Its not that Lib Dem Voice doesnt do polls… were just quite suspicious of those who want to treat each and every one with undue reverence. In particular, we try not to get excited by individual polls showing a sudden rise/fall in support for any political party. Chances are its a blip which tells you [...] 
Whatever you thought of Churchill he did unite a nation to fight Nazism. I doubt McSame would be able to know what it was! http://www.youtube.com/watchv=J_A53PAxeR8
The Guardian carried a story today about a man being defrauded over a laptop purchase. The reporter had secured a response from the Police that brought a wry smile to my face… “I would advise members of the public to refrain from buying high value goods from people out of the back of cars or vans,” PC Allison Fraser of Hampshire police said yesterday.
One reason for the slight mystique that surrounds Winwood is that, with the exception of an extraordinary period in the 1980s when he invented himself as an AOR MTV star in America, he has been quite reticent. You do not hear many interviews with him. The most substantial one I can find on the net can be downloaded from the site of NRK - the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. It was recorded at the Notodden Blues Festival in August of last year. Winwood is interviewed with Jeremy Spencer, Tom McGuinness and Paul Jones (left to right in the photo) by an ...
Previously in the Ken Livingstone no-one has done anything wrong, honest guv, it’s all been made up by horrible journalists saga: Lee Jasper, one of London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s top aides, was forced to quit after he failed to declare his links with the recipient of a grant from City Hall. And now: the police have [...]
I'd draw the curtains. No, seriously, I would. Having been to Carrow Road this evening to watch Norwich versus Stoke, I can honestly say I have never seen a team play so little football as Stoke. Just a succession of balls pumped aimlessly forward, relying in the ball going out for a throw in , whereupon some bloke launched the ball repeatedly from throws in to the box. As an Everton fan, I might show bias towards them, but I am a genuine football fan. Living in Norwich, I like to watch Norwich City, but when I lived in Coventry, ...
The portable changing rooms in the Selly Park Recreation Ground next to Raddlebarn Road (bad picture above) are a valuable and well-used resource, but they have been covered in graffiti for some time. The Parks department recently applied for a renewal of the planning permission for the changing rooms. Following representations from local residents and myself, planning permission has been
Well - it was all for a good cause...
Further proof has emerged today to show that school selection favours the middle classes and is disproportionately biased against the poor. It turns out, from a sample study of three Education authorities, that schools were selected pupils on the basis of whether the parents were married or not, if they attend church and if they cared to make a "voluntary" donation to the school when applying. Now let's look at these things again. Which social group has the highest rate of divorce or unmarried unmarried mums Which social group is least likely to attend church Which social group is least ...
It all seems a very long way from all the hope and expectations at Liverpool at the weekend. Roll on the revolution! Another "out all day, day". A committee, then interviewing representatives from the Voluntary and Community Sector for the "Task and Finish" Group, followed by meeting on the future meetings of the group, looking through a planning file and a mass of e-mails and phone... 
You did know the UN had declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato, didn't you The official website is here.
A report commissioned by Gordon Brown on British citizenship has suggested that school-leavers should be encouraged to swear an oath of allegiance to Queen and country. Report author, ex-attorney general Lord Goldsmith, says it would give teenagers a sense of belonging. Council tax and student fee rebates are suggested for people who volunteer - as well as a "Britishness" public holiday.
Unmitigated England kindly photographs the building site I pass on the way to the station every morning. A few weeks ago the part of the site in front of the old building was flooded. That building, standing above the water and surrounded by piling, looked just like an abandoned dockside counting house.
The Central London Europe Group (CLEG) hosted what Mrs Merton would have called a heated debate on the Lisbon Treaty this evening at the St Bride’s Institute, just off Fleet Street. In the Europhile corner was Charles Kennedy, President of the European Movement and former Leader of the Liberal Democrats, whereas the Euro-sceptics were represented [...]
Wondered why the new list of catholic deadly sins now includes the destruction of embryos A slick PR trick or an abrupt anti-abortion attack Read the small print at the end... In an ideal world, there would be no [Human Fertilisation] bill: there would be no assisted conception to regulate, no embryos created outside the womb, as any form of reproduction that does not involve sex between a man and a woman is an anathema. "MPs of all parties should have the courage to vote against the bill, and in favour of amendments to remove its most destructive aspects," says ...
