This was such an important event for us that we flew home from Jamaica overnight to make sure we did not miss it. At last, at last, the Rose Theatre is a reality. This was the atmospheric set that greeted us as we stepped into the auditorium. (Yes, I know I'll probably be in trouble for taking photos inside, but it was before the play started, and it was without flash!).... 
Business for New Europe (BNE) hosted a crowded reception in the Jubilee Room at the House of Commons this evening, in advance of the lengthy discussions that are going to take place in both Houses of Parliament over the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Jim Murphy, the Minister for Europe, gave an admirably brief and [...]
I guess this goes to prove that the donations issue is a can of worms. I think, personally, that Labour are trying to up the ante, but in doing so are likely to put more pressure on themselves rather than easing the pressure on Peter Hain, Harriett Harman and the rest. It would seem very unlikely that two Labour MP's would go ahead and report 80 Tories without the prior agreement of labour whips and, one would suspect Gordon Brown too. A silly move in my view, but that's the nature of politics at the moment.
The conviction of three teenagers today for the kicking to death of father of three, Garry Newlove, brings home to all of us just how many problems we face in the UK with rampant street crime, teenagers knowing they will get away with virtually anything short of murder, and a police force who either don't care or are not resourced enough to care. I heard the widow of Gary Newlove speaking on the radio after the verdicts were given, and she spoke of her feelings that a live sentence should be life, and I have to say that when someone ...
One, two (scroll down to Mentone), three. Two of them must by lying, right Though personally, this one is my favourite.
So, the independent inquiry that cleared the London Development Agency turns out neither to have been independent nor to have cleared the LDA. Don't you just love humans some times Woof woof.
The Evening Standard website is today leading with an article by Andrew Gilligan. Lynne Featherstone MP has, along with other MPs from the Labour and Conservative parties, accused the Mayor of misleading the public about an internal probe into the City Hall grants scandal. Stephen Tall on Lib Dem Voice has blogged on the paper's columnist Nirpal Dhaliwal supporting Brian for Mayor. Which all leads me back to the question 'want to hear a joke about Boris' Don't get me started on him!
Whoosh! Over four hundred people have already signed the petition to save Jacksons Lane Community Centre. Thank you to everyone who has signed so far, whether online or through the petitions we've been distributing in the area. If you've not signed yet, please do add your name - just have to click here and fill in the online form. Highgate councillor Neil Williams and I feature in the Journal's coverage of the story this week, which you can read here.
How refreshing, a story that doesnt portray gypsies as thieves and tramps!
I can’t help but see the news that two Labour MPs have reported 80 Tory MPs for non-declaration of donations as just revenge for the Tories pursuing Peter Hain. Maybe there will be something in it, but from what I can see it all looks above board. All parties get money from unincorporated associations, which are [...] 
We’ve heard from Nick, Steve W, Vince and others on the News etc - but no Chris. I thought his supporters said he was going to be the knight in shining armour And now the Calamity Clegg dossier has been used in Parliament by Brown. Nice one Chris!
I’m sick and tired of Gordon Brown and his non-answers to questions. First he asks David Cameron a question while not answering his! Next he dodges a question by bringing up the `calamity Clegg` dossier. My view is just slam Labour again and again and again - in leaflets - just keep on kicking. It’s about time this discredited [...]
We await with dread the next round of Post Office closures. Although our three market towns, Huntingdon, St Ives and St Neots, have now all lost their main post offices, the shops who have stepped into the breach are making quite a good fist of it. But it's our villages where there are large numbers of potential losses. We are likely to suffer more than most, as we seem to lost a whole lot less than others under the last Tory Government's closure programme. The cynical might think that had something to do with John Major being our MP at ...
Next Tuesday delegates from throughout the country will meet in the House of Commons to take part in an evidence session organised by the group, Defend Council Housing. This coincides with the Committee Stage of the Housing Bill and is designed to help lobby the Government over its continued discrimination against those authorities who have [...]
There was a boost for Brian Paddicks London mayoral campaign today, when Evening Standard columnist Nirpal Dhaliwal gave the Lib Dem candidate his whole-hearted endorsement: I thought the mayoral race had become an embarrassing Laurel-and-Hardy act as Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson competed for attention. But with Brian Paddick’s campaign launch, it should now be a [...]
