At long last, the Tories have unveiled some policies. Well, not policies exactly; more a statement of aims. Well, maybe they’re not all aims; but they do give a direction of intent. Built To Last is billed by the BBC's Brian Wheeler as “Cameron’s quiet ‘revolution’” (note the inverted commas) - a more sober analysis than the Beeb’s Political Editor Nick Robinson managed when the first draft was
Warwick Courier Ed Davey, visited a number of businesses in Warwick last Friday along with a trip to the unique Hill Close Gardens. I played a minor role in these excursions by chauffeuring the party from Warwick to Leamington as we felt this would cut down time hunting for parking spaces and traipsing across Leamington during the rush hour. In the evening Ed joined a few of us for dinner in the Rose & Crown in Warwick where we discussed energy policy, (Ed having visited the British Gas Transco Control centre at the Warwick Technology Park earlier), Nott's County ...
That’s how many miles a day I’ve walked for the past few weeks - not including rest days, of course - which is a pretty good average, I believe, especially considering the varied terrain I’ve been on recenlty. In simple terms, that’s 318 miles over 19 days. So, where am I now? Well, there’s the story… Monday [...]
Labour councillors in Scotland are all a-tremble at the thought of the next set of elections in May 2007, when, for the first time ever, local councils will be elected by a fair voting system. The switch to using the Single Transferable Vote method was a key demand during the last round of negotiations for the LibDem/Labour coalition at the Scottish Parliament. Labour have been running many
With England beating Greece 4-0 at half-time, it's looking good for once. But there were plenty of 'fans' who were ready to write him off before he started. These comments below are from the first 10 posters on the BBC 606 website before the game: I'm just wondering exactly how long people think Steve McClaren will last in the job of England manager? i certainly don't see him lasting as long as
A couple of reflections on last night's story about the boy who got on to a plane at Gatwick with no ticket or passport. First, the Sun tells us that: The lad has been in care for nearly two years because of behavioural problems, including repeatedly running away from home.Which suggests that his care home isn't doing a very good job in, er, caring for him. Second, his escapade is strangely reminiscent of one of Tony Blair's more outrageous lies about his own boyhood. As John Kampfner recalls: Blair produced his first tall tale as early as December ...
It seems that our home secretary's enthusiasm for foreign tyrants showed itself well after his days as a student communist in the 1970s. On 22 March 2002 Keven Toolis wrote in the Guardian: In the international arena, Reid, during his drinking days, fell into bad company in the Balkans with the Bosnian Serb mass-murderer Radovan Karadzic, who tops The Hague's International War Crimes Tribunal list of wanted men. Reid has admitted spending three days in 1993 at a luxury Geneva lakeside hotel as a guest of Karadzic. "He used to talk to Karadzic, he admired Karadzic. He mistook the ...
Wednesday It would appear that I am not the only woolly-headed person to have been watching "V for Vendetta" this week. Many people would probably be very relieved to hear that the MINISTER FOR MAGICAL ACCIDENTS has been locked in a room with a plate of pies and a DVD player and has not, in actual fact, been left in charge of running the country (that is THIS man's job, apparently – more on him later). Unfortunately, the man Lord Blairimort calls a complete BAR STEWARD seems to have gotten the wrong end of the stick. Business as ...
Off to East speke yesterday with council leader Warren Bradley and cllr Richard Oglethorpe who chairs our neighbourhood committee. We were visiting the speke catholic youth service, although they are changing their name so that won't be right soon. There was quite a problem with funding a while ago.. but thanks to warren's efforts..and some lobbying from yours truly and from richard, the funding for this group is secured for this financial year. its good to have a coun cil leader who wants to get out and meet young people. He visited both interchill and ...
I've been having a horrible recurring dream for the past week, a menacing bald man, with a sinister smile is standing waving to the crowd before entering No. 10 as Prime Minister. No it's not IDS raised from the political grave, it's someone infinitely more rightwing and authoritarian....John Reid. Reid has had a good week in political terms, with many believing that he handled the latest "Terror Crisis" well while Big Tony was at the seaside. He's now being touted as the only credible candidate to beat Gordon brown when Tony Blair finally calls it a day. It's a ...
Just spoken with Radio Tay who are running the update on Step Row tomorrow morning - the positive news in terms of getting matters resolved is below - ie the news release I have just issued : WATER HYDRANT BURST - RESOLUTION IN SIGHT Dundee City Councillor for Tay Bridges Ward, Cllr Fraser Macpherson has welcomed news that a permanent repair to the burst water hydrant in the West End’s Step Row is to take place tomorrow evening (Thursday 17th August). The problems started around a fortnight ago when a spindle failure led ...
