LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Saturday 10th May 2008

Nick yesterday - Simon today!

Campaigning in a by election is never dull! Today I was busily feeding a mail folding machine when who should come over to say ‘hello’ but Simon Hughes, the party President. Simon spent several hours in Crewe today and took part in a very successful walk about. It was only when he went to the station to catch his train back to London that it was realised that he’d left his case back at HQ - so Jan was detailed to pick it up and whizz across to deliver it to rather relieved MP! It’s been a very good day on ...

Endulging my inner sophologist

Since everyone else is doing it - I thought I’d cast an eye over the election figures and generate some figures to make myself and my party feel extra cheerful. To this end - a comparison between the last General Election results in Salford constituency and those of the recent local election in what will [...]

Joan Ryan's website

Matt Wardman and Helen previously commented on this site about the website for Joan Ryan, Labour MP for Enfield North. Now I’ve had a time to take a proper look, and talk to one of her constituents, it raises some interesting questions. What caught everyone’s eye is that most of the content on http://www.joanryan.net/ is only accessible if you register [...]

Help the Aged : Please give to the DEC Myanmar (Burma) Cyclone Appeal

From Help the Aged : On Friday 2nd May winds up to 150mph struck Myanmar (Burma). Cyclone Nargis created a 3.5 metre high storm surge, inundating coastal areas. Tens of thousands of people have died and up to 1 million are believed to be homeless. We urgently need your help. A state of emergency has been declared and there is a desperate need for food, water, shelter and basic healthcare. An estimated 170,000 older people are affected, many of whom have lost their homes, families and livelihoods. Cyclone Nargis has created unprecedented damage in Myanmar (Burma), and aid agencies are ...

The Clegg narrative

Leaders of political parties have to have a narrative these days. It was probably always like that. It is just that in the past we never noticed it and no one pointed it out. The party provides some sort of narrative: its founding principles, objectives and values. But deliberately or not, leaders also have a narrative and if they don't others step in and spin a tale around the leader's feet. Nick Clegg has talked about broken politics and making Britain a more liberal place to live. He has also talked about the liberal tradition that runs through the country's ...

How not to boast about all your hard work, lesson 4

Is it me, or is it really a very, very bad idea to put a map on your website to illustrate all the hard work you're doing - and then not put anything on the map? I only ask because of this.

How not to take a political photo, lesson 21

If you're going to caption a photo of yourself as "meets voters" don't you think voters (humans or canines, I'm not fussed) should actually feature somewhere in the photo?

What happened to the left-wing Gordon Brown?

{Gordon Brown} Perhaps one shouldn't interfere with private grief - but I am intrigued by the post-mortems being conducted by numerous people in the Labour Party on the lines of - Gordon Brown, what went wrong? I think there are two main political strategy dilemmas facing the party. First, keep Gordon or ditch Gordon? Can he really recover from plunging to such depths of unpopularity? Given the increasing volatility of political opinion in recent years, there should be a degree of caution over "worst ratings since the 1930s" type headlines - but there's no doubt the situation is grim for ...

The Doctor's Daughter

Well, if this wasn't going to get me blogging again, nothing would.... A very cool trailer, a shame that the episode didn't really live up to its potential. But then again, Dr Who is always more than the sum of it's parts, and this episode has certainly added a new part. I half-guessed the age of the war - the technology for creating troops certainly made such a time-span possible. But I

Blackness Primary School - School Crossing Patroller

Today's "Courier" has covered concerns raised by parents of pupils at Blackness Primary School about the school crossing patroller (or lack of) on Hawkhill. The "lollipop" patroller for Blackness Primary School has been absent through illness for some time and in recent weeks, there has been no temporary replacement provided. I have received calls from worried parents, including members of the Blackness Primary Parent Council, about the situation. Hawkhill is an extremely busy road at the best of times, but with the current roadworks on Perth Road, traffic is being diverted onto Hawkhill, including the bus services, and I was ...

The West Wing

Episode 2 of series 2 and all the laptops in the white house seem to be displaying pie charts. Why CJ would be producing a rubbishy pie chart using word is beyond all reason. Do press secretaries produce pie charts? Wouldn't they have an assistant to do that for them? Shouldn't she be out more wining and dining with the journos? Someone else is producing an identical pie chart in the flashback to the Bartlet campaign three years earlier but it's not clear why. Perhaps in times of severe stress white house staffers just love to create order on their ...

