LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Friday 21st March 2008

Labour snubs campaign against Heathrow's expansion

Labour-run Haringey Council has refused to join the campaign against the expansion of Heathrow: Haringey Council has refused to join a coalition of local authorities opposing an expansion at Heathrow. In the last two weeks, neighbouring boroughs Islington and Camden have both signed up to the 2M Group, or Two million voices against Heathrow expansion, alongside nine other London boroughs. But calls from environmental pressures group for the council to pledge its support have been rejected... The introduction of a third runway would mean an additional 220,000 flights a year, higher levels of noise pollution and more carbon emissions caused ...

House Points: Moura Budberg and Percy Harris

Today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News. You can find out more about Moura Budberg and Percy Harris on this blog. Family stories The banking system is collapsing around our ears. At times like this I find history a great consolation - particularly the family history of Liberal Democrat MPs. I am indebted to Nick Cleggs great great aunt Moura Budberg. This formidable lady knew all the leading Bolsheviks and was the lover of both Maxim Gorky and H. G. Wells. She was portrayed in the 1934 film British Agent, directed by Michael Curtiz who went on to make ...

Spring Conference............................Highlights and Lowlights

OK, two weeks late, what do they say about old news being only fit for chip paper Well, I'll take a risk and say my piece for what it may or may not be worth. It was the first conference I have attended with my children (and grandchild - heavens I didn't think I'd have to wait that long!) - but it was worth the wait as both came back really enthused and wanting to book for autumn. But it has to be said, I did miss the freedom of coming and going as I pleased - and missed some ...

Is A Change as good as a rest

It's Friday and I have a few days off and I intend to make the most of it although the wife had me out delivering what she called a few leaflets and was actually several hundred this morning. I have decided as it is a Good Friday to give the politics a rest fro just one day and enjoyed a very welcome tea at my daughters this evening. Now as for Saturday well I am off to...

New Inspiration

Some of you may be aware that recently I have given up alot of my Lib Dem activist work, not for any reason other than that I was taking on too much. So all I am now doing is delivering the odd focus and will remain the Cheif Steward for Federal Conference. So where do I go from here theres a few things I want to get done, firstly spend some better time with my Family, secondly lose the weight I

Sustainability in planning

Since I joined Nottingham’s planning committee nearly three years ago, I have made sustainability a big part of all the comments I make. It’s much more cost effective to include sustainable measures in buildings during construction than to retrofit them to a building after it is completed. Since I started asking the question “how green is this building” details of sustainability now normally get a specific paragraph in every report. And during my time on the committee, the Council took advantage of new Government powers to include a “Merton rule” in our planning policy that says that new buildings over ...

Are we to assume the Tories will be so forgiving of others

Aside from some rather forthright criticism of David Cameron by Boris Johnston today, Tories seem to be of the opinion that David Cameron has done nothing wrong and that what he did was almost amusing. for perhaps the first time in my life I find myself in agreement with Boris rather than the bulk of Tory bloggers who have either ignored Dave's transgressions or seen to make light of it. I wondered what a couple of Tory bloggers thought when Charles Kennedy was caught out having a crafty cigarette a few months ago to see if they were so forgiving. ...

Just another day at the office

Video of the inside of the cockpit of Space Shuttle Endeavour during takeoff. (via the great Bad Astronomy Blog)

North Norfolk Coast Earth Day

Exhibition of environmental technologies and advice Deepdale Backpackers and Camping, Deepdale Farm, Burnham Deepdale, north Norfolk coast www.deepdalefarm.co.uk/earthday Tuesday 22nd April 10am to 4pm FREE to attend Deepdale Backpackers and Camping, at Deepdale Farm on the beautiful north Norfolk coast, is an eco friendly backpackers hostel and campsite. On Earth Day 2008, 22nd April, Deepdale Backpackers and Camping will be hosting a whole range of eco friendly organisations for an Earth Day exhibition about the environment, including environmental technology installers, advisors, pressure groups and other related organisations. Whether you are looking for solar panels, wood chip boiler, LED lights, ground ...

