LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Monday 8th October 2007

Politics in Japan

I’ve just watched an extraordinary film on this evening’s Newsnight about a by-election candidate in Japan. He basically spends the entire campaign - which he has to pay for entirely out of his own pocket - being abused by his Sensei (basically, the party elders), having his wife told she should give up her career and become his trophy housewife and generally being treated like dirt. In one particularly spectacular act of petty bullying, they don’t even permit him to meet Junichiro Koizumi who has come to help his campaign. It’s quite clear that the feudal mind-set is still alive ...

Colin Breed to stand down

Colin Breed, Liberal Democrat MP for South East Cornwall has announced that he will not seek re-election at the next general election. Full story over at the ThisIsPlymouth website. (Hat-tip: Stephen Gilbert commenting on LDV earlier.)

Deserved

The Guardian have published their student media awards shortlist (although unfortunately I can't find it on their website at the moment)and Sam Read of the University of Reading has been shortlisted for "Broadcaster of the Year". Thoroughly well-deserved if you ask me, as Sam worked on Junction11's news for three years non-stop, often when others wouldn't, and it's great to see hard work like

Robo-intimidation

I sure drowsy today. Every time I try to go to sleep last night phone ring. When I pick it up robotic soulless female voice solemnly say "This is a recorded message from the Labouristi. If you love Don Brown press one. If you think Don Cameron is hopeless press two. If you think Don Campbell is too old press three." And so it go on. Eventually I get so fed up I shout back "Look, Signora Harman, I appreciate you mighty grateful to Don Brown for giving you job in call centre, but if you don't take me off ...

Time for Adam Boulton to grow up ?

Adam Boulton, it appears, is really rather annoyed at getting scooped by the BBC by Gordon Brown announcing exclusively to BBC News that he was not going to call an election. Various reports today show that Adam Boulton has lost his supposedly balanced tone with a senior Labour Minister, and seems apoplectic over the whole incident on his own blog. What I personally find very odd is that Adam Boulton left the confines of traditional terrestrial broadcasters so that he could be part of a rolling news network, run with tabloid principles of getting scoops and exclusives yet when he ...

Route 15 - apology received

A couple of weeks ago I published my whinge about bus route 15. I have received an apology from East London Buses. I must say I am impressed: Thank you for contacting London Buses in regards to your experience on 25 September when using our route 15. East London Bus Group expect all our staff to carry out their duties in a polite and helpful manner and conduct themselves professionally at all

"Hello, this is RoboLabour"

"Hello, this is Gordon" said the dark Scottish voice as I picked up the phone. "I'm calling to tell you about our plans for Britain. After ten years of government, of low interest rates and inflation coupled with high employment and economic growth, it is fair to say we have locked in economic stability for the long term." I tried to put the phone down. "The end of boom and bust economics is Labour's greatest contribution ot Britain. The second greatest contribution will be the statues." For some reason my arm was paralysed... "We will change Britain's landscape for the ...

Is Gordon Brown really all that?

Talk about a week being a long time in politics. If Gordon Brown had the courage to match his opportunism today would mark the beginning of the second week of an autumn ’07 general election campaign. Phew, say Lib Dems and Tories And both the Lib Dems and Tories would be more than a bit worried for a very good reason: neither party is yet ready to face an election. Why should they be? After all

Pavements issues ...

Over the past couple of days, I have received a number of pavement defects complaints.These include a drainage channel grid missing at the entrance to Pinegrove on Perth Road and further east along Perth Road at Ryehill Lane, a similar grid has fallen and stuck inside the drainage channel.I've reported all complaints to the City Council.

Time Travelling around Kirkleatham Village

School children are being given the chance to become time travellers and explore Kirkleatham Village to find evidence that links the area to the Second World War, the 18th century and as far back as medieval times. The educational journey begins with a week of archaeological, environmental and historic activities, starting on Monday, October 15, and is expected to stretch several years. The Kirkleatham Village Archaeology Project is a partnership between Redcar and Cleveland Council's countryside and museums services, Tees Archaeology and the local community. The work makes a perfect link to the National Big Draw Week, as Kirkleatham Museum ...

