We had a marathon session of the Dulwich Community Council this evening. I always enjoy these sessions and I am very proud that the Liberal Democrats have ensured that planning decisions are made locally by councillors who know the area and issues involved. Bizzarely it is still the position of Labour councillors that all planning [...]
On campus at Sussex Uni today - spotted a poster advertising future speakers for the Politics Society. It included Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesman Nick Glegg… No honours for those politics students then but it could have been worse - they could have invited Norman Glam…or Ed Gravey… or Lembit Opik…
Posted by Chris: The nonsense in today's edition of the Evening Gazette criticising our withdrawing funding from Tees Valley Regeneration needs proper explanation: We have agreed not to pay £50,000 towards the costs of two project officers. We have already paid out a quarter of a million pounds to this organisation over the past four years and they have not promoted a single project in our Borough. The organisation is concentrating its efforts in the area between Middlesbrough and Stockton. They refused to support Coatham Links but expect us to back Middlehaven, which we are happy to ...
Posted by Chris: The nonsense in today's edition of the Evening Gazette criticising our withdrawal of funding from Tees Valley Regeneration needs proper explanation: We have agreed not to pay £50,000 towards the costs of two project officers. We have already paid out a quarter of a million pounds to this organisation over the past four years and they have not promoted a single project in our Borough. The organisation is concentrating its efforts in the area between Middlesbrough and Stockton. They refused to support Coatham Links but expect us to back Middlehaven, which we are happy ...
Simon Jenkins recently wrote in the Guardian: In my youth I was a rail enthusiast and member of the board of British Rail. I was sure of the need to privatise the railway, to free managerial blockages and liberate its entrepreneurial spirit. But one thing was vital, to retain the vertical management crucial to operational discipline. If the railway were to be divided, it should be as in the old days, into integrated regional companies, with managers controlling assets, risks and balance sheets as one.Between 1991 and 1993 this argument was lost. John Major, Norman Lamont and the transport secretary, ...
Posted by Chris: Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council is to host the Yorkshire Society's Yorkshire Day Celebrations on 1st August 2008. Only the Labour Councillors voted against. The motion was passed at today's meeting of the Full Council. We will be setting up a steering group to begin preparations as soon as possible. Below are my comments in proposing the motion. The Council has received an invitation from the Yorkshire Society to host their Yorkshire Day celebrations on 1st August 2008. I should add that this is a completely separate organisation from the Yorkshire Ridings Society, which ...
Posted by Chris: Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council is to host the Yorkshire Society's Yorkshire Day Celebrations on 1st August 2008. A motion was passed at today's meeting of the Full Council and only the Labour councillors voted against it. We will be setting up a steering group to begin preparations as soon as possible. The Council had received an invitation from the Yorkshire Society to host the celebrations. I should add that this is a completely separate organisation from the Yorkshire Ridings Society, which I currently chair. The Yorkshire Society was formed in 1980 and ...
OK............since no one has come up with a suggestion, can I suggest that anyone who wants to hook up heads for the bar at 10pm on Sat eve? I will be the one roaming the tables trying to find someone with wi-fi.................oh and possibly with a No Replacement Trident T shirr.
I got a bit of a ticking off earlier from my pal, star of stage and Guardian, Colin Ross for using the word "battle" to describe the Trident debate on Saturday. Sorry Col, my problem is that at heart I am an old soldier! So, I have to confess to always relishing a "fight", precisely because if my beliefs and values mean anything they are worth fighting for. Now, as a Liberal Democrat I have some experience of losing (!) and as a bit of a "lefty" in the party I have had the same experience at conference ...
It is true then? Labour really are gearing up for a spell in opposition.
With thanks to the West End Adult Learning Team, please click on the headline above to read about an initiative to promote activities for local residents whose first language in not English. A great initiative!
Lambeth Liberal Democrats and tomorrow's South London Press are both reporting the huge protest at Lambeth Town Hall on Wednesday against the worst Council in London's cuts to services for the elderly and vulnerable. Protesters became so angry at the Labour Executive during a debate on the budget that they stormed the public gallery demanding that they come out and explain themselves to the estimated 500 people who had turned up. Charges for home-care services are to rise from £7.55 per hour to £17.50, resulting in an hourly charge significantly higher than even the amount the ...
