Just returned, with letterbox scars and inked fingers, from a productive day in what was shamefully my first visit to Ealing Southall since the by-election was called. I spent half the day delivering and half the day canvassing. The support seemed largely LibDem or Labour, rather than Conservative and I was impressed by the much larger operation than the previous by-election headquarters I
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I was unable to get to the ‘Future of Britain’ project seminar at the LSE this afternoon, as I was campaigning in the Ealing Southall by-election. But I did attend the ‘Future of Europe’ presentation by Peter Luff at the European Parliament’s London office at lunchtime, following the AGM of the London Europe Society. Peter is [...]
I know some of our distant Liberal Party forebears were so imbued with Welsh Methodism and non-Conformism that they viewed alcohol as the work of the devil herself and each town's brewing family as an organ of the industrial masters' subjugation of the working man, but I cannot square Norfolk Blogger's paean of praise for Gordo's strong hints that the government will once again increase the prohibition on cannabis with any of the schools of thought of modern liberalism... I wonder if Nich is one of that strange breed who still believes that alcohol should be banned, or one ...
From the Ministry of Truth: With everything else that’s gone on around the Ealing Southall by-election and mere hours before the polls open, you’d think there was nothing left to be said until the result is announced tomorrow night.And you’d be wrong, because just when you thought you’d seen every last twist and turn, Jonathan Isaby pops up at the Telegraph and manages to drop himself and the Tory Party right in the shit with a blog post (now hastily removed) that appears to contain a criminal breach of the Representation of the People Act.This story has just been on ... 
Judging by the number of people visiting this blog today, there is a lot of interest in the figure of Homer Simpson that has appeared next to the Cerne Abbas giant. I have done a little research on your behalf, and it turns out that the giant may much less ancient than a lot of people assume. As Stones of England says: The first reference to this figure dates back to 1694: a payment in the Cerne Abbas churchwarden's accounts of 3 shillings towards the re-cutting of the giant. The first written reference is by John Hutchins in ...
So we had a secret ballot tonight to elect the vice-chairman of the West Area Committee. I lost the vote 10-5 , with voting purely on party lines.... Never mind, it was quite a good meeting overall...
Labour have hit the panic button here in Sedgefield today with a scurrilous attack on Greg Stone. They have produced a leaflet which looks like a Lib Dem newsletter. The only hint it is from the Labour party is the 5 point imprint. I watched a Labour hack delivering it this morning. He stopped trying to steal a Lib Dem leaflet from a letter box when he noticed I was watching him. The leaflet went
Signor Rennard clearly so impressed by my work in Little Ealing that he send me away for few days to help our caporegime in Trumpton, where the retirement of Don Blair create huge turf war between families. Capo "Watcher" Stone is pleased to see me. "Oh God... Liberali" he say "help with security and try to stay out of trouble. We putting on show of strength for local paparazzi on Trumpton Green today, need to avoid any confrontations." No problem think I, so first Labouristi cugine I bump into, I warn them off being anywhere near the ...
Well tomorrow’s the big day, the day which will decide the outcome of one of the most hotly contested by-elections of recent times, that of Ealing Southall. Being a consituent I’m looking forward to being able to make my mark. To me there’s a clear winner… Nigel. Not only am I going to be casting my [...]
I've arrived safe and sound in Pristina and I have to say that the place is a lot better than I was expecting. Having worked in Bosnia in 1998 I was expecting some similarities in terms of bullet hole damaged buildings and so on. Although it is obvious that although the place is perhaps not amongst the best places architecturally (lots of 70s and 80s concrete blocks which wouldn't look out of place in back streets in China) it certainly isn't all that bad. The UNMIK mission is clearly a major presence in the City and there are ...
Well, maybe. The BBC reports: A forgotten masterpiece may have surfaced at a Leicestershire auction house after being mistaken for a copy.Gilding's of Market Harborough described the painting of a black clad man as "18th century continental school" with an estimate of £300-£500.But on the day a bidding war pushed the price to £205,000.The buyer is believed to be from the London art trade and the picture is suspected of being by 16th Century artist Titian and worth upwards of £5m.It's always nice to see Market Harborough make the headlines. And hello to Gilding's, our local auctioneers.
There was general consensus in Sedgefield that this had to go on YouTube! The digitally remastered version of the Battle of Trimdon Green.