Broad Street Station

The other day I had a work meeting in London and I exited the Tube at Liverpool Street. Coming out of the mainline station I was reminded of the time, more than 20 years ago, when I lived in London and Liverpool Street had another terminus for a neighbour: Broad Street. As Subterranea Britannica records, at the start of the 20th century more than one train a minute arrived or left Broad Street during the morning rush hour. In 1902 more than 27 million passengers used the station and it was the third busiest in London. However, the North London ...

Good sense from Lydbury North

The Shropshire Star reports: Parents, governors and teachers at a Shropshire primary school have begun a campaign to save their school from closure - despite the fact it is not earmarked for the axe.Very wise. You can't be too careful these days.

Taking the P*ss in Tate Modern

Next year's new installation in Tate Modern should be this. After all, if they can get away with THIS, and pretend it is all about racism and division, then why not allow people somewhere so that Tate modern can see we can take the piss too ?

Electoral Calculus - wildly inaccurate

Electoral Calculus is a toy for political anoraks in which you can play with national swings to predict the outcome of the next election. Every month or so they put out a prediction as to how many seats each of the parties will attain based on the average of the that month's opinion polls. Unfortunately the system is so crude that it can't cope with third party votes or the two-party tactical voting that actually decides elections in target seats. In consequence it persistently under-estimates Liberal Democrat and Conservative support and hypes up Labour. Today's 'prediction' is a particularly daft. ...

BritBlog Roundup 138

This week at Westminster Wisdom.

A change in policy?

I’ve obviously been busy with Liberal Democrat stuff for the last few weeks, but I’m wondering if I’ve missed a switch in Green policy recently. I always thought that they were the party committed to localism and supporting local businesses, but given that the supposedly local leaflet we got from them this afternoon was printed in Sussex, I can only assume they’ve abandoned that policy.

Turkish Diva at The Royal Albert Hall

I was at the Royal Albert Hall last night, along with most of the Turkish community in London to watch, who the Guardian describes as the 'undisputed Queen of Turkish contemporary music ' - singer and songwriter, Sezen Aksu. She is a Turkish icon, and she was fantastic. The audience of around 4000, adoring fans, loved her. I'm guessing that most people in the UK blogosphere are saying right now, who? But to the Turks and people in the Balkans, she is known as the Turkish Madonna, and has performed worldwide to sell-out concerts. Sezen has sold over 40 million ...

Stephen Tall: "Deluded to the point of mental incapacity"

There is an odd post by Stephen Tall on Lib Dem Voice. He begins by quoting from this morning's Guardian: there are now also questions over the fate of the Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Ming Campbell, 66, who has failed to push up his party’s fortunes in the opinion polls in recent months. He was chosen in 2006 to provide a safe pair of hands after Charles Kennedy had to resign - but he also has younger MPs who are keen to take the job. …One Lib Dem MP said last night: ‘This election decision is going to have big ...

A letter to the Observer’s Readers’ Editor

Dear Mr Pritchard, In Jo Revill’s article (Labour critics blame Balls and Alexander), she makes the following statement: But there are now also questions over the fate of the Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Ming Campbell, 66, who has failed to push up his party’s fortunes in the opinion polls in recent months. He was chosen in 2006 to provide a safe pair of hands after Charles Kennedy had to resign - but he also has younger MPs who are keen to take the job. As Brown has now hinted that there will not be an election until 2009, it raises ...

