LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Thursday 11th October 2007

Election Petition

There’s a petition on the Number 10 site, an idea that’s bound to lead to embarrassment for the very department that runs it - eventually. Well Gordon Brown made a comment about General Election fever and the lack of it - he commented that on the petition site there was a petition to hold a general election in 2007 and it had just 67 (actual number might be wrong) signatures. The thing is - since that comment it’s gone up to more than 8000 and is climbing all the time. I signed it - mainly because I think a General ...

Dave's Uncreative Conservative Futurology

So, Dave's been at the Googleplex trying to give an inspiring vision of what the internet can do for us, and especially our relationship with government. I imagine that if the fun-loving boffins at Google made up the audience they will have been yawningly underwhelmed or resorting to bouncing their hyper-activity stress balls off the video screens. It's a bit of ironic timing though, after last week's debacle over Labour stealing the Tories' or more accurately the Lib Dem's policy clothing, as my speech writers are just putting the finishing touches to the second of my pieces on Revolutionary Liberalism ...

Tory student chief rapped over homophobic comments

The Conservative Future Chairman at the University of Central Lancashire has been thrown out of the Tory Party and been suspended by the University for being listed as an officer on a homophobic Facebook group and for making homophobic remarks to that group. The Conservatives, to their credit, have thrown him out of the party. It is interesting to note that the government are considering changing laws to make this sort of treatment of homosexuals equal with that of being racist or offending someone else's religion. Fergus Bowman, the Tory in question, was reading politics and religion (no surprise there), ...

Keep Feet off Seats!

As a good Liberal, I’m a great believer in as few laws as possible (within reason). Indeed, one of my major gripes about New Labour is that they seem to have spent much of the past ten years creating new criminal offences. However, I am pleased to see that in future the British Transport Police will be able to issue on-the-spot fines to people who put their feet — and more specifically their shoes — on the seats of trains and the tube. This has become a depressingly common phenomenon, predominantly (but not exclusively) among young people who often seem to ...

Community Centred

Will Leeds City Council transfer assets and power to the locally led and mutually owned Headingley Development Trust by giving them the former Headingley Primary School Building? Its a long sentence but as locally its the question of the decade thats probabley allowed. Its certainly being dominating my time recently and today I chaired another working group meeting and yesterday went to a public meeting of Headingley Community Centre users, a service likley to be caught up in any particular deal. Given that negotiations are still on going I won't say much more than is in the public domain. The ...

New words

Dull as many Plenary sessions can be, we can always rely on Tory AM, David Melding, to liven them up, especially when he is on his favourite subject of heritage. Yesterday, the Presiding Officer even coined a phrase to describe his unique perspective on such matters: David Melding: As you know, this whole area is under review at the moment as a result of the White Paper, albeit at a UK level. However, one of its main aims is to promote an appreciation of the built heritage in Wales, and to secure the preservation of ancient monuments and historic buildings. ...

On Internet TV for the first time

Last night I had chance to appear on the internet TV channel 18 Doughty St. for the first time. The channel was started by Tory blogger and former parliamentary candidate Iain Dale. We discussed everything from the pre-Budget statement to flooding and blogging. You never know with these things whether anyone is watching, though I'm assured if you include the subsequent downloads you get up to quite serious numbers. I'll wait to see whether or not I get stopped in Thornbury High Street and asked for my autograph after last night! See what you think of the broadcast here!

The problem with Labour and statistics

The problem with statistics is not that 97% of them are made up nor is it that there are lies, damned lies and statistics. No , the problem with statistics is that they only record what is measurable, not what is important. This is a basic concept this government has failed to grasp. Not since the creation of the Domesday book have we been governed by people so obsessed with recording every minutiae of data, yet this government uses its statistics not to inform its decision making, instead of this it uses its recording and reporting of statistics to justify ...

Proving my point again ?

