The Derby Evening Telegraph reports: The Liberal Democrats were tonight on the verge of controlling Derby City Council after the Tories said no to any power-sharing agreement.The decision was made at a group meeting of the Conservatives in the city.The only way Labour could have held on to control of the city was if the Conservatives had agreed to work with them in exchange for seats on the cabinet as they have for the past two years. 
Blair's great achievement is often cited as his quieting of the tumult that was once the Labour party, and in particular securing a broadly loyal PLP. But it is now many years since original need to unite and displace a rotting Conservative government. Can a parliamentary party be convinced of the need to permanently displace dissent for the greater good of staving off defeat, even when their stagnant government seems to be making decisions that actively punish their poorest constituents? Can they maintain discipline and a sense of higher need even as their own convictions and prime minister's actions seem ...
A long day starting with a group meeting to discuss and make plans for the Council meeting tomorrow, and look at other problems. Planning issues were top of our agenda, and there is so much we are not happy about, to say nothing of the public being very dissatisfied about. We have some ideas how to take this forward now. We need to campaign for a different way of doing things to get a better...
This blog loves British films and trivial facts. And one of its favourite trivial facts is that Hazel Blears appeared in A Taste of Honey as a little girl. At the time of Labour's deputy leadership election she reminisced to the Daily Mail: "The director wanted a couple of street urchins in the film and saw me and my brother playing in the street, asked me mum if we could be in the film and, being the proud working-class woman that she is, she made absolutely sure we had our Sunday best clothes on and were all scrubbed up."So, if ...
You really couldn't make it up! Note that Liberal=Conservative in UK terms! 
You have until Friday to enter the 'How many times will Iain Dale write a blatantly partisan blog about Crewe between now and polling day' competition. Iain himself is pledging to write more than 2 per day! Email me or answers in comments
Nadine Dorries wants the abortion time limit to be reduced from 24 weeks to 20. Firstly, why? Secondly, why now? Thirdly, won't this re-introduce backstreet abortions? Where is the sense in her argument? More babies survive at 24 weeks? That's because of scientific research and medical technology, a fact that doesn't bear any relation to abortion. "Lib Dem MP Evan Harris, a former hospital doctor, added: "The best research, which looks at every birth rather than a selected sample ... failed to show any reduction since 1995 in the threshold of viability below 24 weeks." And Health Secretary Alan Johnson ...
I spent the morning in a meeting with colleagues, catching up on progress, or lack of it, in a number of fields. Problems with the planning process in Stockton don't go away and in fact seem to grow. Meeting venues are no more accessible than a year ago. The Bus Users' Forum was a flash in the pan because the council needed to tick a box in order to put in a bid for something. And so it goes
Brian didn't do so badly after all - despite achieving approx 10% in the Mayoral elections, he got a huge amount of second preference votes - the table below reveals just how well he did: Brian Paddick (Lib Dem) 641,412 Sian Berry (Green) 331,727 Ken Livingstone (Lab) 303,198 Boris Johnson (Con) 257,792 Richard Barnbrook (BNP) 128,609 Gerard Batten (UKIP) 113,651 Alan Craig (Christian choice) 80,140 Matt O'Connor (Eng Dem) 73,538 Lindsey German (Left List) 35,057 Winston McKenzie (Ind) 38,954 I'm quite concerned that the BNP candidate gained 128,609 votes. The mind boggles as to who chose the BNP as their ...
Well - so far it's a big thumbs down from readers of this blog for the BBC's TV coverage of last week's elections. My poll is currently running at 53% saying their coverage was "very bad" and another 25% saying it was "bad". Of course such polls should be taken with a pinch of salt - but reading round the media and the internet, it's hard to find anyone who has got a good word to say about the coverage. As many people have pointed out - those who are up at 3am watching TV coverage of election results are ... 
Haven't had a new 'Quote of the Week' for about 3 weeks- rather odd. But the last one was too relevant for me in those few weeks. Anyway this week's is from George Bush who said on the 13th September 2001, "I'm not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt." Wow! How George Bush was able to describe what his foreign and defence police would be like over the course of his Presidency. (as in he did what he said what he wouldn't do- i hope that makes ...
