Remember that Simon Hughes told conference in the closing session before Ming’s speech that he was planning to help in a Nottinghamshire County Council by-election on his way home? Despite the filthy weather that day, Simon’s help clearly paid off. Today was polling day, and an intrepid count-goer has texted the result to Lib Dem [...]
“Blenkinsop! Blenkinsop! Fain wert thou embrinaged there at the harbourside! No turncoat cutpurse at the ducking stool sought to jar thy chaps. Was it but a toughening that smudged such gobby vexations, or was a man o’ poultry glutted on bream ‘n’ minnows? Fie! But how could that be?, you keen, spitter of pips [...]
In school I was a musical jack of all trades, but definitely master of none. With many years of unhappy piano lessons behind me I can’t even play chopsticks. I tried the guitar for a while, but I can’t remember even the basics of that anymore. I can still knock out a tune on the descant [...]
Blairwatch has an interview with Adam Curtis, whose three-part series The Trap is showing on BBC2 at the moment. What I'm trying to argue is that we have adopted, both our politicians and ourselves to an extent a narrow economic idea of what freedom means and that's based on the idea that the individual is free once his or her wants or needs are simply satisfied and is free just do what he or she wants. Other Ideas of freedom are actually about changing the world both individually or collectively and transforming it and having the power to do ...
Looks like TomTom have released an update to TomTom Navigator 6 for UIQ3 (P990/M600/W950). This update can be found by plugging your phone into your PC whilst TomTom Home is running. Unfortunately it looks like TomTom Home is actually unable to install the update though. So here’s my step by step guide. Plug your phone in to [...]
A question posited to some extent by the link which I shall read more of when I get the time. My own belief is that the answer on a collective basis is "yes - but not by much".
Whilst the Tories in the Commons may be deeply split on the issue of Gay rights the Lords party is almost as one . They don't like those Homos, no not at all. The Tory Lords split 70 to 4 against the sexual orientation regulations last night. On a free vote its an impressive example of philosophical cohesion. Pity their leader disagrees with them. Oh well the new caring sharing Tory party was
Parents who have been victims of miscarriages of justice and inappropriate prosecutions are planning a lobby of MPs next week. A meeting between Bill Bache, the legal advisor for Justice for Families and John Hemming MP, Chairman of Justice for families, is planning a lobby of MPs. Ian and Angela Gay, Angela Cannings and Marianne Williams have agreed to come to jointly lobby MPs on 28th March
With everyone on a income under £15,000 having their tax doubled, yesterday was a very dark day. I am still boiling at this. Brown deserves his come-uppance for this treachery towards the poor. Well done to Mark "Two brains" Law for spotting the Chancellor's sleight of hand, and ensuring that Menzies' response was spot on. This was in sharp contrast to David Cameron. To be fair, he only had a
I discovered earlier tonight that my sister reads this blog. I have no idea how on earth she found it, but, Honor, welcome to my world. And remember that if you were a nurse in England, you would have had to wait until October to get your pay rise in full............ Now what's the difference between the Government in England and the Scottish Executive? She tells me that she would have commented on here before now if she had known she could have done so anonymously. So from now on, she will get the blame for ... 
Last night we had our last pre-election night out, to Singalonga Sound of Music in Edinburgh. It was absolutely fabulous, although I had been somewhat worried by my daughter's insistence that, rather than put on her readily available cat costume, she would go as a wild goose flying high with the moon on her wings. With the help of Debbie at work, and with Elspeth's inspiration, we managed to create a sweet costume. I had never been before and had rather stupidly assumed that we would simply watch the film and sing along. In fact, there ...
The local SNP has been putting out a tabloid newspaper where I live. My first thought is that whoever designed it needs to go to Desk Top Publishing School. Two extremely unflattering mugshots in the front page doesn't necessarily pass the "Bin Test" - being able to grab the reader's attention in the time it takes from doorstep to bin. I only read it because I have to and I can't imagine it inspiring anyone else. I guess they may have been relying on the fact that it takes longer to get to the recycling bin ...
