I attended two functions today, but without my camera - apologies. First, I chaired the AGM for Kingston Centre for Independent Living - a truly invaluable organisation who empower people with disabilities to live as independently as possible. They achieve this through information, advice and support. But most importantly they administer the Direct Payments system on behalf...
No this is not an attempt to boost my viewing numbers on my YouTube channel (but should you feel you want to, click on the link on the left) but rather another experiment in video for constituents.My experience of putting videos on YouTube is that the non political ones get the most viewers. Hence my recent jokes about my Copacabana Beach video doing a great deal better than the blogger of the
After my rather public visit to the Toilet earlier in the year, I returned to the Gallery again this week. Louise Colbourne has an exhibition called "Dot-Dash" - a reference to the Morse codes built into some of her works. In the photo you can see Louise standing next to an installation showing a projected video of her moving in and out of a tube of blue cloth, creating...
I'm not one to praise everything the government had done to education in the last nine years, however, there are some good things that have happened, and the government deserve praise for some things (the new Ofsted regime being one of them). I was pleased, therefore, to see the government state today that they wanted to cut back and in some cases eliminate coursework from the assessment of subjects. There are, of course, some excellent reasons for assessing coursework, and I know that it can really encourage students to become independent learners. However, all too often the internet ...
The Liberal Democrats’ Green Tax Switch action week, when numerous local parties will be organising streets stalls all across the country, is approaching fast. It’s been busy in the office today with my colleagues assembling the cardboard boxes to hold all the stall materials for each local party. You’ll be plesantly surprised when the boxes arrive for your own [...]
Nearly three years ago we were all stunned by the news of the dreadful fire at Tiffin Girls. Fortunately it broke out during the evening when there was no-one in the building, but the firefighters had to deal with one of the largest blazes anyone can remember in the borough, and indeed some of them suffered injuries. The school responded amazingly, continuing to offer...
Audit Scotland have made further accusations against the disgraced Labour council in West Dunbartonshire: An £8m school improvement fund has been frozen by local authority officials after Audit Scotland found councillors broke the law in distributing the money. The finance was to boost schools in West Dunbartonshire, but has sparked criticism in the area for the way so much of it appeared to be
Like Mr Cameron, I’m a big fan of The Killers, so I’ve been listening tonight to their latest album, Sam’s Town. (Brilliant, btw, and thanks for asking.) No idea what made me think of Dave and the Tories... It might have been the song, Read my mind (“Coz I don't shine if you don't shine / Before you go / Tell me what you find when you read my mind”). Or it may have been When you were young:
"If I'd known I was going to get an award I'd have worn my trousers!" - Des Kay on being named yesterday as Kingston Environmental Champion of the Year. Des has been behind a number of excellent environmental initiatives, both locally and nationally, including Save The World Club, the Kingston Green Fair, the Green Police and his own magical alter ego Professor Kayoss. He...
I can't sleep. I am angry and I am up tight. I need to let off some steam. Our school, the one where I work, has had a huge transformation over the past year. For years the school building has been allowed to crumble and detierate. But last year changes happened, positive changes that have had a huge effect on how the children treat the school, the respect they show it, as well as an positive 
In the event that any readers are Jake Thackray fans, or are just interested in the concept of a humorous Yorkshire singer-songwriter, put BBC4 on this minute. They are showing Thackray programming between now (9pm) and half ten this evening. Jake on the Box and Jake Thackray: His Songs are on again at 00:20 tonight, and [...]
Its probably a sign of age, but, given that I feel I hav e some grasp of grammar and spelling, I get a bit irritated at spelling and grammatical errors. Now, it was really nice of the City Council to react so very quickly to my request for signs at Pinegrove, but the one at ShepHerd's Loan looks a little sad ... see above right. Anyway, I've reported it and I dare say we'll get a replacement soon. I have promised Rev Andrew Greaves of Dundee West Church for ages that I'll have lunch at the ...