Norfolk Police have been in the news today for allegedly massaging figures for crime statistics so that some vandalism was not actually recorded as a crime. Sadly this sort of thing is too common an occurrence these days when the government is obsessed with measuring only what is measurable and not what is actually important. Sadly though massaging crime statistics is nothing new. A few years ago common assault was reclassified so as not to appear on crime figures as a violent crime. This was in the days of the Tories being in charge so nobody can hold their heads ...
I'd say that Wendy Alexander had lost the plot over the referendum issue, but that would be to suggest she ever had the plot to lose... Labour took a total kicking in the English and Welsh local elections last week and Alexander's response smacks rather of panic. Personally, I dislike referenda. There was actually a referendum on the Scottish constitutional question last year - it was called the Scottish Parliamentary elections - and parties clearly supporting the union won that particular referendum hands down. And ... there will be another "referendum" in 2011 - the next Scottish parliamentary elections. If ...
The BBC tell us that after decades of domination, emerging coalition deals could leave Labour frozen out in all but a few councils in Wales. The report continues: Despite being the smallest of the main political parties - with just 162 councillors - the Lib Dems' ability to win seats of strategic value could place them in the strongest position of all the parties, in terms of power-sharing in Welsh councils. Coalition deals are thought to be imminent in both Cardiff and Swansea, while they have already formed part of the new administration in Anglesey. The party looks set to ...
Just reading this story and then Alex’s comments on it prompted a thought. As 2010 now seems the most likely date for the next General Election, what if the referendum on Scottish independence happens on the same day? I haven’t got time to write up all my thoughts on it right now, but it would make for a very interesting campaign, both north and south of the border.
Have a read of this excellent article by R.W. Johnson, in LRB. He was in Zimbabwe during the election and its aftermath and gives a superb account of events and their meaning. Do have a read.
A quick reminder that the next meeting of the Reading {2007_04060007} University Neighbourhood Forum will be held on Monday 12 May at 7.30pm in Seminar Room 1, Black Horse House, Whiteknights. Refreshments will be served from 7pm. This meeting is an annual open forum for local residents to put their questions to Reading University's Management team, ranging from anti-social behaviour to planning. The agenda includes a report from the University's Facilities Management team about future development of the University campuses, which will be the first we've heard from the University following the public consultation on the Whiteknights Development Plan ...
Madame Tussauds is asking its visitors whether they should create a figure of Gordon Brown*: "When Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair last year, for the first time in a 150 year history, Madame Tussauds took the decision not to immediately create a figure of the current Prime Minister. "Instead we chose to wait for a [...]
Up until very recently, the Cameron narrative has been that it 'is now okay to vote Conservative'. When David Cameron became leader of his party he inherited a fairly low share of the vote and a feeling that the Conservatives were the 'nasty party'. Voting blue to go green was one part of Cameron's pitch to the electorate. Key messages went out to liberals. Conservative values are described as 'giving more people opportunity and power over their lives'. That certainly appeals to liberals and could even woo Labour voters. Cameron had given people permission to vote Conservative. On Thursday they ...
Eric Pickles MP, the man 'masterminding the conservative campaign' in Crewe and Nantwich, will be live on Iain Dale's blog from 8-9pm. Can you stand the excitement?
As the BBC reports: A review into business practices at defence firm BAE Systems has called for tougher anti-bribery measures. The study by Lord Woolf, former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, set out 23 recommendations for the firm. Lord Woolf said the report provided a “route map” for BAE to ensure it was a leader for its ethical standards… The BBC’s business editor Robert Peston says that the report’s finding, that in the past BAE did not pay sufficient attention to ethical standards in the way it conducted business, is an embarrassing admission.
Heresy Corner presents a video of Jeremy Vine's excruciating Wild West skit and then adds: Either those responsible were actually drunk at the time, or they assumed that most of the audience would be. But this was local election coverage. Most normal people don't sit up most of the night waiting to hear whether Reading has moved to No Overall Control. Those who do have the obsessive interest in politics required to tune in to this sort of show want to know facts, put into context by basic, easy-to-follow maps and graphs.Far from helping to explain anything, this skit served ...
