LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Thursday 14th September 2006

Clare Short

I managed, by winning a selection meeting back in 1991 to avoid having to fight Clare Short for Birmingham Ladywood and instead had the pleasure of taking on Jeff Rooker (now Lord Rooker, and, I must say, a bloke I've always had a certain degree of respect for). I've met her a couple of times. Once at the General Election count in Birmingham back in 1992 and shortly afterwards and once at Durham University when she was Secretary of State for International Development. Frankly I've been astonished at her coming out saying that there should be Proportional Representation ...

Leader resigns after nine years in government…

...after pressure from an ambitious and abrasive colleague who believes the leadership is his rightful inheritance. Despite the misgivings of many party colleagues, it's too late to find a credible rival, so the leadership contest is likely to end up as a coronation. Some believe the new leader will save the party from electoral cataclysm. Others that he will alienate people and the haemmorhage in support will continue. No, it's not the British Labour party now or next May but the Irish Progressive Democrats (PDs). Read the full story here. The PDs are supposedly the liberal party of Ireland. ...

Thursday....it must be Geneva!!

Thursday 14th September 2006 - After a brief trip home I head back to the airport this morning to head off for a WTO steering group meeting in Geneva. Delays on the M66 hold me up and it is a mad dash to get to the airport on time for my flight but I make it by the skin of my teeth. A good session of talks but the evening is spoiled by a stomach upset, could be something I ate or maybe the

Who pays for this?

Scottish Borders Council are imbroiled in a dispute with the Roman Catholic hierarchy over the busing of children to schools miles from where they live: A spokesman for the Catholic Church said he understood the difficulties councils had in meeting transport bills, but insisted it was their duty to pay.It's good to know the Church are keeping a watchful eye on local councils, making sure they do

Discount wi-fi?

So, the lib-dems are offering “discount wi-fi,… significantly cheaper to use than other commercial wi-fi available in the area” at conference? But, why pay? Brighton is full of pubs that offer free wi-fi. There’s even free wi-fi on the beach. http://www.looseconnection.com/ http://www.piertopier.net/ Declaration of interest: the guys at Loose Connection are mates of mine.

Sweepers ban costs council extra £20K

Bridgnorth District Council’s street sweepers have been banned from disposing of their waste in Bridgnorth. They now have to spend 20% of there day driving to Telford and back to dispose of their rubbish. The ban has been brought about following a routine inspection of the Stanley Lane site by the Environment Agency. Sweepings are not [...]

Man who thinks unleavened bread and sweet

wine becomes the body and blood of the Messiah when blessed by celibate man also thinks evolution 'unreasonable'. Now, is that an infallible pronouncement or not? Unreasonable? I can really see that one catching on in the lab: "What does the significance test say about your data?' "The hypothesis is unreasonable."

There will always be Naples

One can only have sympathy for Tory MP, David Jones and his wife, who were mugged recently in Naples and each lost their rolex watch. What is less clear is why Mr. Jones has decided to retaliate by declaring war on the whole City. On a positive note, the episode has at least opened our eyes to the lifestyle of an affluent MP, that many of us can only envy. The Western Mail has him 'recovering' at his hotel on the island of Capri, an area best known for its patronage by millionaires as well as more humble tourists. ...

Mori, Iraq and the Lib Dems

The latest Ipsos-Mori poll has dribbled out via the blogs. It shows, in stark contrast to recent polls, that Labour (36%) leads the Tories (35%), with the Lib Dems on 19%. But I was more intrigued by the finding shown here: that the proportion of people naming Iraq as an important issue has more than doubled, from 18% in April 2005 - a month before the general election - to 32% today.However,

School Drugs Test Plans Rejected

There were reports yesterday that schools in Scotland may be considering the introduction of random drugs testing on pupils. Thankfully this has been jumped on fairly quickly by the Executive. Not before these scurrulous comments were published though...

Iran: the new "dodgy dossier"?