Oh, what to write? Sod it, lets just be rude about the Tories. Blah, blah, blah…

I’ve been terribly uninspired about what to write about on this blog recently. What more is there to say about Gordon’s brown trouser moment? I’m dreadfully bored of it to tell you the truth. The one thing that has interested me is that the narrative that is emerging is that Cameron has emerged from this in a strong position, with Gideon Osborne’s tax announcements being hailed as genius. This does rather smack of the same self-delusion and hubris that felled Brown. The only thing the Tories achieved last week was to squeak about a couple of modest policy announcements and ...

Norman to fight Lewes again

Congratulations to Norman Baker on being re-selected by his local party in Lewes to contest the constituency for the Lib Dems whenever Gordon dares to go to the polls. Norman was first elected in 1997, when he defeated Tory Tim Rathbone, and was returned in 2005 with a majority of c.8,500, with more than 52% [...]

Westminster Liberal Drinks back on

{Liberal Drinks logo} What a difference a weekend makes. This time last week I was contemplating canceling the October Westminster Liberal Drinks - didn’t seem much point if the election was happening. It would have been a shame given that we hadn’t had one in September due to a clash with conference, July due to the clash with the Ealing Southall by-election and August due to, um, me not bothering to organise it (only to get half a dozen calls of people wondering what was happening - sorry). Now it is well and truly back on - 17 October - ...

Perhaps a couple of independent candidates might force the Humber Bridge debt into the national arena

Saturday saw another demonstration by the local campaign to axe the debt on the Humber Bridge and lower the tolls. This follows the one which took place in September.I thought it interesting to make a comparison on last week’s announcement that the Government is to support London’s Crossrail project. Even allowing for the fact that the Government will finance only one-third of the Crossrail project, this still amounts to about £5 billion. The sum required to scrap the debt on the Humber Bridge meanwhile is about £350 million; a comparatively small amount. The part financing of Crossrail is added to ...

Family Matters

Just a week after we heard of his death, and a fortnight before what would have been his 80th birthday we buried my last remaining uncle today. He'd enjoyed his life on the whole, and his children, grandchildren and other relatives and friends were out in force to remember him and celebrate his life. Until the Pastor mentioned his service in the Navy in Malta I'd forgotten about the cuddly dog

They Got to March

Turns out the Police and Stop the War came to a compromise, and today's protest calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq was able to go ahead past the Palace of Westminster... On the day the Prime Minister announced to the Commons that the number of troops serving in Iraq will be cut to half their current level by next spring. See also: A Quick Withdrawal SOCPA 2005 Strikes Back

Nightingale Club keeps licence

This morning the Nightingale Club retained its licence despite fierce opposition from Crosby Homes. Crosby, who have built (and are in process of building more) apartments in close proximity to the club, appealed on the basis of public disturbance and disorder (I don’t know the exact details but it was along those lines). The streets around the Nightingale (The Hurst Street area) have been home to the city’s “gay village” for many years. The area is a vibrant mix of nightlife, including the Arcadian Centre, several nightclubs, many restaurants and the Hippodrome Theatre. The Nightingale itself has a national reputation ...

Don’t Invade Iran!

We will hear a statement this afternoon from the Prime Minister about the situation in Iraq and the likely reduction in British troops on the ground over the next few months. The so-called War ...

Distraction burglary

I understand, from the local Neighbourhood Watch Co-ordinator, that there has been an increase in the number of "distraction burglaries" recently - when someone enters your house pretending to be someone in authority. Most of the incidents recently involved male callers frightening elderly people into believing that there was a problem with their water supply. Anyone who IS official will carry

Taxing inheritance

"The odds are that Labour’s (poll) advantage will be restored shortly. But that advantage will be maintained only if the Prime Minister and Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, neutralise the inheritance tax question."So says Tim Hames in today's Times ('It's time for the last rights over inheritance tax').It's difficult to disagree with him.George Osbourne's pledge has certainly captured the voters' imagination far more than it should. As Hames goes on to points out, the impact of the policy would have been felt by very few people:But Peter Preston in The Guardian agrees in (the slightly mis-titled) 'Care in the afterlife'It seems ...

