What I haven't been able to understand is, why are there pedestrian lights - allowing time for people to cross the road at every other crossing on the Bethnal Green Road - but not at Brick Lane? And that's the crossing which is particularly dangerous, in terms of fast drivers. The only complaints we had while collecting signatures were that our proposed changes would slow traffic down, and it...
I have found the Pope's original speech (in the original german) here and the Vatican's translation here Translation is an inexact science. It is clear comparing the German to the English that the translation is not that good. (The greek gets completely lost) I have also read the BBC's report here which appears to be based upon the english translation What the original german quotation refers
I really hadn't intended to stand on anyone's toes when I asked to submit a petition at Full Council. With 5 motions being carried forward from the previous meeting in July, I knew any motion that I submitted would not stand a chance of being heard. However, I had reckoned without the rule which says that the Council will only listen to the first 3 petitions submitted before the deadline. ...
One of the things about being a self-acknowledged faceless bureaucrat is people assume that you understand 'stuff'. And so I found myself in Bromley and Beckenham this week, helping the two respective Local Parties (Bromley Penge is a rather interesting seat, in that it is a potential Labour vs. Liberal Democrat battleground, so organisation is vital. So to be at the heart of the debate was
If a Councillor has purchased a Council property, should they make decisions about service charges on that property? This was the cause of another row at Full Council last Wednesday. The test is whether a member of the public thinks that this would influence their judgment - what do you think? Should they declare a prejudicial conflict of interest and leave the room, as opposition councillors...
Another outbreak of democracy happened in Tower Hamlets when opposition parties won a vote at the meeting of Full Council on Wednesday! Thanks to abstentions from Marc Francis and Bill Turner, Labour lost their majority of one and the demolition of Old Bonner School was halted pending proper planning permission. Tom Ridge was in the process of making a deputation when Tory Cllr...
Much excitement in the Lib Dem corner of the blogosphere after Iain Dale's announcement of his top 100 Lib Dem blogs. Modesty forbids me from commenting on my rather surprising ranking but, needless to say, I wouldn't have put myself on the left hand page (and possibly not the right hand one, either...). So have a peek, you might learn something, and discover some very good writing too... Whilst the idea that Lib Dems should be getting worked up about what a Tory thinks of us is, on the face of it, somewhat absurd, I would suggest ...
I'm still recovering from the shock! I couldn't believe it yesterday when the Strategic Development Committee voted unanimously against the Urban Village planning application. The residents have been tireless in their lobbying, press releases and objections and I've worked alongside them, providing advice at times, writing my own objections and letters to the Secretary of State and I would have...
According to the press there are going to be two interesting things at this Lib Dem conference. First the tax debate, do we keep or ditch the 50p rate...zzzzzzzzzzz and second Charles Kennedy, will he or won't he upstage Menzies... could be entertaining, but only in the sense that Kennedy's a good speaker. A sound-off contest between the two seems unlikely. The most interesting thing about party conferences are the people. Lots of very serious types buzzing around hoping to change the world through policy motions. Dishevelled MPs dashing from one appointment to the next with a trail of ...
BBC News report here. I can't claim to have been a great Tomorrow's world enthusiast, but his role as the occasional Mornington Crescent commentator on I'm sorry I haven't a clue was memorable.
For some reason my newsagent decided to deliver a copy of The Sunday Telegraph to me last Sunday instead of the usual Independent on Sunday. (I used to get The Observer but switched after they backed the invasion of Iraq - but that's another story.) It took me a few seconds to decide that my newsagent probably had better things to do than listen to my complaints, so, happy in the knowledge that one of my Tory neighbours was having to stomach the IoS, I decided to read the thing anyway. The story that grabbed my attention ...
