LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Friday 11th January 2008

Faustus for President

Forget the woman or the black guy for US Prez, I’m voting for (newly engaged) Faustus, aka Joel Derfner. Derfner has the sort of back-catalog that almost assures a person of great office in the States: {Gay Haiku} {Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever} He is, significantly, the only presidential hopeful to have commented on my blog. Seriously - I watched, open-mouthed, some of the coverage of the Iowa caucus, and some of the reactions of candidates afterwards. Barack don’t impress me much. I just know that Clinton will get strong anti-reactions from anyone who isn’t already ...

Crisis deepens for Hain

The BBC are reporting that two men who gave money to a think tank were not told it would be used to fund Peter Hain's Labour deputy leadership bid: Diamond dealer Willie Nagel and another man, who did not want to be named, gave and loaned a total of more than £35,000 to the Progressive Policy Forum (PPF). Both say they had no objection to the money being used to fund the Welsh Secretary's campaign but were not told. Mr Hain says all PPF donors were asked whether funds could be transferred. A source has told the BBC Mr Nagel ...

Cllr Jim Moley

I have just been told of the death of one of my councillors. Jim Moley was a Wantage Councillor for countless years and he was active up to the moment of his death. He absolutely thrived on the local politics of Wantage and he fought and won at the Town, District and County levels in every contest. He was always on the doorstep, always preparing and delivering new leaflets to residents and he drove me mad with his constant calls to discuss the latest issue to overtake his ward. He was the essence of a good councillor and he will ...

Capita and Neath Port Talbot

The Capita-supplied payments system has been running in Neath Port Talbot for six months, without a peep from Unison. When a LibDem-run council installs a third-party IT system, we never hear the end of it in the local press. It would be interesting to know how much the installation cost, now that budgets for next year are being considered. Frank Little

Watch out Wardell!

The doyen of the "Hear All Sides" page, Christopher Wardell, had better watch out. Today I had two mentions in the Echo: a letter on ID cards and the publication of part of a press release on the budget proposals going to Cabinet next week. Here is the text of my letter on data loss ID cards: "Following the recent loss of CDs containing personal information on child benefit claimants, Liberal

The Tragic Consequences of Arranged/Forced Marriage Culture

Whoever killed Shafilea Ahmed, it seems that her death had some connection with her fear that her parents were arranging for her to be married. This issue is a serious challenge for the cultural tolerance in this country, not least because it is so difficult to distinguish between forced and arranged marriages, and can have the most awful consequences. The Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007 admirably gives the court some powers to stop forced marriages in cases about which they are aware, but for those who don't feel able to come forward the authorities are powerless.

When Norwich City played at The Nest

On the Guardian Sportblog Scott Murray chooses his six favourite football grounds. Buried in the comments is a reference to the most extraordinary football ground you could imagine. Norwich City played at The Nest between 1908 and 1935. The ground was situated in a disused chalk pit off Rosary Road in Norwich. A feature in the Eastern Daily Press (from which I have borrowed the photograph) describes it as follows: Footballers risked injury by crashing into the massive concrete wall which held up the cliff that dominated the arena and rose sheer, barely a couple of feet from the touchline. ...

Wrong Forecast

Have I totally missed the point or did I not hear the weather forecast for today for Wales and the South west say that it would be mainly dry with a few heavy showers late in the day. Well it rained all day the sky went dark as if at night and it poured with rain all day and then after that on the way home tonight it started to Snow. I wonder as I sit here quietly typing...

Any questions open thread

Ed Davey MP is joining the panel this week along with Malcolm Wicks, Michael Gove and Saira Khan. Drop us a line if you’ve something to say. You’re more likely to get a look in here than Any Answers!

Pakistan and Kenya from a distance

My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News. Telescopic philanthropy Governing is such an easy business. Not in the UK, you understand, where we have intractable problems like invalidity benefit, the credit crunch and teenage gangs. But governing in far off places like Pakistan and Kenya. In fact, the further you are from a situation, the easier it is to know what should be done. Take Pakistan. On Monday David Milliband, the Harry Potteresque foreign secretary, praised Benazir Bhuttos courage. That quality "is now required of others as they take forward the drive for democracy and modernisation". Yes, courage ...

