100 million Europeans travel within the EU every year. Whilst Britiain's emergency 999 call number will be preserved, because we can not ask citizens to remember the emergency numbers of every Member State, the single European emergency call number 112 was established in 1991. 2/3 of Europeans unaware of the single European emergency call number 112. European Commission figures show that every
I am currently reading Andrew McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street. One character reports having offered a new hymn to the Church of Scotland when it was revising its hymnary. It began: God's never heard of Belgium, But loves it just the same, For God is kind And doesn't mind - He's not impressed with fame.
The Tories have selected this man as Parliamentary candidate for Tooting: Oh dear.
It isn't necessarily that often that I find myself in agreement with Lord Greaves of Pendle, coming as we do from rather different strands of liberalism. However, I was moved by his letter in this morning's Guardian, attacking a recent proposal by Ruth Kelly (and I do accept that attacking anything that comes from Ruth Kelly is like shooting drugged fish in a small bucket). Her latest idea is to
I've read a few blogs today that have made mention of the Westminster Challenge, I didn't make a note of them all, but HERE is one link. Now I don't know any of the MP's who are doing the challenge personally, but I can claim to know the man who started the charity up. He is Rachard Stephenson (pictured right) , a Tory, a former Vice chariman of the Conservative conference, a former member of various things Tory, a PR guru (whatever that means), but most importantly to me, he was my best mate at University, was my best man ...
Lib Dem MP Norman Baker has succeeded in forcing the Commons authorities to publish MPs travel claims.
The BBC story says it all really, but it does thrown up some interesting stories. Read the report HERE.
Local Liberal Democrat MP, Simon Hughes is making a good point in the following article about recent comments by Judge Paul Collins in respect of the crisis in the Courts, currently under the ministry of local Labour MP, Harriet Harman. Broadly that the civil court system is on the verge of collapse due to under-funding and low staff morale. There's something in this that hints at the wider problems facing the criminal justice process. We know Labour's crime policies are geared towards generating headlines and protecting the public... in that order. Consequently there are welcome boosts in resources for ...
What a shocking indictment of this Labour government and all its rhetoric on making a difference in to children's lives that Britain, one of the richest nations in the world came bottom of the league of the top 21 industrial nations in the world in a Unicef report in to child welfare. Read the report on this HERE. The reports makes clear that the only area, thankfully for me as a teacher, that we scored highly in was education. In all other areas, the UK was in the bottom third. If all else fails this year in ...
Generally the BBC's editors blog is quite dull. Generally used by programme editors to either puff their programme or defend an editorial decision that has annoyed a particular lobby group. I was therefore surprised to see this piece from Kevin Marsh laying into the Sun and Richard Littlejohn for questioning the BBC's decision not suspend their critical facilities in reporting the recent terror
IMG_0416 Originally uploaded by Radders. Only just had a chance to post this. Campus had large array of various sizes of snow men/sculptures. But this one was the best of the lot. Unfortunately it didn't last long because of the fluctuating temperature and the rapid thaw on Saturday :(
Today's Council Business Management Committee had an agenda that should have taken about 15 minutes. But we had 16 Iraqi teachers visiting the Council House, and they sat in on part of the meeting. After 10 minutes of welcoming speeches (and translations), we finally began the meeting. At which point the guests moved on to meet the Lord Mayor. Hopefully they will have seen that all the major parties are able to sit around the table and agree timings and protocols as equals.
Welsh Liberal Democrat deputy spokesperson on the environment Veronica Watkins, candidate for South Wales East, said: “Government and the public sector must take the lead if Wales is to play a leading role in the green revolution. “Welsh Liberal Democrats will demand the green switch across the public sector in Wales. All public buildings should be generating renewable energy on-site in the future. To start with, I want to set a condition that all new public buildings must generate at least 15% of their energy needs through on-site micro-generation. “Once we start with that, we can demand the same ...