Following the recent submission of detailed plans by Persimmon Homes to create a landmark £80m mixed use development at the Coatham Links site in Redcar, minor excavation work is now set to continue to facilitate the creation of public rights of way around and in across the site. Currently, a comprehensive planning application from Persimmon Homes is being considered by Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council for the development of new residential, leisure and entertainment facilities at Coatham Links. The planning application is subject to extensive information including environmental assessments and a full site investigation report. As ...
Peter Jordan, Persimmon Homes Regional Projects Director has defended the need for housing as part of the Coatham Links development at Redcar: “The housing at Coatham Links is fundamental to securing the necessary financial backing and grant funding to bring leisure facilities to this site. The funding and market requirements for all aspects of this development have been meticulously investigated and Persimmon Homes is confident that the current plans represent the best way, and in fact the only way, to create the high quality state of the art leisure and sporting facilities that Redcar deserves. “Housing is ...
The following is a statement from Persimmon Homes, Redcar & Cleveland Council's partners in the Coatham Links Development: Persimmon Homes is in the process of addressing a recent objection raised by the Environment Agency regarding flooding risks at the proposed Coatham Links development, with a new onsite flood risk assessment designed to address the recently updated Environment Agency guidelines on flood prevention. Concerns have been raised by the Environment Agency regarding a heightened flood risk posed to housing and leisure facilities at the proposed £80m Coatham Links development. The site is subject to an extensive planning ...
actually, here's some women who really should be getting front-page attention: Amnesty has asked for letter-writing help in stopping seven Iranian women being stoned to death for crimes against chastity. Persian blogger Eteraz makes it easy with links and pre-written letters. Eight days and counting. Maybe our foreign secretary could be prevailed upon to haul the Iranian Ambassador in for a
I should use public transport more than I do, since it is in plentiful supply and pretty reliable around these parts. But today’s experience once again reminds me why we won’t solve the problems of congestion and pollution caused by excessive car use until we start making public transport more appealing. I was again reminded that, fairly often, riding on a train is a lot like journeying on a
Keeping up with the controversy in the local press about the selection on Tory candidates for the new Mid Norfolk seat brings something a a wry smile to my face. Firstly, local candidates seem to have been virtually shunned from the shortlist, with only 2 of the 18 being described by the EDP as "local". The majority of the rest appear to be "A List" candidates, from the controversial list drawn up by David Cameron's people. Remember this is the same "A list" that Tory MP Francis Maude only this week described as "biased against men". You may ...
Yesterday's news that there are only 160 places left in prison is a great chance for Home Secretary John Reid. He should hold a press conference and publicly demand several billion - right now - from The Chancellor for new prisons, and for education and drug rehab programmes to run in them: tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. Gordon would say no, may even have to be restrained, the press would have a field day and Reid's stock would rise at the chancellor's expense. Do it, John and I'msending an invoice in.
Liberal Review gets it right. Straw did no more than express a preference, and there is nothing wrong with that. It would also be my preference even if I didn't articulate it. Of course people are free to choose how to dress. But, I wonder, how many of the people criticising Straw do not believe people should be free to choose how to dress - rather that some people have an obligation to follow
It would not surprise me at all to find out that the tory party's new "open selection" system for candidates has resulted in Labour activists deciding who the Tory candidate is (see Recess Monkey). I would be more surprised if Michael Crick had managed to be one of the 300 voters as they should be able to recognise him. Still if you allow the Labour Party to select the Tory Candidates that is
It would not surprise me at all to find out that the tory party's new "open selection" system for candidates has resulted in Labour activists deciding who the Tory candidate is (see Recess Monkey). I would be more surprised if Michael Crick had managed to be one of the 300 voters as they should be able to recognise him. Still if you allow the Labour Party to select the Tory Candidates that is one way of making the Tories the same as Labour.
Am I the only person sick to death of Talk Sport taking the proverbial p*ss out of Norwich all the time. For those who don't know it, Talk Sport is a rather low brow radio station that seems to model itself on the Daily Star, but with more adverts. Every news broadcast is brought to you in association with the Vauxhall Insult "The Van that Vans better than Vans Can", or sometihng equally stupid always said after, whilst every other mention seems to be some sort of product placement. However, they do have good sports coverage, particularly of ...
