LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Thursday 10th August 2006

John Reid Just Doesn't Get It

So, predictably, John Reid is having a go at all those terrible opposition politicians, ordinary citizens, the judiciary and the free press for making him justify trampling on our freedoms. I think Jonathan Calder on Liberal England sums it up brilliantly so I won't repeat the arguments here. The only point I will add though is that the more that civil liberties are treated as though they belong to a bygone era (most erroneously it has to be said) the greater the victory of the terrorists who have achieved exactly what they want without killing anyone. Bin Laden's ...

Terror threats getting you down? Ketamine may be for you!

See, clubland's popular wisdom strikes again. Apparently boffins have confirmed that Ketamine, which the moral panic whipping Cassandras of the anti-drugs world denounce loudly as "horse tranquilizer", can relieve the symptoms of depression within minutes or hours, rather than the days and weeks that current anti-depressant drugs can take. The relief from symptoms can apparently also last a whole week, so one dose (probably on a Saturday night during a particularly manic episode brought on by bad music and the proximity of smelly lumps jiggling bottles of alco-pop at you) will last all week. But, they say "the drug’s ...

The Price of Freedom...

... Is eternal vigilance Thomas Jefferson, 3rd president of USA (1743 - 1826) But this vigilance should not only be against those who wish to perpetrate attacks against us, but also against those who wish to deprive us of our liberty in order to keep us secure. Stopped in its tracks: another terrorist attack Which is why I was worried yesterday, when I heard that Dr John Reid, the Home

Retrenchment & Reform

As my contribution to Lords Reform Day, I have updated my signature piece on constitutional reform (sorry James). Some unhappy truths: We have widespread disenchantment with the political process. We have people in government, making decisions, because of who their daddy was. We have people in government, making decisions, because the PM sold them a peerage.(allegedly) We have a voting system

Everything that is wrong with the East Midlands tends to happen in Corby...

Or at least that is what Clive Aslet writes in the Telegraph. (Tabman has already had a go at this topic - here's a very slightly longer look at it). It is an interesting article that would be more interesting if I had ever made it to Corby. But the quality of planning is one of my hobbyhorses, and some of Aslet's points sound good to me. Here is the Corby dilemma and solution according to Aslet The new idea is to take Kettering, Wellingborough and Corby - three of the settlements that the planning system has least reason ...

Guilty pleasures

Last Week Q magazine got a lot of publicity for its feature on guilty pleasures - the records you like but feel that you shouldn't. Being a sucker for this sort of thing I bought that issue. What is a guilty pleasure? Q never quite gets round to defining it, but for me it has to be a pretentious record that does not quite justify its pretentions, yet leaves you thinking that if you listen to it once more it just might. Q gives its top 50 albums and singles in the genre, and here are the top ...

The LibDem Challenge In London

Earlier this week LibDem Party President Simon Hughes said the party would be casting “the net far and wide in our search for a candidate to represent our diverse capital” and promised that “people from ethnic minority communities, women and non-politicos will be at the forefront of our selection process”. Given my previously expressed belief that [...]

John Reid: The cloven hoof pops out

Before it gets lost in the excitement surrounding today's events it is worth taking a look at John Reid's speech from yesterday. The Guardian reported his comments on the struggle against terrorism: The majority of the public understood its seriousness but there were those who "just don't get it", whose opposition was undermining the struggle. They included: Politicians who opposed the anti-terror measures the police and security services said were necessary to combat the threat. European judges who passed the "Chahal judgment" that prohibited the home secretary from weighing the security of millions of British people if a ...

Day 2039: The Amazing Planemo Twins

Thursday It is AMAZING the amount of things that scientists continue to discover! Look at this! Here, astronomers have spotted two great big planets floating in space on their lonesome without a STAR to orbit. One of the planets is SEVEN times the size of Jupiter – the largest planet in our own little star system – and the other is even bigger at FOURTEEN times the size of Jupiter. And by SIZE I mean MASS, or HEAVINESS. You might think my Daddy Richard is a bit on the HEFTY side, but Jupiter ...