Probably the incident that set my mind against the war in Iraq was a day I watched Colin Powell have a stand up row with Hans Blix in the Security Council chamber. Hans Blix, for all I know a public servant who had few if any vested interest in anything other than peace, the great commission of the UN, was explaining how Saddam's ability to create weaponised bioldogical or chemical weapons had

Pitfall of your colleague's holiday!

Helen, my sister in law but also council colleague (Dundee City Councillor for Strathmartine Ward) is on holiday so I am covering her constituent concerns as well as my own at the moment .. so I have spent a fair bit of the day on complaints about leaking roofs in Kirkton, road repairs in Downfield, you get the idea ... That said, lots of West End issues on the go - parking, pavements (eg flooding at entrance to Pinegrove), overgrown trees in Saggar Street, and a controlled entry issue in Peddie Street - to name ...

A quiet period

I've not been posting much recently. It's the worst week of my year. Getting everything ready for the arrival of my 550 new teenaged charges in halls of residence and so on. But also because I am working on another blog. I mean writing it. I mean helping to write and debug a new piece of blog server software that will enable me to move mine over to my favourite web content management

Deeper into Afghan dust

Why is Poland so keen to send 900 extra troops to Afghanistan? Well, having Radek Sikorski as Minister of National Defence might be part of the explanation. Sikorski was undercover in Afghanistan with one or other of the western-backed guerrilla groups for two years during the anti-Soviet wars, as a journalist his official story says. He has played up on this background heavily in his adventures in Polish politics and has written many articles for neocon publications on the success (his words) of the US-Led invasion of 2001. A man therefore with something of an investment in a certain version ...

If you’re wondering where Lib Dem Voice has gone…

…for the second time in a week the web space hosting provider has broken it. UPDATE: it’s back, but you may need to reboot your computer to see it. Bah. No Tags

Parallel Tracks

I'm going to have a crack at writing what (I hope ;-) is a fair summary not just of the Captain Docherty saga, but also of the extensive commentary that appears in todays Guardian concerning events in Afghanistan. I'll begin by reviewing what I think the NATO mission has become: Defeat the Taleban and reduce poppy production in order to create the conditions in which peace and stability within Afghanistan lead to a functioning democracy. I've used the words 'defeat' rather than 'destroy' and 'reduce' rather than 'eradicate' because I believe that no-one can seriously expect every last Taleban fighter ...

Make Your Own Seal

Found via Ramblin' with Roger , a site where you create your own seals... Well, I quite like it.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall….

…. when Labour Chief Whip Jacqui Smith tries to ‘discipline’ Clare Short …. chortle, chortle ….

The Top Six

The six blogs shortlisted for the Lib Dem Blogger of the Year award are all worthy candidates - although I have to say that the one I nominated didn't make the list. The award is for "The blog that has done the most to promote liberalism in the last year." Well, I'm not sure that many of us set out to do this as our main purpose. For me blogging is a pleasurable activity- whether about politics,

STV Poll: What is the most important issue facing Britain today?

I have read with interest some of the opinion on this subject. What do you think are the most important issue facing Britain today? Rank the issues in number order, 1 being the most important issue, 2 the next most important, etc. You can rank as many as you like or just a few. I will let [...]

New policy consultation site launched

The run-up to party conference always helps focus people’s minds on finishing off projects and it’s often a mad dash to have things ready in time for conference. One of the many new things we’ve been getting ready for conference is our new policy consultation website that has been unveiled today - http://consult.libdems.org.uk It is being [...]

Liberal Democrat Voice

Welcome and congratulations to Liberal Democrat Voice, which already seems to be establishing itself as the place for Lib Dem discussion on the net. Natural selection operates pretty ruthlessly there, so it is obviously doing a lot right. I recommend in particular Alex Wilcock's dissection of Trust in People: Make Britain Free, Fair and Green and the debate in the comments on Rob Fenwick's posting on the 50p top tax rate amendment.