Below we publish an official list, received (with thanks) from the Returning Officer, of the candidates standing in federal elections, and to the peers panel, this year. We have had to disable the ability to comment on this blog post, due to the election rule that “Candidates or their supporters must not use e-mail, e-groups, cix [...]
The former Home Secretary has said that he believes that the wearing of veils by Muslim women can harm social cohesion. Is he right?
Only it was far worse than that. In the past I have written about London's first suicide bomber and the first car bomb. Now Mark Ames on Comment is Free points us towards the extraordinary story of the Bath School disaster. As Wikipedia records: The Bath School disaster was a series of bombings in Bath Township, Michigan, USA, on May 18, 1927, which killed 45 people and injured 58. Most of the victims were children in second to sixth grades attending the Bath Consolidated School. The bombings constituted the deadliest act of mass murder in a school in U.S. history, ...
I think we are beginning to see a pattern develop: Jack Straw asks Muslim women to take their veils off; Mark Foley asks teenage boys to take their shorts off.
...female Vice-Chancellors out of 125 or so UK Universities that is. My employer, Oxford Brookes University, has announced that its new Vice-Chancellor when Graham Upton retires at the end of the academic year, will be Professor Janet Beer, currently a Pro-VC at Manchester Metropolitan University. There are currently just sixteen female vice-chancellors in the UK. About time too I say. In a bout of thinly disguised creeping to our new leader I think this is fantastic news. I can't remember the exact numbers but I am pretty sure we have had more female students than male for ...
Cabinet Minister Jack Straw has said he would prefer Muslim women not to wear veils at all.The Commons leader said he did not want to be "prescriptive" but he believed that covering people's faces could make community relations more difficult. Another helpful suggestion from our New Labour Government. Have we learned nothing from the French! If we start to discriminate against head scarves then they will start to become a symbol of defiance. This can only worsen community relations.
Our colleagues in the Scottish Liberal Democrats, who will be meeting for their conference a week tomorrow, are launching their election pre-manifesto. You can download a PDF (4MB) of the document here. Never has the phrase “there is no glass ceiling to our ambition” been more appropriate. “Maximum votes, maximum seats” is also a message that should ring true for [...]
Thinking about it, the pay-to-dump plan for general household rubbish as in a previous post raises other issues. Again, I think it would be helpful to think these through as a test case in designing effective Green taxes before we set out on the Grand Vision outlined in our new Green Policy initiative. Firstly, there is the psychological effect – does the new charge encourage a change in behaviour or provide a legitimisation for current behaviour? The modern classic example in economic theory is the childcare centre that introduced fines for parents who were late collecting their children – and ...
It seems that Tory candidate for the new seat North East Somerset, Jacob Rees-Mogg, has put his foot in it, by apparently describing non-Oxbridge grads as “potted plants”. Silly moggy. Reading the article, that’s not quite what he said, but if he’s stupid enough to walk into a gaffe-trap like that, he deserves what’s coming to him. I’m sure he’ll be hoping for better luck than his predecessor as Conservative PPC for the seat, Chris Watt. During the 2005 general election, mischevious constituents visited the roadside farmland on which his large ‘WATT’ signs were displayed, and added a ‘T’ before ...
A light-hearted look at a week of Tory gaffes.
After 4 years in Hellesdon, Veronica and I are moving to Foulsham (near Fakenham) where she will be Rector to 5 rural parishes. I will continue with police and fire chaplaincy and am now also the Social Responsibility/Community officer for the Diocese on Norwich with a remit to cover areas such as criminal justice; asylum seekers, migrant workers and traffiking issues; housing; peace and reconciliation; International Development issues; Make Poverty History; HIV and Aids; health, wholeness and healing; interfaith and multicultural issues; community cohesion...I also see this as a political position as it is about institutional change and welfare ...
