OK I admit it, it isn't my diary - I found it while having a late night browse. Today was Charles Kennedy's birthday (which makes him older in years than me for a few months). It has been a shit year, so happy birthday. Hope next year turns out far better!
CAP, europe
And to complete my perfect set so far this Autumn, I was comfortably re-elected to my place on English Council thanks to those remarkably generous people who are willing to suspend logic to vote for me. Thank you to all of them, and I hope that it will prove to have been worth the investment...
I've been rather busy worrying about candidates lately. How to get them, what to do with them once you've found them and stopping them from doing something that would be bad for internal party democracy, all this and more has crossed my metaphorical desk in recent days. And of course, I've been one myself from time to time recently. My personal record this autumn? Elections contested five,
Spent quite a bit of time today bundling the latest Lib Dem Focus which inevitably leads on our delight at the saving of the Ladywell Leisure Centre. Any help with delivering it to an eagerly awaiting public gratefully received.
Well, why not re-use an old headline when it's fit for purpose? Attended the meeting on the Hither Green development strategy which I mentioned in a post earlier this week. The aim was to get a neighbourhood committee together to try to and implement the strategy and get some much needed improvements to the Lewisham Central part of Hither Green. I hope we succeeded after a fairly lively couple of meetings, but time will tell.
A much better humoured Full Council meeting on Wednesday, even though I made a speech. We were all (mostly) happy that the Mayor had with a single bound saved Ladywell Pool from the Bullockdozer, and was going to build the new secondary school at Lewisham Bridge instead. There were some last minute shenanigans about which opposition motions were going to be put and in the end I found myself seconding what was to have been a Socialist amendment to a Liberal Democrat motion which was withdrawn in favour of a Green/Conservative motion which said much the ...
Ahh… the days when revues had funny songs and everything: First person to say, “Don’t they all look so young”, must shut their ears in the oven.
Coming up tonight on UKTV Gold at 10pm: Only Fools and Horses Greatest Moments - “To celebrate 25 years of Britain’s most beloved sitcom, its creator, John Sullivan, has selected 40 moments from the show. Viewers are encouraged to vote for their favourite, which will be revealed in a Top 40 rundown in December.” Hmmm, well I don’t want to spoil the moment, but I think we all know Del Boy falling
The Daily thinks it knows. 
Interesting news from a seat the Lib Dems won from Labour at the last election. LabourHome reports: Labour's parliamentary selection process in Rochdale is in disarray. The constituency party's general committee was due to draw up shortlist last Saturday (November 18). However, things came to a halt when the local party passed a motion of no confidence in the selection process. Local members were unhappy about the number of people allowed on the shortlist. It had been understood this would consist of six names. However, regional Labour Party officials ruled that, as only two women had applied, there should ...
No sooner back from Belfast, caught up with e-mails etc, then off Thursday/Friday to Dumfries - again the day job and the infamous annual Chinese Karaoke Night! Err, the photo is blurred (I wonder why?) but it was a great night! Janet's on the far left of the photo but let's just say its not the best photograph I have ever taken!On return, not pleased to learn from two constituents that the work by the electricity supplier necessary to allow Tayside Contracts to finish off the last part of the Tait's Lane resurfacing (and promised for last week) hasn't happened ...
Near to Christmas the Mayor is offered not a few mince pies, so I thought I would add a mince pie count, Bridget Jones style, to the blog. Mince pies offered to date: 1 Mince pies consumed to date: 0
When the Conservatives regained control of Bromley Council under Michael Tickner in 2001 they launched a major set of cutbacks on environmental issues such as highway and tree maintenance. In recent years I got the impression that Cllr George Taylor was making some positive moves to sort the problems out. But in typical Bromley Tory style he was ousted from his portfolio by Colin Smith just as
I have been looking at the Political Compass website again. For those of you unaware of this interesting site, it asks the reader 64 politically-oriented questions and then tries to place him/her on a grid where the x-axis is a line between “left” and “right” (by which I expect they mean collectivism verses the market) and the y-axis represents liberty verses authoritarianism. Jock Coats says in his blog that he feels that “some of the questions are a little awkward.” I think this is if anything an understatement, though having done quite a few of these questionnaires in my ...
