The agenda for the City Council meeting on Tuesday 7 November has now been published and can be found here. Items on the agenda include: the annual report of the Cabinet Member for Transportation and Street Services;the reports of the Lead Members on the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority and the West Midlands Fire and Rescue Authority; Scrutiny reports on Youth Services and on
From reading Lib Dem blogs like Alex’s and Will’s, you might think that there are a lot of Dr Who fans amongst the Liberal Democrats - and indeed, the Brigadier himself has been a leaflet deliverer for Lynne Featherstone. However, I’ve been perusing the lists of what people have purchased through the party’s affinity deal with [...]
So Labour won the vote to reject last night's motion in the Commons on whether to have an enquiry into the Government's conduct in the run-up to the Iraq war. But Labour's majority of 25 disguises several interesting voting patterns. Firstly, this was an Opposition Day debate. Labour MPs who do not agree with Blair are more reluctant to vote for a motion led by an opposition party. This was
Wednesday 1st November 2006 - I visited New East Manchester today to see the work being done to regenerate the East Manchester area and how European Union Objective 2 funding was being used to improve the quality of life for local communities. The heart of the redevelpoment project is centred around Sports City and the stadium that was used for the 2002 Commonwealth Games which is now of course
Overnight, parts of Norfolk and Suffolk suffered the worst flooding for more than 30 years. The EDP reports on it HERE. Whilst this flooding can be put down in large part to the seasonal and almost one off hight tides coupled with strong winds off the sea, it clearly is something the people of Norfolk will have to get used too if global warming continues to accelerate and the sea levels continue to rise. I note that the EDP is also running an online poll which asks, in the light of the report published yesterday by Sir Nicholas ...
The Nottinghamshire oilfield that helped win the Second World War: Right at the very time the U-boats were having their best successes in the North Atlantic, the Oil fields surrounding Dukes Wood were having their most successful year, thanks to a large part by the efforts of the Americans who came over to drill the extra 106 wells needed at this vital time. Because these oil wells were situated largely within wooded areas they managed to keep the knowledge of this strategic target from the attentions of enemy aircraft. Not only were Americans recruited for this war effort but ...
Charles's contribution to the Iraq inquiry debate yesterday deserves to be celebrated. First, a personal note: Let me put on the parliamentary record the genuine gratitude of myself and my family to colleagues on both sides of the House, in all parties, for the expressions of goodwill and support that we have enjoyed and much appreciated over the course of the past few months. I am particularly grateful to be contributing to this debate, on this of all issues, which probably consumed more of my time as leader of the Liberal Democrats than just about any other, short of ...
I have just been on the phone to Sky TV to cancel a subscription. What an unpleasant experience that was. Firstly, I was told by the man who answered the phone after eleven minutes that: "You should know that you have to be subscribed for 12 months before you can cancel" "I know, but I cannot remember if it is 11 or 12 months since it was installed", I replied. "I would expect that you would know something like that before phoning", he replied. Oh dear, I thought, not exactly friendly. "Can I ...
It's like something out of Wag the Dog. Or perhaps (a better film) Bob Roberts. A political party, on the ropes in the elections, has to come up with something awe-inspiring, not to say jaw-dropping, to effect an eleventh-hour miracle. A foreign war, perhaps, or an assassination attempt. In the States, where reality seems increasingly to shadow the silver screen, the latest rendition of this cinematic theme lacks both the hyperbole and the engaging humour of the previous renditions. Senator John Kerry has, it is true, made one of the cardinal errors in modern politics: he told a joke. ...
Jerome Armstrong reports via TP that John Kerry apologised for his botched joke: This morning on MSNBC, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) apologized for his comments on Monday. "Of course I'm sorry for the botched joke," he said, calling his comments "pretty stupid." End of story. Unless of course the Republicans really want to show everyone in the US that they are so desparate this is all they can
Obviously it is always sensible to vote Fawcett. But as this debate shows it is even more obvious if you live in Colarado 5th Congressional District. (It gets really interesting about 25 minutes in.) Or you can visit Jay Fawcett's website.
Off to the new Prinovis plant today for a look round with the boss. Prinovis is a new print works on the new business park in the Garston and Speke area. I remember the news when it was announced that they were coming..and what that meant for jobs. At the time it was referred to as Bertlesmann (hope that's spelled right). It (the buildign) is not 100 percent finished yet but it is already taking work on and it was good to have a chance to see what will be going on there. They have the ...