Having just checked out my bank details online, I thought I'd examine my credit limits. There is a box on the screen which says "Ammend credit limits". Since I have a ludicrously high credit limit, I thought I'd lower it by several thousand. I was therefore slightly astonished that although I could move my credit limit "up" online, I had to phone a telephone number to "lower" it. No wonder consumer debt is such a problem when banks make it so easy to get in to debt but make it so much harder to be careful.
This afternoon was one of South Liverpool Housing's Community Focus Groups. These are mainly for local residents but others are invited too, and councillors tend to get invited every three months. Today's was particularly interesting as the guest speakers included a rep from the airport, someone from Arriva buses and someone from the PCT. The PCT has a grant fund for community groups - everyone took a lot of notes at that point! I have to say I am very impressed that SLH organise these meetings. It's a useful way of them getting community ...
Earlier this week I met the gentleman organising the consultation about the use of money from sale of the land where the old Bankfield House used to be (the corner of Banks Road and Brunswick Street). The Council has, quite rightly, said there won't be planning permission unless proceeds go into some "tangible community benefit" - so a plan's being drawn up to make sure of that. We had a good discussion about feedback from the local community about where money could go. I made some suggestions - the urban village hall was one. I think ...
This is a little scale model of a Tesco oil tanker, but importantly, it carries the same message on the side as the real Tesco oil tankers. "Why pay more ?"Um, it surely doesn't need a rocket scientist or diagrams to answer that question does it ?
I've been away for part of the week in Northern Ireland and now ploughing through ward issues on return. A huge postbag following the latest West End FOCUS newsletter with some very helpful contributions from residents on many local issues. On return, received complaints from residents about the increasing problem about parking on Magdalen Green; it was particularly highlighted by an HGV parking on the Green (see above right) earlier this week. We have a site visit with the Police & Council staff to progress a solution next Tuesday. Before going back to a joyous ...
Probably the biggest challenge for the Mayor is chairing Budget Council. Fortunately it comes towards the end of the municipal year when some experience in chairing Council meetings has already been gained. Last night Kingston Council agreed the Budget and set the council tax rate for 2007-2008. The Budget proposals were presented to Executive last month and then went on to the...
To comment on the performance of the leader of a political party – a person at the top of their game – requires gravitas, oodles of political knowledge and skill, and a good few decades experience of politics under your belt. I have none of these things, so as I look back on Menzies Campbell’s first [...]
2% for nurses ? What an absolute insult on top of the job losses in the NHS this year, the cutting of services to reduce budget defecits and the low morale already a problem for NHS staff. It's so bad that nurses are even becoming a charity case. I hope NHS staff remember this come May 3rd.
That was the title of a conference for sixth formers that I chaired yesterday. It explored how the media presents beliefs, values and ethics. At the centre of the day was a 'Question Time' panel session chaired very ably by Edward Davey MP. The panel included prominent local members of a number of faiths and belief systems - Jew, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh and Humanist. ...
Last week I was listening to the radio in the usual half-waking half-sleeping state I find myself in at 7a.m., and thought I was hearing things. The presenter indicated that Ruth Kelly, the Communities and Local Government Secretary was about to release a report suggesting the end of secure tenancies for Council tenants. It turned out as the week went on that this was real, although it is just a report, not government policy... yet. For Labour to consider ending secure tenancies is rather like the Tories considering introducing a 50p tax rate on the moderately well-off. It would ...
This week’s Bagehot column in the Economist carries a pretty fair assessment of the Lib Dem position one year into the Ming dynasty: Nobody can say that Sir Menzies Campbell has had an easy first year as leader of his party. As poisoned chalices go, the leadership of the Liberal Democrats 12 months ago resembled something rustled up by Lucrezia Borgia on one of her more vengeful days. Yet this
It might seem early, but I have already arrived at the Lib Dem Spring Conference in Harrogate that starts tomorrow evening. I have arrived early so I can help set up registration. So for those who are coming you will be pleased to know that the computers and printers that produce conference badges are (more or less) [...]