It's not always opposites that attract...

A cross-bench peer has highlighted the case of twins who were separated at birth and adopted by different families. They then got married in ignorance of their true relationship. This case raises all sorts of questions about open adoption, knowledge of biological origins, social versus biological parenthood and the real justification for the prohibited degrees/incest laws. But it's a rare problem I'm sure!

Tory MP impresses of Five Live

I heard Tory MP Chris Grayling on the radio earlier talking about Peter Hain, who is his opposite number. Unlike a lot of other Tories, he is not sneering in tone, does not sound like a toff or like he is trying too hard to be normal. Instead he came across as balanced and very fair. Despite pressure from the inept Radio 5 interviewer Peter Allen, who appeared to have a set list of questions he was going to ask irrespective of the answers Chris Grayling gave, a balanced critique of Peter Hain's position, he didn't call for his resignation, ...

The cobblers which ITV talked about "News at Ten"

For many years, ITV lobbied to move "News at Ten" to 10.30pm. It was raised in parliament. They were very determined about it. Their franchise arrangements had to be modified. Their main argument seemed to be that they wanted us to watch the James Bond films without an interruption for the news. That campaign and that argument has now turned out to be utter and complete cobblers. Presumably,

Sir John Harvey-Jones - a good egg

I think it is appropriate to raise a glass this evening to Sir John Harvey-Jones. Sir John was a good egg. One of the few business books that I have read from cover to cover was his "Making it happen - reflections on leadership". It starts with him as a young man in the navy, supervising the dismantling of a dockyard in Germany. His job was to take everything back to the UK as reparations. But

Will Bloomberg put the cat amongst the pigeons in the US

The Guardian reports that Michael Bloomberg is thinking very seriously of running for US President as an Independent. He's spending millions on polling to inform his choice. If I was a Republican leaflet deliverer in New York, I would be pretty cheesed off about this. Bloomberg was elected as a Republican Mayor of New York. So this independent nonsense must stick in the craw of Republican

Do football administrators understand what they are doing

Luton Town footall club are in administration at the moment, with massive debts but with two offers pending which would allow the club to come out of administration and secure the club. However, there are big questions marks about the knowledge the administrators have of the business of football and it begs the question are the getting the best deal for Luton and for their creditors Yesterday, after reportedly promising that they would consult with the manager before selling any players and also assuring the manager that they would leave the squad intact until after the FA Cup replay against ...

Overheard in a supermarket ... you couldn't make it up

I went in to Lidl, the low cost supermarket which sells all sort of things but no brands you would recognise, and overheard a young boy of about 6 years of age following his mother, who looked like a cross between Vicki Pollard and Waynetta Slob around. About half way round the shop she asked the boy "What do you want for your tea" "Beans on toast", he replied. And the mother's response genuinely was "I told you I'm not f*cking cooking for you tonight. You can have some biscuits". For all those who think parenting classes are not a ...

Was Asquith one of our few principled ex-Prime Ministers

I have no idea. I only ask the question with respect to his post-PM retirement. As part of a full page article on Tony Blair's pension fund top-up activities (dominated by a photograph which shows how that fund is benefiting his dental work), there is a panel about past Prime Ministers and what they did post-Number Ten. The ones chronicled (Wilson, Heath, Thatcher, Major) all cashed in on their

George Bush visits the misery he created

For a moment, I was rejoicing when I read on the Guardian's front page that George Bush had said, in respect of Israel, that "There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967". On the face of it, that is encouraging. Sadly my euphoria only lasted until I got to page 22. A strap line read: "US leader implies largest settlements will remain": The future borders of a Palestinian state,

Man the lifeboats

This was the view from my front door around 3pm this afternoon.

David Cameron treated unfairly

I was quite upset by this story. David Cameron attempted to take a publicity photo outside the Salford Lads' Club yesterday. He was recreating the iconic picture of The Smiths taken in 1985, but local protesters got in the way and stopped him from taking the snap. The placards included the charming slogan "Salford lads not Eton snobs". Far be it from me to cry any tears for Dave, but I can't help thinking that he was hard done by. How can you criticise your political opponents' views if you don't give them a chance to publicise what those views ...