Yesterday was designated the Global Day but that is just a start.Innocent civilians are being slaughtered: 400,000 people dead; 2.5 milion drived from their homes; Untold thousands raped, tortured and terrorised.Ending the horror can only come about with immediate action by a strong UN peacekeeping force. That needs real commitment from world leaders.When all the bodies have been buried in Darfur, how will history judge us? Stop the Slaughter: www.DayForDarfur.org
The Daily Kos has an excellent post on the Bush/Kerry "joke" storm. Even Republican Dick Armey agrees that the Republicans noise on Kerry's botched joke is "mock outrage" The actual line Kerry meant to say was: I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck
A moecule, called resveratrol, found in red grapes and red wine (I guess if you want white wine it'll need to be Champagne!) apparently counteracts the effects of an indulgent diet and lifestyle: BBC NEWS | Health | Wine 'allows guilt-free gluttony' Excellent. It's great with dark chocolate as well. Apparently I can gorge myself and potentially live as long as museli eating misery-guts.
Today’s punch-up between David Cameron and the Speaker of the Commons is not the first procedural clash in Parliament this week. In Monday there was a full seven minutes of procedural to-and-fro in the self-regulated House of Lords, culminating in the Government Chief Whip coming in to the chamber to try and bring order to the [...]
Every week, every day is "international kite flying day" or "National no washing week" or "Take your granny to work day", so I wasn't surprised when I heard that the DFES (Department for Education and Science) was asking school to take part in a themed week. But get this, it's "International Education Week". What do they expect, a whole week of educational activities in a school for the week from 13/11/06 to 17/11/06 ? What do the DFES think we do in school for the rest of the year ! What next, will NASA be asked to run ...
A new shake up of MP's allowances is likely to see an extra £10,000 be added to MP's office allowances to be spent on stamps. The BBC reports that this has come under fire from opposition MP's Jo Swinson (Lib Dem) and Julie Kirkbride (Con) as well as Chris Mullins, a Labour MP. I have done some voluntary work in an MP's office, one of the busiest MP's offices in terms of casework in the country, and I know that the current allowance for stamps is sufficient. So why would the government be so obsessed with raising this amount ...
In the event that the Electoral Commission, more than a year and a half after Michael Brown’s £2.4m donations were received, DO decide they must be repaid, then it seems likely following Menzies Campbell’s performance on Sunday A.M. this week that the party will appeal the accompanying court order. The Times reports that the party is [...]
Arch right-winger, Danniel Hannan is often regarded as a rabid neo-con outrider. His piece in today's Telegraph gives ample justification for this. Along with his rather lazy attitude to basing his arguments on facts – much of his opinion is equally misplaced.However, in the same article, he raises some more interesting points apposite to the CentreForum Middle East conference on Saturday. He then states that:"The 1979 Iranian Revolution will one day be seen as an epochal event, on a par with the 1789 French Revolution and the 1917 Russian Revolution. Like them, it immediately burst out from behind its borders, ...
I blogged the other day about my skepticism about the suggestion that the internet needs "governing" by bureaucrats and politicians out there in the "real world". The internet without such governance has provided a way for many more people to express themselves to a wider audience than they ever could have done in physical media. And having given it some more thought I can only conclude that any attempt to impose outside governance on it in the past has been counterproductive. The BBC reports today from Athens that an Internet bill of rights [is] proposed See, it's ...
Sometimes I get the feeling that people conflate democracy and justice, either by mistake, or on occasion willfully. Democracy does not guarantee justice, Alexis de Tocqueville recognised this as did JS Mill and FA Hayek. Indeed, democracy can lead to great injustice, there is nothing inherent in democratic systems which ensure justice. This is overlooked by many people. Democracy is often
Today I met people from Birmingham concerned about proposals for the NHS. The loss of our regional blood testing centre concerns me as at times we need a rapid turnaround of testing. There is an argument that there could be fewer centres, but not as few as three. I also had the papers accepted for the appeal to the Court of Appeal.
The government’s hapless record on actually implementing complex IT schemes has a number of lessons for us all – and we need to take these on board as we move into our Green Taxes agenda. Because getting Big Ideas to work is a hard slog with a bad track record. Here is the warning sign for the implementation of the Software to support the National ID card gamble: much of it will not be rigorously tested before the scheme goes live. And that is an official government announcement. Professional IT developers (those who are not being paid to produce this ...
Ming Campbell discusses his visit last Thursday to Beddington Zero (Fossil) Energy Development in Sutton (a.k.a. BedZED), as well as Sutton’s travel policies and the Liberal Democrats Green Tax Switch.
A Thai taxi driver appears to have commited suicide and left a suicide note shown above. A report of this incident can be found in the Bangkok Post see here where it is stated that the note says "I am a taxi driver who has sacrificed himself for democracy". He had previously come to the attention of the media on the 30th September when having painted his purple taxi with the words, "Destroy the country" and "Suicide" he deliberately slammed his taxi into a tank.
Gavin reports John Kerry’s Monday faux pas. The US senator was trying to make a cheap gag at the expense of President Bush, but mangled his words and ended up sounding like he was criticisng the intellect of the troops in Iraq rather than the idiot who sent them there. The Republicans, of course, seized [...]