Nick's view on the hung parliament debate

At last night's public meeting in Morpeth , one member of the audience asked Nick about the importance of PR to the Lib Dems if we are in a position of negotiating with other parties in a hung Parliament after the next election. It's a question which is being discussed by a large number of fellow bloggers and by some of the political hacks. Here's a rough paraphrase of what he said: The Lib Dems believe that we have the change politics fundamentally if we are to restore trust in politics and politicians. Such changes should not be limited to ...

Reichstag to have renweable energy. Germany 20 years ahead of us

Germany really has led the way when it comes to Climate Change. The Reichstag is going to set an example by running on renewable energy (can you imagine trying to get traditionalists in the tories to deal with that!). Germany is at least 20years ahead of us when it comes to the environment. The countryside has wind farms scattered across it (yes, I've been there), they have solar panels on buildings. They are leading the way when it comes to renewable energy. We found my grandfather's scrapbooks in the attic. It had a newspaper cutting of my grandad looking at ...

More on the Gurkhas

Following my posting the other day about the Gurkhas' fight for justice, I was interested to read this piece by another Bernard.

We invaded them, now we deport their asylum seekers

Since the invasion of Iraq, many have suffered from the violence for collaperating with the occupiers or for being of a different faction, etc. The Guardian has a touching story on how Iraqi asylum seekers have been threatened with deportation, even though they face death in Iraq.

Opinion: A Dutch take on Gurkha citizenship

I was filled with pride about our party when I saw Nick Clegg speaking to those furious Gurkha veterans outside the Houses of Parliament, and when he brandished a Gurkha medal during Prime Minister’s Questions. Gordon Brown showed himself a glorified book-keeper in his response. From his Dutch-Indian mother, Nick could have known that the [...]

Sea of Heartbreak

There is an ad on the TV at the moment for the best of Joe Brown. I liked the sound of ‘Sea of Heartbreak’, and decided to buy it on iTunes. Having had a chance to read the lyrics, I can only conclude that the tune is deeply inappropriately jolly. Below I include a video of a man playing this in dungarees. That is all.

The significance of the Leader's speech

Political speeches can be odd things. A speech that wows its audience as it is delivered, bringing hundreds to their feet in rapturous applause, over time becomes lacking in meaning and has little real impact. Alternatively, a speech seen at the time as dull and routine can grow in significance as the full meaning of its content becomes clear. It remains to be seen whether the universally

Morrisons filling station mystery solved!

Last night Janet asked if I knew what had been happening at Morrisons filling station yesterday.She had tried to get on to fill up but had been directed away by firemen. The station was closed and a fire tender with flashing blue lights was in attendance. Well, today, I found out! Whilst in town I met a good friend of mine who shall remain nameless. Earlier in the week he had taken his rather elderly campervan up to the Potteries to have a new petrol tank fitted. Yesterday he popped down to Morrisons to fill it up but when he ...

Why Chinese capitalism is spreading to the West

Watching the events unfolding in Tibet has made me think about the strange combination of socialism and capitalism in China, where free trade has emphatically not created the conditions for freedom. Ive been wondering as Hilaire Belloc predicted nearly a century ago whether there isnt a new kind of capitalism, East and West, which is so devoted to big systems that individual freedom counts for nothing The current trends are such that it might be time to revisit Bellocs The Servile State and preferably before the Beijing Olympics. Because, as he predicted, we now face a tyrannical combination of capitalism ...

Its all go on the Food and Drink Festival front!

October may seem a a long way away but there’s a lot to get organised before then. This week seems to have been almost fully occupied with Food and Drink meetings - including a meeting with one of our major sponsors, the Trentham Estate. Again Trentham will be sponsoring the Demonstration Kitchen which will be housed in a large marquee on Westbridge Park, alongside the Gourmet Food Marquee. We’ve also had meetings with our market manager, graphic designer and a couple of editors of local media outlets. In addition we have ’signed up’ a couple of volunteers who are eager to ...