Information Commissioner and Labour phone calls

These phonecalls http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7030377.stm may or may not be illegal - but for goodness sake, if you are going to telephone voters at least do them the courtesy of having a real person make the call!

Briton Comes First

I salute you noble champion Apollooo for proving that there are some things us Brits can do better than most... Like beating the Brotherhood with our GDI APCs and Mammoth Tanks. Now go forth, and conquer the world.

Iain Dale backs Lib Dems - Well sort of ...

Iain Dale is backing the principle of what the Lib Dems are proposing when it comes to fixed term parliaments and is urging a cross party consensus to come about in order for this to be achieved. The very principle of a runner in a race being able to fire the starting pistol would seem ludicrous, yet when it comes to running the country it seems to be okay. We should welcome Iain's support and that of other Tory bloggers too. If a ground swell of support can be got behind this, fixed term parliaments might become a reality. And ...

School angrily denies Cameron's conference speech story

David Cameron told a story during his conference speech about a school boy who rushed past him on the way to an exam: I stopped a boy as he was running in to his GCSE exam and I said 'What's the problem?'. And he said 'Well, I got completely p****d last night, I've got a hangover and I'm going to flunk this exam'. I asked a teacher about him and I was told he'd attacked a teacher before and he

The Right to Protest

The main SOAS building was evacuated at midday today, when the fire alarms went off — just in time for everyone to witness the departure of an energetic contingent of anti-Iraq War demonstrators who were heading off to Westminster. If somebody deliberately set off the fire alarm to give the march a dramatic send-off, they deserve to have their wrist slapped. But I fiercely champion the right of those who feel strongly enough about this issue to take to the streets to make their views known. The government’s attempts to bar them from Parliament Square, on the grounds that this ...

Iain Dale MP?

I discussed this when it was a possibility on 3rd September. Following the Grand Ducal announcement, it has now been confirmed that Ann Widdecombe is bowing out of the House of Commons at the next election. Surely this soon-to-be-vacated seat has got to be a shoe-in for old Iain, hasn't it? He lives in Kent. He must know the inside track of the constituency from his old friend Ann. He is

Is "Fixed Term Fixation" the best we can do?

The ‘Fixed Term Parliament’ idea seems to be the latest constitutional panacea that will cure all problems from constipation upwards. Sorry, but I think this misses a number of important points. For starters the real problem behind the recent undignified ‘Dance of The Seven Gordons’ is that the UK has not really abolished arbitrary Royal Powers. They have just migrated to the ‘Prime Minister in Parliament’. Tackling this complex of arbitrary ‘Henry VIII powers’ is the real constitutional challenge, and making Parliamentary election cycles absolutely rigid may be a bit of a distraction. Rigid fixed term Parliaments have their disadvantages ...

Hell hath no t-shirt

I am momentarily distracted from the tasks of having girly-flu and buying up all the Wispa bars in Haringey borough ahead of Cllr Davies by the following discovery. Focus Fodder retails a number of t-shirts bearing the legend “Lib Dem Blogger“. But only, mark you, in the men’s range. Women wishing to purch-ase are limited to “working hard all year round”, venerating Paddy Ashdown as a sex god, or at best, being councillors. Pfah. Try harder, FF, immediately, lest you Feel My Wrath. In other news, I am 55% right brained, 45% left, I am also 88% tortured genius, only 16% nerd (I demand a ...

Thick fog mars conference

Conference seems to get better each year and its always a boost when the venue is as good as Brighton. It was a shame that the evenings were marred by thick fog around the main hotels. It is incredible to find that in the most enlightened party in the country so many of our members still feel the need to puff away endlessly, so much so that entry or exit from any hotel in Brighton was a game of Russian Roulette with the level of toxins in the air equivalent to those of a poorly maintained Trabant queuing in heavy ...