Labour MP Emily Thornberry in trouble again

Islington South & Finsbury Labour MP Emily Thornberry is an old friend of LDV we noted her hypocrisy here (September) and her ticking off by the Parliaments standards watchdog here (October). Now Ms Thornberry is in trouble again this time for using taxpayers money to send out unsolicited letters to residents on Parliamentary stationery [...]

Feed in tariff - government lobbying against renewable support

The link is to this exchange in Hansard: John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD): The Government seem to have rejected the idea of the feed-in tariff for the UK, but in Germany it has massively increased the amount of renewables. Will the Government at least stop lobbying within the EU to stop feed-in tariffs Mr. Hutton: The renewables obligation is a genuine market mechanism and that is why

YouTube milestone

Having reached a total of quarter of a million viewings on my YouTube videos in December, I can announce another milestone. Today, a video of mine reached 50,000 viewings for the first time. The video on question is Copacabbana beach, Rio de Janiero. However, Former secret, Soviet submarine base, Crimea, Ukraine video is very close behind on 49,971 viewings. The next milestone I will announce

Labour, taxpayers' money and websites

I was interested to read the post by Mark Pack on Lib Dem Voice about the use of taxpayers' money (through the Parliamentary Communications Allowance) to pay for a website by Labour's absent minded Peter Hain (it is just so easy to forget about £103,000 one has floating about). Alas, the website turned out to be a bit party political. The rules on the use of the Communications Allowance are

ID Cards for Johnny Foreigner Only: How will it work

The breathtaking racism / nationalism (your choice) of the Labour government continues, with the revelation that Johnny Foreigner may be the only one to be compulsorily issued with an ID card. This comes of course after their smash-hit racism last year: “British Jobs for British Workers“. Am I the only one worried about how an ID [...]

Is nuclear the litmus test for the free marketer

In case you haven't been paying attention to the news, the Government has announced that a new programme of nuclear power stations. One of the arguments against nuclear has been economic. The production and distribution of nuclear power, as well as the waste management and decommissioning, has so far only been possible with government subsidy. This time round the Government is saying there will be none of that. The opponents, many of whom are not known for their commitment to laissez-faire capitalism, are arguing that the Government will have to step in and fund the disposal of nuclear waste and ...

Emily Thornberry caught abusing Commons stationary

Oh dear. It would appear that Omar’s boss has been ticked off again. Last autumn, Emily Thornberry sent out what emerges came to 10,400 unsolicited letters to constituents using Commons stationary. Following a flurry of complaints, the Parliamentary Standards Officer Sir Philip Mawer has written to confirm that the cost of this stationary will now have to be paid back: It is clear to me that Ms Thornberry should not have used pre-paid envelopes at all for this exercise (since her letter was unsolicited) but should have covered the cost of the stationery and envelopes and the postage required directly, ...

Activist-bashing don't let's start!

Jonathan Calder and James Graham have each commented on the anti-activist spin given by the Guardian to Nick Cleggs speech on education at tomorrows conference. It isnt clear whether this angle came from the reporter or a briefing from the leaders office but, if the latter, they should call the dogs off now unless they want to make life difficult for their boss. Most conference delegates want to support the leader, especially a newly-elected one, and are inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt on new policy initiatives. Furthermore, recent experience on tax, post offices, Trident etc. suggests ...

Opinion: the case against new nukes

This weeks announcement by John Hutton of a new generation of nuclear power plants sparked some lively exchanges in the House of Commons. Following my observations, the Secretary of State offered me a bold print version to help me understand it, and said the best emissions to cut down would be the ones from my [...]

Smarter electricity consumption.

There's a story on Ars Technica about smart appliances, which work with smart electricity meters to move your electricity demand to times when overall demand is lower. It works fairly simply by detecting small changes in the frequency of the mains supply. These occur when the grid is working harder to deliver electricity. They're also likely to be the times when the most polluting generators are switched on to cope with the demand. By switching off non-essential devices, the system smooths out peaks in demand. In fact, peaks can be reduced by up to 50%, which is huge because those ...