A few pics of this morning's "Save Tower Arts" demo outside the Hampshire County Council Offices: Love the costumes in the last pic!
Tomorrow the fine people of Ealing and Southall prepare to go to the polls, all three leaders not just Ming will be put to the test. Lord Rennard apparently has predicted a recount; it seems to be open to any and all which is precisely what all the parties want you to believe. Yesterday when I went I somehow managed to avoid Uxbridge road no mean feat in itself. Outside the commercial areas orange diamonds actually seem to be the leading trend rather than personality cult sized banners of Lit. Lit is by the way a classic Tory ...
Thanks to Lib Dem peer Lord Avebury - aka Eric Lubbock, a famous by-election victor - we now know the answer: three times. The BBC’s Martin Rosenbaum provides a good analysis here. The press notice from Lord Avebury’s solicitors, Bindmans, is here. The government surprisingly decided to release the information - which had been [...]
The Life Phone, a phone designed for the more technophobe elderly population is not available to buy in shops. You have to log in and purchase it from the internet if you want it. Isn't it ironic that you are expected to be an IT savvy person and have knowledge of the internet before you can buy this phone which is intended for the non IT savvy population ? And Yes, I know it is because retailers have so far refused to sell it and the Internet is their only outlet.
Why doesn't THIS happen to me !
Gordon Brown, it appears, is a Daily Mail reader, or at least you could be forgiven for believing it if his recent announcement are anything to go by. A series of announcements on housing, super casinos, acting tough on the international stage and now effectively reversing Tony Blair's reclassification of cannabis might have been written by the Mail, were the journalists capable of writing something that hadn't already been prepared for them in a Tory press release. But in this case, as he was over super casinos, Gordon Brown has judged the general public well and is appealing ...
After Orange Boarding at Charles Kennedy's visit to Newton Aycliffe yesterday ( and by the way he was on very good form, if he can beat the bottle I'd vote for him to come back like a shot.) I popped into the HSBC branch to make a counter withdrawal. ( My bank card being down the back of the sofa in Leeds) It was one of those epiphany moments which remind me why I went into politics. The Counter assistant was a bit bemused by all the hoopla outside. Apart from the Lib Dem scrum we had had what ... 
I returned this afternoon from Sedgefield where I put three days into helping the By Election Campaign. It reminded me about everything that I love and hate about By Elections. The Chief thing being that By Election HQ's don't do nuance and reflexivity. So if I admit to having love and hate emotions about them to anyone there I get rather strange looks.... I enjoyed myself enormously. Great hospitality from the Durham City Councillor who put me up, gossip from across the country from fellow activists, debate and lots of wisdom from some of the older County Durham Members ...
The link is to the story about fake winners on Children in Need and Comic Relief. This is a relatively mild example of consequentialism where the ends justify the means. I have always accepted that the means are part of the ends in the sense that one has to consider the whole. However, we should not lie and cheat even to achieve a good objective (in this case charity). Another area where this
Thousands of facts and figures about the Borough of Redcar and Cleveland and its neighbourhoods are now available on the Council's website, www.redcar-cleveland.gov.uk/statistics. The comprehensive Area Profile, drawn up by the Council and the Redcar & Cleveland Partnership, will be used as an evidence base to inform future strategy and policy development. The profiles are structured around the four themes of the Local Area Agreement - Children and Young People, Safer Stronger Communities, Healthier Communities and Old People, Sustainable Communities. There is a wealth of information about the area, which will be updated, including narrative, data tables ...
...Until well into Thursday night. I will be in Ealing Southall before sparrows' methane emission time tomorrow morning.
Paul Marshall's report on Tackling Educational Inequality, released by CentreForum on Tuesday and available for download here, has received widespread coverage in the national and local media, ranging from the marvellously titled 'School's Not Out' piece on GMTV to articles by Jon Boone in the FT ('Schools study backs "pupil premium"') and Richard Garner in the Belfast Telegraph ('Schools "should get reward for taking poor pupils"').Over at the Liberal England blog, Jonathan Calder wonders whether the money might not be better spent on improving the quality of teaching within existing school hours, rather than extending the school week. ('CentreForum: Saturday ...
The Times, among others, reports the news that: The details of journeys taken by millions of motorists are to be handed to police under a government “Big Brother” plan to use road pricing technology in the fight against crime. The proposal is to introduce new legislation to give police routine, open door access to all number [...]