Bath SPA is open

Well this is the day we have all been waiting for. I was at the Spa from 7 in the morning till 7 at night. 3 TV interviews, 4 radio interviews and 6 newspaper interviews. Plus talking to lots of users, visitors and others about the Spa. Make no mistake about it - IT IS FABULOUS. I did not have the opportunity to try it out on the opening day but will be going back as a...

Tides predicted to reach a 10 year high

The Environmental Agency has issued a ‘News Release, ‘which states that the highest tides for the next ten years are predicted to hit the North East and Yorkshire coastline this autumn. The high tides are forecast for August 11-13, September 9-11 and October 7-10 but their severity is dependent on weather conditions such as wind strength and duration as well as atmospheric pressure. The tides in September and October are the highest and could be more than 3.08 metres depending on the weather conditions in the areas close to North Shields and Whitby, while August’s tides could be more than ...

The Hour That Never Was

Tonight’s Avengers on BBC4 (7.10, or 11.30 tomorrow night) features eerie goings-on at a deserted airfield, and is often raved about. It’s certainly atmospheric, but I tend to find it a little slow; for half of it, Steed and Mrs Peel are the only characters on screen, and while it’s all terribly well-shot there’s not a lot of dialogue to make it sparkle. If it was made today rather than 41 years ago, it would probably be called ‘ambient television’. When other actors finally appear, look out for scene-stealing Roy Kinnear and Gerald Harper, star of BBC-answer-to-The-Avengers Adam Adamant Lives. ...

London Review of Books

I've been a reader of the LRB for a good few years now, partly because I used to run a bookshop, but mainly because it never fails to discover titles of interest and review them at considerable length. In addition, it has of recent been the single best source for considered analysis of events in Palestine/Israel, Iraq and Lebanon. The latest edition contains two greatly enlightening articles by

The role of Iran

Iran's links in sponsoring Hizbollah are well known and to do not need to be repeated. However, it may yet be that Iran's role in the current crisis is considerably greater even than that. There are beginnings of a story in this report - as yet unverified - that Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been found among Hizbollah fighters in Lebanon, and also in this article in the Times which explores Hizbollah's sophisticated tactics in its conflict against the IDF. A terrorist organisation in the mode of the IRA or ETA is a rather different matter to an irregular brigade that ...

SouthGate or Southgate?

Morley Fund Management and the Council want to rebrand the Southgate Shopping centre by giving it a capital G in the middle of it's name. Visit www.southgatebath.co.uk Note how SouthGate is spelt with a capital G in the middle – I am advised that this is part of the rebranding! But do we like it? Is this a case of Marketing and Advertising gurus taking one step too far with our historic city? Or is this the new forward looking City we want? Take the survey below, and I will let the Developers know what ...

Newropeans

I thought I'd give a plug to Newropeans online magazine, not least because an old friend of mine, the excellent Jan Darasz is one of the cartoonists. Check out "Blair of Khyber Force" on his own site.

Terror in Britain

The situation is getting increasingly desparate. If early reports are to be believed, once again British-born radicals have attempted to commit an act of inhuman depravity on their fellow citizens. How long before people wake up to the struggle that the West is now engaged in? The lines have been drawn, the ideological struggle is underway. There can be no compromise with those who reject our way of life. They do not have a valid point to make. No grievance justifies their ire. No context exculpates their hate or the harm that they seek to do. They may have been ...

The Silence to Come

The atmosphere in London today is tense with the news that the terror threat level is at critical following the foiled plot to place bombs on planes. We have heard of 21 arrests and there is some discussion about the nature of the plot. There may be more information that comes out over the next [...]

Keep up the peer pressure

Imagine that the Iraqi Constitutional Convention had recommended that half of the national legislature should be appointed by the head of government. We would rightly have questioned if that was quite the commitment to democracy the West was hoping for. Imagine that the Afghanistani Constitutional Convention had decided that some members of the legislature should be [...]