In Praise of Myspace Friends

What a great vehicle Myspace is for making links with people you might never have come into contact with. In the past 24 hours I have had a myspace friend who is a constituent contact me about a bene...

Absolutely, positively my last post about Peter Hain today

Ok, ok, ok. I know. When I said had four problems at the moment, and then when I said he had five problems I was wrong. The numbers just keep ratcheting up. As Benedict Brogan writes: Did Peter Hain lie in his statement last night That’s basically the question being asked today after it emerged that at [...]

Ignore the survey

As a child I used to really enjoy watching family fortunes with my grandparents but had to cover my ears when the survey said eeegh eegh - or whatever it was. The bit I liked was finding out what people were saying on various issues, from how many people eat salads on a Sunday in May to how many men wore bras (ok they’re both fictional examples but you get the point). Another show I like is 8 out of 10 cats for many of the same reasons - also because its bloody funny. I’ve been stopped in the streets ...

An end to the Night-Mayor

Last night was the first of doubtless many debates between the candidates for Mayor of London. To be honest I have been in a gentle kind of despair about the idea of Ken Livingstone, who I believe to be incompetent, doctrinaire and rather crooked, holding on to his job. Certainly, the idea of Boris Johnson- the clownish, gaffe prone Conservative candidate- replacing Livingstone is really not appealing at all. I think I prefer the dubious crook to the embarrassing clown. However, one candidate last night actually did come over as a sound and sensible figure. Brian Paddick was a guy ...

Save Essex Road Post Office

This week weve heard the bombshell news that the Post Office is going ahead with plans to close Essex Road Post Office. Islington residents have lost 10 branches since 2000. In 2007, we heard rumours that Essex Road might be the next to go. We collected hundreds of signatures, saying Essex Road must stay open. [...]

Quote of the week

SNP regrets election outcome! Bruce Crawford, SNP Minister for Parliamentary Affairs: "It is clear that the events of the election night in May should not have happened and must never happen again." (Debate on the Gould Report, 10 January 2008) For once I actually agree with an SNP Minister! And at the rate the SNP is ditching its election promises the outcome of the 2011 parliamentary election will be very different.

All that you can do is watch them play

A quick final post from my holiday. Just arrived at Singapore from Melbourne, have a five hour wait here before flying on to Tokyo via Bangkok. And if you're thinking that route doesn't sound like the most direct, it isn't. Don't ask. Had a great few days in Melbourne. Did a few touristy things like visiting the Immigration Museum and Old Melbourne Gaol and went south to Leongatha for a couple of days to catch up with my old housemates from when I lived in Wood Green, Tim & Vicky. They had a beautiful baby girl, Eleanor, in the summer ...

Good news on the 210 bus

Excellent {Photograhp of a bus lane} news has just come through about the 210 bus route - it's going double-decker. That means more space on the buses, hurrah! This will kick off on 16th February. It's a shame that it has taken Transport for London so long to respond to the issue - but credit where credit is due, they have now.

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (phooey!)

I have hundreds of CDs sitting in a cupboard in my living room that are 1) never played, 2) never looked at and 3) collecting huge amounts of dust. But I have no intention of selling or giving them away. Why Because I have every one of them on an external hard drive attached to my computer - I’ve ripped the lot of them and still continue to rip every new CD I get. I’ll then either transfer them to my iPod, play them directly from the computer or burn the tracks I want to a CD that I can ...

Hold the front page! Massive response to Liberal Democrat Voice campaign!

As James Graham has pointed out, Peter Hain’s internet operation has verily been shaken to its foundations and, er…, changed his website. The taxpayers of Britain will be sleeping more easily tonight. Warning: this posting may contain traces of irony.

