LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Sunday 2nd September 2007

++ exclusive: top labour celeb is shit at crosswords ++

Fresh of the tellyprinter. Oh Christ, it’s finally arrived. The red-hot Guido Fawkes-style super exclusive that will see me appearing on Newsnight. I have in my possession (see below) a copy of today’s Independent on Sunday crossword, as attempted by Prunella Scales. Ms Scales, who appeared in a Labour Party Election Broadcast in 2005, and to less acclaim, as Sybil in Fawltey Towers, put in a pretty mediocre performance this Sunday. And the crossword isn’t even cryptic! Her former co-star, John Cleese, is more politically astute. A long-time Liberal Democrat, he appeared in Alliance broadcasts in the 80s, and kindly ...

The stuff dreams are made of!

Aston Villa are way down the list of my favourite teams. However, I couldn’t help but smile when Zat Knight headed a debut goal for the team he supported as a kid. How we’ve all dreamed of doing that! Also a nod further north to Mark Hughes and his Blackburn side who beat Man Ciy 1-0. Who would’ve thought when September ticked round, that Blackburn would be sitting above Man Utd in the table with a game in hand? Meanwhile down in the real world, the Cobblers are struggling to get going this season, giving away a two-goal lead on ...

Tories turn to education

David Cameron (no laughing at the back!) suggests failing pupils should repeat the last year of primary school. Now I’m no expert on education, but this seems like a poor idea to me. Surely all this would do is stigmatise those pupils, leading to more issues in later years, ie amplifying the problems that Cameron is trying to eliminate? Cameron also claims that “43% of children leave primary school unable to read, write and count properly”. I have no idea if this statistic is true. If it is, surely the Conservatives should be identifying the reasons behind this statistic, rather ...

A plan comes to fruition

After all of the tedious plans around, what a delight to go along to the long planned Newham Grange Park play area opening. The Friends of Newham Grange Park started off a number of years ago, and I recall the first few meetings well, when we had ideas and hopes, but it all seemed so difficult and far off. Difficult it has been, but now it is happening! Friends of Newham Grange park...

Robert Fisk on the Armenian Genocide

From today's Independent: The story of the last century's first Holocaust – Winston Churchill used this very word about the Armenian genocide years before the Nazi murder of six million Jews – is well known, despite the refusal of modern-day Turkey to acknowledge the facts.Nor are the parallels with Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jews idle ones. Turkey's reign of terror against the Armenian people was an attempt to destroy the Armenian race. While the Turks spoke publicly of the need to "resettle" their Armenian population – as the Germans were to speak later of the Jews of Europe – ...

BritBlog Roundup 133

It is to be found at the house of Mr Eugenides.

Housing for Oxford: Mr Smith fails again

There is a scene of the ancien regime court depicted in the film Ridicule when the hero is thrown out of a dinner party on the basis that he is not witty enough to share at table with the other diners. ‘But’, he says as he retreats, ‘one can not judge a person by the company they keep. After all, Judas Iscariot had the best of companions.’ Andrew Smith is man with friends who, if not the best, are at least the highest-placed. He’s a man with the Prime Minister’s private number in his mobile; he’s someone who has sat ...

Private Eye - Mission Care's Sins of Omission?

"In the Back" in this month's Private Eye reports on the activities of Mission Care in Tory run Bromley. They say that "Last month campaigners took their concerns to Bromley Council which has given the charity a multi-million pound contract to provide nursing and intermediate care. Later in the article they say Colin Bloom. Chief Executive of Mission Care, said he did not understand the Eye's

Bingo at the Basra Palace

A friend of mine told me this afternon that Britain was starting to withdraw its troops from Iraq, which set my pulse racing as I though "Fuck, he really IS going to hold a snap election!" However, the news was only that we are withdrawing from the Basra Palace. While Basra Palace sounds like it might be a cheap B&B, a bingo hall, a strip club or all of those things, it is in fact one of Saddam's old palaces and has been attracting a lot of rocket and mortar fire recently. Not the sort of thing I should be ...

Of Purely Architectural Interest

Tooting Broadway to Edgware is a long journey - 63 minutes according to TfL - and the mind tends to wander. Unfortunately for you, I had a notebook to record my thoughts and I present them now in (mostly) unedited form, inviting your comment. The pad is headed "The Right-Wing Question"*: Nick Clegg - Not afraid to tackle the RW issue of immigration, but possibly losing RW votes as a result of

Conservative Deputy Treasurer quits

Johan Eliasch doesn’t like the recent Conservative lurch to the right and is quitting. Hat tip: Benedict Brogan. UPDATE: The Times now has more on the story: After a week in which Mr Cameron took fresh hardline positions on crime and immigration, sources close to Mr Eliasch told The Times that he was upset that Mr Cameron was [...]