Wendy Alexander's U-turn over the weekend on the question of a referendum on Scottish independence has come as a surprise to many people. As Alex Wilcock rightly points out, Wendy's move was a panic reaction to the Labour slaughter in the local government elections in England and Wales. But there is also an element of political calculation in it, as it's highly unlikely that a referendum would result in a majority for independence at this stage. Wendy doubtless fears that the SNP would be able to build momentum towards a referendum the longer it is delayed. In itself, this is ...
Anyone with any interest whatsoever in civil liberties would do well to watch Taking Liberties on More4 this evening at 10pm. I watched it on DVD and it is a shocking indictment of the way our civil liberties have been eroded over the last few years.
I quote: A Belfast beauty Queen is set to fight a by-election in a bid to "glamorise" the House of Commons.Gemma Garrett, who is the current Miss Great Britain, is standing in the safe Labour seat of Crewe and Nantwich.We shall see.
Surprisingly, he wants people to go and help: Details of how to get to the Crewe and Nantwich by-election HQ are on Elizabeth Shenton’s website.
Stephen Mullins, a member of Norwich North Conservative Association and a former Tory parish councillor, has been charged with a series of sex attacks by Norfolk Police. I report this not to throw mud at the Tories, because sadly this sort of thing can happen to any party and it says nothing about that party because sadly there are people who commit all sorts of crimes in society and politics actually does reflect what goes on in society. No, the interesting point was the odd explanation given by a source in Norwich North Conservatives about the man's links to the ...
Charles Clarke MP, former Home Secretary and prowling Blairite attack lion, has crept off the savannah to kick Gordon Brown whilst he’s down on his knees sobbing for fiscal stability and better than third place in elections. In an article for Progress, he writes: "We should abandon proposals to increase the period of pre-charge detention to 42 [...]
... is that you don't notice what else is going on in the world. Having dealt with a huge backlog of domestic things I am now noticing that there are new plays and films out there that I have never heard of. And Eastenders seems to have several new plotlines that have started since early April. Here's to a bit more normalcy.
Opinion has been divided on Wendy Alexander's performance as Scottish Labour Leader - is it worse that her funding scandals brought politics into disrepute, or that her hopelessly ineffective leadership of the opposition (regularly outshone at First Minister's Questions by Nicol Stephen) means she's just terrible at her job? Struggling today to claw back the initiative for the first time in a year, she's adopted the tone of a bellicose pub drunk to say 'Referendum? Go on then! Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough.' But there's more to this than mere desperation for a headline. ...
Released two months late, conveniently after the local elections, the Home Office has produced its latest ten year cost estimate for the ID scheme. Campaigners NO2ID have pointed out that the report actually admits to an overall increase in costs but then dumps almost a billion pounds off its headline figure by creative accounting. This is done by delaying the rollout of the scheme to 2012, enabling ministers to omit a number of high volume costs that will occur after 2017/18, and dropping plans to check every applicant individually and take their fingerprints. The Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris ...
Have just got back from 8 days in the Netherlands - 4 days in Amsterdam and 4 days in Breda for the Jazz Festival. Whilst in Amsterdam we witnessed the biggest street party in the country - the annual celebration of the Queen's Birthday. It was great fun. Also visited the Anne Frank Huis - which clearly showed and brought to life why Facists must never be allowed to seize power again...
(From a party email) Former Liberal Democrat Leaders Paddy Ashdown and Menzies Campbell have paid tribute to Liberal Democrat peer Richard Holme, who has died at the age of 71. Lord Holme, who was the party's Northern Ireland spokesman during the 1990s, and a member of the joint consultative committee with the Government on constitutional issues, [...]
According to most pundits, the economy isn't looking so good. Whether we're heading into recession or having a mild slow down, it's likely things may be a bit tougher for a while. Here's a few suggestions of how to stop those bonus junkies in the big corporations from getting some of your money. Flick the switch - It's not just gas and oil bills that are on the upwards spiral, electricity bills are copying the pattern. No one likes to get bills from electricity companies, least of all when cash is tight. Do you really need to light a room ...
