A heartening story today. Sadly some sapling Elm Trees (my ward is called Bishopsgarth and Elm Tree) are going to have to be felled as there are problems they are alleged to be causing. However the local wildlife expert, from Tees Valley Wildlife Trust, had told me that he is going to try to make sure the trees are not chipped straight away. Why I ask The elm trees are host to... 
The media is reporting that senator Clinton and Mitt Romney have won todays Nevada caucuses, and thus giving both there campaigns some much needed momentum after their opponents won in New Hampshire. But the results are not that simple, as the race to win the most delegates makes things are a little more complicated. After a state holds either their primary or caucus the votes are counted and the number of delegates for each state is divided up, according to the percentage of the vote each candidate got and these delegates vote for their nominee at the nomination conventions, which ...
{A polling station} Its 80 minutes into an Arsenal-Tottenham football derby. Tottenham lead 1-0. Arsenal are piling on the pressure. The Tottenham manager shouts at the ref, OK, thats it can we have the final score now please The ref agrees, all the players troop off the pitch 10 minutes early and Tottenham get the three points. Sounds absurd doesnt it (and I dont just mean the idea of Tottenham beating Arsenal!) But thats what passes for normal in the world of Palace of Westminster politics when it comes to general election dates. The Prime Minister and the Prime Minister ...
I lived without a television for several years in the 1990s, but I always knew which programmes I would and would not have liked because I read Nancy Banks-Smith's reviews in the Guardian. Here she is this morning on the death of Coronation Street's Vera Duckworth: Jack (Bill Tarbey) is a bit of a bar-room baritone. When I was a child, I would stand on the stairs of my parents' Lancashire pub and listen to those hoarse, sweet, soaring Irish tenors promising to take Eileen home again to where her heart would feel no pain. Last night, with his fingers ...
There is a very full obituary of Bobby Fischer by Leonard Barden in today's Guardian. It is worth saying a world about Boris Spassky's career after the 1972 world title match in too. The following year he won the Soviet championship. This was a remarkable feat, not only because of the strength of the field but also because he was under a certain amount of official disapproval as the man who had lost the Soviet Union the world chess championship. Perhaps he was helped by having a lot of opening preparation left over from the Fischer match that he had ...
Early risers tomorrow will be treated to party leader Nick Clegg on the Andrew Marr Show at 9am on BBC1.
If you’d like to see a man made of holly* coming up the Thames on a boat - and I have just had 37 emails requesting exactly such a thing, which admittedly is something of a coincidence - then I suggest you watch the video below, which shows just such an occurrence occurring a couple of weeks ago. And if you’d like an explanation of why, visit Mr Nimbos’s blog. *plus flesh, bones and all the usual stuff
Busy day. Following Justin's resignation from the Council, Highgate by-election campaigning started in earnest today. That meant an early start to go over to our Campaign HQ, which already has a real buzz about it. By-elections always generate a lot of enthusiasm - even if the tasks aren't always the most scintillating, it's great to get everyone together and it really helps the time fly by. Took time off from the campaign to go over to White Hart Lane, where Spurs put in an outstanding first half. Only one goal to show for it though and we had to survive ...
{Crime scene tape} News that the Ministry of Defence lost a laptop containing personal details of over 600,000 people, including national insurance numbers and bank details, has brought back to mind (thanks to a SpyBlog posting) a Parliamentary question I asked back in 2005: Q. To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many laptop computers have been used by (a) Ministers, (b) special advisers and (c) officials in his Department in each year since 1995; how many have been (i) lost and (ii) stolen in that period; what the cost was of the use of laptops in that ...
If you’re going to manipulate a photograph for political use, have a better excuse ready than this. Hat tip: Hywel Morgan 
The Shropshire Star carries an enthusiastic review of the food there: It is authentic, unfussy and stylish. Customers invariably leave with a desire to return. Weve now eaten there on four occasions and every time weve vowed to go back. Its at the top of our list of venues to take visiting friends, keen to sample Shropshires hills and pubs. The Stiperstones Inn is, quite simply, one of the countys treasures.Skittles the cat gets a mention, but not the free broadband access.
Two postings today that have caught my eye - as they mention myself! First - Alex Foster on that issue of the moment - the monarchy and sexism. Second - Jo Swinson has her latest piece publicising the (Lib Dem) Campaign for Gender Balance blog awards. The existence of these awards has caused a bit of a fuss I know (why have awards just for female bloggers) - but I think they are a good idea in highlighting good female blogs and in encouraging other women to blog. The proportion of Lib Dem political bloggers who are female - for ...