Campaigning in the Abbey by-election

This weekend I also went over to help in the Abbey Ward (Nuneaton) by-election. The by-election like Brandwood polls on 20 September, unlike Brandwood this one is the result of the sad death of the Liberal Democrat Councillor Pete Ashby. This is the third by-election on Nuneaton and Bedworth Council this year, I am glad to have been able to help in all three.

Kingston Carnival ...

... gets better each year. And here are the Deputy Mayor Bart Ricketts (at the back) and Deputy Leader of the Council Barry O'Mahony (in the foreground) who took part in the parade as the Green Police. Jerk chicken brought the tastes and smells of the Caribbean to the Guildhall.

The power of blogs

My blog post about Labour MP Sharon Hodgson writing an Early Day Motion to praised herself has been well noticed! The Guarian diary column carried it the other day. And yesterday, it was a page lead in our regional newspaper The Journal. Very nice of them to put a big photo of me in it! The Journal story came about as a result of a press release I produced, rather than from the blog. They phoned

I love Lib Dem members

I have just got back from a quick tour of members in my ward. I got two new leafletters, one cake, an invite to a garden party and some useful information I need for some casework. I love Lib Dem members! I am off to the kitchen now to complete the process of making crab apple jelly. Colleagues in Cowley Street will be sampling it tomorrow. I have 2 videos to edit later. Ones a campaigning video

Shower technology

We’ve bitten the bullet and decided to go ahead with the solar panel. It should be up by the end of next week. I’ve also requested a special controller that lets me keep a log of how well the panel is working. We’re not really going to find out over the autumn and winter, although it will make some difference to our gas usage. In going ahead, I’ve learned that showers are much more complicated than they look. Currently, we have a simple electric shower. Cold water at mains pressure goes into a little white box and comes out hot. ...

Tough on crime, tough on the causes of fear of crime

This idea of David Cameron's that we're living in "Broken Britain" and of the Sun that we are witnessing "Anarchy in the UK" has been eating at me a bit. And with Dave's essay in the Telegraph outlining his ideas for mending his broken Britain by branding ten year old boys as failures and keeping them down a year at school got me looking out crime statistics. I suspect this might not be what Dave had in mind (no, really!), but one thing sticks out in the British Crime Survey attitudes to crime, and in particular fear of crime. That ...

Belarus’s Book of Life

{national-library-of-belarus.jpg} Perhaps the most potent symbol of the bizarre reality that is Belarus today is the National Library, which was opened for business last year. Located on the road out to the international airport, it is a modernist geometical structure, lit up with coloured lights at night. One guide-book rather rudely but aptly describes it as looking like ‘a galactic knocking-shop’. Outside there is a giant statue of Francisk Scarina, the Belorussian printer who brought the Bible to the territory even before it got to Russia, and there are a number of biblical quotations inscribed on the building’s facade, in ...

The Special Olympics

Many in the West End will be aware that, in October, amongst the 159 British Athletes with learning disabilities and 50 coaches, who will be travelling to China to represent the UK in the Special Olympics World Summer Games, will be Andrew Gray, aged 28, from the West End. Andrew is one of the aquatic athletes. You can go to the Special Olympics Team GB website by clicking on the headline above. Participation in the games is ‘self funded’ and the Tayside Special Olympics group has been actively fundraising. Already, the Lord Provost and the Economic Development Department have kindly ...

My comments on the Lewisham Gateway development

Lewisham Council's Strategic Planning Committee is to consider the outline planning application for the Lewisham Gateway development on Thursday 6 September. Here are the comments which I have sent to the committee: I strongly support the objectives of the Lewisham Gateway development. The centre of Lewisham needs radical regeneration if the current spiral of decline is to be averted. If that triggers the rather mean-minded and selfish objection from the London Borough of Bromley, then that should be treated with the contempt which it deserves. We also have a duty to contribute to alleviating the housing shortage in London, particularly ...

Three baffling questions (of which only the third is important)

A number of questions have arisen this weekend, the answers to which I am currently not in possession of: 1) How can anyone consider the activity of “sphereing” to be anything other than a modern day version of what should have been done to sheep-rustlers in Medieval times? It was horrific. Tamsin may have enjoyed the sensation of rolling helplessly over and over down a Staffordshire field inside a rubber ball, but I did not. If David Cameron had a go, I could well see it forming part of his strategy for deterring youth crime. And to be honest, it ...