Dizzy Thinks has a further article on Labour's domain name shenanigans. All very intriguing. And as I guessed, not unconnected to some slightly obsessive attention I recently received myself. (Hat Tip Iain Dale)
Congratulations to Lib Dem Voice for topping Iain Dale's list of the 100 top ten Lib Dem blogs. As the discussions that have already started show there is huge potential for the site to become a real gathering point for Lib Dem debate. The opportunity to have an accessible online private forum is also long overdue. Along with Lib Dem Blogs Aggregated we've got a pretty good web prescence to build from. A Liberal Dose is 64 in the list, which, given my infrequent blogging, I'll take as a compliment!
I am sure there are many people who owe the beginnings of their interest in science to Raymond Baxter, who died today in the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading. He presented Tomorrow's World, at a pivotal time, with great enthusiasm and authority. He was also a Spitfire pilot during the war. For several years he commentated on the Remberance Day Eve parade at the Royal Albert Hall. He was very
Good news - the City Council's Rapid Response Team has - at my request - cleaned up much of the graffiti at the underpass next to Clovis Duveau Drive - see both cleaned up photo below and original story from earlier in the month (by clicking the headline above). Its not perfect given the state of the tiles, but a whole lot better - so many thanks to our Waste Management Team! Over 1500 blog readers in the past month, thanks to you all - you can send feedback to ...
Paul Trollope has been slaving over a hot Risograph to deliver some fliers for Lib Dem Voice - no glossy corporate stuff here - if you’d be willing to give half an hour to stand outside the conference centre and push them in to the willing hands of delegates in the last couple of days, [...]
It was brought to my attention today that this blog has been listed at number 43 in Iain Dale's list. As a relative newcomer to blogging I have to say I am both delighted and bemused but would like to say a big Thank you to Iain and admit tht the listing has spurred me to be more conscientious about blogging more regularly. I will be at the fringe blogging event and look forward to hopefully putting faces to names ... although apologies in advance if I seem vague - it's just that my memory lets me down at times! ...
Quick vidcast of me relishing the prospect of my first ever Lib Dem conference. (Sorry about the 'plane flying overhead near the end. If it distracts you just think what it did to me. But I didn't have time for a re-take.)
Two articles caught my eye today while flicking through the Guardian. Although it's pretty easy to get annoyed about something you read in an article by Polly Toynbee, the issue she raises does have important implications for Ming Campbell and the future of the Lib Dems 50% top rate. As ever, Toynbee's article raises a variety a emotions: This is perhaps the most annoying thing about her style, that she is so utterly inconsistent in her argumentation. She says one thing that you might agree with, and then on the basis of that draws some totally incongruent conclusion. That aside, ...
So Pope Benedict XVI has criticised the violence of Islam (and the Prophet particularly) Kind of ironic that the reaction should be so violent Personally I would like to protest against the protest- the people organizing these disgusting displays are nothing more than backward, ignorant bigots whose actions have gone a long way to proving the Pope's point. Turn the fire hoses on them...
Chris Rennard has written a back page article for this week's Liberal Democrat News which is mind-blowingly brilliant. Due to being intravenously connected to the party via blogging, I have found less and less to interest me in the Liberal Democrat News recently. However, Chris' article is a notable exception. It really is terrific. Chris writes in powerful and emotional terms of his respect for
Iain Dale has pronounced on the Top 100 LibDem blogs. He has judged them on "design; frequency of posting; writing ability; personality; comment; humour; range; interaction; popularity; independence of thought." Blimey. He's been working hard if he had to go through 100+ Blogs and mark them on all that. Rather him than me. In my humble opinion, Mr Dale has shown excellent judgment and laser-like
It really is coming to something when we have an actual minister (and I think a semi-detached member of the cabinet at that - from memory) and previous Blair-loyalist like Geoff Hoon saying that he may not last until May. They really are out to get him.
