LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Thursday 8th November 2007

The EU makes your power go further

A few things have dropped into my inbox today which, as well as being interesting for other reasons, have been illuminating practical examples of how European Union can be an effective route for the 27 countries which comprise it, maximising their influence over important national interests, by working together through it. The first is a report from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), which launches itself in Berlin tomorrow, about relations between the EU and Russia. The report, it seems (I’m afraid I’ve only read the summary) makes the case that the EU and some of its member states ...

Nick Clegg, what have you sacrificed?

At the time of the last Liberal Democrat leadership election I used my fast-receding chess career to produce an extended metaphor. Let's try another one this time. Just before I hung my pawns up there was a highly rated junior here in Leicestershire who never really impressed me. Perhaps this was because I first played him when he was very young (and I was at my strongest) and won that game easily. I played him years later. His play was solid, but all the ideas and initiative came from me. However, I overreached myself at some point and at the ...

Do people count ?

"Do not allow anybody to make you feel that you are nobody - ALWAYS FEEL THAT YOU COUNT. Always feel that your life has ultimate significance" Martin Luther King Jnr. This was the quotation on the wall in large print in the hall at Blakeston School, where I was listening to what people there had to say about the options for "Building Schools for the Future". I thought back...

East Coast Floods

The BBC reports: A tidal surge in the North Sea has sparked severe flood warnings and evacuations on England's east coast.Prime Minister Gordon Brown has held an emergency Cobra committee meeting and the Environment Agency has warned of "extreme danger to life and property".Low pressure and strong winds are causing the surge. Norfolk and Suffolk have eight severe flood warnings.Later on the story mentions that: Large parts of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Kent were left under water in 1953, and 307 people died, when high tides and a storm saw a tidal surge of 3.2m (10ft 6in).The Eastern Daily ...

The Liberal WI

My image of the WI, apart from the scary one shown on the naked calendars, is of the mighty middle England, Conservative voting, middle aged women, right-wing Daily Mail reading army. But my opinion changed the other week when the said something unbelievably sensible and more liberal than I’d ever think I’d hear from the jam making, scarf knitting, fete organising women’s group. They said that there should be legalised, licensed brothels around the UK - places where prostitutes can work in a clean, legal environment, earn their own money and have a safe house - a place where it ...

Does Britain really only have one "neo-con"?

{Douglas Murray - publicity photo} I see the rather sneering, simpering Douglas Murray is on Question Time again tonight. By my reckoning that makes it at least three times this calendar year - once in late April, in the schools Question Time in summer and now. Is he shagging someone on Dimblebore's research staff or something? If "neo-cons" are, as a group, significant enough to warrant representation on such a program, surely there must be more of them than just him?

One blog or many?

Paul Walter has split his blog into two. Liberal Burblings continues to carry his postings on politics and the Lib Dems, but he has set up a new blog - Hit by a Thought - to carry his thoughts on "entertainment, sport, beer, whisky, music and goodness knows what else". It's an interesting move, and I suppose I could do something similar with Liberal England. I could keep writing about politics here, give Lord Bonkers his own blog, have another one for my postings on obscure British films and another for those vital news stories from the Shropshire Star. But ...

What would we say if it were the Russian or Chinese police who acted like this ?

The most interesting and shocking fact to come out today regarding the shooting of jean Charles De Menezes has been the facts relating to the actual shooting and the varying and different accounts of what happened. The two police gunmen said they shouted clear warnings to Jean Charles, they said he did not respond and he then approached the policemen, intimating this was a threatening gesture. The problem is that all eighteen witnesses on the tube train said they heard no warning shouted at all and that Jean Charles remained seated, not approaching the policemen at all. Now who are ...

Chad Varah has died

Chad Varah, founder of the Samaritans has died at the age of 95 - see BBC report. I never met him and he never met me but he once described me as "The happiest man in the diocese of Ely". My first wife had made a famous televised speech on feminism in a Cambridge Union debate and he wrote a fan letter saying that her speech should be next to every man's shaving mirror and, of course, her

Lib Dems make decent video shock!!

Okay maybe a little harsh, but after being critical of the party's videos in the past I think its fair to give credit where credits due and say I actual think this evening's response to the Queen's speech is pretty good. I also think that it proves that Vince was right to stay out of the leadership race. Respected intellectual who commands attention to what he is saying, and an underrated

BBC Question Time - open thread

Acting Lib Dem leader Vince Cable is one of the panellists on tonight’s edition of Question Time (broadcast on BBC1 and online from 10.35 pm GMT). He’ll be alongside Home Office minister Tony McNulty, former Tory deputy leader Lord Heseltine, the British-Egyptian novelist and political commentator Ahdaf Soueif, and the journalist and writer Douglas Murray. If [...]