On Tuesday I wrote scathingly of the load of old shite the Tate Modern sometimes serves up under the title "art", because as an alternative artist you could literally shit yourself and call it "art". And if people don't like it you call them a heathen or uneducated or stupid and simply complain that they don't understand. Well I then read something like THIS story about some arrogant Cypriot Australian who has had an ear grafted on to his arm in the name of art. It's a shame it wasn't another penis. If he had done this at least he ...

PMQs! Ugh!

I haven’t blogged for ages and in truth I’ve been waiting for something positive to say about politics, being a political activist and parliament before doing so again…and I’ve been quiet now on the blog for over a month. I still can’t find much positive to say, so I’m going to give up and tell you about something I hate about politics. I hate the bear pit that is the House of Commons,

Peasants Rise Up, Lembit in the Fore

I received in my email today a petition against the House of Commons authorities' decision that MPs were now entitled to barge mere mortals out of the way in the lunch queue. I suspect that Lembit was behind it. No-one has yet told me exactly which 'facilities' are covered. Are honorable Members now entitled to demand priority use of toilet cubicles? (Assuming, of course, that they would want to rather than using the Members' Only loos). However, I shall certainly be signing the petition. And I don't even really work in Parliament. I suspect further acts of civil disobedience by ...

Sir John Bourn should resign

It's good to see the Liberal Democrats championing a cause that is at once shamelessly populist and wholly justified. Norman Baker is calling on Sir John Bourn to resign as head of the National Audit Office following revelations about his expenses. As Norman says: "It is incredible that Sir John Bourn has seen fit to run up gigantic bills for largesse at the taxpayers’ expense."Even more serious is appearing to accept hospitality from companies such as BAE which compromises the independent and professional standing essential to someone in this post.The full details of Sir John's high living were in this ...

Norman’s on the war-path again

Norman Baker, Lib Dem Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, and scourge of the Establishment, has called for the head of Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, who’s racked up £365,000 travel expenses in the last three years: “It is incredible that Sir John Bourn has seen fit to run up gigantic bills [...]

Think Tank of the Year 2007 (runner up)

Ignore the Punch and Judy show of Westminster politics; ignore fusty economic stories about sub-prime mortgages; ignore stories about far away shores. The real news of the day is that CentreForum was awarded the 'runner up' slot in yesterday's Think Tank of the Year awards.The award, organised by Prospect magazine, comes after we've only had one full year in operation (according to Prospect's criteria). We were competing against the likes of IPPR with their 72 staff and £4million annual expenditure. (It was IPPR who won the main award).Yes, its self-indulgent to have a blog posting purely about us, but we're ...

Wood Lane

Yesterday I visited the Wood Lane Children's Home in Headingley. For obvious reasons not to many details of what went on but it is a pleasure to see a Institution in such transparently good nick. Its not uncommon for Childrens Homes to be scape goated for Anti Social Behaviour problems in there neighbourhoods. From time to time this issue flares up at Wood Lane. I'll nail my colours to the mast and say in Wood Lanes case its unpleasent nonsence. Central Headingley suffers very high volume crime rates and often people look for someone to blame. Meeting the staff was ...

Gareth Southgate is right about the Mayday for Nurses campaign

A while ago there was a lot of publicity for Noreena Hertz and her Mayday for Nurses campaign. The charity had asked Premiership footballers to donate a day's wages to help nurses and published figures showing how generous each club had been. Now, in the last couple of days, there have been stories about how quick to pay the players have been, again broken down by club. Today, according to the Guardian, Gareth Southgate has had enough. The Middlesbrough manager is quoted as saying: "I think it's outrageous that the campaign's fundraising style has bordered on blackmail, with the message ...

The Carnival of Satire

Lord Bonkers' recent remarks on the abolition of the slave trade in Rutland have made it into The Carnival of Satire 85.

Hu Jintao - You Don't Get Away That Easily

I've focused my recent postings on Burma where clearly something desperately needs to happen to force the Military regime to it's senses or better still, see it fall from power. China must be very happy that the world's attention is turned to Burma as it seems that the wave of repression that I predicted several months ago surrounding the CPC Congress is coming to pass according to this Human Rights Watch report which I received today. The world needs to raise pressure on Beijing to clean up it's act as well. I'm not sure that I'm quite at the point ...