Holocaust Denial has attracted a lot of international publicity — and rightly so. But Nakba Denial is hardly known about outside the Palestinian diaspora. ‘Nakba’ or ‘catastrophe’ is the word Palestinians use to describe the period 1947-1949, and especially 1948, when many thousands of families were evicted or dispossessed, during the creation of the modern [...]
Tory MP John Greenways assertion that Independent Financial Advisers should continue picking up the £400 tab for all complaints levelled against them, regardless of whether the claims are devoid of any merit, dishonestly motivated or involve the misleading of the Financial Services Ombudsman, is very stupid. I can only assume the FSO levels this charge because (i) the complainants, even when they are liars, cannot be expected to pay and (ii) because theyre a grossly underfunded public service unable to pay for their own investigations. Yet somehow, they are able to pay their staff bonuses for wrapping up cases quickly. ...
I’ve been playing around with spock.com, the “people” search engine (a sort of meta-social network). Bit miffed to discover that I’m listed 211th of all the James Graham’s in all the world that have ever existed (Google is much gentler on the old ego). Type in Liberal Democrat and you get a very interesting set of results. Barack Obama is the first result (if only), with Chris Huhne, Charles Kennedy, Ming Campbell, Lynne Featherstone and Nancy Pelosi in places 2-6. Stephen Tall is in seventh place, but in the photo he appears to have turned into Jock Coats. Richard Allan, ...
Liberal Democrat councillor, Mick Harley, who represented Summer Lane Ward, Weston-super-Mare has resigned due to ill-health. There will now be a by-election held on 13th March. Nominations need to be submitted by 15th February.
AP report that Michael Bloomberg has met with Clay Mulford, who is a "ballot access expert and campaign manager for H. Ross Perot's third-party presidential bid." He's also had a photo-op with Arnie. Bloomberg couldn't be clearer in denying he is running for President: "I just said I'm not a candidate it couldn't be clearer," he said. "Which of the words do you not understand People have
Anyone who has travelled down the A243 Hook Road this week will have noticed the work going on near the White Hart. I'm afraid it has caused some traffic queues, although that has eased off now that regular drivers have realised what is happening and found other routes. At last Transport for London is actually building a much needed pedestrian controlled crossing. We, the...
After the usual Christmas and New Year chaos I suddenly realised that I haven't blogged for a whole month! It's not been that quiet either. Across Winchester people are beginning to realise, and hopefully think about, the implications of the first stage of the Local Development Framework. I first wrote about this back in November and we are now in the middle of the public consultation period
There's some sort of conspiracy going on, that's for sure ;-)
Hazel Blears, she of last place in the Labour deputy leadership race back in June 2007, has finally won something: a selection race for the new constituency of Salford and Eccles (created out of her current Salford seat and a neighbouring constituency). All together now: We’re the chipmunks Coming on stronger than ever [...]
Paul Walter reminds me of the fuss created by this supposed request for the new-ish mosque in Oxford to broadcast an amplified call to prayer. Paul has some links in his post, but to recap, it has now managed to engulf two bishops, Rochester ("no-go areas") and Oxford ("my area, shut up, Rochester"), Peter Hichens ("I really don't mind Muslims so long as they only help me rail against modern decadence and don't wake me up") and, I understand, our own dear leader ("the sound of the divine, aagh, beautiful"). And many acres of newsprint, many billion pixels and several ...
Last week, Lynne Featherstone launched a new battle against the establishment when she wrote to the equality watchdog following the birth of Viscount Severn, son of the Earl and Countess of Wessex. As LibDemVoice’s army of monarchists will be well aware, when the Hon James Windsor was born, he knocked his elder sister Lady Louise back [...]
A few weeks ago, after the loss of a data disk containing 15,000 people's personal details, the government said it was introducing new measures to safeguard data. A few weeks later the government lost the details of 25 million people, and again, the government said in had introduced measures to safeguard personal data. A few weeks later, details of all learner drivers were lost in America. Again, the government said it was introducing new measures to safeguard personal data. Now the government has allowed 500,000 people's personal data to be on one laptop, left in a car, which has now ...
Ive just been to the newly refurbished London Transport Museum in Covent Garden, with the family in tow. The elderly buses and trains were rather wonderful (the ones in the museum, I mean), the exhibition was brilliant, but it made me think, presumably thanks to Heritage Lottery, about the miserable straitjacket that New Labour wants us to live in. Because this was a museum without a map. Where we were expected to follow the arrows, take the lift to the top it wouldnt stop anywhere else and follow the designated route slavishly downwards. We were, in fact, issued with a ... 