In about an hour or so, I’ll be sitting in the back room of a pub with a dismal turn out of locals all discussing crime. I live in an okay area of Manchester city centre, which benefits from being quieter than most of the city because it runs alongside the Ship Canal. [...] 
It's good to see that someone at least outside of America is sticking up for the country. Naturally it's a rather artificial question, but still important to pose because it forces people (hopefully) to look beyond the presidency and person of George Bush. From a historical perspective America has on balance been a force for greater personal rights, freedoms and economic advancement, which has allowed us the enjoy those things in life a bit longer. It's not at all unreasonable to say that the survival of those ideas was in serious jeopardy at various times in the past, and without ...
There is huge excitement at Bodger’s Spinney as we look forward to this weekend’s annual Spinney Wreck Competition. Rival teams have been preparing for months, in utmost secrecy, their re-enactments of The Wreck Of The Deutschland and The Wreck Of The Hesperus. As ever when the Jesuits meet the Hiawathas, there is a sense of [...]
There's been a lot of grousing and discussion lately about the enormous disparity in wealth between a couple of thousand people in the City of London and everyone else. I found this article interesting in unravelling some of the reasons why it seems to have come about. A lot of ideas for rectifying this issue are very misconceived because they contain fundamental hostility to, or ignorance about, the circumstances which have given rise to the phenomenon.
I have just received a telephone call from a man claiming to be from Signature Regency Holdings. He spoke very quickly, asked me to write something down, and started to talk about petroleum shares and business opportunities. It all sounded very promising. However, I loused up my chance to make a fast buck by telling him that I felt that one of us was clearly wasting the other’s time and then hanging up the phone. What has rendered our society so barren of soul that we cannot trust a random stranger over the telephone?A site for political analysis ...
Potential good new for the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. According to Ipsos-Mori, they are up to 9% in the polls. Even with a large margin of error, that is good news for a party which languished on 3.7% last time, although they managed to hold onto their 6 seats. Also interesting is the sudden appearance [...] 
News has reached me that the Leaders office is doing a ring round of PPCs prior to the trident debate at conference on Saturday, and being whipped into attending! Maybe they realise that the hall may be lacking in enough high profile LDs, as I've heard via other sources that various members of the parliamentary party will be strategically absent for the vote.
Tomorrow night there will be three fringe debates on Trident for those going to Liberal Democrat Conference in Harrogate. Sadly two of them clash, but if you are still undecided and want to hear more before the debate or even if you have decided and want to hear more go along, listen and participate.
Welsh Liberal Democrat Culture spokesperson Eleanor Burnham, AM for North Wales, said: “The Welsh language is treasure that we can all be proud of. It enriches Welsh life and makes Wales special. The current Welsh Language Act does not do enough to facilitate and promote the use of the Welsh across all aspects of life and government. Wales deserves a new act, and the Assembly’s new powers mean it can be made in Wales “I want to see a new law which gives people the right to services in Welsh. By establishing specific rights it ...
Trust in Wales Ymddiried yng Nghymru Eleanor Burnham AM has slammed the UK government for it’s refusal to listen to Welsh calls to make St David’s Day a national holiday. Over 11,000 people called upon the UK government to make St David’s Day a national bank holiday as is currently the case with St Patrick’s Day in Northern Ireland. The Welsh Liberal Democrats have already committed to demanding the Assembly powers necessary to make St David’s Day a national holiday in Wales. Ms Burnham, Welsh Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Culture and Assembly Member for North ...
Thursday 1st March 2007 - We've been in a bit of an "amendment frenzy" in the Team Karim Brussels office this week! I am the Liberal Group's shadow rapporteur for 2 reports on the International Trade Committee's agenda this week. As far as trade goes, I have been working on the Parliament's reports on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and the EU's Aid for Trade policy. Both cover
I’m not convinced that Alan Grant and Pat Mills’ politics would allow them to accept an honour, but this seems to be an entirely estimable exercise: We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to award knighthoods to John Wagner, Pat Mills and Alan Grant, in recognition of the 30th anniversary of the great British comic, 2000AD. Incidentally, [...]