As readers may know today is World Water Day. Living in the UK where we have little difficulty finding clean and safe water we can sometime forget the importance of water. There are those who are less fortunate then us. I was surprised to hear that there are still more than one billion people in the world who lack access to a safe supply of water and instead have to drink from contaminated sources. As a result they face the prospect of illness and even death. 5000 children die every day as a result of drinking dirty water. ...
Ming Campbell recently took part in a Q+A session run by Friends of the Earth. You can watch the highlights on Friends of the Earth’s website.
The Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors (ALDC) and the Local Government Association(LGA) Liberal Democrat Group are working together on the first Liberal Democrat Local Government Conference. The Conference, to be held at the ICC in Birmingham on 23rd June 2007 will bring together Councillors, Parliamentarians and campaigners to discuss policy, exchange best practice and feature a packed programme of training.
Lots of people found it quite amusing to see me dressed up as a sardine in my last job, back in December. So, thought I would point you all to Sardine Man's website - now that he has been travelling around the country, squashed onto packed commuter trains: Sardine Man: Campaigning for better train journeys As the original guinea pig sardine, the photo of me at Leeds station is on the site for posterity. Good to see that the campaign has cracked on and is doing a great job of highlighting the lack of passenger capacity on ...
Oh, I know why! It's because it has members on its National Executive Committee (NEC) which advocate breaking the law. I'm referring to NEC member Sofie Buckland who is part of the "Education Not For Sale" bloc. In the Education Not for Sale "briefing" on ultra vires (compare the NUS briefing on ultra vires) they quite directly advocate ignoring the fact the ultra vires law exists and make the donation anyway, because chances are, you won't get caught, and even if you do, all that will occur is the organisation will have to pay the money back to the ...
I know. There has been nothing but wall to wall coverage of a topic that probably bores most people rigid anyway in places that have far more acumen and experience than this blog is likely to offer. But bear with me. Please. I'd like to draw your attention to this article in the Telegraph by Simon Heffer. No matter what your political persuasion, if you haven't read it already, please do. I think it's a country mile ahead of any other analysis I've read so far. At the end of the article Simon Heffer muses on the consequences ...
A very busy day today, both in work and outside of it. Hence not much time for a big blog, unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately…). I have been working on a presentation all day which the Chief Executive of the Authority I work for will give to another Local Authority next week, concerning the “improvement journey” of my Council. That took up the whole of my working day. Not that it is
The Wellswood Ward in Torquay sits around the harbourside and includes some of the most select and expensive housing in the South West of England. The boundaries of the ward are such that a majo... 
Do you recognise this statue? The photo was taken circa 1974 by a Resonance FM listener who dearly wants to know where this severely truncated work of art can be found. It occurred to me that the statue may never have been more than a pair of feet, so while not strictly dishonest, the text [...]
This story puts things into persepctive and makes you admire both Elizabeth and John Edwards. John Edwards is continuing with his Presidential campaign despite some bad news about his wife's health.
The spiralling crisis in Zimbabwe is about to take an ominous turn. Until now the situation has been a tragic but domestic issues, but it appears on the verge of becoming an international crisis. It seems a long time since President Mugabe began to use the coercive power of the state to confiscate land from white farmers and distribute it to the majority black population. The situation has long-since morphed from being an ethnic and class struggle among Zimbabweans to an unequal and often brutal conflict pitting a black-African government against a largely black-African opposition. Over the past few years ...
Was on both Radio Tay news and news on Wave 102 yesterday speaking about Council Tax collection. This morning, helping my Lochee LibDem Team with leaflet distribution, came across the filming of the latest View video in Dryburgh (see above) - you can read the story from yesterday's Courier by clicking on the headline above. A fair turnout of people to see what's going on! Following complaints about the mess/derbis/glass around the Scottish Water waste water pumping station on Riverside Drive, I have had the following feedback from Scottish Water: "I have requested ...
KPMG have number crunched the budget and come up with the winners and losers based on the NI and Income tax changes. BIGGEST LOSERS: Those earning £17,000 a year or less who will pay £131 a year more. BIGGEST WINNERS: Those earning about £35,000 a year who keep £353 a year more. In all this confusion, I usually head for the Institute of Fiscal studies, who say: The Institute for Fiscal
Excellent post by James Graham.