There is truly nothing more annoying when watch a football match then top see a ref who is so easily intimidated by one of he two teams and who fails to make the decisions that all the replays show should have been made. Today, in the Norwich versus Leicester match we had the pleasure (that is a sarcastic comment) of Mr A Bates in the black, and for some reason we all thought he had been doing a good job for the first 25 minutes, then how we regretted thinking this. The first clue that he had no idea what ...
It is heartening to read that Parliament Square is going to have most of its traffic moved out, to allow people to walk round it. I do hope they leave the statues there, as that seems the main reason to walk around it (as I did, braving the traffic, last November). Apparently, the initial design removes the statues to make the square "uncluttered". But this would be a disaster. It is vital
Islington Council is once again in the spotlight, after a registrar who is a devout Christian, has taken the council to an Employment Tribunal, claiming she is being forced to conduct gay civil partnerships, which she claims are in breach of her religious principles. Islington has hosted over 600 gay marriages since the change in legislation in 2005. To date the registrar, who has worked for the council for 10 years, has not had to officiate in any gay marriages. But since the change in legislation, she is now an employee of the council, and would therefore be required to ...
Geddit! Jonathan Yeo's portrait of Tony Blair is stunning. He may have perhaps overdone the "grayscaling" of Blair's suit, shirt and tie in order to show the piquant scarlet of Blair's poppy. But the face is remarkable well painted and, of course, the poppy makes the main point about Blair. In fifty years time, people will walk past it and ask "Why does the poppy stand out so much" It is a
Tony Blair has sat for his first official portrait painted by Jonathan Yeo. Interesting that the former Prime Minister, yes the one who took us to war, yes that's the illegal war, the war on Iraq, yes he was Prime Minister when that happened...has refused previous requests by artists to sit for a portrait. And now here he is, his suit dramatically faded out in the painting, causing the viewer to focus on a bright red poppy, that he just happened to be wearing, and that just so happens to 'represent his leadership role during Iraq'. Apparently: "Yeo, who has ...
Tim Montgomerie on Conservative Home reflects positively about Nick Clegg's first month as leader: Team Clegg: His top team is a strong one. Not as strong as ours (!) but stronger than Brown's. Vince Cable at the Treasury continues to win considerable publicity on Northern Rock - more than George Osborne. Home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne was assured on BBC1's Question Time last night (on
This is an actual email sent to all undergraduate students at St Peter's College, Oxford, by their Junior Dean: Dear JCR, Quick email to remind you that the dress code in the College library is - clothes of some description. If there is a problem with the heating in the Periodicals Room, please tell us rather than remove your clothes. Also, in reponse to the email that I sent out about the soft, pink, pig toy abandoned last vacation that needs claiming: whoever felt the need to send me, anonymously, another pink pig with 'gnome on holiday in Amelie' style ...
Following my post about the Bishop of Rochester's remarks about "'no-go' areas" in Britain, I found the following comments from Nick Clegg on the subject. It is reassuring that I find that I agree with Nick wholeheartedly on this one, particularly on the subject of the "call to prayer": Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg - who recently declared that he does not believe in God - strongly rebutted
As Baronness Scott mentions on her new blog, Rebekkah Wade, editor of the Sun, recently talked to the House of Lords select committee on communications, which asked a few interesting questions about the political stance of the Sun and who sets it. There is not yet a written transcript of their exchange, but here is a video of it, which the committee's homepage has made available:
John Dixon has written about one particular example of the crass habit of hyperbole that pervades political commentary: the equating of socialism with liberalism and the use of terms such as liberal mafia and liberal fascism, particularly in America (where they confuse liberal with socialist). One reason, as John rightly notes, is that extremism sells, though I would take issue with his statement that some reason extremism sells well in America, as though the rest of the world were so much more measured and rounded. Extremism sells everywhere. Most of those reading or watching political polemics are not auto-didacts but ...
UPDATE 19th January: This is now a complete round-up of media and blog reaction to Nick Clegg's speech on public services at the Manifesto Conference on January 12th. In all, there are 14 media stories and 59 blog posts listed below. In this update, I've added 8 more blog posts and 1 media story in bold at the bottom of the lists. This is the last update, but please let me know if I have missed
The betting has swung Huckabee's way in S Carolina. He's now 58 to McCain's 35 on Intrade, and is coming in hard on Betfair to both candidates on 1.8. There's money to be made in those margins but I don't have any to bet. Most frustrating.