Jihadi forums are alive with news of the impending Lebanese civil war

A new blog run by a lecturer at Westpoint monitoring Jihadism claims that the Jihadi forums he monitors are "buzzing" about the coming and current struggles in Lebanon. I don't know the sites he monitors or how reliable he is as his blog has been going for just 3 days. Worth a look though.

Who is listening?

A warning to all of you who are like me and tend to chatter, as I found out to my peril last night. Those who listen to other peoples conversations often get it wrong and that can give us councillors a bit of a problem. Especially if a chatter box is listening to what you have said and then repeats their version. So take a message from some one who has found out the hard way...

Beyond Our Ken

Last Friday, the morning after the local elections, I was returning to work late in the morning (having got home towards 5am). I’d foolishly forgotten my iPod, so I could hear the voices of the commuters I passed on the Jubilee Line platform. One was very nasal and very familiar. I turned and saw Ken Livingstone waiting for the next train, newspaper in hand. So I went and said hello. He seemed fairly dispirited and not optimistic about the mayoral election result. Turns out he was right. In the week since taking office, Boris Johnson has launched one deliberately eye-catching ...

Siniora's speech to the Lebanese people

On May 10, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora addressed the nation live from Grand Serail: My beloved Lebanese... in all cities, homes... in the diaspora... in Aisha Bakkar, Tarik al-Jedideh, Hamra... and all the streets of our beloved capital, my brothers in Saida and Achrafieh, in Kharoub... Tripoli, Akkar... Zahle... My beloved in Future TV and Ash-Sharq [radio station]... Your country will not fall under the coup, nor will we return to hegemony and terrorism... Lebanon is living through difficult times... dealt a poisoned stab by the coup staged by Hezbollah, [who] took over your homes and possessions. They were calling ...

Some fly, some sleep with the fishes

I know airlines are ruthless and INS officers at American airports can be very harsh, but I hadn’t expected this: There is overbooking and lots of passengers are simply being bumped off.

ISI now reports to Gilani not Musharraf?

The Australian reported yesterday that Pakistan's security agency, the ISI, is now reporting directly to the PPP Prime Minister Gilani and not to Musharraf. I'm not sure its as simple as that. Under what authority the transition could have been made is up for question and the independent nature of the ISI means that its unlikely to be pushed around. This simplistic view is unlikely to be telling us the whole story.

Everything changes, everything stays the same...

You turn your back for 10 minutes and a whole bunch of new parties appear in Romania. Arrived in Bucharest in the middle of the local elections to discover the Popular Christian Social Union (they almost got all the bases covered there with the name and the Civic Force Party as the newest kids on [...]

Youtube and embedding correctly

For some reason when you select the embed option in Youtube the code they provide includes <embed> tags. However these are big no-no’s in HTML. Youtube also have empty <param> tags, which should really end with />. On top of that I’ve still yet to work out why Youtube insist on having the video at 425×355 pixels, when clearly the resolution is only 320 pixels wide. Thus creating a rather blocky video as it is badly upscaled. So instead here is the “easy” way to embed Youtube videos. Take your original code from Youtube: <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" <param ...

This government has a knack of selling just at the wrong time

Te government is apparently considering selling its stake in the UK's largest Nuclear Power supplier to French firm EDF. When energy security is a growing concern, it does seem odd to be selling the stake at this time. But coupled with the recent announcement that Britain is to pursue a nuclear future, surely this is exactly the wrong time to sell. Just like the government did with the UK's gold reserves, just like it did with the Defence research firm Qinetiq, this government follows the reverse of the normal economic policy of " buy low, sell high."

Hang on, I thought al BBC journalists were supposed to be lefty socialists ?

This rather flies in the face of the perceived Tory drivel about the BBC. Considering Question Time yet again had two Tories on the panel, I think the Tories overdo the whole anti BBC thing. Even if the Tories don't get a fair deal from the BBC, which I personally feel they do (David Cameron only has to catch a bus and it's on the news), I suggest they start supporting the lib Dems for one week then you'd know what it's like to be treated badly be the BBC.