Trust in Wales Ymddiried yng Nghymru WELSH LIBERAL DEMOCRATS DEMOCRATIAID RHYDDFRYDOL CYMRU …AND SHE’S OFF! MUSH! - WILLOTT Today, Jenny Willott, Welsh Liberal Democrat MP for Cardiff Central, sets off to the Arctic to take part in a 400km husky ride trek, organized by the Westminster Challenge, to raise funds for three national charities (Cancer Research UK, The Children’s Society and Crimestoppers) and local Welsh charity, Ty Hafan, the Children’s Hospice based near Barry. Jenny will be joined on the carbon neutral trek by 4 other MPs from across the political spectrum – Nick Clegg (LD), Ed ...
Just back from an evening canvassing in the Speke/Garston by election. As usual when I leave the house it decided to rain .. so the group of us had a rather damp time (although we managed to speak to quite a few people and got a good response). At one house a lady wanted to show me a leaflet she had from the BNP (it was already in her bin). And when I got home another local person had e mailed me to warn me that the BNP were out delivering and to say it made him ... 
Something for all those sick to death of the annual luuurve fest. It made me smile anyway.
Last night was Oxford City Council's budget-setting meeting. It's always a long-winded, grandstanding, pettily partisan affair (show me a Council budget debate which isn't); this year's was no exception. As you may gather, I'm no fan of such occasions. But as I was co-presenting the Lib Dem administration's budget, I had little choice but to endure the whole seven hours from start to finish. You
There was lot of grumbling last month when the Bank of England surprised the City with another interest rate increase. These figures show how spot on the Bank's judgement was.
What an odd day. First an apology, it seems there was a request at the beginning of last night's meeting not to take photos, which I missed as one of the people who came in late from the group waiting outside. So a photo briefly appeared on the blog and was taken down as soon as I found out about the request later in the afternoon. Odd though was that the way I found out about this was via the South London Press. It seems a concerned citizen from the meeting had contacted them, the organisers and Borough Commander ...
The British Council of Jedi are the voice of British Jedi. We exist to represent the rights of all Jedi to the UK Government and to demand that Jedi are given equal rights alongside the other main faiths in the UK. We want: * a total ban on religious hatred against Jedi and criticism of our sacred [...]
I forgot to report back on what response I received regarding Steve (not his real name) whom I met on Christmas day at the homeless centre in Torquay – see blog 26th December 2006. I wrote that Steve ...
In the past couple of weeks, on the Guardian there’s been a debate mostly among Jews on what Jews think of Israel. Brian Klug kicked it off denouncing the Board of Deputies of British Jews for taking a partisan position in favour of Israel without admitting any divergence of opinion. The Board, who, as Klug explains, call themselves ‘the voice of British Jewry’ is far from representative, in fact it's mostly made up of people from north-west London. Personally, aside from preferring the satirical version of the Board, I can’t see why there should be a ‘voice of British Jewry’ ...
Probably not since the last series of 'Extras' have I looked forward so much to the return of a TV series. Anyone who hasn't seen it before, where have you been ? 9pm tonight, BBC1, watch it.
Finding no stimulation from my normal haunts, I am reverting to my second childhood and finding inspiration from BBC Newsround again. Eureka! Something to blog about: "Pupils banned from playing tag" It seems that journalists are hanging around trying to turn up every possible little story about rule changes in schools. Last week it was about Mothers' Day cards. This week it is playing tag. (I
...well, not many anyway. A while ago now, David Bellamy accused wind farms of killing thousands of birds. Notwithstanding the fact that Bellamy, a childhood hero, has now gone mad and is gibbering on about things like global warming being made up, some people who are against wind farms noticed and starting using his support like it was some sort of argument winner. Now it was clearly untrue (
A little known Parliamentary by-election has been called. And the constituency which has the delight of going to the polls is? Well, there ain't one. Instead, this is one of the bizarre results of the miserable failure of Lords reform and the absurd compromise of 1999 leaving 92 hereditary peers in the Lords. The by-election is for the vacancy left by the late hereditary Tory peer Lord Mowbray
On my walk in to work this morning I was surprised to see the headline of the local paper. Apparently the BNP are running 'patrols' here in Bath, and the story was about the police saying it was a bad thing. Curious, I went to the paper's Web site where you can comment on stories and saw this. At the time of writing nearly all of the comments are obviously from BNP members who have rallied to
In December 2006 Jersey skydiver Michael Holmes jumped out of a plane as normal but, because the parachute failed, he fell and survived he’s now made money selling rights to the video footage of the fall. Michael has been interviewed and the footage screened around the world and the UK is no different. In the UK [...]