Doncaster Rovers first league at Elland Road for more than 50 years started with Donny, unbeaten in the last 16 games, full of confidence and looking like they were here to make a match of it. In a nice pre-match gesture the Doncaster Chairman laid a wreath at the foot of Billy Bremner's statue. It was rapid end to end play for the first 20minutes with Donny equal in terms of possession. Then a foul by Paul Huntington, 12 yards from the Leeds goal line was easily converted by Brian Stock, 0-1. United began to get more of a grip ...
Along with a Dundee colleague, spent this morning in Pitlochry, helping my LibDem colleagues in the Perth & Kinross Council Highland Ward by-election. As you can see, the scenery is brilliant - lovely warm, sunny morning too!
No democrat can support a situation where wealthy individuals are able to 'buy' a position in a legislature and we all know many examples of this sitting on the red benches. However the scrutiny of appointments and honours is now leading to a situation where making a significant donation is regarded as a disqualification. Recent Lib Dem peerages have been very very safe to avoid possible scandal and I am aware of at least one senior party figure on the Peers panel who has been overlooked precisely because of his generosity - so only poor and/or mean people need apply ...
The increasing frequency of party funding scandals across all 3 main political parties is creating an environment of fear and disillusion within the pool of potential donors. For many years declining party membership, opposition to state funding and increasing costs of campaigning have led to increased reliance on 'High Net Worth' donors. At the same time increased scrutiny, negative publicity and more rigid rules on donations seem to be strangling this source. Voters do not discriminate between the scandals in the same way that partisan politicians do with a resultant sense that 'they are all the same, all corrupt'. Political ...
Tim Harford, undercover economist, FT editorial board member and Slate regular, has provided some wonderful insight into How Facebook is like Ikea.
I've just completed a Somerset County Council Budget and Council Tax Consultation Survey online. Ever get the feeling you've just been mugged and made to pay for the privilege You'll know how I'm feeling right now! Take this one question: 'Over the next three years, we face significant additional costs in a number of areas. The number of people who need Social Care support is increasing in Somerset, because advances in medical technology are enabling people to live longer. As a result we are helping increasing numbers of Adults with very complex and high levels of need. In other areas, ...
Today is Ashura, the day on which Shia Muslims commemorate the death of Hussayn, the grandson of Muhammed, at Karbala. Last year saw the bloody battle of Najaf, when the millenarian Soldiers of Heaven sought to assassinate Ayatollah Sistani, the most senior Shia cleric in Iraq, in a hope of speeding the return of the Mahdi, or because they believed their leader, Dia Abdul-Zahra was the Mahdi. Don't expect today to pass without a hitch in the high emotion of the occasion with the potential for so much disruption and carnage. Update: There has already been one suicide attack in ...
The Government is currently consulting on how petitions should work with local government. As Lib Dems, much of our campaigning revolves around petitioning as a means of finding people with common cause with us. We’re bound to have views on what should happen as a result of petitions. Should they be binding on councils if you [...]
Why dont I watch ITV 1. I dont want to spend 30 minutes watching adverts in addition to a 120 minute film. 2. I dont want to watch adverts for toilet roll and a stupid piece of plastic that dices vegetables. I can think of much better ways to spend my £30. 3. Elspeth Campbell, wife of Ming apparently wrote her thesis on Coronation Street! Why, why, why 4. I grew up in a house where ITV was on constantly. Poirot and The Darling Buds of May were great.when I was 7. I dont read the Mirror for the same ...
After more than 5 years of campaigning, there is now a Sustainable Communities Act on the statute book. Although Liberal Democrat MPs, with the party's tradition of community politics, were prominent in pushing the Bill through, it has been a cross-party effort. Here we should acknowledge the support given by Dr Hywel Francis, the MP for Aberavon. As a result, the government is now committed to make local communities work. By October of this year, it will have to ask every council, like Neath Port Talbot CBC, to submit suggestions of ways that it can help you and your council ...
Yesterday the Supreme Court threw out all the cases against the PPP and the Election Commission which could have blocked the PPP’s attempts to form a government. Oddly the Supreme Court rejected three of the cases on the grounds that it did not have the power to do so. Without the detail it is difficult to [...]