Hello from the Ealing Southall constituency. The by-elections here and in Sedgefield poll tomorrow, so I’ll be able to get back to blogging about relatively normal things (and be able to take a holiday) very soon. In the mean time, though, a quick note that Nigel Bakhai’s Southall HQ is very busy with Liberal Democrat members [...]
Halifax Today has the news: FORMER Tory councillor Nick Yates, who was in the running to be this year’s Deputy Mayor of Calderdale, has joined the Liberal Democrats. His decision leaves the control of Calderdale Council even more finely balanced – the Conservatives have 18 seats and the Liberal Democrats 17.
Amidst all the talk of the political machinations in the Ealing Southall by-election, which is polling tomorrow, one important fact has been missed by many - the constituency is the home of the world famous Ealing Studios. Along with a team from Weston-super-Mare Lib Dems, I was in Ealing on Saturday for a day of campaigning [...]
I’m not the greatest fan of Parliamentary by-elections. They provide, almost invariably, an unedifying political spectacle in which fairness, objectivity and the public become by-standers to the main event. That turnout is usually low - despite the avalanche of leaflets, and babble of mob-handed canvassers - highlights the gulf between the amped-up interest of we politicos, and the damped-down
...their knee at the same time, do you think it might catapult them all off to Poland or similar where they'd no doubt find their authoritarian meddling in other peoples' lives more acceptable and satisfying? Haroon Siddique and Matthew Tempest Wednesday July 18, 2007 Guardian Unlimited Gordon Brown today announced the second review in two years into whether cannabis should be reclassified, in response to concerns that its current status does not reflect the drug's dangers. Mr Brown announced the review, which will look at whether cannabis should be reclassified ...
I have long been an advocate of people having to opt-out of Organ Donations moving to a system where consent is automatically presumed. I was glad to see yesterday that the Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson has suggested that it happen.
This morning's Sun reports: A mentally ill tycoon left his £10million fortune to the Tories so they could save him from a “Satanic plot”, a court heard yesterday. Branislav Kostic gave the staggering donation — a Conservative Party record — in his will after suffering psychiatric delusions for 20 years. Kostic, who died aged 80 in 2005, sent letters to ex-PM Margaret Thatcher and top Tories asking for help to battle “dark forces” trying to kill him. But his family are now fighting to get the cash back in the High Court.The Daily Mail, which rates the ...
I must say that the bureacracy in which local government seems to be mired the whole time is a frustration. Last night was the first proper Prestwich "Local Area Partnership." The name of the body itself is a nod to the type of committee-based decision non-making that frustrates the hell out of anyone with a pulse. Partnership working is great, when it works. But at the moment there is some
I raised the problems handling malpractise at Justice Questions today and Jack Straw offered a meeting to discuss the issue. That is good and I hope that we will now see some progress.
Shame I've had to fly out of the UK to catch some though! Finding out about local politics here in Malta - whilst here visiting family - and FRONTEX (border security) & problems that I heard all about when at the EU Plenary session, back on my trip to Brussels a few weeks back. What is really good it talking with people who live in a country, about their experiences, perceptions, views and
"Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad" Euripides The ecstatic reaction of the Tory bloggers to the possible selection of Boris Johnson as their candidate for Mayor of London is bizarre. I do recall the last time the Conservatives went for a well known but slightly "eccentric" candidate. Of course that was Jeffrey Archer. Boris has a whole cemetery of skeletons in his cupboard, and may yet end up being found in bed with a camel or something equally inappropriate. His persona of dotty bafflement hides an ambitious but rather undisciplined character. So the ...
A great piece of news. The Government has today put forward an amendment to the Corporate Manslaughter and Homicide Bill, which brings deaths in custody into the ambit of the Bill, as per the House of Lords demand. A report by Liberty back in 2003 highlighted the manifold flaws in the current system for investigating such deaths, not least the huge potential and actual conflicts of interest which arise. Though not all of their concerns will be addressed, it provides a new option for prosecution, which as Liberty (and other organisations) highlighted in their January briefing on the Bill, will ...