Morals-Conservative spread over my papers!-What should I do

Help me with this one, give me advice by leaving me a comment. I've received my 280 freebie papers that I deliver for a rubbish £10 a week (round is once a week). What do I find today A huge conservative spread ready for the elections in May. They did it a while ago too. It has lots of nasty conservative tricks in it. I deliver the papers in the council estate I live near. Now in it the people which vote, the intelligent ones (forgive me) vote Labour, the more vulnerable stupid people vote BNP. It could be said ...

Confirmation that David Cameron is going the wrong way

Us Liberal Democrats, along with a majority of people in the country, already know that David Cameron's policies would drive this country the wrong way. But this article on the BBC now proves that David Cameron IS simply going the wrong way.

Cat of the Day: Dorofei

Well done, Dorofei, who belongs to the newly-elected Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev. Pravda tells us more than we really need to know:The blue-eyed cat has an experience of political struggle. Dorofei once had a fight with a cat owned by Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader, who used to live next to Dmitry Medvedev. Dorofei did not win the fight with Gorbachevs cat. The Medvedevs had to treat their cat with antibiotics for a month. Afterwards, they decided to castrate the cat to protect him from possible unpleasant situations in the future.Boney M add: There is a cat that really ...

Good Friday

Have a look at these pictures showing Good Friday across the World on the BBC. Easter does have revelance today in our World. Over TwoBillion people claim to be Christian. So clearly Easter is important. Understanding each other's religions is key in achieving peace.

Spinning friction

There have been a lot of pieces in the Welsh media recently about supposed friction between Plaid Cymru and Labour, centring chiefly on the proposed referendum and the reluctance of most Labour MPs and some of their AMs to commit to a pre-2011 date. With local elections coming up Plaid strategists are keen to differentiate themselves from their government allies so as to keep their grass roots happy and to woo potential Labour-switchers. Normal Mouth makes a very valid point in his latest Golwg article when he concludes that the Party of Wales' spinners have done a good job in ...

Scotland Yard say "lack of systems"-MP expenses

Nick Clegg has spoken most strongly about changing MP's expenses and ofcourse about completely changing Westminster to regain trust in our democracy (that is if people have ever trusted our democracy, I'm too young). The MP's expenses system clearly needs overhauling, it needs rebuilt. It's quite clear. Well now Scotland Yard can't even investigate MP Derek Conway because of the "lack of systems". Nick Clegg has spoken up on this. He is doing well at forcing the Liberal Democrat message to be heard.

Saudi Arabia in War on Terror

Saudi Arabia being an unltraconservative Islamic state, would clearly cause there to be trouble with some going from ultraconservative into extremist. So the Saudi King with his loyality to Bush has had to lead the way against extremism. 40,000 Imams are going to be retained. Shame Bush can pressure them over terrorists but not human rights and democracy.

France to reduce nuclear weapons by a third- but not enough

President Nicolas Sarkozy (he really annoys me) has announced that France will be reducing it's nuclear arsenal. I don't believe it's enough though. France will still have 300 of these sickening weapons. We have 200. Our government has said how by the time Trident is replaced in 2020, we will only have half that we had. Similarly France has said it will only have half of what it had during the cold war. These are quite simply half-hearted gradual reduction of arms. Nuclear Weapons are serous threats to human-kind. The cold war is over, we should be pushing for full ...

David Camerons brush with the law

Here’s a sample of what David Cameron has said before: David Cameron will unveil plans tomorrow for a new “three strikes and you’re out” rule (January 2008) For persistent offenders, the public deserve a break from their behaviour (April 2006) Now here’s the thing. Can you guess who was caught cycling through a red light and without a [...]

Bang to rights!

Watch: David Cameron's cycle of shame

Cuba is opening, but will the west open to them

Cuba under the new President Raul Castro has been changing basic things, that quite simply needed changing. They are only small changes, no path for democracy or solving human right issues. But Cuba is opening a bit. Raul has started agricultural reform to help rebuild the economy and has lifted bans on certain items. Now easing travel restrictions. The World has the chance to try to talk to Cuba again. We can open back up some trade in response of release of political prisoners. We can push for the change. Mistake's have been made in the past. When Fidel Castro ...