Homage to a Government

With the news that our troops in Iraq are under-equipped, I am reminded of the words of Larkin in Homage to a Government: Next year we are to bring all the soldiers homeFor lack of money, and it is all right.Places they guarded, or kept orderly,We want the money for ourselves at homeInstead of working. And this is all right. It's hard to say who wanted it to happen,But now it's been decided nobody minds.The places are a long way off, not here,Which is all right, and from what we hearThe soldiers there only made trouble happen.Next year we shall ...

Harrods and a spot of Argy Bargy

No - nothing to do with everyone's favourite Egyptian, but the news that this is the 200th anniversary of the liberation of Buenos Aires from British occupation. Historian Peter Caddick-Adams points out that this event, although a minor footnote to the Napoleonic Wars, had a significant role in the shaping of both nations' future destinies. During the nineteenth century Argentina, thanks in part to the descendents of that British invasion, benefitted from significant British investment to the point that Buenos Aires even had a branch of Harrods. During the 1930s, Argentina was the sixth richest nation in the ...

Unfolding events at UK Airports

A few brief thoughts spring to mind about today's unfolding events:- We must, both morally and politically, support everything the security services do. Given Forest Gate etc there will be analysis of Today's events, but now is not the time....

If the threat level drops below critical,

does that make it hypocritical?

10/08: The conspiracy theory

So, on Monday a committee of MPs produced a report calling for more taxation of airlines. Immediately a plan that had been hatched just over a month ago now with the announcement of the Lib Dems' intentions to do likewise when they take over Narnia swung into action. 21 tax shift activists are arrested after clandestine shipments of San Pellegrino and Nestle baby milk formula were discovered being stockpiled in a south coast convention centre town, revealed by defective chip-superindenter Fotheringham of Neill's Yard as Brighton earlier today. The airline industry is again clearly doomed and deserving of ...

Football interlude

Wales are lined up to play Brazil on September 5th but the game will take place in Tottenham Hotspur's 38,000 capacity White Hart Lane Stadium. Why? What has White Hart Lane got that the Millennium Stadium has not? Perhaps the officials who organised this game need a geography lesson.

Of Course We Should Elect the Lords!

It’s ‘Lords Reform Day’, which leaves me in a quandary. No, not about whether to elect our second chamber (puh-lease!), but about what possibly to blog other than “Of course Parliament should be elected in a democracy! Are you a fuckwit, or what?” So, for fun, if you see a Lib Dem MP looking very sober and smug about how ludicrous it is that senior offices in the land should still be filled by the cronies of Prime Ministers and the descendents of the cronies of kings, just ask, “So you’d abolish the monarchy, then?” and watch them turn puce. ...

Evict the Lords!

(This is my post as part of the Elect the Lords blogging event) Despite all the Jack Straw bashing over the past week over his plans to keep hereditary peers (and one can infer life peers as well) in the House of Lords until they die off, there is no escaping the fact that he has [...]

Turkeys Clucking for an Early Christmas

The 130 Labour MPs demanding an early recall of Parliament to 'Discuss events in the Lebanon' are kidding themselves. What practical purpose could these discussions have on the outcome of events? There is the mooted International Peacekeeping force, but with commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan, British presence in that force, if any, is going to absolutely minimal. There is an unhealthy mix of sanctimony, self righteousness and and inflated national self importance.Tony Blair and his critics alike have deluded themselves with idea, tenuous at best, that British policy or opinion matters much in Israel and Lebanon. Actually, events are a ...

Praying for change

In an interview with e-politix the First Minister reiterates his view that Tony Blair must set a timetable for his resignation soon if Labour are not to lose the next General Election. Presumably, Rhodri Morgan is thinking about the Welsh General Election as well. No doubt his party workers are finding the same thing on the doorsteps as ours, a determination by lifelong Labour voters not to support the party again. Morgan told ePolitix.com: "Split parties never win elections. "If the electorate gets the feeling that there is interminable wrangling and division over the succession then that ...

Menage

It’s that time again: the Edinburgh fest. I’m not planning to indulge too much this as a result of time and budget constraints, but I did last night make my annual pilgrimage to see The Comedian Richard Herring. His show, ménage à un at the Underbelly, is, like last year, your basic no-frills stand-up: one [...]