George Galloway is naturally unhappy at being temporarily booted out of Parliament, having been found to be as totally bent as we all know he is (don’t sue me George, I’m a humble worker!) – but I really think he was needlessly rude about the Chair of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Standards and Privileges, Sir George Young Bt, or as the Gorgeous One referred to him "Sir Humphrey, or Sir Bufton or Sir Tufton or whatever he is called"I’d always taken the ‘Bufton Tufton’ slight to indicate a blustering, self-important social conservative, whereas Sir George is by all accounts ...
Leaving £8 million to the Tory party has been described as the act of someone with "insane delusions". Never!
It was Full Council on Monday night, which was strangely more fun than usual - and I don't think it had anything to do with the new "horseshoe" (sort of) seating plan. We had two good deputations from local residents - one from a supplementary school in Tottenham that the Council is threatening to withdraw funding from, putting their 30+ year existence in doubt, and the other from the organisers of the annual Tottenham Carnival. My colleagues Cllr David Winskill and Cllr John Oakes in particular made important contributions to those discussions and there appeared to be some dissent ...
The six Tory candidates - Boris plus five others - vying to become the party’s nominee to take on Labour’s Ken Livingstone for London mayor have been revealed on Conservative Home here. Last week, we asked the question, who should be the Lib Dem nominee - which provoked a lively comment thread, with suggestions ranging [...]
A new Home Office proposal, accidentally released today, suggests road pricing cameras could be used by police to track drivers’ movements in England and Wales. The Lib Dem shadow home secretary, Nick Clegg, is quoted in this BBC Online report: With this unintended act of open government the disingenuous attitude of ministers towards public fears [...]
The Times has this quote from Chris Rennard: The Liberal Democrats seized on a blunder by the Labour campaign to accuse the party of complacency after it send out a residents’ survey with a printed return address styling their candidate “Virendra Sharma MP”. Chris Rennard, the Lib Dem chief executive, said: “Labour’s assumption is incredibly arrogant. It is yet another example of the way that
after I have finished series 3 of the West Wing.
...is usually considered a bad thing, but when that man is George Galloway, it is hard to resist: looking forward to the trial, George? Nice to see a liar and a hypocrite exposed -I really hope that this is taken further...
Last night I attended the High Barnet CAP meeting where we were discussing ways to provide activities for young people in High Barnet. There were several good ideas which we are pursuing. The connexions youth service representative was telling us about the work they have begun to do. He would like to be able to do more but Barnet's woeful underfunding of youth services means he has very limited resources. One way the CAP can help is to access funding that is not available to the council. Hopefully we can be more than be a talking shop ...
Right. I’m off to Ealing Southall (notwithstanding a somewhat annoying detour to the office - meh). No sleep ’til close of poll! Well, not much anyway. Blogging is hereby suspended until further notice. Of course, I will no doubt continue to Twitter. Share This
Iain Dale's Diary used to be the blog which some of us LibDems read avidly to disagree with. I don't bother with him anymore as his credibility has evaporated and he has become a self-parody. Perhaps he will get better after July 19th. So the Norfolk Blogger now seems to be fulfilling the role of the blog you read avidly to disagree with. Bless him. It's so much nicer for this role to be
BBC Wales reports this morning that a milk shortage is pushing up the price of cheese in local supermarkets. In America the situation is critical. Over there, the price of cheddar has doubled, whilst mozarella has risen in price even higher. This is having an impact on the cost of pizza, 350 slices of which are consumed in the USA every second. Now that is serious. What will Homer Simpson do?
Tory AM, Alun Cairns, is outraged, but then he has a huge picture of Margaret Thatcher on his office wall and so can hardly be considered an impartial judge. Nevertheless, one does have to marvel at this story about Belgrade-born millionaire Branislav Kostic, who left £8.2m to the Conservative Party because "of his great and long-standing affection for the Conservative party and his admiration for Mrs Thatcher". Personally, I have a lot of sympathy for his son, Zoran, and his friends, who argue that Mr. Kostic was suffering from 'insane delusions' when he made his will: Yesterday in ...
The storm that broke when I was in Trimdon yesterday turned out to be as bad as I experienced! The equivalent of 2 weeks' rain fell in 10 minutes. Most of the region experienced it at some point. It was remarkable how sunny it was yesterday evening given the intensity of the preceding storm. Anyway, in Sedgefield today we have, errr, not sure actually! My diary is on my desk in the office at
...or why we must not base all our assumptions about housing and how to solve our needs on Gordon Brown, Yvette Cooper and Kate Barker's diktat that "we must simply build more to supply the demand". In last weekend's Sunday Times, Simon Jenkins in Housing crisis? What crisis? The most puffed up panic in the land hits many nails on the head: "There is no housing crisis. There is just a housing market. There is no housing “need”, unless you are sleeping in the street. There is just housing demand and housing supply. There is also housing panic, ...