In the 1830s, when the railways were being built across the UK, plans to build a station along the Portsmouth-London Waterloo line at Kingston upon Thames were vetoed by Kingston Council who feared the new service would obliterate the horse drawn coach industry in the town. As a consequence, the planned route for the trainline was moved and Kingston upon Thames station opened three miles south of the town centre at what is now called Surbiton. Today, main line Surbiton enjoys direct services to Waterloo every few minutes while Kingstons residents have to put up with a slow, suburban stopping ...
Liberal Democrat Peers have been on a 3-line whip this evening. We've reached the Report Stage of the Climate Change Bill, and disagree with the Government on the question of just how much of the UKs future carbon credits should come from overseas. There is an arguement that poorer countries will find it economically beneficial to trade carbon as well as, say, coffee. Our position is that a cap of 30% should be put on the amount of carbon credit which the UK can get from abroad, and that we have to avoid simply off-shoring our environmental responsibilities. There are ...
Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin ( ) died 71 years ago yesterday. His brilliant novel, 'We' bears reading today. It inspired Huxley and Orwell with its distopian vision of the future. Ironically, the vision of a future in which all homes have glass walls, all citizens have numbers and are constantly under supervision, controlled and observed and listened to by a network seems to resonate even more today than when I first read it in my teens. So, as a tribute, when the ID cards have finally been forced upon us (bags I get to share a cell with Nick Clegg!), I ...
Many Liberator subscribers will have collected the latest issue from the magazine's stall at the Liverpool Spring Conference last weekend. So it is time to reporoduce the latest diary from Lord Bonkers on this blog. This time we shall present the old boy's thoughts in two parts. Here is the first. Monday I am pleased to see young Clegg has made such a promising start as our partys new leader, albeit that it was sheer good fortune that I happened to be in Westminster on the day of his debut at Prime Ministers Questions and was thus able to persuade ...
Of all the ideas that have been put forward recently as potential government policy, the idea of a Britishness Day and an ‘oath of allegiance’ is one of the most ridiculous. I have an allegiance to my country (both the UK as the country in which I grew up and where one half of my family [...]
The latest Times/Populus poll shows the Tories on 37 (down three), Labour on 34 (up three) and the Lib Dems on 19 (up two). For the Lib Dems, its evidence that there is no such thing as bad news. As Nick Robinson pointed out in his recent BBC blog on the Lib Dem shambles over the Lisbon Treaty vote, at least it meant that people were talking about the party. Cowley Streets strategists are probably plotting further splits over the coming weeks to keep the Lib Dems in the spotlight. But the real news is for the Tories. Of course, ...
I know the weathermen and women can be blamed for many things, a freak storm they failed to predict, the ray of sunshine that didn't quite appear through the clouds, hot summers, cold winters and the like. But I can officially claim today that the weathermen and women who worked this weekend have downgraded education by classing it as an 'unnecessary'. A guardian kept her child away from school
A week couldn't go by without some exclusive photos from yours truely. I headed off to Downing St today to do the photos for the handing in of the Lib Dem petition against post office closures. We had to go through all sorts of security checks last week to be on the list of those allowed in. Anyway, here are the pics, complete with Sarah Teather, Brian Paddick, Colin Eldridge (from Liverpool
I know this is one that got me first time but I have now had a look on the internet and I now know where it is. This is the only planning application that we have had registered in Twerton this week and the Proposal is for the Demolition of Technology House, internal and external alterations to Albert Villa and construction of a three storey office to rear of Albert...
The 55th Carnival of Feminists is up on Penny Red right now (time seems to run faster over there), with my posting from yesterday on domestic violence as part of the carnival. For those of you who dismiss feminism as man bashing then have a read of this blog, from the carnival.
Gary McAllister fielded an unchanged side for the third game running. At a windy Elland Road, Leeds United attempted to make it three wins in a row when they ran out to face lowly Cheltenham Town. The Whites got off to a flyer when a 20-yard strike by Jermaine Beckford shot hit the upright after just over one minute from the start. A packed Town midfield held up any further progress by Leeds for the next 20 minutes. A cross by Bradley Johnson found the head of Tresor Kandol but the ball sailed over the bar on 22 minutes. Darren ...