The number of second votes lost because the voter's second preference didn't make it into the run-off was one and a half times the winning margin between Johnson and Livingstone. With STV or Condorcet, this cannot happen because no votes are lost.
From the International Quality and Productivity Centre, that famous organisation renowned for, er, precisely nothing but which has the resources, paid for by ludicrously priced training courses, to send out junk mail advertising for courses entitled: 'Partnering and Engaging for Safer, Stronger Communities 2008: developing citizen-focused, multi-agency partnerships to realise empowered, socially responsible & assured communities.' I suppose you need to attend the training to find out just what a 'citizen-focused, multi-agency partnership to realise empowered, socially responsible & assured communities' actually is. Or you could just refer to the dictionary, searching somewhere between 'bollard' and 'boloney' for an adequate ...
It is interesting to note that a report today stated what was obvious to anyone interested in the problems faced by the Royal Mail. An independent group has reported that the opening up of postal services to competition has provided no benefit to residential customers or small and medium sized business and its only real achievement has been the erosion of the financial stability of the Royal Mail. Funnily enough it seemed obvious that this would happen to everyone except the government.
I have been asked to set down for a group of people what I think their members need to do in order to get selected in future internal party selection contests to winnable positions on Lib Dem party lists, and I thought it might be of wider interest - perhaps for candidates from ethnic minorities, or women, other under-represented groups, or just any prospective candidate - so I am sharing it here. I should emphasise that although it’s me that is writing this up here, the wisdom (such as it is) is generally not my own - it represents a ...
Has anyone else noticed the remarkable resemblance between the saluting Boris Johnson and his party leader's favourite composer, Benny Hill ? Are they chance related via an indiscreet liaison with a Circassian "Hill's Angel" ? I think Londoners should be told.
Too often my experience of the Internet is just too much like this: Courtesy of XKCDHowever every now and then, I come across the post that reminds me that occasionally there are right thinking people out there!! This post from Simon Jerran at 'I don't wish to spread any gossip, but...' is one of those. He picked up on this rant, from Stuart Lee on the Radio 4 programme 'Heresy', at the 84% of his audience who clearly have had it up to there with political correctness."It really worries me that 84% of this audience agrees with that statement, because ...
Michael Thrasher has an interesting piece on the Sky News website, particularly explaining the difference in the seat change figures between those published by Sky and the BBC. As has become a consistent pattern over several years now, his national vote share projections put the Liberal Democrats two per cent lower than the BBC’s figures. Several [...]
Some of my regular readers might realise that I have a thing about number plates. Something that caught my eye was the top image. At the time I was looking for a 725, however foreign plates can’t be counted. However it looked very much like a British plate, just styled as a German one. So once I got home I used wikipedia to double check. Wiki says that plates are in the format of 1-3 letters for the place, then stickers to show the emission test and vehicle safety test, then 1-2 random letters, and then 1-4 random numbers (maximum ...
Now that the election 'purdah' is out of the way, we're expecting an announcement very shortly on the future of Essex Road Post Office. I'm hoping against hope that it's good news. Local people & I have worked so hard to save it. We launched our first petition nearly a year ago. Since then, as [...]
The Western Mail tells us that a new report has identified that the BBC's network news programmes are failing to cover events in Wales: The corporation set up an inquiry last year following allegations that Wales - and the other devolved UK administrations - were poorly served by its UK network operation, such as flagship news bulletins fronted by Fiona Bruce. But with a full draft of the review expected to be taken to the editorial standards committee shortly, it is understood to have found the BBC is not providing sufficient coverage of UK events outside England. I met the ...
The BBC news website has a story concerning a new report which states that the liberalisation of the postal service in the UK has had "no significant benefits" which, quite frankly, does not surprise me one jot. fact i believe that the postal service has deteriorated significantly in the last few years. I am quite suspicious that my street has not been getting daily deliveries for some months now as mail seems to arrive in large batches every two or three days rather than the previous couple of letters every day and when it does arrive it normally between 1pm ...