2 states down...48 to go

One week after the Iowa caucuses, a few days after the extraordinary primary in New Hampshire, and with a short break before the next contests, it seems appropriate to assess where the candidates are in the race. Lets rank them!Republicans:5. Fred Thompson. Thompson's chance of winning the nomination is, barring a miracle, over. But he retains a crucial role in the race, for two reasons. He keeps socially conservative supporters (who distrust McCain, Giuliani and Romney) away from Mike Huckabee, which may prove critical in South Carolina. Secondly, when he drops out, he is likely to back John McCain, providing him with a potentially significant ...

My review of 2007

A little late as we are now well into January but I am finally getting round to putting down my New Year reflections. First a brief review of 2007. For me personally 2007 was a year of change and new beginnings. The first half of the year was dominated by preparations for the May local elections. As an Executive member on the Council the last few months of the four year political cycle was about

Redesign, now with added "bling"

As you will see, I've redesigned - again! Following my Christmas make-over one or two readers felt the whole thing was too complicated. And in the meantime I discovered how to make shiny buttons that should expand properly with the content. So here's the result, nearly. As with last time, I'm going live with it at the "80% complete" point as getting every little bit right will take quie a bit more tinkering. As a Mac user I've done little testing of it in Windows with Internet Exploder, but I have noticed running it in my Parallels Windows session a ...

Leyton By-election UPDATE: target reached!

Last night I asked people to sign up to the Leyton By-election page on Flock Together. I’m happy to report that just over 12 hours later, the target (5) has been reached. Can we get it up to 10 by the end of the weekend Sign up here. I’m planning to be there over the weekend and will issue a field report. Share This

Swinsongate Goes National

{Front page of Young Labour website} Three weeks on from the original Swinsongate and Young Labour are still claiming the veracity of the story on the front page of their national website. Of course, this puts Omar Salem in the uncomfortable position of having one version of the press release on the national website and another, contradictory, version on the London website. {Jo Swinson news story on Young Labour website} Just to recap: Jo Swinson a) has never been the party’s youth affairs spokesperson and b) has never been LDYS’s Chair. To top it all, she’s been promoted, not sacked, ...

A great man and his mountains

Sir Edmund Hillary was of course a New Zealander - a fact often glossed over in the 'Great British Triumph' reporting of the Ascent of Everest (think a combination of today's "Sun" and "Daily Mail" on steroids). The other man up, and possibly the first to set foot on the summit was a Nepali, Tensing Norgay, who also got the full British By Default treatment in the patriotic uproar of the time and subsequently. For his story see the Everest History webpages here and (pt2) here. Anyway, Hillary never forgot the people of the mountains, as can be witnessed by ...

2007 Local Government by-elections

Earlier this week I happened to notice the Liberal Democrats were the biggest gainers in Local Government by-elections during 2007.

Doing battle with your own party

James Graham recently posted Nick Clegg: It's beat up an activist day! The post concerns a policy announcement on schools and the State's involvement. James argues that it was spun as an attack of party activists. And he disapproves of the tactic. The day that Clegg was elected, Newsnight asked Danny Finklestein, Peter Hayman and Olly Grender to advise the new Liberal Democrat leader. One view was that Clegg should take on his own party as this would give political correspondents an ongoing story. I have no idea if the school announcement was a deliberate attempt to begin this 'battle ...

'EU Does Something Useful' Shocker

Shock headlines I know. But I am pleased to announce that the EU is actually doing something useful and standing up for consumers which - after my last post on Eurostar - is reason to be cheerful. It seems that a consortium of banks and insurance companies is conspiring to ensure that you must pay back all car loans in instalments, plus the interest these generate for the financial sector, whether you want to or not. Apparently people who had taken out loans of anything between 200 and 20 000 euros and wanted to pay it back in lump sums ...

Wiadomoci ze wiata (News from around the world)

This is very odd. There seems to be a Polish blog that is essentially a feed of all my stories (without the videos or pictures..)

My Message on the Narrative of Stories

Over at Lib Dem Voice's online forums, there has been a short discussion on the difference between a 'narrative' (or 'story'), a 'message' and a 'slogan'. It is perhaps the confusion that has reigned from the lack of definition of terms that has led to our party simply labelling papers 'Freedom, Chocolate, Fairness' or 'Fairness: People in Control' or whatever. Anyway, after writing the post that I shall repeat later in this post, Jeremy Hargreaves pointed me towards a new Lib Dem blog by Neil Stockley. Neil certainly gets the distinction that I try to make in these two forum ...