When Mirror journalists ramped shares they'd recently bought, and then sold them after they rose in response they ended up in jail. The 'City Slickers' affair nearly destroyed Piers Morgan's career many years before his Iraq pictures. How handy then that the rise of new markets offer less risky ways for commentators to make money from their words. Guido Fawkes - widely read and closely followed by the political elite - recommended a bet on the Labour leadership market, then piled out shortly thereafter which you can do with spread betting. As he put it: "Even easier than investing ...
The Scottish Liberal Democrats at their Spring Conference a couple of weekends ago had a consultation session on Trident. I am told, by Caron Lindsay, that although the speakers were fairly well balanced, and they called everyone who had put in a card, it was very clear that the feeling in the hall was overwhelmingly against the renewal of Trident. Everyone who took that line was cheered to the rafters and everyone who supported the Harrogate motion got at best polite applause.
I have been muttering to myself for some days (though, unusually, not on this blog) that if our NATO allies - with the honourable exception of the North Americans - are not prepared to pull their weight in Afghansitan, and if we are going to be obliged to plug the gap ourselves, then we should withdraw our Bosnia garrison. Now it appears that the Government has decided to do just that. Of course, they’re being too diplomatic to say so. But the timing is very suspicious.A site for political analysis and opinion of an avowedly liberal view. It's all ...
I was delighted to read this article in the Guardian on the latest fantastic project by A National Voice - an organisation run by and for young people in and leaving the care system. I’m getting tired of hearing Labour activists tell me how fantastic things are for young people in the care system, [...]
I saw someone talking on their mobile whilst driving down Haverstock Hill and the local Safer Neighbourhood Team will now be going round to their home (they live in my ward apparently) to give them a ticking off. Today a guy walked past me with his pit-bull type dog, which took the opportunity to have a poo right there on the pavement. I went after him to request he pick up the poo, and he got fairly aggressive at the idea that someone should think this kind of thing unacceptable. Apart from the obvious point of personal safety, ...
Hornsey Carnival are looking for their next Carnival Queen so here are the details if you are interested:The winners will be honoured with representing the Association for 2007. The selected contestants will sit on the lead float of the Hornsey Carnival on Saturday 7 July through the streets of Hornsey. You will also have the honour to represent the Borough at other carnivals throughout the
Southwark News report Labour's betrayal of local residents Although no great surprise, once again Labour Minister Ruth Kelly has over-ruled Southwark Council's democratically agreed Development Plan and demanded that Rotherhithe, East Dulwich, Herne Hill and Nunhead be reclassified from suburban to urban - opening the door for developers to build tower blocks in low-rise areas, like the Barratt Homes development in Downtown , Rotherhithe. This comes in the same week that the government also rejected a petition from local opponents of Berkeley Homes tower blocks on Potters Fields, despite growing consensus for an alternative ecological and cultural plan ...
Read Chicken Yoghurt on the subject: How does Gordon Brown plan to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Britain? By reintroducing it.
This website is dedicated to telling the truth about the British government's September 2002 dossier Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction - that it was, after all, "sexed-up" by the government's spin doctors. It will use contemporaneous documents, transcripts of oral evidence and freedom of information requests to reveal who really wrote the dossier, how it was "sexed-up" as a result and how the government covered-up the truth. It will also solve the greatest political whodunnit of the century so far: who put the notorious 45 minutes claim in the dossier?Thanks to Iain Dale.
We’ve known for a long time that things in the UK are more expensive than in other parts of the world, it’s something as British citizens we’ve grown to live with - well more or less, there are some products we’ve managed to reduce the price gap on - but not everything. A prime example of [...]
On board with GNER wireless, waiting for a photo I need to download, the speed is at the bottom...
Yesterday's Guardian had a report by Clare Dyer on a new attempt by scientists to understand bird flu: A celebrated politician and diplomat who played a key role in the carve-up of the Middle East after the first world war is to be called on to perform a final service which could reap incalculable benefits for global health. Nearly 90 years after his death, researchers hoping to find the best way of treating the predicted bird flu pandemic have been given the go-ahead to exhume the body of Sir Mark Sykes, 6th baronet and co-author of the Sykes-Picot agreement, ...