The link is to the judgment in terms of the East Sussex Adoption Case as reported recently. I post it here because people could do with a link to it. Note "There are many who assert that councils have a secret agenda to establish a high score of children that they have placed for adoption." The Adoption Targets (now essentially scrapped) wree not a "secret agenda", but indeed a public agenda.
Why some mayoral votes counted but not others-Make My Vote Count So many times during the campaign I meant to write up an analysis of Hennessy's Bloody Stupid Voting System, never did. Here's the main problem with it over AV, which he thinks we're too stupid for. (tags: voting+systems mayoralty) Nonsensical excuses for Labour failure - By Bob Marshall-Andrews -Telegraph The Labour spin team are blaming last weeks results on the mistake of the 10p tax thing. I think it went much deeper than that and that was merely the proverbial straw. Bob agrees, not sure everything he says here ...
Edward Timpson, Conservative candidate at the Crewe and Nantwich by-election seems to not to be that "local" after all.
Don't you wish that, instead of sitting behind your desk, you were on a beach with the waves breaking in the distance and the sand between your toes. (This post has been brought to you by VisitCornwall....)
A doctor, an architect, and a politician were arguing as to which profession is the oldest. The doctor commented that the oldest profession was his. "After all, it was a surgical operation that made Eve out of Adam's rib." The architect retorted: "No, it was the architect. Surely it was an architect who brought the world out of chaos." The politician asked: "who do you think created chaos?
14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1One of the great aspects of my job is that I get to travel all round Scotland when Elspeth is making constituency visits (yes, the whole of Scotland is one EP constituency) and meeting up with local Lib Dems. Here are a selection of photos from my travels over the last few years which I believe show just how beautiful Scotland can be. They are in order:1. St Andrew's harbour2. Edinglassie Estate in Aberdeenshire3. Dunure Castle in Ayrshire.4. The solway firth in Dumfries & Galloway.5. The falls ...
As the dust begins to settle, some of us holding our collective breath in anticipation of a Boris-run London - and Gordon licks his wounds and wonders if this was all to do with the abolishing of the 10p rate - I thought it may be a good time to start thinking about notions of [...]
It appears James Whale has been sacked by Talksport Radio. A spokesman for Talksport said that the decision to remove Mr Whale followed a gross error of judgement that took place during the London Mayoral contest. Not sure what to make of that, other than to assume Mr Whale must have voted for Bojo? What other error of judgement is there? As for Mr Whale's departure, will he be missed? Not by me, that's for sure!
Boris Johnson, newly elected Mayor of London and MP for Henley*, has declared he will stand down from Parliament "as soon as possible", but how soon will that be? On the day of the election, The Times ran a story hinting that Boris could remain an MP for up to a year, quoting the Conservative agent [...]
As the fallout from last week's elections continues to be assessed, attention turning to the role of policy in the results.First off is Anthony Browne, director of Policy Exchange, who writes in today's Telegraph - 'Time to examine Conservative policies'. He sees policy as being crucial to David Cameron's continued pitch forward momentum:"Cameron and his team need to "seal the deal" with the voters, not just relying on discontent with the Government, but setting out positive reasons to vote for them. That means concentrating on core themes - mending Britain's broken society, delivering real public-service reform, less Government interference in ...
And Prepare to Come out Fighting Well after Wendy Alexander threw the first punch in the latest round of the Independence referendum fight at the weekend. Which she, backed by her cabinet member brother Douglas, hastily followed up with a call that the SNP were running scared by holding it in 2010. You may be forgiven for thinking that the Nats may have been reeling. Well they sent out Alex,
A few updates from earlier today :Residents have called to say one of the temporary bus stops on Hawkhill is missing (pinched presumably, a common temporary bus stop problem, although this one was attached to a permanent pole, rather than being wholly moveable!) Anyway, have asked the City Council to replace this ASAP as residents complain buses are not stopping at it.A concern that the Friendly Bus sheltered shopping service was 45 minutes late today, but, having spoken with Stagecoach Strathtay, pleased to say it was a one-off staffing problem, and nothing to do with the Perth Road gas mains ...