The conquest of Everest a Liberal Democrat success

Well not quite, and to say so would, at the very least, be anachronistic. But Sir Edmund Hillarys death reminds me that the leader of the successful Everest expedition in 1952, John Hunt, later Sir John Hunt, later Baron Hunt of Llanfair Waterdine, was a Liberal Democrat member. I noticed his entry the last issue of Whos who in the Liberal Democrats published before his death in 1998. His Wikipedia entry makes no mention of his political allegiance, but according to the Dictionary of national biography, he was ennobled in 1966, sat initially as a cross-bencher, but joined the SDP ...

Is Clegg already turning our fortunes round

A very interesting and encouraging piece from Mike Smithson on Political Betting.

Hillary vs Obama

Clinton vs Obama in the 21st century

Yes, Clinton is arrogant, she's not a good communicator and is seen as divisive, but she has brains and substance. More importantly I don't think Obama can win. Europeans are holding the breath and crossing their fingers hoping for something good to come out of the Primaries and the election later this year. After all, the rest of the world is affected by the choice of President Americans make.

Election Results: Thursday 10th January 2008

North West Leicestershire DC, Ibstock and Heather Lab 699 (30.9; -3.1), BNP 637 (28.2; +28.2), Con 515 (22.8; -12.6), LD David Wyatt 411 (18.2; +7.4), [UKIP (0.0; -19.8)]. Majority 62. Turnout 40.4%. Lab hold. Last fought 2007. Thatcham TC Thatcham Central (West Berkshire) LD Stephanie Steevenson 762 LD Jason Leake 748 (59.7), Con 515/494 (40.3). Majorities 247/233. Turnout 28%. LD hold x2.

Lets explore for local heroes

It was with great sadness that I learned of the death of Sir Edmund Hillary this morning. Sir Edmund was, of course, the first man to conquer Mount Everest, along with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953. I never met the man, nor do I have any interest in mountaineering beyond thinking that its a pretty impressive thing to do. I climbed Ben More on Mull last summer, which is about 3% as high as Everest, and that was about as mountainous as I get. But Sir Edmunds passing marks another sad milestone, I think, as yet another of our ...

Jacksons Lane Community Centre: sign the petition

Following up on my earlier posting about the threat to the future of Jacksons Lane Community Centre, I've now got an online petition up and running. Please do sign it!

London Talking Mayoral Debate

I stayed up well past my bedtime last night to catch the first London Mayoral debate on ITV’s London Talking, hosted by the over-expressive Konnie Huq. My satellite signal was down, meaning I couldn’t catch the erotic spank-fest Secretary on Film4, but the programme was interesting nonetheless. It followed a faux-hustings format, with each candidate allotted [...]

Day 2564: Mr Clogg's First Day

Wednesday: Well, obviously Mr Clogg's first day was AGES ago now, and I was THERE though we don't mention that now! And he's done LOADS of things since then, DRIVING THE AGENDA on subjects as diverse I.D.iot cards and Kenya. But it would be unfair NOT to mention his debut at Prime Monster's Questionable Time. I suspect that, for Mr Clogg, this was one of those less agreeable chores, like visiting an elderly, infirm relative who you don't know very well but who keeps on insisting on treating you as though you were five. And speaking of Mr Frown, the ...

Old adages and chickens...

Ah, further to the tv chicken debacle mentioned briefly in my last blog I see that Jamie Oliver has reaffirmed his committement to Sainsbury's and their chickens. Now what was that adage Never bite t...

Has Peter Hain misused taxpayer funds for Labour party purposes

Looks like when I said Peter Hain had four problems at the moment, I should have said five. His website - www.peterhain.org - says at the bottom, “This website is funded by the Communications Allowance”. Now that’s ok in itself - MPs are allowed to use the funds they receive to communicate online. However, what they’re [...]