Cheney wants the USA to be more dependent on the Saudis

The House of Bush and the House of Saudi are well known to have worrying close links. So the Bush administration has aloud the US to become more dependent of the Saudis, which has made Saudi Arabia rich and has made them get their own way. They apply harsh sharia law, committing gross abuse to human rights. But they don't have to reform because if the US was to pressure them they could threaten to cut of the oil, of course the Bush administration wouldn't threaten them. It's starting to be a bit like that for us as well. Remember ...

Tibet, Darfur, Pollution and the Olympics

Nancy Pelosi the democrat speaker of the House of Representatives has met with the Dalai Lama. Tibet is quite clearly an occupied land. The rightful government of Tibet is in exile in North India. Over the year there has been increased trouble for the Beijing Olympic games. First the trouble with air pollution, which has a serous health risk. Then Steven Spielberg's departure revealing the issues over Darfur. China gives arms to the Sudanese Government which has led a genocide which has killed over 200,000 and left over 2.5million refugees. Now Tibet. China has been working hard with the olympics. ...

David Cameron caught on video breaking the law - several times !

Oh dear. When I became a councillor I was galvanised into being extra-punctilious in obeying the laws of the road. It is therefore a great surprise that David Cameron has been caught on video breaking several laws of the road: The Tory boss was spotted flouting the law by cycling the wrong way in a one-way street, through red lights and the wrong side of a bollard on his 30-minute trip to work

Michigan Senate goes on holiday - Is Hillary now toast

So the Michigan Senate has adjourned for its holiday without passing legislation for a "re-do" of the Democratic primary. Is Hillary now toast Probably not, of course, because you never write off a Clinton. Bill Schneider on CNN says that Clinton faces an uphill struggle. Obama leads on delegates and the popular vote so far in the primaries/caucases. To win on delegates, Schneider reckons

Liberal Democrats win in Lambeth

Congratulations to Councillor Steve Bradley (above), the new Liberal Democrat Councillor for Vassall ward in Lambeth, which is now a split ward with Labour. LD (Steve Bradley) - 1,209 (50.4%, +14.9) Lab - 859 (35.8%, -8.4)Con - 206 (8.6%, -2.8)Grn - 109 (4.5%) This rounds off a truly horrible week for the Labour Leader of Lambeth Council Steve Reed, who also narrowly lost the battle for Labour candidate selection to the Streatham Parliamentary seat (on second preferences) to a "left-wing" activist, whose main previous contribution to public life was as a leading cheerleader for hate-campaigner Miranda Grell. Labour made large ...

Jenny Willott, Glyn Davies and why I'm a feminist

Glyn Davies, the Welsh Tory who's trying to beat Lembit Opik, has caused a bit of a kerfuffle with his ill-judged comment that Paul McCarteny's lawyer should wear the wet look more often, preferably with a T-shirt. Amongst the people beating him up with handbags is Jenny Willott. Iain Dale's leapt to his defence, complaining about humourless PC-censorship; while Peter Black wonders if the BBC don't have any real news. While Glyn Davies was 'just having a laugh' - and the same was said by plenty of newspapers - Jenny was right to pull him up on it. It is ...

Day 2635: TOYCHWUD: From Out of the Rain

Wednesday: Drugs, terrorism, nuclear weapons, cyber-attack and that's just Mr Frown's new security plan! Goodness knows what he'd do if he had to cope with the perils of, er, a small circus. Fortunately, the Torchwood CLOWNS know what to do! Here is Daddy Richard's review of the latest episode. Don't forget: Torchwood moves to FRIDAYS from TONIGHT! (So the last episode, sorry, "Season Finale" will be on April 4th. This MAY nod, wink have something to do with the start of the new series of Doctor Who!) Can I say this was a weaker episode It almost seems blasphemous to ...