Liberal Democrats : Post Office
Blogging hiatus for the last week as I've been up in Aberdeenshire with the boss and relaxing over the bank holiday weekend so have been away from the net for much of that time. (The photo is of part of the 17,000 acre estate we visited) Whats happened since I last blogged? Well there has been a round of local elections in England & Wales where Labour got absolutely trashed by the electorate across the board, Tories had a fantastic night and we had a better than expected night ending up with a net gain of 30 odd seats - ...
I am at a bit of a loss at the moment, and I wonder if I'm the only one feeling the pain of election cold turkey. This is an odd time of year when the elections are finished and the Council has yet to kick off. A kind of hole in the political space-time continuum that sucks people in at the conclusion of the count, and spits them out at annual Council with nothing in between except for a black and empty week and a half. I do miss the campaign though, despite disliking every minute of it. I don't ...
I’d always thought that political dynasties were a South Asian and Arab phenomenon — think Gandhis in India, Bhuttos in Pakistan or al-Assads in Syria. But apparently they are catching on in Britain too. Tamsin Dunwoody is hoping to replace her late mother Gwyneth in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election on 22 May. And now we learn [...]
{Photo0003cabinet} I met with representatives of Streetcare and BT this morning to come up with a plan to tackle the graffiti on the green boxes and phone boxes. This tends to be some of the longest-standing graffiti in the town and we do need to improve how quickly it is dealt with. The manager from BT is the head of their UK estates, and having seen the problem, was very motivated to help. Next steps are to compile a list of all the green boxes, phone boxes and related property in Reading for BT, while Streetcare will put together a ...
Short listed for the best Lib Dem Blog in 2007, named the 14th best Liberal Democrat blog and 185th best political blog in the United Kingdom by Iain Dale, you'd have thought Mark Valladares would have managed to get his point across without having to resort to name calling. Seems not! His latest post; Bob Shaw; it's not about cojones, it's about hypocrisy, stupid... appears to have been written under the rather strange misconception that I am in some way 'boovered' by this sort of immature post. I have news for Mr Valladares, far from exposing me as a fool ...
I have it on good authority that depressed Labour Party staff got into work on Saturday to find a huge pile of copies of the Evening Standard - the one proclaiming "Boris is the Mayor" along with a compliments slip from the publisher. Let's see if they're as happy to be associated with him in a couple of years.....
Elections are funny things - huge amounts of effort, energy (esp. nervous energy) and resources - and yet the count is curiously odd. The London elections being an electronic count are especially odd - the effect of a electronic count is to engender an atmosphere that feels almost anti-democratic. The process is not open to scrutiny, when the machine jams (which happened quite a lot) and the papers get fed back in you worry that there is double counting... The whole atmosphere is that the bureaucrat knows best (and I like bureaucrats, but in this instance...). So the count was ...
Let's start the week with a controversy. The BBC reported on Dave's plans to keep the pressure on Gordon and mentioned the fact that Labour had polled below the Lib Dems on Thursday. I was immediately struck by how fussy our name is. Is this a big problem for voters, I wonder? Would a name change be a good idea or would it cause too much controversy? The obvious name for us would be Democrats, which is not exactly propitious given the fiasco of the Democrat primaries in the USA, which are all but handing victory to the Republicans. (Please, ...
After the wet bank-holiday Sunday... These two pics both reflect the weather we seem to be now enjoying - carpets of pink blossom and a field of blue bells - one in Russell Nurseries (Belsize tube/Haverstock Hill) and the other just behind the wharrie shelter on Rosslyn Hill by St Stephen's church.
We’re all stunned by the great results of the elections last Thursday: More votes and more seats in the Winchester District and the new Winchester constituency than the Tories Highest Lib Dem share of the vote in Winchester district or county elections since 1998 Swing from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats for the second year running We knew that our campaign for a greener, fairer and safer Winchester was getting a strong response - and that people were reacting well to the strong record of our candidates - but getting the highest vote for 10 years was more than ...