Referendums

On Monday night I attended Liberty's comedy show at the wonderful Hackney Empire, "Bonfire of the Liberties". Bremner - brilliant as always. An excellent Iranian comedienne, a female ventriloquist with a monkey - an act full of Brechtian alienation - and, of course, Marcus Brigstocke as compere. It was Brigstocke who sent up the idea of a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty. See Jeremy

The real story

The new scrutiny arrangements for the budget really kicked-in today with Assembly Members on the Finance Committee making the most of their opportunity to get beneath the skin of the Government's financial plans for the next three years. The BBC report that having established that the increases announced by the Finance Minister were in 'cash' terms before the 2.7% inflation rate was taken into account, the Committee have unravelled the Labour-Plaid spin. They have demonstrated to the public that far from the budget being good news as the Government would have us believe, there are in fact real term cuts ...

Still trying to decide

When I wrote this post arguing against early declarations of support for either Clegg or Huhne, I was worried that I might have to embarrassingly retract it shortly afterwards, having come down decisively in favour of one of the candidates. So it's with some relief that, nearly two weeks on, I'm still undecided. I haven't been much swayed by the arguments on policy so far. Trident was never going to be a deciding issue for me, but I confess to being disappointed by the general tone of Huhne's campaign thus far. He talks a lot about the need for boldness ...

National Consumer Week

Next week is 'National Consumer Week' and the City Council's Trading Standards Team has advised me that it will have an information stand in the Overgate on Monday and Tuesday. The theme is Distance Selling - buying goods over the internet/mail order etc. This will be well worth a visit and you can read more at www.dundeecity.gov.uk/events/evx068523.htm and by clicking the headline above.There's an excellent Frequently Asked Questions section from Trading Standards on the City Council website at www.dundeecity.gov.uk/faqs/index.php?category_id=45

Left, Right, Forward?

Inspired by this post and discussion on Lib Dem voice, here are my views on whether the Lib Dems are basically left-wing or basically right-wing. We should be (and basically are) a progressive party. That term isn't always terribly helpful - but here is what I mean by it. It is about using politics to shape tomorrow because of a vision about what tomorrow should be like. The obvious distinction is with conservatism (as an ideology, not a political party) which is fundamentally about shaping tomorrow into something a bit more like yesterday. Progressive politics recognises that society is changing, ...

Dulwich Baths Refurb on track

As reported previously, Dulwich Baths are set for a major £5m refurb for the first time in over a hundred years. The council has been consulting over the summer about what people would like to see and a report has been published on the council website. There was a high degree of consensus about what people would like to see [...]

Mistaken Identity?

A colleague, I won't embarrass him, oh all right I'll name him in a moment, mislaid his mobile phone and I kindly lent him mine to make a couple of calls on the train journey back to the westcountry.&...

Sands, Huhne and Trident

In an article on the Guardian website on 5th November Philippe Sands states: “…the Liberal Democrat spring conference in Harrogate rejected a ballot effort calling for the abandonment of Trident. Instead, the conference narrowly voted in favour of a resolution calling for a delay on the Trident decision.” Oddly enough, in that debate in March (as well as in literature distributed beforehand), the Lib Dem leadership strenuously insisted that the amendment to the main motion (the “ballot effort”) did not call for the abandonment of Trident but for its retention until it rusted to bits. I thought at the time ...

When will some firms learn that some endorsements actually put customers off ?

I often wonder why it is that firms employ certain celebrities to endorse their products when I don't know a single person who actually likes the celebrity they have chosen. But in some cases, firms actually seem to hire people that negatively put people of the product all together. Take, for example, Carol Vorderman. If there is a smugger woman on television then I have yet to see her. Only Gloria Hunniford can surely rival Carol Vorderman when it comes to inducing people to turn over. yet she gets advertising job after advertising job, with seemingly no awareness from the ...

Bob Russell: Sleepless in Westminster

Congratulations to Lib Dem MP for Colchester - aka ‘Bingo’ Bob Russell - for breaking what is believed to be a Parliamentary record. For the sixth year running he has managed to table the first Commons motion of the new parliamentary year. How has he achieved this feat? By spending 15 hours camped outside the [...]