The War on Drugs - More important than human life

Looking to the other side of the pond as I tend to do I see that the main stream press (in the US) are finally noticing the very disturbing case of the ‘House of Death’ where the DEA, FBI and other government departments used a paid informant who proceeded, with full knowledge of his handlers [...]

A Quick Withdrawal

The Stop the War coalition's protest which the police have banned (and I've blogged about before) is going ahead. I know this not because I read it in the news, but because I've just be accosted outside King's to come and join in. Several MPs, former MPs and "celebrity" political activists are taking part and it will be interesting to see what the police reaction will be to a peaceful protest

Look out ant and dec, here comes ming

In the face of Gordon's humbling and Dave clawing his way back from the brink, some serious attention is now being paid to Ming's public persona - and not before time. He is universally recognised to be extremely able and he is always impeccably presented but he has never had what us plebs still call the common touch. How nice therefore to see two excellent examples last week of his image being addressed. First on Question Time he spoke well on a range of topics and, after a bit of a stilted start, during which is hand seldome left his ...

Lib Dems slam Labour’s robo-calling

The BBC report that the Liberal Democrats have reported the Labour party’s “robo-calling” electioneering to the Information Commissioner. The method - where automated calls ask voters to state their voting preference - may contravene regulations on unsolicited automated calling. In preparation for their botched snap election, Gordon Brown’s party had revived the system, which was [...]

Looks like the left side of my brain has gone to sleep

You Are 15% Left Brained, 85% Right Brained The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning. Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others. If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic. Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility. Daring and

Lines on the cowardice of the prime minister – and a movie proposal

Gordon Brown’s decision not to call the election is a major disappointment and a humiliation for the ghastly Labour spin machine. It would be lovely to think that lessons would be learned and their approach to politics would change but that’s about as likely as the Tories getting a decent leader any time soon. The true nature of the Brown government is now far clearer. He will do his utmost to maintain an aura of quiet competence by avoiding any difficult decisions, instead leaving it to his lieutenants to carefully gauge every decision for popularity. This presents a fascinating opportunity ...

Refuse and Recycling Consultation

Recycling can be quite a controversial topic. Kingston Council's recycling and refuse contract is up for renewal, so there's a very important consultation going on at present to capture the views of people who live in the borough. You'll find the online version of the consultation on the Council's website, so do spend a few minutes filling it in. You've got until 3pm on...

What about Cameron's lack of honesty?

I realise that David Cameron has just seen his job tenure suddenly extended by about two years, but I think he is going over the top with his "Brown isn't being honest with the British public" mantra. Why don't you be honest and say that the last thing you wanted, until about 2pm on Saturday, was an election, Monsieur Cameron? I am aware that Grand Old Dukegate has revealed, or re-revealed, an

The Grand Old Duke of Kircaldy

Death & Taxes

Sometimes in politics you can be right, but wrong electorally, and other times wrong but popular with the voters. Inheritance tax is such a policy area Only 37,000 people are likely ...

I was expecting not to return

I am on the train to London now. I had expected to be heading down and not returning home for a month. But then Brown called off the election and I haven't any return tickets booked for Friday! Better book up something when I get to the office. I guess that when I get to Cowley Street, my office move planned for today will not go ahead. Indeed, I can envisage having to help move out the furniture

Lib Dem MP: “We have to think about where we want to be in 18 months’ time”

From today’s Guardian: there are now also questions over the fate of the Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Ming Campbell, 66, who has failed to push up his party’s fortunes in the opinion polls in recent months. He was chosen in 2006 to provide a safe pair of hands after Charles Kennedy had to resign - but [...]

Sofia in the Sunshine

Recently I spent two days in Bulgaria, hosted by the British Council and the British Embassy, to launch their New Politician’s Toolkit to Bulgarian political parties and media. The Toolkit arose out of the UK-South East Europe Forum, a project run over the last couple of years and in which I had been one of the participants, which is how I came be invited to launch it. The UK-South East Europe Forum was an interesting project, bringing together, in different strands, people from the creative industries, or young people, from the region together with some from the UK. The third ...