Give me strength #997: Jeffrey Archer 'hates snobs'

I was rather surprised to read in the Observer's Q&A that Jeffrey Archer 'deplores snobbery' and 'despises snobs'. This was quite a revelation as I had gone about my business for many years regarding Jeffrey Archer as one of the biggest snobs out. When I read Michael Crick's Stranger than Fiction I got the overall impression of someone constantly ducking and weaving to climb up the social and

Polish Federation complains about the Daily Mail

I am delighted that the Polish Federation has at last got fed up with all the negative headlines in the Daily Mail about Poles, and complained to the Press Compalints Commission. All right, there may well have been positive articles about Poles in the Mail, but a constant barage of headlines such as "The Polish Baby boom", "The Polish Borat", "Polish migrants take £1bn out of the UK economy" and

How bad will the credit crunch get

One of the striking figures to emerge from the fire sale of Bear Sterns, formerly the fifth largest US investment bank, is the huge gap between its assets and debts. It had $11.8 billion in capital, which might sound a lot … until you add up its debts, which came to $395 billion. The underlying problem [...]

Scab (of no interest to non-LJers)

I am posting today in defiance of the planned strike to say thank you to Sup for listening to the concerns of its users. It's encouraging that Sup have listened on this, although I think they probably listened to brad rather than the user base in general, because ad free accounts are a USP for LJ. Everyone who has said "ads are inevitable, blah blah blah" misses that point. If LJ becomes entirely ad-supported it WILL lose a lot of it's user base who came here BECAUSE it was ad free, and got paid accounts because they supported it being ...

Global Warming: Don't Panic Mr Mainwaring !

Reading the Observer's article last week entitled Glaciers melt 'at fastest rate in past 5,000 years' sent me scurrying to re-read my copy of How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take To Change a Christian - a Pocket Guide to Shrinking Your ecological Footprint and re-check my carbon footprint on the Act on CO2 calculator. There was an interview in the Guardian with James Lovelock on March 1st which was

I bet he now wishes he hadn't written this book

Ooooooooops. This book hasn't aged very well has it

An utter disgrace - House of Commons expenses "system"

It was, I suppose, depressingly predictable. The House of Commons expense "system" is such a pathetic shambles that the police can't prosecute Derek Conway. There is such an appalling lack of framework to the expenses "regime" that you can do anything you like, basically. So, stick your son on the pay roll with a nice fat bonus and let him do his full time studies while getting a full time

Realpolitik 18: Flabbergasting

Listen to the show: In this weeks Realpolitik podcast with myself and Richard Holloway: Tories surge ahead in the polls, both nationally and in London, with worrying (for Ken) second choice preferences. Jo Swinson calls for Parliament to be on Youtube (and listen out for the baby in this part). The Iraq War five years on. PMQs, China and Tibet. Obama’s [...]

Guy Njike: judicial review granted

A welcome update from the campaign for Guy Njike: Weve heard today that Guy's application for a judicial review of his case has been successful. This means that Guy's case will now be heard in court.While this is going on he cant be deported. This is really, really great news for now.But it's important that all of us keep going until Guy is truly save. KEEP UP THE PRESSURE ON HOME SECRETARY Please write to the Home Secretary on Guys behalf and ask your friends and family to do the same: stopdeportationofguy.wordpress.com/urge-home-secretary/

Road condition : Blackness Road

Following a resident's complaint about the road condition on Blackness Road east of the Fire Station and the Al-Maktoum Institute, I contacted the City Council about this. I have now received the following response : "Thank you for your report of potholes on Blackness Road near the Al Maktoum Centre. The area inspector has checked the location and an order has now been raised for the filling of these potholes."

Forces Focus

Liberal Democrat Shadow Defence Secretary, Nick Harvey MP, has launched Forces Focus, a new website concentrating on the state of our armed forces (click on headline above to view). Nick says, Our 2005 Manifesto stated that one of our priorities was to look after our Armed Forces so they can look after us. At a time when our forces are committed to fighting on two fronts, as well as operations around the world, this holds just as true now as it did three years ago. With continued operations around the world, defence remains at the top of the agenda and ...