Conspiracy theories

Perhaps it is because I have been enjoying Sunny's output for years now - and whatever party card he has or hasn't got in his pocket these days, I am pretty sure he is a liberal. And bloggers like Dave Hill are always good value too. Is there a danger? Sure there is. The danger is that they confuse being liberal with not being a tory (as Jonathan Calder has pointed out). But there are plenty of people ready make that mistake without this site. The world is not short of liberal democrats who define themselves ideologically as simply "progressive". ...

A record still held by Norwich City

Well done to Bolton Wanderers for getting a 2-2 draw tonight away against Bayern Munich. However, it leaves a record intact for Norwich City as Norwich remain the only English team ever to have beaten Bayern Munich away from home. In 1993 Norwich defeated Bayern Munich 2-1 away in the UEFA Cup, with one of the goals being an absolute stunner from Jeremy Goss. I remember watching the game on Eurosport and was shocked by the extent of Norwich's injury woes that night, yet they still beat a Bayern side featuring half the German international side from the 1990 World ...

A sad story (Jonathan Phillips)

The link is to a story in the Daily Mail about how the system has now caused the destruction of a family. It is important to understand how some social workers deliberately set out to upset parents in the hope of getting a reaction that they can then use against the parents in the courts. The unannounced visit is one trick used to upset mothers. Still another baby for the government's adoption

Reflections on Queen's Speech week

Once upon a time the Queen's Speech was awaited with eager anticipation in order to identify the Government's priorities for the coming year. This time round it was a bit different. First we had the 'pre-Queen's Speech' - ie Gordon Brown's statement to the Commons in July that identified the most likely main elements. In principle this isn't a bad idea if it meant genuine consultation and scope for amendment, but in reality it was widely seen as putting down some markers just in case of an Autumn election. Second we had the 'phoney election' and party conferences where ministers ...

Biography of an historic house

Local historian Mary Cosh’s latest book was launched in some style at the Museum of St John in Clerkenwell last night. Instead of being a narrative about a town, a community or a family, it’s the story of a house, 53 Cross Street. Like many of Islington’s Georgian houses, 53 Cross Street fell into neglect. Hard to [...]

Liberal Democrat Leadership candidate Chris Huhne MP writes for www.colin-ross.org.uk

I am standing for the Leadership of the Liberal Democrats because I believe I can lead our Party to the breakthrough we need - the breakthrough that Britain and the West Midlands needs.

Liberal Democrat Leadership candidate Nick Clegg MP writes for www.colin-ross.org.uk

Throughout the campaign I have stressed the need to reach out to the people who do not currently vote Liberal Democrat, but adhere to the aims and values which define our party. We need to talk, directly and plainly, to the millions of people who share our values but don't yet give us their votes.

When will European federalists seek a democratic mandate?

When the New Statesman was revamped last year I complained about the prominence it now gives to comedians: My great era of reading the Statesman was the late 1970s, and I have been trying to think what the magazine would have been like if it had taken the same approach then. Something like this, I imagine: * Freddie "Parrot-Face" Davies on the future of the Common Market; * Dickie Henderson on the Palestine Question. And next week: * Mike and Bernie Winters debate the Bullock Report on Industrial Democracy. I remembered this when I saw Jeremy Hargreaves quoting the comedian ...

Vince Cable on the TV today

Vince - who's been doing a great job standing in as Liberal Democrat leader - features heavily in the party's new film, which has been on TV this evening:

Now he’s a lame duck

President Bush has suffered his first veto override and the first override by the US congress for over a decade. Today the Senate has voted 79-14 in favour of overriding the veto of the Water Resources Bill, well above the 66 required for the measure to pass. On Tuesday the House of Representatives voted 361-54 in favour, again well above the 290 votes needed to override the veto. In both cases republicans joined up with the Democrats, to vote for the override, as although the democrats are the majority party in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, they ...

Chris Huhne on drugs: inconsistent, illiberal, and not very anti-establishment!

On Tuesday, I was lucky enough to be able to interview Lib Dem leadership candidate Chris Huhne, alongside fellow bloggers Millennium Dome, Alex Wilcock, Paul Walter, Mary Reid, and James Graham. In general, I was impressed with what Chris had to say. He was very personable, very confident, and gave some very convincing answers to some very mean questions. There was, however, one answer in particular that I wasn't very pleased with. I asked Chris the following question about drugs: Jonny Wright: In your manifesto, you write: “On drugs, we must have the courage of our convictions,” but you don’t ...