Lamassoure-Severin report might bode ill for Scotland

The European Parliament voted in Plenary Session today adopting the Lamassoure-Severin report on future numbers of MEPs for EU member states. This will mean that the number of UK MEPs will fall from the current 78 to 73, which has worrying implications for the number of Scottish MEPs. We currently have 7, including my employer Elspeth Attwooll. It is possible, depending on the PM, that this will fall to 6. If our numbers reduce to 6 then, in my opinion, will give the Gnats an open goal against the Federal & Unionist parties in Scotland. Why? Well Malta (Pop. 400k), ...

Al Gore to win a Nobel Prize?

According to the Daily Kos Al Gore has had to cancel an event scheduled for tonight because "he needs to travel abroad tomorrow for an exciting and urgent mission that could result in a major breakthrough in the fight against global warming". Any relation to the fact that the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is being announced tomorrow morning?

Lunchtime is Shouting At The Guardian Time

Today's Guardian contains a leader column containing the following assesment of Ming and our general position: Meanwhile Liberal Democrat support, which has plunged disturbingly, might recover, more to Mr Cameron's disadvantage than Mr Brown's. Sir Menzies Campbell ended his party conference with a capable speech that should have strengthened his leadership, but unfair though it is, he has not

Labour claim that Yorkshire is bad for business

Posted by Chris: An article (read it here) in tonight's Evening Gazette once again quotes the Labour leader of Redcar & Cleveland Council, George Dunning, claiming that business people had advised him that using Yorkshire as part of the postal address was "sending out the wrong messages." In other words Labour are claiming that Yorkshire is bad for business. This bizarre excuse for dropping Yorkshire from the postal address just does not stand up to scrutiny. The article was in response to my call for them to reconsider this and I point out that it does no harm at all. ...

BBC news site crashed?

For the first time ever in my experience the main BBC news page on http://news.bbc.co.uk/ appeared to crash for several minutes at about 2.45pm today. Did anyone else notice? Has there been a denial of service attack?

Budapest for Catherine's birthday

Hah! at last a jaunt out of the UK this year! Catherine celebrates her birthday on the 10th of December so we have booked a weekend city break in Budapest, a city neither of has visited before, from the 8th to the 11th of December. We are both looking forward to exploring the city. I've already got the Military Museum, roman remains and Parliament building on my to do list as well as sampling some of the local wines and spirits. Catherine's eyes lit up at the thought of the Christmas market and the possibility of snow on the ground ...

Happiness, a human right?

I’ve been wanting to blog about this confused and superficial article about ‘wellbeing’ ever since I spotted it at the weekend. I’ll skip over the fact that it treats as new a set of ideas that have been part of public debate for at least a decade, or that it confuses the idea of ‘wellbeing’ with that of ‘happiness’. No, what really annoyed me is the big mistake it makes in its very first

It's O-tay

Hat-tip to Pickled Politics for this video:

Recent movements

Last night I attended the Prestwich Community Development Working Group, where lots of exciting things were on the agenda. From an update on progress in Rainsough to a re-affirmation of our commitment to working with Salford to achieve improvements there, to an update about the Butterstile Children’s Centre, and the proposed Ball zone for Polefield. It’s only been three weeks since the last meeting so there’s not been any major progress, but all of these things are still on the agenda and will be worked through. We also took a look at some grant applications and were able to allocate some of ...

Now I know why the chicken crossed the road!

From BBC Scotland's website today (a very eggciting story): Chicken lorry crash causes chaos "Much of central Scotland was brought to a standstill after a lorry containing 3,000 chickens crashed on the A80, resulting in birds running loose. The lorry jack-knifed on the southbound carriageway, near Haggs, at 0430 BST, leaving the 45-year-old driver with serious back injuries. On and off ramps were shut causing huge tailbacks across the Forth Valley. About 400 birds died and the rest have now been caught. It is hoped the M80 and M876 will reopen at about 1300 BST. Drivers were asked to use ...