Funding gap

This morning's Western Mail reports that the number of students gaining postgraduate qualifications leapt by 13% last year the highest rise in the UK. But the Wales lags behind the rest of the UK for the number of first and upper second class degrees awarded: Last summer 11% of students obtained first class honours for their first degree at Welsh universities compared to 16% in Scotland, 13% in Northern Ireland and 12% in England. A total of 45% in Wales received upper second honours compared to 52% in both Scotland and Northern Ireland and 47% in England. A leading academic ...

Peter Hain: how much trouble is he in

He’s got four problems: 1. He’s failed to declare donations on a massive scale, although the law makes him personally legally responsible. 2. He’s still heavily in debt. 3. He’s under regular scrutiny for his links with firms that also supported him financially (e.g. here and here). 4. The staff who worked on his campaign are falling out with a [...]

Labour defender of right to strike votes to...err...ban strikes

Are there 2 Labour MPs called David Anderson representing Blaydon constituency The first one appears to be the one who wrote and sponsored a Parliamentary motion (EDM 1648 2006/7) in July last year attacking moves by the government to end the right of prison officers to strike. The second is the one who on Wednesday this week quietly slipped through the division lobby in the House of Commons

Baby death blamed on government

An inquest into the death of 10 month old Rhianna Hardie from Taunton, Somerset found that her death could so easily have been prevented, had the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister only acted upon information received in relation to an earlier accident in Penwith, Cornwall, in 2002. So, given what has been said by the coroner and jury, can we expect criminal proceedings to be brought against the government department concerned. I certainly hope so! In 2007 the Metropolitan police were successfully prosecuted under health and safety legislation, following the death of Jean Charles de Menezes. So, is it ...

Graham's Blog Entry Friday 11 January 2008

Gordon: why we should have known

I don’t suppose Gordon Brown has thought about Laura Spence for years. I was reminded of her today by this poll published by the Sutton Trust, which suggests that the majority of state school teachers believe that less than a third of Oxbridge students went to state schools (the real figure is 54%) and that Oxford and Cambridge are more expensive [...]

Hain in the arse

It appears that Peter Hain is as bent as a nine bob note. Veteran Young Liberals will recall that this isnt his first brush with legal transgression. 32 years ago he was accused of doing over a Barclays Bank in South London. The difference then was that the Sussex postgrad Hain wasnt actually guilty. But theres a Sussex postgrad who is guilty Roger Johnson is guilty of not updating his blog!

In the bedroom

As the midnight bells of Big Ben drifted faintly through my window, and peeled not quite simultaneously on Radio Four, I drunkenly devoured the remainder of my disappointing kebab. The radio informed me that Edmund Hilary has died. I was sorry to hear this but I had assumed that he died decades ago. Id enjoyed a very pleasant and boozy evening with old work colleagues in the Chandos. Can there be any better feeling than collapsing drunkenly into bed after a night of lager Someone else fetching your coffee the next morning perhaps. Sadly, I tend to be obliged to ...

Recycling your Christmas Tree

The City Council is again offering its Christmas Tree recycling service - click on the headline above for details.

Lobby fodder

On Tuesday afternoon, Parliament debated a ‘programme’ motion on the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. Programme motions are about the time allocated for debate and are normally fairly routine matters. This was a bit different. The Minister introducing the motion said that if he was in opposition, he would not support it. MPs of all [...]

Nick Clegg - Spoiling for a fight

One of the problems of taking a day off to prepare food for Yas's party tomorrow............is that the temptation is to be distracted. Today's temptation arrived courtesy of James Graham. His suggestion that Nick Clegg is spoiling for a fight with the activists, deserves some closer analysis. Let me be clear, I may have been one of Nick's more vocal supporters, but that doesn't mean that a) I will keep my mouth shut if I think he is picking a fight b) Keep my mouth shut if I disagree with any of his policy positions. So, as you can imagine, ...