A great set of local election results - but to say that we did “well” or “better than expected” is, in my view, an understatement. On our resources, which do not include the money of (Lord) David Sainsbury (of Turville), or (Lord) Michael Ashcroft (of Tax Haven) or (Lord) Irvine Laidlaw, we’ve done fantastically. Apologies for [...]
Stanislas Magniant wrote about what happened after he gave a presentation about online politics: During the Q&A session, one person helped me put things in perspective, in the most humbling manner. That person is a member of the Parliament in Lebanon. Because of political threats on his life and that of his family, he's been forced to live in [...]
I read Bob's recent conspiracy theory about the Crewe and Nantwich by-election candidate selection with some interest, as the only member of the English Candidates Committee who blogs. Now I'm not a perpetual defender of the processes of the Party, although I'm perfectly happy to debate why things are done the way they are. On the other hand, it disturbs me when the 'system' is attacked without
Gemma Garrett is running for Parliament in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, caused by the death of Gywneth Dunwoody. If you are not an avid follower of beauty contests, this may not mean much to you, but Ms Garrett is the current Miss Great Britain, and she represents the "Beauties for Britain" party (I'd link to their website, but they don't seem to have one, presumably because that would require them to have something to put on it). She wants to "make Westminster as glamorous a place as its fellow European legislatures, where beautiful women abound" and "make Britain feel ...
I should have known it when a blogger whispered in my ear as I entered the room for the Campaign for Gender Balance Blogging Awards at conference last March. "Don't worry, you're not going to win." I'm not used to not winning something I have entered for. More annoying is someone else entering you for a competition, and even more annoying than that is someone entering you into a competition for a piece of writing that stinks! Particularly for a writing competition, which is how I thought of it. However, a couple of months on I've realised it has nothing ...
The BBC is today reporting that Pete Doherty has been released from prison after serving only 29 days of his 14-week sentence. Having read the story I have two questions I'd like answring. Hopefully someone out there will know the answers? Firstly, how is it that the BBC have only just managed to announce the story, when Contact Music (who I'd never heard of until today) managed to break the story 4 days ago. Secondly, why on earth are convicted criminals like Mr Doherty, being released so bloody early? Even though I'm one of those apparently set to benefit from ...
Well, here I am on the platform at Newcastle Central, waiting for the 7.40am train to Newcastle. After two weeks at home, I am having to head back to Cowley St to earn my living. I hear on the grapevine that there is a severe jam famine in Lib Dem HQ. The jam tap has, of course, been cut off for the past two weeks but travelling with me to London is a bag of goodies for the starving
My daily digest of texts, tweets and status updates.00:46 watching old Trek with Jennie. It's still awful. # 01:44 possible Wordpress and Facebook security flaw? tinyurl.com/59ytv5 Anyone know more? #Microblogging using LoudTwitter and Twitter. {[info]} matgb_twitter is there if you're mad enough.
So, one of my f-list has posted about this new site: Shag A Blogger.com. Mat's response to this is but I already AM! I haven't registered, preferring to find my sexual partners by more conventional means of meeting folk and such, and I am antsy about anything which creates an expectation of receiving sexual favours, but figured that there might be others on my f-list who might be interested in it, so am passing it on as a public service. Mat found a large manicure kit downstairs while doing some tidying. It appears to be full of bizarre implements of ...
Just a quick post to say keep checking back as I’ve decided that I’m going to feature a mini series of interviews, with several high profile people, from all walks of life and persuasions. I hope this will be as interest for you as I’m sure it will be for me.
I feel I've been tagged in a strange sort of a meme for my thoughts on Oxford's recent local election results by Antonia [From Oxford elections round-up]: We await with bated breath the thoughts of Stephen Tall, no longer Lib Dem councillor for Headington, his colleague David Rundle, and the third-placed Lib Dem candidate for Headington Hill and prolific blogger, Jock Coats. Well thanks, she just had to rub it in by mentioning that third place. I am embarrassed and humiliated to have come third. Although as someone pointed out at the count, the Lib Dems have never come second ... | < | May 2008 | > | ||||
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