56 Day detention terrorism and Britain

Yesterday I got quite annoyed. Actually very annoyed. On BBC Radio Cornwall there was a debate about the detention of terrorist suspect for 56 days with out trail. Which I am completely against as it is illiberal, irrational and will only seek to undermine the communities we need to support in the fight against international terrorism. Lets get one thing straight, terrorism has been part of British life for over 40 years. When I was in primary school (in 1994) we weren't allowed to go to London because of the terrorist threat from the IRA. This "new" terrorism may be ...

Daily Telegraph blogging evening

Shane Richmond reports on an event held at the Telegraph building last night: A lot of ground was covered by our guests, including the panel chaired by Iain Dale. In their introductions several panellists focused on the perception that British political blogging lags behind America. Lloyd Shepherd suggested this might be because the BBC has a chilling effect on political debate in this country but others disagreed, suggesting that it will take an election before British political bloggers come into their own. John Kampfner, editor of the New Statesman talked about the difficulty for traditional media of delivering online content ...

Hello!!!

Hi everybody! This is a new blog! Well you can probably guess that with this being the first post but then again, some people need telling! This Blog is going to be about me mwahahhahaha, this is not going to be confined to NUS this is going to be about everything, from NUS to sport to Traveling and probably a lot of politics. Well almost all about politics and the general daily grind of a student/ liberal democrat activist. Any way I hope you enjoy it, love it and also hold it! And please please comment!

Tidy Slugs

I’ve been playing about with WordPress plugins all day, and have created (more like stolen and modified a small amount) Tidy Slugs. This plugin tries to catch a few of the random stuff that WordPress misses when I make the post slug. For example if my post title was: Ryan’s Tidy Slugs, WordPress would make a URL of blog.artesea.co.uk/2007/11/ryans-tidy-slugs.html however if it was: Ryan’s Tidy Slugs (notice how the apostrophe is slightly more curvy) it would be blog.artesea.co.uk/2007/11/ryan%e2%80%99s-tidy-slugs.html Very, very ugly! (OK, you might not be able to spot the difference as WordPress loves to curve the apostrophes, however try ...

Israel's Government Wants it Both Way

From the BBC: "A senior Israeli minister has called for the sacking of Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog. Deputy PM Shaul Mofaz said the Egyptian head of the International Atomic Energy Agency had endangered world peace by neglecting Iran's nuclear programme." As the story notes, Israel is a member of the IAEA, but not the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - this is for a

Weimar Zimbabwe

Usually, when one thinks of Zimbabwe, it is fascism that comes to mind. A demegogue leader; a repressive police state; an internal racial minority (caucasin, this time, rather than semitic) scapegoated and used to divert the anger of the masses... The parallels with Nazi Germany are legion. Yet Hitler was at least able to keep the currency stable (I'm prepared to be corrected by any Economics History experts out there, but I understand that part of Hitler's appeal was that the Reichsmark kept its value). By comparrison, the Papiermark was the currency that people would take into the bakers in ...

ID Cards cost

More than five billion pounds to introduce ID cards says the Home Office today Just think what that money could go on instead.

Executive Committee 7 November 2007

Last night was one of the regular meetings of the Council’s Executive Committee. As a Leader of one of the opposition parties I sit on the Committee, even through the vast majority of members are from the group currently in administration of Bury, the Conservatives. It was a very short agenda, and in fact the most pressing issue was a presentation before the meeting from the owners of the Millgate Centre in Bury who are looking at ways to develop the centre. Firm proposals are on their way in the coming couple of months, so more information to follow. There ...

TropicanaWatch launched

I’ve set up a new website to keep residents informed about progress on the Tropicana and to keep a watchful eye on the council and Henry Boot to make sure they deliver what residents want. Visit TropicanaWatch to find out more.

Freedom - I Will Not Give You Up

The latest missive from Cowley Street plugs our new party political broadcast, being aired tonight. Apparently it includes Vince Cable talking of "the positive Liberal Democrat proposals to make Britain fairer and greener". What happened to "free"? There already has been talk of the purpose of the term "fair", as well as "green" issues; are we now abandoning freedom? Maybe it's because the word "freer" looks a bit odd when written.

Liberal Conspiracy: a shortage of liberalism?

