: Mr Rubaie said a pocket hard drive, a laptop and documents were found in the debris after the strike. ...

No it's not the cricket score. Nor the odds of France breaking their world cup duck of four games without scoring in the World Cup, strange that their last goal was the winner in the 1998 final. No its the 114 MSPs who yesterday voted in favour of the Borders' rail link. Bristow Muldoon did cause a bit of a ruckus with his doomed ammendment. He was accused of politicising and electioneering as

Unlikely that we will see a more appropriate time soon to look at the words of the Trinidad and Tobago National Anthem, so here they are: Forged from the Love of Libertyin the Fires of Hope and Prayerwith boundless faith in our destinyWe solemnly declare Side by Side we standIslands of the blue Caribbean SeaThis our native landwe pledge our lives to thee Here every creed and racefind an equal placeAnd may God bless our nationHere every creed and race find an equal placeAnd may God bless our nation .

The Daily Politics today: Andrew Neil: Why do Scottish MPs vote on legislation which doesn't apply to their constituency? Blairite Scottish Labout MP: Just because something doesn't apply to Scotland, doesn't mean it doesn't affect Scotland [and therefore they should vote on these matters] Ah, I see clearly now, so next time the House of Commons votes on tutition fees for foreign students, we

I've added a small new feature to Liberal Review - a news aggregator. At the moment, it picks up the RSS feeds from Lib Dem Blogs, the Lib Dem federal site and Ming Campbell's site. If anyone has any further suggestions for Lib Dem-related RSS feeds, leave a comment and I'll take a look at them.

I really couldn't stop myself from posting this picture.

The link is to a press release on the Monitor Website. A detailed consideration of the Audit Commission report into 2004-5 and other communications gives the following information: During 2005-6 Auditors had concerns about the financial standing of 59% of NHS bodies. This means that there was a risk of deficit at 59% of bodies. NHS foundation trusts have reported £28m of provisions against potential bad debts with primary care trusts (PCTs). While these figures are subject to audit, it suggests that nine NHS foundation trusts have significant concerns about whether their commissioning PCTs will ...

at Carnival of the Liberals no 14, a periodic round up of the brightest American liberal blogging. In CoTL 14: Daylight Atheism posts about Memorial Day. Aman Yala adds to the debate on How not to win the war on terror. Truth Tables adds to the row over comedian Stephen Colbert speaking sass unto power. If you're going to call the President a pillock, do it to his face, I say. Just saying

I do have an answer now to the way in which tarriff payments are calculated for hospitals. It is the simple one of: payment = MFF * unit cost. What this means is that a central London hospital gets paid roughly 25% more than a Birmingham hospital and 40% more than the Cornwall hospital. The real absurdity comes from doing this when they are actually ignoring the massively variable fixed costs. The fixed costs are due to be paid regardless so whereas they take into account local variations on a theoretical basis they don't take into account local ...

Last night Caroline and I went to see Shooting Dogs at the Lighthouse Cinema. Shooting Dogs is about the Rwandan Genocide that took place in 1994, it highlights the UN's inaction and consequences of that inaction and hopefully reminds people that a Genocide like this should never be allowed to happen again.

Following this week's demonstration of new technology in the chamber we are to see yet another next week. The Presiding Officer has given permission for Mick Bates to make a Powerpoint presentation as part of his re-arranged Short Debate "Supermarkets – Jolly Green Giants or Incredible Hulks?" on Wednesday 21 June. There are some people who might consider that this moves the new debating chamber into the realms of a lecture theatre and makes it less of a Parliamentary arena. We will have to see. In the meantime, if Mick is short of slides I have found one he can ...

Albania. The very word conjures up sinister connotations. The murderous regime of Enver Hoxha. The fact that under this vile regime almost everything was illegal. Religion was outlawed. Beards or jeans were illegal. The regime isolated the country almost completely. Firstly Hoxha quarreled, first with Tito, then the USSR- for being insufficiently Stalinist!- then China, for "bourgoise revisionism" (whatever that was). Dirt poor and desperate, internally, Albania's brutality was legendary. It is not surprising that the West filled much of their lack of knowledge of this mountainous country with fantasy- the Albanian Sigurimi torturers of the Ipcress File, for example. ...

Nothing too surprising in the news that David Cameron has appointed a Shadow Minister for Sheffield. Holding the torch for the Conservatives in Sheffield, where the Tories hold no Westminster seats and just two councillors, will be Shadow Constitutional Affairs Secretary Oliver Heald, who represents a constituency in Hertfordshire but has family ties to the city. Link To Yorkshire Post Article More surprising is the news that the Heald is going to report to the Shadow Foreign Secretary. Perhaps someone should tell the Tories that Sheffield is in the UK?

George Bush has been saying for a long while that he would like to close Guantanamo camp. But, for the first time, yesterday he was more specific about what is stopping him doing this (he is, after all, the most powerful man in the world and getting 460 people put on planes to Florida from Cuba shouldn't be beyond his capabilities on a good day). It's all the Supreme Court's fault apparently. He is waiting for them to decide. Silly Billies. What is keeping them? What they have to decide, it seems, is how people are tried in the United ...