Haingate

Tempting as it is to rush to judgement and demand Peter Hain's resignation over the sheer scale of his error regarding £103,156 of undeclared donations, one has to admit that Labour MP, Paul Flynn was right in counselling caution on Radio Wales this morning. Mr. Flynn said that it is up to the Electoral Commission to determine the scale of the offence and what punishment is appropriate and that we should not seek to prejudge that. There may well be sanctions available to the House of Commons authorities as well not to mention the damage to Mr. Hain's reputation as ...

Email on the move

Even though I’ve always been a strong enthusiast for the internet and especially email (someone once told me that everyone had a technological format that is “theirs” SMS, letters, whatever and mine is definitely email!), for a long time I avoided accessing the internet from my mobile. I’m not quite sure why I think probably a vague worry that I’d very quickly run up very large bills. However a run of particularly boring meetings last summer did the trick, and in one particularly dull one I managed to work out how to rig up the settings to access my email ...

LibDems gain a seat from Tories

The Liberal Democrats in Thatcham, Berkshire have stormed home to win a clean-sweep of Town Council seats over the Tories. This includes one seat in North ward which was previously held by the Conservatives. The results were: Thatcham North:- 27.7% turnout Boeck - Conservative 527 Sparkes - Liberal Democrat 625 Thatcham Central:- 28.1% turnout Crumly - Conservative 515 Leake - Liberal

D minus, must try harder

There are now 283 LA maintained schools in Somerset, broken down into; 16 Infant schools; 41 First schools; 152 Primary schools; 14 Junior schools; 9 Middle schools; 4 Upper schools and 26 Secondary schools. Recent Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 Achievement and Attainment Tables published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families indicate that schools in Taunton Deane; Wellington School, The Castle School, Court Fields Community School, Kingsmead Community School and Heathfield Community School are now above average. However, before I had chance to get too carried away, I noticed that not all our schools did so ...

Will the nuclear boom harm global warming

So the government is to give the green light to nuclear. No surprises there then. Part of me would like to be an optimist, denounce the green lobby for being apocalyptic, line up with Jim Lovelock and David King and comfort myself that nuclear is a better alternative to coal and gas. I certainly am fairly dismissive about the “danger” argument (although moving a hundredfold more uranium and nuclear waste around the world, which appears to be where we’re headed, does strike me as a significant security threat). The problem is, I’m simply not convinced by the economics of it ...

Where will the Post Office axe fall

After months of threats, secret lists and local community fears, so the Labour Government is about to unveil the list of local Post Offices that they will be putting forward for possible closure [also called Operation Reinvention!]. They have of course sought to suggest that it will be a consultation - it will more likely, be a battle. There are no Post Offices locally across Hampstead and Kilburn constituency that people will be content to see closed. The Government have confirmed that there will be 2.500 closures across England, specifically there will be 150 closures across London. That means about ...

Boris, Brian and Ken Go Head to Head

In an hour-long special edition of London Talking, the three main mayoral candidates for London pitted their debating skills on ITV, giving us all a good foretaste of what we can expect over the next 111 days. Brian Paddick drew the short straw and had to go first, but he held everyone’s attention and commanded [...]

Leyton By-election: 14 February

The Leyton by-election has been called for 14 February. It has been suggested to me that many of us who have been blogging about the Miranda Grell affair should be putting our boots where our mouths/keyboards are and help Winnie Smith get elected. I entirely agree. Details can be found over at the Flock Together website. So far, just two of us are registered on the site for more information about the by-election. My challenge is to get that number up to five as quickly as possible. Anyone with me If it is successful, we might want to consider trying ...

Day 2563: Personchester

Tuesday: Manchester (NOT the Capital of the State of New Hampshire; that is Concord (NOT the aeroplane; that is Concorde)), Manchester is the setting of one of the KEY episodes of Mr Aaron Sorkin's witty, intelligent, informative, ground breaking, all-American political soap-opera: "Coronation Street", er, "The Left Wing". And this week, the Monkey-in-Chief flies to Palestine certainly seeming to think that HE'S starring in Season Seven. "Heh heh heh: if that Bartlet fella can pull an Arab-Israeli peace deal out his ass in the last year, then I sure can!" Unfortunately, this wasn't believable even when it was fiction! And, ...

Friday 11th January 2008

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