Exciting turnout statistic of the day

"India is perhaps the only large democracy in the world today where the turnout of the lower orders of society is well above that of the most privileged groups" (Yogendra Yadav)

Info from a friend

I've got a friend, who I met in Mexico a couple months ago and had long rambling conversations about neuro-philosophy with, living in Hamra west Beirut. He sent me an email this morning saying that "they took over my area, and up until this morning, i could see gunmen on my street. theyve also set up their flags. this whole thing is really quite disgusting. they attacked a funeral march today, killing 6 and wounding over 30." Further more he says that "They also attacked an Armenian radio station, which is strange because they have deliberately not involved christians thus ...

Student accommodation for Lower Bristol Road

The application for new student accommodation that will accommodate 333 Students next to the current block on the Lower Bristol road goes before the Development control committee on Bath & North East Somerset Council on Wednesday 14th May. I am putting together my comments for this committee and would ask that if any local residents have an opinion one way or anther that they let me...

Linkspam for 10-5-2008

BOFH: Shiny new computer room | The Register El Reg shifted the feed BOFH was on (again) and I hadn't noticed. Been in this sort of meeting a few times, in such a discussion, backing up the MD or the tech, the tech wins. Every time. ( {[info]} reg_bofh is new syndication account BTW) (tags: BOFH the+register) Blah blah blah - Beloved Intertubes, Sparkle has a job interview, and could do with the help of People of Faith, so, y'know go help her (it's a good job): I need to do a short presentation (as if it were to the ...

10 year anniversary party

Okay, mixing politics and parties might not sound like everyone's idea of fun, but... For all Lib Dem members, activists and supporters out there, you're invited to join us on May 24th as we celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Liberal Democracy in Haringey. Yes, it's 10 years now since Lynne Featherstone, along with colleagues Julia Glenn and June Anderson, was elected to represent Muswell Hill ward on Haringey Council - the first 3 Lib Dems. Of course, in 2002 we won a bunch more wards (including my own of Fortis Green) and now in 2008 have 26 councillors in Haringey ...

Cadbury's and Sony Adverts

Both Cadbury and Sony use the same people to come up with their recent ads. Out of the most recent six, three are great, one is good, one is ok, and one is crap. Balls This was the first Sony advert, set in San Francisco with the bouncy balls falling down the hill. It falls into my great catergory, very original, music was perfect (who didn’t get the Jose Gonzalez album) and it brought back images of childhood. Paint The second Sony ad falls into the OK category, it felt too fake and if it wasn’t for the behind the ...

Where was Charles Kennedy?

Charles Kennedy's "disappearance off the radar" from 'Any Questions' on Radio 4 didn't seem to have rattled Lord Rennard, who walked onto the set calmly as the show was beginning. Fresh from the Crewe and Nantwich by-election there are no sign of nerves and he has just made a brilliant point on the 10p tax rate and its effect in Crewe. [Yes, before you tell me I know it's a repeat!] Despite this I do find it quite worrying myself [I'm not as cool as Chris]. Never have I been listening to or watching a programme where one of the ...

Daniel Kawczynski: a whinger and a wanker

Neil Kinnock famously (and anecdotally; he hotly denies it) described Charter 88 as a bunch of “whingers and wankers.” It’s good to see that the shoe is now on the other foot, as demonstrated by this whine by Daniel Kawczinyski. What is amusing about this article is that it is wrong in almost every single important respect. To start with, he deplores closed lists. But he then goes on to exhort first past the post which is, erm, a closed list system. If he wants accountability, then why not advocate a system which encourages it, i.e. STV? Secondly, he claims ...

The end is neigh

I am now into the last week of being Mayor of Bath and I can say that I have really enjoyed my year in office; I hand over my Chains next Saturday 17th May at 11am in a lavish ceremony in Bath Abbey to which members of the public are very welcome to attend. I could say that it would be nice to have a rest but that will be short lived as I will become Mayoress on the same day because my...

A quick report on how it's going in Crewe and Nantwich

An excellent day yesterday with Nick Clegg and a lot of press interest. We’ve got a big operation going and had a very good number of helpers in today already. This is a really important weekend - the team proved yesterday that we are well set up to deal with large numbers. We just need lots [...]

Why is the UK so lousy at cinema?