Stupid Aid - Nominate the stupidest decision you know of

Barnardos are running a "Stupid Aid" competition on their website. To enter the competition you need to nominate an example you can find of a stupid decision that has been taken. If you live in an area with a Tory council you should have few problems coming up with lots of things to nominate.

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #28

Welcome to the 28th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (26th August - 1st September), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed. Without further ado: 1. ‘Iain Dale says Ming must stay but others say go now after [...]

Challenge to German’s Welsh leadership likely

According to Wales on Sunday: LIB Dem AM Peter Black last night gave the strongest hint yet he will challenge Mike German for the party leadership. The party’s social justice spokesman – who called for Mr German to go after May’s Assembly election – indicated he would stand if none of his Assembly colleagues did. It comes [...]

Day 2435: Wing and a Prayer

Sunday: News reaches us that the Vatican airline launches pilgrimage flights from Rome to Lourdes… …only to be banned from letting passengers on board with Holy Water. For "security reasons". It is not ALL bad news, though. Passengers are to receive a free miniature – of Holy Water! – in the shape of the BLESSED VIRGIN once they are safely airborne. "Lovely," says Daddy.

Can Gordon Brown afford to wait ?

The economic figures are not adding up the right way if Gordon brown believes that waiting six months is going to boost his poll ratings, with further statistics highlighted by the BBC today showing again why Gordon Brown needs to go to the polls early if he is to stand any chance of victory. The BBC highlights that house repossessions are up 30% in the last year. A stark reminder of the late 1980's and early 1990's when so many formerly Tory voters lost their homes or fell in to negative equity, with so many of these voters telling themselves ...

Fair funding for Haringey schools

That's the topic of my latest newspaper article, which you can read over on my website.

Muswell Hill Horticultural Show

Off {Lynne Featherstone MP at the 2007 Muswell Hill Horticultural Show} to the Muswell Hill Horticultural Show to say hello to everyone and give out the prizes. I am always amazed by the glorious show of flowers and produce - despite what seemed to me a summer largely without sun. What I have learned over my two years as MP about horticulture is that there are generally a few people who pick up the majority of first prizes. And you can see why: their contributions to the classes are superb - and talking to one lady who said she almost ...

I'm back!

Basically, I have lain prone on a beach in France virtually immobile for the last six days. Generally, I like more active holidays - visiting cities, galleries, sites of historic interest or natural beauty - but as this was it for the summer - lying down was required. (And yes - I went there and back by train). No - I didn't think about politics - other than four calls from the print press - I was a politics-free zone. One of the calls was from The Independent was on the back of answer to a parliamentary question I had ...

Bolted Lobbies

I chanced upon a fascinating pamphlet the other day, and I think I ought to tell you all about it. How To Gain Ingress To Lobbies That Have Been Bolted Shut is a tatty forty-four page screed, unclogged by illustrative matter, and – maddeningly – gives no indication of its author or date of publication. I read it at one sitting while picnicking on a pier. The first thing that struck me was that it is unusual to find a bolted lobby. Given the nature of lobbies, as antechambers to all sorts of premises, it is surely common to find ...

Malt Whisky - A booming industry to be proud of

Even on holiday, I regard it as my civil duty to take an interest in local industries. On a visit to Oban distillery last week, I was pleased to hear confirmation that sales of Malt Whisky are booming. Everything produced by Oban distillery (bearing in mind it is aged for 14 years before bottling) is being snapped up by eager Malt Whisky fans. In the Scotsman, Will Lyons reports: Last year

Pressure placed on witnesses

The linked story is from the Sunday Telegraph and involves social workers in Northumberland pressurising witnesses in Fran Lyon's case. What is unique abount this attempt to pervert the course of justice is that it has been done in a case which is essentially public. The "culture of consequentialism" means that the ends justify the means. The objective of the local authority is to get the baby

Row over BBC war film documentary

The Times has been trying to stoke up a row over this evening's documentary in the BBC British film season: A BBC series on British cinema which has been criticised for its “sneery” and “witless” commentary is accused of reaching a new low tonight with an insult to the memory of Douglas Bader.Group Captain Bader performed heroics as a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, despite having both his legs amputated after a 1931 flying crash. An instalment of British Film Forever dedicated to war movies discusses Reach for the Sky, the 1956 Bader biopic starring Kenneth More. The ...

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