Environment Agency reveals flood plans for east Redcar

Residents from east Redcar will have the opportunity to see how the Environment Agency plans to improve flood defences in The Stray area of the town. They are invited to find out more at an Environment Agency open day on Tuesday, September 26. Staff will be answering people’s questions at Laburnum Road Library in east Redcar from 3pm to 7pm. Earlier this year staff outlined the main flood defence plans for the town but this month’s event is for people in east Redcar to see how the scheme will benefit them. Project manager Phil Welton said: “We ...

So farewell then Sir Arthur Dodds-Parker

Back in May I discussed how many members of the 1945 Parliament are still with us. Today Iain Dale brings us the sad news that Sir Arthur Douglas Dodds-Parker has died. If what I wrote then is true, and none of them has slipped off the perch since, then Wing-Commander Ernest Rogers Millington, (Commonwealth, later Lab, Chelmsford), Michael Foot (Lab, Plymouth Devonport), Maj. John Freeman (Lab, Watford) and David Renton (Nat Lib, Huntingdonshire) are the only people elected at the 1945 general election who are known still to be alive. Millington won a by-election for the short-lived Commonwealth Party earlier ...

"New Tory logo" - fuzzy logo for a fuzzy party?

The "new Tory logo" is so ridiculous that it must be a spoof.

Sabotage?

I am not making any accusations. All I am saying is that it is a remarkable coincidence. I get shortlisted for the Lib Dem Blog of the Year Award, and the next day my computer stops working. Who could be behind it? I have no idea, but I wonder if that elephant is quite as fluffy as he likes to make out. Still, I am not one to bear a grudge. I have added him to my blogroll.

Clare Short and Electoral Reform

The key point about Electoral Reform is that it increases the power of the elector against the Civil Servant. In practise a powerful single party heirarchy which gives a "strong government" simply forces through the policy of the civil service in most cases. It is, therefore, quite difficult to affect government policy when the civil service stand against something (eg PFI where it is the

I believe that Captain Docherty is mistaken*

*With reference to one specific point. Below and in this post you have the probably unusual sight of co-bloggers feeding on themselves. So far: James, Simon, James. In his last post James wrote the following, and I do not disagree one bit: It's quite clear that having lost the support of the local populace, the plan to reduce opium production and defeat the Taleban in an area the size of Scotland with a force of 700-1,000 troops is the sort of plan that General Melchett might propose. It is almost truistic to suggest that we must therefore re-consider our ...

Paddy running for President?

Lib Dem voice was launched last Sunday, and thanks to you the site hits have far exceeded my expectations for the first week: We’ve even generated our first ’story’ in the press, and (somewhat sickeningly!) it’s in the Daily Express diary column. In full, it reads: He stood down as Lib Dem Leader in 1999 but it seems [...]

Four new Lib Dem policy consultation websites

Another shiny new Lib Dem site goes up. We’ve just released the new policy consultation website - consult.libdems.org.uk. It’s built on the previous experience of Rob Fenwick’s Meeting the Challenge website and the Make IT Policy consultation site that Richard Allan and I worked on back in 2002 and has the consultations for: Climate Change Crime in the community Future [...]

Conference

I'm thinking about going to conference for the day on the 19th (to coincide with the liberal drinks/bloggers pub meet). Having never been to conference before, is there anything anyone recommends doing? Tags:LibDems conference

New car seat regs- more government dumping

The new child car seat regulations that come in to effect next week may be an important tool in preventing the injury and death of children involved in car accidents, but from a local government perspective it represents yet more dumping by central government on local government without backing it up with the resources. As a parent of a 3 year old, and having just joined York's new car...

Anus Laptops

No, not a Googlewhack, but a company based in New York which "... is highly recognized as one of the leading distributors and suppliers for laptop computers in the entire New York metropolitan area... " As one would expect, Anus is close to Semen Electronics. (Via Charon QC)

Thinking of buying a certain book?