Tagging is a big problem across the city. It appears that the government do not believe in prosecuting taggers unless they have done damage of £5,000. The problem is that there is a simple community punishment for taggers that will deter tagging - clear it up. This is not about locking up a tagger for years. It is simply making them clear up their mess. However, the government won't even do
Given the furore I caused last week by being rude about nationalists, I was somewhat disappointed that my piece about faith groups earlier in the week didn’t elicit at least one death threat. However, I am extremely grateful to Jim Denham for providing me with some info on the ‘moderate’ Islamic scholar Azzam Tamimi, which has [...]
Dr. David Southall Q:To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if she will ask local authorities to take steps to identify child protection cases since 1981 to which they have been party where requests for medical records were made by any party to the case to Dr. David Southall and to report to her any such cases. A:I have been asked to reply. Child protection cases
This Sky News article caught my eye, one which I feel sums up how many people are feeling about the ongoing conflict in Iraq. In particular the following comments from David Godfrey, grandfather of 21 year-old Daniel who died whilst protecting colleagues in Basra this week: “I can understand that if our country was indeed at war [...]
Well, nearing the end of a busy week and a busy weekend to come! I will be making the journey to Harrogate ... 7/8 hours from Cornwall!! But this does give me time to do some work on the journeys so all will not be in vain! I am looking forward to it and perhaps I'll meet some of you there. This week has been hectic and mainly about Real Baby Milk, it started off with a live studio interview on Radio Cornwall at 7.40am Monday about breastfeeding in public which went well, then getting the "Essential Guide to Breastfeeding" ...
The Guardian has a piece on Trident and the Liberal Democrat motion this weekend in today's paper (and online). They rung me yesterday for a quote and describe me as one of the most active campaigners against the official motion. I was interested to see one our MPs describe the motion as "a slightly uneasy mishmash created to ensure that something gets through conference." The full article is below:
Redcar and Cleveland Council's Mayor Councillor Mary Ovens is planning two major fund-raisers for her civic charities, the Marie Curie Cancer Care and the young people's Redcar support base, The Junction. There will be a concert featuring the Marske Fishermen's Choir and the talented youth choir, the Topline Community Arts Project, on Friday, March 30, in Redcar's Christ Church, Coatham Road, starting at 7pm. Tickets are £3. The annual Mayor's Charity Ball is at Gisborough Hall on Thursday, April 26 from 7pm. Tickets are £35 which includes a reception drink,three-course meal with wine and live entertainment. There will ...
I have pasted this information below because this event deserves to be known about as widely as possible. There is a more detailed flyer which I couldn't figure out how to copy across. Merseyside & Region Global Justice Issues Network (MARGJIN)invites you to its conference on climate change: "Living in a New Climate" with Penney Poyzer, environmental broadcaster/author and Tony Juniper, Director, Friends of the Earth on Saturday 17 March 10.00 - 4.15 at the Quaker Meeting House, School Lane, L1
URGENT ISSUE TOPIC SELECTED The topic for the ‘urgent issue’ discussion at Harrogate this weekend will be gun crime. It will be at 17:10 on Saturday. This topic was chosen by Federal Conference Committee and Federal Policy Committee officers, from a wide range of issues submitted by conference reps, and will give conference-goers a chance to [...]
I was reading over someone's shoulder on the bus today about how fantasy-roleplaying games are a channel for demons to inhabit your body. The book that the lady next to me was reading recounted, quite matter-of-factly, how visualising monsters in a game of (say) Dungeons and Dragons opened a channel for an innocent person to be inhabited by demons, and that anyone who could 'see' the events of a role-playing game they were taking part in was suffering demonic possession. I pondered this for a while - presumably I'm inhabited by demons and have been for some time, since starting ...
Drivers in Norfolk have been reporting to local garages with concerns over the performance of their vehicles. One such driver is Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Spokesman for Norwich South, Simon Wright, who has now written to the main supermarket chains supplying unleaded petrol in Norwich.