Today's Full Council meeting has just finished with the guillotine keeping it to 5 and a half hours. I'm not usually upbeat about such occasions but the actual debates were of a unusually high and Topical quality. There is a darker side which I will come onto but much decent local government was discussed. As ever the day started with "Delegations" where by the public can present a case to the Full Council for 5 minutes. The winner of the "Mayor for the Day" competition for school children came along with class mates and spoke of the need for more ...
Nick Clegg continued where his debut last week left off - focusing on the bread and butter issues that affect the lives of everyday folk. Two good solid questions, both dodged by Gordon Brown, who crow-barred in a ham-fisted reference to the Calamity Clegg dossier (to the crowing delight of Labour backbenchers) - ensuring it [...]
As the Evening Standard reports today: Ken Livingstone has been accused of "misleading the public" after claiming an internal probe into the City Hall grants scandal was independent.The Mayor was attacked by MPs from all three big political parties over his claim about the London Development Agency review. It examined allegations that LDA cash was misappropriated by friends of his adviser Lee Jasper...Today the London Assembly heard evidence from two senior LDA officials dramatically at odds with Mr Livingstone's claims. Andrew Travers, who led the review, told Assembly members: "The review has been conducted by a team of LDA staff ...
I'm sure there are probably a good few people rubbing their hands with some relish at the thought that private schools might feel the squeeze from this edict from the Charities Commission that they have to prove the value of their contribution to the wider community to retain their charitable status. But before they get too excited, perhaps they might want to think about the numbers. I read that independent schools have about 600,000 pupils. If we accept the figures put forward by Nick Clegg, I think, when he was talking about the "pupil premium" in which he said, if ...
West Ham go to Manchester City this evening for an FA Cup replay. Nothing remarkable in that you might think except when you see who the winners will play, away, in the next round: Sheffield United. Those with longish memories will recall the rather unsavoury set of circumstances that allowed West Ham to stay in the [...] 
The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Azir-Ali was the only bishop able to name all the Spice Girls, when a newspaper phoned round with the question. He was born in Pakistan and has Muslim and Christian members in his family. He is one of three bishops who are Presidents of the worldwide Anglican "Network for inter-faith concerns", whose job it is to manage relations between the Anglican church and other
"I love the sound of breaking glass, Especially when I'm lonely"Right now the Nick Lowe classic would be a good candidate for top of Peter Hains ilike listings if his facebook profile had one.Not content with putting the boot in to George Osbourne it now appears that 80 Tory MPs have been reported to the Electoral Commission for using unincoprorated associatiosn to channel their own campaign
Being a veteran of the Federal Policy Committee ("FPC") and party conferences, and having read the party's constitution - yes, really! it's dull, but not that dull - which is downloadable from the party website, I'd like to put Nick Clegg's speech on public services last Saturday into context. First, the pupil premium, which I warmly supported at FPC, is Lib Dem policy already - it was adopted by the Federal Conference in September 2007 as part of a package on redressing poverty and inequality, backed by a paper which explains the concept at some length. Second, the party is ...
Satires on taxation, global capitalism and Section 28 aren’t perhaps the usual fare of television aimed at children, but, produced as it was by the BBC’s drama department, Doctor Who often aimed squarely at the family audience, ensuring that there was a something in its stories to appeal to adults while the kids were hiding behind the sofa. As part of my exceptionally slow progress through all the Doctor Who ever made, I recently reached The Sun Makers, a Tom Baker story from 1977 in which political satire is pushed front and centre - arguably at the expense of younger ...
The Evening Post's new Leeds United PC wallpaper, features the comments made by Jermaine Beckford, during Monday night's post match interview on Sky TV, when he was asked about Derby County's interest in him. Here it is, plus a 15 point head start version:
So you arrive at a foreign airport after an overnight flight. You finally get through immigration after a long wait, and then join the scramble for bags on the carousel. Lifting them off is not easy and you're almost asleep, so you look round for the luggage trolleys. Plenty of trolleys, all chained together and the only way you can liberate one is by inserting a coin in the local...