The launch of Liberal Conspiracy has generated a fair amount of discussion over whether it’s really about liberalism (the founding document only refers to the Labour party, only one Lib Dem blogger was at the launch etc) or rather just a collection of terribly nice left of centre middle class moderates. Today’s post about equality of [...]

Lord Carlile and the Prisoner of Logic

The other day a passing troll on Lib Dem Voice asked why the Lib Dem blogosphere had neglected Lord Carlile’s statement that detectives might need longer than the current 28 day detention period when dealing with terrorist suspects. Why are we ignoring such a blatantly illiberal statement from within our own ranks, while freely attacking illiberalism [...]

Score: 3-1 to Chris Huhne on the email front

Nich Starling, bless him, appears to have woken up from a little snooze. He reckons that because a few people's spam settings are set-up so ridiculously sensitively that they put emails with the words "Dear friend" in a filter file means that the score is 1-0 to Nick Clegg in the field of emails. I always thought scores were kept for the whole match - not just the last few minutes of play?

Peace Activist Faces Jail

I received this yesterday. In Gordon Brown's new Liberal Britain, a peaceful demonstration can now lead to jail. Stands to reason he is pushing for an extension to the 28 days detention! *Press Release: "Peace activist faces prison for remembering war dead"Contact Maya Anne Evans: 07980 748 555 or JNV 0845 458 9571In the week of remembrance Sunday, peace activists Maya Anne Evans (27) from St Leonards on Sea, convicted in 2005 for reading the names of British soldiers killed in the Iraq war opposite Downing Street is now facing prison for her remembrance ceremony when she attends Horseferry Road ...

Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats Leadership Hustings in Birmingham

EMLD have organised Leadership Hustings on the 5th December in Birmingham. It will start at 6.30pm and will be hosted by Birmingham Hodge Hill Liberal Democrats and held at the Park View Business & Enterprise School, Naseby Road, Birmingham B8 3HG. All members are welcome. For further information contact Meral Ece- 07949 678 597, or Mohammed Shafiq - 07989764624

So who am I supporting?

All voting papers have to be in by tomorrow for the Lib Dem Euro candidate selection/London Mayoral selection. I reckon that even if somebody is hanging on my every word my views can't influence any votes that will now get counted. So here is my roll call of who I have voted for/would vote for in the selection process. London Mayor: 1st choice Brian Paddick, 2nd choice Chamali Fernando I am not

Just want to ask you a few security questions

Call from the Halifax today: Call centre: I just want to ask you a few security questions, is that ok? What's your date of birth? No, no that is not fucking ok. You called me. The onus is on you to prove who you are, not the other way around. If you're so confident that the number you have dialled is for me, you shouldn't be asking any questions - otherwise, don't call the fucking number. How

An Investigation Into Canine Vocabulary Comprehension

Dogs are thought to be able to recognise hundreds of words. These researchers have proved as much. The border collie pictured, Rico, is remarkably intelligent. You can see it in his eyes. Unfortunately the German scientists in question failed to extend their research to more complex and useful hypotheses. For example – are footballers as intelligent as Rico? This is the first of a series of articles which will tackle this pertinent question. My methodology will be mainly one of qualitative sampling. Here is a recent quotation* from Abramovich lackey Chelsea star Michael Essien: "If we can get him back ...

Musharraf delays the elections

Pakistan's state TV has quoted the President Pervez Musharraf and President of the ruling PML-Q Party Chaudhury Shujaat Hussain, as saying the vote would be delayed until mid February.

Waking up to Psycho Killer

The process of me waking up in the morning takes time. First, about 35 minutes before I get up, 6 Music comes on the radio. Then, 15 minutes later, my phone starts playing me a tune. Ten minutes later an old fashioned alarm clock rings. At some point Simba will appear in anticipation of his breakfast (Sheba won't move until she knows food is approaching her bowl). I decided a few days ago that I

Big knit

I just bought an Innocent smoothie from Sainsbury's. It came with a wool hat.