The party has a tie-up deal with Amazon which means that if you are buying a book (such as a certain book from a certain journalist on The Times, which of course no-one is reading), the party earns commission - without you having to pay anything extra. Any of the links in this posting will earn [...]

Liberal Democrat Better Governance Policy Working Group

The Liberal Democrat Federal Policy Committee is seeking applications from Liberal Democrats wishing to join a new working group on 'Better Governance', to be chaired by Lib Dem Peer Paul Tyler. The group's remit covers a range of constitutional and civil liberties issues.

Condensed blog

Busy, busy, busy the last couple of weeks so a few things that I intended to blog about have been and gone. Here’s a brief catch-up. Tip for the top Great gig at the Horns, Watford by the excellent local band Cynosure, in which my stepson Ben plays bass. Their distinctive indie/rock sound with jangly bits and noisy bits is sure to make them the next big thing. You can test whether this is mere step-paternal pride or mature critical judgement by listening to the songs on their MySpace site here. Betjeman centenary (1) Fascinating to watch ...

Google publishes banned books

Google has rightly come under fire for its policy in China, they are however marking the American Librarian Association's Banned Book Week by publishing banned books online in their Google Books service (complete copies aren't always available, but the books are searchable). Over the centuries, many books have been censored and banned. In the west today, we think such actions are no longer at work, but increasingly people are complaining about books and seeking to get them banned, at least by publicly funded institutions. The best source for information on censorship and banned publications is probably The Beacon for Freedom ...

Ditch the pigeon?

Iain Dale has seen the Tory logo future, and it’s… scribbled. Some months ago I was sat in a pub in Bath, with a friend who was hovering on the brink of becoming a Liberal Democrat party member. He’s on board with our policies, believes in personal liberty, cherishes civil rights. A natural Lib Dem. “There [...]

Having a giraffe

If Iain Dale’s Diary is to be believed, this could be the new Conservative Party logo. Cuddly United Nations blue with a tip-ex smudge.

Hornsey Central Hospital: meeting report

So the people did come. Having put out hundreds of postcards to ramp up public pressure - the people did come. The Labour government policy on health means that there is only one game in town - a LIFT project, which will require winning bids and selling off land to fund it. But it’s very risky. There are absolutely no guarantees that we won’t just see the land being sold off, the old hospital

Short Change

I hold no particular brief for Claire Short, She has often appeared a bit naive - and has been a serial resigner form Labour's front bench. Nevertheless she is clearly an honest and well meaning sort of politician and does have a genuine following in the country. She is an all too human antidote to the machine politicians of both Labour and increasingly the Tories. I was therefore rather struck by her comments as she announced that she will stand down as a Labour MP at the next election. Her contempt for Blair and Brown was obvious. She lambasted them ...

Dot Com Comes of Age

I was interested to hear the terms in which the Executive Chairman of insurance group Aviva talked about the job cuts he is proposing in their Norwich Union business on the radio this morning. He said that this was the result of the dot com revolution finally working through to his business a few years after [...]

Guardian Public Services Awards

Have to miss the launch of Britain after Blair as am judging the Guardian Public Service Awards. Started three years ago - these are awards for a whole range of public services. I was sent the judging long list some weeks ago and given criteria. Today it is the judging lunch where the scores we sent in from our first round of judging are haggled over between those on my panel. We meet for drinks

DENBIGHSHIRE ALERT

Over the last few weeks , I have progressive concerns about the finances and performance of Denbighshire Council leaders and the effectiveness of our MPs and AMs. This was highlighted in your article "Budget alert got me sacked from Cabinet", The Post, 9th September Paul Marfleet, Financial Chief was sacked for doing his job and telling the Council that we are heading for a cash black hole. I don't know about you but this is what I thought the cabinets financial leder is there to do! Forecast any problems, manage the budget and stop financal disaster, (Risk Management). Councillor Marfleet ...