After my pledging haliographic admiration for Chris Grayling, I saw another Conservative front bencher on Newsnight last night, talking about terrorism. I actually thought she sounded as though she was talking sense, based on real knowledge. Pauline Neville-Jones, it was. Oh dear, I'm starting to get worried. It was unusual to hear a Tory talking about fighting the real causes of terrorism -
84 year-old Tory Baroness Sharples has admitted bashing a cyclist with her handbag, after the cyclist ran a red light, almost knocking her over outside the House of Lords. Judging from her fearsome pose in the photo above, I would have thought the cyclist was scared witless. But physical violence as part of road rage is wrong even when meted out by an ageing Baroness outside the House of Lords
A great website to track what MPs are up to is www.theyworkforyou.com. It gives you lots of search functions, including by topic. According to the site, Popular searches today: Don Foster, portable antiquities Don, first elected as MP for Bath in 1992, may be a veteran. But I wouldnt call him an antique. [...]
Who says the Evening Standard has become the 'Evening Boris', as Ken Livingstone quaintly refers to the publication. Will Self, a regular columnist who could be described as curmudgeonly, and at times very funny (I think), recently came out in support of Brian Paddick as the only credible candidate for Mayor. In todays edition, columnist Nirpal Dhaliwal, who deserves a medal for having his private life, marriage, affairs and foibles subjected to regular parody in his ex-wife (Liz Jones) regular column. She did so well out of it, she bought herself a Georgian house in Islington from the proceeds. Now ...
Well - having referred one institution (the monarchy) to the Equalities Commission, I find myself invited to another institution (Radio 4's Woman's Hour) to talk about it. They hauled in Charles Mosley as the reactionary to argue the case against stopping male preference primogeniture (i.e. to argue that it's ok for a man to bump a woman in the line of succession to the throne just because they're a man). I don't really think there are any valid arguments against changing rules on this - and indeed plenty of other monarchies have already changed. As I said on the program ...
Two monologues do not a dialogue make. And I am afraid that Europe's Year of Intercultural Dialogue is going to founder on this rather crucial distinction. I just sat through a protocol meeting with the Grand Mufti of Syria and his entourage in which the 'conversation' went something like this. Us: "We are delighted to welcome you here to the European Parliament. Intercultural Dialogue is very important" Them: "We are delighted to come to the European Parliament. Intercultural Dialogue is very important" Us: "We hope we can promote unity and discourage extremism through this dialogue" Them: "We also hope we ...
…it might be wise to hang on a bit. I think the extra applications are actually included in the free to download iPod update, and then when you buy the software it flicks some virtual switch either in your iTunes store account, or in the iPod itself. If that’s the case, it probably won’t be long until some enterprising soul finds a way to flick the switch without forking out £13! Yours, An Apple Addict
A year ago, 2000 passengers in Bristol, Bath Yatton, Yate, Frome and Oxford took part in a one day protest to highlight the problem of late and overcrowded trains on First Great Western trains. The protest involved passengers carrying fake tickets printed by 'More Trains Less Stain' with the words "Worst Great Western" on top. Now, as I recall, whilst the protest did generate considerable media attention, it actually achieved very little. So, what may I ask do protestors hope to achieve by staging yet another protest on Monday 28th January 2008 Have they stopped to think that negotiation, rather ...
A depressing day for the criminal justice system yesterday, when Mr Justice Ousley agreed to a CPS request to hold a murder trial in secret (or in camera, the use the legal parlance) on the grounds of national security. I’ve already asked the obvious question: Has the Government committed murder, and if not, what reason [...]
All in all, it's been both a good day, and a bad day, to be an environmentalist in the South West. The Good news is; plans to introduce congestion charges in some of our major cities have now moved a step closer following the payment of a £700,000 grant to some local councils. The West of England Partnership (WEP), made up of councils in Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire are now considering several ideas, one of which includes the charging of £4 to access central Bristol and Bath during weekday rush-hours. Bath, as you ...
Since, to my lasting horror, I keep being forced into the position of defending religion by dint of simply being a cussedly reasonably human being, I thought I would redress the balance by having a go at the Mormons. I mean, after all, there is a limit. Some years ago, when I was a little spod whose greatest desire was to go to Oxnod and [...]
The Northern Rock saga drags on. Its one of those stories which dropped from the headlines but is far from solved. Vince Cable and the Lib Dems have been alone in making the case for nationalising Northern Rock, not to run it permanently, but to limit taxpayer losses and get the bank in shape for [...]
Much of the political news today has been dominated yet again by the Peter Hain funding affair. Now this is significant and it has brought to light the issue of a senior Cabinet minister failing to disclose funding he received from undisclosed donors. This is important and needs further investigation but isn't that now being done by the appropriate authorities. It also seems to pall beside the continuing funding morass behind the Tories and George Osborne in particular. Sure, New Labour looks grubby but the Tories invented sleaze, serialised it on Radio 4, sold the rights to Hollywood and wrote ...