The Liberal Democrats have criticised Jack Straw for being “insensitive” by asking Muslim women not to wear veils when they attend his constituency surgery. Mr Straw has today gone further and said he would prefer Muslim women not to wear veils at all. You can hear the Lib Dem view below, and Jack Straw’s defence of [...]
What a furore this morning over Jack Straw’s comments on Muslim women who wear veils. Let’s try and make some sense of this. Islam teaches that women should dress modestly, although Islamic scholars are themselves divided on what constitutes the required level of modesty in a Muslim woman’s dress. For some scholars, and therefore some [...]
I will be interested to read the judgement whereby the suspension of Ken Livingstone for a comment he made when slightly tired and emotional by the Standards Board/Adjudication Panel is quashed. The APE and Standards Board have censored councillors for really silly reasons (such as baking a cake). I take the view that actually the courts should be used to enforce local government standards and all the silly cases should be thrown in the bin. It is up to the voters to decide who represents them. Only when there are serious abuses should the courts get involved.
Disgraced Republican congressman Mark Foley, who resigned last week over messages he sent to young congressional assistants (he was accused of turning pages), has blamed alcohol for his problems. “It’s not my fault. Some may say that I had inappropriate relations with teenage men, but I was driven to what I did by Charles Kennedy’s drinking.” Tags: [...]
I see that the rather hilariously juicy scandal unfolding around the American Republicans has- inevitably- been given the suffix -gate, just to demote that it is a real scandal. After the dodgy IMs and e-mails to the teenage pages it might have been e-gate or page-gate but no... it's "Mastur-gate". Somehow I can't see this being adopted by the headline writers...
Vote for the Tory Gaffe of the Week: The Bigot from Bournemouth Boy George (Gordon doesn´t like me) Nanny´s Boy (The Potted Plant) Boris (Let Them Eat Cake) Johnson 
Relative Need Q:To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the relative need factors are; and what value they have for the financial year 2006-07.(John Hemming) A:I have been asked to reply. The Relative Needs Formulae are, based on the demographic, physical and social characteristics of each area, used in the calculation of Formula Grant. Formula Grant comprises Revenue Support Grant, Redistributed Business Rates and principal formula Police Grant. In 2006-07, the total of all the Relative Needs Formulae is factor of 0.67811309347259. The total for each of the separate Relative Needs Formulae are given in Annex E ...
Lets hope this report is a positive step forward. Over the last few years there have been a series of attacks in the four southern most provinces and anything which might lead to a cessation of this carnage has to be welcomed. It appears that the initiative came from the rebel factions themselves. The history of the conflict in the south is as follows (taken from BBC online) Members of Thailand's minority Muslim community - based almost exclusively in the country's southern provinces - have been at loggerheads with Bangkok for decades. Thailand's Muslims often complain of discrimination and a ...
In the Scottish version of today's Times comes the welcome news that the Scottish Liberal Democrats have released a policy paper that will do away with student endowments. Many in the party have been campaigning to take this next step to do away with students having to pay for their education. However, the SNP spokesperson (unnamed) asks why haven't we done this earlier while we were part of
This Friday's treat comes from the year of my birth, 1983. It is Lawyers in Love by Jackson Browne.
Yesterday the High Court quashed the decision of the Adjudication Panel for England to suspend Mayor of London Ken Livingstone. That suspension was brought about after a row between Livingstone and Evening Standard reporter Oliver Finegold in which the Mayor was accused to likening Finegold to a concentration camp guard. Weeks of outraged comment - some genuine, [...]
Howard Stapleton has waltzed off with an IgNobel prize for his device that scares off teenagers. Big contracts from the home office in the offing, I'd have thought. Other winners of the improbable research awards include an answer to the question why woodpeckers don't get headaches (and if you don't have a Dr Doolittle handy to translate, how do you know whether or not Woody has a bad head) and a joint US-Israeli paper takes a well deserved Ig for investigating how a finger up the backside cures hiccups. I'd have liked to see the funding proposal for ...