You've got to laugh. The Conservatives have now released the Scottish and Welsh versions of their new logo. The Scottish have blue land, like the English. They have a blue trunk. Like the English. But the leaves of their tree are dark torquoise, not green like the English. And the body of their tree appears to be taller and narrower. The Welsh have black land. They also have a black trunk. They
It is definitely not a spoof, as I suspected yesterday. This is the new Conservative logo. The only difference from yesterday's one shown by Iain Dale is that Iain's was a white one used for a conference badge. This is the full colour one, courtesy of this year's Conservative blogging winner of the "Order of the Brown Nose". The BBC and the Telegraph have now reported the official launch of this
To some it sounds like a death sentence, but to those few who enjoy politics, there's a podcast website devoted to politics: Politics on Demand. At the moment I'm listening to the Tony Benn interview - a man I begrudgingly admire, despite him being of a different political leaning to my own.
party conference starts in Brighton this weekend.. and I won't be there. Its the first time in about 20 years that i haven't been able to go.. but there is just too much to be getting on with here at the moment. There is going to be some good stuff on the environment and what could be some pretty lively debates. last year I spoke in two debates - ending up on the national TV news as a result. The good thing about the Lib Dem conference is you can speak, and actually disagree with whatever ...
Spent some time going through the first set of results from our Lib Dem survey about the plans for Liverpool John Lennon airport. The good news is that there is a really good response rate, which if it continues will mean we can represent people's views really well. Views obviously differ - but one of the major themes is people don't feel that they have been consulted enough. I know that the airport paid a company to deliver a booklet to all the properties in Speke, but by the sounds of it most people either didn't receive ...
A story in today's South London Press highlights the plight of a teenage girl in Peckham who is housebound with fear due to threats of rape and violence from a local gang of teenagers. The situation is described by her mother in the following terms "We can't get away from it. They are there every day. They start gathering at about one or two in the afternoon. If there are only a couple of them and they see Natalia they get on their mobile phones and call all the others to come. There's about 20 of them when they ...
The planet that started the row which ended with Pluto’s demotion has been named. It’s lost its Warrior Princess nickname Xena and is called Eris after - rather suitably - the Greek god of discord and strife. It’s moon has also been aptly christened Dysnomia after Eris’s daughter, a “demon spirit of Lawlessness”. I am, of [...] 
Compared to the other two parties, the Liberal Democrats are remarkably united in our philosophy. Even if most members cast it vaguely in terms of ‘Freedom’ and ‘Fairness’ rather than paying attention to deep philosophical debate, there aren’t yawning chasms in the party. Perhaps because of this, perhaps because Liberalism doesn’t provide set solutions in [...]
Nick Assinder at the Beeb is claiming that Alan Milburn's speech makes him the "ultra-Blairite" candidate for the Labour leadership, but then goes on to say that Milburn wants "[L]ocal income taxes, more individual choice in public services, [...] a directly-elected House of Lords and proportional representation for Westminster elections."and that the main thrust of his speech was "a call for redistribution of power away from the centre - Whitehall and government - to individuals and communities who might even take over budgets for running some of their own local services."Now I don't know if it's just me, but I'm ...
There is one positive thing you have to accept about this “Orange Book 2″ - aka Britain after Blair. At least they’re finally taking health and safety seriously. Look at the cover to the old book. Marshall and Laws have got that poor girl leaning at an uncomfortable angle. She looks like she [...]
Jonathan Calder notes that the death of Sir Anthony Dodds-Parker means that there are now only four surviving members of the 1945 parliament. Among them is John Freeman, MP for Watford 1945-55, who is now 91. Watford MPs have in general been a pretty undistinguished bunch. So I have never bothered to find out about Freeman's life or career. But I was aware that he had the same name as the presenter of the BBC Face to Face television series (1959-62) whose polite but probing questioning famously reduced Gilbert Harding to tears and clearly unnerved Tony Hancock. Freeman ...
It is nice to see that the Liberal Democrats are treating bloggers seriously. So much so that those of us who have been shortlisted for Liberal Democrat blogger of the year are virtually being treated like lobby journalists. We have all been offered access to the party's press conferences for next week, plus the opportunity to interview Liberal Democrat campaign supremo, Ed Davey MP. Alas, I will be back in Cardiff when the aforesaid interview will be taking place and I have already passed up the option on the press conferences on the grounds that the Welsh Party ...