HOME START

Do you have a couple of hours a week spare to help a young family? "Sue is a young mother who has just had her third baby. She has no family or friends nearby and is feeling lonely. Exhausted and overwhelmed. Could you spend a few hours each week to vist her or other families with young children? Do you have parenting exerience? Join an informal and relaxed preparation course to be delivered in your local area. Contact; Sian at Home-Start Bangor on 01248 672673 Sylvia at Home-Start Conwy on 01492 860842 Meira at ...

A crowded field

The race for Labour's Deputy Leadership is starting to heat up with a number of candidates making it known that they are interested in the job. In addition to Peter Hain, there also appears to be bids from Harriet Harman and Jack Straw. All the papers are speculating that Alan Johnson may run for the leadership, but he seems to be undecided. I am sure that Bill Clinton's endorsement of Gordon Brown cannot have helped, though how exactly such backing will play out amongst crucial Middle England voters is uncertain. My guess is that it will have no impact whatsoever. ...

Confused of Denbigh!!

In her latest letter Gwyneth Kensler of Denbigh "Wide of the mark" has made some very inaccurate statements in her letter about me. So much so I wonder if she was at the same meeting? People need to understand what was discussed at the meeting and then I really feel that the bickering should stop and we should all work together for the benifit of Denbigh . This is after all what my objectves is as I have so often said previously. At the meeting, of Councillors Business Groups and Council Offices where the aim was to discuss the future of Denbigh ...

Trust in people: make Britain free, fair and green

Ming Campbell introduces the Liberal Democrats new policy document “Trust in people: make Britain free, fair and green” in the following video shot at the launch press conference last week:

Lembit Opik on stage

One of the most unusual gigs I have ever attended included metorite obsessed MP for Monmouthshire Lembit Opik fronting the ultra-avant-garde Resonance Radio orchestra with a unique discussion about “NEOs” or Near Earth Objects.

Westminster Hour and Tax

Yesterday along with three other Torbay Lib Dem party colleagues I took part in a pre-conference discussion for the BBC Radio 4 programme 'Westminster Hour'. Now I haven't done a radio interview for about 10 years and even that was in a community worker role. Prior to that I did do some media work as a councillor but virtually 'retired' from active party politics for most of the last

Re-branding

A while ago I got an email from San Francisco - a very small publisher planning a very low budget anthology had seen a brief snippet of my writing and wanted me to submit more for inclusion. Money would be involved - and, unexpectedly, it would be coming in my direction. I ignored the email for a while, then thought 'what the hell' and replied. He was still keen. I was worried - lots of questions about rights and suchlike. So I joined the Writers' Guild, the trade union for inky-fingered fictioneers. The membership pack came in ...

A Good Dead

I have been writing on and of about my involvemeent in the Scout Movement. The Cub Scout Law end with the statement '...and does a good turn everyday.' Like most Scouts this always stick in my mind. So last night walking home and completely soaked from the sudden downpour, a driver stopped and asked directions. And as a good Scout I did my good dead and gave directions...

Not looking good

The calls for Blackwell to depart will increase following last nights 3-0 surrender to Sunderland. For the official site report click here. Where has the spirit of the team gone since last season. Think back to the Southampton match where we came back from 3-0 down to win 4-3. That battling spirit seems to have disappeared even though in some games there have been some positive signs. Reports from the game on WACCOE seem to indicate that some of the players may have given and that they have certainly given up listening to the manager. ...

Day 2081: A Shocking Affront

Thursday: It is hard to decide what is more SHOCKING, isn't it: the terrible way that poor Lord Blairimort was treated by the Unions or the horrible breach of human rights that is Butlins Guantanamo. The WHEELS of the LAW are said to grind EXCEEDING slow, but that does not matter because they can still outpace Britain's topmost legal mind, Lord Blairimort's chum Charlie the Lord

Catching Ming Doing Things Right

I'm pinching myself here as I write yet another entry in favour of Ming but I have to say that it is great that he is getting out and about, seeing things for himself and speaking out on the squalor and poverty that some of our poorest citizens have to contend with. More of the same please!

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Thursday 14th September 2006

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