Conway not to face police probe - because proper records not kept

From the BBC: Mr Conway was reprimanded by Commons authorities for paying his student son nearly £40,000 to be a researcher. Scotland Yard said a “lack of systems” for accounting for MPs’ expenses meant it was ruling out an investigation… The Metropolitan Police has said it could not investigate the affair because Westminster did not [...]

Gnats lose it on booze

More evidence that the Gnats don't have a clue how to tackle Scotland's booze culture. Following on from justice minister Kenny MacAskill's belief that shoving up taxes on booze will somehow solve the problem of binge drinking comes news that public health minister Shona Robison is considering increasing the age at which alcohol can be legally bought. This is simply daft. Scotland already has a problem with thousands of under-age people buying drink every single week. Increasing the alcohol buying age from 18 to 21 will just make this problem worse, not better. Indeed, those aged 18-21 are likely to ...

The Dark Arts: third in an occasional series

Here is the latest instalment in tales of political arcana. Though whether this quite counts as one of the dark arts, rather than just the ruse of a bounder, I leave you to judge. Once upon a time there was election, and the faithful were gathering for a mass-canvass session. One among them, who considered himself their leading light, was ensuring the troops were armed with pens, cards and rosettes. A foot-soldier present was a nubile young lady (so nubile she was about to enter marital status) on whom the Leading Light lavished his attention. 'You don't have a party ...

Time to target the BBC again

Seems that AQ tonight has two Lab two Con - one of the Lab people is Polly Toynbee (described this morning as a critical ally). Ruth Lea is the other Tory. We need to find our own critical allies and push them to go on these shows. I note that last week on R4 there were two progs about buying property with Kirsty Allsop (another tory). They did [...]

The art of useless reporting, as brought to you by BBC East

BBC East are reporting this morning that the there has been another breakout of the Norovirus at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. They then go on to tell us that symptoms last for two days, whilst you remain infectious for a further three days. BBC East finished of by telling us that if we have the symptoms, we should contact our doctor immediately. So what is the problem with the report Not once do they actually tell us what the symptoms of the Norovirus are and what the effects of the illness are. Absolutely bloody useless.

Tory councillor created hundreds of phoney voters

The full story is here. The good news is that the man was tried and convicted. The bad news is that he nearly got away with it. As the law stands, Electoral Registration Officers have no power to reject an application for registration, provided the form is completed correctly, but must call in the police to investigate if suspicious. Nor have the media in general given as much prominence to the Slough story as they should. So far these scandals have been confined to England. There is no reason why voter fraud should not be attempted here, though, and we ...

Looz Snooze

Oh dear another manic week and no chance to put my 10penneth or even 100penneth in on all that is going on. Someone has asked if I have fallen asleep, no just been charging round the country, yesterday turning up in Stoke for an event that had happened the day before! Suffice to say, it is all stored on the memory chip in my brain........

Class sizes to keep increasing...teaching by proxy

Just watched a depressing news article about a prediction of class sizes increasing from 20 to 30 pupils up to a super-size of 70 to 90 with one teacher in charge of a group of assistants attending to the class. Teaching assistants do a fantastic job and if you have a child with complex behavioural difficulties or special learning needs, they are an absolute necessity within the classroom but I'm not sure many teachers chose their profession so they can be supervisors. I am worried that this hierachical approach to class organisation would lead to a greater alienation of children ...

Mexico

I'm off to Mexico in about an hour. I'm going for a model UN conference, as part of the Oxford delegation. We get to represent Russia and I've been given the IAEA to deal with. I'll report back as an when and try to keep blogging regular with, perhaps, a central American bent.

The Best of the North East

Wasting away precious minutes of my life on Google this morning I came across this website. All the best in north-east websites (allegedly). So many award categories - but no politics or community campaign sites, unfortunately.

Like rats deserting a sinking ship

According to todays Independent William Chapman, the Prime Minister's Appointments Secretary, has become the latest senior civil servant to join the exodus of senior civil servants from Number 10. His departure follows those of; Spencer Livermore, the Director of Political Strategy at Number 10 and Tom Scholar, the Downing Street Chief of Staff. I understand Mr Chapman is leaving Downing Street to take up the post of Director of Policy for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, which as we all know, is run by Ruth Turner, another former Blair aide. Whilst the reason for this run of sudden departures may ...