Following yesterday's posting, I have been incredibly touched by the kindness of strangers in response. A close friend described it as like watching someone on a highwire without a safety net and I suppose that it was a bit exposed and uncomfortable. In many ways, I've been incredibly fortunate in terms of family and friends, and I cannot stress too much how important they are in terms of
Apparently there's likely to be a formal offer by the end of the week for Sainsbury's after months of dancing around. What would they be getting? Do they actually want a food retail business in far of Britain? It's not like Qatar is a major part of the supply chain or anything for food retail in Britain. No, for a cost of just over £10bn (at an offer price minimum of £5.95 per share) they'll get their hands on a property company worth about £10bn plus a retail business valued practically nothing as a sideline. ...
Yesterday morning Tom Watson MP, the Labour supremo in Ealing Southall by-election wrote on his blog: I’ve just received a phone call, that if true, will mark the most remarkable culmination to one of the most incredible by-elections I have ever worked in.Since then he has made no reference to this phone call and failed to produce the promised revelation. Maybe it was a wrong number?
Not my views, you understand, but those of the blog Hidden Ireland. Some choice quotations: On the 20th of July children will be taken from their loving homes, by their parents, at 12 o'clock midnight to take place in a satanic ritual. These otherwise normal people have lost all sense when it comes to the phenomenon that is Harry Potter. Further sad proof of the terrible “Potter” effect is the decline of the young star who played Potter, Daniel Radcliffe, into little more than a porn star and a laughing stock. Radcliffe is now playing a part in ...
You cannot help but smile when you hear that self publicist MP George Galloway has been suspended from parliament for 18 days. Firstly, it is great he has received a punishment. His constant throwing back of accusations with counter accusation on Radio earlier was an insult to any intelligent person. It is clear from the report that this was the main reason for his suspension. Whilst Mr Galloway may not like the people who questioned him, there are plenty of people who do not like him either. Yet Mr Galloway seems to demand respect for him, because he is ...
I could not resist taking this picture of the storm clouds gathering over the Trimdon Labour Club, sometimes frequented by Tony Blair on his rare visits to Sedgefield and used by him as a film set for some of his announements to the world. The area suffered an incredible storm this afternoon and the downpour was of tropical rainforest dimensions! I should know, Dave Hennigan (the press officer
Well done to Sir Tom Hunter, and his good lady wife, for announcing plans to give away £1 billion of his fortune to philanthropic charitable causes. It is so rare to see someone give away so much, and when certain billionaires waste their cash on football teams, yachts, private jets and lavish parties, Sir Tom Hunter shows them all up.
I thought the government had promised smaller class sizes ? It's rather odd then that two teacher friends of mine will have classes of 33 and 32 next year then isn't it ?
Just a few pictures I took of the Kennedy walkabout with Greg Stone in Newton Aycliffe in Sedgefield constituency on Tuesday. Tim Farron, MP for Westmoreland and Lonsdale, joined the visit as well. He is pictured with a copy of "Snap" magazine, one of the best "human interest" pieces of literature I have had the pleasure of being part of producing - I did quite a few of the photos for it,
The European Commission has launched a dedicated channel on YouTube to make its audiovisual material more widely available to the public. For instance, this short film: 50 Years of EU in the World. The background to this is explained on the Europe in the UK website.
I agree wholeheartedly with comments today by Sir Liam Donaldson who believe we should change our organ donation system to one where you have to opt out as opposed to the opt in system we currently have. Countries with deeply held religious views like Belgium and Spain have such systems and they have far more transplant operations and few people on waiting lists. In the UK, 500 people a year die whilst on waiting lists and a further 500 are removed from lists because their health has deteriorated so much that they cannot survive an operation. These people die ...
Given that the Premier League season for 2007/08 starts on 11 August 2007 I spent sometime this week Fantasy Premier League website http://fantasy.premierleague.com/ selecting my team for the 2007/08 season. | < | July 2007 | > | ||||
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