Local councillor Stephen Tall has more.
He’s back. And he’s even more bonkers than before. The arch eurosceptic who wants us out of the EU, nevertheless is now insisting that the Commission should prepare legislation to make it illegal to exclude women from mosques and prevent M&S from installing distorted mirrors. Personally, I stood in front of the radio open mouthed this [...] 
I was very sad to hear about Julian's sudden death. A former City Councillor for the Horsforth Ward and parliamentary Candidate for Pudsey, he had remained a very active liberal at regional level. I wouldn't claim to have known him well but he was always inspirational towards younger people in the party as well as being very generous financially. I heard about his death during the prayers at St Michael's on Sunday night. Its quite jolting as familiar liturgy takes on a far more personal meaning as a name is read out. Although ill for a while I assumed ...
Denis MacShane’s article on the evils of the government’s proposals for Lords reform is, to be charitable, a little confused. Let’s get this straight: So why, then, will I go into the opposition lobby next week? It is over the proposal to tear up more than seven centuries of history and require MPs to sit [...]
For reasons I will explain shortly I have been counting the number of takeaway menus comming through my letter box since the beginning of the year. As of lunch time today it was 123 or just shy of 4 per day on average. With takeaways dominating the areas shopping frontages and a young, highly mobile population local operators have opted for an arms race approach to direct marketing. If you included all flyers then the totals would double. This has quite rightly upset the "Independent" community news letter " Hurley Burley" ( Which ironically is a free ...
On leave today, sat watching Will on Countdown. Grace keeps shouting better answers than both Will and his opponent (infuriating). Hard luck Will, but a valiant attempt. P.S. I don't like Des 2
My history of links on this blog isn't good but try www.myspace.com/hydeparkunityday for infomation on previous events and how to get involved in this years event. Unity day is completely apolitical but that doesn't stop me loving it dearly. It was born out of the Hyde Park "riots" of 1994 and a determination to show case what was good about the area. The subsequent onslaught of Landlordism and the " Bomb Factory" discovery after 7/7 in 2005 has made that task as vital as ever. The real reason I love it though is the social ...
Newquay Airport provides an absolutely vital link between Cornwall and London (amongst other destinations). The airport has not only proven vital for tourism (especially enhancing the short breaks market) but also for business and attracting Inward Investment. The upcoming withdrawal of RAF St Mawgan has been of great worry to the local population and our local authorities having been working hard on how to make it profitable and financially viable in the long run. The news that the airport has secured £11million of Objective One funding, thus enabling the County Council to borrow a further £10m, will surely be ...
I don't care if they say it's man flu. All I know is that my head is being pounded by a thousand tiny hammer-carrying elves who have taken residence in my skull. Off work today. Have made it downstairs at last. There's nothing for me here except groaning, shivers and mucus. I am picking up a dozen grapes and going back to bed. I may be goen for some time. Rick
I’ve been reflecting on the nature of tribal allegiances today - Oxford readers will know why, as the Lib Dem city group has experienced another defection, the third since last May. (Two to Independents, including this week’s, and one to Labour.) Understandably, I guess, the local press is trailing it as a ‘bombshell’, and implies some kind of internal turmoil. Not remotely true - as a minority
At Minuteman Press on Walcot Street we are looking for 2 print shop assistants. If you know anyone who may be interested please do ask them to get in contact.
Seventies Man is back, we are told. The new drama series Life On Mars will take us back to the 1970's where men were 'men', meaning boorish sexist, racist, alcoholic and chain smokers. How delightful. The article suggests that the makers of the show did not have a problem with the sexism because "we've overcome that". Maybe on Mars, certainly not here. If we've overcome that, why has the consumption of pornography increased drastically? Why have 'lads' mags' made their appearance relatively recently? Why are women still being paid far less than men (18% for full-time work and 40% in ...