Lib Dems secure government ewe-turn on Darby & Joan

I try not to use this site to reproduce press releases. It would become far too tedious. However, I am going to make an exception for this one, purely because I enjoyed it so much and also because it shows the sort of work that we AMs get drawn into. I didn't write the press release by the way, it was produced by the Welsh Liberal Democrats' Head of Media, Gareth Price. Welsh Liberal Democrats have earned an Easter reprieve for two pet sheep in Bridgend who were facing eviction from their government-owned grazing land. Darby and Joans owner Caroline ...

Labour Barking Up Wrong Tree of LIT

Oh boy those guys at Labour never seem to learn as regards local income tax. They are now branding it unfair to adult workers who stay at home with their parents. Heaven forbid those of us who have spent most of our adult lives paying Poll Tax (based on the ability to breathe) and Council Tax (based on the ability to buy or rent property). Especially the later where the living alone discount is

The Cure A Lib Dem win!

I was at Wembley Arena last night with my old housemate Wade, seeing The Cure. I hadn't seen them live before myself and they were truly excellent. And they like to give punters their money's worth too - after the support act, The Cure started playing not long after 8 and didn't stop until 11.25. It was a great set. For me, the ticket would have been worth it just for seeing Pictures of You live, alone. Got home to more excellent news for Brian Paddick last night as the run of Lib Dem success in London by-elections continued. This ...

Texts and twitters

11:23 still bunged up a bit, but not as bad as yesterday. This are good. # 00:37 waiting for the pizza to turn up, and stopping myself from pressing the "new post" button. Drunk posts are only funny when they're not me... #Microblogging by SMS, it's all the rage donchaknow. Using LoudTwitter and Twitter.

Russia's 2nd Parliament

Not satisfied with the Duma and the non-elections in their country, Russia's excluded opposition parties have announced plans to form a "national assembly" of 500 to 600 member to deal with the nations problems. It appears that Kasparov and Other Russia are trying to coble together all the rejected forces in Russian politics and found an alternative power base to the Kremlin. It will be interesting to see how the Kremlin deals with this odd alliance between rightists, pro-business conservatives, liberals, democrats, and uber-far-right-lunatic-punk-nationalists. Note: The photos are of Kasparov and a young member of the outlawed National Bolshevik's led ...

Is Nick Harvey happy being the unacceptable face of Parliament

One thing that really bugs me is when people who clearly don’t know what they are talking about come up with fatuous excuses for not allowing reasonable requests. Nick Harvey MP, sadly, is a case in point. His response to Jo Swinson’s reasonable request for Parliament to allow video clips to be posted on YouTube and other websites was met by what can only be described as utter stupidity: Mr Harvey, who is also a Lib Dem MP, replied that copyright of the pictures was an issue, as was the cost of filming. He said the rules dated back to ...

Liberal Democrats gain Vassall from Labour

This week’s pair of London by-elections has brought yet more good news for the party, with a gain from Labour in Vassall ward in Lambeth on a huge 11.7% swing. One person likely to be celebrating in particular is the party’s Chief Executive, Chris Rennard, who now lives in a ward with [...]

Day 2634: "Race" for the "White" House: It is because He is Black

Tuesday: Race: It's been the ELEPHANT in the ROOM for most of the Presidential Primary campaign, but now it's turned into the BULL in the CHINA SHOP. First one of Senator Hillary-Billary's top supporters, Ms Geraldine Ferrero-Rocher, had to quit for whinging that "Barry's only winning 'cos Barry is Black"! But then the news got hold of Senator Barry O's former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Oh-So-Wrong, saying "Mr God Damn America". The EASIEST thing would be to CONDEMN them both but instead, Barry chooses the DIFFICULT path of FORGIVENESS, and breaks your heart with this, perhaps his most important speech. ...

Friday 21st March 2008

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