The choice of aircraft as targets by Islamic extremists seemed to puzzle the Chief Executive of Ryan Air when interviewed by Channel Four News the other day. Why hadn't the terrorists targeted the underground or a busy train station? mused Michael O'Leary. Why not indeed? Perhaps the choice of a green coloured flag as the symbol of Islamic armies both ancient and modern is not merely a matter of coincidence.Megabus thought they had the answer though: Ban anyone bringing absolutely anything at all - including food and water - on to their buses. After all, you never know if a ...
No, this post is not about what I'd like to do with Ahmadinjad, Nasrallah et al - it is about Peter Piegon - a Lib Dem blogger and someone I know and like. But this time, quite frankly, he has gone much too far. In this post he identifies a list of records he should not like but does. Look, everyone owns up to liking something awful now and again, but number six beggars belief: 6 "Merry Xmas Everybody" SladeNot cool, but I like it. Not cool, but you like it? Not cool ??!! Of course its not bloody ...
A post over at Conservative Home (hat-tip Guido) there's a rather amusing post which has stirred up some trouble, that is the author has been suspended from his job at Orange. Mostly I think the post is rather amusing, I would prefer to retitle it 'A Politicians Lexicon' as as far as I can see most of the terms are used by politicians of all parties, its more the dreaded 'management speak'. Some
Today sees the relaunch of the Conservative Party’s statement of values, Built to Last. The original version of this document was submitted for comment to party members, and their criticisms and observations were incorporated into the revised version. Anyone seeking hard policy detail will, of course be sadly disappointed. For that isn’t the point of the document. It is there to set the mood music for Cameron’s rebranding exercise, which has been heavily influenced by the Neo-Con methodology of Frank Luntz. But what of this document’s title, “Built to Last”? Daniel Finkelstein sussed out its origin ... 
News of Kingston's Korean Festival has reached other parts of the country, courtesy of the Leicester branch of the British Korean Veterans Association. Some good pictures too.
Cameron and the Conservatives have flip-flopped again - they are now against Identity Cards. Better late than never I guess they have supported them for the last two years but are now against. This is another example of them catching up with the Liberal Democrats, just days after we launched our Tax Commission results and the accompanying policy paper the Conservatives came up with very similar views. I don't mind as they say imitation is the highest form of flattery.
This survey was conducted by ICM and commissioned by Community Service Volunteers (CSV) for Make a Difference Day. They highlight certain findings which they believe could be in part addressed through volunteering in general and through Make a Difference day in particular. I am not sure that I entirely agree with the headline in the Guardian piece which exclaims "Report reveals loss of community spirit" I think that this can be read in a more positive light in that people are concerned about these issues. It seems to me that it is not good that there is dwindling support for ...
“David Benson - Why Pay More?” at the Pleasance is the third of David Benson’s one man shows I’ve seen at the Fringe, following last year’s “Conspiracy Cabaret” and 2004’s “Haunted Stage”. There is less of a central theme than to those shows , but once again Benson’s material is strongly autobiographical. It’s a mixture [...]
A conscience is a terrible thing. It makes you want to sit by a swimming pool on a sunny day and read the Selection Rules for Parliamentary candidate selections so that you understand them. It makes you spend time thinking about internal communications strategies instead of focussing on your evening card school. On the other hand, it prevents you from feeling guilty about not doing these things
An intriquing and very disturbing letter in the Western Mail this morning from a Christopher Wood, who describes himself as an Attorney at Law, (US Federal Law), and who is based in Arlington, West Virginia. He writes: I was astonished to read Swansea University Professor Sheehan's diatribe in the Western Mail ("Britain and US seen by Muslims to have failed the Islamic world", August 14). By these statements Swansea University is actually justifying future terrorist acts on Welsh and British soil, an astonishing and disgusting position for Swansea University to adopt. In the absence of immediate clarification, ...
Walkers Crisps have been found guilty by the ASA of misrepresenting the number of the brands that have a low amount of salt. But the representative of the anti-salt pressure group [Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of CASH and an expert in cardiovascular medicine at St George's University of London] went a little over the top in his statement: "To imply that a Walkers Sensations Walkers Oven Roasted Chicken with Lemon & Thyme Flavour crisp is 'better for you' when it contains approximately one and a half times the salt level of seawater is in my view socially irresponsible." The implication ...
Well David Cameron has announced his revised Built to Last mini-manifesto today. In it his party is pledging to scrap ID cards. This after eventually kow-towing to Labour at every step of the way of the legislative process since first coming out in favour of them 2 years ago. Now if the Tories had only come to this sensible and logical conclusion to Labour's Big Brother proposals at the start of
To celebrate the successful completion of the latest major software upgrade of our library management system, my boss brought in a cake. But not just any cake… If you want one for yourself (and who wouldn’t?), they’re apparently available at Asda. The object at the top right is a little sound box - no prizes for [...]