US Senator John Kerry is under attack for saying those that do poorly at school go on to join the army. To be fair to Mr Kerry, this is the joke he was trying to tell: "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't you get elected to the White House."
I keep meaning to plug this site and forget it - Mark Moxon’s Land’s End to John O’Groats walk site. I’ve had a few people asking me for information on how to do the walk themselves and this is probably the best resource on the net for it. Plus, his route inspired much of mine [...]
In an attempt to calm myself down after getting all het up by politics and politicians I'm listening to the most excellent live double album 'Space Ritual' by Hawkwind. I love much psychedelic music, and this has to be some of the best spacerock to have been recorded. I'm currently debating with someone on a BBS I frequent whether you need to have taken acid to appreciate this sort of music,
Gunfight for parliamentary seats: Well, not literally...The Labour party has a problem in South Birmingham, basically 3 parliamentary seats become 2 seats. And the 3 current incumbents want to represent the 2 seats. Because of the way the boundaries have been re-drawn all 3 could have some form of notional claim over either of the resulting 2 seats.The resulting applications make it clear which are favourites for the new seats of Hall Green and Selly Oak: Godsiff and Jones have applied for Hall Green, while McCabe and Jones have applied for Selly Oak. My prediction is that Lynne Jones will ...
The elections in which Americans vote for their congressional representatives, but not for President, are known as midterm elections. They occur every four years and take place next week. American fri...
The title comes from something I vaguely heard on Today this morning with respect to the DNA database, but I think it can equally be applied to the Commons debate yesterday on calls for an Iraq inquiry.The quotes from the foreign secretary, in the BBC report, sum up all that is wrong about our current government leadership mentality: In the House of Commons, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said: "I have no doubt that there will be a time when we want to learn lessons." Subtext: "But we don't want to learn about them now, when we may be able ...
Well that's what MP's seem to want. I guess that may be uncharitable, but last night Tony Blair and the Government narrowly survived a Commons vote to force an immediate parliamentary inquiry by 25 votes.
Last night I went to see To Kill A Mockingbird at the Birmingham Rep. Its been years since I read the book, but it all came flooding back as I was watching the performance. I have some friends going to see it in a couple of weeks so will not spoil it but it was a great performance with the best bit being part the Tom's evidence in the court scene. It is concerning though how many of the issues in To Kill A Mockingbird are still too relevant today.
I learnt today to always always always double check anything that I email before pressing that devastating send key. As the member of the party in charge of the axe-the-tax campaign (go he...
and all that.... Leeds crashed 4-1 last night at Preston as Dennis Wise begins to tackle the difficulties ahead. A brief report from the BBC can be seen here. According to WACCOE Dennis Wise was quoted on the radio last night as follows "I've been involved in two and watched three games and over that, it isn't what I want really and it's not enough. I've told the players and they know it. I just think we might at some stage need to bring some fresh faces in to give us a bit more competition. There needs to be a ...
Abbey (formerly Abbey National) hav announced today that they will, for the first time, lend first time buyers five times their salary. Having been a first time buyer inthe past, I know that it is a relief to get on the housing ladder, however, I am not sure that lending me or anyone else five time their salary is the answer. What is really needed is more first time buyer housing being built rather than the town house and executive developments which are everywhere these days. I heard of radio five live the other week that we ...
I said a couple of weeks ago that I might write a little bit about Thailand in general and Koh Samui in particular and why it is such a wonderful part of the world. I first travelled to Thailand in about 1987. I had been to India for a week and arrived in Bangkok fairly weary and with a severe case of Delhi Belly. On the street outside our hotel I was accosted by a young man and I assumed that he was attempting to sell me something - but no he wanted to walk with us and practice his ...
With thanks to Suzy Scott of Scotbus fame (http://www.scotbus.com/) and also the City Council Planning and Transportation Department, here's news of changes to the 72 bus service running through the West End. From Monday 6th November, in addition to the Travel Dundee changes, Stagecoach Strathtay 72 wiill be merged with Stagecoach Fife 90 (Dundee - Tayport), to form a new Service 72, which will now run through from Tayport via Tesco Riverside, Dundee City Centre, Perth Road, Roseangle, Magdalen Green, Windsor Street, Blackness Library, Speed Street, Perth Road, Newhall Gardens, Invergowrie Drive, then now additionally serving Royal Victoria Hospital & ...
I guess it’s kind of impressive - every time you think the Labour Government can’t sink lower they plumb a new depth. I’m hard-pressed to know in whom I hold most contempt. It could be the Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett (I still find that four-word sequence ludicrously far-fetched) who argued that a review of the Government’s catastrophic failure of leadership in Iraq would send “the wrong | < | November 2006 | > | ||||
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