Another reminder that Liberal England will be hosting the next BritBlog Roundup. If you would like to nominate a post to appear in it, please send an e-mail to britblog [at] gmail [dot] com giving the link by next Sunday lunchtime. Any posting from a British-based blog or British-born blogger made this week can be be nominated.And, yes, you can nominate something from your own blog. Last week's BritBlog Roundup can be found at Clairwil.
There can be only one winner. A word that no one had heard of a week ago. Well done, bowser.
Today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News. I mention Leave Them Kids Alone. Action on Rights for Children is very good on this issue too. Being fingered A few months ago a Liberal Democrat press release announced: “Sarah Teather opposes school fingerprinting”. If you thought she meant messy art lessons, think again. For, as Greg Mulholland told the Commons on Monday, 3,500 primary and secondary schools now use biometric data to run libraries and canteens. To this end, around 750,000 children have been fingerprinted. Should we worry? Do we need this Mulholland campaign? (Call it a Mulholland drive if ...
Buying tickets for this traiin journey was a bit of a rushed job thanks to much of my time having been spent in Sedgefield recently. So here I am on the 10pm train out of Kings Cross, heading up to Newcastle. The 10pm takes nearly an hour longer than most train journeys to Newcastle and we have the irritating situation of everyone having to change at York. There even the entire train crew simply
I've spent much of the past 2 years helping to lead a campaign in my ward against an opencast application to mine half a million tonnes of coal and fireclay from a site next to the historic Gibside Estate. The petition opposing the plans, written by me, was signed by over 16,000 people, the biggest petition yet handed in to Gateshead. The application was rejected by Gateshead Council. The 
I don’t pretend to be much of a gardener - bit difficult, really, if you don’t have a garden. But never let it be said I don’t try. Last year, rather bizarrely, Oxford City Council gave all councillors (and I assume quite a few residents) packets of sunflower seeds to promote The Oxford Solar Initiative - “working with you for lower energy bills and warmer, healthier homes”. As a result
I have mixed feelings about the Government’s decision to abandon plans for a single unitary authority in North Yorkshire. I certainly couldn’t see the sense in creating a unitary with the sort of land area that was envisaged. So although I was pleased to see that particular plan scrapped, I think the job is only half done. As part of the objection to the unitary plan there was a campaign to promote Harrogate as a unitary in its own right. This seemed to have widespread support in the town and I thought it made a lot of sense. I could ...
Today's YEP confirms that the Elinor Lupton Centre, part of the Leeds Girls High School site is indeed being targeted by Wetherspoons for conversion into a pub. Not just any pub but by some margin the biggest in the area. I often reflect that I went into politics to change things and actually spend much of my time trying to stop things happening. I think like most long term residents of the area I just groan at the news. I can't imagine they have a hope in Hell of getting either a licence or planning permission so we would be ...
The BBC report that the post-mortem on Shambo the bullock has revealed that it had lesions typical of TB. This means of course that it is possible that other animals in Skanda Vale may be infected: In a statement on Friday, the assembly government said it was now considering what other action was necessary "to protect human and animal health in relation to the test results from other animals in the herd". "Further samples have been taken for further laboratory investigations, including bacteriological culture - these results will not be available for several weeks," continued the statement. ........With regard to ...
Cllr Mike Baker, a Conservative Party member and a District Councillor with something of a complicated political affiliation, has defected to UKIP. Sitting as a Councillor on North Norfolk District Council for the Town of Holt, Cllr Baker has stood at various times as a Conservative, and in bad years for the Tories as an independent, but on each occasion he has stood as an independent, he has subsequently affiliated himself with the Tory group on the council, his seat counts as a Tory seat for committee places and he is, according to the Eastern Daily Press, a card carrying ...
< RANT MODE ON > Why are South West trains so reluctant to take my money and let me catch one of their trains? I arrive at London Bridge station with over 10 minutes to spare before my train home. I join a queue at one of the lamentably few ticket machines they actually have on the station. 7 minutes later on 3 people have actually bought tickets and, as there are another 4 ahead of me, I have to abandon the train in favour of the (horribly hot and uncomfortable) Tube. Everything about South West Trains ticket machines is ...
Checking through the website of the South Wales Evening Post tonight I came across this article from a few days ago. Neath Port Talbot Council has long had a reputation as a high-taxing authority. For many years it has had the highest Council Tax in Wales. This is something that the current leadership is anxious to put right, however short of cutting tax bills immediately, there is no quick way to achieve this goal. It will take a number of years of below-inflation rises, at a rate less than that imposed by other Councils. The alternative is to try and ...