Boris talks rowlocks on de Menezes

Boris Johnson argues in the Telegraph that "too much" concern for health and safety "did for" Jean Charles de Menezes. Johnson argues that, instead of waiting for the firearms officers, the unarmed police surveillance team should have approached de Menezes: ...so why in the name of all that's holy did the officers not just tap him on the shoulder - especially as doubts grew about this

Selling the KKK

I'm worried that this range of Ku Klux Klan clothing isn't selling as well as they could, so I hope they don't mind that I've put together a bit of copy for them to try out in their next round of advertising: Afraid you're not projecting the correct mix of hatred and racial purity to mark yourself out as a winner in the evolutionary race? Worried that you're neighbours and colleagues see you as

Labour’s verdict: it’s ok for our candidates to lie during an election

Miranda Grell, the Labour candidate who was convicted of smearing a political opponent as a paedophile, is back in the news. She’s appealing the guilty verdict, and Labour supporters are mostly (though with a few exceptions) using the pending appeal to argue that, “oh, nothing’s been proved yet, she’s really a lovely person, all will come [...]

Busy day

Today I have been chasing up a lot of issues on behalf of residents. I have been in touch with the company developing Tulle Court to ask them whether or not they are going to renovate the unadopted road next to the development. I have added some trees which are in need of pruning on Church Drive to the list which the Council has to prune back. Unfortunately this list is so long that the trees may well grow into mighty specimens, entirely overwhelm the district, and then die of their own accord before they are pruned back. But we ...

Bollywood Calls for a Silent Diwali

Bollywood stars seem to be following their Hollywood counterparts in that at least some of them are becoming more politicised. In particular, a group of them have got together to call on people not to use firecrackers during the Diwali (Light) Festival over the weekend. The reason for this is twofold. First, most Indian firecrackers [...]

Not impressed - sculpture?

Call me old fashioned but I am not impressed with this sculpture which was unveiled in Trafalgar Square yesterday on the fourth plinth. How this fits in to Trafalgar Square's environment is just beyond me. More details can be found here at the Fourth Plinth Website.

What's the worst that can happen?

The most logical argument for action on the environment. Worryingly this has only been viewed just under two million times and it really needs to be much more widely seen than that. Watch and then please forward - especially to any "eco-doubters" you might know!

The issues the GMC turns a blind eye to

The link is to Penny Mellor's site about David Southall. It is important to remember that the GMC have refused to look at Dr Southall's research.

Calm down, dear (repeat)

It's a leadership election...

The honourable thing for Benyon to do is apologise for mistake

The Newbury Weekly News have kindly printed the following letter from me today. Background details on this long-running affair are here. Newbury MP Richard Benyon has been quoted as saying that he was "angry" when he read the email which led to his erroneous statement about Newbury Town Council to Parliament on October 9. Well, we've all been there, haven't we? I certainly have. One reads

Pay discrimination costs women £330,000

Jo Swinson is in today’s Daily Mail commenting on the latest finding of pay discrimination: Women who work full-time lose as much as £330,000 during the course of their life because of the gender pay gap, it was claimed yesterday. They still earn more than 17 per cent less than men on average and campaigners say it [...]

Help set the Lib Dem agenda

Setting the Agenda: Liberal Democrat One Day Manifesto Conference London School of Economics, 12 January 2008 (10.00-18.00) The Liberal Democrat Manifesto Group is organising a special one day conference to give party members an opportunity to contribute to the development of the party’s next general election manifesto. It will involve leading figures in the party and [...]

Liberal Conspiracy Get Dead Tree Treatment

Sunny Hundal’s blagged himself a comment piece in the Guardian about Liberal Conspiracy, which I think I’m going to be contributing pieces to in the near future. I’m pretty impressed with the way this website has been launched, I have to say.

Tory Coops?

David Cameron is launching the Conservative Cooperative Movement today: He is set to announce the creation of the Conservative Co-operative Movement to help people form groups to take control of some local public services. Chris Huhne has a head start on this. His policy review on public services made a big deal about mutuals running public services. He is also the only candidate in the leadership campaign to talk about the old Liberal idea of industrial democracy. I could already write his response to this new Tory initiative; what is Clegg’s? Share This

Huhne apology and withdrawal

Hmmmm So the Chris Clarke venom has been withdrawn - but is the damage done? It was put up by an innocent, it wasn't checked, it was an accident... All highly possible and indeed plausible. but there is one other factor here. Chris Clarke has form. It was the Monday before Ming's resignation that had Chris Clarke and Lord Taverne calling for Ming's resignation on the Today programme - then followed up by countless TV and news 24 plugs. It leaves the question about Chris's judgement... Now of course we can all be tarred by 'friends' and Clegg and Huhne ...

Thanks, Chris

Chris Huhne’s campaign team have now removed the quote that’s been causing all the trouble and they’ve done it quickly. I want to say thank you. I will go back to being quiet on this subject again.