New Tory Sedgley leaflet - how stupid do they think we are?

I don’t like to bash the opposition for the sake of it, but the new Sedgley Tory leaflet deserves a mention for its sheer cheek. I urge you all to take a look at it for comedy value, because it does a better job than anything we could put out about the deceitful nature of the local Conservatives. The Sedgley Conservative spokesman has attempted a “before and after” photograph of a road which he claims has had some “slow” markings painted on it after his plea to the Council for action. Unfortunately, his ”before” shot is exactly the same photo as his “after” ...

A march too far?

It is difficult to see whether the Police ban on anti-war protestors entering Parliament Square, under the provisions of 19th century sessional orders passed to protect the passage of MPs and peers against radical mobs, is an attempt at censorship as alleged or bureaucracy gone mad. The Police say that Parliament Square is a relatively constricted space and that three other protests there have been approved to coincide with MPs' return to work. Accordingly a spokeswoman claims that the sessional order has been invoked "to uphold access and egress for MPs and peers in order to protect the democratic process." ...

Short-listed

Having spent the first half of the weekend preparing for a snap General Election, I then spent the second half of it not preparing for said election. Luckily, this meant I could watch three mighty sporting encounters without feeling guilty that I really should be designing a canvassing leaflet or going off to Durham to stuff some postal vote application forms in envelopes. Gordon's pathetic

Low tax Tories? Don't make me laugh!

ConservativeHome on Sunday included this little piece of hubris. Now, it is true that, somewhat inexplicably to me, Gideon's announcement about raising the Inheritance Tax threshold, something that everyone seems to acknowledge affects just 6% of estates (about 30,000 families each year) currently, seems to have done them a lot of favours, positioning them in the public perception at least as a tax cutting party. But it would be quite wrong on a number of levels to say that they are lowering taxes: First, they are simply shifting the burden. Sure, it is shifting from a few relatively wealthy households ...

Fixed term parliament

The one thing that Gordon Brown's activities have done is strengthen the call for fixed term parliaments. It has vividly demonstrated how the change to Britain's archaic democratic system is needed in a modern democracy. Two Lib Dem MPs, Davids Heath and Howarth, will this week be presenting a bill in Parliament which would legislate for fixed-term Parliaments. This video is superb:

For 'tis the sport to have the Telegraph hoist with its own petard...

There's been some moaning in the Telegraph recently about how school kids do not know their Shakespeare. So they published a quiz for their readers. Okay, so I didn't do too badly, but I didn't get fourteen out of fifteen, but I certainly got one less, according to their answers, than I should have done: Last Updated: 10:40am BST 07/10/2007 {Pollonious and Laertes, Hamlet, 2001, courtesy of the RSC} Test yourself on your knowledge of Shakespeare: Questions 5. Who says: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge ...

I’m confused by Barack Obama’s declaration on foreign policy

It’s official. If Barack Obama becomes President he will seek the elimination of nuclear weapons as well as increasing foreign aid and deliver a state of the world address. There’s more of course, but that’s the general jist of it. His justification for these proposals is that the Soviet Union does not exist any more, so does not need to be defended against from the threat of nuclear war, and that instead the focus should be on keeping nukes out of the hands of terrorists - the new threat. I have just one question: why? By that, I don’t mean ...

The Grand Old Duke of York

I stumbled across this, made me laugh anyway, well worth a watch.http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=l22kHO5jdRU Personally this whole thing has been a total waste of time, I personally know of many politicians who have poured masses of energy into a possible election when they could have been spending time on real issues in their constituencies. I became convinced over the past few days that this whole set up has been staged to flush out the aces of the other two parties. A good argument for fixed term parliaments. While we are at it, lets get a fair voting system. Its time to modernise ...

Monday 8th October 2007

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