Family Justice System: Petition

John Hemming: I have an example of egregious behaviour by the family justice system to present. The petition states: The Petition of a British Citizen Declares that a Local Authority has recently told a mother that she will not be allowed contact with her adopted child if she continues to protest outside the Family Court. The Petitioner therefore requests that the House of Commons urges the

Two amendments and an EDM

This week I have tabled two amendments. One to the Criminal Justice Bill to deal with street racing and another to the Legal Services Bill to assist membership organisations such as the Medical Protection Society. I have also tabled an EDM on hospital acquired infections. HOSPITAL-ACQUIRED INFECTION That this House recognises the trauma caused to patients and families by hospital-acquired

Who are the most-quoted opposition MPs?

Iain Dale has produced his monthly list of Tory shadow cabinet ‘media tarts’, based on their total number of mentions in the UK newspapers, according to the Lexis-Nexis database. Rather kindly, he has also compiled the figures for four Lib Dems: Ming Campbell, Nick Clegg, Chris Huhne and Vince Cable. Merge the two lists, and [...]

Euro candidate ballots out this week

The ballot papers for the selection of the Liberal Democrats’ European Parliamentary candidates are going in the post Wednesday to Friday 10th to 12th October (in England: Wales and Scotland are using a different timetable). Delivery may unfortunately be delayed by the post office strikes - but we hope most ballot papers will arrive during [...]

Scunnered with postal strikes

The news this morning that there have been wildcat strikes by posties in London & Liverpool makes me want to bang the heads of both sides together and shout at them that they are destroying a once great institution. I appreciate that the CWU and their members have a genuine grievance with Adam Crozier and his fellow managers but, quite frankly, continued strikes and especially these wildcat actions are losing them a lot of support with the long suffering postless public. time for the Government to get involved and get this resolved. Some years ago when I worked at BT ...

In Defence of the UN

From David Miliband's blog and in language not normally heard from politicians: "Quite a few of the comments on the blog so far have attacked the UN for various failings. It's not a perfect institution - shock. It should be reformed - of course. But don't fall for the argument that because it's not perfect it is not valuable. The UN deploys the second-largest number of troops and police (over

The Bourn Ultimatum

An intriguing tangent to the BAE/Al Yamamah arms deal affair has come to light. The National Audit Office has revealed that its head, Comptroller and Auditor General Sir John Bourn, has run up significant expenses bills - paid for by the taxpayer - and has also received corporate hospitality from various sources. One of these is BAE Systems, who paid for Sir John to attend the British Grand Prix during the summer. Sir John has previously refused to release the NAO’s own report into BAE’s Al Yamamah deal. As a result of these revelations, Norman Baker MP, the Liberal Democrats’ ...

Democrats get a whiff of power and erode civil liberties

Having opposed Bush’s plans for wire tapping and claimed they would repeal such powers, the Democrats are now seeking to extend that power (NYTimes, use bugmenot.com to get a username and password). This seems to be a case of getting a whiff of power and wanting to use it. They probably assume that soon there’ll be [...]

Bus Cuts - Lib Dem challenge to Tory Leader

My colleague Karen Barratt, councillor for St Paul Ward, Winchester, has been direct in her opposition to the County Council's cuts in bus subsidy. Her open letter to County Council, Ken Thornber, seems well worth sharing: Dear Councillor Thornber, Thank you for your detailed reply to my letter of 28 August but I am still not convinced by your defence of cuts to the bus subsidy. I do not accept

This won't be quoted in the Independent

Stephen Tall on LibDem Voice has highlighted an article in today's Independent just above the motif saying "Now wash your hands". I don't blame journalists. They have editors on their back and they are lazy just like the rest of us. Why actually try to work out what is going on when you can just quote a blog which fits what your editor wants? Why try to get your head around policy? It's boring

I love my phone!

Over the summer I was thinking about getting myself an iPod nano (one of the old slim ones, before it got a bigger screen in the most recent re-launch, making it look far less cool). But then I realised the only reason I really wanted it was because it looked cool – and that since I hate headphones it would only really be any use with some speakers attached. And then I realised there was a far better solution: my phone (Nokia 6233) has some perfectly good speakers built in to it, it’s very small and portable, and once a ...