Joe Otten has written an extremely sensible and fair opinion on faith and schools, on Liberal Democrat Voice under the title of "The issue is not faith schools but freedom of conscience". I thoroughly recommend the article for reading, inwardly digesting, copying bits out and pinning them on the wall etc. I have already nominated it for this week's "Golden Dozen". There have been hundreds of "
When is a bag for life not a bag for life I was buying milk in a well know supermarket the other day. An old boy at the front of the queue was having problems with his bags, because the handle of his plastic Bag for Life broke sending his shopping sprawling across the floor. The friendly staff were very nice and replaced the broken bag and helped him repack the shopping. The old bag was then thrown in a bin by the member of staff. Congratulations to the supermarket for training their staff on customer service. Zero out of ...
Are airlines really to blame for global warming Dont we all feel sorry for the airlines! Theyve been getting a lot grief in the last couple of years, as those horrible environmentalists keep pointing out the environmental damage planes do. Of course airlines cant take anything like all the blame for global warming, even if they are a significant problem and growing year after year. Airlines certainly dont help themselves, often appearing arrogant and not putting forward a convincing case for the huge tax breaks their fuel receives. Its a fact that aircraft give out some very nasty emissions, many ...
In the light of the great sacrifice made by some of my fellow columnists, it seems only right and proper to award them with my very own patented First steps to being green awards. Im really sorry that Roy Strowger hasnt been specifically thanked in any climate change articles recently. The sacrifice he is making by leaving the tap off while brushing his teeth is worthy of specific mention in UN reports on climate change! Im sure the work colleagues didnt leave because of him missing the odd shower, maybe theyve taken his comments on board about the commute to ...
Andrew Rawnsley skilfully pulls together a comprehensive treatise on why the Democrats should be scared witless of McCain, due their internecine battle between Obama and Clinton.
We should be flattered. After all, it's becoming a regular occurence. (Darling) is widely expected to increase the proportion of revenue from green taxes, slapping a "showroom tax" of as much as £2,000 on gas-guzzling 4X4 vehicles, as well as transforming air passenger duty into a tax on flights in a bid to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
Listening to Lord Goldsmith explaining how adopting a more American system of pledging allegiance to the flag (or Queen) would sort out so many ills affecting teenagers and the country as a whole made me wonder if Lord Goldsmith is in love with all things American. At one point on the radio this morning he even agreed with suggestions that pledging allegiance would be akin to the American style "Senior Prom". The problem is, for all his mentions of America, he never once made reference to the fact that pledging allegiance in the US does nothing to stop youth crime, ...
Essex, Gwynedd, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Manchester City, Nottinghamshire, Rother, Thameside, Torbay, Westminster and York are all councils said to be contemplating combining postal services with council services to prevent some post office branches from closing. Thosein favour of the scheme argue that by investing profits it may well be possible to help some branches move towards becoming financially self-sufficient and "cost-neutral" in about 3 years time. Others argue that local councils shouldn't be bailing out failing businesses using the council tax. So, who is right and who is wrong Please leave a comment or vote in the poll in the left ... 
K, loads of you have suggested stuff on my last post, so I'll probably work through stuff when I can over the next few days but Martin suggested more polls. This shouldn't surprise me, Martin always wants more polls (and I don't post enough anyway). So I thought I'd take the existing suggestions and turn them into a poll because, well, why not. I've also put in one about my most-used tags, just to see what you guys like (and even dislike) about what I normally drone on about. View Poll: Feedback and general post topic likingness As always I ...
Bad news about Labour’s intentions is emerging from Government, where a constitutional reform bill is currently being drafted. As The Guardian reports: Lady Scotland, the current attorney general, wants the draft constitutional reform bill, to be published shortly, to spell out a statutory power for the attorney to direct the Crown Prosecution Service or Serious Fraud Office to drop a prosecution on grounds of national security or international relations. This would be at odds with signals sent out in response to the controversy over apparent conflicts of interest while Lord Goldsmith was in the role. Last July Gordon Brown announced: “The role ...
Mehdi Kazemi, a gay Iranian asylum seeker, has just been refused asylum in the Netherlands. He will be sent back to the UK within 72 hours. The UK authorities had already turned down his request for asylum on the basis of sexual orientation, despite the fact that his partner was executed for the same said 'crime'. As such, it's a fair bet that Mr Kazemi will suffer the same kind of sentence at the hands of the law whe he returns to Iranian soil. The Home Office claims a gay person can return to Iran and avoid persecution by being ...