Amid all the gloom of the past few weeks, a nugget to warm my cockles: it turns out that the film Three and Out has been a massive flop. For the past month, Londoners have had this film rammed down their throats via a mammoth advertising campaign and a faux controversy over Aslef condemning the film for promoting the idea of suicide by underground train. I can only wonder what Aslef got out of the deal as this gave the film a huge amount of free advertisng. The promoters responded by making the controversy a central part of their marketing, ...

David Icke

The Oxford Mail - always at the cutting edge of local news - has finally got round to publishing a review of a talk by conspiracy theorist David Icke, who spoke to Oxford students last February. I vaguely remember being collared by a journo on the way out and asked for a comment. Nearly three months later, I now find myself being quoted as saying: "It's interesting. I wouldn't say I agreed with much of what he said. There's a point up to where it made sense and a point where it was getting silly." It's odd. I could have ...

Does Labour think it is losing the debate on ID cards?

An interesting snippet from some of the Labour material in the Crewe & Nantwich by-election: they are attacking the Conservative candidate for the (current, known to have changed a few times) Conservative policy of opposing ID cards. However, from what I’ve seen of it, they’ve mostly given up on most of the arguments previously used and [...]

Hillary's 'What Ifs'

There's a fascinating article in the New York Magazine, Ten 'What Ifs' About Hillary Clinton's Campaign - you can read it here. Here's No. 9 on the list: 9. What if Clinton had gone magnanimous on Obama and the Reverend Wright? The GOP strategist Alex Castellanos offers an intriguing theory about how Hillary might have reacted differently, [...]

Oh dear, Livingstone is lost in his own mythologising

Ken Livingstone won the London Mayoral election last week. Well, okay, he doesn’t actually claim that in his Guardian article yesterday, but he comes pretty close: Nationally Labour’s vote fell by 2% compared to 2004, but in London the percentage of first preference votes I received in the mayoral election went up very fractionally. The increase in the absolute number of votes was striking - up by 220,000, or 30%. There was no Labour “stay at home” factor in London. Four years ago I polled 10.8% ahead of Labour nationally - a week ago this increased to 13%. I received ...

The full extent of Lloyd George's wind

I blogged some time back about Lloyd George's statue in Parliament Square. I mentioned the extraordinary positioning of his coat, which looks like he has been caught in a gust of wind - or indeed, that he has been over-indulging in brussel sprouts. Sadly, I couldn't find any photos to demonstrate this coat/wind thing. So last Wednesday I took my camera and managed to take a photo (above), which

Dunwoody Dunwoody Dunwoody

As Tamsin Dunwoody stands as a candidate in the election caused by her mother's death, I thought I would just prove what an old fogey I am but saying that I remember when there were two Dunwoodies in parliament. Gwynneth was married (at one stage) to Dr John Dunwoody, who was Labour MP for Falmouth and Camborne in Cornwall, while she was MP for Exeter. Thought I'd just mention it....

London LibDem Cartoon Characters

Considering how dire the London election results were for the LibDems, the atmosphere at the thank-you party at the Cartoon Museum in Bloomsbury last night was singularly upbeat. The place was packed for several hours, as the good ladies of Camden local party criculated with home made canapés. Brian Paddick, as well-pressed and pristine as [...]

UPDATED Bloggers' interview with Clegg - the concise version

UPDATE: Apologies to Laurence Boyce - due to my sloppy note-taking, I attributed the phrase "It's a slippery slope" to him in the section on the exchange about ID cards. He didn't say it. So, sorry to Laurence. I have now excised the offending phrase. The latest bloggers' interview with Nick Clegg had quite a few new faces. In all, it was attended by "Fluffy" Millennium Elephant, Laurence Boyce,

Religious discrimination thriving in Britain's schools

Both Gordon Brown and David Cameron have been successful in getting their child into their preferred primary school. Unlike the 228 parents in Kingston, who have been told that not only were they unsuccessful in securing a place at their preferred school but have failed to secure a place at any school. It's been a huge cock up which has been handled hopelessly by the Council. Initially, they even tried to pin the blame on the credit crunch and private schooling, claiming that the unexpected increase in applications this year came from parents that in better economic times would have ...