There's a neat little defence by Labour of Brown's 10p rate abolition scam in the Guardian: Labour MPs acknowledged the cut was not a giveaway, because it required the abolition of the 10p rate. But they argued that it was a sensible simplification of the system. While Mr Brown introduced the starting rate in the first place, the subsequent creation of the working family tax credit had rendered
Yesterday was of course the last budget of Gordon Brown. So, how did he do? Unsurprisingly, I don't share the optimism of my fellow Overview & Scrutiny councillor Matt Cooke, who seems very happy with the Labour budget. The theatrical introduction of the headline grabbing income tax cut, right at the end of the speech, was genius - in terms of spin and drama. But just as in all pantomime, things were not quite as they seemed. A 2p cut in the basic rate of income tax sounds like great news, especially for the less well off. ...
Last night Mike Dixon and I went to Stoke to training Liberal Democrat members from across Staffordshire in Selection Committee Training. We had ten people attend from a number of constituencies.
Gordon Brown wanted a headline grabbing tax cut for his last budget as Chancellor, so he announced a 2p cut in the basic rate of income tax. Whilst the Tories were predictably bemused, Liberal Democrat front bencher David Laws MP immediately saw through the Chancellor's con trick.
Today, like every other day, over a billion of the poorest people in the world will not have access to clean water. The charity WaterAid is encouraging all those fortunate enough to access to a clean safe supply of water to give a donation to those who do not. Giving an hour of your salary or making a small donation can help to make a lasting difference to the lives of some of the world's
Headline in the New Nation Another item missing from the headlines in Gordon Brown's budget were the whopping (16%-187%) rises in visa charges, highlighted by this week's New Nation, that a welfare group is dubbing the Ethnic Tax. The charges are associated with the Visa process used by legal immigrants from many of the poorest parts of the world who wish to enter the UK. New Nation summary of rises While it's superficially reasonable that those using the visa system should pay for it, rather than the British tax-payer, these charges, and the level of ...
Interesting to see that, of the 6 SNP MPs, 1 voted for the sexual orientation discrimination regulations, 1 voted against, and 4 sat on their hands. This, just days after receiving half a million pounds from Scotland’s homophobe-in-chief, Brian Souter. Did they abstain to avoid provoking their new cash cow? What implications does this have for [...]
The "Single Status" review of Council salaries to implement equal pay arrangements that local authorities signed up to in 1997 through the Local Government Association (LGA) has been a topic in local papers recently and is obviously of concern to Council employees. The Birmingham Post published an anonymous letter on 13 March 2007 (which I do not think is available online) that made a number of
I noticed this link on the BBC News page, which all looks terribly fun but I’d have liked to have seen the final interview (one surmises it was on Newsround, which on the odd occasion that I’ve watched it recently impressed me quite a bit). If you follow the link, you’ll also find another school preparing [...]
Three economists went out hunting, and came across a large deer. The first one fired, but missed, by a metre to the left. The second one fired, but also missed, by a metre to the right. The third economist didn't fire, but shouted in triumph, "We got it! We got it!"Not entirely sure where that takes us, but the FT has got three economists to give quick and dirty reactions to the Chancellor's budget (Deanne Julius of Chatham House; Martin Weale of the National Institute of Economic and ...
Spiralling self-harm, overcrowding, hunger strikes, wrongful detention - sadly just another day in the prison service thanks to the government’s mishandling of last year’s foreign prisoners crisis. The whole sorry affair is exposed today by Ann Owers, chief inspector of prisons, in a report cheerily entitled: Foreign National Prisoners – Ineffective Systems, Rising Self-Harm And Population Pressure Basically, [...]
I've just got back from the Millbank Studios having done Tyne Tees TV's "On the House". I was on with Peter Atkinson, Conservative MP who beat me for Hexham back in 1992, and Helen Goodman, Labour MP for Bishop Auckland, who I haven't met before. As you would expect, we discussed the budget. I had a very useful briefing on the budget from those very nice people in the Political Communications
Back in February I submitted a request to the Metropolitan Police to attempt to clear up the difference between what Harriet Harman and Labour were saying about the Wood Dene ASBO affair. Today the response came through confirming what I said from the outset, that one of the murderers, Diamond Babamuboni, was not banned from the Estate and to suggest otherwise to support an unfounded attack on the Council's 'naming and shaming' policy was a grotesque way to 'spin a murder'. The local South London Press have reported the Labour line on this on three occasions. For example, ...