Check out this video. It is from the Iranian Intelligence Ministry. Hat Tip: Tom Gross
Not able to gracefully admit defeat, learn the lessons and move on, several members of the Socialist Workers' Party at the University of Manchester have started attacking students for democratically booting them out. Dave Sewell, one of the few SWP members who will be on Union council next year has written a rather bitter message attacking students for "not being intelligent enough" to vote for SWP candidates. As I've come to expect from members of the SWP, the blog allows no open debate - only "approved" messages will be displayed, so I'm reproducing what I wrote here (for the record, ...
So Lord Goldsmith thinks that school-leavers if encouraged to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen, will give teenagers a 'sense of belonging' How This is one of the most puerile and ridiculous ideas I've heard from this Government. It cannot be a serious proposal, and will do nothing to help young people understand common values. The proposal for a citizenship ceremony which would include the oath of allegiance to the Queen, for me, harks back to the days of colonialism. My mother recalls as a child of the Empire in Cyprus, each morning at school the Union flag ...
I recently featured a blog entry about Help the Aged's excellent campaign against age discrimination. Older people face age discrimination every day and Help the Aged is campaigning for a new law on age equality to give older people protection against age discrimination. I wrote to the Minister responsible (Harriet Harman MP) and have now had this response from her office : Thank you for your e-mail addressed to the Minister for Women and Equalities, the Right Honourable Harriet Harman QC MP, asking that legislative action be taken against age discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services. Sadly, ...
ELDR (European Liberal Democrats) member party Convergencia Democràtica de Catalunya hold balance in Spain.
ELDR (European Liberal Democrats) member party Convergencia Democràtica de Catalunya hold balance in Spain.
The Tory controlled Borough Council is skint and are doing anything and everything to save money. I’ve already mentioned the fiasco of the appointment of the new Chief Executive and the increase in car parking charges in Stone. Add to the equation the increase in burial and cremation charges - and don’t forget that the new Blue Bin collection scheme was the cheapest option on offer. And just when you think you are coming to terms with all that, a Tory councillor ‘lets the cat out of the bag’ by admitting that the Tory group have already agreed to close ...
Lib Dem Shadow Defence Secretary Nick Harvey is supporting a campaign against the deportation of non-British ‘army spouses’ like Samantha Crozier, who is married to a British Lance Corporal and has two young children. He told the BBC: “Like all Armed Forces families, the Croziers have made huge sacrifices in the service of this country. For the government to claim that they have no right to be here is cruel and ungrateful in the extreme. We have a duty to ensure the welfare of this family. (more…)
Its not easy being Liberal, and we have to struggle on with public debates that ignore or travesty our views. So we should celebrate columnists like the Observers Simon Caulkin who often raise and illuminate arguments that resonate with us. Take this for example: .the public sector is in the grip of a central planning regime of a rigidity and incompetence not seen since Gosplan wrote Stalin's Five-Year Plansname another government since Leonid Brezhnev's that prescribes 198 targets for local government, numbers and postings of junior doctors, reading methods for teachers in primary schools, cleaning techniques used in hospitals and ...
I kept quiet about last week’s furore that split LibDems down the middle. I felt that we should all just take a deep breath, count to 10 and remember why we joined the party in the first place. No, I’m not talking about the EU treaty shambles, that was D.U.L.L.-O., I talking about the blog spats between Alex Wilcock and Nich Starling which were far more entertaining reads than anything put together about policy or what-not. I wouldn’t be a proper LibDem if I didn’t unreservedly, categorically, throw my hat into the ring and say that I am not taking ...
I’m passionate that our local public services, such as the health service, should be as much part of their local community as possible and indeed accountable to them. So when the Whittington hospital started asking people to sign up as ‘members’ of it, as part of its bid to become an NHS Foundation Trust, I signed up. And when they invited local people to put themselves forward potentially to be on their ‘Council of Governors’, I submitted a nomination for that too. With about 3,500 members of the trust (excluding staff), and a huge area, containing the whole of Islington, ...