The Times reported yesterday that Peter Hain allowed his CND membership to lapse a couple of years ago, and now supports a Trident-replacement. What tempted the former peacenik to support a continuing independent nuclear deterrent for the UK? According to the Times, "Mr Hain... said that Labour had been punished heavily in the past when it had fought on a unilateralist manifesto." So it's about keeping his seat and access to the Ministerial limo, then, rather than what he believes to be right for Britain and the world. A lesson to everyone about the man who ...
Congratulations to Kingston Museum on being awarded Accreditation Status by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. Here Liz Denton from MLA is handing over the certificate to Anne McCormack (right), the Head of Service, backed by her staff. The occasion was also a celebration of the re-opening of the Art Gallery since its enforced closure back in the summer when part...
Why am I not surprised that it was a man (Adrian Bowyer, Bath University) who wrote in the Guardian today, "If people can make anything for themselves what's the point in going to the shops?" Sure I can kill a cat, skin the bone and have a nice chew - all home-made - but it's just not the same as popping down to Fortnum and Mason's, having my fur given a complimentary ruffle, sniff a range of bones and then pick the one in the nice pink ribbon and take it home in one of their lovely gold (cardboard, but ...
This is the very best fun you can have in (mayoral) chains! - riding with Santa in his sleigh. As we made our way down New Malden High Street yesterday evening, Santa waved his hand at each lamp-post as we passed and it magically lit up, to the delight of lots of families who had turned up for the event.
Nick Clegg’s Arctic challenge - he’s not monkey hunting, he’s trekking for charity. As some of you might know, I’m participating in the “Westminster Challenge” next February: five MPs trekking miles and miles through the Arctic cold and dark during their recess to raise money for some excellent charities. Incredible, but true. You can find out [...]
All the secondary schools in the borough, including the independent schools, have been invited to send representative students to a new body that currently calls itself the Road Safety and Travel Awareness School Council. That is a bit of a mouthful, so they are looking for a snappier title that still captures the idea that they are young people who want to improve safety on the...
I remember Derek from my Green Party days. He always seemed to keep out of the way of the rest of the party, you would find him in the bar, or at his own fringe meetings, plugging books, grumbling that the party wasn't Marxist enough. Derek is articulate and intelligent. He wrote a history of the Green Party, part 1 of which I referred to earlier. Part 2, part 3, part 4. All quite frank and
Our local Friends of St Mary's Park group meeting on a wet and cold wintry night this week was quietly attended but a great deal will emerge to support our local park and community groups. Our park wardens are fab, keen and enthusiastic - they did an amazing Halloween trail which even scared the parents! We also have health walks - so I've booked the next one into my diary and am off to find my
I had a couple of guests on my radio show last night and we talked about the local music scene in South Devon. Others can judge whether it went well, but it was a very strange experience for me....
Didn't make it into the top twenty names drawn out of the hat for Private Members' Bills. That, as they say, is the luck of the draw. However I would have expected at least one Lib Dem MP to have made... 
Thanks to Duncan Borrowman for linking to an extraordinary video of the Michael Stone invasion of Stormont yesterday. The two security guards, who apprehended Stone, deserve medals. The security guards, a male and a female, were unarmed. Stone had a "gun", a garotte and nail bombs. And he was obviously Michael Stone, well-known friendly neighbourhood mass-murderer. So that would have put the
I mentioned the "Political Compass" website in my post from the other day about coming back from "the brink" of left extremism. I've done this test several times before now, and as I mentioned have usually come out way in the bottom left of the chart - in the anarcho-syndicalist area I suppose. I still think some of the questions are a little awkward. My main concern is that, like many of this sort of questionnaire it assumes to an extent that "private" equals "corporate". I think that there are many models of business and social support ...
I am always suspicious of former Government Ministers who discover their radicalism after they have left office. The question that always hangs in the air is, if they truly believe that the path they are now espousing is the way forward why did they not say so in Government and act on it? Of course nobody knows what went on behind the closed doors of the very many cabinet committees or, indeed, in various policy forums set up to plan the Government's agenda. From my own experience of government as Deputy Minister I am acutely aware that a number ...