Decisions, decisions...it's a bit like buses, nothing I want to see at the cinema for ages and then several movies all arrive at once! So, do I review Alien v. Predator: Requiem or Sweeney Todd
The basic Conservative defence in the latest donations saga is, ‘hey David Cameron’s mistake over flights isn’t anything like as serious as Peter Hain’s problems’. In itself, this point has some merit (though it does rather gloss over the fact that Cameron’s now run into problems three times now; not a good track-record to have). It’s a little [...]
The podcasts on this site should be working again, meaning readers have the opportunity to listen to my dulcet tones on the latest FFS It’s Monday. Share This
I am pleased to say that, following my recently contacting the City Council (following constituent complaint) about a pothole at the junction of Pentland Avenue and City Road, I am advised it was filled this morning. The photo (right) is illustrative, not from Pentland Avenue/City Road! As Planning & Transport Convener since last May, I get a considerable mailbag about road condition and have been anxious to see progress towards improvements. Towards the end of 2007, the City Council introduced (in partnership with Tayside Contracts) a new, longer-lasting pothole repair solution called "Rapid Rhino". We are also currently looking at ...
Tuk Tuk in Nathon
We none of us like being kept awake at night - I know, my students regularly make my site sound like Wembley Stadium emptying at 3am but I wonder where these people objecting to their village pub getting a late license have been living all their lives. Certainly not in any village I know, where long before the new licensing laws such pubs would probably have had "lock-ins" at least as late as the 1am this guy is now asking for: Residents said they were worried extended opening hours would lead to parking congestion and noise problems. A pub which ...
Last night was the regular meeting of the “Local Area Partnership” in Prestwich. This is the body that brings together your local councillors, together with partner agencies (health, police, schools, voluntary sector etc) and community reps. We received an update on some of the important work that the Partnership is involved in to improve our local community: Cllr Donal O’Hanlonreported on the work of the Town Centre Working Group. This group is looking at how we develop the Prestwich town (or “village”) centre. The Council is paying for a study to be undertaken over the coming nine months which will ...
So Lord "Paddy" Ashdown has apparently accepted the job as UN high representative in Kabul: The former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown, has agreed to become the United Nations' envoy to Afghanistan, a source close to negotiations on the post said today. "Yes, he has accepted the job," the source told the Reuters news agency, speaking of an agreement between Ashdown, 66, and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. Ashdown, a former soldier, had been seeking a strengthened mandate for the post, to become more deeply involved in coordinating efforts to combat a Taliban insurgency and guide reconstruction. ...
Former Liberal Democrats Liberal Democrats Paddy Ashdown has been named as the new United Nations envoy to Afghanistan.
Mitt Romney threw the race for Republican presidential nomination wide open last night by winning the Michigan Primary. With 94% of the vote counted, Romney had taken 39%, McCain a distant 30% and Mike Huckabee 16%. So far the Republicans have had three different winners in the three different contests.
While Peter Black today highlights a story in the Western Mail by Jenny Willott I noticed closer to home an egregious abuse, potentially, of the DNA database system: Police handcuffed a student and took his fingerprints and DNA after he tried to throw a bottle of water to tree protesters. Jonathan Leighton, a student at St Anne's College, was arrested at 2am on Sunday in Bonn Square, Oxford, after he tried to give the water to tree protester Gabriel Chamberlain. Now, I am against the "tree protestors" and their supporters, and I do hate littering enough to want it to ...
A good interview in my "trade" mag, Children and Young People Now. I particularly like Nick's commitment to address the "Cinderella Service" status of youth work and mental health professions.
I've just been sitting in the House of Commons for the weekly Prime Minister's Questions, and have come 'hot foot' to the HoC library to report back on what happened. The way PMQs work is that the first question is always asked by a backbencher who has come first out of the hat. Today it was a loyal Labour backbencher who had clearly been 'lent on' by the whips. He asked a toadying question which enabled Gordon Brown to list the Government's achievements on the economy. MPs on all sides groan when we go through this charade. Then we have ...
Just as he did last week, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has avoided difficult questions from David Cameron (this time on Northern Rock) by asking him a question. Surely the Speaker can’t hold this in order for much longer It is, after all, Questions to the Prime Minister, not to the Opposition’s Questions. As well as [...]