Jack Straw is right to ask Muslim woman who visit his advice surgeries to remove their veils. There are many occasions when an MP is being asked to make a decision based only the facts as presented by person in front of them. Making the wrong decision can seriously damage their credibility and ultimately their ability [...]
The third and final batch of photos from our camping weekend (a dim and distant memory now, I fear) comes from Cleeve Abbey, which was strictly second division in the pre-dissolution abbeys and monasteries league, but which now boasts some remarkably complete ruins and is therefore well worth a visit. Time warp Looking across the cloisters to the largely-intact buildings on the other side, it's very easy to believe you're in a working building that just needs some repairs - not a relic from the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Up to Bedfordshire From the rear of the abbey complex, the ...
The last week has been very busy for me politically, as you may have seen I have been posting a fair bit about Conservative funding. Last Saturday the Sunday Times contacted me asking about Sandip Verma (the Wolverhampton South West's Conservative candidate in the 2005 General Election) and her peerage and what if any connections it had with the Midlands Industrial Council. Also this week the BBC's Politics Show interviewed me about party political funding - it will be shown Sunday at 12.30.
The Oxford Mail/Times reports today that the New Westgate [shopping centre is..] Vital For City Confidential documents have revealed that Oxford would suffer serious economic damage if a hash is made of the Westgate redevelopment. Plans for the £300m scheme to transform the shopping centre are due to be considered by a specially-convened planning committee later this month. But papers leaked to the Oxford Mail show real concern at the consequences of the project failing. When I was on the council I was wary of confidential documents that only councillors were supposed to see. If one ...
If you rely on the Guardian for your news you won't have seen the cure for hiccups mentioned in the BBC report of the Ig Nobel awards: Teen repellent is Ig Nobel winner Apparently, "a finger up the rectum cures hiccups". So now you know. It'll no doubt make the scraping of fingernails down a blackboard less excruciating as well...:) Too much information for the Guardian presumably!
The emerging controversy over comments by the leader of the House of Commons, Jack Straw, indicating his discomfort interacting with veiled women is, to say the least, unfortunate. As has become sadly too frequent in recent times, candour on the part of a prominent individual has been used to whip up the underlying tensions that exist in a key minority community. For my part, I have to admit to
I am sitting in my hotel room in Copenhagen just before engaging on a full day of meetings and fact-finding visits as part of the Education Committee's policy review of Special Educational Needs Post 16. As such I am a bit isolated from what is going on in Wales, having only e-mail, limited access to the internet and BBC World to read Welsh news.
I was told last night that Denmark is the only Country that does not call Danish Pastries by their known name. They call them Viennese Pastries. Why not just call them pastries and have done with it?
...the Standards Board and the Adjudication Panel for England. I have few doubts that much of what Mr Morshead says about Ken is true...Ken's jibes 'endanger' democracy. He is abrasive, has a habit of opening mouth before engaging his brain, and as a result upsets people. But for God's sake who created a system in which a quango could set aside the electorate's democratic decision? And it's worth remembering that in Ken's case at least, his is the most democratic system of election for a single position we have in this country so far. But Ken's is just ...
Locals in Bromley will know how I have been frustrated that London Region had been failing (in my view) to be open and accountable in it's actions. Regional Secretary Mark Valladares has put a posting on his liberal bureaucracy blog Real democracy is about information and participation Well done Mark - we need our internal structures to do what we demand of public bodies.
Labour-dominated West Dunbartonshire Council has hit the headlines for the wrong reasons again: A council faces the threat of takeover by a Scottish Executive hit squad, after a watchdog delivered a devastating assessment of poor management and political leadership. West Dunbartonshire's councillors and officials are heavily criticised by Audit Scotland in a report saying there is a culture of
There is some interesting discussion elsewhere in a private Lib Dem conference about "best Focus headlines". Two of my favourites (not strictly Focuses) are two tabloids I artworked in recent by elections. "It's three jobs Bob" in Bromley & Chislehurst and "SHAME on YOU Sir Peter" from Leicester South. What gets me is that some people think we mounted personal attacks on Bob Neill. But it is | < | October 2006 | > | ||||
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