Yesterday's budget was a bit of a surprise really. With the current (and very welcome!) competition between the parties on who can be the most 'green' I expected more green taxes for one thing, yet the only real difference is a slight increase in fuel duty and a higher road tax for the most polluting vehicles, although the threshold for this is so high that it doesn't even cover most 4x4. The
I know that some of you are keen to find out what you can and can't do over the coming months, and it gives me great pleasure to announce that, as promised, the Selection Rules have now been published at www.libdems4parliament.org.uk. You will need to register if you haven't already done so but, once you've gained access, you'll find the document in the download area...
Well, five minutes to spare before doing the toddler taxi run! It's been an intersting week this week - just putting the finishing touches to the funding bid for Big Lottery which seems to be keeping me awake into the small hours at the moment, cashflows, full costs recovery and capital expenditure seem to fill my dreams. It is so exciting the prospect of perhaps having a team to help with Real Baby Milk, as doing all the legwork on my own has been lonely at times - and frustrating as I have had to say no to some ...
There were a lot of smiling Labour AMs in the Assembly yesterday. Many were looking forward to getting back to their constituencies so as to try and sell Gordon Brown's 'tax-cutting' budget. I suspect however that once they look at the budget in the cold light of day then like the rest of us they will be wondering what exactly it is they have to sell. This morning's Guardian sums it up, effectively what the Chancellor has done is to double the bottom rate of income tax. Not so much a tax cut as a sleight of hand that ...
I am offering a £10 donation to the local Liberal Democrat party that comes up with the most witty or amusing reason as to why I should transfer my membership to their local party. Why should I do this you ask? About 5 years ago I moved house. My new home was approximately 100 yard across the border in the Wokingham Constituency. I asked to remain a member of Newbury local party. So far so good. Now there have been a huge number of boundary changes and so all members have been relocated to their geographically correct local ...
I have received a number of letters asking me to give some account of Old Farmer Frack. It is true that he was a mad old man, probably due to ergot poisoning. But he could be surprisingly lucid, too. For a time he employed a professional voice coach, more used to working with thespians, to [...]
Wednesday 21 March 2007 One of the pleasures about being a writer, lecturer and broadcaster, as well as a putative politician, is that I have an excuse to go anywhere and everywhere, and mix with people both high and low — even Conservatives. So I was delighted to accept an invitation to attend a dinner this [...]
If there was any doubt that Gordon Brown is New Labour through and through, it was dispelled today with his smoke and mirrors budget that was a triumph of spin over substance. The item that stood out most though was the claim that he was scrapping the 10p rate of income tax. This at first sounded like the Liberal Democrat policy of taking it down to zero. It wasn't. What he was actually doing was raising the 10p rate back up to the basic rate of income tax. The pay-off for this tax rise on low incomes was ...
Wednesday: Mr Frown will grab every headline with his surprise 2p tax cut. Never mind that it all has to be paid for, and the abolition of the 10p rate actually makes this a 10p tax RISE for many low paid workers, the simple easy to understand numbers of the headline rate cut are all that will be remembered. It is the perfect set up to launch Mr Frown PRIME MONSTER! And the perfect launch for a GENERAL ELECTION campaign. As Daddy Alex says: it has always worked for Tory Chancellors before! Hang on ...
Tuesday: Surprising news comes that happy-go-lucky sprite o'the glen Mr Frown may in fact be a bit of a TYRANT! It seems, one of the most SENIOR Civil Servants has compared our own Iron Chancellor, Gordon Blairimortovich with Uncle Joe Stalin, the Soviet Man of Steel. In further bad news for the Prime Minister in waiting-and-waiting-and-waiting, now Lord Blairimort has come out in his support! Comparing Mr Frown to Stalin is a BIT HARSH. I mean we should not forget the thirty year reign of terror, the purges, the disappearances, the secret executions and ... | < | March 2007 | > | ||||
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