Wannabe hereditary MP calls opponent a toff

{Tory Boy Timpson} I am indebted to Jo Anglezarke for directing me to this page from The Hon. Tamsin Dunwoody’s website. The fact that Dunwoody is standing in her mother’s former seat and kickstarted the by-election before her mother was in the ground says everything you need to know about Labour’s sense of entitlement and distaste for fair competition. To run a rotten borough-style campaign while finger wagging at the Tory opponent for being too posh does at least suggest she has inherited some of her mother’s chutzpah. But I seem to recall Gwyneth having rather better judgement and being ...

Back to business

Any thought that the demise of the local elections would make my life less busy was quickly disabused this week as the work continued to pour in unabated. Included in this work load has been a meeting with the Children's Commissioner and the Welsh Local Government Association about my private members legislation, which reaches the floor of the Senedd on Wednesday. This legislation seeks to put a duty on local Councils to provide facilities for young people. The intention is to try and fill in the huge gaps in provision that leads to many youngsters hanging around on street corners ...

Home Start

Off to a meeting of people interested in getting a Home Start scheme going in parts of South Liverpool. It looks like we may be able to get at least some areas covered. Home Start is a registered charity which recruits volunteers who then visit families to offer some support. Its run at local level with each area having a committee and staff and recruiting volunteers locally. There used to be one in Speke/ Garston which closed a while ago. There is an existing scheme now based in Toxteth. I really hope we can make some progress - we all ...

Love Prestwich Litter Campaign

{Love Prestwich Litter Campaign} Prestwich Local Area Partnership will launch its Love Prestwich Anti-Litter Campaign for the summer which aims to target Prestwich Village Town Centre to promote respect of the environment to residents and businesses to Love Prestwich and keep it clean. The campaign is aimed at local businesses, schools and residents to work alongside Council officers to make Prestwich a cleaner, safer, greener place to live. Aims of the Campaign Raise awareness - raise awareness of fixed penalties for fly tipping - encourage residents and businesses to be greener and cleaner - promote street care team Take Action ...

What I've been up to by Text today

My daily digest of texts, tweets and status updates.15:59 is trying to use the mouse before plugging it in... #Microblogging using LoudTwitter and Twitter. {[info]} matgb_twitter is there if you're mad enough.

Tonight's viewing - with craven apologies to burlesque_bunny...

... for not feeling up to going round to her house tonight. What does one do when one is tired both physically and emotionally? Puts on a cheesy superhero movie. Luckily dear old LoveFilm sent us two this morning. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer? Fun. Not Shakespeare, but fun. I enjoyed it. Pity that after the panning it got from the critics they probably won't be making any more with that cast. Spiderman 3? Awful, with some patches of merely bad, and three wasted villains, and a TOTALLY wasted Bruce Campbell. I was particularly disappointed not to see ...

Map of Beirut fighting

Here are two maps created by blogger Jeha. The first shows the fighting at midnight the second an hour later.

A map of civil war

This is the map of the areas of Beirut taken by Hezbollah and its allies in opposition to the Government, eerily including the fascistic Syrian Social Nationalist Party. They've got lock, stock of west Beirut.

QR-Codes - some more ideas

I’ve been surprised by the response to my previous post on QR-codes - the 2-d barcodes that can be read by mobile phones. I’m still skeptical, but Roger, the editor of http://2d-code.co.uk/ wrote to point me at the impressive Japanese experience with QR-codes - apparently 51% of Japanese mobile phone users use the barcode function. Looking through his site, I liked the idea of linking the QR-code to a mobile facebook page and was inspired by this Harrods ad to create a QR-code for a Twitter sign-up SMS. Here are examples of each: Another option is that QR-codes may ...

Law Enforcement Update

For this evening, 9th May 2008 Number of people drinking on tube and buses: Nil. (No change) Number of people offering to sell "skunks" outside Brixton Station: About a dozen. (No change). Number of police, support officers, traffic wardens et al appearing to care about either of these things: Nil. (No change).

Chuck Out

Charles Kennedy misses this evening's Any Questions, leaving the BBC severely pissed off. Fails to make his train at Euston and offers no explanation or possibility of a virtual performance, forcing Lord Rennard to stand in. For those who to continue to blithely ask why the parliamentary party turned on him: that's your answer. Love the guy to bits, but it isn't good enough, is it?

Saturday 10th May 2008

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