Those Tories, journalists and commentators who have been talking up Glyn Davies' chance of winning Montgomery at the next General Election must have come down to earth with a bump last night. A Council by-election for the Welshpool Gungrog ward of Powys County Council saw the Welsh Liberal Democrats retain the seat with 41% of the vote. The Conservative candidate came fourth out of four with 95 votes, losing over 12% vote share in the process. They really will have to do better than that.
I did vote for the Smoking Ban and continue to think it was the right thing to do although we should have also had the option of Smoking Rooms - rather than the silly things that are now happening with outdoor smoking rooms. However, sadky today we heard of the the first death that can be linked to the smoking ban of someone shot for asking someone else to stop smoking. Similarly I heard today
If the recent floods involve an insurance payout of £1bn and using figures from 2005 net property premiums are 8.7bn with a payout of 7.7bn then one would expect that this flood in isolation will put premiums up by about 15%. With the previous floods and what may happen later we could see an increase in premiums of 40% or more.
An update report on the funding of the first phase of the Selly Oak New Road will be presented to the Council's Cabinet on 30 July 2007. The Cabinet agreed on 22 January 2007 to provide funding to Sainsbury’s to start construction of the New Road, on the basis that costs would be recovered from Sainsbury’s at a later date when they start building on the Birmingham Battery
The latest effort to ‘understand’ terrorism comes from Jenni Russell on the Guardian, who sadly fails rather miserably. She comes up with her own brand of tosh by mixing Samuel Huntingdon’s theory of the clash of civilisations, ethics and metaphysics. Aside from the fact that she confuses metaphysics with ethics, Ms Russell claims that ‘metaphysical beliefs’ are the result of “our earliest experiences and the culture around us”. As such ‘the dissonance between our own powerful sense of what is right’, which is one’s ethics, and ‘the values of the society around us’ leads some people to violent action. There ...
North Riding of Yorkshire DUCK RACE 2007 Saturday 28th July 2007 2.30pm Saltburn Beck, Saltburn Winner will receive the Colin Holt Cup Plus prizes for the first three places Prize for most original name of duck £1.00 per entry Please email entry fee to chrisabbott@cix.co.uk and send payment by post to Cllr Chris Abbott 39 Essex Close, Redcar, Yorkshire, TS10 4BY,before 12noon tomorrow (Saturday 29th July). Proceeds to the YRS North Riding Group Campaign Fund,that pays for real county boundry signs like the one pictured.
I discovered this video shot by Conservative Future (sic) in Ealing. It doesn't show a single leaflet being delivered but it does show them eating, drinking and being in a bar. Perhaps that's a reason for their defeat!? Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JitDXZ0V8ZY
Community Care is the house magazine for Social Work. They suggested I wrote an opinion piece, my alternative proposal was to answer the questions of their readers. The link is part of the answer. I am expecting them to put up more of an answer later. Interestingly a number of social workers spoke out in support of my arguments. I know that many people privately agree, but I was quite pleased
Well, that's broadly the story here, though there are a lot of other interesting things about Cameron and those who surround him. More blogging shortly, I know I've not been very good lately. (hat-tip: Lib Dem Voice)
The announcement on Wednesday of the scrapping of the shire districts in the North East will amount to the biggest reform of local government since the reorganisation of 1974. It will also mean the abolition of most of the non-Labour run councils in the North East and their replacement with what are, under current circumstances, predominantly Labour authorities. I am actually a supporter of
The next big recycling problem is almost upon us – Tetra Packs and similar cartons, and even more so the new compact pouches originally developed to hold US military rations. Cans and glass jars are due for a steep decline as supermarkets make more and more use of the pouches–and that will change the whole balance of the waste disposal cycle. If we don’t get a grip on this change before The Market leads us into it we will find ourselves with a massive increase in landfill flow and greatly increased costs to the taxpayer. Most areas do not have ...
There’s an interesting write-up in this week’s New Statesman of the goings-on in the last few days in the Cameron bunker, including Andy Coulson’s initial impact. People with an interest in by-elections though might be taken by this part of the piece: It has not been a good month for the ferret-like campaign manager, Grant Shapps, who [...]
Andy over at Mindrobber highlights a great story about the reaction from some in a very conservative area in the US on seeing Michael Moore's new movie Sicko. It's an inspiring story, and the reaction is not what you might expect. Andy laments that the film has not found a UK distributor, that is a shame, but perhaps it'll make it here on DVD. I saw it at about the time of it's release when it was 'leaked' onto the internet, and Moore made it clear he wouldn't prosecute anyone distributing it, but sadly it seems to have been pulled ... 