It's the Scottish Lib Dem Spring Conference in Aviemore this weekend so I'm heading up to help with the set up tomorrow. You see our Conference Committee Convener, Helen, has been laid low with pneumonia. She is, thankfully, out of hospital and on the mend but her Medics and friends have warned her that she must take things easy at Conference - I threatened to tie her to a chair if she does too much. With the Committee's other Vice Convener unable to attend due to Council committments lucky old me gets to be the one running about like the ...
I have just popped into the Mothers' Union shop just down the road from Cowley St to buy a get well card for a constituent and a couple of stamps (okay, yes I needed to get a Valentine's Day card as well). The scene that hit me as I walked in through the doors will be with me for the rest of my life. Hordes of people battling to get the few remaining Valentine cards. Elbows were the secret
Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary and North Norfolk MP, Norman Lamb, has written to Patricia Hewitt about the failure of health trusts to take urgent action to prevent bird flu crossing over to become a human condition. Norfolk PCT and Yarmouth and Waveney PCT, both covering areas with large poultry farms, have yet to start immunising poultry workers, despite directions by the Department of Health over three weeks ago to start the operation. Cambridgeshire PCT has reported that no immunisations have taken place as yet, with the first ones not scheduled until February 19th. Commenting, Norman Lamb said: ...
The local party executive of South Staffordshire Conservative have failed to readopt their MP - Sir Patrick Cormack - for the next general election.
Malvern Hills District Council Chairman, Councillor George Price has joined the Liberal Democrat Group on the District Council. Councillor Price represents Tenbury and was previously an Independent before joining the Liberal Democrats last week.
There were 4 other guests plus the presenter on Radio 5 last night so getting a word in wasn't easy. The subject was Gordon Brown's announcement that he wanted 4 hours of sport in every school b...
I just discovered that the art-group known as Paperrad have a blog. In case you have trouble picking out text through the hyper-saturated backgrounds they love, they have an RSS feed which is here: RSS
The Prime Minister’s website had a petition engine added to it at the end of last year that was discussed by folks in the eDemocracy community as a development on which the jury was still out. Today, it hits the mainstream media because of the large number of signatures that have been added [...]
I anticipate a tide of incredulity will sweep the Tory blogs, at news of Patrick Cormack’s failure to be re-selected as Conservative candidate for South Staffs. The man enjoys a considerable personal following, but perhaps his luddite tendency isn’t a great advertisment for an ‘in-touch’ Tory party. As the constituency website makes evident, “Sir Patrick Cormack does not respond to emails.” Neither apparently, do Somerton and Frome Conservatives. I emailed them two months ago to ask where their candidate (Annunziata Rees-Mogg) was educated, since her brother Jacob, Tory candidate in nearby North East Somerset, had compared non-Oxbridge types to ...
Patrick Cormack, the Tory MP who huffed and puffed about not being able to take his rightful place in Parliament and whinged that he couldn’t participate in the 1922 committee elections because of the minor inconvenience of his Liberal Democrat challenger dying during the last election, has failed to be reselected by his constituency party. And [...]
It’s been a while since my last post. Don’t worry I’m not dead. I have a few ideas for new posts that I’m working on, in fact seven are half written and saved as drafts in Wordpress - I just haven’t had time or inspiration to finish them yet. In the meantime I’ve launched a new [...]
The European Space Agency have released ‘walking maps’ of Mars at a 1:200,000 scale (each grid square in that image is 15km square). Maybe that should be my next walk?
The party’s started a new service to advertise in advance major appearances in the media by Liberal Democrat MPs and other senior figures. We’ll be advertising in advance set-piece interviews, appearances on panel shows like Any Questions? and similar. The service is being run through FlockTogether. You can subscribe to the service either by: Using this feed: [...]
Many of the party’s online films are now available in widescreen format courtesy of the new Public.TV website. Just what’s needed to enjoy in full all those exicting gladiator races in the background…
The chairman of Malvern District Council, formerly an independent, has joined the Liberal Democrats. This balances out a switch away from the Liberal Democrats of another councillor the week before. More details on the local paper’s website. Hat tip: Liberal Review.