ATM suspended

I had one of those moments of disbelief yesterday. I put my bank card into a cash machine and it immediately crashed, displayed this message and swallowed up my card. Apparently, it was nothing to do with my card, and I've since heard that this has happened to that ATM several times before - it was the Nationwide one outside Budgens in Hook Parade (and not their responsibility, of...

Green spaces update

The meeting on 'Looking After our Green Spaces' produced some good discussions. The managers from Quadron explained their long term plans to develop community use of the parks as well as keep the planting in order. Criticisms of poor performance by some of the employees (driving over wet grass, pitching litter into the trucks etc) were responded to with apologies and a commitment to...

The power of blogs, or the weakness of journalism?

When does a story become worth reporting? I ask the question in the light of today’s Indy story, ‘Delayed election revives criticism of Lib Dem leader’, which quotes extensively from Jo Hayes’ blog posting, ‘Time to take stock’. Here’s Jo’s conclusion: “To go on indefinitely working for our success I need to be sustained by [...]

Pudding Flaps

A while ago I wrote about hiking pickles, and today I want to address the equally important topic of pudding flaps. Flaps about pudding are rarer than they once were, chiefly because puddings play a less critical role in our diets than used to be the case. Time was when no meal was innocent of a pudding, and though of course not every pudding preparation was the occasion of a flap, the incidence of such flaps was obviously more frequent. One or two psychoculinary statisticians have attempted to put a precise figure on the occurrence of pudding flaps, and one ...

Young and Talented

Off to Newcastle today, to take part in the in the Leadership Centre's programme for Young and Talented Councillors. Those of you who have read my profile will, perhaps, query my qualifications, but on my Council I'm just a boy. I'll endeavour to blog on arrival. I expect they have electricity up there.

Missing money

The Welsh Government seems to have given up on the fight to get additional cash from the UK Exchequer so as to match-fund European Convergence money, they also have a £260m gap in their block grant due to some sleight of hand on behalf of the Westminster Labour Government. Now it seems that another £6.5m has gone missing. Farmers in England have been promised compensation to help them cope with the aftermath of the foot and mouth outbreak there, but the £8.1m for Scotland and £6.5m for Wales that should have been announced at the same time has disappeared into ...

20 mph zones around schools

Marlyn Glen MSP recently contacted me in my capacity as Planning & Transport Convener of the City Council to ask about the extent of provision of 20 mph zones around schools in Dundee, give the reports to the British Medical Association's annual conference saying that more 20 mph speed limits on routes near schools help tackle the problem of obesity amongst school children as well as making the streets safer for them. Following discussion with Council officers, my response is as follows: “During 2004 Dundee City Council began a programme of introducing part-time 20mph speed limits on roads surrounding its ...

Topolski at the Frontline

{topolski.jpg} War reporters and a good cross section of London’s artistic beau monde were out in force at the Frontline Club in Bayswater last night, for the launch of a remarkable exhibition of drawings and paintings by the late Feliks Topolski, in commemoration of the centenary of his birth. The expertly curated show looked particularly effective against the rough brick walls of the large second-floor space, the theme being the artistic depiction of war, which will be the leitmotif of a series of events at the Frontline over the coming months. Topolski himself was always fascinated by uniforms and visited many of the hotspots ...

Day 2472: Sooty makes a Statement

Tuesday: Just so that no one is in ANY doubt: when Mr Frown became Prime Monster earlier this year, he chose as his Chancellor of the Exchequer… Mr Frown. That bloke with the eyebrows is there to answer the telephones, fetch the coffees and occasionally pop up in front of the nation's press and terrify everyone into a run on a major bank. It IS a good trick – you can BARELY see Mr Frown's lips moving! Take a look at this picture of Mr Frown's CABINET and see if YOU can spot the GRANT SHAPPS: Darling, Vain, Balls and ...

Thursday 11th October 2007

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