Counting down

Yesterday I auditioned for long-running popular Channel 4 afternoon game show Countdown. The audition was in Leith (Tom Baker: “Leith, founded in 1974 by chef Prue Leith, sold to the Scots in 1986 for a penny and an artichoke”), so it also involved my first trip out to the port, which, thanks to my magic [...]

Blogging The Lords

So, today its 95 years since the 1911 Parliament Act when the Government of the day voted to reform the house of Lords, making it democratically accountable. Since then, if anything the situation has deteriorated. True, most hereditory peers have gone, but this government has shown that they have no appetite for Lords reform, indeed, the status quo is rather good, they can appoint (or perhaps even

Blair, Parliament and the Silly Season

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. An international crisis has occurred in the silly season. Terminally bored with Tony Blair and keen to play with their shiny new plaything called Cameron, the media are frustrated. As yet, neither the electorate nor the Labour Party have seen fit to divest the country of the Prime Minister. Something must be done! Young Dave sits happily in the wings, happy to talk about bicycles, windmills, and the EPP. The glow of destiny in his ruddy cheeks, some tasty stories ready to print the moment he enters Number 10 – he’s ...

Inflation to be hit by Tuition Fees

For me there seems something quite circular about the fact that Tuition Fees will probably have an impact upon inflation. [See BoE Govenors opening remarks]The estimate is that they could affect inflation by upto 0.25%. If interest rates are increased to dampen the inflationary pressures then my mortgage will increase. But university pay is not index linked for the next two years, so if inflation exceeds the previously agreed pay awards, then university staff will effectively lose out, even though their institutions will have benefitted from the increase in Tuition Fees...

Simon Hughes on Five Live

Simon Hughes was just on Radio 5 talking about the current terror alert. He was clear, confident and assured, backing the government where appropriate, yet sounding important notes of caution. Most importantly he didn't take the bait from the presenter...

Government Need to Shift on Lord's Reform

This day last year I took part in the Elect the Lords bloggers pledge. Now a year on little has changed from the Government's point of view as regards the upper chamber. Last year I reflected on how the sad loss to electoral reform the death of Robin Cook might have on steering his Labour colleagues through and towards this which he felt passionately about. A year on and his successor as MP for

LVT discussed in the Telegraph

The CPRA yesterday criticised Corby as having the worst record for using brownfield sites in the country. Writing today in the Telegraph, Country Life editor Clive Aslet opines: Put some new taxes in place. A swingeing development tax on greenfield land. Another tax on brownfield sites, to encourage owners to get on and do something about them. Tax empty land as though it had new houses built on it. Belgium has something along these lines already. Or what about a carbon tax related to the amount of vehicle traffic a development will generate? New taxes: Mr Brown, do ...

Naked Chicks

Apologies for the title, but it's the only way to lure people into viewing this post about a subject which does not engage most people: House of Lords Reform. For today is House of Lords Reform Day. Now that's just uncalled for The House of Lords is, as it barely needs stating, not democratic. We do not have a direct say in who should be appointed to the chamber, nor is there any way for us to

Justice at last for Damilola's family

Almost six years after the death of Damilola Taylor Ricky and Danny Preddie have been convicted of manslaughter. Although nothing can bring Damilola back I am sure his family can take some comfort his killers will finally be punished. There will now be many questions as to why it has taken six years and about £16million pounds to deliver justice - from what I have read the police investigation was awful and I hope answers will be provided, two politicians deserve a lot of respect for continuing to fight from justice they are Simon Hughes and Ken Livingstone, both have ...

Hello, Martha

Amid the grim terror alert, here’s something to cheer you up. The Doctor’s got a new companion and a new suit. (Via.)

Lords reform - 95 years on!

95 years ago today the Parliament Act 1911 received Royal assent, the preamble of which states: "it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation."

Day 2038: Pet Shop Boys: Minimal Review

Wednesday Nice Song

Critical

The UK threat level has been raised to CRITICAL. This allows us to confirm that this image will always reflect the current level, so - as long as the Intelligence Community don’t mind us using the image, we can bung it in our sidebars and ensure we always know how likely we are to be [...]

Thursday 10th August 2006

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