I have just been delivering some last minute leaflets before Conference and was astonished at how many spiders are out there. It would not be so bad if they did not build their webs at head height across garden paths. Apparently, it is the mating season and they are all on the look-out for mates. This means that there will be more in our homes as well. Just in case you think that this may not be of significance I found on one website that in Britain alone there are over 650 species of spiders - most of these are ...
We have been offered a new explanation for Mark Oaten's occasional recourse to rent boys. It wasn't turning 40. It wasn't going bald. It was the drink. Not his drinking, you understand. Charles Kennedy's. At least that is the ingenious explanation offered by Belinda Oaten in today' Daily Telegraph. I am with the unnamed Lib Dem MP quoted as saying: "I have heard some rot in my time but that just takes the biscuit." Could it just be that Mr Oaten went to rent boys because he rather enjoyed it?
On the Guardian website Michael White discusses Gordon Brown's perfomance on Sky TV and tearful politicians in general: The final word goes to Harold Macmillan. When Ed Muskie, a Democratic runner for US president, wept on TV after his wife was accused of being a drunk, an MP asked the unflappable Tory PM how he would have felt had the charge been levelled against his own (unfaithful) wife. Macmillan's response ran thus: "I would have said 'You should have seen her mother.'"
A while back, I wrote a couple of posts about energy options. I’d attended an meeting about the technologies at the Royal Society. Yesterday, a special “energy options” edition of Scientific American (September 2006) landed on my doorstep. It covers many of the topics that the RS meeting did, even down to some of the [...]
It’s pretty common for the polling companies at the moment to ask how people would vote with a Brown/Cameron/Campbell match-up, and the result typically is the Lib Dems dropping a few points compared with Blair/Cameron/Campbell. But what do these figures really tell us? Take the latest Populus poll (full details here). It uses the question: Q.5 Now I’d [...]
I'm not sure what to make of the latest episode Clare Short's long march away from the Labour Party. Her sincere dislike of what that party has become and her desire to end the UK's affection for decade-long elected-dictatorships is admirable. There's not much in her critique that most Lib Dems wouldn't agree with. And that worries me, I'm hope she's not going to try and defect. What Clare Short is, is a passionate principled pressure-group leader. She has her views, deeply held and more sincere than not, and she fights tooth and nail to pressure the government into ...
Former US President Jimmy Carter was interviewed on last night’s Newsnight. When I was a boy, he was the first politician I remember finding insincere; it was that dazzling smile. Unlike that other great smiler Mr Blair, my opinion on Mr Carter has become more positive. His smile now seems more saintly than salesman, adding to his moral force against ‘subservient’ Mr Blair: “no matter what kind of radical or ill-advised policy was proposed from the White House, it seems to me that almost automatically the government of Great Britain would adopt the same policy, without exerting its influence.” ...
Fair play to Mrs Gidley, as yesterday I received this response my e-mail last month: "Thank you for getting in touch. My information was that only extremely violent material would be covered so only a relatively small percentage of material would be covered. I do agree with the other points you make about learning more about underlying reasons why people commit murder."
North Yorkshire Police have finally given an estimate of the costs incurred for policing the Drax protests- upwards of £4 million according to a Police Authority report. Harrogate MP Phil Willis has raised concerns about its impact in today's Press. The report also makes it clear that the impact is still being felt through the accrual of TOIL and re-rostering of rest days. The local neighbourhood...
Predictably heavy debate on Liberal Democrat Voice over the 50p tax rate inspired me to rattle off an article about what sorts of things Liberal Democrats tend to disagree on, and where the fault lines are in our values. It’s been published there this morning and looks particularly at the International Law debate next week, where the paper seems a victory for the ‘interventionists’ over those who consider intervention imperialist or impractical. Hearing the news today, I’ve just written here about abortion, sex education and family policy. Hmm, what’s the next nettle patch for me to stick my hand into? ...