I am off to Harrogate later this morning. Training people tomorrow, then largely locking myself in my room and working on material for the Welsh elections. So missing the big debates. I will be at the rally, and may be at the candidates reception. Emerging for food and alcohol. Feel free to buy me (and Grace) one.
... is how I would describe myself after last night's canvassing for the by election in Speke/Garston. A good team of people out helping. Now if only we could do something about the weather!
With UKIP not "selecting" a disabled candidate, it has been easy for people to label them as picking on a poor disabled person. However, looking at UKIP home, it appears there is more to the story. Perhaps I am misunderstanding this, but to my mind it appears the disabled chap in question made threats to go to the press "if" UKIP stood a candidate against his daughter, who appears to be a councillor for another party. Perhaps I have got the wrong end of the stick and the guy in question has not made any "threats" at all, ...
The reason why Conservative AM, David Melding was looking so stressed the other day has become more evident this morning with this article about splits in the Welsh Tory Party over policy. Firstly, Preseli Pembrokeshire MP Stephen Crabb clashed with Conservative Assembly Leader, Nick Bourne, over his group's support for a Bank Holiday on St David's Day. He issued a statement saying, "St David's Day is a unique day in the school calendar and is enormously popular with children as well as their parents and teachers. While making St David's Day a public holiday would be popular with ...
Today I had the pleasure of a lunch with Campbell Dunford, CEO of the Renewable Energy Foundation and a discussion about the role of the local authority in helping lead the agenda for sustainable and renewable technologies. Here in Somerset we are of course blessed with on of the finest natural heratige landscapes in the country. So we have an obligation to not only maintain the integrity of our heritage but to provide for its long-term survival. We all now recognise that climate change and mans impact on the environment is a reality, and that we have ...
Wednesday: Daddy is waxing lyrical… Logopolis is described as the keystone of the universe, and similarly "Logopolis" is the keystone of Doctor Who's eighteenth season, with its story arc of CHANGE AND DECAY. Script editor and, for this story, author Christopher H. Bidmead wanted to base Doctor Who's stories on sound science again. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is NOT technobabble: it's not just words put together to "sound" like they mean real science. It IS real science. The entire story, the entire SEASON is building up to this one point: things fall apart; ...
In my rush yesterday to publicise the Dictionary of Liberal Thought, I didn’t get round yesterday to posting about Brighton and Hove’s controversial plan to allocate secondary school places by lottery. As I mentioned on this blog some while ago, this has always seemed to me the most equitable way of allocating places to oversubscribed schools. I base this conclusion on the following assumptions. Selection on grounds of academic ability is divisive and wrong. A system of schools with particular specialisms selecting on grounds of aptitude for music, sport or whatever is not much fairer. And allocating places ...
Hat-Tip: Ramblin' with Roger.
Been away from this for a few days, so forgive me for digging a week back for a small rant. Conservatives like to tell us they believe in the freedom of the individual, in a small government and fiscal responsibility (not that that actually happens). The dirty little secret is that they aren't like that at all. Tories are, at their core, authoritarian. If you take that desire to tell people how to live their lives and combine it with power at a national level, you inevitably get a dictative state (which anyone who experienced the ...
{Wiu_westend_large} I had the pleasure of seeing a preview of Whipping it Up last Saturday. A great show very much in the Yes Minister mold, lead superbly by Richard Wilson. He was very much in the Victor Meldrew mode, but it worked well, and old people swearing (a lot) is funny in itself. The audience was quite old (full of aging politicos I think), which did mean the one and only joke containing the C word caused H & I to nearly wet ourselves, and completely passed the rest of the audience by.
Lord Hanningfield is the most important councillor in Essex - he's the leader of the Conservative Group that runs the County Council. He's now had a an idea. According to the BBC: Lord Hanningfield, Conservative leader of Essex County Council, has called on the government to allow local bank holidays to celebrate local heroes. "Helen Mirren is a great ambassador for Essex", he said. "Ditch the | < | March 2007 | > | ||||
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