The new Welsh Children's Commissioner this morning, echoed views expressed on this blog, and questioned whether the target to cut child poverty in half by 2010 can be achieved. He went further by describing the target as a "red herring" and "unrealistic". He said that the UK and Welsh governments should explain now how they planned to end child poverty by 2020. In many ways Keith Towler has highlighted the main weakness of the target culture that has overwhelmed government since 1997. Targets are set far into the future so as to give the impression that Ministers are doing something, ...
The government would have us believe that this story is in no way connected to the recent discovery of an anonymous civil servant blog accusing them of incompetence. I must admit I do have my doubts ....not!
Roy Jenkins one of the dominant political figures in British politics, rising from Baby of the House in 1948 to Home Secretary in 1965 and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1967 (and again in 1974). In 1976 he became the first and only British President of the European Commission until 1981. In these posts he expanded the concept of a fair, free an open society. The most important act of his political career, I believe, came in 1981 when he as part of the Gang of Four split from the Labour party to found the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and ...
I understand that we are all supposed to be petrified of anyone with a beard at the moment and that our country is overrun by fanatics according to the government - but the news story today (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7289709.stm) of a man in Leeds being sentenced to prison for posessing an al qaeda training manual is a little alarming. The story notes that the man knew two of the 7/7 bombers but he still does not appear to be guilty of any recognisable crime, in old money. I bought a copy of the Communist Manifesto in the 1980s, during the Cold War. ...
Heh, guess what Yup, little bit of a malaise when it comes to the will to write posts at the moment. I think it might be linked to being too happy (sorry): I need a little bit of anger in my soul, and despite the perpetual money worries, life is good right now. I even have a few potential clients for the part-time consultancy I really should already have set up. Anyway, a few people are doing this meme: Everyone has things they write about. Everyone has things they don't write about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by ...
So OK you have a bunch of 18 year olds lined up to be initiated into 'belonging and commitment' by taking a personal oath of loyalty to the Monarch. And at least one refuses. What happens then What is the status of those persons Is it recorded on their national identity database that they are oath refuseniks Do they suffer any reductions in their citizenship status as a result Are they to be barred from getting student loans or grants Remember we are not talking about people getting naturalised, giving up one allegiance and taking up allegiance to this country. ...
Having easily worked my way through the original seven deadly sins before I was out of my teens it seems now those old funsters in the Vatican have found seven more ways for me to wallow in a fiery pit for all eternity: Environmental Pollution Genetic Manipulation Accumulating excessive wealth Inflicting poverty Drug Trafficking and consumption Morally debatable experiments Violation of fundamental rights of human nature Well, I have already definitely committed two of those sins (I’ll let you guess which), with a third - inflicting poverty - a definite possibility but that’s more the EU’s fault than my own ...
The front page story in todays Daily Post is about a lack of "graduate level" jobs for those young people completing their degrees. Apparently there are considerable numbers who end up taking jobs for which a degree is "not needed" and there is some debate about whether we ought to be encouraging quite so many young people to do a degree. Well, as someone who is employed as a University Lecturer I clearly have a vested interest. But I do think that the marketing of degrees as a way to get a good job has gone a bit too far. ...
This looks like a good thing (pasted below) if you run a sports club, or an organisation doing some sport in Liverpool. I haven't pasted on the form as it'll make it far too long - but there is a weblink and a phone number towards the end. The application deadline is the 30th April. LIVERPOOL SPORTS FORUM - DEVELOPMENT GRANTS 2008 Liverpool Sports Forum, in conjunction with Liverpool Sport & Physical Activity Alliance, is able to make grant awards to clubs and voluntary groups to assist them in providing sport and physical activity opportunities for local people. In order ...
In a blatant bid to boost my aggregator ratings, here is the first ever Lanson Boy caption competition. So, what is Nick doing or saying in this photo. Answers in the comments please by close of play Friday. As the BBC say, this is just a bit of fun and there are no prizes on offer except the admiration of your peers.
It was over two hundred years ago that the Brits gave up on the idea of policing the English language, as the French continue to do with their Academie Francaise, and let usage reign supreme as the arbiter of whether something is, or isn't, acceptable. So let's start using some of the new words below, many of which seem DESIGNED with the EU institutions in mind, and see if they make it into next year's updated edition of the OED! I got this as a foward and have posted all the non-crass suggestions it contains...Further suggestions very welcome in comments! ...