Let's for a moment put aside the rights and wrongs, the accusations and recriminations, and examine the cost of the war in Lebanon. The BBC has reported that the Lebanese Governement has estimated the cost of infrastructure alone at around $2.5bn. Much of the reconstruction work undertaken since the end of Lebanon's civil war has been destroyed. The cost in pain and suffering is much higher And why did this all come about? Fundamentally because some people are so certain that "their way" is best, they are prepared to kill for it. Voltaire wrote "Doubt is ...
The UN has not yet been able to broker a deal with countries willing to deploy troops to south Lebanon. Without these troops the ceasefire will not last, and Hizbollah will not be disarmed. This is a tricky time for the UN. Its all too frequent failures to respond adequately to international crises has led to serious questions relating to whether it should have the role it clearly wants in the international arena. If the UN doesn't get some good quality troops on the ground very soon its credibility will be massively damaged. Kofi Annan might want to stride the ...
There is a thoughtful (what else?) piece on Comment is Free by Ralf Dahrendorf. Read it and you see opportunities for Liberal Democrats ("Gone are the times in the older democracies when one could count on two major parties - one social democratic, the other more to the right of center - dominating the political scene") and threats ("One sometimes wonders whether we are experiencing not so much the end of history as the end of enlightened history, perhaps of the enlightenment itself.") Dahrendorf argues that the established parties are declining because of the decline in the relevance of social ...
Tuesday 15th August 2006 - Welcome friends to my blog!!! I'm certainly excited to have the opportunity to tell you a little bit about what I do from day to day and to make use of yet another medium which enables me to communicate with my constituents. I managed to set aside some time earlier on today to connect with my team in the Nelson office. Talking things through with Dave Co allows me to
Cameron was forced to defend himself against growing criticism of his apparent product placement habit yesterday. Several commentators have noticed that Camp Cameron seem addicted to pushing certain companies who either contribute to Tory funds, or are clients of Cameron's quarter million pound per annum spinmeister, Steve Hilton. According to Matthew Tempest, writing in the Guardian the old-Etonian protested that "I try to be very careful in these matters but I talk about corporate social responsibility; I think it's important. I mention dozens of companies and I try to be careful of the ones that I mention." ...
Having scrapped the "free lunch" for volunteers on benefits earlier this year the government has now reinstated it. The government issued "guidance" earlier this year which said that volunteers who were paid the cost of lunch by the organisation they were volunteering for would have a consequent cut in benefits. "The change will mean that in future, meals will be treated as an expense that
Many thanks to Mike Williams for his Google Maps API Version 2 Tutorial on fitting a map to data. This has enabled me to add rather nifty maps on Flock Together to various organisation pages that automatically zoom in to fit all the meetings for an organisation snugly on the map without needing to zoom out [...]
… why else would the Guardian be so desperate that it has chosen now to publish a story announcing that (gasp!) Tony Benn is critical of the government and (shock!) his son is a member of the cabinet! In what way is this earth shattering news to anyone (that is anyone outside of the American mid-west [...]
Yesterday was the 19th anniversary of my joining the Elham Valley Branch of the Shepway Liberal Party. Such a lot has happened since those days! I just want to pay tribute to the late Bernard Budd who signed me up and to thank Michael Howard MP for galvanising me into Liberal political activism after his galling General Election campaign back in 1987 when he put out a last minute dirty leaflet against the Liberal Alliance candidate John MacDonald QC. Makes all the Tory bleatings of Bromley seem so desperately hypocritical..... Here's to many more years fighting the good fight!
David Cameron today broke his long silence, and spoke out about the Middle East and last week’s Heathrow security alert. “It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” (Anonymous proverb)The ever-brilliant Millennium Elephant pricks his balloon here.
There is a question which this article does not (dares not?) ask: how retarded must the 2 out of 5 Americans who don’t know who Homer Simpson’s son be? If people are that ignorant about popular culture, what hope is there for politics?
Am delighted to see that web firms such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! have been named and shamed over their collaboration with the Chinese censorship regime by a Commons Select Committee. Their puny defence that some information is better than no information is part of the massive political problem in China. It is precisely because they do collaborate like a bunch of greedy Quislings that the CCP is able to propogate nationalist lies and deceipt in an attempt to shore up their creaky mandate thus putting back the possibility of a LIBERAL democratic China by decades, if not ...
No, not this news report about snogging in New York, which is innocuous enough, but the name of the correspondent. Tory Blair? Surely someone is taking the piss? | < | August 2006 | > | ||||
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