That’s the verdict of the Director of the Adam Smith Institute, Dr Eamonn Butler, in an interview with Politics.co.uk, following today’s publication of Lib Dem proposals to combat poverty and inequality: “It looks like they’re thinking in the right direction. It sounds like fresh thinking and that’s always welcome from politicians because it’s so rare. The [...]
A row is brewing over plans by the Royal Mail for something called 'zonal pricing' for postal services. The idea is that when a big business pays the Royal Mail to deliver in bulk it should pay more for delivery if its customers live in remote villages and less if they live in big cities where it is cheap to deliver. The worry is that over time businesses will pass these costs on so that in the end if you live in a small town or village you end up paying more for your services. I was alerted to this ...
One of the principle reasons for the recent dearth of posts, aside from more pressing personal concerns, is a feeling of despondency at the cripplingly low level at which political debate in Scotland is conducted. As an illustration, take a look at the comments following today’s Herald article on Salmond’s announcement that a Referendum White Paper is imminent. This, from ‘Ally’ in Edinburgh is the pick of the bunch: The two arguements against a referndum in this section is remnants of an imperialistic Labour Party who have become the new BNP, locking up asians for the minor of offences, claiming ...
I am extremely disappointed to hear that AMT has lost the franchise to supply drinks and snacks at London's railway stations. In my opinion AMT supplied an excellent service and is/was the only snack food outlet on London's railways stations offering fair trade and organic products. I have written to Barbara Barnes at Network Rail (Barbara.Barnes@networkrail.co.uk) to express my displeasure and would encourage you all to do the same. I think Network Rail should think again or at least stipulate that station outlets be required to offered fair trade and organic products alongside unfair trade and chemical products.
The BBC reports: A panel reviewing health issues at Nasa has found that US astronauts have been allowed to fly while intoxicated at least twice, an aviation magazine says.See Aviation Week for the full story. Lord Bonkers adds: There was never any question of This Sort Of Thing when Raymond Baxter became the first Englshman in space in 1953. He enjoyed the occasional pint of good ale, like many of his countrymen, but the fellows at Woomera never saw him the worse for drink.
As it's Friday, why not watch the video for Nineteen Sixty Nine by Easterhouse, notable for their brilliant guitarwork and annoying communist lyrics. They sound closer to the Smiths than any other band I can think of, and their first ever gig in 1983 was actually supporting Morrissey, Marr et al.
Dave Howerski tells us that the work at Cwmgwrach was completed in time to save the village from damage after the wettest June & July in British meteorological history. Work at Resolven has not been so fortunate. It seems that every time the contractors get started, another deluge washes their work away. We fear that it is a race to complete the defences there in the next weather window before there is a "Gloucestershire" event in the Neath valley.
On Monday, Cabinet Office minister Ed Miliband used a Guardian interview to indicate that measures to tackle inequality would figure prominently in the Labour manifesto he has begun to draft ('Miliband: "I want a buzz back in the manifesto"'). In it he said: "I think we have to take a sober look in the manifesto work on whether we are on a path to tackle some of the great causes of inequality. In the kind of market economy we live in and the kind of world we live in, it is much harder than we thought to make a difference ...
Powys UA, Welshpool Gungrog LD F Jump 234 (41.0 -30.2), Ind 143 (25.1 +25.1), Ind 98 (17.2 +17.2), Con 95 (16.7 -12.1). Majority 91. Turnout 30%. LD hold. Last fought 2004.
Somewhat slow off the mark here, but this account from Josh Tyler over at Cinema Blend of going to see Michael Moore's recent film Sicko makes for interesting reading. A quick extract: As I sat down, right behind me entered an obligatory, cowboy hat wearing redneck in his 50s. He announced his presence by shouting across the theater in a thick Texas drawl to his already seated wife “you owe me
For all Labour's posturing and promises over the last ten years, the one thing that stands out for me where nothing has changed is the way in which millions of people are still on benefits, and the way in which the system in this country seems to encourage people to stay on benefits and does little to encourage them to get a job. So today it is very welcome the the Lib Dems have put forward some bold proposals to tackle the issue of the "dependency culture" in the UK. Yes, Labour has spent a lot of government on benefits ...