Ingredients 3 oz unsalted butter 3oz dark brown soft sugar 1 large banana or two small 6 to 9 oz self raising flour 2 free range eggs, whisked Grease and flour non-stick loaf tin really well. Place large saucepan on lowest heat possible and melt 3 oz unsalted butter in it. Add 3 oz dark brown sugar and melt in together, stirring well till combined. Do not let mixture burn or boil. (Take care - hot butter and sugar burns!) Remove from heat, place pan on heatproof surface and mash banana into mixture. Then add 6 oz flour and whisked ...
Ok, I'm biased . My work at the weekend mainly revolved around the Leader and so there are lots of pictures of him in this little collection. I thought that both his main speech and the one at the rally were excellent and enthusiastic. The main speech has lots of different audiences - that party members in the hall, the media and the viewers who may catch a snippet on the news. It's incredibly difficult to balance all three. A way back when I worked for him in 1988, Paddy Ashdown told his speechwriting team to come up with a ...
Apparently a Vatican Cardinal has drawn up a new list of sins for the modern world. Included in those is accumulating excessive wealth...not sure where the line is drawn but but it is worth remembering the Vatican has an accumulated worth estimated at $10 - $15 billion....
Colchester Liberal Democrat MP Bob Russell spent a week in Southern Afghanistan with members of Britains Armed Forces. Next month around 3,500 of his constituents, from 16 Air Assault Brigade based at the Colchester Garrison, will be deployed to Helmand Province. Here he gives a report of what life is like for our Service men and women: (more…)
In amongst the serious business over the weekend were a load of light-hearted moments. The newspapers reckoned that Sarah Teather had the best joke with her 'three line whip to abstain on the booze' crack at the Rally. My favourite was actually Tim Farron's job swap with Fidel Castro now that they have both just resigned ('I'm going over there to teach them how to be properly left-wing and he's coming over here to learn about party discipline'). Of course I also picked up quite a few off beat pics. As previously discussed, I don't mean the ones that are ...
In our roundup of yesterday's press coverage The Freethink blog predicted a "a modest increase in the [Lib Dem]'s poll ratings when they are next published".Cut now to today's Times/Populous poll ("Pre Budget poll puts Labour within three points of Tories")The scores on the doors are Labour 34 (+3), Conservative 37 (-3), Lib Dem 19 (+2), Other 10 (-2). So FreeThink can be chuffed that its predictions have been met so soon. The poll was completed before Clegg made his conference speech. Merely being in news was enough to lift the Liberal Democrat's poll ratings - no matter that it ...
It is pointless having the tightest restrictions on guns without the willingness to enforce them. BBC Wales recently reported that illegal replica guns were still on sale in Wales. See the video here. Earlier this year, Chris Huhne commented on government figures which showed that the rate of murder by guns and knives had gone up. The increase in gun and knife killings is deeply alarming. Violent crime is still far higher than a decade ago and must be tackled much more vigorously. Police should devote more time to stop and searches for knives and guns, and there must be ...
Often in politics, as in life, we are faced with choices we simply don’t want to make; for whatever reason none of the options on offer seem to offer what we really want. Such a choice faced both the Liberal Democrat leaders and the eventual rebels in the recent vote on the question of whether [...]
Work has begun to improve the dangerous junction at St Anns Road and Bury New Road home of course to the worlds most redundant and daft set of traffic lights, installed only ten yards from an existing set and presumably designed by lunatics with the sole aim of causing mayhem. I have been pressing for this for a year, after numerous residents complained, and I was delighted when the Council listened and said that theyd include the repairs in this years programme. Hopefully the work will run to schedule and be finished on time, removing the unnecessary and confusing second ...
God’s continual mocking of me shows no sign of abating. We have an arrangement, Him and I, whereby I try my best to do good things, and He amuses Himself by plonking annoying but ultimately quite funny trials in my path, which in turn then never leave me short of things to write about on here. I was woken last night at 01:00 by the sound of my wheely bin blowing over in gale force winds and driving rain. I wandered over to the window to take a look, and saw the contents of the bin strewn across the ...
A colleague of mine mentioned the fact that, apparently, women under 25 who own cats tend to support the LDs. As he put it rather well, 'Go back to your constituencies and look for the cat flaps!'
So Lord 'over the top lads, lawyers last' Goldsmith says 16 year olds should all have to pledge allegiance to queen and country. No. This is a complete waste of time, it won't instil an iota of pride, patriotism duty or any other Daily Mail watchword into anyone who doesn't have it already. It is a stupid, pointless idea. This isn't America - and if bored politicians are looking for something to celebrate, perhaps it could be that.