I have calmed down this morning after lat nights rant about LAPs and the general rubbishness (pun intended) of the Councils street cleaning service for Prestwich. I am still determined to press this though, and wont be giving up. In addition, I have been giving more thought to why I leave each and every LAP meeting feeling as though I may as well stand screaming obscenities with my fingers in my ears as be a Councillor for all the good I can do. I reckon its because LAPs bring together the angriest residents in Prestwich and the worlds ...
It is not often that I find myself agreeing with Neil Clark, but I do, and wholeheartedly, on this point he highlights: (From the Tehran Times )... Islamic law prohibits production of nuclear arms: Leader Tehran Times Political Desk TEHRAN - Irans religious leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, has stated that the Islamic Republic has repeatedly said that Iran opposes the production and use of nuclear weapons in principle from an Islamic point of view. Of course, there'll be some of you respond "well he would say that wouldn't he" but it's something I've long bellieved - it is logically ...
Ive come across an e-mail with rumours that Obama is a Muslim. The details can be found at Urban Legends and more on CNN, Washigton Post etc. It is clearly a paranoid attack trying to induce fear in the electorate. The most uncomfortable aspect of it is the fact that it implies that American Muslims are not American. It is rather reminiscing of the McCarthy era, although I doubt this is what
{Martin Tod and Stuart Rudd out collecting petition signatures from local residents} We’ve just launched a website (http://www.saveourbuses.org.uk) and a petition against the proposed cuts to the Red Rocket bus service in Chandler’s Ford and Hiltingbury. In essence, almost no Blue Line buses will go north of Fryern Hill or west of Winchester Road. I was out on Tuesday collecting signatures at Fryern Hill, Ashdown Road and Sutherlands Court and it’s clear that these cuts are going to hit many residents very badly. For pensioners in particular, the combination of the cuts to the Red Rocket bus services and the ...
Sunday: Mr Balloon demands that Beige-Basted Bumbler Mr Peter Vain explain his £100,000 error or resign. Mr Balloon says that penny-whistle pixie Mr Gideon Oboe has nothing to explain about his £500,000 error and we should move on. Is the Conservatory leader REALLY such a DUNDERHEAD that he did not realise that these two stories would be conflated in every news summary for the rest of the day
The ludicrous sign in King’s Cross St Pancras has been removed. Another victory for this crusading campaigner! Share This
After the Republican primary in Michigan last night, lets take a quick look at the race as it stands.Mitt Romney's campaign is revived. He has now won a state (by a convincing margin) and has the resources to be competitive in the Feb. 5th states. Until then, he is likely to sit out South Carolina, and focus on Nevada and Florida with the aim of gaining some momentum (and perhaps a win) before a big push on Super Tuesday.It is also good news for Rudy Giuliani. We've mentioned before that Giuliani's strategy of waiting until Florida to jump into the race ...
You have to wonder sometimes if there might be some guile behind Gordon Brown’s apparent ineptitude. Take last night’s remark about Peter Hain’s incompetence. A spectacular gaffe Or, given that we have PMQs tomorrow and the strong likelihood that Cameron will not be able to resist the temptation to make something of it, is it a ploy to make his opponent look stupid. Because as Lib Dem Voice has pointed out, Cameron has recently demonstrated a bit of “incompetence” himself. Handled correctly, and assuming Cameron falls for it, Brown could use this to devastating effect. On the other hand, knowing ...
Speaking to News at Ten last night, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that Peter Hain’s failure to declare all donations to his deputy leadership campaign was: "… a mistake that was made. It was an incompetence that he has readily admitted to" That means that what we’ve all long suspected is now official - being incompetent is [...]
I recently went to see Charlie Wilson's War. The film is based on the true story of US Congressman Charlie Wilson and how his actions changed the course of history and helped towards ending the Cold War.
Lembit has an article in today's Western Mail justifying his stance yesterday that attacks on Peter Hain are 'a blatant act of foolhardy opportunism'. Although our former Welsh Party leader has some valid points, I cannot help feeling that it is not the best use of an opportunity to contribute 1,000 words to a national newspaper by a Liberal Democrat. Lembit quite rightly says that we should not prejudge the case against Mr. Hain until the Electoral Commission (and or the Police) and the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner have had an opportunity to conclude their inquiry. He is right, we should ...