Two interchanges from yesterday John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD): The Government have caused a number of problems by conflating section 31 and section 20, but will they commit to listening to the voices of children who say that they want to leave care and return to their parents? I know of cases where children have run away from care to go back to their parents, only to be returned time
Scotland’s First Minister, SNP leader Alex Salmond, has committed to publishing a White Paper proposing a referendum on Scottish independence. The move has been dismissed by the Scottish Lib Dems leader, Nicol Stephen: “Everyone knows the work on this White Paper is a waste of civil service time and the public’s money. There is nowhere near a [...]
This from BBC Online: The Liberal Democrats have unveiled plans which they say would lift five million people out of “relative poverty” and end “dependency culture”. The party plans to introduce incentives for working, saving and studying. It also says it wants to remove higher earners from the Tax Credits system and cut the number claiming [...]
I was saddened this week to hear of the impending doom awaiting Cambo, a great dumb animal with pathetic pleading eyes, held to be sacred by the Monks of the remote Notting Hill. Just because it’s of no obvious use to society, and may well spread something quite nasty, should it really be dealt with in this brutal way? There can be no poetry after this.
I have meetings and surgeries all day so very little time to blog. However, I thought that it was worth mentioning one extraordinary escape from recent flooding in the Midlands. My attention has been drawn to this letter in the Daily Telegraph: Sir - Why is Ambridge not affected by flooding? Surely the River Am must have burst its banks by now, or has Borsetshire moved to another part of the country? How can they be harvesting at Home Farm in torrential rain? Karin Proudfoot, Longfield, Kent What is Ambridge's secret? Surely one of the Archer family should come along ...
On last night's This Week on BBC1, Andrew Neil asked Michael Portillo if it is possible that the Conservatives will never win a general election again. Portillo's answer was "yes". That is interesting and perhaps reflects Portillo's rather semi-detached relationship with the Tories at the moment. Even Diane Abbott disagreed with him. Kelvin MacKenzie was also on the programme, ranting in the
The LibDems are up one point to 16% in the YouGov poll for today's Daily Telegraph. Brown's Labour have shot into a nine point lead over the Tories.
This interesting article in today’s Times caught my eye. On the face of it, it is a simple case of fraud that should stir the ire of any right-thinking person. But it nonetheless highlights the inherent problems that result from government meddling. I was not aware of the fact, but apparently the government has exempted disabled drivers from paying VAT on new cars. This immediately strikes me as odd, in that there is no inherent reason why a disabled person – even one with mobility difficulties – would have greater need for a car than any particular other person. For ...
People in Britain use an average of 300 plastic bags every year. That's quite shocking - I do try and take my reusable bags when I go shopping, but I'll be honest I sometimes forget in the frenzy of piling the boys in the car, searching for keys and wallet. Each bag lasts up to 400 years, spending the vast majority of that time in a landfill site or strewn across the British countryside. Obviously we need to reduce our use of plastic bags. In Ireland, a tax of 15cents per bag resulted in a 90% drop in plastic bag ...
I spent most of last night moving the content of my main website to here. I will be re-directing the URL shortly. I already post all my press releases onto this site so it seemed logical to put everything else there as well. It now serves as a joint site for me as an AM and the South Wales West Liberal Democrats. The next task is to sort out the archive by putting all the pre-May 2007 material on-line that is not already there.
I've been a little preoccupied over the past week, as I've moved house (finally). As a new resident of Brent, and an ex-resident of Southwark, there has been so much to do, things to pack - in my case with genuine ineptitude - forms to fill in and all the other stuff that you finally realise need to get done at 3.30 in the morning. But I'm now cleared out of East Dulwich, and slowly establishing
Wednesday: Sir Mr the Merciless is saying there is a one-in-six chance of a snap general election this year, but what's this… BLAM! Is that the starting pistol or is it the sound of another Conservatory fox being BLOWN AWAY? Yes, it is trigger-happy Secret Stalin, Mr Frown who was announcing the creation of a special POLICE FORCE to patrol our Borders (and other book shops) as part of his new package to extend his powers of terror. Er, against terror. The new force will be made up of officers from the Immigration Service and the Customs and Excise. Now ...
{omer-siddig.jpg} Anyone who imagined that the humanitarian crisis in Darfur ought to be easy to resolve would quickly have been disabused of that notion at a packed meeting at the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce in Mayfair earlier tonight, organised by Arab Media Watch and the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU). The Sudanese Ambassador in London, Omer Siddig, put up a spirited defence of his government’s record, while the Independent’s Africa correspondent Steve Bloomfield gave his more critical, non-partisan view, based on several visits to Sudan. One thing they were both agreed on was that the situation is Darfur is extremely ...
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