Peter Goldsmith, he of the dodgy legal advice on the Iraq War, has suggested that school leavers should pledge allegiance to Elizabeth Windsor and the UK. He believes they should do this in order to foster a sense of “belonging” to Britain. He told the British Broadcasting Corporation: “It does make sense to promote a sense [...]
My usual morning routine had me choking on my coffee this morning. The children had made me coffee and I sat down to catch up with what had happened over night. I almost choked on my coffee as I saw the lead story on the BBC site. My normal reaction to anything involving the Queen is to totally switch off. Not this time! Some bright spark has suggested that children should say an oath...
Last week I wrote about a new law in Portugal banning smaller political parties, I saw this and thought I would share it.
The morning news programmes have been majoring on Lord Goldsmith's report on strengthening citizenship. As usual, the report has loads of recommendations and is designed to start a "national debate" (the government's code for: "see if there is an outcry or if we get some good coverage in the Mail"). But the media have alighted on one eye-catching proposal: to have school leavers or 16 year olds
Latest news from Scotland on attempts to abolish council tax and replace it with a local income tax: Talks between the SNP and the Scottish Liberal Democrats over plans to replace the council tax in Scotland have broken up without immediate agreement. But the Finance Secretary John Swinney and his Lib Dem counterpart, Tavish Scott, agreed to [...]
Welcome to the 55th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (2nd-8th March), together with a quintet hand-picked by Lib Dem blog readers you might otherwise have missed. Tempers flared in the Lib Dem blogosphere last week both between bloggers, and [...]
In this Vatican announcement of a new "Seven Deadly Sins" for the twenty first century, the Catholic Church has included the "taking of and dealing in drugs". Rarely can Rome be accused of political correctness, but on this occasion Archbishop Girotti has been spouting the most ungodly bollocks. In the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 7 verse 15 Christ says: "There is nothing from without a man that entering into him can defile him. But the things which come from a man, those are they that defile a man." In the very first chapter of the bible, Genesis 1, verse 29 ...
Following on the railway theme here is the North London Line looking east: The picture was taken the other day from the top of Weston House on Winchester Avenue, Queen's Park. I think there has been a significant clearance of trees making this view possible, but it also made me realise just how wide a piece of land was necessary for the rail line to exist at all... The bridge here is the bridge under Willesden Lane between the junctions with Winchester Avenue and The Avenue. My grandfather was a major train advocate and indeed train buff... he used ...
Last week, some 500 scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, to discuss Climate Change. Nothing odd there. There must have been hundreds of similar events in recent years. But some of the conclusions do seem odd: .global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life; .warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder: ..there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions ...
The Catholic Church has updated its seven deadly sins by adding seven new ones to take account of the world we live in and the age of globalisation. Some 1,500 years after Pope Gregory the Great laid down the seven deadly sins of lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy and pride; the new sins published yesterday in the Vatican newspaper, reads like a list of politically correct evils that may appear in a Department for Education curriculum guide for primary school teachers. The new sins are: Accumulating excessive wealth Causing poverty Social inequalities Environmental pollution Morally debatable experiments Genetic modification ...
You really couldn't make it up... Britains anti-discrimination quango had to be bailed out by ministers to avoid its breaching the law over its own internal equality scheme, The Times has learnt... Along with all other public bodies it was meant to implement an overarching equality scheme, setting out its position for its staff on race, gender, disability and other potential areas of discrimination by January 1 this year. It failed to do so, prompting ministers to lay a statutory instrument before Parliament, extending the deadline to April 1 this year. Last night opposition MPs expressed astonishment at the failure. ...
From the news release over on my website: An urgent review of how £200m will be spent by Homes for Haringey has been demanded by local Liberal Democrats following the revelation that serious government 'concerns' over the high costs of Haringey Council's ALMO bid delayed the cash award. The serious indictment of Haringey's ability to spend money efficiently was contained in a secret ministerial briefing marked 'not for the public domain' obtained by local Lib Dem MP, Lynne Featherstone through a Freedom of Information request. You can read the rest of the story here and here's the full information revealled ... | < | March 2008 | > | ||||
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | 31 | |||||