It is always good to look back at stories which initially cause a media furore. One such case happened in Black Jack, Missouri, USA in May this year. My blog summarised the situation: The town (which calls itself a "city" for some reason) of Black Jack, Missouri, USA has a law, recently confirmed by the local council, which bans unmarried couples with more than one child from occupying homes
The recent death of the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko has resulted in a lot of column inches and a lot of odium directed at Vladimir Putin. Given the long tradition of Kremlin sponsored activity in bumping off defectors and in earlier times Czarist and anti-Czarist exiles, it's not difficult to put two and two together and make four. I expect though that much of the general interest in the issue has been inspired by the delightfully James Bond clandestine touch of bumping off spies via bizarre gadgetry. ...
I just walked down to the entrance to Newbury Racecourse (a few yards from house). It is raining heavily, to put it politely. There is thunder and lightning which seems about a mile away. Having had 14mm of rain yesterday, which changed the going to soft, I hope the rain today doesn't risk the meeting. "Cornish Rebel" seemed a natch for me to put some money on each way. I also covered myself
I have invented new lyics to Vanessa Amorosiy song 'Get Here': You can reach me by email, you can reach me by text message, you can reach by phone, I don't care how you reach me, just reach me if you can. I have had a morning of emails (chasing up litter bins situated at bus stops in Debden, recylcing bins for flats and checking when the information will be displayed at bus stops), text messages
Following surgery on Friday (which, for new readers, means people coming to me to raise their problems or issues individually face-to-face – rather than me turning doctor and operating on people!), I go to Hornsey Town Hall. Here David Lammy - who is not just my neighbouring MP from the other half of Haringey, but also Minister for Heritage - has come to be nagged about the future of Hornsey Town
The Imperial Boat House Hotel is a lot more reasonably priced than the Tongsai Bay and this is where we are staying on our next visit. The blurb from their website which can be found here read as follows : "Set on beautiful and unspoiled beach of Choeng Mon on the northeast coast of Koh Samui,The Imperial Boat House Hotel comprises 34 authentic teakwood rice barges converted into international standard luxury suites,as well as eight low-rise accommodation wings. The hotel is just four kilometers from the island's international airport." Their factsheet can be found here. This hotel is in a ...
Norwich City Council has approved a planning application from the Home Office for an "interview and administration" centre on Duke Street, which will be used to place all passport applicants on the ID database once the scheme starts.
Gordon Brown is today making a speech to Labour activist in Scotland warning that success for the SNP will lead to the break up of the UK. He warns that this would be bad for Scotland. What Gordon does not say is that this would be good news financially for England. Despite what the Scots think about North Sea Oil (of which part would be in English territorial waters anyway), the main contributor to wealth in the UK is the City of London, which generates tens of billions in invisible earnings and allows the UK government to spend more per ...
This weekend promises great things. I am going Christmas shopping in Manchester today (after some lunchtime Focus delivery), where I will buy a load of useless trinkets for friends, and make my way through a shocking amount of money for the exclusive purpose of giving and receiving unwanted tat that will clutter my house for years. I have bought for my Mum and Tamsin already, so there are plenty
Two stories from the press to keep you in touch with Labour past and Labour future.
I returned home from London last night, but hurried out again for a quiz night I was attending (our team JUST missed out on the bronze medal position, finishing 4th. Out of 5…). My couple of days down South were interesting – again I was meeting the lawyers involved in Oldham MBC’s proposed Public/Private Partnership deal. The negotiations are complicated, to say the least, and it’s amazing how
The Norwich Evening news reports that the local Primary Care Trust are making some people wait up to a year for some treatments so that others can have the new wonder drug herceptin. Read the story HERE. What is sad about this is that because a new treatment is available that can save lives, a new treatment which in many ways is a major leap forward in treatment, there has been no matching leap forward in funding for PCT's to support he use of this drug. When herceptin can cost tnes of thousands of pounds for a single treatment, it ...
I was interested to read a report in today’s Guardian which states: “London’s 2012 election would be in May, three months before the Olympics. Mr Livingstone has been trying to get the election date pushed back to 2013 but conceded this week that the timetable will not be changed.” because the proximity of the date of the [...]
I’m slaving over a hot riso producing Christmas cards. This year, we opted for a rather lovely colour front preprinted by Park with the insides being printed in 22 versions by our good selves. We have promised the activists they will be ready for the 1st December, so it’s now become a bit [...] | < | November 2006 | > | ||||
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | ||