The Morning Star is an extraordinary newspaper. Year after year, it keeps going as the one national daily newspaper which does not normally pass the consciousness of most people. Whenever I see it on a newsstand, I snap it up - if only for rarity value. Today's edition leads with an interesting take on the Heathrow airliner crash-landing. Under the headline, "The shape of things to come" it says
“Look, let me be clear: I have said, in clear terms, what we will and won’t do - if you’ll let me finish - we’ve been clear from the start. We have taken the right and proper decision, and we have been clear about this. No, no, that’s not correct. Look, if you consider what we’re saying properly you will see - and let me be clear about this - that we must be prudent and sensible in our approach and we’ve been open and willing to talk to the stakeholders at the appropriate time. I think you can’t get ...
According to this mornings Bangkok Post the new Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan has gone on record as having told the press that “ambitious billionaire owner Mike Ashley has made a bottomless pit of cash available to help transform the club’s Premier League fortunes in what remains of the January window” I am sure that Mike Ashley [...]
I live in a very quiet road. I think a car backfired in 1994 but that's about the most excitement we've had in the last 20 years we've lived here. But, we've just had what I think qualifies as the most exciting event in the street since it was built in 1908. I was excitedly called to the front room and saw four policemen straight outside our house arresting a young man and divesting him of a
Great short film that explains why the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 is stupid. The Act has actually made it illegal for MPs to do fairly normal things. For instance, Gordon Brown broke the law when he met Nelson Mandela in Trafalgar Square. As Lib Dem Voice explains: Blogger Tim Ireland has submitted his response to the Labour Governments consultation document on Sections 132
{Megazine 267} Quote of the month: “So we’re going to be best friends. At at journey’s end, you’re going to give your best friend Tempest fourteen billion creds. And if you don’t give your best friend Tempest fourteen billions creds… your best friend Tempest is going to tie you down and hammer nails in your skull until you die screaming in hideous agony. Because that’s what friends are for.” Tempest bonding with Johnny in Tempest. Cover: Jon Davis-Hunt draws Tempest in a dramatic pose. Strips: Judge Dredd, Armitage, Tempest, Bob the Galactic Bum (reprint) Features: Two Interrogations (interview with Alan ...
The notion of an ethical foreign policy for the UK, promised by the late Robin Cook in the heady, early days of a New Labour government in 1997, is surely now a hazy memory. So as Gordon Brown tours China, the emerging superpower with huge resources at its disposal to invest internationally, Brown apparently has hardly mentioned human rights. Amnesty International gave Brown a list of four areas of concern he needs to raise, particularly in the year that China is hosting the Beijing Olympics: The death penalty, detention without a fair trial, persecution of campaigners and freedom of expression. ...
Everybody has had a lot of fun over Gordon Brown's judgement that Peter Hain was 'incompetent' over his failure to register more than £100,000 of donations to his failed deputy leadership campaign, however this morning's Guardian reports on failures on a bigger and far more serious scale. They tell us that a National Audit Office report to be published next week will say that the Department of Work and Pensions has failed to tackle benefit fraud and errors which are costing taxpayers more than £2.5bn a year. The report looks at the effectiveness of the ministry's anti-fraud advertising, investigation procedures, ...
There's an article today in the Independent newspaper about the economy and the prospect of a small recession looming. I would suggest that an economy based pretty much solely on the money markets, wh...
The link relates to the plan for the government to sell its loan to Northern Rock whilst continuing to guarantee repayment. This is actually much worse a position than they are currently in. At the moment they have some control over the situation. They lose all control over the situation, but continue to take on the risk. The figures today may look better, but the liability remains with the
The nominations deadline for the Campaign for Gender Blog Awards is 1 February, so you still have time to tell us your favourites. Last week I highlighted the nominations weve received so far for best non-Lib Dem blog and best Lib Dem blog post. While with those weve received a wide range of different nominations, the [...]
I just noticed Nick on BBC being interviewed for his opinion on the latest data losses, saying something to the effect that it's part of a systematic incompetence of this government. Tribal type "they're bad" politics. I'd much prefer him to say that this is evidence of a more general problem with government as an institution, that no political party would be able to control this particular beast and that we would be looking at ways not simply of being more secure about data but at ways of dismantling some of the bureaucracy that wants to keep such data in ...
… has been written up by the local newspaper here. Amongst other issues, Nick talked about Prime Minister’s Questions - a topic recently raised on Lib Dem Voice by both MP Lynne Featherstone and peer Paul Tyler - and had this to say: “Prime Minister’s Question Time is absurd,” he said. “The whole thing is designed to [...]
Haringey Labour Party's website has gone offline apparently due to their incompetence. Yes, it seems that they failed to properly register their domain name. Read more about it on the Hunter and Shooter blog. | < | January 2008 | > | ||||
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