The son of Orange Book has been launched, and is previewed by the Times. (Yes, I’m a day late, but hell, no-one else blogged about it and I was waiting to see what reception it would get out there)
Two stories about family policy top the headlines this morning. The rate of abortions is still rising despite increased availability of the ‘morning after pill’, with a family planning expert warning in the British Medical Journal that contraception is a better way to avoid unwanted pregnancy (surprise). Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton is also to make a speech on the importance of “traditional, two-parent families” – though his interview about it on the Today Programme suggested that’s less of a right-wing dog whistle than it sounds, or, shamingly, than the ‘family policy’ that the Liberal Democrats are now proposing. ...
Labour's Chief Whip, Jacqui Smith, seems to have drawn the short straw in finally putting an end to the mutually-endured misery of Clare Short's membership of the Labour Party. According to The Guardian she has referred Ms. Short's conduct to the Labour Party Chair. The complaint will then probably be referred to the party's national executive committee, with the suggestion that Ms. Short should be expelled if she does not withdraw or "illuminate" her remarks. It is tempting to accuse Labour of once more seeking to suppress free speech and dissent within their ranks but frankly I cannot muster the ...
Tory London Assembly Member Roger Evans has a new(ish) blog on which he plans to: “publicise parts of Livingstone’s monthly report to the Assembly and his replies to questions which do not get the coverage they deserve in the press.” The most interesting entry on there currently is the one about LibDem AM Geoff Pope’s weekend exploits [...]
I am having an attack of conscience at the moment regarding how supportive parents should be towards the school their child attends. But before I express my views on this blog, it would be good to get other bloggers opinion. So type away…
The smart money is on a hung Parliament after the next election. If John Prescott gets the job, it'd be a not-very-well-hung Parliament? More serious blogging later in my pre-conference rant.
Yesterday evening I was invited to the Leavers' Celebration at Tiffin School. All the current students in Years 12 and 13 attended along with many of those who left last summer. We applauded some very real achievements in the Arts and Sports - from an oustandingly successful senior rowing four, through bridge (a relatively new sport) to the national acclaim of the choir. On the...
Friday: The Minister for doing the things that Mr Prescott is being paid for not doing, Mrs Ruth Kelly, is required to practice GUILT, SELF-LOATHING and FLAGELLATION by her bizarre religious sect. So what is Ms CLAIRE SNORT’s excuse? She seems to have become UNABLE to say the word LIBERAL. Perhaps Lord Blairimort has put a CURSE on her! Now she is quitting her job as an MP. She says that one of her reasons is that "the rise of the third party…" (SEE, she cannot say the word!) "…means our electoral system is ever-more DISTORTED". Daddy Alex actually ...
I’ve just written a rather perfunctory guide to running your own Liberal Drinks. It’s pretty basic, but then organising a Liberal Drinks is so simple, how hard can it be? Feedback would be most welcome. In particular I would point you to the “ideas” section. Why not give them a try (and apologes for not organising [...]
London’s LibDems are back in action after their summer break. Their website has been updated with a press release, their first since August 1st, which contains the Very Important News that “the London Pensions Fund Authority (LPFA) has been investing in tobacco and small arms companies.” The LDFA is nominally under the control of the Mayor [...]
Council tax payers in Manchester should be ashamed and embarrassed by the decision of their Labour controlled council to ban a protest organised by Military Families Against the War. The protesters were denied permission to demonstrate during the Labour Party conference on health and safety grounds. It’s yet another sign of the utter contempt Labour really has [...]
The problems with Labour's plans for speeding up justice are the subject of my latest article for the Asian Times. You can read it here.
Tracey Huffer and the Liberal Democrat team held yesterday's by-election in Ludlow St. Peters. Not only did they hold the seat they did so with a swing to them from the Conservatives. I believe the swing would be enough for Matthew Green and the Liberal Democrats to regain the Parliamentary Seat at the next General Election if repeated across the seat. | < | September 2006 | > | ||||
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