I have been following the ongoing choice debate with some interest, especially given my predilection for free market economics (yes, I admit it, Im on the right wing of the Party, whatever that means). However, as a bureaucrat, I have some reservations, based predominantly on the concept of provision of real choice for real people. Firstly, lets be realistic about the extent to which the
Welsh Liberal Democrat MP, Jenny Willott is to be commended for securing three pages of the Western Mail this morning on government DNA policy, including page one. She has also managed to do this without once mentioning the Cheeky Girls. Jenny is rightly concerned at the fact that one in 10 people in Wales are on the national DNA database after a huge surge in the number of samples taken by the police. Many of the 264,420 on the database are innocent and have never been charged with any offence, but their sample is kept for life. Disturbingly more than ...
I've been working on writing an article for this blog about the policy conference on Saturday and the Lib Dem approach to public services, neglecting various half-written posts on party organisation as I do so, but I keep changing my mind about it. In large part I'm wrestling with differences between what people say and what they mean. So in the meantime, and on a similar theme, here is a piece
Back in November, I wrote about the excellent public meeting held in Peter Symonds about parking in Weeke. The people there had concerns about the proposed parking hours on their local streets and, pretty unanimously, wanted to have shorter hours and fewer days with parking restrictions. These would have tackled the problem they had with student parking, while being considerably more convenient for local residents. Now the officers have put forward their proposal and … the proposed hours that the parking restrictions will operate remain unchanged. Very disappointing. This isn’t about high politics - it’s about trusting local people to ...
Southwark has recently consulted and then voted upon a series of bye-laws. This includes stopping cycling on a particularly narrow part of the Thames Path (not the Sustrans cycle route but the Thames walkway). I now read in the South London Press that Councillor Jenny Jones is threatening to defy this cycle ban. There is a very honourable tradition of [...]
Subsidiarity - the principle that government power ought to reside at the lowest possible level - is a concept beloved of Liberal Democrats. However, too many of our elected members are a little vague on what that means in practice. You see subsidiarity should mean it's the council which handles your bin collection; regional and national government which organises matters like education policy and road building; and the EU which does things countries can't handle alone like combat climate change. So far, so good. But the problem with power - and the backbone of traditional liberal thinking - is that, ...
The Conservatives really are having an unfortunate time with donations/declarations and the like. First there was news of Cameron breaking fundraising rules. Then there was a donation to Cameron's constituency association in Witney which shouldn't have been accepted. Now Georgie Osbourne has to admit that he received "£500,000 in secret donations". But that's not all. The Conservatives have
Romney wins in Republican contest, giving him two wins so far (Michigan, and the low-profile Wyoming contest) to second-placed McCain’s one (New Hampshire) and third-placed Huckabee’s one (Iowa), who finished third. Net result Republican contest is still wide open. Next up - South Carolina primary and Nevada caucus on Saturday. South Carolina is being seen as [...]
Stuck for something to do on Saturday 26th January 2008 Don't just sit in and watch yet another episode of Casualty come along to Chardstock Community Hall, (near Chard) and join Yoevil Lib Dems as they listen to a talk by 'Lord' Paddy Ashdown on his experiences as High Representative of the United Nations in Bosnia. According to the Lib Dem website; 'Paddy was one of the leading advocates for decisive action by the international community. He argued strongly that this would help bring the conflict to an early close, and that this was in the interests of all the ...
If you go down to the hospital today, You're sure of a big surprise. If you go down to the hospital today, You'd better go in disguise. For ev'ry cleaner that ever there was, Will gather there for certain, because. Today's the day the hospitals have their deep-clean. (sung to the tune of The Teddy Bears Picnic) Thats right, Operation Bullshit has commenced. At the bequest of Gordon Brown specialist teams of cleaners are, as I write, sterilising patient and public areas, kitchens, sluices, corridors, stairwells, de-cluttering wards, removing old equipment and cleaning storage areas in an attempt to convince ...
Saturday: "A Society Willing to Take Risks" was the phrase used by Councillor Cathy Bakewell in her response to the challenges and opportunities for the Liberal Democrats. Wouldn't it be FANTASTIC to see that on a MANIFESTO It would scare the PANTS off the other Parties! Fewer rules; less nannying: what WOULD they do We'd already heard from Mr Clogg, a good speech with a couple of "sharp intake of breath" moments from the audience. But you know all that, because it was in the news. What you REALLY want to know is how we go forwards from here. And ... | < | January 2008 | > | ||||
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