The National Trust, this morning, have issued a stark warning about the impact of global warming on Wales' coastline. Their report, Shifting Shores, shows that more than 70% of the coastline managed by the Trust in Wales, much of it internationally renowned, is under threat from coastal erosion and flooding. The land covers more than 143 miles bordering the sea - a sixth of the Welsh coastline. The Environment Agency confirms this trend: A spokesman said, "The Severn Estuary is at high risk of flooding and the Lleyn Peninsula, inner Severn and Dee Estuary are vulnerable to coastal erosion ...
It is a lovely day in central London, how about where you are? I may go and sit in the park at lunchtime. The commuters were jolly this morning, and I even stopped to help some lost tourists find parliament. Birds are singing, the sun is shining… …something’s going to go horribly wrong, isn’t it?
Gumby and his clones put on an exciting concert:
It is now nearly two years since I started blogging, firstly as a General Election candidate, and then after the election on this site. The initial purpose was to share experiences about the campaign, which were by and large both positive and fun. When I began to blog here, I initially took a pretty broad remit, to talk about things that interested me from a broadly Liberal perspective. I wrote about books and authors that interested me, about places and in particular about Central and Eastern Europe and about British politics. Since I have a senior role in ...
A very moving ceremony last night as I attended the KPC Youth Centre in Pyle, Bridgend for the unveiling of a memorial bench for Helena Parobij, who founded the centre. Helena was a quite remarkable woman, who following the drug-related death of her 18 year old son effectively squatted on a parcel of Council land at the rear of her house, enlisted the help of local businesses, moved the old canteen from Parc Prison there and opened up a youth club. She did all of this without any help from the local authority and , through a series ...
Standing room only last night at the public meeting in Peckham to discuss the recent spate of gun-murders that have been unsettling the community. The room had capacity for 250, which was comfortably filled with several dozen outside listening through the open windows. This was a meeting where the politicians and Police were there to listen to local people rather than each other so there was very little of the point-scoring we've seen recently in the local press. The mood was cathartic and emotional at times. Some people had children or relatives that had been involved on both ...
Nich Starling writes that lots of people have been looking for donations by Bernard Matthews to the Labour Party. They could have saved the web space - Matthews is a Tory donor. I’m sure I remember local press reports of his donations to the Tories when I was working in Norfolk but he has made a [...]
Right-wing Rumblings continue against Cameron, with the latest blast from Edward Leigh. But what is the strategy behind the attacks?
The Adam Smith Institute link to this post that makes the point that climate scientists are probably not the best people to comment on economics. This is somewhat self-evident - if I want my hair cutting, I wouldn't ask an architect (well, I might but that's a different story). This point entirely conceded, I'm somewhat confused why Dr Alister McFarqhur (an agricultural economist) and Dr Madsen
The government claims it is undergoing a period of debate and consultation ahead of a final decision although it is starkly clear that the decision to develop a new generation of weapons has already been taken. That much was clear nearly a year ago when The Sunday Times ran a piece entitled Revealed: UK develops secret nuclear warhead. I blogged about this at the time and my main concern was that the debate should take place in the open and parliament should have the final say on whether or not we want a replacement and if so what form that ...
Saturday: Daddy Alex is warning me about this, but I am going to let Daddy Richard do another review. Cross my tusks and wish for luck! For the last couple of weeks I have been walking through Bank tube station, on my way to work, past a couple of posters for "Coming Soon" ITV drama Primeval. On Friday, the day before the series was due to launch, and with the immaculate timing that only ITV seem able to achieve, these posters were replaced by ones of a woman in her knickers. So was Primeval really pants? ...
Sunday: Oh, come on you didn't think I was going to let THIS one go past, did you? Mr Balloon says that recreational cannabis use should be CRIMINAL. Unless it's HIM, of course. That'd be one rule for him and one for the rest of us the? Or is he going to go and check himself into the local BIG HOUSE to pay off the debt to society he'd say anyone else has incurred? Obviously it would be too much to except the Conservatories actually to have a policy on this, but ...
Even if I do say so myself, it is nice to know that this blog is read in high places (by which I do not mean behind the bike sheds at Eton). No sooner do I make a point about the depiction of torture in 24, than The Independent reports that Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan of the United States Military Academy at West Point has hopped on a plane to Hollywood Fox about the effect the show was | < | February 2007 | > | ||||
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