Take it down, Chris (UPDATE)

Oh dear, and he was doing so well. Linda Jack and Charlotte Gore have condemned Chris Huhne’s campaign for publishing an endorsement by Chris Clarke which contains a blatant attack on Nick Clegg, branding him a Tory (unless there is a third candidate of whom I was previously unaware). It’s negative. It’s untrue. Up until now I’ve not been that fussed about the level of yah-boo in this contest. A lot of Chris’ attempts to define himself have been leapt upon by his opponents as implicit attacks on Nick Clegg. I don’t think that is fair, and having spoken to ...

Lib Dem leadership - calm down!

Back in January I commented on the spat between Clinton and Obama. To remind readers, I said: Well I hate US primaries, because they allow your own side to dig up all the dirt and throw the shit at each other before you let the Republicans in. I suppose it gives you a chance to hone your street combat skills, but there has to be a better way. I repeated this a month later. Now we have the Lib

The Shah Lives

Far from protecting Pakistan from extremists General Musharaff’s attack on democracy is making them far more dangerous. The most perceptive and alarming comment on emergency rule in Pakistan has come from the former cricketer Imran Khan: "When you stop all legal and constitutional ways of people challenging [the president], then the only ones who challenge him are people with a gun". Pakistan is in danger of becoming the new Iran where the closing down of democracy leads to the suppression of liberal and reformist movements and leaves the way clear for a takeover by Islamist extremists. Anyone in any doubt ...

Are people really called "Dogloo"?

...A rumination on ITV's "Whistleblowers" on my other blog here.

Brown's execrable Channel 4 anniversary video

This is vomit-inducingly awful. Thanks to my friend Andrew for pointing this out on Simon Dickson's blog.

Rockin' in the free world

Yesterday in Parliament Sir Malcolm Rifkind warned warned of Western criticism aimed at General Pervez Musharraf indirectly adding to the dangerous de-stabilisation of Pakistan, drawing an analogy with the Shah of Iran’s removal in 1979, and its unintended consequence of bringing about the Islamic Revolution. Rifkind might know a thing or two about realpolitik, but is perhaps wide of the mark if he thinks that anything could have preserved the Shah, given the abject hopelessness of his reign. I have just finished reading the first Persepolis graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, which brilliantly documents her childhood during the 1979 revolution. ...

More chances to have your say

The Redcar and Cleveland Partnership and Redcar and Cleveland Council are organising the Borough's biggest public consultation exercise to get views on its first Sustainable Community Strategy. The Strategy will set the vision for what Redcar and Cleveland will look like in the future and shape the work and priorities of all the Borough's public service providers. The next series of dates, venues and times to have your say are: Monday, November 12: The Book Bus at Rosedale House, Nunthorpe, 4.45pm-6pm. Tuesday, November 13: Roseberry Library, 1.30pm-3.30pm, Greater Eston Area Committee at Bankfields Primary School, 6pm-7pm. Wednesday, November 14: Guisborough ...

Spin or substance

I have just been listening to Peter Hain on Radio Wales attempting to defend the doubling of his Wales' Office budget next year from £4.68m to £8.44m. The fact that he felt it necessary to resort to the personal abuse of his critics spoke volumes. He argues that he needs the money to pilot Assembly Legislative Competence Orders through Parliament and to develop policy, yet his budget falls back to £4.4m in 2010 at a time when arguably the Assembly Government will be up to full speed and pushing LCOs through in greater numbers than now. Jenny Randerson, who highlighted ...

End of oil

Two publications are reporting on energy security concerns today. Both Wired - The End of Oil is Upon Us. We Must Move On - Quickly. and the Financial Times - Act now to avoid an energy crunch cover the latest World Energy Outlook from the International Energy Agency. Essentially, they say that unchecked growth in China and India will increase global oil consumption and CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030, forcing oil prices up and increasing climate change. They conclude "The emergence of China and India as major players in global energy markets makes it all the more important that ...

Yes, to a Chicken Pox Vaccine

There are two very good reasons for supporting a Chicken Pox vaccine. 1) It will save children's lives. 2) It will boost vaccine production facilities in this country ready for future pandemics (bird flu ?) So yes, a very good idea. I doubt the government will do it though.

Leadership Election: Would now be a good time to ask what happened to peace, love and understanding?

I’ve noticed that the temperature of the contest has been raised somewhat in recent days. If that had been because the two candidates were going at it hammer and tongs to demonstrate their suitability for office (and who’s to say that they aren’t), I would be delighted. Unfortunately, the heat that I’m referring to is within the blogging fraternity, where tempers appear to be fraying just a

Cardiff hustings - a personal impression

When one has already announced in favour of a particular candidate there is a danger that one's attendance at a hustings event can become an affirmative process. It is important therefore that anybody reading this piece puts it into the context that I have declared my support for Nick Clegg in the Liberal Democrat Federal Leadership contest. Having said this, I can record that last night's leadership hustings in Cardiff was a very positive event both for myself and for the hundreds of members who attended it. Both candidates performed well and, I believe that everybody came away from the ...

London takes £3.76 million of our money

BBC Wales news is reporting this morning that the Welsh Office in London is taking nearly £4 million extra each year for the foreseeable future. This will come from the money allocated to Wales under the Barnett formula and will be spent on filling vacant civil service posts in Whitehall. It is apparently necessary to fund the Westminster end of the complicated process of preparing Welsh legislation. [URIs when the news appears on WWW.]

Welfare Doesn’t Work

Newsnight’s feature on the US welfare system painted a picture of society in the States that is completely unrecognizable to anyone living here and the suggestion that a similar system should be implemented in the UK, is quite frankly criminal. In the states the federal minimum wage is $5.55. There are 40 million people without health [...]

Huhne Crosses The Line: Time To Demand Clean Contest

UPDATE: Huhne’s team have removed the quote that prompted this post. He is to be applauded for that and I hope that we see better judgement and a commitment to a clean contest from both candidates from now on. Hat tip to Harold Muckle on the Clarence Willcock blog for highlighting the publication of Chris Clarke’s endorsement on Huhne’s Campaign website. Now, I had sworn to myself, after the embarrassing swooning incident, not to be so active in promoting my preference for leader and I thought I’d give airing of my concerns about Huhne a bit of a rest for ...

P.M.D (Pun of Mass Destruction) Found On Blog

Well, after my “I can fix crime with my brain” poster, I was challenged to do one for Europe. The EU is not a subject that is framed particularly well. It has been ‘wedged’ and reduced to simple for or against and all debate is prevented by the mind-numbing dullness of it. The challenge for Liberal Democrats as the party that’s broadly pro-European but also keen, I understand, on reforms that increase accountability, democracy and transparency, is to find a different question to ask. So, what simple Yes or No question could you put to people that the obvious answer ...

Leadership electon - Cardiff hustings

If anything, the Cardiff hustings held yesterday evening emphasised the similarities rather than the differences between two excellent candidates. Whether Chris Huhne or Nick Clegg is elected as our leader, that man is going to carry the fight for Liberal Democrat values. Both were determined to have our difference from the increasingly indistinguishable other two parties recognised in the media. Both also promised to do more to engage with ordinary voters, and to encourage more women, people with disabilities and those from ethnic minorities to come forward as candidates.

Rose tinted Rivers of Blood

‘Rivers of Blood’ was a deplorable attempt to inflame hostility to outsiders for political gain. Its author deserves condemnation not exaltation. I am sorry to comment twice on the same speech in as many days but I am really angry. I have just read Simon Heffer’s latest rant in the Telegraph and it has left me with smoke billowing from my ears. Heffer's attempts to paint Enoch Powell as a visionary hero trying to save Britain from being destroyed by immigrant hordes is by turns laughable, infuriating and outrageous. He angrily instructs us to ‘Read the speech. Make up your ...

Birmingham, Hodge Hill Liberal Democrats Leadership Election Hustings

The Birmingham, Hodge Hill Liberal Democrats will be hosting Leadership Election Hustings ON 5th December starting at 6.00pm at the Park View Business & Enterprise School Naseby Road, Birmingham B8 3HG.

Day 2502: Found Guilty? Don't Worry – the Labour's Mayor's Office will back you!

Wednesday: The Labour certainly stand by their CRIMINAL element. No doubt you remember Ms Miranda Grell – found GUILTY of telling lies. The Labour have decided to fund her appeal, despite her own statement to the police admitting that she lied. She is reported as "suspended" from her job working for Deputy Mayor Ms Nicky Gavron – suspended as in NOT FIRED for being a convicted, self-admitted liar, then? No doubt you remember Sir Ian Clone of Lord Blairimort – found GUILTY of putting the public in harm's way. The Labour's Mayor Mr Ken continues to stick by him, even ...

Thursday 8th November 2007

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